One aspect in the Confederate statues controversy is the view that those men honored in stone were traitors for making war against their country, the United States. In Treason on Trial, Austin, Texas attorney-historian Robert Icenhauer-Ramirez investigates the reasons why Confederate leaders evaded conviction. He finds “Lincoln’s fingerprints” on Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s decision to “parole” Robert E. Lee and his men, and evidence that Lincoln hoped Confederate President Jefferson Davis would avoid trial by escaping to foreign parts. As an old trial lawyer, Lincoln feared a hung jury. Davis was captured and imprisoned but eventually released on bail. On Christmas Day, 1868, Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, granted a general amnesty to every participant in the rebellion. Icenhauer-Ramirez briefly explores the aftermath and its enduring presence in American history. Lee kept silent, but Davis “cultivated the image of a fearless man” and helped shape the dangerous legend of the South’s “Lost Cause.”
