Stephenson Grand Army of the Republic Memorial

• 1. Introduction

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  The Stephenson Grand Army of the Republic Memorial stands at Indiana Plaza in Washington, D.C., at the crossing of 7th Street, Indiana Avenue, and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest. Hundreds of elderly men in military uniforms gathered there on the 3rd of July, 1909, as a Marine Band struck up "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" and the veterans sang. President William Howard Taft had just accepted the memorial on behalf of the American people. Senator William Warner turned to the crowd and told the veterans to get on their feet and give three cheers for the president. That moment of celebration honored a man who had died nearly four decades earlier, convinced his life's work had failed. Who was Benjamin F. Stephenson? How did an organization he nearly abandoned grow to become the country's most powerful single-issue political group? And what does the granite and bronze structure at Indiana Plaza tell us about the men who built it, and why they felt the need to be remembered?

• 2. The Surgeon Who Founded a Brotherhood

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  Benjamin F. Stephenson was born in 1823 and trained at Rush Medical College before setting up a medical practice in Petersburg, Illinois. When the Civil War began in 1861, he was appointed surgeon of the 14th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment and eventually reached the rank of major. After his honorable discharge in 1864, he returned to civilian medicine in Springfield, Illinois, and began sketching out something ambitious: a national association for Union veterans. He named it the Grand Army of the Republic, wrote its constitution, and chose its motto: "Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty". The organization would be open to any Union soldier or sailor who had been honorably discharged, regardless of rank. That last point mattered. It was the nation's first veterans association that put officers and enlisted men on equal footing. Springfield's veterans showed little enthusiasm for the idea, so Stephenson moved the founding to nearby Decatur. On the 6th of April 1866, he established Post No. 1, Decatur, Department of Illinois, Grand Army of the Republic. He had chosen that date deliberately: it was the fourth anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh, where Stephenson and most of the other charter members had fought together. As the organization began attracting new members, Stephenson found himself pushed aside into the role of adjutant general, handling routine administrative duties. By the time of his death in 1871, his medical practice was failing and he believed the GAR would never amount to anything.

• 3. Four Hundred Thousand Strong

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  What Stephenson did not live to see was a transformation that turned his struggling fraternal group into a political force with no close parallel in American life. After his death, the Grand Army of the Republic grew from a charity for Union widows and wounded veterans into the country's most powerful single-issue political organization of the late 19th century. Membership eventually climbed past 400,000. The GAR secured large pension packages for veterans and played an active role in the elections that sent six Union veterans to the White House. Its lobbying reach extended deep into Congress and the executive branch. But by the early 20th century, the arithmetic of mortality was catching up. Members were dying of old age, and the organization's leaders began thinking about how to leave a lasting mark. They decided to honor the man who had started it all. General Charles Partridge and the National Tribune led a fundraising campaign among the membership that raised $35,000 for a memorial to Stephenson. Congress then added another $10,000 on the 4th of March, 1907. The combined sum funded one of the more carefully specified public commissions in Washington's history.

• 4. A Commission with No Room for Improvisation

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  J. Massey Rhind, a Scottish-American sculptor born in 1860, had immigrated to the United States in 1889 and built a reputation as one of the country's foremost architectural sculptors. His large Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Syracuse, New York, was among the works that made his name. The GAR selected him for the Stephenson project, but the organization's leaders had already decided what the memorial would look like. They wanted a tall, triangular granite shaft with three figures representing Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty. Rhind's task was to execute their vision, not invent one. The architectural firm Rankin, Kellogg and Crane handled the design of the central shaft. The bronze reliefs were founded by Roman Bronze Works. William Gray and Sons performed contracting work, and P. R. Pullman and Company handled the foundation. A Senate resolution from April 1902 had already specified that the memorial could be placed on any of the city's public lands except the Library of Congress and Capitol grounds. Congress appointed a commission to choose the site. It included Secretary of War Jacob M. Dickinson, Senator George P. Wetmore, Representative Samuel W. McCall, General Louis Wagner, and Thomas S. Hopkins. They chose the corner of 7th Street and Louisiana Avenue Northwest, now known as Indiana Avenue. The soil there could not support the structure's weight, so the concrete foundation had to be expanded beyond original plans.

• 5. Bronze, Granite, and Inscription

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  The finished structure rises 25 feet on a triangular granite shaft, sitting on a 2-foot concrete base. Each face of the shaft carries a bronze relief keyed to one word of the GAR motto. On the front, the west side, a Union soldier holds a gun in his right hand while a sailor beside him carries the American flag. The word FRATERNITY runs along the bottom of that relief. Below it, a bronze medallion holds a bust of Stephenson in military uniform, set in a circular niche decorated with foliage. Below that comes an inscription recording that the Grand Army of the Republic was organized at Decatur, Illinois, on the 6th of April 1866, by Benjamin Franklin Stephenson, M.D. On the northeast face, a woman in a long robe and cape protects a small child at her left, touching the child's shoulder with her left hand. CHARITY marks the bottom of that relief, and beneath it the shaft reads: "The greatest of these is charity." The southeast face shows a woman holding a shield and a drawn sword. Beneath her, the word LOYALTY, and below that: "Who knew no glory but his country's good." At the upper portion of the shaft, above the soldier and sailor, stand the years 1861 and 1865, bracketing the four years of war that gave the organization its reason to exist. The memorial now stands within a circular plaza surrounded by magnolia trees and ivy, with decorative lampposts at its three entrances.

• 6. Dedication Day and Later Shifts

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  At 2:30 pm on the 3rd of July, 1909, GAR commander-in-chief Colonel Henry M. Nevius opened the dedication ceremony with a speech about Union sacrifice, telling the crowd that the shedding of the veterans' blood had raised the American flag from the dust and smoke and thrown it to the breeze to float forever. Taft spoke in tribute and accepted the memorial for the nation. When Warner called on the veterans to cheer, they did. Rhind himself was introduced to the crowd and was cheered as well. Brigadier General William Wallace Wotherspoon served as grand marshal of a military parade that moved from City Hall, past the memorial, west on Pennsylvania Avenue to the Treasury Building, and ended at 15th Street and New York Avenue. The memorial's surroundings changed significantly decades later. In 1987, the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation created Indiana Plaza by closing a portion of C Street, narrowing Indiana Avenue, and adding landscaping. That project required moving the memorial and the nearby Temperance Fountain. The Stephenson memorial ended up at the terminus of C Street; the Temperance Fountain now stands on the spot where the memorial previously sat. On the 20th of September 1978, the memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of eighteen Civil War monuments in Washington, D.C. It was added to the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites on the 3rd of March 1979, and is designated a contributing property to the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site, which was established on the 30th of September 1965.