A New Confederate Monument Dedicated in Franklin, Tennessee
This week a Confederate monument honoring Texas soldiers was dedicated on the Franklin battlefield in Franklin, Tennessee. The battle of Franklin, which took place on November 30, 1864 proved to be one of the most costly Confederate defeats of the entire war. Confederate general John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee suffered 6,000 casualties, including six generals and many other top commanders. While Hood’s army continued on to fight outside Nashville its combat effectiveness was severely diminished.
You might describe the ill-fated assault at Franklin as the Confederacy’s last hurrah or last gasp before its defeat the following spring.
The dedication of a new Confederate monument on a Civil War battlefield certainly comes at a time of intense debate and controversy surrounding how we remember and commemorate the Civil War.
I have to admit that I was more than a bit surprised by this news given the hundreds of Confederate monuments that have been removed from public spaces over the past few years.
Many of you will no doubt immediately write this off as part of a reactionary response that sits alongside the recent decision in one Virginia county to overturn a decision in 2020 to change the names of schools that honor Confederate leaders along with Republican efforts to censor the teaching of history in states across the country.
That would certainly be the easy move, but let me first provide what I see as some relevant context.