The Monument

Cornerstone laid April 29, 1886 by Jefferson Davis
Dedicated December 7, 1898

The 85-foot tall Confederate Monument on Capitol Hill in Montgomery stands in commemoration of the service and sacrifice of 122,000 Alabamians who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Fund-raising for the $45,000 monument began in 1865 and was largely the work of Alabama women, as was typical of memorial patronage in the South. The Ladies Memorial Association raised the money through a lengthy effort involving bazaars and appeals to private donors and the state government. Due to pressing needs of widows, orphans, and Confederate veterans in the Reconstruction South, the cornerstone was not laid until 1886, when Jefferson Davis performed the ceremony with full Masonic rites just a few feet from the spot where he had taken the oath of office as President of the Confederacy.

In 1886 the foundation for the colossal column was in place, but another twelve years passed before the monument designed by Alexander Doyle (1857-1922) was completed with its handsome bronze allegorical finial figure of Patriotism, granite statuary by Fred Barnicoat (1857-1942) representing the four branches of the Confederate armed forces, and a bronze relief band that encircles the column. The elaborate dedication on December 7, 1898 (nearly forty years after the war, the highpoint of its commemoration) was attended by thousands who cheered the lengthy orations, poetry, and pageantry of the Lost Cause.

The Confederate Monument on Capitol Hill is one of the largest Civil War monuments in the South. Indeed, it is comparable in form and scale to many Civil War monuments in northern state capitols and major cities that generally predate it due to the stronger post-war economy in the North. The colossal columnar monument form, the patriotic and military imagery, the stone and bronze materials, even much of the meaning of the Confederate Monument is similar to that of other Civil War memorials–North and South alike.

As with the earliest memorial efforts in the North, the intent of those who met in Montgomery in November 1865 was “to build a monument to the dead.” Over the decades it took the monument to materialize, its purpose was broadened to encompass the service of all those who fought, as was also the case with later Union memorials. Like Civil War monuments North and South, it commemorates the courage and patriotism of those who fought, and especially those who died for their beliefs. Like many Confederate monuments, it acknowledges the South’s intent to secede to defend states’ rights and individual liberties just as the colonies had seceded from Britain a century earlier, and it accepts defeat of the Lost Cause while maintaining manly and regional honor.

Unlike all other Civil War memorials, the Confederate Monument on Capitol Hill stands adjacent to the Alabama state capitol building in the Cradle of the Confederacy. “There a nation was born, and there let its grave be hallowed,” wrote the revered “Mrs. Judge Bibb,” better known as “Aunt Sophie” to the thousands of suffering soldiers her hospital in Montgomery served during the war. With her contribution of $100 to the monument fund in 1885 —the first subscription to that fund—she wrote prophetically, “I do not doubt that the monument will be erected, and prove a sacred shrine where we may repair, and, forgetting the bitterness of the past, receive inspiration from the memories invoked to fulfill the obligations of the present and develop the possibilities of the future.”

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, a statement made at the unveiling remains true: “It stands revealed, a thing of beauty and grace, the work of Woman, the pride of the State, commemorative of man’s truth to his convictions and woman’s gratitude.”
Consequently, the Confederate Monument on Capitol Hill ranks high among the artistically and historically significant structures at the Alabama State Capitol and around the state and nation.

The monument consists of four statues representing the four branches of the service standing around the tall base of a limestone column that rises 70 feet above a bronze bas relief band and is topped by a ten-foot tall bronze statue of Patriotism. The design is typical of Civil War monuments during the late nineteenth century and ranks among the largest of the type dedicated to soldiers and sailors of large cities or states. The monument exhibits a slightly wider range of materials than is typical, utilizing Russellville, Alabama limestone for its base, New England granite for the statues of Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry and Navy, limestone for the column, bronze for the bas relief and Patriotism, and cast iron for the fence that is an important part of the monument design.

According to The Confederate Monument of Capitol Hill, Montgomery, Alabama, the 95-page record of the monument's dedication edited by Mrs. I. M. Porter Ockenden and published by the Ladies Memorial Association in 1900 (p. 76), Alexander Doyle was the "original designer and sculptor" of the monument. Doyle was involved in the monument industry from birth, inheriting his father's limestone quarries in Bedford, Indiana upon his death in 1906. After Education in Europe, he opened a monument business in New York City in 1878 and earned prominence as a sculptor. Three of his portrait figures are in Statuary Hall of the US Capitol. His work is also found in the state capitols of Indiana and Iowa, as well as New York, Cleveland, New Orleans, Atlanta, Savannah and several other cities.

