WEBVTT - CLASSIC: Did Robert E. Lee hate Confederate Memorials? 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:05.080 Welcome to this week's classic episode. Fellow Ridiculous Historians. We 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:10.240 are as we record in the great metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia, 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:14.920 and Atlanta, Georgia, like a lot of the Southern United States, 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:16.239 has a bit of. 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:18.159 A history to it. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:23.319 Yeah, yeah, not the best history. From eighteen sixty one 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.640 to eighteen sixty five, the USA was participating in a 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.520 little something called the War between the States. More than 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:35.159 a century later, it remains America's bloodiest war, and it 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:39.960 happens right here, oh man, among other places. But you know, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.400 it was a pretty pretty central location to the Civil War. 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:51.040 And after the conflict concluded and the Union one the 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:56.880 Confederate Army surrendered, General Robert E. Lee survived, and he 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:02.160 found himself constantly a pro getting all these cold calls 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:07.800 to endorse different memorials or statues or buildings and so on. 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.840 And here's the thing, he hated it. Yeah, let's find 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:13.319 out why. 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:44.360 Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio, Casey. Can we 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.400 get a little bit of a kind of a Gettysburg 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:52.160 vibe music, you know, like with the drums flute, there 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:52.560 we go. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.360 I feel that cadence sounds like a nineties song. Like 0:01:57.680 --> 0:01:59.320 Jumper by Third Eye Blind. 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.840 Or something in that from the centuries earlier. Yeah, yeah, totally. 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.000 It's it's those marching drums that really give them feels up. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.960 And speaking of feels, thanks for tuning in. We hope 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.280 that you are feeling great. Uh, this is ridiculous history. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:16.560 My name is Ben, my name is Nolan, and the 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.840 man on the ones and twos as always give it 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:25.480 up for our super producer, Casey Pegram. Today's episode does 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:30.000 concern some heavy history that we we have to bring 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.080 into the story, but we we don't have to get 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.640 to too in the weeds about it. You've heard the 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.359 story a thousand thousand times, whether or not you live 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:44.080 in the US. It's a story of brother against brother, 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:50.320 North and South, a nation divided, the US Civil War? Noel, 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.600 how would you describe the US Civil War to someone 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:54.000 who had never heard of it? 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.400 It was real, main spirited man. Brothers were fighting brothers. 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.399 Everyone was at each other throats. Is the North from 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.520 the South? And why can't we all just get along? 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.400 And wasn't any fun? Man? Wasn't any fun? 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.640 From April twelfth, eighteen sixty one to April ninth, eighteen 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:15.880 sixty five, this nation was embroiled in what would later 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.120 become the most heavily documented research war in US history. Yeah, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.800 that too, So I think all of those facts together 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.679 are are a pretty good high level look at at 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:33.320 this conflict. But the ramifications of the US Civil War 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:38.400 carry on in the United States today, not just in 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:42.760 the southern part of the continent, but in the policies 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:47.240 and the legislation created on a state and federal level. 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:54.760 The war created several larger than life historical figures, people 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:59.640 who were and are enormously influential here in twenty nineteen. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.840 Abraham Lincoln, for instance, right, the guy who brought everybody 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.760 back together hell or high water. And today's episode is 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:12.160 about another one of those giants, a man named Robert E. 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.520 Lee or we can only imagine Bobby Lee to his friends. 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.719 Yeah, or maybe some people called him Eddie because his 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:20.159 middle name, the E is for Edward. 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:21.680 Yeah, I foind out. 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:23.279 I know that was eating a lot of you up inside, 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:24.680 not knowing what that E stood for? 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:25.800 Was it ihorn? 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:26.600 Exactly? 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.280 So what do we know about Robert E. Lee? 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.919 Well, like, okay, so he was born January nineteenth of 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.400 eighteen oh seven, passed away October twelfth of eighteen seventy, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.760 and he was a decorated general. He was born in 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:47.440 a plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and he came from 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.279 a military family. His father's name was Major General Henry 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.000 Lee the third had a pretty dope nickname as it 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:57.920 with lighthorse Harry, and he was also the governor of Virginia. 