A memorial honoring Confederate veterans has been removed from the Hollywood Forever cemetery days after deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, erupted over the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The cemetery and the Long Beach chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which owns the local memorial, came to a mutual agreement after “the situation had become untenable,” said Theodore Hovey, family service counselor at Hollywood Forever.

It was taken to an undisclosed location before the sun rose Wednesday between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m.

“We could not necessarily guarantee a harmonious and peaceful atmosphere for our families and our visitors and employees with its continued presence here, and the Daughters of the Confederacy were very concerned about the monument’s safety,” Hovey said.

Hollywood Forever had received “probably hundreds” of calls and e-mails both in support and in opposition to removing the monument in recent days, but the majority of people called for its removal, he said.

There were two Change.org petitions urging its removal, including one that had more than 1,700 signatures as of Wednesday morning. There was also an online petition calling for the monument to remain, which had more than 800 supporters.

The large granite memorial was “slightly vandalized” on Tuesday with the word “No” written on it with black marker, but the letters were “easily removed,” Hovey said. That was likely “one of the turning points” for the owners in terms of realizing its vulnerability.

Scarlett Stahl, president of the California Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy that includes the Long Beach chapter, equated removing the “grave marker” at Hollywood Forever to “erasing history.”

“Back in the 1800s, slavery did exist but women didn’t have the right to vote back then,” said Stahl, who described herself as a cousin of Robert E. Lee. “It was a different world, a different time. But it is part of our history.”

But for some, Civil War-era Confederate symbols evoke images of slavery, oppression and white supremacy.

After a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville led to the killing of 32-year-old counterprotester Heather Heyer and the injury of at least 19 others over the weekend, efforts to take down Confederate symbols around the country have gained momentum.

The removal of the Hollywood memorial “is an indication of just how quickly this movement is progressing and how broadly it extends,” said Kevin Waite, assistant professor of American history at Durham University in the United Kingdom, in an email. “To my knowledge this is the only Confederate marker to be removed outside the former slave states.”

It’s also one of the few ever erected in the Far West, he said. Waite predicted “the more that white supremacists rally” as they did in Charlottesville, “the faster these monuments will fall.”

On Wednesday, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer also ordered the “immediate removal” of a plaque honoring Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate states, from Horton Plaza Park in downtown San Diego. The city will seek to return it to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which donated the plaque in 1926.

“San Diegans stand together against Confederate symbols of division,” Faulconer said in a statement.

Meanwhile in L.A., Stahl called for an investigation into the defacing of the Hollywood Forever memorial.

“These people have broken the law in an effort to display their hatred,” she said of the unknown vandal or vandals. “They defaced a grave marker at Hollywood Forever, and this is a hate crime.”

Hovey said the monument was “a commemorative piece” and not a grave marker since no one was buried directly underneath it. He also said the letters scrawled on the monument were “easily removed” and thus police were not contacted.

Stahl said there was “never a problem” with the Confederate monuments until the “horrible” Charleston, South Carolina church shooting by a white supremacist in June of 2015 that killed nine African-Americans during Bible study.

“That’s when everything began to bubble,” she said. “I thought we were all learning to live together peacefully.”

The Hollywood Forever marker was erected in 1925 for the 35 to 40 Confederate veterans who are buried at the cemetery.

Stahl said the Confederate veterans moved to California and had lived out the rest of their lives here. Some of their family members are also buried there.

The monument was erected during a period of active efforts on the part of such groups as the United Daughters of the Confederacy to put up similar monuments around the country, Hovey said. But this one is different, he noted.

“It wasn’t a monument in a public space, in a park or a square somewhere,” Hovey said. “It was a very different situation, and it required a lot more finesse in having its removal.”

On Wednesday, Monique Edwards of South Los Angeles said she came to the cemetery hoping to watch the monument being taken down. She had a feeling it would be removed before people could get wind of it for safety reasons.

“I think they should have probably kept (the memorial) here, but I do understand if they had left it here, people would probably have come in here at night and tried to remove it,” she said.

“But at least, keep it in a museum,” she said.

Staff writer Antonie Boessenkool and photo editor Dean Musgrove contributed to this report.</s>Workers remove a monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland early Wednesday, after it was taken down in Baltimore.

Jerry Jackson / The Baltimore Sun via AP</s>Since Saturday’s violence in a city hundreds of miles away in Virginia, many in Savannah have wondered about the divisions in the country.

In Charlottesville, a 32 year old woman was killed in what’s referred to as an act of domestic terrorism after counter protesters clashed with White Nationalists who had planned a rally to object to the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Some in the White Nationalists crowd carried Confederate flags and a few Nazi flags were also seen.

