“Their good swords rust

And their steeds are dust

Their souls are with the saints, we trust,”

Inscription on Civil War Monument, N. Main Street,

Doylestown

Obelisk

was paid for

by soldiers

it commemorates

W. Lester Trauch

The obelisk in Monument Square in Doylestown is

one of the most unique Civil War monuments in the

Bucks-Mont.

It is unique because it was paid for by the soldiers it

commemorates.  It is unique because it has countywide

significance although it is in Doylestown Borough.  It is

unique because its inscription refers to the Civil War as

“the late war.”

A Doylestown historian and writer, Sara Maynard

Clark, did some research on the monument and wrote

this moving and stirring story.

“This is not a Doylestown monument but a county

emblem of high patriotism and self-sacrifice.  How many

people as they hurry by give a glance or a thought to the

battles (Yorktown, Fair Oaks, Fort Wagner, Richmond,

Williamsburg, Bottom Bridge, James Island,

Chickahominy, White Oak Swamp and the siege of

Charleston) inscribed on its sides?”  Mrs. Clark wrote.

Fair Oaks, immortalized by the William Trego pain-

ting in the Mercer Museum showing Sgt. Hiram Purcell

rescuing the colors, is where 300 of Bucks County’s

104th Regiment were killed or wounded.

“Seven Pines, Bottom Bridge, the swamps of

Chickahominy are where Southern soil was stained

with the blood of Bucks County men,” Mrs. Clark noted.

At James Island in Charleston Bay, a shell fragment

tore away most of the fingers on the right hand of Gen.

W.W.H. Davis, the outstanding Bucks patriot.

The 104th spent 18 weary months in the Carolinas and

it was there, during the siege of Morris Island that it

was learned that $2,000 had accumulated from the

savings of the regimental bakery.  It was customary to

divide such money among the soldiers, but they voted to

reserve $1,600 for a monument in Doylestown to com-

memorate for all time the deeds and sacrifices of their

regiment.

Additional money was raised, mostly dollar con-

tributions.  The two largest individual subscriptions

came from outsiders, $100 each from Gen. Henry M.

Naglee of California and J. Gillingham Fell of

Philadelphia.

Gen. Davis asked permission of Doylestown Cemetery

Co. to erect an obelisk on a central plot in the graveyard,

but since he received no reply, he assumed the plan was

not acceptable.  He procured the site in the heart of the

borough where W. Court and N. Main streets intersect.

The price of the memorial shaft was $2,500. It is white

American marble, sound and free from flaw or other

defect.  The inscriptions were cut and the date 1867

marked with the expectation of its being placed and

dedicated in the fall of that year. However, long spells of .

rainy weather delayed it until spring.

It happened that the obelisk was dedicated on the first

officially celebrated Memorial Day, May 30, 1868.  The

cannons placed at the four corners of the foundation

were the gift of the Hon. C.N. Taylor, Bucks County’s

representative in Congress, who got them from the U.S.

War Department.

Amid stirring martial music, flags, veterans

marching, several thousand persons saw the obelisk

deaf dedicated.

To the memory of the officers and men of the one hun-

dred and fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, who fell in the

late war.

Grayson S. (Sid) Stratton, 75, Doylestown, reads the

inscription on the Civil War obelisk in Monument

Square, Doylestown.  Stratton is one of the few sur-

viving direct descendants of a Civil War veteran in

the Bucks-Mont.  His father, Joseph Block Stratton

was a seaman on three Union ships in 1863 and

1864.