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Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky)

sculpture in Kentucky, United States of America

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ5159704 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Confederate Monument in Murray is a statue located in the northeast corner of the Calloway County Courthouse in Murray, Kentucky. It commemorates the 800 citizens of the county who served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, and is one of several Confederate monuments in Kentucky featuring Robert E. Lee. There is another one featuring Lee in Bardstown, Kentucky. Despite recent controversy, the Calloway County Fiscal Court voted to keep the statue on its grounds in July 2020.

Establishment

During the American Civil War, Calloway County saw about 800 of its citizens serve in the Confederate Army. 200 plus served in the Union Army. At the time of the Civil War 1,500 enslaved people were living in Calloway County making up about 15% of the county's population at the time.

The monument was funded after a three-year fund raising drive by the J. N. Williams Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (U.D.C.) in 1917, whose chairman died during that period; her name was added to the monument in tribute. The U.D.C. paid $2,500 to Marietta, Georgia's McNeel Marble Company for the structure.

Structure

The 16.5-foot-tall (5.0 m) monument has three parts.

Editorial summary

“Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky)” enters the record as sculpture in Kentucky, United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Confederate, Monument and Murray can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2020, 1917—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1917. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Confederate, Monument and Murray.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Confederate, Monument and Murray provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5159704. Authority coordinates are 36.610, -88.305. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020 and 1917.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky) primary sources, Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky) archive and Confederate research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky)”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Confederate Monument (Murray, Kentucky)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.