Civil War memorial statue gone with the limb

The Union soldier who has been a silent sentinel over downtown Cape Girardeau for 92 years has fallen.

On Monday, a large branch from a nearby tree crushed the Civil War memorial fountain statue, which was erected on the Common Pleas Courthouse lawn in 1911.

A fingerless hand and broken uniform were among the shattered pieces of cast iron laying at the bottom of the fountain Monday morning. Only the soldier's boots remained firmly planted on the second tier of the fountain pedestal.

"This guy has been looking over Cape Girardeau for a long time now," said Joe Gambill, Cape Girardeau County commissioner. "It's a real shame."

The statue, which depicted a Union infantry soldier standing guard with his musket, was erected by the Women's Relief Corps, an auxiliary to a Civil War veterans group. It was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1911 -- 50 years after the start of the Civil War.

Last week, Cape Girardeau County building and grounds workers cleaned the memorial and replaced several valves on the water system in preparation for turning the fountain on this week.

"I'm just sick about it," said Don McQuay, building and grounds superintendent. "There's a lot of Civil War lore in this area. This statue was really important to the community."

Restored in 1982

This isn't the first time the soldier has suffered injuries, but it is certainly the most severe damage sustained in his nine decades of duty.

In 1971, the statue was vandalized and the soldier's musket was stolen. The gun was found and the statue repaired. By 1982, the memorial was in such in a state of disrepair that employees of the Cape Girardeau Fire Department took it upon themselves to restore the statue.

"We did a lot of work on it, spent a lot of time on it," said James Baker of Jackson, who retired from the fire department in 1984 and served as co-chairman of the restoration project. "I'm sorry to hear it's damaged again."

Baker said only a few months ago he had stopped to look at the statue and found it to be in good repair.

"Maybe, just maybe, there's a way for us to restore it again," Baker said.

County officials say they will look into restoring the memorial. Statues both identical and similar to the Cape Girardeau soldier are found throughout the United States, although the company that originally manufactured them, Fiske Ironworks of New York, is no longer in business.

cclark@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128