The vast, vast majority of those lifeless bodies were on the Southern side of the border. Why is that? Because the South fought a defensive war against an invading army. I suppose the invading army bears no responsibility; only Lee?Desert wrote:Another article, this one from the Atlantic (rated "left center").
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/529038/Lee is a pivotal figure in American history worthy of study. Neither the man who really existed, nor the fictionalized tragic hero of the Lost Cause, are heroes worthy of a statue in a place of honor. As one Union veteran angrily put it in 1903 when Pennsylvania was considering placing a statute to Lee at Gettysburg, “If you want historical accuracy as your excuse, then place upon this field a statue of Lee holding in his hand the banner under which he fought, bearing the legend: ‘We wage this war against a government conceived in liberty and dedicated to humanity.’” The most fitting monument to Lee is the national military cemetery the federal government placed on the grounds of his former home in Arlington.
To describe this man as an American hero requires ignoring the immense suffering for which he was personally responsible, both on and off the battlefield. It requires ignoring his participation in the industry of human bondage, his betrayal of his country in defense of that institution, the battlefields scattered with the lifeless bodies of men who followed his orders and those they killed, his hostility toward the rights of the freedmen and his indifference to his own students waging a campaign of terror against the newly emancipated. It requires reducing the sum of human virtue to a sense of decorum and the ability to convey gravitas in a gray uniform.
In no way was there a betrayal of the "country". The country as we now know it is what replaced the pre-war USA. Lee's country was Virginia. If Lee had been a traitor, then Davis certainly was, and yet (despite holding him illegally for years) the feds were never able to find a single charge to prosecute Davis (or anyone) with.
Would you (and this is a serious if hypothetical question, really, Desert) support Canada conquering the US in order to put a stop to abortions? And regardless of your answer, would you say that in the post-war now-part-of-Canada US, anybody who wanted to put up a statue memorializing either a great leader of the defense of the US or a memorial to those who died in her defense, is by definition supporting baby-murder, or at least baby-murderers?