After weeks of vocal protests from a number of groups across the political spectrum, Confederate monuments are starting to be removed from New York state.

In response to the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month, calls to remove Confederate statues and artifacts began pouring in nationwide.

New York, which was previously home to three Confederate monuments and three roads named after Confederate soldiers, is no exception.

New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo responded to the outcry by penning a letter to acting under secretary of the United States Army Ryan McCarthy, asking to rename streets at Fort Hamilton dedicated to Generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.

“Given the events of this week, including the violence and terrorism perpetrated by white supremacists in Charlottesville and the resulting emboldening of the voices of Nazis and white supremacists, I now strongly urge the U.S. Army to reconsider its decision and I call on them to rename these streets,” Cuomo said in a press release.

Cuomo also tweeted advocating for the removal of Lee and Jackson’s busts from the City University of New York Hall of Fame for Great Americans. University officials there quickly carried out the request.

A plaque commemorating Lee’s planting of a tree at a Brooklyn church was removed earlier this month, leaving an obelisk and plot of graves at the Mount Hope Cemetery as the only remaining Confederate memorial in the state.

That plot is cared for and maintained by the Sons of Confederate Veterans — a group of male descendants of Confederate soldiers.

“We are honoring guys who, like all soldiers, are just doing what the old men of the world … decided that they do,” said Patrick McCullough, commander of the New York City branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

McCullough said he disagreed with the politicization of the memorials and warned against removing them hastily.

“Something that has been in place for 100 years, we are in a really regrettable political climate when it becomes a rallying point for all sorts of terrible things,” McCullough said. “I’m not comfortable with saying ‘They were here for 100, 150 years and today we are going to take them down’ because that’s kind of irrevocable. They never go back up again when you take them down.”

Representatives of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The concept of Confederate remembrances in New York state seems strange to some given New York’s staunchly Unionist past, McCullough said, but there are more ties to the Confederacy than it would seem.

Jackson and Lee both saw their first military appointments at Fort Hamilton in New York City well before the civil war and many future Confederate soldiers were trained at West Point.

Published on August 28, 2017 at 11:25 pm

Contact Ryan: rarozenb@syr.edu