Ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming Dr. Jennifer Murray.
Thank you.
Thanks, Chris.
Thank you all for coming out on this beautiful, rainy Sunday.
Thanks, Chris, for that kind introduction.
Chris and I were seasonal rangers here a long time ago, and it's good to -- it was over
a decade now, and it's very good to see Chris in a very important position here at the Gettysburg
Battlefield.
I'm on spring break, so this is what I do on my spring break [laughter].
So I was looking at an options, thinking about going to the beach, maybe.
You know, it was, like, 80-some degrees down in Jekyll Island, where I like to vacation.
And I thought, no, why not go to Gettysburg and do a talk on George Gordon Meade, where
it's 40 degrees and raining?
But I'm very happy to be here with you all today, so thank you for coming out and talking
with me, or looking through George Gordon Meade.
Chris mentioned my book on Gettysburg, and some of you guys might know this, that I'm
working now on a biography of George Gordon Meade.
And that will be coming out with LSU Press in a few years.
So what I want to share with you guys today is kind of a sneak peek of the last chapter
of my book, which is going to be on George Gordon Meade and memory.
And I think what we'll get to walk through today and see together is a really interesting
legacy of George Gordon Meade's kind of rise to fame, and then his decline, both in his
lifetime and after his death in 1872.
And the way in which Meade and his legacy is often overshadowed by more prominent Union
generals, and then, of course, the pantheon of Confederate generals.
And I got a bunch of historic photos and slides that I'm going to show you today, and I think
you'll really find them to kind of be a special treat.
There's some really great photographs in here that I've been digging up in different archives,
and hopefully some of which you guys have never seen before.
And you'll get to see some insight into my book and my research this afternoon.
So let's start with what's kind of on this slide here, our opening slide.
This is a close-up photograph of the Meade Equestrian Memorial at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.
Any of you guys been to Fairmount Park in Philly?
Very good.
Obviously, Philadelphia is very tightly woven to George Gordon Meade.
He is a prominent Philadelphian, and we'll look at this monument in a few slides down
the road, and the way in which Meade's legacy is perpetuated in Philadelphia.
In the quote, the tag from my title -- "God knows my conscience is clear" is a line that
George Gordon Meade wrote to his wife in March of 1864.
And if you think about Meade's position in June '63 through the Battle of Gettysburg,
and then in the months later, George Gordon Meade has a rocky time, to say the least.
And he writes these really intimate letters to his wife.
And one thing that comes out in Meade's writing that is very, very clear is that, regardless
of all the controversies surrounding Meade's leadership at Gettysburg, the vitriolic reviews
that he gets in the press, the criticisms from his own officer corps.
Meade believes until his dying day that he performed his duty appropriately and correctly
at the battle of Gettysburg.
He believes that his conscience is clear, and one thing that comes out of Meade's writing
-- and we can debate this, and scholars and historians debate this.
One thing that comes out in Meade's writing is a sense that his reputation is going to
be maligned.
He's very sensitive to the press, and to his detractors.
And you see that in his own lifetime.
One thing that is incredibly clear with George Gordon Meade -- it seems that people are very
polarized on him, that you have very pro-Meade supporters, and then you have people who are
very critical of Meade, both his contemporaries and today.
But in 1865 -- you all have seen this photograph before, maybe even seen the actual painting
in Washington, D.C.
When you look at the pantheon of Union generals responsible for preservation of the Union,
in 1865, this Norwegian painters puts George Gordon Meade right in the epicenter.
And remember, when Meade takes command of the Union Army in June of 1863, he's in charge
of a very factious, very volatile Union Army.
He represents the third change of command just that year, but George Gordon Meade commands
the Army of the Potomac longer than any other Union general.
And he sees the greatest victory that this Army achieves, to date.
But Meade's legacy in his own lifetime through 1863, '64 is going to be overshadowed.
And 150 years later, Meade doesn't stand at the center of Union victory.
Meade's overlooked.
He's overshadowed, and you get stuff like this.
[Laughter] What the heck?
[Laughter] And it's $75.
[Laughter] I don't know if this is a good buy or not.
I can't figure it out.
Wow.
If you all -- P.S., if you want to buy this, after we're done, drive down the Baltimore
Pike, get yourself to the Gettysburg outlets, and go to that Civil War and More Store.
Yeah.
[Laughter] I feel like I should get commission, if you all were going to be running over there
after the program.
Probably better commission than I get on my book [laughter].
But what do we make of this?
I mean, this is incredulous.
And I've worked at Gettysburg for nine summers.
And I can tell you plenty of times when people came into the visitors' center, or out on
the battlefield, and they ask about Grant commanding the Union Army at Gettysburg [laughter].
And you guys have probably heard similar conversations, maybe when you're out on the battlefield yourself.
And then sometimes, people will talk about Dwight David Eisenhower commanding the Union
Army at Gettysburg.
I said, whoa -- [laughter] you guys need more of a history lesson than I can give you right
now in 50 minutes.
Yes, that is definitely failure of our educational system, which I'm now a part of, so go figure.
But this is -- this is awful, truly awful, in a way in which George Gordon Meade is improperly
commemorated in popular culture.
So let's start our story in June of 1863, and let's give just a little bit of a background
to what Meade's shifting reputation looks like in the summer of 1863.
