Designer: Unknown
Location: Above Hillside Avenue, between Ocean Avenue and Aurora Path
Saved in Time: 2003
General Slocum is perhaps the best known and most highly regarded Civil War general of the Union buried in Green-Wood. He was educated at West Point and served in the Seminole War, but resigned from the Army and went on to practice law in New York State. When the Civil War began, Slocum was appointed Colonel of the 27th New York Infantry which fought at First Bull Run. The battle was a defeat for the Union and Slocum was badly wounded.
Slocum was subsequently promoted, achieving the rank of Major General, and served with distinction at Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Transferred to the west, he was to command the District of Vicksburg, and marched with General Sherman across Georgia to Atlanta. He returned to Brooklyn after the war to practice law. He became an important official in civic affairs and was elected to Congress three times.
A dramatic bronze equestrian statue of General Slocum, erected in 1905, by noted sculptor Frederick MacMonnies stands near the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza. The scale and prominence of the monument is indicative of Slocum’s stature in the Borough of Brooklyn. Slocum died in Brooklyn in 1894. It is fitting that he found his final resting place in Green-Wood.
Another public monument, located in Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan, relates to Henry Warner Slocum. It commemorates the tragic fire aboard the excursion steamboat GENERAL SLOCUM which took the lives of 1021 persons off North Brother Island beyond Hellgate. It remains among the most calamitous maritime disasters ever. Many of its victims also rest at Green-Wood.
The Slocum memorial is in the form of an obelisk on pedestal. It consists of dark gray granite stones starting from grade with a rock-faced plinth, a base inscribed in large raised block letters SLOCUM having polished faces, a polished die inscribed on the front face with dedications to the general and his wife Clara, an intermediate supporting base, and the obelisk.
The large hillside family plot is approached from Hillside Avenue by a set of granite steps and platform flanked by newel posts. The newel posts are margined and rocked with pyramidal tops, the proper right newel bears raised polished block letters SLOCUM, the proper left bears the plot number 28760-1. Three small granite markers for family members also occupy the plot.
The monument is in whole and sound condition, requiring only the cutting out and replacement of the jointing, particularly the plinth to base and base to die joints; cleaning out and composite filling of original drill holes on the front of the rock faced plinth; and complete repointing of the approach steps and newel.