"West Point to Remove Confederate Monuments" Topic

I thought this was interesting. It was on CNN this morning:

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Yeah, the era of "wokeness" continues….

Definition of 'wokeness':

NOUN

INFORMAL

'the quality of being alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism'

If the remedy was something other than more injustice, more discrimination and more racism it'd serve some purpose other than vengeance.

I have some mixed feelings, but I cannot argue in the end. I do not hate the Confederates, but I do hate the Lost Cause narrative and movement, and some of the versions of history we accepted for a century.

The perspective of black cadets and former black cadets would be interesting to learn.

I wonder how long the cadets "Grey" uniforms will be thrown out and replaced.

"'the quality of being alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism'"

Yes because a plaque with a quote by Robert E. Lee, (one of their most distinguished graduates), is a massive injustice and discrimination to the rest of society, especially racism.

Sigh…

Maybe if they spent more time teaching their cadets about "honor", and being a soldier and a warrior, instead of a career officer ticket puncher and ring tapper, then things would be different.

The Gray uniforms are from 1812 I think, not 1860s.
We would be at a loss if out Union troops had no opponents, or our Doughboys didn't have Germans.
Wiping out history is idiotic and being done for political purposes.

Lee should have been shot and his body thrown in a ditch.

Lee took an oath. I think maybe honor is best served, and taught, by not including him so reverentially. He turned his back on West Point, many of his brother officers and the soldiers he once commanded, and his country. If he had remained neutral, I might have understood his guiding principles better. Ultimately a flawed man who was made into an all-American hero by the Lost Cause. Entirely my opinion, and a lifetime in the making, but his reality is not a simple one, I think.

I have to say, with all due respect to General Lee who seems at least to me have been a decent guy, I think having monuments to people who left the US Army to fight for – and let's be honest – the opposite side never made any sense to me, even as a kid; Fort Hood and Fort Bragg for example (not that either John Bell Hood or Braxton Bragg were that much o an advantage in the long run for the Confederacy)

Just the movie or do you also want to burn the book?

I am not opposed to monuments erected in the 20th century being removed particularly when not on a battlefield.

I wonder how long the cadets "Grey" uniforms will be thrown out and replaced.

As they date from the War of 1812 they have nothing to do with the Confederacy.

Maybe if they spent more time teaching their cadets about "honor", and being a soldier and a warrior, instead of a career officer ticket puncher and ring tapper, then things would be different.

As a graduate of West Point, albeit almost 50 years ago, the instruction at the Academy still centers around the motto 'duty, honor, country' as well as being a professional soldier.

I find it interesting that it is in vogue today to apply the term 'warrior' to soldiers-they are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. Warriors fight as individuals, soldiers as part of a unit.

I read about it a day or two ago. It doesn't bother me at all.

And Grant was finally promoted to General of the Armies. It's been a good week for the Union.

'the quality of being able to find injustice and discrimination everywhere in society, especially racism'

American Indians fought against the United States yet we honor them.

Lee and other Confederates fought for their state, their homes as they felt that was their first loyalty. They generally fought with honor not committing war crimes and stopped fighting when the war ended. Most were good American citizens after the war ended.

Healing a nation means accepting those back who did something wrong. Those statues were erected in the early 20th Century as a sign of healing with the South.

West Point had a massive cheating scandal this year but the only thing removed was GEN Lee's statue.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek

Honoring Confederates was never a good idea. It took root when Jim Crow was implemented. I am not black, but honoring the side that dehumanized and enslaved others once the rest of the world was embracing its elimination is an insult to all the black soldiers that have given the full measure of devotion to these United States. Keep the statues in museums for history's sake, not as public memorials to an evil cause. This is the right thing to do. I have served alongside many honorable black men and women. I can only imagine what they must feel when walking by these monuments or enetering forts with names such as Benning, Hood, or Bragg. Good riddance!

Yeah, the era of "wokeness" continues….

I believe you mean "Wokitude":

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Removing Lee's statues at West Point!?

It's enough to make a Neo-confederate want to secede.

Three articles from CNN, MSN and NYT, talk about liberal rags at the front of red journalism. West Point wants to expunge the history of a person who graduated second in his class and was a former superintendent. Aren't they supposed to train good leaders and great generals like, I dunno, Robert E Lee?

These things wax and wain, restoration of history will be a future consideration in my future voting.

