By Peter Augelli
I cannot say whether New Orleans is in the right to remove the Confederate monuments. If they have become symbols of white supremacy as Richard Spencer seemed to think in Virginia, then I cannot fault the City of New Orleans. But let us be sure we are removing them for the right reasons rather than because of misinformation or ignorance. I cannot say much in defense of the other two monuments, but Lee is someone who in life was none of the things his monument has come to represent. So I come to you now just as Dr. Edward C. Smith did two decades ago to defend this honored American icon. Not the monument but the man.
Many people regard Lee as a role model and hero. People like Winston Churchill, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and JFK. He was a beloved father, husband, and friend; a brilliant general; and a man of devotion to country and neighbor.
It may seem odd to say the general of the confederate army was devoted to his country. But in Antebellum America people did not view the US as a single entity. To them states were their first loyalty not the federal government. Lee makes clear in his letters that his decision, though it did not come easily, was because of his loyalty to loved ones, and the state of Virginia. It was for that reason not slavery, which Lee was against, that he joined the Confederate army.
To the men who served under him, he was an inspiration. It was once said of him, “Everyone and everything - his family, his friends, his horse, and his dog - loves colonel Lee”(A Recollection and Letters of General Robert E. Lee). Even in defeat, he failed with dignity and honor. By both Grant and Porters account he maintained his decorum, and was mostly concerned for the treatment of his men. Even continued after the war, as president of washington university, he was a voice of reconciliation of north and south.
So let us not dismiss Lee as simply the general of the pro-slave South. Let us evaluate him on his merits, on what he did and why. Was he flawed? Everyman is. But no more (and in many cases much less) than other historical and world leaders we idolize. He has much he can teach us and many traits worth emulating.