The Assault on the Southern Ethos: A Virginian's Perspective

Elizabeth Bishop

For many and myself included the past few weeks have been nothing more than the continuation of the "culture war" against peoples of the South that have gone on my entire life. The very same individuals who have sought to destroy the "southern identity" through mischaracterizations and blatant lies are the same ones who demand others respect their identity. The identity that forms the very foundational mindset of a southerner that can be attributed in many things but nothing greater than military service if totally ignored. The fact that our military is overwhelmingly "southern" is undeniable. The act of service is grounded in an identity that based in honor and duty towards things greater than themselves.

I have long doubted that most of the current progressive movements of this day even remotely comprehend such things as honor and duty or the "loss" felt by an entire region following a war that was fought predominately on Virginian soil. The sense of "loss" today in terms of the feelings expressed by those that object to Confederate monument removal has nothing to do with slavery or any defense of that institution whatsoever. Just like those that erected statues at the turn of twentieth century, many southerners have a sense of obligation to preserve the memory of those who gave full measure or commanded those that did throughout Virginia. The belief in preservation is in no way and endorsement of prior generations failings rather it is an acknowledgement that though they were flawed men they were still Virginians.

I had the honor this week of walking the hallowed ground of Antietam National Battlefield this week. Honor is a word mostly lost in the political discourse of today. In today's social justice identity environment that consumes Virginia, merely walking a civil war battlefield today many would in one manner or another pass judgement upon anyone visiting a battlefield. Today its as if in some manner  visit is an insult to the "wokeness" of others.  In the last few weeks, we have forgotten a piece ourselves and have entered into a surreal consciousness that people somehow must feel a level of shame or guilt as it relates to whom they may be descended from or on the basis of their skin color.

Sunken Road or "Bloody Lane" Antietam

We are experiencing an environment where "whites" today must somehow feel accountable for the "sins" of their ancestors or some level of "shame" for events and institutions they took no part in themselves whereas no accountability is placed upon those Africans tribes  that sold their fellow Africans into slavery to begin with. Individuals today are free to desecrate, destroy, topple or simply vandalize property with no accountability. Today, people are excused for violence simply out of some claim for social justice change justification.

The hot lead of the battlefields all across the country paid little mind to race, color or creed. At Antietam almost 20,000 Americans were killed or wounded in one of the most picturesque rolling countrysides in all of Maryland. As you travel along the winding roads of western Maryland, you are almost taken back to the period where two armies clashed along Antietam Creek and in the cornfields yet one can't help but recognize the hundreds of "TRUMP 2020" yard signs and banners along the way in the small towns that line the journey west up to South Mountain. This is western Maryland which does not share the same values as eastern Maryland no different than the relationship much of rural Virginia has with Northern Virginia.

The events of the last month in Virginia, especially Richmond, prompted my wife and I to visit Antietam. The frustrations of being shouted down and the silencing of voices by the new majority in Richmond created a desire to travel to Antietam if for no other reason to to play homage to a generation of Americans that sacrificed so much for this nation. Many Virginians filled the ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia that crossed the Potomac River that September  1862 into Maryland.  Having been born a Virginian, the battles of the Civil War carry great significance in terms of my own "horizontal identity" whereas my wife who was born in Maryland traces her heritage and ancestral arrival in America in years following the war.


Every monument at Antietam was pristine.  Untouched by the current social justice movements targeting war memorials. It was as if the hundreds of monuments located at Antietam had just been power washed by Maryland storms coming over the South Mountain range during the night before. No graffiti or protest paint anywhere to be found.  No disrespect. This was not lost on the many walking the battlefield as one could hear the whispers of visitors. I observed a father reading a monumental plaque to his son relating to the Pennsylvanians that died at Antietam and could see the boy moved as he turned to his left and stepped up upon the monument looking out upon the field beyond the fence line with his hand upon his forehead shielding him from the glare of the hot sun. The boy stood starring out upon the field most likely envisioning the armies moving into position.

As I walked down the hallowed sunken road which would forever be known as the "Bloody Road", I stopped and began thinking of Richmond. A city that has determined that none of its Civil War memorials should remain.  A city that has never fully embraced its past. A city that appears more inclined to be ashamed by it than embrace it as the way point of American history that defines all the progress that America has experienced. None of the monuments erected at Antietam were erected as some "socio-political" statement nor in truth were the monuments in Richmond. The notion that statues and monuments erected were such is simply a fabrication of modern political activism used as a sword and as a means of generating financial contributions via a fraud perpetuated upon society.

History should never be used as a sword rather it should always be used as a shield for future generations. A shield to remind those that come in future generations what can happen when we as Americans persist in allowing the politics of division to consume us as a society. The thousands of fallen Americans at Antietam and battlefields just like her that line the hallowed grounds of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania are a testament to that failure.

Robert E. Lee Monument , Richmond

The monuments that line Civil War battlefields are not honoring slavery or the "defense of slavery" anymore than Monument Avenue represents any commentary directed at that aspect of history. The truth is the majority of monuments and memorials journey began in the years leading up to the 50th Anniversary of the Civil War and had nothing to do with Jim Crow. The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC)was not some nineteenth century radical, right wing leaning, racist organization that 2020 politicians and activists seek to portray it as. The Southerner identity today has simply become yet another "litmus test" orchestrated by progressive activism in an attempt to shame whites for a past they took no part in or in truth may have no relation to whatsoever save being "white". This in itself the very same kind of "profiling" or the kind of racism the progressive left says it opposes. It has become nothing more than another line in the sand like support for the NRA or opposition to Planned Parenthood for example. Simply another vehicle to divide Virginians in a manner in which to point across a street and tell others they are to blame for the condition of others not based on their actions but based on their identity. An identity that may as much "vertical" as "horizontal" in truth.

