Exhibit Introduction

This exhibit is an extended version of a temporary exhibition on display at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia in Spring 2023. The information presented here is expanded versions of the content on display in that exhibition. So if you missed catching that exhibition in person, you’re getting everything it covered, and more, here. Each sub-topic presented in this exhibition contains links to narrated versions of the writing, in case you would prefer to listen to, rather than read, the content.

This project examines the Lost Cause of the Confederacy (often shortened to the Lost Cause) as it appears in visual art in the Augusta community. The Lost cause is an ahistorical mythology about the American Civil War (1861-1865) which came to prominence in the late nineteenth century and remained a dominant force throughout much of the twentieth century, with its impact still being felt today. In short, proponents of the Lost Cause sought to reinterpret the Civil War, crafting a narrative that aimed to paint the Confederacy and its supporters in the best possible light by preserving their honor, removing the institution of slavery as the central catalyst for the war, and deflecting criticism and blame away from Confederates and their cause.

Lost Cause themes and ideas are present in various forms of visual art, from paintings to popular lithographic images, and especially public art, such as monuments. This project examines images from within the Civil War and Southern Stories galleries at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia as well as public art from the Augusta area. Public art is art that is intended to be viewed by the public in public spaces, as opposed to in private galleries. In this case it is referring to monuments and memorials.

In an era before digital media, these forms of art were a means to share and spread ideas. The Lost Cause, with its dramatic ideas of valor, loss, glory, and sacrifice was well suited to be taken to the world of art. Countless paintings, lithographs, photographs, monuments, and eventually even films were created that perpetuate the Lost Cause narrative.

This exhibition has three major sections: The Lost Cause, public art from around the Augusta Area, and visual art from the collection at the Morris Museum of Art.


If you would like to go on a self-guided tour of these locations, visit AugustaMonuments.com/Tours for routes, options, and directions.

The Lost Cause Defined:

The Lost Cause is a term that refers to a crafted, ahistorical mythology about the Civil War. Proponents of the Lost Cause (and of the Confederacy in a broader sense) sought to reinterpret the causes, motivation, and realities of the Civil War to justify and explain the conflict, rationalizing the substantial losses suffered by white Southern society in a manner which painted the slaveholding South at large in a more positive light. The South went to war to maintain a way of life that was dependent on enslaved labor. There was not then, nor is there now, an accurate way of interpreting the cause for which the Confederacy fought that does not have white supremacy at its core. Put more simply, the institution of slavery was the catalyst for the Civil War. Proponents of the Lost Cause argue against this.

Instead, the Lost Cause deflects blame and criticism away from Confederates, refocusing blame on a “tyrannical” North hellbent on interfering with the Southern way of life while conveniently ignoring what these aspects of Southern life that were threatened might be. Proponents of the Lost Cause argue that the Civil War was about myriad other causes and factors, minimizing or not recognizing the centrality of the institution of slavery to the conflict itself or these “other” issues, such as states rights or economics. The Lost Cause also perpetuates the notion that white Southerners were fighting, in the spirit of the American Revolution, against a tyrannical government and oppression in defense of liberty.

More insidiously than merely minimizing the centrality of the institution of slavery to the conflict, the Lost Cause argues that enslavement was a benevolent institution. Supporters of the Lost Cause have the audacity to argue that those who were enslaved, who were separated from their family units, forced to labor against their will, faced unconscionable abuses of every variety from physical and sexual violence, to the utter dehumanization of being treated as a commodity stripped of one’s agency, were ultimately better off for the experience.

The Lost Cause and its proponents were largely successful in whitewashing and obfuscating conversations surrounding the Civil War. The Lost Cause became the dominant narrative of the conflict and its aftermath. The long-lasting impact of the Lost Cause’s success is still felt today, as evidenced by the myriad controversies stemming from mis- or poorly informed understandings of the Civil War and the pressing need for continued conversations about the Civil War and its aftermath.

An Introduction to Public Art

Public art is art which is designed to be viewed and consumed by a public audience in a public space. Examples of public art include monuments, memorials, paintings, murals, or any art placed in the public square. The scope, setting, and style of public art can of course vary widely. The Washington Monument, Chicago’s Cloud Gate (more commonly known as the Bean), Turtle Playground at Forest Park in St. Louis, Gaudi’s famous mosaic benches in Barcelona, or even the Rainbow Crosswalks at 10^th and Piedmont in Atlanta are all public art. This contrasts with art that is primarily aimed for private consumption – like a painting or print hung on the wall of a gallery space. For the context of this exhibit, the public art discussed is memorials and monuments in the Augusta community that are linked in some way to the Civil War. Examples include the Broad St. Confederate monument, various installations along the Augusta Riverwalk, the Confederate Powderworks, the Jefferson Davis Bridge at Fifth Street, and the Meriwether Monument in North Augusta.

Civil War monuments are uniquely problematic in the sense that expressions of sadness and grief often are secondary to expressions which celebrate the ideals for which Confederates fought and honor and lionize Confederate leaders. To make a coarse comparison to more modern times: many cities have statues or memorials honoring the service members from that locale who lost their lives in Vietnam or conflicts in the Middle East. These monuments simply mourn the dead and note their immense sacrifice. They provide no commentary on the origin of the conflict and these monuments, notably, do not contain the likenesses of relevant figures like Henry Kissinger, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Erik Prince, or Donald Rumsfeld.

The Confederate cause was one of defending a way of life to which white supremacy was central, and monuments, often centrally placed in spaces of prominence in the community, often served as an attempt to set this dynamic into stone. Many of these monuments frequently go on beyond mourning the dead. Most Confederate monuments provide editorialized commentary on the justness of the Confederate cause and canonize its leaders as figures without fault, and sanctify its cause as pure without blemish.

There is, of course, room for some nuance when considering monuments and their role. Some monuments and memorials are placed in cemeteries, and are earnest expressions of sadness and grief at the loss of life. Others are placed in the town square, extolling the virtues and valor of men who fought for their ability to own and torture other human beings, and serve as priapic reminders of the order that once was, perhaps expressing only thinly veiled wishes for that order to return. Both mournful cemetery memorials and public square obelisks that laud the cause are relatively straightforward when considering their relative appropriateness. The former, markers in cemeteries are generally morally acceptable, and the latter, monuments to Southern heroes in the town square are broadly inexcusable. However, grey areas appear when there are cemetery memorials that move beyond mourning or monuments in the downtown that merely express grief – like a cenotaph. These more extreme edge cases should not be allowed to dominate the narrative or prevent earnest dialogue around monuments which are patently not appropriate in a civilized and empathetic society.

Many Confederate monuments were erected at times in which the “normal order” of the time was threatened, further highlighting their role in reinforcing white supremacy. In the late nineteenth century, white southerners erected monuments as a reaction against expressions of Black freedom and citizenship in the Reconstruction era. In the early twentieth century, a new wave of monuments, inspired by hyper-nationalist ideologies of the World War I era cropped up. The mid-century Civil Rights era brought a further wave of monuments and saw a reemergence of Confederate symbols flying in public spaces.

