The monument was designed by John Stinson and installed in 1906 at the campus administrative entrance. Due to its controversial nature a reinterpretation plaque was added beneath the monument in 2016, but revised a few months later in response to protests. Subsequent protests concerning the monument's prominent location led to it being relocated in 2020 to a secluded Civil War cemetery on the university's campus.
As a unit of the division under the command of Brigadier General J. Johnston Pettigrew in Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, the University Greys suffered 100 percent casualties on July 3, 1863. Every soldier in the company who started the assault was either killed, wounded or captured.[4][5]
Design
The monument in 2018, with the contextual plaque
The Confederate Monument was designed by John Stinson and installed in 1906 by the Daughters of the Confederacy at the campus administrative entrance.[6] The 30-foot-tall (9m)[6] sculpture was built in marble on a brick foundation. It depicts a Confederate soldier with a rifle in his right hand and saluting with his left.[7]
The inscription on the east face of the sculpture read:[7]
TO OUR CONFEDERATE DEAD 1861–1865, ERECTED BY ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON CHAPTER 379 U.D.C.
THEY FELL DEVOTED BUT UNDYING; THE VERY GALE THEIR NAMES SEEM'D SIGHING; THE WATERS MURMUR'D OF THEIR NAME; THE WOODS WERE PEOPLED WITH THEIR FAME; THE SILENT PILLAR, LONE AND GRAY. CLAIM'D KINDRED WITH THEIR SACRED CLAY; THEIR SPIRITS WRAPP'D THE DUSKY MOUNTAIN; THEIR MEMORY SPARKLED O'ER THE FOUNTAIN, THE MEANEST RILL, THE MIGHTIEST RIVER, ROLL'D MINGLING WITH THEIR FAME FOREVER BYRON
The inscription on the west face of the sculpture read:[7]
TO THE HEROES OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY WHOSE VALOR AND DEVOTION MADE GLORIOUS MANY A BATTLEFIELD
Reception
The statue was a focal point for unrest in 1962 when James Meredith attempted to enroll in the university, which hitherto had been segregated and open to white people only. The ensuing Ole Miss riot of 1962 saw two murders committed, and the police having to use tear gas.[8] Since then, the university has been racially integrated, and by 2016 some 13.1 percent of the student body was Black.[8] (Black people account for 38.69 percent of the population of Mississippi.[9])
In 1997, the university banned sticks in the football stadium, so spectators could not wave Confederate battle flags, the Colonel Reb mascot was retired in 2003, and the university marching band no longer plays "Dixie".[10] In 2012, when the university celebrated the 50th anniversary of desegregation, Black and white students clashed on election night when Barack Obama secured a second term. In 2014, two students tied a noose and a Confederate flag to the campus statue of James Meredith. They were later convicted of Federal hate crimes.[8] In 2015, the university stopped flying the Confederate-themed flag of Mississippi.[10]
That year, in response to pressure from students about the Confederate Monument, the university decided to add a plaque providing context to the monument. A committee was appointed in 2015, which drew up a wording. A plaque was made and installed in March 2016.[6][11] The plaque read:[12]
As Confederate veterans were passing from the scene in increasing numbers, memorial associations built monuments in their memory all across the south. This monument was dedicated by citizens of Oxford and Lafayette County in 1906. On the evening of September 30, 1962, the statue was a rallying point where a rebellious mob gathered to prevent the admission of the University's first African American Student. it was also at this statue where a local minister implored the mob to disperse and allow James Meredith to exercise his rights as an American Citizen. On the Morning After that long night Meredith was admitted to the University and graduated in August 1963.
This historic structure is a reminder of the University's past and of its current and ongoing commitment to open its hallowed halls to all who seek truth and knowledge and wisdom.
Criticism of the wording of the plaque resulted in the chancellor, Jeffrey Scott Vitter, appointing an Advisory Committee on History and Context, consisting of four academics, Donald Cole, Andrew Mullins, Charles Ross and David Sansing, to consider a revised wording.[13][11] The committee's terms of reference did not permit it to consider relocating the statue.[6] The replacement plaque was approved by the chancellor, and installed in June 2016. It read:[11]
As Confederate veterans were dying in increasing numbers, memorial associations across the South built monuments in their memory. These monuments were often used to promote an ideology known as the "Lost Cause", which claimed that the Confederacy had been established to defend states' rights and that slavery was not the principal cause of the Civil War. Residents of Oxford and Lafayette County dedicated this statue, approved by the university, in 1906. Although the monument was created to honor the sacrifice of local Confederate soldiers, it must also remind us that the defeat of the Confederacy actually meant freedom for millions of people. On the evening of September 30, 1962, this statue was a rallying point for opponents of integration.
This historic statue is a reminder of the university's divisive past. Today, the University of Mississippi draws from that past a continuing commitment to open its hallowed halls to all who seek truth, knowledge, and wisdom.
