Qualla: Confederate Memorial

Confederate Memorial: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sadogbeach, CC BY-SA 4.0. The monument went up in 1924, fifty-nine years after Appomattox. By then the men who actually fought in the Civil War were old or dead. The Confederate Memorial in downtown Wilmington was not really about them. It was part of a coordinated, decades-long campaign by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and allied groups to install the Lost Cause narrative into the public memory of American cities, particularly Southern ones, particularly during the years when Jim Crow laws were hardening into permanence and the political achievements of Reconstruction were being systematically erased. The 40-foot granite stele, with its bronze statue of one Confederate soldier protecting a wounded comrade, stood on a median on South Third Street for ninety-seven years. In August 2021, after a year in storage following George Floyd protests, the City Council voted to remove it permanently.

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Image: Sadogbeach | CC BY-SA 4.0

Confederate Memorial: Why It Was Built When It Was Built

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0. Historians have spent decades documenting the pattern. The vast majority of Confederate monuments were not erected immediately after the war, when grief was raw and survivors lived on every block. They went up in two waves: a smaller wave around the 1900s, and a much larger wave ...

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Image: Farragutful | CC BY-SA 4.0

Confederate Memorial: The Artists

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edward Orde, CC BY-SA 4.0. The monument's design pulled prominent talent. Henry Bacon, the principal architect of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, designed the granite stele. Bacon had grown up in Wilmington and is buried there. He died in 1924, the same year the Wilmington memorial was dedicated. The b...

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Image: Edward Orde | CC BY-SA 4.0

Confederate Memorial: A Century of Damage

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Upstateherd, CC BY-SA 4.0. The monument stood in the median of a busy downtown street next to the nightlife district. Vehicles hit it. Repeatedly. In 1954 a car knocked it down and shattered the stele. The granite was replaced. In late 1999, another vehicle knocked the entire monument off its foundation an...

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Image: Upstateherd | CC BY-SA 4.0

Confederate Memorial: 2020 and After

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Billy Hathorn, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the monument became the focal point of Wilmington's protests. "Black Lives Matter" was painted on the base in early June. The city closed off public access. In the early morning hours of June 25, 2020, the city removed the bronze stat...

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Image: Billy Hathorn | CC BY-SA 3.0