The 1890 Horace Greeley Statue - City Hall Park

 

Born into poverty, the son of an unsuccessful farmer, Horace Greeley began his career in journalist at the age of 15 in 1826 as a printer's apprentice.  He moved to New York City in 1831 and worked for several newspapers, saving his money and in 1840 embarked on a risky proposition--the founding of the New-York Tribune.  The one-cent newspaper was four pages--a single sheet folded in the middle.  After a long, rocky beginning it was a success.

In stark contrast to its great competitor, James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald, the Tribune refused to publish stories of scandal and sensational crimes.  Greeley lobbied for reform, abolishment of slavery, and an end to political corruption.  He served in Congress in 1848-49 and ran for President in 1872 as the Liberal Republican candidate.

Greeley died on November 29, 1872, before Electoral ballots were counted and just a month after his wife May's death.  Harper's Weekly lamented, "Since the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the death of no American has been so sincerely deplored as that of Horace Greeley."

On May 19, 1888 The Evening World reported "The committee of printers interested in the movement to erect a statue to Horace Greeley will meet at 475 Pearl street to-morrow."  The project gained ground quickly and five days later The New York Times wrote, "A well-defined effort is being made by the union printers of this city and Brooklyn and the members of the Horace Greeley Post, Grand Army of the Republic, to erect a statue in honor of Horace Greeley in City Hall Park."

On May 28 The New York Times advised, "Alexander Doyle, the artist, was selected to submit a design for the statue and it was recommended that the statue represent Mr. Greeley in a sitting posture.  It is expected that a model of the statue will be completed in about six weeks."

The chosen site for the monument was on Printing House Square.  The Patterson Sunday Call wrote, "It will stand in City Hall park, just across the way from the magnificent building of The Tribune...Alexander Doyle, the celebrated American sculptor, has the work in hand." The article said, "The statue will be placed on a granite pedestal of chaste classic design of the severest simplicity."

The cost of the project was placed at "$15,000, perhaps more," said the Patterson Sunday Call.  (The figure would translate to about $420,000 today.)  Newspapers reported on the fund raising and according to The Sun by the fall of 1890 $10,557 had been raised.  It was no longer only typesetters and printers contributing to the project.  The Horace Greeley Statue Committee published the names of wealthy New Yorkers like Levi P. Morton and Cornelius N. Bliss as they donated funds.  James Gordon Bennett, once Greeley's greatest rival, donated $1,000.

At some point two significant changes were made to the plan.  First, the well-known sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward took over the project.  Secondly, the location was changed from City Hall Park to directly in front of the Tribune Building.

The unveiling was held at 11:00 on September 20, 1890.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, "Printing House Square in New York is no longer without a memorial of Horace Greeley, who did more than any other one man to make the spot famous."  Chauncey M. Depew was the "orator of the day," according to the New-York Tribune.   The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said, "After Mr. Depew's speech Miss Gabrielle Greeley, Horace Greeley's daughter, pulled the cord, the flags which had enveloped the statue dropped away, the crowd cheered, the band played 'Yankee Doodle,' and the ceremonies were over."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Ward's design closely followed that of Doyle, which had originally been approved.  Greeley was depicted in a sitting position in a heavily-fringed Victorian easy chair.  He held a copy of the New-York Tribune loosely over his knee, as if in deep thought.  Gabrielle Greeley later recalled that Ward "spent hours studying my father as he worked in his office [and] after his death took a mask of his face."  The polished Quincy granite base was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt.

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

In 1915 the Tribune leased the corner, ground floor space in its building to a drugstore.  The deal included the remodeling of the storefront and that presented a problem.  On June 13 The New York Times explained "An up-to-date American druggist cannot display the latest concoctions of ice cream and fruit flavors with a twenty-foot statue right where a show window ought to be."   

The New-York Tribune was deeply concerned that the statue of its founder be relocated to a proper place.  "It is the hope of the officers of The Tribune Association and many others who revere the memory of Mr. Greeley for the great work which he accomplished by his public services that a new site may be found for the statue, as least as near to the scene of Mr. Greeley's journalistic labors as the City Hall Park," said an article on September 21, 1915.

