Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause

Rate this book

In a forceful but humane narrative, former soldier and head of the West Point history department Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy—and explores why some of this country’s oldest wounds have never healed.

Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhood to his service in the U.S. Army, every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who ever lived, and that the Confederates were underdogs who lost the Civil War with honor. Now, as a retired brigadier general and Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, his view has radically changed. From a soldier, a scholar, and a southerner, Ty Seidule believes that American history demands a reckoning.

In a unique blend of history and reflection, Seidule deconstructs the truth about the Confederacy—that its undisputed primary goal was the subjugation and enslavement of Black Americans—and directly challenges the idea of honoring those who labored to preserve that system and committed treason in their failed attempt to achieve it. Through the arc of Seidule’s own life, as well as the culture that formed him, he seeks a path to understanding why the facts of the Civil War have remained buried beneath layers of myth and even outright lies—and how they embody a cultural gulf that separates millions of Americans to this day.

Part history lecture, part meditation on the Civil War and its fallout, and part memoir, Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the deeply-held legends and myths of the Confederacy—and provides a surprising interpretation of essential truths that our country still has a difficult time articulating and accepting.

291 pages, Hardcover

First published January 26, 2021

Loading interface...
Loading interface...

About the author

Ty Seidule

4 books86 followers
Ty Seidule is Professor Emeritus of History at West Point where he taught for two decades. He served in the U.S. Army for thirty-six years, retiring as a brigadier general in 2020. He is the Chamberlain Fellow at Hamilton College as well as a New America Fellow. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin appointed Ty to the National Commission on Base Renaming. He serves as the Vice Chair

He has published numerous books, articles, and videos on military history including the award-winning West Point History of the Civil War. Ty graduated from Washington and Lee University and holds a PhD from the Ohio State University.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
2,632 (55%)
4 stars
1,607 (33%)
3 stars
384 (8%)
2 stars
71 (1%)
1 star
37 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 969 reviews
Profile Image for Raymond.
377 reviews284 followers
September 18, 2020
Imagine finding out everything you learned growing up was a lie, that the historical figure that you revered as a god and even ranked them higher than Jesus was actually a traitor to his country. Imagine believing a narrative of history that taught you all the wrong things about one of the most consequential wars in your nation’s history. All of this happened to West Point Professor Emeritus of History Ty Seidule. In Robert E. Lee and Me, Ty Seidule gives an unvarnished, no holds bar account of how he grew up learning about the Lost Cause Myth and venerating the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. This book is a history of Lee, the Lost Cause, and one White Southern Historian/Soldier’s reckoning with the legacy of White supremacy on his life and the life of America.

Most of Ty Seidule’s life, from cradle to adulthood, revolved around honoring and revering Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy. Seidule developed a special attachment to Lee because they shared the same birthday. Seidule’s favorite childhood book taught him to revere Lee as a hero because he was against slavery even though in reality the pro-slavery Lee was actually fighting on the side of a confederation of states who were hoping to create a slave republic. In his book, Seidule takes the reader on a journey from his hometown in Alexandria, VA, to his adopted hometown of Monroe, GA, to his college days at Washington and Lee University, to his army days at Fort Bragg, and finally to his teaching days at West Point. In each location or institution, Seidule uncovers his and the nation’s racist past that promoted the Lost Cause and hid horrible tragedies inflicted on Black people.

Seidule weaves in Lee’s biography as he tell his own story. In his chapter on Washington and Lee University, he tells of Lee’s second act after the Civil War as president of the university, but what’s actually interesting is the story of how parts of the university (specifically Lee Chapel) later became a shrine to Lee and the Confederacy. Seidule shows in vivid detail how some of the origins of the Lost Cause mythology came out of that chapel. When Seidule covers his own army days he writes that many military posts in the South are named after other traitorous Confederate soldiers (Fort Bragg, Benning, and Gordon to name a few). He is especially effective in this chapter when he uses the Confederates own words against them especially when they dealt with their views on slavery and Black people. Seidule does not hold back throughout the book, he shows the hypocrisy of the Army who honors White supremacists by naming forts after them. But it doesn’t stop with the forts. As towns and cities erected Confederate statues and monuments across the country, the Army also embraced symbols of the Confederacy during notable debates on integration in the 20th Century, Seidule provides thorough historical evidence to prove his points.

His book ends by first covering West Point’s fascination with the Confederacy, which is another interesting story because the school was initially anti-Confederate during and immediately after the Civil War. Seidule provides superb historical analysis to explain why hatred of the Confederacy turn into reverence in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Second, Seidule concludes with a forceful reckoning with his former hero Robert E. Lee. He uses history and Lee’s own words to take down each of the stubborn Lost Cause Myths we have about Lee. One of those myths was that Lee “was born to make” the decision to join the Confederacy, he was not, he chose to do so.

Seidule has given readers a powerful book that will challenge and hopefully encourage them to uncover the racist pasts of their own upbring. It will also challenge the Lost Cause myths we all were raised up on in regards to the Civil War and it will help to solidify the fact that Robert E. Lee was not a hero but a traitor to the United States. Robert E. Lee was not born to become a Confederate he was born to be a Union man. Ty Seidule, this Southern soldier and scholar who once revered Lee and the Confederacy but later learned the true history was born to write this book. He has done his nation a great service in writing this important work of nonfiction.

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Dr. Ty Seidule for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on January 26, 2021.

Review first published in Ballasts for the Mind: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...
Profile Image for Steven Z..
613 reviews134 followers
February 4, 2021
On January 6, 2021, the US Capitol was marred by an invasion of a mixture of Trumpists, military militias, white supremacists, and a collection of other conspiracy toting insurrectionists. What was very disconcerting for me apart from the violence is how these individuals wrapped themselves in a flag – the Confederate flag. During the Civil War, the Confederate flag never reached the Capitol, now 150 years later it was proudly carried by numerous thugs and treasonous persons who threatened to hang the Vice President and kill the Speaker of the House. These events resonated with me further as I read retired Brigadier General Ty Seidule’s new book, ROBERT E. LEE AND ME: A SOUTHERNER’S RECKONING WITH THE MYTH OF A LOST CAUSE as he grapples with his personal history from growing up in the south and being acculturated with false premises that the Civil War was fought over states’ rights, tariffs, economics, Lincoln’s racism, or government overreach. Seidule takes the reader on his own journey of discovery as he passed through college, a thirty year career in the military, and finally as head of the History Department at West Point. During that sojourn he came to realize that he was raised as a southern gentleman whose education and socialization was built around certain myths and outright lies concerning the causes of the Civil War.

