Area less than one acre Architect Cassell, Charles E. VLR # 124-0183 | Built 1876-1881 NRHP Reference # 97000956 Added to NRHP 4 September 1997 | |
 | ||
Location Jct. of High and Court Sts., Portsmouth, Virginia | ||
The Confederate Monument in Portsmouth, Virginia, was built between 1876 and 1881. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1997.
The monument is a 35-foot obelisk of North Carolina granite. It is located at the town square of Portsmouth, on Court Street at the corner of High Street. Also facing on the town square are the Trinity Episcopal Church dating from 1828 and the Portsmouth Courthouse dating from 1846, which are also NRHP-listed.
It was erected by the Ladies Memorial Aid Association of Portsmouth, Virginia, which was founded in 1866 with one purpose "being the erection of a monument to the Confederate dead of Portsmouth and Norfolk County." The design was by Charles E. Cassell, "an ex-Confederate topographical engineer".
The cornerstone was laid in 1876. Within the cornerstone several artifacts were placed, including:
The monument's capstone was not placed until 1881, and the monument as a whole was not completed until 1893.
The four cast white-bronze figures that surround the obelisk, including their heads and facial features, are largely generic. The sailor figure, for example, also appears outside the G.A.R. Memorial Hall in Wabash, Indiana.
The city of Portsmouth "gave 1,242 men to the Confederacy of whom 199 were killed or died; Norfolk County gave 1,018 men to the cause of whom 280 were killed or died; and the City of Norfolk gave 1,119 of whom 176 were killed or died."