Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument

The imposing Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument (1894), a Civil War memorial designed by Cleveland architect and Civil War officer Levi Scofield, occupies the entire southeast quadrant of Public Square. The monument base is a sandstone platform 100 feet square with a flight of curving steps situated at each corner. Larger-than-life bronze sculpture groups on the sides represent battle scenes of the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, and Navy. On top of the platform is a square stone building, known as the Memorial Tablet Room, within which the names of more than 9,000 county residents who participated in the Civil War are inscribed in wall-mounted marble panels. The interior is richly colored with tinted marble and stained glass windows and it includes four bronze reliefs depicting wartime events. The Tablet Room is surmounted by a granite shaft crowned with a fifteen-foot statue of Liberty, bringing the total structure height to 125 feet. Throughout the monument, classical motifs and ornamentation are reinterpreted and represented as military symbols. The bronze sculptures were cast in the New York studio of sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward.