Lincoln Statue Ignites Confederate Passion

2dogs · February 15, 2003, 12:41 PM

Though the city was in ashes, the retreating Confederates failed to burn the Arsenal, located at the strategic junction of the Kanawa Canal and the James River, because the ironwork's employees formed a militia to defend the facility.

What, regular folks used firearms (?) to defend private property and their own livelihood? Oh the horror.

An interesting look at history, and a bit of "the shoe on the other foot" for the anti Confederate flag crowd.

http://kfty.com/news/national/story....2-10B39502756B

Lincoln Statue Ignites Confederate Passion

By LANCE GAY - Scripps Howard News Service

RICHMOND, Va. -- It's been 138 years since Abraham Lincoln was last in Richmond, and Confederate groups want to keep it that way.

Opposition forces are manning the barricades to stop the National Park Service from installing a statue of Lincoln on the grounds of the arsenal at Tredegar Iron Works in the historic heart of this capital of the Confederacy.

Irate Confederate-heritage groups complain that the Park Service is trying to rewrite the history of the Civil War, unnecessarily reopening old wounds by putting a bronze statue of Lincoln in Richmond. In a letter to the editor, one writer told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that placing such a statue in the city is as provocative as installing a statue of Osama bin Laden in downtown New York.

They also point out that Lincoln has no connections to the five-acre Tredegar site, which produced more than half of the cannons used by Southern forces in the Civil War. Lincoln never visited the site when he brought his son Tad to see the evacuated and smoking ruins of Richmond on April 4 and 5, 1865. On April 9, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, and days later Lincoln was assassinated in Washington.

"There are no Lincoln statues in the South that I know of, and for good reason," said Brandon "Brag" Bowling, Virginia commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

He said the Confederate states never forgave Lincoln for the harshness of the Union Army's bloody march through the South, which left Virginia's Shenandoah Valley devastated and Atlanta and Columbia, S.C., in cinders. The statue, he said, "is a not-so-subtle reminder of who won the war, and who our heroes should be."

Representatives of the Park Service and the nonprofit group paying for the statue say they are surprised by the vehemence of the opposition, but aren't retreating.

"We're going ahead. There's no going back," said Robert Kline, president of the Richmond-based United States Historical Society, which is selling 750 replicas of the statue at $875 each to offset the $675,000 costs of putting it up. Kline's firm has been involved in selling historical replicas during the Bicentennial and of the Navy Memorial in Washington.

Kline, who was born in Illinois but has lived in Virginia for the last 50 years, said he expected some opposition, but not to the extent he's encountered in e-mail messages he's received. Opponents have prompted Virginia's attorney general to look at his group's nonprofit status, and Web sites have attacked him and his businesses.

"It's been so vicious and untrue," he said. "We had no thoughts in mind of being insulting to anyone. We were trying to do something good."

David Ruth, assistant superintendent of the Richmond battlefield parks, said the Park Service didn't intend the statue to be provocative. The Tredegar site was chosen because it's the largest Park Service site in downtown Richmond. Ruth said the agency has received 1,500 letters, most in opposition to the statue.

"This was not done intentionally to incite any group," said Ruth, who has lived in Richmond for 12 years. "Nothing in America elicits as much interest as the Civil War, and feelings run very deeply and emotionally," he said.

Bowling, whose great-grandfather was a Spotsylvania County, Va., farmer who fought with the South, says that the Park Service is trying to rewrite history by demonizing the Confederacy and deifying Lincoln. He said this glosses over Southern suffering at the hands of Lincoln.

Ruth said the Park Service has changed its presentations to present a "more holistic story" of what happened, but defended that as being a more meaningful history.

Meanwhile, the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization is putting on a "Lincoln Reconsidered" conference to be held at the John Marshall Hotel in Richmond in March. And the Virginia Historical Association is working with the Park Service to hold its own historical conference on Lincoln's visit to Richmond on the evening of the statue's April 5 dedication.

