“To build a better future we must reckon with our past, not hide from it… Erasing our history just because it makes us uncomfortable harms the work we must do.” Maryland Lt. Governor Boyd Rutherford
Unlike the vast majority of confederate statues, the Talbot Boys statue is unique in that it was built about and by local residents of Talbot County. I direct readers’ attention to a Star Democrat “Viewpoint” article written by the late David Foster in March 2004 which sets forth his well-researched facts with respect to the history of the Talbot Boys statue which supplement Dickson Preston’s account in his book Talbot County: A History.
The brief history. The first volley in the “Battle of the Monuments” was lobbed in 1913 by the union veterans who had visited the monument to the First Regiment Eastern Shore Volunteers on Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg upon the 50th anniversary of the battle. The “Talbot Boys” who fought against them on Culp’s Hill (2nd Maryland Infantry (CSA)), not to be outdone, sought their own monument, in Talbot County. 31 members of the 2nd Maryland died in the battle on July 3, 1863; two cousins from Trappe fought on opposing sides and one was killed.
The battle was poignant and very personal to Talbot County. The funds were raised through private donations, the monument quickly approved, and the base, with their names and those of other CSA Talbot Countians, erected in 1914. (Those other Talbot County residents included three descendants of Colonel Tench Tilghman, revolutionary war hero and aide de camp to George Washington, and Admiral Buchanan: founder of the Naval Academy, the first American to step foot on Japanese soil with Commander Perry, Admiral of the CSA navy who was the captain of the Merrimac, commander of the CSA fleet in the Battle of Mobile Bay, and, after the war, a President of University of Maryland.)
Fundraising was hampered due to the concomitant fund raising to rebuild Memorial Hospital which had burned down in 1913. The “Talbot Boy” figure was erected in 1916 and the flag boy was said to be inspired by the Longfellow poem “Excelsior” (“onward and upward”). If one takes the time to read the poem, one will learn that it is about a young man’s futile and fatal adventure. True as it was that the “Talbot Boys” were outraged about the prospect of a competing monument on the courthouse green honoring the union soldiers, the facts remain that the union veterans never raised the funds, World War I intervened, and the moment for a companion monument passed. I also want to take the opportunity to direct readers to Paul Callahan’s excellent July 8, 2020 Letter to the Editor recounting local history and the issues which influenced the Talbot Boys to fight against the Union.
Talbot County and the Mid Shore are a model for contextual history. We have the Talbot Boys statute and feet away the larger and more prominent statue of Frederick Douglass (which was erected because of the presence of the Talbot Boys statue). Then there is the Hill. At the time of the civil war there were almost as many free blacks as slaves in Talbot County. Then there is the Unionville renaissance. A few miles away are the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center and the Harriet Tubman Museum & Educational Center Museum. The underground railway trail can be followed through 2 Mid Shore counties. Soon to come, the Frederick Douglass Park. Why erase one side of that history by removing the Talbot Boys statue?
Our County Council made a decision three years ago not to remove the Talbot Boys statue. The current hue and cry to remove the Talbot Boys is heard from mainly non-resident “woke” millennials, recent come-here’s to Talbot County, our uninformed state Comptroller, seeming to seek to capitalize on the latest movement in national headlines in order to advance his personal political ambitions (a run for governor), and our uninformed US Senator seeming to continue to foment chaos to advance a democrat agenda. None of them know the history of the statue or Talbot County during the civil war era but presume to bully our County Council and to enforce totalitarian style selective amnesia by advocating for the removal of the Talbot Boys statue. The wave of hysteria has got to end, not by erasing one side of history, but rather, by context. We have better and more important tasks to devote time, energy, and money to in order to achieve racial justice than obsessing over erasing our history.
We need to hear from all Talbot County residents. Councilwoman Price’s suggestion that a poll be conducted as part of the general election in November is a good step in that direction. I suspect that the majority of Talbot County support leaving the Talbot Boys alone, but fear reprisal if that opinion is voiced. While all points of view should be expressed and heard, in this political environment of violence, anger, and reprisal, a true town hall style discussion might only attract vociferous agitators. Proponents of saving the Talbot Boys statue or those who oppose removal of our history might fear for their safety.
Also, this is a local issue; only Talbot County residents should be permitted to participate and decide. Councilman Divilio’s suggestion that a new statue depicting both sides of the Civil War replace the Talbot Boys and the work he has done to that end is laudable. But the pending resolution 290 to remove the Talbot Boys statue and Councilman’s Lesher’s intent to amend the resolution to remove the base as well, must not be approved. I suggest that the council appoint a blue ribbon commission to make recommendations and present a plan to implement the recommendations. Washington College History professor Adam Goodheart (how ironic is that name?) author of “1861: The Civil War Awakening” should be invited to participate, maybe even chair the commission.
