Confederate General Johnston’s Latest “Masterful Retreat”
While the media focuses on controversies surrounding Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, something commendable flew under the radar in her Georgia House district early Saturday morning.
At 2:30 AM while the town was sleeping, a local crew moved the statue of Confederate General Joseph B. Johnston from downtown Dalton, my hometown, to the backyard of the nearby Huff House, a structure that served as his headquarters during his troops’ defense against Sherman’s Union soldiers. Last summer after protests, counter-protests, and a townhall meeting about the statue, local civic leaders brokered a deal with its owner, the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, to move it out of downtown using privately donated funds.
The contrast between how Johnston’s statue arrived in 1912 and how it departed in 2021 couldn’t be clearer.
At 2:00 PM on October 24, 1912, local civic leaders unveiled it to thousands in attendance, the largest crowd in Dalton up to that point in its history. The local newspaper said that all businesses were adorned in Confederate and United States flags. The pastor at First Methodist Church gave the opening invocation, followed by quartette performing the hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.” Local poet Robert Loveman recited his “Ode to Joseph E. Johnston,” which includes a stanza that reads:¹
“He was our warrior; let us lay
A wreath of love on him today;
He was our leader; let his deed,
Our children’s children proudly read.”
Since my great grandfather served on the event’s reception committee, I guess you could say that people like me were who they had in mind. While I don’t remember feelings of pride toward Johnston’s statue during my childhood, I never questioned its presence at the center of downtown as I passed it thousands of times. It wasn’t until years later when I had conversations with several Black friends about how they interpreted statues honoring men who fought to enslave their ancestors that I was forced to wrestle with Johnston’s presence at the center of my hometown.
I’ve come to realize that moving a statue like Johnston’s is not about forgetting history — it’s about healthy remembering. It’s about choosing our heroes. No matter how masterful a military tactician he was, Johnston led a treasonous army to defend the Southern states’ right to enslave other human beings. He shouldn’t be Dalton’s hero. But, at the same time, his story should be told alongside many throughout the town’s history. The statue’s new location decenters the Confederacy in Dalton’s history and places it where appropriate context can surround it.
Sometimes the tendency these days is to push for change but skip past progress when it comes. Saturday morning’s peaceful removal of Johnston’s statue would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The fact that it had to be removed under the cover of darkness shows there’s still work to be done. But, it demonstrates a town that is more willing to examine its past and consider its effect on the present than this time last year. For that, I’m grateful.
The North Georgia Citizen article announcing the statue’s unveiling in 1912 called Dalton the logical location for the statue because it’s where Johnston took over the army to prepare for “his masterful retreat to Atlanta.” Local leaders should be commended for coordinating another masterful retreat for Johnston, this time the backyard of a house where he plotted to defend treason against the United States.
[1] “Joseph E. Johnston Monument Unveiled with Appropriate Exercises Here Today.” North Georgia Citizen, October 24, 1912, p. 1
