--- title: Confederate, Union Soldier Statues Look the Same. Here's Why description: As this video clip explains, the reason why common statues to those who fought in the Civil War look so similar is more than coincidence. canonical: https://time.com/5337148/civil-war-memorial-statues/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-16T15:00:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:50:08.070Z article:section: History og:title: Confederate, Union Soldier Statues Look the Same. Here's Why og:description: Find out in this clip from '10 That Changed America' og:url: https://time.com/5337148/civil-war-memorial-statues/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1e379fa9138c1f90/6989354022fb853506e26240/monument.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Behind a memorial to the 4,903 soldiers from Colorado who fought in the Civil War, the State Capitol dome glistens in the sun Thursday, 1/2/2003. (The Denver Post / Jerry Cleveland) og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Confederate, Union Soldier Statues Look the Same. Here's Why twitter:description: Find out in this clip from '10 That Changed America' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1e379fa9138c1f90/6989354022fb853506e26240/monument.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Surprising Reason Why So Many Civil War Memorials Look Almost Exactly the Same  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 16, 2018 3:00 PM UTC  Behind a memorial to the 4,903 soldiers from Colorado who fought in the Civil War, the State Capitol dome in Denver glistens in the sun on Jan. 2, 2003. Behind a memorial to the 4,903 soldiers from Colorado who fought in the Civil War, the State Capitol dome in Denver glistens in the sun on Jan. 2, 2003.Jerry Cleveland—Denver Post /Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 16, 2018 3:00 PM UTC In recent years, the [Confederate monument](http://time.com/4904679/confederate-monument-removal/) has gained a new level of symbolism, as the item at the center of an ongoing debate — one that reaches [far beyond](http://time.com/5203324/mitch-landrieu-history-interview/) the subject of monuments — about [how](http://time.com/4828105/a-confederate-monument-solution-with-context/) and whether a nation should remember the darkest moments of its past. Statues to those who fought for the Confederacy have [been brought down](http://time.com/4900779/durham-north-carolina-confederate-statue-pulled-down-protesters/) in numerous cities by protesters or officials, while [other people](http://time.com/4904510/donald-trump-twitter-confederate-statues/) have fought to keep them, as reminders of a heritage they say is about more than slavery or simply as part of an undeniable history. So it’s perhaps surprising that some of the most common American monuments to those who fought for the Confederacy have a distinct feature: they look almost exactly the same as monuments to those who fought for the Union. The reason that’s the case is explained by a segment on an upcoming episode of the PBS series [_10 That Changed America,_ ](https://interactive.wttw.com/ten#.W0eHe44Y23g)which takes host Geoffrey Baer across the U.S. for thematic looks at how what the nation has built has, in turn, built the nation. In one new episode, Baer focuses on “10 Monuments that Changed America” and the ways that monuments can be a window into the psyche of the nation that erects them. The monument in question, in the clip shown here, is the so-called standing soldier statue, a symbolic monument to local individuals who fought in the Civil War. But it’s not just one monument. Thousands of them can be seen in towns across America, in states that fought for both sides. As Kirk Savage, author of [_Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America_](https://press.princeton.edu/titles/6194.html), explains in the clip, the Civil War was such an all-encompassing conflict for the nation that pretty much every town in the country would have a reason to want to have such a memorial — to the point that towns worried that _not_ having such a statue would make them look bad. (This would have been in the decades following the war, whereas many of the more infamous monuments to Confederate leaders were built later, [sometimes to speak to other moments of racial strife](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues-were-built-to-further-a-white-supremacist-future).) But commissioning, designing, creating and installing a monument is not so easy. The solution: a mass-produced memorial that could be ordered from a catalog. “With dealers and catalogs of readymade soldier figures,” Savage writes in his book, “the industry could supply soldier monuments cheaply and quickly to local communities without them even having to approach a sculptor.” Now, more than 150 years after the war ended, those readymade statues still dot the landscape, each now made unique by its context. [The monuments episode of _10 That Changed America_ ](https://schedule.wttw.com/episodes/456454/10-Monuments-That-Changed-America/)debuts Tuesday. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5337148/civil-war-memorial-statues/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5337148/civil-war-memorial-statues/"},"headline":"The Surprising Reason Why So Many Civil War Memorials Look Almost Exactly the Same","datePublished":"2018-07-16T15:00:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T20:50:08.070Z","description":"Find out in this clip from '10 That Changed America'","url":"https://time.com/5337148/civil-war-memorial-statues/","keywords":["Civil War","Television","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1e379fa9138c1f90/6989354022fb853506e26240/monument.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1e379fa9138c1f90/6989354022fb853506e26240/monument.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Behind a memorial to the 4,903 soldiers from Colorado who fought in the Civil War, the State Capitol dome glistens in the sun Thursday, 1/2/2003. (The Denver Post / Jerry Cleveland)","caption":"Behind a memorial to the 4,903 soldiers from Colorado who fought in the Civil War, the State Capitol dome glistens in the sun Thursday, 1/2/2003. (The Denver Post / Jerry Cleveland)","creditText":"Jerry Cleveland—Denver Post /Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/civil-war/","name":"Civil War"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5337148/civil-war-memorial-statues/","name":"The Surprising Reason Why So Many Civil War Memorials Look Almost Exactly the Same"}}]}] ```