Faintly hearing the strains of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, in his head his first thought was “What an odd ear worm”. Suddenly, he realized he had no idea where he was.
Assessing, eyes still closed. Not dreaming, cold, his hands and feet almost numb from the cold, his face aching as thought he had been punched. Wiggling his toes and fingers, he slowly opened his eyes. Inches from him, there was a grey face, staring at him. Broad forehead, its unblinking eyes staring into his soul. The face intermittently lit by a flashing blue light. His wits, suddenly returned from sabbatical. He was in his car, windshield smashed and penetrated by the grey marble head, its dance with gravity interrupted by his car and its windshield. The face so close to his he could have kissed it.
The now shattered statue had been standing in the town of Reidsville North Carolina since it was dedicated in 1912, 47 years after the Civil War ended in May 1865. 3 million humans had fought in a war of 4 years, resulting in the massacre of six hundred and twenty-two thousand American men. Twenty-nine years later, the United Daughters of the Confederacy was founded. One of the five tenants of their mission was installing memorials to honor those killed in those four years of collective insanity.
The northern states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Ohio had foundries that supplied cast bronze or zinc Silent Sentinel statues. Twenty-five hundred of the these statues can still be found scattered across more that 30 states.
The memorial is a single solider, standing at parade rest, hands gripping the barrel of his musket, its stock resting on the ground. The solider wears a slouch hat, and greatcoat his bedroll is strapped diagonally across his chest, he is looking into the distance.
These cast statues could be purchased from the Yankee companies from $450 for life sized version to $750 for an eight and one half foot tall model. Statues carved from Italian marble or Vermont Granite could cost 10 times that or more.
In 1912 the United Daughters commissioned an artist to carve a Silent Sentinel statue for this town.
The fee was $7500.
“Are you Ok?” A voice next to his left ear queried. Turning his head, he was face to face with a clean shaven man in a State Troopers brim hat, still dazed he nodded slowly.
There is an ambulance on the way, sir”
“I am OK; I just need to get out of the car”
With a clunk and a screech his car door was opened by the officer. Undoing his seatbelt, he stepped out into the chilly morning air.
The street lights illuminated the scene. The stone obelisk that formed the base of the statue was in the embrace of the front of his 2007 Nissan Sentra. The top half of the statue that had stood upon it lay across the hood of his car, its head disappearing into a halo of shattered glass. Steam from his ruined engine cloaked the statue in a ghostly white shroud.
The lower half of the statue was shattered and scattered across the bricks of the street.
The officer guided him to the back seat of the police car, sirens wailing in the distance.
He had not been drinking, in fact today marked the 20th anniversary of his sobriety.
The slight flutter of his butterfly wings would fuel an impressive dispute within the town.
Some would accuse him of conspiring to purposely destroy a confederate monument.
Others would praise him for precipitating the removal of the offensive memorial.
He was annoyed that he had destroyed his perfectly good, paid for, car.