.Soldiers & Sailors Monument - Table of Contents  ..............  Outdoor Public Art - Table of Contents

The Soldiers & Sailors Monument in Lafayette Square
Buffalo, New York


1883
Architect:
George Kellar of Hartford CT
Construction: Mount Waldo Granite Company of Bangor, Maine
Sculptor:
Caspar Buberl

On this page, below:

Neighbors

Statues

Drum

Dedication and Gettysburg Address

See also:

Paul Massing, McKinley Square

Unless indicated otherwise, photos below taken in August 2014.

The Monument and Its Neighbors


Tishman Building ..... Rand Building .... Lafayette Square



2007 photo ..... Tishman Building ..... Rand Building



2007 photo ..... Liberty Bank Building / Liberty Building ..... City Hall ... Western Savings Bank



2007 photo ..... Liberty Bank Building / Liberty Building



2007 photo ..... Lafayette Hotel and Brisbane Building



2007 photo ..... Buffalo and Erie County Public Library ....... Lafayette Hotel




2002 photo ..... Buffalo and Erie County Public Library



The Monument - Statues





 Nameless stone lady, "emblematic of Buffalo," sits atop the 85-foot column  ...  Note crown, sword, two laurel leaf wreathes, shield with City of Buffalo seal (details below:)  ... 
Note similarities to earlier (1876 VS 1883) "Justice" on the Old County Hall



2016 photo







Two laurel leaf wreathes  ...  City of Buffalo seal  ...   Wreath is similar to earlier (1876 VS 1883) "Mechanical Arts" on the Old County Hall   2016 photo




2017 photo






According to the Maine Granite Industry Historical Society (online August 2014), the monument is made of Hallowell granite



Note City of Buffalo seal  on medallion  (Detail below:)



City of Buffalo seal



2007 photo ..... Four 8-foot-tall statues representing members of the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and navy ...
The round frieze has scenes of American life during the Civil War



2007 photo ..... Center statue represents members of the Navy
Four 8-foot-tall statues representing members of the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, and Navy.



2007 photo ..... Eight-foot-tall statue represents members of the Navy


Navy



Navy



2007 photo ..... Eight-foot-tall statue represents members of the Infantry


Infantry



2007 photo .....   Cavalry



Cavalry






2007 photo ..... Artillery



Artillery



2007 photo ..... Artillery


The Drum


2007 photo ..... Pres. Abraham Lincoln with his original cabinet. The rolled document is the President's call for 75,000 volunteers ...
Lincoln with his original cabinet. From left to right, in varying degrees of relief, are depicted Treasury Sec'y Salmon P Chase, Sec'y of State Wm. H Seward, Attorney-General Edward Bates, Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair, Lincoln, Interior Sec'y Caleb Smith, Navy Sec'y Gideon Welles, Major General Winfield Scott, and War Secretary Simon Cameron.



2007 photo .....   Off to War



2007 photo ..... Off to War



Left center: zouave and a drummer boy ...  Rolled document in Seward's hand is the Emancipation Proclamation ...
Lincoln with his original cabinet. From left to right, in varying degrees of relief, are depicted Treasury Sec'y Salmon P Chase, Sec'y of State Wm. H Seward, Attorney-General Edward Bates, Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair, Lincoln, Interior Sec'y Caleb Smith, Navy Sec'y Gideon Welles, Major General Winfield Scott, and War Secretary Simon Cameron.



A newsboy sells papers while a blacksmith and a baker read one.



Center drum: Two cavalrymen, one of them a bugler, tangle with their mounts.



Dedication of the monument



Gettysburg  Address - November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.



Gettysburg  Address - November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.




Special thanks to Ellen Lettieri for research contributions.

Photos and their arrangement © 2007, 2014 Chuck LaChiusa
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