In another win for modern day supporters of the Confederacy, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on Tuesday that the Confederate Monument will be restored at Arlington National Cemetery. The monument was commissioned in 1910 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to honor the Confederate soldiery at the national cemetery. Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and sculptor, was commissioned to create the statue. In spite of opposition from Black and Union veterans groups the dedication was presided over by the first Southern president since the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson reimposed segregation by race in the Federal civil service and he was among the first viewers of the film “Birth of a Nation” hailing the founding of the Ku Klux Klan.
Hegseth made his announcement on a post on X: “I’m proud to announce that Moses Ezekiel’s beautiful and historic sculpture — often referred to as “The Reconciliation Monument” — will be rightfully returned to Arlington National Cemetery near his burial site.”
The monument was taken down under a Congressionally mandated review of Confederate monuments in 2023. Secretary of Defense Hegseth wrote “It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history—we honor it,” This new “honor” for the Confederacy is a reversal of the last decade in which historians and the general public reconsidered the 20th Century revisionism which installed the Confederate soldier as emblematic of American heroism.
This move comes after the renaming of four army bases after Confederate figures and the announcement of the return of Confederate Albert Pike’s statue to Washington by the Parks Department.
Origins of the Monument
Confederate dead had been buried by Union forces at Arlington in northern Virginia since 1864, a year before the Civil War ended. The Confederate dead were buried alongside Union soldiers in the cemetery. In 1899, President William McKinley authorized the creation of a Confederate section of the cemetery. Confederate graves would be opened, the remains would be removed, and they would be reburied in the Confederate section. Initially, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) opposed this plan. They wanted Confederate dead to be brought to Richmond, Virginia to be buried “in the South.” Of course, Arlington is in Virginia too, so it would have qualified as burial “in the South.” The United Confederate Veterans disagreed with the the UDC and endorsed the planned Confederate section. By 1902, approximately 264 bodies were buried in the Confederate section.
The first Confederate Memorial Day was held at Arlington National Cemetery on June 7, 1903. Confederate Memorial Day had been held throughout white Southern communities since the 1860s, but now it was held at Arlington. While the United Daughters of the Confederacy opposed the creation of the Confederate section, shortly after it was approved, the UDC made an application to put up a memorial to the Confederate dead in the middle of the Confederate section. It was rejected three times. However, in 1906, William Taft approved the installation of a memorial.
The UDC set up Arlington Cemetery Memorial Association which was presided over by the president of the UDC.
The sculptor included two Black figures on the monument. Moses Ezekiel wanted to show that enslaved Blacks supported the Confederacy. There is a Black man marching off to war with his master. While NeoConfederates say that this proved African Americans were in the Confederate Army, it did not depict the Black man as a Confederate soldier. As the UDC pointed out in 1914 it depicted “a faithful Negro body-servant following his young master.” Many slaves were taken along to the armies where they fed and took care of other needs of their masters. In another scene, a female Black slave is weeping as her master goes off to war. She is holding the white infant of the officer while another white child clings to her skirts.
The inscription on the monument is:
TO OUR DEAD HEROES
BY
THE UNITED DAUGHTERS
OF THE CONFEDERACY
VICTRIX CAUSA DIIS
PLACUIT SED VICTA CATONI
The Latin is translated as “The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the lost cause pleased Cato,” meaning that the “Lost Cause” protected republican rights that were advocated by the ancient Roman leader Cato.
This theme of republicanism is also born out in the symbolism of the frieze. Here, a topless woman representing the South is defending unto death a shield marked with the word “Constitution.”
The Justice Department explains why the monument was removed:
After a congressionally established naming commission determined that a Confederate Memorial must be removed from Arlington National Cemetery because of its depictions of the Confederacy and slavery, NRS successfully defended multiple lawsuits challenging the Department of Defense’s removal of the Memorial.
In the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress created the Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense and vested it with the authority and obligation to determine which Department of Defense assets should be removed or renamed because they commemorate the Confederacy. The Commission subsequently recommended that the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery be removed. Various groups filed suit, challenging the Army’s authority to remove the Memorial and alleging that the Army was required to complete a full environmental review before proceeding with removal. After extensive briefing in Defend Arlington v. U.S. Department of Defense, which included defeating a last-minute request for a preliminary injunction, NRS was successful in obtaining decisions making clear that Plaintiffs could not challenge the removal under the Administrative Procedure Act because the Army had no discretion in carrying out a Congressional directive. As a result, the Army was able to complete removal of the Memorial within the time mandated by Congress.
Note: Feature photo is from the Washington Post
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It’s a sad day but not an unexpected one. Thank you for writing in such detail I could share it with others who are curious but don’t quite understand.