Civil War Memorial Landscape: current Listing of Images
Markers and Monuments
The selected photographs highlight the sites of historical memory of the Civil War, with emphasis on African American contributions in addition to Confederate and Federal memory.
Image 1: Thomas Ball, Emancipation Memorial, Washington, DC.
African Americans raised the money for the memorial but white northerners designed the final memorial. Even though Frederick Douglass spoke at the dedication, few leaders and community members spoke out against the condescending portrayal of the prone former slave. In the present, gentrification and a more critical interpretation has changed the meaning of the monument.
Image 2: Hertford USCT Monument, Hertford, NC, c. 1910.
This is one of the few examples of a Civil War monument created by African Americans. In this instance, black women of Perquimans County honor the veterans, many of them relatives. It was erected prior to the UDC monument in the Hertford Town Square.
Image 3: Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, Boston, MA in front of the Massachusetts State House.
Image 4: Spirit of Freedom - African American Civil War Memorial, Washington, DC.
This modern monument is a direct contrast to the Thomas Ball’s Emancipation memorial.
Image 5: "To the Confederate Defenders of Charleston," monument, Charleston, SC.
Image 6: SC Institute Hall plaque, Charleston, SC.
Marker honors the ratification of the Ordinance of Secession for South Carolina. Plaque reads: “This building stands of the site formerly occupied by S.C. Institute Hall where on December 20, 1860 was signed and ratified the Ordinance of Secession which withdrew the State of South Carolina from the Union and led to the formation of the Confederate States of American and to four years of War Between the North and the South. The building was totally destroyed in the conflagration of December 1861.
Image 7: Fish monument outside of the Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, VA. It honors the Confederate Trilogy – Lee, Jackson and Stuart.
Image 8: William Tecumseh Sherman monument, New York, NY. Situated in the Grand Army of the Republic Plaza, Augustus St. Gaudens created the monument. Sherman is pointing toward the entrance of Central Park.
Image 9: Civil War Sailors Monument, Washington, DC.
Image 10: Beauregard Monument, Washington Park, Charleston, SC
Image 11: CSA Memorial, Washington Park, Charleston, SC
Image 12: Robert Smalls, Historical Marker, Beaufort, SC
Marker text: Born a slave in Beaufort in 1839, Robert Smalls lived to serve as a Congressman of the United States. In 1862, he commandeered and delivered to Union forces the Confederate gunboat “Planter,” on which he was a crewman. His career as a freedman included service as delegate to the 1868 and 1895 State Constitutional Conventions, election to the S.C. House and Senate, and 9 years in Congress. He died in 1913 and is buried here.
Image 13: Robert Smalls, Beaufort, SC. Smalls is buried in the attached cemetery at the Tabernacle Baptist Church. Monument text: Robert Smalls. “My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere all they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.” Robert Smalls, Nov. 1, 1895.
Image 14: UDC Monument, Beaufort, SC
Text on front: To Our Confederate Dead; text on back: Erected by the Stephen Elliott Chapter U.D.C.
National Cemetery, Beaufort, SC
Established by Abraham Lincoln, this was one of several national cemeteries established for the interment of Federal, white and black, military veterans from the Civil War to the present. Images document Civil War markers and monuments, headstones for veterans of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment and a memorial to unknown nineteen black USCT soldiers discovered during the construction of a Charleston, SC hotel.
Image 1: Bivouac of the Dead, marker
Text: From The Bivouac of the Dead By Theodore O’Hara
The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldiers last tattoo;
No more on life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
Image 2: Beaufort National Cemetery, federal Marker, near main entrance
Column 1 text (Civil War Beaufort):
Soon after the Civil War began in April 1861, Confederate troops fortified the city of Beaufort. Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island and Fort Beauregard on St. Phillips Island protected the approach to Port Royal Bay.
On the morning of November 7, 1861, a Union fleet of seventeen gunboats pounded the forts with artillery fire. By late afternoon, the Confederates had abandoned both islands.
The Union Navy gained control of one of the best harbors on the Atlantic coast. Its blockading fleet could resupply and repair in protected waters. Beaufort, upriver from the islands, was transformed into a naval station, hospital center, and Union Army headquarters.
