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Maryland Herald & Hagerstown Weekly Advertiser
Jan 19, 1872
Antietam Cemetery.
We learn from the Herald that the officers of last year were re-elected and that the Governor (which one is not stated) has re-appointed Judge Weisel [?] Trustee. There is a surplus of $15,000 in the Treasury and a soldiers monument has been contracted for, which is to cost $30,000, the pedestal 25 feet high, and the statue 20 feet and weighing 65 tons. It is to be built by J. G. Batterson of Connecticut and completed in two years.
The illustration is entitled 'National Cemetery, path to statue "At Rest", Antietam, MD.' dated 1893. Photograph courtesy of the Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
The colossal structure of granite standing in the center of the cemetery reaches skyward 44 feet, weighs 250 tons, and is made up of 27 pieces. The soldier, made of two pieces joined at the waist, depicts a Union infantryman standing "in place rest" facing homeward to the north. Designed by James G. Batterson of Hartford, CT, and sculpted by James Pollette of Westerly, RI, for a cost of over $32,000, the "Private Soldier" first stood at the gateway of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, PA, in 1876. It was disassembled again for the long journey to Sharpsburg. On September 17, 1880, the statue was finally in place where it was formally dedicated.