Deerfield, Massachusetts is an historic town that was the focus of a French and Indian raid that resulted in dozens of its people being killed or led off to Canada. Inside the old fort from the 1600s is a monument to a later conflict, the American Civil War. The monument is also historic. Unveiled in 1867, it is the first statue in Massachusetts that depicts a standing soldier. Unlike European monuments which honored great generals, this monument was dedicated to the common soldier. Carl Conrads sculpted it and it was widely admired and copied.
Conrads was a German immigrant and he was based in Hartford, Connecticut, just sixty miles from Deerfield. Unlike the young soldier in Conrads “American Volunteer” at Antietam National Cemetery, the soldier in Deerfield seems to be older and more careworn.
The statue is surrounded by the buildings of the Deerfield Academy, which is an elite college prep school founded in 1797. There are a number of buildings within a few blocks that were standing during the Civil War.
The statue as designed by Conrads was sculpted in sandstone. When it was examined during the Civil War Sesquicentennial, it was discovered the statue was so undermined by cracks that it would inevitably fail. So, in 2019 a bronze statue reproducing the original, was unveiled.
The front of the pillar is marked with two locations that must have brought regret to the townspeople, Fredericksburg and Libby Prison. Fredericksburg was one of the Union’s greatest defeats, and Libby Prison saw thousands of young soldiers lose their lives in its squalid conditions. Between the two places, are a coat of arms representing the Union Army.
There are also symbols of the United States and the State of Massachusetts.
The old sandstone statue was missing its musket when it was removed. The new statue is fully armed.
Port Hudson and Semmesport are engraved on another side.
The monument is dedicated to the 42 men from Deerfield who lost their lives in the war.
Underneath the statue are the names of those whose lives had been sacrificed. They are arranged by their regiments. The majority were in the 21st and 34th Massachusetts.
The Battles of Kingston and Winchester are engraved on another side.
The monument says that the sacrifice of the community during the Civil War was associated with the sufferings of the community in the 1600s.
The monument gives credit to the Class of 1969 which took on the responsibility to restore the monument.
The final side of the monument enshrines The Wilderness Battle and Andersonville Prison. This were hard memories just two years after the end of the war.
Today, Deerfield has 5,000 residents. At the start of the Civil War, it had 3,073 people.
The statue was unveiled on September 4th, 1867. With poems, speeches, and prayers, those assembled sang “John Brown’s Body.”
The new bronze statue was made at Modern Art Foundry in Astoria, Queens, in New York City.
The above photo shows the well from the colonial fort, right next to the Civil War memorial.
Sources:
Massachusetts Civil War Monuments
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