Focus on Washington Grays Monument and explain the History.
On October 21, 1871, a communication was received by the Trustees from Mr. Edwin N. Benson, an honorary member of the Corps, tendering "the sum of Two Thousand Dollars to defray the expenses of erecting a granite monument, in a proper place, to the memory of the gallant comrades who fell in the war for the Union," suggesting it be completed and dedicated on the occasion of the semi-centennial Anniversary of the Corps.The base of the monument was unveiled at the intersection of Broad Street and Girard Avenue, with impressive and appropriate ceremonies on Friday, April 19, 1872, at 3 o'clock P. M., and the day concluded with a banquet of which three hundred persons partook, at the Continental Hotel. The monument was subsequently removed from the place of its dedication to the centre of Washington Square.
At a meeting of the "Old Guard of the Artillery Corps, Washington Grays," held February 22, 1906, a committee consisting of the Trustees and Comrade Captain John O. Foering was appointed to procure and have erected upon the base of the monument in Washington Square a bronze figure of a "Washington Gray" in the old uniform. The Committee reported at the meeting of May 4, 1908, that they had attended to the duty assigned them, and defrayed the entire cost ($5000) out of the Treasury of the old Guard without assistance from any other source whatever, and that the figure had been made by John A. Wilson and had been uncovered without ceremony in the presence of the few surviving members of the old Guard at 7 o'clock on the morning of Saturday, April 18th, 1908.
John Oppell Foering described the monument:It is a figure of a gentleman become a soldier, one who has turned his back upon the charms and allurement of peaceful life, resolved to do, to dare, perchance to die for his country in obedience to the instinct of patriotism imbibed in the first moments of life, while he lay a helpless babe listening to the beating of his mother's heart. If the lesson it teaches be properly learned, love of country will be immortal, and untold generations will accept as truth, "greater love than this hath no man, that he giveth his life for his brother."In 1954 the monument was moved to Lemon Hill and remained unprotected for almost four decades. The unnamed Grays soldier suffered the neglect of an uninterested public.  Bored kids probably assaulted the statue with stones, knocking off his bayonet and plume. The monument was moved to its present location in 1991.
Washington Grays John A. Wilson Washington Square