Confederate Memorial

At a prominent Confederate high water mark near Shiloh Church, Confederate forces on April 6, 1862, encircled and captured more than 2,200 Federal troops, including General Benjamin Prentiss, ending Union defense of the Hornets Nest. More than eighteen feet high, the Confederate Monument presents the Southern "Lost Cause" through symbolic figures and battle scenes. Its central group, called "Defeated Victory," shows the South surrendering the laurel wreath of victory to Death and Night, symbolizing the loss of the Confederate commander-in-chief and the arrival of Federal reinforcements. Below appears General Albert Sidney Johnston, the highest-ranking American officer ever to die in combat. Panels on the monument contrast the first day's hopeful Confederate advance, represented by eleven soldiers for the eleven Confederate states, with the second day's retreat and sorrow after gains were lost. Other figures portray an infantryman seizing the Confederate flag in defiance of the U.S. Army, an artilleryman looking through battle smoke, a cavalryman frustrated by Shiloh's thick undergrowth, and a bowed officer representing submission to the order to cease firing, at a moment when Confederate victory had seemed near. In 1905, the United Daughters of the Confederacy began a national effort to fund the monument, raising $50,000 little by little without assistance from other organizations or any state appropriation. After failed design submissions in 1913, the competition reopened in 1914 and Frederick C. Hibbard of Chicago won the contract. Hibbard, born June 15, 1881, in Missouri, had studied abroad, in California, and in the Midwest, and had created statues of Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and General Ulysses S. Grant. Excavation for the concrete foundation began June 21, 1916, and the cornerstone laid on November 4, 1916, contained items including silver coins from 1905 and 1916, a twenty-dollar Confederate bill, a state flag from every southern state, a replica of the Confederate Seal, a photograph of Hibbard, and a lock of Johnston's hair.

Shiloh, Tennessee · United States