+ location Kennedy Plaza
..+.project architect Alfred Stone
..+ sculptor Randolph Rogers
..+ date 1866-1871

..... After the end of the Civil War, Soldiers and Sailors monuments were erected all over the country. With its history as one of the strongest abolitionist states in the Union, many Rhode Island soldiers fought with the Union army, resulting in Civil War military heroes. A committee of prominent Rhode Islanders, among them Ambrose Burnside, commissioned Randoplh Rogers to do the state's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial for the soldiers who lost their lives to the war. Rogers had previously sculpted the relief panels for the Columbus Doors at the US Capitol. Working with project architect Alfred Stone, Rogers designed Providence's Soldiers and Sailors monument to stand forty feet high. The sculpture depicts a female figure, her right hand extended with a wreath of laurels and her left hand holding a wreath of immortelles. Below her stand statue representations of the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and naval service. On the base is also a listing of Rhode Island Civil War men. Between the base projections bas-reliefs protray War, Victory, Peace, and History.

.....Dedicated in 1871 at its originally site in front of the Harrington Opera House where the City Hall now stands, the monument was moved to its current location in 1906 after the construction of Union Station as part of a reconfiguration of Exchange Place. In 1997, plans were made to move the monument closer to its original state by the City Hall in order accommodate Rhode Island Transit Authority's new plan for Kennedy Plaza. In its new location at the center of the plaza, the monument is part of an axis from the Industrial National Bank Building to the Carrie Brown Memorial Fountain.

Rogers' relief panels for the Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol in the early 1860s secured his illustrious reputation as an accomplished artist. A committee of prominent Rhode Islanders, among them Ambrose Burnside, commissioned him to do the state's memorial to its deceased Civil War servicemen. Rogers designed and executed the statues in Rome, the figures were cast in Munich, and local architect Alfred Stone was assigned the task of assembling and completing the monument in Providence. Among the plaques listing the roster of war dead are four figurative relief panels. Three of them symbolize, respectively, War, Victory, and Peace. The fourth, and most striking, is a figure of an African-American slave with broken shackles dangling from outstretched arms. Though commonly identified as a personification of Emancipation, according to the monument's program the figure is intended to symbolize History. On top of the plinths to which the plaques are affixed are four figures representing branches of the armed services: infantry, cavalry, artillery, and the Navy. Crowning the composition is a larger-than-life figure entitled "America Militant". Originally erected in front of City Hall, the monument was moved to its present location when the current central esplanade of Exchange Place (now Kennedy Plaza) was constructed in 1913