Confederate Monument in Owensboro

The Confederate Monument in Owensboro is a historic statue located at the southwest corner of the Daviess County Courthouse lawn in Owensboro, Kentucky.

The Monument was placed on the courthouse lawn in September 1900 by the John C. Breckinridge Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, after several years of fund raising. Over 5,000 came to witness the dedication, which included speeches and music. Among the dignitaries was the editor of The Confederate Veteran, S. A. Cunningham.

The monument consists of two parts. The granite base is nine feet tall, and has carved upon it a wreath encircling the original Confederate flag. The statue depicts a Confederate soldier on alert bearing a rifle and wearing a short jacket and slouch hat. It is seven feet tall and made of bronze. It was made at the John Williams Bronze Foundry in New York, and was sculpted by the Romanian-American "sculptor of the Confederacy" George Julian Zolnay.

In the summer of 1861, one of Kentucky's first Confederate companies was raised at Owensboro. The war hurt the city, as it disrupted river traffic that the city relied upon, and Confederate forces occasionally raided the city, including burning the courthouse. A historical marker near the monument tells of three residents of Daviess County that received the Confederate Medal of Honour; one at the Battle of Murfreesboro, and two for the Battle of Chickamauga.

On July 17, 1997, the Confederate Monument in Owensboro was one of sixty-one different monuments related to the Civil War in Kentucky placed on the National Register of Historic Places, as part of the Civil War Monuments of Kentucky Multiple Property Submission. The only other monument on the list in Daviess County is the Thompson and Powell Martyrs Monument.