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LITTLE Bob! LYIN' Bob! CROOKED Bob! (PBS: Robert E. Lee Opposed Confederate Monuments) SAD!
Robert E. Lee opposed Confederate monuments
Virginia State Troopers stand under a statue of Robert E. Lee before the white supremacists rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. Photo by REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/robert-e-lee-opposed-confederate-monuments/#.WZXwiUr7Q1U.twitter
At the center of the “Unite the Right” rally that turned deadly in Charlottesville last weekend was a protest of the city’s plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee. White supremacists, neo-Nazis and others have made monuments to the Confederate commanding general a flashpoint — at times marching to keep them standing.
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“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
Lee died in 1870, just five years after the Civil War ended, contributing to his rise as a romantic symbol of the “lost cause” for some white southerners.
But while he was alive, Lee stressed his belief that the country should move past the war. He swore allegiance to the Union and publicly decried southern separatism, whether militant or symbolic.
Virginia State Troopers stand under a statue of Robert E. Lee before the white supremacists rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. Photo by REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/robert-e-lee-opposed-confederate-monuments/#.WZXwiUr7Q1U.twitter
At the center of the “Unite the Right” rally that turned deadly in Charlottesville last weekend was a protest of the city’s plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee. White supremacists, neo-Nazis and others have made monuments to the Confederate commanding general a flashpoint — at times marching to keep them standing.
***
“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
Lee died in 1870, just five years after the Civil War ended, contributing to his rise as a romantic symbol of the “lost cause” for some white southerners.
But while he was alive, Lee stressed his belief that the country should move past the war. He swore allegiance to the Union and publicly decried southern separatism, whether militant or symbolic.
