Virginia's history is being erased right before our eyes

[spencer114]

Everyone tried.

Every slaveholding state had been contemplating emancipation for decades before the war. The proposals never went anywhere because without slave labor, the states had no GDP and without a GDP ($$$) they couldn’t compensate slave holders when they took away their “property”. Virginia started to seriously consider emancipation beginning in 1831. 33 years and no action on the matter. 4 years was a much more efficient route (and a gift to the South, because the issue of clean emancipation was impossible to solve). Much earlier than the 1830’s southern states were floating ideas like “the grandchild of an enslaved person will be free”.

[spencer114]

I never weighed in on Traveler.

The marker from 1971 seems 100% appropriate to me. It just states that it was Robert E Lee’s horse which is factual and not in any way flowery or romantic. Removing it is goofy, IMO.

I encourage all here to check out the story “Docent”. I believe it is an NPR Selected Shorts that aired about 8 years ago? It’s the story of a woman who is the docent at the Lee Chapel. It’s very charming, lite and funny. Both conservatives and liberals will enjoy it. I bring it up because there are some funny lines about Traveler’s remains.

https://missourireview.com/article/docent/ The audio version was excellent, the narrator had a great old Virginia accent. Here is the text though.

[Shallow Hal]

Well we do know that Lincoln did try to avoid Civil War. These efforts began right after his election and continued right up until the Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

There were three major attempts to avoid secession and Civil War: the Crittenden Compromise, the Washington Peace Convention and Corwin's Amendment.

Once the states seceded from the US and took up arms against the US, Civil War had to be fought to eliminate the Confederacy, preserve the United States and end slavery.

[VA Outdoorsman]

Originally Posted by spencer114

I never weighed in on Traveler.

The marker from 1971 seems 100% appropriate to me. It just states that it was Robert E Lee’s horse which is factual and not in any way flowery or romantic. Removing it is goofy, IMO.

I commend you for this.

We can have our differences of opinion but still see eye to eye on things that are taken to the extremes. There was no reason to scrub the mention of Lee on his dead horse's tombstone.

[YorktownGal]

Originally Posted by VA Outdoorsman

It is true that all Confederate memorials and statues that were erected or placed in the decades after the war between the states was to ensure a successful RE-UNIONIFICATION of the country. This was especially the case in the South, in Virginia.

Could this re-unionification be something the power brokers of our country today want to destroy? All evidence seems to point to our leaders' desires for more division and hatred.

No single monument should have been removed in Virginia and instead we could have added to them. Monuments are not only for glorification, they serve practical purposes too (such as easing tensions).

It doesn't matter if you consider Confederate generals traitors or not, they were patriotic to their state first and many fought in the Mexican American war for America.

It's true. Before I lived in Virginia, I lived in Westchester County NY not too far from West Point - the military college.

West Point used Confederate officer names as a way to reunite our country. It is erasing our country's history.

The U.S. Army provided cost estimates for removing, replacing, renaming:

Beauregard Place. $1,000.
Lee Barracks. $3,000.
Lee Housing Area. $3,000.
Lee Area Child Development Center. $3,000.
Lee Road. $3,000.
Lee Gate. $3,000.
Hardee Place. $1,000.
Jefferson Hall (Library). $2,500.
Reconciliation Plaza. $300,000.
Bartlett Hall. $100,000.
Honor Plaza. $2,500.
Cullum Hall. $2,000.
USMA officials said they were reviewing the recommendations in the Naming Commission’s Part II Report and would collaborate with the Department of the Army to implement changes, once approved. "West Point’s mission is to develop leaders of character who internalize Army Values, the ideals of Duty, Honor, Country, and the Army Ethic. As a values-based institution, we are fully committed to creating a climate where everyone is treated with dignity and respect."

The Confederate Monument in Hastings, NY

HastingIn the wake of the Civil War which devastated the South, many Southerners moved north to improve their circumstances. Some became quite successful in both business and even politics. However, they remained proud of their Southern roots and formed affinity groups such as the

Southern Society and the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) to soothe the longings for home and to provide relief for needy Southerners in the North. In the 1890s, the New York Camp of the UCV purchased a 400 square foot plot in Mount Hope Cemetery in Hastings, NY in which to bury its members. Among the most prominent of these graves is one that has the remains of General Edwin Selvedge a veteran of 30 battles and the last surviving veteran of the organization.

