Madison Mayor Paul Soglin orders removal of two Confederate memorials from cemetery

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Two Confederate memorials will be removed from a Madison cemetery, Mayor Paul Soglin said Thursday.

Soglin ordered the removal of a "Confederate's rest commemorative memorial" from the city-owned Forest Hill Cemetery, located on the city's west side.

"There is a larger monument, which has not garnered as much attention, which will also be removed," Soglin said in a statement posted on his Facebook account. That marker was installed about 100 years ago and will require heavy machinery to remove, Soglin said in an interview.

The memorials honor 140 Confederate soldiers who died in 1862 while in captivity at nearby Camp Randall. They were buried in a mass grave at Forest Hill.

The display of Confederate flags at the cemetery and the memorials have stirred considerable debate in Madison, including a 2016 city attorney's opinion that said the city's policies on flag displays were outdated.

The Confederate Rest monument at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison.

"The removal of city-owned monuments to confederate soldiers in Forest Hill Cemetery has minimal or no disruption to the cemetery itself," Soglin said. "There is no disrespect to the dead with the removal of the plaque and stone."

Soglin said both monuments include inscriptions that "speak in glowing terms about the historic efforts of the Confederacy."

The older monument lists the names of the Confederate soldiers buried at Forest Hill.

"It will eventually be replaced with a plaque or some sort of monument with the names of the deceased," the mayor said. "There's not going to be any additional language included."

The debate over Confederate monuments and flags has escalated across the country after the violence in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacists gathered to protest the city's plans to remove a Robert E. Lee statue. Earlier this week, monuments were removed overnight in Baltimore and many other cities are considering similar actions.

President Donald Trump on Thursday continued to defend the Confederate monuments.

"You can't change history, but you can learn from it," the president tweeted. "Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson — who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!"

In his statement, Soglin called the Civil War 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."

His statement concluded: "There should be no place in our country for bigotry, hatred, or violence against those who seek to unite our communities and our country."

Here's the inscription on the Confederate's Rest monument:

"The valiant Confederate soldiers who lie buried here were members of the 1st Alabama Inf. Reg., Confederate States of America. They were captured in the spring of 1862 in the Civil War Battle of Island No. 10 in the Mississippi River south of Cairo, Illinois. Their task was to stop traffic carrying men and supplies to Northern forces further south.

After weeks of fighting under extremely difficult conditions, they were forced to surrender. Constant fire from river gunboats and land forces made their position untenable. After surrender, they were moved to Camp Randall and when they arrived many were suffering from wounds, malnutrition and various diseases.

Within a few weeks 140 graves were filled, the last resting places for these unsung heroes, far from their homes in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.

Here, also, is the grave of Alice Whiting Waterman, a gracious Southern lady who devoted more than 30 years of her life caring for the graves of "her boys."