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.440 And he was had Robert E. With his second wife, 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:07.760 Ann Hill Carter, and he was raised in this very 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:14.480 regimented military family, and he carried on that legacy with 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:19.039 a career in military engineering. His father actually had some 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.200 difficulties that he ended up in debtors prison due to 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.640 some financial troubles he had while doing business in the 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.000 West Indies. But Robert was left undeterred and he got 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:34.960 himself a pretty choice spot at the prestigious military academy 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:39.440 at West Points, where he graduated second in his class 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.240 in eighteen twenty nine. But it would be some time 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:47.719 before Lee actually ever saw battle. It wasn't until eighteen 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.839 forty six in the War with Mexico that he was 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.400 able to really get his feet, wet, his hands bloody, 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:59.479 whatever the euphemism you'd like to use under General Winfield, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.640 Scott Brigade or whatever you want, regiments, I don't know. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:10.360 He became a pretty well respected soldier for bravery, and 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.440 he came out of that situation with the rank of 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:18.320 colonel and then was appointed as a superintendent at West Point, 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.760 where he served from eighteen fifty two to eighteen fifty five. 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.720 But let's remember where this story starts. He was at 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:30.720 heart a Southern gentleman raised on a Southern plantation, and 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.880 was also a slave owner, and reports are that he 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.880 was quite cruel to his slaves. In fact, in a 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:42.440 biography brief biography on Battlefield dot org, the writer points 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:46.159 out that during his tenure as the superintendent, which is 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.359 like the head honcho of West Point, he would be 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.880 overseeing cadets who would serve on both sides of the 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.560 Civil War, both under him and in opposition to his forces, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.599 because as we know, he went on to become the 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:05.440 general of the Confederate Forces, which were the forces that 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:06.880 supported slavery. 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:07.640 Right. 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:13.080 So, one thing that people forgot pretty quickly after the 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:16.200 close of the Civil War and Robert E. Lee's death 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.600 is that he was by no means a perfect man. 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.960 There are a lot of myths about lee that are 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:27.280 still circulating today, one of those being that he was 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.840 opposed to slavery. After the Civil War, he did attempt 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.560 to present himself as always having been opposed to slavery. 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:37.280 In an interview. 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.440 Shortly after his surrender at Appomattox, he said that the 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.520 best men of the South have been eager to do 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.320 away with the abominable practice. In eighteen sixty six, he 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.680 testified before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction that he had 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:55.240 always been in favor of emancipation, gradual emancipation. However, he 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:59.120 owned or managed slaves for over thirty years in eighteen 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:04.560 sixty one, in April, he oversaw roughly two hundred individuals. 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.760 Not to mention that there were reports. You know, maybe 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.080 we haven't a hundred percent confirmation, but he wasn't a 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.960 particularly kind slave owner, that he may have been much 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.520 more on the cruel and brutal side. 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.120 We give this just to lay out those facts. These 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:25.360 are very very important things. However, his personal or non 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:31.280 military life aside, he was known as one of the 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:37.240 finest officers in the US Army. In eighteen fifty nine, 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:42.240 he was called upon to suppress the raid at Harper's Ferry, 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.880 led by the abolitionist John Brown, and was so successful 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.040 that in eighteen sixty one, Abraham Lincoln offered him command 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.319 of the full Federal forces. Not only did he decline, 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.880 he resigned from the army when the state of Virginia 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:02.280 seceded from the Union on April seventeenth of the same year, 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:07.200 his reasoning being I cannot make war against my own people. 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.280 And he didn't just resign, he didn't go, you know, 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:15.040 hang out on a farm somewhere. Instead, he joined up 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.440 with the newly formed Confederate Army as a general. So 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:25.319 his first military engagement is at a place called Cheat Mountain, Virginia. 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:27.800 Well now it's West Virginia, but back then it was 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.680 just Cheap Mountain, Virginia on September eleventh, eighteen sixty one. 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:36.280 It was a victory for the Union, but he still 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.480 weathered the storm and was also a military advisor to 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:46.079 President Jefferson Davis until eighteen sixty two. And there are 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:54.240 so many fantastic stories, books, biographies, podcasts, research papers, and 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:59.400 so on written about the Civil War that we would 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.520 helpfully re for you to any one of those. Let's 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.520 fast forward to the end of the Civil War, because 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:13.040 this is when our story really begins to take shape. 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.800 So we said that the Civil War ended in eighteen 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:18.439 sixty five, right. 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:25.320 Yeah, it's true because upon defeat, Robert E. Lee had 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.559 to or didn't have to, but he seemed to acquiesce 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.319 to swearing allegiance to the Union and to admitting defeat, 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.040 and to not being particularly sore sport about the whole 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.400 affair because he was, you know, in fact, a professional 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.440 military man, and he understood the rules of engagement and 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.600 he wasn't gonna pitch a fit about it, and he 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:44.880 kind of went quietly. