13. Albert Pike Memorial

"The base of the Albert Pike statue bears seven words that his admirers believed summed up his career: 'philosopher, jurist, orator, author, poet, scholar, soldier.' Pike's enemies might have added libertine, traitor and other unflattering titles. Pike was a large man with large appetites, who inspired great affection and bitter hatred. While his statue was erected by the Masons, who held him in high regard as the explicator of their ritual, it was Pike's brief, ignoble career in the Confederate army during the Civil War that earned him the greatest animosity. Although he is depicted in civilian clothes, his is the only statue of a Confederate officer in the nation's capital." The figure on the front of the memorial is the goddess of Masonry, who holds the banner of the Scottish Rite of Freedom.