Confederate Monument (Greenville, South Carolina) Explained

34.855°N -82.3967°WThe Confederate Monument (Greenville, South Carolina) is a shaft of granite topped by a marble statue of a soldier—the oldest public sculpture in Greenville—that memorializes the Confederate dead of the American Civil War from Greenville County, South Carolina. The monument is flanked by two period Parrott rifles manufactured at the West Point Foundry.^{[1] [2] [3]}

History

In 1892, following eight years of fund raising by the local Ladies Memorial Association, the $3,500 monument (more than $100,000 in early 21st century dollars) was erected at the intersection of North Main and College Streets with a statue said to have been sculpted by one C. F. Kohlrus of Augusta, Georgia, from photographs of the by-then middle-aged Confederate veteran and Greenville police chief James B. Ligon (1837-1908). The monument was dedicated on September 27, 1892, with ceremonies, speeches, and a grand parade. Railroads provided reduced rates to members of state military companies, who while attending the dedication, fired their weapons and gave the rebel yell. The Columbia State called the monument “one of the handsomest and costliest in the South.”^{[4] [5] [6] [7] [8]} The Greenville Confederate monument well represents the contemporary Southern Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War. One sentence inscribed on the shaft reads: “The world shall yet decide in truth’s clear far off light that the soldiers who wore the grey and died with Lee were in the right.”^{[9] [10]} By 1919, with the coming of the streetcar and the automobile, the monument in the middle of Main Street had become a traffic hazard. Nevertheless, when city council voted to move it, the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and Confederate veterans strenuously objected. On October 11, 1922, after learning that opponents were seeking a restraining order to prohibit the move, members of the city council had the shaft partially dismantled and the statue hidden. Although demolition ceased after a temporary injunction prohibiting the move was served on the mayor, the statue-less remnant of the shaft remained in place on Main Street for almost two years.^{[11] [12]} On June 9, 1924, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the city had the right to determine use of its streets and that removing the monument to a more suitable place would likely increase proper attention to this “sermon in stone.”^[13] The legal precedent led many other South Carolina cities to move Confederate monuments from middle-of-the-street locations to town squares and courthouse lawns.^[14] After some negotiation with veterans and the UDC, city fathers had the Greenville monument and statue re-erected in the newly created "Confederate Plaza" just outside Springwood Cemetery—the park having been formed by moving the cemetery fence. The monument was rededicated on June 19, 1924 along with the cannon balls and two cannons that had stood in front of the shaft on Main Street.^{[15] [16]} In 2017, protests against the Greenville monument followed violence associated with a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that had ostensibly been organized to protest the removal of a Confederate statue from a Charlottesville park.^[17] Greenville Mayor Knox White proposed adding a plaque to the Greenville monument in order to provide historical context; but his suggestion never came to a vote before city council because of the difficulty in composing the text of the plaque.^[18] In 2020, in the wake of nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality, opponents of the Greenville Confederate monument again demanded that the monument be relocated or removed. Mayor Knox White again noted that the South Carolina Heritage Act (2000) forbade removal of war memorials from public property without a two-thirds vote of the state legislature. On August 1, 2020, supporters and opponents held simultaneous rallies at the monument, during which the police made a few arrests.^[19]

Monument Inscriptions

Erected in honor and memory of the Confederate dead of the County and City of Greenville, by the Ladies Memorial Association, September 1892. All lost, but by the graves/ where martyred heroes rest,/ he wins the most who honor saves/Success is not the test. /The world shall yet decide/in truth's clear far off light/ that the soldiers/ who wore the grey and died/with Lee, were in the right.^[20] Come from the four winds, O breath,/and breathe upon these slain/ that they may live.^[21] /Resting at last in that glorious/ land, where the white flag/ of peace is never furled. Nor shall your glory be forgot/while fame her record keeps,/or honor points the hallowed spot/where valor proudly sleeps./ Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight/Nor time's remorseless doom,/can dim one ray of holy light/that gilds your glorious tomb.^[22]

Additional Commemorations at Confederate Plaza

Created especially for the relocation of the Greenville Confederate monument in 1924, the pocket park was carved out of Springwood Cemetery at the northeast corner of the intersection of East Elford and North Main Streets.^[23] Named "Confederate Plaza" (The name "Monument Place" was initially considered), the site was improved with walkways and benches to encourage visitors to contemplate the monument's inscriptions and to provide a setting for the pair of cannons that accompanied the monument as well as "perhaps other features [that would] be added from time to time."^{[24] [25]} By the 1960s, the site was also called "Monument Park" and "Confederate Memorial Park."

The site did become the site of other commemorations, most of which were originally installed elsewhere, including:

