Baltimore: The Monumental City

Three sculptures testify to the city’s Southern sympathies, while a fourth – the state’s official Civil War monument – honors the victorious Union.

During the Civil War era, Baltimore was a city of divided loyalties, put not so proudly on display when Northern soldiers traveling through the harbor were attacked by Confederate sympathizers during the Pratt Street Riot of April 1861, drawing the first bloodshed of the war between the states.

The mixed feelings about the Union and Confederacy remained present long after the war was over and as the city began commemorating the conflict with statues during the first half of the 20^th century. In building its testaments to the war and those who fought in it, the pro-Southern spirit prevailed: Despite the fact that Maryland never seceded from the Union and the Union won the war, three of four Civil War monuments in Baltimore were dedicated to the Confederacy.

In her new book “Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore: A Historical Guide to Public Art in the Monumental City,” published this spring by the Johns Hopkins University Press, author Cindy Kelly describes in great detail the history of each of the city’s four sculptures dedicated to different aspects of the war: the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1902), the Union Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1909), the Confederate Women’s Monument (1915-1917), and the Lee and Jackson Monument (1948).

Kelly writes, “What an investigation of all four Civil War monuments makes clear is that while the state government kept Baltimore officially on the side of the Union, there were many in the city who were clearly, if unofficially sympathetic to the Southern cause.”