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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Thirteen Names

Thirteen Names

by Betty Cracker|  August 17, 20171:22 pm| 163 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Assholes, General Stupidity

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The only extended time I lived outside of Florida was a few years I spent in Massachusetts in the late 80s. I moved there right after college (yes, I’m old — Mr. Catch-22 himself, Emmitt Smith, was a classmate — Go Gators!).

One lovely summer day during my Beantown sojourn, some friends and I took a ferry boat to Georges Island in Boston Harbor for a picnic. I knew nothing about the place. But a nice Park Services lady told us the island had once housed Confederate prisoners of war.

There was a small, modest monument to said Confederates who had died on the island. Just 13 names. I was startled to see that one of them was from Florida, like me, and he had MY last name.

Thanks to a great-uncle who set store by such things, I was well aware at that time of my ancestry on my mom’s side of the family, which included several Confederates as well as some virtuous Revolutionary War heroes. But seeing my father’s last name on a Confederate monument — in Massachusetts, of all places — was my first inkling of Confederates in my paternal line.

I was curious enough to check it out — not easy in those pre-internet days — and it turns out, yeah, the coal-shoveller on a Confederate steamboat who died on Georges Island was a relative. I suspect his short life sucked. I further suspect the Massachusetts winter rattled his bones, maybe even killed the poor sumbitch, more than 120 years before that same chill drove his descendant, me, back home to Florida.

But should Massachusetts maintain a memorial to the likes of my unlucky relative? To be fair, it is about as inoffensive a Confederate memorial as you’ll find on the planet, comprising mostly the names of the dead, like a tombstone. But whether to remove the monument or not is apparently a controversy in Massachusetts right now.

Well, if the input of a descendant of one of the 13 Confederate dead has any weight, Massachusetts, I say take it down. Why? For starters, it was put up under the auspices of the Daughters of the Confederacy, and the less you have to do with those myth-making coots, the better.

But more importantly, the monument is injected with the same poison that blights our fate as a country — the conceit that God had any part in the foul business of the Confederacy, and the insinuation that there was anything remotely honorable or noble about “the cause” it represented.

So take it down, Massachusetts. You have the blessing and encouragement of this descendant of the dead. But more importantly, you have the moral imperative of the living, and a responsibility to those yet to be born.

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163Comments

  1. 1.

    James Hare

    August 17, 2017 at 1:27 pm

    I’ve always thought memorials to the poor schmucks who actually did the fighting were about the least offensive. They’re not presented as conquerors or heroes — they’re just the guys who actually did the fighting and dying. There’s a statue in Old Town Alexandria called “Appomattox” that is dedicated to the men who lost their lives from Alexandria. It’s a pretty somber statue with a soldier in the pose John Kelly made famous during Trump’s news conference meltdown. He’s not a hero of a glorious lost cause but an everyman. There was a time when protecting that statute meant something to me.

    Now I know that neo-Nazis and their ilk want to defend statues like that I want it gone.

  2. 2.

    NR

    August 17, 2017 at 1:32 pm

    Those types of monuments belong in museums, not in the public square. Take them down.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    August 17, 2017 at 1:37 pm

    If there’s a visitor center or small museum that talks about the place having been a POW camp, then that’s the place to put that. Otherwise, why?

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 17, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    Gonna have top disagree a little bit here, Betty. Should we also take down the Vietnam War memorial? It was a vile, morally corrupt war fought for corporate profits. The reasons are not all that different from the treasonous South’s were.

    “Rich man’s war, a poor man’s fight.”

  5. 5.

    gene108

    August 17, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    I honestly don’t have a problem with a memorial to remember the dead, who fought.

    Even losers get some sort of recognition for participating.

    They don’t usually get huge statues to glorify them though.

    But since the Nazis seem to associate every Confederate memorial with white power, they may have forced other people’s hands in bringing those down.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    August 17, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    @James Hare: I strongly disagree with you about the Appomattox statue. It needs to go, too. Put it in a museum, and get it out of the roadway that thousands of people have to pass every day.

    The base is made of concrete and marble and bears several inscriptions. The north side of the base reads, “They died in the consciousness of duty faithfully performed.” The south side reads, “Erected to the memory of Confederate dead of Alexandria, Va. by their Surviving Comrades, May 24th 1889.” The east and west sides bear the names of those from Alexandria who died during the Civil War.[2]

    A short way from the statue is a stone historic marker with a bronze plaque upon which is engraved the following:

    “THE CONFEDERATE STATUE

    The unarmed Confederate soldier standing in
    the intersection of Washington and Prince
    Streets marks the location where units from
    Alexandria left to join the Confederate Army
    on May 24, 1861. The soldier is facing the
    battlefields to the South where his comrades
    fell during the War Between the States. The
    names of those Alexandrians who died in service
    for the Confederacy are inscribed on the base
    of the statue. The title of the sculpture is
    “Appomattox” by M. Casper Buberl.

    The statue was erected in 1889 by the Robert E. Lee Camp
    United Confederate Veterans.”[6]

    It needs to go.

    The city government voted to move it, but state law forbids it..

    My $0.02.

    [eta:] Dunno if you edited or if I misread you, but I’m glad to see that we agree that it needs to go.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    Raoul

    August 17, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    Because of the Daughters of the Confederacy link, take it down. But it could well bear replacing with a very plain plaque that simply lists the names of the 13 and something along the lines of:

    Here died 13 confederate prisoners of war. We remember the Civil War so that our country never forgets the terrible costs of division, bitterness, or the desire of some to defend the indefensible practice of slavery.

    —

    At times like this I think of the song from the musical 1776: Molasses to Rum to Slaves. Boston and the rest of America profited quite a bit from slavery, even if it sometimes avoided the direct ownership. That has to be memorialized, too. And still atoned for.

    Mr. Adams, I give you a toast:
    Hail Boston! Hail Charleston!
    Who stinketh the most?

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    August 17, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    St Ronaldus really stepped in it bigly with his visit to Bitburg, which the bastard stuck with even after leaning who was among the interred. The Ramones took time to memorialize it.

    I feel similarly about Confederates, where’s the “glory?”

  9. 9.

    Spanky

    August 17, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    My Irish-born great grandfather was in a Federal Artillery unit, and I have no great love of the traitors that tried to kill him, but it seems to me that a memorial on the site of a prison camp is more akin to a battlefield monument than a town square monument. It’s more a testament to the poor sumbitches who had the misfortune to not be among the Honored Dead.

    ETA: And are they buried right there?

  10. 10.

    Quinerly

    August 17, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    Mike Huckabee seems to think Mt. Rushmore is next. A lot of twisting and turning.

  11. 11.

    JonnMc in NC

    August 17, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    There is a picture on twitter of hundreds of people lining up to turn themselves in for tearing down the Confederate statue in Durham. Not on twitter myself so no link…

  12. 12.

    gene108

    August 17, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I went to that island about 15 years back, when I was visiting Boston. It is an old fort, in some decent state of preservation.

    The island recounts the use of the fort in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

    There’s a lot of paths to walk, and some nice views of the harbor and city.

    I don’t even remember the memorial to the Confederate dead. That’s how minor the thing is.

    I think removing something from the Daughters of the Confederacy and replacing it with a different list of the names of prisoners, or some such, would be both a way to recount the history – which is what the island has been purposed to do – and expunge the DoC’s contributions.

  13. 13.

    Ruviana

    August 17, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    Given that it’s on Lakota land the Lakota might very much want it to go next. Wouldn’t bother me.

  14. 14.

    Another Scott

    August 17, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    Thanks for the story, Betty.

    Ft. Hunt outside of Alexandria VA was a Nazi POW camp. Nobody (I would hope!) would accept statues or monuments to “the brave Nazis who fought courageously for their country” being erected there. These Confederate monuments erected in the 20th century are so close to being the same type of thing that it’s almost true by inspection.

    Take them down.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    The Dangerman

    August 17, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    @James Hare:

    I’ve always thought memorials to the poor schmucks who actually did the fighting were about the least offensive.

    That’s basically my position, too; this memorial might be the only place these poor schmucks are remembered. Lee and Jackson are in all the history books so they are already “remembered”.

  16. 16.

    TenguPhule

    August 17, 2017 at 1:47 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Should we also take down the Vietnam War memorial? It was a vile, morally corrupt war fought for corporate profits.

    If that’s the reason you think we have that memorial you really do need to start talking more to other people.

  17. 17.

