The Army estimated the restoration of a Confederate statue in Arlington National Cemetery that was removed in 2023 will cost $10 million, an official said Wednesday.
The official told the Associated Press that the statue, called the Reconciliation Monument, will feature panels of information about its history. However, the statue is plagued by past controversy.
The statue is a depiction of a woman, representing the American South, crowned with olive leaves.
Arlington National Cemetery describes the statue, built by Confederate veteran Moses Jacob Ezekiel and erected in 1914, as “a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”
It features a Latin inscription, “Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Caton,” translated “The victorious cause was pleasing to the gods, but the lost cause to Cato,” which bolsters the South’s secession as a romanticized “lost cause.”
The official told the AP that the statue is expected to be ready for viewing in 2027, as the base needs replacement and the monument requires refurbishment.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that the statue “never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history — we honor it.”
The order comes after Hegseth restored Confederate mentions in military-related infrastructure across the United States.
A congressional-mandated commission ordered the statue to be taken down or renamed along with other Confederate monuments in 2022. Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, vice chairman of the commission, said the commission found Ezekiel’s memorial is “problematic from top to bottom.”
Hegseth has found a unique way to keep Confederate names intact. He ordered Fort Bragg, originally named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, to be renamed after Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II veteran.
During the critical Battle of the Bulge, the WWII Bragg earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE TO REINSTALL STATUE OF CONFEDERATE GENERAL TOPPLED IN DC IN 2020
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which slams attempts to rename historical objects.
The order says, “Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame.”