# What should be done about Gettysburg? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 17, 2017, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853 "2017-08-17T05:14:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/101 "2017-08-21T15:34:34Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > You should do whatever you like, of course. If you want to engage with fringe views, go nuts. Well, as long as it doesn’t follow a pattern of: 1. Ask a question of liberals. 2. Ignore the reasoned good-faith responses from most liberals, concentrate on the wackier responses of some fringe liberals. 3. Imply the wackier views are the mainstream/default liberal position. 4. Ask liberals to defend these wackier views. 5. Sanctimoniously dismiss all liberals when they decline. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/102 "2017-08-21T15:50:10Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > You should do whatever you like, of course. If you want to engage with fringe views, go nuts. > > I’m simply saying that, based on your posts in this thread, I don’t think you understand why people would want to remove, say, a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville. So if your goal is light on a subject that you might not fully understand, rather than heat directed at extremists, then I suggest a different approach. No, no – I understand the good reasons a Lee statue in Charlottesville should be removed. I don’t agree, on balance, but I freely admit that excellent arguments exist and I regard it as a close question myself. But in my view, Gettysburg or Antietam don’t constitute close questions. This thread is the result. It’s not an effort on my part to say, “If you don’t want the statues out of Gettysburg then how can you object to them elsewhere?” Instead, I am saying, “Even if you want the statues out elsewhere, I don’t think you can object to them in Gettysburg, and yet many people do, including some posters here.” ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/103 "2017-08-21T16:08:19Z")
That’s helpful clarification. I don’t think your contention that many people favor destruction of all confederate statues is correct. Have any of the posters in this thread actually expressed that view? Skimming back through, I see lots of conditional statements about alteration and modification depending on facts unknown to the poster, or focus on particular problematic statues. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/104 "2017-08-21T19:03:18Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Since the Gettysburg battlefield is for all practical purposes an outdoor museum, then aside from appropriate monuments to the dead buried there, it ought to be treated as such. > > We hold museums to a fairly high standard of scientific or historical accuracy. We expect them to give us a fairly complete and unbiased understanding of the things that the museum is there to preserve and show us, providing appropriate context to deepen our understanding. > > It’s hard to argue, for instance, that[this statue](https://www.google.ps/search?q=Statue+of+Robert+E.+Lee+Gettysburg&safe=strict&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEwNS2rd7VAhUBbhQKHWKXBpwQ_AUICigB&biw=1536&bih=740&dpr=1.25#imgrc=CV64iMd-KHlf0M:&spf=1502975874095) that **madmonk28** linked to earlier does any of these things. It presents Lee as a heroic figure in a grand manner. If the Gettysburg battlefield is a museum, it’s a damn terrible one for including such a statue. > > This should be rectified by the removal of that statue and any similar statues of Confederate ‘heroes’ at the earliest possible opportunity. After which the curators of the museum should do a full reassessment of their representation of the Civil War. > > Maybe he took lessons at the [argument clinic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y)? Whether Lee was a hero, a traitor, or somewhere in between is an opinion and not a factual matter that can objectively be gleaned by “providing appropriate context to deepen our understanding.” It seems you simply want the Park Service to adopt your opinion of Lee and the South and portray them as we would Nazis. Early last century the Park Service requested that the states provide and design their own memorials to honor the leaders and men who served. All states, north and south, were invited to design statues which depicted the soldiers in a positive light. What is it about the Lee statue that you find offensive? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/105 "2017-08-21T19:09:05Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Whether Lee was a hero, a traitor, or somewhere in between is an opinion and not a factual matter Is it just an opinion that he “levied war against the United States”, as the Constitution defines treason? Is it just an opinion that he did so in order to preserve slavery, and the governmental system that permitted it to exist? Those are facts. You don’t get to evade them just because they make you uncomfortable. Avoiding facts, such as by calling them mere opinions, is why we still have to complete mop-up actions from the war even _today_. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/106 "2017-08-21T19:26:47Z")
