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.

 
-->

University bungles Silent Sam controversy

Trustees of the University of North Carolina seem determined to make a bad, no-win situation worse. For months, the university's board and administration had dithered over what to do about "Silent Sam," the statue memorializing the UNC students who put aside their studies to serve in the Civil War. Their procrastination served to embolden the Silent Sam protesters, whose actions grew louder and more violent until a mob pulled down the 100-year-old statue in August.

They continued to delay a decision about what to do with a fallen statue, which has been removed and stored in a secret location. This week, the board announced its solution for Silent Sam's future: They want the university to build a $5 million off-campus building to house the statue and spend $800,000 a year in maintenance and operational costs to keep the building safe and intact.

Rather than solve the controversy over Silent Sam, this plan would enshrine the statue without ever settling the arguments for and against it. To opponents of the statue, the proposed building is a temple to the Confederacy and to white supremacy. To defenders of the statue, the plan leaves unresolved how the university and the state should view Silent Sam.

Opponents of the statue cite one man's racist speech at the dedication of the statue as cause for obliterating the statue, ignoring the thousands of donors who helped fund the statue as a memorial to the students who gave up their education to defend their home state and the clear intent of donors to honor not racism or the "lost cause" of the Confederacy but to honor those who died in a misbegotten war that devastated North Carolina.

The university's initial mistake in the Silent Sam controversy was to look the other way while protesters vandalized the statue and its pedestal. Had the university and the town of Chapel Hill acted swiftly to charge those protesters with destruction of public property, this destructive bent might never have snowballed to its conclusion.

Having made it clear that vandalism, destruction of public property, conspiracy, and inciting to riot would not be punished or even opposed, the university has transferred authority to the mobs. The cowering administration of the university should be replaced by leaders who are unafraid of controversy, supportive of free speech and unwilling to give in to mob rule. This prolonged indecisiveness has increased the divisiveness of this issue and made a sensible, just resolution less likely.

Mob triumphs over silent statue

The mob rules. Long live the mob.

Last night, 200 or more people gathered around the "Silent Sam" statue in Chapel Hill and succeeded in toppling and destroying the statue memorializing the University of North Carolina students who served and died in the Civil War.

For several years, the statue had been a rallying point for protesters who claimed the statue was not a memorial to former students who died in America's most tragic war, disregarding the inscription on the statue's pedestal and the clear intent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy who funded the memorial. Protesters asserted that the statue was intended to perpetuate white supremacy, although white supremacy was not at issue in the Civil War. White supremacy was part of the culture of 19th century America and Europe. Although a speaker at the monument's dedication added inappropriate racist comments, his words did not change the reason for the memorial.

I addressed the historical background of the statue in a blog post from a year ago.

What happened last night on a once-peaceful quadrangle of the historic UNC campus had been brewing for at least a year. A year ago, another, smaller mob attacked a Confederate memorial in Durham. While law enforcement officers watched disinterestedly, vandals climbed the statue of an anonymous soldier, attached ropes and pulled it to the ground. Although numerous witnesses, including the do-nothing law officers, and video of the event would have made prosecution an open-and-shut case, Durham prosecutors, through malfeasance or incompetence, failed to get even one conviction. That non-prosecution has provided a green light for vandals, socialists and anarchists.

Monday night's mob was well-equipped with banners that would shield their vandalism from view and with smoke bombs to obscure illegal acts. This was a well-planned operation in clear violation of numerous laws, including destruction of public property. Police mostly watched from a distance.

Silent Sam stood for a century without doing harm to anyone (see Andrew Young's comments from my Aug. 23, 2017, post), but protesters assigned to this inanimate object the burdens of centuries of immorality and wrongdoing. Toppling this statue will not put an end to injustice or unfairness in society. It will jeopardize the rule of law.

What traditional artifact will be next? Chapel Hill's cemetery contains the graves of slave owners, white supremacists and unenlightened Euro-Americans. Their gravestones will be easier to knock down than Silent Sam's statue. The town of Carrboro is named for Julian Carr, who made the offensive racist remarks at the statue's dedication. Should all town signs be removed? Must the town's name be changed?

