Statue of Edmund Kirby Smith

Edmund Kirby Smith is a bronze sculpture commemorating the United States Army officer of the same name by C. Adrian Pillars, installed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. The statue was gifted by the state of Florida in 1922.[1]

Edmund Kirby Smith
ArtistC. Adrian Pillars
MediumBronze sculpture
SubjectEdmund Kirby Smith
LocationWashington, D.C., United States

Smith, who died in 1893, was the last surviving full General of either the CSA or GAR. After he died his family changed their name to Kirby-Smith to help “distinguish him from the other Civil War “General Smiths” (approx. 35).”[2]

William J. Sears quoted a resolution from the Confederate Congress regarding him at the statue’s unveiling in Congress that praised Kirby Smith’s “justice, his firmness and moderation, his integrity and conscientious regard for law, his unaffected kindness to the people, the protection of their rights and the redress of their wrongs, and has thus won the confidence of Congress.”[3]

On March 19, 2018, Governor Rick Scott signed legislation replacing the statue with one of African-American educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune.[4] As of August 2020, the statue is still in the Capitol, pending delivery of the replacement statue of Bethune.

The fate of the statue of Smith, once removed, has been much discussed, and as of August 2020 remains unresolved. His birthplace, St. Augustine, does not want it. The statue was to have been moved to the Lake County Historical Museum, in Tavares, Florida,[5] but there has been significant local opposition.[6] Smith never lived in Lake County; at the time Smith was born Lake County was part of St. Johns County, whose county seat is St. Augustine. On July 7, 2020, Lake County commissioners voted 4–1 against accepting the monument.[7]

See also

References
  1. "Edmund Kirby Smith". Architect of the Capitol. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  2. Viles, Philip H., National Statuary Hall: Guidebook for a Walking Tour, Published by Philip H. Viles, Tulsa, OK, 1997 p. 105
  3. Murdock, Myrtle Chaney, National Statuary Hall in the Nation’s Capitol, Monumental Press, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1955 p. 25.
  4. Florida Senate (January 9, 2018). "Senate Bill 472". Retrieved March 22, 2018.
  5. Fallstrom, Jerry (June 28, 2018). "Statue of Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith headed from D.C. to Lake County". Orlando Sentinel.
  6. Stanfield, Frank (August 2, 2018). "Committee to ponder fate of incoming confederate statue". Daily Commercial.
  7. "Lake County asks Gov. DeSantis to move statue of Confederate out of their community". WOFL (FOX 35 Orlando). July 7, 2020.
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