WAR CORRESPONDENTS MEMORIAL ARCH

Civil War journalist and novelist George Alfred Townsend, who wrote under the pen name “Gath,” acquired land on South Mountain in 1884 to create a retreat. Parts of the September 1862 Battle of South Mountain, the first major Civil War clash in Maryland, were fought on this property. One of the most unusual constructions Townsend built on his estate over the next decade was a fifty-foot-high memorial arch dedicated to war correspondents killed in combat. The polychrome materials, horseshoe arch, and crenellations across the top suggest popular interpretations of medieval architecture. The lively, asymmetrical composition includes a fifty-five-foot-tall tower with a large niche containing a zinc sculpture of Mercury, the messenger god. Two tablets on the back of the arch list the names of 157 journalists and artists, both northern and southern, collected by Townsend. The property was acquired by the State of Maryland to be Gathland State Park in 1949, and two surviving Townsend buildings have been restored. The War Correspondents Memorial Arch had been transferred to the War Department in 1904 and is administered by Antietam National Battlefield.