Where Are the Statues of Robert E. Lee's Most Trusted Battlefield Commander?
When General James Longstreet was erased from the Southern consciousness after the American Civil War
Probably one of the most fascinating Confederate generals of the American Civil War, Lt. General James Longstreet attended West Point and was close friends with another cadet, Ulysses S. Grant, the future Union general. Considered one of the finest commanders of the Civil War from either side, he was a master of defensive tactics and famous for being cool under fire. He would become Robert E. Lee's most trusted commanders. Lee would refer to Longstreet as his "old war horse" a term of affection not lavished upon any other general under Lee's command.
However, at the end of the Civil War, Longstreet became a pariah amongst other Confederates for his support and renewed friendship with Ulysses S. Grant who later became the US President. Living in New Orleans, Longstreet commanded what would become the New Orleans Police which at the time was predominantly African-American.
In 1874, white supremacists protesting the Reconstruction government of Louisiana formed their own government and with a force of 5,000 armed militia, moved on New Orleans. Commanding an outnumbered police force, Longstreet was shot and captured by the white supremacists before being released upon arrival of Federal troops.
Claiming that the Federal troops were in New Orleans to seize the arms of private citizens, white supremacist militias again attacked New Orleans, this time with Federal troops fighting with Longstreet's police forces. After seven days of fighting, the Battle of Liberty Place was over, but many in the South considered Longstreet's actions to enforce law and order a betrayal.
In 1891, the city erected a memorial to the Battle of Liberty Place, praising it as an uprising of independence. In 1932, the city even added more inscriptions to the monument, affirming the white supremacist motives of the uprising. Following the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the city added a plaque in 1974 that distanced it from the racist actions of its past. For the next 25 years, the monument became a rallying point for the KKK and other white supremacist movements while successive city administrations tried to remove it. In 2004, David Duke (yeah, that same scumbag that endorsed Trump) called the monument a rallying point for white pride.
It wasn't after Dylan Roof murdered nine African Americans in their church in Charleston in 2015 that the city began to take firm action to remove the monument. It was finally removed 2017 under heavy police protection at the orders of Mayor Mitch Landrieu.
If Confederate monuments were truly about telling the history, then one of Robert E. Lee's finest generals and one who had the respect of opposing forces would surely be memorialized?
Using the Monument Lab's database of US monuments and memorials, only 38 locations mention General Longstreet. Of those 38, only three are devoted to General Longstreet- one statue at Gettysburg, one statue in his Georgia home town, and his home in that same Georgia town. More ineffectual Confederate commanders like John Bell Hood and Braxton Bragg have more memorials and two large US Army bases are named for Hood and Bragg. Even Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate cavalry commander that started the Ku Klux Klan, has more memorials than Longstreet.
Longstreet’s actions after the Civil War resulted in him being erased from the historical consciousness of Southern commemorative organizations that emerged in the late 1800s and early 1900s that funded the placement of many Confederate memorials.
The events we see in the news today are connected to the events of our nation's past. The Rev. William Barber of North Carolina once called today "The Third Reconstruction"- the first one being right after the Civil War, the second one being the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s and third one now, as we try as society to finally reconcile the sins of our past with the nation we desire for our children.