When you first see the Civil War monument below you might think it is in South Carolina. It is ringed with tropical plants, maybe even overgrown with them! But, instead, it is in Asbury Park on the The Jersey Shore. You’ve seen the shore on TV just a block from the monument, but you may have missed the monument.
The monument is in the heart of downtown on the corner of Grand and Cookman Avenues. The memorial was unveiled on Memorial Day in 1893. Memorial Day was created to honor the Union dead of the Civil War.
What is unusual is that Asbury Park monument is that the town came into existence after the Civil War. By the 1870s, former soldiers and their families began coming down from New York and other cities on the Jersey side of the Hudson River to enjoy the shore. James Bradley, a developer, became interested in erecting the statue because so many soldiers’ families were enjoying the ocean. The monument honored the veterans and made them feel welcome while they were spending their money at establishments in Bradley-erected establishments.
Bradley had originally place the statue at Asbury Avenue and the Boardwalk earlier than 1893. I could not find when it went up originally but it appears to have been in the 1870s. However, veterans donated both the land and the 25 foot pillar on which the statue was placed in 1893. The donor of the shaft was a veteran named George Potts and the people in Asbury Park began referring to the statue as “Old George Potts.” It was said that the new monument was dedicated to the 14th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, but the inscription on the monument makes no mention of the regiment.
The 14th New Jersey was mustered into service on August 26, 1862 in Freehold, New Jersey, twenty miles from Asbury Park. The unit saw very little combat in its first year of existence, but by 1864 it was engaged in the battles of the Overland Campaign and it came back North to counter Jubal Early’s invasion of Maryland. During the Battle of Monocacy, the regiment suffered some of the heaviest casualties on that day, losing two-thirds of its men. Interesting, the regiment had spent months at the site the year before guarding its rail lines. Afterwards it was nicknamed the “Monocacy Regiment.”
Next to the statue are two 12 pounder Heavy Dahlgren Boat Howitzers, one of which was used on the U.S.S. Cricket. The Cricket was a civilian steamer that was 151 feet long. It was constructed in 1860, right before the war. It was converted to be a “tin-clad” gunboat and began patrolling the Mississippi and its tributaries in 1863. During the Red River Campaign it was the flagship of Admiral David Dixon Porter.
I have looked at pictures of the monument from just over a decade ago and the site was clear-cut grass. I like the flora, but it can make it hard to see elements of it, like the howitzers. In fact, when I pulled up in front of the monument on this rainy day, I could not see the artillery at all!
The plaque on the monument says it is erected “In memory of those who fought in defense of the Union War of Rebellion 1861-1865.” In the 1800s the war was referred to officially as the “War of the Rebellion.” It also says “Erected by C.K. Hall Post No. 41 G.A.R. Dept of N.J. and Womens Relief Corp No. 25.”
The “G.A.R.”, the Grand Army of the Republic, was the largest veterans organization after the Civil War. The Women’s Relief Corp was chartered in 1883 as an axillary of the Grand Army of the Republic. The Women’s Relief Corps assisted veterans and the widows and orphans of Union veterans.
Both the Grand Army of the Republic and the Women’s Relief Corps were integrated in the North.
The day I took these photos, it was cloudy and rain came down while I was photographing the monument.
The monument is generally well-taken care of. About a decade ago the local historical society began to raise concerns about the neglect of the monument. The monument was cleaned up, but the extensive plantings around the monument that were put in recently do obscure aspects of it.
The carriages for the howitzers seemed to me to be a post-war creation, but I have been told that the Navy sometimes put artillery on these metal conveyances. They could be used to fire from the ship or rolled onto land when the Brown Water Navy along the Mississippi was fighting land-based Confederate forces. However, I am not an expert on naval artillery, so if you know more, please put it in the comments.
The artillery pieces have been out in the elements for 130 years and they have a nice patina.
As you can see in the photo below, it can be hard to see the cannons.
The postcard below shows how the monument looked in 1911.
James Bradley, who founded Asbury Park, has his own statue (below) in a large park just a block from the beach. Over the last decade there have been calls for it to be taken down because he introduced segregation into the town. Apparently, the beaches were not segregated when the town was first formed in the 1870s, but soon thereafter white tourists began objecting to African Americans on the beach. Bradley responded by favoring Jim Crow for Asbury Park.
The statue remains today, although there are historical signage associating Bradley with segregation.
Of course, today, just as in 1893, Asbury Park is a seaside resort. For those of my age, it was known in our youths as a place to see up-and-coming Rock acts. The Wonder Bar The Stone Pony still remain of those venues from long ago. I remember seeing Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes back in the 1970s, but I never saw the greatest hero of Rock from the Shore Bruce Springsteen who cut his teeth at The Stone Pony. When Springsteen released his debut album in 1973 it was titled “Greetings From Asbury Park.” It had such classics as “Blinded by the Light” on it. A year or two later a friend told me that Springsteen was playing at a Long Island venue, “My Father’s Place”, near me and asked me to go. I said “Bruce Springsteen Who?” Oh well, I passed up a chance to see today’s legend in a bar that held 500 people.
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