No one was more concerned than Gabrielle Greeley, the last of the Greeley family.  When a proposal to move the statue to Battery Park was suggested, she responded with an open letter to New Yorkers, published in The Sun on December 24.  It said in part, "I do appeal to you not to have my father's statue buried in an out of the way obscure park...let his statue rest somewhere in Printing House Square, that his feet trod so often in his busy life."  She ended her letter with an emotional plea, "Again, as the work of a great American sculptor, as a remarkable likeness of a characteristic American, let it not pass into obscurity, O people of this city and of his heart."

The decision was finally made to relocate the statue to the exact spot for which it was originally intended--City Hall Park directly across from the Tribune Building.  In 1922 The Evening World romantically mused:

It is only a couple of years since the statue of Horace Greeley was shifted from the barren surroundings of the Tribune doorway to a little green spot in City Hall Park, on the Park Row side near Chambers Street.  The trees here now have grown up around the worthy old gentleman and he sits as he liked to in life, amid a leafy bower.

A century later the description applies.  The statue of Greeley is considered by many to be among Ward's best works.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

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The 1882 George Washington Statue - Federal Hall

photograph by OptimumPx

In 1699 construction began on the third of New York's City Halls.  Sitting on Wall Street at the head of Broad Street, it was completed the following year and would be the site of some critical moments in the forming of America.  Here the concept of our venerated freedom of the press took root when, in 1735, John Peter Zenger was tried and acquitted of libel against the Crown.  And in 1765 the Stamp Act Congress met here, starting the movement against taxation without representation.  From its balcony the Declaration of Independence was read to New Yorkers for the first time.  It became the first Capitol Building after the Revolution, saw the first meeting of the United States Congress, and it was here that President George Washington was inaugurated.

Federal Hall as it appeared in 1789. from George Washington Day by Day, 1895 (copyright expired)  

The Government abandoned the building when the capitol was moved to Philadelphia in 1790.  It was eventually demolished in 1812; to be replaced  in 1842 with a dignified Greek Revival-style Custom House designed by two of the country's foremost architects--Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town.

In 1856 a small group of wealthy New Yorkers presented the city with a statue of George Washington--the first statue erected in the city since the Revolution.  The straightforward gift, placed in Union Square, caused no civic uproar other than from those who objected to its "idolatry."  Such would not be the case in 1880 when another statue of Washington was proposed.

The new monument would be placed on the steps of the old Custom House--now the Federal Sub-Treasury Building.  The spot was chosen as being as close as possible to the exact position where the first President took the oath of office.  But this was Federal property and although the $35,000 necessary to erect the statue (around $866,000 today) was provided by the New York Chamber of Commerce, approval from Congress was necessary.  Not all members were warm to the idea.

The objection of Representative James Blount from Missouri on December 9, 1880 would have prevented the unanimous consent necessary.  He was assailed in session that afternoon by New York Representative Samuel S. Cox, who said, "Why an objection should come from my abstract friend I cannot understand...This bill, without appropriating any money from the Treasury, proposes simply to authorize the erection, in a very historic place, of a monument to George Washington, which shall be under the control of the Government, which shall be no disgrace to the country, as some monuments are."

Blount withdrew his objection.

The Chamber of Commerce chose the highly respected John Quincy Adams Ward to design the sculpture.  On October 9, 1883 The New York Times reported that the "erection of the marble pedestal for J. Q. A. Ward's statue of George Washington, in front of the Sub-Treasury Building, is advancing very rapidly."  The architect of that pedestal, Richard Morris Hunt, was as esteemed as the sculptor.

The precise height above street level, like the location itself, had been carefully calculated.  It statue would be at the same level above Wall Street that Washington had stood in 1789.  The newspaper announced that the marble block was inscribed:

On This Site

In the building then known as Federal Hall,

George Washington

Took the Oath as the First President

of the United States of America

April 30, 1789

The unveiling was held on November 25, 1883--the anniversary of Evacuation Day, when the last of the British troops left New York.  It was covered by newspapers as far away as North Dakota, whose Bismarck Tribune reported, "The unveiling of the statue of George Washington on the steps of the sub-treasury was attended by a brilliant company, including the president of the United States, members of his cabinet, the mayors of New York and Brooklyn, Bishop Potter, Rev. Dr. Storrs, Collector Robertson and Wm. M. Evarts.  George W. Lane, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, opened the ceremonies."

