According to this article, Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, wants to remove “the Jefferson Davis Memorial arch at Fort Monroe, saying its continued presence has an ‘adverse effect’ on the historic property and urged the authority’s board of trustees to initiate steps to take it down.”
The article tells us, “In a letter presented Thursday to the Fort Monroe Authority Board of Trustees, Chief of Staff Clark Mercer relayed the governor’s stance, asking an eight-member panel and those ex-officio members present to take necessary steps to remove the arch and all references to the Jefferson Davis Memorial Park, located at Bernard and Ruckman road intersection near a 500-yard terreplein. The archway entrance to the Jefferson Davis Memorial Park was built on the ramparts in 1956 by the Army on behalf of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The group paid $10,000 to build the 50-foot wrought iron structure. ‘This process will require a detailed review … along with significant public engagement. I believe it is appropriate,’ Mercer said, reading Northam’s letter. ‘I feel strongly that a memorial glorifying the President of the Confederacy has no place here, especially given our efforts this year to commemorate the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans landing at Old Point Comfort.’ Northam’s position, which some present called bold, argued while the arch and park are listed as contributing elements to the Fort Monroe National Historic Landmark designation, they ‘were constructed after the landmark’s period of historic significance ended,’ his letter stated. Members of authority’s board, after some debate, voted unanimously to take steps to have the arch removed, a protracted process given the federal constraints facing the historic landmark district.”
Predictably, confederate heritage people are lying. According to a representative of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, “How can you have ‘one nation under God’ and destroy a piece of history? Removing the arch is just denying the original history. I think it’s wrong. We have as much right to our things we have given in good faith, as anyone else.” That’s a load of baloney. The arch is not history except as a relic of a racist attempt to honor a traitor to the United States. It is not “the original history.”
The arch, incidentally, leads to a pet cemetery atop the fort’s ramparts. That’s the “memorial park.” It’s for burial of dogs and cats that have belonged to personnel stationed at the fort in the 20th Century. Fort Monroe remained in Union hands for the entire Civil War. Putting Davis’s name on anything on the fort except the prison cell in which he was rightly kept for his crime after the war is nothing less than spitting in the face of the brave United States soldiers who fought for this country.
The article tells us, “Mercer later summarized Northam’s letter, saying the governor feels there is a distinction between teaching the history about Davis at the Casemate Museum ‘and a memorial on a hill that glorifies and honors an individual we don’t feel is a contributing factor … but we feel takes away from the actual contributing elements and their historic significant.’ Mercer said. ‘When we look at what contributing elements are … we feel the mid-1950s falls outside the scope of that. It’s not a coincidence this was put up the same year … of Virginia’ ”
I think this proposal is the right thing to do.
Student of the American Civil War 