The monument itself is one of the finest memorials in the world. It stands in the center of a broad plaza, reached by three flights of 34 steps each, 100 feet in width. The height from the bottom of the plaza to the top of the monument is nearly 200 feet. The top is accessible and is reached by an electric elevator. The monument is constructed of white granite from New York state, and the steps from granite quarried at Stonington, Penobscot Bay, Maine. The architects were McKim, Mead and White, and the work is said to have been the last of an extensive nature by the late Stanford White.
The funds for the erection of this noteworthy tribute were obtained through a government appropriation of half the amount, a state appropriation of $25,000, an appropriation by the city of twice that amount, and the rest through subscriptions from societies and historical and patriotic organizations. The Tammany Society contributed the final $1,000 to complete the required amount. This well-known organization was the very first to secure a proper recognition of the courage and patriotism of the prison ship martyrs more than one hundred years ago.
Among the heroes of the British prison-ships were many of Irish birth or extraction, and it is therefore a subject for pride and satisfaction to us as a race that their valor has at last been recognized, and especially that an organization largely controlled by our people has played so important a part in the accomplishment of such recognition. Never in the history of the world have prisoners of war been made the victims of such unexampled cruelties as those practised on the Americans by the British in the Revolution, and it is a striking and never-to-be-forgotten commentary on British methods toward their enemies in war that the record of the prison-ships of the Revolution is deemed by all the world a black mark on English history.
THE IRISH IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
Short Address Delivered by Master Karl Egan, at the Iowa Opera House, Emmetsburg, Iowa, March 17, 1909, During the Presentation of the Irish Drama, “The Hero of Wicklow,” under the Auspices of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Some Facts of Interest to the People of Irish Birth or Ancestry.
Ladies and Gentlemen: On this important anniversary, which is associated with so many achievements of interest to the people of our race, it is fitting to enquire what part the Irish took in the Revolutionary War. What did they do for the cause of human liberty at this most critical time in the world’s history? All we ask is the truth. For some reason our ordinary school histories have never given us any credit for the prominent part our ancestors took in that great struggle. What I shall say will bear the closest historical investigation.
It was Patrick Henry, who, by his soul-stirring speech, aroused the members of the Virginia Assembly to a sense of patriotic duty. In 1776 he ran for governor on the Independence ticket and carried that important colony for the Revolutionary cause. Still, he claimed that John Rutledge of South Carolina was the greatest American orator of his time. The latter was also elected president of South Carolina in 1776, on the same ticket. John Rutledge and Patrick Henry were both sons of Irishmen.
MR. WILLIAM J. FEELEY.
Of Providence, R. I.
One of the Committee in charge of the Sullivan Memorial and under whose guidance the Memorial was designed and executed.
During the Revolutionary War men of Irish birth or ancestry served as governors in South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They were among the most ardent and fearless of the patriots of that history-making period.