Seidule’s voyage raises a number of disconcerting issues that are currently bedeviling the American body politic and society – the negation of facts. Seidule gave a lecture that went viral in which he argued that the war between the states that resulted in more deaths than any war the United States has ever fought, but the Civil War saw Americans killing Americans. The author argued that the war was fought over slavery. The result was a nasty response through emails, letters, and personal comments, some of which were quite threatening. Seidule was incredulous and proceeded to reexamine his life’s passage to try and examine how his historical research forced him to confront his past and explain how he has undergone his own reeducation.

Throughout the narrative Seidule is obsessed with facts and truth as he tries to understand how he was duped for so many years. To understand the author’s past, it is important to delve into his hero worship of Robert E. Lee as a boy and later as a young man. He saw Lee as a brilliant general even in defeat as he possessed a “noble aura” about him. Even in defeat at Gettysburg Seidule saw “an opportunity to showcase Lee’s true character and his standing as a gentleman.” Seidule later realized that the reason he idolized Lee and the Confederacy was because the culture in which he grew up worshipped Lee and as they proclaimed their racism. Lee was seen as the most dignified man in history, but Seidule would come to realize that “the United States fought against a rebel force that would not accept the results of a democratic election and chose armed rebellion.”

After carefully reviewing the most impactful books he read as a young man Seidule focuses on Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND in trying to understand his own brainwashing. Mitchell’s novel and David Selznick’s film of the same name created the lens that millions of people saw the Civil War and helped perpetuate the “Lost Cause myth.” Despite their defeat Confederate leaders remained unrepentant. Soon they would create a new narrative to justify racial control and white supremacy. Seidule argues that “The Lost Cause became a movement, an ideology, a myth, even a civil religion that would unite first the white south and eventually the nation around the meaning of the Civil War.” The Lost Cause produced a flawed memory; a lie that formed the ideological foundation for white supremacy, Jim Crow laws, which employed violence and terror to maintain a drastically unequal and segregated society. The Lost Cause myth argued that white southerners fought for many reasons – protective tariffs, states’ rights, freedom, the agrarian dream, defense, etc. etc., but none of those who espoused the myth mentioned slavery. The problem is that the facts all point to the Confederate states seceding to protect and expand their peculiar institution.

The Lost Cause brings about secondary myths to support the overall argument. First, the “obedient servant or happy slave myth,” living on a plantation they loved and that took care of them. The reality was that the plantation was nothing more than a slave labor farm. The second myth was that the southern cause was doomed from the outset because the Yankees had more money, material, and manpower – might over right. A third myth is that Reconstruction was a failure as African Americans weren’t ready for freedom, the vote, or holding high office. Seidule examines all aspects of the Lost Cause myth and debunks them all by presenting actual historical events and movements. The Lost Cause would serve as the ideological underpinnings for a violently racist society.

Seidule admits that it took him decades to come to the realization that his entire educational, socialization, and cultural upbringing was based on a lie. Seidule emerged from his “intellectual bubble” with the burden of guilt that he needed to undo. The narrative is a searing account of Seidule’s upbringing and education corrected by historical facts. He transports the reader to Alexandria, Va., Walton County, Ga, and Lexington, Va. describing his own education juxtaposed against the places where he grew up and became a “southern gentleman.” Seidule zeroes in Alexandria, Va. and Walton, Ga. as his hometowns resorted to beatings, lynching’s, outright murder, the closing of public schools to avoid integration, and denying African Americans the right to vote even in cities and towns where they were the majority all designed to maintain the white supremacist south. But the author never knew about the history of these places and in a number of instances things that transpired during his lifetime.

However, as Seidule attended college at Washington and Lee University and was exposed to research and goes through a period of self-condemnation as to how he could have been so ignorant. He unearths numerous racist actions and events following the Civil War and Reconstruction well into the 20th century. After examining the history of Alexandria and Walton County he could reach only one conclusion – both homes were part of the southern racial police state which was an integral part of creating and maintaining a white supremacist culture in the south. Seidule integrates numerous historical examples of the violence perpetrated against African Americans and how little the white power structure responded despite Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Ka., the 1964 Civil Rights Act, President Truman’s Civil Rights Commission, etc.

Seidule blends his own ignorance of racism and violence with historical facts throughout his life’s journey. The most fascinating recounting deals with Robert E. Lee’s role at Washington and Lee University and how he was elevated to deity status in the universities chapel and mausoleum all designed to focus on the education of a Christian gentlemen for students and viewing Lee as the godlike embodiment of what student strove to become. All aspects of the university through the 1980s were endemic to the belief in the myths surrounding the Civil War. Once Seidule came to realize the truth he engaged in a self-imposed guilt by trying to cleanse his own past and educate others as to how the Lost Cause myth came about and how to rectify it.

Seidule’s frustrations are many as he recounts how ten US Army forts are named after southern officers who fought and committed treason against their country, fostered supremacist racial beliefs, owned slaves and worked to deny African Americans the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the constitution after the Civil War. Names like Braxton Bragg, John Brown Gordon, A.P. Hill, George Pickett, Leonides Polk, Henry L. Benning, John Bell Hood, Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard, and of course Robert E. Lee, all men who fought and committed treason to preserve slavery as they killed American soldiers, but their names remain on the signage as you enter these posts, despite the current legislation to try and remove them from military installations. Even as Seidule experienced his own military career he was confronted with the Confederate myths in the US Army. Once he began to teach military history at West Point, he did his best to set the historical record straight, particularly how and why portraits and monuments to Lee proliferated at West Point in the 20th century. He passionately believes the only way to correct the past was to try and make sure the Lost Cause myth did not infect his grandchildren – the tool that needed to be relied upon is historical knowledge. The past does not have to control us, especially if we understand it.

Once must commend the author’s journey of discovery and attempts to rectify his past. My only criticism is that at times the narrative is somewhat repetitive, but his overall argument that Lee is guilty of treason in support of a racist regime is dead on. His story is a microcosm of a larger portrait that has imbued the south for over 150 years. If by some “miracle” instead of reducing the study of history and government at educational institutions, we would fund and increase opportunities for more classes the divide that infects America today might be lessened. But, with terms like “fake news,” conspiracy theories involving 9/11, arguing that wildfires are caused by Jewish laser beams, Sandy Hook and Parkland murders did not occur, and QAnon members in the House of Representatives who refuse to give up their weapons on the House floor – as a result I am not encouraged.

