Think of the toppling of Felix Dzerzhinsky from the square in front of the Lubyanka and his subsequent relocation to Moscow’s ghoulish Park of Fallen Monuments, or of the crowds in Baghdad tearing down that grotesque effigy of Saddam Hussein.
Joined by four of his 11th New York Volunteers, Ellsworth entered the hotel to remove the flag. By all contemporary accounts, an ugly man.
The form of the soldier was designed by John Adams Elder, who modeled it after a painting of the same title that shows a lone Confederate viewing the aftermath of the battle of Appomattox Court House, where Gen. Robert E. Lee ultimately surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant. A prolific monumental sculptor whose works appear on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line, Buberl is best known for the 1,200-foot frieze adorning the façade of the former Pension Building, now the National Building Museum, in Washington, D.C.The Alexandria Confederate Memorial was erected on May 24, 1889 “to the memory of the Confederate dead of Alexandria, VA by their surviving comrades.” An inscription on the plinth — which still stands as of this writing — adds that the monument “marks the spot from which the Alexandria troops left to join the Confederate forces on May 24, 1861.” Or were evacuated, rather: the men were in flight from the advance of Federal troops who had been ordered by Abraham Lincoln to invade the city within hours of Virginia’s declaration of secession. The ladies of Alexandria were particularly exhorted “to send us fancy articles which they know so well will attract and be saleable, and contribute so largely to success.” The funds duly raised, a contest was held to select a design.On the monument are inscribed the names of 99 soldiers of the 17th Virginia Regiment who never returned to Old Town, having “died in the consciousness of duty faithfully performed.” Among them were three printers, two merchants, two molders, two plaisters, two students, a lawyer, a tinner, and even a “huckster,” as well as 14 men of unknown (perhaps no?) Butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers all, “that for a fantasy and trick of fame / [went] to their graves like beds.” A report prepared by the Alexandria Library in 1988 estimates that no more than eight of the men appearing on the memorial ever owned a slave.Their names are joined by that of James W. Jackson, an irascible local hotelier, rabid secessionist, and slaveholder. Alexandria’s landmark statue of a Confederate soldier was removed from Old Town Tuesday morning. The removal of a statue can, in a certain context, be exhilarating. Having secured it, Ellsworth descended to the lobby, where he was immediately shot and killed at close range by Jackson. It was created by sculptor M. Caspar Buberl and commissioned and erected by the Robert E. Lee camp of the United Confederate Veterans in 1889.
A well-circulated Currier and Ives engraving depicts the event as something of a Mexican standoff gone awry.– from “The Blue and the Gray,” Francis Miles FinchThe removal of a statue can, in a certain context, be exhilarating. Jackson himself was dispatched moments later by one of Ellsworth’s men. You would not see me shed a tear if Jefferson Davis Highway were renamed for a non-traitor. The occupation that began that day would continue for the balance of the war.Like many Civil War monuments, the Confederate Memorial was conceived and commissioned by the little platoons of civil society, in this case, the members of the Robert E. Lee Camp No. The author is a Yankee born and bred. Perhaps at the suggestion of Elder, Caspar Buberl (1834–99), a German-speaking immigrant from what is now the Czech Republic — a veritable Bohemian artist — was selected to sculpt and cast Elder’s design.
occupation. Upon entering the city, one Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth, Lincoln’s friend and former law clerk, spied a conspicuous secessionist flag flying from a 40-foot pole mounted on the hotel roof — allegedly (apocryphally?) By contrast, here in Alexandria, a work of art was hoisted by the pitilessly bureaucratic jaws of a crane, perhaps to be “recontextualized” someday. Funding for the statue and preparation of the site was raised in part through a communal bazaar. I do not hold with secessionism or slavery. (I recall propping the flagpole against a wagon before expiring, so that Old Glory would not touch the ground.) Its owner, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, informed the city of Alexandria’s government that the statue would be removed on Monday, city spokesperson Craig Fifer tells Washingtonian.. “While we provided traffic control,” Fifer says, “the City is not involved in or aware of … 2 of the United Confederate Veterans. Pedestal of the Appomattox statue after its removal by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, June 2020.jpg: Date: 6 June 2020 (according to Exif data) Source: Own work: Author: Ser Amantio di Nicolao