"The bronze statue of a Union soldier commemorates all Cincinnatians who died in the Civil War. It is located on an island in the central road, as if in a town square. Its cost of $25,000 was raised by subscription in 1864 - a year before the war's end. Strauch wanted to erect a classical temple on which would be inscribed the names of all the Civil War dead in Ohio, but cemetery directors and the public favored a sculptural monument. The commission was given to Randolph Rogers, an American then living in Rome. 'The Sentinel' or 'Soldier of the Line' as Rogers called it, was the first of many Civil War monuments he designed, and its style became conventional throughout the northern states. Spring Grove's version, cast in 1865 by Ferdinand von Miller at Europe's most important foundry in Munich, is thus the prototype for the familiar town square statues that helped define the emerging central business districts of American cities during the next decade"

From the brochure: Spring Grove Cemetery / A Self-Guided Walking Tour, by Blanche Linden-Ward, (c)1985 by the Center for Neighborhood and Community Studies, University of Cincinnati, 45221.