Some Thoughts on Monuments - TTG

There is much hysteria lately about monuments. To various people they assume the mantels of symbols of Southern heritage or ugly reminders of slavery, segregation and white supremacy. I, however, have never been prone to hysteria. Whether it was engaging in a fifty foot free fall onto lava rock or being bracketed by naval gunfire, I remained calm. It’s probably a brain defect.

Yesterday’s Free Lance-Star ran a ran a front page story on calls on the Fredericksburg City Council to move the slave auction block at the corner of William and Charles streets to a museum. The other side of the debate contends that the auction block should remain where it is. “We need to sometimes feel shock, pain and remorse to know how far we’ve come, what has been done, what has been sacrificed,” one city council member said. The debate is heart felt, respectful and calm. I am very proud of that fact.

I am of the firm conviction that the auction block should stay where it is, but with a more meaningful and appropriate marker than the one that exists now. I first saw the auction block in the Summer of 1988 when I first moved to the area. It gave me a depressed and uneasy feeling. I felt the same thing when I walked through Dachau several years later. This artifact of Fredericksburg’s history must stay in place and bear witness to our past.

During this visit in 1988, I also visited the sunken road and the Kirkland Memorial commemorating the story of South Carolina Sergeant Richard Rowland Kirkland bringing water to wounded Union soldiers lying in front of Confederate positions at the sunken road during the first battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. Although the story of “The Angel of Marye’s Heights” may not be historically accurate, the memorial is a moving tribute to a soldier’s compassion for another soldier. The monument was erected and dedicated during the Civil War Centennial in 1965. I know of no demonstrations occurring for or against this memorial. I would hope that anyone trying to stage a political spectacle near these monuments  in these turbulent times would be run out of town. The same goes for the Meade Pyramid on Prospect Hill or any of the Confederate monuments within the Confederate cemetery. The annual lighting of luminaria in this cemetery and in the nearby National cemetery remain respectful and moving commemorations. Things are as they should be in Fredericksburg.

——————————————

The situation in Richmond is quite different. Here the potential for strife and violence is real. It was not always the case. As late as last May, Civil War historian Kevin Levin wrote “What Richmond Has Gotten Right About Interpreting Its Confederate History.” At that time Mayor Stoney still ruled out the removal of any of the Confederate monuments along Monument Avenue. Rather, in recent years, Richmond chose to bring in other monuments to balance the significant and quite beautiful Confederate commemoration sites. Although not at all related to the Civil War, the Arthur Ashe monument was installed on Monument Avenue in 1996. Many white Virginians were aghast that a monument to a black tennis player would be placed on what they consider hallowed ground. Many black residents of Richmond were upset that a monument to their native son was so close to monuments to slave holders. But Arthur went up without violence and now presides over the annual Confederate commemoration parade along with Davis, Lee, Jackson and Stuart.

In April 2003 a life-sized statue of Lincoln and his son Tad sitting on a bench was installed on the site of Tredegar Ironworks. Behind Lincoln and his son is a wall with Lincoln’s words “To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds” inscribed upon it. Although this monument memorializes the historically significant event of Lincoln’s visit to Richmond just days after it fell to Union forces in April 1865, there was loud opposition to the monument’s installation. Bragdon Bowling, then president of the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) was one of the leaders of the opposition. He described the Lincoln monument as "a slap in the face of brave men and women who went through four years of unbelievable hell fighting an invasion of Virginia by President Lincoln.” He further said the statue "is a not-so-subtle reminder of who won the war, and who our heroes should be." There were several hundred protesters at the event, many wearing Confederate uniforms and carrying the confederate battle flag. Bowling saw the monument as “a painful reminder of who won the war.”

Well, whether you call it the Civil War, the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression, it is a fact that Lincoln’s Union won that war. That fact is also part of the city’s heritage. Perhaps Bragdon Bowling should heed his own words when he offered advice for those who oppose Confederate monuments “turn your head if you don’t like it.” I think this Lincoln memorial, far more modest and contemplative than the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, is a fitting addition to Richmond. 

