In Chicago’s Oak Woods Cemetery, covering the mass grave of 4,000 Confederate soldiers, captured and held prisoner at Camp Douglas, there is a large monument, pictured above. Here is the National Parks Service’s description of it:
Confederate Mound is an elliptical plot, approximately 475 feet by 275 feet, located between Divisions 1 and 2 of Section K. The most prominent feature of the plot is the Confederate Monument, a 30-foot granite column topped with a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier, a figure based on the painting “Appomattox†by John A. Elder. At the base of the tapered square shaft are three bas-relief images: “The Call to Arms†showing a group rallying for the cause, “A Soldier’s Death Dream†depicting a fallen soldier and his horse on the battlefield, and “A Veteran’s Return Home†showing a soldier arriving at a ruined cabin. General John C. Underwood, a regional head of the United Confederate Veterans, designed the monument and was at its dedication on May 30, 1895, along with President Grover Cleveland and an estimated 100,000 on-lookers. In 1911, the Commission for Marking the Graves of Confederate Dead paid to have the monument lifted up and set upon a base of red granite; affixed to the four sides of the base were bronze plaques inscribed with the names of Confederate soldiers known to be buried in the mass grave.
It was dedicated on May 30, 1895. It resides on private land. It in no way glorifies the Southern cause. The statue of the Confederate soldier is in an attitude of surrender or resignation. In the Chicago Tribune Ted Slowik remarks:
President Grover Cleveland and his entire cabinet were among the estimated 100,000 who attended the monument’s dedication on May 30, 1895. In 1903, Congress appropriated funds to improve the monument by adding six bronze plaques inscribed with the names of 4,243 Confederate soldiers known to be interred at the site.
More than 100 years later, many Chicagoans may be simply unaware their city is home to among the largest Confederate graveyards and monuments in the North. Its tendency to be forgotten might explain some of the lack of controversy regarding Confederate Mound.
Yet, local media have periodically rediscovered Confederate Mound. TV, radio, print and online reporters spotlighted the memorial in 2015 when white supremacist Dylann Roof shot to death nine black parishioners during a service at a church in Charleston, S.C.
As the official Report of Proceedings Incidental to the Erection and Dedication of the Confederate Monument prepared by Gen. John C. Underwood makes clear, the monument is explicitly a sign of reconciliation between the North and the South. Here’s an excerpt from the remarks of Rev. H. W. Bolton on the occasion:
Today we stand with comrades at the graves that are not simply houses for the dead, but vaults in which the Nation’s power, fame and glory are stored. Thirty years have swept over these graves, the dust of wasting forms, and yet they are centers of sufficient power to arrest a nation in its march and call a generation, born since they were made, of home, hothouse and conservatory, hillside and valley with flowers gathered, selected, arranged and transported for the decoration of the sacred dead. Every heart in this broad land is made broader and more patriotic by the services of this day in this place. If there were no words spoken or songs sung, an hour among the dead who gave up their lives for convictions, with muffled tread and silent prayer would impress us with a sense of that self-sacrifice which is most sacred to a nation’s well-being. None can move among the disembodied spirits of such men without being inspired for better service. We come not as the soldiers of the Grecian and Roman armies, but as brothers of one country. We have had trouble, ’tis true, and every thinking people will have. We entertained different ideas relative to government and polity—ideas that begot convictions resulting in war, but we fought, not to destroy but to maintain, and now that the Union is preserved and all men, north and south, cheerfully accept the results, support the government and obey the constitution, why should we be enemies or keep up a line of defense?
Recently, there have been calls for removal of the monument as an affront to the neighborhood, calls that were not in evidence prior to the events in Charlottesville.
Should the monument be removed?
Yes.
Presumably no, because the list of Confederate monuments that the media gets from the Southern Poverty Law Center does not appear to include any in the North:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-are-still-more-than-700-confederate-monuments-in-the-u-s/
There are Confederate monuments at all of the Northern P.O.W. camps. Camp Butler in Springfield, IL received one in 2005, though I’m not sure why it was so late; perhaps a reluctance to engage in Lincoln’s hometown. But it is an active national cemetery and there are fairly strict rules governing displays and assemblies. I recall that confederate flags were not allowed to be displayed during the dedication ceremony.
Of course there are also confederate monuments at just about every battlefield.
Since the Oak Woods monument is on private land, provides proper context, and was clearly not put up to support white nationalism, it will make an interesting test case.
In deed it will, however, lets not forget the ability of any level of government to ruin your day while greasing squeaky wheels.
FWIW, don’t think the monument should be moved, private property, freedom of expression come into play.
Yes. In 1895 blacks were well on their way to losing the right to vote and to serve on juries in the south. In several decades, blacks would begin to migrate north, where they would find every single place they went devoted to white supremacy. When King went to Chicago, he said he claimed that the hate from the mobs of white Chicagoans was worse than anything he had seen in Mississippi. The only reconciliation between north and south was in white supremacy.
MM: They called them sundown towns because they were different from other towns. And mobs in Chicago speak about mobs, not all Chicagoans. To paraphrase Frederick Douglass, the problem is not that whites don’t know something (in his instance, slavery) is wrong, its getting them to do something about it.
Maybe the current effort to get rid of Confederate monuments is the something that will be done in our time. May history look kindly on us.
This is a grave marker! It is not a glorification of any political philosophy.
Hmmm . . . I sense some special pleading on my part. I want people from Illinois to be judged on an individual basis, not collectively on the basis of its worst actors. Perhaps that’s what everybody wants.
I don’t think Lincoln should be judged by one speech, so I probably should extend other historical figures that same courtesy. Thing is I really, really don’t want to read a bunch of Alexander Stephens speeches.
Hi,
I used the image in this post, with attribution, in a blog post about the Confederate mound on today’s date. Here’s a link if you’re interested: bluebattinghelmet.wordpress.com/2020/06/07/sharing-my-concerns-about-a-confederate-statue-in-chicago/
If you should want me to take this down, please let me know.
I appreciate the thought and the effort that goes into your site. Please keep on doing what you do.
Rob Harris
Chicago, IL
No problem, Robert.