Monument Monday, January 3, 2022

[James N.]

I am happy to report in this week's Monument Monday the failure of another group of malcontents to remove another threatened statue of a Nineteenth Century hero, this time not a Confederate but Boy General of the Civil War George Armstrong Custer in his adopted hometown, Monroe Michigan. According to a very boring local report I happened to see linked on the Yahoo! homepage, a motion to remove it was recently defeated by a 3 - 3 vote of the City Council with one member absent. It said that with the motion brought forward and voted upon with only a tie vote it was dead.

Of course the subject of the statue, entitled Sighting the Enemy, is the twentysomething Major General of U. S. Volunteers at the head of either the Michigan Cavalry Brigade or perhaps his later Third Division of Phil Sheridan's Cavalry Corps and not the "controversial" leader of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the wars against the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho who allegedly sought unsuccessfully to have it removed.

Oddly enough, if successful this would not have been the first time the statue would have been moved. Originally it had been erected in 1910 in the center of an intersection where in the beginnings of the Automobile Age it was considered a public nuisance. From there it was later in the 1950s relocated to the riverside park where it still stands and hopefully will continue to stand for some time to come.

For those who seek to "contextualize" (read: denigrate where they for some reason or other cannot destroy) all such monuments and statuary as this, it already has plenty, although likely not what the detractors and naysayers have in mind!

 

[JOHN42768]

Thanks for posting

 

[donna]

Great photos.

 

[Kurt G]

View attachment 427348

I am happy to report in this week's Monument Monday the failure of another group of malcontents to remove another threatened statue of a Nineteenth Century hero, this time not a Confederate but Boy General of the Civil War George Armstrong Custer in his adopted hometown, Monroe Michigan. According to a very boring local report I happened to see linked on the Yahoo! homepage, a motion to remove it was recently defeated by a 3 - 3 vote of the City Council with one member absent. It said that with the motion brought forward and voted upon with only a tie vote it was dead.

View attachment 427349

Of course the subject of the statue, entitled Sighting the Enemy, is the twentysomething Major General of U. S. Volunteers at the head of either the Michigan Cavalry Brigade or perhaps his later Third Division of Phil Sheridan's Cavalry Corps and not the "controversial" leader of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the wars against the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho who allegedly sought unsuccessfully to have it removed.

View attachment 427350

Oddly enough, if successful this would not have been the first time the statue would have been moved. Originally it had been erected in 1910 in the center of an intersection where in the beginnings of the Automobile Age it was considered a public nuisance. From there it was later in the 1950s relocated to the riverside park where it still stands and hopefully will continue to stand for some time to come.

View attachment 427351

For those who seek to "contextualize" (read: denigrate where they for some reason or other cannot destroy) all such monuments and statuary as this, it already has plenty, although likely not what the detractors and naysayers have in mind!

View attachment 427352

Thanks for the update on the removal proposal.