A statue of Dr Hunter Holmes McGuire, a Confederate surgeon credited with helping establish protections for military medical personnel, was removed from Virginia’s Capitol grounds alongside other Confederate monuments. The opinion article criticises the decision as an erasure of history, arguing that McGuire’s humanitarian legacy should have been weighed separately from his Confederate service.

The article says McGuire persuaded Stonewall Jackson to release captured Union doctors after the First Battle of Winchester in 1862, helping create the Winchester Accord, which it says influenced later Geneva Convention protections for medical staff. Democratic state senator Mike Jones supported removal, citing the monuments’ association with racial segregation and the region’s history; the statues are reportedly to be moved to Shenandoah Valley battlefield sites.