Baltimore's Confederate Monuments Taken Down Overnight, Mayor Comments

BALTIMORE, MD — Residents of Charm City woke up Wednesday morning to discover that Baltimore's monuments to the Confederate States of America, as well as for a Supreme Court chief justice, had been removed overnight from their pedestals, according to media reports. The monuments have been placed in storage until the city decides on what to do with them, a city official told radio station WTOP.

Mayor Catherine Pugh ordered the action, and said at a news conference Wednesday that she stayed up until 5 a.m. Wednesday to make sure the statues were taken down. "I did what was right for my city."

At around midnight Tuesday, workers arrived in Wyman Park to lift a statue of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson off of its pedestal, 11 News reported. By 3:45 a.m., a crane had moved the statue to a flatbed truck.

A statue of Roger B. Taney, a U.S. Supreme Court chief justice, had been removed by 2:30 a.m. Taney, a native of Calvert County, wrote the court's controversial majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case, which upheld slavery and denied citizenship to African-Americans.

Watch: Baltimore's Confederate Monuments Were Torn Down Overnight

The city also removed a Confederate women's monument in Bishop Square Park and a monument for Confederate soldiers and sailors on Mount Royal Avenue, News 11 reported.

The removals came in the wake of the Baltimore City Council's vote on Monday night to get rid of the statues, WTOP reported. The mayor and council members cited the riot Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia, in justifying the removal of the monuments.

In a news conference Wednesday, Mayor Catherine Pugh said the removal of the four monuments was "long overdue in this city."

The issue has been discussed in City Hall since June, but once the council voted Monday to remove the statues, she decided to move quickly. "I'm not a person who takes a lot of time to get things done," Pugh said.

Every city that has Confederate statues is concerned about triggering violence if they're removed, the mayor explained. She said that she consulted with Mitch Landrieu, the mayor of New Orleans, about how that city handled the issue.

Her suggestion to other cities that want to remove Confederate monuments: "Do it quietly and quickly."

In addition, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is calling for the removal of a statue of Taney on the front lawn of the state capitol building in Annapolis.

The removal of these statues and other symbols of Confederate leaders has been controversial across the country. Baltimore residents took to Mayor Catherine Pugh's Facebook page Wednesday to debate the action.

John Jones wrote on Facebook, "With all the problems in this city those statues should've been the least of the city government concern."

But resident James Crump disagreed. "This is a new day, and much needed move to move in the right direction for all of Baltimore. REMOVE THE CONFEDERATE STATUES," he wrote.

Image: A statue of Chief Justice Roger Taney stands on the grounds of the statehouse in Annapolis (Smithsonian American Art Museum Inventory).