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:45.439 Yeah. 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:50.199 On April ninth, eighteen sixty five, Lee surrendered the Confederate 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:54.000 Army to Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse. This 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:58.280 ended the Civil War, I mean effectively, he went home 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.640 on parole, and his life when on for about five 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.880 years after the Civil Wars end, and he eventually became 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:11.280 president of Washington College right before his death on October twelfth, 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:15.640 in eighteen seventy. There's an interesting timeline here, right, So 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.960 he only lives about five years after the close of 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:24.960 the Civil War. And similar to the way that myths 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.280 sprang up about George Washington, you know, even while he 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.880 was alive and certainly immediately after his death. We see 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.000 the same thing in certain parts of American culture with 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:36.760 Robert E. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:37.200 Lee. 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:43.640 He was romanticized, he was memorialized. You could say people 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.760 in the South wanted to build statues to him. They 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.800 wanted to waive the stars and bars and talk about, 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:55.480 I don't know, the South rising again, right, Yeah, I 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:55.920 mean that's. 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:56.120 What they said. 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.600 It absolutely, but it ends up feeding into some pretty 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.160 toxic romanticizations of these ideas. 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.199 Oh yeah, let's have no illusions about that. 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.600 It's bad stuff. And we will get into how that 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.040 plays into more contemporary history in just a little bit. 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.640 In an article on PBS dot org by Lisa and 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:18.880 I'm going to go ahead and really french this one 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.199 up Lisa Desjardins, which I may be overpronouncing it, but 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:26.200 I'd rather overpronounced than underpronounced. She mentions how Lee was 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:30.040 pretty clear about the way he felt about that kind 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:34.599 of romanticization well before his death, and that he stressed 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.120 this idea that it was very important for a country 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.959 that had been torn by war to move past it, 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.679 and that includes not memorializing it with any kind of 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.280 symbolism or militant monument remembrances things like that that would 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:55.120 continue to cause to sort of sow the seeds of separatism. 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.679 And there's a really great quote from him that you 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.960 think you can kind of take as faith face value. 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:02.719 Then we can kind of dissect it a little bit too, Ben, 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:03.720 Do you want to read that one? 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:04.160 Sure? 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.880 This quote comes from a piece of correspondence about a 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.120 proposed memorial at Gettysburg written in eighteen sixty nine. I 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:16.200 think it was not to keep open the souls of war, 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.720 but to follow the examples of those nations who were 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:24.160 endabled to obliterate the marks of civil straff, to commit 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.960 to oblivion little feelings in gender. 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.240 Very well spoken, sir. That's not me, that's Robert E. 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:30.680 Lee. 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:32.480 I found don't know where we got the audio. 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.680 I felt as though he floated right into the room. Yeah, 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.920 it's true. And that has led many to believe that 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.520 what he meant was any of these Confederate monuments were 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.760 counter to his idea of how it would be best 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.880 to deal with the fallout from a war like that, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.640 that by having these romanticizations or any kind of these 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:57.560 big reminders steering you in the face, whatever side you 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.680 were on. It's not a good thing, and it would 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.400 continue to sow those seeds of division and hostility between 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:05.040 the winning and the losing sizes. 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:08.920 Yeah, there's a great biography of Lee by a fellow 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.560 named Jonathan Horne, The Man Who Would Not Be Washington 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:17.199 fantastic title, and he points out that Lee himself, Roberty 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.720 Lee himself after the Civil War, in those five years 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:26.080 before his death, he opposed monuments, but specifically opposed Confederate 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.200 War monuments, and in his correspondence we have multiple documented 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:35.400 reasons for his opinion. So in one case he questions 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.480 the cost of a monument to Stonewall Jackson, and he 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.240 finds some other ways to approach this issue. But his 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:52.320 underlying prime objection to this is that we empower a 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.680 cause or an idea when we remember it. That's why 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.800 so many civilizations work so ardently in the past and 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.520 the modern day to erase things from your history books. 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.920 In his mind, the war had ended, the nation was 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.720 one again, and it needed to look forward to the 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:20.680 future rather than celebrating this social upheaval and then potentially 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.040 leading to further discord down the road. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:24.840 Yeah, he see. 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:26.880 He puts it pretty eloquently in this discord that we 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:27.800 also have tape up. 