In his letter published Aug. 26, the writer may have been right when he characterized some protesters demanding the removal of monuments of Confederate soldiers, whom he regarded as “grossly uneducated” about the Civil War.
However, the writer is apparently equally uninformed on the matter. He errs while referring to “descendants of families who lived in the deep South, and 99-plus percent of their ancestors were not slave owners.”
In fact, according to the 1860 U.S. Census, just prior to the southern states’ seceding from the union, 32 percent of white families owned slaves. Some states had far more slave owners (46 percent in South Carolina, 49 percent in Mississippi) while some had far less (20 percent in Arkansas).
As to his point about the feelings of “tens of millions” descending from the soldiers portrayed on the monuments, note that even the descendants of Robert E. Lee prefer his monuments placed in museums or on preserved battlefields, not on display in public squares and parks where some descendants may feel pride, while many scores more feel revulsion from the symbols of their own ancestors’ suffering.
Howard Lester
Leeds