Lee items, a bullet, horse hair and more were in a time capsule opened after Confederate monument moved in Raleigh

In May 1894, a metal time capsule stuffed with Confederate mementos and artifacts was placed beneath the granite cornerstone of a Confederate monument being erected in Raleigh.

Inside was a button said to from a dress coat belonging to Gen. Robert E. Lee, a lock of his hair and a strand plucked from the tail of his famous horse Traveler. Among newspapers, money and souvenirs was the bullet that killed the horse of Brig. Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew, the North Carolinian officer who was severely wounded near Richmond in 1862 while riding the steed.

Some 125 years later, the Confederate Soldiers Monument no longer stands on Capitol grounds. It was recently moved by order of Gov. Roy Cooper. 

A wooden box held items placed in time capsule

The time capsule was opened Thursday, three days after it was removed from the monument base. It yielded a sodden mess of items that conservators used water and tweezers to separate and discern. Buttons were rusted and everything was covered by muck.

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources provided a video and photographs of the opening of the dented metal box in a laboratory.

Rusted buttons found in capsule (NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources)

“Because the metal box containing the items had rusted through in places, the items contained in the time capsule were severely damaged by the elements,” the department said.

“Items recovered so far include a wooden box, a stone thought to be from Gettysburg, two buttons attached to a piece of textile and a strand of what appears to be horse hair. Preservation work on these items and the metal box itself has begun.”

Michele Walker, a spokeswoman for the department, told the Picket the items will become part of the collection of North Carolina Historic Sites.

According to the News & Observer, the capsule was found Monday when workers were dismantling the base of the monument.

Metal capsule shortly before it was opened July 2

Cooper cited public safety in issuing his June 20 removal order, hours after protesters toppled bronze statues of soldiers from the base one of three Confederate monuments on Capitol grounds, the newspaper reported. All three monuments were removed.

Among other items said to be placed in the time capsule were a Bible found at Appomattox and a letter written by a North Carolina soldier shortly before he was mortally wounded.

Removed Raleigh cannons are now perched at Fort Fisher

Two Civil War cannons that flanked a Confederate monument on the Union Square grounds in Raleigh, NC, since 1902 now have a new home at Fort Fisher, according to the Wilmington Star. The naval cannons, which were removed with the 1895 monument on the orders of Gov. Roy Cooper last week after they were vandalized, were delivered to the Fort Fisher State Historic Site on Sunday. • Article

Weighing in on Raleigh monuments: Historian David Blight, Sons of Confederate Veterans and CEO of the Atlanta History Center

Confederate Women's Monument (NCDCR)

What to do with three century-old Confederate monuments that dot North Carolina’s Capitol grounds in Raleigh: Leave them be? Add context? Move them to the Bentonville battlefield?

A study committee of the North Carolina Historical Commission has received passionate opinions on all three options from an online portal (more than 5,100 comments thus far), a public hearing last month and letters from historians and groups.

Michele Walker, a public information officer for the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, said the full commission is expected to receive a final recommendation from the committee by May.

The online portal will close at midnight Thursday (April 12). The committee, in a recent conference call, also noted it had requested and received comments from two experts on Civil War monuments: Yale history professor David Blight and Sheffield Hale, president and CEO of the Atlanta History Center. The call also mentioned comments filed on behalf of the North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Picket requested copies and here is a summary of each position:

David Blight: ‘Relocate but do not lose the lessons’

“Wide public consciousness about the nature and place of commemoration in our culture seems to be popping up everywhere. And widespread uses and abuses of "identity" are also a fact of our time. In periods of bewildering change many people feel or believe themselves to be threatened. We are also experiencing a lack of confidence in basic, important institutions. Hence, we live in an era of lots of grievance and resentment -- appeals to tradition and appeals against it.”

Blight suggested that any community addressing such a choice about monuments create a good deliberative process, act and think with humility and “learn more history, lots more, before acting … About the origins and meaning of monuments at their inception, over time, and now. And all of us need to remember to try to learn some history other than what we may call ‘our own.’

“Having said this: It would seem that those monuments to the Confederacy are as public a statement as can possibly be made about who and what North Carolina was and is. If it is possible to move them to a prominent place that would allow their interpretation as part of Southern, American, and North Carolina history, it would seem to me a good idea. But don't erase them from the landscape. Replace, but learn. Relocate but do not lose the lessons. ..."