One final thought. Seidule states that the Confederacy was formed in reaction to the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. They would go on to fight a war because they felt the election would destroy slavery. From this war sprang the Lost Cause myth, a form of “fake news.” Today we have a segment of the population that believes that the election of Joe Biden was stolen from them and it resulted in conspiracy theories that led to the attack on the capitol. What did the opponents of the 1860 and 2020 election results have in common – White Supremacy.
Profile Image for Faith.
1,991 reviews584 followers
January 2, 2022
“The white southern myths created my identity. The problem is that the myths I learned were just flat-out, fundamentally wrong. ....The myths and lies I learned promoted a form of racial hierarchy and white supremacy.“

“[I] grew up thinking that before 1861 slaves were somehow not quite as human as white southerners that the enslaved only became real people after 1865. It pains me to write that I believed something so grotesque and immoral, but it’s worse to lie.”

The author of this book was born in Virginia and also lived in other southern states. He grew up idolizing Robert E. Lee and graduated from Washington and Lee University. He was indoctrinated with the myth of the Lost Cause and a romanticized view of the south that refused to accept that the Civil War was fought to preserve slavery. However, after decades as an army officer and head of the history department at West Point he now realizes that Lee committed treason to preserve slavery. Lee and his family profited financially from slavery and he held racist views throughout his life. While most US Army officers (including the southern ones) remained loyal to their country, Lee was a traitor who abrogated his solemn oath, orchestrated the killing of many US Army soldiers and fought to keep millions in bondage. The author believes that by revealing his own misguided past and his evolution he can reach an audience still enthralled by Lee and the Lost Cause. Frankly, I doubt that those people (like the Daughters of the Confederacy) will read his book, but the book was interesting and I’m glad he is making an effort.

I learned lots of details about the glorification of Lee and the southern officers whose names grace various forts. The continuing presence of Lee references at West Point is quite troubling. There is the Lee Housing area on Lee Road ending at Lee Gate. Lee Barracks was named in 1970. A painting of Lee in his Confederate uniform was hung at West Point shortly after Truman ordered the integration of the troops. This is not the first book I’ve read that concluded that Civil War monuments proliferated as a response to African American advances during Reconstruction or the civil rights movement. With respect to what to do about these monuments, the author feels that communities should “study the circumstances that led to their creation. Everyone must understand what those monuments represent. A monument tells historians more about who emplaced it than it does the figure memorialized.”

I received a free copy of the ebook from the publisher. I also listened to the audiobook. The ebook has footnotes not included in the audiobook, but the audiobook has a bonus interview conducted by the historian Rick Atkinson with the author.
Profile Image for Donald Powell.
559 reviews35 followers
May 30, 2021
A book offering hope for some enlightenment. The author, with deep humility and contrition, starts with his veneration of Robert E. Lee as a child and young man. He becomes a PhD professor of history at West Point. The book documents the creation and perpetuation of the "lost cause" theory of the War of Rebellion. He documents the horrors of the results of that myth. Then, he reveals, through his scholarship, how he came to see the lie of fake news we were all regularly served for generations about the war.
I have seen Lee as a traitor guilty of treason for many years. I did not have the southern upbringing of the author but was clearly influenced by the myths and propaganda about him. It was a great relief and augury of better things to read this book from this author with the level of truth and clarity he uses.
I was intrigued when I saw the book, recently released, on Amazon. I read many, many reviews which panned the book and had to read it. The persons who gave those one, two and three star reviews, many without posting their names, are the reason this book is so important. People like them are the problem of today's society, culture and government, with economic and foreign policy implications. They are like the people who routinely turn the book covers around on the book racks at my local Fred Meyer (Kroger) store when the book is about President Obama or Vice President Harris. Sick, sick sad people. They need education, help and pity, as they are our problem.
Profile Image for Barbara K..
480 reviews103 followers
December 25, 2022
Update, 12/24/22: West Point announced today that it is removing 13 Confederate memorials from the campus, including a portrait of R. E. Lee in full Confederate uniform that hangs in the library. Hurrah!

Merry Christmas!!
……………
When I first become aware of this on a GR friend's list, I dropped everything to start reading it. A top rate analysis of the underpinnings of racial inequality and disharmony in the U.S. today, it is told from the distinctive, very personal perspective of a white man raised in the South, who gradually comes to realize that the foundation of his identity was a tissue of lies.

The book is part memoir and part history, and all about Robert E. Lee and the legacy on race relations in the South of his choice to commit treason in 1861 by joining the Confederacy . Ty Seidule’s message is that Lee fought against the United States (he chooses not to use the term “the North” to emphasize the element of treason) out of a deep commitment to racial dominance achieved through slavery. And Seidule has plenty of documentation to back up this message. I believe him, but although many others do as well, he continues to receive death threats for sharing his message.

The lionization of Lee in the South, beginning immediately after the end of the Civil War and continuing through today, has contributed significantly to the popularity of the Lost Cause, the myth that the Confederate soldiers fought nobly for noble causes: states’ rights, and the defense the "social structure" of their homeland. That myth underlies much of the unresolved racial unrest and inequality in the South and the U.S. military to this day. It was behind the erection of statues and the naming of places in honor of Confederate military heroes, a legacy that is proving difficult to expunge from the South and the U.S. military.

Seidule couches his message in his personal experiences as a child growing up in the South, his education at Washington and Lee University, his 30+ years in the military, and his decades teaching history at West Point. He grew up idolizing Lee, who he saw as the paragon of a Southern gentleman. That perspective was reinforced at his university and in the military history course materials he taught while in the Army. Only when Seidule began investigating the reasons for the prevalence of statues and buildings and roads honoring Lee at West Point did the scales fall from his eyes. And as he says, he now has the zeal of a convert, doing whatever he can to share what he has learned.

A lot of this resonated with me personally. No, I didn't grow up in a racist household, adoring a military leader who fought against my country. But when I studied the Civil War as a college history major in the late 1960’s the emphasis was on the philosophical arguments regarding states’ rights and the competing economies of the North and South. Slavery was obviously an issue, but it was not the primary cause of the war.

