In his June 13, 2020, blog post on Wynning History, Jake Wynn takes on the topic of how Union Civil War veterans saw the erection of monuments to men of the Confederacy.
The context of his post was the proposal by the Pennsylvania Legislature to pay $20,000 of taxpayer money to erect an equestrian statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on the Gettysburg Battlefield. Wynn describes how a Pottsville G.A.R. Post opposed the bill, which contributed to its defeat. Years later, in 1917, a statue was erected honoring Lee, but no State funds were used.
The conclusion:
I’ll say it here again: many Pennsylvania Civil War veterans felt it inappropriate and blasphemous to erect monuments to traitors who attempted to overthrow the United States government in a suicidal effort to protect their right to enslave human beings….
And for many of the Pennsylvania soldiers who donned the blue uniforms of the U.S. Army in the 1860s, they voiced their disdain for the Confederate cause until their dying days.
See Complete Post: How Did Schuylkill County Civil War Soldiers Feel About Confederate Monuments? An Example from 1903.
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