Moses Jacob Ezekiel, also known as Moses "Ritter von" Ezekiel (October 28, 1844 – March 27, 1917), was an American sculptor who lived and worked in Rome for the majority of his career. Ezekiel was "the first American-born Jewish artist to receive international acclaim". He was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute and served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, including at the Battle of New Market. He is the only well-known sculptor to have seen action in the Civil War. After the war, he completed his degree at VMI, and a few years later went to Berlin, where he studied at the Prussian Academy of Art. He moved to Rome, where he lived and worked most of his life, selling his works internationally, including as commissions in the United States. He has been described as a "Confederate expatriate" and a "proud Southerner", and the Confederate battle flag hung in his Rome studio for 40 years. The most famous of his monuments is the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, which he thought of as the "crowning achievement of his career." Childhood Ezekiel was born in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Jacob Ezekiel (1812–1899), an Ashkenazic Jew. His mother, Catherine de Castro Ezekiel, was Sephardic. His grandparents had emigrated from Holland in the early 1800s, settling first in Philadelphia and later in Richmond. His father was a cotton merchant and bookbinder, "a good writer and a well-read man, who possessed the complete works of Maimonides". While in the book-binding business in Baltimore (1833–34), Jacob founded the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Baltimore. Jacob moved to Richmond in 1834, entering the dry-goods business with first one, then another brother-in-law. He was secretary of the synagogue Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalome "and spokesman of the Jews of Richmond". In Cincinnati, Jacob served as Secretary of the Board of Hebrew Union College. He was a charter member of B'nai B'rith. The seventh child, Moses had three brothers and eight sisters, at least one of which was stillborn. He was brought up as an observant Jew by his grandparents, to whom his parents sent him to live due to financial difficulties. They owned a dry-goods store that sold suits and women's dresses for slaves about to be sold. They also owned a few slaves. Moses "was sent to a 'pay' school", that of "old Mr. Burton Davis", and he attended dancing school.