If you ever want to go down to Frederick, go on down to Prospect Hall.
There's a huge modern apartment complex there now with really fancy, overpriced hotel accommodations
outside of Frederick.
But you can see the rock on which George Gordon Meade -- his tent was, where he took command
here in June 28, 1863.
Meade very famously thinks he's going to be arrested.
You guys have probably heard that story.
But if you look through soldiers' letters, their reaction to yet another change of command
is variable.
This guy from the 93rd New York says, "You know, God only knows what this is going to
lead to."
Meade's commanding the Fifty Army Corp at this time.
He's relatively unknown outside the U.S. Fifth Army Corp, but 72 hours later, George Gordon
Meade takes 90,000 men in the Army of the Potomac and wins its most significant victory
to date.
And what you get after July 3rd, and mostly on the 4th, 5th, and 6th, as the northern
media starts to pick up on the news of Gettysburg, is this instantaneous rise to fame.
Victory -- and the part that I like on the clip on the left is where the headline reads
"Waterloo Eclipsed," with two exclamation points.
If you think about Waterloo in 1815, this climactic battle, a decisive battle that ends
Napoleon's reign in Europe, this is a very dangerous comparison.
And it puts a lot of expectations on George Gordon Meade and the Army of the Potomac.
Waterloo is a battle that's very relevant and fresh in Americans' minds in the 1860s,
and then this is Gettysburg, a great victory won.
So the northern public, desperate for a decisive victory, seems to have it in Gettysburg.
And as the Union Army starts to pull out and chase, or pursue the Confederate Army down
through Maryland, and ultimately culminating in Williamsport along the banks of the Potomac
River, Meade's reputation continues to escalate.
When he gets to Frederick, the ladies of Frederick come out and greet him like a hero, right?
They bring him bouquets, and flowers, and he writes home to his wife about how they
have lionized him.
So he gets this great reputation, and on June 15th, a Vermont newspaper encourages George
Gordon Meade to be the next president of the United States.
And if you know a little bit about Meade's politics, he is woefully apolitical at best.
Can you imagine Meade as president of the United States?
But the northern public gets the victory that they want.
But then you all know that Meade's failure, or his -- quote unquote, "lethargic" pursuit
of the Confederate Army to Williamsport, which, quote unquote, "allows Lee to escape across
the Potomac River" very much changes Meade's reputation in the eyes of the northern public.
And certainly in the eyes of Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln very quickly admonishes Meade for not attacking the Confederate Army.
He says, "Your golden opportunity is lost."
Meade is so upset about this that, in a fit of anger, he sends and offers to resign.
And he pursues the Confederate Army into Virginia in the subsequent months.
Through the rest of 1863 and into 1864, Meade is going to continue to have to defend his
actions at the Battle of Gettysburg.
And he writes a letter just three days after Christmas, and an often-quoted Meade line
to his wife, Margaretta, in Philadelphia.
And he says, "Seems like me being here was actually more harmful than it was helpful."
[Laughter] And I'm sure he'd find plenty of people who would agree with that point of
view.
And then, in the spring of 1864, George Gordon Meade gets called to testify before the Joint
Committee on the conduct of the war over his actions and leadership at Gettysburg.
He testifies three times in March, and then, coinciding with the Joint Committee on the
conduct of the war, here comes Ulysses S. Grant.
In a very fitting -- this is Grant, obviously, symbolically, almost, in this photograph -- exactly,
looking over Meade's shoulder.
We can see the slight profile of George Meade right here, and there's a lot of reasons for
Meade being overshadowed here on out, from 1864 on to the end of the war.
Meade's reputation with the press is very contested.
He entertains almost no reporters or correspondents.
He has a very antagonistic relationship with the press.
Grant has a very favorable relationship with the media.
So when the national northern media is writing about the campaigns that are taking us to
Appomattox, it is Grant that's at the front and center.
And then we're going to see Sherman's rise to prominence.
Then we're going to see Sheridan's rise to prominence, and Meade is just more and more
obscure.
If you think about Appomattox in 1865, George Gordon Meade is sick, so he's following the
Union Army in an ambulance.
Then he's not going to be present for the famous surrender in McLean House in April
of 1865.
So in sum, if we can kind of distill that into something, to give us a point of departure
moving beyond the Civil War, Meade's reputation in his own lifetime is very shifting.
It's a very nebulous landscape in which he operates.
Overshadowed by Grant, constantly defending his actions at Gettysburg, and very, very,
very conscious about his reputation.
When the Civil War ends, the Union Armies have the grand review in Washington, D.C.
It's two days of review, May 23 and 24, and the Army of the Potomac is going to march
on the first day, the 23rd.
And we can see a couple important people in this photo.
Grant -- this one is -- very good, Andrew Johnson, and then look one over to the right.
There's Meade, yeah.
If you read a little bit about -- primary accounts about the grand review, the first
cannon booms that starts or kind of kicks off the grand review, and then coming out
into the crowd's perspective rides George Gordon Meade on his horse, Blackie.
And what does the crowd immediately cheer when Meade comes into view?
Gettysburg, Gettysburg, Gettysburg.
It is the applause of a grateful nation.
It is the applause of a grateful nation.
Meade stays in the Army after the Civil War is over, and after Appomattox.
He's going to be instrumental in implementing reconstruction policies in the south.
