Soldiers' Monument (Santa Fe, New Mexico)

Soldiers' Monument

35°41′14.7474″N 105°56′18.6714″W / 35.687429833°N 105.938519833°W / 35.687429833; -105.938519833
Location	Santa Fe Plaza, New Mexico
Type	obelisk and plinth with engraved text
Material	stone
Height	33 feet (10 m) (including obelisk)
Dedicated date	1868
Dedicated to	Civil War soldiers and U.S. soldiers who battled with Native Americans
Dismantled date	October 12, 2020

The Soldiers' Monument is a cenotaph at the center of the Santa Fe Plaza, a monument collectively memorializing deaths in several specified battles. It is obscured from public view and access by concreteboard walls used as a preservation measure. Erected during the late 1860s in the aftermath of the American Civil War, it consisted of a 33 feet (10 m) stone obelisk atop a plinth; only the plinth stands currently, and exhibits some damage. During the late nineteenth century, the monument was used as a place for Union veterans to gather at annual Memorial Day events to decorate the cenotaph and hear brief presentations.^[1][2]

The square plinth includes four inscribed panels, three of which dedicate the monument to unnamed Union Army soldiers who died on the battlefields of New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War. The fourth panel on the monument commemorates US soldiers who died "in the various battles with savage Indians", referring to the Army's then-ongoing campaigns comprising the American Indian Wars § West of the Mississippi (1804–1924). The word "savage" was chiseled-off by an anonymous person in 1974.^[3] On October 12 (Indigenous People's Day) in 2020, the obelisk portion of the monument was toppled by protestors.^[4]