Confederate Women of Maryland

Confederate Women of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, 1917
J. Maxwell Miller
Bronze
145 x 105 x 87 in. (368.3 x 266.7 x 221 cm)
City of Baltimore, Maryland
Filed Under:
Confederate Women of Maryland
Sponsor: United Daughters of the Confederacy, United Confederate Veterans, and the Maryland General Assembly
Dedicated: 1918
Removed: 2017
Lost Cause proponents argue that the Civil War could not have been about slavery because only a small minority of white Southerners owned enslaved people, often pointing to 1860 census data that counted 5.67% of the white population as enslavers. However, legal ownership belies the impact of enslaved labor on an individual household. When adjusted to account for the family unit, 30.8% of households owned at least one enslaved person, with that number approaching 50% in South Carolina and Mississippi. Legal ownership was not confined to men. White women could own enslaved people through direct purchase or an inheritance from another family member. As the predominant managers of the domestic sphere, women had a significant role in overseeing households and, in turn, the enslaved people who lived and worked in them, even if the legal owner was their husband or another male relative. As such, white Southern women were equally invested in the perpetuation of chattel slavery and heartily contributed to the Confederate war effort.
The vast majority of Confederate monuments across the Southern landscape were funded and built through the efforts of women’s groups, including Ladies’ Memorial Associations and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Veterans, too, were deeply invested in narratives of the war that ensured their historical reputation was maintained. One such element of the Lost Cause downplayed slavery as the main cause of the war, framing it as a struggle against “Northern Aggression” fought to protect the Southern homeland. Rather than face an emasculating defeat, Confederate veterans preferred narratives in which they were cast as guardians of (white) women and children.
Around the turn of the century, the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) aimed to honor the women of the Confederacy. Despite requests from prominent women that a memorial take the form of a scholarship or a home for girls, the UCV attempted to install a sculpture by Belle Kinney (1890-1959), herself a daughter of a Confederate veteran, on the capitol grounds of every secessionist state. However, the state groups could not reach a consensus on the design. In fact, Maryland, which had not seceded, was one of only six states to build monuments honoring women.
Maryland’s status as a border state south of the Mason-Dixon line left Confederate promoters feeling as though they had to prove their “southerness.” The Maryland division of the UCV proposed a monument to the Confederate women of the state who had sacrificed their husbands, fathers, and sons to the Lost Cause. Initially intending to erect a copy of an already designed monument for $3,500 in 1907, efforts truly began in 1910, when the UCV enlisted the help of the UDC, as the women’s group had proven more successful at fundraising. The chairman of the monument committee, Andrew Cross Trippe, served in the General Assembly and secured $12,000 in state funding to build such a monument.
At the unveiling ceremony in 1918, the speaker drew parallels between Confederate women and women who had taken part in the war effort during World War I. On its surface, Confederate Women of Maryland was intended to illustrate a woman’s proper role in wartime. A kneeling female figure cradles a wounded soldier, who holds a furled and tattered Confederate flag. Another female figure stands erect, bravely facing whatever adversity lay on the horizon. The composition is based on the seminal Christian iconography of the Pietà, in which the Virgin Mary holds her dead son Jesus Christ. Thus, the underlying theme of the monument is sacrifice and perseverance, as Confederate women’s loyalty held fast through the loss of their male kin. The Pietà also implies resurrection, so by extension, like Christ, the South will rise again.
After the 2015 shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, Mayor Rawlings-Blake formed a commission to review Baltimore’s Confederate monuments. After a lengthy period of research and public engagement, the commission voted to deaccession and remove the Confederate Women of Maryland. However, due in part to an easement held by the Maryland Historic Trust, the only change made at that time was the installation of an interpretive plaque. Following the Unite the Right rally in 2017, Mayor Pugh removed all four Baltimore Confederate monuments in the middle of the night “in the best interest of [the] city.” As of December 2024, the pedestal remains.
Confederate Women of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, 1917
J. Maxwell Miller, sculptor
Roman Bronze Works, fabricator
George W. Wilkinson, designer
Clough& Molloy, carver
Bronze statue on red granite base
Photo by C. Ryan
Patterson for the Special Commission to Review Baltimore's Public Confederate Monuments




































































































































































































































































































































































