Folks here might be interested in the perspective of Southerner and Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Jon Meacham on the monuments issue:

New York Times

From the article:

'Facts, as John Adams said, are stubborn things — and, for Southerners, they are also often uncomfortable. If we don't face them forthrightly, we risk living in worlds of fantasy and fable, subject not to reason, the greatest of gifts, but susceptible to passion, the most dangerous of forces. In such alternative realities, the Civil War was not about slavery but about what neo-Confederates refer to as "heritage."'