Arlington’s Civil War Legacy Is Finally Laid to Rest
Updated at 9:25 a.m. ET on January 8, 2024
The wind washed over the rows of white tombstones and carried the last leaves of autumn on its breath. I held the map of Arlington National Cemetery up to my face, clinging to its edges as its corners fluttered. I looked up, and saw the statue I was searching for in the distance, encircled by tall steel fencing that caught and held the light from the afternoon sun. Inside the fence, concentric circles of tombstones surrounded the memorial—gravestones of the more than 200 Confederate soldiers buried beneath. Workers in white construction hats and highlighter-yellow vests moved about while security officers in dark sunglasses and black uniforms stood along the fence’s edge. To my left was a massive yellow crane whose engine rumbled steadily as it sat staring at the bronze memorial before it.
I had come to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington on Monday in anticipation of the statue’s removal. Following a review from the Department of Defense’s Naming Commission, the memorial had been scheduled to come down this week, but as I arrived, I received an alert on my phone that a federal judge had just issued a temporary restraining order at the request of a group named Defend Arlington. The group argued that the decision to take down the monument had been too hurried, that it would damage the surrounding tombstones, and that the DOD had failed to comply with federal law by not preparing an environmental-impact statement. What would happen next was unclear.
The limbo of the situation was
