Territorial Colorado was still years away from statehood and had only about 34,000 citizens when the American Civil War tore our country apart. Yet, even with its fledgling population, Colorado was able to contribute an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers who served valiantly in Union ranks to bring the nation back together and expunge the scourge of slavery.

Colorado’s most profound contribution was the ultimate sacrifice in battle by some 500 of those soldiers. Their deaths, in a war that killed more Americans than any other conflict to this day, comprised a startlingly high proportion of Colorado’s entire population at the time.

That sacrifice was memorialized in a bronze statue of a Civil War soldier, sculpted by Civil War veteran Jack Howland and placed on the west side of the State Capitol Building in 1909 by an official act of our legislature. The Colorado Civil War Monument stood there for 111 years.

Five years ago, in a random act of senselessness, a rampaging mob toppled and vandalized the statue amid the summer 2020 riots that ransacked downtown Denver. The desecration had nothing to do with the purported reason for the rioting — the murder of George Floyd by a rogue cop in Minneapolis — and was decried afterward by Gov. Jared Polis.

“I am outraged at the damage to a statue that commemorates the union heroes of the Civil War who fought and lost their lives to end slavery,” Polis said in a public statement. “This statue will be repaired, and we will use every tool at our disposal to work with Denver Police and to hold accountable those responsible for the damage whether they are hooligans, white supremacists, confederate sympathizers, or drunk teenagers.”

And yet, as a news report by The Gazette made clear last week, the memorial has yet to be returned to its rightful place. It remains in limbo, theoretically on a long-term loan, at the History Colorado Center. Just weeks ago, the statue’s pedestal was removed from Capitol grounds and turned over to the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

No one in authority for our state government, including the governor, has appeared willing to explain why the statue hasn’t been returned or when it will be.

The pedestal bore four plaques, three of them commemorating Civil War battles and one, incorrectly, listing the infamous Sand Creek Massacre. The heinous 1864 attack on an encampment of some 250 unarmed Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children and elders had no historical connection to the Civil War — or to the statue. 

But that shouldn’t prevent the statue itself from being returned. 

A resolution adopted by the legislature last spring approved the installation of a memorial to the Sand Creek Massacre on the Capitol’s west grounds. Such a memorial is fitting.

However, neither that resolution nor one adopted by the legislature a year earlier, instructing the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs to place the Civil War Monument at department offices or “at another appropriate location,” address returning the monument to where it originally was authorized to be by law.

It is imperative our state government do just that — return the monument to the grounds of the Capitol, where it belongs, without further delay — so all Coloradans and visitors to our state can experience it. Time is all the more of the essence as next year is our state’s 150th birthday.

We had thought unconscionable “cancel culture” had fizzled out. Attempts to politicize, distort and erase history by destroying signature monuments have no place in enlightened, tolerant and pluralistic Colorado.

The Colorado Civil War Monument deserves to be restored, returned and respected — if we are to honor the fallen soldiers whose memory it serves.