Horse Statues of Washington, DC - Issue #1 - The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
THE ULYSSES S. GRANT MEMORIAL
EDITED BY
The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
The National Mall spans nearly two miles in the heart of Washington, DC. An architectural wonder first envisioned in 1791, the National Mall has grown to be beloved as “America’s Front Yard.” The National Mall is bookended by two memorials to prominent Americans who worked together to preserve the union of the United States during the Civil War - the war that almost tore America in two.
At the western end of the mall sits President Abraham Lincoln on a marble throne staring eastward for posterity. At the eastern end, the recipient of Lincoln’s immense gaze, President and Union General Ulysses S. Grant, sits atop a bronze Kentucky thoroughbred. It is General Grant whose monument terminates the National Mall before the Capitol. It is almost like Grant is standing guard at the Capitol, still faithfully fulfilling his duty to save democracy under the watchful eye of Lincoln.
On both sides of Grant are two scenes of the men who served under him during the Civil War. On Grant’s right is a cavalry charge, frozen in motion, frozen in time, frozen in bronze. To Grant’s left is a dramatic scene of an artillery carriage trying to pull a cannon into position as one horse has broken loose and is on target to trample a soldier. Both scenes, so emotional in the sense of movement the designs convey, starkly contrast with the solitary figure of General Grant between them. Grant is unhurried, unmoving. A lone figure atop his horse, silent, solemn, looking like the Atlas of his time. 1
General Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was born to be an army man. Born in Ohio in 1822, the son of a tanner, he was sent to West Point (America’s military academy) very much against his will. Throughout his life though, his most successful moments would be as a soldier.
After West Point, Grant served under then General and later President, Zachary Taylor, while fighting in the MexicanAmerican War. Grant’s later Confederate counterpart, General Robert E. Lee, also served in the U. S. Army fighting with Grant in the Mexican-American War. After the war, Lee would stay in the army and Grant would not; in 1854, he returned to civilian life. Grant was not successful as a civilian and after a series of failures, when the Civl War began, Grant was working as a tanner in his father’s shop in Illinois. The Governor, knowing of Grant’s past service, appointed Grant as the commander of a particularly un-regimented regiment of volunteers. Grant not only succeeded in turning those men into true soldiers, by September 1862, he was appointed Brigadier General. Grant then had many strategic victories, but after one very bloody victory, at the Battle of Shiloh, when calls for Grant’s removal reached Lincoln, the President responded, “I can’t spare this man - he fights.”
Grant would continue rising in the ranks, becoming the first full General of the Army in American history. On April 9, 1865, it was Grant who accepted General Robert E. Lee’s surrender, ending the Civil War and preserving the union.
The Beginning of a Monument
One of the Four Lions
In 1895, 10 years after Grant died penniless but for the sale of his recently completed memoirs, the Army of Tennessee Society began calling for a monument to honor the General they had served under and who had led them and the country to victory.
It was at the beginning of the 20th century that Congress was grappling with what to do with the National Mall. In 1791, Pierre L’Enfant, the Frenchman who had designed the layout of Washington, DC, had envisioned a grand avenue, inspired by the Champs-Elysées and Tuileries Gardens in Paris. It had never been made into L’Enfant’s vision and only at the turn of the century did Congress decide to form the McMillan Commission; this turned the National Mall into something closer to L’Enfant’s original vision.
In 1901, Congress passed the Hepburn Act allocating $250,000 to a monument specifically honoring former President Ulysses S. Grant. In today’s world that would be as if Congress allocated $9,127,235.29 to build a single monument. The Act also stipulated a separate committee, overseen by the McMillan Commission, be formed to find an American Sculptor to make the monument in America with American materials.
In 1902, a public competition took place to find a winning design and sculptor. All the top American sculptors of the day entered the competition. They were all stunned when a relatively unknown, self-trained sculptor won. Charles H. Niehaus, a prominent American sculptor, demanded they run the competition again, which, amazingly, they did. Even more astonishing: the same relatively unknown, self-trained sculptor won again.
Cavalry Charge
Henry Merwin Shrady
Henry Merwin Shrady was the winner of the public design competition. Twice. Born in 1871 to a prominent New York family, Shrady’s life was originally not on course to be an artist and sculptor. It took two major setbacks for Shrady to find his calling.
