Brad Matthews | August 8, 2025
(The Washington Times) — A Confederate war memorial statue is returning to Arlington National Cemetery after it was taken down on Dec. 20, 2023.
Confederate soldiers were at first barred from burial at Arlington National Cemetery, built on land seized from the wife of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
In 1900 the policy was changed and the statue, created by Confederate veteran and sculptor Moses Ezekiel, went up in 1914.
On Wednesday, Arlington National Cemetery said the Army entered an agreement with Virginia to loan the statue back for display at Ezekiel’s burial site; Ezekiel was buried at the base of the monument in 1921.
The statue is expected to be back by 2027 following a refurbishment process.
The memorial statue was first taken down in 2023 under a mandate from Congress, Arlington National Cemetery says on its website.
Elements of the statue include depictions of gods, Southern soldiers, an enslaved woman acting as a “mammy” for a baby, and an enslaved man following his master to war, the latter depictions widely criticized as sanitizing slavery.
The statue also includes a Latin inscription, “Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Caton,” a line from the Roman poet Lucan which means “the victorious cause pleased the gods, but Cato was defeated” and which situated the defeated Confederacy as morally right despite losing the civil war.
Once restored, the statue will feature panels nearby offering context on its history, an unnamed official with knowledge of the matter told WTOP-FM.
The restoration work is expected to cost about $10 million over two years, the Army told military newspaper Stars & Stripes.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the statue’s restoration on X.
“I’m proud to announce that Moses Ezekiel’s beautiful and historic sculpture — often referred to as ‘The Reconciliation Monument’ — will be rightfully be returned to Arlington National Cemetery near his burial site. It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history — we honor it,” Mr. Hegseth said.
On Monday, the National Park Service announced that a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike, who raised American Indian troops in Arkansas during the Civil War and worked to advance Freemasonry for decades afterwards, would be restored to a plinth near the intersection of D and Third streets Northwest.
The move, the park service said, was in line with executive orders from the Trump administration ordering the repair and restoration of memorials and statues that were defaced, damaged or removed in recent years.
