Robert E. Lee opposed Confederate monuments
... 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.
“It’s often forgotten that Lee himself, after the Civil War, opposed monuments, specifically Confederate war monuments.”
... In his writings, Lee cited multiple reasons for opposing such monuments, questioning the cost of a potential Stonewall Jackson monument, for example. But underlying it all was one rationale: That the war had ended, and the South needed to move on and avoid more upheaval.
“As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated,” Lee wrote of an 1866 proposal, “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; [and] of continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour.”
The retired Confederate leader, a West Point graduate, was influenced by his knowledge of history.
“Lee believed countries that erased visible signs of civil war recovered from conflicts quicker,” Horn said. “He was worried that by keeping these symbols alive, it would keep the divisions alive.” ...
“He said he was not interested in any monuments to him or – as I recollect – to the Confederacy,” explained James Cobb, history professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, who has written about Lee’s rise as an icon.
“I don’t think that means he would have felt good about the people who fought for the Confederacy being completely forgotten,” Cobb added. “But he didn’t want a cult of personality for the South.”
Lee advocated protection of just one form of memorial: headstones in cemeteries.
“All I think that can now be done,” he wrote in 1866, “is … to protect the graves [and] mark the last resting places of those who have fallen…” ...
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