
Confederate monuments were torn down in Baltimore overnight just days after white nationalists led a deadly protest over the planned removal of a statue in Virginia.

Work crews used heavy machinery to haul the divisive monuments away on flatbed trucks in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The monument to Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army in the American Civil War, and Confederate general Stonewall Jackson was dismantled from the city's Wyman Park Dell, while a statue dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland was removed around 3am from Bishop Square Park.

The monument in Mount Vernon honoring Roger Taney, who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery, was also removed. Another statue for Confederate soldiers and sailors, which was vandalized with red paint at the weekend, was also gone by Wednesday morning.

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A monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland lies on a flatbed trailer early Wednesday morning after it was taken down in Baltimore

A monument to Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army in the American Civil War, and Stonewall Jackson, a Confederate general, was dismantled from the city's Wyman Park Dell

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said crews began removing the city's Confederate monuments late Tuesday and finished around 5.30am on Wednesday.

'It's done,' Pugh told the Baltimore Sun. 'They needed to come down. My concern is for the safety and security of our people. We moved as quickly as we could.'

The mayor personally watched as workers removed the statues in the dark. The city council approved the removal of four statues on Monday after a year of indecision about what to do with the monuments.

'Following the acts of domestic terrorism carried out by white supremacist terrorist groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend, cities must act decisively and immediately by removing these monuments,' Baltimore city councilman Brandon Scott wrote in a resolution calling for the removal of the statues.

We should not have these anywhere for public display. These monuments are being used as beacons of lightning for vile racism Baltimore councilman Brandon Scott

'The folks that are displayed in these monuments were traitors to the United States of America, and we should not honor traitors with monuments.

'We should not have these anywhere for public display. These monuments are being used as beacons of lightning for vile racism.'

Pugh initially declined on Monday to say when they would come down, saying only that she had contacted two contractors about removing the monuments. She said on Wednesday that the quick overnight action was designed to avoid the violent conflict seen in Charlottesville.

'I did not want to endanger people in my own city,' the mayor said.

'I had begun discussions with contractors and so forth about how long it would take to remove them. I am a responsible person, so we moved as quickly as we could.'

The city is still deciding on what to do with the monuments.

Pugh wants the statues to be placed in Confederate cemeteries elsewhere in Maryland, while other council members have suggested melting them down to 'honor true Baltimore Heroes'.

Workers were spotted removing a monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland in Baltimore on Wednesday morning - just days after white nationalists led a deadly protest in Virginia

The monument was put on a flatbed truck and strapped down shortly after it was removed

The monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland was spotted being placed onto a flatbed truck at about 3am on Wednesday

Baltimore residents gathered to watch the monuments being torn down. The Confederate Women of Maryland monument, which features a dying solider being cared for by his mother, is pictured being towed away

A number of residents gathered to watch the monuments being torn down overnight. Some reportedly cheered when the statues were taken away.

'I'm impressed that it happened so quickly,' Baltimore resident Bonnie Crawford told WTOP. 'These monuments tend to glorify people who fought for ideals that actually compromised the lives of citizens in this country.'

The dismantling of the monuments comes after a rally by white nationalists protesting against plans to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee sparked clashes with anti-racism demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday.

The rally turned deadly when a car rammed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 other people.

Saturday's violence appears to have accelerated the drive to remove memorials, flags and other reminders of the Confederate cause across the United States.

A 22-year-old woman was arrested on Tuesday for taking matters into her own hands after allegedly toppling the Confederate statue in North Carolina with a group of protesters.

Meanwhile a Confederate monument in Birmingham, Alabama was covered up on Tuesday afternoon as authorities considered legal options for it to be removed. The monument at Linn Park was covered in plywood following orders from Birmingham Mayor William Bell.

Despite the increase in Confederate monument removals, there are more than 700 still standing in the US.

President Donald Trump caused outrage on Tuesday when he said that neo-Nazis and 'alt-left' liberal extremists shared responsibility for the violence.

