Sword breaks off Civil War memorial; vandalism suspected

BOSTON — A sword has broken off again from a memorial depicting the famed 54th Massachusetts Civil War regiment, featured in the Denzel Washington movie “Glory.”

Boston police are investigating after the damage was reported Tuesday. They suspect vandalism.

National Park Service spokesman Sean Hennessey tells the Boston Globe it’s happened frequently enough that there are fiberglass replacement swords on hand.

The memorial is by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. It depicts the free black men who formed a regiment led by Robert Gould Shaw, the son of a white abolitionist family.