(The impressive spire of Christ Church Alexandria, attended by George Washington and Robert E. Lee. Photo Socotra).

I ran across a bit of news the other day that confirmed that I no longer live in a place I once did. It was about The Rebel, the one who stands at the intersection of South Washington Street (Virginia Route 400) and Prince Street in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia.

(The Rebel statue in Alexandria. Photo John McDonnell/The Washington Post)

The figure is that of a bare-headed Confederate infantryman. He is facing south, looking down and reflective of the sacrifice made by local residents who were occupied by the overwhelming Federal Army for nearly four years of war. The spot is significant, and marks the place where a local regiment mustered to retreat from Alexandria as Federal troops swarmed across the Long Bridge from Washington to occupy the city and the high ground of the Virginia Piedmont, construct an interlocking ring of imposing forts, and secure the Capital from the predations of the Virginians.

There have been previous controversies about “Appomattox,” the formal name for the seven-foot bronze statue atop his plinth. I remember when an undocumented immigrant drove his pickup truck through the ornamental wrought-iron fence that once surrounded it. Back then we had another term for persons in the United States without papers or the approval of our elected government.

We called them criminals. See how things have changed? Anyway, I always thing of that undocumented motorist every time I pass the statue, heading over to the Jeff Davis Highway to go to the Pentagon or one of the other iconic buildings here in Your Nation’s Capital.

The forces of revision never sleep, any more than rust does. Periodically, there have been efforts to move the statue, which when it was erected in 1889 was a source of great civic pride. Not so much anymore. There is a concerted effort to erase the presence of the Confederates in the city of Alexandria. The City Council voted by acclamation last weekend to change the name of Jeff Davis Highway and implore the Virginia General Assembly to permit them to move Appomattox to a less visible location.

The Council had appointed a special task force that was charged with the de-Nazification of the city. Wait, sorry. Wrong country. What I meant was that the inconvenient parts of our collective history has to be scrubbed of things that could conceivably make anyone uncomfortable.

As a person with both Confederate and Union ancestors, I appreciate the whole spectrum of the people who did what they did in the context of their times, and their children who tried to honor their sacrifice in the war between some of the States and the Federal Government.

Anyway, these things seem to come and go with the generations, and some people are deeply committed to re-writing the past. The monuments themselves are the products of the next generation after the fighting was done, and the outcome enforced. I ran across 34 Confederates quite by accident this morning, and I was struck that they were passive participants in the War of the Dead, the one that came as the Federal Government was setting up the system of National Cemeteries to provide dignified resting places for the 300,000 Union soldiers who had been buried where they fell.

Naturally, that was only for the victors at the time. There are still some Confederate mass graves in strange places. I have seen the one off Georgia Avenue, north of the District. The grave contains the bones of ten Rebels killed in the Monocacy Campaign of General Jubel Early, dispatched by Bobbie Lee to distract Ulysses Grant, who was in the process of capturing strategic Petersburg, the key to the conquest of Richmond.

I found 34 more today.

I had a meeting in Old Town with a company I respect a great deal. Parking is always a problem in Old Town, which is mostly why I don’t go there much any more. But I was parked just north of the Christ Church on Washington Street. It is a lovely old structure, completed before the Revolution in 1773, and they have been putting people in the ground there ever since.

I don’t walk as well as I used to, and was slowly moving north as I saw a large marble marker inset into the shoulder of a mound of ivy. Welcoming he chance to stop for a moment, I walked over to the iron fence and looked through. I will let the stone tell you the story:

These Rebels were dug up over the furor with the Union Dead and the Alexandria National Cemetery.

I did not see a reference to them in the deliberations of the City Council. Perhaps the Task Force does not know that they are on the grounds of the Church, or perhaps they realized that the grave in on private property and thus beyond their power.

They can re-name Jeff Davis Street if they wish- they have that power. The Statue’s removal will need the cooperation of the State Assembly, which they are not likely to get (at the moment). That august body recently sent a bill to our distinguished Governor strictly regulating the movement of war memorials.

He vetoed it, of course, since he is in favor of scrubbing the past to make it nice and tidy.

I am hoping the 34 Rebels who rest in the Christ Church grounds remain there. Of course, if public sensibilities demand they be removed to a more inconspicuous place, I am sure they would understand.

It would not be the first time, you know?

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com