There are several other recent additions to Richmond’s acknowledgement of her heritage. There is the Richmond Slavery Reconciliation Statue installed in Shockoe Bottom in 2007. Identical statues stand in Liverpool, England and in the Republic of Benin. Efforts to preserve Lumpkin’s Slave Jail and create a Slavery Memorial Park in Shockoe Bottom around that archeological site and a nearby African burial ground are underway. I’d much rather see this go forward than see Richmond or Virginia expend resources moving any Confederate statues from Monument Avenue. Given our current legal statutes, that idea is a non-starter anyways.

There is one other event that I would like to see memorialized in a grand manner in Richmond. It consists of the events described in this dispatch from the front.

City Point, VA., April 3, 1865—11 a.m.

Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War:

General Weitzel telegraphs as follows:

We took Richmond at 8.15 this morning. I captured many guns. The enemy left in great haste. The city is on fire in two places. Am making every effort to put it out. The people received us with enthusiastic expressions of joy.

T. S. Bowers, Assistant Adjutant-General.

The events of that moment are well described in this account from Mark St. John Erikson, a reporter for the Daily Press out of Newport News. Whenever I visit my younger son, I pass the two highway plaques that now commemorate that event. I also remember passing the Surrender Tree, a massive white oak that stood close to the spot where Richmond Mayor Mayo surrendered the city to advancing Union troops. It fell during a derecho in 2012. Luckily, my son’s house escaped damage other than losing a few shingles.

   

The first Union infantry unit that marched into Richmond was the 36th Infantry Regiment, US Colored Troops. Many of the infantrymen in the 36th were former slaves from the Tidewater Virginia region. It was these former slaves who were greeted by the black residents of Richmond, slaves and freedmen, with such enthusiasm on what became Emancipation Day in Richmond. I would like to see this event memorialized in a grand way at a prominent location in Richmond. It would be a fitting counterpoint to the statues memorializing the Confederacy on Monument Avenue. History should be remembered.

TTG

P.S. - The photo at the top of this post is the Soldier's Monument in Prospect, Connecticut. I grew up in the house, a former glebe house, visible behind the monument. That soldier and I have had a close relationship as far back as I can remember. In first grade I marched around him with my classmates wearing shakos made from construction paper, carrying our American flags and singing patriotic songs. The tree at the far left is a scion of Connecticut's Charter Oak. I often climbed it as a youth. 

Comments

[Fred]

TTG,

Not you, the cult-marxists. ESPN is quite concious of what they are doing, it's cut a couple hundred million out of its revenue stream by becoming political commentary rather than a sports network.

[Fred]

Bob,

Rejoice, you conquer! Or in this case my ancestor in Battery-B, 1st NJ artillery did. We maybe not conquer so much as win a war of attrition against people whose states said they seceded from the Union, kind of like California is threatening to do. At least the slaves are free. I'm still waiting for some folks to say thanks for the freedom; it's only been 150 or so years; maybe next Juneteeth. Meanwhile be sure to help the poverty stricken SPLC raise some funds by waiving the battle flag around. I hear they're down to thier last third of a billion. As for me, I'm a dues paying Democrat living in the great state of Michigan; though I shouldn't mention that to you since the Democratic Party is the party that enacted all those Jim Crow laws, succeeded for years to disenfranchise black voters and whose longest serving Senator and mentor to Hilary was a KKK member. Perhaps, in the spirit of reconciliation, we should issue a joint declaration of condemnation against Slick Willy and his wife for not taking down any of those monuments while he was Governor of Arkansas. Or President.

Congrats on the virtue signal though. Oh, on second thought, "dishonoring the US flag)" That's Colin Kaepernick, America's greatist victim of slavery, oppression and police brutality. I hear he's having trouble getting some billionaire sports team owners to give him another hundred million or so. I should write up something about that.

[mike]

K_H_C -

Thanks! I was vaguely aware of the pre-war Sherman in Louisiana. But had no idea he was popular there after the war. But probably they were glad that the Union did not send Beast Butler back and were happy to see Sherman as he was never considered an abolitionist. And Louisiana never felt Sherman's total war that he unloosed on GA, SC, and NC.

