Yankee Confederate Statue

Kingstree, South Carolina

According to local lore, there was a gasp of horror when Kingstree unveiled its Civil War monument on May 10, 1910. The tall granite shaft next to the courthouse was topped with a statue of a soldier, as were many throughout the South -- but this one was dressed like a Yankee!

At least, that's the way it looked to the assembled crowd of Rebel-loving locals.

Without a replacement at hand, Kingstree kept the statue. It still keeps watch over the courthouse today. Detective work turned up a counterpart out-of-place Civil War statue in York, Maine, supposedly a Union soldier but with a Confederate officer's brimmed fedora and a Colonel Sanders goatee.

The best guess is that there was a shipping mix-up at the statue factory, although others claim that both statues are just repurposed soldiers from the 1898 Spanish-American War.