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A monument to Confederate soldiers is scheduled to be removed from Arlington National Cemetery by the end of the week.

The removal comes in response to legislation passed by Congress, and amidst efforts in recent years to 

In 2021, Congress passed a law requiring the Department of Defense to 

 "names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia" commemorating the Confederacy. 

Arlington's Confederate Memorial offers a "mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery," according to a 

 by a commission set up in response to that legislation. The report notes that an inscription promotes the "Lost Cause" myth, "which romanticized the pre-Civil War South and denied the horrors of slavery."

, was erected in 1914 with congressional approval at the cemetery located across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

University of Maryland historian Leslie Rowland 

 that funds for the memorial were raised by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which existed largely to "vindicate Confederate soldiers and other members of the Confederate generation."

They did so by "putting forward a sanitized, romanticized version of the pre-Civil War South," Rowland said.

Arlington National Cemetery says bronze pieces of the memorial 

, and its granite base will be left in place "to avoid disturbing surrounding graves." According to a press release, the removal 

The plan to take down the monument has received pushback from some 

, including more than 40 members of Congress who've called for halting the removal. 

reported in September that Virginia Gov. Glenn 

 the Virginia Military Institute to display the statue at a Civil War museum it operates.  

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A monument to Confederate soldiers erected at Arlington National Cemetery with congressional approval in 1914 will be removed this week in response to another act of Congress.

The Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery will be dismantled this week

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