In each of these cases the overwhelmingly white power structure of the times felt some threat to the established way of life as Black Americans fought for broader participation in the American experience, erecting monuments as a physical reminder of the societal dynamics they wished to perpetuate and maintain.

Downtown Augusta

This seventy-six-foot-tall monument looms large over Broad Street. At the top is an everyman soldier statue modeled after Augustan, and Confederate, Berry Benson, who famously never surrendered. Above each corner of the base are life-size statues of four Confederate generals, Stonewall Jackson, Thomas R. R. Cobb, William H. T. Walker, and Robert E. Lee. Each of these five men came from slaveholding families. Inscriptions praise the Confederacy, its cause, and its soldiers. A poem praises the “white and fair” Confederate nation.

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In the still rigidly patriarchal postbellum South, mourning the dead was considered women’s work. During Reconstruction, many former Confederates, especially leading figures, were disenfranchised and forbidden from participating in political life. This makes considerable sense given that the last time they had engaged in serious political discourse they had decided to take up arms against the government of the United States in defense of chattel slavery. Speech overtly supporting the Confederate cause was similarly outlawed. Women, however, were viewed at this time as fundamentally incapable of participating in politics. In addition to taking the role of mourning the dead, women thus became the mouthpiece for dangerous, pro-Confederate sympathies during this time. This monument, erected by the Ladies’ Memorial Association of Augusta, was custom-made from fine Italian Carrara marble with a granite base and cost over $17,000 (nearly $500,000 in today’s currency) when it was commissioned in 1875.

In modern times, defenders of these monuments often excuse them as the products of sad little old ladies who scraped together some pennies to mourn the dead. This style of defense characterizes the Lost Cause, and the women’s groups who were at the vanguard of promoting it, in a way that is both paternalistic and misogynistic. It ultimately robs them of their agency as people, as if these women were too helpless, harmless, and un-serious as political actors to be aware of what they were doing. These women were capable political actors. They made their own choices, accrued an incredible amount of money to finance this monument, and were quite aware and proud of the message it portrayed. These women clearly told us who they were and what they stood for – we should listen.

The Broad Street monument was at the leading edge of a shift in monument construction. In the first decades after the war, most Confederate monuments built in the South were constructed in cemeteries or battlefields, generally for mourning the dead. Nationwide, most Confederate monuments were constructed in the 1890s as expressions of Jim Crow-era white supremacy that overtly support the Lost Cause. The Broad Street monument is an early example that does the latter. The base of the monument has a series of inscriptions glorifying the Confederacy and its cause.

The five figures on this monument all came from slaveholding families. Thomas R. R. Cobb is from a family that is Georgia—and Confederate—political royalty. William H. T. Walker, born in Augusta, was the son of a former Augusta mayor and died in the Atlanta campaign. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are the most lauded figures of the Lost Cause. Jackson’s death before the end of the war, due to injury, gives proponents of the war an eternal “what if?” at which they can grasp. “If only Jackson had lived then ___ would have turned out differently.” Lee, as a figure, is deified by proponents of the Lost Cause. Elevated as a man without fault. This is, ironically, against his own wishes against the construction of monuments to himself or the Confederacy. In the Lost Cause, Lee is often elevated to a Christ-like position – a peerless man without fault of any kind. The Lost Cause elevates and overstates his military and tactical prowess and minimizes problematic views. Proponents of the Lost Cause argue that Lee was a man of perfect valor and morality who viewed slavery as a great evil. Lee, in reality, argued slavery was “a greater evil to the white man than to the black race,” and that it was ultimately a net positive for the enslaved individuals, and was vicious in his practices as a slaveholder, allowing harsh physical punishment and separation of family units.

Berry Benson, the model for the every-man soldier atop the Broad Street monument’s spire, is admittedly quite fascinating. Benson volunteered for service even before the conflict had officially begun, serving through the entire war and perhaps beyond. He witnessed the attack on Fort Sumter and was present at various battles including Spotsylvania and Chancellorsville. He was absent at Gettysburg only because he was recovering from injuries. He was twice captured and twice escaped, party to what is purported to be the only successful escape attempt from the Elmira Prison Camp, in which escapees dug a sixty-five-foot-long tunnel out of the camp. Benson was with Lee’s army at Appomattox, yet was such an enthusiastic supporter of the Confederate cause that he refused to himself surrender. Instead, Benson marched with his brother to join General Joseph Johnston’s forces in North Carolina. Upon reaching Johnston’s army and finding it also on the verge of surrender, the Benson brothers marched home to Augusta, proudly with their rifles, having never surrendered. In the post-war years Benson returned to the Augusta area—his home still stands on West Avenue in North Augusta, South Carolina—and was an accountant by trade. Benson received national attention when he noted discrepancies in the prosecution’s evidence in the Leo Frank case, a notorious early twentieth century incident of flagrant anti-Antisemitism, that ultimately prompted the governor to commute Frank’s sentence. Benson arranged for the adoption of over one hundred and fifty French orphans during World War I. Benson was also an active leader with local Boy Scout troops, frequently leading scouts on hikes well into advanced age. To many, Benson was the ideal Confederate – a true believer in the cause – and distinguished in public service in his post-war years.

The Broad Street monument’s place of prominence in the community cannot be overstated. Nor can the role of the point in time in which it was erected. For a time in the Reconstruction era, downtown Augusta was a center of a booming Black cultural experience. The Springfield Baptist Church and a powerful Freedman’s Bureau were the twin epicenters of a powerful, and unique, seat of Black power. These expressions of Black citizenship during Reconstruction, and further objectionable events like celebratory New Year’s and Fourth of July parades in downtown Augusta, had agitated many white Augustans who were eager to reclaim public spaces as Reconstruction failed.

“sic transit gloria mundi“

“thus passes the glory of the world” – 1866 Augusta Constitutionalist editorial on Black celebrations in downtown Augusta

In her now-famous journal, Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, an Augustan from a family of planters, recounted her distress and horror upon venturing into town on Broad Street in the first days of 1872 when she encountered the parade of African Americans celebrating the new year and Emancipation Day, remarking that “this is not a Happy New Year to me.” This was not a reaction unique to Thomas. Many white Augustans closed their doors and shuttered their homes and businesses on these days of Black celebration. Others left town entirely. The Augusta Constitutionalist ran an editorial that decried the downfall of civilization in 1866; it described one such flight of white Augustans, who had made a country excursion up the Augusta Canal on the Fourth of July, and closed by remarking that they were unable to report what the freedman had done, but knew it was a “highly colored affair” and concluded with “sic transit gloria mundi” – thus passes the glory of the world.

1875 marked the first postbellum Fourth of July celebrations with widespread white participation in Augusta. Scornful of the celebrations that had grown too Black during reconstruction, white officials were buoyed as reconstruction faltered and the all-white Southern Democratic political machine was clawing back control from a multi-racial Republican party. White Augustans now felt they had something worthy of celebrating. The Ladies’ Memorial Association of Augusta officially commissioned the Broad Street monument in 1875. In addition to private donations, the fundraising included benefit performances of minstrel shows and donations from the police, whose membership was evidently keen to support flagrantly racist policies.

