General William Tecumseh Sherman Memorial

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This bronze equestrian statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman memorializes his service in the Civil War for the Union Army. At the corners of the granite pedestal stand bronze soldiers representing four branches of the army: infantry on the northwest, artillery on the northeast, cavalry on the southeast, and engineers on the southwest. Around the base of the monument is a band of mosaic six feet wide, inlaid with the names of all the battles in which Sherman took part. Near the top of the north face of the pedestal is a bronze tablet of Sherman's march through Georgia and two Sherman quotations. Other figures represent peace and war, while tablets and bas-relief details show moments from the lives of Sherman and his men in the Civil War.

The statue is located at the site where victorious Union generals reviewed Union forces in 1865 at the close of the Civil War. The majority of the funding was provided by Congress, with a small part of the total cost of $131,055 coming from the Society of the Army of the Tennessee. The statue was approved under an Act approved on July 5, 1892 and dedicated on October 15, 1903.

Although the statue was designed by Carl and Sara Rohl-Smith, many of the sculpted parts of the memorial were completed by other persons due to Carl’s early death. The equestrian statue was sculpted by Lauritz Jessen, the soldier statues by Sigvald Asbjornsen, the eight bas-relief portrait medallions by Mrs. Theodore A. Ruggles, and the War and Peace groups by Stephen Sinding.

Part of Civil War Monuments
DC Inventory: March 3, 1979
National Register: September 20, 1978