Since word of the violence and the young woman’s death, some Confederate monuments have been removed in several cities, prompting President Trump to tweet Thursday that he felt culture and history “were being destroyed.”

But Savannah Mayor Eddie Deloach and the council took adifferent view Thursday, taking on the topic of the city’s Confederate monument head on. Deloach said although he has relatives who fought in the Civil War, he knows that other “citizens fought for the Union.”

Deloach said acts of violence committed in the name of hate and race have to be denounced. Then he brought up the Confederate monument. “In Forsyth Park we have a beautiful monument that pays homage to the Confederate dead but this monument only tells a portion of our city’s unique history.”

The monument was erected in 1875 as an effort to honor the fallen and while it may bear witness to the grief of Southern families, it doesn’t tell the entire story. As Dr. Stan Deaton from the Georgia Historical Society told us this week “it honors the dead but doesn’t say why they died and why they fought.”

And that story, Deaten says, is one that over the years has been somewhat re-written in terms of why the Civil War started, i.e. Southern States leaving the Union and starting a war to preserve slavery.

Mayor Deloach said the monument needs to tell it all and it’s a story long overdue for African Americans. “We must just not be on the right side of history..we must write the right version of history. Our nation, our city, our families are divided and we must embrace the whole story so we don’t repeat it. I call on the city manager and the city attorney to find a way to expand the story this monument tells to be inclusive of all Savannahians regardless of race, creed or color.”

City Attorney Brooks Stillwell told council members that a state law passed in 2016 “prevents the council from moving the monument.”

Still, it’s anticipated that materials and or other statues could be added to the scene to create a broader picture of historical facts as they occurred.

The council says it will seek public input to begin the process.</s>Crews removed four confederate statues in Baltimore overnight and into early Wednesday morning.

The move comes after the city council voted unanimously to remove the monuments this week following deadly violence at a racially charged rally in Charlottesville over the weekend.

The city's four monuments include the Roger B. Taney Monument, the Confederate Women's Monument, and the Robert E. Lee and Thomas. J. “Stonewall” Jackson Monument at the Wyman Park Dell and the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

All four have been removed.</s>BALTIMORE (WJZ) — After crews removed Baltimore’s confederate statues from their pedestals overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, they are now sitting under tarps in a city-owned lot.

Mayor Catherine Pugh has said she would like for them to end up in one of Maryland’s confederate cemeteries, and explained at a Wednesday morning press conference that she was unsure of their whereabouts after they were taken down.

As it turns out, they are under police protection somewhere in Baltimore. WJZ’s Sky Eye Chopper 13 got aerial footage of them Thursday. You can watch that above.

Crews removed four monuments: the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Women’s Monument on West University Parkway, the Roger B. Taney Monument on Mount Vernon Place and the Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson Monument in the Wyman Park Dell.

RELATED: The History Of The Now-Removed Confederate Statues Of Baltimore

On Monday night, the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution calling for the immediate deconstruction of these monuments, days after a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that drew white nationalists and counter-protesters turned violent.

“Unite the Right” organizers said one of the reasons behind the event was the city’s plan to remove a Robert E. Lee monument from a park there.

One woman died and several were injured when a car was plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters. Shortly after, a Virginia State Police helicopter that officials said was assisting with the rally crashed outside Charlottesville, killing the pilot and a trooper.

WJZ was on the scene for the monument removals in Baltimore, which Mayor Catherine Pugh said began late Tuesday night and finished around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Follow @CBSBaltimore on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook</s>BALTIMORE — Confederate monuments have been removed overnight in Baltimore.

Local news outlets report that workers began hauling monuments away early Wednesday, days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.

WBAL-TV reports that a crane removed a monument to Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson” from its pedestal around 3 a.m. The TV station says the statue was placed on a flatbed truck 45 minutes later.

Photos posted on social media show people standing on top of the base where the Lee and Jackson monument used to stand.

Photos taken by The Baltimore Sun shows workers taking away a monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland.</s>Four Baltimore statues linked to the Confederacy were removed from their resting places early Wednesday, just a day after city officials approved a plan for the monuments' immediate “destruction” -- and coming amid a national furor over a violent white nationalist gathering in Virginia organized to protest the removal of a Confederate Statue there.

Photos and videos shared on social media showed crews with heavy machinery lifting the Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson memorials and loading them onto flat-bed trucks before hauling them away.

“It’s done,” Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh -- who stood and watched the statues come down -- told the Baltimore Sun on Wednesday. “They needed to come down. My concern is for the safety and security of our people. We moved as quickly as we could.”