Charles Jones, Jr., a former Confederate officer gave the bulk of the orations on the day of its dedication in 1878, in front of a crowd of over ten thousand people – a full third of the county’s population at the time. Stonewall Jackson’s widow was a guest in attendance at the dedication. Their attitudes towards the past – and the future – were on clear display, with statements praising the cause and expressing regret only that they failed.

“With rapturous joy do we bail the dedication of this goodly monument. With kindling hearts do we respond to the inspirations and the memories which its presence bespeaks. We glory in the rectitude of the cause, and exult in the valor of the men symbolized by its towering form and martial outlines.”

“For the past we have no apologies to offer, no excuses to render, no regrets to nitter, save that we failed in our high endeavor; no tears to shed except over withered hopes and the graves of our departed worthies. We yielded in the end because we were overborne by superior numbers and weightier munitions. Any pledges given will be by us duly observed; but it is well known, alike by friend and stranger, that nothing has been absolutely determined except the question of comparative strength. The issue furnished only a physical solution of the moral, social, and political propositions involved in the gigantic struggle. The sword never does, and never can compass other than a forcible arbitrament in matters of conscience, principle, and inalienable right. Even now the fundamental claims, the political privileges, and the vested rights in support of which the Southern people expended their blood and treasure, are, in a moral point of view, unaffected by the result of the contest.”

Charles Jones, Jr., a former Confederate officer, gave remarks at the dedication of the monument in 1878.

This monument was erected to celebrate a cause to which white supremacy was central. The leaders of the Confederate cause were clear in this with their words and with their actions. The people who funded this monument were clear when constructing it that they felt the same way as those who had fought for the cause. Their words are available in plain English to corroborate this conclusion. The people of Augusta today are not responsible for the harm caused by the monument’s makers. But every day that the monument continues to exist in its current form and current place contributes new harm, stacking further indignities on the wrongs of the past. We, as a community of citizens, are party to this ongoing harm if we do nothing about it. Silence on the matter is complicity and is a tacit endorsement of the principles the monument memorializes.

There are a series of monuments and parks in North Augusta, South Carolina that are tied, in some way, to the Hamburg Massacre, and to broader white supremacist violence of 1876. The Meriwether Monument sits in Calhoun Park in North Augusta, between Georgia and Carolina Avenues, below West Forest Avenue, just up the hill from downtown. It celebrates the “young hero of the Hamburg Riot.” The Jefferson Davis Memorial Bridge, now a pedestrian-only bridge linking Augusta with North Augusta, is at the site of the brutal murders of Black men at the hands of a white mob during that event. It boasts multiple plaques honoring Jefferson Davis, erstwhile president of the Confederacy. Wade Hampton Veterans’ Park in downtown North Augusta honors the former Confederate general who was the political beneficiary of the election violence of 1876.

That event is more accurately known as the Hamburg Massacre, one in a series of episodes in a campaign of election-related violence across South Carolina in 1876, led by the virulently white supremacist Benjamin Tillman in service of shedding the yolk of a multiracial Republican government in South Carolina, eventually electing Wade Hampton as governor. In Hamburg, then a majority Black town on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River, members of a white supremacist and fascist organization known as Red Shirts laid siege to a Black company of National Guardsmen, eventually capturing and brutally murdering six of them in cold blood in what was referred to as the “dead ring.”

On July 4, 1876, the all-Black members of Company A of the 18^th Regiment of the South Carolina National Guard, under the leadership of Captain Dock Adams were performing parade drills. The sight of armed Black men drilling in the streets was evidently too outrageous for the sons of a local planter, Robert J. Butler. After prolonged discussion, Adams ordered his men to part, allowing the carriage of the “Butler Boys” to pass, as they had evidently been unwilling to drive around the drilling soldiers, instead demanding to pass directly through them. The planter filed charges against Adams for obstructing the roadway. A hearing was set. This was not, however, a chance encounter. The Butler Boys had sat and observed the parading soldiers and the street was reported to be extremely wide – clearly wide enough for them to navigate past without issue. This was a manufactured incident that occurred because they wanted it to occur.

A hearing was set for two days later. It did not go well. Butler bristled at the appearance of the county probate judge, Henry Sparnick, an official in the Reconstruction era multi-racial coalition government, who assisted the local Hamburg judge, Prince Rivers, who was black. This probate judge stated that the summons was illegitimate. Butler demanded an apology from the men of Company A, who were being represented by Dock Adams, who deftly cross-examined the Butler Boys. The Butler contingent was outraged at the audacity of a Black man cross-examining them under the auspices of a Black judge. The hearing was postponed to July 8^th.

In advance of the resumption of the hearing, the Butlers called for a lawyer from nearby Edgefield County. Former Confederate General Matthew Calbraith (M. C.) Butler (no relation) saw this as an opportunity to stamp out black militias once and for all. Word spread among all-white rifle clubs. An angry mob of white conservatives descended on Hamburg in advance of the hearing on July 8^th.  In a private meeting in advance of the second hearing, Judge Rivers acknowledged to a fearful Dock Adams that there was little his court could do to keep Adams and his men safe should the white mob materialize. By the hearing’s resumption, members of Edgefield County’s rifle clubs recognized that this was their moment. Approximately 200 rifle club members armed with pistols, rifles, and shotguns amassed at a nearby store with makeshift uniforms of red shirts – the inspiration for their “Red Shirts” nickname. General M. C. Butler, leading the group, approached the building containing Company A’s clubhouse/armory and demanded that Company A surrender their weapons to him. Dock Adams, being the commanding officer of a legally organized national guard company, refused to hand over weapons without direct, legal orders from his superiors.

M. C. Butler and his Red Shirts became incensed that Adams and Company A would not capitulate. They fired upon the guardsmen, holed up in their clubhouse. Company A returned fire. Thomas Meriwether, a white man in the mob, was killed by a gunshot wound. As the members of the South Carolina National Guard were besieged in their headquarters/armory, the mob of white men called for a cannon from the Augusta arsenal. It was wheeled across the bridge to Hamburg. Upon learning of the arrival of the cannon, the men of Company A 18^th Regiment, SC National Guard fled their position. The mob chased the Black men into the night. Many were rounded up, others were killed. Those who were rounded up were taken to the bridge joining Hamburg with Augusta. The mob formed what was called the “dead ring” where the Red Shirts encircled more than twenty Black men. The Red Shirts debated the fate of the men they held hostage. They called men forward one by one and executed them. Allen Attaway, a lieutenant in Company A and an Aiken County Commissioner, was the first executed in this fashion. He was forced into a field and shot in cold blood by the Red Shirts. Several more men were similarly executed. Men said prayers and wept for their families; others stood stoically defiant. The remaining hostages were made to swear to never take up arms again. They were told they were free and to run. As they ran, the mob of Red Shirts opened fire. Some were killed—shot from behind—as they fled, and others were merely wounded. The Red Shirt mob, continuing its lawless rampage with impunity, looted stores and homes in the area under the cover of night before dispersing by sunrise.

