J.D.R. Hawkins

A Sad Day For Richmond

Yesterday was a very sad day for Richmond, Virginia, whether they realize it or not. The last monument remaining on Monument Avenue, that of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, was removed and cut into pieces. People were actually cheering when the statue came down. How ignorant! It’s a shame they bought into the woke mentality. Those monuments were erected to memorialize some of the greatest military men this country has ever produced. They were not erected during the Jim Crow era to demoralize and intimidate black people. Anyone can research history and learn this, but the people who have bought into that falsehood are either too lazy or too stupid to do the research themselves. Now, another important piece of history is lost forever.

President Trump released a statement denouncing the removal of the monument. He called Lee a “unifying force.” Maybe that’s why the statue was removed. Because they are trying to divide us by race.

General Lee was deeply devoted to his home state of Virginia, and they have repayed that devotion with disrespect. “If Virginia stands by the old Union,” Lee told a friend, “so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will follow my native State with my sword, and, if need be, with my life.”

When Lee read the news that Virginia had joined the Confederacy, he told his wife, “Well, Mary, the question is settled.” He resigned the U.S. Army commission he had held for 32 years.

The Lee Monument was a remarkable work of art, and the largest monument in the country. What the people of Richmond, and all of Virginia for that matter, don’t realize is how this will hurt them in the long run through tourism, destruction of their history, and by allowing history to repeat itself. Their ignorance is apparent and appalling.

General Lee couldn’t have said it better himself:

“The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that proceeded it.”

Deo Vindice, General Lee. Your memory will live on, and they can’t destroy that.

“I have been ashamed of many things in my life, but the recollection of my course as a Confederate soldier has been for forty years, my chief joy and pride! If ever I was fit to live or willing to die, if ever I was worthy of my father’s name or my mother’s blood, if ever I was pleased with my place, suited to my rank, or satisfied with my sinful self—it must have been whilst I was marching under that white-starred cross upon that blood-red banner against the invaders of my native Southland. For that I want no forgiveness in this world or the next. I can adopt the saying of my great Commander, General Lee: “If all were to be done over again, I should act in precisely the same manner; I could have taken no other course without dishonor.”  — James Richard Deering

“General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history. 

“From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.”

— President Dwight D. Eisenhower (former General of the Army – 5-star General – and Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces Europe in WW II)

“Lee was the noblest American who had ever lived and one of the greatest commanders known to the annals of war.”

— British Prime Minister Winston Churchill