I mean, really, dudes

[mme_hardy]

The National Cathedral is debating what to do about windows celebrating Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson that were donated by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1953.

Here are two of the Jackson windows.



That is, without a doubt, the iconography of sainthood. Jackson is being welcomed into Heaven with the words "So he passed over and all the trumpets sounded for him", which is from Pilgrim's Progress.

Stonewall Jackson was a 'kind' slaveowner (yes, sneer quotes) who sold his slaves after the beginning of the civil war because "the excitement of the times proved so demoralizing to them". (A grandson of one of his slaves erected a memorial window to him. People are complicated.) He fought in defense of slavery.

He was not a fucking saint. The Daughters of the Confederacy donated windows depicting him as such. (The National Cathedral removed the Confederate Battle flag from these windows and from the Robert E. Lee windows, which have the same issues, last year.) A cathedral window should not be glorifying him.

Comments

[muccamukk]

If you read contemporary accounts from his slaves and slaves who had to work with him in the army, they weren't fans. And... let's take invading Mexico off there generally?

[mme_hardy]

If you write off "participated in the Mexican war" there go pretty much all the Civil War generals.

[muccamukk]

No, for sure, but does waving sabres and charging into someone else's country need to be in the actual window?

[mme_hardy]

Ohhhh, gotcha.