Cooler, more knowledgeable, and dispassionate heads should prevail in deciding the fate of the Talbot Boys.
Lynn Mielke
St. Michaels
paul callahan says
Wonderful article. Growing up in Talbot county I remember being astonished that a monument to confederate veterans was at our court house. But this sparked a curiosity and a desire to learn why those from long ago put it there. I found that our true history was not the washed down version we learned in grammar school. I discovered that every time a layer was explored a new historical layer was just sitting just underneath waiting for investigation. The monument to Frederic Douglas has done the same. Obviously some people went through great efforts to put that there and Mr. Douglass’s history is something that we all can benefit from.
I am amazed and astonished that people with little to no knowledge about our history see fit to take strong positions on it. When queried if they had read such and such article the usual reply is “no – but everyone knows.. blah blah …” It seems that our society is so susceptible to “group think” where if they repeatedly hear the same slogan over and over then it must be truth. Unfortunately organizations with their own agenda realize this and they repeatedly inundate us with their message knowing that many will come to believe it as fact.
This is why free societies have free libraries. It is a true shame that more people don’t use them.
Pamela R Getson says
Yes, there are many who fall subject to “group think”, it might be said such is best represented by the repeated nonsense of our current administration and its blind followers. But I do use the libraries, when they are available in non-pandemic situations, and many other resources.
I enjoy your writing, and it mostly parallels broadly accepted historical content except an earlier point I made to your LTE. But not so this latest repeated suggestion of correctly restating Mr. Foster’s statuary context. You don’t expressly say you agree, but seem to imply such by not otherwise indicating it diverges from your own research. I am also curious why you have decided that people with opposing positions “have no knowledge” of our County history.
Sometimes it seems just the opposite…
Pamela R Getson says
Yes, there are many who fall subject to “group think”, it might be said best represented by the repeated nonsense of our current administration and its blind followers. But I do use the libraries, when they are available in non-pandemic situations, and many other resources. I enjoy your writing, and it mostly parallels broadly accepted historical content except an earlier point I made to your LTE. But not so this latest repeated suggestion of correctly restating Mr. Foster’s statuary context. You don’t expressly say you agree, but seem to imply such by not otherwise indicating it diverges from your own research. I am also curious why you have decided that people with opposing positions “have no knowledge” of our County history. Sometimes it seems just the opposite…
Rev Julia Hart says
Excuse me! I am a resident of Talbot County. I am 70 years old. NOT a millennial. My family (Kemp) has been in Talbot County since 1672. Wade’s point, home of Thomas Kemp, builder of Clipper Ships, and the famous Pride of Baltimore, was a working plantation. There were slaves who worked the land. NO I AM NOT proud of that. Yes, proud of Kemp’s clipper ships which helped win the war of 1812. The Pride too over 30 British “prizes” in that war. We sure don’t make a constant “to do” over The War of 1812, or The Revolutionary War; what about The Spanish American War? The point is made. I also refer the writer and reader to my editorial letter in the Star Democrat Friday July 10. “NO MORE.”
Glenn Baker says
Lynn makes a number of strong points here without the emotions often exhibited by the cancel culture most recently brought to this subject. She has done the research and taken the time to understand why this was created by Talbot Citizens. Most inanimate objects will not cause any pain to anyone unless they have a mental health issue which should be addressed by professionals. It’s time to move on to other worthy subjects. Please save the Talbot Boys. Hoping the Council is listening .
Pamela R Getson says
My goodness, Mr. Baker, you have outdone even some of your earlier comments. This is rather unnecessarily insulting to many people. The suggestion for professional attention could probably be better directed.
Lynn’s a good writer, albeit we do not agree on content. And let’s save the Talbot Boys statuary—–but elsewhere.
Suzanne Todd says
I am offended by the Confederate flag and the Nazi flag and other symbols of racism. I don’t think that means that I have mental health issues that should be addressed by professionals.
LeRoy wilkison says
A very informative letter. This should be read and digested by anyone interested in the issue.. i hope the Council doesn’t do anything stupid. Coolet heads need to prevail!
Pamela R Getson says
It seemed there would be no need, nor point, to write more on this topic, but I was certainly wrong when viewing comments to this article submitted earlier tonight. Some people are obviously deeply offended. And before reading further, and regardless it would seem ridiculous to provide such bona fides to our recent statue-supporters and bold accusers of others as variously mentally deranged, woke, mean-spirited or emotional, not from ‘here’, less knowledgeable, uneducated or informed or a non-user of libraries and resources, I am a resident, not a millenial, not given easily to emotion nor to accept simple opinions, and am a well-educated researcher—but best of all —formally trained to both design and evaluate “research”. This LTE, with material repeated by the author in a StarDem article in 2015 at even greater length, and then presented in toto again in public comment at the June 23 Council meeting, and now, repeated yet again nearly verbatim of the other two (!), has given me precisely the cause to evaluate it as being referred to as “well-researched”. I was totally surprised by what I found. But very glad to have been presented the reference.
Very similarly to our statue’s history, “the story of the (Confederate) monuments is even stranger than many people realize. Few if any of the monuments went through any of the approval procedures that we now commonly apply to public art. Typically, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which claimed to represent local community sentiment (whether they did or did not), funded, erected, and dedicated the monuments. As a consequence, contemporaries, especially African Americans, who objected to the erection of monuments, had no realistic opportunity to voice their opposition. Most Confederate monuments were, in short, the result of private groups colonizing public space. W.F Brundage (2017)
I have done as Ms. Mielke and Mr. Callahan suggest, and have used their own resources to better understand the romanticized creation story and purpose of the Talbot Boys statuary. It is still unclear and unsubstantiated who decided the boy was similar to the one in Longfellows’ Excelsior poem, and Foster mentions folklore about it in general, but it is far clearer what was happening otherwise.
More surprising was Ms. Mielke’s way of describing what Mr. Foster actually wrote.
In more vernacular terms, Foster described that the Confederate veteran groups of Talbot seemed to wake up 25 years after the Talbot Union veteran groups erected a statue to their troops in Gettysburg and suddenly decided they needed to do something on the 50th year to match the Union re-commemoration being done in Gettysburg. They raced to get monies and had unilateral support from the wholly Democrat (Southern sympathizers) controlling Talbot county Commission to erect their statue ASAP on the Talbot courthouse steps, (albeit only enough for the base at that moment–done “quietly and nearly overnight”) and block any similar attempt of the Union two years later to erect one of their own on the same site. The petition to do so was placed in permanent “limbo” by the Commission and one was never erected for that primary reason.
There is so much more in Mr. Foster’s fabulous account of the entire situation…please DO read it for yourselves. The era that is described even more emphasizes the denigrating circumstances of the time and reasons for the statue’s erection, and now why it should be removed in its entirety, for some version of reverence if desired, and placed elsewhere. *https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=3568735
And a final note in response to an idea posed by Ms. Price to try an ad hoc “poll” of willing voters exiting an in-person voting site in November. As I have also previously commented, this would be a worthless exercise. An accurately conducted poll is not a simple thing to do correctly, and those proposing support for the technique (at least as mentioned during the June 23rd meeting and referred to by Ms. Mielke) need to be better informed of the problem of convenience sampling, a method breaking every measurement rule of parameter estimation.
More to the point: it is a wholly indefensible method, leading to wholly indefensible results.
Julia Harrison Bell says
Thank you for this history lesson I am a talbot county resident most of my 79 years lived here in Easton I may have relatives names on the statue I’m not sure I do believe it should be left where it is because it’s our history what is happening in our country now is not good for any one who knows our history good and bad the civil war happened and these young boys made a choice they are our past everyone needs to learn to accept and move on
Charlie Bohn says
Well said. Lets let the Talbot County voters decide in November.
Stephen Schaare says
Of course.
Doug Jurrius says
Change her name to “Karen” and this is perfect! “Cooler, more knowledgeable, and dispassionate heads…..” ? It very much feels like she is patting us on the head and saying “go out and play and let the grownups decide”. What rubbish. Cooler heads did not start the American Revolution. A dispassionate head (Martin Luther King Jr.) did not say “To ignore evil is to become accomplice to it”. The ONLY appropriate reaction to the Talbot Boys sitting in a place of honor, in the place that states “we are a nation that believes in equal justice and the rule of law” is one of pure, visceral, unmitigated disgust! And while I am a Talbot County resident, such a reaction should not, can not, and is not, limited to only those who live here. I would like to think standing up to injustice and open displays of racial hatred is a national obsession, and is part of the true American character. We have fought wars over injustice. During the civil rights movement of the 50’s & 60’s it took a national effort to make substantive changes in the separate but equal states.
So much of this editorial is drivel. Who cares that the Talbot Boys “may” have been inspired by the poem excelsior? The Nazis quoted biblical scripture in their justification for killing jews. It did not make the murders legitimate. And to somehow credit the Talbot Boys statue as having a positive role in the Frederick Douglass statue is obscene. Akin to crediting the rapist for helping women take self defense courses. Perhaps Lynn Mielke should take her own advice and let her betters decide the fate of the Talbot Boys.
Eva Abdullahi says
The Talbot Boys statue should remain. It serves as a historical record of where we were during those days when Americans fought brother against brother for a lost cause. It reminds us that our time on earth is precious and measured by our deeds. We can erase history, if we like, but why hide our shame and risk seeing it resurrected again under a new name.