My impression of Lee was formed by Ken Burns’ PBS series in the 1980’s, and heavily influenced by the commentary of the excessively charming Shelby Foote, an enthusiast for the Lost Cause. Surely this was a noble man who mistakenly placed his allegiance with his state rather than his country! But my curiosity about Lee grew after visiting Civil War battlefields, and the more I read about him, the less I found to like. Seidule's research goes far beyond my limited understanding into appreciating just how strongly Lee was personally tied to the economics of slavery.

When two years ago we moved to Richmond, capital of the Confederacy, we were treated to a tour (by people who were basically liberal-minded), of Monument Avenue, a broad boulevard that at that time boasted statues of 5 Confederate luminaries. This was a highlight of Richmond and the significance of just who was being honored didn't seem to be an issue to our guides. In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing four were removed promptly and the fifth – Lee’s, as pictured on the cover of this book, came down just last month. The legal battle over the Lee statue continues even after its removal.

It would be nice to feel that as our country comes to terms with this ugly history, we are moving steadily toward a brighter future, but as events of January 6, 2021 made clear, the jury is still out. In the meantime, as individuals we can make progress by opening our eyes to the un-romanticized realities of the past. Seidule has provided a great resource in this book.
Profile Image for Numidica.
413 reviews8 followers
April 3, 2021
The best, most logically presented argument I've seen to destroy the myth of the Lost Cause. General Seidule, the former Head of the Department of History at West Point, goes to the source documents from 1861-1865 to show:

- The Civil War was fought by the southern states to preserve slavery, full stop.
- Slavery was hugely profitable, hence the very strong desire to preserve it by wealthy southerners.
- Lee was the only one of eight Colonels from Virginia in the US Army in 1861 who joined the Confederates, so no, there was not a mass exodus of southern-born senior officers to the Confederacy.
- Lee violated Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution, and that is treason, and he was indicted for that crime, but pardoned by a general amnesty in 1868. He signed a pardon which was an admission of guilt.
- Lee earned more from his slaves, either hired out or working on his farm than he did from his Army salary in the years before the war.
- Lee was a hard taskmaster and treated his slaves harshly, including using whippings, and breaking up families to sell slaves.
- Lee's family thought he had made a huge mistake in resigning from the US Army. They were right.
- Lee viewed Blacks as inferior to whites and his views did not change after the war.

On the plus side, Lee was an effective general, and was almost the only really effective general the Confederacy had, especially after Jackson's death. Most of the other Confederate generals were mediocre to bad. Indeed, if not for Lee, the war might have ended in 1862.

But the real heroes were men like U.S. General Henry Thomas, also from Virginia, who nonetheless stayed with the US Army, and saved Grant's Army at Chickamaugua, and who later destroyed John Bell Hood's Confederate army in the march to Atlanta. Thomas' defeat of Hood likely saved the Union by ensuring Lincoln's re-election. And there were George Meade and Joshua Chamberlain at Gettysburg who soundly defeated Lee, and turned the tide of the war. And of course Grant, the master logistician and strategist, and Sherman, a genius of mobile warfare, and Sheridan, the best cavalry general of the war. Seidule argues against the term "Union Army"; he makes the point that it was the United States Army which ended slavery and welded a nation. The term "Union Army" implies that the Civil War was a factional conflict; it was nothing of the sort. The United States Army was the instrument of President Lincoln's policy to preserve the nation and end the evil of slavery, and it did so through superior organization and generalship. Seidule emphasizes that the outcome was not foreordained; the south could have won. Had Thomas not destroyed Hood, and had Sherman been stalled in the march to Atlanta, the 1864 election might have gone to McClellan, not Lincoln. The northern states were heartily tired of war, and they, with McClellan as president, might have said, "Enough. Let them go their own way", much as the British did with the Americans after Yorktown. But the US Army saved the country from that.

Seidule explains, at a very personal level (he is from Virginia) how the lies of the "Lost Cause" myth became baked into the culture of the south, and were eventually propagated in textbooks and popular media, especially the book and movie Gone With the Wind. He went to the archives to find the very state history textbooks used in his classrooms in the 1960's and '70's that painted Lee as a saint, and slavery as really not that bad, and how the war was about states rights, not slavery, and etc. These were all lies put forth by the white leaders of the Jim Crow south, and those ideas are still around. Only now, 155 years after the Civil War ended, are statues to traitors who fought for slavery being taken down. Why is this so hard to understand? He was taught, as I was in Virginia and northern Florida, that Lee was a great man who had no choice but to support his home state. No. Lee was an US Army Colonel with 32 years on active duty who had taken an oath, at each promotion ceremony, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. He knew what he was doing, and he knew he was violating his oath and committing treason.

When I first came to West Point as a Cadet, I looked in the library for the official US Army History of the Civil War, because I knew the Army writes a history of each major conflict. I couldn't find the "Civil War" history because there is no such thing. The name of the book (many volumes) that I was looking for is called History of the War of the Rebellion. That's a term that has fallen out of fashion, but one still sees old monuments in the north with that name. It is the name on Battle Monument at West Point which honors the men of the United States Regular Army who died in that war. It's the right name, and it's important that Americans learn to see it that way. Ty Seidule has written a book that helps us understand what that war really meant and who the real heroes were.
Profile Image for Howard.
372 reviews296 followers
January 4, 2022
UPDATE 10/04/21

HEADLINE:

Alabama spends more than a half-million dollars a year on a Confederate memorial. Black historical sites struggle to keep their doors open.

--------------------------


“Robert E. Lee is considered by many Generals to be the greatest strategist of them all. President Lincoln wanted him to command the North, in which case the war would have been over in one day. Robert E. Lee instead chose the other side because of his great love of Virginia, and except for Gettysburg, would have won the war.” – Donald Trump, responding to the removal of the Lee statue in Richmond, VA

“Lee’s decision to fight against the United States was not just wrong; it was treasonous. Even worse, he committed treason to perpetuate slavery.” – Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause


******

Part history, part memoir, part demythologization, and part polemic, Robert E. Lee and Me details Brigadier General Ty Seidule’s transformation from one who worshipped at the altar of Robert E. Lee to one who believes that Lee was a traitor who committed treason against his country and that “[d]uring the bloodiest war in American history, Lee and his comrades killed more U.S. Army soldiers than any other enemy, ever. And they did it for the worst reason possible: to create a nation dedicated to exploit enslaved men, women, and children, forever.”

