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.
Fricken’ Red Guard is operating in overdrive.
The national insanity continues unabated.
Delaney doesn’t even live in the district he represents. He spent millions, hired college kids to walk the district, and BARELY beat Dan Bongino in a reliably Rat district.
Red Guard is right. I used to wonder what mindset was behind such madness in other countries. Now I see it on display right here—and celebrated in the evening news.
It’s past time.
Lee is a part of the history of the United States. This is nuts.
I think we ought to round up a bunch of these numskulls and tie them up in all the Civil War cemeteries at night and let all them ghosts have their way with them.
Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant owned slaves.
Confederate Gen Robert Lee, did not own slaves.
No more desecration of monuments. The lunatic liberals will destroy at a record pace with momentum behind them.
It’s revisionist history you would expect from totalitarians.
It’s right out of Orwell..
““Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered.
And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.
Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”...George Orwell, “1984””
Article says that Mr. Chaney, former owner of the property, had to fight the local Historic District Commission to get permission for the statue.
I hope that spurred him to put a restriction in the deed when he sold the property: Keep the statue in place in perpetuity ... or lose the land.
They think this will get them votes.
The Ctrl-Left disgusts me.
Brig. Gen. George B. Anderson, Brig. Gen. Lawrence O’Brian Branch, and Brig. Gen. William E. Starke (CSA) died in that battle. Maj. Gen. Joseph K. F. Mansfield, Maj. Gen. Israel B. Richardson, and Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman (USA) also died in that battle. Six more generals on each side were wounded in the battle. It was, in my opinion, a great example of Generals McClellan and Robert E. Lee being themselves. It’s a great way to learn our history.
I wish more on the hateful Left would study our (first) Civil War in detail, not just to the level of “slavery was bad” but to the level of “this is the price we all pay when extremists divide the country”. Remove the human interest and history becomes a list of dates to memorize and vacuous cliches that everyone already believes, but divorced from any reason to care.
Yeah, well, I want a million dollars.
The black racists think they have whitey on the run, Obama started all of this.
Oh, they do. Yes, they do.
Straight to the polls.
There are 700 statues in 30 states. If they remove legally or illegally one a day they might be FINISHED by the election 2018.
And I do mean finished.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.