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Confederate memorial in Capitol Hill cemetery vandalized once again

A monument to Confederate soldiers of the Civil War in the middle of Capitol Hill’s Lake View Cemetery has again been damaged.

The memorial was defaced on July 5 according to an employee at the cemetery who declined to comment any further. The monument has been defaced before. This time. several parts of the 10-ton piece of granite have been smashed, including a portion of the monument’s inscription, an insignia, and a relief of General Robert E. Lee atop a pair of crossed muskets.

The monument, which was erected in 1926, is owned and managed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a national organization representing a collection of local associations that strive to provide support for Confederate veterans, pay tribute to the contributions made by Southern women during the war, and to “collect and preserve the material necessary for a truthful history of the War Between the States.”

The memorial hewn from a “10-ton” block of “Stone Mountain, Georgia” rock was created by the Seattle chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy reportedly with money raised at “Dixie Day” during the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Expo. The group included the actual daughters and wives of Confederate soldiers living in Seattle but the placement in 1926 came during a wave of historical revisionism and romanticizing of the Confederate South. The monument continues to be managed by the national organization representing a collection of local associations that strive to provide support for families of Confederate veterans, pay tribute to the contributions made by Southern women during the war, and to “collect and preserve the material necessary for a truthful history of the War Between the States.”

The memorial has been the subject of much debate. In 2005, parts of it were stripped and stolen. A decade later the memorial was once again targeted by vandals in the wake of a shooting at a black church in Charleston that left nine dead. Last summer, former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray called for its removal.

Lake View is a private cemetery operated by a nonprofit association. Since the memorial belongs to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, it’s that organization’s responsibility to repair it or let it be. The group has not yet replied to our questions about the damage and the monument’s future.

 

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Mark Prange
Mark Prange
5 years ago

They think the Union didn’t have slaveholding in its states? The United States allowed slavery in any states that wanted it, e.g. Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. Even Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation explicitly excepted Federal areas in & around Norfolk and New Orleans.

cwheat01
cwheat01
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark Prange

AND, the emancipation proclamation didn’t stop the White House from having slaves until at least 12 yeaes AFTER the civil war ended… if you hate the Confederate Flag, you also HAVE TO het the United States Flag even MORE…

JohnnyCee
JohnnyCee
5 years ago
Reply to  cwheat01

You don’t know what you’re talking about. Yes, there was slavery in the District of Columbia, but it was abolished on April 16, 1862, by means of The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. The Compensated Emancipation Act was passed by Congress & signed by President Lincoln. PS – I have a Union soldier ancestor who died in North Carolina

Bob Hamik
Bob Hamik
5 years ago
Reply to  cwheat01

Amen it’s about time someone besides myself knows the true. Thank you for speaking out.

D. Goar
D. Goar
5 years ago

First let me say, as the great grandson of a Union veteran of the Civil War, I do believe that monuments to the confederacy and those who fought for it should be retired from public view. That said, however, is it more egregious for southerners to want to honor their ancestors or is it more egregious to desecrate and deface memorials of the dead. It is much easier, of course, to use the hammer instead of the voter referendum but the referendum is in the path of democracy whereas the hammer is the path of anarchy and hatefulness.

Sandi Parker
Sandi Parker
5 years ago
Reply to  D. Goar

“… is it more egregious for southerners to want to honor their ancestors or is it more egregious to desecrate and deface memorials of the dead.”

It’d be my guess … that this U.D.C.eyesore … is not a U.S. national memorial …

Luke 9:60 (DRA)
— And Jesus said to him: Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou, and preach the kingdom of God.

Simon Jester
Simon Jester
5 years ago
Reply to  D. Goar

There is no way to get it removed via voter referendum because it is a private statue on private property. The only way to get rid of it is to convince/intimidate the owners to take it down. As it’s been up for ~100 years, I’d say “intimidate”/”vandalize” is the only correct response here. The racists owners won’t do it, so anonymous freedom lovers will have to do it instead.

kool
kool
5 years ago
Reply to  Simon Jester

“anonymous freedom lovers” would respect the freedom of the private owner to have a monument on their private property. I think you mean criminals will vandalize the monument.

