Arlington Cemetery webpage criticizing Confederate Memorial changed

The Trump administration has removed language from Arlington National Cemetery that described the dismantled Confederate Memorial as presenting a “nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy” and offering “highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”

The edits, made to both a cemetery marker, as reported by The Washington Post, and a Department of Defense webpage, strip references to the “Lost Cause” narrative that historians say romanticized the antebellum South while downplaying the role of slavery in the Civil War. According to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, which emerged after the end of the American Civil War, Confederate soldiers were fighting primarily for states’ rights rather than the right to own enslaved people. Slavery, meanwhile, is depicted as a system that treated people relatively well.

The changes come as the Trump administration moves forward with plans to return the Confederate Memorial to Arlington in 2027, after the sculpture was removed in 2023 under a congressional mandate targeting Confederate symbols on military property.

“It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the left, we don’t believe in erasing American history—we honor it,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media last year.

Newsweek contacted the White House and Arlington National Cemetery for comment by email on Tuesday morning.

What Is the Confederate Memorial?

Standing 32 feet tall, the Confederate Memorial is an imposing monument that loomed over Arlington National Cemetery for over a century until its removal in 2023. Unveiled in 1914, the Confederate Memorial comprises a bronze statue and plinth on top of a granite base, commemorating members of the Confederate army who fought and died during the American Civil War.

Along with the soldiers, the monument includes figures of Black servants apparently supporting the Confederate cause.

The monument, which is unmistakably celebratory of the fallen soldiers, was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to former Confederate soldier and sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel. Ezekiel believed his monument corrected some of the “lies” the North had perpetrated against the South.

In 2020, amid a renewed focus on civil rights and racial justice in the nation, Arlington National Cemetery installed a plaque near the monument, informing visitors that it featured “highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”

Why Is the Confederate Memorial No Longer at Arlington Cemetery?

In 2021, Congress established a bipartisan commission in response to the nationwide protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd that set out to scrutinize the ways in which the military continued to honor the Confederacy and recommending name changes and removals.

The Department of Defense accepted recommendations to remove the Confederate Memorial during the Biden administration, and it was taken away from the cemetery and relocated in December 2023. The Sons of Confederate Veterans opposed the move, filing several lawsuits against the monument’s removal.

The Confederate Memorial is stored in a secure Department of Defense facility in Virginia. In August 2025, the Trump administration announced plans to reinstate the monument in Arlington National Cemetery by 2027.

What Language Has the Trump Administration Removed?

The Trump administration has removed two paragraphs explaining why the monument was so controversial. Archived versions of the Department of Defense’s webpage for Arlington National Cemetery said:

“The elaborately designed monument offers a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery. Standing on a 32-foot-tall pedestal, a bronze, classical female figure, crowned with olive leaves, represents the American South. She holds a laurel wreath, a plow stock and a pruning hook, with a Biblical inscription at her feet: ‘They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.’ The statue stands on a pedestal with four cinerary urns, one for each year of the war, and is supported by a frieze with 14 shields, one for each of the 11 Confederate states and the border states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. Thirty-two life-sized figures depict mythical gods alongside Southern soldiers and civilians.

“Two of these figures are portrayed as African American: an enslaved woman depicted as a ‘Mammy,’ holding the infant child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war. An inscription of the Latin phrase ‘Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Caton’ (‘The victorious cause was pleasing to the gods, but the lost cause to Cato’) construes the South’s secession as a noble ‘Lost Cause.’ This narrative of the Lost Cause, which romanticized the pre-Civil War South and denied the horrors of slavery, fueled white backlash against Reconstruction and the rights that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (1865-1870) had granted to African Americans. The image of the faithful slave, embodied in the two figures on the memorial, appeared widely in American popular culture during the 1910s through 1930s, perhaps most famously in the 1939 film Gone With the Wind.”

What Language Has Remained?

The above paragraphs have completely been removed. What remains is a brief explanation of the sculptor behind the monument’s design:

“Unveiled in 1914, the Confederate Memorial was designed by noted American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of Virginia Military Institute.

“Sculptor Moses Ezekiel was buried at the base of his creation in 1921, after being honored at the first funeral ceremony in the newly built Memorial Amphitheater. Three other Confederate soldiers lie next to him: Lt. Harry C. Marmaduke of the Confederate Navy, Capt. John M. Hickey of the Second Missouri Infantry and Brig. Gen. Marcus J. Wright, who commanded brigades at the battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga.”

The write-up still says the monument “offers an opportunity for visitors to reflect on the history and meanings of the Civil War, slavery, and the relationship between military service, citizenship and race in America.”

The same edits have been implemented at a marker at the memorial’s former site, The Washington Post reported.

Other Race, Slavery References Removed by the Trump Administration

Since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, his administration has ordered the removal or revision of plaques, exhibits and interpretive panels discussing slavery, racism, immigration and other topics officials say portray the U.S. in an unduly negative light across several federal sites.

These include the following:

• Bunker Hill Monument (Boston): Ordered the removal of three quotations discussing slavery, immigration and anti-war activism after a review prompted by a visitor complaint and a wider assessment of site materials.
• President’s House Site Slavery Exhibit (Philadelphia): Removed exhibits detailing the lives of nine enslaved people owned by George Washington, though the panels were later restored following a court order.
• Francis G. Newlands Memorial Fountain (Washington, D.C.): Removed a sign explaining the former senator’s support for white supremacist policies, including restrictions targeting Black Americans and immigrants.
• Fort Sumter National Historical Park (South Carolina): Removed signs discussing climate threats facing one of the country’s most environmentally vulnerable historic sites.
• Fort Pulaski National Monument (Georgia): Flagged for removal a display featuring The Scourged Back, the famous Civil War-era photograph showing the scars on an enslaved man’s back that is widely regarded as evidence of slavery’s brutality.
• Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail (Alabama): Identified for removal or revision dozens of interpretive signs relating to the 1965 voting-rights march as part of a review.

Critics argue that the changes amount to the removal of important historical context, while the administration has said they are intended to provide a more balanced account of American history.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Tobias Meyjes and Shakeema Edwards.