In Isle of Wight, Va., a statue of a generic Confederate soldier — people called him “Johnny Reb” — stood high atop a stone pedestal outside the county courthouse for 115 years. On May 8, crews showed up, took the statue down, carved it into movable pieces and hauled it to the yard outside Volpe Boykin’s house, 16 miles away.
Nobody really wanted the statue to end up in Boykin’s yard. People who despise the memorial wanted it gone, period — melt it, warehouse it, just get rid of it. People who cherish it wanted to see it in a place that illuminated history — a museum, maybe.
After many weeks of argument and frayed feelings, a solution emerged that many people on both sides of the monument debate could accept: Put Johnny Reb in a cemetery, in a setting where the Confederate war dead are honored but not celebrated — a place that didn’t carry the stamp of government approval.
One big problem: The people who controlled the town cemetery wanted nothing to do with any move that might import controversy into a place of eternal rest.
“No cemetery would take it — they’re afraid people will think the town is racist,” said Boykin, a private investigator and former police officer who has belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans for decades.
So Johnny Reb sits, in 13 pieces, in Boykin’s yard, 150 feet off the road, waiting for somebody to put him back together again.
As Confederate monuments fall by the dozen in this time of refocused attention on the legacy of the Civil War and American slavery, cities and counties face a dilemma over what to do with the statues.
The path to compromise can seem easy: Tuck them away in a cemetery, where those who value them as markers of history or examples of political art can seek them out, while those who find their presence in places of civic honor disturbing no longer need pass them.
But nothing’s simple in this re-tilling of the soil of a nation.
Some towns moved to put their statues in cemeteries, only to learn that their local graveyards are supported by tax dollars, making the new locations nearly as problematic as the old, more prominent ones in front of courthouses or on town squares.