    E

    August 17, 2017 at 1:48 pm

    Yeah, this really is pretty innocuous. “There was a prison camp here during a war where a bunch of Americans shot each other, and these thirteen prisoners died here.” It doesn’t glorify anything, no proud white dude on a horse, it’s like a monument at Gettysburg that acknowledges people died fighting each other. Hopefully there is something on the plaque that indicates those prisoners were fighting to preserve the slavery of human beings. At some point the removal of these things does begin to effect American’s understanding of actual history, and I would say this is in that gray area. Where I live there is a monument to the “Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway.” That’s an easy one. Put it in a museum to remind locals that that thing actually happened. Dude on a horse: even easier. Remains of a Confederate submarine — much harder. Judging from my Facebook feed, only a small percentage of Americans have the cognitive ability to make any such distinctions though, and will regard any removal as an erasure of history. What a sad, awful week this has been.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 1:49 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly: I wouldn’t expect the Vietnamese to pay taxes to maintain a monument in Vietnam to U.S. soldiers who died there, especially if the monument was erected by an organization that glorified America’s role in that war and included an inscription that implied God was on the side of the Americans. If I were Vietnamese, I might find the presence of such a monument on public land troubling. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense to me for Americans to put up monuments to fellow Americans who died in that war, even if there’s consensus that it was a shitty war that should never have been fought.

    @gene108: Makes sense to me.

  19. 19.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 17, 2017 at 1:50 pm

    I think taking down the statues of the leaders of the Confederacy makes more sense than taking down the plaques with the names of the soldiers who died in the war. I don’t know if the Confederacy had conscription, but if they did, how many of those who died were drafted? They didn’t have a choice in fighting the war. The generals sure did.

  20. 20.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 17, 2017 at 1:51 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    The memorial is meant to honor the tens of thousands of men who died senselessly in that war, not celebrate the war and glorify the dead soldiers

  21. 21.

    guachi

    August 17, 2017 at 1:52 pm

    I have no problem in principle with a plaque saying something like “13 Confederate prisoners died at a POW camp located here from {DATE} to {DATE}. Their names were….”

  22. 22.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 17, 2017 at 1:54 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Vietnamese-Americans often don’t think it was a shitty war that should never have been fought.

    ETA: Well, they probably agree with the ‘shitty war’ part

  23. 23.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    August 17, 2017 at 1:54 pm

    “Thirteen names, fourteen words, hur hur hur”

  24. 24.

    woodrowfan

    August 17, 2017 at 1:56 pm

    @Raoul:

    Mr. Adams, I give you a toast:
    Hail Boston! Hail Charleston!
    Who stinketh the most?

    Um, Charleston. Boston became the home of those who wanted to end the practice. Charleston the leader of those who began a war to protect it…

  25. 25.

    Wapiti

    August 17, 2017 at 1:56 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    … On the other hand, it makes perfect sense to me for Americans to put up monuments to fellow Americans who died in that war, even if there’s consensus that it was a shitty war that should never have been fought.

    Yup. Memorials for the dead soldiers, not for the architects of their doom.

    I think with respect to the OP, a plaque for the dead is appropriate – a statement of our shared humanity – if they are buried there. The DoC needs to have nothing to do with it.

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I was referring to how it’s perceived in America. My globe-trotting sister tells me the Vietnamese have many monuments to the Vietnamese heroes of the “American War.” Of course they perceive it differently!

  27. 27.

    Kent

    August 17, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    @Mustang Bobby: Yes, the confederacy had conscription. In fact they passed the first draft in the history of the US. All males between 18 and 35 were drafted. Of course it exempted the owners of 25 or more slaves from conscription and they were allowed to exempt from the draft one white “overseer” for every 25 slaves on large plantations.

    https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Twenty-Slave_Law

  28. 28.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 17, 2017 at 2:01 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I meant Vietnamese-Americans, a lot of whom fought with or otherwise supported us.

  29. 29.

    Amir Khalid

    August 17, 2017 at 2:01 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Should we also take down the Vietnam War memorial? It was a vile, morally corrupt war fought for corporate profits.

    That is certainly true of the war. But as far as I know, the Vietnam War memorial commemorates only the American personnel who died in it. It doesn’t memorialise the war in any way, and I don’t believe that its visitors do either.

  30. 30.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    August 17, 2017 at 2:01 pm

    Are there any such plaques or monuments in the south commemorating the Union soldiers who died in Confederate prison camps? I have no idea.

  31. 31.

    mwing

    August 17, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    Hello from Boston- George’s Island is one of the Boston Harbor islands that has regular ferry service, the fort is a summer tourist attraction. You used to be able to just wander around, but now they’ve gotten paranoid that someone will fall off the top of the fort, so I think it’s guided tours only, to go “inside”, and the guided tours do talk about the history and use of the fort, including it’s use as a Civil War prison. (If I recall, the spin is that it was pretty OK as Civil War prisons went, I’ve no idea if this was true or not.) So, anyway, any memorials to the Confederate dead are presented with context, at least to anyone who takes the tour. I don’t have a problem with such a memorial, especially not out there- not like it’s on the Common. Also I would see it morte as a communal grave marker, and everyone should have a grave marker.

  32. 32.

    trollhattan

    August 17, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):
    NPS operates Andersonville. I’m certain the Daughters of the Confederacy (or whatever they call themselves) ignore its existence.

  33. 33.

    Kent

    August 17, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):

    Yes, the Andersonville Prison is a National Historic Site administered by the US Parks Service. All kinds of memorial stuff there.

    https://www.nps.gov/ande/index.htm

  34. 34.

    Tokyokie

    August 17, 2017 at 2:06 pm

    Despite my great-grandmother being named for a post-Civil War terrorist thug (Wade Hampton, whom the feds should have hanged), the only ancestor of whom I’m aware who fought for Southern glory got his ass taken prisoner at the Battle of Island No. 10 in early 1862 and spent the war’s duration in a POW camp. He survived the war and thus was able to help begat me, but his contributions to the war effort were essentially zero, so I find it difficult to take the Southern honor horsecrap personally.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 17, 2017 at 2:07 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    If that’s the reason you think we have that memorial you really do need to start talking more to other people.

    If you can’t see the similarities between two war memorials that do little more than name the dead, you have lost your brain.

  36. 36.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    @Mustang Bobby:

    I don’t know if the Confederacy had conscription, but if they did, how many of those who died were drafted?

    From the Wikipedia article on Confederate States Army, here are some rough numbers:

    Although most of the soldiers who fought in the American Civil War were volunteers, both sides by 1862 resorted to conscription, primarily as a means to force men to register and to volunteer. In the absence of exact records, estimates of the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were draftees are about double the 6 percent of Union soldiers who were conscripts.

    Confederate casualty figures also are incomplete and unreliable. The best estimates of the number of deaths of Confederate soldiers are about 94,000 killed or mortally wounded in battle, 164,000 deaths from disease and between 26,000 and 31,000 deaths in Union prison camps.

    As to the question at hand, I don’t have a big problem with memorials that simply list the names (and dates, military units) of war dead, on either side. But for sure the statues (and bas-relief sculptures carved on the side of gigantic granite outcroppings, ::cough::) that celebrate and honour the leadership of the Confederacy should be removed from public spaces ASAP. If there is a compelling aesthetic or historic reason to preserve them, do so in a museum or educational setting. If they’re crap art, melt them down or pulverise them and do something useful with the material.

  37. 37.

    MattF

    August 17, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    When I was a freshman in college (back in the paleolithic era) there was a kid from Texas on the same corridor of the freshman dorm. He came back from classes one day completely gobsmacked. The professor in a history course had noted that ‘The War Between the States’ the kid had learned about in Texas was, in fact, a civil war– something the Texas elhi curriculum hadn’t really, ah, emphasized. I think a small, unglorified memorial to victims of our civil war could be edifying, if it emphasized that slaveholders set the conflagration in order to maintain their privilege.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 17, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I think you are making too much of nothing.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Oh, gotcha — that’s a good point. Still, I’d say the consensus view here for decades now is that it was a shitty war that shouldn’t have been fought.

    @mwing: I agree just a marker with the names would make sense — one that had nothing to do with the Daughters of the Confederacy and was minus the CSA seal and Latin inscription implying God’s favor.

  40. 40.

    TenguPhule

    August 17, 2017 at 2:10 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    If you can’t see the similarities between two war memorials that do little more than name the dead, you have lost your brain.

    A memorial to the honored dead is a world apart from a memorial to the traitorous dead.

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 17, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: And the monument at the POW camp is honoring the 13 unlucky souls who died there.

  42. 42.

    japa21

    August 17, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    @Tokyokie: Interesting to note that in 1863, Lincoln set forth a minimum standard of treatment for all Confederate prisoners. The South did not do the same. The horrors of Andersonville were not exclusive to that location.

