Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument | |
---|---|
Artist | Laura Gardin Fraser |
Year | 1948 2017: removed |
Medium | Bronze |
Location | Baltimore, Maryland |
39°19′28″N76°37′11″W / 39.32431°N 76.61983°W | |
Owner | City of Baltimore |
The Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument, often referred to simply as the Jackson and Lee Monument or Lee and Jackson Monument, was a double equestrian statue of Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, formerly located on the west side of the Wyman Park Dell in Charles Village in Baltimore, Maryland, alongside a forested hill, similar to the topography of Chancellorsville, Virginia, where Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee met before the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. The statue was removed on August 16, 2017, on the order of Baltimore City Council, but the base still remains. The monument is in storage and some city council members have called for all Confederate monuments in the state to be destroyed. [1] [2]
The area surrounding the old monument was rededicated as Harriet Tubman Grove in March 2018. [3]
The Jackson and Lee Monument was the first double equestrian statue in the United States. [4] Artist Laura Gardin Fraser was the only woman sculptor selected out of five other men to create the monument. Notable architect John Russell Pope was commissioned to design the base of the monument.
Funding for the statue was secured by Colonial Trust Company owner J. Henry Ferguson before he died in 1928. Ferguson provided $100,000 for the erection of the monument. [5] It was dedicated in 1948 in a ceremony at which Governor William Preston Lane Jr. and Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. spoke. [6]
The monument was located on the west side of the Wyman Park Dell along Art Museum Drive from its dedication until its removal by the Baltimore City Government.
After the 2015 Charleston church shooting, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake organized a commission to evaluate removal of the city's four confederate monuments. [7] In January 2016, the commission decided that the Jackson and Lee Monument, along with the Roger B. Taney Sculpture by William Henry Rinehart in Mount Vernon Place would be removed. [8]
On August 14, 2017, the Baltimore City Council voted unanimously to deconstruct these two monuments along with the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument and the Confederate Women's Monument. [9] The Jackson and Lee Statue was subsequently removed by The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company on August 16, 2017, but the base remains intact. [10] Activists replaced the monument with a papier-mache rendition of a pregnant African-American woman, created by artist Pablo Machioli, which was destroyed shortly thereafter, though it was unclear to observers whether this was due to vandalism or the effects of weather. [11] The pedestal was also repeatedly vandalized with politically motivated graffiti.[ citation needed ]
The base of the sculpture featured the following inscription: [4]
SO GREAT IS MY CONFIDENCE IN / GENERAL LEE THAT I AM WILLING TO / FOLLOW HIM BLINDFOLDED / STRAIGHT AS THE NEEDLE TO THE POLE / JACKSON ADVANCED TO THE EXECUTION / OF MY PURPOSE
(West steps:) THE PARTING OF GENERAL LEE AND / STONEWALL JACKSON ON THE EVE / OF CHANCELLORSVILLE
(East steps:) GIFT OF J. HENRY FERGUSON OF MARYLAND.
(North steps:) THEY WERE GREAT GENERALS AND/ CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS AND WAGED / WAR LIKE GENTLEMEN.
Monument Avenue is a tree-lined grassy mall dividing the eastbound and westbound traffic in Richmond, Virginia, originally named for its emblematic complex of structures honoring those who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue greatly expanded with architecturally significant houses, churches, and apartment buildings. Four of the bronze statues representing J. E. B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and Matthew Fontaine Maury were removed from their memorial pedestals amidst civil unrest in July 2020. The Robert E. Lee monument was handled differently as it was owned by the Commonwealth, in contrast with the other monuments which were owned by the city. Dedicated in 1890, it was removed on September 8, 2021. All these monuments, including their pedestals, have now been removed completely from the Avenue. The last remaining statue on Monument Avenue is the Arthur Ashe Monument, memorializing the African-American tennis champion, dedicated in 1996.
Laura Gardin Fraser was an American sculptor. She was married to sculptor James Earle Fraser and was a first cousin of painter Agnes Pelton.
The Confederate War Memorial was a 65 foot (20 m)-high monument that pays tribute to soldiers and sailors from Texas who served with the Confederate States of America (CSA) during the American Civil War. The monument was dedicated in 1897, following the laying of its cornerstone the previous year. Originally located in Sullivan Park near downtown Dallas, Texas, United States, the monument was relocated in 1961 to the nearby Pioneer Park Cemetery in the Convention Center District, next to the Dallas Convention Center and Pioneer Plaza.
Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
Roger B. Taney is a 19th-century bronze statue of Chief Justice of the United States Roger B. Taney (1777–1864), by William Henry Rinehart. It was located in Baltimore, Maryland at the North Garden in Mount Vernon Place prior to being removed by the city of Baltimore in 2017.
Thomas Jonathan Jackson is a historic bronze equestrian statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson which was formerly located at Courthouse Historic District of Charlottesville, Virginia and installed in 1921. The statue was sculpted by Charles Keck and was the third of four works commissioned from members of the National Sculpture Society by philanthropist Paul Goodloe McIntire. It was the second of three statues McIntire donated to the city of Charlottesville, which he did over a period of five years from 1919 to 1924. The statue was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
The Robert E. Lee Monument was an outdoor bronze equestrian statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveller located in Charlottesville, Virginia's Market Street Park in the Charlottesville and Albemarle County Courthouse Historic District. The statue was commissioned in 1917 and dedicated in 1924, and in 1997 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was removed on July 10, 2021, and melted down in 2023.
The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was a monument in Baltimore, Maryland, installed in 1903 and removed in 2017.
The Confederate Women's Monument was an outdoor memorial by J. Maxwell Miller, installed in Baltimore, in the U.S. state of Maryland in 1917.
There are more than 160 Confederate monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of which have been since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
Payne v. City of Charlottesville is a 2017 lawsuit opposing the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Charlottesville historic monument controversy is the public discussion on how Charlottesville should respond to protesters who complain that various local monuments are racist. The controversy began before 2016 when protest groups in the community asked the city council for the local removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. Other monuments became part of the controversy, including those of Thomas Jefferson because of his ownership of slaves and those of Lewis and Clark for their advocacy of white colonists over Native Americans.
Fame, also called Gloria Victis, is a Confederate monument in Salisbury, North Carolina. Cast in Brussels, in 1891, Fame is one of two nearly-identical sculptures by Frederick Ruckstull. The monument was removed from public display in Salisbury on July 6, 2020.
The Caddo Parish Confederate Monument is a Confederate monument originally located on the grounds of the Caddo Parish Courthouse in Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, in the United States. In 2022, it was moved to private land in rural De Soto Parish.
The Stonewall Jackson Monument in Richmond, Virginia, was erected in honor of Thomas Jonathon "Stonewall" Jackson, a Confederate general. The monument was located at the centre of the crossing of Monument Avenue and North Arthur Ashe Boulevard, in Richmond, Virginia. The bronze equestrian statue was unveiled in 1919. Along this avenue were other statues including Robert E. Lee, J. E. B. Stewart, Jefferson Davis, Matthew Maury and more recently Arthur Ashe. Thomas Jackson is best known as one of Robert E. Lee's most trusted commanders throughout the early period of the American Civil War between Southern Confederate states and Northern Union states. He rose to prominence after his vital role in the Confederate victory at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, continuing to command troops until his untimely death on May 10, 1863, after falling fatally ill following the amputation of his wounded arm.