Soldiers & Sailors Monument

The 24th was born at Campus Martius; at the request of the President, Governor Austin Blair called for six new regiments of volunteers on July 15, 1862. The next day, Detroit civic leaders held a rally in Campus Martius to recruit voluteers. Some in the crowd, mistaking the call for the imposition of a draft, began to protest, and the rally turned into a riot. Rally leaders, including the octagenerian Lewis Cass, (former governor, Secretary of War, and Indian fighter) were escorted into the nearby Russell House hotel under the protection of the Wayne County sheriff. The riot was seen as a black mark upon the patriotism of Detroit, Wayne County, and Michigan. To remedy this, the governor called for a special regiment of volunteers outside the six requested by Lincoln; potential enlistees were encouraged to "rescue the honor of Detroit." Another rally was held at Campus Martius, this time things went smoothly, and, after finishing their training in camp at Woodward and Eight Mile Road in late August, the 24th Michigan Infantry paraded through the city to the riverfront where they embarked on an Eastern-bound steamer.

Before the Civil War, Detroit was a hotbed of the populist, mercantile politics that fueled Northern opposition to Southern aristocrats and the plantation economy. The city's merchant class and newly prosperous immigrants saw the future of the United States patterned after their own recent successes which had been the product of freely-available land, protectionist trade/open immigration, and growth in transportation.

From a contemporary Detroiter's point of view, the South, with its slave-based economy and concentration of power in the hands of a few, threatened the foundations of his recently-realized dream. Further, the New England ancestry of most Detroiters made abolition a popular political cause.

Detroit wholesale merchant Zachariah Chandler was elected in 1857 to the U.S. Senate where he was regarded as the most radical of all Republicans, opposing compromise before the war, urging full military effort during the war, and taking vengeance on Southern leaders during Reconstruction. Upon the death of Abraham Lincoln, while the rest of the nation mourned, Chandler was privately pleased with the possibilities posed by Lincoln's assassination. "Had Mr. Lincoln's policy been carried out, we should have Jeff Davis, Toombs, etc. back in the Senate at the next session of Congress, but now their chances to stretch hemp are better.... So mote it be."

After the War, Detroit finally outgrew its identity as a frontier outpost. The city center moved 1/4 mile from the waterfront to the high ground formerly occupied by the colonial-era fortifications and military parade grounds. (Hence the name Campus Martius, Latin for "Grounds Military.") The new City Hall, begun before the war, opened on Campus Martius in 1871 on the west side of Woodward, and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, directly across the street, was formally dedicated a year later. These two were the anchors upon which Campus Martius and Detroit grew during the post-War period.

The Union victory (which came at the cost of 15,000 Michigan lives) was at least partly responsible for Detroit's growth. Detroit was a leading supplier of war materiel.

Further, the economic expansion of the West that followed the War came on Northern terms, which meant free settlers on small farms rather than slaves and planters on large plantations. It meant a large influx of immigrants to settle the vast expanses. Together, the increase in population and the economies of small farms created a tremendous demand for manufactured goods that Detroit was ideally suited to provide.

At the bottom of the granite monument roost four bronze eagles. On the next tier are four figures representing the miltary services: Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry, and Marine. Bronzed medallions of Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and Farragut are spaced between. And, just below the figure of Michigan are four allegorical figures representing Victory, Union, Emancipation, and History.

Today, Detroiters still glorify their heroes in civic artwork, but the themes are commercial, not allegorical. Their heroes are not patriots but professional athletes, and their media are not bronze and granite but high-tech paints and computer-controlled airbrushes. The 1993 mural on the building behind the Soldiers and Sailors Monument is of Barry Saunders, star running back for the Detroit Lions. The Swoosh� logo in the upper right-hand corner of the mural proclaims the patronage of shoe-giant Nike who paid for the artwork.

On the other side of Campus Martius, Detroit Piston Grant Hill promotes FILA shoes in a mock-military mural done in 1996.