  43. 43.

    grandpa john

    August 17, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    So when we get down actually deciding what goes the decision making gets difficult. I live in South Carolina, a little town population something over 5000, but when we get into the confederacy and civil war It hosted 2 event locations that were major in the history. I can walk across the street from my home and see the first one. It is simply a hillside, a hillside called secession hill. It was the site of the first meeting called for advocating the secession of SC from the union.
    There are no monuments at the site only one of those signpost markers that are used by historical groups to mark events. The property is privately owned.
    The second site is about 2 blocks up the street from my home. It is a House, often referred to as a mansion, but there are other houses near it that are bigger. It is listed on the national register of historic places. It is denoted only by another of those Historical signs. The reason for it’s significance ?
    it was the site of Jefferson Davis last meeting with his cabinet and the decision to end the war and cease fighting as the continuing of the war was hopeless. Davis left the next morning with with his escort, crossed the Savannah river
    heading for Washington GA but was captured by union troops before he reach there.
    Neither of them have any monuments or statures on their sites. This then brings the question are the places that denote events without praise of anyone to also be removed. How do you move a hillside? Do you burn a house down?
    The point is that the solution is not cut and dried. Are places or things that involve the preservation of history to be savedl or destroyed.

  44. 44.

    TenguPhule

    August 17, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And the monument at the POW camp is honoring the 13 unlucky souls who died there.

    Here’s a helpful tip. Stop digging.

  45. 45.

    Diana

    August 17, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    yes, but without seeing the names on that monument, would you have ever known that a relative of yours died there?

    And while you may not care about this, I can see how others might.

    I’m all for taking down and moving statues, but I don’t have a problem with names commemorating POWs who died far from home.

  46. 46.

    Some Guy

    August 17, 2017 at 2:13 pm

    Been to Georges many many many times. Every school kid in MA knows the great ghost story of the Lady in Black who still haunts the island.

    A plaque naming the dead is fine, but I assume the wording by the Daughters odd the real problem

  47. 47.

    Quinerly

    August 17, 2017 at 2:13 pm

    Maine’s Paul LePage seems to think NY’s 9/11 memorial is next. A lot of twisting and turning.

  48. 48.

    MoxieM

    August 17, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    Hmm. Been out to Georges a lot, and I must say I missed that stone each time. The rangers, or maybe current interpretive signage? talk more about the Confederate officers who were the primary occupants, and of the “Black Lady” ghost who tried to get her hubby off the island and failed. I think it goes something like that.

    Oh, and Fort Warren is not a Rev War fort. Not to say they didn’t use the island once Gage had left the harbor, but it and Castle Island (tip: not really an island) in Southie are 19th century structures.

    I’d say the most meaningful and needed memorials are to the enslaved men who fought in place of the rich guys during the Rev War. Many of the carters, ox team drivers and the like who did the actual hard work when Henry Knox got those cannons from Ticonderoga to Boston were of African descent, and AFAIK that is acknowledged nowhere yet. Boston harbor would be a fine site for a public memorial.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 17, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    @TenguPhule: You are beyond belief. I got better things to do than argue with soulless fucks.

  50. 50.

    Inventor

    August 17, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    Every Confederate state except South Carolina had loyal Union regiments. Some Southerners carried out guerrilla actions against Confederate forces.

    How about monuments to these incredibly brave Americans?

  51. 51.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    Bostonian here, who just was gazing out at same harbor at lunch. It’s Revolutionary War era, so I think it should stay – it’s a big attraction. You can’t go anywhere in Boston without running into statues and memorials to abolition, the Union soldiers (hello Robert Gould Shaw) and the Massachusetts Bay colonizers. My suggestion is to reproduce the Wendell Phillips statue that’s in the Public Garden and put him overlooking any Confederate site/memorial anywhere for all eternity.

  52. 52.

    Raoul

    August 17, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    @woodrowfan: But Boston’s financier class (and New England, and beyond) profited very handsomely from the triangle trade, which was the point of the song and my comment. Slavery wasn’t just a southern institution.
    The north profited, till some critical mass of northerners and other abolitionists awoke and said the human toll was too great for the money received.

  53. 53.

    Miss Bianca

    August 17, 2017 at 2:17 pm

    Betty, does the memorial with the ancestral Mr. Cracker’s name actually invoke “God” and “honor” being on the side of the Confederacy? Because if so, I am strongly inclined to agree with you. If it’s just a list of names, I’m cool with its staying. Found it hard to tell from the article exactly what the monument says.

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):
    @trollhattan:
    @Kent:

    My great-great-great-grandfather (John Hogan), and his son, my great-great-grandfather (John Hogan, Jr.) were both in the Union Army, both captured by the South, both imprisoned and eventually died at Andersonville. They were evidently held in different buildings, and it’s quite plausible that neither of them even knew the other was there. I have visited their graves (or, rather, their markers). Andersonville is beautifully maintained and is actually a lovely place — as well as instructive and very moving — to spend several hours on a nice day.

  55. 55.

    zhena gogolia

    August 17, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    @woodrowfan:

    Yeah, I hate that song, despite John Cullum’s fantastic performance.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    @Some Guy: Yep, it’s the inclusion of the Daughters of the Confederacy (an organization devoted to myth-making about the antebellum South and the Civil War) as well as the CSA seal that’s the problem. But as I said in the OP, as far as Confederate monuments go, it’s one of the least offensive out there.

  57. 57.

    ET

    August 17, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    The Economist and Time covers are brutal. Way to go trumpers – you have brought this blight upon this country.

  58. 58.

    JMG

    August 17, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    @grandpa john: Plaques or other memorials of things that happened on the site where they happened is to me appropriate and a lot different than, say, Monument Ave. in Richmond. A statue of Lee at Gettysburg or Antietam as part of the national historic park is OK, he was there and one of the generals. It’s not like plunking his ass on a bronze horse in Charlottesville, a place to which he had no connection whatsoever. And I believe all war dead have the right to a commemoration of some sort. Every town in Massachusetts has a monument listing its war dead. I assume most towns in Alabama do too.

  59. 59.

    Mike J

    August 17, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    I think that was the island CBI used to sail to for picnics. Load up the few keelboats we had at the time (also back in the 80s) and spend the day sailing there and back as a change from our one stretch of the Charles between the Longfellow and Mass ave bridges.

  60. 60.

    Teddys Person

    August 17, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: As a historian, I would like to see the statues in a museum as artifacts of the time and place they were erected rather than as artifacts of the Civil War. Presenting an analysis of when, where and what groups put up these statues – including any resistance – are important narratives to create and preserve.

  61. 61.

    kindness

    August 17, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    I wonder if the Daughters of the Confederacy put up a statue at Andersonville. It’d be a lot more than 13 names.

  62. 62.

    Teddys Person

    August 17, 2017 at 2:23 pm

    @Raoul: Nineteenth-century New England textile mills also profited from slave-picked cotton.

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    August 17, 2017 at 2:25 pm

    @Quinerly:

    He’s such a dumbass.

  64. 64.

    Quinerly

    August 17, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    Navy sticking with 1989 commissioned cruiser named after Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory: http://www.navytimes.com/news/your-military/2017/08/16/navy-official-ship-honoring-confederate-victory-unlikely-to-change-name/

  65. 65.

    bluehill

    August 17, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    Saw some tweets that I think make a good point – Trump is trying to make this about statues rather than white nationalism. Easier for repubs to support statues than neo-nazis.

  66. 66.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:27 pm

    @Quinerly:

    Maine’s Paul LePage seems to think NY’s 9/11 memorial is next.

    Human Bowling Jacket says what, now? Do you mean he thinks that if the statues of Bobby Lee and Stonewall Jackson and Jeff Davis are removed from public spaces, all us politically correct libtards are going to come after the 9/11 memorial? Got a link?

  67. 67.

    Quinerly

    August 17, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    @MomSense:
    Duly noted. Both the Huckabee and LePage tidbits came from Fox. I’m getting in front of Trump’s upcoming tweets and talking points.?

  68. 68.

    The Moar You Know

    August 17, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    Both sides of my family are from Alabama – I was the first one born outside of the state since the late 1700s. I’ve got both Union and Confederate ancestry. Less Union and more Confederate, obviously. Either way, I don’t have a stake in this. My history started in California and any history that gets passed down to future relatives will start here, not back in the dead, moribund South.

    Personal opinion? Take the statues down, especially the ones that were erected in the Reconstruction thru Wilson period as a “fuck you” to blacks and northerners. Grave markers? Hey, if you feel you gotta punch down that far, do it. We’re all dust soon enough anyhow, including our pathetic grave markers. I wouldn’t, personally, but that’s me, and the amount of a shit I give about it is the amount of my life it took to type this post – about three minutes. And then I’ll probably never bother myself with it again.

