John Brock: The bones of fallen rebels
Last Updated on 3/16/2010
Published on 11/9/2009
That rattling sound you hear coming from the Confederate cemetery in the neighboring town of Kingstree could be the bones of fallen Rebels rolling over in their graves in protest of the granite statue of a Yankee solder standing guard above their graves.
Somehow, someway, the effigy of a Yankee was placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) way back in 1910 but the matter didn't cause too much ruckus until it was discovered in recent years that half a nation to the north, a Confederate soldier stands guard over the remains of Northern troops in York, Maine. Then, a torrent of speculation broke loose.
A newspaper account said: "Yankee statue found in Kingstree. Another Civil War solder -- AWOL for nearly a century -- has been found deep behind enemy lines. While a Rebel statue stands watch over the cold New England coast, a granite Yankee keeps close watch over this small Southern town. Switched at birth? Neither community knows for sure."
That's the way author Tony Horwitz reports it in his book "Confederates in the Attic." His book had been in my personal library for several years but I got around to reading it only recently and discovered this "Lost Cause" tragedy.
The two statues have been standing since first erected early in the 1900s when towns across the nation began to recognize veterans of both the North and South. Didn't anyone in either town immediately recognize that each solder was dressed in uniforms of their enemy?
Nobody seems to know the answer to that question. Perhaps, as Horwitz points out, Southerners have always whispered of scandal behind closed doors but rarely in public. These whispers of "The Wahr" developed into what was to become known as "The cult of the Lost Cause."
We do know this much. While Confederate statues were being erected at almost every crossroads throughout Dixie, the UDC in Kingstree ordered the statue from a South Carolina company at the cost of $2,500 -- a handsome sum in the decayed economics of the post-reconstruction era.
When the statue was to be unveiled on a 30-foot pedestal overlooking the Confederate dead in Kingstree, over two thousand citizens showed up for the dedication ceremonies. All they got was a vigorous speech from a Confederate Colonel because it was revealed that the delivery of the statue had been "unavoidably" delayed.
A month later, the statue showed up and was quietly erected, No one is certain if it was a legitimate tardiness or if some of the sweet UDC ladies had peeked inside the shipping crate before the dedication and to their horror discovered a Yank had been sent to the wrong address. Perhaps someone tried to undo the error before the statue's public debut but to no avail and the statue was finally erected weeks later.
Through the years folks seem to have just made peace with the fact that a Northerner was standing guard over his fallen Southern enemies. But when someone in York, Main, finally came to the conclusion that their statue in their cemetery was definitely attired in a Rebel uniform, discussion opened up on both sides of the question after newspapers across the country ran a story of the mix-up.
The folks in Maine even proposed a "prisoner swap" but the gentry of Kingstree had grown rather fond of their Yankee soldier and declined. And the matter rests there.
There has been much speculation as to how this mix-up came about and both parties surmised that perhaps some sculptor had simply shipped the statues to the wrong recipients. Or, that some town had reneged on payment to the sculptor and he simply foisted the incorrect statue onto an unsuspecting client. This is unlikely because both statues were created four years apart by two different suppliers in two locations -- one Southern and the other Northern.
So, the mystery remains. But citizens of both communities have grown quite accepting of their individual silent guardians and in some respect, perhaps, just a little prideful of their notoriety.
At any rate, the dead rest in peace and so must modern-day descendents of the bloody War Between the States.
John Brock can be reached by mail at this newspaper, or by e-mail at brock@johnbrock.com
BOOK SIGNING: Next Saturday and Sunday (Nov. 21 and 22) from 11 AM to 4 PM, I, along with about a dozen local authors, will be on hand at the Litchfield Exchange to sell and sign copies of our books. I will be there to sign copies of my book, "Southern Breezes Whistle Dixie". The Exchange is located behind the Applewood House of Pancakes. See you there!
