When I was in Grade 11, I drew a
picture of Robert E. Lee in pencil. The photo copied is a perfect capture of
the man’s eyes, of their mixture of stern command and sadness. I drew this picture
because I admired him. I hung it in my highschool locker.
Twenty-five years later, a group
of white men, also admirers of Lee, gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to
protest the removal of his statue from the newly-named Emancipation Park. They clashed
with counter-protesters, and one of them drove his car into a crowd, murdering
a 32-year-old mother. At a press conference, The President spluttered some
words in Lee’s defense, asking reporters if they also wished to pull down
statues of other slave-owners like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
In his lifetime, Lee was a
central figure of The United States’ Civil War, and his story is one of heroic
contradictions. He was a soldier who abhorred violence, and totally obedient
until he betrayed his country. He was a racist slave-owner who disliked
slavery. He commanded the Confederate Army in its most glorious victories and
ignominious failures. For Northerners, he was both traitor and honored
adversary.
His
legend began in The Civil War, but it has been rewritten many times since. After
the war, he joined the American pantheon of heroes. Politicians used him as a
symbol of reconciliation between North and South, a hero to salve the wounded
pride and sorrow of a defeated South. He became an avatar of the Lost Cause, a
narrative of the Civil War that highlights noble soldiers defending their homes
and State’s Rights, while downplaying or ignoring slavery. In many ways, Lee is The Lost Cause, a noble soldier who
fought for his homeland, while disliking slavery and secession.
Lee
has also become an icon for intolerance. Former Confederate soldiers, such as
Nathan Bedford Forrest, formed the Ku Klux Klan to thwart The Reconstruction
and punish newly-freed slaves. Their numbers swelled in the 1920s and 30s. They
were joined by Neo-Nazis and other white supremacists in Charlottesville. To
them, Lee is a hero of the white race, who battled a tide of uppity niggers,
race-traitors and weaklings.
A
new Lee narrative is circulating. You can find it easily by Googling “Who was
Robert E. Lee”, and finding one of the many copy-paste articles about his
history. It casts Lee as a cruel slaver. Here, he is a blunderer who just
couldn’t figure out them gol-dern military tactics, his greatest victories
credited to the even-greater incompetence of his rival, George McClellan. It
goes out of its way to point out that Lee wouldn’t have wanted monuments of
himself. Its sole aim is to justify the removal of statues.
All
over the South, Confederate statues are being removed, including images of Lee
in Charlottesville, New Orleans, and Baltimore. To the architects of this
movement, Lee is a symbol of the violent racism that caused the Civil War, and
endures today. The public statues of Lee, mounted on Traveller, are a reminder
of the humiliation and suffering of slavery, and the enduring institutional
racism that came after.
None
of the narratives about Lee is completely true. Too many stories claim him. Only
Lee knew the full narrative of Lee, but we can come close to discovering his
true character by studying history.
If
you take the time to read many different accounts, you will see a creature of
perfect physical and moral discipline, tortured by his own deficiencies. You
will meet a truly gentle person who was also a killer. You will see a man
unlearning outdated military tactics, and quietly mourning thousands of deaths
he caused. You see him take responsibility for failure, and his soft-spoken
humility. You must reconcile a man of such heroic character fighting on the
wrong side of history, for an immoral government founded by proud and greedy
men. You will come to learn the pain behind those stern, sad eyes.
In
1861, Lee was forced to make a terrible choice. He could either command the
Union Army, or return home to fight for his native Virginia. His choice was
personally heartrending. And yet, Lee’s personal pain at his decision to fight
for the Confederacy caused far more external pain. It filled thousands of
surgeons’ buckets with sawed-off limbs. It crowded thousands of graveyards. Would
the Confederacy have lasted long without his talents?
The
pain did not end after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. It spoke through
generations, inspiring some, and inciting others to violence. Rip down all the
statues of Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, Roger Taney, Braxton Bragg, or
the rest of those Confederate losers, and it will elicit hardly a peep from the
public. Target Lee, and it’s a different story. It is no coincidence that the
violence of August 12th was fought over his statue. One hundred and
fifty years after the Civil War ended, people are still dying because of Robert
E. Lee.
In
Grade 11, I made a monument to Lee in my locker. Knowing what I do now, would I
keep that pencil drawing on display? That’s a tough one. When I drew that
picture, I didn’t give a thought to slavery. I admired Lee’s self-control and
self-denial, his cunning in battle, and his resolve in overwhelming adversity. But,
if I could explain to myself that other people might think it an endorsement of
slavery, or that I was a Klansman, I would be embarrassed. I’d be defensive,
then guilty. Then I’d probably take it down. The process would be painful.
“What a cruel thing is war; to
separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and
happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred
instead of love for our neighbours, and to devastate the fair face of this
beautiful world!” ~ Robert E. Lee
