Pentagon Orders Reinstallation of Robert E. Lee Portrait, Complete With Slave
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
The Pentagon is ordering the reinstallation of a portrait of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that was taken down at the U.S. Military Academy three years ago, The New York Times reported on Thursday night.
The painting is 20 feet tall and depicts a slave guiding Lee’s horse in the background. In 2022, the federal government formed a commission that ordered the removal of the names of Confederates adorning various military installations. That commission ordered the academy in West Point, New York to remove any displays that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.”
With President Donald Trump’s backing, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has waged a war on what he calls “wokeness” in the military.
Regarding the painting of Lee, a West Point graduate, The Times reported:
It was not clear how West Point could return General Lee’s portrait to the library without violating the law, which emerged from the protests that followed George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police officers in 2020.
“At West Point, the United States Military Academy is prepared to restore historical names, artifacts, and assets to their original form and place,” said Rebecca Hodson, the Army’s communications director. “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”
Both President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been outspoken in their desire to restore Confederate names and monuments that were removed over the last five years. Mr. Hegseth recently called for returning a memorial to the Confederacy that was removed from Arlington National Cemetery at the recommendation of Congress. In a social media post this month, Mr. Hegseth said the Arlington statue “never should have been taken down by woke lemmings.”
In February, Hegseth restored the names of multiple bases that had been named for Confederate officers, including Fort Bragg and Fort Lee. However, in those cases, the secretary renamed the bases for soldiers who had not fought for the Confederacy, but who nonetheless happened to share the same last names as the Confederates the bases were previously named for. The move appeared designed to comply with a 2020 law banning bases from being named after Confederates. This provision was part of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which was enacted in the waning days of Trump’s first term. Trump vetoed the measure, but Congress mustered the necessary two-thirds majority to override it.