It’s worth bearing in mind that the army Lee marched through Maryland and Pennsylvania put no small amount of effort into kidnapping and enslaving people, which is a war crime now and would have been considered one then. Is that mentioned anywhere in Gettysburg? In the context of the battlefield I actually don’t have a problem with heroic statues of Lee and his ilk, but there should be some sort of display putting it into context. The “Lost Cause” narrative is a lie - but it’s a lie that has to be explained, because it’s a lie that affected American history and American life. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/107 "2017-08-21T19:36:46Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The “Lost Cause” narrative is a lie - but it’s a lie that has to be explained, because it’s a lie that affected American history and American life. And continues to affect it, I daresay. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/108 "2017-08-21T21:01:07Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Whether Lee was a hero, a traitor, or somewhere in between is an opinion and not a factual matter that can objectively be gleaned by “providing appropriate context to deepen our understanding.” It seems you simply want the Park Service to adopt your opinion of Lee and the South and portray them as we would Nazis. OK, but opinions can be backed up with facts. Like: 1. The reasons for the South’s secession were almost entirely about Negro slavery. 2. Even worse, they didn’t secede over an immediate threat to their losing their human property, but as I’ve mentioned, they seceded over Lincoln’s goal of geographically confining slavery to the 15 existing slave states. The threat to slavery’s existence was two or three generations off. 3. Robert E. Lee swore an oath to the Federal government. He betrayed that oath. 4. He betrayed that oath in order to lead troops to kill people for the cause in #2 above. 5. We can have differing _opinions_ of that cause, but it really isn’t particularly defensible, and that reality is at the heart of any dispute over one’s _opinion_ of Robert E. Lee. 6. Oh, and as has been well documented in recent years, he wasn’t a particularly benevolent slaveowner. It’s peripheral to what I’m saying here, but let’s just toss that bit of mythology in the trash. 7. As Richard Parker has pointed out in this thread, the army Lee commanded captured any African-Americans they came across, and enslaved them, whether or not they’d ever been slaves. This is dishonorable conduct by any reasonable definition. Lee surely noticed the presence of Negroes in a white army, but there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that anyone got punished over this. Lee owns this conduct. 8. Unlike the likes of Washington, Jefferson, etc., what positive achievements can we attribute to Lee to balance this ledger? Hardly anything. His role in the Civil War IS his claim to fame. That’s it. That’s what my _opinion_ is based on. What are contrary opinions based on, other than “you’ve got your opinion, and I’ve got mine”? Because unless there’s a similarly strong backing for a contrary opinion, mine should carry the day. > [@](#): > > Early last century the Park Service requested that the states provide and design their own memorials to honor the leaders and men who served. All states, north and south, were invited to design statues which depicted the soldiers in a positive light. And that was a mistake, if we view Gettysburg as a museum whose goal is a true account of Gettysburg and the Civil War that Gettysburg was a turning point of, rather than a time capsule of early 20th century differing opinions about the Civil War at the state level. > [@](#): > > What is it about the Lee statue that you find offensive? I think I’ve made that crystal-clear, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/109 "2017-08-21T23:08:41Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > 1. As Richard Parker has pointed out in this thread, the army Lee commanded captured any African-Americans they came across, and enslaved them, whether or not they’d ever been slaves. This is dishonorable conduct by any reasonable definition. Lee surely noticed the presence of Negroes in a white army, but there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that anyone got punished over this. Lee owns this conduct… And Nathan Bedford Forrest simply \*killed \*black prisoners. You know, I think, by an large, that “dog whistles” are mostly imaginary. But not in his case. NBF was a deadly cavalry raider, but a indifferent general. However, there are more monuments to him that any other CSA general, excepting Lee. And you know why? Because he founded the KKK. NBF being lionized is a 100% pure dogwhistle to the ears of the KKK and their allies. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/110 "2017-08-22T04:06:40Z")
Lee’s troops also killed black union prisoners. At the Battle of the Crater, his army slaughtered black union troops who were trying to surrender, later his army marched the few survivors through Petersburg so that the crowd could jeer and torment them. it is hard to imagine why someone interested in historical accuracy would be opposed to providing visitors to Gettysburg this kind of information at the base of Lee’s statue. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/111 "2017-08-22T04:38:20Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > OK, but opinions can be backed up with facts. Like: > > …7) As Richard Parker has pointed out in this thread, the army Lee commanded captured any African-Americans they came across, and enslaved them, whether or not they’d ever been slaves. This is dishonorable conduct by any reasonable definition. Lee surely noticed the presence of Negroes in a white army, but there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that anyone got punished over this. Lee owns this conduct. > … I know this is incredibly petty of me, but I believe I was the person who made this point. I spent the first two pages of this thread having **Bricker** just straight up refusing to acknowledge my posts, I feel inclined to cherish them. When Lee proposed a prisoner exchange to Grant, Grant made it clear it included all Union troops including black troops. Lee declined and said the black troops were property not prisoners. Think about the horrors those prisoners must have endured. Think about being a black American soldier captured by the confederacy. I would imagine the Taliban couldn’t be more cruel if they got their hands on one of our soldiers. These black troops wore the American uniform. They marched under the American flag and they stormed the battlements of America’s enemies and yet the man who is responsible for their murder and enslavement gets a statue at Gettysburg, but the idea that that statue put Lee in some kind of historical context is dismissed as historical revisionism. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/112 "2017-08-22T05:21:30Z")
