Ohio’s Strange Monument Honoring Robert E. Lee

[struggle4progress]

BY STEVEN ROSEN · AUGUST 11TH, 2015

... If any state would seem to not have a need to honor Lee with a monument, it would be Ohio. Yet there it is, in a grassy area along the roadside just outside the city of Franklin, north of Cincinnati in northwest Warren County at the corner of the (old) Dixie Highway (old U.S. 25) and Hamilton-Middletown Road.

It is a large, ruggedly shaped boulder with a bronze plaque in the center, fenced off from the roadway by some petite white pillars and a draped metal chain. The plaque depicts Lee astride his horse, Traveller, and reads, “Erected and Dedicated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Friends In Loving Memory of Robert E. Lee and to Mark the Route of the Dixie Highway. ‘The shaft memorial and highway straight attest his worth — he cometh to his own.’ — Littlefield/Erected 1927.”

On my recent visit, the grass around the monument had been cut, and a small American flag was at the base. I had to park on the shoulder of the highway since there was no lot for stopping ...

The Cincinnati Enquirer advanced the 1927 dedication ceremonies for the “marker,” noting that among those present would be the president of Ohio’s United Daughters of the Confederacy, Ohio’s director of highways, and — on behalf of the city — the publisher of the Franklin Chronicle. A male quartet would sing “Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny” (Lee’s home state was Virginia), an official from Virginia’s Washington and Lee University was to give an address, and the audience would sing Lee’s favorite hymn, “How Firm a Foundation” ...

http://citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-33360-ohio%E2%80%99s_stran.html

[1939]

1. Southern Ohio was a hotbed of Copperhead Democrats during the Civil War NT

[struggle4progress]

2. Thanks! I did not know that!

[1939]

3. Yup

Southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were parts of free states, but had major southern sympathies during the Civil War. There were a lot of Copperheads in those areas. Michigan also had some. There was an anti-recruitment rally in Detroit aided and abetted by CS agents crossing from Canada denouncing the war as a Republican War. The major speaker for the recruiting rally, a local judge, the county sheriff, and another leading Republican had to take shelter in a nearby hotel protected from the mob by the sheriff's pistols. The three then vowed to show the CS by organizing an extra Michigan regiment (Michigan's quota was 23 regiments and they organized an extra regiment).

The 24th Michigan Infantry was organized by the judge (Henry Morrow) who became the colonel and the other two were the lt col, and major. The regiment was posted to the famous Iron Brigade and suffered the greatest numeric loss of any Union regiment at Gettysburg (in the process inflicting the greatest numeric loss of any CS regiment on the 26th NC). My great, great uncle enlisted in the regiment at Col Morrow's call and served through Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Mine Run, and the Wilderness before meeting his death at Spottsylvania in 1864. After the war, they named the local G.A.R. post after Uncle Reuben.