Congressional delegate Charles DeWitt, of New York, proposed St. Paul’s Chapel as the monument’s final resting site: a matchbox-sized but stately Colonial church on an island of graveyard green. Around 1788, the monument went up outside the church, at the base of its central window. Pierre L’Enfant, later the city planner of Washington, D.C., designed the gold-and-white relief sculpture that conceals the dark outline seen from inside the chapel, a billowing baroque scene depicting the Shekinah glory of God and the Ten Commandments. A painted panel on the upper reverse side envisions the new nation as a dawning sun with 13 rays.

An inscription below the memorial outside the church, full of affinity for capitalization, explains that “This Monument is erected by the order of Congress 25th Jan. 1776 to transmit to Posterity a grateful remembrance of the patriotism conduct enterprise & perseverance of Major General Richard Montgomery. Who after a series of successes amidst the most discouraging Difficulties Fell in the attack on QUEBEC. 31st Dec 1775. Aged 37 Years.”

Montgomery was patriotic, he fought relentlessly, and he was full of enterprise and persistence. “Enterprise” means “bold action.” Like a Greek oration, the words set a glowing scene of the general’s good deeds and inner life, keeping with the commission by Congress. The monument, the commission expressed, was to display “veneration” for the fallen soldier and his “insuperable perseverance and contempt of danger and death.” These qualities were to be on display for all “future ages, as examples truly worthy of imitation.”

Sacrifice and remarkable achievement, the sculpture’s two main themes, organize the design of the monument. A funerary obelisk and a cut column crowned by an urn divide heaps of symbols: the first set of carvings is elegiac, representing a military death. Here rests a cypress branch, the Roman symbol of respect for the dead, and a helmet, armor, and flags — a grouping of armor called a trophee d’armes. A broken sword slid under the breastplate announces a hero’s life cut short. The urn, sword, and cypress speak almost as clearly as they might have in 1777: a warrior has given the greatest sacrifice, they intone, make no mistake.

If one side of the monument conveys that a warrior has died, the other shows what he fought and died for. A soft liberty cap and pole, symbols of the Revolution, and a Herculean club, emerge from the bowing leaves of a palm. A stiff banner wraps the club in the phrase “libertas restituta,” an injunction translated as “restore liberty.” Two mysterious objects tilt at the foot of the club: the shattered bar of an oxen yoke, the yoke of tyranny described in Isaiah 58:6, the tyranny of a despot.

When Franklin commissioned the sculpture in 1777, American victory was still in the offing, six years distant, a hope appearing blue and phantasmagorical to the imaginations of the fighting rebels. Still, the symbols of the monument crystallize the causes of the rebellion, explaining Montgomery’s role and motivation, and the inscription below the memorial recalls his personal achievements — a string of victorious battles.

Notably, every carefully chosen detail of the Montgomery Monument alludes to one or both of its twin main themes. This is no accident. Inseparable complementary aspects frame war: unfathomable sacrifice and superlative achievement. It is these that command our honor and justify our commemoration.

Because the memorial is located in the city just steps away from another story of sacrifice, its values shine brightly. Sacrifice and heroic deeds seem relevant, relatable. In our contemporary memorials, however, we have forgotten the importance of such themes. For decades, monument architects have minimized representations of suffering and obfuscated accomplishment. Consumed by political correctness, memorials have become vague and noncommittal, both elaborate and evasive, formless and empty.

The 2020 Washington, D.C., Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial begins, unaccountably, at boyhood in Abilene, Kansas. The general’s greatest achievement, that of unimaginable victory, is played down, overshadowed by the three-part biographical narrative telling “the quintessential American story.” Victory palms and Nike alighting on a warship are only to be dreamt of. Even as Eisenhower’s Homecoming Speech, included in the monument, praises the value of honor — the “dreams of a barefoot boy” — the National Park Service description demurs, disavowing such an outdated ideal and declaring hyperbolically that “Eisenhower returned to his hometown” of Abilene “as not the leader of the forces that helped to defeat Nazi Germany but as another citizen.”

Then there is the 2004 World War II Memorial on the National Mall, a design that erodes the traditional theme of highest sacrifice through combat with a broad premise honoring the contributions of an entire country. “Virtually everyone supported the war,” the 123-page brief published by the NPS assures us, “and worked to achieve victory.”

Fifty-six pillars inscribed with the states and territories consume the greatest space, and the sacrifice of more than 400,000 American men who gave their lives in history’s bloodiest war is relegated to a smaller commemorative area of 4,048 stars. Why the entire monument is not gold stars is left for the visitor to ponder before the monument’s rushing fountains. Removing combat from its traditional dominance strips honor from those most needful of it, handing it instead to arbitrary role groups, and the design obscures the very sacrifices justifying the existence of the memorial.

WHY WASHINGTON’S MOST MAGNIFICENT MONUMENTS BARELY MADE IT ON THE MAP

History has many pages, it is true. The facts will always be many. Justice, on the other hand, is narrow and stringent, sharply pointed and exact. Honor is paid through a symmetrical retelling; when we dilute the light of sacrifice and achievement, symmetry is lost, and justice scatters.

We must choose one of two pains: the pain of honor or the pain of its dismemberment — there are no other alternatives. The Montgomery memorial, richly decorated and compact, establishes a high precedent of acclaim. Its warrior’s legacy bursts into bright light, an eternal remembrance of the first American officer to die for his country. Like 13 rays of a rising sun, the monument illuminates our way forward in enacting justice for veterans, serves as a standard for all ages, and is an emblem of sacrifice and achievement.

Amanda Johnson is a writer whose work on commemoration and civic art has appeared in National Review. Read more at amandajohnsonwriter.com.