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| George C. Davis Monument |
A decade after reclaiming their city from the biracial
reconstruction government, the white citizenry of Wilmington paraded up Market
Street to lay the cornerstone for a new monument celebrating their victory.
Parade Marshall James I. Metts, a former Confederate general, lead the column, which
included the Wilmington Light Infantry, the Naval Reserves, Mayor Walter G.
MacRae, another Confederate veteran, and the Board of Alderman, followed by the
city's frail, aging, Confederate veterans, escorted by the local Sons of
Confederate Veterans. Completing the
procession were Wilmington's Children of the Confederacy and the Cape Fear
Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy, who, upon reaching the
intersection of Market and Third Street, climbed the elaborately decorated
grandstand, trimmed with crimson Confederate bunting and flanked by Stars and
Bars rippling in the fall breeze.[1] By the time Colonel Alfred M. Waddell
reached the podium to begin the day's oration, thousands of southerners from
across the city and state crowded into the plaza, nestled between the gothic
arches and buttresses of St. James Episcopal Church and the imperious artillery
of the Wilmington Light Infantry Armory. "It would be a subject of
profound gratification to every patriotic North Carolinian," Waddell
proclaimed, "that the era of monument building in this state has at last
arrived... for a land without monuments
is a land without memories."[2]
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| Monument in 1909 |
Efforts to raise the monument were
the first attempts by Wilmingtonians to cleanse their memories of the city's
reconstruction era, a period of biracial, republican government, terminated
with white vigilante violence and a democratic coup d'état in November, 1898.[3] "Negro domination shall henceforth
be a shameful memory to us," Waddell declared in 1898, eleven years before
his monument oration; "we ourselves are men who, inspired by these
memories, intend to preserve at the cost of our lives, if necessary, the
heritage that is ours."[4] And so, a year after Wilmington's white
supremacists "[chocked] the current of the Cape Fear with carcasses"
of black citizens, the city's United Daughters of the Confederacy began raising
funds to claim the contested memory of Civil War with a bronze statue of
Wilmington's preeminent Confederate official, George C. Davis, a former Senator
and Attorney General of the Confederacy.[5] Construction of the Davis monument was a
turning point for Wilmingtonians' memory of the Civil War, bidding farewell to
the nineteenth-century rituals grieving the immense loss experienced throughout
the war and subsequent reconstruction, and ushering in the twentieth-century
celebrations vindicating southern values and white superiority with public
monuments.[6]
"No memorial has yet been erected in North Carolina," Waddell
told his audience, "to commemorate a truer patriot, a more accomplished
orator and scholar, or a more stainless gentleman than he, whose statue will
stand above the corner stone laid here today."[7]
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| Circa 1970 |
Davis still stands today, gazing
down the gentle slope of Market Street, towards the Cape Fear River, steadfast
against turbulent powers of time attempting his demise. During WWI,
opportunists attempted to pry the bronze statue from its foundation, seeking a
hefty profit in the war-inflated precious metals market.[8]
In 1923, a group of vandals detonated a homemade explosive at Davis'
feet, failing cause any damage but awakening Wilmington from its slumber.[9] Later, in the forties, the New Hanover
Historical Commission voted to relocate Davis from the intersection to the City
Hall grounds upon recommendation by the city engineer, who feared the statue
was a traffic hazard for the fire department. Yet the City Council overruled
the commission's verdict, citing monument's central location as integral to its
consumption by tourists and locals alike.[10] Again, in 1973, efforts to remove Davis
in order to create a left-turn lane at the intersection were met with disdain
by Wilmingtonians, claiming, "the proposal would have the effect of moving
some of our heritage off our streets."[11] Finally, one hundred years after the
Daughters of the Confederacy received the first donations to build the
monument, a Hanover Iron Works truck knocked Davis from his granite podium onto
the street below.[12] Wilmington moved swiftly to restore the
dented statue, paying over $25,000 for repairs, a general cleaning, and masonry
work to the foundation.[13] By New Years Eve, 2002, the sentinel of
Wilmington's Historic District and revered southern heritage returned,
hopefully to remain for another "fifty years" into the new century[14]
Port City Redux will
explore the movement, inaugurated with the Davis statue, to aesthetically
preserve southern culture and heritage on the streets of Wilmington, North
Carolina. Throughout the twentieth century, Davis has witnessed a revival of
public monuments and southern architecture in the Port City, including the
formation of municipal bureaucracy institutionalizing the preservation of this
artwork. Along the way, the author intends to make some conclusions regarding
the political, racial, and economic effects of historic preservation within Wilmington.
Port City Redux will contribute to the historical dialogue about American's
memory of the Civil War and provide researchers, students, and amateur
historians with an art historical case study grounded upon primary sources,
contextualized with leading secondary works, and upheld to the highest academic
standards.
[1] "Program Announced,"
Wilmington Star News, October 12,
1909, Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public Library, Wilmington, N.C.
[2] "Tribute is Paid
to Honored Dead," Wilmington Star
News, October 15, 1909, Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public Library,
Wilmington, N.C.
[3] "Hell Jolted Loose,"
1898 Wilmington Race Riot Final Report,
May 31, 2006, accessed June 16, 2015,
http://www.history.ncdcr.gov/1898-wrrc/report/report.htm, 152.
[4] "Practical Politics," 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Final Report,
May 31, 2006, accessed June 16, 2015, http://www.history.ncdcr.gov/1898-wrrc/report/report.htm,
80.
[5] "Daughters of the
Confederacy," Wilmington Star News,
February 20, 1900, Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public Library,
Wilmington, N.C.
[6] Karen L. Cox, Dixie's Daughter's: The United Daughters of
the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture (Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 2003), 4 and "George Davis Monument," Wilmington Star News, March 20, 1903,
Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public Library, Wilmington, N.C.
[7] "Tribute is Paid
to Honored Dead," Wilmington Star
News, October 15, 1909, Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public Library,
Wilmington, N.C.
[8] "Probable Theft of
George Davis Statue Attempted," Wilmington
Star News, April 2, 1922, Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public
Library, Wilmington N.C.
[9] "Loud Detonation
Startles Citizens," Wilmington Star
News, January 23, 1923, Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public Library,
Wilmington N.C.
[10] "City Hall Yard
May Become New Site for Davis Monument," Wilmington Star News, June 19, 1941, Bill Reaves Collection, New
Hanover Public Library, Wilmington N.C.
[11] John Randt,
"Downtown Landmark May Be Relocated," Wilmington Star News, March 21, 1973, Bill Reaves Collection, New
Hanover Public Library, Wilmington, N.C.
[12] Bettie Fennell,
"Monumental Mishap," Wilmington
Star News, October 7, 2000, Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public
Library, Wilmington, N.C.
[13] Bettie Fennell, "Unlucky
Statue Returns from Repairs," Wilmington
Star News, September 8, 2001, Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover Public
Library, Wilmington, N.C.
[14] Trista Talton,
"Davis Statue to Retake Its Place," Wilmington Star News, December 31, 2001, Bill Reaves Collection,
New Hanover Public Library, Wilmington, N.C.
