“A legal challenge is being mounted against the City of Richmond’s plans to remove the final confederate statue still standing.
A.P. Hill, a general, killed in the Civil War, is buried under the statue, which sits at the intersection of Hermitage and Laburnum on the city’s north side.
Under the law, the city had to petition a judge to get permission to remove Hill’s remains. Earlier this month, a group of Hill’s descendants objected, not to the removal itself, but to what happens to the large granite marker.
“Are the people who have identified their selves as defendants truly defendants? That’s a question of whether they have a right to participate in objecting to the city’s plans,” said Steven Benjamin, NBC12 Legal Analyst.
Those descendants want control of it and don’t want the statue or marker going to The Black History Museum, which has taken control of all the other Confederate monuments removed in the city.
“Ordinarily, the question surrounding the A.P. Hill monument would be whether this was a grave marker that is meant to identify the person whose remains are beneath the marker or whether it’s a monument to something else,” said Benjamin.
Benjamin says the marker/monument debate may become moot since the city owns the circle, and different cemetery rules could apply.
“So, it does appear that if this city property and it is, that’s what’s been alleged, then the city has the right to determine what to do with that property,” said Benjamin.
Hill’s remains are slated to be taken to a Culpeper cemetery, where he was originally from.
A court hearing is not yet set. So far, no comment from the attorneys involved in the case.
View the entire petition HERE.”.
Comment: This Hill was an upper-class kid who chose to go to West Point and follow an army career. He resigned from the US Cavalry when Virginia seceded from the Union. His resignation from the service was accepted. He was appointed colonel of a volunteer infantry regiment in Virginia’s forces. They were integrated into the Confederate Army when Virginia joined the Confederacy a few months later. His “Light Division” was considered a body of shock troops and he rose to corps command when Stonewall Jackson’s death created a vacancy. He had the habit of wearing a red shirt in combat so that “everyone will know where I am.” I suppose that included Yankee snipers.
His performance became increasingly uneven during the war. Most people attribute that to ongoing and steadily worsening complications (adhesions and retained urine) in his body caused by a youthful case of gonorrhea contracted from a prostitute in New York City while a cadet. It is generally thought that his illness would have killed him if he had survived the Civil War.
In my story about Sharpsburg (Antietam) Captain Claude Devereux was hit in the knee by a ricochet about the time he hears a ruckus behind him on a road from a ford to the south. He looks back and sees Hill’s red shirt coming on at the head of his division and knows that all will be well.
The city of Richmond’s zeal for wokian purity knows no bounds. They do not deserve AP Hill’s statue nor his bones that lie beneath it. pl
A.P. Hill removal plans in Richmond now under legal challenge (nbc12.com)
“SHARPSBURG” by W. Patrick Lang (a prequel to TBC)” ‹ Turcopolier — WordPress
Is it true that he was buried standing up vertically?
Leith,
His remains consisted of a crumbling skeleton and a few fragments of his uniform when he was removed from his Hollywood cemetery burial site. Those remains were placed in an oaken coffin and “lowered into the monument’s “receptacle” (pedestal) and three stones were laid on top. The monument stone work had already reached a height of 6 feet prior to the lowering of the oaken box.” That’s how the Richmond Dispatch described the reburial. Don’t know if the oak coffin was full size or what was the configuration of the receptacle in the monument. The coffin may have been placed vertically to fit the receptacle, but he wasn’t standing up when reburied.
Being that this is more of a crypt than a standard monument, I think the whole monument, or at least the pedestal, should go to either the Culpeper Cemetery or back to the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. There are something like two dozen CSA generals buried there.
The current location is a terrible spot for a crypt and it’s subject to repeated vandalism. I doubt if most of the vandals realize that someone is buried there. And if they did someone is bound to do something a lot worse than throw paint and write graffiti.
The past must be erased so that only the present, as defined by the leftists, remains.
Referenced in the Wikipedia link is the fact that “Hill’s remains were reinterred twice in Richmond” in the 19th century.
I would like to understand the politics of these first two reinterrments as they might offer some nuance to the third.
EB
No idea. Probably street construction. There would have been no political problem then.
It appears that the Democratic party has gone full pagan. This is the sculpture that replaced R.E.Lee in New Orleans:
https://neveryetmelted.com/2022/07/27/a-citys-monuments-say-a-lot-about-its-character-and-ethos/
Perhaps they’ll replace that snake sculpture in New Orleans with one of St George Floyd.
George Floyd. The new ‘Che’ of the Left.
morongobill,
They have certainly made him the center of a cult.
Another act of revolutionary cultural suicide. How are the precepts of this cultural death cult that has America in its grip qualitatively different from what drove the Khmer Rouge? Anyone who thinks this will stop at Confederate statues and affirmative action hires is deluding themselves. The ‘purification’ will continue until they are stopped, or until they have erased every last vestige of pre-woke America.
“The idea behind Year Zero was that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded, and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch. All of the history of a nation or people before Year Zero would be largely deemed irrelevant, because it would ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(political_notion)#Concept_and_background
The sad thing is you bring this up to people and they look at you like you’re crazy. They can’t wrap their heads around the fact that the leftists want to destroy the country. Destroy in the classical sense and then remake. I talk to friends about this and watch them glaze over with “here he goes again”. Sadly, were already behind the eight ball. Once most people realize they need to fight back, it’s already too late.
Barbara Ann,
The left is going after Jefferson, again:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/monticello_goes_woke.html
My wife met Angkar on day 1. Her family had the pleasure of walking out of Phnom Penh that day. It used to take a communist revolution to declare Day 1, now a couple college classes is all you need.
Barbara Ann,
I think the proliferation of Confederate monuments and the pushing of the Lost Cause ideology beginning in the late 1800s was a Year Zero strategy in itself along with the passing of Jim Crow laws. A part of the current trend toward purification, as you call it, is to reveal much of the pre-woke America that was buried by the Lost Cause and Jim Crow cultural purification era.
In Richmond now there are ongoing efforts to reveal those long buried parts of our history, parts that were buried and paved over like the African Burial Ground and Lumpkin’s “Hell’s Half Acre” in Shockoe Bottom. This isn’t erasing heritage. This is revealing and embracing history… and it’s hardly revolutionary.
Tearing down statues is “revealing and embracing history”? If you say so Mao…
I think it all needs to be put on the table and laid bare, but not the way it’s working now.
TTG
And you are entitled to think that – and here is the key difference: Wokism cannot permit an interpretation of history that is un-woke. So on Wikipedia we have; The Lost Cause of the Confederacy is a set of false beliefs about the American Civil War. False – not “alternative” or even just “beliefs” but false beliefs. But how is an insistence on true beliefs excluding alternatives any different to dogma or propaganda? Another example: “War of Northern Aggression” must be in set in quotes, lest the casual reader be misled into thinking anyone might legitimately think the primary aim of the war to to frustrate secession. Nope that is wrongthink.
So what is being revealed and embraced is not history, but the sole acceptable version of history. The wokies’ underlying zealotry and claims to universal historical truth is indistinguishable from any other revolutionary Marxist movement.
Barbara Ann,
What historical events and movements are the wokesters suppressing or not permitting? I don’t see any libs denying that chattel slavery as practiced in America was an economic boon to the Southern planter class. That’s a historical fact, not an interpretation of history. Was preserving this institution the only reason for secession? No, but it was a primary reason as documented by the States and the Confederacy at the time. The CSA fought the war valiantly, with great skill and at a severe disadvantage in manpower and material. I haven’t seen any woke denials of that. Nor have I seen any woke acceptance of the naive idea that Lincoln went to war to free the slaves. Only the abolitionist fringe pushed that as a reason for war.
The trait of the wokesters that seems to truly rile up the conservatives is that they shine a light on the seedier side of our history while failing to trumpet the better and often triumphant side. I can understand conservative resentment at that failure, but I can’t condone conservative efforts to bury parts of our history. What is being revealed and embraced by archeology and historical research is history, maybe not pretty history, but our history none the less. The effort to keep it buried is the work of true zealotry and revolutionary, or counter-revolutionary if you prefer, fervor.
