 Unlike many Civil War generals , there were no calls for a memorial to Meade after his death in 1872 because he was not popular with Lincoln , Grant , or his fellow officers , though he was considered a hero in his native Pennsylvania . In the 1910s , members of the Grand Army of the Republic ( GAR ) and Society of the Army of the Potomac fraternal organizations lobbied the Pennsylvania General Assembly to fund a statue of Meade . The state assembly commissioned the sculpture on October 18 , 1913 , and appropriated $ 200 @,@ 000 for its construction . Members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation lobbied Congress to approve the sculpture and an act of Congress authorized its erection on January 21 , 1915 . Congress mandated that the sculpture design and site of the memorial be approved by the Commission of Fine Arts ( CFA ) . Because the memorial was a gift from the state of Pennsylvania , a Meade Memorial Commission was appointed by the state governor . The commission , led by John W. Frazier , a veteran who fought with Meade at Gettysburg , was composed of architects , artists , and planners who agreed on very little . Frazier was considered abusive and tactless , sending rude letters to the CFA and demanding certain requirements for the memorial . This created an impasse which lasted until Frazier 's death in 1918 . Following his death , the memorial commission finally chose a sculptor , a Pennsylvania native named Charles Grafly ( 1862 – 1929 ) . 
