Former presidential contender Governor John Kasich found the controversy surrounding Civil War monuments affecting his home state after the Ohio Department of Natural Resources quietly removed a painting of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan from Salt Fork Lodge over the weekend.
The mural depicts Morgan leading his calvary into battle with a Confederate soldier waving the battle flag next to him.
ODNR staffer Matt Eiselstein told The Daily Jeffersonian, “We decided to take the painting down in light of recent events.” He added, “The painting, done on canvas, was carefully removed from the wall and is currently being safely stored.”
Eiselstein was referencing the August 12 incident in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a group of white supremacists and Antifa protesters squared off, resulting in a neo-Nazi ramming his car into a crowd, injuring several people and murdering an innocent woman.
The painting of the Confederate general memorialized his failure to invade and capture Guernsey County in July 1863. The historical event has become a huge part of the area’s lore, becoming known by the locals as Morgan’s Raid.
Harper’s Weekly, a local newspaper, reported on July 25 of that year,
The raid of the rebel Morgan into Indiana, which he seems to be pursuing with great boldness, has thoroughly aroused the people of that State and of Ohio to a sense of their danger. On 13th General Burnside declared martial law in Cincinnati, and in Covington and Newport on the Kentucky side. All business is suspended until further orders, and all citizens are required to organize in accordance with the direction of the State and municipal authorities. There is nothing definite as to Morgan’s whereabouts; but it is supposed that he will endeavor to move around the city of Cincinnati and cross the river between there and Maysville. The militia is concentrating, in obedience to the order of Governor Tod.
Morgan was surrounded by Union troops and captured after the Battle of Salineville the following day. He was transferred to an Ohio penitentiary where he escaped and returned to the Confederacy as a hero. Morgan was killed in a skirmish in Tennessee in September 1864 after refusing to surrender to Union soldiers.
It seems that even paintings memorializing the Confederacy’s losing battles are affected by the rash of controversy.
(H/T PJ Media)