Virginians observe May 24 as Confederate Memorial Day to honor our brave defenders’ resistance to abuse of federal power.
Federal troops invaded Alexandria on May 24, 1861, following President Lincoln’s unconstitutional call for 75,000 troops to invade the seceded Southern states. He did so because the federal government depended on the tariffs imposed on those states’ agricultural products to fund its expenditures used mainly for internal improvements in the North and West.
Our “Appomattox” statue stands where Alexandrians assembled at 6 a.m. on May 24 to march to our Union Station to join other Virginia forces resisting Lincoln’s invasion. This funeral monument’s base lists the names of Alexandrians who died in that cause. The idea for the statue came from Edward Warfield, one of the initiators of the VA 17th Regiment and its last survivor. Funded by an enthusiastic public, it was created by America’s most outstanding sculptor of the day, New York’s M. Caspar Buberl. Enthusiastic throngs coming from great distances crowded the city’s streets at its 1889 dedication ceremony. The governor’s speech celebrated those soldiers’ bravery and faithfulness in defending their loved ones, homes, and freedom against a known overwhelmingly superior military force.
Secession was legal. Lincoln’s invasion, which began in Alexandria in the early morning, made war inevitable. No one had been killed in the Fort Sumter engagement so there was still the possibility of settling differences without war. Lincoln had consistently publicly maintained he didn’t want war although he had refused to meet with Southern emissaries at a February Peace Conference at the Willard Hotel — called by former President Tyler to try to resolve differences — nor would Lincoln allow any representatives to attend.
In the early morning of May 24, the Marshall House Hotel at the corner of Pitt and King Streets became the site where the first men died in the war. Proprietor James Jackson shot Col. Elmer Ellsworth as he descended the stairs, wrapped in the Confederate flag he had stolen from its flagpole, and then he was shot by Corporal Brownell.
Proponents of the President who instigated the war have enabled him to escape a deserved reputation for doing so and instead become acclaimed as an honest man and the man who freed the slaves. However, Lincoln repeatedly broke his promises to President Jefferson Davis not to resupply the Union forts in the South and allow the states to reclaim their territory. Nor was he “The Great Emancipator.” If Lincoln’s purpose for the war had been to free the slaves, he would have issued the proclamation freeing all of them at its beginning, not 18 months later. He carefully crafted it to free no slaves, even within the Union (four slave states remained) and Southern territory under his control. His goal was to keep Britain from recognizing and aiding the Confederate States and encourage slave rebellions throughout the South so CSA troops would have to rush home and become unable to fight Union troops. That didn’t happen.
Appreciate its significance and celebrate Confederate Memorial Day.
Ellen Latane Tabb
Alexandria