Mark Lynn
Mark Lynn
5 years ago
Reply to  Simon Jester

By “anonymous freedom lovers” you mean ignorant vandals?

Jim
Jim
5 years ago
Reply to  Simon Jester

The United Daughters of The Confederacy is not a racist organization nor is any format of racism allowed within it

Ivy Walker
Ivy Walker
5 years ago

God will take care of these vandals. COWARDS ALL to disgrace the dead whether Union or Confederate is a disgrace I pray the soldiers spirits haunt them cor an Eternity.

Eli
Eli
5 years ago
Reply to  Ivy Walker

Just curious, what leads you to assume that God has adopted your personal perspective around the morality of these activists’ action?

Has he spoken to you about this directly, perchance?

Bernie Cyrus
Bernie Cyrus
5 years ago
Reply to  Eli

Truth is like a loin you can’t hold it back forever.

Simon Jester
Simon Jester
5 years ago
Reply to  Ivy Walker

As the descendant of confederate slave owning whites, I think that their actions were treasonous and all Americans who love their country and the cause of freedom will unite against the representatives of hate that the Confederacy represents. Honoring the Confederacy is honoring treason, slavery and subjugation. I’ll leave that for the neo-nazi scum, no room for that shit in Real America (TM).

Mark Lynn
Mark Lynn
5 years ago
Reply to  Simon Jester

Simon Jester, your ignorance is showing.

yoururbanbanana
yoururbanbanana
5 years ago
Reply to  Ivy Walker

This seems a harsh penalty for smashing a rock, but they say “truth is like a loin.”

Spiffy D
5 years ago

Who says that?

“Truth Loin” is my new indie band name.

caphillguy
caphillguy
5 years ago
Reply to  Ivy Walker

God is dead. So is the confederacy.

Bernie Cyrus
Bernie Cyrus
5 years ago

Very few Northerners went to war seeking or anticipating the destruction of slavery. They fought for Union, and the Emancipation Proclamation was a means to that end: a desperate measure not really freeing any slaves as its purpose was to undermine the South by causing a slave revolt which never happened. What did Lincoln’s speech “the last best, hope of earth” really mean? Lincoln’s plea to Congress was to “colonize” any freed slaves. He sent thousands to Haiti. He did not believe a multiracial society was desirable and, as Ebony Magazine Editor Emeritus Lerone Bennett says, he seemed “terrified” at the prospect of inter-racial marriage. Colonization was what he meant by “the last best hope” for America, as Bennett shows. “In support of the White Dream,” he writes, “Lincoln mobilized the State Department, the Interior Department, the Treasury Department, and the Smithsonian Institution . . . . Lincoln’s ethnic cleansing plan was the official policy of the American government.” Perhaps this is a possible reason why the same government did next to nothing for the ex-slaves after the war. Fact: The day Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation he also signed a contract with Bernard Kock to ship 5000 slaves to Haiti! The Indians he simply killed off.

Bonnie M Aronson
Bonnie M Aronson
5 years ago

You need surveilance!!! Arrest the low-life responsible for this.

Simon Jester
Simon Jester
5 years ago

Arrest yourself. The Confederacy were traitors that should have been hung after the war, not given positions in Congress.

Charles G Woods
Charles G Woods
5 years ago
Reply to  Simon Jester

I fought for this country and gave blood, Can you say that? So , If you had ever been at WAR, You would “RESECPT” the sacarfice,they gave, It was NOT, about “SLAVES” Hate is thought, Kids could give a💩 about it until people like you teach them, But guess what NO one is alive today from eather side,But if you want to be like “ISIS” tear down our history, like it never happened, But be a man and come to my home and destroy my Flag,Please, as for the cowards who did that, The Place needs to be Posted, So when they are Shot and Killed,the law will be on the owner side, I would kill them if the owner ask me to guard it

The South Won't Rise Again
The South Won't Rise Again
5 years ago
Reply to  Simon Jester

You sound more like a Russian Troll with a poor command of English grammar.

