A bronze bas relief panel on the base of the Fitz John Porter monument in Portsmouth shows Gen. Porter in a runaway reconnaissance balloon over the Confederate lines in Yorktown, Virginia, on April 11, 1862.
A bronze bas relief panel on the base of the Fitz John Porter monument in Portsmouth shows Gen. Porter in a runaway reconnaissance balloon over the Confederate lines in Yorktown, Virginia, on April 11, 1862.
Prior to Civil War Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter’s death on May 21, 1901, a series of events paved the way for the erection of an equestrian statue to honor him in the city of his birth, Portsmouth, N.H. A $30,000 bequest for the project was provided by the estate of Porter’s second cousin, Robert H. Eddy. These funds became available in October 1900, and in January 1901, Portsmouth’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen and the city’s Common Council voted to accept the donation.
Portsmouth’s mayor, Edward E. McIntire, had received two letters from Porter, dated Jan. 12 and March 15, 1901, which are now held in a collection of related materials at the Portsmouth Athenaeum. In them, Porter urged McIntire to contact the sculptor James E. Kelly in New York City. In the second letter Porter expressed, “… I have for many weeks been inflicted with serious illness …” and “… my life cannot be very long.” He mentioned that Kelly “… has prepared a small statuette of the monument … which is very satisfactory to all members of my family and many friends who have seen it.”
The city’s elected officials did little about the project in 1901, which frustrated the Porter family. Finally, on April 10, 1902, the two branches of the Portsmouth city government passed a joint resolution to establish a committee to erect the statue.
At the committee’s first meeting on April 21, 1902, James R. Stanwood was chosen as secretary. He would be responsible for communications between the committee and Fitz John Porter’s widow Harriet and her son, Holbrook Fitz John Porter, who would be the family’s spokesperson. Stanwood was an expert on Portsmouth’s history, a noted genealogist, and a writer. Although he was not a Civil War veteran, he was active in the local branch of the Union Veterans Union, earning the honorary rank of colonel.
The committee quickly approved Kelly’s design, and then requested that he submit his proposal in writing. This document was sent to Portsmouth on June 4 with the expectation that it would be approved. However, the next day Portsmouth’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted to require the committee to choose the sculptor through a competition.
On June 7, Holbrook Porter wrote to Mayor John Pender in support of Kelly. He sent a second letter on June 12 that included details of how the idea for the statue had evolved, and pointed out the close relationship that had existed between his father and Kelly. He wrote, “… my father gave Mr. Kelly sittings, from which a model was made and this was completed in time to receive my father’s approval before his death. Sketches were also made by Mr. Kelly of war scenes which were accurately described to him by my father, from which bas reliefs were to be made to embellish the sides of the pedestal …”
Holbrook Porter explained, “I have always felt as if this was more or less of a family affair, as the statue is a gift to your city from my father’s cousin and as its details had been arranged so fully by my father in conformity with the wishes of the donor. I do not know of any one, except Mr. Kelly, who is equipped to fill this commission in accordance with the original conception of the design, nor is there any sculptor that I know of who knew father at all or is possessed of any knowledge of his character sufficiently adequate to depict him in a statue as he was forty years ago.”
In the end, Pender supported the committee’s decision. In a contentious discussion about the sculptor competition at a Portsmouth government meeting on June 19 Pender said, “If I may be allowed to speak, there is but one way for the work on the statue to be done … and that is by endorsing the action of the committee … the committee was honest in its intentions and went about everything fair and above board.”
Ultimately, the competition for sculptors failed to materialize. At a special meeting of the city government on Aug. 12, 1902, the committee was authorized to execute the necessary contracts, and a memorandum of agreement between the City of Portsmouth and James E. Kelly was later signed.
Next week: Controversy over the site for the Fitz John Porter monument, and an act of vandalism disrupts the peace.
