This week I visited the Soldiers Monument in Haverstraw, New York. The monument is located on the corner of Hudson Ave. and West Broad Street in Haverstraw on a high hill not far from the village’s downtown.
Haverstraw is a vibrant village on the banks of the Hudson River in Rockland County. It was a small rural community from Dutch colonial days until the early 1800s.
In 1815, English immigrant James Wood took up residence in Haverstraw and began the town’s first brickmaking business. By the time of the Civil War, brickmaking was Haverstraw’s principal industry. Bricks from Hudson River clay were manufactured in Haverstraw, then shipped downriver to New York City and Brooklyn. Many of the early brickmakers were Irish or German immigrants from New York City.
When the Civil War broke out, the Town of Haverstraw (a larger area that included the village of the same name and areas nearby), had more than tripled in size from 2,700 in 1820 to 8,123 people in 1860.
One of the regiments that drew men from Haverstraw was the 95th New York Volunteers. This regiment, organized in 1862, included a company from Haverstraw recruited by Edward Pye. The company was called the “Warren Rifles” because Haverstraw’s earlier name was Warren. Pye would go on to command the 95th, but he would not survive the war. Pye was badly wounded at the 1864 Battle of Cold Harbor and died soon thereafter, Pye was born in 1823 in Clarkstown in Rockland County, he went to college at Rutgers, took up the practice of law, and in 1855 he was elected county court judge.
The regiment entered its first battle at Second Bull Run and engaged in most battles fought by the Army of the Potomac for the rest of the war. The regiment won renown on July 1, 1863 at the Railroad Cut in Gettysburg.
On June 2, 1864, shortly before he was mortally wounded later that day, Colonel Pye had written to his family “Thank God, I am still safe and sound,” according to his obituary in the New York Times.
The 95th New York was not an exclusively Rockland Regiment. In fact, companies A, B, C, D, G and H were raised in New York City; E in Brooklyn (then a separate city); F at Haverstraw; I at Sing Sing (now “Ossining”); and K at Carmel, Peekskill, Sing Sing and White Plains, according to New York in the War of the Rebellion by Frederick Phisterer.
Recruiting poster for the Warren Rifles.
The New York Times June 26, 1864 recorded the death of Col. Pye at Petersburg.
The statue itself is well preserved and maintained and the small memorial park it is located in is welcoming. Unlike many other such monuments I have visited which are located near court houses, town halls, or business centers, this site is a few blocks from these centers of civic life, down a quiet residential street.
The statue itself depicts a common soldier advancing.
The dedicatory plaque identifies the statue as erected by the Edward Pye Post of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1913.
To the left and right of the statue are the years the Civil War began and ended.
It was rainy on the day of my visit, providing interesting light to photograph in.
This historic photo shows a ceremony at the statue in the early 20th Century.
Civil War monuments were a popular subject for postcards. In both the photo above and the postcard below, the Hudson River is visible behind the statue.
I walked down to the Hudson later and you can still take in views that would have been familiar to a soldier from the village 160 years ago. The river is well over a mile wide here and it is bounded by mountains.
All photos of the statue and the Hudson are by Pat Young except the photo of the recruitment poster and the historic photos from the early 20th Century.
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