According to Florida Public Archaeology Network, the Lee Square monument was erected throug the efforts of the Ladies Confederate Monument Association of Pensacola. This association was formed in 1890 to take over fund raising originally intended for a monument in Tallahassee. Since most of the initial donors for a Confederate monument had been from Pensacola, fund raising and the monument location was moved to Pensacola.
A women’s groups were the organizations that pushed the “Lost Cause” mythology that was taught to generations of white southerners, who were raised to believe they possessed a unique identity because of their Confederate heritage. The Confederacy lost the “War between the States†not due to poor military leadership but because of the Union’s greater manpower and resources. The Confederate soldiers fought valiantly against impossible odds for the noble principle of states’ rights, not slavery.
The “Our Confederate Dead” monument was produced by J. F. Manning of Washington D.C. of Richmond, Virginia granite. It stands some 50 feet in height. The statue on the monument is the reproduction of the bronze figure erected at Alexandria, Virginia, which was modelled from the painting in the State of Virginia Capitol that represented a Confederate Soldier of 1865. The cost of the monument was $7,000.
The monument was dedicated on June 17, 1891.
Lee Square is thought to be the location or near the location of Fort McClellan, which was part of the Union defenses of Pensacola after the U.S. occupied the town in 1862. Fort McClellan may have, in turn, incorporated remains of the Spanish and British fortification of Fort George, thought to have incorporated what is now Lee Square.
Another monument tale is the statute faces south so that the soldier could show his ass to the North.
City workers repainted and repaired the monument and the surrounding cannons earlier this summer.
