Mr. Pahl and Harvey:

The 9th Michigan's commander, Col. Parkhurst, in stone, once stood atop the base of the 9th's monument on the Chickamauga Battlefield. Vandals, about 1970, tipped the figure off the top of the monument and broke it up. We have the torso and some other pieces in storage. Unfortunately, the head and several other small parts were stolen. Several inquiries have been made over the years about possibly repairing/replacing the figure. Improvements in stone conservation techniques probably make that more likely these days, but it still will be a costly exercise. National Park Service preservation guidelines would require that the restoration work be done in such a fashion to return the figure to the monument in as nearly "original" a form as possible. To get a better idea of what that would involve given the pieces that survive would require the evaluation of a stone conservator/sculptor. That is not expertise we have on the National Military Park staff or that exists in the immediate area. We had the two damaged figures on the Maryland Monument evaluated several years ago when the State of Maryland was considering their possible restoration and from that evaluation I think it would be possible to consider having Col. Parkhurst redone. Several economic factors, not necessarily the total cost, prevented that effort from going to implementation in 2001. If the Michigan Department of the Sons of Union Veterans is interested in undertaking the possible restoration of the 9th Michigan monument, an initial step would be to fund an evaluation of the remaining portions of the figure. We are in the early stages of working with the Lytle Camp of the SUV about the possibility of restoring the Lytle Monument. That camp funded the visit here of a monument restoration specialist to help further that project.

The 4th Michigan Cavalry monument is not located right at Reed's Bridge as their closest battle line at Reed's Bridge was to the east of the bridge where the National Military Park Commission did not intend to seek purchase of property. Their next closest position, their final one on Sept. 18, was west of the bridge near where the monument stands today. For that position, it was intended that the National Military Park Commission acquire property, but in the end the funding provided by Congress was not sufficient and the low rise of ground just east of the monument, the low rise on which Minty's final position was located, just outside the Chickamauga Battlefield today, was not acquired. Hence, the 4th's monument stands seventy or so yards further west then the veterans had originally hoped.

Jim Ogden