NYC church removes 2 plaques honoring Robert E. Lee

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Updated 10:34 am, Wednesday, August 16, 2017

NEW YORK (AP) — Leaders of a New York Episcopal diocese have removed two plaques honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a church property in Brooklyn.

A spokeswoman for the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island says the plaques outside St. John's Episcopal Church were removed Wednesday.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy markers commemorated the spot where Lee is said to have planted a tree while serving in the Army at Fort Hamilton in New York in the 1840s. Two decades later, he became commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

The removal comes in the wake of last weekend's deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacists protested plans to remove a Lee statue from a public park.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/NYC-church-to-remove-2-plaques-honoring-Robert-E-11822599.php

[Doug the Dem]

1. What were they doing there in 2017?

Even before Charlottesville?

[Aristus]

2. Why were they there at any time after 1861?

When Lee became a traitor to the country?

Do we still have plaques up honoring Benedict Arnold? (There's a monument to Benedict Arnold's leg; just his leg, which was wounded in the Battle of Monmouth. That's different.)

[Dreamer Tatum]

3. That church should be burned to the ground. nt

[Dreamer Tatum]

9. I was making a point about the lynch mob that seems to be gathering. nt

[hrmjustin]

11. Oh forgive me. I will self deleted.

[Dreamer Tatum]

13. My points are often overly subtle - no worries nt

[MosheFeingold]

5. I actually know because I'm old

Not so much about these plaques, but several similiar. I was a recent immigrant not terribly long after these plaques got placed --- I knew very little about the American Civil War.

What people don't remember was WWI was, ironically, a moment of great healing for the United States. It was among the first times that the USA acted as a united front -- Civil War having ended only ~50 years before. These plaques (and monuments) came in vogue about then, as a form of healing and becoming a united people again. People would do Union/Confederate balls in NYC as part of high society.

I've related this before, but when I was about 15, two US Civil War veterans came to my high school in Crown Heights to talk about the war (this was in mid/late 1930s). One was Union, the other Confederate. They talked about the war a good bit, and traveled around the country, and talked about how important it was for us to be one people, due to growing threats from afar (which I already knew about intimately). They had jointly laid a wreath on Grant's tomb and dedicated many monuments together.

It made a tremendous impression on me that such fearsome foes could become one people again and made me very proud of my new country and gave me hope that there would be a place for me, a Jew, here, to be accepted as a full American.

Anyway, that's where these kinds of things came from, and why.

[IrishEyes]

16. Thank you for the story.

It is always interesting to get information about history from someone who lived during it. I looked it up and the last civil war soldiers died in the early 1950s. It is strange to think that there were civil war soldiers still living when my mother and father were born.

[hrmjustin]

10. The plaque was put up in 1912 because Lee was a vestryman there.

He was stationed at ft Hamilton in the 1840's.

[OnDoutside]

4. Probably lost to indifference over time.

[hrmjustin]

6. I attended the church and Lee was a vestryman for five years there.

His name was on a plaque with several other generals.

[ExciteBike66]

8. This is so weird

"The United Daughters of the Confederacy markers commemorated the spot where Lee is said to have planted a tree while serving in the Army at Fort Hamilton in New York in the 1840s."

What, do they think Lee is some kind of saint? Do we really need a plaque commemorating where Lee took a crap that one time he was in NY?

[hrmjustin]

12. Many of us who attended the church wanted it gone but some people

felt it was a historical church.

I wanted it gone.

[ExciteBike66]

15. That's cool

I didn't mean to imply the church members thought he was a saint. I was really interested in the Confederate group that put the plaque there. I mean, it's not like planting a tree is that big a deal...

[Retrograde]

14. I'm ambivalent

On the one hand, it commemorates something -albeit minor - that Lee did well before he took up arms against the US, and while he had some connection with the place. On the other hand, it was put up by the UDC well after the fact and most likely as part of the push to mythologize the Confederacy.

The question comes down to, can we acknowledge people like Lee who had notable careers before 1860 (in Lee's case, service in the Army engineers literally draining swamps, heading up West Point, his Mexican War battles) while refusing to commemorate their treason?