  69. 69.

    grandpa john

    August 17, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):Yes, I’m pretty sure they have some at Andersonville GA the site of the Infamous military prison where many thousands of union prisoners died,If not mistaken , it is a national monument or park, the park service maintains the cemetery for union soldiers there. The cemetery is a National cemetery like Arlington

  70. 70.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 17, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    @bluehill: This is one of the few times where I’ll agree with an analysis that Trump has any sort of messaging strategy whatsoever.

    The right-wingers in the noise machine are all too happily squirting out their own squid ink to add to this cloud.

    It’s reminding me of how every gun massacre turns into a conversation about not having a conversation about mental health, and then we don’t do anything about that, either.

  71. 71.

    jharp

    August 17, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    Indianapolis has a very similar Confederate monument.

    It was built in 1915 to intimidate African Americans under the guise of honoring 1600 confederate soldiers who died in prisoner of war camps in Indianapolis.

    I say it has to be taken down.

  72. 72.

    Quinerly

    August 17, 2017 at 2:31 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Apparently he is saying it all over the place, including Fox. Here’s a TPM link: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/lepage-confederate-statues-911-memorial

  73. 73.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 17, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    @Amir Khalid: In fact, when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was proposed, a lot of people were really upset about it being a black “wall of shame” gouged into the earth, rather than a heroic monument. (As well as some racist objections to the designer being Asian.) There’s a nearby statue that I think was added at the behest of people who wanted something more traditional.

  74. 74.

    ET

    August 17, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    If those 13 names were on a plaque that indicated “they were the only ones to have died” that would be one thing. If they were still buried there that would also be one thing. But a statue put up pro-Confederate groups later? Take it down.

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    @Quinerly:
    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Mike Huckabee seems to think Mt. Rushmore is next. A lot of twisting and turning.

    Same reaction as to Paul LePage in my #66. What is wrong with these people?

  76. 76.

    Mike in DC

    August 17, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    Always noteworthy that amid all the blather about culture and heritage, slaves winning their freedom didn’t much register on the statues and monuments front.

  77. 77.

    MisterForkbeard

    August 17, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    I have a friend in Durham who works about 2 blocks from the statue that was pulled down. For context, this guy is generally liberal but has given me a couple of “Both sides are wrong” posts on facebook. He says there’s a lot of “White Guilt” in the area and it comes up sometimes in events like this.

    I get what he’s saying, but it seems like wanting to take down laudatory statues of traitors is probably a good idea. Especially if they rebelled specifically to allow white people to own brown people.

    I am sympathetic to the idea that this should be done by the local cities and states rather than through ‘vigilante’ groups. Which is to say… I approve of the people who took down that statue of Robert E. Lee and I think they did the morally right thing. I’m also not opposed to prosecuting them for vandalism.

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    @Quinerly:

    Lordt.

    Thanks.

  79. 79.

    MomSense

    August 17, 2017 at 2:39 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    See my comment at #63. Dumbasses.

  80. 80.

    Wjs

    August 17, 2017 at 2:40 pm

    Funny you don’t see many Lincoln statues in the south. You’d think there was a reason for that. It’s like he hired the men who beat their heroes on the battlefield or something.

  81. 81.

    TomatoQueen

    August 17, 2017 at 2:41 pm

    Alexandria, Va., has a number of streets named for Confederate criminals and traitors. There is a move afoot to change Jefferson Davis Hwy to something else, which should work better than the long nightmare that will be the Appomattox statue removal, as the statue itself is owned by Those Daughters. Two streets named for Jubal Early, and of course in Old Town the Lee fetish. The one that pisses me off is Taney Avenue, a long long street part of which is the main drag through a mixed-minority residential neighborhood. Statue removal is easy stuff when compared to street name changes, and I think we’ll be lucky if that hwy name change ever happens.

  82. 82.

    A Ghost to Not

    August 17, 2017 at 2:42 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    What is wrong with these people?

    That was a rhetorical question, no?

  83. 83.

    germy

    August 17, 2017 at 2:43 pm

    Associated Press:

    The White House says it is working to find a “convenient” time for President Donald Trump to speak with the family of the 32-year-old woman who was killed nearly a week ago while protesting a white nationalist rally in her Charlottesville, Virginia, hometown.

    Spokeswoman Lindsay Walters says the White House appreciates the “unifying words” that Heather Heyer’s mother spoke at her daughter’s memorial service Wednesday.

    Walters says “our thoughts and prayers are with the family.” Walters did not address the question of whether Trump planned to visit Charlottesville.

    Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, asked mourners attending the service to ask themselves what can they do as individuals to make a difference.

  84. 84.

    MisterForkbeard

    August 17, 2017 at 2:44 pm

    @Quinerly: You can make the case that the ship is also commemorating one of the Union’s greatest losses and the people that died there, I suppose. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that interpretation come up.

    @The Moar You Know: In regards to taking down statues… there’s NO reason to ever have a statue of Taney. That’s just straight up naked racism. You can’t even pretend that it’s about heritage or honorable combatants. He’s just a judge that made a terrible decision about black people.

  85. 85.

    Roger Moore

    August 17, 2017 at 2:45 pm

    @grandpa john:
    I think there are some tough corner cases, but the majority of them are fairly cut and dried. Historical markers that note significant events in the Civil War should be kept, though the wording should be carefully monitored so it doesn’t glorify the Confederate cause. Memorials to dead soldiers that are similar in size, style, and prominence to memorials for other wars should also be kept. Memorials that are out of keeping with similar war memorials need to be reduced to similar stature as other war memorials.

    Statues and monuments to Confederate leaders should be removed, though portable ones can be placed in museums where they can be given appropriate context. Places, buildings, roads, etc. named to glorify Confederates or the Confederacy should be renamed. In both of these cases, I’m willing to consider retaining memorials that reflect a personal association from outside the Civil War. So, for example, it would make sense for West Point to honor Lee similarly to the way it honors other former commandants. I’m also willing to consider keeping Ft. Bragg’s name, since it was named for him before the Civil War.

    The point is to retain the history but not glorify the Confederate cause.

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:46 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yep — swap the plaque for one that’s historically correct and not D of C whitewashed bullshit. Problem solved.

  87. 87.

    Roger Moore

    August 17, 2017 at 2:48 pm

    @Raoul:

    The north profited, till some critical mass of northerners and other abolitionists awoke and said the human toll was too great for the money received.

    Some people in the North profited. I think one of the things that helped reach the critical mass was northern farmers and laborers who didn’t like competing with slave labor.

  88. 88.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 2:48 pm

    @ET: I’m not even sure if they’re buried there. The monument only says they died there during “the War Between the States” (wording courtesy of the Daughters of the Confederacy, I guess). It was put up in 1963.

  89. 89.

    Sebastian

    August 17, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    Pasticipation trophies for the snowflakes everywhere but no monuments celebrating the liberation of slaves …

  90. 90.

    Ella in New Mexico

    August 17, 2017 at 2:50 pm

    @Another Scott: Remove the obnoxious apologist inscriptions from the Appomattox statue, and I’m cool with it being a reminder of thoughtful consideration regarding war.

    I spent the last few of my high school years living near Gettysburg, PA. it’s a beautiful place, and if you’ve never been there I highly encourage a weekend trip to the Battlefield National Military Park, which, because it is a history museum, does have statues and markers for both sides of the war. I learned so much about my history from that battlefield because I saw those memorials, visited the education sites and saw the photo images of waste and pain and death on each side, even though I was and always will be a Yankee. I was clear on who the “good guys” were.

    I’m one who doesn’t want to eradicate each and every single reference to Confederates nationwide. I like the idea that people remember the real human losses, the way so many young people were caught up in a war against their own country were from dirt poor families who were most likely poorly educated and poorly informed, and exploited for that. I want people to visit some of these historic places to understand how ugly passions can be inflamed and turn a people against each other. Honoring the rank and file Confederate soldiers deaths in a respectful but meaningful reflection of history is just fine with me.

    I just want the most ridiculous ones to go. The ones that have all that flowery honor and bullshit praise for the actual Confederate cause, the ones that stick their middle finger up at every black person who has to walk by them in their own town. These fucking “Robert E. Lee” statues put up during reconstruction and pre-Civil rights era days that are 15 feet tall and heap praise on is greatness are just that–a big “Fuck YOU” to black citizens.