Column 2 text (National Cemetery): Beaufort National Cemetery was established in 1863. The U.S. Army Quartermaster General’s Office laid out the 22 acres in sections that radiate outward from a central plaza to form a half circle. Of the 9,226 interments here in 1874, about half were known. Many of the unknown dead were Union prisoners of war originally buried at Camp Lawton in Georgia.
New construction in the 1870s included a Second Empire-style lodge for the superintended and a brick wall to enclose the cemetery. The existing Dutch Colonial Revival-style lodge was built in 1934. Although it has grown in size, the cemetery retains many of its original design features.
There are two Civil War monuments. The Union Soldiers Monument, a 20-foot granite obelisk, was erected through the efforts of Mrs. Eliza McGuffin Potter in 1870. The second, a marble tablet on a raised brick base, lists the names of 175 soldiers who Mrs. Potter attended as a nurse in Beaufort hospitals.
Column 3 text (U.S. Colored Troops): Beginning in March 1863, the federal government recruiting black men for the Union Army. A few months later, the War Department created the Bureau of United States Colored Troops (USCT). USCT regiments fought in battles and engagements from Virginia to Texas. There are more than 1,700 USCT soldiers buried here.
In the late 1980s, the remains of nineteen soldiers, determined by archaeologists to be members of the all-black 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment were discovered on Folly Island near Charleston. In 1989, the remains were reinterred with full military honors between Section 56 and the back wall of the cemetery.
Image 3: Memorial Day, marker to the unknown nineteen USCT soldiers, Section 56
Image 4: Memorial Day, marker to the unknown nineteen USCT soldiers, left side.
Inscription: “Memorial Day. May 29, 1989. The Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Michael S. Dukakis, and descendants of the African-American Civil War Volunteers of the 54th and 55th Infantry Regiments and the 5th Cavalry Regiment of Massachusetts, accompanied by distinguished citizens of the Commonwealth came on this day to Beaufort National Veterans Cemetery to honor the members of the black 55th Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, whose remains were found on Folly Island, South Carolina in 1987, and reinterred this day with full military honors befitting American soldiers. “Duty well performed…Glory and reward won.” Governor John A. Andrew, 1865.”
Image 5: Memorial Day, marker to the unknown nineteen USCT soldiers, right side.
Inscription: “These Hallowed Grounds hold the remains of at least nineteen black Union soldiers, 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, who lost their lives on Folly Island in the Siege of Charleston, during the winter encampment of Nov. 1863-Feb. 1864, Civil War.
Their earthly remains lay long forgotten until rediscovered in May 1987. They were reburied at this site by the community of Beaufort, May 29, 1989.”
Image 6: Union Soldiers Monument
Inscription text: “Immortality to hundreds of the defends of American liberty against the Great Rebellion. Erected by the efforts of Mrs. L. T. P.”
Text on wreath: Rest in Honored Glory/48th N.Y. Vol. Infantry
Images 7 – 20 represent all of the black 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment depicted in the movie “Glory.”
Image 7: 1244 – A. F. Green, Mass.
Image 8: 1246 – H. A. Field, Corp’l, Mass.
Image 9: 1248 – Wm. Eliis, Corp’l, Mass.
Image 10: 1250 – J. H. Bancroft, Mass.
Image 11: 1252 – J. W. Green, Mass.
Image 12: 1255 – Chas. Clark, Mass.
Image 13: 1257 – Chas. Allen, Mass.
Image 14: 1260 – Anthony Davis, Mass.
Image 15: 1265 – Martin Gilman, Mass.
Image 16: 1266 – J. W. Freeman, Mass.
Image 17: 1304 – Lewis Anderson, Mass.
Image 18: 1308 – T. F. Cooper, Mass.
Image 19: 1311 - J. Burnside, Mass.
Image 20: Gettysburg Address plaque, outbuilding, near entrance.
Plaque Text: Address by President Lincoln at the Dedication of The Gettysburg National Cemetery, November 19, 1863.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who gave their lives that nation might live. It’s altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it. Far above our poor power to add or detract, the world will little note, no long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
The selected photographs highlight the sites of historical memory of the Civil War, with emphasis on African American contributions in addition to Confederate and Federal memory.
