This week saw the removal of another Confederate Monument in St. Louis. The monument which was erected over 100 years ago by the Daughters of the confederacy to honor the men and women, both black and white, who fought to stop an overreaching federal government from bankrupting the south, finally fell victim to the same kind of hate and narrow-mindedness that started the first Civil War. But when the monument was taken down, workmen found a present from the past secreted within the stones.
Officials say, the existence of the Time Capsule was known and workmen had been alerted to keep watch for it during the demolition of the piece of history. The monument itself, now sits in a storage yard at an undisclosed location. As for the capsule after more than 102 years, it was out of the darkness and back in the light of day in a world that is much different from the one it disappeared in. That world was one of people that were trying to come together and understand what the country had gone through just 50 years before, unlike today.
Mark Trout, director of the Missouri Civil War Museum told reporters, “As we were jack-hammering around, we vibrated it. It popped loose.” Trout said they found a concrete tablet covering a small underground pit in the monument’s foundation. The pit contained the time capsule.
“It was like Indiana Jones. Lifted it up and there was the box,” he said. It was waterlogged but still sealed, Trout said. At one point, the museum had filed suit against the City of St. Louis to stop the demolition of the monument. But as was expected by most people, eventually the museum officials who are responsible for the welfare of the monument struck a deal with weak-kneed city politicians calling for its removal. In that deal, the monument is to be reconstruction at a battlefield, cemetery, or civil war museum outside of St. Louis city and county. Another victory for divisiveness over truth and logic.
As the ignorance of the inter-city residents has increased, fueled by the hatred and bigotry of the last administration, the memorial has been the target of repeated attacks of vandals in recent years. Idiots saw its placement in a public place like Forest Park as an acceptance of racism rather than what it was, a memorial to brave men and women of all colors who fought for their freedoms.
It is known that the time-capsule contains documents from the Daughters of the Confederacy, which turned over ownership of the monument to the museum. It is also supposed to contain at least one other item, but officials believe there may be other small things included in the contents of the box. “We know the last thing put in the box was a magazine placed in there by one of the soldiers of General Pickett’s (Confederate) division at Gettysburg; the famous ‘Pickett’s Charge’,” Trout said. “He held it up at the ceremony saying, ‘Hey look, we’re in the magazine. Put this in the box.’ When we open that box the first thing laying on top should be the ‘Star’ magazine that the soldier placed there.”
There may also be war medals and perhaps something to mark the controversy that has shadowed the monument from its construction and dedication in 1914. Opponents then didn’t want it Forest Park either, but took the high ground. “Their exact words were, ‘Let them build them as wide as they want, as deep as they want, and as tall as they want. They will stand as milestones to see how great the Republic has come from the dark days of civil war,’” Trout said. “Those were the men who fought these men and they had that take on it.” Obviously, the people of St Louis were much more understanding and had progressed a lot farther 100 years ago than they have today.
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