Lincoln brought his son Tad to see Richmond April 4, 1865 - the boy's 12th birthday - and freed slaves turned out to thank the president. "Such wild indescribable joy I have never witnessed," wrote one eyewitness.

Though the city was in ashes, the retreating Confederates failed to burn the Arsenal, located at the strategic junction of the Kanawa Canal and the James River, because the ironwork's employees formed a militia to defend the facility. Tredegar was put back to work making rails after the war, and manufactured shells in both world wars before closing in 1957.

Ron Holland, who edits the Web site Dixie Daily News from Asheville, N.C., said he would not object to a statue of Union and Confederate soldiers shaking hands for the site, but putting Lincoln in Richmond "is throwing oil on the fire."

Holland's Web site has pages of letters protesting the statue. He said that 70 percent of respondents in polls in Richmond and Newport News, Va., objected to the statue. He said protests will continue even if the statue is erected.

"We're going to continue to fight it - let them put Lincoln in Gettysburg, it's appropriate there." But he admitted the statue is likely to be installed. "After all, the North won the Civil War, and they can write the history the way they want it."

WilderBill · February 16, 2003, 04:24 PM

"like putting a statue of bin Laden in downtown New York."
What a master of understatement!

HABU · February 16, 2003, 05:33 PM

I expect that in another 138 years, Jonny Reb is still gonna have his shorts in a bunch.

Get over it. You lost. Move on and do something constructive.

cookhj · February 16, 2003, 10:06 PM

this is just another attempt by yankees to rub in the fact that they won the war.

another great example of this is at the gettysburg battlefield where union regements were allowed to place regimental markers to denote where they were during the battle. however, confederate units were forbidden to put up regimental markers.

this "lincoln statue debate" has been pretty heated here in richmond, and i hope that it doesn't get put in place.

BlackArrow · February 16, 2003, 10:11 PM

Civil WarI = states rights
Civil WarII = states rights
The fight for liberty will not end with one war, freedom yearns in all hearts. However you want to "justify denying that basic right" so be it, slavery, cult religion, arsenal owner, whatever it takes to make you good sheep Mr. Habu, but the reality is that many will not get over it because America is suppose to be about freedom of the individual, not the centralization of power to the Federalist state. You, must be living in the Blue Zone. If so, you have my deepest apologies. I also suggest you spend a little more time reading about what happened in reconstruction. It's not as simple as "you lost, get over it". What it really ment was that the constitution ment nothing. It has been a downhill slide ever since. Once they established that states rights could be trampled it was a simple thing to trample the rights of the "little people".

HABU · February 16, 2003, 11:30 PM

Well said BlackArrow

Quote:

but the reality is that many will not get over it because America is suppose to be about freedom of the individual, not the centralization of power to the Federalist state.

Agreed. I am all for individual rights.

I get tired of the north vs. south debate that always comes up. "The damn yanks this and the POS yanks that". Admittedly, I can be found on the other side of the coin showing little tolerance for the southerner that is pissing and moaning about the civil war, so I am just as guilty.

We are all (or most of us) Amnericans. Not Southern Americans or Northern Americans or African Americans or whatever hyphenated American you want to assign yourself. We have one national flag with parallel stripes.

**4v50 Gary** · February 16, 2003, 11:42 PM

It's academic and rather than divide ourselves in face of a common enemy (Bin Laden & other extremists), we must remember the common bonds that made us the great nation others envy so much.

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. the government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it...

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet well the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

They named a ship after that man.

JohnBT · February 17, 2003, 12:22 AM

Aw shucks. If it weren't for the newspaper and the tv stations there wouldn't be any discussion of this topic in Richmond.

Scene: Richmond 2017. A family driving through town on the way to Williamsburg, or maybe Busch Gardens, stops to ask a man on the street, "Where can we see that statue of Lincoln?" To which they are treated to, "Who?"

