Harvard doesn’t have a Robert E. Lee, or a John C. Calhoun. Even so, questions of Civil War remembrance and Southern heritage crop up in Cambridge every so often.

In James’s novel “The Bostonians,” when Basil Ransom—Harvard alum, Civil War veteran, ... the question of whether to establish a Harvard Confederate war memorial naturally arose.

Re-dedication of the Harvard Civil War Memorial Monument on the Common. Saturday, June 7, 10 a.m. Pay your respects in a rededication of the monument to honor Harvard’s Civil War Veterans.

Perhaps it was Henry James who best captured the confusions of Harvard’s particular approach to commemorating its fallen graduates. In James’s novel “The Bostonians,” when Basil Ransom—Harvard alum, ...