Pewee Valley Confederate Cemetery is one mile from the old Kentucky Confederate Home site. The

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

lists the cemetery and separately an individual monument within it, the Confederate Memorial in Pewee Valley, as part of the

Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS This is a list of American Civil War monuments in Kentucky — Union, Confederate or both. The earliest Confederate memorials were, in general, simple memorials. The earliest such monument was the Confederate Monument in Cynthiana erected in 1869 ...

. It is the only cemetery for Confederate veterans, 313 in total, that is an official state burying ground in Kentucky.

History

In May 1871, several local citizens of Pewee Valley, Kentucky, northeast of

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, decided they wanted a local public cemetery. By August 1871, the land was purchased. The following spring, in 1872, the cemetery was organized, and plants were placed to beautify the area. When they were finished, they asked for a charter from the Kentucky state government.Pewee Valley Cemetery
Close to the cemetery, the Villa Ridge Inn was built in 1889. The site was a four-story summer resort that was to be popular with Louisville entrepreneurs and their families. However, despite a $90,000 construction with "majestic architecture", it never attracted enough visitors to stay in business. Between the inn's closure and 1902, it temporarily became a private high school, the successor to the

Kentucky College for Young Ladies Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to ...

.The Kentucky Confederate Home
When the Confederate home was approved in 1904, the cemetery was segregated into three parts: one for Confederate veterans, one for whites, and one for blacks. In 1902, the

Kentucky General Assembly The Kentucky General Assembly, also called the Kentucky Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It comprises the Kentucky Senate and the Kentucky House of Representatives. The General Assembly meets annually in the ...

unanimously approved the building of a veterans home specifically for Confederate veterans of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

by the cemetery. It was done at the behest of former Confederate officer

Bennett H. Young Bennett Henderson Young (May 25, 1843 – February 23, 1919) was a Confederate officer who led forces in the St Albans raid (October 19, 1864), a military action during the American Civil War. As a lieutenant of the Confederate States Army, he en ...

, who had long desired such a facility as he saw many former Confederate veterans could no longer take care of themselves. After Young's group acquired $16,000, the legislation was approved. Young's group of Confederate veterans and the

Daughters of the Confederacy The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...

chose the Villa Ridge site just outside the cemetery, as it was well-sited and inexpensive compared to what it had cost to build in 1889. The cemetery was established shortly after the hospital was opened, with the special monument built soon afterward. The total area of the home and cemetery was 11,275 square feet.Civil War in Kentucky
/ref> In the years it was an active veterans facility, it provided a hospital, nursing care, food, entertainment, and religious services for up to 350 veterans at a time, providing a home for 700 former Confederate soldiers in its years of operations. The requirements to be a resident of the home were to not only be a former Confederate soldier but to have been a resident of Kentucky for the past six months, be mentally stable, and have no problems with alcoholism. Many veterans once served under John Hunt Morgan. A fire on March 25, 1920, destroyed the main building, an infirmary ward, and laundry. There were no deaths, and the rest of the facility was enough to house those residents still using the home. Eventually, the number of veterans who could be served dwindled, and by 1934 the hospital was no more, with the remaining five residents being transferred to the nearby Pewee Valley Sanitorium.

Present day

All that remains of the hospital is its main gate, which was moved to become the entrance arch for the cemetery one mile away and part of the walkway from the house to the railroad. A sign is placed along the pathway to mark it. The source of fresh water for the facility, a reservoir, was filled in during the 1990s.The Confederate Home in Pewee Valley
/ref> The monument is unique for Kentucky Civil War monuments in that it is built of

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

, whereas most are made of

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

. Another oddity is that the obelisk and base are separated by an inscribed Gothic altar that acts as an arch on the face of the monument. Confederate flags are also crafted on the monument.

Gallery

Image:Pewee Valley Confederate Cemetery 001.jpg, The gate is all that's left on the home Image:Pewee Valley Confederate Cemetery 004.jpg, Image:Pewee Valley Confederate Cemetery 006.jpg, Backside of the cemetery, with a visitor's sheet available in the wooden structure Image:Pewee Valley Confederate Cemetery 010.jpg, Marker denoting the cemetery at the corner of Maple Avenue and State Hwy. 146

References

External links

* {{Registered Historic Places Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS National Register of Historic Places in Oldham County, Kentucky Tourist attractions in Oldham County, Kentucky 1904 sculptures Zinc sculptures in the United States Obelisks in the United States United Daughters of the Confederacy monuments and memorials in Kentucky 1904 establishments in Kentucky Buildings and structures in Pewee Valley, Kentucky

History

Present day

See also

Gallery

References

External links