On some days, with the sunlight streaming through his artist's studio, Ed Hamilton says he would stop his work on the nation's memorial to the Civil War's black soldiers, step back and wonder: "What if these guys could talk? What would they say?"
There were no black soldiers in the U.S. Army when the Civil War began. By the war's end, nearly 200,000 black men, the majority of them escaped slaves, had fought in the U.S. Colored Troops (U.S.C.T.)
They and their 7,000 white officers campaigned in Florida and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Three regiments helped chase Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to its surrender at Appomattox Court House.
Yet, none of the 166 black units were allowed to march in the grand, two-day victory parade of Union armies that took place along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The Sun noted their absence in passing. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote at some length about the black soldiers and said: "They can afford to wait. Their time will yet come."
Hamilton's "Spirit of Freedom," being cast in a Hampden foundry, tells a story of those soldiers and why they went to war. The sculpture, the first national memorial to the Civil War's black soldiers, will be unveiled July 18 in Washington after three days of events, including a parade of reenactors.
"I've been struck by how many there were," says Hamilton, who lives and sculpts in Louisville, Ky. "These guys paid a heavy cost to fight for their country, and then they had to fight to get what they were due."
During the war, black soldiers fought for equal status. Initially they were paid less than whites who fought for the Union. The Confederacy did not consider the soldiers and their officers worthy of prisoner-of-war status. At Fort Pillow, Tenn., men of the U.S.C.T. were massacred after their surrender.
The idea of building a national monument to these Union soldiers began seven years ago with District of Columbia Councilman Frank Smith Jr. He knew there were monuments in Boston to the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, whose story was told in the movie "Glory." Markers in Petersburg, Va., and Olustee, Fla., noted the contribution of black soldiers. But nowhere was there a monument that spoke for all the soldiers -- men like Cpl. G.H. Jones, First Sgt. Lewis Miner and bugler Henry Upsher, whose bodies lie in Loudon National Cemetery in Baltimore.
In 1992, Smith and others formed a nonprofit group, the African-American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation. Later
that year, Smith asked Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton for her help in getting a bill through Congress to establish a memorial. President Bush eventually signed the bill into law.
Around that same time, Hamilton saw a Jet magazine article about the project. He contacted the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, then submitted his own proposal. In all, 90 artists participated in the nationwide competition.
A year later, the committee selected Hamilton, whose earlier work includes the Amistad memorial in New Haven, Conn., and a likeness of Joe Louis at Cobb Arena in Detroit.
"I knew as little about the Civil War at that juncture as I've ever known," says Hamilton, who now has a binder bulging with information about the soldiers. "My history learning comes from the project that I'm involved in."
For "Spirit of Freedom," he had to strike a balance between the usual themes of war memorials and the particular history of the black Civil War soldier. He didn't want the typical eagle and symbols of valor. He says he wanted a design that would show "what the soldiers were fighting for -- family and freedom."
"I started to do a column of soldiers, but I realized Washington is full of columns," he says, his voice a warm, Kentucky drawl.
Adding a family to the sculpture gave the work a different dimension: Now, someone viewing the statue would know it was about more than men and war. It was also about fighting to free those left behind. He even wrote a letter, imagining it as one a soldier might have sent home. It reads, in part: "I know not whether I will return, but what I do know is that if I don't go, there will be no freedom for the Negro."
A midspring afternoon and Hamilton is in Baltimore to check on the work being done by New Arts Foundry, which won the contract to do the bronze casting of "Spirit of Freedom." The shop on Clipper Heights Avenue is full of activity. Artisans prepare clay molds in one room; in another, bronze is fired in a kiln at 1,500 to 1,800 degrees; in yet another, finished works are prepared for delivery.
Hamilton, 51, enters the room where the wax molds are made. He sees two of his soldiers. They are full-size, headless and hold the butt end of rifles. Their heads, bearing the faces of young men, are nearby.
"There are my boys," he says, holding one of the heads. "Looking good. Looking good."
He sounds like a proud father. He taps his hands lightly over the molds, feels the familiar wrinkles, the drape of a Union soldier's wool pants. He moves on to the foundry's finishing room, where the pieces will be welded together. A nearly complete statue of Johnny Unitas in action dominates the space. The foundry restored the statue that stands atop the Capitol, cast the likenesses of Babe Ruth at Camden Yards and Nolan Ryan at Texas Stadium, and has done hundreds of other works.
