Photo Tour of James Garfield Monument in Washington, D.C.

I was in Washington a couple of weeks ago where I had the chance to create a Photo Tour of the James A. Garfield Monument located right in front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.. It is located at the Circle at First Street, S.W., and Maryland Avenue. The monument was designed  by John Quincy Adams Ward, a friend of Garfield. It was cast by The Henry-Bonnard Co. of New York. According to the Architect of the Capitol, it “is an outstanding example of American sculpture.”

The back of the pedestal, which was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, tells us that the monument was erected by Garfield’s comrades-in-arms of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland and unveiled on May 12, 1887.

The sculpture depicts Garfield engaged in the work of a leader in a democracy, delivering a speech. He clutches a speech in his left hand, while his right hand rests upon an open book. John Quincy Adams Ward was known for his naturalism in depicting his subjects. His most viewed work is his statue of George Washington seen by thousands every day from its perch at Federal Hall overlooking Wall Street in Manhattan.

Power in a democracy comes through the ability to convince voters with words spoken and written.

Beneath Garfield are three allegorical figures representing aspects of Garfield’s life.

On the left side of the base is a student studying.  Garfield studied at Williams College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1856. He went back to Ohio to teach classics at what is now Hiram College. A year after his arrival he was named president of the college.  You can see the United States Capitol to the left of the student.

In the front center of the base are the dates of Garfield’s assassin-shortened life.

Here you can see the student on the left and an allegorical warrior on the right, with the United States Capitol behind the monument.

The warrior represents Garfield’s time during the Civil War which began when the young college president was only twenty-nine years of age. To the right can be seen an inscription describing Garfield as Major General, Member of Congress, Senator, and President of the United States.  At the far-right is the allegorical statue of the statesman.

Soon after Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederates, Garfield sought election as colonel of the 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He failed. Several months later he was offered a commission as the Lieutenant Colonel of the 42nd Ohio Volunteers. Company A of the regiment included many of his former students. His recruitment efforts were so successful that he was promoted to colonel. By the end of 1861, Col. Garfield was commanding a brigade. Garfield’s successful maneuvers in Kentucky early in 1862 led to his promotion to brigadier general. Unfortunately, after commanding a brigade at Shiloh, Garfield became ill and took leave of the army to recover. While he was on leave, he ran for Congress and won election.

General William Rosecrans, the commander of the Army of the Cumberland, asked Garfield to join his staff when Garfield recovered his health early in 1863. Initially Rosecrans and Garfield collaborated successfully, but by the middle of 1863, Garfield was writing to Washington to complain about Rosecrans. At the Battle of Chickamauga, Garfield, Rosecrans’s Chief of Staff, advised against retreating following Longstreet’s breakthrough. When Rosecrans disregarded Garfield, the brigadier returned to the battlefield to aid Major General Thomas’s defense of Horseshoe Ridge.  While he did not command troops in the battle, his courage impressed those who saw him there. Soon thereafter, Garfield left the army to serve in Congress.

In spite of his Radical views, Garfield was not an early advocate of full civil rights for Blacks, nor did he initially endorse Black suffrage. However, soon after the war ended, he made public statements questioning denying people the vote based on the color of their skin. In a July 4, 1865 speech he said:

“In the extremity of our distress,” he said, “we called upon the black man to help us save the Republic; and amid the very thunders of battle, we made a covenant with him, sealed both with his blood and with ours… that, when the nation was redeemed, he should be free, and share with us its glories and its blessings. [God]… will appear in judgment against us if we do not fulfill that covenant. Have we done it? Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? …Is it the bare privilege of not being chained – of not being bought and sold, branded and scourged? If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery…”

Garfield told Ohio voters in 1865:

“let suffrage be extended to all men of proper age, regardless of color. It may well be questioned whether the negro does not understand the nature of our institutions better than the equally ignorant foreigner. He was intelligent enough to understand from the beginning of the war that the destiny of his race was involved in it. He was intelligent enough to be true to that Union which his educated and traitorous master was endeavoring to destroy. He came to us in the hour of our sorest need, and by his aid, under God, the Republic was saved. Shall we now be guilty of the unutterable meanness, not only of thrusting him beyond the pale of its blessings, but of committing his destiny to the tender mercies of those pardoned rebels who have been so reluctantly compelled to take their feet from his neck and their hands from his throat? But someone says it is dangerous at this time to make new experiments. I answer, it is always safe to do justice. However, to grant suffrage to the black man in this country is not innovation, but restoration. It is a return to the ancient principles and practices of the fathers.”

This side of the base very much stresses Garfield’s Civil War service.

Here is the allegorical figure of the statesman. He is dressed in a toga and holding a tablet. At the time the Civil War started, Garfield was serving in the Ohio State Senate while still holding down his academic position. Midway through the war, he was elected to Congress. He initially threw in with the Radical Republicans, those men most opposed to slavery. Garfield was concerned that if the war ended and those who had brought the South into secession were allowed to retain their extensive property holdings, they would continue to work for disunity. He said  “It is well known that the power of slavery rests in the large plantations… and that the bulk of all the real estate is in the hands of the slave-owners who have plotted this great conspiracy… let these men go back to their lands and they will again control the South…”

 

The tablet has written on it Law, Justice, Prosperity. By 1875, Garfield worried that Northern voters were reluctant to spend money and blood to protect Black civil rights. He wrote, “I have for some time had the impression that there is a general apathy among the people concerning the war and the Negro. The public seems to have tired of the subject and all appeals to do justice to the Negro…” He warned that “God taught us early that in this fight the fate of our own race was indissolubly linked with that of the black man. Justice to them has always been safety to us.” That justice had been established by law in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Acts and the Ku Klux Klan Act.

This view from the rear shows the warrior on the left and the statesman on the right.

Here is a closeup of the same scene.

In 1880, Garfield campaigned for his friend John Sherman to be the Republican nominee for president. When Sherman’s candidacy failed, Garfield was the dark horse selected on the 36th ballot as the Republican nominee for president. He defeated Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock by only 10,000 popular votes in the general election. We will never know if he could have reversed the erosion of civil rights during his term as president because just four months after taking office he was shot by “a disappointed Republican office seeker,” and later died.

This illustration from the front page of Harpers Weekly May 14, 1887 shows the monument after its 1887 unveiling.

This illustration shows a military delegation passing by the statue. It appeared in Frank Leslie’s on March 9, 1889.

I was in Washington on a cold and windy November, 2022 day, but it was sunny and a good day for photos.

All color photos taken by Pat Young.

 

 

 

 

 

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