Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Monument (Charleston, West Virginia)

Union

This monument is located on the south lawn of the West Virginia State Capitol, facing the Kanawha River. It was erected in memory of West Virginia soldiers, sailors and marines of the Union Army who fought in the Civil War. The monument features a bronze statue of a marching Union soldier carrying a rifle on his right shoulder. The pedestal upon which he stands has four bronze plaques affixed to its base, each containing inscriptions, one of which is a complete transcription of President Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address.

Inscription:

[South Side] In memory of the thirty-two thousand soldiers, sailors, and marines contributed by West Virginia to the service of the Union during the Civil War 1861-1865 [East Side] This monument erected A.D. 1930 by the Union Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Commission [North Side] Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech November 19, 1863 Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great Civil War testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they, who fought here, have thus far nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall have not died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. [West Side] The act of Congress admitting West Virginia as a separate state was approved by President Lincoln June 20, 1863

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