Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Confederate Memorial Cemetery was established early in the history of the Confederate Home in Missouri. It became the final resting place for 693 Confederate veterans and 108 of their wives.

The first interment was in 1892; the last occurred in 1950 when John T. Graves, the last resident Confederate veteran, died at age 107. His headstone is simply inscribed, "JOHN T. GRAVES, THE LAST OF G. SHELBY'S MEN."

The United Daughters of the Confederacy, one of the Confederate Home's founding organizations, erected the large granite monument that dominates the center of the cemetery. Dedicated to all who served the Confederacy in June of 1906, the monument was inspired by the Lion of Lucerne statue in Lucerne, Switzerland. That monument commemorates the Swiss Guards massacred by a mob while protecting the French King Louis XVI during the French Revolution. The lion, mortally wounded yet proud and defiant, was deemed an appropriate symbol for the Confederacy. The lion's forepaw rests upon the Great Seal of the Confederacy, which features a mounted George Washington surrounded by a wreath pf agricultural products vital to the South. The United Daughters of the Confederacy emblem is centered directly below the lion and set against the first, second, and third national flags of the Confederacy and the Confederate battle flag.

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