SHOULD WE HIDE OUR HISTORY BECAUSE IT'S NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT?

Editorial note: That's a question which I been pondering about ever since the news broke that some civil war monuments have been removed. Particularly the monuments of confederate generals. Granted if I been alive back then I'd be fighting on the side of the Union.  But, I do question the actions of some who want to change history if that is what this is all about
First let us look back 156 years during the American Civil war. BUT! It doesn't mean it's a cool thing to drive around with the stars and bars flag flying in the wind in the back of a pickup truck.  The flag they should be honoring in the back of their truck is old Glory, not the stars and bars of the confederacy.

 Quoting from wikipedia: " The American Civil War was fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. After a long standing controversy over slavery and state's rights, war broke out in April 1861, when Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, shortly after Abraham Lincoln was elected. The nationalists of the Union proclaimed loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States of America advocating states’ rights to perpetual slavery and its expansion in the Americas.
Among the 34 U.S. states in February 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the U.S. to form the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy grew to include eleven states; it claimed two more border states (Kentucky and Missouri), the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the Union's western territories of Arizona and New Mexico, which was organized and incorporated into the Confederacy as Confederate Arizona. The Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by the United States government, nor was it recognized by any foreign country (although Britain and France granted it belligerent status). The states that remained loyal, including the border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North.
The North and South quickly raised volunteer and conscript armies that fought mostly in the South over four years. During this time many innovations in warfare occurred, including the development and use of iron-clad ships, ultimately changing naval strategy around the world. The Union finally won the war when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the battle of Appomattox, which triggered a series of surrenders by Confederate generals throughout the southern states. Four years of intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers dead, a higher number than the number of American military deaths in World War I and World War II combined, and much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and 4 million slaves were freed. The Reconstruction Era (1863–1877) overlapped and followed the war, with the process of restoring national unity, strengthening the national government, and granting civil rights to freed slaves throughout the country. The Civil War is arguably the most studied and written about episode in American history."---read full story



The leading Generals:
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–77). As Commanding General (1864–69), Grant worked closely with President Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War. Supported by Congress, Grant implemented Reconstruction, often at odds with President Andrew Johnson. Twice elected president, Grant led the Republicans in their effort to remove the vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery, protect African-American citizenship, and support economic prosperity. His presidency has often been criticized for tolerating corruption and for the economic depression in his second term.
Grant graduated in 1843 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, then served in the Mexican–American War. After the war he married Julia Boggs Dent in 1848, their marriage producing four children. Grant initially retired from the Army in 1854. He struggled financially in civilian life. When the Civil War began in 1861, he rejoined the U.S. Army. In 1862, Grant took control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee, and led Union forces to victory in the Battle of Shiloh, earning a reputation as an aggressive commander. In July 1863, after a series of coordinated battles, Grant defeated Confederate armies and seized Vicksburg, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and dividing the Confederacy in two. After his victories in the Chattanooga Campaign, Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general and Commanding General of the Army in March 1864. Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of bloody battles, trapping Lee's army in their defense of Richmond. Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns in other theaters, as well. In April 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the war. ---see full story

Editorial Note: So, are we going to start taking down Union generals monuments, or just target confederate ones?

Robert E Lee
Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American general known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. The son of Revolutionary War officer Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III, Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years. During this time, he served throughout the United States, distinguished himself during the Mexican–American War, and served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy.
When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his personal desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command.  During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis. Once he took command of the main field army in 1862 he soon emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning most of his battles, all against far superior Union armies.  Lee's strategic foresight was more questionable, and both of his major offensives into Union territory ended in defeat.
Lee's aggressive tactics, which resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism in recent years.  Lee surrendered his entire army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. By this time, Lee had assumed supreme command of the remaining Southern armies; other Confederate forces swiftly capitulated after his surrender. Lee rejected the proposal of a sustained insurgency against the Union and called for reconciliation between the two sides.
After the war, as President of what is now Washington and Lee University, Lee supported President Andrew Johnson's program of Reconstruction and intersectional friendship, while opposing the Radical Republican proposals to give freed slaves the vote and take the vote away from ex-Confederates. He urged them to rethink their position between the North and the South, and the reintegration of former Confederates into the nation's political life. Lee became the great Southern hero of the War, a postwar icon of the "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" to some. But his popularity grew even in the North, especially after his death in 1870. Barracks at West Point built in 1962 are named after him. ( read full story) 



Related Stories:

NPR: New Orleans Takes Down Statue Of Gen. Robert E. Lee

FOX NEWS: New Orleans takes down prominent Confederate monument

WP: Protests against removing Confederate monuments are not really about history

NBC NEWS: Is Removing Confederate Monuments Like Erasing History?

NY TIMES: Mitch Landrieu’s Speech on the Removal of Confederate Monuments in New Orleans

NY DAILY NEWS: Condoleezza Rice argues tearing down slave owners’ statues is ‘sanitizing’ history
Quote: “When you start wiping out your history, sanitizing your history to make you feel better, it’s a bad thing,” Rice said.
Quote:  “I’m a firm believer in ‘keep your history before you.’ And so I don’t actually want to rename things that were named for slave owners,” Rice replied. “I want us to have to look at the names and recognize what they did, and be able to tell our kids what they did and for them to have a sense of their own history.”