It is difficult to believe that his epiphany did not take place until after he had attained a PhD in American history and who as a colonel in the U.S. Army had taken a position in the history department at the Military Academy at West Point. How could that be? How could it have taken so long?

The title of the book’s first chapter is one clue, a big one: My Childhood: Raised on a White Southern Myth. Perhaps myth should have been plural, but the one he referred to was the “Lost Cause” interpretation of the Civil War, that it wasn’t about slavery, but states’ rights; that the North won only because it had superior resources, including manpower; and that Lee was the greatest soldier on either side.

He writes in that opening chapter that “[t]o a boy growing up in Virginia, Lee was more than the greatest general of the Civil War, more than the greatest Virginian; Lee was the greatest human who ever lived. As a child, my view of Lee was closer to deity than man …. For decades, I believed the Confederates and Lee were romantic warriors fighting for a doomed but noble cause.”

In his book, and much, much later in life, Seidule disputes the Lost Cause interpretation in its entirety, but he is most adamant about what the war was about. He makes the case that the right to own slaves was the rebellion’s overriding cause and that Robert E. Lee resigned his military commission and joined the confederacy, not out of love for his state, but in order to protect the institution of slavery. In the process, as earlier noted, Seidule believes that Lee committed treason.

“It’s an easy call,” he writes, “because Lee resigned his commission, fought against his country, killed U.S. Army soldiers, and violated Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution,” which states that "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

******
“… the book does not simply knock his boyhood idol off the pedestal; rather it gives an uncompromising, searing, and full-throated indictment of a historically misrepresented man and myth, along with the many institutions that have given currency to all of it through the years.” – Richard Horan, The Christian Science Monitor
Profile Image for Mikey B..
1,037 reviews426 followers
March 20, 2022
Page 245 (my book) W.E.B. Dubois

“Robert E. Lee led a bloody war to perpetuate slavery.”

The author is certainly passionate. He describes his veneration of Robert E. Lee from his early childhood. Being from Canada I had no idea of the extent to which Lee was a center of worship – canonized in a way – more so in the Southern U.S. And I suppose admired as well by those not supporting the Confederate cause.

The central motif of the book is that the author had an epiphany and moved to the opposing side of Robert E. Lee – and eventually saw him in the same vein as the opening quote from W.E.B. Dubois.

We are given a history after the Civil War – and how the meaning of the war changed and came to placate white southerners. Instead of a Civil War between the States, it became a war for “States’ rights” – and not a war to end slavery.

Page 9

Eleven southern states seceded to protest and expand an African-American slave labor system.
After the Civil War, former Confederates, their children, and their grand-children created a series of myths and lies to hide that essential truth and sustain a racial hierarchy dedicated to white political power reinforced by violence.


Reconstruction - where white northerners went south to help liberated slaves adjust to their new freedom and become full citizens - came to be ruthlessly and violently suppressed by white southerners via the Ku Klux Klan.

Starting in the 1890s the Confederate flag became acceptable – and plaques and monuments sprung up across the South to eulogize their Confederate fighting “heroes” – in particular Robert E. Lee. All these were made to reinforce white supremacy and dominance - the southern way of life. Until recently there were no monuments or plaques displaying the evils of slavery, or the viciousness of lynching’s and Jim Crow.

The author mentions that even at West Point (in New York State), where he taught, there are statues of Confederates, streets named after Confederates – and above all else Robert E. Lee.

Page 50 Alexandria, Virginia near Washington DC

In 1834 one of the largest slave-trading companies in the country, Franklin and Armfield, owned a huge slave prison in Alexandria from where they shipped between fifteen hundred and two thousand enslaved people to the Deep South a year.

Page 52

No plaque reminded Alexandrians of its central role in the slave trade. Instead, the Confederate soldier proudly stood sentinel on Prince Street.

During the authors upbringing, very little was taught to him about the treatment of Black Americans when he went to school in Alexandria and later in Georgia. Plantations (a la Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind”) were romanticized and not called slave labor camps.

Page 33

Sexual violence against African-American women was not only condoned; it was legal.

Page 89

Lynching and Confederate monuments served to tell African Americans that they were second class citizens.

Page 104 Mobile, Alabama

In 1906, three thousand white people took a train ride to see the bodies of two African American men lynched and dangling from a tree… they took pictures and created postcards. The crowd surged forward to cut pieces of cloth off the corpses as souvenirs.

After the failure of Reconstruction, in the 1890s there was a reconciliation between white Southerners and white Northerners – but this came at a tremendous cost – as the citizenship of Black people was violently suppressed. Segregation was institutionalized, along with the threat of violence for any perceived transgression – like attempting to vote.

The author points out that there was always a kickback when the government would introduce civil rights legislation. More monuments and plaques honoring Confederates would go up in village squares, schools, and universities.

Page 255

The Tennessee legislature punished the city [Memphis] for removing a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, by taking $250,000 from its state allotment in 2018.

The author demonstrates how Civil War history became altered to honor Confederate leaders. He tells us several time that Robert E. Lee should have been convicted of treason.
I agree.
Profile Image for Ryan.
47 reviews21 followers
March 19, 2021
I'm probably not the target audience for this book. Before reading it, I thought that the Civil War was about the expansion of slavery and the nature of the Union, that Lee was a slavery apologist, and that Lost Cause mythology has had a pernicious influence on subsequent US history. In other words, to me, this is old news. It reflects a scholarly consensus that has been around for decades. If your knowledge of American history isn't limited to Gone With the Wind, or Gods and Generals, then most of this will be a familiar story.

To be fair, this book could be useful in an undergraduate course. It also might reach some military officers and some others who focus too narrowly on Civil War battles. I belonged to the latter category when I was a teenager. It required learning a good bit of cultural and political history to shake off the allure of Lee and Jackson's battlefield exploits, and remember that they were fighting to protect and expand slavery. As Clausewitz wrote "War is politics by other means". You can't easily divorce the political aims of a war from the soldiers who fought to achieve them. As a teenager, I knew that slavery was an important political issue during the war, but because some military history narrowly emphasizes how soldiers fight, you can naively believe that they had no political opinions when doing so. This is not to say that "all" soldiers perfectly align with the political objectives of their governments, but even soldiers who are coerced into service are furthering these objectives against their will. States and militaries prefer to command during wartime, rather than ask.

