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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / End of An Icon (Treason in Defense of Slavery Version)

End of An Icon (Treason in Defense of Slavery Version)

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We’re at the cross-quarter season when the veil between the dead and the living is said to be at its thinnest — a good time to face bad memories and let them go. I’m gonna call this a feel-good story, a little treat for the weekend [unpaywalled gift link]:

SOMEWHERE IN THE U.S. SOUTH — It was a choice to melt down Robert E. Lee. But it would have been a choice to keep him intact, too.

So the statue of the Confederate general that once stood in Charlottesville — the one that prompted the deadly Unite the Right rally in 2017 — was now being cut into fragments and dropped into a furnace, dissolving into a sludge of glowing bronze.

Six years ago, groups with ties to the Confederacy had sued to stop the monument from being taken down. Torch-bearing white nationalists descended on the Virginia college town to protest its removal, and one man drove his car through a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others.

The statue’s defenders more recently sought to block the city from handing Lee over to Charlottesville’s Black history museum, which proposed a plan to repurpose the metal. In a lawsuit, those plaintiffs suggested the century-old monument should remain intact or be turned into Civil War-style cannons.

But on Saturday the museum went ahead with its plan in secret at this small Southern foundry outside Virginia, in a town and state The Washington Post agreed not to name because of participants’ fears of violence.

Swords Into Plowshares, a project led by the two women, will turn bronze ingots made from molten Lee into a new piece of public artwork to be displayed in Charlottesville. They made arrangements for Lee to be melted down while they started collecting ideas from city residents for that new sculpture.

Given past threats to the project and worries about legal action, Douglas, Schmidt and other organizers who traveled to this foundry in the American South took great pains to keep this part of the process under wraps. Only a few dozen people, including some who had housed or transported the dismembered figure of Lee, were invited to watch alongside them in secret. They announced the feat at a news conference Thursday afternoon in Charlottesville…

Some said the statue was being destroyed. Others called it a restoration. Depending on whom you asked, the bronze was being reclaimed, disrupted, or redeemed to a higher purpose. It was a grim act of justice and a celebration all in one….

End of An Icon (Treason in Defense of Slavery Version) - STOCKPILE


End of An Icon (Treason in Defense of Slavery Version) - STOCKPILE 1

Too many Idiot-Americans still carry a bitter resentment that they, unlike their ancestors, can no longer aspire to own other human beings for profit. Not surprising that a billionaire narcissist who fled his birth country when apartheid was legally abolished should sympathize with their misplaced aggrievement…

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  1. 1.

    Old Man Shadow

    if you can’t live in peace in this union and respect the human rights of others, then yes, your kind deserves extinction and I hope my kids are alive to finally see the death of the Confederacy. 

  2. 2.

    MisterDancer

    Of course Musk wants a piece of this racist shit.

    I’ve got to go hang out with dancer friends at a shoe (been way too long!), but — look, we forget that this whole business was hot shit in America, just a few years ago! We, as a country, were finally dialoging about the deeper impact of racism,  sexism, and the various gender phobias, and pushing real and symbolic changes as a result — even in the midst of Trump at his most empowered!

    That spirit is why The Right is forcing every law, every cultural lever, every person that can to suppress and defame that cultural uprising. It’s why I don’t forget that the activists that made this possible are the future of our movement, even if they gripe at the Biden Admin sometimes. I’d rather have that, than to have people give into apathy and fear.

    For I heard, somewhere, something about fear being the mind killer, or sumthin’.

  4. 4.

    Tom Levenson

    I don’t get why Lee’s fans are so upset at this denouement. If, as so many of them profess to believe. there is an afterlife, the shade of the flesh and blood Lee has been enjoying/enduring such treatment since Oct. 12, 1870.

  6. 6.

    Jackie

    Bravo to Swords into Plowshares! I truly hope the women involved and the location the statue was melted remain anonymous!

  8. 8.

    Mike in NC

    Some of our older friends who’ve pretty much lived their entire lives in NoVA had a fit about the renaming of schools, roads, forts, etc. that were originally named for Confederate generals or politicians. Tough. I always thought the best thing to do with those damn Confederate statues was to load them onto a barge, tow them a mile out to sea, and find out if they could float.