In September 2017, the plaque and memorial was rammed and damaged by an apparent "drunk driver",[14] resulting in a $10,000 repair bill.[15][16]
In 2018, a student campaign began to have the statue relocated to a less conspicuous location, a Confederate cemetery on a remote part of campus. A 2004 Mississippi law forbids the removal or rededication of monuments to the "War Between the States" that were erected on public property, but it permits relocation to a more suitable location if the governing body of the site determined that the new location was a more appropriate site and still on public property. In this case, the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning claimed jurisdiction.[6]
In March 2019, the Associated Student Body Senate unanimously passed a motion calling for the statue's relocation.[17] The university board voted to move the statue in June 2020, and it was moved to the new location in July. The relocation was estimated to cost $1.2 million, which was raised from private subscriptions.[10][18]
Littlefield Fountain is a World War I memorial monument designed by Italian-born sculptor Pompeo Coppini on the main campus of the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas, at the entrance to the university's South Mall. Completed in 1933, the monument is named after university regent and benefactor George W. Littlefield, whose donation paid for its design and construction.
The University Greys were Company A of the 11th Mississippi Infantry Regiment in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Part of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Greys served in many of the most famous and bloody battles of the war.
The Lyceum–The Circle Historic District is a historic district within the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, Mississippi. It includes eight buildings and several monuments lining University Circle, and surrounds "The Circle" on the campus. The university was established as the flagship public institution of the state, and generations of leading families' sons and daughters have studied here.
The Friend to Friend Masonic Memorial is a Gettysburg Battlefield monument depicting the "Armistead-Bingham incident" in which Union Army Captain Henry H. Bingham assisted wounded Confederate Brigadier General Lewis Addison Armistead. Both men were Freemasons. This event occurred shortly after Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863. However, the memorial statue was not created until more than 130 years later, in 1993.
Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
The Virginia Monument, also commonly referred to as "The State of Virginia Monument", is a Battle of Gettysburg memorial to the commonwealth's "Sons at Gettysburg" with a bronze statue of Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveller and a "bronze group of figures representing the Artillery, Infantry, and Cavalry of the Confederate Army". The equestrian statue is atop a granite pedestal and the group of six standing figures is on a sculpted bronze base with the figures facing the Field of Pickett's Charge and the equestrian statue of Union General George G. Meade on Cemetery Ridge. The granite pedestal without either sculpture was dedicated on June 30, 1913 for the 1913 Gettysburg reunion. On June 8, 1917, Virginia governor Henry C. Stuart presented the completed memorial to the public.
The 11th Mississippi Infantry Statue is a Gettysburg Battlefield memorial commemorating a Confederate regiment with a bronze sculpture of a flagbearer of the 11th Mississippi Infantry Regiment.
The Bentonville Confederate Monument was installed in Bentonville, Arkansas, United States. It was removed from the town square in September 2020 and relocated to the private James H. Berry Park in July 2023.
Jefferson Davis is a statue depicting the American-Confederate politician of the same name by Pompeo Coppini. The sculpture was commissioned in 1919 by George W. Littlefield to be included in the Littlefield Fountain on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. It was installed on the university's South Mall from 1933 to 2015, when it was relocated to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History in Austin, Texas.
Woodrow Wilson is a sculpture depicting the American president of the same name by Pompeo Coppini. The sculpture was commissioned in 1919 by George W. Littlefield to be included in the Littlefield Fountain on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. It was installed on the university's South Mall in Austin, Texas from 1933 until its removal in 2015.
James Stephen Hogg is an outdoor sculpture depicting the American lawyer and statesman of the same name by Pompeo Coppini. The sculpture was commissioned in 1919 by George W. Littlefield to be included in the Littlefield Fountain on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. It was installed on the university's South Mall in Austin, Texas from 1933 until its removal in 2017.
The Denton Confederate Soldier Monument was an outdoor Confederate memorial installed in downtown Denton, Texas, in the United States.
There are more than 160 Confederate monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of which have been since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
A statue of James Meredith stands on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, United States. The statue honors Meredith, a civil rights activist who integrated the university in 1962. The statue was dedicated in 2006 and is located near a portal. The statue and portal collectively make up the Civil Rights Monument.
The Confederate Monument is a shaft of granite topped by a marble statue of a soldier—the oldest public sculpture in Greenville—that memorializes the Confederate dead of the American Civil War from Greenville County, South Carolina. The monument is flanked by two period Parrott rifles manufactured at the West Point Foundry.
The history of the University of Mississippi, the first public institution of higher education in Mississippi, began in 1848, when the Mississippi Legislature chartered the university. Construction of the university was completed in the rural town of Oxford in 1848.
↑ Sergeant Jeremiah Gage of the University Greys, who was wounded at the Battle of Gaines's Mill, was killed during the preliminary artillery bombardment. Hess, 2001, p. 156.
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