We have witnessed in the past few days a rapid revamping of the United States’ Civil War commemorative landscape. In the aftermath of the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, the Confederate battle flag and Confederate monuments came under scrutiny. The events in Charlottesville, Virginia over the past week accelerated the push to curb the nation’s Confederate memorialization. The impetus for the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was to protest the proposed removal of a monument to Robert E. Lee. Neo-Nazis inflicted violence upon a crowd of counter-protestors, inuring many and killing one woman. Quickly, city officials across the American South expedited existing plans for removal or initiated new resolutions for relocating Confederate monuments.
While Confederate monuments are toppled from their pedestals, it is important to bear in mind that opposition to these monuments is not a new, solely contemporary phenomenon. There is a long, divisive history surrounding Confederate iconography from immediately following the war to the present day, including many memorials to Robert E. Lee.
For instance, before the dedication of Antietam National Cemetery in 1867, the cemetery’s Board of Trustees faced the difficult decision of what to do with “Lee’s Rock.” According to legend, Lee stood on the rock to watch the progress of his army during the Battle of Antietam. The majority opinion fluctuated depending upon which members were in attendance at the board meetings and their political affiliations. Public opinion of what should be done with the stone and its appropriateness within the boundaries of a national cemetery was also varied. Eventually, the board decided upon the removal of the rock outside the boundaries of the proposed cemetery. While little fanfare or upheaval followed the relocation of the small boulder, “Lee’s Rock” foreshadowed the complexity of Civil War commemoration in the United States. As Lee’s likeness fades away from our commemorative landscapes, let us remember this process started when the war ended.
Resistance to the Lost Cause mythology that glorified the Confederate South and its physical manifestations continued into the late nineteenth-century. The first Confederate monument placed on the Gettysburg battlefield was dedicated in 1886 and honored the 2nd Maryland Confederate Infantry Monument. Three years later, Union veterans voiced their dismay with the decision of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association to put a Confederate monument on what many Union veterans considered to be sacred soil. The Pittsburgh Grand Army of the Republic (a Union veteran fraternal organization) drafted a resolution that stated allowing such monuments to be dedicated at Gettysburg would “make treason honorable” and was a form of sacrilege. To those who fought against the Confederacy 25 years prior, commemorating their enemies on Northern soil was unfathomable.
Fast-forward to the mid-twentieth century and we see strong opposition to Confederate memorialization. Confederate monuments and other symbols created during this timewere designed to push back against inroads made by civil rightsactivists and to maintain the racial status quo as much as possible. The Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson Monument was dedicated in Baltimore in 1948. While many applauded, an editorialist in the Baltimore Afro-American asked, “Why Not Benedict Arnold?” Lee and Jackson were traitors and to look to them for inspiration was “pure drivel and tommyrot.” The editorialist noted that, “Hitler killed Jews” and “Lee and Jackson exploited colored people as animals and property.” The Lee and Jackson Monument was removed from Baltimore in theearly morning hours of August 16, 2017, nearly 70 years after itsdedication.
As the nation’s memory of the American Civil War continues to rapidly evolve, let us remember the paths taken and voices expressed that led us to this point.
David K. Graham is an assistant professor of History at Snow College. His research focuses on the Civil War in American memory.