The Pentagon has reinstalled a 20-foot-tall painting of Robert E. Lee in his Confederate uniform at the West Point library, according to CBS News.
The painting, which shows Lee with an enslaved man guiding his horse in the background, was previously displayed in the library but was removed in 2022 under a Department of Defense directive requiring the U.S. Military Academy to remove items that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.”
“At West Point, the United States Military Academy is prepared to restore historical names, artifacts, and assets to their original form and place,” Rebecca Hodson, the Army’s communications director, told The New York Times earlier this week. “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has expressed his support for reinstating Confederate names and monuments that had been removed in recent years.
