WATCH: Army crews resume removing Confederate statue from Arlington National Cemetery
ARLINGTON, Va. (DC News Now) — A day after a court ruled that an Arlington memorial could be removed, Army crews brought the statue down.
Controversy had surrounded a memorial to Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The Army had started work to remove the memorial on Monday when a federal judge issued an order pausing the removal, the Associated Press reported.
A group called Defend Arlington had filed a lawsuit in federal court in Alexandria to seek the restraining order, stating in the lawsuit that “the Army, which runs the cemetery, of violating regulations in seeking a hasty removal of the memorial,” according to the Associated Press.
The cemetery stated Friday that Congress had required the removal.
On Tuesday, a court ruled that the Army would immediately resume progress in taking the statue down.
Video and pictures from the Army Wednesday showed crews bringing down the memorial, which was first put up in 1914.
Work continues on the removal of the Confederate Memorial in Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., Dec. 20, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery / released) Work continues on the removal of the Confederate Memorial in Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., Dec. 20, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery / released) Work continues on the removal of the Confederate Memorial in Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., Dec. 20, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery / released) Work continues on the removal of the Confederate Memorial in Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., Dec. 20, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery / released)
The Arlington National Cemetery’s website said that the memorial offered “a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”
Standing on a 32-foot-tall pedestal, a bronze, classical female figure, crowned with olive leaves, represents the American South. She holds a laurel wreath, a plow stock and a pruning hook, with a Biblical inscription at her feet: “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.” The statue stands on a pedestal with four cinerary urns, one for each year of the war, and is supported by a frieze with 14 shields, one for each of the 11 Confederate states and the border states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. Thirty-two life-sized figures depict mythical gods alongside Southern soldiers and civilians.
Description of the statue from the Arlington National Cemetery’s website
The website said that two of the figures were of enslaved African American individuals — a woman holding a white officer’s baby and a man following a slaveowner to war.
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