Sumner Archibald Cunningham

Sumner Archibald Cunningham (July 21, 1843 – December 20, 1913) was an American Confederate soldier and journalist. He was the editor of a short lived Confederate magazine called "Our Day" (1883-1884) published in New York. In 1893 he established the Confederate Veteran, a bimonthly magazine about veterans of the Confederate States Army until his death in 1913. He was a critic of Reconstruction, "scalawags", "carpetbaggers", and "Negro" legislators.

Early life Sumner Archibald Cunningham was born on July 21, 1843, in Bedford County, Tennessee. His father was John Washington Campbell Cunningham and his mother, Mary A. Buchanan.

During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, Cunningham served in the Confederate States Army. In 1871, he authored Reminiscences of the Forty-first Tennessee Infantry. Initially, it was a fundraising newsletter for the construction of a monument in honor of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, in Richmond, Virginia. Additionally, he encouraged the co-founders of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), Caroline Meriwether Goodlett and Anna Raines, to make up after Raines complained Goodlett had taken over.

Cunningham attended the dedication of the Confederate Monument in Owensboro, Kentucky in September 1900. On April 29, 1909, he attended the dedication of the Sam Davis Statue outside the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville; it was Cunningham who had suggested its commission. In 1913, he was responsible for the construction of a sculpture of Union veteran Richard Owen to the Indiana Capitol in Indianapolis, Indiana; Cunningham was praised for his willingness to celebrate a Union veteran. Meanwhile, he was working on a monument to Dan Emmett, the songwriter of "Dixie" by the time of his death. He also had a daughter, who died as an infant.

By January 1914, the Nashville and Tennessee chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy passed a resolution in honor of Cunningham. Meanwhile, in May 1914, he was honored at their annual convention.

In 1915, a memorial museum of Confederate veterans named in honor of Cunningham was considered. A fundraising campaign of US$10,000 was launched for a fireproof building.

On October 28, 1921, a bronze and granite monument designed by Italian sculptor Giuseppe Moretti was added to Cunningham's grave in Shelbyville. The Nashville chapter of the UDC endowed the S. A. Cunningham Scholarship at Peabody College (now Vanderbilt University) in his memory.

Cunningham was succeeded as editor of The Confederate Veteran by Edith D. Pope. His papers are held at the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.