Shrady graduated from Columbia University and went on to spend one year at Columbia Law School before leaving to pursue a career in his brother-in-law’s business. Unfortunately, the business went bust. Around the same time in 1895, Shrady contracted typhoid fever. He spent three years recuperating back to full health. It was during this convalescent period that the trajectory of Shrady’s life changed as he developed the artistic skillset that would set him on a path to monumental achievement.
Shrady took to going to the Brooklyn Zoo as part of his recovery from typhoid fever. He began drawing the animals he saw there and in 1896, Shrady’s wife, Harrie, took some of his drawings without him knowing and submitted them to the National Academy of Design, where they were accepted and sold quickly. Suddenly, a new career was born for Shrady. Still, Shrady continued to expand his artistic horizons.
During 1896, he began making small models out of clay of the animals he was drawing. He began doing studies of his own horse, frquently wetting his horse down before riding him so he could see the muscles at work more clearly. This research would lead to Shrady’s first major clay sculpture, “Artillery going into Action” in 1898.
Cavalry Charge
Artillery
An image of Shrady’s sculpture was published in 1899 and seen by Theodore B. Starr who had a firm that represented artists specializing in jewelry and sculptures. Starr immediately signed Shrady to a contract with his firm to be able to represent and sell his future productions.
Shrady partnered with Roman Bronze Works in New York City to turn his clay models into bronze statues. In 1899, having signed with Starr’s firm and solidifying the partnership with Roman Bronze Works, Shrady cast his first bronze sculpture, “Monarch of the Plains,” featuring an elk buffalo. He would expand on this and create a new bronze, “Bull Moose” in 1899. “Empty Saddle” was his first equestrian bronze statue in 1900. His work would be displayed in the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. In 1901, after “Empty Saddle” was seen in Theodore Starr’s studio window, he was encouraged to enter the competition for a statue of President George Washington, depicting him as the General he was during the American Revolution, at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn. It was the first competition Shrady won. It was on the heels of these strong of successes that the still relatively unknown and self-taught Shrady would enter the competition for the General Grant Memorial.
To make the Grant memorial as accurate as possible, Shrady did deep research, not just on General Grant, but on the animals, men, and scenes he wanted to depict. He continued his study of horses, even dissecting some to fully understand their anatomy and movement. For the military scenes, he sought official help.
Artillery
Shrady went to visit West Point, where the Army cadets reenacted the scenes Shrady wanted to depict. The cadets showed him cavalry charges and how soldiers where tasked with pulling and positioning artillery with the help of horses. This gave Shrady the visualization he needed to create the scenes that would elicit so much visceral pain and movement to the monument of General Grant. The scenes in bronze that resulted from this research evoke the passion, drama, and pure emotion of what the soldiers in the Civil War felt in battle.
Then, between them, would sit General Grant, overseeing the action as he always had, atop his Kentucky thoroughbred, a beaten hat on his head, shoulders slumped so low, showing the weight of the war on the man who would win it. To inform his work on General Grant, Shrady turned to interviewing those that knew him, Grant’s memoirs, and a rather close former acquaintance of the later former President Grant, Shrady’s father, George Frederick Shrady.
George Frederick Shrady was a leading physician of his day, and an acclaimed artist himself. He was the one treating Grant as he wrote his memoirs while he was dying of throat cancer. Through these sources, Shrady was able to compose an accurate and true bronze portrait of the General.
In a sense, this monument commemorates more than General Ulysses S. Grant: it keeps the men who lived, fought, and died under his command alive, and memorializes the monumental talent of an unknown, self-taught sculptor, Henry Merwin Shrady. Shrady died two weeks prior to the public debut of his life’s work. Still, it has lived on in his stead for generations and will continue to for enerations to come.
Bibliography
Chernow, Ron. Grant. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, 2018.
Goode, James M. “The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C.: A Comprehensive Historical Guide: Goode, James M: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, January 1, 1974. https://archive.org/details/outdoorsculpture1974good_p0x0.
“Ulysses S. Grant Memorial.” Architect of the Capitol. Accessed June 20, 2024. https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/ulysses-sgrant-memorial.
