To the Editor:
It’s about time we discuss whether the city should have a statue of a
Confederate soldier facing south in the middle of Washington Street
(“Confederate Concerns,” July 1). While that debate proceeds, another and more offensive
Confederate marker needs to be removed — a plaque (see photo) on King
Street on the site of the Marshall House, now the Hotel Monaco, placed
by the Sons and Daughters of Confederate Soldiers. In celebrates James
Jackson for the murder of a Union soldier, Col. Elmer Ellsworth.
The plaque recalls the day the Union Army occupied Alexandria on May 24,
- After Confederate troops had withdrawn, Col. Ellsworth climbed
the stairs of the Marshall House, on the corner of King and Pitt
Streets, to remove a large secession flag on its roof put there by the
owner, James Jackson. Col. Ellsworth was one of the famous soldiers in
the Union Army, known for leading the popular Zouave cadets and for
having raised the first regiment for the Union Army from New York.
President Abraham Lincoln knew and felt great affection for him.
As Ellsworth came down the stairs with the flag, Jackson shot and killed
him, who then was himself killed by other Union soldiers. Ellworth’s
funeral was held in the East Room of the White House, attended by
President and Mrs. Lincoln. His murder stimulated an outburst of
patriotism and northern enlistment.
The plaque makes no reference to Ellsworth nor to the circumstances of
his murder. Instead, it lauds Jackson as “the first martyr to the cause
of Southern Independence” and celebrates his cold-blooded act of murder,
noting that Jackson’s death came about not “in the excitement of battle,
but coolly, and for a great principle.” That principle, of course, was
slavery.
The Lyceum and Fort Ward Museum have each had exhibits about these
events, and the plaque could be placed, with appropriate explanations,
in one of them. But it doesn’t belong in a highly visible spot along
King Street, where thousands of citizens and visitors see it distort the
record and equate what it calls “the justice of history” with the murder
of a respected Union soldier. The city should take it down.
Leonard Rubenstein
Alexandria