The George Davis Monument is a monument to attorney and

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

politician George Davis that was erected in

Wilmington, North Carolina Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States. With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is t ...

by the

United Daughters of the Confederacy The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...

. It was removed by the City of Wilmington in August 2021. Davis, a railroad attorney and minor local figure before the war, was a pro-Union member of the Whig Party. After secession, he accepted appointments to the Confederate senate and as attorney general. He was a skilled orator who spoke publicly in March 1861 that North Carolina should secede from the United States of America principally to preserve the economic interest in chattel slavery. The statue was unveiled on April 20, 1911 — 46 years after the defeat of the Confederacy. In the early morning hours of June 25, 2020, the City of Wilmington removed the statue of Davis "in order to protect the public safety and to preserve important historical artifacts."WECT. "Two confederate Statues Removed from Downtown Wilmington." https://www.wect.com/2020/06/25/breaking-confederate-statues-removed-downtown-wilmington/ The dismantling was coincident with the firing of three city police officers following the discovery of their "brutally racist" discussions on official police recording equipment. The pedestal, with its false

Lost Cause The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply Lost Cause) is an American pseudohistorical negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. Firs ...

inscriptions, was covered with a shroud. By June 30, the pedestal was covered with a black shroud, which obscured the inscriptions.StarNews. "Wilmington's Confederate Statues are Gone, So Now What?" https://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20200630/wilmingtonrsquos-confederate-statues-are-gone-so-what-now" On August 2, 2021, the City Council voted to permanently remove the monument from public property. The city recognized ownership by Cape Fear 3, United Daughters of the Confederacy. The city will store away the statue and pedestal until the UDC is ready to take possession. In a statement, the government said it considered the matter of the disposition of the statue closed.

History

Davis Remembered for Oratory

When the monument project was conceived, Davis was well-remembered among the city's white elite as a skilled orator. The statue depicts Davis, hand on lectern, giving a speech.

March 1861 Speech: Secession to Preserve Slavery

In his political life before 1861, Davis was not a member of the regionally dominant

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

, but a Whig. Until March 1861, he opposed secession. During the election of 1860, he supported a pro-Union, third-party candidate for president. However, his position changed during his attendance at the failed

Washington Peace Conference The Peace Conference of 1861 was a meeting of 131 leading American politicians in February 1861, at the Willard's Hotel in Washington, D.C., on the eve of the American Civil War. The purpose of the conference was to avoid, if possible, the seces ...

in February 1861. On March 2, 1861, Davis gave a public speech in Wilmington on secession. In it, he declared himself a secessionist. He argued that North Carolina should secede in order to preserve slavery:

"The division must be made on the line of slavery. The State must go with the South."

Conception

The idea for the monument was conceived by Cape Fear 3, United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in 1901 — three years after white mobs used violence to illegally remove a duly elected biracial government during the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, five years after Davis's death and 36 years after the Confederacy's defeat. Historians have stated that similar monuments are evidence of a wide effort by the UDC and others, long after the failure of the Confederacy, to insert the false Lost Cause Narrative into the cultural memory, announce to nonwhites the final defeat of

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

, and to support

white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...

. It took years for the women of Cape Fear 3 to realize their vision.

Funding

UDC Cape Fear Chapter 3 began raising money in 1904 but fundraising was slow, despite the urgency the UDC presented to the community. The minute book of the chapter shows fundraising was complete in April 1909, with the chapter having raised nearly $900. The rest was raised by James Sprunt, a cotton brokerage heir who as a young man had worked aboard blockade-running commercial ships and was a profiteer during the US Civil War. Sprunt provided funding he said he had gathered from friends and colleagues. His portion brought the total amount raised to $5,010.34 ($ in dollars).

Creation

The statue was sculpted by Francis Herman Packer, a native of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

who lived on Long Island, New York and was a student of

Augustus Saint-Gaudens Augustus Saint-Gaudens (; March 1, 1848 – August 3, 1907) was an American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. From a French-Irish family, Saint-Gaudens was raised in New York City, he trav ...

. The sculptor's travel was paid for by Sprunt. Packer's sculpture was cast by the

Gorham Manufacturing Company The Gorham Manufacturing Company is one of the largest United States of America, American manufacturers of Sterling silver, sterling and silverplate and a foundry for bronze sculpture. History Gorham Silver was founded in Providence, Rhode Isl ...

in 1910 in

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

.Seaper, Janet K., Breiner, Allison, photographs. "George Davis Statue" Beach Magazine (February 2005) 54-59. The statue is 8 feet tall bound bronze weighing 1,700 pounds. The stone pedestal weighs five and a half tons and shows gilded seals of

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

and the former

Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...

.Seaper, Janet K., Breiner, Allison, photographs. "George Davis Statue" Beach Magazine (February 2005) 54-59. Inscriptions on the pedestal include a long, spurious encomium to Davis's alleged virtues.Volkstorf, Todd. "Refurbished Davis statue again stands downtown." Wilmington Star-News (February 17, 2002) A decade later, the UDC hired Packer to sculpt another confederate memorial (removed, August 2021) one block south, at Third Street and Dock Street.