Who's next? Most American presidents prior to the Civil War owned slaves. Most who didn't own slaves did not consider African Americans their equals. Must all those public officials be disparaged and stricken because 21st century morality differs from the morality as they understood it?

Long before Silent Sam became a flashpoint for civil rights and racial equality, his bronze visage was a remembrance of UNC students who died in the Civil War. His statue was erected by descendants still mourning the deaths of their loved ones and the economic devastation of their entire region. If that memorial is to be removed or hidden, the decision to take that action should be made in an open, rational and democratic process.

The door to mob rule, once opened, is not easily closed.

Silent Sam honors students who died as soldiers

For as long as I have visited or lived in Chapel Hill, nearly 60 years, "Silent Sam" has been a part of the University of North Carolina campus. In all those years, I never thought of the bronze Confederate soldier as a reminder of slavery or as an intimidation of anyone. In fact, I rarely even thought of Silent Sam as a Confederate soldier. Like most students and visitors, I saw Silent Sam as a decoration and a landmark. I suspect most students thought of Sam's reputation (every time a virgin walks by, he fires his musket) far more than they thought of his symbolism.

If I took the time to think about his presence, I thought of the UNC students who dropped their books and took up arms to defend their homes, their university and their state from a threatening military force. The statue was dedicated as a memorial to those students who fought and died in the Civil War. Sam was erected as an expression of grief by a population that suffered more casualties in the Civil War than any other state. UNC students were among those casualties, and Silent Sam honors the sacrifice of those families.

Although one speaker at the 1913 dedication, made tasteless and off-message boasts at the dedication, the solemn intent of the Silent Sam statue was to remember the UNC students who died in the Civil War, as Ed Yoder states in an excellent column in the News & Observer.

Andrew Young, the civil rights hero, confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., former congressman, former mayor of Atlanta, told an NPR reporter recently that removing Confederate monuments, as advocated by Black Lives Matter and other groups, is the wrong fight at the wrong time.

"I'm saying these are kids who grew up free, and they don't realize what still enslaves them — and it's not those monuments," Young said. He worries that the next time the political winds shift, crowds may be advocating tearing down monuments to Dr. King and other civil rights icons.

I hope, before the mob psychology takes hold and sweeps away every offending, misunderstood or uncomfortable vestige of the Civil War, the public and elected leaders will listen to voices of reason like Ed Yoder and Andrew Young.

Silent Sam gets lost in another battle

"Silent Sam," the statue at the University of North Carolina memorializing UNC students who fought in the Civil War, has become a rational extension of the movement to purge the South of all remnants of the history of secession and of the hundreds of thousands of deaths expended to keep the United States together.

The statue of a soldier has been defaced with spray paint labeling the soldier "murderer," along with "KKK" and "Black Lives Matter." There have been recurring calls over the years to take down the statue, but the statue, which is beloved not for its connection with the Confederacy but for its generations of connection with the campus, still stands. It's likely more students have known Silent Sam for his legendary firing of his musket each time a virgin passed by than for his Civil War connection.

When this debate over Silent Sam arises, the reason for his existence is ignored. Sam was not erected as a symbol of white supremacy or slaveholder economics or as a reminder of the so-called "Lost Cause." Sam came to stand on the UNC campus because North Carolinians, particularly those with a UNC connection, sought to honor the students who laid down their books and took up weapons as the state seceded from the Union and supplied troops to the nascent Confederate States. Fifty years after the Civil War, the scars of that conflict were still palpable — an economy that had never recovered from the utter destruction of a merciless invading army, and the memory of so many lives lost. Every North Carolina family knew the pain of losing a father, brother, uncle or cousin to the war. A handful of these were slaveholders and fought, at least in part, to extend slavery, but the vast majority had no stake in the slave economy; they only knew that their nation (North Carolina, a sovereign under the Confederate system) was at war.

Silent Sam is harmless. Misleading accusations about him and festering hatred of a bronze idol are not harmless. Let him stand, as a memorial to men who died honorably and as a joke that students love to tell. Harmless.