Existing comment:
Confederate Memorial:
Shiloh's Confederate Monument combined symbolism with beauty to commemorate the story of the Southern "Lost Cause" in the fields and woods near Shiloh Church. Its prominent location marks a Confederate high water mark. Here, on April 6, 1862, Confederates encircled and captured over 2,200 Federal troops, including General Benjamin Prentiss, thus ending Union defense of the Hornets Nest.
Over eighteen feet high, the monuments central figures depict a "Defeated Victory." In front, the South surrenders the laurel wreath of victory to Death on her right, and Night on her left. Death took away the Confederate commander-in-chief, while Night, having brought on reinforcements for the Federals, stands waiting to complete the defeat.
Below them, in low relief, appears the figure of General Albert Sidney Johnston, the southern commander. Johnston remains the highest ranking American officer ever to die in combat.
The panel of heads to the right represents the spirit of the first day's battle. Exuberantly, hopefully, courageously, fearlessly, the young Confederates rush into battle. The eleven soldiers portrayed here equal the number of Confederate states.
The soldiers on the panel to the left, now fewer in number, represent the second day's battle. Driven back over ground they had gained the day before, Confederates are finally forced to retreat. The panel shows the sorrow of the men who fought so hard for a victory so nearly won, and so unexpectedly lost. The symbolically depicted "wave upon wave of soldierly" is now past its crest.
The the far right, the infantryman has snatched up the Confederate flag in defiance of the U.S. Army. In support by his side, the Artilleryman calmly gazes through the smoke of battle.
To the left, the Cavalryman spreads his hand in frustration. Although eager to assist, the cavalry could not penetrate Shiloh's thick undergrowth. The rear figure, head bowed in submission to the order to cease firing, represents the Confederate officer corps. At that point on the evening of the battle's first day, Confederate victory had seemed imminent.
On the monument's rear wall, three plaques provide additional information on design and construction.
In 1905, the United Daughters of the Confederacy undertook a national project to place a monument on Shiloh Battlefield. In reaching their goal of $50,000, the UDC raised money "little by little," without help from other organizations or any state appropriation.
The monument committee held a design competition in 1913. When none of the submitted models embodied the ideas of the committee, all six initial entries were rejected. The contest was reopened in 1914. A new competitor, Frederick C. Hibbard of Chicago, won the first prize: the contract for building the monument.
Born on June 15, 1881, Missouri native Frederick Cleveland Hibbard studied abroad, in California, and in the Midwest. His work includes the Hannibal, Missouri, statues of Mark Twain, and the author's characters Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and the equestrian statue of General Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi.
Excavation for the monument's concrete foundation began on June 21, 1916. Among the articles placed in the cornerstone on November 4, 1915, were silver coins from 1905 and 1916, a $20 Confederate bill, a state flag from every southern state, a replica of the Confederate Seal, a photograph of sculptor Hibbard, and a lock of General Johnston's hair. |