The Confederacy is losing again, this time in the General Assembly

These are hard times to be a Confederate.

Those words could have been written in 1865, too, but we have reason to write them anew 161 years later.

For the inauguration of Abigail Spanberger, portable toilets were set up around two of the Confederate statues on Capitol Square.

Now, multiple bills are moving through the General Assembly to purge both those statues and other remnants of Confederate reverence from Virginia.

A bill by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County, (HB 1344) would end the state’s special license plates for Robert E. Lee and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Those with the plates could keep them until they expire, but then they’d have to get different ones. As of mid-January, there were 467 Sons of Confederate Veterans plates and 1,774 Robert E. Lee plates, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The House Transportation Committee approved that bill Thursday by a vote of 15-6, sending it to the full House.

Another Helmer bill (HB 1377) would commission a task force to study the Virginia Military Institute. That bill has generated attention (and controversy) because the original version directed the task force to look into whether VMI should even receive state funding. That provision has since been struck, and VMI has endorsed the milder substitute. However, the preface to the bill still declares that “VMI has celebrated for over a century its role in committing treason against the United States government as a key instrument of Confederate forces in the Commonwealth, including celebrating the traitor Stonewall Jackson as a martyr, and annually celebrating the role of the VMI Corps of Cadets in violently attacking forces of the United States government at New Market in an effort to preserve the institution of slavery” and directs the task force to determine whether the Lexington school “possesses the capacity as an institution to end celebration of the Confederacy.” That bill has passed the House 71-24 and now goes to the Senate. 

A bill by Del. Alex Askew, D-Virginia Beach, (HB 167) would eliminate tax breaks granted to six Confederate-related organizations: Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the General Organization of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial, Incorporated, the Virginia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans and the J.E.B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust, Inc. (The latter group is based in Patrick County). That bill has passed the House 62-35 and now goes to the Senate.

And then there’s a bill by state Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, (SB 636) to remove the three Confederate statues that remain on Capitol Square in Richmond and set in motion a study to figure out what to do with them and the other Confederate statues that the state has in storage. That bill has passed the Senate 21-19 and now goes to the House.

Those three statues on Capitol Square are Stonewall Jackson, William “Extra Billy” Smith and Hunter McGuire.

Jackson — “the traitor Stonewall Jackson” in Helmer’s bill — needs no introduction, but the other two might.

So here goes.

Hunter McGuire: He ‘humanized war’ but also ‘bordered on being a lynching apologist’

McGuire was a surgeon in Jackson’s army and, yes, he’s the one who amputated Jackson’s arm and later recorded Jackson’s last words as “Let us cross over the river and rest beneath the shade of the trees.” McGuire likely wound up in bronze in Capitol Square more for his medical work than his Confederate service, but it’s also hard to separate the two. 

The son of a Winchester surgeon, McGuire went on to pursue a medical career, as well. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted as a private — on the Confederate side, of course — but the rebel army soon determined he was more useful as a surgeon. McGuire saw action, the medical kind, at many famous battles — First Manassas (called the First Battle of Bull Run by the Union), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg. He was there at Appomattox when Lee surrendered.

McGuire used his influence to persuade Jackson to release seven Union doctors who had been captured in the Shenandoah Valley on the condition they ask the U.S. government to release an equal number of Confederate doctors — a deal remembered as “the Winchester Accord.” McGuire contributed to the original draft of the Geneva Conventions — Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field. When McGuire died, the Boston Medical Journal wrote in his obituary that he had “humanized war.” 

Aside from his wartime role as a field surgeon, McGuire was a major medical figure of his day. He founded a hospital in Richmond. He founded a medical school, which later evolved into what is today Virginia Commonwealth University’s medical program. He authored 60 medical papers and was elected president of the American Medical Association. The International Journal of Urologic History (urology was McGuire’s medical specialty) writes that “his own surgical skills and outcomes were second to none.”

Were that the entirety of his career, McGuire might be qualified to sit on Capitol Square (his statue shows him in a chair) for his medical contributions, with his Confederate service just a footnote. However, it’s not the entirety of his medical career. He was an unapologetic white supremacist who, years after the Civil War, “remained a pro-slavery advocate his entire life and lamented the freedom and enfranchisement of former slaves,” the International Journal of Urologic History says. He was a supporter of the now-discredited field of eugenics and “espoused the genetic and moral inferiority of Blacks,” the urological journal says. While president of the AMA, McGuire wrote that Black men (but not white men) should be castrated for sexual crimes. The urological journal says that his writings “bordered on being a ‘lynching apologist.’” McGuire also compiled a list of books he felt should be banned because they talked about slavery’s role in starting the Civil War. 

The International Journal of Urologic History, which examined McGuire’s career in a 2023 paper, concluded that he had violated the Hippocratic oath, which undermines the argument that McGuire should be lauded for his medical career despite his repugnant views.

William ‘Extra Billy’ Smith: Neither an important general nor an important governor, but a master at exploiting loopholes

By contrast, the career of William “Extra Billy” Smith at least provides some humor, if only in hindsight.

We must first deal with the nickname, which he earned through scandal. Smith, a lawyer by profession, also launched a stagecoach line. In time, Smith had a federal contract to carry the mail from Washington, D.C., to Milledgeville, Georgia, then that state’s capital. One of the political controversies of the 1830s was over high postage rates. That prompted the inevitable congressional investigation, which turned up some unflattering information about Smith. The Culpeper lawyer had found a loophole — he could generate extra, unanticipated fees by creating spur routes off his authorized route. That wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t exactly what the federal government had authorized, either. For his cunning avarice and those extra fees, Smith acquired the nickname “Extra Billy.”

The expose did not seem to hurt Smith’s political career. He went on to serve in the state Senate and the U.S. House and was elected governor in 1845, back when legislators picked the chief executive. Smith seems a fellow who was always looking to get rich. After his term as governor was done, he joined the gold rush to California, where he made a fortune and then lost it. 

He came back to Virginia. When the Civil War broke out, he joined the Confederate army and by 1863 was the oldest general to hold a field command (he was 65). Whether he was a good general remains in dispute, but he was certainly a colorful one in his distinctive beaver hat and blue umbrella. Smith was also popular enough to win a three-way race for governor during the war (although he won it with just 47.7% of the vote). He was governor when the war ended. Union troops arrested him and removed him from office.

His presence on Capitol Square in statue form seems a mystery. He was not a famous general. Nor was he a particularly distinguished governor. He just happened to be governor during the Civil War. Even if you set aside his Confederate service and judge Smith just on his gubernatorial service, he doesn’t seem to merit a statue. We’ve had far more important governors. So why is he there?

He likely won’t be for long.