I was never a fan of Sherman. His March to the Sea and what followed was IMHO too late to affect the war.

I see on Wikipedia that he gave LSU two cannons from Ft Sumter. Wonder if they were Beauregard's or Anderson's?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman#/media/File:LSUcannons_crop.jpg

[The Twisted Genius]

Bob,

We shouldn't be too quick to proclaim that all these Confederate monuments were erected to reinforce Jim Crowe Laws or as a backlash to the Civil Rights movement. Many of the monuments honoring Union soldiers and leaders were erected in the same time periods. And the Civil Rights era coincided with the Centennial of the war. That soldiers monument in Prospect didn't go up until 1907. Donnie Johnston, a Culpepper writer for the Free Lance-Star wrote a column today addressing this very point.

http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/local/columns/donnie-johnston-nation-is-losing-respect-for-its-history/article_41c296c1-1212-5eae-9978-bb60f81ed3fe.html

However, you are correct that the KKK, alt-right and neo-nazis have hijacked these monuments and the Confederate battle flag as symbols of their still held white supremacist ideas. That is what had brought all this hell down upon these symbols of the South. I think the only possible way to correct this is for those dedicated to preserving a non-racist Southern heritage to break that affiliation. At the same time, those of us who care for the rule of law must enforce the protection and preservation of these monuments and symbols until constructive solutions are found.

[Lars]

Very well stated Bob. I am sure TTG came about his views honestly, even if he tries to occupy an evenhanded space that may not exist. No doubt, most of these questionable monuments were erected to celebrate slavery and treason and are thus now condemned by a lot of people. By allowing Nazis and the Klan to advocate for, it has just increased the people against.

If the admirers and apologists for the Confederacy want to keep these artifacts, let them raise the money to build museums. That may not happen, since I have learned over the years that when wallets get involved, views change.

The good news is that there is a vigorous debate about all this. Hopefully, a solution will be found, even if it will not please everyone.

[optimax]

The Founders created a representative republic because they understood that democracy devolves into mob rule and chaos. That is what we're seeing with the protests against the monuments and Trump. It's the break down of our governmental process and no one knows where it's going to stop.

Portland, Or, is a breeding ground for progressive experiments. For years I've watched higfh school teachers encourage their students to leave class to march in the street over teacher pay, a sign saying "Build the Wall" a student wrote at anothjer school in an adjacent city and other causes I don't remember. These teachers must think they're Ghandi or MLk for teaching their students that whatever they want is the most important thing in the world and they have every right to demand it.But their causes aren't noble and are not based on true suffering but the suffering of their ancestors. I find that ignoble.

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Cleveland is a spectacular memorial to the 10,000 men who gave their lives in the Civil War.

https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/332

[optimax]

That should be "10,000 men from Cuyahoga county who gave their lives in the Civil War." I grew up in that county.

[Bill H]

I wonder how many in Atlanta are freaking out over Grant Field at what is now Bobby Dodd Stadium at Georgia Tech in that city. It is, of course, named after an entirely different Grant, one native to Atlanta, but I doubt that will get in the way of some reactionaries.

[LondonBob]

Nikki Haley's response, like everything else she does, was to curry favour with the neocons to aid her planned for bid for the Presidency. The Roof incident was an excuse to enact long desired eradication of Confederate memorials.

The opinion polls I have seen suggest Americans overwhelmingly wish the monuments to stand, and black Americans are evenly split on the matter. Unfortunately your university system is spewing forth fanatics that would make Mao's Red Guards look the picture of moderation. The old Yankee Victorian capitalists or Methodist and Congregationalist villagers from the North were happy to see the South have their history, the new masters of discourse, not so much.

[LeaNder]

Today, the Coalition of Minority Students at UVa demanded the cleansing of the campus, including suitable "Contextual" material at the site of Thomas Jefferson's statue on The Lawn.

you admittedly made me feel a little guilty, along the line of one of my favorite quotes: In every statement there is a little error and the error gets bigger until the snake is scotched, seeing you use quotes around contextual. Could it be, I overuse the word context? Beyond declaring myself a "cultural marxist" ...

