Confederate Martyrs Monument in Jeffersontown

Confederate Martyrs Monument In Jeffersontown

The Confederate Martyrs Monument at the Jeffersontown City Cemetery in Jeffersontown, Kentucky marks where four Confederate soldiers were executed "without cause or trial", due to Order #59, the creation of Union General Stephen G. Burbridge, known as "Butcher Burbridge" in Kentucky, which called for the execution of four Confederate prisoners for every unarmed Union citizen killed. The total number of executions performed as a result of this order was fifty. The four soldiers commemorated on the stone were Wilson P. Lilly, Rev. Sherwood Hatley, Lindsay Duke Buckner and M. Blincoe.

The execution of the four Confederate soldiers was the only significant event of the American Civil War in Jeffersontown. It was done in retaliation for the death of a Union soldier on Bardstown Pike. The soldiers were shot while confined, and their bodies were dumped in a ditch until their interment here.

The monument was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1997, the same day as the Louisville Confederate Monument and the Union Monument in Louisville. The Confederate Soldiers Martyrs Monument in Eminence, Kentucky, that was also established to honor victims of Order 59, was also established on the same day. In total, sixty-one different memorials to the Civil War in Kentucky were placed on the National Register that day.