"Kentucky's Past, Our Tab: Confederate Monument Restoration to Cost $10 Million Over Two Years"

By Michael R. Grigsby, Editor | Somerset-Pulaski Advocate

Image by Author (C) 2018 All Rights Reserved

Somerset, Kentucky (SPA)--- The U.S. Army announced this week that restoring a controversial Confederate monument to its former place at Arlington National Cemetery will cost American taxpayers approximately $10 million over the next two years. The memorial, erected initially in 1914 and removed in 2023 following a congressional directive, is now at the center of a broader political effort to reverse decisions meant to reckon with the legacy of the Confederacy.

This plan—driven by the Trump administration’s agenda to combat what it calls the “erasure of American history”—has renewed long-standing tensions over how the Civil War is remembered, whose stories are honored, and who pays the price for historical revisionism.

A U.S. Army official speaking anonymously to the Associated Press confirmed that the monument’s restoration will involve rebuilding its original base and refurbishing the statue itself, a process expected to span at least two years. Once reinstalled, the memorial will include “contextual panels” to explain its origins—though critics question whether the act of restoring the monument undermines that very context.

The statue, sculpted by Moses Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran, has long drawn scrutiny for its glorified portrayal of the South and its sanitized depictions of slavery. Designed as a neoclassical tribute to the “Lost Cause” ideology, the monument includes a Latin inscription that romanticizes the Confederacy’s secession as noble and heroic—directly contradicting historical consensus that slavery was the central cause of the Civil War.

In 2022, a bipartisan, congressionally mandated commission recommended the removal of the memorial, alongside the renaming of dozens of military bases and assets tied to Confederate leaders. Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, vice chair of the commission, bluntly described the Arlington monument as “problematic from top to bottom.”

Still, in a social media post this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the military’s intention to reinstall the statue, arguing it “never should have been taken down by woke lemmings.” In his words: “Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history—we honor it.”

Kentuckians may find that statement especially loaded. The Commonwealth—a border state with a complex Civil War history—contributed soldiers to both Union and Confederate causes. Yet in the decades that followed, Kentucky saw an aggressive campaign by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and other groups to install Confederate symbols and monuments across public spaces, reframing the Civil War as a struggle for states’ rights rather than a war to preserve slavery.

These commemorative efforts, often funded with public money or installed on public land, were part of the broader “Lost Cause” movement—a deliberate attempt to whitewash the Confederacy’s motives and elevate its military leaders to near-mythical status. The Arlington statue is perhaps the most prominent federal example of this ideology cast in bronze.

The Trump administration’s initiative to restore Confederate imagery has gone far beyond the Arlington monument. In March, the former president issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which criticized museums, national parks, and educational institutions for “perpetuating a false reconstruction” of the nation’s past. The order directed federal agencies, including the Interior Department, to reinstall or restore any removed historical displays that had been altered due to their racial or political implications.

Earlier this week, the National Park Service confirmed plans to return the statue of Confederate general and Freemason Albert Pike to its former location in Washington, D.C. — the only Confederate military statue that once stood outdoors in the nation’s capital. A move that has drawn criticism for editorializing history rather than reflecting it.

Here in Kentucky, where many communities are still reckoning with the legacy of Confederate monuments in town squares and courthouse lawns, the question looms: What do we gain by restoring a tribute to a divisive past, and what does it cost us—not only in dollars, but in values?

This monument does not exist in a vacuum. It tells a story. And the choice to restore it reveals an even louder one: that some are willing to pay handsomely to preserve a version of history that others are still fighting to survive.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Lindsey Halligan praised the decision to restore the Albert Pike statue, which had been toppled by protesters in 2020. “We thank the National Park Service for announcing the restoration of the Albert Pike statue after it was unlawfully vandalized,” Halligan said.

She emphasized that the monument, erected in 1901 and funded entirely by private Masonic organizations, served for more than a century as a tribute to Pike’s legacy as a scholar and Masonic leader. Halligan framed the restoration as consistent with Executive Order 14253, signed by President Trump, which mandates the reinstatement of monuments removed due to “ideological pressure.”

“This action reflects a renewed commitment to historical preservation, due process, and the rule of law,” she added.

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(C) 2025 Somerset Pulaski County Advocate. All Rights Reserved