Image 1: Thomas Ball, Emancipation Memorial, Washington, DC.
African Americans raised the money for the memorial but white northerners designed the final memorial. Even though Frederick Douglass spoke at the dedication, few leaders and community members spoke out against the condescending portrayal of the prone former slave. In the present, gentrification and a more critical interpretation has changed the meaning of the monument.
Image 2: Hertford USCT Monument, Hertford, NC, c. 1910.
This is one of the few examples of a Civil War monument created by African Americans. In this instance, black women of Perquimans County honor the veterans, many of them relatives. It was erected prior to the UDC monument in the Hertford Town Square.
Image 3: Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, Boston, MA in front of the Massachusetts State House.
Image 4: Spirit of Freedom - African American Civil War Memorial, Washington, DC.
This modern monument is a direct contrast to the Thomas Ball’s Emancipation memorial.
Image 5: "To the Confederate Defenders of Charleston," monument, Charleston, SC.
Image 6: SC Institute Hall plaque, Charleston, SC.
Marker honors the ratification of the Ordinance of Secession for South Carolina. Plaque reads: “This building stands of the site formerly occupied by S.C. Institute Hall where on December 20, 1860 was signed and ratified the Ordinance of Secession which withdrew the State of South Carolina from the Union and led to the formation of the Confederate States of American and to four years of War Between the North and the South. The building was totally destroyed in the conflagration of December 1861.
Image 7: Fish monument outside of the Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, VA. It honors the Confederate Trilogy – Lee, Jackson and Stuart.
Image 8: William Tecumseh Sherman monument, New York, NY. Situated in the Grand Army of the Republic Plaza, Augustus St. Gaudens created the monument. Sherman is pointing toward the entrance of Central Park.
Image 9: Civil War Sailors Monument, Washington, DC.
Image 10: Beauregard Monument, Washington Park, Charleston, SC
Image 11: CSA Memorial, Washington Park, Charleston, SC
Image 12: Robert Smalls, Historical Marker, Beaufort, SC
Marker text: Born a slave in Beaufort in 1839, Robert Smalls lived to serve as a Congressman of the United States. In 1862, he commandeered and delivered to Union forces the Confederate gunboat “Planter,” on which he was a crewman. His career as a freedman included service as delegate to the 1868 and 1895 State Constitutional Conventions, election to the S.C. House and Senate, and 9 years in Congress. He died in 1913 and is buried here.
Image 13: Robert Smalls, Beaufort, SC. Smalls is buried in the attached cemetery at the Tabernacle Baptist Church. Monument text: Robert Smalls. “My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere all they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.” Robert Smalls, Nov. 1, 1895.
Image 14: UDC Monument, Beaufort, SC
Text on front: To Our Confederate Dead; text on back: Erected by the Stephen Elliott Chapter U.D.C.
National Cemetery, Beaufort, SC
Established by Abraham Lincoln, this was one of several national cemeteries established for the interment of Federal, white and black, military veterans from the Civil War to the present. Images document Civil War markers and monuments, headstones for veterans of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment and a memorial to unknown nineteen black USCT soldiers discovered during the construction of a Charleston, SC hotel.
Image 1: Bivouac of the Dead, marker
Text: From The Bivouac of the Dead By Theodore O’Hara
The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldiers last tattoo;
No more on life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
Image 2: Beaufort National Cemetery, federal Marker, near main entrance
Column 1 text (Civil War Beaufort):
Soon after the Civil War began in April 1861, Confederate troops fortified the city of Beaufort. Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island and Fort Beauregard on St. Phillips Island protected the approach to Port Royal Bay.
On the morning of November 7, 1861, a Union fleet of seventeen gunboats pounded the forts with artillery fire. By late afternoon, the Confederates had abandoned both islands.
The Union Navy gained control of one of the best harbors on the Atlantic coast. Its blockading fleet could resupply and repair in protected waters. Beaufort, upriver from the islands, was transformed into a naval station, hospital center, and Union Army headquarters.
