The History Vandals are at it again. When all this started I predicted that it would not stop with the Confederate generals and it gives me no pleasure to be right. This time it’s a grave marker. The city council in Madison, Wisconsin, has voted to remove a marker with the names of Confederate prisoners of war who died there in a prison camp, many from neglect by their captors. It was put up by the UDC in 1906 but apparently is an insult to modern sensibilities in that liberal town.
Rod Dreher has more details and has this to say about it.
The leaders of Madison, Wisconsin, are manifestly not decent people. God preserve us Southerners from behaving so shamefully. I suppose it won’t be long before they disinter the Confederate bodies and put them on a barge down the Mississippi.
It’s hard to imagine what kind of despicable people destroy a tombstone — a tombstone! — for political reasons. This is a sign of the times — and of a time to come.
I was listening last night to a talk on CSPAN by Hampton Sides, who has just written a book about Kit Carson. Sides described the controversy about Carson (some people are not happy about his dealings with the Indians) and how the town of Taos changed the name of the park dedicated to him (“to right past wrongs”) even though he and his wife are buried there. They changed it to Red Willow to honor local Indians, but it backfired badly. Locals were upset that the named got changed without citizen input, and Indians were unhappy that they hadn’t been consulted first. I am happy report that they had to change it back, and it remains that way today.
Another casualty is Cal State Long Beach’s mascot Prospector Pete, apparently over concerns he did not meet today’s PC standards in 1849.
UPDATE: Just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. Washington and Lee University has decided to rename two buildings. One is the Lee-Jackson House, which will be renamed for a former dean who “helped move to a co-ed environment in the 1980s.”
The board also announced that effective immediately, it will replace portraits of Robert E. Lee and George Washington in military uniforms inside Lee Chapel with portraits of the two men in civilian clothing.
No reason given. Too militaristic?
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