"[1] The statue depicts a female figure bearing a military helmet and holding a sheathed sword in her right hand and a laurel wreath and shield in her left.

[2] The Statue of Freedom is a colossal bronze figure standing 19+1⁄2 ft (5.9 m) tall and weighing approximately 15,000 pounds (6,800 kg).

Her chiton is secured by a brooch inscribed "U.S." and is partially covered by a heavy, Native American–style fringed blanket thrown over her left shoulder.

A monumental statue for the top of the national Capitol appeared in architect Thomas U. Walter's original drawing for the new cast-iron dome, which was authorized in 1855.

Walter's drawing showed the outline of a statue representing the Goddess of Liberty; Crawford proposed instead an allegorical figure of Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace.

According to David Hackett Fischer in his book Liberty and Freedom, Crawford's statue was... ...very close to Jefferson Davis’s ideas in every way but one....

[9] Davis sent his aide, Captain Montgomery Meigs, with orders to remove the cap, saying that "its history renders it inappropriate to a people who were born free and would not be enslaved".

[10] A military helmet, with an American eagle head and crest of feathers, replaced the cap in the sculpture's final version.

Beginning in 1860, the statue was cast in five main sections by Clark Mills, whose bronze foundry was located on the outskirts of Washington.

[12] Late in 1863, construction of the dome was sufficiently advanced for the installation of the statue, which was hoisted by former slaves (freed by the Compensated Emancipation Act in 1862) in sections and assembled atop the cast-iron pedestal.

The crack was permanently repaired, and the entire pedestal was primed and painted with a color specially mixed to match the statue.

The plaster model of the statue, in storage for 25 years, was reassembled and restored in the basement rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building, where it was returned to permanent public display in January 1993.