American Volunteer (1876). Granite. 250. The American Volunteer; also known as The American Soldier; is a colossal granite statue that crowns the U.S. Soldier Monument and forms the centerpiece of Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, Maryland. The monument is also known as the Private Soldier Monument. The monument was designed by sculptor Carl Conrads and architect George Keller of the New England Granite Works of Hartford, Connecticut. The statue, described as the largest work of its kind in the country, was prominently exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was transported to Sharpsburg, installed atop the monument, and dedicated at the National Cemetery in 1880. The total cost of the monument was over US$32,000. The statue's nickname is Old Simon. The monument's cornerstone was laid on September 17, 1867 – the fifth anniversary of the battle; as part of the dedication ceremonies for Antietam National Cemetery. President Andrew Johnson, the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, and members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives were in attendance, along with other dignitaries including General Grant, General McClellan, General Burnside, and Admiral Porter. The night before, the Antietam National Cemetery Board approved the monument's design; a colossal U.S. soldier in overcoat, half-cape and kepi holding his rifle and standing at parade rest. No record has come to hand of the design-selection process for Antietam. Whether the committee first stated what it wanted, and Batterson complied, or whether the architect, George Keller, and sculptor, Carl Conrads, of the Batterson firm originated a proposal is not known. Granite for the statue was quarried at a subsidiary of the New England Granite Works; the Rhode Island Granite Works at Westerly, Rhode Island, where the statue was also carved. A team of stonecarvers, headed by James W. Pollette, completed the statue. The statue was created in two pieces, the soldier's belt hides the joint. A tree stump at the back of the figure adds stability. The pose of the statue was unusual for its time. Rather than the formal pose of a soldier standing at attention, Conrads had his figure stand in the informal pose of parade rest. Sculptor Martin Milmore had posed a soldier at parade rest for his Roxbury Soldiers' Monument at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts, but there the soldier looks down in grief or introspection. Conrads's soldier is alert, and actively surveying the horizon. With the instantaneous popularity of The American Volunteer, the parade rest pose soon became common for Civil War monuments. Conrads seems to have used the Antietam statue's model for the soldier figure atop the Portland, Connecticut Soldiers' Monument. The Portland soldier stands in the same pose. Conrads's 7-foot soldier atop the Meriden, Connecticut Soldiers' Monument, also appears to be based on the Antietam model. According to a newspaper article at the time of its dedication, his statue atop the Wolcottville Soldier's Monument was based on the Antietam model. Batterson allowed O. Langworthy & Company to photograph the colossal statue at the Rhode Island Granite Works prior to its departure by ship for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This may have been intended to generate publicity before its formal debut at the Centennial Exposition in May 1876. The statue probably arrived at the Centennial fairgrounds by railroad from the Schuylkill River docks, and in two pieces. The Pennsylvania Railroad had built numerous stub lines, first to deliver construction materials for the Exposition buildings, then to deliver their exhibits. The Main Exhibition Building was the largest building in the world by area, 1,876 feet in length and enclosing 21.5 acres. The colossal statue was erected atop a 15-foot granite pedestal in front of the Main Exhibition Building's north entrance, in the middle of the main promenade, the Avenue of the Republic, and directly opposite the Art Gallery. President Grant was facing the statue when he declared the first American World's Fair open on May 10, 1876. More than 10 million people visited the Exposition, and nearly all of them would have seen the statue. Millions more experienced it through illustrations and photographs. Although its formal name was The American Soldier, the statue soon became popularly known as The American Volunteer. The widely distributed stereoscopic view used the caption The American Volunteer, and may have been responsible for this renaming.