Robert E. Lee, who led the Army of Northern Virginia through the Civil War, opposed the construction of monuments commemorating the vanquished Confederacy.
Within the past week, NASCAR announced a ban on the Confederate flag, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi renewed calls to have Confederate statues removed from the Capitol, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio insisted anything named after Lee in his city “has to go,” and thousands of protesters across the country tore down Confederate monuments. After the Civil War, Lee repeatedly voiced his objection to statues or monuments that honor the Confederacy.
Lee’s underlying rationale behind opposing the monuments was Southern reconciliation with the Union, hoping to quell further sentiments of rebellion in the aftermath of the Civil War.
“As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated; my conviction is, that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt in the present condition of the Country, would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating its accomplishment; & of continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour,” Lee wrote in an 1866 letter to Thomas Rosser, a former Confederate general.
A year before his death in 1870, Lee also declined an invitation to attend an event that commemorated a planned memorial at the Battle of Gettysburg. “I think it wiser, moreover, 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 wrote in a letter about the proposed memorial.
Last week, Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced he would remove a statue of Lee along Monument Avenue in Richmond.
“Think about the message this sends to people coming from around the world to visit the capital city of one of the largest states in the country,” Northam said in an announcement. “Or to young children. What do you say when a 6-year-old African American little girl looks you in the eye and says: What does this big statue mean? Why is it here?”
Circuit Court Judge Bradley Cavedo blocked the effort to remove the statue, however, in response to a lawsuit that argued the state promised to “affectionately protect” it after it annexed the land from Henrico County. William Gregory, the great-grandson of a couple who were signatories to the deed, filed the lawsuit.
City officials removed another statue of Lee in Fort Myers, Florida, out of concern that protesters would destroy it. City Councilman Johnny Streets said the statue’s removal presents a “great opportunity” for a “healing process.”
Rev. Robert W. Lee IV, the fourth great-nephew of the general, has repeatedly called for his ancestor’s statue to be removed.
“The new cause of this country is about justice, equality, peace and concord. We can and must be different. Now is the time to make this new cause the hope of this upcoming generation of activists,” he wrote in an opinion article for the Washington Post last week. “We can give the gift of Southern hospitality and community instead of passing on a pseudo-historical and oppressive understanding of the world.”
Though he owned slaves and ultimately followed his state of Virginia into the Confederacy, Lee personally characterized slavery as a “moral and political evil” before the Civil War in a letter to his wife.
One form of Confederate memorial that Lee did regard as appropriate were grave headstones. “All I think that can now be done, is to aid our noble & generous women in their efforts to protect the graves & mark the last resting places of those who have fallen, & wait for better times,” Lee wrote in his 1866 letter to Thomas Rosser.