In his 1887 The Youth's History of the United States, Edward Sylvester Ellis recalled, "President Arthur stood on the pedestal under an umbrella, held by a friend...By a sharp jerk the governor [future President Grover Cleveland] snapped the slender cord that held the American flags wrapped about the statue, and as the bronze figure burst to view the vast assemblage broke into cheers in which they were quickly joined by the forts whose cannons began thundering the moment the signal was given from the top of the building."

Ward's heroic-sized statue stood 12-feet 6-inches high and weighed 5,900 pounds.  It depicted Washington in the act of taking the oath of office.  Ellis noted, "Washington is represented as dressed in the uniform which he bought for the occasion.  A military cloak covers the left shoulder, and falls from the right shoulder."  Ward's depiction of the cloak partially falling away symbolized Washington's leaving military for civil life.  It was at the time the largest statue of Washington in existence.

The marble pedestal itself was 7-1/2 feet high and 16-feet long, bringing the overall height of the monument to 22-feet.  Inside the pedestal was a box containing "specimens of all the coins of the United States, copies of newspapers, records of the Chamber of Commerce, and other matters," according to Ellis.

When the old Federal Hall was razed, the stone slab on which Washington had stood for the 1789 inauguration was removed, inscribed, and embedded in a wall in Bellevue Hospital.  Now it was brought back and placed in the stone platform directly in front of the Washington statue, protected by a metal railing.

Visitors look down on the brownstone slab, reputedly the one on which Washington stood in 1789.  Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine, June 1884 (copyright expired) 

That proved to be a bad idea, however.  On December 10, 1895, The Topeka State Journal reported, "The brown stone slab known as the George Washington stone, fixed in the base of the pedestal of the statue of George Washington in front of the sub-treasury is to be removed to save it from destruction."  The following May, The Spirit of '76 explained, "The stone has yielded to the action of the weather to such an extent that it has been removed to the interior of the Sub Treasury in order to preserve it, and it will be placed in a sealed glass case."

The Washington statue quickly became beloved by New Yorkers and a destination for tourists.  On a particularly frigid day during the winter of 1890, 37-year-old Robert Dunlap removed his overcoat and wrapped it around Washington's legs to prevent the President's catching a chill (Dunlap was later committed to the Flatbush Insane Asylum).  The monument was a favorite subject for stereopticon slides, travel guide illustrations and amateur photographers.  One such "camerist" brought Wall Street to a halt on July 23, 1892.

The New York Times described that the amateur photographer who "invaded Wall Street yesterday" was "a trim young woman in a blue suit and a black straw had, and she wanted to get a picture of the statue of George Washington."  The process of doing so was much more of an ordeal in 1890 than snapping a photo on one's phone today.  "So she set up her camera in front of the office where J. Pierpont Morgan reorganizes railroads...and proceeded to cover her head with a cloth and shove slides into the camera after the orthodox fashion."

The feminine photographer caught the attention of the brokers, businessmen and errand boys who populated the busy district.  "Fat men stood in the blazing sunlight and didn't notice how hot the combination of sun above and asphalt pavement below was making them; messenger boys formed an inner circle about the camera, but at what passes as a respectful distance with their kind; truck drivers halted their teams, and curious faces appeared at the window commanding a view of the camera."

None of this distracted the diligent photographer and not until she had exposed a few slides did she fold up the camera, the tripod and gather up her equipment.  "And then the crowd disappeared as quickly as it had assembled," concluded the article.

Two New Yorkers became dismayed at the aged look their beloved statue had acquired in the decade following its unveiling.  And so on Christmas Eve morning they took matters into their own hands to correct the problem.  Their good intentions were sadly misguided, however.

The Pennsylvania newspaper the Freeland Tribune reported, "Such people as walked down Wall street at 9 o'clock this morning saw an act of vandalism.  Two colored men, with long handled brushes, were scrubbing the statue of George Washington in front of the Sub-Treasury building, and removing all the beauty which time and weather add to all bronzes."

Stock broker Henry T. Chapman, "who owns many masterpieces of art," told a reporter from the New York Mail and Express, "The glory of pieces in bronze is the potine [i.e., patina] which the wear and tear of the atmosphere puts on them.  It takes years to accomplish this.  I have watched with great interest the growth of potine on the Washington statue, and was astonished this morning to see the men scrubbing the statue and removing potine.  You would never see such a thing in Europe."

The well-intended vandalism was stopped at the neckline, leaving Washington's head a musky green and his body a brilliant bronze.

