IN HONOR OF MARYLAND’S DEAD.

Monument at Baltimore in Memory of Confederate Soldiers and Sailors.

BALTIMORE,

May 2.-This is the story told by F. Wellington Ruckstuhl, the sculptor, of how he came to design the monument unveiled here to-day which was erected through the efforts of the Maryland Daughters of Confederacy to commemorate the valor of the Maryland soldiers and sailors who fought under the banner of the Confederacy.

“One evening two years ago,” he says, at in the Metropolitan Opera House. ‘Tannhäuser’ was being played. I had been groping for days for a conception for a Confederate monument for Springfield, Mo., when suddenly I became oblivious to  ‘Tannhäuser’ , and I saw a typical Southern soldier, with worn shoes and his clothing torn by bullets, having thrown away all his military accoutrements, his coat and hat, and even rolled up his sleeves as if for a final desperate fight to the finish.

“He was looking sternly toward me with flashing eyes and quivering nostrils. Suddenly he placed his left hand over his heart as if to stifle the pain of a shot, while his right arm, which held a shattered gun, became rigid with an involuntary grasp, while his body straightened up.

“His face changed from an expression of pain and anger to one of a calm feeling of triumph even in defeat, and then to a pathetic expression, as if saying, ‘Forgive them, Father, they know not what do,’ he they began to sink. All rancor left his face, just one touch of sadness for his country remained.

“He was about to fall into the mire, when I saw a tall, powerful, splendid-winged ‘Victory’ swoop down from the sky, and, clasping him to her breast while holding aloft a crown, she said: ‘Hold, right or wrong, he fought a good fight. He followed the right an God let him see the right. Touch him no more, for he belongs to me.’

“I turned to the lady who attended the орега with me and said: ‘I have found it,’ and made the first pencil sketch then and there.

“The following morning I made a sketch in ink and then a rough model in plaster. This I offered to the committee having the selection of the Springfield monument, but while admitting that it was a beautiful idea they rejected it because they wanted a fighting soldier, not a dying one, for their monument.”

The design was subsequently accepted for the Baltimore monument. Mr. Ruckstuhl says:

“I had unconsciously realized in my group their profound desire, for without knowing that their motto was ‘Glory Stands Beside Our Grief, I had produced a group that realized exactly that motto. The committee, feeling that a gun did not represent all the forces of the Confederacy as much as a flag would, asked me to substitute a flag, which I did.”

The group, which is nearly 14 feet high and weighs 4½ tons, stands on a pedestal of Missouri red granite 8 feet high and polished, on a grassy mound 1½ feet high, designed by the architect, Charles R. Lamb of New York. The entire monument is about 23 feet high, to the top of the wings. The site is in the centre of Mount Royal avenue, between McMechen and Mosher streets, about one thousand feet from the entrance to Druid Hill Park.

On the pedestal are tho following іnsсгірtions:

Front:

GLORIA VICTIS
TO
THE
SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
OF MARYLAND
IN THE SERVICE OF THE
CONFEDERATE STATES
OF AMERICA, 1861-1865.

Back:

GLORY
STANDS BESIDE
OUR GRIEF.

ERECTED BY
MARYLAND DAUGHTERS
OF THE
CONFEDERACY
JANUARY, 1903.

On one side:

FATTI MASCHI
PAROLE FEMINE

On the opposite side:

DEO VINDICE