Friday, January 30, 2009

Confederate Monument Erected by a Methodist Church


This white marble monument stands in the median strip of Green Street, in front of St. James United Methodist Church, Augusta, Georgia. The monument was erected by the "Sabbath School" of the St. James church in memory of local men who had lost their lives while defending their homeland from Northern invaders during the War Between the States.

The St. James Church, founded in 1854, was only seven years old when Lincoln's Union troops marched against the South. Twenty-four members of the church lost their lives during the ensuing "War for Southern Independence." Inscriptions on three sides of the monument list the names 285 Augustans, including the St. James members, who were killed in the war.

The cenotaph was unveiled on December 31, 1873. This was five years before the much larger Richmond County Confederate Monument was unveiled a few blocks away on Broad Street, in the center of Augusta. The primary inscription on the St. James monument reads:

THESE MEN DIED
IN DEFENSE OF
THE PRINCIPLES
OF THE
DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE

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