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.480 As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated, 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.000 my conviction is that, however grateful it would be to 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.440 the feelings of the South, the attempt, in the present 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.120 condition of the country, would have the effect of retarding 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:49.960 instead of accelerating its accomplishment, of continuing, if not adding 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:54.480 to the difficulties under which the Southern people label. We 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.080 do want to point out there that he is using 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.400 a word that could be seen as offensive. He's in 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.480 the correct way, you know what I mean. He's meaning 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:04.360 to sty me the progress of the country. 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:10.760 Yeah, indeed, And there's this actually was so divisive it 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:15.320 made the news really recently because of the senseless and 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:20.120 bizarre and unfortunate attack for lack of a better term, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:25.720 that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia in twenty seventeen, where in fact, 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.400 an alt right or a white supremacist group descended on 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.360 the small college town because of a proposal to pull 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.760 down a statue of General Robert E. 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:37.000 Lee. 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.720 And there was violence. A young woman was hit and 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.520 killed by a car, and it at the time it 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:50.000 was just utter chaos. It became a very divisive political issue. 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.320 Even before this event, it became a very divisive political issue, 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.440 the idea of should we erase these marks of the 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.640 past because of what they represent, which you know, you 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:07.760 could argue is racism, is division, is pro slavery attitudes. 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.360 Some Southerners, old school Southerners, say it's their heritage or represents, 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.600 you know, just the history of the South, and that 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:20.119 taking it down is disrespectful to them. So say what 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.520 you will. Our president had this to say about it, 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:24.720 sad to see the history and culture of our great 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.880 country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:29.680 statues and monuments. 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.600 You know, no, I noticed you didn't do a Trump 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.600 voice for that, And I think that's I think that's 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:37.239 a good call, because I gotta tell you, I've been 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:39.560 looking around and I just cannot, for the life of me, 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.919 find a good impression of that guy, you know what 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.320 I mean, Like Alec Baldwin in one is not that great. 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:46.359 Well, that's sort of what makes his funny, right, is 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.760 that it's like it's, yeah, it's so out of left 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:52.840 field that it just kind of is like cartoonish, as 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:53.639 you would say, right. 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.840 Yeah, even Stephen Colbert Love the guys just I don't know, 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.280 maybe it's a tough voice. They're the pros. Let know, 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.679 if you've seen a decent impression. And I'm not saying 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.040 anything further than that, it's just usually when someone's president, 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.640 there's like one person, often from Saturday Night Live, who 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.880 does the best impression of that president. And it looks 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.000 like we're still looking for one. No offense to any 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.320 Alec Baldwin fans in the house, but your point, your 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.119 point stands, Nolan. It goes back to what I was 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:29.800 saying at the top. We see these ramifications carry on 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.480 to the modern day. Faulkner was right when he said 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.679 the past is not over. It's not even passed. And 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:40.879 I'm paraphrasing there, but this is an important point I 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:45.840 believe now. Currently, as it stands, there's somewhere around seven 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:50.280 hundred and fifty monuments all told, across the US that 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:55.760 are their memorials for the Civil War, and that's according 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.879 to the Southern Poverty Law Center. People who want the 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.560 removed say that the continued presence of the monuments confers 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.840 undue dignity on a faction that fought to preserve slavery 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:12.800 and white supremacy, So they agree with Roberty Lee, but 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.200 perhaps for different reasons. 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.320 Yeah, and not to mention that. In August of twenty seventeen, 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:23.199 PBS News Hour and NPR an Emerist poll found that 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.040 sixty two percent of people responding to the pole thought 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.520 that monuments such as this should stay in place as 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:29.720 historical symbols. 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:30.600 So it is a. 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.760 Tricky argument because on the one hand, it's a form 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.960 of revisionist history. On the other hand, you know, real 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.080 estate is scarce, maybe we should devote it to more 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.199 positive things, you know what I mean, like as opposed 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.720 to something that represents things that are painful to others 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:50.080 who have family members that possibly even lived through it 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:51.840 or were connected to it more directly. 