In the fall of 1870, Bishop Jonathan Weaver, who would serve as a United Brethren bishop until 1901, took a train from Maryland to Tennessee to conduct the annual meeting of the churches of Tennessee Conference. Robert E. Lee had just died. Weaver wrote, “All along the railroad, I see houses draped in mourning for Robert E. Lee.”
But Weaver had no sympathy for the Confederate general. His thoughts were on the hundreds of thousands who had recently died in the Civil War. Weaver continued:
“There are thousands of hearts draped in mourning over the dear ones that fell in defending the flag that Robert E. Lee strove to trail in the dust. Whatever may be said in favor of Mr. Lee as a gentleman, a scholar, and a Christian, that one act of his life will remain a dark spot on his character as long as there are hearts that love the Stars and Stripes.”
Unfortunately, time pretty much erased that “dark spot.” I, frankly, grew up with mostly favorable impressions of Lee–a great general, a southern gentleman, a devoted Christian who, as the myth goes, hated slavery and tirelessly tried to heal the country after the war. That mythology is a product of one of history’s most successful rebranding efforts, the Confederacy “Just Cause” revisionism of the early 1900s (early chapters of Jon Meacham’s recent “The Soul of America” cover it well).
Today, much of that revisionist mythology is being corrected. This would please Bishop Weaver and other United Brethren of the 1800s. It pleases me. It’s long overdue.
When it comes right down to it, Robert E. Lee was a slaveholder who betrayed his country and helped spearhead a terrible war that killed over 600,000 people. Does any American, liberal or conservative, really want to defend that? To erect monuments to traitors and defenders of slavery in town squares?
Lee was a despicable owner of over 100 slaves who split nearly every slave family under his care. After giving 50 lashes to escaped slaves, he ordered that saltwater be poured onto their wounds. When Union troops seized Lee’s plantation, they found slaves living in squalid conditions (one officer described it as “a village of pigsties”) and with no affection whatsoever for their former owner. During his incursions into Pennsylvania, Lee’s army kidnapped free blacks and forced them into slavery.
I know: it doesn’t square with your lifelong impression of Lee. But that’s who he was. People cherry-pick quotes from Lee both pro- and anti-slavery, but you can do the same for Abraham Lincoln. People are complicated. Their overall life tells the tale, and Lee’s doesn’t fare well.
I initially opposed taking down monuments to Confederate generals. But having studied how these monuments came about (most during the Klan resurgence of the early 1900s) and learning the nature of Lee, I’ve changed my mind.
Statues at battlefields are appropriate; they help tell the story of that battle (there is a statue of Lee at Gettysburg). But statues of Confederate leaders do NOT belong in the town square. They honor racists and traitors, and are a slap in the face to African Americans, to American soldiers, and to vets. Get rid of those statues. Quit exalting traitors and racists. I’m quite sure that’s what Bishop Jonathan Weaver would tell us.
(I know this troubles many people who, like me, grew up with a very positive view of General Lee. I encourage you to do your own reading about him. Do NOT rely on what you hear from pundits, either conservative or liberal.)
