In a series of decisions that have reignited a fierce national debate over the legacy of the Confederacy, both federal and local authorities have taken contrasting steps regarding Confederate monuments and memorials in recent weeks. From the nation’s capital to a small town in North Carolina, the question of how America should remember its Civil War past remains as contentious as ever.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that a prominent Confederate memorial would soon return to Arlington National Cemetery. The statue in question, created by the renowned sculptor Moses Ezekiel, was first installed at Arlington in 1914. It features sentimental images of Confederate soldiers and loyal Black slaves—a design that has long sparked controversy. The statue was removed in late 2023 as part of the Biden administration’s sweeping initiative to eliminate memorials that glorify the Confederate cause and to rename military bases that honored figures considered traitors to the United States.
According to The Atlantic, Secretary Hegseth blamed "woke lemmings" for the statue’s initial removal, describing the artwork as “beautiful and historic.” He argued that, unlike those calling for removals, “we don’t believe in erasing American history—we honor it.” Hegseth’s stance has drawn sharp criticism from those who see the Confederacy as an insurrectionist movement founded on the preservation of slavery. The war against the Confederacy, after all, claimed the lives of more than 300,000 members of the very military Hegseth now leads—a sobering statistic that many say should not be trivialized for political gain.
The Arlington statue isn’t the only Confederate symbol making a comeback. On Thursday, The New York Times reported that the Pentagon is also returning a portrait of General Robert E. Lee to the storied halls of West Point. In a further move, old base names—previously stripped as part of the 2021 law enacted over then-President Donald Trump’s veto—are being reinstated. The Pentagon is doing so by identifying lesser-known but honorable veterans who share surnames with infamous Confederate generals like Lee and George Pickett. Meanwhile, the National Park Service is reinstalling a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike in Washington, D.C., which had been pulled down during the 2020 George Floyd protests.
These actions are widely viewed as part of a broader Trump administration effort to restore elements of Confederate commemoration, often in direct defiance of recent legislative and social changes. Trump himself recently took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to lambast the Smithsonian Institution for what he called its “OUT OF CONTROL” focus on the horrors of slavery. The contradiction between honoring history and downplaying its darker chapters has not gone unnoticed by critics.
“At best, Hegseth is going out of his way to needle and mock Americans who rightly see the Confederacy for what it was—a treasonous, doomed effort to keep millions of Americans in bondage,” argued The Atlantic. The publication further suggested that such moves make common cause with apologists who believe the wrong side lost the Civil War.
Proponents of these reversals often claim they are simply honoring the battlefield sacrifices of ordinary soldiers, not the Confederate cause itself. However, many historians and descendants of Union soldiers reject this view, calling it a form of “sophistry” that obscures the Confederacy’s true aims.
The debate is not confined to national institutions. In Edenton, North Carolina—a historic town on the Albemarle Sound with a population that is 60 percent Black—a waterfront Confederate statue was removed over the weekend prior to September 1, 2025. The statue had been the focal point of long-running protests, with many residents arguing that such monuments have no place in a community shaped by the legacy of slavery and segregation. According to The Washington Post, the removal has revived local Civil War heritage efforts, with some in the community pushing for new ways to remember the past that do not glorify the Confederacy.
The removal of the Edenton statue is part of a larger trend seen across the South, where towns and cities are re-examining the role of Confederate monuments in public spaces. In many cases, these statues were erected decades after the Civil War, often during periods of racial tension or backlash against civil rights progress. Their removal has been met with both celebration and resistance, depending on the community.
At the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), the struggle over Confederate memory is especially poignant. The school, which was deeply enmeshed in the Confederate cause, has long held rituals commemorating cadets who died for the Confederacy at the 1864 Battle of New Market. Statues by Ezekiel—who was himself the first Jewish person to attend VMI and saw combat at New Market—have played a central role in these ceremonies. In 2021, VMI removed a statue of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from campus, relocating it to the New Market battlefield museum. The institute retained a monument to the dead cadets, emphasizing remembrance without glorification.
“The school wasn’t erasing history; it was recognizing that an institution that educates officers for the U.S. military should not revere generals who helped lead wars against it,” The Atlantic noted. The distinction between honoring individual sacrifice and celebrating a lost cause is, for many, the heart of the issue.
The Ezekiel statue now set to return to Arlington bears a Latin inscription: “The victorious cause was pleasing to the gods, but the lost cause pleased Cato.” While some interpret this as a reflection on the nobility of defeat, critics argue there was nothing righteous about the Confederacy’s rebellion against the United States. “Paeans to it do not belong in a U.S. military cemetery,” the article concluded.
The timing of these developments is not lost on observers. With the 2024 presidential election and the ongoing culture wars over race, history, and identity, the fate of Confederate monuments has become a potent symbol of broader national divides. For some, returning statues to places of honor is a necessary corrective to what they see as overreach by the left. For others, it is a dangerous step backward, one that risks whitewashing the brutal realities of America’s past.
As the debate rages on, communities like Edenton and institutions like Arlington National Cemetery find themselves at the crossroads of history and memory. The decisions made in the coming years will shape not only the physical landscape but also the stories Americans tell about who they are—and who they aspire to become.
For now, the question remains: Can a nation truly honor its history without glorifying its worst chapters? The answer, it seems, is still up for debate.
