Why certain municipalities have statues dedicated to traitors who raised arms against the Republic and killed American soldiers is beyond me.
I think we could all use a little more historical knowledge before making comments like this.
Please. I have been a student of the Civil War since my father sat me down in grade school and made me watch the entire Ken Burns series.
I understand that many of these men, especially REL, had very complex feelings on the subject. I also know that the conflict evolved over time.
But, at the end of the day, most of the Confederate generals, many of them West Point grads, made the conscious decision to fight for the Confederacy. One of the reasons the Union army was so bad for the first several years of the war was that the bulk of quality military leaders were from the Southern states.
These men they erected monuments to generally made a conscious choice to choose state over country. If Lee hadn't been such a skilled general, and had the Army of Northern Virginia not been so damn dominant, hundreds of thousands of people may not have died.
So, again, I'm not wrong. Lee even sent a letter of resignation to Lincoln before taking command of the Confederate Army. He was a traitor.