This column surmounted by a gilded crucifix is the oldest monument of the town of Kalisz (Greater Poland Voivodeship), which stands in front of the Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was built in 1813 by Napoleonic soldiers on the burial site of nearly 300 of their comrades-in-arms, French and Bavarian, who died during the Battle of Kalisz (13 February 1813) against the Russian army or from the effects of their wounds at the field hospital set up in the town's former Bernardine monastery.