Column 2 text (National Cemetery): Beaufort National Cemetery was established in 1863. The U.S. Army Quartermaster General’s Office laid out the 22 acres in sections that radiate outward from a central plaza to form a half circle. Of the 9,226 interments here in 1874, about half were known. Many of the unknown dead were Union prisoners of war originally buried at Camp Lawton in Georgia.
New construction in the 1870s included a Second Empire-style lodge for the superintended and a brick wall to enclose the cemetery. The existing Dutch Colonial Revival-style lodge was built in 1934. Although it has grown in size, the cemetery retains many of its original design features.
There are two Civil War monuments. The Union Soldiers Monument, a 20-foot granite obelisk, was erected through the efforts of Mrs. Eliza McGuffin Potter in 1870. The second, a marble tablet on a raised brick base, lists the names of 175 soldiers who Mrs. Potter attended as a nurse in Beaufort hospitals.
Column 3 text (U.S. Colored Troops): Beginning in March 1863, the federal government recruiting black men for the Union Army. A few months later, the War Department created the Bureau of United States Colored Troops (USCT). USCT regiments fought in battles and engagements from Virginia to Texas. There are more than 1,700 USCT soldiers buried here.
In the late 1980s, the remains of nineteen soldiers, determined by archaeologists to be members of the all-black 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment were discovered on Folly Island near Charleston. In 1989, the remains were reinterred with full military honors between Section 56 and the back wall of the cemetery.
Image 3: Memorial Day, marker to the unknown nineteen USCT soldiers, Section 56
Image 4: Memorial Day, marker to the unknown nineteen USCT soldiers, left side.
Inscription: “Memorial Day. May 29, 1989. The Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Michael S. Dukakis, and descendants of the African-American Civil War Volunteers of the 54th and 55th Infantry Regiments and the 5th Cavalry Regiment of Massachusetts, accompanied by distinguished citizens of the Commonwealth came on this day to Beaufort National Veterans Cemetery to honor the members of the black 55th Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, whose remains were found on Folly Island, South Carolina in 1987, and reinterred this day with full military honors befitting American soldiers. “Duty well performed…Glory and reward won.” Governor John A. Andrew, 1865.”
Image 5: Memorial Day, marker to the unknown nineteen USCT soldiers, right side.
Inscription: “These Hallowed Grounds hold the remains of at least nineteen black Union soldiers, 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, who lost their lives on Folly Island in the Siege of Charleston, during the winter encampment of Nov. 1863-Feb. 1864, Civil War.
Their earthly remains lay long forgotten until rediscovered in May 1987. They were reburied at this site by the community of Beaufort, May 29, 1989.”
Image 6: Union Soldiers Monument
Inscription text: “Immortality to hundreds of the defends of American liberty against the Great Rebellion. Erected by the efforts of Mrs. L. T. P.”
Text on wreath: Rest in Honored Glory/48th N.Y. Vol. Infantry
Images 7 – 20 represent all of the black 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment depicted in the movie “Glory.”
Image 7: 1244 – A. F. Green, Mass.
Image 8: 1246 – H. A. Field, Corp’l, Mass.
Image 9: 1248 – Wm. Eliis, Corp’l, Mass.
Image 10: 1250 – J. H. Bancroft, Mass.
Image 11: 1252 – J. W. Green, Mass.
Image 12: 1255 – Chas. Clark, Mass.
Image 13: 1257 – Chas. Allen, Mass.
Image 14: 1260 – Anthony Davis, Mass.
Image 15: 1265 – Martin Gilman, Mass.
Image 16: 1266 – J. W. Freeman, Mass.
Image 17: 1304 – Lewis Anderson, Mass.
Image 18: 1308 – T. F. Cooper, Mass.
Image 19: 1311 - J. Burnside, Mass.
Image 20: Gettysburg Address plaque, outbuilding, near entrance.
Plaque Text: Address by President Lincoln at the Dedication of The Gettysburg National Cemetery, November 19, 1863.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who gave their lives that nation might live. It’s altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it. Far above our poor power to add or detract, the world will little note, no long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
