On Saturday, I drove to a Civil War museum in White Settlement. Which only sounds like a punch line.
Wanted to see up-close the Texas Civil War Museum, for now the possible home of Dallas' Alexander Phimister Proctor's 1935 statue Robert E. Lee and Young Soldier that overlooked Turtle Creek Boulevard until the City Council snatched it from its perch in September. On Wednesday, the council will vote to auction off the bronze to the highest bidder, which is the sole option on the agenda, or loan it to the museum per a recommendation from the Office of Cultural Affairs.
Last month, Mayor Mike Rawlings all but demanded the statue's sale so "at least we got $1 million toward doing something right." But that isn't what his Confederate monuments task force recommended. The group consisting of artists, educators, religious leaders and a high-school student wanted it loaned to a local museum or "educational institution" where it could be discussed in "full historical context of the Civil War, Reconstruction, 'Lost Cause' mythology and the 'Jim Crow' era." Barring that, the task force said, the Lee monument should remain in storage for three years, after which the city should revisit the subject.
Selling the statue only became Option No. 1 when it became clear the Texas Civil War Museum was no option at all.
Jennifer Scripps, head of Dallas' Office of Cultural Affairs, told me she called everyone she could think of — "cemeteries, private buyers and obviously all of the Dallas institutions" — and no one wanted Lee. That included the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance, which says it doesn't have the room.
"There's probably not a perfect solution here," Scripps said.
I'll fess up: I'd never heard of the Texas Civil War Museum until last month, when it appeared in a council briefing as the only willing taker for the Lee bronze. Light digging turned up a 2006 Dallas Morning News article, which said it was owned by private collectors Judy and Ray Richey, and that a chunk of its collection came from the late Texas Confederate Museum in Austin, which the United Daughters of the Confederacy began curating in the years after the Civil War. The museum's then-exec director told this newspaper, "We try to be balanced."
![Ah, there's that Confederate pocket watch I was not looking for.](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="674" height="934"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
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Just weeks ago, Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy wrote that the museum "has purposely displayed artifacts equally." Which I guess is mostly true: Enter through the gift shop, and the left side of the place is filled with Union artifacts — guns, swords, canteens, overcoats, playing cards, flags, cannons — while the right side is devoted to items worn and used by the men who wore the gray.
But it's no more 50-50 than a coin toss with a two-headed quarter.
The vestiges of the Texas Confederate Museum tilt the collection southward. So, too, does the film playing in the theater: Our Homes, Our Rights: Texas in the Civil War, in which the "sectional crisis" is presented almost entirely as a tussle over states' rights. There's scant mention of slavery — and when you do see a photo of a family of slaves, they're counted among the "self-reliant pioneers" who came to Texas "from all over the world." John Fullinwider, the Dallas educator and activist, rightly calls the movie "a lovely bit of 'Lost Cause' propaganda."
If the Dallas City Council wants to put the Lee bronze in a place where it might have some context, this is not that place. The only place I saw the words "slaves" and "slavery" was near the front of the exhibit, in a short caption accompanying old copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It noted that Southerners accused the author of "negatively stereotyping" the Southern way of life.
The woman who took my $6 was wearing a Confederate States of America lanyard, decorated with the Confederate battle flag. The museum wasn't crazy crowded on a dreary, drizzly Saturday — mostly older folks with a few moms and dads with tykes in tow. I asked one couple why they were there. They said they were from northeastern Florida, driving around the country in their RV, and figured it was a good place to stop on a rainy day.
I asked what they thought about the place, and mentioned this is where Dallas was considering sending the Lee. They already knew all about it. And they were ... unhappy, let's say.
![A field coat worn by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a field office are on display at Texas Civil...](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="1024" height="683"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
![Soldiers' rifles are on display at the Texas Civil War Museum in White Settlement.](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="1024" height="750"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
"Robert E. Lee was pivotal in reuniting this country after the war," said Maria Celeste Upthegrove, who said she had moved to the U.S. from Cuba. She castigated the council for removing Lee from his longtime home in Oak Lawn.
"He is being savaged by people who have an agenda of divisiveness," she said, launching into a history lesson I've heard too many times at council open-mike sessions.
On my way out, I hit the gift shop, larded with CSA belt buckles and "the ONLY reproductions ever made from General Robert E. Lee's Dress Sword Belt Plate." There were Chinese-made lenticular Lee postcards, which twist history and ignore fact. And there's a whole row of tchotchkes decorated with the Confederate battle flag, including stickers, flags and pencils.
My son later noticed the pencil was manufactured in Taiwan for a Pennsylvania company called Love of Money Inc.
Sell the Lee statue, Dallas. Sell it now.
![In 2021, losses from reported fraud totaled more than $5.8 billion, a 70% increase from...](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="200" height="150"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