Eli
Eli
5 years ago
Reply to  Simon Jester

Exactly. Nobody by the name “Charles G Woods” has ever commented here before, like most of the people posted incogent and inflammatory opinions.

(Google search for site:capitolhillseattle.com “Charles G Woods”)

caphillguy
caphillguy
5 years ago

Go take a nap Bonnie. You’re getting cranky.

CapHillWoman
CapHillWoman
5 years ago
Reply to  caphillguy

That’s a really sexist response caphillguy. Condescending and belittling. Typical male entitlement b.s.

Jon cupo
Jon cupo
5 years ago

I’m a New Yorker an I refuse to let any liberal try an make me be ashamed of who I am there attacking your heritage an our culture just fight on an god bless you

Eli
Eli
5 years ago
Reply to  Jon cupo

Me too! Personally, I live in the Upper West Side.

Most New Yorkers, though, are pretty literate in English.

P.S. How did the Russian Troll army get a link to this post?

Ron
Ron
5 years ago
Reply to  Eli

LOL

Squirebrandy
Squirebrandy
5 years ago

Time to put a stop to this kind of behavior. No one has a right to deface memorials just because they don’t believe or they think they can erase history. Make them pay and then punish them severely. No more excuses.

Sandi Parker
Sandi Parker
5 years ago
Reply to  Squirebrandy

A bunch of special-interest old biddies with money to spend … does not a memorial make.

caphillguy
caphillguy
5 years ago
Reply to  Squirebrandy

If you want to learn about history, read a book. In the meantime, tear down every confederate statue in America. Throw them into the garbage heap of history with the rest of the traitors of the confederacy.

yoururbanbanana
yoururbanbanana
5 years ago

This comments section is from another planet.

caphillguy
caphillguy
5 years ago

It certainly isn’t from Capitol Hill.

Northerner
Northerner
5 years ago

So the memorial is not history Mr. Woods! The people who seceded were a rebellion/terrorist organization that was defeated by the Union. The Civil War was about slavery. Unfortunately the terrorists when brought back into the fold continued through other means to perpetrate slavery in others forms, i.e. share cropping, Jim Crow, Voter suppression, prison complex, war on drugs, mandatory minimums, and the list goes on! Learn a little about the real history of this country and how one the backs of slaves nd immigrants this nation became wealthy!

Kenneth Perry
Kenneth Perry
5 years ago

People need to quit trying to change history. History is meant to be a reminder to us, not to make the same mistakes again. Wake up America, and live and let live.

Ron
Ron
5 years ago
Reply to  Kenneth Perry

Pray tell, how is this Confederate monument a warning about history?

caphillguy
caphillguy
5 years ago
Reply to  Kenneth Perry

Hi Vlad.

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
5 years ago

Isn’t it odd that the most racist, incoherent statements always seem to come from the borderline illiterate posters? About as subtle and nuanced as pro wrestling. Such an odd “coincidence”….. It’s almost like somebody was *deliberately* winding you up, to yank your chain, and get a response.
I wonder….. could it be? Are there *really* this many borderline-illiterate, regular readers of Capitol Hill Seattle? Could Russian troll farms *really* be digging so deep as to invent caricatures of boobs this stupid-sounding, complete with intentional misspellings, to bait people on local forums like this? Have they figured out that nothing gets people quite so wound up as racial subjects? What a “mystery”. Enquiring minds want to know….hmmmm.

bb
bb
5 years ago
Reply to  Jim98122x

My guess is that someone from a neo-confederate social media platform on the internets sent the attack dogs over here when they heard about this. They probably are real people who are still fighting the Civil War and hate carpet bagger yankees.

I doubt even Russian trolls would care enough to waste time on this.

