Mount Hope Cemetery Confederate Monument

On May 22, 1897, Confederate veterans with their wives and children stepped off specially designated trains in Hastings-on-Hudson, a suburb of New York City. United States veterans of the Civil War, members of the veterans' organization Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), greeted them. A military band struck up "a medley of Southern melodies" and accompanied the veterans of two armies down to Mount Hope Cemetery. The cemetery contained the graves of 40 Confederate veterans who died in the New York City region. The Union and Confederate veterans were there to dedicate a Confederate monument in a plot donated by the cemetery.

The monument was erected by the Confederate Veterans Camp of New York courtesy of Charles Broadway Rouss. Rouss grew up in Virginia, managing a successful general store. During the Civil War, he enlisted in the 12th Virginia Cavalry. Losing his business, Rouss went to New York and continued to flounder financially, even imprisoned for his debts. He rediscovered success, however, by opening a chain of retail stores, once again amassing great wealth. A noted philanthropist, he gave money to New York's Confederate veterans to erect the monument in Mount Hope. (Rouss passed away in 1902.)

The Confederate monument's dedication, attended by veterans of the two armies, was heralded as a moment of reconciliation. The ceremonies began with a prayer by Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Granberry, followed by a church choir which sang "Nearer, My God, To Thee." The keynote speech was given by William L. Wilson. Wilson was also a veteran of the 12th Confederate cavalry. After the war, Wilson served briefly as the president of West Virginia University before serving in first in the House of Representatives and then as Postmaster General under President Grover Cleveland. He later became president of Washington and Lee University. In his address sounded on themes of reconciliation:

"Your presence here is the visible and blessed sign that estrangement has given place to friendship; that lines of section have faded from the hearts of the soldiers of either army, and that the rivalry in the future is the generous emulation in the performance of the duties of citizenship of a common country."

Sons of Confederate Veterans leader John C. Underwood made a corresponding speech, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy placed flowers on the Rebel graves. A closing benediction was offered, and Charles Rouss hosted a reception that evening.

The monument itself speaks to the idea of peace. A granite obelisk 60 feet high, its inscription quotes Will Henry Thompson's poem "The High Tide at Gettysburg":

"Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!

Love rules, her gentler purpose runs.

A mighty Mother turns, in tears,

The pages of her battle years,

Lamenting all her fallen sons."

In 2017, local town supervisor Paul Feiner raised the possibility of removing or reinterpreting the monument, noting the monument "honors soldiers who believed the in supremacy of the white race."[2] The monument's message of reconciliation, however, convinced Feiner and Hasting Mayor Peter Swiderski to leave it be. “If the mon­u­ment was placed at the ceme­tery as part of a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ef­fort," Feiner later noted, "I have no ob­jec­tions to the monument...For­giv­ing and re­duc­ing anger and ha­tred is what we need in Amer­ica to­day."[6]

While the monument speaks to sectional unity, historical scholarship has shown that reconciliation came at a price. While North and South healed following the Civil War, the civil rights gains of Reconstruction were allowed to erode, and African-Americans suffered under an era of segregation and Jim Crow.

1. "Blue and Gray Together. Veterans of Both Armies Participate in Dedicating the Confederate Monument." May 23, 1897. The Sun [New York, NY]. Digitized via Chronicling America. Accessed August 26, 2020. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1897-05-23/ed-1/seq-5/

2. Michael P. McKinney. "Confederate veterans cemetery monument in Hastings-on-Hudson draws concerns." August 18, 2017. Rockland/Westchester Journal News. Web. Accessed August 26, 2020. https://www.lohud.com/story/news/2017/08/18/confederate-veterans-cemetery-monument-hastings-on-hudson-greenburgh-draws-concerns/575772001/

3. Phil Reisman. "Is the Mount Hope Obelisk Truly a Confederate Memorial?" October 25, 2017. Westchester Magazine. Web. Accessed August 26, 2020. https://westchestermagazine.com/publications/is-the-mount-hope-obelisk-truly-a-confederate-memorial/

4. "Charles Broadway Rouss Collection." Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society. Web. https://www.handleyregional.org/services/departments/archives/manuscripts/r/304-WFCHS

5. "William L. Wilson." Miller Center, University of Virginia. Web. Accessed August 26, 2020. https://millercenter.org/president/cleveland/essays/wilson-1895-postmaster-general

6. W.B. King. "A 19th Century Hastings' Confederate Cemetery Monument Designed to Unify Causes Present-Day Concern." The Hudson Independent. Web. Accessed August 27, 2020. https://thehudsonindependent.com/a-19th-century-hastings-confederate-cemetery-monument-designed-to-unify-causes-present-day-concern/

7. David Blight. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2002.