Maryland's Last Public Confederate Monument Comes Down

TALBOT COUNTY, MD — Maryland's last public statue honoring Confederates who fought against the Union during the Civil War will soon be out of the public's view for good.

Work crews began removing the Talbot Boys Monument from the Talbot County Courthouse lawn in Easton on Monday. The removal was expected to only take a day, county officials said.

According to the Smithsonian, the 13-foot statue has stood outside the courthouse since 1916, with the base installed two years prior. It features a young soldier standing and holding a Confederate flag with both hands.

The statue is mounted atop an inscribed pedestal and includes the names of 85 Marylanders who joined the Confederacy and died in the war.

Talbot County officials said in a news release that the statue will be relocated to the Cross Keys Battlefield in Harrisonburg, Virginia, under the custody, care and control of Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation Inc.

The Talbot County Council voted last September to remove the statue from the courthouse.

A group called Move The Confederate Talbot Boys Monument announced in December it had raised around $80,000 from more than 200 donors to help relocate the Confederate monument.

A separate group called the Save the Talbot Boys had advocated unsuccessfully to have the statue moved to a different location within the county. Rather than moved out of state, the group believed the monument should have gone to the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.