Saturday, February 2, 2013

Selma Navy Yard Monument

When you visit the Old Depot Museum, be sure and check out
 the monuments on the property.

This one marks the site of the Selma Navy Yard and Ordnance Works,
 which were destroyed in the  Battle of Selma, April 1865. The inscription
 further reads that some of the largest cannon used during
 the War Between the States were cast here, and the Battleship Tennessee 
and other gunboats that took part in the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay
 were built here. 


6 comments:

Kate said...

I find the South's respect and memorials to the War Between the States (as you know we refer to it as the Civil War) quite remarkable...to me it seems that there is a reverence about it. Am I wrong?!

Janet said...

Kate, good question. Perhaps it was that way a hundred years ago when this monument was placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, but in Selma, there are monuments commemorating every major American war as well as monuments honoring the Civil Rights Movement. During the Civil War, Selma served as a major arms manufacturer, and during World War II, Korea and Viet Nam, it trained pilots at Craig AFB. We also have a monument to the first Naval officer, a Selma native, to die in World War I. During the early 20th Century, Selmians led the state in the fight for women's right to vote, so this area of the state and the South has always been active in government and considered military service to be an honor and a duty. We also have industries that make military uniforms. I have tried to post photos of every monument in town and now I am photographing them again! It takes a while!

Dragonstar said...

Fine-looking memorial.

Janet said...

Glad you like it, Dragonstar.

Kate, I believe the many memorials to the "War of Northern Aggression" :) also may have something to do with the fact that it is the only war fought on southern soil. The South lost so much more than the North, then had to deal with Reconstruction and the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags! By the early 20th Century, I think the southerners who survived were proud of the way they had endured. Just my opinion especially since my grandmother's family left the North to come to Selma in the early 1900s for a better life!

EG CameraGirl said...

I like the detail on this monument.

Prairie Jill said...

Beautiful in b&w.