While Queens is sometimes described as “the least Civil War monumented borough,” there are several memorials in this part of New York City. One is this “Standing Angel.” If you think you may have seen this before, the sculptor used the same angel in a monument at the South Carolina State Capitol dedicated to the women of the Confederacy! This is dedicated to Union soldiers and sailors from Queens who died in the Civil War.
The monument was originally on a traffic island. By 1960, the monument had become a traffic hazard with cars speeding past within a dozen feet of the statue. So, in 1960 it was moved to its present location which isolates it from cars and trucks and provides a wooded location for those who want to view it. The statue is nearly eleven feet tall and it stands atop a ten foot pedestal.
The statue is in Major Mark Park at 173rd Street and Hillside in Queens. It was unveiled in 1896 after having been sculpted by Frederick Wellington Ruckstull, an Alsatian immigrant. The angel holds a laurel wreath in her left hand, symbolizing victory and a palm frond in her right hand symbolizing peace. The pedestal is westerly granite and the statue is bronze.
At the time of the Civil War, Queens had a population of just 57,391. It grew by 28% over the next ten years. Today there are nearly 2.5 million people living in the borough.
In 1860, Queens included what is now Nassau County. Queens county seat was in Mineola. The county seat later moved to Long Island City, which was incorporated as a city in 1870.
Queens began to see growing urbanization during the 1860s. Immigrants who moved to New York City in the 1850s began to migrate to Queens where property prices were lower and new factories were begun to meet war needs. Irish moved into Astoria, Jamaica and Flushing. Germans settled in Middle Village. During Reconstruction, Glendale, Richmond Hill, and Queens Village were founded. 
You can see in the photo below taken in 1900 that the original location was an underdeveloped are with dirt roads intersecting. There was little barrier between the vehicular traffic and the monument.
There is no marker at the the site explaining the history of the statue and the only words engraved are the years of the war on the bottom of the pedestal “1861-1865.”
In the picture above you can (barely) make out 1861-1865 at the base of the pedestal. It was raining and it was obscured.
The park itself is a neat little oval which is well-maintained. However, drinkers from nearby Jamaica use the benches there to imbibe.
I’m pretty sure there are more civil war monuments in queens than the Bronx. (And states island but let’s leave that aside). The Bronx really just has the Bronx River Soldier and the Josiah Porter monument as public monuments, along with the ft Schyuer site. And the monument in Woodlawn Cemetery.
In queens there’s the Calvary Monument, this, the Flushing monument, the Dermody monument, the Monument in Mt Olivet Cemetery, the 69th Regiment monument, etc
Here are several monuments I have already written about from Queens:
Dermody Monument:
https://thereconstructionera.com/captain-dermody-triangle-in-queens/
69th Monument:
https://thereconstructionera.com/the-irish-fighting-69-monument-at-calvary-cemetery-in-queens/
Flushing Monument:
https://thereconstructionera.com/flushing-queens-monument-town-hall-and-armory/
I am in Ohio. I have a job where I have a few minutes in the morning. I started checking out some local cemeteries. I found a black section I suppose in a cemetery in rural Ohio. It is exciting to have found a soldier who fought in the civil war in the same unit that was in the movie Glory. Then I noticed his son a WW1 veteran and his grandson a WW2 veteran and a Tuskegee airman. I have plugged in information into some genealogy websites. I really enjoy history and I have suddenly started finding information about veterans who lived in my area. I am interested in talking to the county or city about naming an elementary school or something after the USCT and his son and grandson. I have some pictures of the tombstones if anyone is interested.