From the beginning, Dutch and I had agreed that the nearest marching soldiers — the full-round file — should reflect the spirit of the 54th’s enlisted soldiers. That brought to mind the movie “Glory,” one of the most memorable characters of which is played by Morgan Freeman: a hard-bitten camp servant who enlists in the regiment and is eventually promoted to Sergeant Major. I’ve always assumed that Freeman’s character was inspired by the bearded NCO marching behind the drummer in Saint-Gaudens’s Memorial. Whether my assumption is correct or pure fantasy, I decided the NCO should be prominently displayed. (One reason I “demoted” the drummer to the bas relief file was to have the NCO lead the near file instead.)Resin is not hard. So I sent one of the kit torsos off to my friend Bob Stein to cast up in resin, and he returned several copies right away. These I sawed apart at the waist, the knees, and between the thighs (ugh!), carved down, then reassembled with paper clip wire and epoxy putty. Trouser legs were resculpted to more closely match those in the Memorial. The only other part of the kits that needed redoing were the knapsacks and blanket rolls. Shenandoah’s are fine, but I sculpted new ones more in the shape of those in the Memorial.
Shenandoah’s Civil War heads are second to none, and my grey army also includes a number of other African-American heads — Airfix, Scale Link, and Taxdir’s 54th Mass kit. Federal forage caps are an easy sculpt even for me, and the NCO’s beard was easier still.