And to those to whine "Get over it!" regarding the War of Northern Agression, well, we might get around to forgiving the invasion at some point, but we're not going to forget it. This is, after all, the same Federal government that drove families off of their land to create Shennandoah National Park.

John

Watchman · February 17, 2003, 12:57 AM

Hmmmm...one wonders that since the opposition run at 70 something percent why the Park Service is so dead set on installing a statue where it is not wanted.

One also wonders that if a statue of say... Nathan Bedford Forrest was opposed by 70 % of black folk ,if the Park service would still be dead set on putting it up. Somehow I doubt it.

It does appear to be an "in your eye" kind of statement to me.

westex · February 17, 2003, 02:07 AM

I assume that the $675,000 to put the statue up does not include 24/7 security. I give it 6 months at the most.

Ed Brunner · February 17, 2003, 08:42 AM

Apparently someone lacks sensitivity ?????

El Tejon · February 17, 2003, 10:44 AM

Watchman, "in your eye", agreed.

westex, I wouldn't think that they would stoop to criminal activity down there over a long over war. Nothing happens to the graves of CSA soldiers buried here (big POW camp) even when Daughters come up to put flags out every year.

Blackcloud6 · February 17, 2003, 11:30 AM

Jeez-o-Petes! The war is over, the immoral south lost. Get a life!

westex · February 17, 2003, 01:04 PM

El Tejon
You're talking apples and oranges here. Criminal activity is a broad term.

I'll still give it 6 months max.

El Tejon · February 17, 2003, 01:41 PM

westex, I'll admit I don't know Ol' Virginny law, but imagine they have an offense against Criminal Mischief/Vandalism. I can't imagine people getting worked up enough to go "extra legal."

Of course, I do not include people exercising their First Amendment rights to petition their government to remove the image.

pogo2 · February 17, 2003, 02:24 PM

cookhj said:

Quote:

another great example of this is at the gettysburg battlefield where union regements were allowed to place regimental markers to denote where they were during the battle. however, confederate units were forbidden to put up regimental markers.

I visited Gettysburg Battlefield about 2 years ago and saw lots of Confederate regimental markers there. I took a picture of one for a Texas unit at my wife's request, who is from Texas. I don't think your statement is correct.

ahenry · February 17, 2003, 03:55 PM

I recently took a trip visiting battlefields (well it was about 6, 7 months ago) and I can assure you that there are far more unit markers for Union troops. I don’t have any issue with that, but I would guesstimate that there are about 3 Union markers for every one Confederate.

JohnBT · February 17, 2003, 04:11 PM

A statue of Arthur Ashe was put on Monument Avenue in 1996 and is still there and in good shape. It is bad art however - do a search if you don't believe me. Not nearly as elegant as the statues of Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Maury and Davis.

( edited to add picture of Ashe monument - bottom of page:

www.monumenthouse.com/richmond/monument )

A mural of local historical figures was placed on the downtown floodwall in 1999 IIRC. All hell broke loose because it included Robert E. Lee in uniform. After months of wrangling, a compromise was reached that included a picture of General Lee in a suit taken after the war.

In January 2000 somebody torched it.

This mural nonsense included a boycott of two African-American city council members by local African-American organizations for not voting the 'correct' way. It also included widespread publicity for one of our city council members who has surrendered his law license and owes big back taxes, but is still in office. And the beat goes on.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

John

P.S. - Another message to those "Get over it" types. Your ignorance of history, and the facts, is showing.

