Confederate monument planned for courthouse
City, county approve Civil War monument
Aug 28, 2012
Cheri Reeves
Robertson County Times
A dedication is being planned next month in Springfield for a Confederate Memorial to be placed on the lawn of the Robertson County Courthouse.
The Springfield Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved a parade application for the Gen. Jon Hunt Morgan Camp 270 SCV, Sons of Confederate Veterans, that will close down part of the downtown square on Sunday, Sept. 23, from 3-5 p.m. for the dedication ceremony.
Johnnie Williams, a member of the SCV unit in Springfield, said the monument will be six-feet high and erected on the west side of the courthouse.
“We will have Honor Guard by reenactors,” Williams said. “We will be bringing up a couple of cannons, which won’t be fired, but the muskets will be fired.”
Williams said a cavalry unit, with four horses, will be displayed on the monument, along with the four regiments who signed up for duty at the Robertson County Courthouse.
“It’s a monument for the Confederate fallen, the troops from the county that signed up at the Courthouse,” Williams said. “With Vietnam, World War II, World War I and Korean memorials up there, it fits right in with them.”
Springfield Alderman James Hubbard said he supports the planned dedication of memorializing the soldier.
“I’m not favoring the cause, but I’m favoring the dedication for the combat veteran,” Hubbard said.
Hubbard suggested the board also consider memorials to “the colored troops from the Union that were here and the slaves who bore the brunt of this conflict.”
Robertson County Historian Yolanda Reid said the local Confederate group raised the money for the monument. No tax funds were spent on the monument itself.
“If a Union organization raised funds and wanted to put a monument there, then it would be considered just like this one was.”
Of the 1,527 Confederate soldiers from Robertson County, 328 of them died in combat. According to Reid, there were no combat deaths of the 98 Robertson County soldiers who served in the Union.
Robertson County organized five regiments of Confederate soldiers. There were no organized regiments of the Federal/Union soldiers from the county.
Springfield High School retired teacher Charlotte Reedy’s great, great grandfather Joel Ethelred Ruffin was a Confederate soldier, who lived in the Cedar Hill and Adams area of Robertson County.
“I’m so happy they’ve decided to put up the monument,” Reedy said. “There are so many stories locally of the soldiers who served then.”
Reedy, who now works at the Robertson County Museum, said Ruffin was wounded in the Civil War and came back and worked as a superintendant of Robertson County Schools for eight years.
Ruffin served with the 50th Tennessee Infantry Regiment Company E, which was organized Dec. 25, 1861 at Fort Donelson, with listed men from both Robertson and Montgomery counties. He was one of the officers captured at Fort Donelson and sent to Johnson’s Island, Ohio, on Lake Erie, according to local historian and writer David C. Allen, in his book 2000 book “Winds of Change.”
Copyright © 2012 www.tennessean.com
On The Web: http://www.tennessean.com/viewart/20120828/ROBERTSON01/308280056/Confederate-monument-planned-courthouse
