VA -- Alexandria -- Confederate Statue:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- ALEXCS_050612_01.JPG: On May 24, 1861, the Union army invaded Alexandria and the 800-troop Confederate force headed south to Richmond. In 1885, a memorial was proposed to honor the Confederate dead of Alexandria. The winning artist, John Elder of Fredericksburg had painted "Appomattox" which showed a Confederate soldier viewing the battlefields after the surrender of Robert E. Lee. The memorial was dedicated in 1889 with Virginia Governor Fitzhugh Lee. Legislation passed in 1890 prohibits the statue from being moved.
At one point, the area around the statue measured 40 by 60 feet. As automobile traffic increased along the street, the memorial island started shrinking. It's now just a little circle in the middle.
- Description of Subject Matter: The Confederate Statue Marker:
Inscription. The unarmed Confederate soldier standing in the intersection of Washington and Prince Streets marks the location where units from Alexandria left to join the Confederate Army on May 24, 1861. The soldier is facing the battlefields to the South where his comrades fell during the War Between the States. The names of those Alexandrians who died in service for the Confederacy are inscribed on the base of the statue. The title of the sculpture is “Appomattox” by M. Casper Buberl.
The statue was erected in 1889 by the Robert E. Lee Camp, United Confederate Veterans.
From the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System: “The Robert E. Lee Camp introduced legislation into the Virginia House of Delegates, Jan. 9, 1890, to ensure that the statue would never be moved from its location, in the middle of the intersection of Prince and South Washington Streets. Numerous attempts were made in the late 20th century to remove the statue on the grounds either that it was an offensive reminder of slavery, or simply that its location in the middle of an intersection was impractical. After the base had suffered nicks from passing automobiles for several years, a van hit the monument in Aug. 1988 and knocked the statue off its base. The statue and base were temporarily relocated while the base was restored. After much controversy over whether the statue should be permanently relocated, the statue and base were reinstalled at their original location.
“The statue was designed by John Adams Elder, modeled after the figure in his painting ‘Appomattox,’ which depicts a Confederate soldier viewing the battlefields after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865.”
In April 1885, Edgar Warfield, a former private in Company H of the 17th Virginia, proposed to the R. E. Lee Camp of the United Confederate Veterans that a monument be erected to the Confederate dead of Alexandria. When the famous Southern artist, John A. Elder of Fredericksburg, Virginia, heard of the proposed'monument, he submitted a clay model of the figure in his painting "Appomattox," which was promptly accepted. Elder's painting represented a Conferate soldier viewing the battlefields after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865.
The bronze figure was executed by sculptor M. Gasper Buberl of New York City and cast by the Henry Bennard Bronze Company. The base of Georgia granite was produced by William Leal of Richmond, Virginia.
On November 5, 1888, the R. E. Lee Camp voted to seek approval from City Council to place the statue at the intersection of Washington and Prince Streets, the point from which the Alexandria troops left the city. The Council quickly granted permission to erect the statue at this site.
The dedication ceremony was held on May 24, 1889. Virginia Governor Fitzhugh Lee, formerly a major general of cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia and a nephew of General Robert E. Lee, delivered the dedicatory address.
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