I’ve highlighted the phrase where **RickJay** misspelled ‘difference in culture.’ > [@RickJay](#): > > It’s worth bearing in mind that the army Lee marched through Maryland and Pennsylvania put no small amount of effort into kidnapping and enslaving people, which is a **war crime** now and would have been considered one then. Is that mentioned anywhere in Gettysburg? “The blacks this great Southern hero enslaved were **criminals**. They’re **rapists**. And some, I assume, were good people.” ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/113 "2017-08-22T05:27:44Z")
The Confederate government had also declared that white officers of black troops would be treated as fomenters of slave rebellion and executed. [https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/the-battle-of-the-crater/?mcubz=3](https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/the-battle-of-the-crater/?mcubz=3) > [@](#): > > Fear of federal retaliation prevented open enforcement of that policy, but Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon had encouraged field commanders to apply its principles unofficially, “red-handed on the field or immediately thereafter.” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/114 "2017-08-22T12:00:22Z")
Bricker, if in 50 years in a better future Cuba, some unusual Cubans in charge of some small town in Cuba raised a statue of Castro to represent their opposition to some national trend, and then decades later the later local government decides that they’d rather remove this statue because of the quite reasonable problems many Cubans have with that symbol, would you quibble with their decision to remove it? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/115 "2017-08-22T13:10:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I am saying, "Even if you want the statues out elsewhere, I don’t think you can object to them in Gettysburg And I am saying that we don’t need to do anything about North Korea because the Martians will drop by any day now and destroy their nukes. And I have made as concrete an argument for that in this thread as you have made for your stated position here about Confederate statues at Gettysburg. But since this thread is not about North Korea’s nukes, I hope I may be excused for not going into detail about the Martian solution. However, since it is about Confederate statues at Gettysburg, would you care to make a case in support of your statement? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/116 "2017-08-22T14:08:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Bricker, if in 50 years in a better future Cuba, some unusual Cubans in charge of some small town in Cuba raised a statue of Castro to represent their opposition to some national trend, and then decades later the later local government decides that they’d rather remove this statue because of the quite reasonable problems many Cubans have with that symbol, would you quibble with their decision to remove it? I don’t picture having a problem with “usual” Cubans undoing an action promulgated by unusual ones. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/117 "2017-08-22T14:11:44Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And I am saying that we don’t need to do anything about North Korea because the Martians will drop by any day now and destroy their nukes. > > And I have made as concrete an argument for that in this thread as you have made for your stated position here about Confederate statues at Gettysburg. > > But since this thread is not about North Korea’s nukes, I hope I may be excused for not going into detail about the Martian solution. However, since it is about Confederate statues at Gettysburg, would you care to make a case in support of your statement? The case has been made by others: that Gettysburg is an area designated for Civil War statues. The clear point of Gettysburg is to serve as a historical memorial for events of the Civil War, which by all accounts included Confederates. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/118 "2017-08-22T14:33:59Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t picture having a problem with “usual” Cubans undoing an action promulgated by unusual ones. Suppose they were usual for their specific time and place, but unusual by broader and later standards. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/119 "2017-08-22T14:39:29Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Suppose they were usual for their specific time and place, but unusual by broader and later standards. Then I have no problem with it. I dislike Castro; I don’t have much in the way of antipathy for a piece of stone that looks like Castro. The guy is undeniably and factually a huge part of Cuban history. It doesn’t bother me to accept the idea that he’d leave behind statues. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853/120 "2017-08-22T14:40:23Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Then I have no problem with it. I dislike Castro; I don’t have much in the way of antipathy for a piece of stone that looks like Castro. The guy is undeniably and factually a huge part of Cuban history. It doesn’t bother me to accept the idea that he’d leave behind statues. Do you have a problem with the later local government deciding to remove those statues? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-be-done-about-gettysburg/793853.md?page=7)