Oh well, let's hope they get their quota of LGBTQ cadets this year.

The United States was a slave nation for nearly 100 years.
Perhaps we should remove all statues to Americans who were in public service prior to 1876.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek

Bunk, you are correct, there are monuments to American Indians who fought the US government. There are monuments to Loyalists and monuments to British soldiers as well. Who knows what else is out there. But Confederates are the current woke bogeymen. I assume It is the current trend for liberals to show their progressive enlightenment and shared guilt.

"With improving Anglo-American relations and the alliance during the world wars, more monuments were dedicated to the British and depicted them as honorable enemies. In 1895, a small monument was erected at the Guilford Courthouse battlefield in memory of Lt. Col. John Stuart, who was killed in the battle. The marble marker acknowledged it was built "in honor of a brave foe." A monument was dedicated in 1914 by the Frances Bland Randolph Chapter of the DAR to British Maj. Gen. William Phillips in Petersburg, Virginia. Philips is buried there, having died of disease in 1781, and he remains one the highest-ranking British military officers buried in the United States. When a small memorial was dedicated on the Brandywine battlefield in 1920 it made no distinction between those who had died on either side, instead simply stating "In Memory of Those Who Fell in the Battle." In 1930, a monument was erected to Patrick Ferguson at the King's Mountain battlefield, where he had been killed in 1780. The monument said that Ferguson was "A soldier of military distinction and honor" and added that "This memorial is from the citizens of the United States of America in token of their appreciation of the bonds of friendship and peace between them and the citizens of the British Empire." Between the 1890s and 1930s, Americans shifted away from their early tendency to depict to British as cruel enemies, instead portraying them as misguided but honorable foes."

Moore's Creek

"The Loyalist Monument was placed here in 1909. This granite monument not only honors the Loyalists who fought here, but it also represents choice. Choice is one of our most cherished freedoms. The Loyalists were colonists that chose to remain loyal to Great Britain. Without their choice of loyalty, we would have never had the battle of Moores Creek Bridge, and the first Patriot victory of the American Revolution."

There was one for John André. Someone tried to blast it back in the 1880's, during their woke period, I assume. Don't know if they succeeded.

So yes, we honor other enemies of our country and no one "currently" cares, or in most cases even know about them. I guess there are no political points awarded for their destruction.

There were many slave owners in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. But no one can escape their own times. The English were the most significant slave traders in that century. However, abolitionists were able to advance the moral consciousness of society until it was the British themselves who began to enforce sanctions against the slave trade. Social morality in this respect continued to evolve in Britain, France, And other countries including the United States. The southern plantation owners and their elected officials wanted to turn back the clock even when they saw the writing on the wall and even at the expense of remaining in the union. There is a big difference between slave owners when that was a normalized and seldom questioned practice and those who remained tied to what, at the time was clearly a reactionary practice. There is a big difference between Washington, Jefferson, and other slave owners of an earlier age and the reactionaries who wanted to preserve an oppressive system at all costs, even at the cost of secession. The founding fathers were for liberty, even though their idea of liberty was far more restrictive than ours. The southern slavers were against liberty. Not only did they wish to preserve the infamous peculiar institution, they also oppressed the poor whites who provided them with a form of indentured labor. Keep Washington and Jefferson as public memorials, toss the confederates into a museum for history's sake.

Three articles from CNN, MSN and NYT, talk about liberal rags at the front of red journalism. West Point wants to expunge the history of a person who graduated second in his class and was a former superintendent. Aren't they supposed to train good leaders and great generals like, I dunno, Robert E Lee?

Good lord man, you don't suppose the Communists are behind this? It's ingenious because no one would suspect they're plotting to undermine the USA by targeting the biggest threat to the nation's existence.

It's true that Lee did attend the school but maybe if he wasnt in a confederate uniform it'd be more tolerable.

And I agree we should honor him more. After all, if he didnt have two failed attempts to invade the North, slaves might not have been emancipated and Gettysburg killed off a lot of the CSA's best soldiers. Sometimes I wonder if he wasnt secretly still working for the USA.

Moore's Creek

"The Loyalist Monument was placed here in 1909. This granite monument not only honors the Loyalists who fought here, but it also represents choice. Choice is one of our most cherished freedoms. The Loyalists were colonists that chose to remain loyal to Great Britain. Without their choice of loyalty, we would have never had the battle of Moores Creek Bridge, and the first Patriot victory of the American Revolution."

