Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial – Arlington, Virginia

 

Removal and Relocation Frameworks. Explore definitions here.

Section 1: Background

The Civil War is one of the most brutal yet revered eras in the history of the United States. With a death toll of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, battles waged across various lands in the North and South. The South in particular saw grave losses as the Union forces claimed victory over the Confederate soldiers. During the Reconstruction era, an emerging romanticization of the war in the South introduced new conceptual frameworks, such as the “Lost Cause” narrative, that started to warp the true reasons behind the succession of Southern states from the United States of America. 

Confederate monuments, plaques, and memorials often support the narrative of the noble Southern soldier whose actions were based on defending his rights to freedoms. Though  counter-arguments may point to states’ rights as the leading cause of dissension, it is undeniable that the Civil War was fought over the right to enslave people of African descent. The Arlington National Cemetery is a unique resting place for both Union and Confederate soldiers. 

The Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial stands in a remote area of the cemetery property. Funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and sculpted by Confederate soldier Moses Ezekiel in 1914, the memorial honors the fallen Confederate soldiers of the Civil War. This particular structure has been judged to hold artistic value in addition to historical value. Ezekiel’s skill is evident in a number of scenic depictions with mixed relief and various iconography. As an alumnus of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Ezekiel produced several works for his comrades and associates. One of his most prominent works, Virginia Mourning Her Dead (New Market Monument), was gifted to the VMI campus in 1903. Six out of the ten cadets that fell in combat during the Battle of New Market were buried beneath the statue (American Battlefield Trust 2023). The sculptor had a significant personal connection to the memorial as “Ezekiel was himself a member of the Class of 1866 and a member of the New Market Corps; those who fought and died there were his friends” (VMI Archives 2023). Ezekiel’s own grave lies in close proximity to the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial.

Section 2: The Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial

Aside from the celebration of Confederate heroes, the memorial’s greatest point of contention stems from its depictions of the “Lost Cause”; a fanciful vision of the Civil War through the lens of states’ rights and the joyful servitude of Black people in the South. One of the monument’s scenes depicts a Confederate soldier departing for war as he says goodbye to his child in the arms of an older Black female “mammy” figure. A well-known stereotype for Black women, this family scene presents the false narrative that servitude in the South was a desired arrangement. Likewise, there is another scene that depicts an enslaved Black man heading into the battlefield with his master. As Judith Ezekiel, a relative of the artist and community activist explains,  “[That scene has] been part of the myth of the ‘Black Confederate soldier’ and they’ve used that representation to further that myth. It suggests that Black people were complicit in slavery and in the Confederacy, which is an abomination” (Humphrey 2022). Those who promoted the idea of the Black confederate soldier, which has been proven false, “hoped to demonstrate that if free and enslaved black men fought in Confederate ranks, the war could not have been fought to abolish slavery” (Levin, 2019). Historian Kevin Levin’s (2019) work, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Pernicious Myth, provides more information on this topic.  

Ultimately, the memorial’s depiction of enslaved people as “loyal, content with their subservient place, and disinterested in their own freedom” (Levin 2017) was purposely deployed by artist Moses Ezekiel and sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to sculpt the Lost Cause ideology into the Arlington National Cemetery landscape.

Section 3: Framework – Removal and Relocation

The Confederate Memorial was removed from Arlington National Cemetery on December 22, 2023, and is being stored in a Department of Defense facility at the time of writing. The monument was approved to be relocated to the Virginia Museum of the Civil War at New Market Battlefield State Historical Park on September 13, 2023. It remains to be seen when that will occur.  

3.1. The Ezekiel Family’s Call for Removal 

The first call for removal of the Confederate memorial came in the days after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. The Washington Post published a story about the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial following the rally and the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer. In response, twenty-two people in the Ezekiel family from various generations signed a letter calling for the removal of the Confederate Memorial. The letter sent to The Washington Post states: 

One of the most important memorials to the Confederacy is the statue at Arlington National Cemetery, unveiled in 1914. It was sculpted by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a former Confederate soldier and a prominent sculptor of his time. Ezekiel was our relative. Like most such monuments, this statue intended to rewrite history to justify the Confederacy and the subsequent racist Jim Crow laws. It glorifies the fight to own human beings, and, in its portrayal of African Americans, implies their collusion. As proud as our family may be of Moses’s artistic prowess, we — some twenty Ezekiels — say remove that statue. Take it out of its honored spot in Arlington National Cemetery and put it in a museum that makes clear its oppressive history (Shapiro 2017). 