By 1904 the patina was once again evenly matched.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

The patriotic iconography created by Washington's pose and location was not lost on politicians, social advocates and publicity men.  It was repeatedly the scene of war drives, political stomping, and the subject of political and social cartoons.

The monument was a favorite vehicle for political cartoonists.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

Motion picture star Mary Pickford stood at Washington's feet on April 11, 1918, megaphone in hand, as she implored a crowd to buy War Bonds.  The New-York Tribune reported, "More than 20,000 persons were swayed by the film star's smiles and patriotism as she stood in the shadow of George Washington's statue."  She told the masses that subscribing to the Liberty Loan they would "drive nails in the Kaiser's coffin."

So popular was the statue that in an article on George Washington on October 31, 1935 the North Carolina newspaper, the Roanoke Rapids Herald, wrote that the "two monuments most often visited in a spirit of veneration not only by Americans but by visitors from all nations" were the Washington Monument in D. C. and the Wall Street statue.

This striking stereopticon image was created in 1897.  from the collection of the Library of Congress

As was the case in World War I, the second World War drew speakers to the steps of Federal Hall and George Washington.  On May 1, 1942, The New York Times reported, "at the base of George Washington's statue, several speakers yesterday compared the nation's present difficulties with the problems confronted on April 30, 1789, when the country inaugurated its first President and proceeded to overcome obstacles much greater than those growing out of today's war."

As a symbol of America, the statue drew the unfriendly attention of protesters during the Vietnam War.  In September 1963, "electric bulbs, loaded with paint and tar" were hurled at the statue, as reported by The New York Times.  The vandalism was successfully removed within a week.

Four years later the statue was sought out for a more positive, if self-serving purpose.  On October 23, 1967, The New York Times reported that on "one windy afternoon early this month, five men gathered before George Washington's statue in front of the old Treasury Building at Wall and Broad Streets...They waited patiently while a magazine photographer took pictures, then melted anonymously into the rush-hour crowd."

One female pedestrian "remarked tartly that the statue of the first President seemed an inappropriate backdrop for a cigarette commercial."  It was not a cigarette commercial being photographed, however.  It was Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon, whose campaign staff saw the monument as a perfect way to project Nixon's patriotism and American ideals.

After 130 years, the statue was conserved as part of the overall restoration of Federal Hall which started in 2004.  The project involved "stripping away years of grime and heavy-handed interventions with state-of-the-art laser technology and allowed the sculptor's work to shine by coating it with a lighter brown protective patina," as described in Federal Hall's website.

John Quincy Adams Ward's masterful bronze depiction of George Washington remains the centerpiece of the Stock Exchange neighborhood, as popular with New Yorkers and tourists as it was in 1883.

The Roscoe Conkling Statue - Madison Square

photo by D. C. McJonathan

Roscoe Conkling was among the most recognized of New York's citizens in 1888.  Born in Albany on October 30, 1829, he grew up among lawyers and politicians.  His father, Alfred Conkling, was both a federal judge and a U. S. Representative; and his mother, the former Eliza Cockburn, was cousin of Lord Chief-Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn.  Noteworthy political figures who passed through the Conkling parlors included Martin Van Buren and John Quincy Adams.

Roscoe was, however, a rambunctious child and a frustration to his father, who called him a "utterly untutored" at the age of 13.  He was send off to boarding school at Mount Washington Collegiate Institute to receive disciplined instruction.  It worked.

At the age of 17 Conkling chose to study law within a Utica firm rather than continue to college.  His outstanding oratory skills and his strong views on human rights made him a recognized speaker.  At only 18 years old he spoke passionately and eloquently about the starving victims of Ireland's Great Famine.

Conkling married Julia Catherine Seymour, and was admitted to the bar in 1850.  He went on to be a district attorney, and a member of both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives.  

Roscoe Conkling from the collection of the New York Public Library

Despite his political successes and failures, Conkling became widely known for his philandering. The New York Times gleefully reported on his extramarital affairs, most notably with Kate Chase Sprague. Kate was the wife of Senator William Sprague IV and the daughter of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. The Times printed the scandalous story of Senator Sprague discovering the couple in his Rhode Island summer residence, then chasing Conkling with a shotgun.

Many newspapers of the 19th century were unabashedly politically biased, often conjuring up scandals to defame political figures.  Conkling's supporters wrote letters to the editor of The New York Times denouncing the articles as false and calling the Times’ journalism disreputable and irresponsible.  Nevertheless, readers clung to every word of the unsubstantiated improprieties.

