The American President Residing in a Scottish Cemetery

New work from the Gull of Greatness series

Trump is in Scotland at the moment but away from all the security and protests is our resident President.

Abraham Lincoln watches over the Scottish Government in Edinburgh. He faces due east, but the rising sun is blocked by the Art Deco offices of St Andrews House on Calton Hill. Below him, a freed man reaches up towards the proclamation of emancipation the president is holding.

This is the only memorial to the American Civil War outside of the US, and it was built in honour of six Scottish men who went to the States to fight in the Union Army. The statue only exists because a widow, Margaret McEwan, sought to receive a US pension for her Civil War veteran husband, who died in Scotland and was buried in a common grave. The US consul then asked the Lord Provost of Edinburgh for a proper war grave for her late husband and fellow veterans. It was agreed that they would receive a cemetery plot and monument, which was financed by the likes of Andrew Carnegie, J. Pierpoint Morgan and William Rockefeller.

The Scottish-American Soldiers Monument now stands quietly overlooking Old Calton Burial Ground, beside the circular tomb of David Hume and surrounded by stone obelisks. One of these obelisks rises higher than the buildings, like a mighty pylon receiving Masonic power from the Washington Monument in DC.

Above all the human drama, between the obelisk and rain clouds, the gulls fly.

Abraham Lincoln, Old Calton cemetery, Edinburgh. June 2025.

In late June, I revealed a new side project, made during my weekly quests into the city to write these posts. Since then you will find me standing statue-still in graveyards, public parks and pathways, waiting for some avian magic. Some German tourists recently tried to move me, but I refused: I had a job to do.

If you like this Gulls of Greatness series, please consider buying me a coffee to keep me caffeinated on my search. Or just continue supporting this newsletter.

Here are some fresh images for you.