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On Memorial Day, veterans organizations and people throughout the nation will gather at monuments to honor those who gave their lives for their country.

A good number of those monuments were built right after World War I, which ended in 1918 with the loss of over 100,000 American lives.

Perhaps because of the horrific nature of that conflict — modern features of warfare such as airplanes, tanks, land mines and poison gas were first used on a wide scale — a large number of cities and towns erected monuments to honor the locals who served in that war. Typically designed with a “doughboy” [as the American soldiers were known in that conflict] atop a tall column or pedestal, these structures remain the most prominent war memorials in many small towns, including in our region.

Ocean Grove, Belmar and Fair Haven have such World War I monuments. Asbury Park also has a monument at the corner of Grand and Cookman Avenues which appears to be of the same era, with a solider atop a tall column, as shown in the photos above.

But a closer look at the Asbury Park memorial yields a surprise. Alone among monuments in our region, it honors those who died in the much earlier American Civil War of 1861-1865. The monument refers to that conflict as “The War of Rebellion” — in reference to southern states that rebelled and seceded from the union.

The oldest buildings in Asbury Park date as far back as the 1880s, and the city’s Civil War memorial was likely erected during that period, when many Civil War veterans were still alive.

“In memory of those who fought in defense of the Union/War of Rebellion 1861-1865,” reads the plaque on the monument, which specifies no dedication date. The plaque states that the monument was “Erected by C.K. Hall Post No. 41 G.A.R. Dept of N.J. [G.A.R. refers to the “Grand Army of the Republic” which was the Union army of the North] and Womens Relief Corp No. 25.”

The “C.K. Hall Post No. 41″ is likely a local Civil War veterans organization. The Women’s Relief Corp was a post-Civil War phenomenon with chapters in both the north and south, according to “American Women’s History” by Doris Weatherford. The Corp was originally organized to help disabled war veterans, war widows and orphans, but by the late 1800s, with its members aging, it began to emphasize the erection of war memorials and maintenance of cemeteries so the Civil War would not be forgotten, Weatherford wrote.

To see more photos of the Asbury Park Civil War monument, as well as the monuments in Belmar and Ocean Grove, click here to access a photo album on the Asbury Park Sun Facebook page.

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