LUMBERTON — County Manager Ricky Harris said Monday that a pressure washer will be used this weekend in an attempt to erase vandalism that was done to the monument of the Confederate soldier that stands above the steps at the Robeson County Courthouse.
County officials already have covered the vandals’ words by painting over them with primer.
It’s unclear exactly when the vandalism occurred, but Erich Hackney, an investigator with the District Attorney’s Office, said the first call about the vandalism was received by the city sometime on Saturday. The Lumberton Police Department, which has jurisdiction even though the vandalism was on and to county property, is investigating what is a Class 1 misdemeanor in North Carolina.
The Confederate monument is the latest target of a rash of vandalism that has broken out since the Aug. 12 clash in Charlottesville, Virginia, between neo-Nazis, white supremacists and protesters.
The vandals use black spray paint to write “Feather for Heather,” “Jesus” and “Love” on three sides of the square base of the monument. Two words — “Glory” and “Confederate” — were blackened. There was a cross spray-painted beside “Jesus.”
All of that has now been hidden by primer.
Harris said the courthouse is equipped with cameras, but they were not operating when the vandalism occurred because of a power outage that had occurred.
The monument, a tall marble obelisk with a soldier at its peak, has stood before the courthouse since it was unveiled on May 10, 1907, to the applause of local residents and Confederate veterans, according to an article in The Robesonian published after the unveiling.
The monument’s inscription, in all capital letters, reads: “1861 / This marble minstrel’s voiceless stone / in deathless song shall tell, / when many a vanished age hath flown / the story of how they fell. / On fame’s eternal camping ground, / their silent tents are spread, / and glory guards with solemn round / the bivouac of the dead.”
On the south face it reads: “Erected under the auspices of / the United Daughters of the Confederacy / in loving memory of the two thousand / Confederate soldiers of Robeson County.”
For more than 110 years the the monument has stood mostly unchallenged until the recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Durham, where a statue honoring Confederate soldiers was toppled by protesters on Aug. 14.
The Confederate soldiers memorialized by the statue were part of the 155,000 North Carolinians who fought in the Civil War, according to historical records found online. Of that number, about 40,000 were killed. No Civil War battles were fought in Robeson County, but a portion of the Union Army led by Gen. William T. Sherman stopped in Lumberton on March 9, 1865, after his famous March to the Sea.
County Commissioner Jerry Stephens, who is black, said during the county board’s Aug. 21 meeting that he would like a public discussion about the monument, but no forum has been held. Two county commissioners, Chairman Tom Taylor and David Edge, both white, are on record as saying they are against the removal of the monument from the courthouse.