Eli
Eli
5 years ago
Reply to  bb

That makes sense. All the Russians I know speak much better English than these Americans!

Bill Davis
Bill Davis
5 years ago

I really become weary of left wing liberals rewrighting history. The war happened, good men on both sides gave the last full measure for what they believed. No matter blue or grey, they died and why should they not be remembered, not for some political belief that we superior, evolved beings have assigned to them, but for sacrifice and valor in the battlefield. If memorials be removed in the south, why not remove memorials ans statues in the north? The victors have spent the last 155 years ir so justifying the things done to the south during and after the war. Let the dead from both sides rest in peace.

David W. Cardona
David W. Cardona
5 years ago

I am a great, great, great grandson of Confederate Veteran Absolom Dixon. The destruction and removal of these monuments is the Regressive Lefts attempt to rewrite history. It is like erasing the holacaust by destroying any signs or remnants of the Nazi Concentration Camps. The fact of the matter is there was a War between the States over economic, social and cultural reasons. By destroying these monuments we are allowing a small percentage of our citizens to dictate our history. It reminds me of the Taliban blowing up a buddha carved into a mountain side that had stood there for centuries because they found it offensive to Islam. The right of various organizations like the daughters of the Confederacy or the Sons of Confederate veterans to place these monuments in memory of those soldiers who fought for the Confederacy is a violation of their free speech. Destroying these monuments does not change the history of this country. Further, it is a violation of the First Amendment free-speech guarantees.

Ron
Ron
5 years ago

You’re equating concentration camps. To monuments commemorating dead traitors. How dare you.

CapHillNative
CapHillNative
5 years ago
Reply to  Ron

NO MONUMENTS TO DEAD TRAITORS!

caphillguy
caphillguy
5 years ago

Traitors and losers don’t get monuments.

GARY HARPER
GARY HARPER
5 years ago
Reply to  caphillguy

No monument for you then.

Max
Max
5 years ago

I want to say that these postings seem really fishy. All of the most outrageous, either left or right, all have the same type of name frame work. The last names are close to common names, but slightly off, and the first names are either very common or not at all common. In addition, I’ve never seen any of them post here before. Either this is a band of teens that are trying to do an epic troll or there is something more sinister here. I don’t believe most people in this country are so vitriolic when it comes to the dead. Whoever is organizing this troll complain on this board seems to be trying to stir up hate on either side. We as Americans must refuse to give into this hate and emotional response. Our nation was founded on logic and theory, and even though maybe misguided at the time of conception, we as Americans should continue that part of our heritage; to look at things without hate but with our nation’s best interest at heart. Do not feed the trolls, do not hate your neighbor.

Jim98122x
Jim98122x
5 years ago
Reply to  Max

Yeah, that was kinda my point, Max. OMG, did we actually agree about something again? Must be the full moon.

Max
Max
5 years ago
Reply to  Jim98122x

I never post. That is some other person

Asher Kobin
Asher Kobin
5 years ago

Let people celebrate whatever in their private space. It should be left alone.

Adam
Adam
5 years ago

These monuments were largely erected decades after the fact during the height of Jim Crow and are an embarassment.

Talk about the history, share the full story in a musuem. But we should not promote the romanticizing of treason that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, and was in large part to preserve the dispicable institution of slavery. There is nothing to be proud of in the Confederacy.

CapHillNative
CapHillNative
5 years ago
Reply to  Adam

AGREED!

Jim
Jim
5 years ago
Reply to  Adam

This is untrue and the lie has been corrected and documented. Please refrain from spreading narratives until you investigate your claims more thoroughly

John
John
5 years ago

Oh, this is a fun thread. I’d like to add a perspective for everyone here to consider. But, before I do that, I would like to enumerate a few facts about myself in an (admittedly vain) attempt to stave off the knee-jerk reactionaries from both ends of the spectrum. I am: 1) a Capitol Hill/First Hill native for the better part of 8 years 2) a supporter of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and long-time supporter of liberal policies 3) an emigrant from a former Confederate state; born, raised and spent the majority of my life experiencing first-hand the legacy of the Civil War in the entrenched racial/racist policies and behaviors that still permeate underprivileged communities, both white and black and 4) a frequent reader, but infrequent commenter (you’re welcome) of this blog.

