The Case for Moving Wheeling’s Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument
“So may the future days
Come nobly to our State:
When, prosperous and great,
Her citizens shall praise
Those who gave life and all to consecrate
Their land to liberty;
And bade their watchword be
These words in granite here,
To freemen ever dear,
Montani Semper Liberi.”
-From Soldiers’ Monument Poem by William Leighton
In case you haven’t heard, a campaign has been launched to move the Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument from Wheeling Park to the empty lot beside West Virginia Independence Hall.
Understandably, many remain skeptical. At 24 feet tall and weighing 25 plus tons, the monument is one massive hunk of granite. It is also in need of fairly extensive restoration. To move it and restore it will cost a lot of money. And there’s some risk of further damage during the move.
These are compelling reasons to let it be.
The reasons for moving it were cited in Dr. Joe Laker’s recent piece for the Upper Ohio Valley Historical Review: to provide greater security, to restore it, and to enhance downtown Wheeling with another “magnificent piece of public art.”
These are compelling reasons to move it.
But I submit that there’s an even more compelling reason, one that makes moving the monument back downtown not only the best option, but also, the moral duty of the city and its residents.
And a visitor is coming to Wheeling this Saturday who is a living example of this reason.
But first, let us consider the true meaning of Wheeling’s Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument by revisiting that late Spring day, 133 years ago, when the monument was originally dedicated.
“Tears From Heaven Mingle With the Tears of Men”
A menacing canopy of black clouds blocked the sun from the streets of Wheeling on the afternoon of May 30, 1883. But the threatening skies could not deter the more the more than fifteen thousand people who packed the area around the West Virginia state capitol building at 16th and Chapline Streets.
Faces filled the windows of surrounding buildings. More people crowded the rooftops of nearby houses. Still more stood atop freight cars and piles of lumber in the B. & O.’s old rail yard – all eager to witness the dedication of a new monument.
Wheeling’s public and private buildings and even riverboats were draped in flags and patriotic bunting while citizens, adults, and children alike, waved small flags of their own. “It was the universal comment that never before had the decorations on Memorial Day been so profuse,” the city paper declared.
As those at the outskirts of the throng jostled and strained to hear the speaker at the podium, the city drum corps thundered into “Capitol Square” at the head of a procession of well-dressed old soldiers from Wheeling, Martins Ferry, Bridgeport, and Bellaire. Just two decades prior, some of the same men had fought at bloody places like Antietam’s “Sunken Road” and Gettysburg’s “Cemetery Ridge.” That same morning, the men had decorated the graves of their fallen comrades in local cemeteries with flags, bouquets, and wreaths of flowers. There were marchers clad in full dress uniforms, some bearing flags or banners of silk. An honor guard armed with muskets marched just ahead of the Wheeling veterans – members of the Holliday Post, Grand Army of the Republic – some of whom carefully cradled the tattered remnants of the battle flag of the 7th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
Behind these men rumbled a horse-drawn carriage transporting a handful of much older, frailer looking men, some with long white beards – veterans of the War of 1812. Next came a wagon bearing veterans of the War with Mexico. Behind them came more carriages filled with dignitaries. And behind these marched German Singing Societies displaying handsome silk banners of their own. Several divisions of the City Fire Department and mounted members of the Wheeling Butcher’s Association brought up the rear.
As the procession fell into ranks around the large wooden stage in Capitol Square, a children’s choir sang, “My Country Tis of Thee,” after which the “German Chorus” broke into song. The monument, a behemoth cut from Rhode Island granite, with a soldier seated on the right and a sailor on the left part of the pedestal beneath a “crowning statue representing Union” brandishing a shield and sword, stood at the east end of the stage, draped in wreaths of pine and patriotic bunting.
The crowd cheered as Dr. Thomas Logan stepped forward to present the monument to the Holliday Post on behalf of the Soldiers’ Aid Society, the group that had commissioned the monument.
“It is eminently fitting,” he said, “that this monument should be dedicated by the surviving comrades of those in whose memory chiefly it was erected. For this purpose it is now at your disposal.”
Commandant G. B. Jones accepted the monument on behalf of the Post saying: “In the name of my comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, representing as they do all soldiers and sailors who defended the integrity and authority of the nation, I thank you and those whom you represent for this memorial shaft. Its very silence is impressive. Without articulate speech it is eloquent. It needs no word. It is itself an oration.”
