County of monument: Arlington County
Location of monument: Jackson Circle, near Farragut Dr., inside Arlington National Cemetery
Artist: Sir Moses Jacob Ezekiel, 1844-1917, sculptor
H. Gladenbeck & Sohn, founder
Date dedicated June 14, 1914
Erected by: United Daughters of the Confederacy with permission of President Howard Taft
"Confederate Memorial (#36 on sketch map, Figure 9, Photo 19)- Although Confederate soldiers were buried
at ANC from its inception as a cemetery, bitter feelings between the North and South and ANC's role as a
primarily Union cemetery meant that there was not a monument to Confederate soldiers until the early twentieth
century. Before that time families of Confederate soldiers were not always allowed to decorate the graves of their
soldiers and, at times, were not allowed to enter the cemetery (Peters 2008:246). In June 1900, a section of the
cemetery was authorized by Congress to be used for the burial of Confederate dead. During the next year and a
half, soldiers who had been buried in national cemeteries in Alexandria and the Soldiers' Home in Washington,
D.C. were moved to the Confederate section of ANC (Section 16). In total, 482 persons are buried in the section,
46 officers, 351 enlisted men, 58 wives, 15 Southern civilians, and 12 unknowns. The grave markers in this
section are distinctive, with pointed tops that were meant to be easily distinguishable from the rounded tops of
Union soldiers' headstones.
"The graves are arranged in concentric circles around the Confederate Memorial, which was erected by the United
Daughters of the Confederacy. The organization's petition was granted on March 4, 1906, by Secretary of War
William Howard Taft, who, as president, spoke at a reception for the organization upon the laying of the
cornerstone for the monument on November 12, 1912. The completed monument was dedicated on June 4,
1914. Former Confederate soldier and internationally recognized sculptor Moses Ezekiel (1844-1917) was chosen
to design the Confederate Memorial. Ezekiel was born in Virginia in 1844 and was attending the Virginia Military
Institute (VMI) as its first Jewish cadet at the outbreak of the Civil War. Ezekiel fought at the Battle of New Market
in 1864 and in the trenches outside Richmond near the war's close. After finishing his education at VMI in 1866,
he moved to Berlin in 1868 to study at the Royal Academy of Art. Ezekiel moved to Rome after winning the
Michel-Beer Prix de Rome from the Academy in 1874. Public commissions by Moses Ezekiel in the United States
include "Religious Liberty" in Philadelphia, the Thomas Jefferson Monument in Louisville, Kentucky, the Jefferson
Monument which stands before the University of Virginia Rotunda and the nearby statue of Homer, on the
University's Lawn, and "Virginia Mourning her Dead" at VMI (Wrenshall1910:12255-12264).
"The monument stands 32 feet tall and is dominated by a larger-than-life statue of a woman representing the
South. Crowned with olive leaves, her left hand extends a laurel wreath southward in acknowledgment of the
sacrifice of those who died in the war. Her right hand holds a pruning hook resting on a plow stock, illustrating the
biblical passage that is inscribed at her feet, "And they shall beat their swords into plow shares and their spears
into pruning hooks" (found in Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3, and Joel 3:10). The South stands on a pedestal with four
cinerary urns, one for each year of the war, and is supported by a frieze with 14 shields, one for each of the 13
Confederate states, and one for Maryland. The frieze directly underneath the plinth contains life-sized figures
depicting mythical gods and Southern soldiers. At the front of the monument, the panoplied figure of Minerva,
goddess of war and wisdom, tries to hold up the figure of a fallen woman (the South) who is resting on her shield,
the Constitution. Behind the South, the Spirits of War trumpet in every direction, calling the sons and daughters of
the South to aid their falling mother. On either side of the fallen woman are figures depicting the sons and
daughters who came to her aid, representing each branch of the Confederate Service: Soldier, Sailor, Sapper,
and Miner.
"The base of the monument has inscriptions on its north and south faces. On the south face, below the
Confederate seal, the inscription reads "To Our Dead Heroes By The United Daughters Of The Confederacy"
followed by the Latin phrase Victrix Causa Diis Placuit Sed Victa Caton ("The Victorious Cause was Pleasing to
the Gods, But the Lost Cause to Cato"). The north face reads "Not for fame or reward I Not for place or for rank I
Not lured by ambition I Or goaded by necessity I But in simple I Obedience to duty I As they understood it I These
men suffered all I Sacrificed all I Dared all-and died." Four Confederate soldiers are buried around the base of the monument: Moses Ezekiel, Lt. Harry C. Marmaduke (Confederate Navy), Capt. John M. Hickey (Second
Missouri Infantry), and Brig. Gen. Marcus J. Wright who commanded brigades at Shiloh and Chickamauga.
"Although the monument and grave markers have not changed since its completion in 1914, the original
pedestrian pathways leading to and encircling the monument were removed and replaced with lawn. A
photograph dated circa 1910-1920 shows the monument without the walks, indicating that they may have been
removed as early as the late 191 Os. Four sections of shrubs form a circle just inside the innermost ring of grave
markers. Trees flank either side of the shrubs on the south. The entrances to the north and south have bushes.
The significance of the Confederate Memorial extends beyond the monument itself to the social climate in which it
was built. The turn of the twentieth century marked a beginning of changing sentiments between the North and
South with the authorization by Congress of a Confederate section within ANC. The reconciliation that began with
this monument would be further strengthened through the Arlington Memorial Bridge that would physically and
symbolically bridge the divide between Lee's Arlington estate and Lincoln's Washington." ~ NRHP Nomination Form