Many of the points here are true. The Daughters of the Confederacy was a banal group of privileged white women clinging to a “heritage” that many of us cringe to consider today. These monuments are vestiges of Jim-Crow-era initiatives to re-invigorate racial divides in a country that was still actively contemplating things like eugenics (fun times!). Abraham Lincoln was a supporter of the American Colonization Society and preferred the idea of shipping former slaves to Africa than the idea of emancipated slaves living in the US (google: Liberia). However, there is one major distinction that I think we’re missing in this discussion.

This is not a monument glorifying Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson or Robert E. Lee. It’s a monument dedicated to the memory of the common soldiers who died fighting for a cause they might or might not have believed in. Just like a monument dedicated to the memory of soldiers who died fighting for US political interests in Vietnam. Many of the wars we have fought as a nation have had social or political reasons that make us squeamish to consider today. That doesn’t necessarily mean that people who fought them BELIEVED in those reasons. Not every person who died by Union musket fire was a slave owner (most weren’t) or was particularly invested in the idea that having slaves was an awesome idea. Like many of the soldiers who died in Vietnam, they were mostly the people who didn’t have the resources to avoid being drafted or conscripted (google: Civil War conscription, draft riots, etc.).

Just as I would urge us not confuse a monument to Dick Cheney with a monument to fallen soldiers from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; I would urge us not to confuse a monument dedicated to fallen soldiers of the Confederacy with the politics of its architects (Anyone remember “Support the troops, not the war”?)

Let it be known that I am not proposing that we celebrate the politics (or “heritage”) of the Confederacy. I think it’s abominable that people still fly the Confederate battle jack. Ever. Anywhere. (And yes, I’ve seen white trash on Capitol Hill, ironically brandishing this symbol) I am making the distinction between celebrating the privileged who stood to benefit from the politics of the war and remembering those who paid the price for that power-grab.

Without the slightest bit of hyperbole or histrionics, I say that if you support the outright removal of this monument, you would be hypocritical not to support the removal of the monument to other fallen soldiers at 2nd and University. History is a complex subject and none of us to it any justice by engaging in this dichotomous “good guy” vs. “bad guy” nonsense.

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I believe what you said made a ton of sense. However, consider this, what if you added a little content?
I am not suggesting your content is not good., but what if you added a post title that grabbed folk’s attention? I mean Confederate memorial in Capitol Hill cemetery
vandalized once again | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle is kinda vanilla.
You should peek at Yahoo’s front page and note how they create news titles to get people to
click. You might try adding a video or a related picture or two to get people excited
about everything’ve got to say. In my opinion, it might make your
posts a little livelier.

Charlette LeFevre
Charlette LeFevre
5 years ago

I agree on content. Writers always mention the history of where this granite came from – Stone Mountain but stop short of mentioning this is the symbolic resurgence location of the KKK and hence why this 10 ton granite was shipped thousands of miles to Seattle from the deep South. This appears to be a KKK funded monument.

Charlette LeFevre
Charlette LeFevre
5 years ago

As of July 30 according to Lakeview Cemetery Craig Lohr, they will be fixing the monument and have no other plans to relocate, move or remove the monument.

Mark Lynn
Mark Lynn
5 years ago

I have to take exception with your comment, “the placement in 1926 came during a wave of historical revisionism and romanticizing of the Confederate South.” No. These monuments were placed in honor of the Confederate dead. Most of the relatives of the Confederate soldiers were left with next to nothing after Lincoln’s War and Reconstruction. It was a long time before anyone in the South had the ability to pay for any type of monuments for their dead. The only revision to history is the elimination of these monuments happening today and along with that, the true history of the South.