    And sadly, now that they’ve decided every statue is sacred White Man property, what they mean to these people is also what’s gotta be snuffed out. Bad enough they put them up in the first place, these fucking NAZI’s are turning them into hallowed religious shrines to their Aryan purity. Whenever a bunch of bad guys co-opts something for its cause, it has to be taken out of commission. This is just the latest example.

    We can maintain historical context, encourage thoughtfulness and dialogue, help people experience their history without indulging the bad guys who want to do NONE of that.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:50 pm

    @A Ghost to Not:

    What is wrong with these people?

    That was a rhetorical question, no?

    Most of my questions these days are rhetorical.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    August 17, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    @germy:

    Walters says “our thoughts and prayers are with the family.”

    Can we all agree now that “thoughts and prayers” is the new way to say “I couldn’t care less”?

  93. 93.

    HeleninEire

    August 17, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    My big shock today was Cuomo saying that the Confederate monuments at CUNY would be taken down. As a (former) lifetime New Yorker, I was, like, WTF?? how did they get there to begin with. In a public space?

  94. 94.

    Kent

    August 17, 2017 at 2:52 pm

    This whole debate seems somewhat reminiscent of the annual debate we have when religious groups want to erect creches or manger scenes on public property every Christmas. Or the 10 commandments in the courthouses and cross monuments on hilltops. It is about the appropriate use of PUBLIC space. Most cities have a bazillion churches with front lawns so why they feel the need to erect creches in public parks or in front of courthouses always escapes me. I think it is really a need to claim the public space on behalf of Christianity.

    The whole confederate memorial thing is similar. People are free to erect any kind of memorial they want on private property and most cities are 90% or more private property. Even here in the Pacific Northwest we have confederate memorials on private property. I drive by one every day to work where the confederate flag flies over Ridgefield WA

    https://scvpacnw.wordpress.com/jefferson-davis-park/
    https://patch.com/washington/seattle/confederate-flag-flies-washington-its-caretaker-explains-why
    http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/06/steve_duin_still_stubbornly_fl.html

    In Seattle’s Fremont District there is a big statue of Lenin on private property: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle

    It is the erection of confederate statues on PUBLIC property throughout the south and border states that is really the issue. It’s the attempt by neoconfederate racists to claim white supremacist confederate heritage as the one true public heritage of the south, above and in opposition to all the rest of the rich history and culture of the south–that of African Americans, native Americans, French, cajuns, Spanish, etc. etc.

    Ultimately I expect to see the revanchist confederate types start erecting private confederate monuments all over the south as the public ones start getting taken down.

  95. 95.

    Catherine D.

    August 17, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    @japa21:

    Interesting to note that in 1863, Lincoln set forth a minimum standard of treatment for all Confederate prisoners. The South did not do the same. The horrors of Andersonville were not exclusive to that location.

    Um, about 25% of Confederate prisoners died at “Hellmira” starting in 1864, so if they were following the minimum standard, it was a pretty low standard.

  96. 96.

    Wapiti

    August 17, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I’m also willing to consider keeping Ft. Bragg’s name, since it was named for him before the Civil War.

    Camp Bragg was established in 1918? So after Bragg had been pardoned for being a traitor, of waging war against the US. (So he *was* a traitor, he just didn’t pay penalties for it.)

  97. 97.

    different-church-lady

    August 17, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @Quinerly: If we had put up a statue of Osama bin Laden, then he might have a point somewhere other than on his head.

  98. 98.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @Kent: There’s a private Confederate memorial in the Tampa Bay area near the intersection of I-75 and I-4. I’ve never visited it, but the goobers who maintain it have a giant flagpole and an enormous Confederate flag that can be seen from a mile away. It’s the biggest flag I’ve ever seen, and I find it obnoxious as hell — it’s in such a conspicuous spot that tens of thousands of people have to pass every day.

  99. 99.

    p.a.

    August 17, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    But as far as I know, the Vietnam War memorial commemorates only the American personnel who died in it. It doesn’t memorialise the war in any way, and I don’t believe that its visitors do either.

    That was the issue the always wrong wingers had with the VWM memorial from the beginning: it didn’t glamorize of sanitize the war. IIRC the site design was considered by them a “scar of dishonor” (paraphrase). Also too, designed by a female Asian Ivy leaguer… the horror… the horror…

  100. 100.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    August 17, 2017 at 3:00 pm

    Worth mentioning that both Lee and Davis were Mexican War heros. The topic is complex.

    Also worth noting that that my impression of a lot of Civil War memorials is the Potomac region of the country is basically The Civil War Land amusement park. Yes, the Confederates were Disneyfied, along with the Union, Lincoln and so on. Slavery was whitewashed, along with limb amputations caused by bullets that would be considered a war crime now and the leading cause of death for soldiers in the Civil War was disease.

  101. 101.

    A Ghost To Most

    August 17, 2017 at 3:00 pm

    @Kent: The traitors even had themselves a big ole pissing contest about arming slaves in support of the South, but many felt that if the black man made a good soldier, it invalidated their ideology.

    The 54th Mass and the Buffalo Soldiers put the lie to that.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    August 17, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    The ongoing controversy surrounding the proposed removal of the Confederate monument in Travis Park was at the center of Wednesday evening’s citizens to be heard session in City Council Chambers.
    As speakers addressed Council members on the dais inside, about 10 individuals donning kevlar vests and assault rifles stood guard outside. They arrived as escorts for This Is Texas Freedom Force (TITFF) Vice President Brandon Burkhart, who addressed Councilmen Roberto Treviño (D1) and William “Cruz” Shaw (D2) – authors of the Council Consideration Request to relocate the monument – during his time to speak.

    Pure intimidation. It’s a show of force. They know perfectly well they don’t need this level of protection but they want to strut around and intimidate unarmed people.

    It’s just sickening, how anti-social it is – it gets worse every year, too. There are more and bigger “showing of the weapons” every year. They’ve normalized putting on a soldier’s costume strutting around with crazy-powerful weapons.

  103. 103.

    PPCLI

    August 17, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    @Quinerly: Well, if the 9/11 site had a memorial statue of Mohamed Atta looking all noble, and a text describing his brave sacrifice, I’d be in favour of taking that one down too.

    Failing that, the analogy is pretty dumb.

  104. 104.

    Mike J

    August 17, 2017 at 3:03 pm

    @Kent:

    In Seattle’s Fremont District there is a big statue of Lenin on private property

    And the guy that owns it doesn’t particularly want it, but has (understandably) had a hard time finding a buyer.

  105. 105.

    Roger Moore

    August 17, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Same reaction as to Paul LePage in my #66. What is wrong with these people?

    There are two plausible explanations:

    1) They’re making shit up in order to demagogue the issue.

    2) Projection, projection, projection

  106. 106.

    Mike in NC

    August 17, 2017 at 3:08 pm

    Just finished the NYT article on the Confederate monuments, which popped up like mushrooms after a heavy rain in the early 20th century — all over the country — thanks to the work of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in order to preserve “Confederate Culture”. An oxymoron if ever there was one. Take them all down.

  107. 107.

    Lulymay

    August 17, 2017 at 3:09 pm

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Agreed. Same as for those killed in Viet Nam.

  108. 108.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 3:09 pm

    @Kay: It’s a huge problem, all these clowns strutting around with battle armor and weaponry, and I don’t see how we address it, given the NRA’s choke-hold on congress and local legislatures. They are openly privileging the 2nd amendment over the 1st, and no one who can do anything about it seems to give a damn.

  109. 109.

    Librarian

    August 17, 2017 at 3:11 pm

    @HeleninEire: The CUNY Hall of Fame was founded in 1900, when it was on the Bronx campus of NYU. Today it is part of Bronx Community College. So, it started as part of a private school, but is today a public one. http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/halloffame/

  110. 110.

    Seth Owen

    August 17, 2017 at 3:13 pm

    @Catherine D.: The Civil War was one the ladt ones fought before modern understanding of hygiene and germ theory. There was appalling mortality among the field troops as well. I’m not aware of the details of Union run POW camps but that doesn’t seem like unusual mortality by 19th Century standards.

  111. 111.

    Kent

    August 17, 2017 at 3:15 pm

    There are also 10 US Army bases named after Confederate generals including some very familiar ones: Fort Hood, Fort Bragg, Fort Polk, Fort Lee, Fort Pickett, etc.

    When do we get around to renaming them?

  112. 112.

    MoxieM

    August 17, 2017 at 3:15 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne: Yeah, nope. Built in 1833. (Fort Warren, anyway.) I thought it was 1812, so I checked.

  113. 113.

    grandpa john

    August 17, 2017 at 3:16 pm

    @JMG: yeah my little town has one too, It includes later wars as well

  114. 114.

