Still under its inaugural shroud, the monument towered nearly 20 feet into the Illinois sky on that bright fall day in 1889. Cmdr. M.F. Ellsworth of McHenry County's Grand Army of the Republic post gave the order to "unveil," and the heavy cloth fell away to reveal the somber statue of a Union soldier.

Cast from what a local newspaper referred to as "white bronze," the soldier held a musket at parade rest, his greatcoat hanging past his knees in graceful folds. At his feet, the names of living and dead veterans were etched into blue-gray metal, along with the major battles in which they had fought: Gettysburg, Shiloh, Vicksburg and Stones River.

For more than a century, the soldier in the Crystal Lake, Ill., cemetery stood solid, unyielding and ready to endure the ages. Yet last summer, a visitor strolling through the cemetery noticed he had developed a pronounced backward tilt. The local historical society formed a committee to look into the matter—that’s when its members encountered Carol Grissom.

"Her name kept coming up when we were searching for information on the Internet," explains Christopher O’Connor, a board member of the Crystal Lake Historical Society.

Grissom, senior objects conservator at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute in Suitland, Md., is an expert and adviser on the care of statuary made—like the McHenry County warrior—from white bronze, or zinc.

Today, zinc is the primary metal used in pennies. A century ago, its affordability made the metal a popular choice for 19th-century works of metal, from children's toys and chandeliers to cemetery markers and life-size statues of soldiers and firemen.

Easy to work

For the purposes of large monument-making, zinc was easier to work with than bronze. It can be cast in separate pieces and soldered together, Grissom says. If desired, a bronze-colored coating can be added to disguise its seams and humble origins. It can even be made to look like granite by sand-blasting.

"Zinc sculptures are important because they reflect cultural history during the 19th century throughout the United States, especially in smaller towns," Grissom says. Other common examples of zinc in public places include statues of Justice on the roofs of county courthouses and statues atop cast-iron park fountains.

Many of these zinc objects were mass produced. For example, the soldier guarding the memories of the Prairie State veterans was listed in the catalog of a Connecticut foundry as "American Soldier Model No. 220." With pedestal, it cost $1,500, roughly $30,000 in today's dollars. That price was as little as one-tenth of what larger cities were spending on bronze statues.
Corrosion and creep

As these zinc monuments continue into their second century of existence, often in harsh outdoor environments, many are deteriorating, Grissom says. Pieces of the hollow structures break off when struck by falling tree branches. Vandals sometimes steal whatever they can pry away, including weaponry and the lanterns typically held aloft by stoic zinc firemen.

Broken pieces can be resoldered, Grissom adds, but the job requires considerable skill. Polyester or epoxy resin can be used to repair broken pieces. These adhesives may have a more limited life span but they are easier to apply and remove.

Most of the environmental damage Grissom has documented stems from sulfur dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-burning power and industrial plants. Sulfur dioxide combines with water and oxygen in the atmosphere to produce sulfuric acid. Chlorides, found in the air near the sea, also may cause surface pitting of zinc.
More unsightly than damaging are bird droppings—which can be washed off—and growths of organisms, such as lichen and fungus, that tend to form on statuary located near trees.

To prevent corrosion, Grissom suggests cleaning and, in some cases, repainting with a protective paint.

Another problem for zinc statuary is "creep." Essentially, a statue slowly fails so it cannot support its own weight. This results in bulges, leaning and other distortions and can be exacerbated by a treatment all too often applied by well-meaning custodians: filling the hollow statue with concrete. More often, the weight of the concrete only adds to the stress.

In the sad cases where statues have been filled with cement, "there's not much you can do that wouldn't be prohibitively expensive," Grissom says. A trend in recent years, which she dislikes, has been to replace battered zinc statues with new ones made of bronze.

In an effort to monitor America's zinc statuary and make certain that caretakers don't damage them with improper conservation measures, Grissom has identified some 800 zinc statues across the United States.

SOS!
Her single biggest source of data has been Save Outdoor Sculpture!, a program launched in 1989 that continues today under the auspices of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Institute for Conservation. SOS volunteers have scoured the country to catalog every outdoor sculpture they can find.

"Often, zinc is not correctly identified," Grissom points out. "If I can see an image of it, particularly a color image, I can sometimes tell what the statue is made of."
When in doubt about the material, one of the surest identification tools is a magnet. Like lead, zinc has no magnetic properties and a magnet won't stick. If she is still unsure, Grissom uses an attachment to an electron microscope called an energy dispersive spectrometer. When the electrons of a tiny sample of a material are excited, each element releases a distinctive energy pattern. This method is especially useful in determining the makeup of a statue's original coating, even when only scraps remain in crevices, Grissom says.

Grissom is currently writing a book on zinc statuary and its care. As for the Union Cemetery soldier in Crystal Lake, Ill., she provided background information and some general advice to get the local historical society started on its own rescue mission. The group is working with a local conservator who is proposing putting a new stainless steel armature inside. This they believe, could halt or slow the soldier's "creep."

Until the estimated $50,000 to $125,000 funding to do this can be raised, the old trooper has been placed on leave status. He reposes in a climate-controlled storage space, patiently awaiting restoration to his place in the hearts and memories of McHenry County.