Due to its controversial nature a reinterpretation plaque was added beneath the monument in 2016, but revised a few months later in response to protests.

Subsequent protests concerning the monument's prominent location led to it being relocated in 2020 to a secluded Civil War cemetery on the university's campus.

[3] As a unit of the division under the command of Brigadier General J. Johnston Pettigrew in Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, the University Greys suffered 100 percent casualties on July 3, 1863.

The statue was a focal point for unrest in 1962 when James Meredith attempted to enroll in the university, which hitherto had been segregated and open to white people only.

[10] In 2012, when the university celebrated the 50th anniversary of desegregation, Black and white students clashed on election night when Barack Obama secured a second term.

On the evening of September 30, 1962, the statue was a rallying point where a rebellious mob gathered to prevent the admission of the University's first African American Student.

On the Morning After that long night Meredith was admitted to the University and graduated in August 1963.This historic structure is a reminder of the University's past and of its current and ongoing commitment to open its hallowed halls to all who seek truth and knowledge and wisdom.Criticism of the wording of the plaque resulted in the chancellor, Jeffrey Scott Vitter, appointing an Advisory Committee on History and Context, consisting of four academics, Donald Cole, Andrew Mullins, Charles Ross and David Sansing, to consider a revised wording.

These monuments were often used to promote an ideology known as the "Lost Cause", which claimed that the Confederacy had been established to defend states' rights and that slavery was not the principal cause of the Civil War.

Although the monument was created to honor the sacrifice of local Confederate soldiers, it must also remind us that the defeat of the Confederacy actually meant freedom for millions of people.

Today, the University of Mississippi draws from that past a continuing commitment to open its hallowed halls to all who seek truth, knowledge, and wisdom.In September 2017, the plaque and memorial was rammed and damaged by an apparent "drunk driver",[14] resulting in a $10,000 repair bill.