Ulysses S. Grant Bronze Bust.

BUSH-BROWN, Henry Kirke. [Ulysses S. Grant].

$12,500.00

Item Number: 125381

New York: Henry-Bonnard Bronze Co., [c. 1885].

Attractive bronze bust of of Ulysses S. Grant as General of the Army by famed American sculptor Henry Kirke Bush-Brown. The adopted nephew of sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, Henry Kirke Bush-Brown was revered for his accurate realist sculptures illustrating American history. He produced three equestrian bronze sculptures erected at the Gettysburg battlefield depicting General George Mead (the victor at Gettysburg), General John F. Reynolds (killed in action July 1, 1863), and General John Sedgwick (the senior most Union casualty of the American Civil War). In addition, Bush-Brown made a bust of Abraham Lincoln, dedicated in 1912 as part of the Lincoln Speech Memorial commemorating Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Mounted on a bronze base, the entire piece measures 7.75 inches in height. In fine condition.

Following the close of the American Civil War, Congress revisited the idea of a superior General rank initially intended for bestowal upon George Washington who held the rank of “General and Commander-in-Chief” which was a grade senior to all American major generals and brigadier generals from the American Revolutionary War, but only entitled him to the three-star insignia of an Army lieutenant general. On July 25, 1866, Congress enacted legislation authorizing the grade of General of the Army, and on that same date the new grade was conferred on Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant as a reward for saving the Union in the American Civil War. The grade was recognized and continued in various acts until the Act of July 15, 1870, which contained the requirement that “the offices of general and lieutenant general shall continue until a vacancy shall exist in the same, and no longer, and when such vacancy shall occur in either of said offices shall become inoperative, and shall, by virtue of this act, from thence forward be held to be repealed.”