'You see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and the baseball bats,' Trump said in New York, describing hooded counter-protesters who came to Charlottesville to disrupt a white nationalist march.

'What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right?' he challenged reporters on Tuesday. 'Do they have any semblance of guilt?'

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said crews began removing the city's Confederate monuments late Tuesday and finished around 5.30am on Wednesday. She personally watched as workers removed the statues in the dark

Only the base of the Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson remained on Wednesday morning. It had been vandalized prior to it being removed

The Roger Taney statue in Mount Vernon (left) and the Confederate Women of Maryland monument (right) were gone when residents woke on Wednesday

A monument for soldiers and sailors on Mount Royal Avenue had been vandalized with red paint before it was removed

THE CONFEDERATE MEN TORN DOWN IN BALTIMORE: Robert E. Lee was a commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army in the American Civil War. He was vilified during the Civil War only to become a heroic symbol of the South's 'Lost Cause' - and eventually a racist icon. He was famously defeated at Gettysburg by Union Maj. Gen. George Meade. Historians say Lee's massed infantry assault across a wide plain was a gross miscalculation in the era of artillery and rifle fire. A career army officer, Lee didn't have much wealth, but he inherited a few slaves from his mother. Lee married into one of the wealthiest slave-holding families in Virginia. After the Civil War, Lee resisted efforts to build Confederate monuments in his honor. After his death, Southerners adopted 'The Lost Cause' revisionist narrative about the Civil War and placed Lee as its central figure. The Last Cause argued the South knew it was fighting a losing war and decided to fight it anyway on principle. It also tried to argue that the war was not about slavery but high constitutional ideals. Stonewall Jackson was a Confederate general during the Civil War. Shot three times while returning from scouting enemy lines in the Virginia wilderness, Jackson was left badly wounded in the left arm by one of the large bullets the night of May 2, 1863. It took at least two hours to get him to a field hospital as blood gushed from a severed artery and Jackson was dropped twice in a stretcher before his arm was amputated. He died days later, aged just 39. Scholars have long questioned whether it was an infection or pneumonia that killed Jackson. Jackson gained the nickname 'Stonewall' early in the war and went on to be lionized in the South and feared in the North because of his military exploits. Roger Taney was a chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 until his death in 1864. He was a Maryland native who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision affirming slavery. On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that Scott was not entitled to freedom - despite living in the free-state of Missouri, which prohibited slavery. Taney wrote that African-Americans could not have rights of their own and were inferior to white people. It also rendered the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. It has since been widely known as the worst US Supreme Court ruling in history and referred to as the court's largest 'self-inflicted wound'. On the 160-year anniversary of the decision in March, Taney's relatives met with the the family of Dred Scott to formally apologize for the ruling. Advertisement

The president also said 'I do think there's blame on both sides' and that there were 'very fine people' in the white nationalist crowd who had 'a permit' to protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E Lee.

Trump's words were quickly denounced by members of his own party as a clumsy attempt to draw moral equivalence between Nazis and liberal activists.

The President insisted Tuesday that many on the political right who gathered in Charlottesville were peaceful protesters themselves who aimed to save the Lee statue from the scrap heap.

'Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue,' he said.

'You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.'

Asked specifically if he thought Charlottesville's Robert E. Lee should be torn down, he said: 'I would say that's up to a local town, community or the federal government, depending on where it is located.'

'This week it's Robert E. Lee. I notice that Stonewall Jackson's coming down.

'I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?'

President Donald Trump caused outrage on Tuesday when he said that neo-Nazis and 'alt-left' liberal extremists shared responsibility for the violence

A Confederate monument in Birmingham, Alabama was covered up with plywood on Tuesday afternoon as authorities considered legal options for it to be removed

A 22-year-old woman was arrested on Tuesday for taking matters into her own hands after allegedly toppling the Confederate statue in North Carolina with a group of protesters

Despite the increase in Confederate monument removals, there are more than 700 still standing in the US