February 15, 2003, 12:41 PM	#1
2dogs Member Join Date: December 25, 2002 Location: the city Posts: 1,865	Lincoln Statue Ignites Confederate Passion Though the city was in ashes, the retreating Confederates failed to burn the Arsenal, located at the strategic junction of the Kanawa Canal and the James River, because the ironwork's employees formed a militia to defend the facility. What, regular folks used firearms (?) to defend private property and their own livelihood? Oh the horror. An interesting look at history, and a bit of "the shoe on the other foot" for the anti Confederate flag crowd. http://kfty.com/news/national/story....2-10B39502756B Lincoln Statue Ignites Confederate Passion By LANCE GAY - Scripps Howard News Service RICHMOND, Va. -- It's been 138 years since Abraham Lincoln was last in Richmond, and Confederate groups want to keep it that way. Opposition forces are manning the barricades to stop the National Park Service from installing a statue of Lincoln on the grounds of the arsenal at Tredegar Iron Works in the historic heart of this capital of the Confederacy. Irate Confederate-heritage groups complain that the Park Service is trying to rewrite the history of the Civil War, unnecessarily reopening old wounds by putting a bronze statue of Lincoln in Richmond. In a letter to the editor, one writer told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that placing such a statue in the city is as provocative as installing a statue of Osama bin Laden in downtown New York. They also point out that Lincoln has no connections to the five-acre Tredegar site, which produced more than half of the cannons used by Southern forces in the Civil War. Lincoln never visited the site when he brought his son Tad to see the evacuated and smoking ruins of Richmond on April 4 and 5, 1865. On April 9, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, and days later Lincoln was assassinated in Washington. "There are no Lincoln statues in the South that I know of, and for good reason," said Brandon "Brag" Bowling, Virginia commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He said the Confederate states never forgave Lincoln for the harshness of the Union Army's bloody march through the South, which left Virginia's Shenandoah Valley devastated and Atlanta and Columbia, S.C., in cinders. The statue, he said, "is a not-so-subtle reminder of who won the war, and who our heroes should be." Representatives of the Park Service and the nonprofit group paying for the statue say they are surprised by the vehemence of the opposition, but aren't retreating. "We're going ahead. There's no going back," said Robert Kline, president of the Richmond-based United States Historical Society, which is selling 750 replicas of the statue at $875 each to offset the $675,000 costs of putting it up. Kline's firm has been involved in selling historical replicas during the Bicentennial and of the Navy Memorial in Washington. Kline, who was born in Illinois but has lived in Virginia for the last 50 years, said he expected some opposition, but not to the extent he's encountered in e-mail messages he's received. Opponents have prompted Virginia's attorney general to look at his group's nonprofit status, and Web sites have attacked him and his businesses. "It's been so vicious and untrue," he said. "We had no thoughts in mind of being insulting to anyone. We were trying to do something good." David Ruth, assistant superintendent of the Richmond battlefield parks, said the Park Service didn't intend the statue to be provocative. The Tredegar site was chosen because it's the largest Park Service site in downtown Richmond. Ruth said the agency has received 1,500 letters, most in opposition to the statue. "This was not done intentionally to incite any group," said Ruth, who has lived in Richmond for 12 years. "Nothing in America elicits as much interest as the Civil War, and feelings run very deeply and emotionally," he said. Bowling, whose great-grandfather was a Spotsylvania County, Va., farmer who fought with the South, says that the Park Service is trying to rewrite history by demonizing the Confederacy and deifying Lincoln. He said this glosses over Southern suffering at the hands of Lincoln. Ruth said the Park Service has changed its presentations to present a "more holistic story" of what happened, but defended that as being a more meaningful history. Meanwhile, the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization is putting on a "Lincoln Reconsidered" conference to be held at the John Marshall Hotel in Richmond in March. And the Virginia Historical Association is working with the Park Service to hold its own historical conference on Lincoln's visit to Richmond on the evening of the statue's April 5 dedication. Lincoln brought his son Tad to see Richmond April 4, 1865 - the boy's 12th birthday - and freed slaves turned out to thank the president. "Such wild indescribable joy I have never witnessed," wrote one eyewitness. Though the city was in ashes, the retreating Confederates failed to burn the Arsenal, located at the strategic junction of the Kanawa Canal and the James River, because the ironwork's employees formed a militia to defend the facility. Tredegar was put back to work making rails after the war, and manufactured shells in both world wars before closing in 1957. Ron Holland, who edits the Web site Dixie Daily News from Asheville, N.C., said he would not object to a statue of Union and Confederate soldiers shaking hands for the site, but putting Lincoln in Richmond "is throwing oil on the fire." Holland's Web site has pages of letters protesting the statue. He said that 70 percent of respondents in polls in Richmond and Newport News, Va., objected to the statue. He said protests will continue even if the statue is erected. "We're going to continue to fight it - let them put Lincoln in Gettysburg, it's appropriate there." But he admitted the statue is likely to be installed. "After all, the North won the Civil War, and they can write the history the way they want it." __________________ TFL Alumnus "Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone?" -Jimmy Durante- "An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." -Jeff Cooper "That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or laborer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." --George Orwell "If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Winston Churchill DISCLAIMER: This post is not meant to offend any individual or group.

