Confederate statues honor Rome’s history

DEAR EDITOR:

It has come to my attention that some members of our city government want to remove the monuments to our Confederate dead on Myrtle Hill. I can’t imagine what they hope to accomplish with such a move but I can assure your readers that said removal will not be unopposed. Removing these monuments will not heal the wounds of our divided nation but only further divide us.

These statues have been part of the landscape for many years and they should remain exactly where they are for many more years. The statues were erected to honor the sacrifices and hardships that the Southern people, both soldiers and civilians, endured for the four years of the war and for many years afterward.

The statute to honor Nathan Bedford Forrest, for example, was built to pay homage to a man who once saved our town from invasion, a man who began the war as a private but ended it as a general, and a man who became a good friend to the freed slaves after the war.

Another monument honors the women of the South, who endured privations that would have been unendurable to women who lacked the iron spirit of our ancestors. Women who somehow managed to feed their families despite ever dwindling food supplies, women who carried on after the loss of husbands, sons, and fathers.

Finally, there once stood a monument at the top of the hill to the Confederate soldier. Sadly, it was destroyed by people of the same mindset as the ones who want to remove the few remaining statues. Somehow, the perpetrators of this crime have never been tried for this vandalism. In fact, no arrests have been made at all.

In summation, I wonder when all this politically correct insanity will end. What is next? Will we rewrite all our history textbooks and leave blank the 1860s? Will we pull down all the statues of the Founding Fathers? When will the book burnings begin? Wake up Romans, this is what’s coming if we stand by and do nothing.

James M. Smith

SCV Nathan B. Forrest Camp No. 469