Toppled, repaired soldier rests in his crate

Mike Baker remembers meticulously sweeping the streets around the Confederate monument after the marble soldier atop it fell.

The soldier and his rifle broke into dozens of pieces, large and small, after a police car hit the monument base in July of 2016, knocking over the statue that had stood since 1910. The night of the accident Baker, project manager for the City of Demopolis, picked up “every sliver and part” that had broken off except for one tiny piece from the soldier’s hat.

The statue had broken off at the ankles, leaving its feet on the pedestal. Baker and a crew carefully slid the feet into a bucket truck.

“He’d been sitting there for a hundred years with nothing but the original glue that had him to the top of the base,” Baker said. “There was no pins or anything.”

The 3,500-pound statue was stored at the Public Works Department until the City Council determined that a new design for the monument would feature the obelisk now atop the pedestal, replacing the soldier.

But the soldier has been returned to the city. Fully restored by Legacy Memorials, it rests in its packing crate on display in the Marengo County History and Archives Museum. Next to it is the original engraving that once was on the pedestal stating the statue was a gift from the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Since the 1,000-pound granite slab, which also had been damaged in the accident, could not be repaired, it was duplicated and replaced.

It took about six months for the work to be completed, Baker said. The company used dowels to stabilize the pieces that broke apart.

“They did a wonderful job,” he continued, pointing to repairs that are barely noticeable. “They brought him back to life.”

The statue has been in McHAM since being returned to the city more than a year ago. While the museum directors determine how to arrange the display, it will be displayed in its crate, flanked by the granite description.

“We brought him in here, and we never made an issue of him coming back,” said Baker.

The monument that is centered at the intersection of North Main and Capitol streets has been the subject of recent controversy. A group of Demopolis residents, lead by T’keisha Chandler, is asking the city to remove the monument completely.

The obelisk now on the pedestal, approved by the City Council in 2018, is engraved on the east and west sides at its base. It reads “For All Those Who Have Fallen.”

The base contains the reconstructed granite slab reading, “Erected by the Marengo Rifles Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy 1910.”

The UDC was influential primarily in the early 20th century across the South, where its main role was to preserve and uphold the memory of the Confederate veterans, especially those husbands, sons, fathers and brothers who died in the Civil War. Memory and memorials became the central focus of the organization.