Story highlights A statue of Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard is the latest to be dismantled

Statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis has already been removed

(CNN) The City of New Orleans early Wednesday removed one of the two remaining Confederate monuments that had been scheduled to come down.

The equestrian statue of Confederate Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard honors the military leader who died in New Orleans in 1893. It is the third monument to come down in the city.

Earlier Tuesday, police put up barricades near the monument, CNN affiliate WGNO reported. Protesters both for and against the statue gathered at the site as the work started that evening. Shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday, crew workers yanked the Beauregard statue from its perch and lowered it to a truck as scattered cheers broke out.

"Today we take another step in defining our city not by our past but by our bright future," Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a statement. "While we must honor our history, we will not allow the Confederacy to be put on a pedestal in the heart of New Orleans."

Today we refuse to allow our past to define us and begin removal of the Beauregard statue honoring the Confederacy. https://t.co/i0b2qeAaCq — Mitch Landrieu (@MayorLandrieu) May 17, 2017

Three down, one Confederate statue left