“MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated”
—Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary” (1906). Bierce served in the Union Army during the Civil War, including the horrendous Battle of Shiloh. At Kennesaw Mountain a Confederate bullet slammed into Bierce’s head, causing severe injury and enduring effects afterward. Among his writings is the “Twilight Zone”-worthy “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
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Photo by Jay Paul
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Photo by Jay Paul
Lee stole the march on me.
As in history, so went the statuary.
By time I arrived at what many have taken to calling "Marcus-David Peters Circle," on Wednesday, Sept. 8, the heavy lifting had almost been completed by the Smedley cranes.
Lee stood immense alongside his recently vacated and tattooed pedestal. Soon, even the plaques bearing his name were removed. The other Confederate figures along Monument Avenue who came after Lee’s 1890 installation received descriptions of their vital statistics, their battlefield accomplishments and memorial language. But for Lee, only his name appeared on the pedestal.
I stood among the collective of curious onlookers, journalists and other Richmonders, who during recent months often visited the circle, anticipating this day. We gathered in the shade provided by the entrance awning of the “Eighteen Oh Five” apartments fitted into the former Lee Medical Building. On this site once grew that curious tobacco field photographed circa 1917 presided over by the Lee monument.
Standing in that field is a mustached Black man, wearing his hat at an insouciant angle, a bow tie, suspenders and an air of formality. Was he an assistant of photographer Huestis Cook, or a farmer proud of this exhibition crop and posed there by Cook for perspective? His age is difficult to determine. He could be 30 or 40, and if not born into slavery the condition wouldn’t have been a distant memory, and most likely his parents knew both bondage and freedom.
He stands captured in the gray light of a distant afternoon knowing things we don’t.
I often thought of him during this day.
A couple other memories flitted through me: one of an afternoon sometime in the late 1990s of possibly a Virginia Commonwealth University dance or performance troupe, dressed as statuary, moving then freezing in splendid tableaux on the steps of the monument. I have no pictures and cannot find anyone who remembers the occasion. This was the best reconfiguring of the piece I had seen — until the summer of 2020.
The colossal Lee sat astride "Not Traveller." The renowned French sculptor Antonin Mercié, considering Lee’s actual warhorse, Traveller, too compact for the depiction, switched him out for a more imposing French thoroughbred.
Lee, who had for 130 years gazed northward, hat doffed, as though reviewing a parade of ghosts, looked now toward us at the Eighteen Oh Five Apartments. "Who are all you people?" he seemed to be wondering.
His upper torso was detached and swung through the air, supported by straps attached to a crane, with not quite the greatest of ease. A huge cheer went around the circle, with some choruses of “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye” and a few hurled epithets supporting the long-bruited removal.
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From This Time On: "Let the ease be released!" (Photo by Harry Kollatz Jr.)
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Half a Lee Onward: The general's torso is airlifted out. (Photo by Harry Kollatz Jr.)
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Looming: The gigantic Lee gazes upon the world from ground level. (Photo by Harry Kollatz Jr.)
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Strapped: The general is prepared to dismount Not Traveller. (Photo by Harry Kollatz Jr.)
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Mass Art: Studio Two Three, historic event printmaking (Photo by Harry Kollatz Jr.)
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A Horse With No Name: Not Traveller at rest (Photo by Harry Kollatz Jr.)
A man wearing a red cape cooked chicken on a grill and held forth declarations, especially when half of Lee popped off.
“Let the ease be released!”
The quarter of Lee hanging from red straps like an embarrassed parachutist reminded me of a screw-off lid from an Avon collectible decanter.
But no perfume wafted.
I cannot yet determine if universal love is flowing free across the world or even on the next street over. The species is no more gracious and no less venal than yesterday. During my walk to the site, contractors’ ladders rattled against buildings and the workout machines of the Tequila & Deadlifts gym clanked and the life of the city went right along.
The question before us now is: What comes next? The city will soon vote on the building of casinos, and there remain the apparent intractable issues of public schools, concentrated poverty, violence, addiction, an incipient statewide election and, oh, yes — plague.
There’s plenty of work to be done.
At the circle, the assembled cheered Lee’s coming apart, and a Black man next to me added perspective by exclaiming, “Just like they used to do to us! ‘What’re you doing this weekend?’ ‘Oh, nothin’, hangin’ one of them.’ ”
The afternoon sun bore down, causing some spectators to seek the shade of scattered trees and buildings while also angling for a view. The metal cordons and police tape kept us off to the sides. Cicadas rattling all around heightened the drama of the moment by playing appropriate accompaniment amid the sweat-inducing heat and the branches of magnolias.
During a lull I waited in line for a Studio Two Three print made on site. I got two: an effective shattered mirror or window view of the Lee pedestal with the day's date, and another, featuring a rearing and Lee-less horse with the motto "Giddy Up Loser." The last came fresh off the mobile work bench, which meant my effort to prevent smudging failed. Well, this means I was there.
Later, as I stood in a brief but soaking rain at Monument and Meadow, the remnants of Not Traveller swept by on a big flatbed truck.
The pieces of Lee and his mount were spirited away to the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland, not far from which, on specially constructed sets, filming took place for portions of the miniseries "John Adams" and "The Good Lord Bird," the episodic television program "Turn," and the motion pictures "Lincoln" and "Harriet," productions about the events that created our nation and those that almost broke it into pieces.
Not Traveller is going out to pasture.
Meanwhile, we advance toward the indiscernible future.
The city’s motto is “Sic itur ad astra,” or “Thus, to the stars.”
Richmond should now strive to meet the standard of that Latinate description by building something grand and admirable. If not a structure or a memorial, then a renewed sense of what we may represent and a way to a future we can all live in — in peace.
Let the ease be released, y’all.
