Civil War Monuments and the Militarization of America

Abstract

Someone has finally taken a comprehensive look at Civil War monuments. While numerous books have covered commemoration and monuments in communities and even on battlefields, Thomas J. Brown has attempted to place them within the broad context of Civil War memorialization. Interestingly, he traces the influence and themes of Civil War commemoration from the French Revolution through the present, arguing that three different trends in monument styles and thought existed between the end of the war and the twenty-first century. The first wave of monuments appeared near the end of the war. Communities struggling with large numbers of deaths and often unable to bring bodies home—or even identify them—led Americans to embrace the myth of the fallen soldier and to commemorate the individual. According to Brown, the first efforts at memorialization and monument creation began with the national cemetery system, where the bodies received individual markers. Memorialization then transitioned to community monuments. For most communities, one large monument in the town square acknowledged fallen soldiers with their names. The statue of a soldier in mourning, at parade rest, or on picket duty reflected the idea of the sentimental soldier. No longer just the women mourned the losses; the soldiers themselves meditated on the meaning and sacrifices of the war.