The Battle Monument: One Hundred Fifty Feet of Granite

At the intersection where five streets meet in north Trenton, a hundred-and-fifty-foot column of granite rises from what was once the American artillery position during the Battle of Trenton. The Trenton Battle Monument is not subtle. It was designed by John H. Duncan, the same architect who designed Grant's Tomb in New York, and it intentionally echoes the Monument to the Great Fire of London, which Sir Christopher Wren built in sixteen seventy-one. Same height, same general form, same idea: something tall enough to see from a distance and understand.

The cornerstone was laid on December twenty-sixth, eighteen ninety-one, the one hundred and fifteenth anniversary of the battle. The full structure was dedicated on October nineteenth, eighteen ninety-three. At the top, a thirteen-foot bronze statue of George Washington by sculptor William Rudolf O'Donovan shows Washington with his arm extended, directing artillery fire down King Street, the same direction from which the Hessians were trying to escape on the morning of December twenty-sixth, seventeen seventy-six.

The location matters. This was where American cannon commanded the two main roads out of Trenton that morning. American artillery, including a battery under Alexander Hamilton, on both the King Street and Queen Street approaches prevented the Hessian garrison from regrouping and breaking out. The stone column stands roughly where the American guns stood.

History has a way of selecting its monuments carefully. The five-points intersection was a tactical crossroads in seventeen seventy-six. The monument that marks it is a reminder that accidents of geography can become permanent facts of memory.