Brigadier General Erastus Wolcott....

Very overcast today, but temps in the mid 50's (F), so Tom & I went for a walk in Lake Park, past the North Point Lighthouse, over the bridge and along in front of the General. Here he's pictured astride his favorite horse, "Gunpowder". The inscription reads:
               Brigadier General Erastus B. Wolcott
               Surgeon General of Wisconsin in the Civil War and for
               13 years afterward.
               He lived a blameless life.
               Eminent in his profession,
               A lover of humanity,
               Delighted to serve his fellow men, city, state and nation.

He was a man ahead of his time--one of the few doctors who stayed to treat the sick and dying people during the cholera epidemic of 1849, when people were literally dropping in the streets. He was also one of the first surgeons to ever successfully remove a diseased kidney (1850).
In 1857 Dr. Laura Ross arrived in Milwaukee--only the third woman to be licensed to practice medicine in the U.S.--and when she applied for membership to the Milwaukee Medical Society she was turned down. Dr. Wolcott strongly advocated her acceptance, admiring her skill as a physician, and she was finally accepted into the society. She later married Dr. Wolcott, who had been widowed for many years. Besides medicine they shared interest in the anti-slavery movement, the humane treatment of the sick, and the woman's suffrage movement. 
 At the start of the Civil War he went to visit many of the battlefields, caring for the sick and wounded, & at the war's close he was a major force in the opening of the National Home for disabled American Soldiers.  Dr. E. Wolcott died in 1880, and his wife in 1915. In her will she left money for an equestrian monument to be built in honor of her husband, and after a nationwide search, Francis Packer was selected to make it. It was dedicated in 1920, and has looked out over Lake Park &  Lake Michigan ever since. :))