The 2024 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree will arrive Friday, 11/22. Lighting Ceremony 12/3. Details.
This statue depicts American general and president Ulysses S. Grant in the uniform of the Union army. On his shoulders are four stars denoting him as "General of the Army of the United States," a rank that he was the first to hold.
In Grant's statue, he looks slightly to his left with a serious expression. A cape is draped over his left forearm, and his left hand holds the grip and guard of a sheathed sword. His right arm, with gloved hand, hangs by his side. Over his trousers are knee-high boots, and his left foot comes to the front of the self base. The tree stump behind his right leg provides support for the statue.
On the front of the self base is inscribed "GEN. U. S. GRANT"; at the front of the proper right side is inscribed "FRANKLIN SIMMONS / FECIT 1899." The right and left sides of the pedestal are inscribed "PRESENTED BY / THE GRAND ARMY / OF THE REPUBLIC"; the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was an organization of Union Army veterans.
On the front of the pedestal, crossed bronze laurel and oak branches (symbolic of victory and strength, respectively) underlie a bronze relief plaque depicting the GAR badge in the form of a medal.
Sculptor Franklin Simmons, born in Maine in 1839, developed an early interest in painting and sculpture. After college he moved to Washington, D.C., where he sculpted relief portrait busts of cabinet members and military officers. In 1867, he moved with his wife to Rome and established a studio; except for occasional trips back to the United States, he remained there for the rest of his life. Working in the neoclassical style, he created statues and busts of figures from public life, mythology, and literature.
He was commissioned by the Grand Army of the Republic to sculpt a statue of General Grant to be given to the Congress, and legislation passed in 1890 authorized its acceptance. The first statue that Simmons created was not approved because it was not a good likeness; he sent a second version in 1899, and it was placed in the Rotunda in 1900.
His other works on Capitol Hill include Peace Monument on the Capitol Grounds; statues of William King (1878), Francis Harrison Pierpont (1910) and Roger Williams (1872) in the National Statuary Hall collection; and busts of Vice Presidents Charles W. Fairbanks, Hannibal Hamlin and Adlai E. Stevenson in the U.S. Senate collection. Simmons died in Rome in 1913.
