University President Greg Fenves announced late Sunday night that the statues would be removed, saying such monuments have become "symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism." Crews started working amid a heavy police presence.

The school blocked off the area, and some arguments occurred among those gathered. But all of the statues were successfully taken down, university spokesman J.B. Bird said.

Fenves said statues of Lee, Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston and Confederate Postmaster General John H. Reagan would be moved to the Briscoe Center for American History on campus. The university in 2015 moved a statue of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis from its perch near the campus clock tower, the same area as the other statues, to the history museum.