Admiral Farragut Monument

Admiral Farragut Monument. . , The Admiral David Glasgow Farragut Monument was installed and dedicated in Madison Square Park in 1881. During the Civil War, Admiral Farragut commanded the Union naval fleet in its defeat of Confederate forces at the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay, Alabama. While the admiral’s famous order “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” may have been apocryphal, the subject of myth-making, it has nonetheless endured to exemplify his courage., The Farragut Monument, one of New York City’s most acclaimed historic public works, was the collaboration of the Irish-born American Renaissance sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), who made the bronze statue of the admiral, and Beaux-Arts architect Stanford White (1853-1906), who collaborated on the pedestal in the form of a high-backed bluestone bench In its day the statue was distinguished by the admiral’s naturalistic presence, an innovation in an era when figurative sculpture was often formal and academic. Farragut appears to stand on a ship’s prow, the ocean gales blowing open the coat of his naval uniform, binoculars poised in one hand and a sword hanging at his side., The base with undulating lines suggesting the high seas includes bas-reliefs of two female figures, Loyalty and Courage. While Farragut is clothed and identified, the female symbols are unnamed, draped attributes in service to characteristics of his military prowess. Inscribed across one side of the monument’s base are significant dates in the admiral’s life. The bluestone bench deteriorated and was replaced in 1935 with a granite copy made by Public Works Administration artists. The original is preserved at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic park, the site of the artist’s summer home in Cornish, New Hampshire., Farragut (1801-1870) was born in Tennessee. His mother, Elizabeth Shine (d. 1808), immigrated from Scotland to North Carolina. His father, John Farragut Mesquide (1755-1817), was a merchant captain from the island of Menorca who immigrated to America in 1776 and served in the American Revolution and the War of 18 12. On his wife’s death, the elder Farragut placed his five children with separate families. Historians describe how young Farragut joined the Navy in 1810, when he was just nine years old, and served in the War of 18 12; be became the adopted son of David Porter of the U.S. Navy, a family friend., Farragut’s first wife was Susan Caroline Marchant (1805-1840). After her death, he married Virginia Dorcas Loyall (1824-1884). Their son, Loyall (1844-1916), was born in Norfolk, Virginia. Shortly before the Civil War, when the Commonwealth of Virginia announced that it would secede, the family moved to New York to side with the Union. Historians call Farragut a “Southern Unionist,” a description that has implicit contradictions. Notable biographies of Farragut were published in 1892, 1941-1943, and s00s, and a 1997 book documents his Civil War campaigns. These volumes highlight Farragut’s operational tactics rather than extensive discussion of the central issue of the Civil War; slavery. While his biographers have addressed neither Farragut’s opinions on nor his practice related to slavery, 1840 and 1850 census records from Norfolk, Virginia, respectively, indicate that Farragut and his wife’s family held enslaved Africans. The documents list the gender and age of these individuals but do not includes their names. While his position as a slaveholder will guide ongoing review of his place in history, Farragut’s efforts to overwhelm Confederate forces, which would ultimately achieve the abolition of slavery, many now be considered only one part of his legacy., madisonquarepark.org/@madsparknyc