Although I think this book could be useful, I suspect the zealous tone its written in works against it. Academic historians have been fighting the culture wars of the 1870s for quite awhile now, and this book is the latest in a long line of like minded works (David Blight's Race and Reunion is a prime example). When I taught US history in 2012, my experience was not encouraging, and I know for a fact that many other teachers have the same problem. You tell your students that the war was about the expansion of slavery and a significant number of finals come back arguing it was about "states rights". I've had the same experience with certain family members as well. Historians have a difficult time accepting that a large number of people prefer nationalist mythology to authenticity, context, or critical moral judgments. The "facts" are simply not enough to convince many people, and I'm skeptical that this book will really move the needle much. The battles over Civil War memory can be even more indecisive than the trench warfare around Petersburg.

Returning to the zealous tone of the book, Seidule himself admits that its a problem when he argues his case. One senses that his urgency stems from multiple sources: Anger at himself for believing in the Lost Cause for so long, shame at participating in a culture that fostered white supremacy, and a sense of betrayal for being misled by people he looked up to. On the whole though, I think he's too hard on himself. He deserves credit for recognizing his errors and doing something to correct them, but he doesn't seem to realize that his road to Damascus may not be same one that others take. My personal experience suggests that people listen more when you emphasize the context of the past and go easy on the moralism.

In a sense, context is this book's biggest problem. Seidule does well dealing with "the burdens of Southern history", but rather poorly with the burdens of American history in general. Why does this matter? Well, in order to level the playing field, all those Lost Cause types are going to point them out when you start criticizing the Confederacy. I studied the American West in grad school and the burdens in that region are obvious: the treatment of Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Chinese Americans, and working class immigrants. The Union generals that Seidule has some excessive sympathy for in this book (Grant, Sherman, Sheridan) were not heroic figures to the Lakota, the Cheyenne, or workers trying to unionize. In my view, and as others have pointed out, taking Lee and the Confederates down from their pedestal logically ends with taking lots of other famous Americans down too. What is frustrating about Seidule is his failure to follow this logic. Instead he seems to substitute his old veneration for Lee with veneration of other, equally flawed, people.

Speaking of flawed people, lets talk about the 19th century US Army. The officer corps that Lee belonged to fought so many Indian Wars between 1776 and 1861 that its difficult to keep track of them all. It sort of goes without saying that the Indian Wars fought in the American South expanded a slave society. Winfield Scott, who's Vera Cruz campaign Seidule admires, also presided over Indian Removal. During the Mexican War, he ordered the largest mass execution in US history. Fifty US deserters who joined the Mexican Army were hanged, including one who's legs were amputated the day before. Other deserters were given fifty lashes, branded with a D for deserter, and forced to wear iron collars. Corporal punishment was routine for the US army until 1863. The Prussian army, by comparison abolished corporal punishment during the Napoleonic Wars. Seidule never wonders where Lee might have learned to be such a harsh slave master. I don't think its a stretch to suggest that nativist US officers treated their foreign born enlisted men almost as bad as their slaves.

Whatever liberal-enlightenment aspirations are listed on our founding documents, the US is, fundamentally, a colonial mess that became a nation-state. Slavery, conquest, and racism were the raison d'etre for many of the English colonies. Its unfortunate, but not surprising that those trends continued, and that we are still trying to untangle those legacies. War and violence, however, are not the best way to realize those liberal-enlightenment aspirations. At best, they can be a lesser evil. In his excessive admiration for the US Army in the Civil War and World War II, I think Seidule loses sight of this. His desire to forsake Lee for other military Gods is uninspiring.
Profile Image for Athena (OneReadingNurse).
793 reviews111 followers
November 10, 2021
There is no possible way to bring my blog review over to GoodReads due to the photos, quotes, video links, and more.... So I will leave this here along with my brief takeaways. Hours of work and i am extremely proud of this blog post

https://onereadingnurse.com/2021/01/0...


My takeaways are briefly:

1) very long chapters if he is gearing this book towards layreaders
2) a good book for people who want to be angry right now. I found his anger/passion off putting as a historical reader
3) while I agree with him, I think he left a LOT of facts out in order to make the confederates look more like bumbling cartoon villains. The Union blundered too. Until the final chapter he does not mention one positive Lee accomplishment so that the whole Myth just seems frankly stupid to those without a historical background, maybe he is thinking everyone will stop before that? I would honestly put the 7th chapter 2nd then go about debunking the myth, since the 7th chapter ends with Lee's poor decisions and post war racism
4) even Humphrey's frontal assault and subsequent massive one sided slaughter at Maryse Hill is only painted in a positive light
5) better summary of lynching history, segregation and reconstruction than the actual war - I mean maybe give layreaders some scope of the supplies and hardships of both sides before driving to the bottom line that none of it matters in the end

I'm not saying he's wrong and i think this is a good book for people who want more information (and to be mad) about the lost cause myths, racism, and monuments, but I would probably recommend a neutral civil war history book along side it. I also don't believe that fuelling anger with anger is a great way to educate the (frankly) probably middle class white people reading the book

Glad I read it though, very glad
Profile Image for Barbara.
303 reviews320 followers
October 20, 2021
"Perhaps we should stop calling these places plantations and start calling them by a more accurate name - enslaved labor farms. Accurate language can help us destroy the lies of the Lost Cause".

Ty Seidule, the former head of the history dept. at West Point, lets the air out of the myth surrounding Robert E. Lee. Not the noble war hero, not the defender of states' rights, but a traitor to his country and to his pledge to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Seidule spent his younger years duped by the falsehoods about this much venerated Civil War general, and he is angry, very angry, "pissed off", to use his words.

Growing up in Virginia he attended Lee Elementary school and later went to Washington and Lee University. The author was exposed to a fictional account of Lee and the war. Through textbooks and movies such as Gone With the Wind and Song of The South, the historical myths were perpetuated. Glorifying those who believed in white supremacy and making them heroes is what happened, according to Seidule. "The South had lost the war but won the narrative." And the narrative was ubiquitous throughout the country: in schools, in the armed forces, and in the media. I have spent all but the last few years in the northeast, and I always thought Lee was the more admirable of the two leaders, a virtuous gentleman fighting for his home because that was his only choice. Not so. Seidule explains other choices Lee could have made, choices other southerners chose. Lee was the only West Point colonel (7 0f 8) who fought for the South. 12 of 15 colonels from all the slave states stayed with the Union. Using Lee's words as well as his actions, the author makes a strong case suggesting that Lee was fighting for the continued success of his land holdings, the continuation of slavery.

