Arlington Confederate Memorial Monument

 

Beginning in 1900, the remaining Civil War Veterans in the District of Columbia area were moved to a special section, Section 16, in Arlington Cemetery, the national military cemetery where 290,000 soldiers are buried. By 1902, 262 Confederate soldiers had been interred there, and eventually the number increased to over 400. On June 7, 1903, the first Confederate Memorial Day was held at Arlington Cemetery and by 1914, the United Daughters of the Confederacy had unveiled the Arlington Confederate Memorial monument to honor the Confederate soldiers who died in battle or were veterans of that war.

Shortly after Joseph Biden took his oath of office in 2021, he led appointments of several selected members to join the “Naming Commission” which President Donald Trump had vetoed during his term to select new names for all Confederate-named U.S. Military bases, ships, or other items or places whose names referred to the Confederacy. These include some highly well-known bases such as Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne, in Fayetteville, North Carolina—named after Confederate General Braxton Bragg; Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia, named after Brigadier General and George Supreme Court Justice Henry L. Benning; and Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas, named after General John Bell Hood of the Confederacy.

The Naming Committee has suggested renaming nine U.S. Military Installations as well as a dormitory, a road and an entrance gate at the U.S. Military Academy, and engineering building at the U.S. Naval Academy, 26 U.S. Naval ships and three U.S. Battle Ships, and Army National Guard division “streamers” commemorating local Confederate companies, divisions or groups. In addition, two streets in Arlington National Cemetery named “Robert E. Lee” and “Stonewall Jackson” are recommended to be renamed. Suggested new names have been introduced for all military installations now.

In addition, the anti-Southern Naming Commission made a recommendation in mid-September to remove the Confederate Memorial located in Arlington Cemetery marking the 400 Confederate veterans of the war buried there. This action is recommended despite the fact that Arlington Cemetery is located on the grounds of Confederate General, head of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee’s own home. The estate was taken from Lee during the war when—running out of cemetery space they stated in the Washington area to bury dead soldiers, they army suggested using Lee’s property, an action which they immediately began.

In 2022, the United States government under a Democratic-led Marxist-inspired regime plans to heap more dishonor on Southern people by removing that Confederate marker on a mass grave on land owned by the leading Confederate general.

Heading the Naming Commission is retired Admiral U.S. Navy Michelle Howard, appointee of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin—the highest ranking woman in U.S. Armed Forces history (perhaps second in rank to only Kamala Harris) and the third African American to achieve four-star Admiral. Vice Chair is Brigadier General Ty Seidule, also retired, another appointee of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

This committee was empowered by Congress after they overrode President Trump’s veto of its creation.

The Naming Commission is recommending to Congress that the statue be removed down to its granite base plate. Fox News reported that Vice Chair Seidule stated in his recommendation that “It [the Confederate Memorial monument] is problematic from the top to the bottom“.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy commissioned American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel to create the Confederate Memorial. Ezekiel was himself a Confederate Veteran as well as the first Jewish graduate of Virginia Military Institute. When he died in 1921, Ezekiel was buried at the base of his monument alongside three Confederate officers there.

The renaming of the military bases, ships, buildings, and roads, along with the proposed removal of the Arlington National Cemetery’s Confederate Memorial monument is the latest in an on-going “purge” of all symbolism and history of the War Between the States across America led by the current Federal government administration and begun around the time of the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. It has been a continuing campaign against Caucasian Southern American history and cultural public items of display which have existed as part of the region for over a century.

 

Lisa Carol Rudisill, M.T.S., is a magna cum laud graduate of NC State University and Liberty University where she earned a Master of Theology. She writes novels about her family history during the Civil War in North and South Carolina. She is a freelance writer, editorialist and a contributor to The Standard newspaper.

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