Civil War Memorial - Las Cruces, NM - American Civil War Monuments and Memorials on Waymarking.com

Veterans Park hosts many memorials and exhibits from virtually every conflict in U.S. History. This Civil War Memorial is on the large curved wall that comprises the main memorial in the park. The name of the conflict and some statistics are carved into a stone set in the wall. Below, a large brass plaque gives a brief history of the war. Additional plaques give the names of some who participated in that conflict.

The text on the stone inset is:

CIVIL WAR
1861 - 1865
TOTAL SERVED - 2,213,363
TOTAL U.S. DEATHS - 364,512

The text on the large narrative plaque is:

Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election of 1860 without earning a single electoral vote from a southern state. Expansion of slavery into new territories appeared doomed. Within a month, South Carolina seceded from the union. By May 1861, eleven states comprised the Confederate States of America.

Hostilities commenced April 1861 when the Union attempted to resupply and reinforce Ft. Sumpter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Confederates launched a bombardment of the fort until Federal forces surrendered. President Lincoln initiated Operation Anaconda, a naval blockade of Confederate coastline and ports.

The union carried the fight to the Confederates on two basic fronts. The Army of the Potomac, based in Washington, D.C., fought in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The Army of the West engaged Confederate forces primarily in the areas bordered by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Land forces in both areas were supported by naval sea and river operations.

Army of the Potomac faced the Confederate Army of Virginia. The major confrontation of 1861 occurred in the Battle of Bull Run near Manassas. 1862 saw campaigns on the Virginia peninsula east of Richmond, the Shenandoah Valley Second Battle of Bull Run, Antietam in Maryland, and Fredericksburg. In April 1863 the two armies fought at Chancellorville followed by the Battle of Gettysburg in June. Lincoln appointed Ulysses S. Grant Commander of all Union forces March 1864. Grant first engaged Lee's army in the wilderness southwest of Chancellorville, slid south to Spotsylvania in May, Cold Harbor and Petersburg in June. Grant dispatched General Philip Sheridan to conduct campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley. That autumn, Grant's final battle against Lee's army occurred March 1865. Advancing on Petersburg after nine months of siege, he pursued the Confederates to Appomattox and accepted Lee's surrender April 14, 1865.

The western campaign carried the war into the heartland of the South. Grant and General Buell first engaged the Confederacy February 1862 at Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in Southern Kentucky, supported by naval gunboats. After a disastrous beginning at Shiloh in April, the Union Army regrouped and pushed the Confederate Army south to Corinth, Mississippi. Admiral David Farragut's forces captured New Orleans, completing a naval stranglehold of Confederate resupply by sea and the Mississippi. Union armies engaged the enemy at Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1862. Vicksburg succumbed to a Union siege July 1863. Succeeding Grant in the west, General William T. Sherman moved southeast, occupying Atlanta, then cut a sixty mile wide swath of destruction across Georgia to Savannah. The Battles of Franklin and Nashville occurred November and December 1864. Sherman turned his forces north through the Carolinas where he accepted the Confederate surrender April 26, 1865 at Raleigh, North Carolina.

The bloody American tragedy, pitting brother against brother, was finally concluded.

Union, Confederate or Other Monument: Other or General Civil War Rating (1-5): Photo or photos will be uploaded.: yes Date Installed or Dedicated: Not listed Name of Government Entity or Private Organization that built the monument: Not listed Related Website: Not listed

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