Is the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery Headed to the New Market Battlefield?
Is the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery Headed to the New Market Battlefield?
The Washington Post is now reporting on the agreement between Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the Virginia Military Institute to accept and relocate the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery to the New Market Battlefield, which it operates. The Board of Visitors at VMI—all appointed by Gov. Youngkin—unanimously approved the motion to accept the monument.
This story was first reported by Cardinal News, but unfortunately the story was vague on whether Arlington National Cemetery or the U.S. Army were involved in this decision. It turns out, as I suspected, that they were not.
This story seems to be more about Virginia politics as well as internal problems within VMI. In 2020, the school removed its statue of former instructor and Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and relocated it to New Market. Moses Ezekiel, who fought at New Market in 1864, sculpted the state as well as the Confederate monument in Arlington.
More to the point, over the past few years the school has attempted to address internal problems stemming from a history and culture of racial discrimination. The school’s diversity officer was forced to resign earlier this year.
Black cadets -- several of whom reported frequently hearing the N-word or racialized stereotypes from White cadets -- were not the only ones who bore the brunt of slurs. The report said Indian and Asian cadets also told investigators they were called racial slurs.
The Washington Post last year published stories about lynching threats and other racial harassment at VMI, including a photo of Commandant of Cadets Col. William Wanovich posing at a 2017 Halloween party with cadets wearing a border wall costume labeled ‘Trump's Wall’ and ‘No Cholos Allowed.’ In January, the school announced that Wanovich would retire at the end of the academic year.
Investigators also found that ‘VMI maintains an outdated, idealized reverence for the Civil War and the Confederacy.’ Although the school has tried to address this recently, Civil War-era traditions are still prominent.
It’s difficult to see how accepting ownership of a monument steeped in Lost Cause history will help the school move forward on this front, but perhaps that was the epoint of the board’s unanimous vote.
This may, however, be a moot question. As the Post is reporting, as of today there has been no statement from Arlington or the military or any suggestion that the relevant parties will at some point begin discussions. And if you read closely, you get a clear sense of the many hurdles that VMI would have to surmount to gain possession of the monument. In other words, I still don’t think this story has legs.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with historian Micki McKelya, who was interviewed for this story. I don’t want to see this monument destroyed or placed in permanent storage. It is an incredibly important Lost Cause artifact that has much to teach us. I’ve been bringing student and teacher groups to the monument for over a decade and it is always a rewarding and slightly uncomfortable experience.
That said, it still isn’t clear as to how the monument will be dismantled so as not to disturb nearby graves, including that of Ezekiel himself. Will it be removed as one piece or will it be dismantled by section? In other words, what remains after removal may be a series of panels, plus the statue at the top, rather than anything that looks like a monument.
Perhaps sections of the monument can be dispersed to more than one museum.
Regardless of where it ends up, it is imperative that the museum in question have the resources and commitment to properly interpret the monument for the general public. Looking at the photograph above, I don’t get the sense that the VMI staff at the museum has done anything to interpret the Jackson statue. Not a good sign.
If true, this would be a complete abdication of responsibility in regards to the Arlington monument.
All we can do is wait and see, but the clock is ticking.
How about all the sons and grandsons and great-grandsons since then who paid the blood price in Combat? Gen Simon Bolivar Buckner II and Lt Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest III, and countless others including the members of my family. John Archer Lejeune not killed, but called "Greatest Leatherneck of them all" Or another Cousin LT Thomas Ceburn Musgrave USAF , both the descendants of Confederate soldiers.
Or George S Patton and Chesty Puller grandsons of Confederate Cols killed in action.
It was called the Reconciliation Monument. In my family, two Uncles died one at Guadalcanal one other with the Bedford Boys on Dday. General Order 11 was not made by Rebs which was the Union antisemites Grant and Sherman.
My great-grandfather and gg grandfathers fought for Virginia and Southern independence and their Colony/State the same as their grandfathers did On the Virginia and Maryland lines in the Continental Army
Now to remove this moument you have to desecrate the grave of an orthodox jew. I suppose that does not bother you any more than the fact you are safer in any southern town (except the Ghettos) than you would be in New York where Black assaults on Jews have become a sport for the rabidly anti semitic BLM bunch. who are Hamas Lovers.
So now we are getting it( us "crackers ") 75% of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were white males. Some were brave Jews, (like the Jewish Rebs) for sure and a substantial portion were heavily Southern. May their graves never be moved or dishonored like Sir Moses Ezekiel.
So where is your lineage Kevin, brave soldiers or carpet baggers? Maybe the army can replace us Southrons with Transgender Commandos or a battalion of ADL recruits?
Jewish law forbids the transfer of a dead body or of remnant bones from one grave to another, even when it is to a more respected site (Sh. Ar., YD 363:1; based upon Sem. 13:5–7; TJ, MK 2:4, 81b)The fact that all this anti Confederate symbolism kristallnacht is nothing more than a smoke screen to take people's attention away from the horrible state of black communities in urban America with its close to a million gang members who killed hundreds of innocent people a year. no let's not talk about crime and violence in the black community let's talk about Robert E Lee. of course many of you make your livings off of bashing the Confederacy and everything about it. from the maest Southern Poverty leadership conference founded by two great race hustlers Morris D and Julian Bond who have hundreds of millions in their coffers but never spend them on the black community the guys like you Kevin a simple school teacher who pumps out his screed with great Delight.
it's a great way to ingratiate yourself to the black criminal subculture which disguises itself as civil rights activists. people like Al Sharpton and his ilk. We always hear the Mantra Lost Cause lost cause. a simple pejorative you can apply to anything to do with the Confederacy so that you don't have to ask and answer the hard questions. as many black intellectuals such as Thomas Sowell the late Walter Williams and others have stated So clearly.
The Lost Cause myth is no more ridiculous than the noble cause that the war was fought to free the slaves. The War was fought to conquer the South and make sure they stayed in the Union to secure the economic benefits of that Union. It was all about the money Lincoln didn't care a damn about Negroes neither did Sherman Grant McClellan you name them.. Yes he didn't like slavery because he wanted negros to return to Africa or South America, Anywhere But Here. he was working on colonization even up to the time he was assassinated. as for the South well the Deep South seceded for the same reasons that the north came after them but their own economic interests which was in large part slavery. In fact it were to be honest that's what the American Revolution was all about too you know taxation without representation.
Since the great cultural Purge of Confederate monuments brought on by the death of the Blessed Saint George of Floyd career Criminal and drug addict addict black on black homicides have increased 40% and even their traffic deaths have increased 30%
In California the most liberal of all states most black children come out of high school basically illiterate and incapable of doing Simple Math.but they are free of Confederate symbolism praise Saint George of Floyd. But the American Civil War was the beginning of the American Empires International reach. after the Mexican-American War but after that . Proving the presentience Of Robert E Lee “The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it. “
When the REL super-sized statue in Richmond's Monument Avenue was removed two years ago this month, an African American woman was quoted as saying that each time she had to walk past the statue, she felt oppressed. Even if it were just a racist graffito scrawled large on a wall, it would still be significantly hurtful.
Thus, I believe that images electronically preserved (e.g., on a hard drive) of such monuments are a minimalist and reasonable way to preserve the historical record.
I don't often quote from this tradition, but the maxim "Swords into Plowshares" strongly resonates to me in this and similar issues of Lost Cause statuary.
In this electronic age, the maxim might be updated to "Statues into Hard Drives".
And the Isaiah verse ending amended into "neither shall they teach racist war any more".