of the memorial, states: "Who first conceived of a Confederate memorial on the side of Stone Mountain has long been a matter of debate..... The written evidence...points to Francis Ticknor, a nineteenth-century physician and poet from Jones County, Georgia...in an 1869 poem.... William H. Terrell, an Atlanta attorney and son of a Confederate veteran, ...suggested it publicly on May 26, 1914 in an editorial for the Atlanta Constitution." Three weeks later, Georgian John Temple Graves, editor of the New York American, suggested it should have a statue of Robert E. Lee. The project was greatly advanced by C. Helen Plane, a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and first president and Honorary Life President of the Georgia State Division. After obtaining the approval of the Georgia UDC, she set up the UDC Stone Mountain Memorial Association. She chose the sculptor Gutzon Borglum for the project and invited him to visit the mountain (although, despite his Ku Klux Klan involvement, she "would not shake his hand—he was, after all, a Yankee"). She met him at the Atlanta train station, took him to her family's summer home, Mont Rest, at the foot of the mountain, and introduced him to Sam Venable, an active Klan member and owner of the mountain. Borglum also enlisted Luigi Del Bianco, whom he would also involve in Mount Rushmore. Borglum's original plan was having five groups of figures, sixty-five mounted officers representing the states (to be chosen by the states), General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry—some 700 to 1,000 figures, each from to high. In addition, Borglum planned a room cut into the mountain, wide, and high, faced by 13 columns. Venable deeded the north face of the mountain to the UDC in 1916, on the condition that it complete a sizable Civil War monument in 12 years. Finances as well as technical problems slowed progress. The U.S. Mint issued a 1925 Commemorative silver U.S. half dollar, bearing the words "Stone Mountain", as a fundraiser for the monument. This issue, which required the approval of both the 1926 Congress and President Calvin Coolidge, was the largest issue of commemorative coins by the U.S. government up to that time. Financial conflicts between Borglum and the Association led to his firing in 1925. Borglum destroyed his models, claiming that they were his property, but the Association disagreed and had a warrant issued for his