Talk:Confederate monuments and memorials/Archive 14

Monument in Kincardine, ON, Canada
Should this monument be included on this page?

Feel free to use this website to enter it.

Thanks for closeup Magnolia677, TroarKitchener

Confederate Monument in Kincardine, Canada — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.107.159.162 (talk) 23:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a closeup of it here. Magnolia677 (talk) 00:01, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Edit has been added. Dr. Solomon Secord was nearly lynched in Georgia for his abolitionist views, but did serve as a non-combatant surgeon for the CSA. He moved to Canada after the war and became a community leader. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:34, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Random text re: Vandalism
Currently, there's a random subsection near the top called "Vandalism" which says "As of June 19, over 12 Confederate monuments had been vandalized in 2019, usually with paint." This seems completely random and without any helpful context. Remove? --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:47, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It was added here last July. I don't think it benefits the article, and should be removed. Magnolia677 (talk) 21:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

News reports of removal plans
Several recent additions include details of plans to remove various monuments. Extensive details about individual monuments and plans to remove them seems WP:NOTNEWS, and out of scope of this article. Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials may be a better place for these discussions. The input of others is appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 16:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Given the extensive news coverage that these efforts have garnered, I propose that removal efforts can be discussed, but the explanations should be kept very brief—preferably one or two sentences focusing on the year that removal was proposed or approved, who proposed or approved it, and current status of the effort. If the reader wants more information, they can refer to the other articles. Carguychris (talk) 16:41, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * What happens on this article with some frequency is the pronunciation by some politician that a particular monument is to be removed, followed by the court challenge by those not wanting the monument removed. This back-and-forth amounts to little more than news, and fills the article with out-of-scope information.  This is a list of monuments, not a list of news reports about the future of those monuments. Magnolia677 (talk) 18:06, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that the discussions of removals should be brief. Also, once a monument is removed in real life, its component on this list should be removed, and transferred (with slightly different language) to Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials ‎. Normal Op (talk) 23:32, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , yes and no. They are coming down right now. Groups like UDC are buying them to put in "museums", but they are being removed form the public square by municipal authorities of both parties. Guy (help!) 13:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * "Coming down right now" is not the same as "I propose this monument be removed", followed by split votes on council and protracted court challenges. With so many statements promising the removal of particular monuments, the article will soon be unbalanced by speculation and news articles. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:14, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * We're having that problem over at List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests. The talk page was littered with new petitions for this and that to come down. It was up to 96 entries on the Talk page yesterday. I finally threw down the gauntlet and said "No more petitions!" If the city or other official jurisdiction had made a decision, then fine. But if some citizen's group had started a petition, we didn't want to know about it. Yes... litter. Normal Op (talk) 15:32, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that discussing mere petitions will needless clutter this page and violate WP:NOTNEWS in most cases. Allow me to amend my earlier proposal: in general, removal should only be discussed after it has been formally approved by a governing body, property owner, museum curator, etc. that ostensibly has proper legal authority to remove the monument. If these actions are later contested or blocked by another governing body, this can also be discussed, but briefly. Carguychris (talk) 17:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Need help to trim this list from "inclusion creep"
Apparently this list was predominantly created from the Southern Poverty Law Center publication from 2016 and then grew like a weed from there. The original SPLC document (the 2016 PDF file]) had several notations explaining what was, and was not, included in their survey and count. They excluded monuments that were for particular dead persons (like in cemeteries with people's names on them) and markers about battlefields. The list was originally intended to highlight only those items that were placed after the loss of the Confederacy in the Civil War which were fully and purposely intended to continue to honor the Confederacy or Confederate/Southern values. See Lost Cause of the Confederacy for a simple explanation of this phenomena and how it spawned all of these monuments.

