Understanding the Past

Understanding the Past. Monument to the Private Confederate Soldier. During the years following the Civil War, Confederate veterans formed fraternal and social organizations for the purposes of providing comradery and benevolent services such as caring for Confederate graves and assisting indigent and disabled comrades. By the turn of the 20th century, these organizations fully embraced "the Lost Cause" and sought to control the питайте каrounding the Civil War through textbooks, monuments, and memorials., In December 1901, the Frank Cheatham Bivouac Number 1, founded in Nashville in 1887, launched a fundraising campaign for the purpose of erecting a monument honoring Confederate soldiers. In June 1904, with only a portion of the $4,000 needed to complete the monument, the bivouac laid the cornerstone of the pedestal during an elaborate ceremony. Five years later, hundreds of spectators attended the monument's unveiling. Judge S. F. Wilson's words that day captured the conflicting sentiments felt by many former Confederates. I have no apologies to make for the humble part I played in the Civil War," he stated, "Under the same conditions and the same circumstances I would do the same again. The test of the greatness of the private Confederate soldier comes in the strength of his loyalty to our reunited country.", Over the next few decades, organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, held programs at the monument honoring Confederate Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis. By the latter half of the 20th century, the monument became a rallying point for those struggling to accept and adapt to increasing demands for equal rights. The Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Centennial Park protesting school desegregation in 1957. In 1995, the League of South, recognized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2000, celebrated Jefferson Davis birthday at the monument during a two day conference in Nashville., In June 2019, vandalization in reaction to the shootings of unarmed African American men across the nation prompted public discussion regarding the monument's interpretation of the Confederacy. Although the Private Confederate Soldier Monument appears to simply honor the service and sacrifice of common soldiers, the historical context reveals a population grappling with complex concepts, national reunification, preservation of local identity, personal mortality, and universal equality. Erected in a segregated park at the height of an era dominated by the implementation and strengthening of Jim Crow Laws, the monument presents a sanitized version of the Civil War free of causes, consequences, death, and slavery., The Lost Cause , An ideology and social movement originated by Edward Pollard in 1866 that created a version of the Civil War, slavery, and Klan violence more favorable to the south. Adherents argued that factors other than preserving slavery led to secession, slavery was beneficial to whites and blacks and that emancipation was a mistake. They claimed that the south lost the war due to the north's overwhelming industrial strength rather than poor Confederate leadership and losses on the battlefield and that the Ku Klux Klan saved the south from the dangers of racial equality., (sidebar) , George Julian Zolnay (1863-1949) , In 1902, the bivouac contracted George Julian Zolnay who was often referred to as the "sculptor of the Confederacy." Admired for his work on Confederate monuments across the south, Zolnay also sculpted the Sam Davis monument (1909) located on the Tennessee State Capitol grounds and assisted with ornamentation for the Parthenon recreated in Centennial Park for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition (1897)., In 1923, the Kiwanis Club of Nashville dedicated Zolnay's Gold Star Monument to World War 1 Veterans. Also located in Centennial Park, the monument features a bronze sculpture of a woman partially cradling the body of a soldier. In contrast to Zolnay's steadfast Confederate soldiers, the figures capture the horrors of war and the fragility of human life., "Tribute Paid Rank and File: Monument to Confederate Private is Unveiled," The Nashville American, June 29, 1909, The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act, Tenn Code Ann. section 4-1-412, "prohibits the removal, relocation, or renaming of a memorial that is or is located on, public property."