One fewer Confederate statue: does anyone notice?

This post was originally published in the Wilson Times Nov. 30, 2019.

The statue of a Confederate soldier in front of the Chatham County Courthouse and within a traffic circle surrounding the old courthouse has been removed. During my four years of college, I drove around that courthouse and passed that statue each time I went home or returned to campus. In all those times passing the statue, I never gave it much thought; it was just background scenery.

The statue was removed Nov. 19 after the Chatham County Board of Commissioners chose to remove it. This removal follows actions in other towns and states to remove Confederate monuments from public land. Some statues, including the “Silent Sam” statue on the University of North Carolina campus and a statue at the Durham County Courthouse, were brought down by protesters who took the law into their own hands.

Confederate statues, mainly installed in the first quarter of the 20^th century to honor local residents who had fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War, are ubiquitous across the South and, therefore, little noticed. The statue at Chapel Hill was a memorial to the UNC students who postponed their studies to fight in the war. Many of the memorials across the South were paid for or advocated by United Daughters of the Confederacy chapters.

Many African-Americans have objected to the statues and other reminders of the Civil War, including the display of Confederate battle flags. Other protesters against memorials to Confederates, including left-wing “anti-fascists” and veterans of other demonstrations for liberal causes, joined the original protesters. Controversies like this have brought out angry counter-protesters who see the toppling of monuments as a way to erase history.

Emotions are strong. The Chatham County commissioners’ meeting about that county’s statue was called “rowdy” as residents on both sides of the issue loudly made their views known. Some arrests were made in Chatham County and during the Silent Sam protests in Chapel Hill.

Estimates are that there are more than 1,000 Confederate statues or memorials across the South, and about the same number of memorials to Union soldiers in the North, reminders of the deadliest war in American history.

You can mark me as ambivalent about Confederate statues. I have never felt inspired by one, although two of my great-great-grandfathers died in the Civil War while wearing Rebel gray (one in battle, one from disease). I don’t think of my ancestors when I see a Confederate statue, nor do I find the statues to be an endorsement of slavery.

The overwhelming proportion of Confederate soldiers (including my dirt-poor great-great-grandfathers) had no interest in slavery or the slave economy. They fought for what they saw as their patriotic duty, defending their homes and their sovereign state from what they saw as an invading army. These boys in gray were in many ways victims of the war that was thrust upon them by wealthy, slave-owning aristocrats. As N.C. Gov. Zebulon Vance said, “It’s a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

What disturbs me most about the toppling of Civil War monuments (from South or North) is the fact that they are memorials to a generation who died doing their duty as they saw it. The memorials were an effort to assuage the grief of losing a father, brother, son or neighbor in that awful war. Every family in the South lost someone. I find it particularly sad that today’s UNC students cannot see the sacrifice that students and their families made, rightly or wrongly, 160 years ago.

Today’s partisans of the Confederate memorials issue might want to take a look at some photos from the 50^th anniversary of the 1863 battle of Gettysburg. The photos from the 1913 reunion show aged Union and Confederate soldiers sharing food, smiles, seats and mementos with a camaraderie that would shock today’s protesters. They celebrated their sacrifices and achievements together and gave honor and respect to those on the other side. Fifty years before, they had been intent on killing each other.

Today’s Americans, unlike the frail former combatants of 1913, seem determined to refight the past.

 
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