The tall, thin Confederate soldier in the center of Statesboro fits a historic pattern for monuments built on the losing side of a war while it is still in the memory of the living, notes the coordinator of Georgia Southern University’s public history program.Completed in 1909, the monument primarily honored the soldiers who died in the war rather than the living veterans, and women led the effort to build it.“They were the big monument builders,” said Associate Professor Michael S. Van Wagenen, PhD. “Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the veterans themselves but it was the women’s groups who did these.”The United Daughters of the Confederacy, or UDC, specifically the Statesboro Chapter, began a fund drive in early summer 1908 to build a monument on the Bulloch County Courthouse grounds. Dedicated on Memorial Day, April 26, 1909, the statue of a soldier with his rifle held in the stance known as “parade rest” stands at the top of a marble column 25 feet tall. This information is from “Statesboro: A Century of Progress: 1866-1966.”