Source: Confederate Monument, Raleigh NC
Confederate Monument, State Capitol, Raleigh
Leopold Von Miller II, Sculptor
Muldoon Monument Company, Builder
This 75-foot-tall monument to fallen Confederate soldiers is located on the State Capitol grounds. At the top of the column is a statue depicting a Confederate artillery soldier holding a gun. Near the bottom of the column are two statues, one representing the Confederate infantry and the other a Confederate cavalryman.
In 1892, state legislators endorsed the goal of building a Confederate monument in Capital Square. Secretary of State Octavius Coke held a meeting of members of both the Ladies Memorial Association and the North Carolina Monumental Association in June 1892 to launch a campaign to erect a memorial to deceased Confederate soldiers from North Carolina.
Front, on shaft: TO OUR CONFEDERATE DEAD
Front, on base: FIRST AT BETHEL, LAST AT APPOMATTOX
State of North Carolina
May 20, 1895
35.780430 , -78.640050
"A Historical Day," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), May 22, 1894
"A Memorial Day," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), May 23, 1894
"An Interview with Col. Kenan and Col. Tate," The News and Observer Chronicle (Raleigh, NC), February 3, 1894, 1-2 Link
"Confederate Monument and Olivia Raney Library, Raleigh, N.C." in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Confederate Monument and State Capitol, Raleigh, N.C." in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Confederate Monument in Raleigh, N.C.” in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Confederate Monument, Capital Grounds, Raleigh, N.C." in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Confederate Soldiers Monument," North Carolina Civil War Monuments, (accessed January 28, 2011) Link
"Final Arrangement," The News and Observer Chronicle (Raleigh, NC), May 20, 1894, 1-2 Link
"North Carolina State Confederate Monument," Waymarking.com, (accessed December 29, 2011) Link
"North Carolina's Soldier and the Banquet to the Men Who Put Him There," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), April 10, 1895, 5 Link
"Official Programme," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), May 19, 1895, 2 Link
"State House and Confederate Monument" in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Tear Down This Monument?," New Raleigh, February 25, 2009, (accessed December 29, 2011) Link
Confederate Veteran 6 (1898), 229 Link
History of the Ladies Memorial Association, (Raleigh, NC: 1938), (accessed May 16, 2012) Link
Berent, Irwin M. The Monuments and Statues on the Capitol Square of North Carolina, (Greenville, NC: East Carolina University Press, 1985)
Bishir, Catherine W. "Landmarks of Power," in Where These Memories Grow: History, Memory, and Southern Identity, edited by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 150-151
Bishir, Catherine W. "North Carolina’s Union Square," Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina, (accessed May 15, 2012) Link
Carlisle, Linda A. "North Carolina State Capitol Memorial Study Committee Report," North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, May 2010, (accessed January 31, 2011) Link
Clark, Walter. "How Can Interest Be Aroused in the Study of the History of North Carolina?" (Wrightsville, NC: Teachers' Assembly, 1901), (accessed May 29, 2012) Link
Grimes, J. Bryan. "Why North Carolina Should Erect and Preserve Memorials and Mark Historic Places: Address Before the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, Raleigh, N.C., November 4, 1909," ([Raleigh, NC: The News and Observer, 1909]), (accessed May 18, 2012) Link
Mason, Thomas W. Address of Hon. T.W. Mason Before the Ladies' Memorial Association at the Laying of the Corner-Stone of the Confederate Monument, Raleigh, NC, May 20, 1895, (Raleigh: E.M. Uzzell, 1898), (accessed February 8, 2012) Link
Waddell, Alfred M. Address at the Unveiling of the Confederate Monument, at Raleigh, N.C., May 20th, 1895, (Wilmington, NC: LeGwin Bros., 1895), (accessed February 8, 2012) Link
Williams, Charlotte Bryan Grimes. History of the Wake County Ladies Memorial Association: Confederate Memorials in Capitol Square, Memorial Pavilion, the House of Memory and Confederate Cemetery, (Raleigh, NC: United Daughters of the Confederacy, Johnston Pettigrew Chapter No. 95, 1938), (accessed May 16, 2012) Link
“Capitol Building,” in the North Carolina County Photographic Collection #P0001, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Link
Yes
Mt. Airy Granite, bronze statues
State of North Carolina
$22,000
Dedicated on May 20, 1895. Unveiled by Julia Jackson Christian, Granddaughter of Stonewall Jackson. Speakers included Captain Samuel Ashe, Thomas W. Mason, and Alfred Waddell.
The initial model for the statues was to be the Confederate hero Henry L. Wyatt, but the sculptor Von Miller used W. R. Dicks (who was a living Confederate veteran) as inspiration for the statues.
When the monument was first proposed, Populist and Republican legislators objected to any public funding of the monument on the grounds that public education, rather than sectional pride, was a pressing need. In addition, monument opponents protested against the special tax fund that would be used to subsidize the monument’s costs.
During the 2000s, some critics questioned whether it was appropriate to continue to commemorate, on capitol grounds, white soldiers who fought to establish a slaveholders’ republic.
This monument faces Hillsborough Street and is parallel to South Salisbury Street. It is surrounded by trees and a paved pathway. Directly behind the monument is the State Capitol building.
The monument is located at the end of Hillsborough Street on the west side of the capitol grounds.
The Civil Works Authority made plans to move the monument from Capital Square to Nash Square in 1934 as part of renovations to Capital Square, but the Board of Public Buildings and Grounds decided on February 5th to prevent the CWA from moving the monument. The move was prevented because of public outcry in regards to moving such a historically significant monument from a highly visible location.
In 1893 the legislature appropriated $10,000 to build the monument in honor of deceased Confederate soldiers in Capital Square. An alliance of Republican and Populist legislators stalled approval of subsequent funding until March 7, 1895, when both chambers of the legislature voted in favor of an additional appropriation of $10,000.
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