As recorded by John Griep in the Tuesday Spy, the Easton Historic District Commission gave its approval to removing the Talbot Boys statue from the Courthouse grounds. I am disappointed that a commission intended to preserve Easton’s historic character would make that decision.
A very clear and compelling statement of the case for preserving every single Civil War monument is made by one of the most distinguished historians of the Civil War, Gary Gallagher, the John Nau Professor of Civil War History at the University of Virginia. He recounts how he uses Confederate monuments to teach about the Civil War, and he makes the equally important point that Confederate memorials like the Talbot Boys are artifacts that record not only memories about a war fought 160 years ago, but also the points of view of those who put them in place roughly 110 years ago.
Professor Gallagher writes in an article about proposals to remove Confederate monuments from the Gettysburg battlefield: “The presence of Confederate monuments at Gettysburg will upset some visitors, but that is a price worth paying to protect a valuable and instructive memorial landscape.” Later in the same article he writes:
I will acknowledge that some critics have questioned the educational value of monuments. Education cannot reach everyone, they insist, and in the meantime monuments can offend some people—so we should take them down to make everyone feel safe. These arguments are misguided. Education is not just a convenient rationalization in support of retaining some elements of the memorial landscape; it is the only hope for a serious, productive engagement with our past—warts and all. And no education of any value depends on selective erasure of troubling dimensions of America’s story.
History should not be turned into a simplistic morality play juxtaposing good and evil, heroes and villains, and contrived to serve current political goals.
In another paper he writes about how he uses historical monuments as primary sources in teaching history. In it, he debunks every argument that has been made for removing the Talbot Boys monument:
The question of how best to deal with Confederate monuments inspires honest disagreement among well-intentioned, well-informed people, while also eliciting—from both ends of the political spectrum–vitriolic cant that has little to do with monuments, the Confederacy, or the Civil War. I see memorial landscapes as similar in nature and value to literary and graphic sources—all compose part of the historical record and should be interpreted as such. I favor adding text to situate monuments within the full sweep of how Americans have remembered the Civil War. I also support erecting new monuments devoted to previously slighted groups or events. But eliminating monuments is tantamount to destroying records or images, potentially inhibiting a real understanding of our past, warts and all, and obscuring important themes, movements, and eras. I readily concede that elements of the Civil War’s memorial landscape offend some people, which is a useful reminder that history has hard and sometimes unpleasant edges. I will add, lastly, that local communities should have the final say, after an open process of discussion and evaluation such as that followed by Charlottesville with the statue of Lee, about whether to keep monuments in place.
Then Professor Gallagher introduces the difference between “history” and “memory.” I take it that by “history” he means an effort to recreate what actually happened, who did and thought what, and by “memory” the narrative that has been adopted by different groups about the past.
With both students and teachers, I discuss the difference between history and memory and argue that memory often trumps history in shaping how Americans understand the past. … however complicated we think some historical episode might have been, it almost certainly was far more complicated. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to achieving some degree of historical understanding is the strong inclination… to find simple answers or reduce the past to stark black-and-white alternatives.
Following up on his professional opinion that history itself has “themes, movements, and eras,” Professor Gallagher makes the key point that understanding how history was remembered at different points in time is also an important task of the historian. Taken in this light, the Talbot Boys convey not only information about the Civil War – the names of those who fought – but also information about the period when it was erected – the motivations and intentions of those who lived here in the early twentieth Century.
Professor Gallagher then writes that he uses Civil War monuments to point out four very different ways in which Americans have remembered and written about the Civil War (my emphasis below):
Charlottesville’s Confederate … monuments and tablets highlight the Lost Cause, one of four major memory traditions created by the wartime generation. Together with the Union Cause (which celebrated saving the democratic republic fashioned by the founding generation as the war’s most important outcome), the Emancipation Cause (which pronounced killing slavery the most notable result of four years of slaughter), and the Reconciliation Cause (which sought a middle ground celebrating American–as opposed to northern or southern–virtues highlighted during the conflict)…..Charlottesville also provides excellent evidence of the commemorative landscape’s complexity, revealing the danger of flattening out Lost Cause memorialization to fit a single template of intention and impact.
On the latter point, it mattered when monuments went up, who took the lead in creating them, and how they fit into larger trends. A widely held view attributes all Confederate monuments to a white supremacist desire, especially during the Jim Crow era, to intimidate African Americans. I make clear on my tours of Charlottesville that almost everyone who supported erecting the monuments held what we would deem white supremacist racial views—as did almost all white Americans from the 19th or early 20th centuries….
But white supremacy as a sole motivating factor does not convey an adequate understanding of Charlottesville’s memorials.
Professor Gallagher goes on to describe how Charlottesville’s five sites include “two monuments to common soldiers (1893 and 1909), a pair of tablets on the Rotunda at the University of Virginia listing students who died in Confederate service (1906–removed in September 2017), and equestrian statues of “Stonewall” Jackson and Lee (1921, 1924).”
He then comments that “The first three of the five, in substantial measure at least, sought to recognize human loss on a scale unmatched by any other white segment of American society.” He cites the fact that the Confederacy lost about 5% of its population in the war, far surpassing Northern losses, U.S. losses in World War II and even the losses of France, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia in World War I.
The two equestrian statues, he writes “in addition to singling out the most famous Confederate military commanders, also bring into play a powerful national impulse toward reconciliation in the 1920s.”
This is a lesson being taught by a distinguished historian, whose knowledge of Civil War and American society in 19th and early 20th century is not only unsurpassed, but calm and objective. He dismisses the simplistic and historically unfounded accusation that this statue was a product of the Jim Crow era intended to intimidate African Americans. He puts in perspective the Lost Cause memory tradition, as he calls it, as an effort to retain collective identity among a population that had lost not only a war but its social structure. He recognizes monuments to common soldiers as an expression of grief that the South lost a greater percentage of its total population than did any of the major combatants in World War I — a carnage that historians recognize affected every aspect of 20th intellectual and social history, as the Civil War did the South.
Most important, Professor Gallagher teaches that to get to the truth about history, we must grapple with how events were perceived by subsequent generations, both ordinary people and historians. The Talbot Boys is an artifact of the time when it was built, and of historical significance for that reason. It records thoughts about the Civil War that were current in the early 1900s. Just like photographs, oral histories, and family diaries, it is a primary source of information about Talbot County in 1911, a product of its times that tells about its times. It is a record of early 20th century life and thought in Talbot County as well as a memorial to local men. Like it or not, that is history.
Let me try to make Professor Gallagher’s point in debate style. If someone is convinced that white residents of Talbot County in 1910 were all racists, and she also believes the Talbot Boys to be an assertion of white supremacy, should she not want to keep it where it stands to prove the existence of racism in 1910?
Many other points made by Professor Gallagher apply directly to the Talbot Boys. He observed that “it mattered when monuments went up, who took the lead in creating them, and how they fit into larger trends.” The impetus to erect the Talbot Boys memorial came from local veterans, after the few remaining ones returned from the 50th anniversary reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg. Men from Talbot County had fought on both sides in that battle, and the 1st Maryland CSA was decimated by the Union 1st Maryland at Culp’s Hill. Union and Confederate veterans returned from the reunion with a desire to create a memorial while some of them still lived. It was decided to create two monuments, one to commemorate Union soldiers and one to commemorate Confederate. Local organizations raised funds for the memorials and came up short for the Union memorial. That in itself is an interesting piece of evidence about how the Civil War was remembered in Talbot County at the time, and about how completely reconciliation between Confederate and far more numerous Union veterans had been achieved.
The statue atop the pedestal bearing names has been particularly controversial. Its resemblance to other statues erected at the same time led to allegations that it was put in place by outsiders promoting the Lost Cause version of history and Jim Crow practices. In fact, the sponsors of the statue had planned to put in place a statue of Admiral Buchanan, the Talbot County resident who achieved the greatest distinction in the Civil War. Another evidence of Professor Gallagher’s point that recognition of leaders such as Admiral Buchanan among the Talbot Boys serves to “bring into play a powerful national impulse toward reconciliation in the 1920s.”
But there were insufficient funds for a made-to order-statue of the Admiral, and a more generic statue was ordered from the foundry supplying other locations. Thus the boy carries the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia and not the battle colors of the 1st Maryland under which the Talbot Boys actually fought.
But this nuanced and complex story about the memorial itself is being ignored. Instead, its detractors have been doing exactly what Professor Gallagher decries: “flattening out Lost Cause memorialization to fit a single template of intention and impact” and turning history into a “simplistic morality play juxtaposing good and evil, heroes and villains, and contrived to serve current political goals.” I expect better of us.
David Montgomery is the President of Preserve Talbot History.
Henry Herr says
It should be noted that this one professor is in the minority for this opinion among historians. Opinions should be based on facts and writings of many respected historians, not just one.
Reed Fawell 3 says
David Montgomery, thank you for your point of view. Yours is a vitally important perspective. Those who intentionally erase their past, in all its complexity, also erase their (and their children’s) chances for a future worth having, as the errors of the past. now hidden from view, now are allowed to compound over and over again, as the hard earned lessons of the past are never learned. This has been proven time and again.
Keith Alan Watts, Esq. says
“Consider the Source . . . .”
Helen Chappell says
George Bernard Shaw wisely commented that academic inifighting is so bitter because the stakes are so low.
Carol Voyles says
Take some comfort in the fact that we’re making good history by moving this monument to an appropriate location for teaching history.
Alice Marie Gravely says
Perhaps one can accept Confederate monuments on a battlefield to help explain an historic event – but not in front of a court house or any public place. Most Confederate monuments were created during the Jim Crow years as a reminder of white supremacy. Follow the money to see how and where the funding for such projects came about. The sentiments for such structures were not to remind us of history, but rather distort the reasons for a terrible war and maybe to assuage the anguish of loss. We can argue about the causes of that war but one thing is clear – one side was in favor of slavery and that was, is, and will always be immoral. If we are to evolve as a people and as a nation, we must recognize our failures as well as our triumphs. This is a lesson we are still learning today in our divided country.
Donald L Martin says
Even if we were to embrace all of the arguments for the utility of existing civil war monuments for the educational and culture benefits they may provide to contemporary residents and tourists in Talbot County, as Mr. Montgomery suggests, none or them support the specific location of the Talbot Boys monument on the Courthouse lawn. If the monument is capable of delivering the educational benefits ascribed to it, is there no other place in Talbot County where it might do the same?. What educational benefit is bestowed at the Courthouse that couldn’t be provided at another location? Who among those professing the alleged benefits has stepped up to offer or proposed one?
Paul Callahan says
Mr. Montgomery is defending Confederate monuments on the National level which is an impossible position to defend. Obviously some confederate monuments had other than honorable intentions behind their placement. It certainly is proper today to take a close look at each and every confederate monument and cull out those that had other than honorable intentions.
Many Confederate monuments are war memorials only intended to remember the men, the place or the event. What we are concerned with is our one particular monument – The Talbot Boys. The Talbot Boys has been researched in specific detail and information revealed that had never before been published. We know that it’s intent and purpose was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end to the US Civil War and to remember those who fought. It was intended to be displayed with its Union counterpart. All historical research reveals the Talbot Boys is a war memorial to our Talbot ancestors, no other intent has been uncovered. The anti monument group makes the accusation that because it was placed during “the 100 years of Jim Crow” it has the intent of malice. This certainly is a valid reason to further investigate the history of this memorial, but in itself is not evidence.
Mr. Montgomery fails to fully understand the intent and purpose of this memorial. It is not intended to “teach” nor is it a piece of “art”. It is a memorial to our Talbot county veterans who fought for the confederacy.
We now clearly understand, particularly by researching their enlistment dates, why they rose against the national government – the wholesale oppression of basic constitutional liberties by the government against the citizens of a State that had not seceded. Their enlistments rose after the arrest of the Maryland legislature and then went off the cart after the beating and arrest of our Talbot county judge. This spike of enlistments after the beating and arrest of our judge was opposite to the trend of confederate enlistments throughout the rest of the State – showing the impact of this local event on our local citizens.
As was the case during those times, civil war memorials were a bit over the top with the new technology to create bronze statues relatively cheaply. The statue on top the granite is only a flourish and means little to veterans and it would hold little value for the Talbot Boys themselves. Any veteran will tell you, particularly the ones who have seen the horrors of battle, it is the men, their comrades, the ones they suffered with and and saw many perish – they are what is important.
The Preserve Talbot history coalition certainly has shown that there was no intent of malice in the placement of this monument and that the motivation for these men to rise is consistent with American ideals, The Move the Monument coalition has clearly demonstrated that many citizens do not tolerate confederate symbols in public spaces.
Confederate symbols are not tolerated on our military bases, nor can they be displayed by our men in uniform. This is out of basic respect for all. The Talbot Boys is a memorial to the veterans from Talbot county. These men care not about the fancy flourish on top and each and every one would place their “men before the metal”
The Preserve Talbot History coalition failed in their mission because the failed to grasp what truly is important and what is not – they failed to put the men ahead of the metal and they failed to accept the disrespect the confederate flag causes to many. They valued a cheap statue more than the men and the sacrifices they made.
Remove the confederate flag from our courthouse. I do however hope that common sense will prevail with our council to allow the base, with the names of our veterans, be dragged to the side to rest beside Talbot’s other war memorials.
Keith Alan Watts, Esq. says
“Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”
Ernest Lawrence Thayer – 1863-1940
Warren Davis says
Unfortunately, Montgomery’s lengthy piece completely misses the point. Preserving history was never the issue. The issue was the location of the Talbot Boys statue on the steps of the county courthouse. The scholar quoted at great length by Montgomery never said it is appropriate to locate a Confederate monument at the steps of a courthouse where citizens of all races are summoned to face justice. Perhaps Montgomery’s efforts to preserve Talbot history would be better served if he explored the painful history of desegregation of Easton’s schools and public accommodations in the 1950s and 1960’s.