He's going to oversee the re-admittance to the Union of deep south southern states.
He's going to be in Atlanta, and then ultimately, he's going to be sent into Philadelphia, where
he finishes out, ultimately, his life.
George Gordon Meade dies in 1872, November the 6th.
Meade had taken ill, to his house here in Philadelphia.
It's on Delancey Street, and he was complaining to his wife and his doctor that he was having
severe chest pain.
And the doctor comes in.
He's bedridden for about a week, and near 6:30 p.m. on November the 6th, 1872, George
Gordon Meade, at the age of 56, dies at his house of pneumonia.
When Meade dies on November the 6th, 1872, because he's still active duty in the Army,
the commanding general, who at that time is William T. Sherman, is going to send out a
general order to inform everybody about the passing of the victor of Gettysburg.
And they start to plan Meade's funeral.
And Meade's funeral -- it starts where he dies.
If you find yourself in Philadelphia, walk down Delancey Street, and you'll see George
Gordon Meade's house.
This is the house that the people -- the good people of Philadelphia gifted to the Meades,
and at the top of it -- this is 1836 Delancey Street.
At the top, you can see Meade's name is sketched into the house.
And immediately, once word gets out about the death of George Gordon Meade, the nation
grieves, Philadelphia particularly so.
The headline of the Philadelphia newspaper reads "Universal Grief," at hearing that their
son, George Gordon Meade, had died.
Now, Meade's funeral is an amazing spectacle, and one of the things that really struck me
in my research is how much the nation respected George Gordon Meade.
This is Philadelphia, November 8th, 1872.
The Battle of Gettysburg saved the city of Philadelphia from devastation, and if there
was nothing else in the career of George Gordon Meade, that alone would've been enough.
Philadelphia's grief is perhaps the loudest, and the people of Philadelphia genuinely believed
if Meade had not won at Gettysburg, their city would've been invaded by these Confederate
marauders.
They genuinely felt that Meade had saved their city.
And if you're interested in reading and researching a little bit on Meade, his papers are in Philadelphia
at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
And I've been reading through these a lot, and there's a litany of correspondence -- comes
in from citizens, and also men in the army, expressing their condolences upon hearing
about George Gordon Meade's death.
And it's very clear that they have held him in tremendous, tremendous esteem.
And Meade's reputation, for all the controversy that comes out after July 4, 1863 -- for all
that controversy with Sickles [assumed spelling], and Doubleday, and the Joint Committee on
the conduct of the war, it is very clear to 1870s Americans that Meade's action at Gettysburg
was right.
They're no longer debating this, monolithically, in general.
They're no longer debating this.
So William T. Sherman, who is the overall general of the Union Army, starts planning
for Meade's funeral, and he puts Irvin McDowell in charge of -- that got a response.
[Laughter] Could be worse, right?
I mean -- in charge of Meade's funeral.
Think about McDowell for whatever -- I mean, this is the general who commands the Union
Army at Bull Run.
He certainly is his own interesting story in his own right, but Sherman tells McDowell
that Meade's wife's wishes will be paramount.
And together, they collaborate on a funeral procession for George Gordon Meade.
So he dies on the 6th, and his funeral procession will begin on the 11th.
And it starts with moving Meade's body from his house on Delancey Street to where he will
be buried, at Laurel Hill.
En route to his burial at Laurel Hill, there will be a funeral -- services at St. Mark's
Church, and you can see St. Mark's Church today.
If you all go up to Philadelphia, this is on Locust Street.
It's just a few blocks down from the HSP, the Historical Society.
This is the church that Meade frequented.
This is the church that he attended, and you can read newspaper correspondence and some
of the primary accounts at the time.
There are mourners and grievers who start to show up at St. Mark's Church at 8:00 a.m.
on the 11th.
McDowell will be one of the first people there.
McDowell arrives to the church, and then he's kind of the master of ceremonies, if you will,
for the day.
He will greet Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant arrives around 10:00, and then William T. Sherman arrives a little bit later.
And Meade's body is taken from his house on Delancey Street to a service at St. Mark's
Church.
If you could look at what St. Mark's Church looks like in 1872, this is what you would
see on the inside.
It's an incredibly large bereavement ceremony for Meade's death.
The newspaper reports at least 50,000 people in and outside the church, not including all
the tens of thousands that line the streets for his procession up to Laurel Hill.
At St. Mark's Church, the services are going to be conducted by Dr. Hoffman, who's the
rector of St. Mark's Episcopalian Church.
And then the guy on the right -- this is Henry Benjamin Whipple, who was a Minnesota guy,
but he had been a man of faith with the Army of the Potomac.
So Meade had known him through the war, and Whipple was going to give some comments at
Meade's gravesite, up at the Laurel Hill Cemetery.
For about two hours, Americans mourn Meade's death in St. Mark's Church, and then his body
is going to leave St. Mark's Church, and there's a very distinguished, very respectable funeral
procession to get him out to his burial site at Laurel Hill.
He has six pallbearers.
These are three.
I put three of the six on here.
I suspect you recognize two of the faces.
On the left is -- there we go, Andrew Humphreys, Pennsylvanian, and then, on the right, of
course, is Sheridan.
Now, let's see how good our naval history is.
Does anyone know the one in the center?
This is Rear Admiral Thomas Turner.
I know, I'm an army person myself.
