The monument, an equestrian statue, honors John Brown Gordon, a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War who later become a politician in post-Reconstruction era Georgia.

[7] During the dedication, Governor Joseph M. Terrell and another speaker called for the erection of additional monuments on the Capitol grounds for Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, and the "common soldier", but budgetary issues prevented these plans from coming to fruition.

[2] The statue's unveiling attracted many onlookers, and contemporary accounts mention a choir singing "Dixie" to loud cheers during the ceremony.

Following the Charleston church shooting in 2015, a state senator proposed a law forbidding the official recognition of Confederate symbols, including icons such as the Gordon statue.

Around the same time, American historian Kenneth W. Noe, speaking with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, spoke directly about the Gordon statue and others on the Capitol grounds as symbols of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

A plaque affixed to the rear of the pedestal is inscribed with a history of Gordon's life, from his birth through his military and political career to his death in 1904.