| Name: | Confederate Monument |
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| Address: | 131 Church Street, North |
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| City/County: | Liberty, Amite County |
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| Construction Date: | 1866-1871 |
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| Book/Vol. No.: | V. 230, p. 201 |
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Mississippi's first Confederate monument, the cornerstone was laid in 1866, but it was not completed until 1871. Erected on land donated by the Liberty Lodge of Masons, the Confederate Monument in Liberty was designed and built by A.J. Lewis of Brookhaven under the supervision of the Amite County Monument and Historical Association. The Liberty monument stands over twenty-one-and-a-half feet high and consists of a foundation of grouted brick nine feet square, a base of Kentucky granite seven feet sqaure, and a shaft of tapering, Italian marble surmounted by a Grecian urn beneath which lies a wreath inscribed "Rest In Peace." The four sides of the marble shaft are inscribed with the names of the 279 Amite County veterans who had died in or as a result of the Civil War and with the following words: "Sacred to the Memory of the Soldiers from Amite County Who Lost Their Lives in the Confederate Army. Erected by the Citizens of Amite County in 1871."
The Amite County Monument and Historical Association, perhaps the first such group in the South, was organized in 1866 and over the next five years managed to raise the more than $3,300 required to pay for this monument, which was then completed in March and dedicated on April 26, 1871.
Aside from its artistic merit, the significance of this monument lies in the fact that it was the first Confederate Monument erected in Mississippi and was one of the first raised in the entire country. |
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