Already-cast bronze pieces of the "Spirit of Freedom" lie carefully stacked on a shelf. Hamilton, wearing a black sweat shirt with a picture of the statue and "Spirit of Freedom" written in gold letters, points to one of the 35 pieces that will form the nine-foot, 3,000-pound memorial. He asks to see it. Then other pieces are pulled out. He marvels over the foundry's ability to capture in bronze small details like the crosshatching of a little girl's burlap doll.
"Ah, I knew this would work," he says, satisfied. "You picked up all the detail, the burlap. The soldier's wet. The wheel looks like wood."
His emotions are beyond description. He has no words, just sighs, a shaking of the head as he inspects first one piece, then another. The idea conceived years ago is finally taking shape. It is no longer a drawing, or a clay model. It is bronze.
"What I've tried to do is give them a place in time, to make them personal, but every black man," he says. "It's important for the children and the community to see something that looks like them. That is so key. When I was growing up, there was nothing in the public sector that looked like me."
The monument site is on a triangular plot at a Washington Metro stop at 10th and U streets, not far from Howard University and just around the corner from the historic Lincoln Theater. The area, known as the Shaw neighborhood, was named for Col. Robert Gould Shaw, who led the 54th Massachusetts.
The memorial committee considered putting "Spirit of Freedom" on the Mall with the other memorials to America's wars, but the neighborhood spot won out. It is in the heart of Washington's historically black neighborhood. The area around the memorial is now getting a face lift. The Prince Hall Mason's building next door will house a visitor's center with a computerized data base on the soldiers and officers. No date has been set for the center's opening.
Edward Dunson, site designer and Howard University professor, hopes the monument will have some of the impact of the Vietnam Memorial. The "Wall" has more than 58,000 names of those killed in that war. The two semi-circular walls in front of "Spirit of Freedom" will list all 208,943 soldiers and officers who served in the U.S.C.T., not just those who died.
Discussion about seating at the memorial ended with the committee deciding not to include benches. Dunson finds that decision to be an unfortunate one.
"I think we have to recognize that this is a memorial that should allow people to stop, to rest and contemplate, not just to come by," he says one afternoon at the site.
Still, he says "Spirit of Freedom" should be seen "not just as a memorial for a select few, but for the community, and by that I mean the broad community across America."
Last week, with the "Spirit of Freedom" nearly complete, Hamilton again visited New Arts Foundry. This time television crews lined up to talk to him. Jim Pollock, who had been tack-welding the memorial, took a break. The crews wanted the sculpture as a backdrop.
As first one, then another sat Hamilton down, Pollock stood aside, admiring the work. Lately, he says, the people at New Arts have started to see a flag in the way the bronze curves. Pollock, a Maryland Institute graduate and head finisher at the foundry, says the statue's dedication will be "like a homecoming" for the soldiers who never marched in the victory parade.
"It's beautiful," he says as he waits for the TV crews to finish. "I think it's powerful, particularly the women and children on the inside and there's the woman on the outside being every spirit that might have been lost. That's what I'm seeing there in that lady's face. That's all the ancestors right there."
In the shell room, where ceramic molds are made for casting bronze, Daniel Miller could barely contain his enthusiasm about the "Spirit of Freedom." When he talked about it, pride and an almost giddy joy filled his voice. He says working on the sculpture has been like touching history.
"I can always tell my kids, 'Your father knew the artist. Your father had a role in bringing it to life,' " he says. "It made me feel so good to take the time and the consideration."
Like many others, black and white, Miller didn't know about the black soldiers until "Glory" told the story of the 54th Massachusetts. Now, he knows there were other black soldiers, and as many as 30,000 black sailors in the Union navy.
It feels great "to be a black American, right, and to see that our history as black Americans, but not only our history, American history, is going to be commemorated," he says, smiling. "Our history. Our ancestors who fought in the Civil War for justice and freedom. This is American history. We all contributed to this society."
If You Go
Several events are planned for the week of July 13 to commemorate the new national memorial to black soldiers who fought in the Civil War, including:
10 a.m. Saturday, July 18: A parade to salute the U.S. Colored Troops begins at Harvard Street and Georgia Avenue, near Howard University in Washington. The parade ends at 10th and U streets.
2 p.m. Saturday, July 18: "Spirit of Freedom" is unveiled at 10th and U streets.
For a schedule of other events and for more information, call 202-667-2667.
Pub Date: 7/02/98