    Roger Moore

    August 17, 2017 at 3:16 pm

    @Wapiti:

    Camp Bragg was established in 1918?

    The first military installation in Ft. Bragg was set up in 1857. The town was named after the former military base, and the newer base was named after the town. The point is that the name goes back to before the Civil War.

  115. 115.

    chris

    August 17, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    @Kay: Did you watch the Vice documentary on Charlottesville? At the end Cantwell, the bullgoose nazi, pulled three handguns out of his jeans. I’m still amazed no one was shot.

  116. 116.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    August 17, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    @Wapiti: Bragg did a great deal to aid the Union cause during the war….

  117. 117.

    Mrearl

    August 17, 2017 at 3:20 pm

    We may still not be far enough away from the Civil War to fully understand it. I’m old and relatively Southern but I’ve never known anyone who fought in that war. But I’ve known people who knew people who did. Let’s just say their views about that conflict were rather definite. Objectivity can take a long time, measured in generations, not mere years.

    For history’s sake–which is our sake, and our children’s–we should record and remember battlefields and soldiers who died there. But I’ve never seen much point in statues of generals.

  118. 118.

    gvg

    August 17, 2017 at 3:22 pm

    I am not sure i want individual ordinary names removed from markers. lots of people want to track down ancestors even the shameful ones. My dad did that a bunch after his mother died and it seemed to comfort him although I don’t get it.
    the reason I favor lists of names is I don’t want to “glorify war” by letting people forget how many die, both in battle and in POW camps. we tend to do that as a species and it’s been awhile since we had a “serious” war with a draft of all classes and affecting the majority of families. It also seems worth noting that the war was so big that states away from it still had to keep prisoners.
    all the monuments to intimidate need to go, just gone, especially any near courthouses or jails.

  119. 119.

    Seth Owen

    August 17, 2017 at 3:23 pm

    @Roger Moore: Fort Bragg was founded in 1918. I don’t feel like researching all 10 army bases named for rebels but I suspect all of them were founded for WW1/WW2 mobilization when large tracts of training land and mass barracks were needed for 20th Century warfare.

    Civil War era posts were generally very small and scattered on the frontier or coastal forts. I think the only really large post was Jefferson Barracks in Missouri in that era. It was big enough for entire regiments.

  120. 120.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    August 17, 2017 at 3:23 pm

    I’d like to put in my two cents that the statues of Lee, Davis, etc. should not be moved to cemeteries which are not solely military/battlefield. My family (and at least one of them was in the Confederate Army as a private) have been buried in a public cemetery (Oakwood) in Richmond since before the Civil War. A few decades ago, Confederate graves from the Battle of Seven Pines were found in an abandoned spot in the cemetery. They were placed there so they wouldn’t be in the Union military cemetery near by. At the moment, while that part of the cemetery is kept spick and span by the Sons of the Confederacy, at least as being owned by the City of Richmond it is free of “Lost Cause” statues, making it a pleasant place for me and for the Jewish Community of Richmond whose families are buried in the adjoining cemetery to visit. I don’t want to go visit my parents or contemplate my grave (as I now own the plot) and see giant statues of Jefferson Davis with neo-Nazis genuflecting to them.

  121. 121.

    HeleninEire

    August 17, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    @Librarian: Thank you for that info. Jeez, what one learns on Balloon Juice!

  122. 122.

    Roger Moore

    August 17, 2017 at 3:27 pm

    @Mike J:

    And the guy that owns it doesn’t particularly want it, but has (understandably) had a hard time finding a buyer.

    I would expect some scrap metal dealers would be happy to make an offer. He just can’t find a buyer who wants to pay his asking price.

  123. 123.

    Seth Owen

    August 17, 2017 at 3:28 pm

    @Roger Moore: You got a cite for that? Everything I find, including the Army, says it was founded in 1918 and was named for Braxton Bragg.
    I rather doubt Bragg was famous enough in 1857 to have an installation named after him.

  124. 124.

    jharp

    August 17, 2017 at 3:33 pm

    @germy:

    The White House says it is working to find a “convenient” time for President Donald Trump to speak with the family of the 32-year-old woman who was killed

    My hope is Ms. Heyer’s Mom tells Trump to go fuck himself.

  125. 125.

    sherparick

    August 17, 2017 at 3:39 pm

    If they are in parks and battlefields, and part of the story of the place as this place, and are about the tragedy of war, I have no objection. A simple memorial with the names of the dead, I have no objection for the same reason. The maledictions should fall on those who lead this to fall in such a bad cause, as U.S. Grant wrote. (The Germans do this for their WWII dead, although it caused a huge controversy when Ronald Reagan visited such memorial in 1985 with Helmut Kohl). If they are as statute in the public square, a place of honor, they should be taken down. Replace them with Washington, or Nathaniel Greene, George Henry Thomas, or even George Patton, all flawed men, but men who fought to establish, preserve, and defend the United States and the principals in the Declaration of Independence.

  126. 126.

    Roger Moore

    August 17, 2017 at 3:39 pm

    @Seth Owen:
    Sorry. I screwed up. There’s a town of Fort Bragg in California that was named for an earlier Ft. Bragg located in the same area. I somehow got that mixed up with the current Ft. Bragg, which is obviously nowhere near there. So I would accept keeping the name for the town of Fort Bragg, CA, but not for the military base.

  127. 127.

    Percysowner

    August 17, 2017 at 3:42 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Should we also take down the Vietnam War memorial? It was a vile, morally corrupt war fought for corporate profits.

    That is certainly true of the war. But as far as I know, the Vietnam War memorial commemorates only the American personnel who died in it. It doesn’t memorialise the war in any way, and I don’t believe that its visitors do either

    This fact made the memorial quite controversial when it was built there was a backlash that it didn’t show the glory of the war.
    From Wikipedia

    The selected design was very controversial, in particular its unconventional design, its black color and its lack of ornamentation.[8] Some public officials voiced their displeasure, calling the wall “a black gash of shame.”[9] Two prominent early supporters of the project, H. Ross Perot and James Webb, withdrew their support once they saw the design. Said Webb, “I never in my wildest dreams imagined such a nihilistic slab of stone.” James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under President Ronald Reagan, initially refused to issue a building permit for the memorial due to the public outcry about the design.[10] Since its early years, criticism of the Memorial’s design faded. In the words of Scruggs, “It has become something of a shrine.”[9]

    Negative reactions to Maya Lin’s design created a controversy; a compromise was reached by commissioning Frederick Hart (who had placed third in the original design competition) to produce a bronze figurative sculpture in the heroic tradition. Opponents of Lin’s design had hoped to place this sculpture of three soldiers at the apex of the wall’s two sides. Lin objected strenuously to this, arguing that this would make the soldiers the focal point of the memorial, and her wall a mere backdrop. A compromise was reached, and the sculpture was placed off to one side to minimize the impact of the addition on Lin’s design. On October 13, 1982 the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved the erection of a flagpole to be grouped with sculptures.

    I remember the controversy. How dare we have a war memorial that didn’t show our brave boys in glorious battle. The fact that it was designed by a woman whose parents had immigrated from China didn’t really help. Now, it is considered one of the great and most moving monuments because it really isn’t about the war, it’s about those who were lost in the war. They lost their lives, we lost whatever they could have contributed to our country.

  128. 128.

    Mnemosyne

    August 17, 2017 at 3:45 pm

    @chris:

    the bullgoose nazi

    I have seen and appreciated your One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest reference.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    August 17, 2017 at 3:49 pm

    @Ella in New Mexico: I agree that Gettysburg is an amazing place – I went there with my grandfather as a teenager.

    And I agree with you that we can’t pretend that people didn’t fight and die on both sides of the Civil War. But the context of the erection of these monuments (at court houses, parks, in the middle of roadways, etc. – not at cemeteries or battlefields) make them toxic in my eyes.

    What about the Union supporters in Alexandria?:

    No other decade had such a profound effect on Alexandria’s social, political, and economic fabric than the 1860s. In 1860, however, the city’s inhabitants could not have foretold the death and destruction that would follow and, there would be few who would not lose husbands, brothers or sons in the coming conflict.

    In 1860, Alexandria was a vibrant southern city boasting a population of 12,652 and 96 firms which produced everything from bark to tin-ware. During the U.S. Presidential campaign in the fall of 1860, business-minded Alexandrians were decidedly pro-Union and cast a majority of their ballots for John Bell, the Constitutional Unionist candidate who opposed secession. The Alexandria Gazette of September 28, 1860, remarked that

    the Union men of Alexandria made the most imposing demonstration…last night, which had ever taken place in this city. If there has ever been a doubt of the intense enthusiasm which the Union cause and its candidates have erected in their good old town, that doubt must have been dissipated by the outpouring of popular sentiment last night.

