Savannah's Confederate Monument: Built to Reject Reconstruction
Near Tybee Island, Georgia
Construction on this forty-eight-foot shaft began June sixteenth, eighteen seventy-four, and the monument was dedicated May twenty-fourth, eighteen seventy-five. The Ladies Memorial Association organized the effort, raising funds under strict rules that no Northern materials or labor could be used. Even the sandstone was cut in Nova Scotia and shipped south.
The Confederate soldier on top was crafted in New York and added later, in the late eighteen seventies. Historians note that unlike many Confederate monuments placed in cemeteries to honor the dead, this one was deliberately erected in Forsyth Park as a public statement, a visible rejection of Reconstruction-era change in the heart of the city. It remains one of the most prominent and contested monuments in the state of Georgia.
