Designed by George Julian Zolnay, it was commissioned by the Frank Cheatham Bivouac of the United Confederate Veterans in 1903, laid with Masonic honors in 1907, and dedicated in 1909.

[3] Theodore Cooley, a member of the Frank Cheatham Bivouac of the United Confederate Veterans, suggested commissioning a monument in 1902.

[4] In a speech, Henry Watterson combined a veneration of Southern glory with a consecration of the dead to the reconciliation of the living.

Although he emphasized divine will, he differed from other United Confederate Veteran speakers in that he depicted God sacrificing the men of both sections to a new Union.

In appealing to things memorable, he transferred elements of the Gospels to Southern history to heighten the sense of divine destiny in reconciliation.