When General George Edward Pickett (1825-1875) 
led his doomed division in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 3, 1865 on the last day of this famous battle famously known as Pickett’s Charge, mounted majestically on his horse, he hollered…
Up men to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from old Virginia…
before the bulk of them were systemically slaughtered by the union army…like ducks in a barrel, one northern soldier allegedly said.
The American Civil War (1861-1865) was a watershed in our history. Brother to brother, armed against the other for what they all believed to be true.
When the south took up arms against the north, they truly felt they were in the right, protecting their way of life as they’ve lived and known it, slavery being a huge part of that way.
Their forefathers, George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson who lived, died and is buried in their very own town of Charlottesville, all had slaves.
When the south surrendered to Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, it was only because their noble leader, General Robert E. Lee, who already lost half his army to starvation and disease, couldn’t bear to see the remainder of it suffer any longer…these brave, young men who loved the verdant lands of Virginia, with a passion only a vintage southerner would understand.
When Abraham Lincoln offered Lee, to head the entire Union Army, Lee humbly said no, because he could never take up arms against his beloved state.
Jefferson Davis from Mississippi, left Congress to be the leader of The Confederacy, because he too couldn’t turn his back on the land he so loved.
The protest in Virginia that’s left one person dead, is all about southern pride. The statues of southern Civil War icons being arbitrarily pulled down…Davis’s in Texas, Lee’s, in New Orleans, in my humble opinion, should have been left alone.
Davis, Lee, even Jackson, were heroes of their time only doing what they believed to be right.
We have, as a country, so many more important matters on our table, statues of men that, whether right or wrong, and who’s to judge anyway, that still inspire, should be left standing.
What do they inspire?
Courage, love of country, because that’s how the south felt about their old Virginia, it was much more than just a state…standing up for one’s beliefs, passing it on to their children.
What is wrong with us?
Where’s the compassion?
We need to read our history, it’s all there, because as they say…
history repeats itself. 
SB