My Civil War naval history is passable at best, but these are three of the six.
They will put George Gordon Meade's casket on their shoulders.
They will take him out of St. Mark's Church.
They will put him in a caisson, and he will be proceeded up to Laurel Hill Cemetery.
And in the procession is, of course -- aww, Old Baldy's brought out of retirement.
And he will proceed riderless in the funeral procession.
On top of Meade's casket -- casket, of course, is draped with an American flag.
On top of the casket are tangible elements of Meade's military life.
His uniform is on top of there, as well as his sword and his hat.
When they get him out of St. Mark's Church, thousands of people line the streets of Philadelphia.
You can recreate, if you're ever interested in this, and kind of walk the funeral procession
route block by block -- block by block.
That's hard to say -- until they get him on a steamer, to put him up the Schuylkill River
to get him to Laurel Hill Cemetery, where he will be buried in the afternoon of November
11th.
This is a contemporary lithograph of the sketch of the procession, rather, and you can see
here crowds lining the Schuylkill.
And then, this part of the sketch is Meade's casket -- up to its final resting place.
The services at the grave for George Gordon Meade are very short, and they're very simple.
There's nothing very elaborate.
This is all over in about 30 minutes or less.
This is Whipple, our Minnesota guy, who conducts the graveside comments, and then George Gordon
Meade is laid to rest at Laurel Hill Cemetery.
His headstone itself is very simple, and particularly if you think about some of the other markers
of our Civil War dead, Meade's stone is incredibly simple in comparison.
And it's the -- the writing on it is similarly so.
He died.
He did his work bravely, and is at rest.
In Gettysburg, as this is going on, the funeral procession in Philadelphia -- Gettysburg,
the city most connected to George Gordon Meade outside of Philadelphia, collectively mourns
as a town.
Between 11:00 and 12:00, all businesses in Gettysburg are closed, and there's black mourning
materiels on public and private buildings.
There's a bell that will ding continuously through that hour, and I read newspaper accounts
that say that artillery guns from the Soldiers' National Cemetery will fire between 11:00
and 12:00.
So outside of Philadelphia, Gettysburg, the city most associated with George Gordon Meade,
similarly mourns the loss of Meade at the age of 56.
And if you read through some of his correspondence that pours in to his wife or his son, it is
very clear that 1860s/1870s Americans hold George Gordon Meade in incredibly high esteem.
And I've extracted just a few lines from some of the letters that I've looked over.
This, of course, is Theodore Lyman, who is one of Meade's aides, and writes a great primary
account about campaigning with him in the overlaying campaign.
And Lyman says his service is brilliant, and so devoted rendered.
After Meade's death in 1872, Philadelphians are going to start a commemorative tradition,
and the commemorative tradition with George Gordon Meade after his death really focuses
at his grave.
And what you would've seen in the 1870s and 1880s is Americans coming to Philadelphia,
to Laurel Hill, to lay all sorts of wreaths and tributes at Meade's grave.
This is an -- was an 1880s photograph, and what happens -- kind of emerges out of this
gravesite tribute after Meade's death is that Philadelphians start thinking about a more
tangible way to commemorate George Gordon Meade.
And what they do -- what emerges out of these celebrations or commemorations at his death
is to place a monument at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.
So this is a graveside tribute to George Gordon Meade, and they start thinking about creating
a monument.
And of course, that's going to mean money, so we have to start thinking about ways to
raise money for a monument to Meade.
So on Memorial Day 1880, the City of Philadelphia hosts a -- basically a big fundraiser, to
raise money to put a monument to Meade in Fairmount Park.
And they get some of the heaviest hitters in the Army of the Potomac and current politicians
to come to Philadelphia in 1880 to give speeches and addresses, to make money for this monument.
And two of the individuals --
-- Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain ages very well, doesn't he?
Two individuals who'll be there in 1880s -- of course, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and then
the guy on the right -- that's right, President Hayes.
Chamberlain -- this event is held in the -- like the music auditorium in Philadelphia, and
Chamberlain gives a great account of the Battle of Gettysburg.
And he talks about the fighting on Little Roundtop, and then, knowing his audience -- because
speakers always need to know their audience -- Chamberlain talks about after he was wounded,
who carries him off the battlefield.
What unit?
What group of men?
Where are they from?
Yeah, the Pennsylvanians, right?
The 83rd Pennsylvanians.
And he talks about how important the 83rd Pennsylvanians are to the fighting on Little
Roundtop, and the crowd goes wild.
And of course, Chamberlain's a great orator.
He's the ex-governor of Maine.
And then, Hayes gives an address, and then kind of the capstone to this event is William
T. Sherman.
And one of my favorite comments about Meade comes from Sherman, that "if you could erect
a monument to George Gordon Meade of pure gold, it is not enough to honor George Gordon
Meade."
This event -- Memorial Day 1880 starts fundraising for a monument to be erected at Fairmount
Park.
If you know a little bit about Meade and Philadelphia -- Meade is intimately connected to Fairmount
Park.
He will be on the board at Fairmount Park, and observers would say that George Gordon
Meade, either on horseback or on foot, would often be seen riding around, exploring Fairmount
Park.
So the good people of Philadelphia start the fundraiser to put a monument up to Meade,
and they will put forth a variety of sketches until they settle on one that they like.
This is one of the earlier sketches.
