The commission for the statue seems to emerge from the private
social club, the
Century Association. The committee for the statue in 1864 comprised
James Henry Hackett,
William Wheatley,
Edwin Booth, and
Charles P. Daly, all ‘Centurions’ aside from Wheatley. By the unveiling of the statue, 14 out of 18 executive committee members and 38 out of 81 donors were Century Members, including
William Cullen Bryant, one of the club’s “founding fathers.”
The Art Journal reported that the competition for submissions had begun in 1866, with models submitted in 1867. Four thousand dollars towards the funding of the statue was raised at a benefit performance of
Julius Caesar on November 24, 1864, performed by the sons of
Junius Brutus Booth (
Junius Brutus Booth Jr.,
Edwin Booth, and
John Wilkes Booth) at the
Winter Garden Theater. The play was interrupted by firebells as a set of Confederate saboteurs, the
Confederate Army of Manhattan, had set a series of fires around Manhattan that night including at the Lafarge Hotel across the street from the Winter Garden Theatre. The morning after the benefit, the Booth brothers read about the fires over breakfast and John Wilkes exclaimed his sympathy for the Confederates, leading Edwin to kick him out of the house and vow never to speak to him. Less than a year later,
John Wilkes assassinated President Lincoln. ==Incident at the unveiling==