General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy no statue to this Confederate General William Mahone?
Though there is a monument to the victory at Crater Battlefield in Petersburg
The man that General Robert E Lee contemplated as his successor. A man he thought, "had developed the highest qualities for command."
Mahone was a slave owner and a vocal secessionist. After a huge mine explosion under confederate troops at Petersburg, he rallied his troops in a counter-attack that routed the American (Union) army.
Why not Mahone?
It probably wasn't his merging of three railroad lines into one: The AM&O (Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio)
I'm certain it had nothing to do with race
William Mahone after the war
He was involved in railroads as I said.
But he was also a key figure in The Readjuster Party of Virginia.
What was the Readjuster party you may ask.
The Readjuster Party was a political biracial coalition formed in Virginia in the late 1870s. Readjusters aspired "to break the power of wealth and established privilege" among the planter elite of white men in the state and to promote public education. Their program attracted biracial support.
The party was led by attorney Harrison H. Riddleberger , and William Mahone. Mahone was a major force in Virginia politics from around 1870 until 1883, when the Readjusters lost control to white Democrats.
The Readjusters have been called the most successful interracial political alliance in the post-emancipation South.
In the four years that they governed the state the Readjusters promoted citizenship for blacks, supported black suffrage, office holding and jury duty. They banned the chain gang and the whipping post. They separated paying the school tax from the suffrage, allowing the poorest voters in Virginia the ability to vote. In cities with governments run by Readjusters they paved streets and modernized water systems.
Mahone was elected to the US Senate from the Readjuster Party
Why doesn't he have a statue?
Now you knw
And to make sure the Readjuster Party never got a foothold again, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities labeled Readjusters as mob rule (Mobocracy)
While African American congressman John M. Langston has compared Mahone with Moses, whites in Virginia described him as a race traitor
Every time some statue supporting know nothing talks about those statues Wm Mahone is one of my answers
on edit: In case you're wondering... no he shouldn't have a statue either. He enthusiastically supported treason. But, if Lee and the rest of that treasonous crew get them, why not him?
Pretty damned obvious
Proud liberal 80
(4,167 posts)rpannier
(24,345 posts)Some learned and changed
I am a believer in redemption
People do change
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Longstreet was arguably the most successful confederate general, yet he's not memorialized because he embraced reconstruction after the war.
It ain't about history.