Hackettstown honors the men and families of the area who served to preserve the Union in the War Between The States, linking their service to major eastern campaigns including Bull Run, the Peninsula, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wildnerness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Five Forks, and Appomattox, and to western campaigns including Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, the March to the Sea, Franklin, and Nashville. The monument preserves the exhortation “Remember you are Jerseymen,” attributed to General Nathan Kimball on Dec 12, 1862, and includes later reflections in verse on sacrifice, memory, Union, freedom, and the passing of time, including a 1927 poem in which an old monument laments neglect and removal, a 1998 ballad asking whether the lives lost were in vain and affirming pride in the price paid, and a 2000 poem speaking in the voice of a bronze Union soldier who urges later generations to protect the land, the children, and freedom.