It's hard to get worked up over Loyalists because they were abused more than they abused. Also, I think there is a difference between multiple uniformed, personified statues at the national military school vs. a faceless memorial in a park no one ever goes to.

The academy should be teaching how to keep heaven filled with fresh souls, not Critical Race Theory.

I've been to the Moore's Creek battlefield. I feel the effort was worthwhile.

At one point a number of southern states attempted to break up the United States, the country we all claim to love and support, and rebel against the federal government. A number of officers in the United States army decided, for a variety of reasons, they were okay with breaking up the United States, the country we all claim to love and support, and rebel against the federal government. They then fought against the United States Army, the army they once served in. Are we really saying that these men now should be honored at West Point? I think this is just correcting a long overdue mistake.

"'the quality of being alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism'"

Except the injustice, discrimination, and racism only exit in the minds of those craving victimhood.

I dunno. It seems the people who actually fought the war, and had the greatest reason to hate each other found a way to reconcile and get over it. If they hadn't, the US would have looked more like Kosovo than the US.

It's tragic that nearly 1.5 centuries later the descendants of those people are more worked up about it than those people were coming out of our nation's bloodiest war. It's as if we all collectively decided that reconciliation was a mistake and that hating each other really was the better option.

Way to go everybody.

I don't know what world you want to live in, but I'd rather live in one where we decide to come together and make common cause than live in one where we just throw up our hands and decide each other is the enemy.

"Lee took an oath. I think maybe honor is best served, and taught, by not including him so reverentially. He turned his back on West Point, many of his brother officers and the soldiers he once commanded, and his country."

I disagree. He in no way turned his back on his country. His country was Virginia. The union was a federal form of government where independent nations gave up some of their sovereignty to make a collective that was stronger than it's parts. The march of the United States being a single country really started with the Civil War.

When Stalin was trying to negotiate multiple representatives in the UN for the Soviet Union, (he wanted one rep. for each SSR, he got three; Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia I believe), FDR countered that the USA should have 48, one for each state.

"As a graduate of West Point, albeit almost 50 years ago, the instruction at the Academy still centers around the motto 'duty, honor, country' as well as being a professional soldier."

Does it? Just a couple of years ago a student at West Point graduated while wearing a Che Guevera t-shirt under his uniform. He felt so comfortable doing so that he unbuttoned his uniform after the ceremony so everyone could see it. Duty, honor, and country meant nothing to him after spending four years at West Point. I think the academy has much deeper problems than those statues and markers.

Good lord man, you don't suppose the Communists are behind this?

Nope, it was the Spanish Inquisition ! No one expects the Spanish Inquisition !

Tgerritson, yes.

That is the point. There is Nothing wrong with the Moore's Creek monument, or the monuments to British Soldiers, or the monuments to great American Indians. It's the past, it's history and we have put it behind us. If you can't put it behind you, you are doomed to keep a festering sore open and repeat some form of the violence again.

If you read on the web, you know the Confederate monuments were only the beginning of this historic cleansing. Next are the monuments of those who oppressed the American Indians, Custer, Grant, Lincoln, Sheridan….. obviously we could go back to before the countries founding for these. There have been calls for removal of founding fathers statues who owned slaves. Add Columbus or any Spanish conquistador. It does not and will not stop. There will always be someone who feels oppressed, offended or indignant about someone or something. Where do you draw the line? when do you draw the line? Who draws the line and says what is worthy of offense and removal and what's not?

What I listed above has been talked about, removed and or vandalized already. Don't believe me, dig deeply on the web. Some of it is already in other TMP threads.

If you are ok with it, that is your choice.

There are those of us who are not, as you can see in this thread. It is not a love for the Confederacy, it's a love of the history and heritage of our country, both its good and bad aspects.

You learn from your past, you don't whitewash it. You see that statue, you read about the person. You determine if they were bad or good. If they were justified or unjustified in what they did. If what they fought for was right or wrong, or if they were just men caught up in the circumstances of their time. You decide they were bad, write a book exposing it, write articles, teach your views on it. But YOU make that judgment. Don't let others do that for you.

I realize this is not perfect, but it's better than destruction and cover up.

Some on this thread, beginning with the OP, seem to be "more Catholic than the pope" and "more royalist than the king." If those who actually FOUGHT the Confederacy, including Grant, were able to see the wisdom in Lincoln's magnanimity, and avoid treason trials and similar vindictive NONSENSE, it seems we today can do as well. But self-righteousness and myopic moral indignation prevail.

