Taking a Stand: Last of “On Guard” Civil War Monument Gone From Capitol

The last remnant of the Civil War soldier who stood guard outside the Colorado State Capitol Building for over a century has been discharged this Veteran’s Day.

“On Guard” was donated to the state in 1909 by the Colorado Pioneers Association as a Civil War Monument dedicated to “the memory of the Colorado soldiers who died in the war.” The bronze statue was created by Captain John “Jack” Howland, himself a veteran of the Union Army. Below his figure of a Civil War soldier, a granite stand listed the “battles and engagements” involving soldiers from the Colorado Territory, including Sand Creek. In that “engagement” on November 29, 1864, Colonel John Chivington led volunteer troops on a raid of a peaceful camp of Arapaho and Cheyenne on the banks of the Big Sandy, killing more than 200 children, women and men.

It was a massacre, not a battle, as a Congressional investigation determined in 1865, even as the Civil War raged.

But even with that damning determination, the battle for full recognition of the darkest day in Colorado history continues. In 1999, in response to complaints from descendants of those killed at Sand Creek, an explanatory plaque was put just below “On Guard,” noting that “the controversy surrounding the Civil War Monument has become a symbol of Coloradans’ struggle to understand and take responsibility for our past.” In 2014, on the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre, then-Governor John Hickenlooper officially apologized to the descendants on behalf of the state, and launched plans to create a moment for those survivors at the Capitol.

Last session, the Colorado Legislature agreed to continue taking responsibility, approving a resolution to replace that monument with a memorial to this land’s original inhabitants…and those who lost their lives at Sand Creek.

By then, the soldier was no longer there; that figure had been vandalized during the George Floyd protests in May 2020, its saber stolen and the soldier himself toppled during a demonstration the next month. The statue is currently on display at History Colorado, in all its graffiti-ed glory.

“After the statue fell,” notes History Colorado’s website, “when some people said ‘monuments like these belong in a museum,’ we decided to take them up on the suggestion and give everyone an opportunity to discuss what the monument means to them.” Over the last several years, the History Colorado Center has been collecting comments about “On Guard.” Next year, the statue will move to a new home on a “long-term loan” to the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

The soldier’s base will meet up with him there. The mammoth granite cube, which had been obscured with a plywood box for the last five years, was finally excavated this past weekend and is moving on to the DMVA, too.

The space in front of the west steps of the Capitol is currently empty, but it won’t stay that way forever. On Veterans’ Day, there is much to remember.