MONROE — A local statue honoring Gen. George Armstrong Custer, who played central roles in several Union victories in the East during the Civil War but is also known for a battle he lost to Native Americans in the West, has become the target of dueling petitions debating its future.
Katybeth Davis, a local activist who has been organizing Black Lives Matter protests in Monroe, said she started the change.org petition against the Custer statue after someone at a recent protest suggested irony in demonstrating against the systemic mistreatment of minorities in front of a monument to the man whose Seventh Cavalry killed Native Americans on the Great Plains.
"This statue represents a man who was glorified [for the] mass genocide of Native Americans," she wrote in the change.org petition directed at the city of Monroe. "...By taking this statue down it will give the community a sense of change and hope for the future of future... We want our kids to grow up safe, happy, healthy, and unafraid to die."
As of Saturday, the petition had received roughly 9,400 virtual signatures. Those signatures come as protesters in both the United States and Europe have called for the removal of statues and memorials dedicated to slavers, colonialists, and leaders from the Confederate South. In some cases, demonstrators have taken it upon themselves to topple such objects.
A responding petition, however, expresses support for those who seek to “confront and defeat racism wherever it might be,” but ultimately argues that those seeking the Custer statue's removal "hold misguided views based in hatred and self righteousness.”
Custer's detractors "seek to cancel every historical statue or monument, not fully aware of why we celebrate and honor certain individuals from our city's past," petition author Jeffrey Rush wrote.
That petition, addressed to Monroe City Council and U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Tipton), had more than 2,000 signatures by Saturday.
Born in the Harrison County, Ohio hamlet of New Rumley, Custer was sent upon reaching school age to live with relatives in Monroe, where he was raised and educated before leaving for higher education, first at a teachers’ college in New Hope, Ohio and then, in 1857, at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
After his graduation from West Point, Custer impressed wartime higher-ups with his heroism, bravery, and aggressiveness, which led Alfred Pleasanton, freshly promoted to major general of U.S. volunteers, to appoint him brigadier general of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade in June, 1863.
Within bare weeks his cavalry would play a central role in disrupting Confederate forces’ plans to attack the Union Army simultaneously from multiple directions at Gettysburg, Pa. Most notably, his 400 horsemen charged against a much larger Confederate cavalry led by J.E.B. Stuart, incurring great losses but also blocking Stuart’s attempt at a battlefield rendezvous with other rebel forces.
Confederate cavalry forces under Stuart for this operation consisted of the three brigades he had taken on a ride around the Union Army and the brigade of Col. Albert G. Jenkins. Although these four brigades should have amounted to approximately 5,000 men, historians said it is likely that 3,430 men and 13 guns saw action the day that Custer broke through.
Custer then led his unit in the Shenandoah Valley campaign under Gen. Philip Sheridan and, as the Civil War’s end drew near, blocked Gen. Robert E. Lee’s last escape route at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Custer received the first Confederate truce flag and was present for the formal surrender shortly thereafter.
After the Civil War, Custer was given the rank of lieutenant colonel in the regular Army and, after a brief return to Monroe during which he considered running for Congress because of his popularity at the time, he was made commander of the Seventh Cavalry and sent west as a leader in the Indian Wars under Sheridan.
Custer led American forces to a victory over the Cheyenne tribe in 1868 that forced significant numbers of that tribe onto reservations, but also was embroiled in several controversies before his fatal involvement in the expedition against a united force of Lakota, Arapaho, and Northern Cheyenne Indians at the Little Big Horn in Montana on June 25, 1876.
The large statue of the man sitting on a horse is near the corner of Elm Avenue and Monroe Street.
Formally known as the Custer Equestrian Monument, the statue was dedicated June 4, 1910, by President William Taft primarily to recognize "the heroism and valiant efforts of the Michigan Brigade at [the Battle of] Gettysburg in 1863,"City Manager Vincent Pastue said.
The Michigan Brigade "turned the tide of battle" and made Gettysburg "one of the most decisive victories for the North during the Civil War," he said.
Mr. Pastue said officials are aware of the petitions on both sides of the issue, but there has been no discussion with Monroe City Council, the city administration, "or the broader Monroe community" regarding the monument's removal or relocation.
"It is recognized that General Custer has been a controversial figure in U.S. history," Mr. Pastue said.
Ms. Davis said she plans to present her petition to Monroe City Council at its next meeting, which is scheduled for Monday evening.
Erected in what is now Loranger Square at First and Washington Streets, the statue already has been moved twice: first, in 1923, to Soldiers and Sailors Park, where it languished in obscurity, and then to its current location in 1955. It was listed in 1994 on the National Register of Historic Places.
Along with Custer's brigade's role at Gettysburg, a state historical marker near the statue summarizes its role at Appomattox Court House and his subsequent appointment to lead the Seventh Cavalry after the Civil War.
But except for his death at the Little Big Horn, it makes no mention of events from those years as the settlers and U.S. military systematically swept across the American west, forcing American Indians onto reservations and killing countless individuals in the process.
Ms. Davis said in a telephone interview with The Blade that, at a minimum, the statue should be moved to a more appropriate location, such as the River Raisin Battlefield, and the historical information accompanying it made more complete.
"He does not represent anything in this town any more," she said.
Mr. Rush called Custer "arguably the finest officer Michigan has ever produced" whose Civil War exploits preserved the United States and defeated "a slaveholding, morally bankrupt, and white-supremacist nation" — the Confederacy — which is why he deserves to be celebrated.
"We all know about General Custer's role in the Native American Wars," he wrote. "I will not condone his actions during that time period. But history is not clean and politically correct. American policy at the time dictated this expansion."
Jay Crone of Monroe, a passer-by near the monument Thursday afternoon, said the monument's removal would be fine with him "if it's making people angry," but his companion, Michelle Jones, said it should stay.
"It's part of Monroe, it's part of history," she said. "I know he's done some bad things, but he did some good things, too."
First Published June 12, 2020, 3:54 p.m.