The “German chorus” then sang the “Star Spangled Banner” as the flag was raised.
Mr. William Leighton, an immigrant from England, glass worker, and poet then stepped forward to read the poem he had created for the occasion.
“Proclaim our honored ones enduringly:
Or if time levels all that mankind rears,
May this fair stone endure as many years
As the lone Sphinx hath sat in Egypt’s sand,
Or as the oldest pyramid shall stand.
But when harsh years these crumbling stones decay,
The deeds they honor shall not pass away:
A stronger record holds each hero’s name,
And deathless stars forever hymn his fame;
For while Eternal Goodness rule’s o’er men
Each higher act employs an angel’s pen.”
-Excerpt from Soldiers’ Monument Poem by William Leighton
The crowd dispersed to the strains of “Yankee Doodle.”After raving about the solemnity and patriotism of the occasion, the city paper could not resist offering a final critique: “It did look bad though to see some of the blue coats smoking stogies while marching.”
EMAIL to Order
Monument Man
Edwin Bearss is best known as a Civil War historian and battlefield guide and as an expert commentator in Ken Burns’s PBS documentary, The Civil War. But he is also an American hero, for very different reasons. After high school in 1942, 19-year-old Ed Bearss enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and was sent to the Pacific Theater to fight the Japanese Empire. On January 2, 1944, during the invasion of Guadalcanal, Ed Bearss, Scout for the 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, was critically wounded by Japanese machine gun fire at “Suicide Creek.” “When he hit me it felt like a sledgehammer hit me,” Bearss recalled. A bullet hit him in the shoulders, breaking both of his arms. Another took off his left heel. “I really got angry then,” Bearss said. “The son of a bitch is shooting a wounded man!”
Mr. Bearss spent more than two years recovering from his injuries before being honorably discharged. Now 93 and a legend in the world of Civil War studies, USMC veteran Ed Bearss returned to Wheeling on Saturday, August 6 as a guest of the West Virginia Independence Hall Foundation in partnership with Wheeling Heritage.
First on the agenda for August 6 was a rare opportunity to have dinner with Ed Bearss at the Historic First West Virginia State Capitol Building at 1413 Eoff Street, Wheeling. Proceeds benefited the Campaign to Return the Soldiers & Sailors Monument from Wheeling Park to Downtown Wheeling.
After dinner, Mr. Bearss proceeded to the courtroom at West Virginia Independence Hall to speak about the 4th Virginia (West Virginia) Regiment in the Civil War. This lecture was free and open to the Public. A fundraiser auction followed the lecture.
The True Meaning of the Soldiers’ & Sailors’ MonumentSo why move the monument? Bearss knows the answer. It was dedicated in downtown Wheeling for a very good reason: to honor the “Defenders of the Union,” not just those who wore blue during the American Civil War, but all American veterans, all defenders of the Union, for all time. The fact that veterans of the War of 1812 were present at the 1883 dedication confirms the timelessness of this monument, connecting it to our Nation’s founding period. During the First World War, patriotic loyalty parades staged by immigrant groups inevitably ended at city hall, where a wreath of roses was placed on the Soldier’s & Sailors’ Monument, which had become the symbol of sacrifice and devotion to country. Wheeling Park has been home to the monument for more than half a century and has been a good home. But the fact is, we are not honoring our veterans to the best of our ability by keeping the largest and second oldest Civil War monument in the state of West Virginia languishing, virtually hidden, on a hillside at the park. We should honor them by bringing the monument home to a place of honor adjacent to the birthplace of our state, where it can be seen, enjoyed, preserved, protected, and celebrated by residents and visitors alike. This is our duty, as beneficiaries of their sacrifices, to those who have served and to those who will serve in the future. I’m confident that the men who fought at Antietam and Gettysburg and Suicide Creek and Bloody Ridge and Hamburger Hill and Fallujah would want it that way. We owe it to them to do the right thing: to bring the Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument back home.
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I just found my father’s great grandfather in the photo of all the people at the ceremony in 1883 – Nicholas Herbert, the sixth police officer from the left on the front row of police men. This is a treasure for us! Thank you for sharing the photo!!!!!!
Maryann Rollins
Cool!