  9. 9.

    Geminid

    Ribert E. Lee statue: “I’m melting…melting…”

    Foundry worker: “Top rail bottom rail now.”

  10. 10.

    SpaceUnit

    They should use the metal to make another statue of Lee but this time he’s bent over with a boot up his ass.

  12. 12.

    TriassicSands

    Gee, I wonder if Musk is beginning to run out of ideas about how to be an even worse human being.

    Has anyone asked him if his unrealistic dream of colonizing Mars will allow any non-Aryans to settle there? If they are permitted, will they have to sit in the back of the spaceship? One assumes that if they are allowed, they will be restricted to jobs as servants (unpaid of course).

    The competition for worst human being on the planet is definitely heating up.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Ultimately, I think it would be better to have X fail completely. Anything that diminishes Musk’s stature and reputation is a good thing.

  13. 13.

    bbleh

    But … but if freedom doesn’t mean the right to openly express and act upon your bigotry, and to raise statues of a traitor who served a rebellion founded on bigotry and chattel slavery, then what is America all about anyway?!?

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    DeSantis will probably prevent Florida schools from teaching about the melting down of the Lee  statue.

  16. 16.

    DrDaveChemist

    @matt: What needs to be extinguished is the belief that Lee and his compatriots were fighting for a cause that was moral or just in any way. And if you continue to believe to the contrary, you deserve to be shunned by modern society.

  17. 17.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    It is TERRIBLE that there are many sewage treatment ponds that are sadly lacking a Traitor Statue barely peeking above the surface.  Please remedy this.

     

    If you run out of statues, just substitute some traitor GOPers.

  18. 18.

    TriassicSands

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t know, it might be a rallying cry to be used to show how horrible all those woke people are. Teaching about it could fall under a social studies unit called, “The Endless Victimization of White People.” Wouldn’t that make DeSantis happy?

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    If that descendant of Robert E. Lee automatically assumes these things work by corruption of blood, well, that mostly says something about him, doesn’t it?

    My dad’s middle name is Lee, too. For some reason this doesn’t threaten me.

  20. 20.

    schrodingers_cat

    @TriassicSands: I don’t care about Musk. He can DIAF for all I care. I do care what happens to Twitter. I have made a lot of connections to people in India whose politics gives me hope. Most of my personal circle is either in thrall to the BJP or too timid to stand up to them and stand out. I could not have done that without Twitter. I am not willing to give up on that ray of hope.

    YMMV.

  21. 21.

    dr. bloor

    I’d like to see the metal minted into coins with Lee as heads, Trump as assh–er, tails, sold to the rubes at the low, low price of 999.99, and then have proceeds donated to the scholarship funds of HBCUs.

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    I like to think the removal of those Charlottesville statues brought people together. At least, it was by yakking about it on a thread that Saturday night that commenter “Honus” and I found out we had known each other for over 30 years. That was fun!

  24. 24.

    West of the Rockies

    Just took Sadie the sheepadoodle for a windy autumn walk.  A skull tumbled out of a neighbor’s yard and into the street as we passed.  I picked it up and gently rolled it back into the yard from whence it came.   Did not have skull bowling on my to-do list today

    Of course,  it was plastic.

  27. 27.

    TriassicSands

    @schrodingers_cat:

    For now, I think you’ll be able to maintain your contacts. I hope you will continue to find that beneficial.

    Sadly, it is a huge platform for Musk to spew his evil thoughts. On balance, I’ll leave it to others to decide if the benefits outweigh the extreme downside.

  28. 28.

    eversor

    @TriassicSands:

    Musk, and Theil, aren’t even concerned about Aryans either.  Their cult is even more bonkers.

    The entire techno utopia is based on the concept that they should be allowed to have all the money now.  As that will allow them to kick start and guide humanity to and through the stars.  Then it will eventually end in some sort of situation with genetically engineered hybrid humans and also digital beings that live completely in the net (or meta, or the cloud, or whatever) and trillions on trillions of digital humans are at risk in this if we do not create libertarian utopia now.

