By MARSHA MERCER
Last Saturday, 17 people gathered at hectic Thomas
Circle, where Massachusetts Avenue, 14th Street and M Street intersect
in Northwest Washington.
It wasn’t a protest or a line for concert tickets. We were
doing something most people don’t – looking past the bumper-cars traffic to the
equestrian statue smack in the middle of the traffic circle.
With journalist and history enthusiast Keith White, who
leads walking tours for friends, as our guide, we looked closely at about a
dozen monuments to Union generals in the nation’s capital, answering the 21st
Century question: “Who ARE those guys?”
Until controversy engulfed Confederate monuments across
the South, many people knew only the big names -- Lee, Jackson and Davis. The
Confederate statues have made us rethink who and what we should honor and why.
Similarly, in Washington, people flock to the
monuments to Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson, while hardly noticing many others.
But the uncontentious monuments to victorious Union generals who helped
preserve the Union also tell compelling stories.
Two monuments we saw honored Civil War generals from
Virginia who made the agonizing decision to stay loyal to the United States --
when doing so meant an irreparable split from friends and family.
(It’s worth noting some Northerners also fought for
the South; New Yorker Samuel Cooper and Pennsylvanian John Pemberton became
generals in the Confederate Army.)
Thomas Circle is named for the best Union general
you’ve never heard of.
George Henry Thomas was born in 1815 into a
slave-holding family on a plantation in Southampton County, Virginia, near the
North Carolina line.
A West Point grad, he served with distinction in
Florida and Mexico, and his proud hometown presented him with an engraved
silver sword for his bravery in the Mexican war.
He became an artillery and cavalry instructor at the military
academy under Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, who was superintendent. Yet when Lee and
other Southerners resigned from the U.S. Army to join the Confederacy, Thomas remained.
His sisters, avid secessionists, were so distraught,
the story goes, they turned his picture to the wall, denied they had a brother
named George, returned his letters unopened, and refused to send him the sword
he’d left with them for safe-keeping.
Thomas was a brilliant military strategist. He managed
to hold his position and avoid a rout during the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, earning
the valiant nickname, the “Rock of Chickamauga.”
When his statue in Washington was dedicated in 1879,
14 years after the Civil War ended and nine years after Thomas died of a stroke
at 53, the federal government shut down for the day and former soldiers flooded
the city.
But Thomas never reconciled with his sisters. Near the
end of their long lives, they gave his sword to the Virginia Historical Society
in Richmond.
Another Virginian who stayed loyal to the Union army
was Major General Winfield Scott, born in Dinwiddie County in 1786.
A hero of the Mexican War, Scott was known as “Old
Fuss and Feathers” for his love of discipline and pomp.
By 1861, when the Civil War started, Scott was the
army’s top general, but he was in poor health and couldn’t even mount his
horse. He recommended President Lincoln name his fellow Virginian Lee to lead
the Army.
When Lee refused, Scott is said to have told him:
“Lee, you have made the greatest mistake of your life, but I feared it would be
so.”
Scott resigned, wrote a two-volume autobiography and
died in 1866.
The sculptor of Scott’s monument put him on a small
mare, his favorite mount. But Scott’s family insisted a great military man
should be shown on a stallion. The sculptor made an adjustment. Today, most
people don’t notice, but in 1874, the statue was widely ridiculed.
The Scott monument is in busy Scott Circle, where
Massachusetts and Rhode Island avenues and 16th Street NW meet.
On Memorial Day, we honor those who gave their lives in
military service.
We owe respect and a deep debt of gratitude to all who
serve and sacrifice, and especially to Virginians Thomas and Scott who made the wrenching decision
to fight to preserve the United States.
©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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