On the other hand, I don't completely agree with TTG here while appreciating his "contextual" allusion to hysteria:

Ronnette Cooper can’t walk past the slave auction block in downtown Fredericksburg without wondering if her ancestors had been sold there.

...

She said that whether it remains at the corner of William and Charles streets or is relocated to a museum, a plaque be placed there. It should say not only that slavery was evil, but that America today stands for the success and liberty of all, regardless of their color.

Who are the citizen who cannot even walk on the street?

As far as I am concerned. and with all due respect to Ms Carr Rossi and Ms Cooper. Are they asking for contextualization since they are too lazy both as interviewee and journalist to look into historical context? Or as far as Ms Cooper is concerned. Is it more hard for black versus white people in the US to study their family history or "roots"? Is it much too hard to find out at what point in time the block got the additional plate? Which after all gives it "context"?

What's its history? Before getting rid of it, wouldn't people want to know it?

*******
Nutshell, not sure if this needs more visually present contextualization, beyond historical research. But maybe I didn't read Ms Cooper's article close enough:

http://www.getawaymavens.com/fredericksburg-va-one-day-is-not-enough/

[Cee]

Col. Lang,

I agree. The cost of removing all of these monuments can't be justified and the money would be better spent elsewhere. Plaques can be placed to tell the rest.

An example;

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/21/protesters-demand-removal-nyc-statue-hailing-doctor-who-experimented-slave-women/588661001/

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present is a 2007 book by Harriet A. Washington. It is a history of medical experimentation on African Americans

[turcopolier]

LeaNder

When I was a small child that auction block was embedded in the paving at that corner. We traveled around a bit. The people of Fredericksburg chose to leave it there for the last 150 years as a reminder of the improvement of society. It did not arrive from outer space so that TTG could discover it in 1988. pl

[turcopolier]

Bill H

US Grant was a pre-war slave owner. as was George Thomas. pl

[Donald]

Good post. I like the idea of more statues commemorating a broader range of people, if history is the concern. I thought the following article was going to be about Longstreet, but it was about a different Confederate general who had a postwar career as a member of a political party in Virginia defending black rights. He sounds like someone long overdue for a statue.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-confederate-general-who-was-erased-from-history_us_599b3747e4b06a788a2af43e?section=us_politics

[Babak Makkinejad]

Col. Lang:

This situation in US regarding monuments and memorials to men who fought for CSA is analogous to the situation in Europe regarding the monuments and memorials to the men and women who fought for USSR against the Third Reich; see please the fate of the Bronze Soldier of Talin @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Soldier_of_Tallinn.

I am waiting to see when Germans will obliterate, under one pretext or another, the Soviet War Memorials at Treptow and at Tiergarten in Berlin.

The ruthless & viscous first Qajar Shah, Agha Mohammad Khan, is the founder of what became, eventually, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet his name appears on no buildings or streets or plazas, his visage is not on any Iranian currency, and no monument exists dedicated to him. Even in Tabriz, in the Notables of Tabriz sculpture garden, there is no bust of him.

Some historical facts and truths are evidently too unpalatable to future generations who wish to obliterate them from the historical memory.

[SR Wood]

Concerning the removal of Civil War monuments, I guess Virginia should get with the program of protecting their Civil War statues as other southern states have done. Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi, all have laws on the books that are designed to prevent the removal of Civil War memorials and preempt local governments from removing them. So much for local control of government.

[y.t.kealoha]

More monuments to traitors who lost a war are needed asap.

[Bobo]

Today it's Civil War Monuments while yesterday its was BLM, Occupy Wall Street, Environmental Actions, Chicago Anti Trump protests, etc. now what will tomorrow bring. To me these chameleons with different names are out to disrupt our nation and take away our civil rights of assembly, speech, press, political thought etc.
The Democratic Party used to be one of Joe Six Pack today it's one of Jessica Yogamats who have no clue what these Crap Stirrers will do with them before they are finished tearing this country apart. The Republican Party is not much better but are now seeing the light when it comes to the Crap Stirrers. Frankly neither party is representing the whole of this country as they bicker away time in congress which is why the population is moving towards an independent view. But just let the chameleons continue and you will see large majorities of Republicans in congress as at least they know what Law and Order means.
I was born in the town and played as a child on Gallows Hill where some women were put to death because they were different, held odd beliefs or were just odd. We have learned from that. Respect thy Neighbor and all that he believes for that is his view as one desires the same Respect for his own views.

