Hampshire County women held a public meeting to organize the Confederate Memorial Association with the mission of honoring the men who had died fighting for the Confederacy and providing financial aid to their families. At this meeting, the association appointed officers, adopted a constitution, and organized committees to arrange for the decoration of Confederate interments. The people of Hampshire County had been overwhelmingly pro-Confederate during the American Civil War, but the county now lay within Unionist West Virginia. West Virginia's first state constitution disenfranchised Confederate veterans and partisans and forbade them from holding elected office. In spite of these impediments and risking the ire of Unionist authorities, members of the Confederate Memorial Association and their families marched through Romney to Indian Mound Cemetery and formally decorated the gravestones at the interment sites of Confederate dead on June 1, 1866. Few Hampshire County residents participated in this first decoration of the Confederate graves, fearing reproach from Federal authorities; some who had pledged to take part in the decoration later refused to do so for the same reason. This adornment in Indian Mound Cemetery has been called the first such public decoration of Confederate burials, but the claim is disputed by other towns in the Southern United States. Romney's decoration contributed to a precedent that spread throughout the South during the Reconstruction Era. Relatives and loved ones of the Union dead buried in Indian Mound Cemetery also began to follow this precedent by decorating the cemetery's Union headstones. Fundraising Following the first decoration of the graves in 1866, momentum built for the erection of a permanent monument to the Confederate dead at Indian Mound Cemetery. The Confederate Memorial Association engaged in fundraising for construction of the memorial, including sewing circles, bazaars, and fairs. Confederate veterans and others in Hampshire County undertook additional fundraising efforts, including entertainment shows and general solicitation. In addition to raising funds for the construction of the memorial, the Confederate Memorial Association also raised money for the widows and children of the Confederate dead. By October 15, 1866, the gross receipts returned to the association's treasury amounted to $1,170.91 USD, of which the Confederate Memorial Association provided US$421.58 to the Confederate widows and orphaned children. Fundraising continued until June 1867. Design selection By June 6, 1867, the Confederate Memorial Association had raised the necessary funds and proceeded to select the design, inviting and considering the opinions of Confederate veterans