Cenotaph noun. A sepulchral monument erected in memory of a deceased person or persons buried elsewhere. < Greek kenos, empty and taphos, tomb
In the summer of 2017 a friend sent me an email with a link to an NBC news show in which Confederate monuments were discussed. A journalist, Joy Reid, stated that no one even thought about erecting Confederate monuments until the 1960s, during the Civil Rights movement. That is beyond strange, I thought. Later, I saw that the Pundifact Truth-O-Meter rated Reid’s statement as “Mostly False.” This judgment was, in its own way, even stranger. Mostly?
In the state of Georgia, the number of Confederate monuments erected between 1954 and 1968 was two, one, or zero, depending on how you count them. In Alabama the numbers are exactly the same: two, one, or zero, depending on how you define Confederate monument and other factors. While I am not as familiar with other states’ monuments as I am with Georgia’s and Alabama’s, I am confident that their stories are the same. Mostly false?
More recently I read an article on the subject in the Smithsonian. This article includes a statement that one of the three peaks of monument building was the 1950s and 1960s, but no examples are provided. The magazine collaborated with The Nation Institute to produce this study. (Readers familiar with The Nation Institute may wonder, as I do, why the Smithsonian is teaming up with this organization.) Anyway, regarding Confederate monuments, the article stated that “these memorials were created and funded by Jim Crow governments to pay homage to a slave-owning society and to serve as blunt assertions of dominance over African-Americans.”
Funded by Jim Crow governments? That assertion would astonish the United Daughters of the Confederacy and other organizations that labored for years, sometimes decades, to raise the money to build these statues and obelisks. Didn’t they know that their state governments were footing the bill? Why were they holding all those bake sales, concerts, and other community events? Why were they constantly begging for dimes and quarters? What happened to the government checks? Did the monument companies get paid twice?
And “to pay homage to a slave-owning society.” Note the sly verbiage. Not “pay homage to slavery,” but to a “slave-owning society,” i.e., a society in which slavery existed. See the difference? I have been to the Smithsonian museums. I saw some Greek sculpture on my last visit and was especially impressed with a bust by Praxiteles. I was inches away from this 2,400-year-old work of art, a work of art produced by a “slave-owning society.” Perhaps a plaque has since been installed next to the bust to interpret Praxiteles’ slave-owning culture; or maybe the bust has been removed. Or, more likely, the curators understand that all societies are flawed, and that the existence of such flaws does not mean that we not admire the good things a society produces.
Well, let’s move back to the present millennium. The first Confederate monuments were built soon after the war, in the 1860s, not in the 1960s. The earliest ones were usually the work of ladies’ memorial associations, volunteer societies that undertook the doleful task of recovering the dead from temporary graves and re-interring them in decent burial grounds. They erected modest obelisks to honor the dead soldiers and to express their families’ grief. The monuments’ surfaces contained mournful inscriptions, usually simple, and laconic phrases such as “Our Confederate Dead,” or the even sadder “To the Unknown Confederate Dead.”
The busiest time of monument-building in the South—and in the North too, for this monumentalization was a national movement—was roughly between 1895 and 1915, as the old soldiers moved from middle age to senescence and began to fade away. In this period the United Daughters of the Confederacy took over the work of the earlier generation and erected numerous memorials. In the newer generation’s efforts the monuments often differed in character from the ones built earlier. Some contained inscriptions praising the martial attributes of the citizen-soldiers who fought and died in defense of their country. Some bore a message to these men’s descendants in the hope that they would emulate the qualities of their forebears. Some also praised the Confederacy itself, and articulated the principles the builders believed justified secession and the struggle for independence. However, virtually every one of these memorials still bore an inscription saying “Our Confederate Dead” or a similar expression.
The dead so honored and remembered were the grandfathers of children born at the turn of the century. The living veterans were aged men nearing their final days. The men had suffered; their families had suffered; their communities were still recovering from the effects of the war. Paying tribute to the veterans was right and honorable.
I have read and transcribed every inscription on every surface of every Confederate monument in two states. I have read many contemporary accounts of the fundraising efforts and dedication ceremonies. Nothing I have read leads me to believe that the builders of the monuments were motivated by racial animus.
I would not deny that these turn-of-the-century monuments were built in the Jim Crow era or that the people who built them were segregationists. They did not believe in racial equality. They did not favor equal political and civil rights for all citizens regardless of race. To claim otherwise would be false. (Or perhaps Pundifact would say “mostly false.”) However, not everything that happened in the Jim Crow era was a statement of Jim Crow repression. Over 250,000 Confederate soldiers and sailors died in that war. Tens of thousands more were wounded, maimed, and suffered the rest of their lives because of their service. Their families’ and their communities’ loss is unparalleled in American history. Their daughters and granddaughters loved these men and honored them with these works of stone.
In 1874, just nine years after the war’s end, a monument was erected to “Our Confederate Dead” in Mobile’s Magnolia Cemetery. An officer of the United States Army participated in the dedication and presented a wreath. He spoke these words: “This floral offering is tendered with the kindly and sympathetic greetings of surviving Federal soldiers…who honor the brave and heroic dead of the late war, and desire your acceptance of the same as an humble tribute to the valor and unselfish devotion to a cause held dearer than life.”
The soldiers of the United States who warred against these Confederates could honor them and help their families mourn. Why can’t we?
Let their graves be undisturbed. Let their cenotaphs stand. Let the Confederates who died in the war, and after, rest in peace.
Acting Superintendent at Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site
GETTYSBURG, Penn.—Ed Wenschhof Jr. has arrived as the acting superintendent of Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site. He will serve in this position until approximately April 5, 2019.
Wenschhof currently serves as Chief Ranger at the C&O Canal National Historical Park, which follows the route of the 184.5 mile canal along the Potomac River from Washington D.C., to Cumberland, Md. He has a wide depth of experience in management roles including serving as Acting Superintendent at Antietam National Battlefield and Catoctin Mountain Park.
“I am very appreciative of the opportunity to serve as acting superintendent for Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site; they are the parks where I started my National Park Service career in 1984,” said Wenschhof. “I look forward to working with my NPS colleagues, park visitors, partners, and the local community.”
Wenschhof worked eight years at the Gettysburg parks, and then transferred to Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Md., where he served for many years as chief of natural resources management and law enforcement. Since 2013 he has served in several positions at the C&O Canal National Historical Park and is currently the Chief Ranger. He is active in special event operations and served as incident commander for the 150th anniversaries at Manassas and Antietam, and assisted with the Gettysburg 150th as well.
Gettysburg National Military Park preserves, protects, and interprets for this and future generations, the resources associated with the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, during the American Civil War, the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, and their commemorations. Learn more at www.nps.gov/gett.
Eisenhower National Historic Site preserves and interprets the home and farms of the Eisenhower family as a fitting and enduring memorial to the life, work, and times of General Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, and to the events of far-reaching importance that occurred on the property.