RE Lee & John Brown

In the news again

In Oct. 1859 fate would bring abolitionist John Brown and US Army Lt. Col. Robert E Lee together. Brown had attacked the US Armory at Harpers Ferry on Oct. 16 to seize weapons and begin a slave revolt in the region. Lee was at Arlington on leave and was one of the ranking, experienced officers available in Washington DC. He was sent by the President to put down the revolt with a company of Marines.

John Brown and RE Lee would come face to face on Oct. 18 when the Marines stormed the firehouse that would become known as “John Brown’s Fort” and took him and his surviving followers into custody.

This was the biggest news across the country and both names would become VERY well known. Brown would be tried and hung for treason and Lee became famous for the capture.

Much like recent events here in 2025, different groups of people had different beliefs in 1859 about who the heroes and villains were.

Fast forward 6 years later…Lee had resigned his US Army commission, become a rebel general and after brutal years of bloody conflict surrendered his army…thus ending the Confederate States of America.

Slavery was now over in the re-United States. Brown’s name was sung in songs and he was a martyr to many and admired for his role helping to abolish slavery.

Lee was now one of many rebel officers who had committed treason against the US.

However, Brown was not seen as the universal hero, nor was Lee considered the universal villain….and even after 166 years there are those who still want to honor Lee and those who want to play down the horror of slavery that Brown gave his life to help end…and that’s how they end up news worthy again in September 2025.

An Executive Order issued by President Trump in March titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” has them in the headlines again.

Lee’s portrait in his Confederate Generals uniform has just been rehung at West Point after being removed by an Army Commission as not appropriate in 2022. Meanwhile in Harpers Ferry some images and display content by the NPS dealing with slavery will soon be removed.

John Brown’s raid made Harpers Ferry a “ground zero” National Historic Site to help tell Americans the honest story about slavery.

The Trump administration says it wants “balance” and “sanity” in presenting our history and does not want to erase history. There is another portrait of Lee at West Point that was never removed and depicts him when he was Superintendent there as a US Army officer. Keeping that seems sane and balanced enough. Pete Hegseth ordered Lee’s Confederate portrait, painted in 1952 put back up. This feels like pandering to the “Lost Cause” narrative that slavery wasn’t so bad and was not the cause of the Civil War.

(the portrait includes a black man in the lower right corner leading Lee’s horse)

Removing images and content about slavery from the NPS displays at Harpers Ferry seems to also play to the “Lost Cause” narrative. The “balance” that Trump appears to be promoting is that Confederates were good people and deserve their portraits in places of honor, while images of enslaved people can and should be erased from our view.