Confederate Defenders of Charleston Monument

Confederate Defenders of Charleston Monument

Overlooking Charleston Harbor with Fort Sumter in the distance stands one of the city’s most controversial points of interest, a seventeen-foot-tall statue dedicated to the Confederate Defenders of Charleston. Erected in 1932, the statue is dedicated to the Confederate soldiers who held Fort Sumter and defended the city from Union forces from 1861 to 1865. Sculptor Herman A. MacNeil describes his bronze figures as such, “Its motif, in brief, is that the stalwart youth, standing in front with sword and shield in front symbolizes by his attitude the defense not only of the fort, but also of the fair city behind the fort in which are his most prized possessions, wife and family.” To further express the theme of courage and sacrifice, the inscription around the base reads, “Count them happy who for their faith and their courage endured a great fight.”

Commissioned by the local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy and funded by a bequeathal of $100,000 from Charleston philanthropist Andrew B. Murray, the monument was dedicated on October 20th, 1932. The ceremony in White Point Garden was attended by thousands of Charleston residents as well as the last surviving Fort Sumter veteran, Colonel William Robert Greer. Four young women, all descendants of Sumter veterans, unveiled the monument and placed red and white carnation wreaths alongside the final flag to fly over the Confederate-controlled fort. In his speech as keynote speaker of the event, journalist Gerald W. Johnson described the honored soldiers as not fighting for slavery, but “their right to live their lives as they choose.” These symbols and ideas of the Lost Cause were embraced by the city as municipal and business leaders aimed to draw in tourists with Old South charm and imagery.

In the wake of the Emmanuel Church shooting in 2017 and the George Floyd protests of 2020, Charleston’s Confederate monuments have been the center of considerable controversy and debate. While drawing the attention of Black Lives Matter protests and right-wing counter-protests throughout the summer of 2020, the municipal government did not remove the statue.   

On September 22, 2021, the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the South Carolina Heritage Act is constitutional. This law makes the removal of monuments or changing historical names of buildings without the approval of the state legislation illegal. The Supreme Court found one provision of the Heritage Act unconstitutional and struck it down. This illegal provision stated that a two-thirds majority vote by the state legislature would be required to remove a monument or change the historic name of a location. This provision was thus struck down and the rest of the Heritage Act remained in place. As the Confederate Defenders of Charleston falls under this ruling, any changes or removal will now require a majority vote by the South Carolina Supreme Court.      

Herman A. MacNeil, Sculptor

Rosen, Robert N. Confederate Charleston: an Illustrated History of the City and the People during the Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994.

Young, John R. A Walk in the Parks: the Definitive Guidebook to Monuments in Charleston's Major Downtown Parks. Charleston: Evening Post Books, 2010.

Cook, Robert. Civil War Memories: Contesting the Past in the United States since 1865. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.

Collins, Jeffrey. 2021. “South Carolina’s Confederate monument protection law upheld.” Associated Press, September 22, 2021. https://apnews.com/article/religion-courts-laws-legislature-south-carolina-69078ed16cc104f9931f33c95d32c382.

October 20th, 1932 -

Steven Mang, Aramis Sandoval

English

Bronze Statue

HIST 402A Fall 2020, HIST 402A Fall 2021

Charleston, South Carolina