    In an effort to see that Virginia remained in the Union, Alexandrians elected George Brent, an opponent of secession, as a delegate to the February 1861 meeting in Richmond. When South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and President Lincoln subsequently called for 75,000 troops to crush the rebellion, the mood of Alexandrians shifted dramatically from accommodation to war. To celebrate Virginia’s vote for secession, James Jackson, the local proprietor of the Marshall House Hotel, raised a Confederate flag to the cheers of a local crowd.

    War fever swept the city, and militia units composed of the town’s youth drilled at the old Catalpa Lot on the west side of the 600 and 700 blocks of North Washington Street. On May 23, 1861, townsmen went to the polls and voiced their approval of the articles of secession by an overwhelming vote of 958 in favor and 106 against.

    Because of Alexandria’s strategic importance as a railroad center and port, federal troops under the command of General Charles Sanford of the New York State militia lost no time in invading the town by land and sea on the morning of May 24, 1861. This same day, a regiment of New York Fire Zouaves, led by Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, landed at the foot of Cameron Street. With a few recruits, Ellsworth proceeded up King Street where he glimpsed James Jackson’s Confederate flag fluttering in the breeze over the Marshall House. The colonel and his retinue entered the hotel, climbed to the roof and seized the banner. Descending the staircase, Ellsworth was shot in the chest by Jackson. In return, the hotel proprietor was shot and bayoneted by Union Corporal Brownell. Both Jackson and Ellsworth were mortally wounded and each quickly became a martyr to his respective cause.

    As Federal forces occupied Alexandria, elements of Virginia’s 6th Battalion gathered in front of The Lyceum, then marched out Duke Street and boarded a train bound for Manassas Junction. On July 10, 1861, these troops were activated into the 17th Virginia Regiment, commanded by local hero Col. Montgomery Corse. They fought valiantly with the Army of Northern Virginia from the Battle of First Manassas in 1861 through the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865 and suffered tremendous losses over the years of hard fighting.

    The invasion of Alexandria forever changed the social, cultural and economic fabric of the old seaport town. For four years Alexandria was occupied by Union forces; indeed, the city endured the longest military occupation by Union troops of any town during the conflict. […]

    What initially looked like a promising future for local blacks, however, proved illusory. The Freedmen’s Bureau, established by the Federal government to assist refugees and freed slaves, was forced to curtail most of its activities at the end of 1868 due to the hostility or indifference of many in Congress. White Southerners generally favored a new system of social relations to replace slavery-racial segregation. Under a series of discriminatory “Jim Crow” laws, blacks began to be systematically denied access to public and private accommodations, denied the right to vote, and denied equal justice. As early as 1868, for instance, blacks on the Washington & Alexandria Railroad were being forced to occupy segregated seating areas. Also in the late 1860s, Ku Klux Klan-type groups arose in Northern Virginia, but were most active in Fauquier County. Long before Reconstruction officially ended in 1877, more conservative forces had re-established their power in all of the Southern states.

    Much of what makes “Appomattox” toxic for me is the word “Confederate” in the inscriptions. It’s not a memorial to Virginia’s war dead, it’s a Confederate memorial.

    Virginians in the Civil War:

    Virginia’s Confederate government fielded about 150,000 troops in the American Civil War. They came from all economic and social levels, including some Unionists and former Unionists. However, at least 30,000 of these men were actually from other states. Most of these non-Virginians were from Maryland, whose government was controlled by Unionists during the war. Another 20,000 of these troops were from what would become the State of West Virginia in August 1863. Important Confederates from Virginia included General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, General Stonewall Jackson (born in what became West Virginia), General J.E.B. Stuart, General A.P. Hill, and General Jubal Early.

    Roughly 50,000 Virginians served in the Union military, including West Virginians and roughly 6,000 Virginians of African ancestry. Some of these men served in Maryland units. Some African Americans, both freedmen and runaway slaves, enlisted in states as far away as Massachusetts. Areas of Virginia that supplied Union soldiers and sent few or no men to fight for the Confederacy had few slaves, a high percentage of poor families, and a history of opposition to secession. These areas were located near northern states and were often under Union control.[56] 40% of Virginia’s officers in the United States military when the war started stayed and fought for the Union.[57] These men included Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief of the Union Army, David G. Farragut, First Admiral of the Union Navy, and General George Henry Thomas.

    There are good ways to remember and learn from the past. “Appomattox” isn’t it.

    My $0.02.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    sherparick

    August 17, 2017 at 3:51 pm

    @Seth Owen: Ft. Bragg, Ft. Lee, Ft. A.P. Hill, Ft. Hood, Ft. Pickett, Ft. Stewart, Ft. Jackson, Ft. Polk, are the big ones that come to mind. Ironically, in the cases of Bragg, Hood, Pickett, and Polk were actually pretty bad generals (Hood and Pickett led two of the most disastrous charges in the war respectively and Bragg specialized in seizing defeat from the jaws of victory at Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga – so it just demonstrates the hold that the loss cause myth and Southern leadership in the War Department of Woodrow Wilson when all these posts came into being 100 years ago with WWI.

  131. 131.

    Quinerly

    August 17, 2017 at 3:55 pm

    @Seth Owen:
    Camp Bragg, 1918 became Ft. Bragg in 1922. I think all the military installations that were named after Confederates were named in the 1920’s…during the same period that those United Daughters of the Confederacy were planting statues.

  132. 132.

    Kay Eye

    August 17, 2017 at 3:56 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: I seem to recall that Ross Perot spearheaded that add-on traditional statue project. If anything, it diminishes the Vietnam Veterans Wall.

  133. 133.

    Morfydd

    August 17, 2017 at 3:57 pm

    @Another Scott: Hahahahaha sob.

    I was in Bamberg last month and there is a plaque on a major tourist bridge for town citizens who were soldiers and died in WWII, including the number of them, and saying they died to defend their town. Next to it was a plaque commemorating the Holocaust dead from Bamberg. They couldn’t be bothered to count them.

  134. 134.

    Jinchi

    August 17, 2017 at 3:59 pm

    @James Hare: I’ve seen small plaques to fallen british soldiers from the Revolutionary war in Boston, too.

    I agree there’s a big difference between a typical footsoldier, who is often forced into service, fights who he’s told to fight and faces execution if he tries to quit. The monuments to Lee and the rest of the Southern generals are explicit celebrations for their actions and for the Lost Cause.

  135. 135.

    Morfydd

    August 17, 2017 at 4:06 pm

    I will add that in general Germany handles its terrible history remarkably well, which is why I was so surprised and sad to see the above.

  136. 136.

    Archon

    August 17, 2017 at 4:08 pm

    @Jinchi:

    I have a tad bit of sympathy for the Confederate dragooned into service when conscription was implemented. It shouldn’t be forgotten though that for the first nine months of the war every single person who bore arms for the Confederacy had a choice to fight for the Union or fight for a traitorous cause.

    As someone up-thread mentioned, tens of thousands of southerners fought for the Union. Don’t let anyone tell you it was some obvious no-brainer for a southerner to fight for their state instead of their country, it’s not true, especially not true for the US Army officers (like Lee) who, having taken an oath to the United States (in a world where oaths mattered) decided to serve the Confederacy.

  137. 137.

    quakerinabasement

    August 17, 2017 at 4:13 pm

    a few years I spent in Massachusetts in the late 80s. I moved there right after college (yes, I’m old

    Girl, hold my Geritol. UF ’76, represent!

  138. 138.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 17, 2017 at 4:17 pm

    @Archon: Especially considering that there are more Confederate monuments than Union ones in some of the border states that never seceded.

  139. 139.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 4:20 pm

    @Percysowner: I’ve seen a lot of war memorials, but the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in DC remains the most moving. The war ended when I was a child, and I don’t have much of a memory of it, aside from my mom’s anxiety about her brother, who was drafted into it. I didn’t know anyone who died in that war. I guess that’s why I was unprepared for the emotional wallop the wall packs, the way it starts off low, then gets bigger and taller as you proceed until you feel crushed and diminished by the enormity of it. It’s a brilliant design.

  140. 140.

    Another Scott

    August 17, 2017 at 4:22 pm

    @Morfydd: J and I had a vacation in Austria a few years ago. While moving between towns, we stopped at one little church on a hill just off a major road. Inside it was quiet (we were the only ones there) and somber, and there were swastikas all over the place. Little ones, but it seemed to be some sort of church to honor the memory of various people from the town that fought for Hitler in WWII. I couldn’t read enough of the German to know the context. It felt very weird to be there, but not knowing the context, I can’t say that it should be removed (or not).

