ISLAND No. 10

Sometimes when we memorialize a war, we highlight the battles. I did quite a bit of research for my first novel, In the Arms of the Enemy, a romance set during World War II. Though mainly focused on the European Theater of Operations – Monte Cassino, Anzio, Normandy, the Bulge – I am familiar with some battles in the Pacific as well, such as Midway, Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Having begun a second novel, set during the American Revolutionary War, I’m becoming conversant in Lexington and Concord, Saratoga, Cowpens and Yorktown.

In Manhattan at Riverside Drive and 89^th Street (about a block from where I live) is the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, commemorating those who sacrificed for the Union, at such fabled places as Fort Sumter, Shiloh and Gettysburg.

In January 1900, the laying of the first stone of the monument, an elegant, temple-like structure, was officiated by New York State Governor Theodore Roosevelt. A parade of Civil War veterans up Riverside Drive preceded the unveiling on Memorial Day 1902 (then called “Decoration Day”).

I frequently visit the Park and often begin my walk at 89^th and Riverside, the entrance closest to my home. The grandeur of scale, graceful white marble and classical simplicity of the monument never fails to attract my notice, though I’ve passed by it countless times. Commissioned in 1893 by the City of New York and the Memorial Committee of the Grand Army of the Republic, the structure evokes a Corinthian temple, and bears the noble inscription: "To the Memory of the Brave Soldiers and Sailors Who Saved the Union."

Two solemn plinths, rising like sentinels, frame the entrance to the plaza in front of the monument. These are inscribed with the names of the New York volunteer regiments, Union generals and the battles in which they staked life and limb.

As I pay due respect to the fallen heroes of my country, I try to imagine the scene some 121 years ago, when the monument was first unveiled. Bold and stalwart veterans, withered by battles decades past, march proudly up Riverside Drive. Lining the avenue assemble widows and orphans and mothers, cheering and waving small flags to commemorate those enshrined at this hallowed place. Now, I wonder as I pass, whether the children noisily playing, or embellishing the plaza with colored chalk, the nannies and dog walkers, the teenagers on skateboards, give any thought to the soldiers and sailors long gone, on either side of the conflict.

One plinth bears the name of Sherman, and most of the battles cited are familiar to me: Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Cold Harbor, Atlanta. The opposite plinth celebrates Grant, and lists such battles as Bull Run and Port Royal. The last battle inscribed on this plinth is one I do not recognize, and whose name seems almost out of place: Island No. 10. Relying on Wikipedia, I discover that this engagement at the Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi River lasted from February 28 to April 8, 1862. The Union causalities were relatively light, with 23 killed, 50 wounded and 5 missing, while some 7,000 Confederate troops surrendered and 30 were killed or wounded.

Perhaps one of those fifty, in his faded blue uniform, marched up Riverside Drive on Decoration Day in May of 1902. And perhaps the grieving widow or bereft mother of one of the twenty-three, from whom “Island No. 10” demands eternal reverence, wept and waved the stars and stripes that day.

Let us remember them.