It was a choice to melt down Robert E. Lee. But it would have been a choice to keep him intact, too.

So the statue of the Confederate general that once stood in Charlottesville — the one that prompted the deadly Unite the Right rally in 2017 — was now being cut into fragments and dropped into a furnace, dissolving into a sludge of glowing bronze.

A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that stirred controversy and was a focal point of a deadly White Supremacist rally in 2017 has been melted down and will be used to make works of art.

The initiative, called "Swords Into Plowshares," is led by Charlottesville’s nonprofit Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center. According to the project's website, they plan on "including local community members as co-creators in the conception and design of the artwork."

The statue is being melted in a local foundry outside of Virginia, according to NPR.

A bronze statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee has been “secretly” melted down by Charlottesville, VA’s black history museum due to fear of backlash over destroying the historic monument.

The statue of Lee, who was a revered Confederate Army general as well as a slave owner, was taken down in July 2021 at the behest of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam in the wake of protests by Black Lives Matter and the Unite the Right rally in 2017. The city council voted to have it removed and Northam backed them on it.

Wednesday, the state of Virginia removed the 12-ton statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee more than 130 years after it was installed amid efforts to change the collective memory of the Civil War.

Despite its massive size, it was lifted from its pedestal in one piece and is headed for storage. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, was there as the statue came down and appeared pleased by its removal. A crowd also chanted and cheered as Lee — atop a horse — was lifted into the air by a crane.

For more than 100 years, two statues representing Virginia have stood at the U.S. Capitol: one of George Washington and another of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

But early Monday, the Lee statue was removed from the National Statuary Hall's collection. It's expected to be replaced by a statue honoring civil rights activist Barbara Johns.

The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee inside the U.S. Capitol was removed from the building’s crypt Monday morning and will be relocated to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

The removal was conducted by staff from the Architect of the Capitol and attended by members of Virginia’s congressional delegation including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), and a representative from the office of Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.).

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Monday said the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee has been removed from the U.S. Capitol.

The monument is set to be moved to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond after residing for 111 years in Washington.

A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed from the U.S. Capitol overnight.

The statue has stood with America's first president, George Washington, as the state of Virginia's contribution to the National Statuary Hall Collection at the Capitol for more than 100 years.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced on Monday the state will seek to have it replaced with a statue of civil rights icon Barbara Johns.

Virginia is set to end a holiday celebrating Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and replace it by making Election Day a civic holiday, CNN reports.

The Virginia House voted earlier this week to remove Lee-Jackson Day from its official list of state holidays, which Gov. Ralph Northam said in his State of the Commonwealth address last month that “commemorates a lost cause,” adding, “it’s time to move on.”