BROTHERS IN ARMS: CIVIL WAR SOLDIER HAS TWINS

Next time you're in Chambersburg, Pa., don't be surprised if you run into an old friend in the town square.

The Pennsylvania city's Civil War memorial and fountain bear a striking resemblance to the fountain and memorial in Cape Girardeau's Courthouse Park on Lorimier Street.

In fact, they're almost twins.

The soldiers are nearly identical, except for minor details like the angles at which the rifles are held.

In Chambersburg, the soldier is stationed squarely in front of a five-basin fountain of the same design as the fountain in Courthouse Park.

And of course, Cape Girardeau's soldier is perched proudly atop the three-tier fountain.

"We think ours is identical to yours," said Raymond Depuy, who headed up the 1994 restoration of the Chambersburg memorial. "We came very close to having the same vertical monument that you have, but we decided on a different design."

Chambersburg's monument was dedicated in 1878; Cape Girardeau's Women's Relief Corps for the Grand Republic Army dedicated the memorial here in 1911.

"You can tell he's the same guy," Depuy said. "The belts are different, and ours has real uniform buttons. But he's got the same creases in his clothes and the same face and everything else."

Ironton, Mo., has both communities beat. Its Civil War soldier -- sans fountain, but nearly identical to the soldiers in Chambersburg and Cape Girardeau -- was dedicated in 1868 to mark the spot where Gen. Ulysses S. Grant got his commission to lead Union troops.

"It's not quite the same," said Ironton Mayor Jack Mayes, who oversaw the restoration of his city's soldier in 1989. "I went down there and looked at yours a couple of times. He's very similar, though."

All three communities have strong Civil War ties. Cape Girardeau was Grant's headquarters. The general frequently visited Ironton and nearby Pilot Knob, which were both battle sites, and Union and Confederate troops pushed back and forth through Chambersburg throughout the war.

"Our town was burned by the Confederates in 1864," Depuy said. The Confederates torched the heart of the city and left about 2,000 people homeless in retaliation for the Union's brutal campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.

The J.W. Fiske Co. of New York manufactured all three soldiers, and the fountains at Chambersburg and Cape Girardeau.

The statues and the Victorian-style fountains were popular items, and could apparently be mixed and matched to suit customers.

The old soldier hasn't faded away yet, said Mayes, a Civil War scholar. In fact, he's stationed all over the place.

"I've seen several of those statues at the different battlefields I've visited," he said.

The commemorative booklet outlining the restoration of Chambersburg's soldier mentions another nugget of information. The coat on the Cape Girardeau and Chambersburg soldiers, along with a soldier statue in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., are all buttoned the wrong way: right over left, not left over right.

"He's an off-the-shelf item," Depuy said.

Over the years, the soldiers have suffered a variety of indignities at the hands of time and vandals. At different times, vandals have stolen the rifles from all three soldiers.

At one point, the Cape Girardeau soldier's uniform was painted Confederate gray, not Union blue, by a man who offered to do the job at no cost. When the Women's Relief Corps realized the error, the ladies quickly ordered the statue repainted.

History doesn't record whether the painter bought the paint on sale, was a secret Southern sympathizer or decided to salute the soldier at a local tavern before getting to work.

The fountains haven't always had it easy either. Through the years, plumbing problems and water costs have caused city and county officials to shut off the water to the Courthouse Park fountain. And at various times, flowers were planted in the basins of the fountain.

And Chambersburg's fountain, right smack in the middle of the town square, keeps getting hit by cars, Depuy said.

"They don't hit the soldier, though," he said.

Judith Crow, a long-time Cape Girardeau journalist and historian, researched the monument for several years.

"There's several versions of the statue," she said. "I've found several pictures of other statues like ours."

Crow held the soldier's hand -- literally -- when the statue underwent a major restoration in 1982.

"As I touched it, it almost seem to warm in my hand and it almost seemed to move," she said.

Crow said she found herself wondering who the model for the statue had been, "and whether he was paid to fight or he was told to by his unit or he did it because he wanted to or he believed he was helping his nation."

She also wonders about how the statue is positioned.

"The interesting thing is he's looking west. He's not looking east," she said. "That struck me as being interesting because most of the fighting was to east of us."

Crow was particularly struck by the detailing of the sculpture. The soldier's fingernails are ragged, as they would be on a man long in combat, and his hand is calloused from hard work. She even noticed a fingerprint detail on the thumb.

She says the statue is standing guard over the city.

"I can imagine him standing there all these years, watching over my house," Crow said. "It doesn't matter whether he was a Rebel or a Yankee."

Cape Girardeau, Ironton and Chambersburg, Pa., all share the stoic Civil War sentry, a fine example of a Federal trooper. The three cities' soldiers were all cast by the J.W. Fiske Co. of New York, which apparently turned out the soldier by the dozen.

Cape Girardeau's Soldier:

Dedicated on Decoration Day, 1911 by Gov. Herbert S. Hadley

Members of the Women's Relief Corps of the Grand Army of the Republic and other interested citizens raised funds for the fountain/memorial as a tribute to Union troops.

Several restoration efforts have been made over the years. At one point, the Union soldier's uniform was painted Confederate gray, which may have given Southern sympathizers a good chuckle. The uniform was quickly restored to its proper blue.

In 1971, vandals pried the rifle from the soldier's grip. It was repaired and restored.

Cape Girardeau firefighters regularly clean and generally spruce up the fountain/monument.

Chambersburg's Soldier

Erected July 17, 1878, thanks to fund-raising efforts by the Ladies and Soldiers Monumental Association, which was formed in 1869. In fact, the Monumental Association originally opted for the same design now in place in Cape Girardeau, with the soldier stationed atop a spraying fountain. But that was too expensive.

Most recently restored in 1994, the soldier was found to have genuine brass buttons produced for Federal uniforms, not sculpted pieces.

Like the soldiers in Cape Girardeau and Martha's Vineyard, Mass., the Chambersburg soldier's coat buttons the wrong way: right over left. The sculptor may have worked from a reverse photograph.

Ironton's Soldier

Dedicated in 1886 to mark the spot where Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was commissioned. Veterans of Grant's 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry regiment raised funds for the monument.

The statue was shattered by a storm-felled tree limb in 1982. Ironton Mayor Jack Mayes kept the remnants in his service station until they could be repaired and re-erected in 1989.