The Left cancels Robert E. Lee's horse Traveller

FPI / August 9, 2023

The woke leftist mob has canceled a horse.

Two markers honoring Traveller, Robert E. Lee's horse during the Civil War and his time as president of the university which now bears his name, have been removed from the Washington and Lee University campus in Lexington, Virginia.

Traveller "has long been a fixture of campus culture at Washington and Lee University, as the famous steed, known for his courage and stamina, is buried on campus," Andrew Thompson of Washington and Lee University noted in a Aug. 8 report for The College Fix.

Apparently, the woke mob decided that Traveller was well aware of his Confederate connections. Leftists pressured university officials to remove two markers erected in the horse's honor, his gravestone as well as a plaque which had been affixed to the exterior a campus building.

Lee as president of the then-Washington College from 1865 until his death in 1871. Traveller died a few months later.

In a July 16 response to community concerns, university officials said they would replace the plaque they stripped from a campus building, which had noted Traveller’s last home and was a visible part of the campus environment, Thompson's report noted, adding that, ss of Aug. 7, the plaque had yet to be replaced.

The original marker stated: “The last home of Traveller. Through war and peace the faithful, devoted and beloved horse of General Robert Lee. Placed by the Virginia Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy.”

The university’s board of trustees stated: “We have reviewed campus symbols, names and practices, and we are making changes to remove doubt about our separation from the Confederacy and the Lost Cause.”

Kamron Spivey, president of Students for Historical Preservation, told The College Fix: “Traveller was a beloved part of the campus story. People like to hear tales about animals because they do no wrong. That is how Traveller has been immortalized in campus history. He was a faithful horse whose beauty and loyalty Robert E. Lee said would inspire poets. Until this month, very few people seemed bothered by the horse.”

Spivey said a tradition on the campus is to place apples and pennies beside Traveller’s gravestone.

The apples are “because horses like apples,” Spivey said, and the “pennies are sort of a shot at Lincoln and the Union, placing the coin tails-up so that Lincoln is essentially kissing the grave of a horse.”

The university also removed two plaques from an academic building. One marked where Lee was sworn in as the school’s president, and the other denoted the room which served as his first office space while president.

The changes are “part of a carefully considered series of steps to create educational exhibits and place Confederate artifacts in those exhibits and in context,” the university said in its statement. “Washington and Lee University is an educational institution. Its campus is neither a museum nor an appropriate repository for Confederate artifacts, and as such, the Board determined that a number of plaques on campus should be relocated to a museum to be appropriately interpreted.”

Spivey said the new developments are “yet another of the university administration’s attempt[s] to completely ignore the civil war and Robert E. Lee. Due to a misappreciation of Lee’s contributions and positive legacy as an educator, university officials think any reference to the man is detracting from student enrollment. Rather than confront the issue directly, they are trying to secretly hide their history from the world.”

Free Press International
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