Audacious Confederate Cemetery Monument

Knoxville, Tennessee

A 48-foot-tall obelisk topped by a Rebel soldier with a bushy mustache, was "placed here with reverend hands" in May 1892 by the Confederate Ladies Memorial Association. According to the many plaques at this site, the 1,600+ Confederates who died in the Battle of Knoxville during the Civil War (here called "the great war between the states") were "sainted dead" who were "inspired by the holiness of a patriotic and impersonal love" and "gave ungrudgingly their lives to their country."

That country was the Confederate States of America, which fought a bloody four-year war against the USA.

The audacity of this particular tribute, especially in a city that was under Union control during the last half of the war, forced supporters of the side that actually won to build an even taller memorial, several years later, to the Union dead of the Battle of Knoxville.