In a follow-up telephone interview with The Post, Dr. Judith Ezekiel, a professor at Wright State University in Ohio, stated: “All of us agree that monuments to the Confederacy are racist justifications of slavery, of owning people… We wanted to say that although Ezekiel is a relative of ours, we still believe it’s a relic of a racist past” (ibid.). 

Controversy surrounding the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial was elevated to the national stage in 2017 when the Ezekiel family, recognizing the horrific violence in Charlottesville, called for the removal of the Confederate Memorial. Despite their proactive approach, those ultimately responsible for decision making regarding the monument would not take action until public pressure mounted in the summer of 2020. 

3.2. Opposition to Removal 

Some descendants of Confederate veterans believe that Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery, the area in which the Confederate Memorial was erected, is sacred ground and that the monument should remain in place to mark the contributions of their ancestors. In July 2020, the great-grandson of a Confederate soldier buried in Section 16 stated, “Before anyone pulls down the statue in Arlington, I would stand in front of the monument to protect it. That’s what a lot of other people would do, too” (Shapira 2020). Groups in opposition to monument removal, such as Defend Arlington, often refer to the memorial as the “Reconciliation Monument,” a monument “erected in the spirit of reconciliation” following the Civil War (Defend Arlington n.d.). Rivka Maizlish, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, identified this framing as a continuation of false narratives, arguing that

If the Confederate memorial at Arlington – born from McKinley’s act of political expediency – is a symbol of unity at all, it is this false unity created by erasing the cause of freedom from American memory and from American priority…The memorial was a weapon in a propaganda campaign designed to erase the meaning of the Civil War…Americans should applaud Arlington National Cemetery and the bipartisan group of lawmakers who recognized that it is time for this nation to have a new birth of freedom (2023).

In 2020, there was substantial opposition to removal of the Confederate Memorial from prominent individuals such as Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia. President Donald Trump also spoke out against changing the names of bases honoring Confederate military leaders. Trump threatened to veto the proposed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2021 if it included an amendment that would involve changing the names of such military bases (Bella 2020). Trump did indeed veto the bill, but Congress overrode the veto on January 1, 2021. The 2021 NDAA established the Naming Commission that would ultimately call for the removal of the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial. 

3.3. The Naming Commission’s Removal Recommendation 

As mentioned, The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act created the Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense, or, the Naming Commission, and “vested it with the authority and obligation to determine which Department of Defense assets should be removed or renamed because they commemorate the Confederacy” (U.S. DOJ 2024). In a report published in September 2022, the Commission identified the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial’s perpetuation of the Lost Cause narrative, which “romanticized the pre-Civil War South and denied the horrors of slavery” and “fueled white backlash against Reconstruction and the rights the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (1865-1870) had granted to African-Americans” (U.S. Naming Commission 2022). After exploring alternatives to removal, including contextualization, the Commission’s recommendations were as follows: 

The statue atop the monument should be removed. All bronze elements on the monument should be deconstructed, and removed, preferably leaving the granite base and foundation in place to minimize risk of inadvertent disturbance of graves. 

The work should be planned and coordinated with the Commission of Fine Arts and the Historical Review Commission to determine the best way to proceed with removal of the monument. 

The Department of the Army should consider the most cost-effective method of removal and disposal of the monument’s elements in their planning (ibid.)

Shortly after the publication of the Naming Commission’s report, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin accepted all of the recommendations and established a Naming Commission Implementation Working Group to develop a plan of action (Austin 2022). The recommendations were required to be implemented by January 1, 2024.

Within the report, the Naming Commission outlined the ways in which they considered “local sensitivities,” or community perspectives. Their methodology included three different ways of collecting input. First, they conducted site visits to engage with “base leaders, personnel and on-post stakeholders” as well as “local community leaders and off-post stakeholders” to collect feedback and specific recommendations (U.S. Naming Commission 2022). They also engaged with political leaders, such as senators and representatives, in each respective state. In recognition that the Commission would not be able to collect viewpoints from all relevant community stakeholders in-person, the group established a website to collect recommendations and feedback from September 4 to December 1, 2021. The Commision reported receiving more than 34,000 submissions (ibid.). Lastly, after in-person visits were conducted, the Commission held “virtual listening sessions” with stakeholders for feedback on possible outcomes. The Commission noted that although they were not beholden to community feedback, “it featured prominently in its deliberations and was instrumental to helping shape the focused lists of potential names as well for the final recommended name for each installation” (ibid.). The Naming Commission utilized a well-established methodology for engaging with on- and off-post stakeholders that included checking in for feedback at multiple points in the process.

