General Winfield Scott Monument

Winfield Scott was born into an affluent family on June 13, 1786 near Petersburg, Virginia. His father, the son of a Scottish immigrant, was a planter and veteran of the American Revolution. Initially, Scott pursued a career in law. He attended the College of William and Mary and then became an apprentice to a Petersburg lawyer. 

In 1808, however, his career trajectory changed drastically when he secured a commission as a captain in the U.S. Light Artillery. When the War of 1812 broke out between the United States and Great Britain, Scott received a promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel and made his way to the Niagara frontier. British forces captured him at the Battle of Queenston Heights, and he remained a prisoner of war until a prisoner exchange brought about his release in 1813. Soon after, Scott returned to duty and received a promotion to the rank of colonel. That May, he aided in the capture of Fort George on Lake Ontario, during which was wounded. In March 1814, at the age of twenty-seven, Scott received a promotion to the rank of brigadier general. During this time, his troops nicknamed him “Old Fuss and Feathers” for his strong emphasis on appearance and discipline. A handful of months later, Scott led his brigade in the Battles of Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane. During the latter engagement, he suffered a serious wound, which sidelined him for the remainder of the war. For his conduct at Lundy’s Lane, Scott was breveted major general. 

After the conflict, Scott remained in the U.S. Army. In subsequent decades, he helped standardize drill regulations and oversaw the removal of the Cherokee from the American Southeast and forced relocation to lands west of the Mississippi River. In 1841, he became commanding general of the U.S. Army (a position sometimes referred to as general-in-chief of the U.S. Army) and received a promotion to the rank of major general. During the Mexican War, Scott led an amphibious invasion of Mexico, capturing the fortified city of Veracruz in March 1847. In September of that year, following an inland advance and a string of military victories, he took Mexico City, effectively ending the war. For his service, Scott was breveted lieutenant general. Five years after his capture of Mexico City, he secured the Whig Party’s nomination for President of the United States, but lost in the general election to Democratic candidate Franklin Pierce. 

When the Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, Scott was seventy-four years old, in poor health, and still commanding general of the U.S. Army. Early on, he proposed a military strategy that would strangle the Confederacy and force it into submission by imposing a naval blockade and seizing control of the Mississippi River. Known as the Anaconda Plan, it faced strong criticism from lawmakers and others who wanted to capture Richmond and end the war quickly. Scott, on the other hand, believed that the conflict would be difficult and protracted. In the end, his predicted proved correct and many features of his strategy were adopted. In November 1861, Scott resigned from the U.S. Army. He died on May 29, 1866 at West Point at the age of seventy-nine. 

In the wake of Scott’s death, military veterans and others called for the erection of a monument in Washington, D.C. in his honor. On March 2, 1867, Congress authorized an equestrian statue and appropriated $35,000 for its construction. Designed by sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, the bronze sculpture depicts Scott, dressed in full military uniform, sitting atop his horse. Looking into the distance, he holds the reins in his left hand, while his right rests on his hip and clutches a pair of binoculars. Upon seeing Brown’s model of the statue, which depicted the general riding a mare, Scott’s family protested, asserting that he should be portrayed on a stallion like other equestrian statues of American military heroes. Since Scott preferred to ride a mare, Brown made only a few changes to his model, the most noticeable being his addition of a stallion’s genitalia to the mare. The statue rests on a tall pedestal formed from one solid piece of granite. Installed without a formal ceremony in the newly named Scott Circle in 1874, it was the first of nearly twenty monuments to Civil War generals erected in Washington, D.C. 

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