Leslie Amsterdam
A commemorative plaque at the gravesite of Confederate soldiers in a city cemetery has been removed, by order of the mayor. In a statement released Thursday morning, Soglin says, “There should be no place in our country for bigotry, hatred, or violence against those who seek to unite our communities and our country.”
“The Civil War was an act of insurrection and treason and a defense of the deplorable practice of slavery. The monuments in question were connected to that action and we do not need them on City property,” Soglin writes. “That is why I instructed Forest Hill Cemetery staff to remove a Confederate’s rest commemorative memorial. There is a larger monument, which has not garnered as much attention, which will also be removed.”
The mayor’s announcement came just hours after some residents and Common Council alders began calling for the removal of the plaque commemorating the graves of more than 100 Confederate soldiers who died while imprisoned at Camp Randall. The plaque calls the soldiers “unsung heroes” and “valiant Confederate soldiers.”
The plaque was installed in 1981, although its out-of-the-way location meant that few Madisonians noticed its existence. The Confederate Rest is the northernmost cemetery for Confederate soldiers in the country. The marker recently gained attention as Southern cities have been taking down statues honoring Confederate leaders — and meeting resistance from white supremacist groups, neo-Nazis and President Donald Trump, who on Thursday tweeted that he was “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.”
Soglin noted the connection to the national controversy in his statement. “In Madison, we join our brothers and sisters around the country to prove that we as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile, and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves.”
On Wednesday evening, Isthmus reported on the calls to remove plaque. But the marker had already been quietly removed by the time the article was posted. Parks Superintendent Eric Knepp says the directive was given by the mayor on Wednesday and by 2:30 p.m., the monument was gone.
The mayor has also ordered a larger stone honoring the soldiers to be removed, although city workers have not yet taken it down. That stone lists the names the fallen rebel soldiers and states “Erected in loving memory by United Daughters of the Confederacy to Alice Whiting Waterman and her boys.” Waterman — referred to as a “gracious Southern lady” on the smaller monument — cared for the site for 30 years.
"For some of those soldiers, the only place their name is listed is on that [larger] monument," Soglin says. "So we will be replacing that marker with something more appropriate so those names will not be lost. There's a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it."
Knepp says “There’s no timeline,” for removal of that marker. “Staff will have to evaluate options to do that work,” Knepp adds. “We'll store [the monuments] and await policy-maker direction.”
Editor's note: This article was updated to note that Mayor Paul Soglin plans to replace the large monument at Confederate Rest with another that includes the names of the soldiers.
