Half a century after the first great round of monuments that commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the battle, a federal commission, in the midst of the Great Depression, proposed a monument of national unity for the seventy-fifth anniversary. Working with funds raised on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, Cret devised a modern classical mass lighted with an eternal flame that carried on the spirit of the two thousand ancient veterans, both Blue and Gray, who attended the final reunion. The fifty-one-foot-tall shaft is ornamented with sculptures by Lee Lawrie that recall the ancient Middle East.