Before It's Too Late
There's a plan to remove a Confederate monument and I needed to get there before it was gone.
Hello, my Okay History Friends! Welcome to Even More Okay. Thanks for reading.1
A few years ago, I wrote this piece on the 54th Massachusetts, the second African-American regiment of the Civil War, which inspired the movie Glory. I love the movie Glory, and the scene before the battle at Fort Wagner made a big impression on me when it was first released.
A few months after I published Glory Be!, I promoted it on Twitter, back when Twitter was only mildly annoying. It was there that I discovered Kevin Levin, an actual historian who focuses on the Civil War.
Feeling brave, I tweeted Kevin with my piece, and he politely told me how bad my takes were. He might have missed the joke that I wasn’t saying Matthew Broderick actually commanded troops, including Denzel Washington, and ultimately tried to take a Confederate fort. Still, he did provide some fascinating insight about the life of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw that I hadn’t known, and the movie obviously didn’t portray. If you scroll to the bottom of Glory Be!, you can see the two corrections Mr. Levin made.
I wish I had kept the tweets – but suffice it to say, I remember our exchange with great appreciation for him reading my piece; Kevin most likely moved on. It’s okay.
Since then, I have subscribed to his Civil War Memory Newsletter as a paid member. This affords me the wonderful interviews he conducts, including a recent one with Dr. Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point. Dr. Seidule is the type of historian I like. He made this viral video on the Lost Cause. It’s awesome and got me all fired up!
The interview between Kevin and Dr. Seidule focused on the work Dr. Seidule is completing on the National Commission of Base Renaming, which will correct the wrongs of memorializing Confederates at eleven of our military institutions. It was a fascinating hour of education, and I totally nerded out.2
One memorial that was brought up was the Confederate Monument at Arlington National Cemetery. What caught my attention was the statement that the monument would soon be removed.
Knowing how long I take to read books and complete the general tasks Anonymous gives me regularly, I needed to change my approach and get over to Arlington quickly, lest the monument be gone.
{Chime the Law & Order theme music.}
This is my story.
I have no sense of direction, and yet, people will walk up to me and ask me where to go. I’ve had this experience numerous times. Once, I was walking through Union Station during rush hour, and a person, presumably a tourist, pushed through the crowd to reach me and asked the quickest way to the Capitol.
I said, “Straight.”
Lately, I have leaned into this concept that I am one to be trusted with directions and now actively engage people I see around Washington, DC, looking at maps, then looking around. I step in and offer help. The concept of you get what you pay for comes into play – and unsolicited help is probably not worth much.3
Navigating a trip somewhere gives me a lot of anxiety. I’ve lived in Washington, DC, off and on for about 25 years now, and I think I’m just now figuring out how to get around. I may be slow, but I eventually figure stuff out.
My trip to Arlington, Virginia, had an added element of time – not just because I needed to get there before they took the monument down – but also because I couldn’t spend a lot of time wandering around looking for something.
Why?
Okay History is a passion project – one that continues to develop as I learn more and more, and my desire to share grows along with it. But understand I have a full-time job, and I’m full-time married, and I’m full-time having a life where there are things that I want to do and things that I need to do.
Everything I do here needs to be done quickly and efficiently.
So onward to Arlington I go.
Arlington National Cemetery is about an hour and fifteen minutes walk from my house on Capitol Hill. I can’t remember the last time I visited; it has to be a good ten years at minimum, but probably more like twenty. You tend to take for granted the historical places you live next to.
One Saturday, I made my trek, wading through the hordes of tourists swarming the National Mall. My mission was clear, so I kept my head on a swivel to ensure that I wasn’t run over by a scooter, jogger, or a group of ten people eating ice cream who decided to take up the entire walkway.
My resolve got me through. I made it to Arlington in one piece.
When you arrive, you are subjected to the same metal detector you must pass whenever you go anywhere nowadays. After going through, I immediately introduced myself to the National Park Service Lady working the information desk in the middle of the lobby. My heart was pounding, knowing the trip was already almost two hours in.
I had chores to do that day.
I asked, “Where could I find the Confederate Monument?”
This polite young black woman responded, “That’s here?”
Immediately I was overcome by anxiety.
Not to worry, there is a giant map embedded into the table. I’m an expert at reviewing maps, meaning that I am an expert at identifying maps by declaring, yes, that is a map.
While my National Park Service friend perused the brochure, I quickly spotted the location.
“Found it!”
After explaining which road to take, my friend handed me the brochure, and I was off.
About five minutes later, I realized I was going the wrong way.
Great. Good work, Chris. I felt the clock in my mind getting louder.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
I corrected my course, ran towards the road I needed to be on, and was politely told by a crossing guard that the next time I needed to do this, that would be nice for me to use the crosswalk. And walk.
Embarrassed, I quickly apologized. The journey officially began.
The Confederate monument is tucked along the southwest side of the vast cemetery. Arlington used to be the home of Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Custis Lee, whose father was the adopted son of George Washington. In 1861, Arlington was home to an expansive family domain of 196 enslaved people working the 1,100-acre estate.
The mansion is perched on a hill with a view clear down to the Potomac River…it was meant to be seen, a symbol of its owner’s refinement and taste.
What’s funny is that you realize the entire thing is fake when you get closer. It’s poorly constructed, rooms are too small, and pillars in the front that look like marble are actually stucco. It’s sad.
Arlington is a hike, but fortunately, I walk up and down the National Mall at least four times a week, dodging tourists, so I have excellent stamina. You immediately ascend the hill, and the mansion peers through trees as rows and rows of cemetery headstones line its field.