The academy should be teaching how to keep heaven filled with fresh souls, not Critical Race Theory.

Does West Point teach 'critical race theory'? If so, perhaps you could give a source for that idea?

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Lincoln's idea of Reconstruction was a far cry from what actually happened after his assassination. The radical Republicans got hold of the situation which made it prejudicial to the South and national reconciliation. The worst thing that happened to the South was Lincoln's murder by a southern sympathizer.

That being said, the officers who went south in 1861 betrayed their oaths and their country and contributed to the deaths of over 630,000 Americans. Lee had a distinguished military career in the US Army until he decided to fight against the United States. That should not be honored.

The American Indian fought for his way of life against an encroaching people. They should be honored for defending themselves while their way of life was destroyed. The Confederates on the other hand were attempting to destroy the United States and that was dishonorable.

@Brechtel198

"The American Indian fought for his way of life against an encroaching people."

Buy Brech, there were many who fought for the South, who believed they were doing exactly the same thing.

That is a point that seems to be ignored

Also by that logic, would not those attempting to conquer the Indian, be equally guilty of destroying the Indian way of life and equally, dishonorable? Not just those who fought them, but those who decided the policies, those who settled on their land and those who voted those politicians in? So, from that perspective, are we all also dishonorable?

Back to the OP, this is the same mindset that blew up Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. How did we breed a generation so little interested in preserving history?

It doesn't seem rational that the commemorations at West Point were put up in the first place. And it wasn't, it was emotional. And now when they are taken down it's going to be emotional as well. I feel for the anti-woke folks, these kinds of things hurt, and they are experiencing unnecessary pain for others' mistakes.

OR, maybe there were REASONS? Reconciling the two inimical sections, maybe, by honoring their heroes? That MATTERED, e.g. in the Spanish-American War.

Lincoln's death was indeed a tragedy for the south. WHY?

And I'm very curious to see how Kevin will respond to 35th's excellent point about fighting against an encroaching people.

Is doc mcb guessing at the "reasons" or is there evidence available for the "reasons"? And making a statement about the Spanish-American War in relation to removing Confederate commemorations, an explanation could be helpful with that as well. Don't exclaim and expect the world to understand what you're talking about, we're all just human. Take your own emotion out of it, and bring some rational to your statements, if possible.

As for the Confederacy being encroached upon, OVI is just throwing up more crud, while ignoring some of the realities. I'm sure some felt encroached upon, except no one was taking over the southern lands and throwing them out. He knows this, but it falls with in his narrative to have words to back up his Confederate sympathies, and so he does.

GP, the need for reconciliation, and its achievement, was dramatized by the participation of southerners in the Span-Am war, most notably four former Confederate generals (Joe Wheeler, Matthew Butler, Tom Rosser, and Fitz Lee) as US Army generals. Many other former Confederate officers served. Evidently the US authorities, including the Army, did not see honorable service in the Confederate cause as a bar to renewed service to the US. This was considered, and WAS, a GOOD THING.

After the war, Fitzhugh Lee devoted himself to farming in Stafford County, Virginia, and was conspicuous in his efforts to reconcile the Southern people to the issue of the war, which he regarded as a final settlement of the questions at issue. In 1875, he attended the Battle of Bunker Hill centennial at Boston and delivered a remarkable address. In 1885, he was a member of the board of visitors of West Point, and from 1886 to 1890 was governor of Virginia having defeated in 1885 Republican John Sergeant Wise with 52.77% of the vote.[5]

Fitzhugh Lee commanded the third division at both of President Grover Cleveland's inaugural parades in 1885 and 1893.[9] In April 1896, Lee was appointed consul-general at Havana by President Cleveland, with duties of a diplomatic and military character added to the usual consular business. In this post (in which he was retained by President William McKinley until 1898) he was from the first called upon to deal with a situation of great difficulty, which culminated with the destruction of the warship USS Maine. Upon the declaration of war between Spain and the United States, he re-entered the army.

He was one of four ex-Confederate general officers who were made major generals of United States Volunteers (the others being Matthew Butler, Joseph Wheeler and Thomas L. Rosser).

