The monument is of marble and is a draped urn of mourning. From the reverse, one can tell that the drape is a campaign overcoat or cloak. The General's bedroll and sword can also be seen.
Text on the Monument
Sacred to the Memory to the Memory of
Braxton Bragg
Born in Warrenton, N.C.
March 22, 1817
Died in Galveston, Texas
September 27, 1876
Psalm 34th 7th Verse, The Angel of the Lord Encampeth Round About Those that Fear Him Delivereth Them.
Text on Capstone:
Eliza Brooks Ellis.
Wife of Braxton Bragg.
Born in Adams County Miss. 1825.
Died Sept. 25, 1908.
Wikipedia entry for Braxton Bragg:
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Braxton Bragg (March 22, 1817 - September 27, 1876) was a career United States Army officer, and then a general in the Confederate States Army—a principal commander in the Western Theater of the American Civil War and later the military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Bragg, a native of North Carolina, was educated at West Point and became an artillery officer. He served in Florida and then received three brevet promotions for distinguished service in the Mexican-American War, most notably the Battle of Buena Vista. He established a reputation as a strict disciplinarian, but also as a junior officer willing to publicly argue with and criticize his superior officers, including those at the highest levels of the Army. After a series of posts in the Indian Territory, he resigned from the U.S. Army in 1856 to become a sugar plantation owner in Louisiana.
During the Civil War, Bragg trained soldiers in the Gulf Coast region. He was a corps commander at the Battle of Shiloh and subsequently was named to command the Army of Mississippi (later known as the Army of Tennessee). He and Edmund Kirby Smith attempted an invasion of Kentucky in 1862, but Bragg retreated following the inconclusive Battle of Perryville in October. In December, he fought another inconclusive battle at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the Battle of Stones River, but once again withdrew his army. In 1863, he fought a series of battles against Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans and the Union Army of the Cumberland. In June, he was outmaneuvered in the Tullahoma Campaign and retreated into Chattanooga. In September, he was forced to evacuate Chattanooga, but counterattacked Rosecrans and defeated him at the Battle of Chickamauga, the bloodiest battle in the Western Theater, and the only major Confederate victory. In November, Bragg's army was defeated in turn by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Battles for Chattanooga.
Throughout these campaigns, Bragg fought almost as bitterly against some of his uncooperative subordinates as he did against the enemy, and they made multiple attempts to have him replaced as army commander. The defeat at Chattanooga was the last straw and Bragg was recalled in early 1864 to Richmond, where he became the military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Near the end of the war, he defended Wilmington, North Carolina, and served as a corps commander in the Carolinas Campaign. After the war Bragg worked as the superintendent of the New Orleans waterworks, a supervisor of harbor improvements at Mobile, Alabama, and as a railroad engineer and inspector in Texas.
Bragg and Elise had lost their home in late 1862 when the plantation in Thibodaux was confiscated by the Federal Army. It briefly served as a shelter, the Bragg Home Colony, for freed slaves under the control of the Freedmen's Bureau. The couple moved in with his brother, a plantation owner in Lowndesboro, Alabama, but they found the life of seclusion there to be intolerable. In 1867 Bragg became the superintendent of the New Orleans waterworks, but he was soon replaced by an African-American as the Reconstructionists came to power. In late 1869 Jefferson Davis offered him a job as an agent for the Carolina Life Insurance Company. He worked there for four months before becoming dissatisfied with the profession and its low pay. He considered but rejected a position in the Egyptian Army. In August 1871 he was employed by the city of Mobile, Alabama, to improve the river, harbor, and bay, leaving after quarreling with a "combination of capitalists." Moving to Texas, he was appointed the chief engineer of the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad in July 1874, but within a year disagreements with the board of directors over his compensation caused him to resign. He remained in Texas as inspector of railroads.
At the age of 59, Bragg was walking down a street with a friend in Galveston, Texas, when he suddenly fell over unconscious. Dragged into a drugstore, he was dead within 10 to 15 minutes. A physician familiar with his history believe that he "died by the brain" (or of "paralysis of the brain"), suffering from the degeneration of cerebral blood vessels. An inquest ruled that his death was due to "fatal syncope," possibly induced by organic disease of the heart. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama.