Boarded-up memorial to American traitors.
A memorial to the 13 Confederate soldiers who died while held on Georges Island - out of some 1,000 kept prisoner there - is now covered with wooden boards as the Baker administration determines if and how they can just get rid of the thing.
The state can't simply remove the marker - placed there in 1963 by the now defunct Boston chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy - because Georges Island is considered a "national historic landmark" due to its role in US military history, from early coastal defense to housing all those Confederate soldiers, officers and even politicians during the Civil War.
When WGBH took a look at the only Confederate memorial in Massachusetts in June, a spokesperson for the governor said he'd rather the thing be gone, because it's hardly something that would "support liberty and equality for the people of Massachusetts."
Before it was boxed up, visitors to the island could see a relatively anodyne memorial that listed the names of the dead - but one with the Confederate seal and motto - the Latin for "With God as our defender."
As with other chapters, the Boston chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy did its part to drum up the legend of the Lost Cause, of a noble band of freedom fighters set upon by evil Northerners, rather than the South being a construct aimed at enslaving millions and starting a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
In 1927, for example, the Globe reported on the chapter's new president, Mrs. Cecil B. Taylor (ladies of means back then used only their husband's name), who said
I shall endeavor to serve faithfully and well this organization, and I promise the same degree of devotion which animated those who, 65 years ago, gave lasting evidence of such courage and high purpose that the world still holds in affection the men and women who fought for the "lost cause."
The year before, the chapter erected a flagpole on Deer Island to fly the Confederate flag, over the grave of a Southern naval officer shot while trying to escape Georges Island, according to a Globe account at the time.
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Comments
They aren't a mirror image.
By anon
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 1:41pm
They aren't a mirror image. They betrayed the union to preserve slavery and your Vietnam comparison makes no sense.
Parse that out a little more...
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 2:10pm
Nazi soldiers and the Confederate Army were not "a side of a war I don't agree with," they were enemies of my nation, and, in the latter case, guilty of treason. I don't want memorials to either in my country.
Yes, one can make that case, but nevertheless the American GIs who died in Vietnam were fighting on our side; they were not our enemies as the Nazis and the Confederates were.
There's a very simple bright clear line here: Don't erect monuments to enemy dead on your own soil.
Are the people who voted for
By anon
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 3:22pm
Are the people who voted for Brexit considered guilty of treason against the EU? They probably see themselves as British/English patriots. That's how fans of the Confederacy see themselves.
I think the difference is that over time the USA has changed drastically from being a "federal REPUBLIC" to being a "FEDERAL republic". In the 1700's, states were more sovereign while the federal government had minimal power compared to today.
Of course not
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 5:30pm
Of course not. Now you're just being silly. And the people in the southern states who voted to secede from the union were not being treasonous either. Almost by definition, nothing you can do at the ballot box falls under the definition of treason.
I understand that everyone, (and I mean everyone, even SS guards herding people into gas chambers or ISIS fighters beheading infidel children) thinks they are the good guys fighting for what is right and true and moral.
Why did Constantinople get the works?
By necturus
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 4:31pm
Oceania is at war with Eurasia, and Leningrad is back to St. Petersburg.
You can still find a monument to Benedict Arnold's left boot on the battlefield at Saratoga, though.
While you raise an interesting question,
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 5:31pm
it's really nobody's business but the Turks.
you can. you just can't have
By Katharine
Sun, 06/14/2020 - 9:28pm
you can. you just can't have it on taxpayer-funded land.
Deer Island
By Nate
Tue, 08/15/2017 - 10:08pm
I guess the giant eggs weren't the first vessels of human waste on Deer Island.
Sigh
By BostonDog
Tue, 08/15/2017 - 10:31pm
Noting the soldier's deaths doesn't make one a White Supremacist. For all we know they died fighting a war they themselves didn't understand or particularly support. It's not as if today's troops aren't sent to fight unjust wars for purely political reasons.
Covering the memorial won't make racism or hate go away. Removing it won't excuse the horrors of slavery or America's dirty history. We'll repeat the past if we're unable to learn from it so I'd rather see the memorial left standing but supplemented with the historical context.
Everyone has learned from the
By Kinopio
Tue, 08/15/2017 - 10:54pm
Everyone has learned from the confederate war already except for some of Trumps worst supporters. Those people aren't interested in learning, history or equality.
So to be clear, you want us
By Steve Brady
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 6:30am
So to be clear, you want us to honor those men by assuming they were idiots with no agency?
Not Really
By BostonDog
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 7:17am
To remind current and future generations that normal Americans have given their lives for unjust reasons and our history is full of complex and regretful conflicts. Maybe if people better studied the events which led to the civil war we'll be able resolve future conflicts without the need for more memorials.
Those people weren't
By anon
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 8:30am
Those people weren't Americans. That was kind of the whole point of the war. They were Separatists and didn't consider themselves citizens of the USA.
I sort of get your point, but...
By Neal
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:49am
They were indeed Americans. The Confederacy was something that was completely self-proclaimed, but had absolutely no legal basis to exist, and therefore did not. It was not a legal entity. These were Americans. Americans who took up arms against their own country, but Americans nonetheless.
"Americans who took up arms against their own country"
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 2:12pm
As did Timothy McVeigh.
Timothy McVeigh does not deserve a place of honor either.
That is why we have books and musuems.
By statler
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 8:40am
They do not need nor deserve a place of honor.
Would you be honored to have your name on that stone?
By BostonDog
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:12am
I don't see that particular monument as being honorific, just historical. (Unlike the confederate monuments being removed in the South.) And no, I don't think history should be limited to museums and textbooks.
Did you read the history of the stone?
By statler
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:30am
It was placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy who:
So I am comfortable saying it was put there as a place of honor and thus should be removed.
Does it say any of that on the memorial itself?
By roadman
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 6:27pm
No, it is simply a memorial to the fallen who died at the fort. It's been there for decades, so let's LEAVE IT BE instead of going all paranoid because it's - OMG - Confederate! That is applying common sense to the situation.
Sadly, this is another example of how we as a society are increasingly focused on trivial issues - like removing a MEMORIAL to the fallen - that in the long tern will MAKE NO DIFFERENCE.
Been there for decades
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 7:47pm
So had the institution of slavery.
It also isn't "just a memorial". It is a piece of flagrant propaganda.
Perhaps you should look up what, exactly, was going on in the South in 1963 that led the Daughters of the Confederacy to wander around the country putting up these "monuments" to the "noble cause" of their forefathers.
Something like their need to remind certain people to "keep their place" in the same way that you flip out when teenagers are given any agency.
They fought against an army that was invading their communities
By necturus
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 4:36pm
Memorial Church, in Harvard Yard, was built to commemorate Harvard's war dead. Inside you'll find plaques remembering myriad Harvard alumni who died in the service of their country... including some German alumni who died in the service of theirs.
Memorial Church is not to be confused with Memorial Hall, a dining hall on the other side of Cambridge Street that was built in the 1880's to commemorate Harvard's Civil War dead.
Harvard university is a private institution
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 5:34pm
A private institution can honor whomever it wants, so long as it doesn't do so on my nickel. Someone wants to erect a statute of Adolf Hitler on his own nickel on his own property, bully for him. We the people (through the agency of our government) should not stand in the way of that.
Both contexts?
By Sock_Puppet
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 8:27am
The context of the failed slaver rebellion against the United States in the mid-19th century that lead to the imprisonment and death of those thirteen traitors, as well as the context of the neo-confederate whitewashing of the 20th century that put the blasphemous marker here in Boston?
So wrong
By anon²
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 10:12am
What's with the straw men? Is that what you believe is the reason to remove it?
It's not about ending racism or burying the past. It is about confronting history, specifically the revisionist history that the DOC actively pushed to remove slavery as a cause for the civil war.
These monuments and memorials we're put up for two reasons: To force people of color to recognize that the Confederacy power structure was still in place, hanging over their heads. And to rebrand their treason as the lost cause, to disassociate the Confederacy with everything it stood for in public, at least outside of back rooms. Wink. Nod.
FFS, Robert E Lee said they should not be build and would be seeking they be torn down.
He knew what was up. All you people playing coy do to.
Yes, it's confronting history.
By roadman
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 6:30pm
By REMOVING all traces of the history (in this case, the fallen soldiers, that a particular group has decided they don't happen to agree with.
That is NOT the way to teach people about the past.
Please
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 7:49pm
Read the thread before making these daft comments. Nobody is erasing anything but propaganda here. The museum and educational materials covering the role of the fort as a confederate POW camp are still in evidence and intact.
Throw it in the Ha'Bah
By anon²
Tue, 08/15/2017 - 10:21pm
Nt
Works for me
By LadyKatey
Tue, 08/15/2017 - 11:57pm
Lets leave it like this for a few years until both sides calm down a bit.
Perhaps in the meantime the decedents of the soldiers memorialized could be tracked down and offered a chance to give an opinion on what to do with the monument.
This anti-monument movement is misguided. Its like covering up the footprints behind you while you still keep walking in the same direction. Lets be angry about the actual present day experience of racism. Lets support the people living today, and make the world better for their decedents, instead of trying to erase the past we're embarrassed about.
Nobody's erasing the past
By adamg
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 8:30am
The thing sits behind a visitor center (really a small museum, with artifacts and everything) that explains the context of why these men were on Georges Island - without glorifying them or implying God was on their side.
No need to "put in in a museum" then.
By Smart Arse
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 1:08pm
If it's already at one?
Georges Island isn't the easiest place to reach, by the way. It's not like this statue is on the Common where countless people would walk past it every day and be reminded of what it stands for (whatever that is).
Well then
By anon
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 2:41pm
No need for it to exist - especially when it was placed there as part of a campaign by Confederate children to deify their "values" at a time when those "negros" was getting way to demanding of things like voting and an end to Jim Crow!
Except there aren't two sides
By eekanotloggedin
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 8:32am
Racism is wrong. End of story.
I don't care what the great,
By Kinopio
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:22am
I don't care what the great, great grandkids of racist traitors have to say. If they want to put a monument on their own property then have at it, but people from Boston died fighting their terrible ancestors so they should not be honored on Boston public property.
both sides?
By anon
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:28am
You are pathetic.
Shades of Blue snd Grey
By MrZip
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 12:17am
We run a real risk when we reduce every issue to a dichotomy of good/evil. A visit to Gettysburg will quickly cure anyone of the urge to glorify any aspect of the Civil War. The shear horror of 50,000+ dead Americans in a single battle, under miserable conditions, most of whom were poor, ignorant, conscripted, duped or otherwise not there because they fully understood and supported the political philosophy for which they fought. Clearly, in 2017 we should fully reject and refute the institution of slavery and its beneficiaries in both the South and the North. But we should still find a way to recognize and honor the pawns in the larger politico/economic struggle, both soldier and slave. The men that died at Georges Island, like Gettysburg, were sons and fathers and brothers and husbands and they likely died horrible deaths under terrible, inhumane conditions. It's difficult to ascribe to them the ability to appreciate the larger philosophical and moral issues in the context of mid 19th century America, so lets stop fighting that war, slavery lost. In fact, in some ways, we all lost something from having slavery and from the war to end it.
You cannot and should not
By Kinopio
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:24am
You cannot and should not honor people who have no honor. They fought to enslave people based on the color of their skin. They ripped them from their homes, took away their children, tortured them, raped them and often murdered them. Then they betrayed and attacked the United States. Then they got their ass kicked in a war. You want to honor them?!?
Don't forget that the United States attacked them
By necturus
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 4:43pm
Confederate soldiers were, by and large, poor southern whites who owned no slaves and only wanted to protect their homes and families from an invading army. Yes, slavery was (and remains) evil, but you can't extend the blame for that to every rank-and-file soldier. Slavery was the institution of the great planters, the semi-feudal elite that lorded it over the south. They are the ones to blame, not the poor farmers whose sons made up the bulk of the armies.
Citation please.
By anon
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 5:30pm
Citation please.
Please don't blame the poor for slavery. How ignorant!
Ain't that the way it always goes
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 5:41pm
Elites have always been good at getting the poor slob, for whom they have no respect and with whom they really have no common cause, to take up arms on their behalf.
(sauce)
If I remember correctly, the
By anon
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 12:33am
If I remember correctly, the monument simply states that confederate prisoners of war were held there and 13 confederate of those soldiers died; along with other facts regarding the fort not the civil war. Hardly glorifying the civil war and\or the confederate soldiers.
Why, then, have a memorial
By whyaduck
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:16am
for only the confederate soldiers who died? Or more pointedly, why would one?
In fact, it is signalling out the confederate prisoners who died (or those who committed treason against the Union) and that, in itself, is a form of glorification and is not appropriate.
Because union soldiers didn't
By Omri
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:51am
Because union soldiers didn't die on George's Island?
I think the inscription should have enough context to show that 13 soldiers dying out of 1000 prisoners shows the fort was no Andersonville.
But a plaque to remember that the island was used for the war is perfectly appropriate.
Actually, at least two did
By adamg
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 12:35pm
In fact, they were executed for a particularly odious form of desertion (they'd sign up, get the bonus the government was then paying, desert, go to another state, sign up there, etc.).
Serious question
By Scratchie
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:32am
Can anyone provide another example of a public memorial to enemy prisoners of war?
Lots in MA
By BostonDog
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:38am
Many markers and monuments regarding the British from the revolutionary war, the most famous of which are in Concord, MA.
Markers, not monuments
By anon
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 9:58am
Marking the graves of fallen combatants is different. Very different. If these were grave markers for those 13 soldiers, then that would be a discussion like the one you think you are in, but aren't
This monument was a glorification of hatred, slavery, and white supremacy put up right after the civil rights act passed.
Very different.
Sure
By anon²
Thu, 08/17/2017 - 9:39am
But does it have Georges seal on it and was it put there by British folk claiming they we're just trying to keep the peace and uphold law and order?
Again, the issue isn't a marker of history or the actual history.
The issue is it was put there by the DOC for a very specific campaign to distort, retard, and rewrite history. That's wrong, and we should correct that Injustice.
It's wrong to have propaganda on public land, it's wrong to the Massachusetts sons that died for us, and it's even wrong to the Confederate soldiers that died and are having their own history rewritten for them.
Commemorating POWs? Can you
By Scratchie
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 10:53am
Commemorating POWs? Can you give me an example of what they say?
I was in Johannesburg for
By Denheels
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 12:39am
I was in Johannesburg for work a few years back. I went to a museum the first weekend that I was there. The brochure said, "Apartheid is in a museum where it belongs." I think that's the model to follow.
Have they covered any of the Washington Street signs?
By O-FISH-L
Wed, 08/16/2017 - 12:40am
George Washington, 56 year owner of slaves. Plan?
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