Confederate soldier statue has hands cut off, face bashed in

A Confederate statue located in a Rome cemetery had its hands cut off and face bashed in this week.

The Myrtle Hill Cemetery director told the Rome News-Tribune he believed the damages to the statue could total $200,000. The Confederate soldier statue also had its rifle removed during the vandalization that occurred either Wednesday or Thursday.

The topic of what Confederate statues and memorials represent and whether they should be in public spaces continues to linger since the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August Earlier this week, Memphis, Tennessee leaders were the latest in the nation to agree to remove two statues from parks.

In Rome, the "standing soldier" statue was placed in the Myrtle Hill Cemetery in 1909, replacing a former memorial that was put up about two decades after the end of the Civil War.

Rome city manager said the city is determining how it can repair the statue, the News-Tribune reported.

"It’s just super disappointing that somebody would go to that much trouble to get up there, put a ladder up or whatever to reach it," Sammy Rich said.

Stanley Dunlap, 478-744-4623