A jury indicted over ninety of the white men from the Red Shirt mob for the brutal murders of these Black men. None ever faced prosecution. This was but the first in an organized campaign of violence across majority Black communities in the lead-up to the 1876 election, in what was known as the Plan of the Campaign of 1876, organized by Benjamin Tillman, General M.C. Butler, and Martin Gary in service of “redeeming” South Carolina, ousting the coalition government, and electing Wade Hampton as governor. Through violence, suppression, and outright fraud Hampton narrowly “won” the election. Reconstruction was officially over in South Carolina.

The Meriwether Monument it is a white stone obelisk about twenty feet tall, erected in 1916 with support from the state government. Its base bears inscriptions dedicating the monument to Thomas McKie Meriwether, the “young hero of the Hamburg Riot.”

“In his life he exemplified the highest ideal of Anglo-Saxon Civilization. By his death he assured to the children of his beloved land the supremacy of that ideal.”

The language on the Meriwether Monument is overt in praising Meriwether. It clearly states that he gave his life to ensure of the supremacy of Anglo-Saxon civilization.

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Meriwether, a participant in the Red Shirt mob, was the only white casualty. The monument is effusive in its praise for Meriwether’s martyrdom. He died in active defense of white supremacy, and the monument does not belie this: “In life he exemplified the highest ideal of Anglo-Saxon civilization. By his death he assured to the children of his beloved land the supremacy of that ideal.”

This monument was erected forty years after the events of the Hamburg Massacre at a time when powerful nationalistic sentiments were common not just nationally, but globally. Dangerous hyper-nationalist ideas of identity were common worldwide – indeed it was rampant militaristic nationalism that set the stage for the global conflagration of the First World War. A relative of Meriwether complained in 1916 that the state legislature’s allotted funds for the monument were too meager. He stated that the “legislative appropriation being so small—about one-fourth the value of an ante-bellum slave—I am trying to supplement it with private contributions…” The monument states that it was erected “by the state by an act of the general assembly, with the aid of admiring friends.”

The monument highlights that Meriwether died to ensure the dominance of white supremacy in South Carolina for the years to come. It does not hide or belie this fact. It brags of it. It also, somewhat ominously, notes that he was successful – “as his flame of life was quenched, it lit the blaze of victory.”

The Jefferson Davis Bridge crosses the Savannah River from Fifth Street in Augusta to River North Drive in North Augusta. As of 2022, the bridge is now a pedestrian-only park across the river. It was formerly part of the Jefferson Davis Highway, which has long been relocated a few hundred yards downtown. This bridge was opened in 1932 after a flood damaged the previous bridge at the same location. It was on this earlier, now long since gone bridge that members of the Red Shirt mob brutally murdered several Black men they had taken hostage in what was referred to as the “dead ring.” The men were asked to step forward before being executed. Some were told to run and shot from behind as they fled. The only crime they had committed was that they dared to be active members of the South Carolina National Guard while also being Black.

 In the 1930s, the new bridge, at the site of this horrific incident of Reconstruction-era violence, was dedicated as the Jefferson Davis Bridge jointly by South Carolina and Georgia chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A plaque at each end of the bridge honors Jefferson Davis, the virulent racist who referred to the American institution of chattel slavery as “mild and humane.” A marble slab bearing his name sits on each side of the midpoint of the bridge. Rather than utilizing the $11 million renovations in the 21^st century as an opportunity to remove the branding, it was instead highlighted. A railing runs the entire length of the bridge, set just inboard of the antiquated barrier – improved pedestrian safety standards for our modern times. At the marble inscription, the railing suddenly veers outwards, snaking around the marble engraving noting the bridge as the “Jefferson Davis Memorial Bridge,” ensuring all who pass by will see this unobstructed. Special lighting was installed in the footpath of the bridge that illuminates Davis’s name. This specific type of light is seen nowhere else on the entire bridge which includes play areas for children, benches, and a sculpture of a shark. At the base of the bridge, plaques from each respective state’s chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy were removed during the renovation of the bridge. Only to be reinstalled, gleaming. Polished to shine for a new generation of visitors to a bridge that had stood for decades as a little-used side street once it was replaced by a highway. The first part of the bridge visitors meet as they walk onto it –now gleaming bronze plaques lauding Jefferson Davis and the Confederate States of America. These got special up lighting, too.

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Newspaper articles discussing the project highlight its role as a new, modern park. Amenities for families, charging stations, benches, shade structures, truly beautiful views available nowhere else in the city, and a history walk. The history walk? Four dates are painted in large white letters on the bridge. The years of two floods (1888 and 1929), the year the bridge was first built (1931), and the year it reopened as a park (2022). The bridge’s history walk fails to make any mention of the horrors that occurred on its forerunner. It fails to mention the most critical bit of history one could encounter while on that walk. It surely highlights Jefferson Davis, though.

On the opposite side of downtown North Augusta from the Meriwether Monument is Wade Hampton Veterans’ Park. The park, between Clifton Avenue and Main Street, spans both sides of Georgia Avenue, the main thoroughfare between downtown North Augusta, South Carolina, and nearby downtown Augusta, Georgia. Modern blue and white signage, in keeping with the color scheme of the city of North Augusta’s signage, is angled so that vehicular traffic from Georgia can plainly see the name of the park. The bulk of the park is well-manicured green space. The east side of the park has a marker honoring prisoners of war. The west side of the park has a paved footpath sinuously meandering through it with benches, flags, and granite markers. Each granite marker, about four feet tall, is dedicated to the men of South Carolina who fought in various conflicts, from the Revolutionary war to modern conflicts in the Middle East. Each contains an inscription describing, and in some cases glorifying, the cause of its respective conflict.

The marker to the Civil War, of course, describes it as the “War Between the States,” a classic signpost that what is to follow will be imbued with the Lost Cause. More than merely memorializing the men who fought and died, noting their sacrifice, this marker, like so many to the Lost Cause, elevates Confederate veterans and leaders as figures without fault who fought for the purest and most just cause.

In the center of the park is an angled granite plinth on which a tarnished metal plaque rests. It dedicates the park as Wade Hampton Veterans’ Park and notes the mayor, city council, an American Legion post, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The date of dedication: 4 July 1993.

This park was dedicated not just in the twentieth century, but a few short years from the new millennium! This park was dedicated less than thirty years ago to the white supremacist who was elected governor of South Carolina following a campaign of overtly fascist, racist, election-suppressing violence. It was dedicated one hundred and seventeen years – to the date – after the disagreement in the street that set off the events of the Hamburg Massacre. At Christmastime, the park is decorated with lights in the shapes of toy soldiers – and a cannon. The only such display in North Augusta. It is either a deeply, and darkly ironic coincidence or, more likely, the or the result of an intentional choice by someone, that at the park named for the man who politically benefited from the Hamburg Massacre is decorated with life size toy soldiers and a light up cannon at Christmas. It is flagrantly inappropriate to have a park honoring this man, full stop. It is almost comically, cartoonishly inappropriate to decorate this park with toy soldiers and a light up cannon when soldiers and a cannon were wheeled into North Augusta’s forerunner in pursuit of state endorsed violence against its populace.

