ABSTRACT
In August 2017, three individuals were killed in the course of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The proximate cue for the outbreak of violence in Charlottesville was the contested, or changing, interpretation of American history, focused on a statue of Robert E. Lee. The Charlottesville statue was one of many across the South, in particular, that saw opposing campaigns to remove them or to preserve them. The challenge around Lee was particularly acute. Despite his being leader of the Army of Virginia (albeit reluctantly), at the head of Confederate armed forces in the final stages of the Civil War, he was also the greatest symbol of reconciliation. He was held in the highest esteem, with President Theodore Roosevelt remarking that ‘out of what seemed failure he helped to build the wonderful and mighty triumph of our national life, in which all his countrymen, north and south, share.’1 The other President Roosevelt, Franklyn Delano, also heaped praise on Lee,2 as did President Dwight D. Eisenhower — who had also been the general who led the D-Day Landings in the Second World War.3 No US figure has been more commemorated, or, perhaps, more important in his commemoration. With two official US Mint coins and five postage stamps carrying his image, alone or with his horse, Traveller, or accompanied by another historic figure, perhaps only Presidents Abraham Lincoln and George Washington have been more honoured in this fashion. These were all in the twentieth century and, in some way, part of a symbolic reconciliation that gave space to the South and the Confederacy, commemorating it as part of a national story, albeit a painful part, but one that had resulted in a union restored, which was to be celebrated.
