Dedicated: Oct. 6, 1914.
Location: East side of Reynolds Avenue.
Description: A standing portrait of General Wadsworth holding a sword in his proper left hand and extending his proper right hand out in front of him. The sculpture rests atop a cylindrical base that is encircled by a bronze inscription plaque. The left side of the plaque is adorned with the New York state seal and the right side is adorned with the badge of the 1st Corps. The monument is located on the First Day’s Battlefield, near the center of the line held by Wadsworth’s Division during the opening engagement. The base was designed by Edward Pearce Casey and was fabricated by the National Granite Company. The base is made of dark Barre granite. Overall height is 19.2 feet.
National Park Service List of Classified Monuments Number: MN24.
Sculptor: Perry, Roland Hinton, 1870-1941, sculptor.
About Major General James Samuel Wadsworth
Born on October 30, 1807 in Livingston County, New York, where his father was a wealthy landowner, Wadsworth was groomed to take over the family fortune. In the 1860 presidential election, he was a presidential elector for Abraham Lincoln.
Wadsworth volunteered and served as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General McDowell at First Blue Run. Wadsworth was appointed commander of the 1st Division, I Corps on December 27, 1862. His division served honorably at Gettysburg, although it was destroyed by superior numbers.
In the subsequent reorganization of the Army of the Potomac, Wadsworth was chosen to command the new Fourth Division of the Fifth Corps. At age 56, he was the oldest division commander in the Army of the Potomac. Wadsworth was mortally wounded on May 6, 1864 in the Wilderness, shot in the back of his head. He fell into Confederate hands where he died two days later in a field hospital. He was buried in Temple Hill Cemetery in New York.