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Monument for Early almost ready to stand
By Emily Battle / Lynchburg News & Advance
April 16, 2004
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A year and a half after a 12-year-old boy and his friend knocked it over on an 80-mph joy ride, efforts to replace the granite obelisk honoring Confederate Gen. Jubal Early are getting closer to fruition.
A new obelisk, made of Vermont granite, is awaiting delivery from a North Carolina stone company.
Dwayne Lewis, senior design engineer for the city, said no delivery date had been set yet, but that the manufacturer would like to install it sometime later this month.
The new monument will be dedicated June 20 at 2 p.m., during the Lynchburg Civil War Days weekend, which will include a number of events to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Lynchburg.
Delivery of the 20,000-pound obelisk will require stopping traffic and bringing in a large crane.
Including installation, the new monument will cost $64,700, all of which is covered by the city’s insurance payment on the destroyed monument.
As for the old obelisk, its pieces are in storage with the city’s public works department.
A number of Civil War history groups formed the Early Monument Committee shortly after the old obelisk was destroyed in 2002 to help the city plan a new monument. The committee hopes to find a place to display the old obelisk.
Committee members are also working on a strategy to protect the new one from future traffic accidents, but because the monument is so close to the road, the Virginia Department of Transportation won’t allow anything more than a circle of wooden timbers in the ground around the monument.
The monument, which stood at the corner of Memorial and Fort avenues, marked the spot of some of the heaviest fighting during the Battle of Lynchburg, which took place June 18, 1864.
About 36,000 Union soldiers, commanded by Gen. David Hunter, attacked the city, which had only about 8,000 defenders.
Early is credited with arriving with the Second Corps of of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army on June 17 and erecting the earthworks from which Confederate forces repulsed Hunter’s attack.
By Emily Battle / Lynchburg News & Advance
April 16, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A year and a half after a 12-year-old boy and his friend knocked it over on an 80-mph joy ride, efforts to replace the granite obelisk honoring Confederate Gen. Jubal Early are getting closer to fruition.
A new obelisk, made of Vermont granite, is awaiting delivery from a North Carolina stone company.
Dwayne Lewis, senior design engineer for the city, said no delivery date had been set yet, but that the manufacturer would like to install it sometime later this month.
The new monument will be dedicated June 20 at 2 p.m., during the Lynchburg Civil War Days weekend, which will include a number of events to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Lynchburg.
Delivery of the 20,000-pound obelisk will require stopping traffic and bringing in a large crane.
Including installation, the new monument will cost $64,700, all of which is covered by the city’s insurance payment on the destroyed monument.
As for the old obelisk, its pieces are in storage with the city’s public works department.
A number of Civil War history groups formed the Early Monument Committee shortly after the old obelisk was destroyed in 2002 to help the city plan a new monument. The committee hopes to find a place to display the old obelisk.
Committee members are also working on a strategy to protect the new one from future traffic accidents, but because the monument is so close to the road, the Virginia Department of Transportation won’t allow anything more than a circle of wooden timbers in the ground around the monument.
The monument, which stood at the corner of Memorial and Fort avenues, marked the spot of some of the heaviest fighting during the Battle of Lynchburg, which took place June 18, 1864.
About 36,000 Union soldiers, commanded by Gen. David Hunter, attacked the city, which had only about 8,000 defenders.
Early is credited with arriving with the Second Corps of of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army on June 17 and erecting the earthworks from which Confederate forces repulsed Hunter’s attack.
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