Seidule's research has not been popular with many. He has been told he is trying to change history. But he says, "I don't want to change history, I want more." He wants the truth. Although Seidule's research is accurate, I do think it is possible to exclude information that doesn't support one's narrative. Maybe I am unable to totally change my lifelong impression of Lee. Myths die hard for everyone.

I highly recommend this informative and interesting book.
Profile Image for Jamie Smith.
500 reviews80 followers
February 6, 2022
Families have their mythologies just as nations do. Mine retained the memory of a several-times-great grandfather who left Missouri with his brother and joined an Alabama regiment to fight for the Confederacy. His brother was captured at Antietam and died in a POW camp in Maryland but grandpa survived to the bitter end at Appomattox. Family lore says that when he returned home he had become so accustomed to long marches in the Army of Northern Virginia that he walked everywhere, and could still do twenty miles a day when he was in his nineties. Nothing else about him passed down to my generation, no photos or even his full name, and certainly nothing indicating what he believed in or why he went off to war. My father retained enough of this family legacy to give my brother and me the middle name of Lee, but he was interested in the Civil War only to the extent that he was interested in history generally. He never discussed his opinions on the reasons for the war, but once, when we passed a house with a rebel flag in the window he remarked contemptuously that only hillbillies did things like that.

And yet, growing up in Virginia, the ghost of the Confederacy was always there, in parks, street names, and school mascots, and Lee was always the greatest general, the greatest gentlemen, of them all. It was so much a part of the fabric of growing up in the South that I passed through high school and college without ever questioning it, and even after I had read enough history to know about some of the horrors of slavery, and to recognize that the argument for states’ rights was a lie, somehow Lee remained a remote and irreproachable figure of courage and dignity.

I think what started me on the path to re-evaluating the Lost Cause myth was when Confederate battle flags started showing up everywhere, on hats, t-shirts, bumper stickers, and in local parks. The genteel facade of the Old South was stripped away; these weren’t the Southern gentlemen I had grown up around, with their gracious manners and thoughtful discussions of world events; these were the hillbillies my father had spoken of, and there were a lot more of them than I ever imagined, and they were now emboldened to flaunt their racism, idiocy, and personal arsenals for all to see. They wore dumbassery like a badge of honor.

They weren’t just ignorant, they were scared and angry. Deep-down, in a way they probably could never understand, much less articulate, they were terrified that if Blacks and the others they saw as inferior somehow got equal rights, equal education, and equal protection under the law they might take the jobs of whites, who would be pushed farther down the economic ladder. This was a terrifying thought, because no matter how far they had fallen, they could at least take comfort in the fact that the Blacks were even lower down, and the idea that this might one day change was enough to send them howling to the barricades, and slavishly follow any politician or cable TV talking head who claimed to be on their side.

In the past few years I have read Frederick Law Olmstead’s 1856 book A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, and Tony Horwitz’s Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide (2019), which retraces Olmstead’s second trip, in 1857, this time down the Mississippi and over to Texas. Olmstead was a keen observer, and his first-person accounts of the lives of slaves and slave owners have a compelling immediacy. The whites he talked to could imagine no life that did not include slavery, which they were sure would go on indefinitely. Journalists and preachers not only defended it, but praised it for giving slaves exposure to civilization and Christianity. They were sure they were doing god’s work.

Given these attitudes it is not surprising that the South would fight rather than yield on this issue. Nor is it surprising that, once they had been defeated, they would seek to recast the causes of the war to show themselves in a better light. The actual documents of secession from 1861 declare over and over again that they went to war to keep and expand slavery and to prevent Northern states from exercising their own states’ rights to limit it in their territories. It was only after their defeat that they started to stake out other claims. A good brief summary of these issues can be found by searching for Washington Post and "five myths about why the south seceded".

I would like to thank Ty Seidule for pounding the last nail into the coffin of whatever lingering respect I still had for the Confederacy. Robert E. Lee was not a hero; he was a cruel slave owner who broke the solemn oath he took to defend the United States. He was a traitor to his country and his uniform, and responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. And I will never again refer to the “Union” army; it was the Army of the United States fighting a rebellion led by men willing to wage war so that they could continue to own human beings.

In Horwitz’s Spying on the South he recounts a part of the trip he took with an Australian friend, whose comment on Antebellum society and the plantation economy was spot-on, and should be remembered if we are ever tempted to gloss over the realities of life in the Old South, “ ‘I somehow hadn’t grasped that these were gulags,’ he said as we passed the estate of a planter who had amassed one hundred thousand acres of cane, four sugar mills, and more than 750 slaves. ‘Stalin would have felt right at home here.’ “

This book also expands its focus to look at the social structures that arose following the Civil War, a deeply racist society where white dominance was maintained by violence and intimidation. Black people were murdered just for trying to register to vote as late as the 1960s, and the killers were always acquitted by all-white juries who agreed that they had acted in “self-defense.” An excellent fictional account of life in these times is Elizabeth Spencer’s 1956 The Voice at the Back Door, where the white townspeople can’t even imagine a time when they might have to treat blacks as equals, a sentiment which, sadly, seems to prevail across parts of the South even today.

Like Seidule I am outraged that ten Army bases in the United States are currently named for men who were traitors to the nation they had sworn to defend, and it is a disgrace that Lee and other Southern soldiers are still represented at the military academy at West Point. You might as well place a statue of Benedict Arnold in the U. S. Capitol, although given what happened on January 6th, 2021 he might fit in comfortably with some there. Nevertheless, we should probably not expect that those bases will be renamed any time soon, or that West Point will remember what it stands for and remove Lee and his associates. The states most dominated by worshipful memories of the Confederacy are also the deepest red politically, and in our starkly polarized society it is doubtful that the U. S. army will be willing to expend the political capital necessary to do the right thing.