Conkling was at his Wall Street office on March 12, 1888 when the Great Blizzard of 1888 struck. The storm, also referred to as The White Hurricane, was one of the most severe in recorded history. Forty inches of snow was dumped on Manhattan and sustained winds of 45 mph created snowdrifts up to 50 feet in height.

While most citizens remained sheltered in their homes, Roscoe Conkling had lingered too long in his office.  By the time he left the streets were deserted.  All the hansoms and horses had been sheltered in their stable.  Conkling set off on foot to The New York Club on 25th Street. He lost his way in the blinding storm, made worse because the wind blew out all of the gas street lamps.  So severe were the white-out conditions and pitch darkness that he could not find his way out of Union Square.  He wandering there for nearly half an hour.  When he finally reached the door of the club two hours after leaving his office, he collapsed, suffering from exposure. 

Somewhat embarrassed by the newspaper accounts of his travails, Conkling downplayed the attention in a letter to a friend written from his bed a few days later:

My dear sir, Bless your kind soul. You know one can’t step foot in the snow without stepping into the newspapers. I had an ugly tramp in the dark – the lights out, from Wall Street up, over drifts so high that my head bumped against the signs, and dug-outs opposite the store doors suddenly letting a wayfarer down a foot or two over snarled telegraph wires and slippery places, with a blizzard in front not easy to stand against, and so cold as to close the eyes with ice, and drifts were not packed enough to bear up, in which one sank to the waist. Bumps and falls, and strains and tugs made it quite an interesting excursion, but not one worth anyone’s while to talk about.

Conkling seemed to be recovering.  He worked on legal papers and other business from his bed.  But his condition worsened and he began talking incoherently.  On April 18, 1888 he succumbed.

Two years later a group of esteemed citizens, including former Vice President Levi P. Morton, Clarence A. Seward and Cornelius N. Bliss, raised funds to erect a statue to Conkling. They commissioned sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward, later referred to as “The dean of American sculptors,” to design a bronze statue. Julia Conkling requested that he depict her husband speaking before the Senate.  In fact, she visited Ward's studio regularly over the next three years "and the sculptor made use of her intimate knowledge of the subject and her keen judgment in matters of form," according to Every Where magazine later.

While the Park Commissioners approved the proposed statue and its design, they rejected the donors' request that it be placed in Union Square, where Conkling "had his struggle with the blizzard."  Instead, the Department of Parks landscape architect Calvert Vaux recommended Madison Square.  In 1908 Every Where magazine explained the considerations:

The question was then very naturally raised, as to how important a man must be, in order to be truthfully called a "great American" and be worthy of having his monument paced in a public square of a great city.  In a large sense the question was answered by the action of the board of park commissioners that excluded Conkling from Union Square and the company of Washington, Lincoln, and La Fayette, and placed him in Madison Square...where stand the images of Farragut, Seward and Arthur.'

There was one more hurdle to overcome.  The proposed base was deemed too large by Calvert Vaux and the Advisory Art Committee.  They accepted the statue's design "with the proviso that its lower member be reduced in size from 10 feet 3 inches to 9 feet square."   John Quincy Adams Ward was resolute that his original dimensions be preserved.  He appeared before the Park Board on October 25, 1893 to forcefully voice his opposition.  This time the board relented.

Ward represented Conkling speaking to the Senate, his thumb casually hooked into his pocket.  The admittedly large base can be clearly seen.  from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

In December 1893 the statue was unveiled with no formal ceremony, as requested by the family.  Conkling's figure, cast at the Henry Bonnard foundry in Manhattan, stood eight feet high and weighed 1,200 pounds.  The eight-foot high granite pedestal was simply inscribed "Roscoe Conkling."  Robert G. Ingersoll addressed those present and took a swipe at Conkling's earlier political enemies.  "When the hounds that barked at his heels shall all have been forgotten, [his] record will remain and take on divine tints...that will give his statue colossal proportions in his niche in the ages."

Although generally lauded as a "heroic bronze" and a dignified representation of the politician; there were, of course, criticisms.  On December 24, 1893 The New York Times hinted at flaws.  The writer lamented that Ward had not had the chance to exhibit a full-size plaster model.  "Had an exhibition been opened last Spring...the sculptor could have shown that statue and had a chance to see it away from his studio under different lighting  There can be no question that it would have been altered."

