Whose Heritage Is It? Dispatch #3: Baltimore: Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Spirit of the Confederacy)

The third stop on my road trip today with the oldest of the three monuments.  The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Spirit of the Confederacy) was dedicate in September of 1903.  It was wholly funded by the nascent United Daughters of the Confederacy.  The designer, F. Wellington Ruckstuhl, was a sculptor resident in New York City.

At the time of its erection, it held a rather prominently place on Mount Royal Boulevard.  It was clear to me that the city of Baltimore grew away from the statue drastically fading its public prominence.  Today it sits on a strip of garden sandwiched between a main residential street and a service street.  The Maryland Institute College of Art sits across the main street and row houses flank the front.

Pictures from today's visit:



Today the pedestal still bears the evidence of red paint, signs from a protest that proceeded its removal in 2017.

There are texts on three of the four sides of the pedestal.

The south side's text reads: GLORIA VICTIS (Glory to the Vanquished) TO THE SOLDIERS AND SAILORS OF MARYLAND IN THE SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA 1861-1865



The west side's text reads: FATII MASCHII, PAROLE FEMINE (Manly actions, womanly words)

The east side's text reads: DEO VINDICE (God our Protector)

Whose Heritage Is It? - Dispatch #2: Baltimore, Confederate Women of Maryland Monument

Stop #2 in today's road trip was just a few blocks away from the first.  Like the Jackson & Lee Monument, the monument to the Confederate Women of Maryland was removed in 2017, one hundred years after its dedication in 1917.  The statue was the result of a movement founded in 1894 in Nashville, Tennessee called the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  Among the group's mission, establishing statues throughout the states of the confederacy to "tell the glorious fight against the greatest odds a nation ever faced, that their hallowed memory should never die."  For the record, Maryland was NOT a part of the secessionist confederate rebellion.  Funding for the monument was supplemented by significant grants from the United Confederate Veterans and the State of Maryland itself.

The statue was designed by J. Maxwell Miller, and art professor at the nearby Maryland Institute College of Art.  The three figures in the design represent a mother holding her dying son in the "pieta" pose, with a second women standing and looking out past the other two.  It is located on a small triangle of land called the Bishop Square Park directly across from Johns Hopkins University.

Pictures from today's road trip.  The statue is, of course, gone.



The text on the front reads: TO THE CONFEDERATE WOMAN OF MARYLAND 1861-1865 "THE BRAVE AT HOME"

On the back side of the pedestal the text reads: IN DIFFICULT AND DANGER REGARDLESS OF SELF THEY FED THE HUNGARY CLOTHES THE NEEDY NURSED THE WOUNDED AND COMFORTED THE DYING.

In 2016, a year before it was removed, a placard was placed in front of the statue titled "Reconciling History".  It contained an extensive text designed to contextualize for the visitor the history of the statue and how it fits into history.  The placard was not present today.

Whose Heritage Is It? - Dispatch #1: Baltimore, The Jackson & Lee Monument

Needed a road trip desperately, both myself and my truck!  I've only used 20 gallons of gas since March 12, 2020...  The South Poverty Law Center has a wonderful map as part of their "Whose Heritage?" project that identifies public monuments and memorials dedicated to glorifying the Confederacy.  Three of them were identified in Baltimore.  My beloved Baltimore--Road Trip!  Now, spoiler alert, NONE of the statuary associated with the monuments remains.  All were removed in the middle of night in 2017 during a previous wave of demands for social justice and cultural sensitivity/accountability.  Still, it was an adventure.

The Jackson & Lee Monument

Located in the little Wyman Park Dell across the street from the Baltimore Museum of Art and just north of the confluence of the Remington and Harwood neighborhoods.  It was commissioned as a gift to the city from J. Henry Ferguson.  Ferguson was a successful banker who organized the Colonial Trust Company, long ago defunct.  When Ferguson died in 1928, he bequeathed the money to the city to create the memorial.  Enter the Great Depression...things slowed down.  in 1935, Laura Gardin Fraser was selected as the designer of the sculpture portion of the monument, and architect John Russell Pope was tapped to design the plaza and pedestal.  Pope had designed the nearby Baltimore Art Museum.  Enter WW II....things slowed down again.  The project was finally complete 20 year's after Ferguson's death and was dedicated on May 1, 1948--a date that coincided with the Battle of Chancellorsville.  Chancellorsville is the setting of the moment memorialized in the theme of the sculpture.

Prior to it's removal, the statue was defaced with red paint.



The images are was the site looks like today.  There are several texts.

Circling the pedestal at its upper edge a statement reads: SO GREAT IS MY CONFIDENCE IN GENERAL LEE THAT I AM WILLING TO FOLLOW HIM BLINDFOLDED STRAIGHT AS A NEEDLE TO THE POLE - JACKSON ADVANCED TO THE EXECUTION OF MY PURPOSE

I assume that the first is a quote from Jackson and the latter a quote from Lee, though they are not credited.


At the front base a quote reads: THEY WERE GENERALS AND CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS AN WAGED WAR LIKE GENTLEMEN - Ferguson.  This quote is attributed to J. Henry Ferguson



On the south side of the base the text reads: THE PARTING OF GENERAL LEE AND STONEWALL JACKSON ON THE EVE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE

On the north side of the base the text reads: GIFT OF J. HENRY FERGUSON OF MARYLAND