| |
| In
1906 when thousands of aging Confederate Veterans across the South were raising
money to erect statues of themselves as young troops, the same thought occurred
to Union Veterans who had formed a chapter of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic)
in Denison
(North Texas). |
"Grand
Army of the Republic" Inscription
Photo Courtesy Mike
Price, September 2007 |
According
to the statue’s entry in A Comprehensive Guide to Outdoor Sculpture in Texas
by Carol Morris Little (UT Press, 1996), the statue is thought to have been ordered
from a catalog, while the base was provided by the owner of Denison Marble Works,
one A. P. Chamberlain.
The 1861 Grayson County’s vote on succession was
nearly 2-1 in favor of keeping Texas in the Union. In 1884 forty Union veterans
formed the Nathaniel Lyon Post 5 Chapter of the GAR and it was this group (aided
by Chapter 2 of the Women’s Relief Corps) who paid for the statue. |
|
| The
statue is also a memorial for six former Union troops who are interred here. The
memorial is in the Fairview Cemetery, Just N of Denison
and Highway 75-A. |
Nathaniel
Lyon, whom the GAR post was named after, was a Union General
Photo Courtesy
Mike
Price, September 2007 |
Tombstone
of one one of the six Union troops interred in the Cemetery
Photo Courtesy
Mike
Price, September 2007 |
While
this is the only true monument to Union troops (plural) in Texas, there is also
the smashed torso of a Union officer in Bushdale
Cemetery (Milam County), the “Treue Der Union” obelisk in Comfort,
Texas which marks the remains of newly-arrived German Immigrants who refused to
join the Confederacy and remained “True to the Union.”
The men were
killed at the Battle of Nueces and interred in the small park just a block north
of downtown Comfort.
The Treue Der Union monument is on the National Register of Historic Places.
There are, of course, many individual graves of Union soldiers scattered
among rural and city cemeteries across Texas.
|
| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories, and vintage/historic
photos, please contact
us. | |
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