Siting and Context

The monument stood on a grassy traffic island in Market Street just east of its intersection with Third Street — the crossroads of the city. It stood within sight of Wilmington's city hall, the New Hanover County courthouse and St. James Episcopal Parish, the city's oldest Christian church. The statue faced west, toward the terminus of Market Street at the

Cape Fear River The Cape Fear River is a long blackwater river in east central North Carolina. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river is formed at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River (North Carol ...

, a marketplace where slaves and their children were sold from the days of the city's settlement in the early 18th century until the city's capture by the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. It proved essential to th ...

in 1865 during the

US Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

Erection and Dedication

The

cornerstone The cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure. Over tim ...

of the monument was laid on October 14, 1909, during a

Masonic Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

ceremony. Within the cornerstone were placed: * A copy of the first number ''Carolina Churchman'', dated October 1909 * A copy of the commission of George Davis as Attorney General of the Confederate states, dated January 4, 1864 * Coins The monument was dedicated on April 20, 1911, by four of Davis's grandsons: M.F.H. Gouverneur Jr., Donald McRae Jr., George Rountree, and Robert Cowan Davis. U.S. District Court Judge Henry G. Connor of the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina (in case citations, E.D.N.C.) is the United States district court that serves the eastern 44 counties in North Carolina. Appeals from the Eastern District of North Caroli ...

, delivered the dedication speech. The Delgado Band was hired for $25 to provide musical accompaniment. Connor's dedicatory remarks contained hallmarks that many historians have ascribed to examples of revisionist Lost Cause mythology. Connor falsely described Davis's making war against the United States as "patriotism" and Davis's call for secession from the Union as "moderation in speech":

“You shall bring your sons to this spot, tell them the story of his life, of his patriotism of his loyalty to high thinking and noble living, of his moderation in speech, his patience under defeat, of his devotion to your City and State as a perpetual illustration and an enduring example of the dignity, the worth of a high-souled, pure-hearted Christian gentleman.”

Family and Political Use, Damage, and Vandalism

1993

The

Sons of Confederate Veterans The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers that commemorates these ancestors, funds and dedicates monuments to them, and promotes the pseudohis ...

"George Davis Camp 5" celebrated George Davis's birthday at the monument.

1995

Davis's descendants held a ceremony at the monument.

2000

In October, a truck belonging to Hanover Iron Works knocked the statue from its base, causing a dent to the back of the head and cracks to the neck and right shoulder. Repairs, which included re-carving the base, cost $25,000 and took more than a year to complete. The monument was re-erected in February 2002, 6 feet from its original site, and raised up on a new 6-inch curb.

2019

On June 29, a crowd rallied, demanding the city to remove the monument. In the early hours of July 4, a vandal threw orange paint on the monument.

Dismantling, Covering and Removal

2020

In June, the City of Wilmington removed the statue, but not its pedestal, to "protect the public safety and to preserve important historical artifacts." Later, the pedestal was covered with a black shroud, obscuring its inscriptions. In September, Wilmington's mayor said that the threat to public safety that conditioned the memorial's dismantling continued. A majority of the Wilmington City Council told a journalist that the disposition of the city's Confederate monuments was not a high priority.

2021

The city attorney had been assigned to research ownership and other issues. During that process, Cape Fear 3, United Daughters of the Confederacy approached the city and asserted a claim on the statue. The claim was based on the facts that, at the time, the UDC chapter had commissioned the statue and had sought city permission to erect it on public property using private funds. The city attorney concurred. In a July 5 letter to the city, Cape Fear 3 requested that the city hold the monument in storage until Cape Fear 3 had made arrangements to take possession. With the statue already in storage, the city agreed to move the pedestal into storage as well. In August, the City Council approved the agreement. In a statement, the government said the effects of the vote were to permanently remove the monument from public land and avoid litigation.

Gallery

Image:georgedavis7.jpg, Right side of the George Davis Monument in Wilmington, North Carolina Image:georgedavis8.jpg, The monument and its base from the right corner Image:georgedavis9.jpg, Inscription on the right side of the monument. Image:georgedavis10.jpg, Inscription on the left side of the monument. Image:georgedavis14.jpg, View of the George Davis Monument sculpture from the back Image:georgedavis12.jpg, Frontal view of the monument on Market Street Image:georgedavis11.jpg, The monument and its base from the left corner Image:georgedavis13.jpg, The George Davis Monument on the corner of Market and Third Streets in Wilmington, NC

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:George Davis Monument 1911 sculptures Monuments and memorials in the United States removed during the George Floyd protests Bronze sculptures in North Carolina Buildings and structures in Wilmington, North Carolina Confederate States of America monuments and memorials in North Carolina Outdoor sculptures in North Carolina Sculptures of men in North Carolina Statues in North Carolina United Daughters of the Confederacy monuments and memorials in North Carolina Removed Confederate States of America monuments and memorials Vandalized works of art in North Carolina Statues removed in 2020