This letter won’t take up much space in the paper. It will be short and to the point. I understand there is a movement afoot to tear down the Confederate monument on the Mathews Court Green. If that is allowed to occur, we should all be very ashamed of ourselves.

That monument doesn’t represent slavery. It represents all of the boys and men who died defending their homes from Northern invaders, and if we check the records, we shall find some of those defending their homes were black freemen.

Most of the folks fighting on the side of the Confederacy (I know to some that’s a negative word) were poor and middle class farmers who spent long days clearing fields and planting crops to keep their families fed and warm on small parcels of land that they worked themselves, which the Northern armies plundered as they marched south.

That monument stands as a tribute to all the men who fought and died to defend their homes and families. It is not a monument representing anything else, no...