Thread by @pptsapper

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"
timesargus.com/news/local/vt-…

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 ( babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.… 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:
leefamilyarchive.org/reference/addr…

I mentioned the "Reconciliation" narrative a few times in that thread; this is what I'm referring to:
angrystaffofficer.com/2017/09/25/dec…

There's also the issue of an imagined southern hegemony, where it was a war of north versus south. That simply isn't true (Yes, I used GH Thomas as the cover for both pieces because he's a BAMF):
angrystaffofficer.com/2019/04/01/deb…