been firing on a teenage girl. After taking Emma back to her home, Forrest continued his pursuit of Streight, whom he was able to capture near Cedar Bluff the following day. Sansom's actions are noteworthy in that openly aiding Confederate forces could have subjected her and her family to prosecution (or even death) from the Union Army. Later life Sansom married Christopher B. Johnson on October 29, 1864, and moved to Texas in late 1876 or early 1877. She died August 9, 1900 in Upshur County, Texas, and is buried in Little Mound Cemetery. Honors In 1907, a monument was constructed in Gadsden at the western end of the Broad Street bridge across the Coosa River in honor of her actions. When the residents of Alabama City, Alabama (later annexed into Gadsden) built a high school in 1929, they named it in her honor. With the consolidation of the three Gadsden city high schools at the end of the 2006 school year, General Forrest Middle School was closed and Emma Sansom High School became Emma Sansom Middle School. Controversy In 2020, the statue became a place of conflict between Black Lives Matter protestors and counter-protestors during the wave of racial justice protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department officers. The Gadsden city council had debated moving the statue to a nearby cemetery where Confederate soldiers were buried, but voted against it. Preston Rhea, a descendant of Sansom, wrote a letter signed by thirteen other descendants in support of removing the monument. The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified this statue as one of hundreds of statues constructed by the Lost Cause movement to support white supremacy during the Jim Crow era. References Alabama Department of Archives and History Emma Sansom Marker, Social Circle, GA Emma Sansom article, Encyclopedia of Alabama Wyeth, John Allan. Life of Lieutenant-General Nathan Bedford Forrest. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1908. . Retrieved December 2, 2015. External links Monroe F. Cockrell research notes, W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama. 1847 births 1900 deaths People from Gadsden, Alabama 1863 in Alabama Women in the American Civil War People of Alabama in the American Civil War The Lightning Mule Brigade Nathan Bedford Forrest People from Walton County, Georgia Confederate States of America monuments and memorials in Alabama Confederate States of America monuments and memorials