Memorial to Edmund Kirby-Smith

Item

Legacies Classification
Memorial Artwork
Memorial Type
Sculptural Memorial
Memorial Context
Memorialized Subject
Title
Memorial to Edmund Kirby-Smith
Background and Context
The local Kirby-Smith Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy raised the funds to erect a memorial to CSA General Edmund Kirby-Smith. The memorial, draped in flags of the Confederacy, was dedicated on May 16, 1940, at a ceremony presided over by Vice-Chancellor Alexander Guerry and the Rt. Rev. Henry J. Mikell, the University’s Chancellor and the Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta. Uniformed cadets from the Sewanee Military Academy participated. The bronze bas-relief of Kirby-Smith was sculpted and cast by Biology professor Edward McCrady, who became Sewanee's Vice-Chancellor in 1952.

In 2018, in response to the racist and violent demonstrations protesting efforts to remove an equestrian statue of CSA General Robert E. Lee from public land in Charlottesville, Virginia, the University of the South's leadership relocated the Kirby-Smith memorial to the University Cemetery from its prominent place on University Avenue. The removal of the monument to the cemetery was motivated in part by a request to do so by living descendants of Kirby-Smith.

A new "EQB" monument was implanted on the original plinth, and the leadership of the University dedicated it on September 23, 2018.
Physical Description
Memorial bas-relief of bronze mounted on the face of a plinth (six feet tall) of local sandstone atop a stone apron and in front of a semi-circular sandstone wall.
Memorial Inscription
EDMUND KIRBY-SMITH
1824-1893
West Point — 1845
Twice Brevetted Mexican War — 1848
Brigadier General C.S.A. — 1861
General C.S.A. — 1864
Professor, Sewanee, 1875-1893
This memorial erected by United Daughters of the Confederacy
Tennessee Division
Creator/Participating Person(s)
Date created, installed or dedicated
16 May 1940
Date Modified
October 2017
23 September 2018
Location: Institution, City, State

Position: 492 (19 views)