Confederate Shrine Vandalized in Missouri; Southern Nationalists Outraged

The Civil War ended nearly 150 years ago but North-South animosity evidently remains in Cape Girardeau where a vandal this week defaced a monument to Confederate soldiers.

As the Southeast Missourian reports, someone spray painted the command, "Go South!" on the monument, along with the message: "We are in the union." Also spray-painted on the statue were the words: "Obscene. Remove to [illegible] cemetary (sic) in the south."

Officials don't know who may have vandalized the 14-foot structure that the Daughters of the Confederacy donated to Cape Girardeau in the 1930s. Meanwhile, a group calling itself the Southern Nationalist Network has condemned the vandalism, writing on its website that the shrine had been attacked by "pro-Union criminals."

"[H]ad this been a monument to Lincoln or MLK such vandalism would constitute a "hate crime" and by now a swarm of Federal agents would have descended upon southeastern Missouri. Some people's heritage, monuments and symbols are more protected than others, as we well know.

The Southern Nationalist Network advocates for the "peaceful establishment of Southern independence."

Missouri supplied an estimated 110,000 soldiers to the Union and at least 40,000 to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Some 27,000 Missourians -- representing both sides -- died in the war.