Beloit College Magazine: The First Lincoln Statue in the South
VALERIE REISS
09/01/2003
For a life-long Lincoln lover, preserving the Confederacy was an odd place to start. But Robert Kline’s life-changing gig came in the late 1960s when a “bank president friend” asked if he would help publicize the historic Confederate White House in Richmond, Va.—the capital of the Southern army during the Civil War—so they could raise money for a museum.
Kline’42, who owned a Richmond-based public relations firm, helped the White House’s board raise nearly a million dollars by creating a set of porcelain plates painted with non-violent Civil War scenes. This successful project was the beginning of something larger: Kline soon founded the United States Historical Society, an organization that has helped many civic groups, schools, and other non-profits raise money for projects and museums for the past 30 years, often by using renderings of historical artifacts.
Though the U.S.H.S. has done a wide range of prominent projects, Kline says their most recent and controversial—a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Richmond—lies closest to his heart.
In a televised ceremony on April 5, 2003, surrounded by protestors and attended by three former and current governors, a descendant of slaves, and about 800 onlookers,Kline helped unveil a life-size bronze statue of Lincoln and his son, Tad. David Frech, a sculptor from Newburgh, N. Y., made the statue. Historians believe it is the first public statue of Lincoln to exist in any of the 11 former Confederate states.
“I certainly think it’s the most significant and enduring thing we’ve ever done,” says Kline, who grew up in Dixon, Ill., steeped in Lincoln lore, but has lived in Richmond for about 50 years. “Raising money for the Confederate museum was interesting from a historical standpoint, but I’m not a Confederate expert or even a Confederate fan,” Kline added. “Emotionally, it didn’t mean anything to me. But the Lincoln does. For me, and for a lot of people, he was a truly great man. And for him not to be represented in Richmond I thought was a terrible oversight.”
Situated on a 2,800-square-foot site inside Richmond’s National Battlefield Park Civil War Visitor Center, the sculpture depicts an imagined moment of Lincoln and 12-year-old Tad sitting quietly on a bench. Behind the sculpture, a granite wall is carved with Lincoln’s words: “To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds.” Space at both ends of the bench allows visitors to sit with the figures.
The outdoor statue memorializes the 16th president’s only visit to Richmond on April 4-5, 1865. A copy of a newspaper, the Evening Whig, dated April 5, 1865, sits beside them.
Lincoln came to Richmond about 36 hours after Union forces captured the city and Confederate president Jefferson Davis had fled. The city was a smoking mess, set fire by fleeing Confederate soldiers. As Lincoln disembarked at Rocketts Landing and walked through the streets holding his son’s hand (it was the boy’s birthday), newly freed slaves cheered his presence. White southerners were not thrilled, but the event was peaceful. One observer said, “there was nothing of triumph in his gesture or attitude.” Harold Holzer, cochairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, who recounted the day for the statue’s unveiling, wrote: “As a journalist recalled of Lincoln on that extraordinary day: ‘He came not as a conqueror, not with bitterness in his heart, but with kindness. He came as a friend, to alleviate sorrow and suffering —to rebuild what has been destroyed.'”
Many Southerners, however, felt—and still feel—that the opposite is true: To them, their city was in ruins, at least 18,000 of their soldiers lay dead, and the man who caused it all had come to gloat.
Kline and company were not prepared for the vitriolic hate of some protestors. Park Superintendent Cynthia MacLeod told the Civil War News that she received more than 1,000 anti-statue emails. “A notable number were absolutely racist in their content,” she told the paper. Some letters compared a Lincoln statue in Richmond to erecting a Hitler statue in Israel, or putting the likeness of Osama bin Laden in Manhattan.
Kline said they did not respond to such emails, but when the media called, he told them: “Look at the record. When Lincoln came to Richmond … he didn’t come as a gloating conqueror, but as a president trying to heal the wounds—that’s what he said in his second inaugural address. Southerners just have a mindset that they feel persecuted and that Lincoln was responsible for the war. They just don’t read the history.”
All the protest and controversy, though, has served the project well. “While it was not very pleasant,” says Kline, “it certainly made the project much more widely known.” Among other coverage, The New York Times wrote two articles about the statue, the Chicago Tribune covered the controversy, and C-Span aired the hour-and-a-half opening ceremony live.
Despite threats, the ceremony, held on a sunny spring day, went on relatively uninterrupted. The 50 or so protestors, led by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other groups, stayed outside the park’s gates with Confederate flags, banners, and signs. At one point, a small airplane flew overhead trailing a red banner that read: “Sic Semper Tyrannis,” Latin for “Thus Always to Tyrants.” Those are the words John Wilkes Booth yelled from the stage of Ford’s Theater after fatally shooting Lincoln. The phrase has been the Virginia state motto since 1776.
Though protestors promise they will not rest until the statue is removed, nothing more has happened. It may help that the city officially sanctioned the statue when it paid for the supporting granite wall. The statue is also tucked safely behind the park’s gates, which lock at night. A video monitor is on the sculpture around the clock, just in case.
Kline thinks the statue site is ideal, even though it’s not on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, with statues of Robert E. Lee and Confederate generals. “You’ve got to go down and find it,” Kline says. “I think that may be better because you don’t get numbed to it. When you see it, it’s a special occasion.”
Many have gone to find it: Some people travel to Richmond just to visit the statue, says Kline. “People are doing as we hoped they would. Visitors, school kids, and adults are sitting on the bench beside Lincoln and Tad to be photographed. They’re touching him and putting their arms around him. It’s life-sized, so it really feels like you’re sitting next to him. I have some photos of my niece, who was here with her husband and grandson last summer. It’s a nice moment to capture.”
Kline says they wanted, above all, for the statue to be a testament to peace. Seating Lincoln with Tad “added a non-warlike element,” he says. “He was not just a commander-in-chief, but a visiting father and son. We didn’t see how anybody could vilify a father and son sitting there in a peaceful mode.”
To ensure the accuracy of everything from the part in Lincoln’s hair to the shape of Tad’s shoes, planners examined artifacts at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., pored over hundreds of images, consulted historians, and even borrowed clothing from a Lincoln impersonator.
All this time and effort did not come cheap. Kline estimates that the statue—not including employee labor—cost around $250,000. To offset the cost, the U.S.H.S. is now selling miniatures of the statue, including a $750 solid bronze and marble version and a bonded bronze version for $100. Relying on the miniatures to pay for the statue is “a big gamble” that Kline hopes will succeed. But the organization has now handed over all responsibilities for maintaining and promoting the sculpture to the Civil War Center. This frees Kline to do his next thing, which has nothing to do with slowing down.
At 83, Kline still goes to work every day for several hours and has new projects going that he’s not ready to reveal. He is also involved with Pax Christi, a Catholic peace organization. Though people often ask when he’s going to retire, he says, “I’m going to play it a day at a time … My wife likes it this way, too. I’m not hanging around the house all the time.”All this activity is helped by great health. Kline swims half a mile daily, and the only medications he takes are herbs and vitamins: “Ginseng and a few other things like that.” He also does yoga.
His six grown children and six grandkids visit often. They have all seen and like the statue of Abe.
Harold Holzer, the historian who helped with the statue, met Kline 30 years ago when Kline commissioned him, a 20-something, to write a monograph about Mary and Abraham Lincoln.
“He’s a wonderful treasure,” Holzer says of Kline. “He was a person who was confident in me when I didn’t deserve it.”
Holzer, who has now written many books on Lincoln, appreciates Kline’s contribution to the former president’s legacy: “Lincoln still speaks to us, and now, thanks to Bob, he still sits with us.”