Mayor: Alexandria City Council to Review City's Confederate Symbols

Members of the Alexandria City Council will be reviewing many of the Confederate symbols across the City when it reconvenes in September, Mayor Bill Euille tells The Washington Post, in a story published today.

The City has a history of raising the Confederate flag on City property on Robert E. Lee’s birthday and Confederate Memorial Day. But after nine people were killed in a historic black church in Charleston, officials may be rethinking the flag-raising and other Confederate symbols across the City.

“While we’re a Southern town, this is a part of our history that should not be celebrated all these many years later,” Euille tells the newspaper.

Symbols of the Confederacy can be found in street names and more.

A bronze statue of a lone Confederate soldier, “Appomattox,” sits front and center at S. Washington and Prince streets in Alexandria. The north side of the base reads: “They died in the consciousness of duty faithfully performed.” The south side reads, “Erected to the memory of Confederate dead of Alexandria, Va. by their Surviving Comrades, May 24th 1889.” The east and west sides bear the names of those from Alexandria who died during the Civil War.

A nearby plaque reads: “The unarmed Confederate soldier standing in the intersection of Washington and Prince streets marks the location where units from Alexandria left to join the Confederate Army on May 24, 1861. The soldier is facing the battlefields to the South where his comrades fell during the War Between the States. The names of those Alexandrians who died in service for the Confederacy are inscribed on the base of the statue. The title of the sculpture is “Appomattox” by M. Casper Buberl. The statue was erected in 1889 by the Robert E. Lee Camp United Confederate Veterans.”

The City was occupied by Union soldiers during the Civil War. A Union soldier, Col. Elmer Ellsworth, was shot by an innkeeper when he took down a Confederate flag. The innkeeper was then shot by Union soldiers.

A PBS series, “Mercy Street,” will explore the everyday life of those on both sides of the conflict in Alexandria during the Civil War.

PHOTO: Appomattox statue, photo by dcmemorials.com