# Robert E Lee and statues

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-e-lee-and-statues/795231>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 1, 2017, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-e-lee-and-statues/795231 "2017-09-01T05:17:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ric62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@ric62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ric62)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-e-lee-and-statues/795231/1 "2017-09-01T05:17:15Z")

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Jim Hightower gave a quote from R E Lee that has Lee opposing any confederate memorials. Can anyone site the source of Lee’s quote?

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**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-e-lee-and-statues/795231/2 "2017-09-01T05:29:22Z")

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Jonathan Horn, author of the Lee biography _The Man Who Would Not Be Washington_.

> **[Robert E. Lee opposed Confederate monuments](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/robert-e-lee-opposed-confederate-monuments)**
>
> White supremacists, neo-Nazis and others have protested the removal of Confederate monuments. But the Confederate general Robert E. Lee himself never wanted such monuments built.

> [@](#):
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> "It’s often forgotten that Lee himself, after the Civil War, opposed monuments, specifically Confederate war monuments,” said Jonathan Horn, the author of the Lee biography, “The Man Who Would Not Be Washington.”
> 
> In his writings, Lee cited multiple reasons for opposing such monuments, questioning the cost of a potential Stonewall Jackson monument, for example. But underlying it all was one rationale: That the war had ended, and the South needed to move on and avoid more upheaval.

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**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robert-e-lee-and-statues/795231/3 "2017-09-01T16:49:37Z")

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> [@ric62](#):
>
> Jim Hightower gave a quote from R E Lee that has Lee opposing any confederate memorials. Can anyone site the source of Lee’s quote?

The “writings” cited by Horn are largely letters to other former Confederate leaders and contemporary Southern officials.