An online petition to remove the Confederate soldier statue from the Sebastian County Courthouse lawn passed 1,000 names signed shortly after noon Tuesday.
The Sebastian County Clerk responded Monday that her office had not received any requests to remove the statue. Fort Smith Mayor George McGill did not have a statement as of Tuesday afternoon.
The First National Bank downtown has always been conveniently situated for folks in eastern Sequoyah County who choose to keep their money in Fort Smith. With a quick jaunt across the river during rush hour on pay day, one can enter the drive-through with a right turn off of bustling Garrison Avenue. Once business has concluded, one can avoid the worst downtown traffic for a couple of blocks by taking 6th Street south from the drive-through, and rolling west on Rogers Avenue. It was a journey I rode along on many times as a child. Which is why I cannot remember a time when I was not aware of the Confederate monument at the courthouse.
When I was about five years old, I asked one of my parents who the statue was supposed to be. I was told that it was supposed to be a soldier from Arkansas who died in the Civil War. I was told that a long time ago, the people picked sides and fought a war against each other and that the statue commemorates a soldier from the side that lost.
I knew from an early age that I was descended from men who fought on both sides of the war. When I got a lot older, I learned that I am descended from six Unionists and five Confederates, as well as three others who were drafted into the Confederate Army but deserted. Except for one of the Unionists, all of the Civil War veterans from whom I directly descend were Southerners; mostly of the Upper variety. The border states were where the war mattered most, where the war truly did place relatives against each other, and where the term “civil war” actually can describe what happened. Fighting here was bitter, and the war profoundly impacted the lives of most people.
It is possible to see what the process of post-war healing actually looked like by researching the genealogy of families who were involved in the war. When veterans of both sides returned home to live among each other in civil society, the vast majority of them befriended each other and moved along with their lives. Within one or two generations, members of the families that had staunchly supported one side were married to members of families that had staunchly supported the other side. A person born around the turn of the twentieth century might have had a grandfather on each side. By that time the surviving veterans of each side routinely attended reunions and other events with each other. Old Unionists, who counted their own amongst the Confederate dead, watched as monuments went up in cities all over the South to commemorate their friends from the other side, such as the one in downtown Fort Smith–which has always served as a symbol of post-war unity; not division.