February 16, 2003, 04:24 PM	#2
WilderBill Member Join Date: December 25, 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 544	"like putting a statue of bin Laden in downtown New York." What a master of understatement! __________________ What part of "shall NOT be infringed" don't you understand?

February 16, 2003, 10:11 PM	#5
BlackArrow Member Join Date: December 31, 2002 Location: Planet Earth Posts: 58	Habu, thinks it's over! Civil WarI = states rights Civil WarII = states rights The fight for liberty will not end with one war, freedom yearns in all hearts. However you want to "justify denying that basic right" so be it, slavery, cult religion, arsenal owner, whatever it takes to make you good sheep Mr. Habu, but the reality is that many will not get over it because America is suppose to be about freedom of the individual, not the centralization of power to the Federalist state. You, must be living in the Blue Zone. If so, you have my deepest apologies. I also suggest you spend a little more time reading about what happened in reconstruction. It's not as simple as "you lost, get over it". What it really ment was that the constitution ment nothing. It has been a downhill slide ever since. Once they established that states rights could be trampled it was a simple thing to trample the rights of the "little people".

February 16, 2003, 11:42 PM	#7
4v50 Gary Moderator Join Date: December 20, 2002 Posts: 11,971	It's academic and rather than divide ourselves in face of a common enemy (Bin Laden & other extremists), we must remember the common bonds that made us the great nation others envy so much. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. the government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it... "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet well the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." They named a ship after that man. __________________ TFL Aluminium. Molon Labe!

February 17, 2003, 12:57 AM	#9
Watchman Member Join Date: December 24, 2002 Location: Arkansas Posts: 281	Hmmmm...one wonders that since the opposition run at 70 something percent why the Park Service is so dead set on installing a statue where it is not wanted. One also wonders that if a statue of say... Nathan Bedford Forrest was opposed by 70 % of black folk ,if the Park service would still be dead set on putting it up. Somehow I doubt it. It does appear to be an "in your eye" kind of statement to me. __________________ Proud TFL Alumnus

February 16, 2003, 05:33 PM	#3
HABU Member Join Date: December 24, 2002 Location: Western Washington Posts: 536	I expect that in another 138 years, Jonny Reb is still gonna have his shorts in a bunch. Get over it. You lost. Move on and do something constructive.

February 16, 2003, 10:06 PM	#4
cookhj Member Join Date: December 28, 2002 Location: Capitol of the Confederacy, VA Posts: 590	this is just another attempt by yankees to rub in the fact that they won the war. another great example of this is at the gettysburg battlefield where union regements were allowed to place regimental markers to denote where they were during the battle. however, confederate units were forbidden to put up regimental markers. this "lincoln statue debate" has been pretty heated here in richmond, and i hope that it doesn't get put in place.