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  141. 141.

    Betty Cracker

    August 17, 2017 at 4:23 pm

    @quakerinabasement: ?

  142. 142.

    Another Scott

    August 17, 2017 at 4:23 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Indeed. I had the same reaction when I first saw it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  143. 143.

    Mike in NC

    August 17, 2017 at 4:24 pm

    @Morfydd: We toured Nuremberg last year on a chilly, rainy day. It looks nothing today as it did in the Nazi era, and there is no agreement on how much of it (if anything) ought to be preserved for posterity.

  144. 144.

    Downpuppy

    August 17, 2017 at 4:37 pm

    I found a picture of the monument and really don’t see a problem with it, other than the DEO VINDICE.

    Last time I was at Georges the geese were out of control. Having the entire picnic & play areas covered in goosecrap – that was a problem.

    http://www.bostonharborbeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Confederate-list.jpg

  145. 145.

    MoxieM

    August 17, 2017 at 4:39 pm

    @Mike in NC: That’s kind of on purpose…if they fix it up, it’s a memorial and will attract Nazi scum, like (fire)ants to a picnic. If they tear it down, they’re afraid people will forget just how much crappy energy the NSDAP put into propaganda and posturing (you’ll have noticed that it’s –it being the arena–basically a stage set, the outside isn’t even finished…it wasn’t finished then, even. Best laid plans of creeps and bums.) So it’s not really like the DoC statues, in that latter-day Nazi descendants didn’t proudly put that shit up to memorialize their genocidal forebears.

    I dunno– did the Confederate traitors ever actually build anything, or were they too busy seceding and killing people and stuff?

  146. 146.

    woodrowfan

    August 17, 2017 at 4:53 pm

    @Raoul: oh I know. LOTS of northerners profited by slavery. It’s part of the story that has been brushed under the rug. But, if we’re talking in terms of that song “Molasses, to Rum, to Slaves” then I have no trouble saying Charleston’s hands are dirtier, even if Boston’s are not very clean. It’s like saying which is dirtier, a chamberpot or an outhouse *(assuming constant use, no one has cleaned either in a set time, etc, etc.) I wouldn’t want to eat from either, but one has a whole hell of a lot more filth. Rutledge was right that the north had profited as well, but he was wrong that their sins were equal to his community’s.

  147. 147.

    J R in WV

    August 17, 2017 at 4:57 pm

    @MoxieM:

    @Inventor:

    I hadn’t known that black men worked to haul those cannon from Ticonderoga, but I did know that the South was by no means unanimous in its desire to break the Union. At least one county in NW Georgia flew the stars and stripes continuously during the war.

    Tennessee is known as the Volunteer state because more men enlisted from Tennessee than would have been drafted if it had remained in the Union. Though I doubt many from TN are aware of that fact. I learned about it from a Professor who was educated in Tennessee early in the 20th century at a liberal religious school.

    I think after looking up pictures of the stone with the thirteen names that it could be allowed to stay, as it’s more like a grave stone than a shout out to the glory of combat. Perhaps a midnight sandblaster could remove the Daughters of the Confederacy seal? or someone with a quieter method.

  148. 148.

    Ella in New Mexico

    August 17, 2017 at 5:00 pm

    @Another Scott: Definitely food for thought. :-)

  149. 149.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    August 17, 2017 at 5:02 pm

    Just my two cents:
    As someone who did 20 years on active duty in the US Navy, seeing monuments to Confederate generals makes me sick. The ones who were in the US Army before the war (almost all of them) are guilty of fomenting armed insurrection against the United States. Did they forget this: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same” They broke there oath and they committed treason, all in the interests of preserving and expanding slavery. So no the treasonous bastards don’t get a participation trophy for their losing at their armed insurrection. Naming bases after them seems like the stupidest thing I can think of..who thought THAT was a good idea…

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    August 17, 2017 at 5:17 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    A good friend dragged me there when we were sent to DC for a DBA class… I knew it would hit me hard, and it did. It was so quiet, a little bit of snow sifting down. It’s in a different world that Washington DC, actually. Such a brilliant job by the young woman who drew it and was able to submit it to the competitive selection process.

    Towards the end of our late evening December stay there I found the alphabetical index books, which you can use to find someone’s spot on the wall.

    My last name was in the book. It is an unusual name, and to that point everyone I knew with the name was a relative. He was from the west coast, and his name was Mark, I had never heard of him. Quite emotional an evening. I gotta stop there.

  151. 151.

    Ohio Mom

    August 17, 2017 at 5:31 pm

    @Downpuppy: Thanks for the picture of the plaque on question. To me, it’s not at all in the same category of a statue of a general on horseback. It is a reminder of the suffering and death caused by war. It does need to be updated, though.

    Add a plaque next to it, explaining how it came to be there and that it was part of a much larger effort to glorify the CSA. Include in the explanation a critique of the misnomer, The War Between the States, and it’s good to go.

    It will be a lot more educational that an empty spot.

  152. 152.

    J R in WV

    August 17, 2017 at 5:34 pm

    @J R in WV:

    Maya Lin is her name, I should have looked her up but pressed the button too soon, then got distracted. IIRC she was very young.

  153. 153.

    Doris

    August 17, 2017 at 5:37 pm

    Out of sympathy for POWs and this man’s likely tough life, I see a good reason to keep the marker. For what it’s worth, I say that as the great great granddaughter of a Union soldier who was wounded in Louisiana. He was a member of the NY volunteers. For historical interest, my mother hung in our NYS home our ancestor’s Civil War discharge papers, a small discharge medal and a picture of our ancestor as an old man. A generally open-minded and liberal friend was born in Georgia. Whenever she passed my ancestor’s picture, she would tell my mother that the North had won because they had the Money, but the South had the Valor. One day my mother responded that the North won and the South lost and there was nothing more to discuss. My friend’s mother never mentioned the Civil War to her again.

  154. 154.

    John Fremont

    August 17, 2017 at 5:57 pm

    @Inventor: This!

  155. 155.

    debbie

    August 17, 2017 at 6:00 pm

    I say that beside every Confederate monument and statue, we put a copy of the Articles of Secession enclosed in weatherproof plexiglass so visitors can put the memorials into the proper context.

  156. 156.

    John Fremont

    August 17, 2017 at 6:03 pm

    @Raoul: Yes. There was a secessionist movement in New York City, to have the city become an independent city-state back in the 1850’s and 60’s. The Wall Street trading houses were making a lot of money on the slave trade in the Americas. Some of these traders were ironically donors of Abe Lincoln’s campaign. During the Civil War the movement picked up traction so New York could still make money from the slave trade in case the Confederate States won. Many traders stI’ll continued in Brazil’s trade after the war.

  157. 157.

    John Fremont

    August 17, 2017 at 6:12 pm

    @Teddys Person: My Irish ancestors worked the mills around Glasgow Scotland weaving imported cotton from the Confederate States.

  158. 158.

    Ohio Mom

    August 17, 2017 at 6:27 pm

    @J R in WV: Maya Lin was an architecture student at Yale, taking a class in funerary architecture, when she designed the Wall. It was a class assignment, inspired by the competition for a Vietnam War Memorial that had just been announced.

    She got a B in the course, which ended before she found out she had won the competition.

    I think her work nowadays is mostly sculpture based on land forms.

  159. 159.

    Quinerly

    August 17, 2017 at 6:35 pm

    Abraham Lincoln statue burned in Chicago: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Abe-Lincoln-Statue-Burned-on-Chicagos-South-Side-440897443.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_CHBrand

  160. 160.

    sukabi

    August 17, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: besides being stupid and evil you mean? They are bringing in Rushmore and the 9-11 memorial to try and gain support for the idea that the statues are “sacred symbols” of America. If they can sway public opinion enough they can keep their treason statues.

  161. 161.

    sukabi

    August 17, 2017 at 6:44 pm

    @Quinerly: soooo..how long before the repubs deny that Lincoln was actually a Republican?

    I fully expect FOX will run a chyron under any coverage they run that says Lincoln (D) was caught starting fires endangering the neighborhood.

  162. 162.

    Mike Furlan

    August 17, 2017 at 7:04 pm

    13 dead?

    Chicago has a monument to 6,000 dead Rebels.

    http://www.graveyards.com/IL/Cook/oakwoods/confederate.html

  163. 163.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 17, 2017 at 7:12 pm

    @Quinerly: By all means, idiots, vandalize statues of Abraham Lincoln, and let’s see how that works out for you. I guess they’ve already decided that the Statue of Liberty is a personal affront; offensives against motherhood and apple pie should be coming soon.

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