To the editor:
History is being erased throughout the nation. Monuments to American heroes are being removed, or under threat of being removed, like the Reconciliation Memorial in the Confederate section of Arlington National Cemetery.
In June 1914, President Wilson spoke at the dedication of a new Confederate monument at Section 16, where Confederate soldiers had been interred. The monument was trusted into safekeeping to the U.S. War Department by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which had commissioned it. Dr. Edward Smith, a professor of history at American University, has described this monument as probably the first to honor the African-American Confederate soldiers.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) commissioned a Jewish Confederate veteran, Moses Ezekiel, to do the work on this monument. It is written that the UDC was pleased with his work, which depicts the multi-cultural makeup of the late Confederate States of America.
Ezekiel was born in 1844 in Richmond. His grandparents came to America from Holland in 1808, and were of Jewish-Spanish heritage.
Ezekiel talked his parents into letting him attend Virginia Military Institute, where he enrolled in 1862. He may have been the first Jewish-American to enter.
After three years at VMI, Ezekiel saw military service during the War Between the States, as the cadets of Virginia Military Institute were called to support Confederate Gen. John Breckenridge at the Battle of New Market. Ezekiel joined his fellow cadets in the charge upon the Union lines.
After the war, Ezekiel went on to finish his education at VMI. It was during this period that he had met Gen. Robert E. Lee, who was president of Washington College at the time.
Ezekiel later traveled to Italy to study and work as an artist, and would become known worldwide. He was honored by the Italian king, who knighted him.
It was Ezekiel’s wish to return to his native Virginia, but World War I kept him for doing so. He spent his final days in Italy, where he died in 1917. His remains were brought back to the U.S. in 1921.
Ezekiel’s funeral service was held at the amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery. VMI cadets stood by his casket, which was draped with a flag of the U.S., and he was buried at the base of the Confederate monument, one of 450 Confederate soldiers, wives and civilians buried nearby.
Calvin Johnson Jr., Kennesaw, Ga.
