Description:
The Volunteer is a copy of Kitson's sculpture in Newport, but unlike the original, this figure has a mustache and looks slightly older. It is possible that the committee wanted their statue to be unique, whilst basing a design on an existing monument would have been more cost-effective. It was a gift from George Washington Gay and his wife Eunice Lyon Gay. George H. Gay, was mortally wounded at the Battle of Dallas in Georgia on May 25, having enlisted with the 33rd Massachusetts Infantry when he was 18 and a student. The monument is dedicated to George H. Day and all of Sharon's "sons who fell in the Great Civil War 1861-1865'. The left panel of the Sharon Soldier's monument bears a plaque dedicated to of Deborah Sampson Gannett, the grandmother of G.W. Gay, who was also from Sharon and disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Revolutionary War.
