Last updated: June 30, 2026
Article
A Celebratory Exhibition: Spirit of '76 at Freedom Plaza
NPS / Lucia Lubanovich
To honor and celebrate the heroes and martyrs of the Revolution during the 250th year of American Independence, the Trump Administration has announced the installation of “Spirit of '76 at Freedom Plaza," a temporary statuary exhibition in Washington, DC.
This historic exhibition includes a series of statues—including an equestrian statue of Founding Father Caesar Rodney, 12 Soldiers of the Revolution, a set of reliefs honoring the Prison Ship Martyrs, and a central bronze statue titled “Spirit of Liberty.” The various elements in the exhibit collectively represent the extraordinary Spirit of '76, which continues to live on in every American heart two and a half centuries later.
Caesar Rodney Equestrian Statue
Among the centerpieces of the exhibition is a commanding equestrian statue of Caesar Rodney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence whose heroic midnight ride through a thunderstorm delivered a decisive vote that helped secure America’s independence in 1776.
Caesar Rodney’s legacy was immortalized when, on July 1, 1776, he learned that his vote was required to break Delaware’s deadlock in the Continental Congress and grant unanimity to Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for independence. Despite suffering from severe asthma and a disfiguring facial cancer, Rodney mounted his horse and galloped 18 hours from Dover, Delaware, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the dead of night and through a raging storm, to vote. He arrived at Independence Hall on July 2, where he cast his vote and secured our nation’s independence.
The statue installed at Freedom Plaza today is the same statue that for decades commanded the center of Rodney Square in Wilmington, Delaware, but was removed in June 2020 in what President Donald J. Trump described as “part of an ongoing, radical purge of America’s founding generation.” Now, all who visit Washington, DC, will have the opportunity to learn about Caesar Rodney’s distinct role in the birth of our Republic.
12 Soldiers of the Revolution
The “12 Soldiers of the Revolution” segment of the exhibition features bronze statues of twelve Revolutionary War soldiers arranged to form a powerful civic tableau in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. Each figure is rendered in historically-grounded poses and attire, emphasizing the diversity of roles, backgrounds, and sacrifices that defined the Continental Army and American militia forces. The twelve soldiers are Simon Knowles, Caesar Glover, Joseph Warren, Jude Hall, John Peter Muhlenberg, James Lafayette, Samuel Whittemore, Jack Sisson, James Caldwell, Peter Salem, Naphtali Daggett, and Salem Poor. Together, they represent the countless individuals whose service and perseverance made the miracle of American independence possible.
The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument
The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument honors the memory of the nearly 12,000 Americans who lost their lives aboard British ships in conditions of unimaginable deprivation, squalor, and disease. More Americans died on these prison ships than in all of the war’s battles combined—many of whom willingly endured barbaric captivity rather than renounce the Patriot cause.
The Prison Ship Martyrs installation is conceived as an immersive sculptural environment rather than a single monument, using variable-height bronze slabs to physically and emotionally place visitors inside the story of the prison ships. Each slab is carved in bronze relief and oriented inward, collectively forming the outline of a ship’s hull when viewed from above. This inward-facing arrangement invites the audience to enter the “ship” itself, moving through a narrow interior passage where the reliefs reveal themselves sequentially—much like the lived experience of captivity unfolded slowly, relentlessly, and without escape for the prisoners.
“Spirit of Liberty” Statue
Also gracing Freedom Plaza is a mighty bronze statue titled “Spirit of Liberty,” a 23-foot-tall fixture representing the quintessential American ideals of freedom, self-government, and civic responsibility that animated the American Revolution and continue to define our way of life 250 years later.
Elevated slightly above the surrounding figures, “Spirit of Liberty” anchors the rest of the exhibition, unifying the individual sacrifice of the countless soldiers of the Revolution with the enduring triumph of the American spirit. In one hand she holds the Declaration of Independence gilded in bronze and in her other hand she points her drawn sword to the sky showing us our manifest destiny. Adorning her head is a wreath of victory, which is the culmination of the great efforts made by the other figures in Freedom Plaza.
Along her base she tells the story of the American Revolution with beautiful reliefs of three famous events, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Washington Crossing the Delaware and the Surrender at Yorktown.
Her placement creates a clear focal point for the installation, which stands prominently in the heart of our Nation’s capital as a memorial to the noblest aspirations of the human spirit and America’s proud inheritance of courage, sacrifice, faith, and freedom.
In the tradition of the Statue of Liberty and the Statue of Freedom, she carries the message of American Exceptionalism into the 21st century for the next 250 years.
Engraved on one of its panels are words of George Washington:
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”