In 1776, for the country’s first act of commemoration, the Continental Congress shipped Benjamin Franklin off to Paris with 300 pounds sterling for the proposed Gen. Richard Montgomery monument.
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Congress → ship → monument
Franklin hired Jean-Jacques Caffieri, and, under his chisel, the marble grew into an altar overflowing with Greco-Roman and Biblical symbols.
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marble → hire → symbols
The monument now decorates the facade of St. Paul’s Chapel, a short walk from the World Trade Center site.
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monument → decorate → site
Flowering amid the Revolutionary War, the Montgomery Memorial is an essential lesson in celebrating our own warriors, a lavish illustration of the personal sacrifice and transcendent accomplishment that define war.
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that → flower → war
Such high deeds command our honor, and honor itself depends upon their just retelling.
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honor → command → retelling
Gen. Montgomery had been a captain in the British army but later resigned, eventually joining the Revolutionary War to defend the rights of the colonies.
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Montgomery → resign → colonies
Montgomery died from cannon fire in Quebec in 1775 while leading a hopelessly small group of men in a snowstorm-drowned battle.
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Montgomery → die → battle
Completed in France, his memorial crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the melee of war, resting in limbo for eight years inside its boxes at the port of Edenton, North Carolina.
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memorial → complete → Edenton
Congressional delegate Charles DeWitt, of New York, proposed St. Paul’s Chapel as the monument’s final resting site: a matchbox-sized but stately Colonial church on an island of graveyard green.
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DeWitt → propose → green
Around 1788, the monument went up outside the church, at the base of its central window.
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monument → go → window
Pierre L’Enfant, later the city planner of Washington, D.C., designed the gold-and-white relief sculpture that conceals the dark outline seen from inside the chapel, a billowing baroque scene depicting the Shekinah glory of God and the Ten Commandments.
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that → design → God
A painted panel on the upper reverse side envisions the new nation as a dawning sun with 13 rays.
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panel → paint → rays
An inscription below the memorial outside the church, full of affinity for capitalization, explains that “This Monument is erected by the order of Congress 25th Jan. 1776 to transmit to Posterity a grateful remembrance of the patriotism conduct enterprise & perseverance of Major General Richard Montgomery.
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Monument → explain → Montgomery
Who after a series of successes amidst the most discouraging Difficulties Fell in the attack on QUEBEC. 31st Dec 1775.
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Who → fall → QUEBEC
Montgomery was patriotic, he fought relentlessly, and he was full of enterprise and persistence.
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he → fight → enterprise
“Enterprise” means “bold action.”
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Enterprise → mean → action
Like a Greek oration, the words set a glowing scene of the general’s good deeds and inner life, keeping with the commission by Congress.
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words → set → Congress
The monument, the commission expressed, was to display “veneration” for the fallen soldier and his “insuperable perseverance and contempt of danger and death.”
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commission → express → danger
Sacrifice and remarkable achievement, the sculpture’s two main themes, organize the design of the monument.
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Sacrifice → organize → monument
A funerary obelisk and a cut column crowned by an urn divide heaps of symbols: the first set of carvings is elegiac, representing a military death.
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set → crown → death
Here rests a cypress branch, the Roman symbol of respect for the dead, and a helmet, armor, and flags — a grouping of armor called a trophee d’armes.
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branch → rest → armor
A broken sword slid under the breastplate announces a hero’s life cut short.
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sword → slide → life
The urn, sword, and cypress speak almost as clearly as they might have in 1777: a warrior has given the greatest sacrifice, they intone, make no mistake.
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they → speak → mistake
If one side of the monument conveys that a warrior has died, the other shows what he fought and died for.
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he → convey → what
A soft liberty cap and pole, symbols of the Revolution, and a Herculean club, emerge from the bowing leaves of a palm.
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cap → emerge → palm
A stiff banner wraps the club in the phrase “libertas restituta,” an injunction translated as “restore liberty.”
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banner → wrap → liberty
Two mysterious objects tilt at the foot of the club: the shattered bar of an oxen yoke, the yoke of tyranny described in Isaiah 58:6, the tyranny of a despot.
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objects → tilt → despot
When Franklin commissioned the sculpture in 1777, American victory was still in the offing, six years distant, a hope appearing blue and phantasmagorical to the imaginations of the fighting rebels.
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victory → commission → rebels
Still, the symbols of the monument crystallize the causes of the rebellion, explaining Montgomery’s role and motivation, and the inscription below the memorial recalls his personal achievements — a string of victorious battles.
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inscription → crystallize → battles
Notably, every carefully chosen detail of the Montgomery Monument alludes to one or both of its twin main themes.
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detail → choose → themes
Inseparable complementary aspects frame war: unfathomable sacrifice and superlative achievement.
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aspects → frame → war
It is these that command our honor and justify our commemoration.
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that → command → commemoration
Because the memorial is located in the city just steps away from another story of sacrifice, its values shine brightly.
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values → locate → sacrifice
Sacrifice and heroic deeds seem relevant, relatable.
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Sacrifice → seem → ?
In our contemporary memorials, however, we have forgotten the importance of such themes.
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we → forget → themes
For decades, monument architects have minimized representations of suffering and obfuscated accomplishment.
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architects → minimize → accomplishment
Consumed by political correctness, memorials have become vague and noncommittal, both elaborate and evasive, formless and empty.
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memorials → consume → correctness
The 2020 Washington, D.C., Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial begins, unaccountably, at boyhood in Abilene, Kansas.
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Memorial → begin → Abilene
The general’s greatest achievement, that of unimaginable victory, is played down, overshadowed by the three-part biographical narrative telling “the quintessential American story.”
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achievement → play → story
Victory palms and Nike alighting on a warship are only to be dreamt of.
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palms → alight → warship
…and 13 more, not listed.
The Aporia