This list-article has grown all out of proportion, assisted by a lack of clear list inclusion criteria in the lede (which I remedied), to now include (incorrectly) any and all things Civil War, southern, and all cemetery markers everywhere. This is NOT what the original list was about, nor the intention/purpose of the list. After spending about a week working in this list-article, it has become clear to me that this page was created by wiki editors to itemize Confederate-honoring memorials so that something could be done about removing the monuments in real life. Once removed in real life, then those items would get moved over to the sister-article Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials — the list-article would shrink while the removals-article would grow.

I need someone (or several someones) willing to go state by state and evaluate which items need to come off the list because they crept on in and were never part of the inclusion criteria.

The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps a database online that they try to keep up to date. It can be downloaded through this page. Please note that the database is a very large spreadsheet and it includes both current ("Live") and removed items. If anyone wants to work on this project and needs a shortened version of the list for a particular state, I'll be happy to extract the information for you so that you can view it in simple format.

— Normal Op (talk) 03:13, 26 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Actually the article was started in 2010 and predates the SPLC report. It did not use the same criteria as the SPLC report (to exclude largely historical items) and was then analogous to the current List of Union Civil War monuments and memorials, including the monuments at Militray Parks such as Gettysburg National Military Park for example. After the SPLC report, editors had a wealth of material to add to the article by mining the SPLC data and did so. As a result the article grew rapidly. If those historical monuments are removed, where do we put them so they don;t get lost in order to continue having an analogue to the List of Union Civil War monuments and memorials? Rename this list to "List of Confederate monuments to white supremacist mythology" or similar? Mojoworker (talk) 05:57, 27 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. We just need CLEAR inclusion criteria in the lede. It wasn't very clear. And none of the break-out pages (Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, NC, SC, etc.) had ANY inclusion criteria. I made a short summary of the inclusion criteria from this page and pasted into each one of the break-out pages. Normal Op (talk) 06:02, 27 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Interesting. I took a quick look at the Union page. It's pretty straight forward, and definitely not as long as the Confederate list. I guess there was no one trying to push a Union agenda like the southerners pushed the Lost Cause monument-circus. And no one is trying to get Union monuments removed, so the Union article isn't growing exponentially with commentary about this or that news story about attempts to remove monuments. Now that everyone has been trying to identify Confed monuments in order to target them for removal, everything even remotely Civil War with a Confederate bent is getting tagged as a Confed monument., do you have any other thoughts about this article, its size, its criteria, what it maybe should be, should we tweak it, or leave it alone? Any tips would be helpful. Normal Op (talk) 06:14, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe a WP:CFORK of the historical content (including those recently deleted in error) out to a new article (possibly renaming the current article so the current name could be used for the new article). That might be the easiest solution to the largely historical vs. white supremacist items. Then inclusion criteria could be better defined. I'm unsure about possible article names however. Hopefully the monuments to white supremacy will eventually all be moved to the "removed monuments" article and the current article will wither away. Mojoworker (talk) 05:32, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Historical markers
Are state historical markers such as the ones in Indiana and Ohio following the JH Morgan raid really to be considered Confederate monuments/memorials? I could understand if they had been erected by the SCV or UDC, but this seems overreaching, particularly considering the length of the article. Dubyavee (talk) 20:30, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I think they don't belong and wouldn't add one myself to the article. Yesterday someone added a few in Kentucky and I just found citations about them to augment the information, but didn't want to bring up the topic of inclusion or exclusion. But I'd vote like you; if it is a historical marker with information about the Civil War in its historical context and not glorifying or lionizing the Confederacy or a Confederate "hero", then I think they don't belong on this page. Supporting this position is that the Southern Poverty Law Center also excludes from their list historical markers and battleground markers. Normal Op (talk) 03:06, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I added the historical markers, and you both make a good point. Unless other editors argue for inclusion, I will remove them in a few days. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:21, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * This article started out with historical markers included (see previous section) long before the SPLC report was published. If those are being removed, they should be going into another article that is complementary to List of Union Civil War monuments and memorials. Mojoworker (talk) 06:36, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
