Typical of many Civil War statues, Major E.E. Bedee's monument to the 12th New Hampshire Regiment has a colorful history.

The regiment participated in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War, including Chancellorsville, Gettysberg and Cold Harbor. Local soldiers reportedly sustained the highest percentage of casualties of any unit in the Union Army. Major Bedee himself was injured twice and later spent several months in a Rebel prison camp.

Following the war's end, he was present at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., the night President Lincoln was shot and helped carry the fatally wounded emancipator to the house across the street where he died the next morning. After the war, Major Bedee mined diamonds in Africa, and later spent some of his fortune on this memorial "to keep alive the memory of our fallen brave."