When the war broke out, Union forces took control of Arlington under the command of Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs. Meigs was my type of guy. Like Dr. Seidule, he hated the Confederates.
As commander of the Arlington defenses, when dead bodies came piling in, Meigs made sure the bodies were buried as close to the mansion as possible. He wanted to guarantee that the Lees never returned if they were fortunate enough to live through the conflict.
Who wants to live in a place with dead bodies in the front lawn?
With my brochure in hand, I walked uphill past the rows and rows of sections of fallen heroes. I was on Roosevelt Drive approaching The Tomb of the Unknown Solider.
My pace was quick as I passed, and as I looked up a few moments later, I realized that, once again, I was going in the wrong direction.
Tick Tock.
I swung around Porter Street, recognizing that I had lost time. As I passed another National Parks Service lady, I waved, and she waved back.
Walking along the path, the asphalt turned into a dirt road. Usually, you would probably think this would be off-limits to the public due to the machinery. I had this same thought, but it did not prevent me from enduring because my brief exchange with the Ranger didn’t end with a caution of continuing.
After a few more minutes, I finally arrived – Section 17 – The Confederate Monument.
A wonderful organization commissioned the Confederate Monument, the Daughters of the Confederacy4, and was to be sculpted by former Confederate soldier Moses Jacob Ezekiel. President Woodrow Wilson unveiled the statue on the birthday of Jefferson Davis in 1914 because why not? If we are going to do something blatantly stupid, let’s just go for it.
Back during the war, when the dead Confederates began to arrive, we scattered these traitors all over DC and, in general, didn’t think much of properly burying them with honor since, you know, they tried and, in many cases, killed our compatriots. However, President William McKinley, up for reelection and just finishing up the Spanish-American War, decided that we now needed to reverse our course and tend to the graves of Confederates to reconcile the country.
Confederate veterans seized this opportunity and requested a place in Arlington, which McKinley agreed to. Congress passed a law allowing for reinternment, and despite some opposition from those who didn’t want their dead to receive northern charity, which I absolutely agree with, a spot in Arlington was secured.
The monument is in the middle of the section, and rows and rows of white headstones encircle it. They have pointed tops to prevent people, presumably those who disliked the Confederacy, from sitting on them.
It stands 32 feet tall and is made of bronze and lies. There are Bibles and Bible verses, along with odes to Greek gods, which doesn’t make a lick of sense – but neither did the Articles of Confederation.
It horribly depicts enslaved people, but it was in style back then. One enslaved man is seen following his master into war. An inscription reads that the victorious cause was pleasing to the gods, but the lost cause to Cato.
Hence the Lost Cause myth was born. Let’s grab tickets to see Gone with the Wind and really enjoy our false world of white supremacy.5
I investigated a few headstones and found this one – John F. Key, who served in Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Company. He died in 1904 in Tennessee, so I’m not sure why he was buried here.
Across the path is the resting place for James Longstreet, Jr. He is the son of former Confederate General James Longstreet. Buried alongside Junior is his younger brother, Robert Lee Longstreet. There’s a lot of history going on in this space.
I was nervous because now I could see construction signs, and surely I was not allowed to be there. So I rushed to the main entrance and tried to get a closer picture.
I’m terrible at taking pictures, and I’m also terrified of being yelled at. So I got outta there.
To my right, I finally looked at the construction signs, and yep, sure enough, I wasn’t supposed to be in there.
Having finished my mission, I took my leave to the bookstore, walking along the quickest path and in the appropriate crosswalks, going the right way this time. I grabbed the two books listed below and was on my way home – by Metro.
I managed to stop and have lunch because food doesn’t interfere with chores, and reflected on what I saw.
As Kevin and Dr. Seidule stated in their interview, the good news is that the Neo-Confederate ideology appears to be waning. While you can certainly argue that the MAGA branch of the Republican Party is embedded with the ideas of southern sovereignty and the star and bars mean more about heritage, we don’t have TV sitcoms that promote Confederate values by naming their cars after failed generals. Combine that with the fact of taking down monuments everywhere, and we are on a good trajectory.
I’ve never been a fan of naming anything after Confederates. Schools, roads, military bases, national parks – we have a national park dedicated to Stonewall Jackson – explain THAT to me. It’s good to learn that we are at least working on replacing Robert E. Lee’s name at the base in Petersburg, Virginia, a battle where he got his butt handed to him.
Most monuments and large Confederate flags are being placed on private property. That’s a beautiful reflection of our values that we no longer will tolerate such revisionist history.
I’m confident we will remove all monuments from the public square. It will take some time, but we have the map, and we know where we are going.
Okay, I would be even more grateful if you wouldn’t mind taking some time and answering the following poll:
If you like it, kindly consider hitting the like button at the bottom. I’m also very interested in your insight, questions, or feedback. It’s my hope to make this series of Okay History valuable to you.
Until next time, when I’ll share a recent trip to Charleston, South Carolina.
Okay,
Chris
Seriously, thank you for generously supporting my work. Also, I just discovered footnotes!
I also nerded out on these two books while putting this post together.
I ran into one lovely family from Texas who was looking for the FDR Memorial. I explained that it was down by the Washington Monument, but I couldn’t remember exactly where it was in relation to it. I felt the pressure that the clock is ticking, and it should take me three minutes to explain exactly how to get to point A to point B, or else people will begin to think I’m not an expert. I hope they got there.
I do not actually think they are wonderful.
Let’s not.
You should have told me about this trip. I could have guided you there. I was in that Section in January.
I don't think that they are NPS ladies. ANC is operated by the Army, not the NPS or VA. There are rangers at Arlington House, though.