Monuments

Honoring people, places, or events of enduring importance, monuments have long served to memorialize various aspects of U. S. history. Throughout the United States there are approximately 10,000 CiviL War monuments in national parks, large cities, and small town squares. Monuments for those who fought in the American Civil War are etched in stone, cast in marble, and molded in brass across the country. Monuments provide a continuing history of the Civil War for modern-day Americans. Fraught with political and social meaning, they reveal much about the culture they represent, as well as the culture the United States has developed.

Civil War monuments and memory sites are found in cemeteries, national parks, and buildings. The town of Blakely, Georgia, boasts the “Confederate Flag Pole,” the last pole flying the Confederate flag at the end of the Civil War. Joliet, Illinois, is home to the “Civil War Bench,” which was dedicated to the city’s members of the Grand Army of the Republic. Shiloh, Tennessee, has Shiloh National

Military Park, some 4,000 acres of land that attracts nearly 400,000 visitors per year. Within Shiloh Park are thousands of stone monuments marking the place where various regiments fought. Washington, D. C.’s Farragut Square provides a scenic backdrop for a statue of Adm. David Glasgow Farragut made from the propeller of his flagship the Hartford. While Civil War monuments obviously vary widely in type as well as design, they usually contain dates, such as days in battle, as well as lists of casualties, deaths, and those who fought, in addition to the names of the commanding officers and the date the monument was dedicated.

The money for Civil War monuments was raised by public and private sources. Washington, D. C.’s first two Civil War monuments (to Maj. Gen. John A. Rawlins and Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, both erected in 1874) were paid for entirely by the federal government. Individual states frequently funded monuments like the Tiffany windows in the beautiful chapel at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. veterans groups or women’s associations often held fund-raising events and donation drives to raise money for statues commemorating war-related activities.

Typically, monuments began to be funded and erected around the 25th anniversary of the Civil War. Commonly, elaborate ceremonies and speeches accompanied the unveiling of a monument. At the 1908 dedication of Washington, D. C.’s monument to Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, Daniel E. Sickles shared with the audience his hope that the statue would “recall to those who come after us the magnitude and glory of the struggle for the preservation of the Union.”

The victorious North initially dominated the commemoration of the war, while the South lagged. As time progressed, however, monuments to Confederate soldiers and leaders were designed and placed in many Southern towns and cities. Indeed, at battlefields such as Gettysburg, veterans of the Southern forces were allowed to erect monuments as early as the 1890s. In 1909 the United Daughters of the Coneederacy erected a monument to Henry Wirz, commander of Andersonville Prison. The National Park Service at Gettysburg preserves Robert E. Lee’s headquarters. The R. E. Lee camp of the United Confederate Veterans erected the Alexandria Confederate Memorial (Alexandria, Virginia) to honor their community’s Confederate veterans.

America’s Civil War monuments memorialize the struggle for the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery, but they also honor the Confederacy’s war effort. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C., and the huge General Grant National Memorial (Grant’s Tomb) in New York City memorialize two of the Union’s heroes. The cliff-sized, bas-relief equestrian figures of Jee-eerson Davis, Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, and Robert E. Lee at Stone Mountain, Georgia, do the same for Confederate heroes. Visitors can see the Confederate soldiers’ monument on a stroll through the grounds of the Texas state capitol or pause at Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s memorial sculpture of the 54TH Massachusetts Regiment on Boston Common.

Thus, the United States has preserved memories of the Civil War from both sides of the battle lines. This type of evenhanded commemoration reflects a general belief that both sides fought with equal valor during the war while it ignores the more divisive implications such as slavery and the legacy of racism. The verse by Reverend Randolph McKim, a Civil War veteran, on the Confederate monument in Arlington National Cemetery sums up best the ideology behind most Civil War monuments:

Not for fame or reward

Not for place or for rank

Not lured by ambition

Or goaded by necessity

But in simple

Obedience to duty As they understood it These men suffered all Sacrificed all Dared all And died

In addition to the social and cultural implications tied to the meaning of these monuments, there is the question of preservation. From a simple brass statue to a sprawling national park, it is not always easy to determine how, why, and to what end a monument or memorial should be preserved. In addition, the guardians of such monuments—the federal government, and individual states— rely on the funds of taxpayers and are therefore subject to their thoughts and opinions as well. Knowing when to clean a cannon on a particular battlefield may not be such a difficult task, but deciding where to locate a visitors center and how to interpret the monuments and battlefield is much harder.

Further reading: David J. Eicher, Mystic Chords of Memory: Civil War Battlefields and Historic Sites Recaptured (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998); Kathryn Allamong Jacob, Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, D. C. (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); J. Michael Martinez, William D. Richardson, and Ron McNinch-Su, eds., Confederate Symbols in the Contemporary South (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000).

—Lee Ashley Smith

Morgan, John Hunt (1825-1864) Confederate soldier John Hunt Morgan, known for his raids behind Union lines, was born on June 1, 1825, in Huntsville, Alabama, and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. As a young man, Morgan participated in the Mexican-American War and was promoted to first lieutenant in a cavalry regiment. After the war’s conclusion he became a businessman in Kentucky. However, Morgan’s interests remained in the military, and in 1857 he helped organize the Lexington Rifles, a local militia group. With the outbreak of the Civil War he quickly joined the Confederate forces and was commissioned captain of a squadron of cavalry. At first it was the squadron’s main duty to scout. The following year Morgan’s focus shifted to raiding. At the Battle oe Shiloh in April 1862, he was promoted to colonel as a result of his courageous actions.

Morgan became famous for his raids throughout Kentucky and Tennessee in 1862. His first engagement began on July 4, 1862, as Union forces moved toward Chattanooga. Their operation was thrown into confusion by Morgan when he led two regiments on an attack and captured a cavalry post. He went on to capture two depots and had several engagements with militia encountered along his path. Morgan then moved from town to town throughout Kentucky, all the while destroying Union supplies. He returned to Tennessee on July 22 after covering more than 1,000 miles, capturing 1,200 prisoners, and losing fewer than 100 men. Morgan’s raids did much damage to Northern morale.

Morgan went on to lead many more raids throughout the war. His successes included the capture of numerous Union posts; the destruction of RAILROADS, bridges, and lines of communication; and the capture of many prisoners of war. These raids caused great damage behind Union lines and cost the Union dearly in terms of men and money. After demolishing a strong garrison at Hartsville, Tennessee, Morgan was promoted to brigadier general on December 11, 1862. Though victorious during 1862, he faced failure during the latter half of 1863. While on a raid through southern Indiana and Ohio, Morgan and most of his men were captured by Union cavalry and imprisoned for several months. General Morgan managed to escape and return to the Confederacy, but the Ohio raid was considered a reckless adventure by many Southerners and damaged Morgan’s reputation.

Nevertheless, in the spring of 1864 he was placed in command of the Department of Southwestern Virginia. Six months later he received command of the forces stationed at Jonesboro, Georgia. However, when he and his men reached Greenville, Tennessee, he was surprised by the Union army and shot and killed on September 4, 1864.

Further reading: James D. Brewer, The Raiders of 1862 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997); James Ramage, Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986).

—Emily E. Holst