Every Where magazine was more specific in its criticisms, which focused mainly on the tailoring of the clothing.  "His Prince Albert coat falls in smooth and graceful folds to the knees, and the neck is neatly and becomingly dressed.  The trousers, however, are about two inches too long, and the inevitable dent in the left knee shows up clearly...The vest, too, appears to have been worn for some time without pressing, and is drawn up in a rather unbecoming fashion."

An early postcard clearly shows the offensive tailoring.

The critic said that, of course, a statuary likeness of a person should be faithful to the original, "but there is no excuse for carrying the matter of realism to the point where it is ludicrous and ridiculous...one cannot help wondering why the sculptor thought it necessary to array his subject in a smooth, well-fitting frock, with a crumpled waistcoat displayed beneath."

In 1942, during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a program to scrap bronze statues and recycle their metal into weapons of war.  He told reporters on August 7 that many bronze memorials "would serve a more useful purpose if junked."  It may have been that threat that prompted the Conkling statue to be painted brown, disguising its greenish bronze patina.

The Conkling statue was moved 20 feet in the summer of 2000, and a year later it received a full restoration as part of the Citywide Monuments Conservation Program. At a cost of $12,000 it was chemically re-patinated to its historically correct color and tone, and cleaned of dirt and corrosion.

And despite Robert G. Ingersoll's prediction that the statue would ensure Conkling's memory "in his niche in the ages," most park goers pass it without a glance; and have no idea, nor care to know, who Roscoe Conkling was.

John Quincy Adams Ward's "The Citizen Soldier"--Central Park

photo by Alice Lum

Twenty-three years after the last shot was fired in the American Revolutionary War, tension between Britain and the newly formed United States was still strong.  When the British sailed into New York Bay in 1806 claiming the right to seize and search all American vessels, New Yorkers were outraged.  The Seventh Regiment of New York was organized as a state defense force in response.

The regiment would see action during the War of 1812; but it was the Astor Place Riots of 1849 that changed the complexion of the unit.  When 20,000 working class demonstrators mobbed the exclusive residential neighborhood around the Astor Place Opera House, the Seventh Regiment responded.  The grateful upper class would not forget their champions.  The sons of Manhattan’s millionaires enlisted in force over the decades, resulting in the group’s popular names “The Silk Stocking Regiment” and “The Dandy Seventh.”

When President Abraham Lincoln called for additional troops on April 15, 1861 the Seventh Regiment responded.  Four days later the men left their Tompkins Market armory wearing grey uniforms and a sky-blue overcoat.  The Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Military Statistics of the State of New York later recalled “New Yorkers cheered and applauded as the Silk Stocking Regiment marched through the city…Thousands upon thousands lined the sidewalks.

“The regiment marched not as on festival days—not as on the reception of the Prince of Wales—but nobly and sternly, as men who were going to the war…And so along Broadway and through Cortland street, under its almost countless flags, the gallant Seventh regiment left the city.”

Although the lower classes complained violently that the wealthiest New Yorkers had bought their sons’ exemption from military conscription; the Civil War historian Frederick Phisterer, in 1911, said that did not apply to the Seventh.  “The best blood and most honored names in New York City were prominent in its ranks…Veterans now hail it as the highest type of the citizen soldiers who went to the front.”

The men of the 7th Regiment pose in Washington DC in April 1861--The Photographic History of the Civil War, 1911 (copyright expired)

Although the unit was originally mustered into service for three months; it would repeatedly return the South throughout the next two years.  During its service the regiment would supply 606 officers to the Union army and according to Phisterer the Seventh lost 185 men in combat—15 officers and 170 enlisted men “of whom 7 enlisted men died in the hands of the enemy.”

New Yorkers welcomed their favorite sons home and a mere year after the end of the war the Monumental Association was organized to erect a statue in memory of those who had given their lives.  But things did not go smoothly.

Not only was the Association’s planned memorial, in the opinion of the Regiment, too garish; but after a few years the project seemed to have ground to a halt.  “In their opinion, the design for the base was extravagant in its proportions, and in the expenditure required; the site in the Park which had been accepted was too distant from the city, and was otherwise objectionable; and, finally, the Regiment, having contributed nearly all the money raised for this purpose, was dissatisfied that operations had been entirely suspended, and that there was no prospect of the completion of the work,” according to Colonel Emmons Clark in 1889.

