Ulysses S. Grant
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Rivers End
N 38° 53.388 W 077° 00.747
18S E 325460 N 4306472
Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, Civil War General
Waymark Code: WMN21
Location: District of Columbia, United States
Date Posted: 08/22/2006
Views: 224
Located Southside of the Capitol at 1st Street, N.W. Ulysses S. Grant, Union Civil War general, and his troops. The group of three elements, by sculptor Henry Shrady, sits just behind the reflecting pool on the west front of the U.S. Capitol Building. The work was dedicated in 1922, 100 years after Grant's birth.
In its entirety, the work is over 250 feet long, and consists of three major parts or groupings. The central element, a statue of Grant on horseback, is flanked on either side by scenes of Union troops in action. The northern grouping, representing a cavalry charge, is especially impressive.
The statue, which faces west from the Capitol, gazes serenely toward the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.
After the Civil War, Grant became one of the most popular figures of his day, in this country and internationally, and was elected to two Presidential terms from 1869 to 1877. Corruption clouded his presidency, and he subsequently has been judged poorly for his White House performance, but his military tenacity and ersonal integrity seldom have been brought to question.
Poor business decisions and bad investment advice from friends brought Grant perilously close to bankruptcy by the mid-1880s. In the final year of his life, fighting excruciating pain, Grant struggled to write his biography in the hope of saving his family from financial disaster. In what must have been his most difficult and valiant battle, he lost the fight to throat cancer in July 1885, dying just days after completing the second volume of his now famous and extraordinarily successful "Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant."
In 1909, the superstructure for the memorial was laid. The Vermont marble platform is 252 feet in length and 71 feet wide, with steps on each side. The center marble pedestal is 22 feet high, is surrounded by four bronze lions.
I
n 1912, the first of Shrady's three major bronze works was placed at the site. "The Artillery Group," depicts a caisson drawn by five magnificent horses, one of which is being ridden by a guidon carrier who has turned to signal a right wheel in the face of an upcoming battle.
The expressions of the three soldiers seated in the caisson are timeless. An impending battle surely brings different thoughts to different men, and Shrady's art is masterful at capturing the personal war that must be fought by each man alone. Shrady used West Point cadets from the class of 1908 as models for this work, and a small bronze plaque on the back of "The Artillery Group" recognizes them. (One of the young models, James E. Chaney, would retire from the Army as a Major General.
A guidon carrier signals a right wheel in the face of an upcoming battle in Henry Merwin Shrady's "The Artillery Group," one of the large sculptures of the Grant Memorial
THE CAVALRY GROUP is one of the largest (seven horses) and most outstanding equestrian bronzes in the world and was placed at the memorial in 1916. Shrady's attention to detail was nothing less than remarkable. Even the lost and discarded items of military paraphernalia on the ground beneath the Cavalry and the Artillery (muskets, canteens, bayonets, etc.) are exact duplicates of those used during the Civil War. You can almost hear the thundering of the hooves as this mounted unit charges into battle, led by its commanding officer with sword held high. Shrady used horses from the New York Police Department to study the anatomy of the animals, he is said to have dissected one and reassembled its skeleton to understand the anatomy more thoroughly. Pain, anguish and determination are displayed on the face of a cavalryman whose horse has fallen on him. So precise and exacting was Shrady's vision of that face, that he became frustrated with those who sat for him, and he instead used a system of mirrors and sculpted the visage from his own expressions.
The relief panels on sides of the pedestal on which Grant's statue rests depict "The Infantry Group." Although based on sketches and drawings by Shrady, these panels were sculpted by Edmund Amateis and Sherry Fry after Shrady's death. Tragically, Shrady died just weeks before the dedication of the Grant Memorial, after devoting 20 continuous years to the project.
On one of the panels in "The Infantry Group" shows an officer, with raised sword, turning to encourage his men forward. The other panel portrays a drummer boy, followed by the long line of infantrymen on what must have seemed a never ending march to the next battle.
It is fitting that these panels are at the foundation of Grant's equestrian statue. Without the blood of his infantry, Grant's many victories could not have been achieved.
The only inscription on the entire memorial is the name "Grant", and appropriately so, for a man who was as unimpressed with himself as this noble general was. He is seated calmly on his favorite horse, "Cincinnati", whose raised ears and flared nostrils seem to sense the coming battle. Grant, who was known for his coolness, unemotionally surveys the battlefield. Modest in dress and demeanor, he is confident, prepared to direct his forces toward victory.
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