Appomattox (statue) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Appomattox |
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| Artist | Caspar Buberl |
| Year | 1889 |
| Location | Alexandria, Virginia, United States |
| 38°48′14.1″N 77°2′49.9″W / 38.803917°N 77.047194°W | |
The Appomattox statue was a bronze monument. It honored soldiers from Alexandria, Virginia, who died fighting for the Confederacy. The Confederacy was a group of southern states during the American Civil War. The statue stood in the middle of an intersection in the Old Town area of Alexandria.
In 2017, the National Park Service added the monument to the National Register of Historic Places. This is a list of important historical sites. The statue was taken down on June 2, 2020. This happened during protests across the country. These protests followed the May 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. People were damaging statues from the time of segregation.
Contents
History of the Appomattox Statue
Building and Dedicating the Statue
In 1889, a sculptor named M. Caspar Buberl created the statue. A group called the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) asked him to make it. The statue looked like a lone Confederate soldier. This design was based on a painting by John Adams Elder. The painting showed a soldier looking at the end of the battle of Appomattox Court House. This was where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant.
The statue was officially revealed on May 24, 1889. Many people came to the ceremony. Fitzhugh Lee, who was the governor of Virginia then, led the event. Joseph E. Johnston, a former Confederate general, also attended. The UCV knew that some people might not like the monument. So, they asked the Virginia government to protect it by state law.
Crashes and Removal Attempts
On August 20, 1988, a van crashed into the statue. It knocked the soldier off its base. The city council decided to fix the statue. Some people, including Mayor Jim Moran and African American residents, did not agree. The president of the local NAACP also objected.
The crash also revealed a time capsule hidden in the base. A man took the capsule, but the police found him. The capsule and its contents were returned to the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). This group owned the statue.
In September 2016, the city council voted to move the statue. They wanted to move it to the Lyceum, a local history museum. However, state lawmakers did not allow this to happen at that time.
On March 16, 2017, the Appomattox statue was added to the Virginia Landmarks Register. Later, on June 12, 2017, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The paperwork for this listing said the statue was important for its artistic value. It also said the statue was meant to remember soldiers who died, not to support an idea.
In August 2017, some members of the Democratic Party in Virginia wanted to propose a law. This law would let Alexandria remove the statue. In 2018, Delegate Mark Levine tried to pass two such laws. But both laws failed to pass.
On December 14, 2019, another car crashed into the monument. The statue shifted on its base, and the base cracked. But the statue did not fall off this time.
Why the Statue Was Removed
In 2020, the Democratic Party gained full control of the Virginia government. New laws were passed. These laws allowed local governments to decide about monuments on public land. They could now remove, move, or change monuments, even Civil War ones. This new law became active on July 1, 2020.
On June 1, 2020, the UDC asked for permission to remove the statue. The city had planned to remove it on July 1. But the UDC moved the date up. This was because other statues were being damaged. These damages happened during protests after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.
On June 2, workers removed the soldier statue for the UDC. The city helped by controlling traffic. The UDC took the statue to a private place. The city did not know where it was taken. The base of the statue was removed later in July. The street was also changed to remove the circle where the statue once stood.
What the Statue Looked Like
The statue was made of bronze. It stood on a square stone base. The base had words carved into each side. The soldier faced south, with his arms crossed. He held his wide-brimmed hat in his right hand. He looked down with a sad expression. The soldier faced south because that was the direction of many Civil War battles.
The base was made of concrete and marble. On the north side, it said: "They died in the consciousness of duty faithfully performed." On the south side, it said: "Erected to the memory of Confederate dead of Alexandria, Va. by their Surviving Comrades, May 24th 1889." The east and west sides listed the names of Alexandrians who died in the Civil War.
Near where the statue used to be, there is a stone marker. It has a bronze plaque with this message:
THE CONFEDERATE STATUE
The unarmed Confederate soldier standing in
the intersection of Washington and Prince
Streets marks the location where units from
Alexandria left to join the Confederate Army
on May 24, 1861. The soldier is facing the
battlefields to the South where his comrades
fell during the War Between the States. The
names of those Alexandrians who died in service
for the Confederacy are inscribed on the base
of the statue. The title of the sculpture is
"Appomattox" by M. Casper Buberl.
The statue was erected in 1889 by the Robert E. Lee Camp
United Confederate Veterans."
