By Alabama Public Radio
Anniston, AL – Officials say work has wrapped on another part of a Calhoun County Confederate Memorial. The second of three black-granite walls of the memorial at Janney Iron Furnace is complete. The memorial will be 110 feet long and etched with two-thousand names of Confederate soldiers who survived the Civil War, including a black who was freed from slavery in 1863. Calhoun County Commissioner Eli Henderson says the memorial's third wall is scheduled for completion in April. Plans are for one panel of the third wall to be left empty, so names can be added as evidence turns up about more veterans. Anniston memorial builder Tom Smith came up with the idea for the marker. He says he'll soon provide a list to the Anniston Public Library of all the names slated to be engraved on it. It may actually display more names of blacks like Charles Bush, who's said to have walked back to Calhoun County from battle carrying the sword, pistol and other personal items of a local white war hero.