Brig. Gen. Alexander Webb Monument

Dedicated: Oct. 12, 1915.

Location: Located on the east side of Hancock Avenue opposite to the Angle.

Description: A standing portrait of General Webb with his proper left hand resting at his hip and his proper right hand holding a sword. The sculpture is installed atop a square base adorned on the front with an inscription plaque that details the general’s accomplishments. Statue is a bronze figure of Webb in full uniform atop a three-part granite shaft that rests on a 12×11.3 1/2 foot stepped base. The shaft has a bronze tablet on the front and a medallion on the rear with trefoil Corps symbols on the sides.

National Park Service List of Classified Monuments Number: MN224.

Sculptor: Rhind, John Massey, 1860-1936, sculptor.



About Brevet Major General Alexander Stewart Webb

General Alexander Webb was born in New York City on February 15, 1835 and attended West Point, graduating in 1855. He was assigned to the artillery and later served as a mathematics instructor there.

Webb served in staff positions until given a field command by General Meade at Chancellorsville. He was given command of the “Philadelphia Brigade” by General Gibbon and famously defended the clump of trees, earning the Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg. Promoted to division command, he was badly wounded by a bullet to the face at Spotsylvania. He returned to serve as chief of staff of the Army of the Potomac from January 1865 until the end of the War.

After the Civil War, Webb served again as a professor at West Point, eventually retiring from the army. From 1869 to 1902, General Webb served as the second president of the City College of New York; there is a statue there similar to his monument at Gettysburg. Webb died in Riverdale, New York on February 12, 1911 and like many Gettysburg luminaries on the Union side, he was buried at West Point.