N.C. SCV: State hiding behind a fig leaf

The organization’s opposition to relocation doesn’t touch on the emotional arguments associated with Confederate monuments. Rather, it argues a 2015 state law prohibits the removal of them and that this effort does not meet any exceptions to the law.

It says Gov. Roy Cooper, while “under pressure,” proposed the idea of relocation after a “mob of demonstrators and political protesters illegally” tore down a memorial in Durham in August 2017.

Confederate Soldiers Monument

The SCV scoffs at the state’s contention that the relocation is necessary “to ensure the Monuments’ preservation.” And it argues that the Capitol’s Union Square – where the monuments sit – is the best location.

“The State’s proposal to move the statues to Bentonville is not a proposal to move them to an equally prominent place,” it argues. “Instead, the State is using the Bentonville battlefield as a fig leaf to allow it to move the statues to a remote location to get them away from politically inconvenient protests. That might be good politics but it is illegal.”

The SCV brief argues the state should hold activists accountable for damaging monuments -- rather than move the memorials: The Confederate Women's Monument (1914), the Confederate Soldiers Monument (1895) and the Henry Lawson Wyatt Monument (1912). Wyatt was the first North Carolinian killed in the Civil War.

“There is no legal avenue to remove these statues. The law is clear and unambiguous. For this to continue to be a country made of laws and not of man, the Commission must deny the petition to remove the statues.”

Sheffield Hale: Context, context, context

The Atlanta History has been a proponent of contextualization – through marker panels, web pages or smartphones -- and understanding of the symbolism of Confederate monuments. 

In his letter, Hale said the 2015 North Carolina law does “not restrict how the history of monuments can be interpreted and presented …. There are legally viable strategies for onsite interpretation of monuments that is more inclusive of the history and sensibilities of a broad spectrum of the population.”

He argued those involved in the debate over such memorials should have a respectful discussion, humility and openness. 

Sheffield Hale

Hale recognizes that many Southerners believe the monuments are a positive representation of their heritage.

“While many who advocate keeping the monuments argue that removing them would erase Civil War history, this is simply not so. The historical evidence focused on the monuments’ creation, unveilings and events hosted at them actually testifies more clearly to the efforts of communities to resist Civil Rights activism than to commemorate the war.”

Hale argues the three Capitol memorials are of the “Lost Cause” variety – the idea that the South achieved a moral victory while denying the role of slavery as the primary cause of the war. Such thinking suppressed racial equality, he writes.

Whether the monuments stay or are moved, Hale told the study committee that North Carolina must find a way to provide proper context. “Historical context to these monuments must acknowledge slavery as the primary cause of the Civil War and explain how monuments promoted the myth of the Lost Cause and the practice of Jim Crow segregation. If the state of North Carolina is unwilling to create this context, I am of the opinion the monuments should be removed to a warehouse.”

A little background on the issue

Gov. Cooper’s administration last fall filed a petition calling for relocation of the memorials. Questions soon arose over whether the North Carolina Historical Commission has the power to order relocation.

Wyatt statue (NCDCR)

“The committee has requested advice from various legal experts on their authority under the NC monuments law,” said Walker. “They are currently proceeding under the understanding that they have the authority to make a decision on the petition before them.”

Walker said about 60 people spoke at the March 21 public hearing in Raleigh. According to media reports, many spoke against moving the memorials. “It was fewer than we anticipated, but we had some unusually wintry weather that day which likely accounted for the lower turnout,” said Walker.

She said the committee will make a recommendation and the full commission will vote on its final action, both in public settings. “I cannot speak for them, but I’m sure they will take the recommendation of the committee very seriously when making their final decision.”

Divided over NC Confederate monuments: More than 4,000 submit comments on proposed relocation of 3 memorials

Confederate Soldiers Monument

A request by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's administration to move three Confederate monuments from the Capitol grounds in Raleigh has garnered more than 4,000 comments on a state website soliciting opinions.

The North Carolina Historical Commission has been tasked with talking with historians, legal experts and hearing from the public before it makes a decision.

The next step is a hearing on March 21 in Raleigh, at which speakers have one minute to make their positions known to a five-member study committee.

A 2015 state law makes it difficult to remove or relocate public monuments, according to the News & Observer. Cooper made the recommendation following the Charlottesville, Va., violence last summer.