    So taxing them is really genociding trillions and preventing human evolution.

    I wish I was joking with all this but sadly I’m not.

  30. 30.

    Dan B

    I understand that the foundry was a black owned business and the new art is to be designed by black artists.

    BTW my mother’s Daughter’s of the Confederacy certificate is in the spare bedroom.  Her mother was a leader of the Arkansas chapter and signed my mother up when she was already living in Ohio.  The DOC erected these monuments in the 20’s, long after the war.

  31. 31.

    sab

    My city had Beggars Night ( Trick or Treat without the Trick.)

    We live in a 450 house lower middle class mixed race neighborhood off a main street up against a Metropark.

    This neighborhood is considered to be very safe, and it was mobbed with kids from 5 to 7. It is dark by 6:30. We thought we had overbought candy, then each of us bought more, then I bought even more, then we ran out at 6:15. Tiny toddlers doing half a block at 5:00. Larger kids later.

    My favorite costume was the 7 foot tall chicken who had to be led around by his wing ( he was a rooster not a hen.)

    The hoysing nuttiness a few years back did revive the neighborhood.

  32. 32.

    Ruckus

    @Mike in NC:

    Melting down the bronze ones is better. The bronze one’s can melt, the stone ones should be made into paving stones, you know that stuff concrete is poured over. Put that crap to good use.

  35. 35.

    Suzanne

    Thad @GigaThaad could just try not being racist and he’d rest easy, because he’d realize that we don’t have a problem with him because normal people don’t care who your ancestors were. But then he’d have to try not being racist, and I suspect that’s a big ask.

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    @TriassicSands:

    I don’t know, it might be a rallying cry to be used to show how horrible all those woke people are. Teaching about it could fall under a social studies unit called, “The Endless Victimization of White People.” Wouldn’t that make DeSantis happy?

    DeSantis always wants to protect white people from anything that would make them feel bad. No mention of the fate of the Lee statue. No confrontation about the “victimization of white people.”

  38. 38.

    Alison Rose

    I presume this was discussed in earlier threads, but I just now saw that Pence suspended his campaign and while it depresses me that GOP voters would rather have TIFG than, well, anyone…this news still has me cackling like a witch at a cauldron.

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I know there are a number of people still on TWITTER, because it had built into a world wide communication network. Just because some racist shithead bought it is no reason for it to fail.

    OH WAIT. Yes it is. Will anyone come along with a better site? In time I’d bet they will. I hope it’s soon.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    They made me cut it because the source didn’t want to use their name, but a Smithsonian official told me they didn’t want these monuments because “museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.”

    I remember having this discussion with a coworker who wanted to keep Confederate monuments “because history” (but really racism), and I said that museums and libraries were always there for people to go learn about history. And he said, “Oh come on, if you put it in a museum, no one will ever see it”, and that’s when I realized that right-wingers don’t go to museums.

  41. 41.

    WV Blondie

    If you read the article, the foundry owner noted that when the statue was melted it was kind of clumpy, like it had “impurities” in it … Sounds appropriate!

  43. 43.

    scav

    @Suzanne: Well then, clearly, print his visage on the bottom of every urinal and right-ringers will be sure to see his face every day. The Stars and Bars marks the spot!  The Stainless Banner would require a little extra upkeep, but that wouldn’t be a bad thing in so many gas station rest rooms.

  44. 44.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    Also, there’s Wikipedia and the internet. The purpose of public statues of historical figures has always been to honor them. Why else do them? People like Lee don’t need to be honored. He betrayed his country the moment he decided to fight for the Confederacy and defend slavery

  45. 45.

    Craig

    @Mike in NC: I went to Lee-Davis High School. In 2019 people said, Oh my, we can’t change the name, what would we change it to. At an open meeting someone said, We could change it to Mechanicsville H.S.. It’s now called Mechanicsville H.S.

  46. 46.

    eclare

    @Craig:

    I am two streets over from Stonewall Street in my neighborhood.  Unfortunately I don’t see that changing anytime soon.  But Memphis finally, under the cover of darkness, removed a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest a few years ago.  TPTB in Nashville tried everything to stop the removal, and finally Memphis said, fuck it, he’s gone.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @scav: Right?! Like, get off it, assholes. Stop pretending you’re intellectual or educated. You just stan racist treasonists.

