Adjacent to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is this little wooden chapel. It was built in 1887 and dedicated to the soldiers and/or battalions of the Confederacy.
Like so much connected with Civil War history, this building has become mired in controversy. Just recently the Sons of the Confederacy lost their lease on this property. The group lost its exclusive claim to the property in 1892 when it agreed to deed it to the state in exchange for operating funds of up to $30,000 a year.
When the last Confederate veteran died in 1941, the state received the title. During the 1980s, the United Daughters of the Confederacy leased the chapel. In 1993, it was leased again to the Lee-Jackson Camp, SCV.
The chapel has been enveloped in controversy over the display of Confederate flags since 2010, when the state wrote into the lease a ban on flying the Confederate flag outside the chapel.
A group known as the Virginia Flaggers has protested by parading the Confederate flag outside the museum on many weekends and special days.
Museum officials reiterated Thursday that the Confederate flag was not historically flown on the chapel’s columns. The SCV began the custom to indicate when the museum was open.
I am posting both the front and rear of this building because I like the contrast between stark simplicity of the back with the Gothic Revival style of the front.
If you are wondering about the American flag being displayed at half staff, it was to honor former First Lady Nancy Reagan who died on March 6.
