Did you know there's a town in West Virginia named Romney? Me neither. Moreover, in the Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney, there is a monument to the Confederacy. The monument is reputed to be the first to the Confederacy — want to think on this claim a little more. It reads "The daughters of Old Hampshire erect this tribute of affection to her heroic sons who fell in defense of southern rights." There appears to be absolutely no connection between the town of Romney, West Virginia, and Governor Romney (the town was named in the 1760s after the city of Romney in England). But what a way to drive home the point that many monuments in our country are all about race. Holy cow. And what a gift Governor Romney's reference to monuments was to those of us who study monuments and fear that they're not as important in the public mind as we make them out to be.
More pictures, including a recent Confederate memorial service, are available here. And — better yet — here's a youtube video of a memorial service in 2009.
I've got a whole story about cemeteries built on supposed Indian burial grounds, which I'll talk about another time.