Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Troy, New York) is a war monument in Monument Square, at Broadway and 2nd Street in

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany a ...

, United States. It honors those from

Rensselaer County Rensselaer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 161,130. Its county seat is Troy. The county is named in honor of the family of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the original Dutch owner of the la ...

who served in the Revolutionary War, the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...

and the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. The monument is a contributing object in

Central Troy Historic District The Central Troy Historic District is an irregularly shaped, area of downtown Troy, New York, United States. It has been described as "one of the most perfectly preserved 19th-century downtowns in the ountry with nearly 700 properties in a var ...

Description

The monument features a 50-foot granite column crowned by ''The Call to Arms'', a 17-foot bronze statue of the Goddess Columbia.She stands with her foot on a cannon ball, a sword in one hand and a trumpet in the other. The granite base is designed in a vigorous

Neo-Grec Néo-Grec was a Neoclassical Revival style of the mid-to-late 19th century that was popularized in architecture, the decorative arts, and in painting during France's Second Empire, or the reign of Napoleon III (1852–1870). The Néo-Grec vo ...

style. Architectural elements such as scrolls,

acroterion An acroterion, acroterium, or akroteria is an architectural ornament placed on a flat pedestal called the ''acroter'' or plinth, and mounted at the apex or corner of the pediment of a building in the classical style. An acroterion placed at th ...

s and

guttae A gutta (Latin pl. guttae, "drops") is a small water-repelling, cone-shaped projection used near the top of the architrave of the Doric order in classical architecture. At the top of the architrave blocks, a row of six ''guttae'' below the narro ...

are recognizable, but abstracted. Instead of traditional piers, four buttresses form attached arches that are supported by compressed

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

columns. Four slightly-projecting gables support the great column. Three are adorned with a carved laurel wreath encircling a date – "1776," "1812," "1861-65" – and the fourth features the monument's dedication: "''To the Men from Rensselaer County who fought for Their Country on Land and Sea.''" Bronze relief panels on the base depict battle scenes of the Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery. The Navy is represented by a sea battle between

ironclad warship An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. T ...

s – ''The Monitor and The Merrimack''. This has a local connection, the iron plates that covered the ''

USS Monitor USS ''Monitor'' was an ironclad warship built for the Union Navy during the American Civil War and completed in early 1862, the first such ship commissioned by the Navy. ''Monitor'' played a central role in the Battle of Hampton Roads on 9 Mar ...

'' were forged in Troy. Bronze plaques list the names of major battles from each war. The monument was designed by the architectural firm of

Fuller & Wheeler Albert W. Fuller (1854-1934) was an American architect practicing in Albany, New York. Life and career Fuller was born in the town of Clinton, New York. From 1873 to 1879 he trained as a draftsman in the office of Albany architec ...

(1883–97) of

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

.T. Robins Brown, "Albert W. Fuller," in Diana S. Waite, ed., ''Architects in Albany'', (Mount Ida Press, 2009

/ref> The stone was quarried and fabricated by Frederick & Field of

Quincy, Massachusetts Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...

. The bronze figure of ''Columbia'' was modeled by James E. Kelly, and the bronze relief panels were modeled by

Caspar Buberl Caspar Buberl (1834 – August 22, 1899) was an American sculptor. He is best known for his Civil War monuments, for the terra cotta relief panels on the Garfield Memorial in Cleveland, Ohio (depicting the various stages of James Garfield' ...

. The sculpture was cast by the Henri-Bonnard Bronze Company of New York City. The monument was rededicated in September 1991. TroyMonumentSquare

References

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External links

* "The Rensselaer Co. Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at Troy, N.Y.," ''The Monumental News'', vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1892), p. 1
Soldiers and Sailors Monument
from SIRIS, Smithsonian Institution Research Information System
The Monument in Monument Square
- All Over Albany Buildings and structures in Troy, New York Buildings and structures completed in 1891 Union (American Civil War) monuments and memorials in New York (state)