That Lee-Jackson Statue’s Status Remains At-Quo

This is a story about time, because it is about time.

Eighty-three years ago last week Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson parted on the eve of Chancellorsville after conferring on strategy for one of the most important battles of the Civil War.

Sixty-five years after the battle, which was won by the South at the cost of Jackson’s life, J. Henry Ferguson, Baltimore banker and sportsman, died and left $100,000 for the erection of a heroic bronze statue depicting the parting of the two famous generals he greatly ad-mired. That was in 1928.

Money Becomes Available

Six years later, in 1934, the money became available under the terms of Mr. Ferguson’s will-upon the death of his sister.

In the following year, 1935, sculptors of national prominence were invited to submit designs for such a statue to be erected on the southeast corner of Wyman Park drive and Art Museum drive. Six competed.

In June of 1936 the commission was awarded to Laura Garden Fraser. At the same time it was announced that the work would be completed in two years. It wasn’t.

Enthused Baltimoreans waited patiently.

Pedestal Completed

In 1939 the foundation-pedestal arrangement for the monument was completed at a cost of $50,000. Baltimoreans were impressed. They were anxious to see the completed work. It was reported in April that year that it would be erected “with. in twelve months.” It wasn’t.

Interviewed in her Connecticut studio by a Sunpapers reporter in the Summer of 1939, Mrs. Fraser figured the work would be completed early in 1941. Disappointed Baltimoreans settled back for the wait. During 1940 not one single line about the statue appeared in the Sunpapers.

More time passed.

Always To Be Empty?

Baltimoreans began to wonder if the empty pedestal standing diagonally across from the Museum of Art would always be that way.

Hopes were revived and interest intensified again, however, with a report from the authorities that it would surely be ready by “late spring or early summer of 1942.” Mrs. Fraser was making the final refinements on the full-sized clay models at the time.

It was not to be.

Wartime Halt

Italian clay became difficult to obtain and the defense program made metals hard to get. On the foundation is an inscription that Mr. Ferguson requested. It reads: “They were great generals and Christian soldiers, and waged war like gentlemen.”

Times had changed. More time passed.

Another war has come and gone. Baltimoreans want their statue. Many have forgotten or lost interest. but recently-as life begins to become more settled again-The Evening Sun has begun to get inquiries on the status of the statue.

The answer is quo.’

Ready To Be Cast, But—

It was learned today that all the preliminary work has been completed. The statue has been cast in plaster. All that remains to be done is to have it east in bronze. But it was also learned that the final phase of the operations is “impossible at the present time, and probably will be for another year at least.”

R.E. Taylor, president of the Municipal Art Society which is charged with carrying out the terms of Mr. Ferguson’s bequest to the city, added that he could think of “nothing more impossible” at the present time. He said that the bronze-casting industry is entirely disorganized and has not been reconverted to peacetime production.

He remarked further that when the industry finally gets back to normal it will concentrate on smaller items of more importance than huge bronze equestrian statues.

For eighteen years now, Baltimoreans have been looking forward to the erection of a statue of the two famous generals. It looks as though more time will pass before they see it.

To refresh the memory of the scores of Baltimoreans who have forgotten what the statue is to look like, here is a description of it:

The figures will be 13 feet from the top of the base to the tops of…