The town of Hamburg is long gone today. The town did not survive the massive flooding of 1888 and 1929. What residents remained in the area at the time of the later flood moved to an area known as Carrsville, slightly more inland. The majority of what was the Hamburg area is now a golf course – this is Augusta, after all – and an upper-middle-class neighborhood built in the early 2000s. The later-developed town of North Augusta contains much of old Hamburg and Carrsville within its borders today – though you would be hard-pressed to find many indications of this. The borders of Hamburg can be loosely approximated by a rectangle made up of Georgia Avenue, E. Buena Vista Ave, Jefferson Davis Highway, and the Savannah River. The Jefferson Davis Memorial Bridge, the site of the “dead ring,” sits near the southeast corner of these bounds. Wade Hampton Veterans’ Park, named for the politician who benefited from the slaughter of these men sits near its southwest border. In Calhoun Park off Georgia Avenue, a few blocks to the north of Buena Vista avenue sits the memorial to Meriwether, an eager participant in white supremacist violence. At the end of a dead-end street off Buena Vista Avenue is all that remains of Carrsville, Hamburg, and the only historic marker that even attempts to discuss what happened at Hamburg in 1876.  

 A few yards away from a yellow “dead end” sign, a white South Carolina state historic marker juts out of a planter. Set in the planter at its base is a flat granite marker listing the victims of the “Hamburg Incident.” The state marker, approved in 2010, tells the story of the Hamburg Massacre, remarking on it as “one of the most notable incidents of racial and political violence in S.C. during reconstruction.” If the out-of-the-way placement of this, the only marker that accurately depicts the horrors of the Hamburg Massacre was not insulting enough, the list of victims includes Meriwether. “In memory of those Killed in the Hamburg Incident July 4-9, 1876. Allen Attaway, Jim Cook, Tomas Meriwether, Albert Myniart, Nelder Parker, Moses Parks, David Phillips, Hampton Stephens.” It is an unconscionable insult to the memories of Attaway, Cook, Myniart, Parker, Parks, Phillips, and Stephens that Meriwether’s name is listed here in this fashion along with theirs. There is no indication given that he was an active belligerent in the “incident.” Those men died. They were brutally murdered at the hands of Meriwether’s compatriots. Meriwether has his own place in town, his own marker – a monument dedicated solely to him and his “sacrifice” in support of fascistic white supremacy. How incredibly unjust that the power structure at play felt it appropriate to etch his name on the marker, stuffed away on a dead-end street, to those that he and his sought to kill and strip of their very humanity.

This imposing brick chimney is all that remains of the massive Confederate Powderworks complex that once stood along the canal. Construction on the Confederate Powderworks began in September 1861 and was officially completed in April 1862 with the production of the first gunpowder at the facility.

The chimney stands over 150ft tall. Facilities for the Powderworks—twenty-eight buildings in total—dotted the banks of the Augusta Canal for nearly two miles upstream from the chimney’s location. The Powderworks was one of the few permanent structures ever constructed by the Confederacy, as most buildings utilized by the Confederate government were preexisting buildings that were either donated or otherwise commandeered.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis assigned Colonel George Washington Rains the task of constructing and operating a gunpowder production facility to supply the Confederate war effort. Rains chose Augusta for his facility due to a combination of its relatively central position, access to rail lines, and the immense power afforded by the canal, which had been in operation since 1845.

A nearby historic marker notes an explosion in 1864: nine factory workers, including at least one child, died when over 18,000 pounds of powder exploded. As the Confederate war effort pressed increasing numbers of men into combat, Southern manufacturing facilities filled their labor force with women, children, and enslaved laborers. In October of 1864, laborers at the Powderworks went on strike, with complaints of poor pay and hazardous conditions. Unrest on the home front was common during the Civil War. Many soldiers deserted to return home and provide for their families.

A string of riots, collectively known as bread riots, swept through the secessionist states in 1863. Armed riots broke out in Richmond, Atlanta, Augusta, and other locations throughout the South. The region’s wealthiest planters continued production of cash crops like cotton or tobacco, despite blockades preventing export at large scale. Production of food crops, and more importantly their distribution to the populace, suffered greatly.

The Confederate Powderworks was immensely impressive in its production. It averaged production of over 3.5 tons of gunpowder per day and produced nearly three million pounds before the close of the war. The Confederacy did not want for supplies, be it gunpowder or food for its population, but the type of centralized authority that could have controlled nationwide logistics was antithetical to the idea of a loose confederation of states.  

At the tail end of Reconstruction, the federal government found it imprudent to allow such a formidable aspect of the Confederate war effort to remain. Colonel Rains successfully lobbied to save the obelisk chimney as a monument to the Confederacy. The remaining structures were torn down, with the bricks recycled into other structures in the area, including the Sibley Mill which sits just behind the chimney. After the war, Rains was a professor of chemistry at the Medical College of Georgia, now Augusta University. In the 21^st century, a local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans raised nearly $200,000 to perform preservation work on the chimney with work completed in early 2010.

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This monument was completed in 1873. It is a cenotaph – a type of monument (sometimes an empty tomb) erected specifically to honor people whose remains are elsewhere. As far as Confederate Monuments go, this one is almost unproblematic. Most of the monument is dedicated to a list of names of local soldiers who died. This is true and earnest mourning; people should be allowed the grace to mourn the loss of life suffered in a conflict. However, this monument is not free from Lost Cause influence – one side bears the inscription “These men died in defense of the principles of the declaration of independence.” This direct linkage of the Civil War to the American Revolution was common in secessionist sympathies in advance of the war, and in the Lost Cause after the war. It was the type of language that was used to shift the motivations of the war away from issues of enslavement and towards a struggle for independence from tyranny. If not for this line, this monument would be entirely unproblematic. In comparison to most Lost Cause monuments that are found out in the public square, this monument is a remarkably inofensive example.

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An Introduction

The Civil War Gallery and neighboring Southern Stories Gallery at the Morris Museum of Art have a variety of pieces ranging from paintings large and small to lithographs and sketches. Many of these images, such as paintings like Henry Mosler’s The Lost Cause or Constantino Brumidi’s Columbia Welcoming the South Back into the Union, popular lithographic prints of battle scenes, or paintings in Southern Stories gallery depicting life in the American South, contain themes from the Lost Cause. As survivors of the Civil War grappled to understand their place in the world, they produced works that reflected the attitudes of their places and times. As works circulated, the ideas in the art began to shape popular memory.

