Equestrian statue of Winfield Scott

About

Brevet Lt. General Winfield Scott is an equestrian statue in Washington, D.C., that honors career military officer Winfield Scott. The monument stands in the center of Scott Circle, a traffic circle and small park at the convergence of 16th Street, Massachusetts Avenue and Rhode Island Avenue NW. The statue was sculpted by Henry Kirke Brown, whose best-known works include statues of George Washington in New York and Nathanael Greene in Washington, D.C. It was the first of many sculptures honoring Civil War generals that were installed in Washington, D.C.'s traffic circles and squares and was the second statue in the city to honor Scott.

The sculpture is one of the city's 18 Civil War monuments that were collectively listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The monument and park are owned and maintained by the National Park Service, a federal agency of the Interior Department. The bronze statue rests on a granite base that at the time was the largest stone ever quarried in the United States. Much criticized for its depiction of Scott and the proportions of the horse, it is considered one of the worst equestrian sculptures in the city by authors and historians.