New Orleans — Robert E. Lee lost again.
The statue of the Confederate Army’s general in chief vanished Friday from atop a 60-foot-tall column in the middle of Lee Circle. This work is the fourth of four Confederate-oriented statues that the city of New Orleans has removed in recent weeks, amid considerable and well-deserved controversy.
During my annual pilgrimage to the Crescent City early this month, I saw Lee rise above well-tended grounds, including grass and flowers, although the concrete at his monument’s base was badly broken. Interestingly enough, the man who led one side of the Civil War to defeat stood just two blocks north of the spectacular National WWII Museum, which chronicles a unified America’s triumph in that mammoth struggle.
Along the landmark’s side, a graffito demanded: “Take It Down Now.” That ultimately victorious sentiment was popular around here, but not unanimous.
“They should leave it,” said Marquis, a black man in a white T-shirt. A couple of weeks back, he sat at the statute’s base and listened to music on a small speaker wirelessly connected to his cell phone. He breathed a whiff of disgust at those who wanted Lee toppled. “As someone said, ‘Ain’t no blood in him.’”
Marquis took a drag off of his cigarette and continued. “He’s just standing there. So, they’re going to take him down. And who are they going to put up there? Donald Trump?”
Even then, Lee was not long for the circle that bears his name.
In what seems like a major act of virtue signaling, New Orleans’ Democratic mayor Mitch Landrieu led the effort to purify the Big Easy of these four Confederate-era artworks. The first honored a bloody white rebellion against the city’s biracial government during Reconstruction. Workers then swept a depiction of Confederate president Jefferson Davis from a pedestal on Jefferson Davis Highway. Tuesday saw General P. G. T. Beauregard’s retreat. And now, Lee has achieved his rendezvous with obscurity.
This exercise is reminiscent of former Governor George Elmer Pataki (R., N.Y.). In his own massive act of virtue signaling, he secured federal funds from G. W. Bush’s EPA to dredge up and remove PCBs that had sat quietly for decades at the bottom of the Hudson River. This noxious industrial runoff was from General Electric factories in upstate New York. Rather than let sleeping toxins lie, Pataki had the riverbed vacuumed. The result? PCB levels shot up, and the Hudson’s relatively clean waters were befouled anew.
Likewise, this episode has stirred up the relative tranquility in New Orleans, with long-healed wounds being scratched open. Just blocks from the ever-delightful New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which I savored for the 23rd consecutive time a few weeks ago, a group of Confederate sympathizers waved the South’s Battle Flag beside Beauregard’s striking statute at City Park. A year ago, Beauregard sat in splendor beneath the sun, all alone. Confederate flags were nowhere in sight. This year’s display of Rebel sympathies and banners did not signal progress. And now, Beauregard has been scraped from his pedestal and whisked to an undisclosed location.
This episode has stirred up the relative tranquility in New Orleans, with long-healed wounds being scratched open.
Say what you will about these statues, they tend to be excellent works of art. Despite the horrors at their roots, they beautifully capture the human physique and, very often, the equestrian form. If nothing else, they added vivid, dramatic images to this lovely city.