In March 2023, a lawsuit was filed by the Defend Arlington group with support from the Sons of the Confederacy arguing that the monument represents reunification and challenging the Army’s authority to remove the memorial. Ultimately, it was found that the Plaintiffs could not challenge the removal.

3.4. Relocation Plan and Removal from Grounds

Governor Greg Youngkin, who opposed removal of the monument, facilitated the plan to relocate the monument to the Virginia Museum of the Civil War at New Market Battlefield State Historical Park managed by the VMI. The VMI Board of Visitors voted unanimously to accept this plan on September 13, 2023. Considering Ezekiel was an alumnus of the VMI and a veteran of the Battle of New Market, many VMI Board members and students saw the placement fitting if it was not to remain in the Arlington National Cemetery (Cadet Staff 2023). It is unknown when the Confederate Memorial will be relocated to the VMI Virginia Museum of the Civil War. 

3.5. Continued Opposition 

Facing the requirement to remove the memorial by January 1, 2024, opposition continued into December 2023. On December 11, 2023, over 40 Republican lawmakers signed a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding that “Department of Defense immediately suspend all removal activities related to the Reconciliation Monument located in Arlington National Cemetery until Congress completes the Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations process” (Clyde et al. 2023). The letter echoed arguments that the monument represents unity and that the Naming Commission “overstepped its legislative authority” (ibid.). Secretary Austin did not accept this argument. 

On December 17, 2023, memorial supporters with Defend Arlington made a phone call to Federal Judge Rossie Alston claiming that the gravesites near the memorial were being disturbed by construction crews. This led the judge to issue a temporary injunction. Alston toured the site the next day, found no evidence to support this claim, and removed the injunction (Swalec 2023). This appeared to be a last minute effort by those against the monument’s removal to stall the process by any means necessary. 

On December 20, 2023, the removal process began and was completed in two days. The memorial was relocated to a Department of Defense storage facility. 

On June 13, 2024, U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde of GA submitted an amendment to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act to halt the Arlington Cemetery Confederate Memorial removal process. The amendment failed, though it was supported by 90% of Republicans (US HOR 2024).  

Following the 2024 re-election of Donald Trump, Defend Arlington added a petition to “Ask President Trump to Sign an Executive Order Restoring the Reconciliation Memorial” (Defend Arlington n.d.). This may be possible, as President Trump has a record of supporting the retainment of Confederate references. Defend Arlington continues to mount an opposition to the memorial’s removal, filing another appeal in the lawsuit against the U.S. DoD on December 5, 2024. 

Section 4: Conclusion 

The artist’s family called for the removal of the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial following the violence that occurred in Charlottesville in 2017. That call was largely ignored by those who hold decision-making power regarding monuments in spaces under the purview of the Department of the Army. The conversation was reignited in 2020, with some loudly standing in opposition to the memorial’s removal. Ultimately, community activists mounted enough public pressure to push Congress to establish the Naming Commission of the Department of Defense as part of the 2021 NDAA. In September 2022, the Commission called for the removal of the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial following a process that included on-going engagement with community stakeholders. 

Opposition to removal of the memorial by groups who argue it is a monument symbolizing reconciliation continues even after the monument has been physically removed from the grounds. The second presidential administration of Donald Trump may have an impact on the status of the Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial. 

Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.), an Army veteran who strongly supported the Commission’s recommended changes, stated: 

I learned to fly helicopters at Fort Rucker. I deployed to Iraq from Fort Bragg, and I earned my jump wings at Fort Benning. All these bases honored men who wouldn’t want me or other Black Americans serving in uniform, let alone in Congress… This is about more than names and symbolism; who our military chooses to honor sets a path forward for other necessary reforms to make our armed services more inclusive, diverse and just (Horton and Demirjian 2022). 

The decision to remove this monument to the Confederacy and the myth of the Lost Cause has particular meaning as it falls under the purview of the Department of the Army, within the Department of Defense.

References

American Battlefield Trust. 2023. “Civil War | Biography – Moses Ezekiel. American Battlefield Trust.” https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/moses-ezekiel.

Austin, Lloyd. 2022. Memorandum for Senior Pentagon Leadership, Defense Agency, and DOD Field Activity Directors.” Memorandum. October 6, 2022. Department of Defense. 

Baker, S. 2021. “Confederate Monuments in Cemeteries, Reminders That We Cannot All Rest In Peace.” The Collective for Radical Death Studies. May 3, 2021. https://radicaldeathstudies.com/2021/05/03/confederate-monuments/. 

