Grand Army Plaza

This sculpture by Henry Baerer (1837–1908) honors the distinguished Union Army general Gouverneur Kemble Warren (1830–1882). It is one of three Civil War monuments that grace this oval plaza and entryway to Prospect Park, which was first laid out in the 1860s and dedicated in 1926 to the Grand Army of the Republic (the Union Army in the Civil War).

General Warren was born in Cold Spring, in Putnam County, New York. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1850. Before the Civil War, he helped the Army Corps of Engineers survey areas west of Mississippi, oversaw rapids and canal improvements, and taught mathematics at West Point.

Warren was named Lieutenant Colonel of the Fifth Regiment in New York in 1861, and fought at Big Bethel, Virginia. Later, as Captain, he led the Yorktown siege of 1862, and was engaged in combat at Malvern Hill, Harrison’s Landing, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Centreville, and Fredericksburg. He was appointed Brigadier General in September 1862, and named Chief Topographical Engineer of the Army of the Potomac in 1863. At the famous battle of Gettysburg in 1863, he was wounded at Little Round Top, and a monument was later placed there to commemorate his valor.

Warren subsequently served as the chief engineer and the commanding officer at numerous battle sites, though his actions were questioned at Five Forks in Virginia. One account said Warren “made victory decisive there,” but General Philip Sheridan, feeling that Warren was negligent in his duties, relieved him of his station. Though a court of inquiry exonerated Warren of Sheridan’s charges 14 years after the war, Warren was said have been broken personally and ruined professionally. Warren remained in the armed services as a Lieutenant Colonel of Engineers until he died in Newport, Rhode Island on August 8, 1882.

This sculpture was commissioned in 1896 at a cost of $10,000 by the G.K. Warren Post, No. 286, G.A.R. and dedicated on July 4 of the same year. The bronze statue depicts Warren standing in full military garb, with field binoculars in hand. The artwork closely resembles Warren’s monument at Gettysburg, and the rough-hewn granite pedestal is taken from stone quarried at Little Round Top.

Sculptor Henry Baerer was born in Kirscheim, Germany, and came to the United States in 1854. He was especially well-known as a portrait sculptor, and contributed six sculptures to the parks of New York City, including statues of composer Ludwig van Beethoven in Prospect and Central Parks, and a bust of industrialist Conrad Poppenhusen (1818-1883) in College Point, Queens.

In 1938, the city monuments crew cleaned and repatined the sculpture and bronze tablet set within its base. Having since suffered more than 60 years of exposure to the elements, the sculpture was conserved in 2001.