Posted on 08/21/2017 3:09:50 PM PDT by 11th_VA
KEEDYSVILLE — The National Park Service didn’t put up that big statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee near the Newcomer House on Shepherdstown Pike, and has no plans to take it down.
But U.S. Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., said this week that he believes the statue should come down, and that the park service should review all monuments and exhibits concerning the Confederacy that are on its properties for historical accuracy.
Delaney’s concern over the statue, which became the possession of Antietam National Battlefield when it acquired the Newcomer property several years ago, is not simply that it recognizes an icon of the Confederacy. It also is because it doesn’t accurately tell the story of Lee’s misadventures in Maryland.
“I don’t believe that statues and monuments meant to glorify the Confederate cause and Confederate leadership belong on federal land, and they should be taken down unless they serve the clear purpose of educating people about American history and are placed by historians in the proper context for that purpose,” Delaney said in a statement to Herald-Mail Media.
“For example, we should present accurate information and preserve materials in museums when it achieves that objective,” he said.
“The history of this piece, which now resides on this sacred ground, certainly makes it clear it was recently erected by a private citizen out of pro-Confederacy enthusiasm and not to provide historical context or under the direction of a battlefield historian, and therefore, I don’t think that taxpayer resources should serve that end and it should be taken down,” Delaney said.
It is not a new complaint about the statue, which was commissioned by William F. Chaney Jr., the former owner of the property.
Herald-Mail Media reported in 2003 that historians believed the statue was historically inaccurate since it was erected in a Union-held portion of the battlefield.
Historians further noted that Lee had taken a fall from his horse just weeks before the September 1862 battle — spraining his right wrist and breaking a bone in his left hand — and rode in an ambulance rather than on a horse when he arrived in Maryland.
The county’s Historic District Commission voted against permitting the statue, but Chaney won an appeal.
Contending Confederate monuments were outnumbered on the battlefield by a score of 93 Union monuments to three, Chaney, who claimed a distant relationship to Lee, wanted to “even that up a little bit.”
When the park acquired the Newcomer property in 2005, the statue came with it. Battlefield Superintendent Susan Trail told Herald-Mail Media last week there are no plans to remove the statue.
But with last week’s deadly confrontation over a Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va., Delaney said it is time to reconsider.
“I believe that the Park Service should review all of their properties and make sure that all of our parks, exhibits, monuments and the like are accurate and historically appropriate as it relates to Confederate images, and will review what legislative proposals already exist in that regard and proceed accordingly,” he said.
Delaney recently announced he won’t be running for re-election next year, but instead will run for president in 2020.
And it continues. We are seeing the left as it really is. The hate for this country and Whitey.
Even if you wanted them removed from the public square, the battlefields are where they most belong. It’s called history.
There was no “Civil War”. It’s a vast right wing conspiracy to smear Democrats. It never happened.
Delaney is a gerrymandered moron.
Perhaps it’s time to just cut to the chase and declare the democrat party a domestic terrorist organization.
This is the Left being the Left ... driving toward what they truly believe is a Utopian society achieved by central government control of everything. Completely understandable as Leftists such as Delaney exist in an alternative reality created in their addled minds.
Do these glory hunters realize that federal and state museums are full of German and Japanese war machinery, aircraft uniforms, etc.?
The answer should be “or what?”
You’re right - there was no Civil war. A Civil War occurs when two parties fight for control over a central Gov’t. The South said, “you can have your Gov’t, and we’ll have ours ...”. The North didn’t like that and invaded the South.
Looks like these modern democrats are uncovering knowledge and understanding missed by the likes of Einstein and the hundreds of millions of our ancestors.
Actually, these are the kind of people that result when they bend over, reach down, and cut off their balls, simultaneously enjoying it while they do it.
Its a freaking battlefield!!!
President? President of what? The Rotary? Black Lives Matter? The PTA?
This is a Steaming pile of crap. Antietam is a battlefield where a lot of decent people on both sides died. Most of the people in the Confederacy didn’t own slaves because they were not rich enough to afford them, but then again, since the Democrats hate small business and the middle class, which so many of those on the Confederate side were, it explains a lot.
don’t tell him who used to own Arlington national cemetery
The black racists think they have whitey on the run, Obama started all of this.
So either something is wrong with Wikipedia or something is wrong with Delaney.
Probably easier, and cheaper, to get rid of US Rep. John Delaney, D-Mented.
“Delaney wants Lee statue removed from Antietam National Battlefield”
No known connection, but reports say 63 people shot down in the streets of Chicago over the weekend.
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