Bella, Timothy. 2020. “Trump vows to veto $740 billion defense bill if Confederate named military bases are renamed.” The Washington Post. July 1, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/01/confederate-military-base-renaming-trump/. 

Cadet Staff. 2023. “Moses Ezekiel monument to be moved to New Market.” The Cadet. September 22, 2023. https://cadetnewspaper.com/news/605/moses-ezekiel-monument-to-be-moved-to-new-market/#:~:text=The%20survey%20results%20also%20indicate,have%20yet%20to%20be%20decided.. 

Clyde, Andrew et al. 2023. “Letter to the Honorable Lloyd J. Austin III.” Congressional Letter. December 11, 2023. 

Defend Arlington. N.d. “Restore the Southern ‘Reconciliation’ Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Accessed December 18, 2024. https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=18074.

Department of Justice (DOJ). 2024. “Confederate Memorial must be Removed from Arlington National Cemetery.” Environment and National Resources Division. April 17, 2024. https://www.justice.gov/enrd/natural-resources-section/confederate-memorial-must-be-removed-arlington-national-cemetery. 

Hodge Seck, Hope. 2023. “What to do with Arlington Cemetery’s Confederate Memorial.” The Washington Post. January 2, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/29/arlington-cemetery-confederate-memorial/ 

Horton, Alex and Karoun Demirjian. 2022. “Bases named for Confederates should honor women, minorities instead, panel says.” The Washington Post. May 24, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/24/confederate-base-renaming/. 

Humphrey, W. 2022. March 18. Monuments Toolkit Interview Series #2: Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial. March 18, 2022. PDF. https://docs.google.com/document/d/10i8hNDOzCs6UDT5GSDHjTX-cC03SQUUc_-osJvQBS1U/edit?usp=sharing.

Levin, Kevin. 2017. “The Pernicious Myth of the ‘Loyal Slave’ Lives on in Confederate Memorials.” Smithsonian Magazine. August 17, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/pernicious-myth-loyal-slave-lives-confederate-memorials-180964546/

— 2019. Searching for the Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill. 

Maizlish, Rivka. 2023. “Defenders of Confederate Symbols Distort History to Sow Division.” Southern Poverty Law Center. August 31, 2023. https://www.splcenter.org/news/2023/08/31/confederate-memorial-removal-arlington-national-cemetery.

Moyer, Justin W. 2023. “Suit aims to halt removal of Arlington Cemetery’s Confederate Memorial.” The Washington Post. August 7, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/07/confederate-memorial-arlington-national-cemetery-lawsuit/.

Nguyen, Thao. 2023. “US Army resumes process to remove Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.” USA Today. December 21, 2023. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/12/20/confederate-memorial-arlington-national-cemetery/71993681007/.

Ross, Rod. 2023. “Opinion | A pause before removing memorials at Arlington cemetery.” The Washington Post. August 11, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/11/pause-before-removing-memorials-arlington-cemetery/.

Rowan, Lisa. 2023. “VMI board votes to accept Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.” Cardinal News. September 13, 2023. https://cardinalnews.org/2023/09/13/vmi-board-votes-to-accept-confederate-memorial-from-arlington-national-cemetery/. 

Shapira, Ian. 2020. “At Arlington Cemetery, a Confederate monument to the South and slavery still stands.” The Washington Post. July 5, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/05/arlington-cemetery-confederate-monument-slavery/

Shapiro, T. Rees. 2017. “Descendants of Rebel Sculptor: Remove Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.” The Washington Post. August 18, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/descendants-of-rebel-sculptor-remove-confederate-memorial-from-arlington-national-cemetery/2017/08/18/d4da6a3e-842b-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_20

Swalec, Andrea. 2023. “Confederate memorial removed from Arlington National Cemetery.” NBC News Washington. December 20, 2023. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/confederate-memorial-removed-from-arlington-national-cemetery/3498647/. 

The Associated Press. 2023. “Judge allows the removal of a Confederate memorial at Arlington Cemetery.” National Public Radio News. December 20, 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/20/1220573980/confederate-memorial-arlington-cemetery-removal.

United States House of Representatives (US HOR). 2024. “Roll Call 269. Bill Number: H.R. 8070.” Office of the Clerk. June 13, 2024. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024269 

United States Naming Commission. 2022. “The Naming Commission – Final Report to Congress, Part III: Renaming Department of Defense Assets.” Report. September 2022. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2285380/. 

 Virginia Military Institute (VMI). 2023. “Virginia Mourning Her Dead, the New Market Monument.” Virginia Military Institute Archives Digital Collections. https://vmi.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15821coll7/id/5446/.