Imagery is fascinating history but paradoxical too. Lee resigned from the America of Lincoln and chose to fight for slavery and the south. Is that a noble gesture requiring a soldier on a horse signifying support for the enslavement of humans. Hyperbolic, but we can look at this history as the worse time or we can pretend nobility for what? God knows the history that followed in the south with lynching and Jim Crow as well as discrimination is hardly something to be proud of. So maybe we need another imagery, what say you, something a bit more honest to reality.
lynching in america - Google Search
"Although all men are born free, and all nations might be so, yet too true it is, that slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant — they have been cheated; asleep — they have been surprized; divided — the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? That because the people may betray themselves, they ought to give themselves up, blindfold, to those who have an interest in betraying them? Rather conclude that the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it, as well as obey it. .... But mysteries belong to religion, not to government; to the ways of the Almighty, not to the works of man." James Madison 'Who Are the Best Keepers of the People's Liberties'