• Confederate Armory Plaque: In 1937, the Greenville Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a bronze tablet atop the granite cornerstone of the Confederate armory on Greene Avenue along the railway tracks. The plaque commemorated the manufacturer of weapons for the Confederacy, including a breech-loading carbine invented by George W. Morse. A later owner of the property removed the cornerstone and plaque and moved them to the back of the lot. In the 1950s, the city reinstalled the marker on a pole (without the cornerstone) at Confederate Plaza after a Greenville Piedmont reporter brought it to the attention of the UDC.^[26]
• A Tribute to the Memory of General Robert E. Lee: The Greenville and Fort Sumter Chapters of the UDC dedicated a bronze plaque marking the Dixie Highway (now US Route 25) affixed to a boulder in front of the Greenville County Courthouse in 1935. It features an image in low relief of the Confederate general atop his horse Traveler.^[27] Two thousand people attended the unveiling, where they heard Governor Olin D. Johnston compare the hardships faced by Lee and his soldiers to those faced by Americans during the Great Depression.^[28] The monument was relocated to Confederate Plaza in the early 1960s.^{[29] [30]}
• Kershaw Brigade Marker: This marker recognizes a monument at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, honoring the Kershaw Brigade, a unit of South Carolina soldiers that fought in the Battle of Gettysburg. The marker further recognizes Greenville pharmacist Albert M. Goldstine, who led the group Project Southland to erect the Gettysburg monument in 1970. In 1973, Greenville Mayor Max Heller dedicated the plaque in Confederate Plaza.^{[31] [32]}
• 81st Wildcat Division: Originally erected in a small park next to Greenville's old city hall at the corner of Main and Broad Streets (now demolished), this granite monument recognizes the National Guard soldiers who trained for World War I at Camp Sevier in Greenville. In October 1956, the monument was dedicated at a Greenville reunion of the 81st Wildcat Division^{[33] [34]} and was likely moved when the new city hall was built in the late 1960s.

At the city's request, in 1946, the Greenville Garden Club planted trees and shrubs to "beautify certain areas in the city" including the Monument Park.^[35]

Notes and References

1. Book: Seigler, Robert S.. Confederate Monuments in South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History Press. 2012. 978-1880067451. Columbia, South Carolina. 369–61.
2. Web site: Confederate Memorial. live. March 15, 2021. Greenville Public Art Tour. https://web.archive.org/web/20200810025657/https://citygis.greenvillesc.gov/publicarttour/index.html . 2020-08-10 .
3. Craddock Goins to Henry B. McKoy, June 12, 1972, Confederate Monument file, South Carolina Room, Hughes Library, Greenville, SC. Both the statue and the flanking guns face west.
4. News: December 30, 1923. Confederate Monument Unveiling Was a Great Event of September '92. Greenville News.
5. News: Walker. James. August 6, 1954. Confederate Rifleman on Monument Once Center of a Furious Controversy. Greenville News., 6.
6. News: Walker. James L.. June 6, 1962. Monument Centered Lazy Street; Kidnapping Forced Move. Greenville News.,D-7.
7. Book: Ward, Lucile Parrish Ward. God's Little Acre on Main Street: Springwood Cemetery. privately published. 2003. 7–10.
8. Ligon who served as a sergeant in the 4th Regiment, South Carolina Infantry, was an unusually tall man,"almost six and a half feet." He is buried in Springwood Cemetery.News: Smeltzer. Robert. July 1, 1954. Unanswered Question: Who Stole Rebel Statue?. Greenville Piedmont.
9. News: Connor. Eric. August 12, 2020. There's a deal to move Greenville's Confederate monument, protest organizer claims. Post and Courier Greenville. March 15, 2021.
10. News: Walters. Haley. August 7, 2020. Mayor White: Covid-19, police accountability slow Greenville's Confederate monument plans. Greenville News. March 15, 2021.
11. News: October 12, 1922. Work of Moving Monument Halted by Judge's Order. Greenville News., 2.
12. Walker, "Monument Centered"; Ward, 8-9.
13. Walker,"Confederate Rifleman."
14. Web site: Greenville County Confederate Monument. live. March 15, 2021. HMdb.org (The Historical Marker Database). https://web.archive.org/web/20201018231150/https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=41803 . 2020-10-18 .
15. News: Walker. James. September 20, 1959. Hot Battle Raged Here Over Move. Greenville News.
16. News: July 21, 1924 . "Monument Work to Wait Awhile" . 2 . Greenville News.
17. News: Ellis. Mike. August 26, 2017. Protesters want Greenville's Confederate monument moved. Anderson Independent Mail. March 15, 2021.
18. Walters.
19. Connor, "There's a deal".
20. Two stanzas excerpted from "Sentinel Songs" by Confederate poet and Catholic priest Abram Joseph Ryan (1838-1886). "Sentinel Songs". Similar inscriptions also appear on the Anderson and Abbeville, South Carolina, Confederate monuments.
21. [Book of Ezekiel|Ezekiel]
22. Modified from two stanzas of "Bivouac of the Dead" by Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867). "Bivouac of the Dead".
23. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Greenville, Greenville County, South Carolina, 1920, vol. 1, map 14, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3914gm.g3914gm_g08144196101
24. News: July 11, 1924 . "Monument Soon Be In New Place" . 2 . Greenville News.
25. News: July 23, 1924 . "Plaza to Become Beautiful Spot" . 2 . Greenville News.
26. News: Clinkscales . Bertie H. . August 20, 1961 . "Gun Plant's Arms Aided CSA In War" . 1–D . The Greenville News.
27. News: September 15, 1935 . "Unveiling Is Of Importance" . B-2 . The Greenville News.
28. News: September 21, 1935 . "Is Bond Between North and South Johnston Avers" . 3 . The Greenville News.
29. News: November 15, 1960 . "Downtown Landmarks Identified" . 5 . The Greenville News.
30. News: September 29, 1965 . "Modern Greenville Looks at Its Confederate Past" . 4 . The Greenville News.
31. Web site: Kershaw's Brigade .
32. News: January 23, 1973 . "Confederate Memorial Plaque Be Placed in Greenville Park" . The Greenville News.
33. News: Williams . Billy . October 14, 1956 . "Wildcat Division Unveils Monument" . 1 . The Greenville News.
34. Web site: Fore . Samuel K. . 2016 . "Camp Seiver" . South Carolina Encyclopedia.
35. News: April 9, 1949 . "Garden Club Beautifies Monument Spot" . The Greenville Piedmont.