Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument

The fear of white supremacy and the elements in our country that promote such beliefs come to a boiling point in Charlottesville, Virginia. A member of the Unite the Right rally drove his car through a crowd of people who were protesting against the rally. The attack killed one person and injured another 35 people. The goal of the rally, in the words of the rally’s organizers, was to save the Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee. The events of that day further added fuel to a growing movement to take down statues or memorials that represented racist beliefs or ideas. It was this growing movement along with the fear of a repeat of the events of Charlottesville led Baltimore officials to decide to remove Confederate statues. One of the statues that were removed, and the subject of this CLIO entry, was the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument. [1]

            The Confederate Soldier and Sailor Monument had called the Bolton Hill community home since 1903 before it was officially taken down in 2017[2]. The monument was funded by the Maryland chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy. The Daughters of the Confederacy[3] is an organization whose goal is to preserve, protect and maintain the historical places that relate to the bravery of Confederate soldiers who lost their lives during the Civil War. The Maryland chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy provided enough funds to hire a sculptor from New York by the name of F. Wellington Ruckstuhl. Ruckstuhl had already done similar pieces of work, having previously built a memorial to the Union soldiers that lost their lives during the conflict as well. The Union monument is located in Jamaica, Queens, New York, and that particular monument was completed in 1896, just six years prior to the completion of the Confederate monument. However, both the Union and Confederate monuments shared similar images and symbols such as laurel wreaths and then fictional representations of Glory. 

            The Confederate statue in question featured many symbols that seemed to be praising conflict of some kind[4]. The laurel wreath found on the memorial was meant to represent the Greek goddess of Victory. In greek mythology, the goddess of victory was Nike. Whenever Nike is portrayed, she is portrayed as carrying either a palm branch, a wreath or Hermes’ staff all of which represent victory. In pieces of Greek art Nike is often depicted above a victor of a competition, either on the battlefield or off of it. In Roman mythology, the equivalent of Nike comes in the form of Victoria, who, like Nike, also represents Victory. The belief concerning Victoria was that she had chosen the victors of the conflict ahead of time, and as such her function was to reward that individual in some manner.

            Switching to the fictional depiction of Glory, it highlights the belief that revolved around the struggle of properly burying those who were killed on the battlefield[5]. Neither side during the civil war had proper field units geared towards burying those who were dead. As a result, the belief that instead of those souls suffering on the field, the fictional character Glory would raise the soul of the fallen to a better place immediately after they had been killed. It also helps to maintain that belief since most of the time the bodies of the fallen would be thrown into one mass grave, making recovery of specific bodies all the more difficult for the family members of those killed. In short, the fictional depiction of Glory depicts that dual-focused belief of providing comfort to those who lost their family member and to the men who were facing death because they believe that if they are killed, they won’t suffer in a state of limbo until they were buried properly. 

            While all those items on the memorial appear to come off as positive and the furthest thing from being racist or bigoted, these statues and their existence were still challenged consistently by the people of Baltimore. Before the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors monument was taken down, other statues across the city had already been removed by city officials, or had been destroyed by the general public and tossed into the waters of the harbor. However, this statue in particular was one of a group of four total statues that were taken down at the same time, which included statues depicted Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The mayor of Baltimore had stated that the debate around the existence of these statues had been going on since 2015 when a panel of scholars heard the opinions of over 200 members of the public. From a legal standpoint, the mayor stated that she issued the decision along all the proper channels, but if there were any challenge to the decision made in court, the city would be more than ready to fight such an event. 

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/us/baltimore-confederate-statues.html

[2] https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/535

[3] https://baltimoreheritage.github.io/civil-rights-heritage/confederate-memory/

[4] http://www.talesbeyondbelief.com/roman-gods/victoria.htm

[5] https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/death.html

“Baltimore Mayor Had Statues Removed in ‘Best Interest of My City’”. The New York Times, August 16th, 2017

Commission to Review Baltimore's Public Confederate Monuments, “Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument,” 

Heritage, Baltimore. “Baltimore's Confederate Memory & Monuments.” Baltimore's Civil Rights Heritage, baltimoreheritage.github.io/civil-rights-heritage/confederate-memory/. 

“Victoria.” Roman Goddess Victoria ***, www.talesbeyondbelief.com/roman-gods/victoria.htm. 

“Death and Dying--Civil War Era National Cemeteries: Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/death.html. 

Campbell, Collin. Baltimore’s Confederate statues were removed in the dead of night. 2 years later, they languish on a city lot. Baltimore Sun.

CBS Baltimore. “The History of the Now-Removed Confederate Statues Of Baltimore”.

Dubose, Brooks. “Two years after its removal from Annapolis, Taney statue sits in storage”. 

Maxouris, Christina. “Baltimore protestors toppled a Christopher Columbus statue and threw it in a harbor”.

Explore Baltimore Heritage