The National Park Service reinstalled Washington, D.C.'s only statue of a Confederate soldier in October 2025 as part of the Trump administration's effort to restore preexisting monuments in the capital. The depiction of Brigadier General Albert Pike was toppled by protesters in the summer of 2020, with many treating it as just another symbol of Confederate nostalgia. But it was erected to honor Pike's civic and philanthropic legacy, not his role in the Civil War.
Pike's bronze likeness was not donated by a Southern historical society or heritage league, nor funded by a Jim Crow–era government. It was privately commissioned by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of Washington, D.C., as part of a fundraising effort that began in the 1890s—years before the wave of Confederate monument construction. The statue honors Pike not for his service to the Confederacy but for his postwar work as a legal scholar, philanthropist, and advocate for the rights of indigenous tribes. This is emphasized by depicting him in civilian garb and holding a book rather than wearing his dress blues and brandishing a rifle.
