PRESS RELEASE
RE LEE STATUE AND THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

The Sons of Confederate Veterans will monitor closely the actions of the National Park Service and in particular Antietam Superintendent John Howard to be certain that he does not become a participant in the re-writing of American history which has become the credo of the Park Service. The purchase of 45 acres last week to be added to the Antietam National Battlefield includes a recently placed statue of Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at the colossal battle which cost the lives of thousands of Americans on September 17, 1862.

The huge 10-1 disparity in the number of monuments at Antietam was the central reason why William Chaney placed the Lee statue on private land several years ago. Against much opposition, Mr. Chaney realized that the National Park Service would never put a Lee statue on the battlefield they controlled so he knew he had to put it on private property. With last weeks purchase, the statue has fallen into the hands of the National Park Service. The National Park Service has for the past few years changed their focus on the war and now promote social causation as the reason for the war. In particular, the Park Service emphasizes slavery and has broken a century old tradition of treating the soldiers of the North and South as equals fighting courageously for causes each side believed in. Today the Park Service has taken sides and the bad guy is the Confederate soldier who does not deserve that designation.

Thomas Clemens, long-time President of Save Historic Antietam, has vowed to remove the statue of Lee now that it is in the hands of the National Park Service. His claim that the statue is on the Union line and that Lee wasn’t there should not ring true to the Park Service who ignored the same argument in Richmond by allowing a statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Tredegar Ironworks on a spot Lincoln never visited. This was done despite a huge outcry at a state and national level. Southern opposition was totally ignored by the Park Service. Should Superintendent Howard remove the statue, it will go a long way in proving the anti-Southern bias, which pervades the Park Service from top to bottom. There were two sides that fateful day in 1862 and Robert E. Lee, one of the most admired of all Americans, commanded the Army of the South. He deserves a spot at Antietam because of his historic stature.

Brag Bowling
National Press Officer
Sons of Confederate Veterans