Posted on 08/17/2017 3:44:22 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Wisconsin is quietly home to America's northernmost Confederate cemetery. On Thursday, Madison Mayor Paul Soglin ordered it taken down.
MADISON, WI — As public officials across the country grapple with calls to take down Civil War statues erected in honor of the Confederacy's military history, the Mayor of Madison, Wis. has ordered the removal of the state's lone memorial to fallen Confederate soldiers.
About 140 Confederate soldiers died at Camp Randall during the Civil War as prisoners of war, and their graves were honored in the "Confederate Rest Cemetery" within the Forest Hill Cemetery. Soglin stated he ordered staff to remove a plaque and a stone there.
"Taking down monuments will not erase our shared history," Soglin said in a prepared statement. "The Confederacy’s legacy will be with us, whether we memorialize it in marble or not. I agree with other Mayors around the country also speaking out and taking action. We are acknowledging there is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. In Madison, we join our brothers and sisters around the country to prove that we as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile, and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves."
Confederate Rest Cemetery
Taken in context, Madison seems like an unlikely spot for anything resembling a Confederate monument, yet according to the website Ironbrigader.com, a site in Madison, Wis. is the northernmost Confederate cemetery in the U.S.
Madison was the home to the Union Army's Camp Randall during the Civil War. According to Wisconsinhistory.org, between April and May 1862, 1,400 Confederate prisoners of war were housed at Camp Randall's garrison. Many of the prisoners sent to Wisconsin were from the 1st Alabama Infantry.
According to media accounts of the day, "While the first group was in relatively good physical condition, the second group was in much worse shape, with many suffering from pneumonia, mumps, measles, and chronic diarrhea. These prisoners were taken off the train on stretchers."
19th-Century medical care was not prepared for the sick and wounded transported to Camp Randall, and additionally,conditions at the camp were initially so poor that, "Madison’s civilian population had been shocked at the condition of the ill prisoners and townspeople helped out by bringing food and other supplies to Camp Randall."
About 140 of those housed at Camp Randall ended up dying of various maladies and were buried at what is known today as the Confederate Rest Cemetery.
That cemetery and monument to those who died at the camp were laid to rest at Madison's Forest Hill Cemetery.
This mayor can be added to the ever-lengthening list of blithering idiots in this country!!
Well, I knew this was coming.
However, F.U. Paul Soglin! F.U.
History will REMEMBER that YOU helped to ERASE Her!
*SPIT*
Mob mentality, characteristic of childishness and mental illness, not mature responsibility
Lunacy.
Oh, my God. That’s disgusting to tear down a memorial to men who died in a horrid prison camp!!!
I will NEVER attend another UW Badger football game again at Camp Randall. NEVER!
Every day, in every way, I hate Leftist a little more. I am now up to the point where I would enjoy Deposing a few of them.
That will show them! /s
Sounds like the graves will remain though? Or does he plan on having those exhumed?
It’s against the law to desecrate the graves of veterans.
When do we rename those things like schools and streets named after black nationalists like Malcolm X and things like Lenin statute in Seattle.
But you won't, and neither will the rest of this forum.
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin is just another idiot RAT that wants to erase our history, GTH Mayor.
This is autocracy, rule by single individuals. The people should decide, a referendum, not a “rule” by a person in that community.
Between mob rule and this autocratic rule I’m getting very nervous.
Why does the Mayor of any city/town have the authority to remove a statue from a public venue? Can these Stalinists do this without approval of the city/town council or other governing body?
Okay, I will now go and stand under Niagara Falls (the Canadian Horseshoe Falls side) and attempt to catch every drop coming down using a single bucket. About sums up the futility of trying to follow or understand the perpetual insanity of these people.
This SOB is removing what is basically a tombstone?
Son of a %!#$!$@#
This is beyond just a monument; this is a gravemarker!
BASTARD!
(As a long-time director for the Coalition to Protect MD Burial Sites, yes, this ticks me off!)
I was born in Wisconsin but have lived in Virginia most of my adult life.
I was already a history buff when I moved into the middle of all of this history and I immersed myself in it.
I have given thousands to the Civil War Trust to preserve battlefields all over.
I am a Yankee who thinks tearing down Confederate monuments is an abomination.
The have all been buried there over 150 years, and I am sure the marker has been there a long, long time. Why is it now suddenly offensive?
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