Over the years, more than 50 people were interred in the Mount Hope Confederate burying grounds, both veterans and their family members. Each year, the Worden Camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War gathers at this site to observe Confederate Memorial Day, to ensure that the Southerners who removed to New York after the war are remembered and that their gravesites cared for. The monument is situated in the southwest corner of Mount Hope Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where Jackson Avenue intersects Saw Mill River Road. It bears the following inscriptions on opposite sides of the base: “Sacred to the memory of the Heroic Dead of the Confederate Veteran Camp of New York [and] Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns! Love Rules,her gentler purpose runs. A mighty mother turns in tears The pages of her battle years, Lamenting her fallen sons.”

https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2013...ents-part-two/

The Bronx: Busts of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College. The college removed the busts in 2020.

Central Park: J. Marion Sims. In November 2017, the cover of Harper’s Magazine featured J. C. Hallman’s article “Monumental Error,” about the Central Park monument of controversial surgeon – and Confederate spy – J. Marion Sims. The timing coincided with the work New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio’s committee on monuments, and Hallman’s article was distributed to members of New York’s Public Design Commission. The commission voted unanimously to remove Sims’s statue, and it was removed in April 2018.

Private monuments

Brooklyn: A tree at St. John's Episcopal Church bears a plaque, installed by UDC in 1912, reading "This tree was planted by CSA Gen. Robert Edward Lee, while stationed at Fort Hamilton."The plaque was removed in 2017.

Elmira: UDC monument (1937) at Woodlawn National Cemetery, dedicated to Confederate soldiers who died in Elmira Prison. As of October 2018, it is one of 7 cemeteries with Confederate monuments that the Veterans Administration has under 24-hour guard

Hastings-on-Hudson: Confederate marker at Mount Hope Cemetery

General Lee Avenue. The avenue was renamed to John Warren Avenue in 2022, to honor a 22-year-old lieutenant in the Army who was killed in the Vietnam War in January 1969.

Stonewall Jackson Drive. The road was later renamed to Washington Road in 2022, shortly after the renaming of General Lee Avenue.

Throggs Neck, The Bronx: Longstreet Avenue, named for CSA Gen. James Longstreet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...als#New_Jersey

If NY had Confederate monuments after the Civil War as a peace offering, why not let them stand?

[webster]

Perhaps New Yorkers were not aware of Jim Crow laws, the disenfranchisement of black under the 1902 Constitution, perhaps ... well it could be any number of things. But that is NY. In VA, the statues were part of the narrative that the Confederacy was some type of noble endeavor - it was not. Do the statues teach about the peace movements in the Confederacy? While the peace candidate lost the NC governors race in 1864, by over 80%; it was a bit different in GA; the GA governor had withdrawn the militia to harvest food and then called for peace.

Cemetery markers and memorials are different than a monument, though it seems the distinction is fading. A monument honors individuals, an event, a narrative; a cemetery marker and memorial is to honor the individual(s). For example, even in France, there are German graves from WW1 and WW2. Neuville-St Vaast German war cemetery (WW1) in France is a sobering experience, but it is not a monument, unlike the Montsec American Monument (WW1).

On a note to Yorktown Gal, now that you are on the Peninsula, it may have changed, but a person used to be able to walk the Yorktown battlefields and join trails into the Newport News park on which old Confederate fortifications were visible. Longstreet was the general in charge of the center. Best to do it in the winter when the fortifications are visible and the ticks are (mostly) gone.

Despite our disagreements I hope we agree on the importance of Virginia, the history and hopes for the future. For the Virginia Creed runs true:

"To Be A Virginian either by
Birth, Marriage, Adoption,
or even on one's Mother's side,
is an Introduction
to any State in the Union,
a Passport to any Foreign Country,
and a Benediction from Above."

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Babe_Ruth

I'd say removing someone's grave facilitates erasing their memory.

It's a horse, not a human.

[twinkletwinkle22]

Originally Posted by 16 Acres

Ah, ha. How can you be positive that an alternative way would not had been quicker? Four years was a long time. An alternative was just may just had brought it down to 2 or 3. The bottom line was, that no one even tried. Violence was the only way chosen.

Absolutely untrue that no one even tried any solution other than "violence." An ancestor of my husband was asked by President Lincoln to go home to his state (he was working in Washington DC govt at the time) and work with his state's elected officials to approve an agreement to avert war. The proposal lost by one vote.

One of President Lincoln's proposals was that the US government would pay slave owners the value of their slaves if they would free them over a certain number of years. This proposal was rejected by slave states. England did this very thing, freed their slaves and paid slave owners.

[Shallow Hal]

How about we pay tribute to the thousands of Virginians who served during WW11 with such honor, integrity and bravery. They fought for the United States and I don't ever hear anyone in any particular state getting emotional about erasing their history. Does anyone even know their history let alone worry about erasing it?