    Besides, we’ve turned actual Civil War battlefields into housing developments in this country, so spare me the concern.

  48. 48.

    Mr. Prosser

    @Dan B: It’s my opinion the WAPO really fouled up reporting the foundry was Black owned. Even “Somewhere in the South” Black owned foundries can be easily found. Maybe all of them will be targeted.

  49. 49.

    kalakal

    That sodding David Marcus whinge tweet

    you would deny future generations their cultural bequeathments

    Dave baby, you want to teach future generations an  accurate history of The South? Have at it sunbeam. If, as you actually do, want to teach the version where Whites were the real victims, offering job training schemes to happy immigrants, as practiesd by Honest Ron Pudding Boots, then you can take a very long walk off a short pier

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    @kalakal:

    you would deny future generations their cultural bequeathments

    We could put up a statue of Barack Obama there, or Dr. Fauci. I mean, who are we to deny future generations their cultural bequeathments?

  52. 52.

    Mousebumples

    Speaking of Xhitter alternatives, I have 2 codes, if there’s any interest. And 2 codes that I shared a few weeks ago that haven’t been used. Anyone know if there’s a fair time to wait before resharing the code with someone else who might use it? (I’m not sure who I shared them with, but I think it was a jackal…)

    I can check back on the thread (might be tomorrow since we’re doing a beer walk ahead of tonight’s concert), or else if anyone is a Xhitter mutual (or Mastodon), feel free to DM me there. Same name – though [email protected] for Mastodon.

  53. 53.

    eclare

    @Timill:

    True, that had to be dealt with.  But it infuriates me when right wing nutjobs in Nashville insert themselves in local Memphis decisions.

  55. 55.

    RSA

    In 2014 there were 32 children of veterans (North and South) of the Civil War.

    “All are very old children, born mostly in the 1910s and 1920s to Civil War veterans and young brides,” Lande writes. “The fathers, typically on second marriages, were in their 70s or 80s when these children were born.”

    The real Sons of Confederate Veterans and Daughters of the Confederacy are almost no more.  (And come to think of it, aren’t these the folks who most loudly object to what they call hyphenated Americans?) It’s time for them to start living in the present.

  56. 56.

    piratedan

    I would have been okay with preserving it, as part of the restoring coral reef projects…..

  57. 57.

    Mike in NC

    Meatball Ron DeSantis had promised that as president he’d keep the Confederate fort names, because changing them was “political correctness”. As if anybody needed more proof that he’s just another sweaty Florida redneck with a racist ax to grind. May he and Fat Bastard continue to chip away at each other’s support.

  58. 58.

    wjca

    @Old Man Shadow: I hope my kids are alive to finally see the death of the Confederacy. 

    The mythology of the “Lost Cause” has done incalculable harm to the nation for a century and a half now.  If those frantically trying to force education into their fantasy of the past are successful, it will keep doing so.  Which, of course, is a significant part of why they are so intent on doing it.

  59. 59.

    raven

    @RSA: I’m the direct descendant of Jason J Figg a Confederate killed at the Battle of Atlanta

     

    Figg, Jason J.

    BATTLE UNIT NAME:
    11th Regiment, Tennessee Infantry
    SIDE:
    Confederacy
    COMPANY:
    B
    SOLDIER’S RANK IN:
    Musician
    SOLDIER’S RANK OUT:
    Corporal
    ALTERNATE NAME:

    FILM NUMBER:
    M231 ROLL 14
    PLAQUE NUMBER:

    NOTES:
    none

  60. 60.

    Mike in NC

    @Craig:  Wife graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield, VA in the early 70s. It took a little effort to convince her that he was a dick and a traitor, hence the federal government turning his property into Arlington National Cemetery.

  63. 63.

    Suzanne

    @Mike in NC: I’m still annoyed that he tried to say that he was really, culturally, from western Pennsylvania (I guess he had a set of grandparents in Aliquippa who he visited sometimes). Like, fuck you asshole, do you think western PA is, like, rah rah rah Confederacy?!