 * This is a list. Lists have inclusion criteria. This list starts out with the two sentences: "This is a list of Confederate monuments and memorials that were established as public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public works." Now I draw your attention to the four Kentucky markers which someone added last week and I made a footnote with the text of the marker (with citation). These are (as of today) enumerated in the Notes section as d through g. These are clearly not monuments in favor of the Confederacy. They are geographical markers showing the route of Morgan's Raid which ran from Tennessee, through Kentucky, up into Indiana, then Ohio. They are Civil War battle historical storybooks at roadside. Take marker #689 for example, I think it exists because it was a release of Union prisoners that took place (no battle, just passed by here); how is that a Confederate memorial? Almost all Civil War battle records are going to involve both Union and CSA. These do NOT fit the inclusion criteria as it is currently stated at the top of the article. It is not THAT there is a marker, it is what is ON the marker. Many of the items in the list called "marker" do not have the text written in the article so you cannot evaluate them for inclusion or exclusion; I think the reason we have relied so heavily on SPLC's lists is because they have evaluated the marker content. SPLC does have some markers on their list; just not the recent additions to this wiki list. Either we fix the inclusion criteria (clarify it), or these things should be removed from the list. Normal Op (talk) 15:58, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with your assessment of the marker about releasing Union prisoners and other of that ilk. What I don't necessarily agree with is your assertion "if it is a historical marker with information about the Civil War in its historical context and not glorifying or lionizing the Confederacy or a Confederate "hero", then I think they don't belong on this page." How would you categorize High Water Mark of the Rebellion Monument? Or the monuments at Vicksburg listed at List of Confederate monuments and memorials in Mississippi, and other such battlefield monuments? Note the Gettysburg Battlefield has been listed in this article almost from its inception. Mojoworker (talk) 22:30, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not a historian nor even a Civil War buff, so I spent the evening reading (and updating) some of the Gettysburg stuff starting with High Water Mark of the Rebellion Monument so I could even begin to answer your question. I took a brief look at the Vicksburg one. I'm not sure what you're looking for or asking about. Yours seem like historic battlegrounds, a large area, where they have placed multiple monuments and statuary-markers to denote things related to a battle. No doubt the reenacters have play dates on these sorts of grounds. (I wouldn't personally know.) My commentary about "markers" was about what I know about... the historic INFORMATIONAL markers throughout Kentucky (click here to see sample images from wikimedia commons), usually placed at roadside for tourists, that mention so-and-so came by here on his way to somewhere-else. These are informational markers. In our discussion, I am referring to the Civil War related markers, historical markers, but they do not memorialize either side of the Civil War. How such markers appear in other states, I cannot say because I do not know. If you'd like to see a sampling of the text of Kentucky Historical Markers (no images), go here. As a sample, type "Morgan's Raid" in the search bar. You'll find like a hundred entries, scattered all across the state, some mentioning where Morgan was losing or failed in some task, but also where he stole cattle or burned bridges. It's like a storybook over hundreds of miles! (And I think Morgan came more than once into Kentucky.) These markers certainly don't rate a mention on this page. If they do, then it would be easier to say "hundreds of roadside markers, see here" and point to the Kentucky Historical Society's "Historical marker database search". Perhaps the problem is the ambiguous use of the word "marker". The original poster of this thread was referring to Morgan's Raid. If you go to that article, you'll see the path Morgan's Raiders took to go through several states. Sure, there were battles along the way, but most of his actions were "raiding". One thousand miles and four states in six weeks. Normal Op (talk) 06:59, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Indiana: It looks like Indiana has some similar signs. (search tool, a sample)
 * Ohio: Ohio's signs are more aptly named "interpretive signs and specialized directional signs" rather than "markers". "The 557-mile John Hunt Morgan Heritage Trail of Ohio consists of fifty-six interpretive signs and more than 600 specialized directional signs. The interpretive signs present the historical information and stories about Morgan’s Indiana-Ohio Raid as it pertains to the location of each sign.", Hamilton County samples, Carroll County samples Normal Op (talk) 17:58, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Duplicates - United Confederate Veterans Memorial & White's Ferry
The United Confederate Veterans Memorial and White's Ferry monuments are in both List of Confederate monuments and memorials and Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. They shouldn't be in both. I know one is probably still rubble on the ground and may not have yet been completely removed. Let's keep an eye for news on it. Once it is fully removed in real life, it should be removed from this article. But at no point should we have items in both articles at the same time.

Also, I know that while a monument is still standing and is in the List article, it will sometimes contain a lot of content about attempts to remove it. However, once it goes to the Removal article, it should be trimmed down to a simple entry with perhaps a mention of when/how it was removed. Previous attempts become irrelevant once it is gone. Both articles are "beyond simply bloated" and are larger than Wikipedia's size guidelines for an article (without splitting it).

— Normal Op (talk) 02:45, 8 July 2020 (UTC)


 * As time permits I'm working on this sort of problems, but help appreciated. deisenbe (talk) 11:41, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

"Removal" vs. "Vandalism"
I submit that the "removal" section should be limited to removal by lawful authorities. Mob destruction of a monument should be categorized either as "vandalism" or given a separate category. I'm not aware of instances where a mob actually removed the monument it destroyed. John2510 (talk) 13:54, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The definition of "remove" appears to include "get rid of; do away with; put an end to". For example, we remove a stain from a garment but that doesn't mean we move the stain to a new place. So the word seems to cover both legally moving statues and illegally destroying them. Mobi Ditch (talk) 22:02, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree with the distinction between lawful removal and vandalism. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:48, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Another simple solution would be to just say both: "removed or vandalized". For this article, it seems like the main issue is that they aren't there any more. Mobi Ditch (talk) 09:48, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Monuments and memorials of individuals associated with the CSA, but who may not merit inclusion
I recently created the page Sidney Lanier Monument and tagged it under Category:Confederate States of America monuments and memorials in Georgia. While Lanier was a private in the CSA, his connection to the CSA is much less notable than that of, say, Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson, and as such the classification of this, and other similar monuments to individuals not notably related to the CSA, is questionable at best. The lead for this article reads, "The following is a list of Confederate monuments and memorials that were established as public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War." [emphasis added], but I think maybe some sort of qualifier should be added to distinguish between monuments that are explicitly Confederate monuments and monuments of Confederate soldiers that have no relation to the Civil War, such as the Statue of John Stith Pemberton, which depicts a former Confederate officer, but has almost no relation to the Civil War and to nearly everyone would not be considered a Confederate monument or memorial. JJonahJackalope (talk) 17:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Renamed places, etc.?
Should we include places, roads, parks, etc. that have be renamed if they were formerly named for Confederate personages? For example, Kusilvak Census Area, Alaska was named for Wade Hampton III until 2015. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 15:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Belle Boyd
Hi-an item about Belle Boyd was removed from the Wisconsin section of this article. Belle Boyd was a Confederate spy during the American Civil War. She was on a lecture tour in the United States when she died suddenly while in Kilbourne City, Wisconsin (now Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin). There was coverage about her death and the Wisconsin Historical Society had some articles about Belle Boyd. I restored the item in the article and it is not trivia. There was coverage about her death and the gravestone being put up and dedicated. Thank You-RFD (talk) 18:30, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Peace Monument
I removed the following entry from the list:


 * Peace Monument, also known as the Naval Monument or Civil War Sailors Monument, stands on the grounds of the United States Capitol in Peace Circle at First Street, N.W., and Pennsylvania Avenue. Erected in 1877–1878 to commemorate the naval deaths at sea during the Civil War.

The Peace Monument's inscription says, "In memory of the officers, seamen and marines of the United States Navy who fell in defence of the Union and liberty of their country, 1861–1865." That's a monument to the Union, not to the Confederacy. It's not even a monument to the memory of sailors on both sides of the war; it's only for the U.S. Navy, not the Confederate States Navy. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:37, 14 November 2022 (UTC)