The monument was erected by Curbow and Clapp, a local monument company. Ockenden relates that Mr. Curbow died prior to completion of the monument and Oliver Clapp "was entrusted with the completion of the contract" (p. 76). She also indicates that the stone was supplied "from our own quarries by I. L. Fossick of Sheffield" (p. 76). Sheffield, on the Tennessee River near the Tri-cities of Florence, Tuscumbia and Muscle Shoals, is very close to the limestone quarries at Russellville.

The granite statues "were furnished by Curbow-Clapp Marble Company" and were "chiseled by F. Barnicoat, Quincy, Mass." (p. 76). Barnicoat is one of several stone carvers known to have been active in the quarry town of Quincy. Quincy and Westerly, Rhode Island were the only sources in the country of the consistent grey granite used during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for figurative statuary. Ockenden relates that photos of the statues "submitted for selection, not exactly meeting the ideals of the ladies, [sic] the sketches inspired by their suggestions furnished for the figures representing the four branches of the service, were modeled by the graceful and skillful pencil of Mr. J. C. Doud, a Montgomery artist of superior talent on many lines" (p. 76–77).

The monument was dedicated on a beautiful day. On Ockenden's words, "The dreary clouds which had derailed December were lifted, earth's tears were dried, and the matchless bonnie blue floated from line to line of the exquisite dome which rounded above the beauteous figure which drew her harmless sword against the sky." The event commenced with a parade up Dexter to the monument, followed by several lengthy orations by prominent men of the day who extolled the courage and valor of the Confederate soldiers commemorated by the monument. The rhetoric compares with the best of the "Lost Cause," concentrating on the commitment to principle practiced by the men and women of the Confederacy and defense of the southern states' decision to secede from the Union to defend their liberty just as the colonies had declared their independence from England less than a century earlier. "Patriotism," the title of the bronze finial figure, was cited frequently by multiple speakers.

The focus of the day was on 1861, the start of the war, and the significance of the monument's site on the Montgomery's Capitol Hill, the Cradle of the Confederacy. "There a nation was born, and there lit its grave be hallowed," wrote Mrs. Judge Bibb," better know as "Aunt Sophy" to the thousands of suffering soldiers her hospital in Montgomery served during the war.

The ceremony included frequent references to Sophy Bibb, whose "sunset" was "near at hand" (Ockenden, p. 10–11) and thus unable to attend the dedication. The Ladies Memorial Association that evolved from the Civil War era hospital association eventually raised $45,000 for the monument, but not before they erected head stones on 800 graves and a monument in the Montgomery cemetery where many who left the hospital were buried. And not before they provided proper burial for many Alabama fatalities on various battlefields. And not before they tended to the needs of numerous widows, orphans and veterans in Alabama. Because of these pressing humanitarian needs that ladies charitable and memorial groups in the south tackled, the monument committee was not inaugurated until September 30, 1885 and the Montgomery Daily Advertiser reported the next day that the first subscription was from Aunt Sophy Bibb—$100.

With her contribution, Bibb wrote, "I do not doubt the monument will be erected, and prove a sacred shrine where we may repair, and, forgetting the bitterness of the past, receive inspiration from the memories invoked to fulfill the obligations of the present and develop the possibilities of the future" (p. 11).

The dedication ceremony included an oration prior to the unveiling of each of the four granite figures plus a presentation of the monument to the governor and the acceptance. This was followed by an elaborate tableaux vivant featuring thirteen young girls, "representing the thirteen states of the confederacy, attired in spotless white, with grey uniform caps, bright crimson sashes and the badges of their various States" (p. 75).

"These young women were representatives of old families and were grouped around the tattered battleflag of the Sixteenth Alabama Regiment, in the hands of the central figure of 'The Southern Confederacy,' represented by Miss Sadie Robinson, who was dressed in deep mourning, the only note of color being the thirteen starts that crowned her jet-black hair. Miss Robinson was the niece of the late devoted Secretary, Miss Jeannie Crommelin, and standing thus in the strikingly fair circle, she recited Father Ryan's immortal poem, 'Furl that Banner,' in the perfect taste and deep feeling, which held all hearers spell-bound. Intense silence reigned until broken by 'Taps' blown by Capt. Courntney, on the clarinet, as if the sad parting hymn of dying day. Slowly the picture became a dissolving scene and their fair wraiths of the Southern Confederacy were lost to sight. The Rev. Dr. Eager pronounced the benediction. The Montgomery Field Artillery fired salutes—the unveiling was over" (p. 76).