On September 17, 1877, the Soldiers & Sailors Monument was Unveiled on Boston Common Before 100,000 Spectators

Lithograph by C. Frank King

On Monday, September 17, 1877, the city of Boston unveiled its Army and Navy Monument, also known as the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, upon Flagstaff Hill on Boston Common. More than 100,000 spectators attended the event, including 25,429 veterans who marched along a 6 1/2 mile route through the city and up to Flagstaff Hill.

Leslie's Weekly Illustrated

"All nationalities, all colors and conditions of men were represented," reported the New York Times. "The Irish, Scotch, English, Portuguese and others were out in large numbers and carried the blood-stained flags under which they fought. The colored men also turned out in large numbers and stepped as proudly to the strains of martial music as the men who had so enthusiastically take up the case which led to their freedom."

According to specifications published in 1876, the shaft of the monument, made of white granite from Hallowell, Maine, is seventy feet tall, and has the shape of a square fort with bastions, upon which stand four bronze figures, representing Peace, History, the Army, and the Navy.

Atop the column is a bronze statue, eleven feet in height, depicting the Genius of America, which "represents a woman, majestically proportioned, clad in a flowing robe...upon her head is a crown of 13 stars. The head is slightly bowed, and the eyes cast down. There is nothing of haughtiness nor defiance in attitude or expression. The figure does not symbolize America the conqueror, proud in her strength and defiant of her foes; but rather America the mourner, paying proud tribute to her loyal dead, whose bones lie upon every battlefield of the great South, toward which her face is turned."

Below the four bronze figures are four bas reliefs 5 feet 6 inches in length by 2 feet 6 inches in width representing Departure for the War; the Sanitary Commission; the Navy; and Return from the War.

Departure for the War

The monument was created by sculptor Martin Milmore and his brother Joseph, who emigrated to Boston from Ireland with their widowed mother in 1851. Milmore won the bid for the project against 15 other sculptors, and in 1872 he moved to Rome for five years to gain inspiration from classical sculpture and to collaborate with Italian and expatriate American artists.

Along with their other brother James, the Milmores created dozens of Civil War memorials, classical statuary and busts of famous New Englanders over a period of two decades.

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument is part of Boston's Irish Heritage Trail.

Text + Research, Michael Quinlin

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