It's December 8th, 2021, and we're standing in a small crowd on historic Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.

It's 854 a.m. an entirely unmomentous time for what is truly

a momentous occasion. Overhead, a crane whirs and begins to lift its profound load upward.

All actions being orchestrated by a site manager in a high visibility orange safety jacket,

speaking into a walkie-talkie.

A moment later, the 21 foot tall statue of General Robert E. Lee on horseback,

which has towered over the site since 1890,

lifts off its 60 foot tall graffiti plastered marble pedestal

and begins to make its humble descent onto the back of a flatbed truck.

160 years after the first shots were fired on Fort Suppner, Richmond, Virginia has begun

to turn the page on a new story, in which favorite son, Robert E. Lee, will be playing

a much less glorious role. Hey folks it's American History It, so glad you're listening. I'm Don Wildman.

One of the strangest aspects of the Civil War in my own opinion is the passage The On one hand, it is, of course, natural and necessary for a nation so bitterly divided, as the United States was after 1861, to repair its differences and unite after the war.

How that would happen, though though is a complicated and detailed

discussion. What I'm referring to here is the superficial more public and

popular manner in which we transitioned, not just in the immediate years after the war, but for generations

onward, honestly, right up until my childhood in the 1960s, and no man figures more prominently,

more iconically, in that national process than the General of the Southern Forces

Robert E. Lee. In our episode today we will discuss Lee's biographical story,

his origins and early career, his marriage.

As well as this later chapter of Lee's life, how he eventually assumed this unlikely role,

we'll try to steer clear of the detailed military actions of the Civil War itself, those battles and campaigns are for another day.

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