There's an instrumental women's auxiliary group who will take over the fundraising for
the monument.
This is the Fairmount Park Art Association, and then finally, on October the 18th, 1887,
George Gordon Meade gets his first equestrian monument, in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.
Congress had authorized this monument, and it is made in part of condemned cannon.
The keynote speaker of the day for the dedication event at Fairmount Park is one of Meade's
most trusted, intimate confidants, who is John Gibbon.
Gibbon gives the keynote, and the grand master of ceremonies is another prominent Philadelphian,
one of Meade's very close confidants, James Biddle.
And he's the keynote -- master of ceremonies.
So this is October 18, 1887, and there's a whole big celebration that day.
I'll give you a quote of the Fairmount Park Art Association, very much speaking to Meade's
legacy.
Again -- so for all that shifting, controversy that we see in Meade's own lifetime, in death,
Americans, Pennsylvanians particularly leading the way on this -- really revere George Gordon
Meade.
And they truly believe that this man, amongst a few other Union generals, was responsible
for preservation of the Union.
So if you have the opportunity, and you're in Philadelphia, check out Fairmount Park.
Check out Meade's statue.
Fairmount Park is worth its own kind of few hours on a nice afternoon.
This is an aerial view of Fairmount Park.
Remember, Philadelphia holds the Centennial Exposition.
So this monstrosity here is the Centennial Exposition Building.
This is a -- it's called the Smith Arch, and on the Smith Arch, you will find George Gordon
Meade.
He's at one of the top of the obelisks.
And there's other Pennsylvanian generals there.
Reynolds is there.
Hancock is there.
But where -- next to Meade in this photo -- Meade is -- you see him?
There we go, to the right.
He's over there.
This monument now is wildly controversial, because -- if y'all go to Philadelphia, go
to City Center, to the City Hall, and you can find Civil War generals outside of City
Hall, one of which will be McClellan, one of which will be Reynolds.
And there are people in Philadelphia today, and in the more recent past, who want to get
Meade moved from Fairmount Park, and put him in City Center, a place that, today, is more
prominent than Fairmount Park.
But there is some resistance to that from different factions of people.
Where monuments are placed is very important, and particularly in today's landscape.
So Philadelphia is the first city to put up an equestrian monument to George Gordon Meade,
and the next place that Meade's going to see an equestrian monument is here in Gettysburg.
And if you know a little bit about the history of Gettysburg, you know a little bit about
the GBMA, the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, and this grassroots preservation
entity.
You know a little bit about some of the early monuments that go up here in the Gettysburg
Battlefield.
The Union High Command gets memorialized at Gettysburg pretty quickly, but the Union High
Command that gets memorialized at Gettysburg is not George Gordon Meade.
Who is the first Union general to have a memorial on this battlefield?
That's right.
It is John Fulton Reynolds, prominent Pennsylvanian in his own right, of course, killed here on
July the 1st, the morning.
This monument to Reynolds' mortally-wounded shot goes up on July 1st, 1886.
This is what's stop one on the auto tour.
This one goes up in 1886, and if you think about Reynolds, he's also in the National
Cemetery.
This monument is erected on August 31st, 1872, and then there's one more, right?
Right, out on -- yeah, off on Chambersburg Road.
So Reynolds is memorialized threefold here at the Battle of Gettysburg, and finally,
Meade gets a monument.
Different GAR posts are going to be petitioning for Meade to get a monument on the Gettysburg
Battlefield, and they also want Winfield Scott Hancock to get a memorial here at Gettysburg.
And through the GAR efforts, the State of Pennsylvania is going to kind of contract
out a sculptor to do a monument here on the Gettysburg Battlefield.
And that sculptor -- you might be familiar with his name.
This is Alexander Calder Scott, who will sculpt the memorial here for Meade.
And it is erected on June 5th, 1896.
This is a cool photograph.
It's cool in a couple ways.
It's a historic photograph of the Meade Memorial, but take a good look at it, and you can see
how a lot of landscape features change, and a lot of commemoration features change.
So what's missing here?
If you go look at the Meade Memorial today, what do you see on the side of it?
Yeah, big plaques that will outline George Gordon Meade's accomplishments.
Here, they're missing.
They're put up later.
They're not part of the original monument.
You also won't see this "hey, you damn kids, keep off the grass" sign [laughter], although
personally, I think we'd all be in favor of something like that again.
And this is also kind of cool.
Historic photographs are as valuable as primary documents.
They are primary documents.
They're as valuable as written documents.
Look at the fencing patterns in the back, which are now, of course, eliminated.
Those are old War Department features, and there's a cool little gazebo over on the far
right of the monument.
So George Gordon Meade gets his monument here just up from the Leister House on June the
5th.
The dedication ceremonies are at 10:30 in the morning, but poor Meade -- he doesn't
even get a day all to himself.
Because at 2:00, they go, and they dedicate the Winfield Scott Hancock Memorial.
So Meade gets half of a day.
He gets a shared day with Hancock.
A lot of Meade's descendants are going to come to Gettysburg for the occasion.
This is a cool family photo taken that day, outside the Leister House, which has a variety
of Meade's descendants.
The monument itself is unveiled by Meade's grandson, and finally, the victor of Gettysburg
is commemorated on the landscape itself.