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.240 And one thing that a lot of people miss when 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.840 they hear the headline Roberty Lee opposed Confederate memorials is 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:02.840 that he also opposed Civil War memorials in general. He 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:08.240 turned down the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association back in eighteen 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:13.840 sixty nine. He really wanted the battlefields to be erased, 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.440 to turn into farms, to turn into towns and other 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:23.200 peaceful areas of the nation, rather than memorializing them. He 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:27.840 saw it as a way to speed reconciliation. So it's 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.359 not as if he was wholly repentant, you know what 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.240 I mean, Nor was he penitent. He said all of 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.640 the memorials would be better if they were left unbuilt. 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.920 That's right, yep, for sure. And this is one of 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.560 those quotes, the original one that we said about, you know, 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:49.920 the sores of division or whatever, that you can very 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.600 easily take out of context and use to support arguments 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:53.320 on either side. 0:20:53.400 --> 0:21:01.600 Right, And this is where our hal draws to a close. 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.600 But we didn't want to end on too somber a 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:11.159 note because there is a very specific type of unorthodox 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:17.760 Confederate memorial that will never be removed from the US 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.520 because it doesn't exist in the US. We were talking 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.280 about the Confederados, the ten thousand to twenty thousand Confederate 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.720 American refugees who fled to Brazil, mainly in South Paulo, 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:38.160 and then lived reproduced, had descendants. They founded the City 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.399 Americana Brazil. We did this on previous episodes, totally. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.159 Yeah, it was that obsession with the Confederate South in 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:48.879 the very same way that they romanticize it in an 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.920 almost weird kind of like alternate reality. Man in the 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.639 High Castle, fictionalized kind of way, as though if they 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:56.800 had won the war, what it would be like. That's 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:57.359 a weird one. 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.840 And you can see the residents of Americana Sal Paulo 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.400 talking about how they how much they enjoy the festival 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.720 they hold every year, and how it's for them not 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:16.360 about commemorating a regime, right, it's not about commemorating racism 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:19.240 or slavery year, all the things tied to the Civil War. 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.920 It's just for them part of their culture. Very interesting town. 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.280 So if you've ever been there, check it out and 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:29.719 let us know what you find. 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.280 And you know in fact, snopes dot com, the famous 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:38.000 fact checking site, decided to weigh in on this as well, 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:41.600 with the question was Robert E. Lee opposed to Confederate monuments? 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:45.879 And they classify it as a mixture of true and false, 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:50.320 with the truth being supporting the validity of those quotes 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:55.800 that he expressed opposition to Civil War monuments memorials, including 0:22:56.359 --> 0:23:00.760 the Stonewall Jackson one specifically. But what isn't clear is 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:08.000 the breadth of this position. His opposition to Confederate monuments 0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:12.760 was probably more pronounced than his opposition towards Civil War 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:14.600 monuments in general. 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:17.640 But it was still against against them overall. 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:19.400 That's right, that's right, but it is one of those 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:26.080 mixed mixed snoops responses. And then the continuation of the 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:32.320 President Trump's quote from earlier. The tweet was this, he says, 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:35.520 you can't change history, but you can learn from it. 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:40.320 Robert E. Lee Sonwell Jackson, who's next? Washington? Jefferson? So foolish. Also, 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:42.200 the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:45.240 towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:49.200 to be completely replaced. So we can see where where 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:52.000 our boy Donnie Trump falls in that debate. 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:56.480 I'd also like to hear from you, fellow ridiculous historians. 0:23:56.480 --> 0:23:59.960 Where where do you fall in this debate? And speak 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:02.720 of hearing from you, what do you guys say we 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:04.080 do a little listener mail. 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:09.040 I think that's a smashing idea. 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:09.720 Did you see that? 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:12.280 One listener wrote in and said that the listener mail 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:14.439 sound effect fills them with abject terror? 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:15.159 I saw that? 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:17.120 Yeah, yes, yeah, interesting? 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:18.080 Was that on Facebook? 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:18.880 It was on Facebook? 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:20.840 I think you can you can see what we're talking 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:23.760 about if you're joined forces with us on Facebook at 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:27.359 ridiculous historians. Just getting that plug out of the way 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:28.480 right now. 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:31.560 So what do we got? You got you got any 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:32.000 hot takes? 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:32.119 No? 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:32.560 I do. 0:24:32.640 --> 0:24:36.080 I got one from Hannah says Hello. I was recently 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:38.640 listening to you or when West Virginia begged for foreign 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:41.560 aid from the USSR, and I was inspired to inquire 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:46.080 about a podcast on for Gotonia. For Gotonia is a 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:49.600 west central section of Illinois that was forgotten when highways 0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:51.920 were expanded west and there was an attempt to secede 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:54.560