These images, and others like them, are powerful depictions, many of which were wildly popular in their time with some artists producing countless copies of paintings to satiate demand from the public. The rapidly advancing technology of the time enabled another means of reproduction – the lithograph. Lithography, and its more colorful sibling chromolithography, is a means of mechanical reproduction of art that, once set up, enabled rapid, high-quality, printed reproduction of images at relatively low costs. In addition to being circulated in magazines like Harper’s, lithographs of the war would often be available for purchase as standalone images, or sometimes in sets.

There were numerous printmakers at work, some were local or regional in nature, and others gained widespread prominence, like Currier and Ives, Kurz and Allison, and L. Prang and Company. Individual printmakers had their own interests, styles, and attitudes, all of which influenced their chosen subjects and portrayals. Currier and Ives, based in New York, is perhaps the most well-known today due in part to a lyrical reference in the song“Sleigh Ride.” In addition to fanciful winter scenes, Currier and Ives made popular prints of battle scenes as well as a comic series, Darktown Comics, that was both widely popular and remarkably racist in its depictions of Black Americans. Kurz and Allison, based in Chicago, was popular in the 1880s with prints of Civil War scenes, including a popular print of Gettysburg, which drew heavy inspiration from the Gettysburg cyclorama by Paul Philoppoteaux. While Currier and Ives and Kurz and Allison tended to depict battle scenes in a sweeping, panoramic sense, Prang tended to depict more localized scenes. Regardless of the printmaker, these were merely artistic impressions of a battle scene that were ultimately a commercial product above all else – they had to entice a consumer public to purchase the product.

The cost-effective mechanism of reproduction allowed fine art, once generally reserved for the gallery walls of high society, to spread to the wider public. However, as the art spread, the messages and themes embedded within it also spread. Soon, popular lithographic images of battle scenes, portraits of famous figures, or still lifes circulated in the hands of the public, seeding, and spreading, ideas of the Lost Cause with a wider audience. A growing Lost Cause ideology now had a nearly endless supply of imagery to accompany the words and storytelling. In some cases, the ties between lithographic prints and the Lost Cause were even more overt. Some prints and collections of prints were sold as fundraisers, with proceeds from sales of prints being used to build physical monuments to the Lost Cause and its heroes. Local memorial chapters often commissioned printmakers for special prints to fund statues and memorials they had commissioned. A much bleaker and overtly racist version of a local troop of scouts selling cookies outside the home improvement store to fund their projects. 

In some ways, this was the beginning of modern commercial media. Popular imagery of the war often eschews reality, instead favoring an overly dramatic and glorified scene to play to its commercial audience – not unlike a war movie made today. Yet as these images aged, the inaccuracies and commercial nature faded from memory, with historical weight and impact eventually ascribed to them.

The Lost Cause Henry Mosler. Oil on canvas.

Henry Mosler was a German-born painter who eventually settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. He traveled with the United States Army as an artist-correspondent for Harper’s Weekly from 1861 to 1863. The Lost Cause depicts a soldier returning home to an empty, dilapidated home. Its companion piece, Leaving for War, shows a soldier leaving the same homestead while looking back to his family.

This painting reflects the very real losses suffered on the home front—with the man of the house gone to war, many families struggled to survive. The homestead depicted in The Lost Cause is in ruins compared to that of Leaving for War. The soldier’s family This painting became wildly popular, with Mosler and others painting many copies of it. In addition, mass-produced chromolithographs and other forms of mechanically reproduced copies were circulated.

Such works became part of an emerging wave of popular media. Battle scenes and especially portraits of Confederate figures, like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, adorned the mantles of many homes throughout the South. Prints were frequently sold in fundraising efforts by memorial groups—with proceeds supporting the construction of monuments— further cementing ties between popular imagery and the Lost Cause.            

Lost Cause ideology merged sympathies for physical losses, like those depicted in Mosler’s The Lost Cause, with grieving over a lost way of life. Art was instrumental in glorifying both the ideas and figures that became part of the mythology of the Lost Cause.

Naval Engagement Between the U.S.S. Kearsarge & The Alabama. Currier & Ives. Lithograph.

This print depicts a famous naval engagement between the Kearsarge and the Alabama, a Confederate raiding ship, outside the French port of Cherbourg. The Alabama had made multiple successful raiding missions ranging as far as the Indian Ocean and South Pacific. The Kearsarge and its crew had pursued the Alabama over the course of several years. The Alabama had docked in the French port to undergo repairs. It was here that the Kearsarge caught up with the Alabama. Given that the Alabama was docked in the port of a neutral sovereign nation, the Kearsarge had to wait before attacking. The Kearsarge sent word to request the aid of other ships and prepared to attack the Alabama once it left neutral waters. The Alabama was docked undergoing repairs while the Kearsarge loomed offshore for over a week. Eventually, with repairs completed, the Alabama set sail for battle. French naval ships escorted the Alabama as it left port, ensuring that the conflict occurred outside of French territorial waters. The ships fired upon each other and moved in great circles, slowly spiraling around each’s position.

Both ships were relatively modern, with power provided by steam engines driving propellers in addition to utilizing traditional wind power. The Kearsarge was armored. Both had a substantial number of powerful guns. In the battle, the Alabama fired considerably more rounds, but the Kearsarge’s gunners were more prudent in taking time to aim, ultimately crippling and sinking the Alabama. Most of the crew of the Alabama was rescued by the Kearsarge but over forty of its crew, including the captain, were rescued by an English yacht, the Deerhound, that had observed the battle. The Deerhound returned to England with the rescued Confederates. Its captain, a wealthy businessman, was eventually elected to parliament.  

It was a decisive victory for the U.S. Navy, with the enemy ship sunk and the bulk of the crew captured. The battle was widely viewed from the shore by an interested French public. Édouard Manet twice painted the Kearsarge. Contrary to popular belief, Manet was not among the crowd who watched the battle from shore. Thus, his painting of the battle scene, The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama, which is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is based on descriptions of the battle from the press. Manet did, however, travel to witness the victorious Kearsarge when it was in port at the French resort town Boulonge-sur-Mer. His painting The Kearsarge at Boulonge, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, depicts this scene. A French naval ship located the wreck of the Alabama in 1984.  

The Price of Blood. Thomas Satterwhite Noble. Oil on canvas.

The artist was the son of a successful hemp and cotton farmer whose operations extended to include a rope factory. Enslaved labor was utilized on both the farm, where many enslaved people lived and labored, as well as in the Noble family’s factory, often through lease arrangements. Noble studied art in Paris in the late 1850s. He was 26 at the outbreak of the Civil War and served as a captain in the Confederate army. He returned to painting in the years after the Civil War. As he grappled with his upbringing and the changing world, Noble painted a series of works which depicted the gross mistreatment of the enslaved population. These works were popular in Northern markets.

