Moses Ezekiel: Civil War Soldier, Renowned Sculptor

By Stan Cohen and Keith Gibson
Illustrated, index, 172 pp., 2007. Pictorial Histories Publishing Company Inc., 713 South 3rd St., Missoula, MT 59801, $14.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Blake A. Magner

Blake A. Magner is the Book Review Editor of Civil War News. He makes his liv­ing as an editor, writer, car­tographer and photographer of Civil War history. He is author of At Peace With Honor: The Civil War Burials of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Review:

This interesting little volume is basically an art catalog of the works of Moses Ezekiel, a Virginia-born sculptor who settled in Italy and created his works in the late 19th and early 20th century.

For our purposes the main interest of this book is Ezekiel’s short Civil War career. In May 1864 Ezekiel was a student at the Virginia Military Institute and thus took part in the cadet’s attack at the battle of New Market. Though he came through unscathed, a number of his fellow cadets and friends paid the ultimate price. Ezekiel later served as one of the Corporal of the Guard during the funeral of Gen. Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson.

When Ezekiel moved to Italy he sculpted numerous statues and memorials that found their way to the United States. Two of his monuments that would be familiar to most readers of this review are the statue of Stonewall Jackson prominently displayed on the grounds of VMI and the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery. A similar Jackson monument sits in Charlestown, W.Va.

These are but a few examples of Ezekiel’s work that include such monuments as the one to Thomas Jefferson on the grounds of the University of Virginia, “Virginia Mourning Her Dead” at VMI, Anthony Drexel (Drexel University in Philadelphia), Edgar Allen Poe (Baltimore), and “Southern” on the site of Johnson’s Island (Ohio) Civil War prison. There are also numerous busts and bas-reliefs in various public and private collections.

Many of Ezekiel’s works are illustrated in color in this volume and the photography is excellent. Each piece has a description of the work and the present repository, where known.

If the reader is looking for an in-depth Civil War volume of Ezekiel’s life, this is not the book. However if the reader wants an excellent volume on the sculptor’s works this one is a winner.