And for quite some time, the Meade Memorial is a popular place to visit, and in 1913,
a lot of the veterans for the iconic 50th anniversary reunion will spend time looking
at the Meade Memorial.
So now you see -- now it looks familiar, right?
There's the bronze plaques.
And this is cool.
Yeah, that's the Ziegler's Grove Tower, which goes down in the early 1960s, when the Park
Service builds the Cyclorama.
There's the -- see, they still have that sign [laughter].
So check out the Meade Memorial.
Of course, you all do, and now he's facing the Lee Memorial, which goes up in the early
part of the 20th century on Seminary Ridge.
One of the things that struck me in my research so far for this final chapter of the book
is the way in which Meade's reputation is linked to other individuals.
So Meade gets a monument in Philadelphia.
The second one that goes up, goes up here at Gettysburg, and then, the third Meade Memorial
is the one I've researched a lot of most recently, and that's the one in Washington, D.C.
And the Meade Memorial in Washington, D.C. has an incredibly interesting history, and
we talk a lot today in 2018 -- and it was really big news last year in 2017 about the
place of Civil War tributes on our national landscape.
But specifically, the place in which Confederate soldiers hold in monumentation and commemoration
in the 21st century.
And this is stuff that played out in Charlottesville, Virginia.
This is stuff that plays out other places, in New Orleans, where they take Robert E.
Lee off of that top pedestal, and we're reconsidering the place of Confederate tributes.
Well, one of the places that Robert E. Lee is commemorated is in Washington, D.C., and
it's in Statuary Hall.
Have any of you been to Statuary Hall to see this?
There's -- the die-hards, like the people who go and do Civil War things on spring break
[laughter].
Robert E. Lee gets a monument in Statuary Hall in 1909.
Statuary Hall is in the Capitol Building.
So this is its own kind of separate topic about whether or not Lee belongs in the U.S.
Capitol.
That's not my point.
The point of what is going to be important for Meade is that, when Lee goes up in Statuary
Hall in 1909, there are already Civil War monuments dotting the D.C. landscape.
And by the time George Gordon Meade gets a monument in Washington, D.C., there are 17
tributes to other Civil War generals.
And when the Lee monument goes up in Statuary Hall in 1909, the Pennsylvanians are a little
upset.
And particularly, the Veterans' Association and the Philadelphia Brigade Association.
You guys have all heard about that.
That's the 72nd Pennsylvania kind of stuff over here.
They're really outraged that Robert E. Lee gets a monument in D.C., but their own general
does not.
So the next year, 1910, the Philadelphia Brigade Association approaches Harrisburg, to the
state government, and they say, "Let's raise money to put a memorial up to George Gordon
Meade in Washington, D.C."
So it's interesting that the impetus to the Meade Memorial in Washington, D.C. is Robert
E. Lee, his adversary for so long, and it works.
The government in Harrisburg is receptive to this.
They're excited for the idea, and of course, as any government then does, they create a
commission, right?
So they organize a commission called the Pennsylvania George Gordon Meade Memorial Association,
and the head of the state commission, or one of the prominent voices of the state commission
to design a monument to George Gordon Meade is John W. Frazier.
Frazier's a veteran.
He's a Pennsylvanian, and he's a veteran of the 71st Pennsylvanian.
And let me tell you, if I -- if I would ever have a monument erected to myself, that -- I
would want this guy to be my voice.
Well, that would be weird, because it would be from the dead, but -- [laughter].
So sort of what I'm saying is, this is the guy that you want to champion a monument for
you.
His objective is complete devotion to George Gordon Meade.
This is 1915.
The whole process of erecting a monument to George Gordon Meade, he is intimately involved
with, and he wants to create a monument that tangibly gives us the impression that George
Gordon Meade was a victor at Gettysburg, a great leader, very militaristic.
He has this vision of what he wants.
Well, the problem is that John W. Frazier, like me -- we don't know anything about art.
So he has what he wants, but he's a veteran, and he doesn't have a really good understanding
of the nuances of art.
So because this monument goes up in D.C., there's a federal commission involved.
So you get the Harrisburg contingent with a lot of veterans who are going to say, "This
is what I want Meade to be," but then you get Washington, D.C. mingling their voice
in.
And they bring in a group of artists, and that will be the Commission on Fine Arts.
And they hate John W. Frazier.
They say he is a totally unfit person to work with, and he is obstructive and insulting.
The Commission on Fine Arts has the nation's most distinguished artists on it, and they're
responsible for all the artwork in the nation's capitol.
So you get the CFA, the Commission on Fine Arts, and then you get the Frazier sorts.
And somewhere, they got to compromise to come up with a memorial that both sides will agree
on, that's fitting and proper for George Gordon Meade.
And one of the things that guides this conversation is, Meade cannot be more elaborate or exorbitant
than Ulysses S. Grant.
So the Grant Memorial goes up in 1922.
So it's the centennial of Grant's birth, and if you think about the location -- and the
location of monuments matter.
Grant is located -- yeah, right outside the Capitol Building, in one of the most prominent
vistas today and at the time.
Frazier hates this monument, and he says -- and if you look at it, you know, the Grant Monument
-- what the heck are the lions about?
[Laughter] That's what Frazier says.
Frazier says, "What are the lions about?"
So Frazier and the CFA go back and forth, and they need to find a location.