So how does this square with the removal of Confederate monuments in Richmond? The removal of the A.P. Hill monument is unique in that it is also a gravesite. A respectful reburial of the remains is planned. It will be at least as respectful as the previous reburials. I consider the monument more of a burial marker than a standard monument. It should accompany the remains to the final burial site whether it be in Culpeper or elsewhere. The present site is okay for a monument, but downright macabre for a gravesite. I can understand conservative resentment of the monument itself passing to the Black History Museum in Richmond. The removal of the equestrian monuments along Monument Avenue is as much a part of our history as their being erected in the first place. Perhaps they will find a new home in a Richmond park much like all those excess Lenin monuments in Eastern Europe. The only monument that had a truly ignominious toppling was the Jefferson Davis statue. That one was toppled by a mob. But that was a truly ugly monument. I was glad to see that one go. The trashed and graffitied Davis bronze is already on display in a museum… another part of our history.
TTG
Confederate statues displayed as trophies of war (the present one that is, not the WBS) and culturally appropriated in the BHM is certainly one way of bringing history to life. As for Jefferson Davis, I understand his is now properly contextualized in the Museum of the Mob. History is written by the victors, after all.
Barbara Ann,
“Museum of the Mob”.
An appropriate phrase. Thank you.
Barbara Ann,
Your museum of the mob is the Valentine Museum in Richmond where that particular bronze was designed by Edward Valentine. He did a lot of historical bronzes including a number of lost cause bronzes in the studio/museum where the Davis bronze is now on display. Eduard Valentine was the first president of the museum. The museum will soon be going an exhibit of his bronzes which will also address his lost cause works.
“Nor have I seen any woke acceptance of the naive idea that Lincoln went to war to free the slaves. ”
LOL the Dem-wokies are still made at Lincoln and the Republicans for freeeing the slaves.
“The removal of the equestrian monuments along Monument Avenue is as much a part of our history as their being erected in the first place.”
So are all those BLM murals inspired by George Floyd.
Fred,
“the Dem-wokies are still made at Lincoln and the Republicans for freeing the slaves.”
In what kind of bizarro world did you find that line of reasoning? Sure the Southern states were the stronghold of the old Democratic Party. That all changed with the Democrats’ embracing the civil rights movement and the Republicans’ embracing the Southern strategy.
I agree with you that all those George Floyd murals are a part of our history. Much of that is being preserved in Richmond including all those BLM light shows projected on the RE Lee monument.
@TTG
What bizzaro history are you pulling this from “That all changed with the Democrats’ embracing the civil rights movement”? George Wallace, Bull Connor, most if not all of the KKK, etc. All democrats. Not so much embracing going on there.
TTG,
The democrats did well by you. George Floyd was a victim of democratic leadership in Minneapolis and elsewhere. By Southern strategy do you mean LBJ’s embracing food stamps, urban renewal, and busing? Northern urban liberals, including Biden, just loved doing that, but it was mostly done to Northerners.
powderfinger1,
The new left is all about changing the past.
“Collective memory is the toolshed, tomorrow’s ideologicalarsenal,from which political concepts and symbols are selected,reinterpreted,and manipulated… ”
(Dr. Christine Helms, ARABISM AND ISLAM: STATELESSNATIONSAND NATIONLESSSTATES
You can find it in the archives.)
Fred,
You’re thinking of the civil rights movements, desegregation and LBJ’s Great Society which had its own problems. The Southern strategy was conceived by Goldwater, advanced by Nixon and brought to full fruition by Reagan. It sought to enlarge the reach of the Republican party by catering to the resentments of conservative Southern Democrats over the assaults on segregation and the idea of white supremacy.
TTG,
“catering to the resentments…”
That would be funny if it were not that you actually believe it. Goldwater lost, Nixon won in a landslide and not because of resentment in the South. Remind me again how the 1619 project and critical race theory are really republican resentment ideas of white southerners born and raised decades before you and I came into this world.
Barbara Ann,
“revolutionary cultural suicide”
The people doing this aren’t Virginians. It’s a mix of northerners, Bolsheviks, of one flavor or another, and the woke brigade. Although those are often the same thing.
They’ve always hated us.
They’re finally have power though, so they’re going to take their moment, and dance on our graves. Scream and beat their chests.
The song of Roland opens with the destruction of the Saracen monuments. This is the same thing. Conquerors do this.
We’ve gotten weak, and we will eventually just disappear. Our culture will fade away. But it’s the demographic changes in Virginia that made this possible. We’ve been displaced by strangers.
They don’t like us.
– Eliot