Description: A cloaked confederate soldier holds his gun vertically by the top of the barrel while the butt rests at his feet. The statue is constructed of light granite. The base on which it rests, much darker in color, is of "native rock" from the Goldsboro area. At the top of the base (under the soldier's feet) is a protruding section with a relief of two crossed rifles. The statue sits on a mound under which rest the bodies of 800 Union and Confederate soldiers in a mass grave.

Inscription:
On one side: ON FAME'S ETERNAL CAMPING GROUND, THEIR SILENT TENTS ARE SPREAD. IN GLORY GUARDS THE SOLEMN ROUND, THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

On another side (in appreciation for the contributions of Northerners): A GENEROUS GOE CONTRIBUTED TO THE ERECTION OF THIS MEMORIAL.

Dedication date: May 14, 1883

Materials & Techniques: Quincy granite, native rock quarried from penitentiary quarries

Sponsor: Ladies Memorial Association of the Young Ladies of Wayne Female College

Cost: $992

Post dedication use: Each year, the statue serves as the center of a wreath laying ceremony at the cemetery conducted by the Thomas Ruffin Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Goldsboro Rifles Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Subject notes: After the War ended, the Young Ladies of Wayne Female College felt a need to give a decent burial to fallen soldiers in the area who lay in shallow graves or still on battlefields. They formed the Ladies Memorial Association to erect a monument to bring "closure to the war." They searched the surrounding area and found over 800 bodies that were buried in a mass grave in Willowdale Cemetery. They included both Union and Confederate dead. In April 1883, they held a festival to mark the burial site and raise money for its monument.

Location: The statue faces east. It stands in the center of Willowdale Cemetery.

Landscape: Located in south-central Goldsboro, the monument stands in the center of Willowdale Cemetery, surrounded by the mass grave of the 800 Union and Confederate soldiers it honors.

City: Goldsboro

County: Wayne

Subjects: Civil War