Sakura Park
Manhattan, New York
21 March 2010
While in New York for an event a couple of years back, I found myself on the upper west side with some free time and indulged my National Park habit. I walked to the General Grant National Monument.
On the way back to the apartment, a statue in a park caught my eye. I did not know the name of the park, but the statue clearly resembled a soldier from the Civil War. It seemed worth discovering who the statute honored.
I discovered that atop the pedestal stood a likeness of General Daniel Butterfield. I knew little of him – he wrote the bugle call Taps, he was a friend of General Hooker, he had a reputation for rather bawdy behavior whether deserved or not, and he engaged in intrigue with General Sickles against General Meade.
After the war, he was involved in the 1869 gold scandal, when speculators sought to corner the gold market.
But he apparently had his good days as well. Butterfield won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on June 27, 1862 at the Battle of Gaines Mills.
Like all of us, his story has many dimensions.
Butterfield’s statue stands in Sakura Park.
Sakura Park owes its name to the more than 2000 cherry trees delivered to parks in New York City from Japan in 1912. The word sakura means “cherry blossom” in Japanese.
I may have seen cherry trees that day. I probably would not recognize them.
But for once, I know the name of the flowers: these are crocuses.
See you along the Trail.
Along the Graybeard Trail 