Heather Cox Richardson’s post this morning about the Battle Cry of Freedom has prompted my thoughts today. The story of Julia Ward Howell’s poem and it’s effects are inspiring me. We recently started preliminary work, research and collecting some basic interview bits to begin a documentary on moving the Confederate Talbot Boys monument from it’s place of honor in front of the Talbot County Courthouse in Easton MD to the Cross Keys Battlefield in Virginia.
Our project is going to cover almost 400 years of Eastern Shore history and how we got to the point that some folks from Maryland choose to go fight with the states that wanted to preserve slavery rather than fight to preserve the union.
Confederate veterans returning from the Gettysburg 50th Anniversary Reunion decided to fund and build a monument to their 84 neighbors and friends who fought for the south. The theme of the Gettysburg reunion was reconciliation. 100 years after it’s erection the Talbot Boys were moved from their place of honor after several years of dedicated efforts. It does not seem the Talbot Boys reconciled anything.
Today there is a monument to native son Frederick Douglass in a position of honor on that Courthouse Lawn. It took 150 years from the time of the 13th Amendment to make that happen and get recognition for Talbot County’s most famous former slave, abolition leader and humanitarian.
One of my goals with this documentary is to give the people of Easton and Talbot County the space to tell their perspective and see if we can finally start to get to some reconciliation.