Citizens clean defaced Confederate monument in Fort Sanders

After a monument in Fort Sanders honoring fallen Confederate soldiers was defaced with bluish-green paint Wednesday, several East Tennessee citizens are working to undo the damage.

Armed with a brush, rubbing alcohol, time and "a lot of elbow grease," Norman Holliman of Maryville gradually scrubbed off the paint on Thursday. He said he knew of at least four other people who had joined the effort.

"This is a public monument," said Holliman, who participates in Civil War reenactions in his spare time. "It's a display for the Confederacy's deceased here at the battle of Fort Sanders. It's in honor of them. It's a memorial stone. It shouldn't be desecrated. It's just foul is what it is."

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Phillip Cook, an Army veteran who lives in Powell, said he worked "three or four hours" over two days to help remove the paint, "and I'll be there tomorrow."

"If that monument needs to be taken down or moved or whatever, as long as it's done through legal channels, I am perfectly fine with that," Cook said. "But to have it defaced and destroyed by vandals who are making a political statement, that’s completely unacceptable."

More:Why removing Confederate monuments in Tennessee is not an easy process

'Testament to monstrosity'

An online petition started Tuesday by Knoxville resident Ben Allen calls on Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero to remove the monument, which has stood at the corner of 17th Street and Laurel Avenue since it was erected in 1914 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

According to Rogero's spokesman Jesse Mayshark, a new state law disallows the city from moving the monument without a waiver from the State Historical Commission.

More:Knoxville City Council: Keep Fort Sanders Confederate monument where it is

The petition had garnered more than 1,700 signatures as of 7 p.m. Thursday. A petition to keep the monument, started by David Hicks, had nearly twice that amount.

Allen's petition calls the monument a "testament to monstrosity" and says similar statues "have provided spirit in enabling neo-confederates and alt-right to collaborate in terror tactics across the south."

Holliman, who said his great-great-uncle survived the assault on Fort Sanders on Nov. 29, 1863, takes issue with that assessment.

"Why does it need to be removed?" he asked, sweat dripping from his brow. "It's not representing nothing but the dead. It's in memory of the dead Confederate soldiers that lost their life in 20 minutes at this battle. 

"Eight hundred plus men died in 20 minutes and this one stone has been here for 103 years, and it's not hurt nobody until recently. It's blowing my mind."

A heightened debate

The debate over what to do with Confederate monuments and statues scattered across the South intensified this weekend when white supremacists and neo-Nazis converged on Charlottesville, Va. to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue there.

The protests turned deadly when a man drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.

The events at Charlottesville have increased the urgency of those calling for the removal of Confederate statues. Proponents for removal typically argue that the monuments celebrate slavery and the men who championed it.

Holliman, like President Donald Trump, believes the monuments represent a part of American history that should not be erased. He said he would still clean the monument if it were one honoring Union soldiers that had been defaced.

And, Holliman said, he'll make sure the Fort Sanders monument gets cleaned no matter what — even if he has "to pitch in to hire a pressure washer company to come out here and do it."

Reporter Travis Dorman can be reached at 865-342-6315 or at travis.dorman@knoxnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @travdorman.