Mayor Orders Removal of Wisconsin Confederate Memorial

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.

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Image via wikipedia creative commons, RAHurd