Antietam panorama: Massive Old Simon at national cemetery

                            Antietam National Cemetery, where Old Simon stands guard.
                    (CLICK ON IMAGE FOR FULL-SCREEN INTERACTIVE PANORAMA.)

Musket in hand,  the massive Private Soldier monument has stood watch over the graves of thousands of Civil War soldiers at Antietam National Cemetery since its formal dedication on Sept. 17, 1880, the 28th anniversary of the battle. I make the cemetery my first stop during each Antietam visit, first paying my respects at the Connecticut section and then walking 30 yards or so over to the monument locals dubbed "Old Simon" more than a century ago. 

Created by Hartford-based New England Granite Works, it was carved by a team of stone carvers in Westerly, R.I., and designed by German-born sculptor Carl Conrads, a Civil War veteran and probably the man shown behind the monument in the stereoview below. The entire granite monument is nearly 45 feet tall -- Old Simon himself towers nearly 21 feet -- and weighs 250 tons. When Old Simon was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, it caused somewhat of a sensation. One reviewer gushed:

Like the nation he defends, this colossus is in the bloom of youth, and like it he is hard and firm though alert. What art has succeeded in making this monster out of granite. He is twenty-one feet six inches in height. What sempster, working with needles of thrice-hardened steel, has draped him in those folds of adamant, that hang ten feet or farther from his inflexible loins? The sculptors of ancient Egypt, who had their colossi in granite also, worked for years with their bronze points and their corundum-dust to achieve their enormous figures, while the makers of this titanic image, availing themselves of the appliances of  American skill, have needed but a few months to change the shapeless mass of stone into an idea. Something rocky, rude and large-grained is obvious still in this stalwart American; his head, with its masculine chin and moustache of barbaric proportions, is rather like the Vatican " Dacian" than like the Vatican "Genius." But, whatever may be thought of the artistic delicacy of the model, Mr. Conrads' "Soldier" presents the image of a sentinel not to be trifled with, as he leans with both hands clasped around his gun-barrel, the cape of his overcoat thrown back to free his arm, and the sharp bayonet thrust into its sheath at his belt. Rabelais' hero, Pantagruel, whose opponents were giants in armor of granite, would have recoiled before our colossus of Antietam, because his heart is of granite too. 

Stereoview of Old Simon in Westerly, R.I., where it was created by a team of stone carvers.
(Robert N. Dennis collection/New York Public Library)
(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

An enlargement of the stereoview above shows the enormity of Old Simon.

A stereoview of the monument at Rhode Island Granite Works in Westerly, R.I., before it was completed.
(Robert N. Dennis collection/New York Public Library)

Old Simon at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876.
 (Robert N. Dennis collection/New York Public Library)