Confederate Monument To Be Removed After Fairfax Supervisors Vote

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to remove a Confederate monument from the grounds of the old Fairfax County Courthouse. Located near the intersection of Main Street and Chain Bridge Road in Fairfax City, the monument is dedicated to the memory of Captain John Quincy Marr, the first Confederate officer to be killed in the Civil War.

Following a 30-day period to allow other groups to decide whether to relocate the Marr monument and two howitzers next to the monument, the Fairfax County board will have to vote again to officially remove them from county property. The old Fairfax County Courthouse and its grounds, located in the middle of Fairfax City, are owned by Fairfax County.

The cost to remove and relocate the Marr monument, the two howitzers and their carriages to a storage facility is estimated at $19,562, according to a Fairfax County government staff report.

The decision to remove the monument is part of Fairfax County's effort to confront its history as part of the Confederacy. In June, the Board of Supervisors requested the preparation of a report listing a full inventory of Confederate street names, monuments and public places in Fairfax County and on Fairfax County-owned property.

In late July, the Fairfax County School Board voted to rename Robert E. Lee High School after Rep. John R. Lewis, who had died from cancer earlier that month.

The City of Fairfax also has taken steps to end its commemoration of Confederate figures. On Monday, the City of Fairfax School Board voted to change the name of Lanier Middle School. The school was named after Sidney Lanier, a Confederate soldier who in the decades after his death was embraced as the "poet of the Confederacy."

In June, Fairfax High School's principal made the decision to drop the school's nickname, Rebel Pride, and change its mascot to the Lions in response to concerns about the name's link to the Confederacy.

Marr was not a resident of Fairfax County. He was one of Fauquier County's two delegates to the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 who ultimately voted for Virginia's secession from the nation. Less than two months after his vote for secession, Marr fell to his death during a battle with Union forces on June 1, 1861.

On the Marr monument, the inscription reads: "This stone marks the scene of the opening conflict of the war of 1861–1865, when John Q. Marr, Captain of the Warrenton Rifles, who was the first soldier killed in action, fell 800 ft. S. 46 W. Mag. of this spot, June 1st, 1861."

Prior to the Board of Supervisors' vote, several members of the public urged the board to keep the Marr monument on the grounds of the old Fairfax County Courthouse. Some argued that the monument does not celebrate Marr. Instead, it highlights the place where the first Confederate officer died in the Civil War, they said.

Other supporters of preserving the monument on the grounds of the old courthouse compared it to the German government turning a former concentration camp into a place for visitors to learn about the horrors of Nazi Germany. Another supporter of keeping the monument commented that the nation "needs to remember the war heroes, no matter what side they’re on."

One speaker compared Fairfax County to Cuba under the Castro regime for its decision to reconcile with its past, while another likened the Board of Supervisors to the Jacobins, a radical political group that emerged in Paris after the French Revolution.

In his comments before the board's vote on the monument, Supervisor James Walkinshaw talked about how the Marr monument, unveiled in 1904, was installed at the height of a period when groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy were furthering the "lost cause" mythology, a belief that the cause of the Confederacy was a just and heroic one.

Supervisor Pat Herrity was the only Fairfax County supervisor to vote against removing the Confederate monument.