[The Twisted Genius]

y.t.kealoha,

Davis, Lee and the others were secessionists, not traitors. There is a big difference. The New England states came very close to seceding from the Union during the War of 1812. At that time these northern states thought the southern states had far too much sway at the Federal level to the detriment of the New England mercantilists. Traitor is a term that is thrown about far too casually today.

[kao_hsien_chih]

mike,

The received word on the cannons (which were what I was thinking when I mentioned monuments/momentos to Sherman on LSU campus) is that the story about Ft Sumter is probably a myth--the guns were manufactured in Massachusetts in 1861 and it is improbable that they were in either Confederates' or Federals' hands at Ft. Sumter by April of that year. Still, it's a nice story.

I've heard a lot of conflicting stories about Sherman's views on slavery--some recent accounts, details of which I cannot remember, made him seem like a full on abolitionist at times. He was, after all, a brother of John Sherman, the noted abolitionist (and anti-monopoly) senator from Ohio. I always got the sense, though, that he rarely made public his real sentiments and genuinely thought full-on "justice," by whoever's definition, and reconciliation, especially after a bitter and divisive struggle, did not go well together. If that is the case, that's a sentiment worth emulating. "Justice," to different people, mean different things. "Full on justice" can only be achieved by complete, even annihilatory, conquest of one faction over all those whom its members disagree with and the forcible imposition of what it considers just, and nothing is more incompatible with reconciliation and reflection than such abominable things.

[kao_hsien_chih]

Babak,

We need to keep reminding ourselves that even in Europe, especially Central and Eastern Europe, the history of World War 2 is quite different. (Or, as I keep bringing up, the peculiar and somewhat successful attempt by the Japanese in early 1940s to create a pro-Japanese version of Korean nationalism--which, of course, has been completely forgotten in both countries, at least officially.) History is complicated. It's not a morality tail. Different peoples have different memories that are socially sanctioned and reinforced. Nothing is a greater folly than to assume that everyone views the past events the same way.

[kao_hsien_chih]

@mike,

PS. One thing about Sherman, which I suspect you are already well-aware, is that he became close friends with Johnston after the war, to the point that Johnston, despite being in ill-health and foul weather, acted as one of pallbearers at Sherman's funeral and died soon after after catching bad cold. A joint memorial to Sherman and Johnston would be something that I'd love to see.

[turcopolier]

SR Wood

The states are legally sovereign, not the localities within them which usually operate with the four corners of a charter granted to them by the state. All other power is reserved to the state under the Dillon principle. I think Virginia does have such a law, but the governor seems loath to apply it and annoy the street people. pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

I think his real sentiment was: "...damn all those who brought war into our country..."

[Babak Makkinejad]

Yes, of course. That Romanians, Croats, Muslim Bosnians, Western Ukrainians, the Hungarians, and the Italians were solidly behind the Third Reich is best forgotten.

That Austrians were basically asking Germany to come and take them over is something impolite to mention in Polite Company.

That French Police were helping the Gestapo in rounding up the members of the Resistance or Jews, that NAZI Dutch held a huge rally outside of Rotterdam after its bombing by the Luftwaffe is also erased from memory.

That ordinary Germans, Hungarians, Poles and Ukrainians were murdering their Jewish fellow-country-men (per the ideas of Citizenship of the Enlightenment Tradition) in street are conveniently obliterated from memory.

Lastly, there was that little matter of the SS, an all-volunteer force of foreign nationals recruited to fight for the Third Reich.

It was all USSR's fault - we all know - and it is Russia's fault today that we are not living in a Post Post Enlightenment Utopia.