General Lloyd Tilghman, a graduate of West Point Military Academy, settled in Kentucky after the Mexican War and was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army in October 1861. At Champion Hill, he led a brigade whose artillery fought a Union battery all day from a position on the next ridge to the left and astride Raymond Road, where his brigade covered the retreat of Pemberton's scattered army. At the height of this action, Tilghman was shot and killed. His troops carried away his body and buried him in Vicksburg, and his remains were later reinterred in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City. In 1907, Tilghman's sons, Frederick B. and Sidell Tilghman, proposed an equestrian statue in memory of their father for installation in Vicksburg National Military Park, and the monument, sculpted by E. William Sievers, was erected in 1926. They also erected a stone monument marking the spot where he was killed at Champion Hill after Capt. William T. Rigby, superintendent of Vicksburg National Military Park, met with eyewitnesses and neighbors, including J.G. Spencer of Port Gibson, to determine the exact location; Spencer had been serving an artillery piece only 30 feet away when Tilghman was killed.
