Gravestone for Francis Asbury Shoup
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- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
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- Memorial Inscription
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- Location: Institution, City, State
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Memorial Artwork
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Sculptural Memorial
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Gravestone for Francis Asbury Shoup
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In 1903, during the spring meeting of the University of the South’s Board of Trustees and the university commencement, a memorial to the former Confederate officer and long-time faculty member Francis A. Shoup – “an appropriate and beautiful ledger monument of polished granite” – was unveiled in the University Cemetery. Shoup had died in 1896. Speaking at the 1903 dedication, the Bishop of Tennessee and future University Chancellor, Thomas Frank Gailor, praised Shoup as “one of the truest and noblest spirits that ever blessed Sewanee with his devotion” and “a Confederate Soldier, who, to the day of his death, was not ashamed nor afraid of the principles which for four years he had gallantly defended upon the field of battle.” A large crowd encircled a Confederate flag at the Sewanee cemetery and watched as “little Miss Esther Nichol” removed the flag to reveal the memorial (Sewanee Purple). Students, faculty, and Confederate veterans gathered for a day of ceremony to remember Shoup and Sewanee’s Confederate roots. Before the unveiling, the local Kirby-Smith chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy hosted a reception, which began with a prayer and a playing of “Dixie.” Shoup’s widow, also a UDC member, delivered crosses of honor to Confederate veterans in attendance, doling out medals with the motto of the Confederate States, Deo Vindice, “With God as our Vindicator."
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The memorial is Shoup's burial tomb in the shape of a coffin, lying on its base. Inscriptions appear on the head and two sides. The foot of the structure bears two cannons crossed.
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Head inscription: Rev. Francis Asbury Shoup D.D.
Priest
Mar. 22 1835 — Sept. 4, 1896
Side 1 inscription:
Professor in University of the South 1869-1896.
Side 2 inscription:
Brig Gen Confederate States Army 1861-1865
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June 20, 1903
Position: 1570 (49 views)
