Major General Winfield Scott Hancock Statue

Winfield Scott Hancock was born on February 14, 1824 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Named after Winfield Scott, a U.S. Army officer who became a national hero during the War of 1812, he was one of two twin brothers. Hancock attended school in Norristown before securing an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1840. Four years later, he graduated from the military institute, finishing eighteenth in a class of twenty-five. Soon after, under the command of his namesake, Hancock served in the Mexican War, sustaining a leg wound during the Battle of Churubusco in August 1847. Following the conflict, he held several administrative posts in Minnesota and Missouri before being stationed at Fort Leavenworth during “Bleeding Kansas” and participating in a campaign against the Mormons in Utah. 

When the Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, Hancock was a quartermaster in southern California. A Democrat, but a strong Union man, he remained in the U.S. Army. After a brief stint as quartermaster for General Robert Anderson in Kentucky, Hancock received a promotion to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers in September 1861 and took command of a brigade in General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. The following spring, he saw action in the Peninsula campaign, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Williamsburg. After the engagement, McClellan spoke glowing of Hancock’s performance, earning the Montgomery County native the nickname, “Hancock the Superb.” Later that same year, Hancock participated in the bloody battles at Antietam and Fredericksburg, and received a promotion to the rank of major general of volunteers. Following the Battle of Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, he assumed command of the army of the Potomac’s II Corps. In early July of that year, Hancock commanded the Union center on Cemetery Ridge and successfully repulsed Pickett’s Charge on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg. During the fighting, he suffered a serious wound, which sidelined him for several months. In 1864, Hancock took part in General Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland campaign, seeing combat during the Battle of the Wilderness, the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, and the Battle of Cold Harbor. Near the end of that year, after being promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the regular army and still suffering from the effects of his injury at Gettysburg, he resigned his field command. 

Following the conflict, Hancock oversaw the trial and execution of the Lincoln assassination conspirators in the spring and summer of 1865. He then briefly commanded the Middle Military Department before receiving a promotion to the rank of major general in the regular army and becoming head of the Department of the Missouri. While in the latter position, Hancock led a failed mission to negotiate with the Cheyenne and Sioux, during which federal troops burned an abandoned Cheyenne village. In 1867, he took command of the Fifth Military District, composed of Louisiana and Texas. Hancock’s deference to civil authorities drew the ire of the Radical Republicans in Congress, who sought to use federal military power to enforce African American suffrage in the states of the former Confederacy. When Grant became President of the United States, Hancock was assigned to command the Department of the Dakotas. During his time in the post, federal cavalry massacred roughly 200 Piegan Blackfeet in Montana Territory in January 1870. Two years later, Hancock returned to the East Coast to head the Department of the Atlantic. In 1880, he secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States, but lost narrowly in the general election to Republican nominee James A. Garfield. Hancock died on February 9, 1886 at the age of sixty-one. His remains were interred in Norristown.

Three years after Hancock’s death, Congress approved the erection of a statue in his honor in the nation’s capital and appropriated $50,000 for its construction. Designed by sculptor Henry Jackson Ellicott, the bronze equestrian sculpture depicts the general in full military uniform sitting confidently upright on his horse. Peering at the horizon, he clutches the reigns with his left hand and a pair of binoculars with his right. The statue rests on a tall granite pedestal designed by architect Paul J. Pelz. Dedicated on May 12, 1896 by President Grover Cleveland, it is located in a small plaza near the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventh Street NW. 

History.com Editors. "Winfield Scott Hancock." History. A&E Television Networks. 21 August 2018. Web. 4 May 2021 <https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/winfield-scott-hancock>.

Jacob, Kathryn Allamong. Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

"Major General Winfield Scott Hancock Statue." historicsites.dcpreservation.org. DC Preservation League. Web. 4 May 2021 <https://historicsites.dcpreservation.org/items/show/274>.

Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964.

"Winfield Scott Hancock" battlefields.org. American Battlefield Trust. Web. 4 May 2021 <https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/winfield-scott-hancock>.

"Winfield Scott Hancock." Encyclopædia Britannica. Web. 4 May 2021 <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Winfield-Scott-Hancock>.