Levin Takes on Webb — Shameful
Kevin Levin says Jim Webb does not understand the history of the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery. He then demonstrates that politics matter more to him than history. Levin either does not know the history himself or he intentionally left important bits out.
My response to Webb’s op-ed is not focused on the question of whether the monument should be removed, but on his understanding of the monument’s history and Civil War memory.
Levin then shares some history that from my study is correct. After the war, Union veterans did not support the decoration of Confederate graves. I have written about this, and it is understandable especially for the first few decades. He also writes about how the United Daughters of the Confederacy and other Southern women’s associations were initially skeptical about burying their husbands, fathers, and brothers in Arlington. Some thought they should be reinterred in the South.
The problem is that he leaves it there. The evidence he chose only tells one side. He has a newspaper clipping showing a local Pennsylvanian Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) post from 1923 indicating Robert E. Lee should have been hanged. Yet, he ignores the fact that GAR members travelled long distances to attend the dedication of the monument in 1914 and that the head of the GAR spoke at the dedication.
Then Levin doubles down.
Even more problematic is the fact that Webb has no understanding of the hsitory (sic) of the Confederate monument itself.
Levin says that Webb lacks understanding because he does not address the “rich motifs that define the monument”. He also says that Webb “gets sidetracked with trying to show that Confederates were not fighting to defend the instituion (sic) of slavery”. He is referring to Webb citing John Hope Franklin and that most who fought for the South did not own slaves.
You see, Levin thinks reading Ezekiel’s mind is a more worthwhile endeavor. Levin knows the two slaves depicted in the art are manifestations of the loyal slave myth. Webb does not mention them, so he is missing real history. You can’t make this stuff up.
The two motifs, one showing a Confederate officer handing his child to an enslaved woman and the other a “body servant” or camp slave marching off with Confederate soldiers, constitutes what was acknowledged at the time as a defense of the institution of slavery.
Like other activist historians, he says the monument is a “defense of slavery” and it was acknowledged as such at the time. That is a significant claim for which he provides no evidence. He should be embarrassed. Would he let his high school history students get away with such an unfounded claim?
Kevin Levin accuses Jim Webb of not understanding the history of the period and the monument and leaves out important history because it does not fit with his narrative. He finishes with a nasty unsupported diatribe.
If he believes that a monument that celebrates the Confederacy as a noble cause and believes that its defense of slavery (as depicted on the monument itself) was laudable, in a cemetery that includes tens of thousands of white and Black soldiers who gave their lives in defense of the Union and helped to end the institution of slavery, then just say so.
Mr. Webb has them reeling. They have to resort to character assassination because the facts are not on their side. Shameful.