This painting depicts an enslaved individual of mixed race being sold by his enslaver. By his father. The Lost Cause, when it acknowledges slavery, positions it as a benevolent institution that ultimately benefitted the enslaved, positing that the real victims of the system were the white men who were burdened by having to “care” for the enslaved. The Lost Cause argues that this enslaved man, and his mother who was sexually assaulted by her enslaver, were beneficiaries of the system and that this man who raped a woman and sold their child was the one who was most harmed.

Lithography – Introduction

Lithographic prints were an exciting technology for the late nineteenth-century public. Lithography—invented in Bavaria in 1796—involved a series of chemical processes based on the mutual repulsion of oil and water to produce and, more importantly, reproduce an image. An artist would draw on the print plate—classically a limestone slate—and apply various combinations of chemicals, eventually setting the image into the stone. This stone could then accept ink onto this image. This inked stone was then pressed against paper, copying the image to paper. Chromolithography, an evolution of the technology, added additional pressings of colored inks to create vivid multicolored images.

Prints like these were the popular mass media of the time. Lithographic images appeared frequently in popular magazines and individual prints or even books of prints could be purchased from printmakers such as New York-based Currier and Ives, Chicago’s Kurz and Allison, or L. Prang and Company, which operated out of Massachusetts. Printmakers each had their interests, styles, and attitudes, all of which influenced their chosen subjects and portrayals. Some aimed for accuracy, others sought to create a pleasing scene, and some aggressively tailored images to sell to specific audiences. Prang prided himself on accurate depictions. Currier and Ives was famous for fanciful scenes. Kurz and Alison frequently fell somewhere between. Ultimately, however, these images were commercial products – appealing to the wallets of the consumer public was the goal. For example, a particular battle scene might sell more copies to a Southern audience if its leaders were depicted prominently and heroically. Understanding the market forces at play was just as key to a successful commercial product then as it is now.

Lithography – the Process

Stone lithography is a printmaking technique that originated in the late 18th century and remained in use until the mid-20th century. It involves drawing an image—in reverse—onto a smooth, flat limestone slab using a greasy substance, often a lithographic crayon. The slab is then chemically treated. The areas that were greased are hydrophobic, repelling water. The non-greasy areas are hydrophilic and attract water. Ink is then applied to the stone. The ink adheres to the greased areas and is repelled by the non-greased areas. This results in a reversed image that can be printed onto paper.

The lithographic process offers several advantages over other printing techniques. For one, it affords the creation of higher-quality reproductions of artwork, with precise detail and shading that were unavailable or substantially more difficult in other methods of reproduction. Additionally, a lithographic stone can produce many more copies of an image before needing to be remade, especially compared to other methods of reproducing images, like woodcuts. This made it an efficient and cost-effective method of mass production.

The process of stone lithography requires a high degree of technical skill and precision. The stone needed to be prepared and treated in a specific manner to ensure that the image was properly transferred to paper. The printmaker needed a keen understanding of the lithographic process and how to use the materials to achieve the desired effect.

Chromolithography is a printing process that emerged in the mid-19th century as a means of producing color prints. Unlike traditional lithography, which involves printing in a single color, chromolithography uses multiple lithographic stones to produce a full-color image. This process revolutionized the printing industry, allowing for the mass production of colorful and stunning images.

The process of chromolithography diverges from traditional stone lithography due to requiring additional lithographic slates for each color being printed. The artist creates a design, often using watercolor that is then transferred onto multiple printing plates, with each plate corresponding to a different color to be a applied. Each plate is treated with a different ink color and then printed in sequence onto the final surface. After each ink color has been pressed, the result is a full-color image.

While traditional lithography typically involves only one printing plate, chromolithography requires several plates—and repeated iterations of creating the image that is to be printed. This means that chromolithography requires a higher degree of precision and artistic skill in order to achieve the desired effect. Thus, the process was not without its drawbacks. The creation of multiple printing plates was a time-consuming and labor-intensive process, and the final prints often required a great deal of skill and attention to detail to achieve a high-quality result. Producing a final image that was clear required immensely skilled artists and printmakers—ensuring that each successive stone was aligned perfectly as it was printed to the final paper was essential to the final product’s end quality. The use of multiple printing plates and the time-consuming nature of the production process meant that chromolithography was often more expensive than traditional single-color lithography, making it less accessible to smaller publishers and artists.

Mechanical Reproduction and the Democratization of Ideas

Mechanically reproduced artwork was a pivotal invention that revolutionized the world of art in the late 19th century. By enabling the mass reproduction of artwork, it democratized access to ideas and allowed artists to reach a wider audience. Art and images that were once perhaps reserved for the walls of gallery spaces and high society were now accessible to the everyman. This newfound accessibility sparked a surge of creativity and inspired artists to explore new themes and topics. One topic that had immense popularity in artwork was the Lost Cause. The romanticized vision of the Confederacy and a picturesque Old South that emerged in the aftermath of the American Civil War was ideally suited to art.

The Lost Cause was a nostalgic narrative that glorified the antebellum South and its secessionist movement. It depicted the Confederacy as a noble and heroic force that fought for its rights and independence against the supposed tyranny of the United States. This narrative gained traction in the late 19th century, as many Southerners struggled to come to terms with the defeat of the Confederacy and the end of slavery. The Lost Cause offered them a sense of pride and identity, and it became a popular subject of art, literature, and culture.

Copies of images—be it a painted copy or a lithographic print—were a popular way in which the Lost Cause spread through the public. Mechanical reproduction allowed artists to quickly create high-quality reproductions of their artwork at substantially lower costs than painting and re-painting an image manually. This, in turn, allowed these mechanically reproduced copies to be sold at lower prices, enabling them to be sold to an even wider audience.

Chromolithography enabled the production of images that were both detailed and colorful, which made them highly attractive to the public. The public’s eagerness for these images was evident in their popularity. Lost Cause imagery was ubiquitous in the South. Lithographic prints appeared an a variety of forms from standalone prints or books of prints, images sold as fundraisers for monument construction, postcards, and even in the newspapers. These images were not only aesthetically pleasing, but they also conveyed a message that resonated deeply with the post-war Southern psyche. The Lost Cause imagery offered a sense of belonging and pride to a people who were struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of the Civil War.

While the Lost Cause may have offered comfort to some Southerners, it was, of course, built upon a false and harmful premise. The Confederacy was not fighting for its rights or independence, but rather to preserve the institution of slavery. The Lost Cause narrative, and its artwork, ignore this fact and portray the Confederacy as a victim of Northern aggression. This revisionist history perpetuates the myth of the which has been used to justify the subjugation and mistreatment of Black Americans for over a century.

Mechanically reproduced artwork was a powerful tool that democratized the dissemination of ideas in the late 19th century. It moved art, and the messages imbued in works of art, out of the galleries of high society and into the hands of the people. To the world of art, this was every bit as impactful as the invention of the printing press centuries before.  

An Essay on Photogrammetry as Digital Preservation

I want to radically shift gears now and discuss something different. So, apropos of nothing, let’s imagine a world in which a city—any city, it does not matter which—has structures in the public sphere that are flagrantly and cartoonishly inappropriate. For whatever reason, these monuments are deeply offensive and problematic and they are going to be taken down. Let’s, hypothetically, consider that there are monuments erected around this city that are to people who, not only took up arms in open rebellion against the government (and lost decisively) but did so in order to continue to own and torture other human beings. It’s a hard scenario to imagine, but let’s consider that for a moment. So, it has been decided by the powers that be that these are to come down. Now what? What does a city do with them? Some locations—some former Soviet states, for example—have graveyards, of sorts, with the heads of toppled statues in a sort of hedge row of decapitated autocrats. They then have information presented alongside them contextualizing them further. In other cases, they sit in museums. The sort of place we expect the public to pursue serious historical inquiries. Others sit in warehouses unknown, with futures unclear. Joe Paterno’s statue is in an unknown warehouse near Penn State’s campus until the heat dies down.

So, you stick the thing somewhere that the appropriate context and explanation can be given. And more importantly, you remove it from its original context, remove it from its carefully chosen place of prominence in the community, and, with that, prevent the ongoing and continued harm that that marker does to the community and the people who live there and visit.

Many places that have for the time elected not to remove their monuments attempt to ameliorate the problem by adding additional information in situ. I both do and do not like this. Conceptually, it has the potential to add additional writings that provide powerful, important context to the monument. Oftentimes, however, it is done poorly with milquetoast language that had too many stakeholders involved that does not actually say anything effectively or clearly. The other and much more serious problem with adding contextualizing signage to a monument is that the monument is seventy or eighty feet tall and visible from blocks away and the added context is a small plaque or QR code stuck to a nearby tree. Maybe it gets stuck in a planter whose bushes quickly grow over the signage, rendering it useless. The truly monumental harm that these cause to the community dwarfs half-measured attempts to correct it. So, while generally well-minded, adding this context in situ is not actually a solution that provides a satisfactory resolution to anyone, but it does let folks like me write a few more informational plaques, which I guess is something.

So, the monument is gone – it goes wherever it goes. A monument graveyard, a museum, some private party buys it and installs it in their backyard. The point is, it goes somewhere else. So, what is to be done with the place left behind? The place it once was. Some opponents of monument relocation and removal decry that it is erasing history, an opportunity to learn about the past. I don’t buy it, but I’ll engage with the argument anyway. I’ve taken a lot of history classes. I have gone to a monument in class exactly zero times. We learn history from books. Monuments are placed to glorify, to instill values, to inspire feelings – sometimes good, sometimes bad. Monuments themselves are not history – in the case of the Lost Cause monuments they were erected by the defeated to forestall or erase the progress of Reconstruction and the victors. But, there are opportunities to learn from them.

Issues with adding contextual signage obviate that it is ultimately going to be necessary to remove them. They will no longer be mandatory features of the landscape and this is the key part. They are now no longer foisted upon everyone, seeding their messages of hate, of intimidation.

But what do we do with the place it leaves behind? Let’s put something where it was. A new plaque on the base, the plinth, the rubble of the old monument. It has a photograph that shows what it used to look like in that place. It’s got on the plaque whatever we put on plaques – some photographs, a paragraph or two of writings. And that’s good. This monument is now opt-in, rather than mandatory. 

But I think, I know, we can do better than that. Plaques are great, but something interactive, more impactful exists. And it’s what I have done with a process called photogrammetry.

It is a process in which approximately a zillion still photographs are stitched together by a computer program which spits out a three-dimensional model of an object. The process varies depending on the nature (and scale) of the object being modeled. For something relatively small, it may be ten or twenty pictures taken while you move around the object as it sits on your kitchen counter. If the object is a little bit bigger, it’s a hundred pictures taken of an object you walked around. But what if the object is REALLY tall. Taller than whatever the highest you can reach up and hold your camera. Then you need aerial photography. So, that’s what I did. That’s how I made the three dimensional models of monuments that are on this site.

This model is of the Broad Street Confederate monument. This model was produced by about eleven hundred photographs that took up over twelve gigabytes of storage space, and an hour of aerial flight time. The three images below are taken from the program I used to produce the model. The first two are of approximately the same position and scale. The blue rectangles in images two and three each represent a single photograph that was taken and oriented in position by the software in order to render the model. This illustrates the sort of photographic coverage that is required to produce a model.

The program, and there are several different versions of programs that do this ranging in costs from a few thousand dollars to free apps on your phone, operates by recognizing similar points in sequential photos. With enough photos from enough angles, these programs can produce great models. I did this in a fairly lo-fidelity, relatively low-cost way.

For many of these monuments, I took photographs with my phone. Something most all of us already own. For lots of them, I got great results using a free program. Truly near zero start-up costs. For other monuments, for example those that were taller, I needed a drone to photograph the monuments. I bought a drone, a refurbished unit, for about $400. Weary of running afoul of any legal snafus, I studied for and took an FAA licensing test for “commercial operation.” The FAA test cost about $175 and it really is needed to avoid legal issues. Studying for it was relatively straightforward – I read the information the FAA provides and watched a few videos as test prep. I studied fairly intensively over the course of a weekend and easily passed the test. That said, it does require preparation — unless you are already familiar with reading FAA sectional charts, interpreting meteorological aerodrome reports, or the specific regulations of unmanned flight, you will not do well without prep. Better drones with higher quality cameras or better stabilization exist, some costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are lots of options out there, but anything priced above the “toy” category that enters the realm of being a “hobbyist” drone would likely work.

Similarly, for those monuments that were more complex, the free program didn’t cut it, so I bought an educational license for the industry-leading software for this, at the fabulous 90% student discount rate, it was still fifty dollars. An even more robust version of the program is still $500 for an educational license. But the point is, I’m able to produce these rather good models for a price of about $600 all-in between drone, FAA test, and software.

So, I said we can do better than a simple plaque with a photo. In addition to that photograph, the plaque can have a QR code that, when scanned, opens a model to that monument. That lets you, as a viewer engage and see that monument better than you can when you’re standing right in front of it. From the ground you simply cannot see the detail that some of these massive monuments have. Now our shiny new interpretive signage where the monument once stood has a few photographs, some really great text providing greater background and illumination of the nature of the monuments, and now an easy-to-use QR code to a three-dimensional model of the monument.

But wait there’s more. We can use technology to do even better. So, because we’ve already modeled them these monuments exist now in the digital realm. Using AR technology – augmented reality – we can render them digitally back in their place. AR technology utilizes your device’s cameras to show you the world in front of you but also renders the digital object as if it were fixed in physical space. If you move your device, the digital object stays put. You can render an object at a fixed scale and orientation.

This lets anyone who wants to see the monument back how it originally was do so, without foisting it upon anyone else. This technology allows us to solve the biggest, most defensible objection to monument removal. Whatever was to be learned from keeping these monuments in place can now be recreated digitally, in perfect scale, and placed back in its context. These can be learned from just as well, in fact better in some ways, than the actual monument itself. Now anyone who wants to can produce these objects back as they were without forcing society to endure the very real harm that they confer to a place and space.