So they're going to put Meade on Pennsylvania Avenue and the intersection of Third and Northwest
Street.
So he's within kind of the scope of the Capitol Building.
I'll show you some aerial photos -- but not too close that it overshadows Grant.
Pennsylvania definitely wants to have their voice on this monument -- Frazier, of course,
leading the charge.
So they want a Pennsylvanian to design the monument, and that takes them to pick Charles
Grafly.
Grafly is a Philadelphian, a very prominent artist in his own right, and he's really -- man,
this guy's put through the wringer, trying to appease the veterans, the Frazier sorts
that says, "I want a very militaristic George Gordon Meade," and then the CFA that's a little
more mild-mannered and tempered.
So Grafly does, like, 16 sketches, 16 options of a Meade Memorial, and I'm going to show
you two.
All right, so one option is -- [laughter].
All right, any artists in the crowd?
What the heck is this?
This is one of Grafly's picks.
Now, this is called E. Pluribus Unum, and that's a bastardized Latin expression that
I just said.
It means -- it's on our currency.
Okay, so that's this.
This is out of many, one.
I'm not one that can really look at art and get all these deep meanings out of it.
But what this is supposed to be is George Gordon Meade struggling to hold the Union
together.
Yeah, now you're like, wow, I see it [laughter].
I got it now.
I got it.
Yes.
[ Laughter ]
This is where you kind of, like, stand back, and you kind of, you know, reflect, and you
sigh.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So there's the north and the south, and secession, and Meade is holding the Union together.
This is actually Grafly's favorite.
He likes it so well that he has a little one cast.
What do you think Frazier says about this?
[Laughter] Right.
You know, WTF, Grafly?
So that one gets nixed.
There's no way that Frazier's going to let that go.
I'll show you the second option, and this one -- yeah.
Yeah.
This is -- this is not bad, right?
It's a -- this is Meade -- this is supposed to be Meade on the pursuit from Gettysburg
-- they call it, like, the "Silent Meade," where he's reflecting over the strategic plans
and operations at the Potomac River.
This one has some potential.
I kind of like that one as well, but -- Grafly likes this one, but the Pennsylvania folks
don't.
They don't feel like this is really militaristic enough.
So we need something even more, and what they end up settling on after a bunch of back and
forth on these sketches is the one that sits in D.C., which is "Meade in Allegory."
So here, this is a cool photo.
This is Grafly, and this is a model of what will become the monument that sits in D.C.
And if y'all go to the -- you're down in D.C., go to the art -- the National Art Gallery.
You can see the model in one of the rooms in D.C.
It's kind of cool -- in scale, a scale model of it.
So they liked that one.
Frazier's not wild about allegory.
That's why he doesn't like the lions on Grant, and he's not really wild about allegory writ
large.
And if you can kind of follow the faces around here, they are allegorical representations
of various facets of war and peace.
But Meade stands -- not on an equestrian, but at the center, with his -- kind of his
cape, you know, kind of coming out like a Superman pose, stepping onto the future, stepping
forward to the future to represent a nation that is reconciled, that is reunited.
So this one works.
This is the one that they all can settle on, that is good, that they'll agree does justice
to George Gordon Meade.
So they have the money.
They're fundraising along the way.
A lot of the money comes from Pennsylvania.
This monument costs $400,000, and it's all raised by the state of Pennsylvania.
And on the 28th March, 1922, ground is broken for the monument.
This guy here on our left is the governor of Pennsylvania.
This is William Sproul, and on the right is, at that time, the president of the United
States -- oh, you guys know your presidents.
Very good.
Yes, that's Warren G. Harding.
And this sits at Pennsylvania Avenue and Third/Northwest, and I'll show you an aerial view in a second.
So Pennsylvania's kicking up $400,000 for this.
It comes in fits and starts, as any government appropriation does, and they'll break the
ground, and then very slowly construct the monument.
This is kind of a cool photo.
You can see the Capitol Building in the background, and here are the allegories.
And then we'll place Meade at the top.
The Bartholdi Fountain, we can see here, as well.
So this goes up -- this is a photo that's taken in 1825, and if you could drop yourself
and have a cool aerial view where Meade in D.C. is placed -- this is a really cool photo.
So this would be us standing kind of at the Capitol Building.
So here's Grant and his lions.
To my right middle, there's Meade.
Obviously, D.C.'s changed a lot -- a lot in the last 80 years, and one thing very noticeably
absent is the little reflecting pool, which is now in front of the Grant Memorial.
And this photo shows very much kind of the open vistas.
So Grant -- look at him keeping an eye on George there.
It's like that photo I showed you at the beginning, you know, over Meade's shoulder.
He's keeping an eye on him.
And the location works.
So the monument's going to be dedicated in 1927, and here's Grant keeping an eye on his
subordinate, George.
And I said about how Meade's legacy is always interwoven with people who are going to -- more
prominent than him, Lee at Statuary Hall, the Grant monument here.
Everything is -- you cannot overshadow Grant.
You cannot overshadow Grant.
So to add almost insult to injury for George Gordon Meade, the master of ceremonies -- the
guy that's in charge of the dedication in 1927 is U.S. Grant the Third.
U.S. Grant the Third is in charge of -- he basically runs the -- it's like the public
office building and landscapes in D.C., and he's in charge of kind of organizing and managing
public spaces in Washington at the time.
