The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Syracuse, New York

Syracuse, NY. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Postcard.

Syracuse, NY. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Postcard

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Syracuse, New York
by Samuel D. Gruber

[cross posted from My Central New York (May 30, 2016)]

For Memorial Day we look at Syracuse's Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at Clinton Square, the city's largest and most prominent monuments to war veterans, and the grandest local expression of public art from the period of "The City Beautiful" and Beaux-Arts design. Memorial Day has its origins in Decoration Day and was celebrated to honor the dead of the Civil War. In Syracuse it took almost a half century before a large and fitting memorial was built as the backdrop for public ceremony. The monument was built to honor the 12,000 individuals from Onondaga County who fought in the Civil War, but it is now been rededicated in  memory of all the county's service men and women.

Syracuse, NY. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

 Clarence H. Blackall (1857-1942) was the architect, and the bronze sculptures were designed by Cyrus Dallin (1861-1944). The East group of figures is titled, "A Call to Arms" and the West is named, "An Incident at Gettysburg." Dallin was a leading sculptor of the period, known especially for his majestic figures of Native Americans on horseback, such as Appeal to the Great Spirit (1909), now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and and his statue of the Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City.

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