Tag: Confederate Army

Controversial Confederate Plaque Will Get New Home In Museum

The Charleston City Council voted on Monday to donate a plaque honoring the Kanawha Riflemen, a company of Confederate soldiers, to a West Virginia history museum. The resolution didn’t specify which one but mentioned the Craik-Patton House Museum  in Charleston as a possibility.

City workers removed the nearly 100-year-old plaque from Ruffner Park on Kanawha Boulevard on June 29, 2020. It listed the names of 92 members of the unit and was dedicated to honoring “those who served in the Confederate Army.”

Credit Eric Douglas / WVPB
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WVPB
Across Kanawha Boulevard from Ruffner Park, an historical marker explains the significance of the park and the confederate monument.

The monument was a gift to the city from the Kanawha Riflemen Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1922. It was built at a time when Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation were in effect.

The Kanawha Riflemen was formed by George Smith Patton, one of the namesakes of the Craik-Patton House, and the grandfather of World War II Gen. George S. Patton.

The resolution also requested that the Charleston Historic Landmarks Commission prepare a proposal for a new monument and other historical markers that discuss the history of Ruffner Park. 

June 11, 1900: Confederate Spy Belle Boyd Dies at 57

On June 11, 1900, Confederate spy Belle Boyd died of a heart attack at age 57.

Boyd was born in 1843 to an influential Berkeley County family. When the Civil War erupted, she and her family were decidedly pro-Southern. On July 4, 1861, Belle shot and killed a Yankee soldier in the Boyds’ Martinsburg home but was cleared of any criminal charges. She was only 18 at the time.

Afterward, she moved to Front Royal, Virginia, and launched her espionage career. She used her beguiling looks and her charm to woo Union officers, some of whom were willing to share Northern military secrets. She passed this intelligence along to “Stonewall” Jackson, who used the information during his 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign.

She moved back to Martinsburg and continued on her path to becoming the most famous spy of the Civil War. She even made the pages of the New York Tribune. Boyd learned, though, that fame and spying don’t go well together. After being captured twice more, she left the country. After the war, Belle Boyd returned to the United States and became a professional lecturer and actress.

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