Will the Confederate monuments at Gettysburg bite the dust?

Could the current drive to tear down Confederate statues lead to the removal of Confederate monuments, such as North Carolina’s, from Gettysburg National Military Park?

When vandals tear down a Frederick Douglass statue, what’s that got to do with removing Confederate statues — especially at Gettysburg?

On Sunday, July 5, vandals broke a Frederick Douglass statue off its pedestal at Maplewood Park in Rochester, N.Y. and dragged the black abolitionist’s bronze figure to the edge of a river gorge. This was the latest — but not the last — monument destroyed since the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis in May.

Usually operating within nighttime’s camouflaging darkness, history revisionists targeted Confederate monuments, then other white guys (Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, et al), and suddenly Douglass. A theory exists that white supremacists tore down Douglass in revenge for the destruction of “white” monuments.

That’s only a theory.

Rochester’s a fair haul from Gettysburg National Military Park, home to some 1,300 monuments, including some two dozen Confederate monuments. With such monuments toppling elsewhere, some Civil War buffs are discussing how long to Gettysburg’s either suffer vandalism or come down altogether.

A monument of Frederick Douglass (seen here circa 1879) in Rochester, N.Y. was torn off its base and dragged to the edge of a river gorge in early July 2020. If a Douglass statue is suitable for some destruction in certain minds, could Confederate monuments at Gettysburg quickly follow? (National Archives)

Is the idea ludicrous? Definitely not. In a September 13, 2017 news clip on CBS 21 in Harrisburg, Pa., reporter Ashley Honea asked, “ … are the [Gettysburg] monuments and civil war reenactments justified as a part of history, despite hateful messages they may send, and where do they stand in the colliding realms of political correctness and free speech?”

Not that the Constitution mentions “political correctness” in a particular article, of course.Free speech is right there in Article 1, along with freedom of the press.

Watch Honea’s clip here.

Opining in the Gettysburg Times on September 13, 2917, former Gettysburg park ranger John Rice specifically discussed “Is is time to remove Confederate statues in Gettysburg?” His well thought-out piece can be read here.

Both Honea and Rice wrote in response to the Charlottesville murder and the initial rush to take down Confederate monuments. The National Park Service released a notice that year that the Confederates at Gettysburg were going nowhere.

On July 7, 2020, New York Times Contributing Opinion Writer Elliot Ackerman wrote about “The Confederate Monuments We Shouldn’t Tear Down.” Looking at 2017 and violent monument destruction, he quickly reaches the “one point on which the president and his detractors can agree: It should stop at the grave sites and battlefields that are meaningful reminders of our nation’s history.”

Devoting several paragraphs to Gettysburg and its Confederate monuments, Ackerman offers a thoughtful solution to monument removal with which I do not agree, but other people will.

And on Friday, June 26, 2020, the National Park Service was sufficiently concerned about Gettysburg Confederates that it released another statement about them.

Writing at Papost.org on June 29, Nolan Simmons indicated that according to its statement, the NPS “will not alter, relocate, obscure or remove any monuments at Gettysburg National Military Park, even ‘when they are deemed inaccurate or incompatible with prevailing present-day values.’”

The Confederate monuments represent “an ‘important, if controversial, chapter in our nation’s history,’” the NPS stated.

Some monuments, including apparently some Confederate monuments, were “authorized by Congress” or are older than the park, “making them a protected park resource,” Simmons extrapolated from the NPS statement. Only legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the president — or the decision by the National Park Service director — can take down a particular monument, Simmons stressed.

And there’s the rub: Just as Congress allowed specific monuments to be erected in the past, so can a future Congress pass legislation ordering specific monuments removed from Gettysburg. Given the popular mood (as portrayed by the American media) to remove Confederate monuments, could the next Congress vote to strip every such monument and statue from Seminary Ridge?

My theory: If a Frederick Douglass statue rates destruction in someone’s historically illiterate mind, the Confederate monuments and statues at Gettysburg cannot be far behind.


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Brian Swartz can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net. He enjoys hearing from Civil War buffs interested in Maine’s involvement in the war.

 

Brian Swartz

About Brian Swartz

Welcome to "Maine at War," the blog about the roles played by Maine and her sons and daughters in the Civil War. I am a Civil War buff and a newspaper editor recently retired from the Bangor Daily News. Maine sent hero upon hero — soldiers, nurses, sailors, chaplains, physicians — south to preserve their country in the 1860s. “Maine at War” introduces these heroes and heroines, who, for the most part, upheld the state's honor during that terrible conflict. We tour the battlefields where they fought, and we learn about the Civil War by focusing on Maine’s involvement with it. Be prepared: As I discover to this very day, the facts taught in American classrooms don’t always jibe with Civil War reality. I can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net.