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"First in War, First in Peace…"
No caption
This Harper's Weekly cover cartoon by Thomas Nast celebrates the
completion of the Washington Memorial in the nation's capital. The caption
is Henry Lee's famous encapsulation of the high esteem in which his
contemporaries held George Washington.
George Washington, commanding general of the Continental Army during the War
for Independence and first president of the United States, is honored by
monuments and place names across the country. During the centennial of his
birth in 1832, a movement formed to honor Washington with a monument in the
capital. Congress appropriated $5,000 for a statue for the Capitol
Rotunda. The monument by Horatio Greenhough, which depicted Washington in
classical garb like a Roman emperor or Greek god proved to be controversial and
was moved.
In 1833, the Washington National Monument Society was founded by George
Watterson, a former Librarian of Congress, and supported by Chief Justice John
Marshall, the organization's first president, and other influential
citizens. They proposed to erect a monument to Washington on the Capitol
Mall in Washington, D.C. In 1836, architect Robert Mills won a design
competition, but his elaborate plan was scaled back by the Society to
concentrate on constructing his proposed 600-foot shaft, based on Egyptian
obelisks.
The Society collected $87,000 in one-dollar contributions, and the
groundbreaking ceremony for the Washington Monument was held on July 4,
1848. Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop laid the cornerstone and
delivered the chief oration to a crowd estimated at 15-20,000, including
President James K. Polk, former first lady Dolley Madison, and the first
president's step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis.
Progress on the monument was slow, so that by 1854 only 152 feet had been
built. The Memorial Society had solicited commemorative marble stones from
states, territories, civic organizations, and foreign nations. In 1854,
the stone contributed by the Vatican was stolen, putting a damper on other
contributions. At the same time (and related, some suggested), the
anti-immigrant American (or Know Nothing) party established its own Washington
National Monument Society, and confiscated the official records of the original
group. When the American party soon collapsed, the original Memorial
Society resumed its work, but the public had become confused, skeptical, or
disinterested in the project. In 1855, an attempt to secure Congressional
funding was defeated in the Senate, and construction halted for 20 years.
After the Civil War, interest in the Washington Monument revived. In
1875, Senator John Sherman of Ohio introduced a resolution for Congressional
funding of the project. An allocation of $1,000,000 was provided, and the
Society transferred control of the monument and grounds to the federal
government. The Army Corps of Engineers, under the command of Lieutenant
Colonel Thomas L. Casey, enlarged the foundation and resumed construction of the
obelisk in 1880. On December 6, 1884, a 3,300-pound capstone, topped by a
nine-inch aluminum pyramid, was mounted on the 555-foot shaft.
The formal dedication on February 22, 1885, was conducted by Robert Winthrop,
who had laid the monument's cornerstone nearly 40 years before. It took
three more years, however, to complete the interior of the monument. On
October 9, 1888, the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., was officially
opened to the general public.
Robert C. Kennedy Click here to see the entire poem.
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