  64. 64.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    My dad’s middle name is Lee, too. For some reason this doesn’t threaten me.

    My aunt’s middle name was Lee.  And her first name was Virginia. The interesting part is that she was a Jew and was born and raised in Los Angeles.  (She went by Ginger. I don’t think I knew what her real first and middle names were until her obituary.  So I have no idea what my Jewish grandparents were thinking.)

  65. 65.

    Geminid

    @piratedan: I suggested dropping Lee and Traveller’s statue off the Virginia coast. They’re always dumping stuff out there to make artificial reefs.

    Then someone jumped in to say that was a bad idea, that the bronze would leach toxins into the water. I started to say, “but what about all those German submarines and the ships they sank, huh?” But on that occasion, the CLEAR COMMENT button was my friend.

  66. 66.

    raven

    @Mike in NC: My wife is from Appomattox, VA “Where the nation reunited.” There are Grant and Lee streets and they call the McClain House the “Surrender Ground”. My FIL did the millwork for the house when they rebuilt it for the Centennial of the surrender.

  70. 70.

    sab

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Historical figure statues: Keeping them up doesn’t keep them respected.

    Glasgow Scotland has had a statue of the Duke of Wellington, English general,  sitting on his high horse for a couple of hundred years. Scots don’t much like English generals. They don’t tear Wellington down. They just decorate his statue with funny hats every few months. Keeps Scots sneering at the long dead general and his historical record.

    That might be a lot more dangerous in the Confedearacy.

  71. 71.

    Mike in NC

    @Suzanne: On my first visit to Fredericksburg, VA in 1990 I was expecting to find at least a portion of the battlefield preserved like Gettysburg and Antietam. I asked a ranger at the Visitor’s Center where Marye’s Heights was. He shook his head and explained that almost everything but the cemetery had been built over decades before.

  73. 73.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    Like, fuck you asshole, do you think western PA is, like, rah rah rah Confederacy?!

    You’d be surprised. I sometimes see Confederate flag stuff in NE Ohio, usually in rural and suburban areas. I guess it might be seen as a generic “we’re rebels!” thing rather than white supremacy (sure, Jan). I wouldn’t imagine Pittsburgh would have much of that.

    I always want to tell these folks 160 years ago where they live their neighbors would’ve tarred and feathered them for flying the Confederate flag

  75. 75.

    sab

    @lowtechcyclist: Everyone thought my Jewish father in law was Ernie. But when he died his obituary was Isidore. I am sure his wife knew. No one else did. Moving to a different country and cultire is difficult. Not knowing his name we named a favorite golden retriever Izzy.

  76. 76.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Mike in NC: ​
     

    Wife graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield, VA in the early 70s.

    I graduated from Groveton HS, off Route 1 (“Jefferson Davis Highway” back then) just south of Alexandria, in the early 1970s. I’m pretty sure our sportsball teams played theirs, though I can’t say I paid a lot of attention to that.

  78. 78.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Citizen Alan:

    Can Twitter ever go bankrupt if Musk subsidizes it with SpaceX/Tesla money? Would he ever decide to shut the lights off and call it quits?

    ETA: I guess if engagement/viewership/influence fell off a cliff then he might

  79. 79.

    raven

    The National Highways Association (NHA) was established in 1911 to promote the development of an improved national road network in the United States. Under the slogan “Good roads for everyone!” the NHA advocated the building and permanent maintenance by the federal government of a system of 50,000 miles (some 80,500 kilometers) of highways. This map, issued by the NHA in 1915, shows the Dixie Highway, proposed by the Dixie Highway Association and endorsed by the NHA. The projected route runs from Mackinaw City, Michigan, to Miami, Florida

  80. 80.

    Mike in NC

    @Suzanne:  I was at the post office last week where some pinhead at the other window saw that they were selling a recent stamp honoring Nancy Reagan, and he launched into a rant about Michelle Obama. I wanted to tell him that one bloated ugly face that will never appear on a postage stamp was Donald Trump.

