Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky)

During the American Civil War, Calloway County saw 820 plus of its citizens serve in the Confederate Army. 2200 plus served in the Union Army.[2]

The monument was funded after a three-year fund raising drive by the J. N. Williams Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (U.D.C) in 1917, whose chairman died during that period; her name was added to the monument in tribute. The U.D.C. paid $2,500 to Marietta, Georgia's McNeel Monument Company for the structure.[2][3]

The 16.5-foot-tall (5.0 m) monument has three parts. The bottom is a porcelain drinking fountain; when it was a working fountain, a step pedal was used to obtain water. In its time, was the most elaborate and modern of the Civil War fountain monuments:[4] the other three fountains are the Confederate Memorial in Mayfield, Confederate Memorial Fountain in Hopkinsville, and the Confederate Monument of Cadiz.[2]

Four 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) Doric columns support a granite canopy. Inside the canopy is an ornate iron light fixture with four incandescent bulbs to light the fountain. On top are four marble balls and a 5.5-foot-tall (1.7 m) marble statue of Lee, making it the only monument in Kentucky that heavily features Robert E. Lee;[4] the only other monument in Kentucky with a likeness of Lee is Bardstown, Kentucky's Confederate Monument of Bardstown which has only a small relief portrait of Lee below the large statue of a Confederate soldier.[2][4]

On July 17, 1997, the Confederate Monument in Murray was one of sixty-one different monuments related to the Civil War in Kentucky placed on the National Register of Historic Places, as part of the Civil War Monuments of Kentucky Multiple Property Submission.[5]

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  Front view
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  Monument with courthouse in view