#175-CIVIL WAR SALE: PIECE OF GRANITE FROM STONE MOUNTAIN--BOXED AS WORK WAS UNDERWAY

Stone Mountain, a massive granite outcropping, is the home of the Civil War monument to the South and politics continue to be an issue surrounding it. The carving of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis began as World War I erupted; the war interrupted work and it was an on again/off again project that wasn't finally finished until the early 1960s, some 50 years after the carving began.

This is a rare souvenir that was packaged near the beginning of the project, with a piece of granite collected while the work was beginning on the first person, Robert E. Lee. The text on the back of the box notes that the work "is underway". It clearly should be far more in demand than souvenirs sold once the site was opened to visitors.

The box notes that the central figure, Robert E. Lee, will be "as tall as a 16-story building" or about 160 feet.

The very large carving is actually dwarfed by the mountain of granite on which it was carved, and, finally, it now is considered completed--at least until someone decides to add more to it or around it. This Stone Mountain tableau looks almost miniature when viewed at a distance surrounded by the enormous face of the mountain.

Stone Mountain has never had the national cachet of Mount Rushmore for many reasons. It clearly is dedicated to the South, not the entire country to begin with. The high relief of the faces on Mount Rushmore makes them seem much larger than those on Stone Mountain, even though they're actually smaller. The carving on Stone Mountain was dedicated to the old South and its customs, including slavery. In an era of taking down sculptures and public art works projects tacitly or clearly to those who supported slavery, few Americans are even aware of this sculpture; and those who know of it consider it quite subordinate to "the entire country's" Mount Rushmore.

But this is a still a highly collectible rare souveni. Stone Mountain literature for current visitors, notes that the war was about states rights--not slavery! Certainly state rights included the right for individual states to keep slavery. "Just" the issue of states right but unrelated to slavery would never have caused the states to leave the Union and start the Civil War.

You can own this souvenir piece of granite without supporting Southern politics, just as one can collect artifacts from both sides of wars--WWI, WWII and the Civil War.

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