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John C. Breckinridge Memorial

Lexington, United States of America

John C. Breckinridge Memorial

The John C. Breckinridge Memorial, originally on the courthouse lawn of Lexington, Kentucky, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1997, as part of the Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS. It commemorates John C. Breckinridge, who was born and died in Lexington. He was v

ice president for James Buchanan and ran against Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 United States presidential election, winning nine Southern states. He served in the Confederate States Army, and was the last Confederate States Secretary of War, fleeing the country after the South lost. The memorial was prepared by New York's Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company. The original pedestal was made of granite, with the statue cast in bronze. Breckinridge is seen standing contraposto. The state government of Kentucky funded the construction of the monument. Breckinridge's memorial was built in 1887, 24 years before the John Hunt Morgan Memorial, also formerly on the courthouse lawn and part of the Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS. The statues had stood on Main Street on the same plot of ground where slave auctions were held before the Civil War. In 2010, the monument was moved about 50 feet to a new...

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