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Robert E. Lee Statue At Antietam National Battlefield Vandalized

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Published Date

July 18, 2020
Vandals left graffiti on the Robert E. Lee Statue At Antietam National Battlefield/NPS

Vandals left graffiti on the Robert E. Lee Statue At Antietam National Battlefield/NPS

Vandalism of statues tied to the Confederacy continues in the National Park System, with graffiti sprayed on the statue of Robert E. Lee at Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland.

Back in June a statue erected in 1933 by the Tennessee Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to honor Confederate soldiers who died in the landscape now preserved by Fort Donelson National Battlefield was vandalized with spray paint. 

Most recently, the Robert E. Lee statue at Antietam was painted with "You Lost the War," "Racist," "BLM," and "Death To Slavery" sometime Thursday night.

Antietam rangers are investigating the vandalism, while preservation experts are being brought in to erase the graffiti.

If you have information that could help identify those responsible, you can contact any National Park Service employee, or give the Special Agents of the NPS Investigative Services Branch a call. You don't have to identify yourself, but agents want to know what you know:

CALL or TEXT the ISB Tip Line: 888-653-0009

ONLINE form www.nps.gov/ISB > "Submit a Tip"

EMAIL [email protected]

EMERGENCY dial 9-1-1

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Comments

Submitted by Michael Leatherman on July 19, 2020 - 10:15am.

This statue should be moved to a museum where it can be viewed safely and isolated along with the Daughters of the Confederacy. 


Submitted by Humphrey Ploughjogger on July 19, 2020 - 11:38am.

Yeah, Maura, Robert E. Lee really never did anything worse than Jean Lafitte did and Jean Lafitte has a whole park named after him.  So, just have some patience and wait to argue over something more important, like whether the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial should be right on the National Mall or pushed back into the shrubbery a little bit.


Submitted by Maryland Native on July 19, 2020 - 6:26pm.

On ABC News on July 1, 2020 Acting Director David Vela offered what has been termed a nuanced defense of defending Confederate Monuments on NPS property.

Okay..put up or shut up time. 

Mr. Vela stated "Let's talk about who put it up, why they put it up. The context, the lens that they used in putting it up, and then give you more information -- and then when you leave that visitor experience, you decide, visitor, what do you do with it?"

So, why doesn't the NPS put a context to this statue?  Why did the NPS purchase this property of a statue that was put up in the early 2000's?  Who put it up and why did they put it up?  Seems like they put it up because the person wanted to "even out" the number of Confederates on the battlefield.  If that is the case, why did the NPS spend tax-payer funds to purchase a property that had the statue of Lee?  Did the price of the property pay for the statue itself? 

Seems like the context of this whole thing is lacking.  Maybe the NPS should do what its acting director said it does.

The statue should go and the NPS should be forced to reckon with its decision to add a memorial to a traitor on sacred ground -- less than 20 years ago!  No one needed a statue of Robert E. Lee at Antietam to know he was there and ordered the killing of thousands of American boys.  I guess that is more context that the NPS might want to offer.  

The Battle of Antietam ended the Confederate invasion of Maryland.  It resulted in a stalemate -- but enough of a Union victory to give President Lincoln what he needed to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862.  As a Marylander, I would welcome a statue to remember that fact  that as opposed to this one of Robert E. Lee. 


Submitted by Nick on July 21, 2020 - 1:25pm.

There is no room in our culture for respect towards monuments to race supremacy.


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