I'm proud to announce the completion of a monument to the Confederate soldiers from Mississippi who participated in the Battle of Franklin (Tennessee) on November 30, 1864. Of all the Confederate states represented in the battle, Mississippi lost more men killed in action and as casualties who later died of wounds than any other state. Officially 424 men were killed and buried there but the number of losses was significantly greater due to some casualties being unidentifiable, some being physically removed from existence (that's what happens when someone is hit by the full blast of a cannon firing canister or grape shot at point blank range), some being removed from the field and interred elsewhere.

The Confederates failed to learn a lesson from the Battle of Gettysburg and the assault at Franklin was the result. At Gettysburg, Generals Pickett and Pettigrew sent an army across an open plain about a mile wide to assault a fortified Union postion behind a stone wall. At Franklin the assault had to traverse a two-mile wide plain and assault a fortified earthworks protected by a large artillery battery. Many Confederates never made it past the one-mile point and those that did tried to drive the Union from the earthworks on repeated charges over some three to four hours, most of it in darkness.

I'm also proud to point out that the inscription on the front side of the monument stone was excerpted from one of my songs about the battle. (That was little lagniappe from being the one who volunteered to lead the project to raise the funds and have the monument created.) I guess that will be one of my little contributions to posterity to remind them of the sacrifices of our ancestors.