ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, Va. - WBOC received an exclusive tour of the Cross Keys Battlefield near Harrisonburg, Virginia, the new home of the Talbot Boys Confederate monument.
Keven Walker, CEO of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation says the monument's move from Maryland to Virginia was a success.
"Within the first hour of the work being done, there were already visitors standing at the base of the monument. Literally within the first hour he was attracting visitors," Walker said.
The Talbot County Council voted to move the Talbot Boys from the grounds of the Talbot County Courthouse in Easton in September. That move came in March and on Thursday, the monument was erected in its new home.
Ridgely Ochs with the Move the Monument coalition is glad to see the Talbot Boys gone from the courthouse. Ochs says a confederate battlefield in an appropriate home for the statue.
"I don't want it on a courthouse lawn, but I recognize that people want it somewhere where it will be respected and I thought this was a very smart, brilliant solution," Ochs said.
While Walker says the Foundation will take care of the statue, he wishes it did not have to be this way.
"We hoped that if it couldn't stay where it was originally placed that it could find a home in Talbot County," he said.
"When the trucks rolled away and the field was quiet again, I looked at the monument and thought that he looks fitting here but as I turned to leave, I was struck by how hard it was to leave him there alone. You get a sense that he's very, very far from home," Walker continued.
Walker says members of the Talbot County community will be invited to Cross Keys Battlefield in June for a rededication of the Talbot Boys monument.
