Who was General Robert E Lee and why is his statue in Charlottesville being taken down?

, documents have revealed that Lee was cruel -  encouraging staff to severely beat slaves who were recaptured. One slave described Lee as one of the meanest men she had ever met.

In a letter to his wife, he wrote that while slavery was a "moral and political evil", he believed that African Americans were "better off" in America than in Africa.

Lee eventually went on to fight with the south, and despite having little experience in fighting, Lee was successful in leading a number of battles against Union troops.

He was famously defeated at the pivotal battle at Gettysburg in 1863 by Union Major General George Meade.

Historians have said that Lee's infantry assault across a wide plain was a miscalculation, with the loss ending the commander's attempts to invade the north.

Statues were erected in Lee's honour after his death in 1870, with his image also put onto five postage stamps.

Why is his statue in Charlottesville being taken down?

A statue in Lee's honour was erected in Charlottesville in 1924.

Sculptor Leo Lentelli had used parts of the general's uniform to achieve the right proportions, with the statute listed as a National Historic Landmark.

But Lee's name and image has been used as a rallying cry for the South's "Lost Cause" narrative – an idea that the South had known it was going to lose the Civil War, between 1861 and 1865, but that it continued to fight on principle.

By 2016, discussions were in full-swing about taking the statue down, or at least relocating it.

The City Council voted in February 2017 to have the statue removed.

A rally was organised by white nationalists to have the statue stay in August 2017, with a counter-rally also organised - with the clash of ideology seeing one person killed and more than a dozen injured.

A statue in honour of Lee was removed from New Orleans in 2017.

What happened in Charlottesville?

Far-right groups had gathered at Charlottesville on August 12 to protest the decision to bring down the statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee.

Activist Richard Spencer and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke attended the demonstrations.

The “Unite the Right” rally attracted a peaceful counter-protest in Charlottesville.

But the counter-protest ended in tragedy when a car ploughed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring about 19 others.

Heather Hyer, 32, died after being hit by the car, with her family saying she had been marching in a cry for social justice.

The 20-year-old suspect, James Alex Fields, from Ohio, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder, malicious wounding and failing to stop for an accident involving a death.

Those part of the far-right rally have begun to be named online, with at least one understood to have been fired from his job.

The tragedy has since attracted widespread attention after US President Donald Trump claimed "both sides" were to blame for the violence.