Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/216603
Mark N. Ozer is a former professor of neurology at the Georgetown University Medical School. His interest in history, geography, and urban development has resulted in the publication of a series of books, including Washington, D.C.: Politics and Place (2009), Massachusetts Avenue in the Gilded Age (2010), Northwest Washington, D.C.: Tales from West of the Park (2011), and Washington D.C. Streets and Statues: Walking in the Steps of History (2012). SUMMER 2013 ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL ( BOTH ) the Shawnee leader Tecumseh took place at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813 when the U.S. Army under the command of Gen. William Henry Harrison defeated a mixed British-Indian force. Tecumseh and his Indians stood their ground while the British regulars broke ranks when attacked. The figures on the panel in the frieze include Col. Richard M. Johnson, mounted on a horse, in the act of shooting Tecumseh. The significance of this act can be measured by its political repercussions long after. The political slogan in the election of 1836 crediting Johnson with this exploit was sufficient to propel him to the vice-presidency. In turn, the slogan crediting William Henry Harrison for his victory at Tippecanoe over the brother of Tecumseh in 1811 helped propel him to the presidency in 1840. The death of Shawnee chief Tecumseh was an irreplaceable loss. Respected by friend and foe, he had organized braves from many of the northwestern tribes to fight at the Battle of Fallen Timbers against General "Mad" Anthony Wayne in 1794; he aided the British in their capture of Detroit in August 1812 and in the fighting in 1813. No comparable leader arose to take his place in opposing the white settlement of the lands east of the Mississippi, one of the most lasting effects of that war. Still other evidence of Tecumseh's significance is the marble sculpture The Dying Tecumseh (fig. 14) by the German-born sculptor Ferdinand Pettrich (fig. 15). Born in Dresden, Germany in 1798, he too studied in Rome with Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen. He came to the United States in 1835 but then moved to Brazil where he lived most of the rest of his life. Many of his subjects were Native Americans. The Dying Tecumseh was commissioned in 1856 in Rio de Janeiro and brought to the U.S. Capitol in 1864, where it was installed temporarily in Statuary Hall (fig. 14A). It was mentioned as being in the Rotunda at the time of President Lincoln's funeral in April 1865. It was lost to view when transferred to the collection of the Corcoran Art Gallery in 1874 and then to the National Museum in 1916. There it remained until brought into public view in 2012 as a dramatic focal point of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery exhibit on the bicentennial of the War of 1812 (fig. 14B). In the style of the great classical statue of The Dying Gaul, it finally gives credit to the nobility of the Indian Tecumseh as one of the worthiest adversaries of the frontier. Fig. 7. Conflict of Daniel Boone and the Indians, 1773, by Enrico Causici, 1826-27, sandstone, Capitol Rotunda, above south door. THE CAPITOL DOME 29