  82. 82.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): In general, this area (even the rural parts) is not pro-Confederate. There are racist dumbfucks in every state who display it (never made any sense to me in Arizona, given that Arizona wasn’t even a state at the time). But western PA is absolutely nothing like the south in that regard, where there’s Lost Cause shit around every corner.

  84. 84.

    sab

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My great grandmother in Lawrence County Pa lost a brother at Bull Run/ Manassas Two.

    Mom, her grand-daughter, always talked about how upset the family was when he died. her dad, her grandmother. My family in Ohio hates the Confederacy. Newbies might feel different, but they are newbies. Not quite rooted.

    Isn’t the rule of thumb at least three generations before people  who lost family or country in wars can even think of moving on? Every time either side blows something up that is another 100 years of Hell. They each think they can outlast the other side. I doubt it.

  85. 85.

    Mike in NC

    @raven:  We visited Appomattox about 20 years ago while exploring that part of Virginia. Sadly, we were practically the only people there.

  86. 86.

    Geminid

    @raven: They might have had to do a lot of millwork. I think Union soldiers made off with the furniture for souveneirs. The latecomers probably grabbed some chair rail and finials.

    E. Porter Alexander* had an anecdote about the surrender at Appomatox. Wilmer McLean, the owner of the house where Lee surrendered, was a distant cousin to Alexander and they had met before the first battle of Manassas.

    McLean had a farm near that battlefield, but he later moved to Appomattox. “Hullo, Alexander,” McClean said. “What do you think of my luck? I moved here to get away from the Yankees, and now they just took all my furniture!”

    * E. Porter Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy.  Alexander published a history of the war around 1900, but he wrote this private memoir for his children and grandchildren. Historian Gary Gallagher found it and published it with notes around 1990. A very good history.

  87. 87.

    sab

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The Great Migration from the desolate South to the North wasn’t just black people. A lot of small towns in PA and the Midwest got very racist Southern whites. Akron Ohio recruited all its cops from Alabama, and we are still trying to fix that fucked up culture.

  88. 88.

    raven

    @Geminid:

    The McLeans left Appomattox Court House and returned to Mrs. McLean’s Prince William County, Virginia estate in the fall of 1867. When Wilmer McLean defaulted on repayment of loans, the banking house of Harrison, Goddin, and Apperson of Richmond, Virginia brought a judgment against him, and the “Surrender House” was sold at public auction on November 29, 1869. The house was purchased by John L. Pascoe and apparently rented to the Ragland family formerly of Richmond.

    In 1872 Nathaniel H. Ragland purchased the property for $1250.00. On January 1, 1891 the property was sold by the widow Ragland for the sum of $10,000 to Captain Myron Dunlap of Niagara Falls, New York. Myron Dunlap and fellow speculators went through two or three plans intending to capitalize on the notoriety of the property, one idea was to dismantle the home and move it to Chicago as an exhibit at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

    A later option was to move the house to Washington, D.C. and charge entrance fees. Measured drawings including elevations and materials specifications lists were produced, the house was dismantled and packed for shipping, but due to cash flow and legal problems the plan was never brought to fruition. The home sat dismantled in piles prey to vandals, collectors, and the environment for fifty years.

    The Park Service Years – 1940 to Present

    On April 10th 1940 Appomattox Court House National Historical Monument was created by Congress to include approximately 970 acres. In February 1941 archeological work was begun at the site, then overgrown with brush and honeysuckle. Historical data was collected, and architectural working plans were drawn up to begin the meticulous reconstruction process. The whole project was brought to a swift stop on December 7, 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces causing the United States entry into World War II.

    On November 25, 1947 bids for the reconstruction of the McLean House were opened and on April 9th 1949, eighty four years after the historic meeting reuniting the country, the McLean House was opened by the National Park Service for the first time to the public. At the dedication ceremony on April 16, 1950, after a speech by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Douglas Southall Freeman, Major General U.S. Grant and Robert E. Lee IV, direct descendents of Robert E. Lee and Ulysses Grant, cut the ceremonial ribbon. The event was attended by an audience of approximately 20,000.

  89. 89.

    raven

    @Mike in NC: It’s off the beaten path for sure. Being 18 miles from Lynchburg isn’t exactly the center of the universe. She got out of there the second she could.