The Regiment launched a coup in 1872 to take over the Association by nudging out members who “had long since ceased to take any active part in the matter, and to fill their places with members who fully represented their views and interests.  This was accordingly done, and at its quarterly meeting in October the Monumental Association was captured, and a new executive committee, controlled by active and prominent officers of the Regiment, was appointed, with full power as to site, base, funds, etc.” remembered Clark.

The first plan of action was to redesign the “extravagant” base.  Clark wrote “a new design for the base by Mr. [Richard Morris] Hunt, the architect, was approved; and, within six months from the first meeting of the committee, contracts were signed for the construction of the base and the completion of the entire work.”

Esteemed sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward would be responsible for the bronze statue upon Hunt’s granite base.  Victorians were accustomed to the bronze and marble likenesses of statesmen and military heroes in grand, formal poses.  But Ward headed in the opposite direction.  He chose to depict the common soldier in all his humanness. 

photo by Alice Lum

The figure was not of an officer, but a lone sentry.  The Evening World said “It is in the form of a soldier boy in full regimentals on picket duty.”  He vigilantly gazes off while leaning on his rifle.  The relaxed pose would influence countless Civil War monuments and town squares throughout the country would erect their own versions of the standing soldier and rifle.

On June 22, 1874 the statue, entitled “The Citizen Soldier,” was ready for its unveiling.  The Civil War veterans assembled at the armory at 3:00 and the current members of the Seventh Regiment arrived there an hour later.  The two groups paraded to Central Park on separate routes, meeting up at Eighth Avenue and 69^th Street to enter the Park.  “During the march of the regiment the drives upon its route are to be kept clear of carriages and pedestrians,” The New York Times warned readers that morning.

Although the ceremony would be carried out with the expected pomp of a Victorian event—the Seventh Regiment Band played and two stands were erected for “the accommodation of the distinguished military and civic guests,” it was a relatively understated ceremony.  Harper’s Weekly called it “simple and impressive.”  Nevertheless the Herald would say the following day “There was never seen at the Central Park at any time since it has become one of our great public resorts, such an immense crowd as was gathered there yesterday afternoon to witness the unveiling of the memorial statue of the Seventh Regiment.”

Harper's Weekly depicted the throngs attending the unveiling.  July 11, 1874 (copyright expired)

There were 100 invitations to the press and “Through the courtesy of the Park Commission, 300 reserved seats were provided expressly for ladies,” noted The New York Times.  The sculptor himself unveiled the statue

The following morning the Herald wrote “The sight was indeed one that must have left an impression of utter wonderment upon everybody who beheld it.  In fact, the Park never before had been witness of anything at once so novel—the dazzle of the muskets and the golden uniforms blending with the varied colors of the dresses and attires of the assembled thousands of civilians, rendering the scene positively enchanting.”

New Yorkers were understandably offended and outraged when eight years later thieves pried the valuable bronze medallions off the base of the statue.  The men were caught and tried separately.  One of them, Louis Sigmund, was convicted on August 18, 1882 and sentenced to six months in the penitentiary.

 A 19th century stereopticon view captures a workman pausing before the memorial.

Defacing of a less serious nature came the following year.  On June 7, 1883 the New-York Tribune reported “The 7^th Regiment Memorial Statue in Central Park has been made a nesting place by a pair of sparrows.  Under the bronze cape of the soldier the birds were weaving long blades of dry grass yesterday, and the effect was both ornamental and comical.”

The monument would be the yearly pilgrimage site of the Seventh Regiment veterans every Memorial Day.  On May 31 1895 The Sun described that year’s ceremony, saying the Veteran Corps “commemorated the memory of their comrades who fell in the civil war with appropriate exercises…The monument was almost hidden from sight by wreaths and flowers, as was the ground at its foot.”

Time passes, veterans die, and memories fade.  By 1923 when the statue was rededicated it was more of a Victorian curiosity than a revered memorial.  Then in 1927 the dramatic and emotional World War I monument to the Seventh Regiment, now designated the 107^th Infantry, was dedicated.  John Quincy Adams Ward’s moving 19^th century tribute to the citizen soldier became a footnote.

130 years after the first birds nested in the statue, a new family finds a home.  photo by Alice Lum

But not everyone overlooks the statue.  As they did in 1883, birds happily construct their nests today under the bronze cape of the Civil War sentry.