By Brian D. Kowell
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025, All Rights Reserved
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in January 2025.
After writing my article about Gutzon Borglum and his work on Mount Rushmore and at Stone Mountain, I wondered what other Civil War monuments Borglum sculpted. Turns out quite a few.
On Seminary Ridge along West Confederate Avenue at Gettysburg National Military Park is the Borglum-created monument to the 32 North Carolina regiments whose soldiers fought and died at Gettysburg. This impressive, action-depicting sculpture is one of the more memorable on the battlefield.
In 1913, the North Carolina commission of Civil War Veterans proposed placing a monument at Gettysburg. The North Carolina Chapter of the UDC and then-Governor Angus McLean took up the cause. They raised $50,000 for the site and the statue. They approached Gutzon Borglum while he was working on Mount Rushmore. The committee assumed Borglum to have been a Ku Klux Klan member after his work on Stone Mountain. Always looking to make a buck, Borglum chose not to correct them and accepted the commission.1 He designed the statue at his San Antonio, Texas studio using photographs of Confederate veterans as his models. The finished bronze sculpture stood 12 feet in height and featured five figures of North Carolina infantrymen advancing during the Pickett-Pettigrew Charge. The sculpture was mounted on a base of North Carolina Balfour granite.2 In a photo printed here with permission of Tim Fulmer, Borglum is seen in his studio working on the statue.3
The monument was dedicated on July 3, 1929. Presiding at the dedication ceremony were North Carolina Governor O. Max Gardner, past Governor Angus W. McLean, Mrs. E. L. McKee, the president of the North Carolina UDC, and Major General B. F. Cheatham, the quartermaster general of the U.S. Army and the son of the Confederate major general. During his speech, General Cheatham told the story of how the North Carolinians became known as “Tar Heels.” According to the North Carolina State Museum, there was an intense rivalry between the troops from Virginia and North Carolina. After a particularly fierce engagement, “the Virginians, who had retreated, asked the North Carolinians what Confederate President Jefferson Davis would do with all of the tar he got from their state. The Carolinians responded that he would put it on the feet of Virginia soldiers to keep them from running in battle. Supposedly, when General Robert E. Lee heard of this encounter he exclaimed, ‘God bless the Tar Heel boys.'”4
Over the years, the monument suffered from corrosion and acid rain damage. Through local and state efforts, $10,000 was raised to restore the statue. On January 24, 1985, it was hoisted by helicopter onto a trailer and transported to Cincinnati, Ohio for restoration. It was the first monument removed from the park for restoration.5 When returned, it was re-dedicated on June 7, 1985.6
Another of Borglum’s sculptures is the bronze equestrian statue of General Philip Sheridan located in the center of Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C. Borglum was not the first choice to do the statue. After Sheridan’s death in 1888, Congress, on March 2, 1889, authorized $50,000 for construction of the monument. Sheridan’s friend, John Quincy Adams Ward, was the original artist chosen. However, Ward procrastinated. When at last he submitted sketches and a completed model, Sheridan’s wife, Irene, and the general’s son, Philip Jr., disapproved – noting that the likeness of the general was not satisfactory.
Ward’s rival Borglum closely followed these events. Always needing money, Borglum determined to win the commission. He studied Sheridan, his life, and his likeness – reading memoirs and illustrated biographies. Hearing of a party in Washington, D.C. that Irene was to attend, Borglum secured an invitation. He sat next to Irene and impressed her with how much he knew about her husband. By the end of the evening, Irene accepted an invitation to visit Borglum’s Washington studio the next day. There he showed her various models of the general and horses. On July 2, 1907, Borglum received the commission. Since Philip Jr. bore a close resemblance to his father, Borglum used him as a model for his father.
The sculpture depicts Sheridan riding his horse, Rienzi, as he rallies his troops at the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864. The bronze statue measures 10 feet in height and 12 feet long and stands on a granite base. Congress paid for the plaza, the base, and the preparation of the site, while the veterans of the Army of the Cumberland paid for the statue. It was dedicated on November 25, 1908. President Theodore Roosevelt attended the unveiling and declared that it was “first rate.”7
There is also a bust of President Abraham Lincoln made by Borglum in 1908 and located in the crypt of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.8 In Newark, New Jersey, next to the Essex County Veterans Courthouse, is a bronze statue of President Lincoln by Borglum. Lincoln is seated on a bench, bareheaded, with his stovepipe hat resting beside him. The statue was funded by Newark businessman Amos Hoagland Van Horn for $25,000. It was dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1911, by President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt supposedly exclaimed, “Why this doesn’t look like a monument at all!” which Borglum took as a compliment.9
The last Civil War-related statue by Borglum is in New York City. It is a larger-than-life-sized bronze statue of General Daniel Butterfield. It was dedicated on March 23, 1918, in Sakura Park in Manhattan. The standing figure is orientated to face Grant’s Tomb across Riverside Drive. Butterfield had served as Assistant Treasurer of the United States during Grant’s administration. Borglum had been so annoyed by the commissioning committee’s numerous demands for changes that instead of marking his signature on the base of the statute, he marked it on top of the general’s head, claiming that this was the single aspect the committee had not required him to change.10
Related link:
Gutzon Borglum vs. UDC and the State of Georgia
Footnotes
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_State_Monument_
(Gettysburg,_Pennsylvania)
2. https://www.ncpedia.org/gettysburg-monument
3. With permission from Tim Fulmer, who is a Gettysburg Guide and also has a YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@timfulmergettysburg-guide/videos
4. https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2011/07/14/north-carolina-and-virginia-memorials-at-gett/
5. Observer-Reporter, Washington, Pennsylvania, Thursday, January 24, 1985.
6. https://www.nps.gov/gett/learn/historyculture/north-carolina-monument.htm
7.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrian_statue_of_Philip_Sheridan_
(Washington,_D.C.) The location is on the center of Sheridan Circle, at the intersection of 23rd St., R. Street, and Massachusetts Avenue NW, within the Embassy Row section of the Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhood. There is also a copy of the statue in Chicago, Illinois.
8. Ibid.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seated_Lincoln_(Borglum)
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakura_Park