The progressive left's tentacles like the Southern Poverty Law Center and some would even argue the Virginia ACLU advance the narrative that the UDC funded war memorials at the turn of the century derived from a position of hate. In truth the UDC has had a hand in some 700 monuments nationally playing tribute to the sacrifice and honoring the memory of the fallen during the Civil War.  This has made the UDC an easy target for the left.  But is it justified? The UDC raised  private money for the support of preserving the memories of the fallen not some radical, racist agenda as continually asserted by the left. The UDC has roughly twenty thousand members and rarely acts if ever as a "political" organization.  The majority of the women behind UDC that advanced monuments and memorials erected in the year of the 50th Anniversary were actual descendants of the Confederate fallen. This effort was organized to address tall the mourning experienced in the war torn South post Reconstruction.

This mourning is routinely dismissed by the left. They see monuments as nothing more than a political statement, however they totally ignore the simply realities of post war South. What the South experienced in truth would be very similar if in four years 80% of all these Black Lives Matter protesters had lost their lives. If the majority of all millennial men in Virginia were dead by 2024. That is the true reality which Virginia faced in the decades post war. Virginia lost a virtual generation during the war ages 18-30. The young progressives today have experienced little to resemble this fact in their lives.

J.E.B. Stuart Monument (now removed in Richmond)

Most of the Richmond protesters have never seen battle let alone anything resembling Antietam. Most have never served their country or their communities through service or put their lives on the line for something greater than themselves. Nothing in this new progressive left movement echos the words of either John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr. In fact, the new movement draws a closer correlation to Marxism in truth. The effort is grounded in entitlement and blame. Progressives seek to blame others for the very nature of things that they themselves are responsible for in the very cities all across the country their leaders control. Richmond, Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago are not controlled by conservative leaders  rather they are lead by progressive politicians.

Racism exists in our society, however the unspoken reality in places like Richmond is that such racism is not advanced in truth only by "whites". The systematic racism existing in Richmond is advanced by the black political power establishment that has controlled city politics for decades. This establishment has overseen the city and its institutions for decades and now seeks to blame or place the "guilt" for its failures at the feet of a declining "white" population in the city. There has been little effort the last thirty years to curb or address this so-called "institutional racism" by city leaders. Who controls these "institutions" exactly? Who hires and fires? Who holds employees accountable? Instead you see a city determined to keep "racism" alive so they can use said racism as the "shiny object" to point to and rail against every few years during campaigns or for fundraising purposes like today.

The UDC and many Virginians worked to support the erection of monuments and memorials out of love, sadness, mourning and respect for the fallen whereas the progressive left and people like Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond have removed them out of anger and hate. This difference is not lost on the thousands of Virginians who will no longer visit Richmond. The monuments at Antietam are meant to honor the sacrifice of those that fought on that hallowed ground because that ground was in fact where thousands lay dead. Richmond herself was the "Capital of the Confederacy" and there was/is no better place for Virginians that commanded other Virginians than Monument Avenue given the correlation between the battlefield and the city and what they each represented to the era. These men were perceived as "defenders of Virginia" NOT defenders of slavery. Richmond was to be defended at all costs.

It is my hope that that little boy standing upon the monument at Antietam one day could visit the Richmond I knew and loved growing up as a child. The rich history celebrated within the city limits that chronicles true Virginia history and honors her past with the respect that each era is a different time and a different way point contributing to who we are as a people today. How long before we lose our battlefields that may "offend" one element or another in society. Decades ago we used to permit our school children to visit the battlefield on field trips. Why did we stop? What were the forces opposing school field trips to battlefield especially in Virginia?

Virginians are an honorable and good people. We do great disservice to our traditions and legacy allowing monuments to be desecrated even in the end if they all must come down. Its not the matter or decisions made that these monuments come down but rather the manner in which we as a people determine "how" they should come down and where they should be relocated.

Voices matter. Today, the progressive left has controlled the dialogue and has attempted to shame anyone willing to stand up and voice opposition to them or support a different view (see Goya Foods) . It is clear they are attempting to weaponize shame and "white guilt" as a means of advancing their agenda. The southern ethos as an identity is clearly the target of this "culture war".

The loss of of such historical fixtures of one's life is very meaningful and had the removal of monuments been undertaken in a respectful manner for the most part the majority of Virginians may have accepted the transition however coupled with the dozens of proposals of name changes to schools and streets the entire movement has forced many Virginians to "vote with their wallets" and refuse to not only support Richmond but no longer support institutions or universities/schools forced to change names directly impacting the future endowments. We have no way of knowing how the name change to Washington & Lee University ultimately will impact the future of an institution that honored its saviour in truth with adding Lee to its name in 1870.

The question further remains how Virginia will even market its actual history to Americans in the future. Dated as it is, the "Virginia is for Lovers" campaign  no longer clearly applies to the Old Dominion as it is very hard these days to point to any "love" or respect in large part due to the divisive nature of political tribalism.