The Confederate Monument of Morganfield, Kentucky is a monument to Confederate soldiers from surrounding Union County, Kentucky, of which Morganfield is the county seat. It is in the northernmost corner of the City Cemetery/Odd Fellows Cemetery just outside downtown Morganfield. During the War "Union" County was mostly a Confederate-sympathizing county. The county produced 657 soldiers for the Confederacy, but only 187 for the Union, although 131 African-Americans joined the Union forces in 1864. In July 1862, Union forces at Caseyville, Kentucky threatened to arrest everyone in the town of treason, eventually freeing all but nineteen citizens. A skirmish in Morganfield on September 1, 1862, resulted in a Confederate victory.[2][3][4]
The monument consists of a limestone base supporting a white marble obelisk. Inscribed on the monument were the names of sixty-four soldiers who had died in battle, and stated that "Union County mourns the loss of:". Due to its age, much of its text is now illegible.[2]
Nathan Bedford Forrest led the first troops to enter the county during the War on a scouting expedition in November 1861. In 1864 there was much guerrilla activity in the area.[5]
On July 17, 1997, the Confederate Monument of Morganfield was one of sixty-one different monuments related to the Civil War in Kentucky placed on the National Register of Historic Places, as part of the Civil War Monuments of Kentucky Multiple Property Submission.[6]
Gallery
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Monument
Notes
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
- ^ a b Civil War in Kentucky
- ^ Morganfield War marker, see gallery
- ^ Kleber, John E. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. (University Press of Kentucky). pg.908.
- ^ Morganfield marker
- ^ Joseph E. Brent (January 8, 1997). "National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Submission: Civil War Monuments in Kentucky, 1865-1935" (pdf). National Park Service.
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