Picture the spot where At Ready (1909) — a memorial of a Confederate soldier popularly known as Johnny Reb — was originally located in front of the Albemarle County Courthouse in downtown Charlottesville. The statue was unveiled on May 5, 1909, the anniversary of the 1857 creation of the Monticello Guard, a militia company that formed in front of this courthouse when Virginia seceded in 1861 and later became part of the 19th Virginia Infantry. Fast forward to 2020: on August 6, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to remove the statue.
That removal came during a year when several Virginia communities removed monuments due to safety concerns amidst widespread protests, and Albemarle was the first locality to remove a war memorial under the procedures of a statues bill that went into effect on July 1, 2020. The statue and its nearby cannon and cannonballs were taken away on September 12, 2020, to be placed on display at the Third Winchester Battlefield, part of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District. Your eye can travel across the courthouse façade, the pavement where this memorial once stood, and the square beyond.