Battle of South Mountain • Turner’s Gap • Fox’s Gap • Crampton’s Gap
The War Correspondent’s Memorial Arch is in Crampton’s Gap on South Mountain. (map) It was created by author and Civil War correspondent George A. Townsend as the centerpiece of his Gapland estate. It was dedicated on October 16, 1896. In 1904 the monument was turned over to the War Department, and it is now administered by the National Park Service.
The front of the memorial
The memorial is fifty feet tall and forty wide, an imposing site to anyone coming up the steep approach road. The main arch is sixteen feet high, flanked to its north by a square crenellated tower with a cornerstone inscribed “Sept. 14 – 62 – 96,” for the date of the Battle of Crampton’s Gap. A niche on the face of the tower holds a statue representing Pheidippides, the messenger who carried news to the Athenians of the great victory at Marathon. Inset terra cotta busts are on both sides of the main arch over shields. On the left, the bust represents electricity, with the inscription “speed.”
From the front of the memorial:
War Correspondents
Speed – Heed
On the right is the bust representing poetry, with the inscription “heed.”
Above the main arch are three nine foot tall arches topped with white limestone, representing “Depiction,” “Description,” and “Photography’s light.” Above these are two terra cotta horse heads.
