I really should know something about Robert E. Lee. I had not only a total of three years of U.S. history in grade school (along with 0 years of world history), but a full year of Virginia history in fourth grade. I grew up in Southwestern Virginia until I was 10, then moved to Pennsylvania for my formative high school and college years. So part of my perception of differences between the two states probably has to do with where I was in my personal development, but one difference that always struck me was that in Virginia the state was something important, something to be proud of and know the history of, whereas in Pennsylvania the state was just sort of an amorphous political entity that exists to serve you, and doesn’t do a particularly good job of it. So my childhood was the 1980s, not the 1850s, but I could see some rough echos still of what might make a person like Lee feel loyalty to a state and be willing to fight for it. I’ve been to Washington and Lee University where he is buried (along with his horse), Gettysburg, and Arlington National Cemetery. So, without further ado, here are 10 things in the Wikipedia article on Robert E. Lee that I either forgot since fourth grade, or never knew.

1. He was trained as an engineer at West Point, and served in the Army Corps of Engineers early in his career.
2. His wife was a step-great-granddaughter of George Washington.
3. He served with Ulysses S. Grant in the Mexican-American war.
4. His in-laws were wealthy slaveowners who owned a large tobacco plantation.
5. When his father-in-law died, his will stated that his slaves were “to be emancipated by my executors in such manner as to my executors may seem most expedient and proper, the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease.” Apparently the slaves knew they were to be emancipated in the will, but didn’t know about the five years. Lee took the full five years to do it, during which time some ran away and he had them captured and whipped, although there is some controversy over the details.
6. He fought on the Union side at Harper’s Ferry, before Virginia seceded (I must have learned this in fourth grade, but haven’t thought about it since at least high school).
7. He was a Union commander at a fort in Texas when Texas seceded.
8. In 1865 he favored a plan to “arm and train slaves in Confederate uniform for combat. Lee explained, ‘We should employ them without delay … [along with] gradual and general emancipation.’ The first units were in training as the war ended.”
9. His U.S. citizenship and voting rights were stripped after the war, although he received a pardon and was not prosecuted or imprisoned. They were restored posthumously by the U.S. Senate and Gerald Ford in 1975.
10. Arlington National Cemetery was his family home.

So there you have it. He certainly wasn’t perfect, but I personally don’t think it is very productive pulling down statues to people who fought and suffered in what they believed was a necessary struggle to defend their homeland 150 years ago, and who mostly didn’t have a choice in the matter (although Lee did). I would rather see interpretive signage, museum displays, tours and school curricula that put the uglier parts of our history in context rather than sweep it under the rug. But what happens is that a few assholes choose to appropriate a particular symbol for their asshole cause, and then nobody else is allowed to interpret that symbol as meaning anything else, so we tear it down, sweep it under the rug, and maybe repeat our mistakes later. So I say leave Robert E. Lee rest in peace and let’s focus on real solutions to real problems affecting the descendents of all the people involved in the civil war – like poverty, inequality, education, physical and mental health, the environment and climate change.