Confederate Martyrs Monument in Jeffersontown

Confederate Martyrs Monument in Jeffersontown
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
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Location	Jeffersontown, Kentucky
Coordinates	38°11′31″N 85°34′06″W[2]
Built	1904
MPS	Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS
NRHP reference No.	97000691 [1]
Added to NRHP	July 17, 1997

The Confederate Martyrs Monument at the Jeffersontown City Cemetery in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, marks where four Confederate soldiers were executed "without cause or trial". Their execution was under Order 59, created by Union General Stephen G. Burbridge, known as "Butcher Burbridge" in Kentucky, which called for the execution of four Confederate prisoners for every unarmed Union citizen killed. The total number of executions performed as a result of this order was fifty. The four soldiers commemorated on the stone were Wilson P. Lilly,[3] Rev. Sherwood Hatley,[4] Lindsay Duke Buckner[5] and M. Blincoe.[6]

History

The execution of the four Confederate soldiers was the only significant event of the American Civil War in Jeffersontown. It was done in retaliation for the extrajudicial murder of a Union soldier on Bardstown Pike, as was common during the Civil War.[7] The soldiers were shot while confined, and their bodies were dumped in a ditch until their interment here.[8]

The monument was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1997, the same day as the Louisville Confederate Monument and the Union Monument in Louisville. The Confederate Soldiers Martyrs Monument in Eminence, Kentucky, that was also established to honor victims of Order 59, was also established on the same day.[1]

Inscriptions

The monument was erected by the Albert Sidney Johnston chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy (D.O.C).

The inscription on the front reads:

Wilson P. Lilly
Rev. Sherwood Hatley
Confederate soldiers
October 25, 1864
Robbed of the glory of death on the field
of battle by Stephen G. Burbridge who
ordered them shot without cause or trial
Erected to the memory of the four martyrs by the
Albert Sidney Johnston chapter
D.O.C. of Louisville, Ky. June 11, 1904
Martyrs

On the back it reads:

Wilson P. Lilly.
Sherwood Hatley.
Lindsay Duke Buckner.
M. Blincoe.
Being dead yet speaketh.

Gallery

• 
  Front view of monument
• 
  Back view of the monument
• 
  View of monument and the closest street
• 
  View of the monument and the farther street

See also

• Louisville, Kentucky, in the American Civil War
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Jefferson County, Kentucky

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
2. "Jeffersontown Cemetery". Find A Grave. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
3. "Wilson P Lilly". Find A Grave. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
4. "Sherwood Hatley". Find A Grave. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
5. "Capt Lindsey Duke Buckner". Find A Grave. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
6. "William C Blincoe". Find A Grave. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
7. Bonner, Robert E. (2007-10-30). The Soldier's Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War. Michigan State University: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 98. ISBN 978-1-4299-2412-2.
8. "The Victims of Burbridge the Butcher". 2007-05-05. Archived from the original on 2007-05-05. Retrieved 2019-06-29.