Our Confederate Dead Monument

Our Confederate Dead Monument

Confederate Monument

In Memoriam Memorial

Confederate War Memorial

1872

1879

2018

2020

The purpose of this monument was to serve as a memorial obelisk to those who died in Confederate service from St. Augustine.

Grass

Forty-five men who served in Confederate armies from St. Augustine never returned home from the Civil War. Many were presumed buried in mass graves across any number of battlefields. In 1866, wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, and sweethearts of these men or lady acquaintences founded the Ladies Memorial Association. They spent the next few years hosting bake sales or taking in sewing to raise money for a pillar with the names of the men engraved upon it. By 1872 they had the money needed to pay for the construction but the men in-charge of the city government were not sympathetic to their cause and would not permit the memorial to be placed in the Plaza. The Bishop of St. Augustine allowed the ladies to place their Memorial on Catholic Church property on St. George Street between St. Francis and Bridge Streets. The monument was unveiled May 10, 1872, and had a rectangular base out of the center of which rose a broken shaft.

In 1879, the city government had changed hands and the ladies requested their monument moved. It was, but it was also altered from its original appearance to what we see today, using as much of the original material as possible. All of the original marble plaques were saved and put on the new version of the monument. Until 1890, the top of the monument remained intentially incomplete, but a lightening strike damaged the top, leading to restructuring, including the placement of a pyramid of concrete cannonballs.

In 2017, after the rally in Charlottesville, there were calls across the country to have Confederate monuments and memorials removed. The memorial in the Plaza was one that the City Council was asked to take down. The 99-year lease with the Ladies Memorial Association had expired and that organization was no longer active anyhow. Many people, both local and not local attended city meetings to express their thoughts. The vocal outcry led to the City Commissioners deciding to leave the monument alone despite one of the vocal proponents making repeated calls for the city of St. Augustine to be burned down if the memorial was not removed. The City Commisoners appointed a committee who spent 2018 creating the wording for four contextualization panels that explained how the monument honored the Civil War, which was fought over the right to own slaves.

In 2020, after George Floyd's death, the City Commission reversed its previous vote and decided to have the memorial taken down. Restoration work had been recently completed after the obelisk had been found to be structurally unsound. Over the summer and fall of 2020, the monument was carefully removed and then reinstalled at Trout Creek Memorial Park near the St. Johns River. The City of St. Augustine was sued by descendents of the men whose names were carved into one of the marble plaques.

Plaza de la Constitucion

Trout Creek Memorial Park

The following books, articles, websites, and photographers were used to find the above photographs or illustrations:

Photograph 1 (1890): Bierstadt, Edward. Sunlight Pictures: Saint Augustine. New York: The Artotype Publishing Co., 1891.

Photograph 2 (2017): Owens, Katherine. "In Memoriam Memorial." April 22, 2017.

Photograph 3 (2017): Owens, Katherine. "Memorial Plaque." April 22, 2017.

Photograph 4 (2017): Owens, Katherine. "Credit for Funders Plaque." April 22, 2017.

Photograph 5 (2024): Owens, Katherine. "The Obelisk." October 11, 2024.

The following books, articles, and/or websites were used to find information about this location:

Historic City News. “History of the Confederate Memorial.” August 22, 2017. https://historiccity.com/2017/staugustine/news/history-of-the-confederate-monument-69407.

Santiago, Erica. “38 Descendants of Confederate Soldiers Sue St. Augustine Over Removal of Confederate Monument.” First Coast News, June 28, 2020. https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/38-descendants-of-confederate-soldiers-sue-st-augustine-over-removal-of-confederate-monument/77-190cb049-c19c-4d4c-b270-efd14c057597.

Shields, Leah. “Historian Says Removing the St. Augustine Confederate Monument Would Correct Historical Record.” First Coast News, July 2, 2020. https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/historian-says-removing-the-st-augustine-confederate-monument-would-correct-historical-record/77-3477ef16-49c6-464f-adab-61c8c303d8d3.

Swain, Craig, Brandon D. Cross, and Dave W. “St. Augustine Confederate Memorial.” Edited by J. Makali Burton. HMdb.org: The Historical Marker Database. April 18, 2023. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=220567.

Flagler College’s Rare Books, Floridiana & Institutional Repository are neither the original nor current copyright owner for the photographs. Please contact the publisher or source cited for each photograph to obtain a copy and/or permission to reproduce these items.

The following St. Augustine Fiction books feature this historic site as a location:

The First Gentleman of America
Sugar Cage

This record was lasted updated on October 11, 2024.