Savannah Brooks ’26
Editor-in-Chief
Those who know me know very well that I am a history buff. Whenever I visit a new place, I have to look at every display, view every historical artifact in detail and read every plaque. Back in my junior year of high school, I visited Trinity for the first time, and, naturally, when I saw a pair of Civil War cannons (technically, the plural of cannon is cannon, but I am electing to use “cannons” for readability) on the Main Quad, I had to investigate. I dragged my dad up the hill to read the plaques crookedly situated on each side of the first cannon. I remember that I was aghast to read the words, “In memory of the Trinity men who fought for the principles in which they believed with the Union and Confederate forces in the Civil War and of those who gave “the last full measure of devotion.”
For those of you who don’t know me, I am from Maryland (a Union state but one with a large enslaved population at the time of the Civil War), and therefore am quite familiar with Confederate memorials and their sympathizers. However, coming up to attend college in Connecticut (to quote “Lady Bird,” I wanted “to go where culture is, where writers live in the woods”), any kind of sympathy for Confederates was the last thing I expected, least of all a memorial for those Confederates located in the heart of our campus.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the history of our cannons, they were a part of the U.S.S. Hartford, a Union steamship which housed two Trinity alumni during the war. The cannons were acquired by former President of Trinity College Keith Funston ’32 from the city of Hartford and placed on the Main Quad in 1950 newly adorned with their current plaques.
My plea here is a simple one. It is shameful for Trinity to have a confederate memorial on campus in the year 2025; especially when that memorial is defacing a cannon which helped the Union forces defeat the Confederates. We need not remove the cannons themselves to rid campus of a hateful and disgusting commemoration of men who fought for the right to own people based on the color of their skin; we need only to remove the one plaque in question (which is crooked anyway, as a visitor commented to me last weekend). As a tour guide, I am filled with anxiety when I cross the Lower Long Walk, constantly hoping against hope that a curious parent or prospective student will not ask about the plaques on the cannons. As a student, I am filled with humiliation whenever I pass them myself.
Some have used the argument that we must preserve historical artifacts on campus. As a history major and a current student worker for the Watkinson Library, Trinity’s research library and archive, I agree. But, while the cannons are important historical artifacts, the plaque, which was not added until 1950, is not. And, even if you consider it to be important enough to preserve, this can easily be done — the Watkinson Library is currently the home to a Pi Kappa Alpha pew end which was installed in the Chapel in 1957 and removed in 2017 because it depicted a soldier holding a Confederate flag. Clearly Trinity is aware of the damage Confederate memorials do to campus culture and students of color in particular.
Based on my efforts to get a resolution through the Student Government Association, it seems that this may be something that is tied up in bureaucratic purgatory. Since we are still somewhat in the honeymoon phase of President Dan Lugo’s administration, I hope that he will add this pressing item to the list of his priorities, particularly considering his efforts at Queen’s University of Charlotte, his previous institution, to “examine and report on the university’s historical relationship to slavery and its legacies.” Trinity should live in shame for glorifying Confederate soldiers for their service in fighting for ideals which we are, hopefully, well above today.
The opinion piece overlooks important historical context. Some Civil War plaques, including Trinity’s, commemorate both Union and Confederate forces because they reflect a period of battlefield memorialization that sought to include veterans from both sides. These markers were intended to honor the courage and sacrifice of all soldiers, recognizing battlefields as places of shared remembrance rather than ongoing division. In the decades following the war, reconciliation movements played a major role in creating such joint memorials. Many veterans pursued unity by emphasizing their common experiences of hardship and bravery instead of the political causes of the conflict—causes that many participants did not fully grasp at the time. These movement produced monuments that represented national healing and mutual respect, focusing on valor rather than controversy over war aims or Reconstruction. Seen in that light, the Trinity plaque stands as part of a broader tradition of reconciliation and should not only remain in place but be repaired and straightened as a sign of continued respect for that history.
It’s a small campus. At some point students are going to run out of cannon plaques and pew ends to have existential crises over.
Amazing this lady is throwing a fit over some tiny little plaque tucked away in a place that nobody even glances at twice. It’s like she’s on a one-woman crusade to erase history, but all she’s really doing is shining a massive spotlight on it. Thanks to her virtue-signaling antics, folks who never knew about that plaque are now curious, digging into the real story behind our Southern heritage and the brave souls it honors. She’s basically a walking billboard for how these narrow-minded, shallow types—drunk on their woke ideology and cancel-culture fever—operate like modern-day Maoists, bulldozing anything that doesn’t fit their sanitized narrative. Irony is, her over-the-top outrage is doing more to rally support for the Confederate cause than any rally ever could. Keep it up, darlin’; you’re our best southern recruiter!
The is so wrong in so many ways. The South is full of Union plaques and monuments. This is history period. Sad very sad 😔
As a Southern man, I demand that these historical revisionists stop trying to erase the history of my ancestors. My ancestors did not own a single slave but fought an invader of their homeland.
Unfortunate that the person has, like so many others, no idea of the origins of the conflict. Slavery was not the main issue, it was all about money, and money won the war. Over ninety percent of the Confederate soldiers did not even own slaves and were not that enthusiastic about those who did. They fought to defend their homeland from invasion. It was known that Union gun boats were already on their way to South Carolina and Florida before the first shots were ever fired at Fort Sumter. Lincoln illegally declared war against the South, and illegally imposed martial law upon those in the North.
Your the biggest contributor to the erosion of our world , your Virtue signaling is quite honestly embarrassing to witness.
This is not about the written words. I would submit those complaining the loudest have never read the tribute. This is, quite simply an effort to erase Civil war history. It is not the principles this Country was founded upon, it is how communist countries deal with their issues that don’t fall lockstep into their beliefs.
Savannah Brooks….Just do us ALL a favor and SHUT UP…no one cares about your white girl virtue signaling….🙄🙄🙄
The irony that historical eraser is attempted at a Liberal Arts college! This clearly indicates a need for information, and the importance of discernment. The context of when the plaque was created and for what purpose matters. The focus, I believe, is to celebrate TC students.
This reminds me of the people who want to remove statues of our founding members because they had slaves.
I think the “woke” believe they can make the world a better place by removing anything that “triggers” uncomfortable feelings.
Certainly, we should fight oppression. But trying to sanitize the world is an impossible task.
Let’s focus on education, analytical skills, tolerance and resilience.
[…] recent student op-ed in the Trinity Tripod called for the removal of the memorial. The op-ed was written by Savannah […]
As a history major, you should know that the overwhelming majority of Confederate troops were DEMOCRATS… the party of slavery, segregation and racism, and who founded the KKK. Republicans were the abolitionist movement, grown out of the Whigs. If you’re going to start removing indicators of racism, let’s start with students and professors who are registered with the Democrat (Confederate) party.
Plaques commemorated both sides in order to heal the country after the war. But if you don’t want healing, then by all means lets purge everyone who is registered as the same party as the Confederates… including my guess, the writer of this ill-informed piece.