GP, always with the immediate insults. 😔 Everyone else who disagrees with you is wrong, stupid and "crud". Their sources are wrong. Yours are correct and enlightened. They "must" explain and "justify" themselves to you. They must supply "acceptable" sources. Then the quick "Confederate sympathies" accusations, similar to a "you're a racist" thrown out so easily today at those who disagree with your views. . As I have said before, you have set yourself up as the great "arbitrator of truth".

What I and others have tried to explain, is that there were two sides to this war, not just one. Those in the South were driven by complex emotions. It is too easy to say it was nothing but wanting to only preserve slavery. The same can be said for those in the North.

Just as there are two sides to the removal and destruction of these and other monuments.

Because some of us try to understand this, does not make us racist, bigoted or southern sympathizers. Try to read some non-revisionist histories of this war and get away from the current revisionist educational system.

Your attitudes and some others who express the same, are exactly why compromise was impossible in 1860 and war became inevitable. There is no understanding and no room for compromise in your views, just like those on both sides in 1860 who thought in the same way, both abolitionist in fire eaters.

GP, I must agree with 35th; you simply do not know enough of the history of this period to pass any sort of judgement.

Take AP Hill for example, (whose monument was just removed and his body dug up underneath it, very recently).

"If George Thomas was the best Union general you've probably never heard of, A. P. Hill was the best Confederate general you've probably never heard of. Gallant "Little Powell" was very different from his fellow Virginian in build, temperament, and politics. Though they both opposed slavery (AP Hill never owned any slaves), AP Hill always knew that his first loyalty was to his native state, and was contemptuous of any bully­ing Yankees who thought they could justify killing Southerners to enforce Northern views."

Not a slave owner, opposed slavery, not fighting to hang on any slaves, but opposed to what he saw as unjustified aggression by the north to force their views on the south.

There are many and complex reasons.

The items being mentioned as being removed … a portrait of Robert E. Lee in Confederate uniform at the library, a stone bust of Lee at Reconciliation Plaza, a bronze triptych at the main entrance of Bartlett Hall. It was also reported that Reconciliation Plaza will in essence get a remake to be more in line with it's purpose. I didn't see any reference to something being taken away regarding Confederates who served in the Spanish-American War, nor do I see the Confederates who served in the Spanish American War being relevant to the items that are being taken away, yet maybe I missed something. Perhaps I did if it's from the link to the NYT article, because they won't let me read it, unless I get a subscription.

Oh my, OVI all over the map again, who'd thunk it. Projecting your own behavior patterns on to me is typical. There were most definitely two sides then, as there are now, and that's part of the American political landscape. What you've tried to explain in this instance is that somehow the situation with the Native Americans is comparative to the South seceding from the Union. There are evidently two sides to that as well, because you're representing one, and there is another representation of the other as well. The latter has pointed out that the Confederates weren't being removed from their lands as the Native Americans were, and in actuality, the Confederates were being lead to secede from the Union to carry on the same form of government as before, except to then strengthen their hold on slavery because they felt their cultural and ideological ways were at risk under Lincoln. Ironically the Southern leaders very actions ended up getting exactly what they fought so hard to retain, the end of slavery in the south. OVI speaks of compromise, yet compromise for what? The continued existence of slavery, and the domination of blacks culturally and politically in the south. Where OVI finds revisionism in having such facts presented seems like an accusation that holds no water.

And as for doc mcb saying I don't know enough to pass judgement, he has yet to provide evidence for "reasons" that such items mentioned in the articles regarding the removal of the commemorations were originally installed? Placing judgement on what my knowledge level is or isn't, it does nothing to help your cause (except in perhaps your own narrative), nor give weight to your lack of evidence, nor do you really know what my level of knowledge is. So get back on to the topic at hand, and if your going to continue to exclaim crud, then don't be surprised when your hand gets called for the lack of weight that it has presented for your side, that sticks up for the Confederacy and their "lost cause".

Dn, I disagree back! But I understand and get the point, which is often made and is reflected in Lee's own writings.

My response is that, loyalty to VA notwithstanding, Lee's oath was to the United States, of which West Point was a proud symbol, and where he had excelled. There may have been a less developed sense of the US as one nation, but it was far from a minor consideration, as Lee showed while agonizing over his decision. That he made the wrong choice on several levels is my conclusion. Again, I find him a fascinating and tragic historical figure who missed his chance to become an all-American hero, perhaps end the war early, perhaps help implement emancipation, become President – who knows?

In any case, his place at West Point is in the museum there, IMO.