Richmond Set to Remove Last Confederate Monument on Public Property

Richmond plans to begin removing a statue of A.P. Hill this week. The statue is the city’s last Confederate monument standing on public property and the base contains remains of the general, which has delayed the process to remove the monument.

On Thursday, Richmond Circuit Court Judge David Cheek Sr. denied a motion from some Hill descendants seeking to block removal of the monument while the appeal over who gets to keep the monument continues. Richmond Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Robert Steidel told 8News the removal process will begin Monday. Hill’s remains will go to Fairview Cemetery in Culpeper, and Hill’s statue will be stored while an expected appeal plays out; Hill’s descendants want the statue to go to Cedar Mountain Battlefield, near the cemetery that is expected to be Hill’s final final resting place.

Removal of Richmond’s Confederate monuments had been discussed for years, but during outcry over the George Floyd murder in 2020, the city first removed most of its monuments. A famous monument to Robert E. Lee was cited on a small plot of Commonwealth land in the middle of Richmond, and a legal battle delayed Lee’s removal before he was finally removed in 2021. In December 2021, the city announced that all the monuments, including Hill, would be given to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia.

Hill’s removal will largely complete Richmond’s battles over Confederate monuments, although plans for the land where Lee once stood are still being developed. Hill currently stands in the middle of an intersection in a separate part of the city; the intersection will be paved, according to NBC 12.

“It’s finally a good feeling to know that it’s coming to an ending, to the desired end, and to a proper end,” City Councilmember Michael Jones, who is running for Virginia’s House of Delegates, told CBS6.

In October, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III ordered implementation of a commission’s recommendations to rename U.S. Department of Defense property honoring Confederates, including Fort A.P. Hill, an Army base about 40 miles north of Richmond. The commission recommended changing the name to Fort Walker, in honor of Dr. Mary Walker, who became the U.S. Army’s first female surgeon during the Civil War.

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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “A.P. Hill Statue” by Adam. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

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