“The Confederate Memorial in Mayfield is a commemorative monument and fountain located on the courthouse lawn in downtown Mayfield, Kentucky.
Mayfield during the Civil War was very supportive of the Confederate States of America. Representatives from seven western Kentucky counties and twenty western Tennessee counties met at Mayfield in May 1861 to discuss forming a new state that would join the Confederacy. The secession of Tennessee on June 8, 1861 caused the proposal to be abandoned, In 1864 Union forces occupied the town and forced the townspeople to help fortify the courthouse, which was destroyed later that year. The courthouse behind the memorial fountain was built in 1889.
Mayfield’s United Daughters of the Confederacy obtained the fountain in 1917 from the McNeal Marble Company in Marietta, Georgia at the cost of $1,650. (equivalent to $30,000 in 2017. The fountain, which no longer emits water, is a 10-foot-tall obelisk with wings that double as benches. On the end of the wings are 6-foot-tall light posts that are eight feet away from the center obelisk; the northern post is inscribed 1861, and the southern post 1865. The center obelisk has three different Confederate flags in copper relief on its top.
On July 17, 1997, it was one of sixty-one different monuments to the Civil War in Kentucky placed on the National Register of Historic Places, as part of the Civil War Monuments of Kentucky Multiple Property Submission. One other monument on the list, the Confederate Memorial Gates in Mayfield, is nearby in Maplewood Cemetery, north of downtown Mayfield. Other monuments on the list that are also fountains are the Confederate Monument of Cadiz and the Confederate Memorial Fountain in Hopkinsville.”
“A Dramatic Session
July 4, 1861
Abraham Lincoln by Freeman Thorp
In the nation’s capital, the Fourth of July, 1861, began with a parade. As bands played, 20,000 militiamen strode proudly down Pennsylvania Avenue. Any thoughts that this was just another festive Independence Day in Washington, D.C., quickly vanished, however, when onlookers observed the vast number of military troops camped in the city and heard reports that enemy forces stood only a day’s march away.
At noon, enduring the city’s noise, dust, stench, and oppressive heat, members of Congress convened an emergency “extraordinary” session. Following the April bombardment of Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln declared a state of insurrection, called for 75,000 volunteers, and summoned Congress back into session, deliberately choosing this July date, so rich in national patriotism.
Forty-four senators took their places in the Senate Chamber on July 4th. The crack of the presiding officer’s gavel abruptly ended a dozen conversations as members turned their attention to the Senate Chaplain. Observing that “new disasters have befallen us and darkness broods in the land,” the Reverend Byron Sunderland reassured his senatorial congregation that this Independence Day was “a day tenfold more precious by reason of our present troubles.”
As Vice President Hannibal Hamlin called members to order, he looked across a chamber that contained nearly 20 ominously vacant desks—one for each of the recently departed senators representing states that had joined the Confederacy. Perhaps he noticed the desk of former Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis, its mahogany finish newly scarred by the sharp bayonet of a passing Massachusetts soldier. Due to the departure of Southern senators—nearly all Democrats—the Republican Party, for the first time in its brief history, now controlled the Senate by a margin of more than three-to-one.
This emergency session of the 37th Congress lasted only five weeks. Even under the threat of encircling enemy forces and the sting of an unexpected military defeat at Bull Run, Congress managed to enact a host of major public laws, making this one of the most productive and dramatic legislative sessions in all of American history.”
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Dramatic_Session.htm