February 17, 2003, 12:22 AM	#8
JohnBT Member Join Date: December 26, 2002 Location: Richmond, Virginia Posts: 9,251	Aw shucks. If it weren't for the newspaper and the tv stations there wouldn't be any discussion of this topic in Richmond. Scene: Richmond 2017. A family driving through town on the way to Williamsburg, or maybe Busch Gardens, stops to ask a man on the street, "Where can we see that statue of Lincoln?" To which they are treated to, "Who?" And to those to whine "Get over it!" regarding the War of Northern Agression, well, we might get around to forgiving the invasion at some point, but we're not going to forget it. This is, after all, the same Federal government that drove families off of their land to create Shennandoah National Park. John

February 17, 2003, 02:07 AM	#10
westex Member Join Date: December 25, 2002 Location: East of El Paso-West of Ft. Worth Posts: 120	I assume that the $675,000 to put the statue up does not include 24/7 security. I give it 6 months at the most.

February 17, 2003, 08:42 AM	#11
Ed Brunner Member Join Date: December 24, 2002 Location: Natchez, MS Posts: 315	Apparently someone lacks sensitivity ????? __________________ PROUD TFL ALUMNUS 167 Until it's over, (MAYBE SOON?) Ed

February 17, 2003, 10:44 AM	#12
El Tejon Member Join Date: December 24, 2002 Location: Lafayette, Indiana--meanwhile, back in the Wabash Valley . . . zzzzz. Posts: 17,898	Watchman, "in your eye", agreed. westex, I wouldn't think that they would stoop to criminal activity down there over a long over war. Nothing happens to the graves of CSA soldiers buried here (big POW camp) even when Daughters come up to put flags out every year. __________________ I [heart] Wal-Mart threads.

February 17, 2003, 11:30 AM	#13
Blackcloud6 Member Join Date: December 24, 2002 Posts: 601	Jeez-o-Petes! The war is over, the immoral south lost. Get a life! __________________ Blackcloud Six Fred S New Baltimore, MI NRA Endowment Member Member MCGRO, MRPA, OGCA

February 17, 2003, 01:04 PM	#14
westex Member Join Date: December 25, 2002 Location: East of El Paso-West of Ft. Worth Posts: 120	El Tejon You're talking apples and oranges here. Criminal activity is a broad term. I'll still give it 6 months max.

February 17, 2003, 01:41 PM	#15
El Tejon Member Join Date: December 24, 2002 Location: Lafayette, Indiana--meanwhile, back in the Wabash Valley . . . zzzzz. Posts: 17,898	westex, I'll admit I don't know Ol' Virginny law, but imagine they have an offense against Criminal Mischief/Vandalism. I can't imagine people getting worked up enough to go "extra legal." Of course, I do not include people exercising their First Amendment rights to petition their government to remove the image. __________________ I [heart] Wal-Mart threads.

February 17, 2003, 03:55 PM	#17
ahenry Member Join Date: December 26, 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 634	I recently took a trip visiting battlefields (well it was about 6, 7 months ago) and I can assure you that there are far more unit markers for Union troops. I don’t have any issue with that, but I would guesstimate that there are about 3 Union markers for every one Confederate.

February 17, 2003, 04:11 PM	#18
JohnBT Member Join Date: December 26, 2002 Location: Richmond, Virginia Posts: 9,251	A statue of Arthur Ashe was put on Monument Avenue in 1996 and is still there and in good shape. It is bad art however - do a search if you don't believe me. Not nearly as elegant as the statues of Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Maury and Davis. ( edited to add picture of Ashe monument - bottom of page: www.monumenthouse.com/richmond/monument ) A mural of local historical figures was placed on the downtown floodwall in 1999 IIRC. All hell broke loose because it included Robert E. Lee in uniform. After months of wrangling, a compromise was reached that included a picture of General Lee in a suit taken after the war. In January 2000 somebody torched it. This mural nonsense included a boycott of two African-American city council members by local African-American organizations for not voting the 'correct' way. It also included widespread publicity for one of our city council members who has surrendered his law license and owes big back taxes, but is still in office. And the beat goes on. "The beatings will continue until morale improves." John P.S. - Another message to those "Get over it" types. Your ignorance of history, and the facts, is showing.

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