4. Lieutenant General Winfield Scott
"Near one of the city's best equestrian monuments, stands the statue of General Winfield Scott, one
of the worst. Scott is the only Civil War-era military man represented in Washington by two statues."
(The equestrian at Scott Circle and a full-length statue at the Soldiers' Home).
Most everybody knows the story of this statue but it's worth relating anyway!
"The figure of Scott, with his hand on his hip as if irritated, quickly came in for a great deal of
criticism. Critics complained that the statue portrayed him as too old, too fat, too stiff, too
short-legged. Scott looked, said one wag, like an old sack of flour. Even greater ridicule was
heaped on the horse. General Philip Sheridan, who lived a few blocks up Massachusetts Avenue, is
said to have begged his wife never to let him be immortalized on such a dreadful animal."
The horse may not have been Brown's fault. "Brown had learned that, despite his broad girth, Scott's
favorite mount had been a small mare, so that's what he placed the general upon. Just as casting was
to begin, however, some of Scott's descendants saw the model and protested that a great general must
ride a stallion, not a mare. Annoyed, Brown made only minimal accommodations. The result was the
too-small horse with the head and body of Scott's little mare, but the external physical
'characteristics' of a stallion."