Taking down the Robert E. Lee statue

It is almost certainly going to a museum or private land, there are legal challenges
to destroying it.

In the ACW "Marse Robert" is something of a unique figure. Beloved by both sides he was the very epitome of the kindly master but also slavery's greatest champion whose letters support the institution unreservedly. He is America's most respected traitor who probably killed more Union soldiers than any other general and extended a savage and bloody conflict for at least a year beyond what the South should have lasted. He was offered command of the Union forces and one can only speculate how much history would be different had he accepted

 

Additionally, he is also a tragic figure, particularly to his own family. His grandfather was "Light-Horse Harry" Lee. possibly the ARW's greatest military man after Washington himself. Yet it fell to his grandson to lose the family estate (it became Arlington cemetery) and to practically guarantee that what remains one of America's greatest families to this day would (and will?) never produce a President, as it almost surely would have otherwise.

Probably his major ongoing legacy is how our greatest loyalty in the US is to the USA, NOT to our individual States, as his was.

 

The story of Robert E. Lee: Robert Edward Lee was an American Confederate general best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He led the Army of Northern Virginia from 1862 until its surrender in 1865 and earned a reputation as a skilled tactician.

 

You say so.

 

You seem to not be able to contest it.

 

I don't see any reason why I should at this time.

 

Virginia plans to replace time capsule in Richmond’s Robert E. Lee statue (msn.com)
I don't know what the deal is there but eventually I'll know more.

 

Ha! Ha! Ha! Very funny!

 

Keep the statue of Lee. Next to it another showing Lee giving up his sword in surrender to Grant after Appomattox. Remind everyone that the South lost the war! That's history, too, n'est-ce pas?

 

May 10, 2011

RICHMOND (AP) - It’s an enduring myth of the Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrendered his sword to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, and his Union counterpart refused the traditional gesture of surrender.

“Lee never offered it, and Grant never asked for it,” said Patrick Schroeder, historian at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park.

In an historical twist, though, Lee’s French-made ceremonial sword is returning to Appomattox, Va., 146 years later, leaving the Richmond museum where it has been displayed for nearly a century.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/10/lee-sword-returning-to-appomattox/

.

 

Washington didn't rebel against our country in the name of an organization dedicated to the preservation of slavery. Lee did. And Lee himself was against statues of himself or other Confederate figures.

 

Robert didn't want statues from the Civil War erected in the first place.

 

Robert Error Lee was a Traitor and a long time racist who never opposed ending slavery, he never released his slaves either.

He resigned, for the purpose of joining the other side, that is in my view desertion. He was a racist to the day he died, he never freed his slaves, and never changed his dismissive views of black people.

There is no documented evidence that he freed the slaves and he was always a supporter of slavery even when the war ended:

History Net,

".....And what about Lee’s own slaves? He inherited 10 or 12 from his mother, but it is difficult to determine whether he freed any of them. Before the Mexican War he wrote a will that would have liberated one family; however, since he was not killed, those provisions never went into effect. There is no evidence of Lee’s slaves being emancipated—no courthouse records, no mention of it in his massive letter books. One of his sons later said that he had freed all his slaves before the war, but had taken no legal action so they would not have to move out of Virginia. That seems questionable, however. A freed African American really could not exist in Virginia without papers; the law would put him right back into slavery.

In fact, we have an example of a freed couple without documents being thrown into jail in 1853 by Lee’s father-in-law, a justice of the peace. We also know that Lee was aware of the need to provide free papers, since he went to considerable trouble to get proper documents for the Custis slaves who were freed during the Civil War. In any case, his own papers show that he owned slaves well into the 1850s and considered buying another in 1860. He also used his wife’s slaves as personal servants throughout the Civil War.

Lee’s letters tell us much about his racial attitudes. He seemed to dislike the bondsmen’s presence and generally avoided dealing with them. (“Do not trouble yourself about them, as they are not worth it,” he counseled his wife.) He had a low opinion of blacks as workers and complained continually about their habits. (“It would be accidental to fall in with a good one,” he ultimately concluded.) He found the constant need to provide for the slaves burdensome, and as a result frequently rented them out.

As late as 1865 he was still asserting that “the relation of master and slave…is the best that can exist between the white & black races.” He had equally dismissive views of other groups who threatened white aspirations, including Mexicans and American Indians, whom he several times described as “hideous” and whom he believed to be culturally inferior. It is important to note that these are not random comments, written on a bad day, but a constant pattern in Lee’s writing."

bolding mine

 

I think it is just an attempt to remove American History from the books period.

 

Very doubtful with black history month.

 

No I guess not.

 

No, it's an attempt to present the TRUTH of history. Why am I not surprised that conservatives want to keep the propaganda, the pretty picture that glosses over the suffering and thus perpetuates the injustice.

 

Jackson and Lee were real men and a part of American History no matter how you feel about them. They are not propaganda, they affected Truth and history. You want to erase them.

 

I'm not disputing they existed and may even have been laudatory figures in their way but we shouldn't glorify them with statues in parks, they belong in museums. Why don't we see statues of Ulysses Grant and Frederick Douglass in public places, they at least tried to defend our country.

Or better still why not some statues of people like Frances Marion and John Paul Jones? Where are figures of George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower and Admiral Halsey? How about General Pershing? We act like WWI never took place

 

Very very doubtful that Jackson and Lee wouldn't be mentioned during black history month.

While those statues are propaganda for white supremacy. They got build out of pure resentment for losing the war. Jacksons statue was build where there previously was a black neighborhood. The developer, Paul Goodloe McIntire, cleared it all to make a white only park with that statue in it. It's the same dude who paid for the Lee statue. It says enough, for "most" people.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...is-first-step-toward-ending-confederate-myths

 

we should attach a white flag to every statue of a Confederate soldier until they are removed - the real flag of the losers

 

This is what US marines did, before they destroyed the statue of Saddam Hussein

I would say, a white flag bound around the head.

 

I am not an apologist for the South, however you do realize those men were brilliant strategists and they did represent the hopes of many many American citizens that saw the War as something else besides preserving slavery. Guess you would like to see them booted out of America as well. Lincoln and Grant made conciliatory efforts in order to heal the nation. I guess you support the 1619 history revision. I believe it was 1776 when we began the effort to adhere to our Constitution.

 

I agree we need to see more statue of men like that......but you do realize "the movement" wants to destroy those as well? Grant has been defaced as well as Frederick Douglas who was considered an "Uncle Tom " by many of todays activists. Guess that is the sentiment I feel when I see others trying to remove American History. The CW is over,and for most all the wounds are healed.....let's remember and move on to greater things.