Hi, John,

I understand there has been a long-standing argument about the monuments to the Confederacy and what they represent. The focus of my piece is what Wendell Berry wrote in his extended essay, "The Hidden Wound," which is partly about the mythologizing that goes along with any war effort. I think a great preponderance of historians agree that the southern states leaving the Union was to save their way of life, which was founded on slavery. No one is saying that people of the South didn't mourn their dead at the time. The monuments were erected decades after the end of the war, and to a purpose other than what you suggest. And I'm not a leftist. I'm likely more conservative than you would imagine. And critical race theory is something else entirely.