| Confederate Martyrs Monument in Jeffersontown | |
| Location: | Jeffersontown, Kentucky |
| Coordinates: | 38.1919°N -85.5683°W[1] |
| Built: | 1904 |
| Added: | July 17, 1997 |
| Mpsub: | Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS |
| Refnum: | 97000691 |
The Confederate Martyrs Monument at the Jeffersontown City Cemetery in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, marks where four Confederate soldiers were executed "without cause or trial". Their execution was under Order 59, created by 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 extrajudicial murder of a Union soldier on Bardstown Pike, as was common during the Civil War.[2] The soldiers were shot while confined, and their bodies were dumped in a ditch until their interment here.[3]
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.
The monument was erected by the Albert Sidney Johnston chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy (D.O.C).
The inscription on the front reads:
Wilson P. LillyRev. Sherwood HatleyConfederate soldiersOctober 25, 1864Robbed of the glory of death on the fieldof battle by Stephen G. Burbridge whoordered them shot without cause or trialErected to the memory of the four martyrs by the Albert Sidney Johnston chapter D.O.C. of Louisville, Ky. June 11, 1904Martyrs
On the back it reads:
Wilson P. Lilly.Sherwood Hatley.Lindsay Duke Buckner.M. Blincoe.Being dead yet speaketh.