Plans advance to return Confederate memorial to Arlington National Cemetery

Plans are moving forward to bring a Confederate memorial back to Arlington National Cemetery three years after it was removed.

A representative from the Office of Army Cemeteries presented final design plans for the statue to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts during a meeting Thursday morning.

The statue, unveiled in 1914, features a bronze woman, crowned with olive leaves, standing on a 32-foot pedestal, and was designed to represent the American South. Some of the figures also on the statue include a Black woman depicted as “Mammy” holding what is said to be the child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war.

It is undergoing renovations and is expected to be placed back at Arlington next year.

A century-old memorial to Confederate soldiers is now in the process of being removed from Arlington National Cemetery after a ruling by a federal judge. News4’s Jackie Bensen explains how legal challenges persisted until hours before the removal began.

In 2022, an independent commission recommended the memorial be taken down, as part of its final report to Congress on renaming of military bases and assets that commemorate the Confederacy. It was removed in December 2023.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last year the statue would be returned to the cemetery as part of President Donald Trump’s push to combat what his administration calls the “erasing of American history.”

Hegseth said on social media the Arlington statue “never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history — we honor it.”

When the statue is re-installed, there will be new signage near it that will offer context about its history.

It will also be renamed after Moses Ezekiel, the Confederate soldier who designed it. Ezekiel is buried nearby.

The Army previously said that restoring the memorial would cost $10 million.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.