Tucked among the graves of presidents, soldiers and sailors, a Confederate monument once stood in Arlington National Cemetery. Cast in bronze and known as the Reconciliation Monument, it aimed to honor those who fought for the South during the U.S. Civil War.
Critics called it a symbol of a painful past, and in 2023, it was removed under a directive from Congress. Now, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the statue returned to Arlington, restored at an estimated cost of $10 million, with plans to add historical context nearby.
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A monument removed, now set to return
“It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history — we honor it,” Hegseth wrote on X.
At the time, officials estimated it cost about $3 million to remove the Confederate statue from Arlington, a process that involved detaching the bronze sculpture and protecting surrounding graves.
According to The Associated Press, a Pentagon official said it will take about two years to restore the monument by Moses Ezekiel. The statue’s original base must be replaced, and the entire piece will require full refurbishment before it can be reinstalled at Arlington. New information will be added alongside the statue to explain its history and the reasons behind its placement within the cemetery.
On Wednesday, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin told The Washington Post that the sculpture would return to the cemetery in 2027 once it’s fully restored.
“We are grateful for the care being taken to preserve and display this statue, which allows us to better understand the complex history of the United States,” he said.
Tied to Trump order on restoring American history
The move is tied to an executive order by President Donald Trump in March to restore the nation’s history. The order calls for restoring public monuments and exhibits to reflect what the administration describes as a more unifying and patriotic view of the nation’s past.
It directs agencies to review and possibly reinstate historical displays that were removed or altered in recent years, and to discourage exhibits that promote what the order characterizes as divisive or ideologically driven narratives.
A symbol of reconciliation or romanticized history?
Ty Seidule, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who served on the commission that recommended removing the statue, told The Washington Post that reinstalling it is a mistake, and not about being “woke.”
According to the Arlington National Cemetery, the monument was unveiled in 1914, more than a decade after Congress approved the reburial of Confederate soldiers in Section 16 of the cemetery. It was designed by Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and American sculptor and became part of a broader national tradition of honoring war dead with dedicated sections and monuments.
The memorial was part of a national effort at reconciliation between North and South, though critics say it also reflected racial inequality. While Confederate soldiers were eventually honored at Arlington, efforts by Black Civil War veterans to move United States Colored Troops into the main cemetery were denied. Arlington remained segregated until 1948.
The statue features a female figure representing the South, surrounded by symbols of peace and 32 bronze figures, including soldiers, civilians and mythological characters. Two controversial depictions, an enslaved woman holding a white child and an enslaved man marching into battle, have drawn criticism for promoting a romanticized view of slavery. The inscription at the base echoes the “Lost Cause” narrative, which framed the Confederacy’s defeat as noble.
Seidule said the monument, “is the cruelest I’ve ever seen because it’s a pro-slavery, pro-segregation, anti-United States monument. It’s not a reconciliation monument. It’s a Confederate monument and it’s meant to say that the white South was right and the United States of America was wrong.”
Ezekiel was buried at the base of the statue in 1921, alongside three other Confederate soldiers.
Supporters view the monument as part of the cemetery’s broader history. Others argue it reflects a time when national unity came at the expense of racial equity. Today, the memorial remains a focal point for debate over how the nation remembers its past.