The Baltimore City Council approved the plan Monday night to remove four Confederate statues from the city’s public spaces, a reaction to the rally in Charlottesville, Va. which resulted in the death of one woman Saturday at the hands of an accused white supremacist.

Calls to several officials, including the mayor and the city council president, were not immediately returned Wednesday morning.

The other statutes removed include the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Women’s Monument on West University Parkway and the Roger B. Taney Monument on Mount Vernon Place, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Fox Baltimore reported that crews began setting up just before midnight on Tuesday and worked until around 5:30 a.m. to remove all the statues.

Pugh said the quick overnight action was designed to avoid violent conflicts like what Charlottesville experienced.

Some vandals had spray painted and otherwise defaced the statues prior to their removal, however.

Resident Derek Bowden told the Baltimore Sun that while he agreed with the city’s decision to remove the statues, racism and so-called white privilege run deeper than just the statues.

“It’s major in its own right, but it’s small when it comes to the bigger battle,” the 59-year-old photographer told the newspaper. “It’s a bigger battle. This is a small victory. There’s a larger issue we have to look at, with being Americans and upholding the Constitution … to protect all people.”

The actions taken by Baltimore officials are not unique to the Maryland city. Across the country, the events in Charlottesville moved leaders to plan to wipe away remaining symbols of the Old South.

Two statues were taken down immediately, in Gainesville, Fla., where the Daughters of the Confederacy removed a statue of a Confederate soldier known as "Ole Joe," and in Durham, N.C., where protesters used a rope to pull down a Confederate monument dedicated in 1924.

A 21-year-old college student was arrested Tuesday for her involvement in taking down the statue in North Carolina.

The changes were publicized as President Trump defended Confederate statues in wide-ranging remarks.

"This week it's Robert E. Lee. I notice that Stonewall Jackson's coming down," Trump said during a visit to Trump Tower in New York. "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?"

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>The Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson monuments at Wyman Park Dell were removed with a crowd watching.

The Robert B. Taney monument in Mt. Vernon also came down.

Crews are on the site of the Confederate Women’s monument at University Parkway to take that one down.

This comes just days after the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution Monday calling for the immediate deconstruction of these monuments.</s>BALTIMORE — Confederate monuments have been removed overnight in Baltimore.

Local news outlets report that workers hauled the monuments away early Wednesday, days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.

WBAL-TV reports that a crane removed a monument to Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson" from its pedestal around 3 a.m. and placed it on a flatbed truck 45 minutes later.

Photos taken by The Baltimore Sun shows workers taking away a monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh told the newspaper that crews began removing the city's four Confederate monuments late Tuesday and finished around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Pugh said the monuments "needed to come down." The mayor watched as workers removed the statues in the dark.</s>Confederate-era monuments were quietly taken down in the middle of the night in the US city of Baltimore.

Journalists in the Maryland city reported on Twitter that the statues were being removed days after a Baltimore city council vote on the issue.

The memorials in the city include the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Women’s Monument on West University Parkway, the Roger B Taney Monument on Mount Vernon Place, and the Robert E Lee and Thomas J “Stonewall” Jackson Monument in the Wyman Park Dell.

Confederate-era monuments fell back into the spotlight at the weekend when a civil rights activist died during violence at a far-right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia against plans to removal of a statue of Robert E Lee, who commanded the Confederate army of northern Virginia.

Journalist Baynard Woods posted video of the Taney and Women’s monuments being driven away.

Alec MacGillis, another journalist, posted images of the Jackson and Lee statues being taken down.

The Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, announced the creation of a special commission to review all of Baltimore’s Confederate statues and historical assets in June 2015.

Maryland, a slave-owning state, remained in the union during the civil war, which was fought from 1861 to 1865. But Rawlings-Blake’s commission noted that though 65,000 Marylanders fought for the north, 22,000 fought for the Confederacy.

Other cities and states accelerated their plans to remove Confederate monuments following the violence in Virginia.

Only two statues were taken down immediately, in Gainesville, Florida, where the Daughters of the Confederacy removed a statue of a Confederate soldier known as “Ole Joe”, and in Durham, North Carolina, where protesters used a rope to pull down a Confederate monument dedicated in 1924.

On Tuesday evening Donald Trump insisted that not all of those participating in the Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville on Saturday were neo-Nazis or white supremacists, drawing a rebuke from senior Republicans and praise from David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who was at the protest.
Several Confederate monuments are taken down overnight in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, including the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument, Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Confederate Women's Monument and the Roger B. Taney sculpture. The Baltimore City Council unanimously voted to remove the monuments on August 14.