JEFFERSON DAVIS MONUMENT
[J. L. Underwood.]
The project to erect an appropriate monument to the great Chieftain of the Confederacy was undertaken by the veterans years ago. They raised about $20,000. The Daughters of the Confederacy, just as they always 298 do, then took hold of the matter and they have increased the fund to $70,000. The Georgia United Daughters of the Confederacy, who have built a Winnie Davis dormitory at the Georgia Normal School, have been very active in the work for the Davis Monument at Richmond, and Georgia has the credit of leading all the States in the amount contributed. The city of Richmond has donated a very eligible lot at the crossing of Franklin and Cedar streets, near the splendid R. E. Lee monument. It is fitting that the monuments to the leading civil and military heroes of the great cause shall be so near each other. Very near to these will be monuments each to Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, and to Gen. Fitz Hugh Lee. These monuments will all stand in the Lee district, the new and coming choice residence section of the glorious city.
It is expected that the splendid monument to Mr. Davis will be unveiled at the Confederate reunion in 1907. Work has already begun and the foundations are being laid. Dirt was formally broken on the 7th of November, 1905, by Mrs. Thomas McCullough, of Staunton, president of the Davis Monument Association. Hon. J. Taylor Ellyson, lieutenant-governor elect, a noble veteran, and others, also took part in the historic ceremonies. The picks and shovels will be preserved in the Confederate Museum. The monument will be unique in its design and will worthily tell future generations of the great man and the great cause. The writer confesses to a great pleasure, while preparing this volume, of almost daily visits to see the foundation work of this monument going on. He spent five years of his life in Mississippi in the old days, and he knows Mr. Davis before our war to have been a gentleman, a patriot, and a Christian, and the kindest of masters to his slaves. He was a Chevalier Bayard, a knight sans peur et sans reproche, and yet, under the responsibility laid on him by the Confederate States, he became the mark for all the abuse and slander that could be heaped on the Confederate cause by the fanatics among our foes. His grave in Hollywood Cemetery and the Confederate Memorial Museum building, which was Mr. Davis’s home during the sad war, have been precious 299 though mournful Meccas to the author during many months of hospital suffering in Richmond, and, by courtesy of the Ladies’ Memorial Literary Society, a large part of the actual work on this memorial volume was done in the very rooms occupied by our great leader. May God bless our noble women for the monument which promises to be worthy of its mission.