Since the Lee monument was FINALLY removed from the Capital today, I thought it would be fun to look back at the moment of national unity in 1910 that brought it there in first pla- oh, wait, no, the opposite happened.

Here's New York's GAR with a WTF and a GH Thomas namedrop

Here's Indiana, New Jersey, South Dakota, Delaware, New Mexico, Kansas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania with a double shotted "aw hell no"
Vermont with a "get lost"
https://t.co/WdaJaPto0U
From the same article, Kansas nearly sending a John Brown monument, which would've been EPIC:
The debate was pretty hot in the GAR encampment of 1910 ( https://t.co/f88VlJVeyd some were for letting bygones be bygones.. The nation was united now, right? Then this dude from Georgia spoke up:
Albert Sholes - who'd served with two Rhode Island units in the war - went on to quote this letter from a son of a Confederate officer. The Lost Cause was growing fanatical in the second generation:
One reason this was a divisive issue was because the idea of a pension for US Army Civil War veterans was going through Congress, and many GAR members didn't want to rock the boat, such as this one:
Kansas striking back again:
Some GAR representatives were saying that if the GAR made a fuss about the Lee monument, it might be a rough time for the GAR members in the south, to which Indiana replied:
I'll leave you with the words of the representative from Illinois, Jasper Darling, who prophesied what compromise and "reconciliation" would bring:
Darling, a soldier from Massachusetts in the war, was an adamant opponent of the Lost Cause narrative and was NOT a fan of Lee, btw. Here's a sample:
https://t.co/nrPFFebkeE

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