Before the 250th Anniversary of the start of the Revolution, my wife and I visited Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. During my planning for the trip I saw that there were a number of Civil War memorials in the two towns. Only one was erected by a private individual. The others were erected by the governments or historical organizations. In Sleepy Hollow Cemetery on the edge of Concord you can explore a number of Civil War graves, as well as famous authors connected to the war like Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau. But I noted that there was a monument there that is so prominent that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a copy of it!
We went into the museum and saw off to the left of the access road a large sign explaining the monument.
The sign tells about the monument and the three brothers whose death during the Civil War led to its erection.
The monument was restored and rededicated in 2019, so it has had a lot of attention.
The monument, called Mourning Victory, was designed by Daniel Chester French. He was the artist who sculpted the seated Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. According to the Metropolitan Museum, by “1897, the Boston businessman James C. Melvin had commissioned a funerary monument from French to honor his three brothers who had died in the Civil War.” The monument in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was unveiled in 1908. In 1912, Melvin donated money to the Metropolitan to have a replica carved.
