Confederate monuments: Addition or division?

Lee at 43   (Public Domain)

Some Americans feel that Confederate monuments add to the country’s treasures.  Robert E. Lee felt otherwise:  that such monuments would only serve to divide.

Biographer Jonathan Horn explains that after the Civil War, Lee outright rejected attempts to erect Confederate statues, including one of his beloved “Stonewall” Jackson.  While president of Washington

College, Lee disapproved of Confederate flags flying there.  During his 1870 funeral, these “divisive symbols” were “notably absent from the procession.“  He was not buried in military garb.

Lee strongly believed that countries which “erased visible signs of civil war recovered from conflicts quicker.”  Those who now perpetrate violence in his name might wish to chew on this for a while.

Resources

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/here%E2%80%99s-what-robert-e-lee-thought-about-confederate-monuments/ar-AAqdaUZ?OCID=ansmsnnews11 

Copyright August 17, 2017 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved