GETTYSBURG, Pa. — For the past five years, a 6-foot-tall bronze soldier has loomed headless inside the maintenance facility at the Gettysburg battlefield.
Staff come in, flick on the lights, and he’s there. They leave in the evening — he’s still there, silently waiting.
The view from the office window is blocked by the 600-pound figure. It weighs on them daily. A constant reminder of the night in 2006 when vandals chained and toppled the 4th New York Artillery monument above Devil’s Den, tearing free and carrying off the head.
“It just amazes me that someone would have the guts, the audacity, to do something like that,” said Brian Griffin, who works in the office. “I can understand kids climbing up and tugging on a strap or a horse’s rein. But to literally drag it off the base and part way down the road — it’s just insane.”
It’s with no small amount of luck that a new head has been cast for the monument — a process that sent Griffin to a fountain in New Hampshire and a foundry in Montana.
Efforts to replace the head languished for years. It proved a challenging task, requiring an artist to sculpt a new head from old photographs. Even then, there would be no way to craft an exact match.
But news of the vandalism spread and the park got an unexpected tip. A second statue, cast from the same mold, stood as part of a fountain in a park in Manchester, N.H.
“That was about as lucky as you can imagine. The odds of that occurring, for any statue on the battlefield, is about nil,” Griffin explained. “Without that, I really don’t think the statue could have been restored.”
So, Griffin and staff spent three days, standing atop ladders in a drained fountain, to build a rubber mold of the head. He says it’s like painting liquid rubber on the head. The rubber dries, is gently peeled off, and encased in a hard plastic shell. Next, he traveled to Bozeman, Mont., where a foundry agreed to allow Griffin to oversee the casting process. It was critical the head matched exactly to secure a tight fit.
“I needed to have my hands in it as much as possible,” he explained.
From the rubber mold, a hollow shell was crafted out of a ceramic material that’s able to withstand molten bronze. Then, the metal is poured and cooled and when it comes out — it’s like Christmas morning, Griffin says.
The new head is gold in color. Chemicals will be applied to speed up the oxidation process. When finished, it will match the rich brown patina of the original artilleryman, crafted more than 130 years ago by artist Caspar Buberl.
The vandals had also torn free the cannon ramrod, which Griffin has reproduced through the same process. Together, repairs to the monument will cost about $20,000, according to park officials.
Earlier this month, park staff secured a new cannon ball atop the Knap’s Pennsylvania Battery on Culp’s Hill. The ball was stolen in October 2008 and replaced, one year later, for $3,000. But in July 2010, the monument was again vandalized, the ball found to be torn free.
Such incidents have prompted battlefield officials to increase security measures. Fifty volunteers have been added to the ranks of the Park Watch, which patrols the grounds day and night, sometimes in plain clothes. Officials said surveillance has increased as well, although they won’t give details about such efforts.
Before the increase in security, acts of vandalism often went unsolved. A $30,000 reward was established for information leading to the arrest of the vandals who tore the head from the 4th New York Artillery monument. But they were never caught.
Dismay over the vandalism has been replaced with excitement now that the monument is nearly complete.
“This was kind of a once-in a-lifetime opportunity to contribute to a project like this,” Griffin said. “This is the real meat-and-potatoes of restoration.”
Copyright 2011 The Frederick News-Post. All rights reserved.