So U.S. Grant the Third will be doing all the logistics for the dedication, which happens
in October '19.
So this monument takes a long time to come to fruition.
It's 16 years from the time that the original idea is proposed until we get -- for it to
be unveiled.
This is a cool photo.
This is the unveiling of the monument, with -- we're kind of in the Speaker's seating
here.
Here's the President of the United States, who now, in 1929, is -- oh, you know your
president.
You're much better than my U.S. history kids.
Calvin Coolidge.
George Gordon Meade will have 29 descendants there, and the one who gets to unveil the
monument is his only surviving child by now.
This is Henrietta.
And here's U.S. Grant the Third.
So she looks like she's having a good time, it seems.
The Meade Memorial is draped in two huge white flags, and she gets to kind of pull the flag,
and then very slowly the monument comes into view.
She lived -- just as a factoid, she lives until -- Henrietta, until 1944.
She's here with Meade.
If you go through the dedication ceremonies and look really at the D.C. monument, the
dedication ceremonies give us the same kind of insight and rhetoric that we saw with Meade
all along, where speakers and orators will commemorate and laud Meade's accomplishments.
They are very much respectful and very confident that his place in history will be secured.
One of the keynote addresses, of course, comes from the President of the United States.
And here -- right, that -- so for all the bluster and gusto that Meade gets during his
lifetime about not attacking, say, at the Potomac River in mid-July, now time has given
a little bit more objectivity to this.
And the President actually admires Meade's decision.
There are scores of veterans here.
They would come in.
They got, like, free admission, so to say.
The veterans have their own speakers -- speaker stands to watch this unveiling, and I'll show
you kind of a cool aerial photo.
Because the history beyond the dedication of the Meade Memorial is kind of neat.
So the one on the top is our -- kind of our same vantage that we had earlier.
This is 1936.
So here's Grant, and then in the box is Meade, 1936.
The bottom one's 1992, and look at how much that part of D.C.'s changed.
So now, we see Grant with his lions, and now that big old reflecting pool is put in.
And what you don't see now, because he'd be underwater, almost, is Meade.
So when D.C. becomes the urban sprawl with all the developments, all the roads, all the
more buildings that permeate the landscape, now George Meade's monument is an obstruction
to this kind of development.
So in the 1960s, the U.S. government takes the Meade Monument down, and they put in this
reflecting pool.
And they put -- I think it's I-395 that's going to kind of meander around this part
of D.C.
And they put George Meade in storage.
Oh.
And he sits in storage for about 15 years, and this is one of the -- like, research is
fun, and it takes you in weird places.
And one of the things I got to research on in D.C. -- this is -- so this is Park Service-controlled
monument now -- is I went to some of the Park Service sites and researched about the George
Meade Monument.
And the historian down there in D.C. says, "You know, I don't really know that much about
the George Meade Monument in D.C."
And it sat in storage for about 15 years, and I was reading through all this correspondence.
So this is the late '60s, into the '70s, and into the early '80s.
And they wrapped him up, and they put him -- literally, he sat outside wrapped up, and
he was vandalized.
And his nose was broken off, and his fingers were broken.
And then someone stole the gilded wreath that sits up at the top, and I read this -- some
correspondence that people didn't even know where he was for a while.
He seemed kind of lost, lost to history.
But in -- which isn't to say anything bad, of course, about the National Park Service
in the '70s and '80s [laughter].
Is that right, John Heiser [assumed spelling]?
[Laughter] So Meade's rededicated.
So he's found, and he's brought out of storage.
And he's rededicated October the 3rd, 1984, and now he sits in a new place.
This is the gilded wreath that was stolen, so this is recommissioned and cast again.
Now he sits a little bit further away from the -- from his original place.
This is a cool aerial.
So this is D.C. today.
Here's, of course, our Capitol Building.
Here's Grant.
Here's the big reflecting pool, and Meade now sits right here.
And the National Park Service is planning to clean him up this summer, because if you
go there now, you'll probably find a bunch of kids skateboarding around him.
And he's looking a little worn, but they have him slated in their maintenance upgrade this
summer.
So, what can we take away from kind of all of that?
I'll leave you with a quote from one of Meade's most beloved and faithful subordinates, James
Biddle.
So my big takeaway about Meade in memory is that Gettysburg shapes Meade's reputation.
And for all the controversy and criticism that comes out of what Meade should've, could've
done, after Meade's death, those voices are quieted.
And in the 1870s and beyond, through the 1920s, Meade sees a resurgence in popularity, and
he sees a grateful nation finally putting him in the place proper for preservation of
the Union.
His place in America's historical consciousness now seems a little murky, at least if y'all
run out to the store and buy that $75 piece of art -- seems a little murky.
But for, what, four decades after the war, George Gordon Meade's place in American national
memory and our Civil War consciousness is very, very much esteemed.
So indeed, I think Biddle is correct.
History, for that time period at least, has done him justice.
So I appreciate y'all's attendance.
This is terrific.
This is fun.
I hope you got a little insight to Meade in memory, and I think we have some time -- I
don't think they're kicking us right out at 2:30.
So I'll be happy to take any questions that you want, unless you want me to give some
deep meaning to that art sketch of Grafly's, because I'm probably not able to do that.
But anything else, I'll be happy to do.
So thank you all very much.
I appreciate your attendance.
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