Stephenson Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, Civil War monument in Penn Quarter, United States.
The Stephenson Grand Army of the Republic Memorial is a granite and bronze obelisk standing in Penn Quarter, Washington, D.C. It rises at the triangular intersection where 7th Street, Indiana Avenue, and Pennsylvania Avenue NW meet, with each of its three faces carrying a sculpted bronze relief.
President William Howard Taft dedicated this memorial in 1909 to Benjamin Stephenson, who founded the Grand Army of the Republic after the Civil War. Stephenson's organization was the first of its kind in the country, bringing together Union veterans under a shared structure.
The memorial's three sculpted sides each show a different figure: a soldier and sailor together, a warrior alone, and a woman holding a child. Each figure stands for one of the founding values of the veterans organization the memorial honors.
The memorial stands at a busy street intersection and can be seen and approached from several directions without any detour. It sits close to other historic sites in Penn Quarter, so it fits naturally into a walk through the area.
The bronze reliefs were made by J. Massey Rhind, a Scottish sculptor who also worked on several other monuments across Washington, D.C. His name is carved into the memorial itself, which is not always the case with public sculptures of this kind.
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