The commission is trying to determine whether it even has the authority to order the state statues moved to the Bentonville battlefield about 45 miles away. A petition for relocation calls them “objects of remembrance.”

“This commission has not had a contentious issue before them until now,” Michele Walker, a public information officer for the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, told the Picket this week.

The three memorials on Union Square are the Confederate Women's Monument (1914), the Confederate Soldiers Monument (1895) and the Henry Lawson Wyatt Monument (1912). Wyatt was the first North Carolinian killed in the Civil War.

The comment page, which launched on Jan. 29, is not restricted to state residents, though most do come from them. As of the morning of March 15, 4,031 people had weighed in.

Confederate Women's Monument (NCDCR)

They reflect what commission member David Ruffin said during a committee conference call this week that set ground rules for the hearing: “We understand that opinions are strong and divided, and in many cases, passionately held.”

While some comments reviewed by the Picket showed nuanced feelings on the matter, most are solidly on either side of the contentious issue.

“The monuments were placed by the children and widows of these men on the capitol grounds at a time when these veterans were getting old, and passing on,” wrote a High Point resident. “They were placed to memorialize these heroes, plain and simple, with no ulterior motives. I would feel we would be doing ourselves and their memories a grave disservice to move these monuments from their time-honored spots.”

A Chapel Hill resident countered.

“These statues told black citizens that they were not welcome in their own country, and they continue to send that message today. As long as these statue(s) stand in our state capitol, we are implicitly condoning the white supremacists who put them up. North Carolina can do better. Please remove these monuments to hate.”

Some commenters said if the three are moved, so should statues of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.  But James Leloudis, a history professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, told the News & Observer that equating the memorials ignores “fundamental moral distinctions.”

The Confederacy was built on the rejection of the founding principle that "all men are created equal," Leloudis said, while "King, by comparison, called the nation back to its core defining democratic values."

The public hearing is set for 1:30-3:30 p.m. on March 21 at the Archives and History/State Library Building in Raleigh. The chair has the option of extending the session by an hour if needed.

Henry Lawson Wyatt Monument (NCDCR)

During their conference call, committee members focused on ground rules and ensuring that all views are heard. Speakers must sign in before they can address the committee and they cannot mention other monuments, such as the Silent Sam monument in Chapel Hill.

“We are trying to be open and fair and respectful of all opinions,” said Ruffin.

Speakers get one minute, and a red warning card will be put up after 30 seconds.

“No applause or other noises or clapping shall be allowed or tolerated before, during or after any speaker. Individuals in attendance who violate this rule will first be warned and then removed from the audience if a second violation occurs,” the committee said.

Walker said no banners or flags will be allowed. While people generally respect others and the rules, she said, security will be present.

The committee members agreed that the chairman can ask for comments representing another view if they have not heard speakers with such views. “Whatever our positions, we must be both fair to divergent opinions and respectful of each other’s rights to utter those opinions,” Ruffin said.

The committee can vote to keep the monuments where they are, add interpretive signage that may give historical context, move them or consider other options. “They are not limited to yes or no,” Walker told the Picket.

A Durham commenter spoke to one possible option: “If the monuments stay where they are, additional information needs to be posted on the same site to put them into the context in which they were erected. The date the monument was erected, who paid for it, who supported it, who did not support it. The fact that many were erected during Jim Crow as a way to put down efforts at equality by African-Americans should be front and center.”

A Holly Springs resident disagrees. “It is a very dangerous idea to remove statues which certain people do not agree with. History cannot be rewritten to satisfy disgruntled citizens.”

Walker said the committee is taking its duties very seriously.

“They want to know what the people of North Carolina think and how they want this issue to be handled,” she said.

NC governor wants monuments at Bentonville

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper sought formal permission to move three Confederate monuments from the old Capitol grounds to a Civil War site in a nearby county. One of his Cabinet secretaries petitioned the state historical commission to authorize the relocation of a large obelisk and two smaller statues to the Bentonville battlefield, less than 50 miles from Raleigh. • Article

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Confederate brothers are reburied

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Re-enactors fund coat preservation

A coat worn by a North Carolina officer who was badly wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg has been stowed away at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh since 1914. A group of Civil War re-enactors has donated $10,000 to the museum so Collett Leventhorpe's coat can be preserved and put on display for the first time. • Article