  91. 91.

    Geminid

    @raven: I did not know there was another General U.S. Grant. I knew there was another General Simon Bolivar Buckner, descended from the Confederate general of that name. This Buckner was killed on Okinawa (I think) in 1945.

    The original generals Buckner and Grant knew each other as young officers in the “Old Atmy.” Grant was glad when Buckner sutrendered his command to him at Fort Donaldson. He was finally able to pay back the hundred dollars Buckner lent him 10 years before in California, to help him get home after he resigned his commission.

  92. 92.

    raven

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):Like the other battles fought around Atlanta, the July 22, 1864, battlefield has been lost to development. Georgia Historical Commission markers throughout the urban landscape point out key battle sites. Mortuary cannons mark the death sites of Generals James B. McPherson and William H.T. Walker. The Atlanta History Center houses the famous Atlanta Cyclorama and the Western & Atlantic Railroad locomotive Texas. Visit the Smith Family Farm on the museum grounds, a rural plantation house built in the 1840s, with a smokehouse, slave gardens & costumed interpreters. Many notable Confederates are buried in Oakland Cemetery.

  95. 95.

    raven

    @Geminid: And Grant Park in Atlanta, former home of the Cyclorama, was not named after General Grant!

     

    Grant Park was established in 1883 when Lemuel P. Grant, a successful engineer and businessman, gave the city of Atlanta 100 acres (40 ha) in the newly developed “suburb” where he lived.[2] In 1890, the city acquired another 44 acres (18 ha) for the park and appointed its first park commissioner, Sidney Root. In 1903, the Olmsted Brothers (sons of Frederick Law Olmsted) were hired to create a plan for the park. The original park included a lake, named Lake Abana, to handle storm-water runoff.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @raven: Lemuel Grant. I wonder if he envied the general for his first name!

    My Atlanta friend lives on the edge of the Peachtree Creek battlefield. He’s just off of Howell Mill Road, about a mile east of I-75. If he walks across Howell Mill he’s where the Union Right wing was at the beginning of the battle.

    Warren’s not into the Civil War though. He heard plenty about it going to high school in Macon. He remembers a history teacher who was consumed by the Lost Cause myth. He would lament, “If we’d just had another barrel of powder at Vicksburg….”

    Warren was like, “Yeah, then the Yankees would have captured another barrel of powder.”

  99. 99.

    Yarrow

    @schrodingers_cat:  Have Musk’s white supremacy and associated beliefs/comments come up in any of your Indian Twitter circles? Has it been overrun with rightwing nutjobs in India like it has in the US?

    It’s such a topic of discussion in the US, just wondering if it has been noticed in other countries and cultures.

  101. 101.

    raven

    @Geminid: Yep, I lived just off Collier Rd when I was at Tech. There was a tornado in the 80’s and, when they cut down trees, there were many mini-balls embedded in them.

  102. 102.

    dnfree

    @raven: My father had an uncle who served in the Union Army and was still alive in my father’s childhood (my father was born in 1920).  My dad had vivid memories of his uncle at family gatherings.  I’ve been amazed that I was just at one remove from the Civil War, and additionally, my grandchildren born since 2000 knew my dad and so are also at only one remove from the Civil War.  It’s not as long ago as it seems.

  103. 103.

    dnfree

    @raven: That’s interesting.  When we lived in the south suburbs of Chicago we were close to Dixie Highway where it ran through Homewood IL.

  105. 105.

    Shalimar

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m a direct descendant of Robert E. Lee’s grandfather, Henry Lee II.  Who had 13 kids, so half of Virginia was a direct descendant of his by the 20th century.  Big whoop.

  107. 107.

    BruceJ

    @Snarki, child of Loki:

    It is TERRIBLE that there are many sewage treatment ponds that are sadly lacking a Traitor Statue barely peeking above the surface.  Please remedy this.

    Bronze is an excellent choice for making sewage pumps and the like. Bilge pumps on garbage barges, fittingd for honey wagons, etc. Would only be fitting though, if they’d saved the face to be the intake port…

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