Ty Seidule graduated from Washington & Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, and I too have a connection to Lexington via the Virginia Military Institute. VMI’s patron saint has always been Stonewall Jackson, who taught there in the years before the war (not very well, apparently, called Tom Fool Jackson by the cadets). For decades a statue of him dominated the grounds, but in 2020 it was removed and packed off to the New Market battlefield. I was astonished to read about this. I would have bet money that nothing could ever cause that statue to go, and there must have been great resistance on the part of alumni, so it is a credit to the school’s leaders that they made the right decision. Perhaps West Point can find the courage to follow suit and purge the names of traitors from its grounds, and then maybe the Army will then do the same with its bases.
Profile Image for Theo Logos.
853 reviews143 followers
September 22, 2022
This book is powerful because it is personal. Ty Seidule has impressive credentials; retired United States Army brigadier general, former head of the history department at the United States Military Academy, and the first professor emeritus of history at West Point. His qualifications to write this book are impeccable, but that isn’t what makes this a book you should read. After all, the history he is covering here isn’t particularly new or ground breaking. Any interested parties not completely in thrall to the Lost Cause Myth already know it. Rather, it is the personal, his own unique story, and how he interweaves it with the history that gives this book it’s punch.

Seidule was a Southern boy who grew up idolizing Robert E. Lee. Educated in segregated Southern academies and at the cradle of Lee worship, Washington and Lee University, his one great ambition as a young person was to become a Southern Christian Gentleman just like his hero. He was a true believer in the Lost Cause Myth who had his faith challenged both by the research he did as a history professor at West Point, and by his wife, who refused to stop posing irritating questions to his Southern ideology. His book is part history, part memoir, as he tells his personal journey out of Lost Cause propaganda along with the history he presents. It is powerful and compelling, as he presents the unvarnished history of Lee, the Confederacy, and the wicked cause that motivated them stripped of their moonlight and magnolia romance combined with his own youthful culpability in the myth that he now demolishes.
Profile Image for Ed.
Author 52 books2,706 followers
October 30, 2021
I've looked forward to reading this title, and I wasn't disappointed. It's a sobering, frank historical reassessment of the iconic Robert E. Lee, which pretty much blows up the "Lost Cause" mythology constructed about the Confederacy. I'm a bit older than the author and grew up in Virginia as he did. Everything he covers as far as our learning Virginia history while young students is spot-on. He provides lots of historical facts to back up his assertion that the Civil War was primarily fought over the issue of slavery. I learned new things about REL, especially his ownership of enslaved people and his three plantation holdings. It's safe to say the author knocks the "Marble Man" off his pedestal as well, even accusing him of treason. Heavy, hard-hitting stuff, indeed.
Profile Image for Joseph.
563 reviews49 followers
February 26, 2021
A much needed, brutally honest look at the Marble Man and Confederate iconography. The author takes us through his life living in the shadow of Robert E. Lee. Along the way we confront many unpleasant truths about America's past. The author argues that Lee should be vilified as a traitor, not elevated as a secular saint. Although I didn't agree with all of the author's conclusions, this book fills a valuable gap in the history of the Lost Cause. An excellent effort.
Profile Image for Kristina.
322 reviews32 followers
May 21, 2023
Growing up in Virginia, the author wanted nothing more than to become a true southern gentleman like his hero, Robert E. Lee. Now a military scholar (and CERTAINLY a gentleman), he has spent the last decade courageously educating people about the “myth of the lost cause” and how that myth has continued to divide the nation today. Interspersing personal anecdotes with on-point historical references, Officer Seidule clearly defined the undeniable cause of the Civil War (SLAVERY) and the collective decision by a racist nation to portray it otherwise. This excellent book should be required reading for every adult in America. Highly recommended.
Profile Image for Carol Storm.
Author 18 books207 followers
July 19, 2021
This is one of those rare books that everyone's talking about that really lives up to the hype. It is amazing to see how such a small book can contain a lifetime of lore, legend, personal truths and painful discoveries. Ty Seidule starts out with the picture of Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy that was universal fifty or sixty years ago. He gives a brilliant analysis of books like Gone With the Wind and Meet Robert E. Lee, and even Disney movies like Song of the South. Then he goes beyond what we all grew up with, and reveals the real history. It's shocking, eye opening, and unforgettable.

One thing that really struck me in reading this book was that the author exposes the institutions he grew up with, such as the United States Army and West Point. But there are other institutions that share a similar history. And there are other individuals, too. For example, Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With The Wind, which tells lies about the Civil War and Reconstruction. But people remember it as "only" a trashy best seller. What they may not remember is that "literary" southern writers, like William Faulkner and William Styron, told the exact same lies. The picture of slavery in William Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner is in some ways much more sentimental than the picture of slavery in Gone With The Wind. (Virginia Belle Margaret Whitehead is so angelic and unreal that she makes Georgia Belle Scarlett O'Hara look like Molly Bloom!)

And then there are the lies of silence. Anne Beattie is a very respected literary figure, not usually associated with the south, because her fiction (Chilly Scenes of Winter, Love Always) is mostly about Baby Boom Angst and she published in classy outlets like the New Yorker. But she grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. And she, too, spent her whole life -- and her literary career -- ignoring the "secret" history of her town, a history of hatred, murder, and hypocrisy. Attention must be paid!

Ty Seidule is an amazing author. He's like Jake Gittes in Chinatown, forcing himself to uncover secrets so horrible his entire society wants them to be covered up. But now he's let the cat out of the bag with this amazing book. This is a book that will become a classic. There's cultural history, military history, political analysis, and personal memoir, all combined with an incredibly concise style. It's a one of a kind achievement.
Profile Image for Gary  Beauregard Bottomley.
1,074 reviews664 followers
July 20, 2023
A whining, blaming everyone but himself for taking too long in suddenly realizing that white Southern Christian Gentlemen are made up of Christianist Supremists while never fully accepting his participation for actually participating in the myth defending America’s fascist Confederate past. It’s hard to separate who we are from what we do but the author does his muddled best.

As H.C.E. in Finnegans Wake was dismissing his role in the incident he downplayed his part in it by saying mea minimus culpa and, of course, that makes the reader laugh out loud just as at this time, this author writes a long mostly familiar story as a mea minimus culpa and never takes responsibility either for wanting to be a Southern Christian Gentleman (his words) and at times this book would make me want to stop reading this apologetic since laughing at him wasn’t an option.

There is a better book on the myth of the civil war than this book and without the non-sensical mea minimus culpa that this book embraces, The Myth of the Lost Cause by Bonekemper III published in 2015 way before this apologia was self-centeredly written.

Seriously, I already knew Southern Christian Gentleman wannabes are supremist and that the myth of the civil war is a lie, and Gone with the Wind was part of that myth. There was a personnel story the author could have told but he blamed everyone else but himself and then entered into an Alice in Wonderland mea minimus culpa type story and that belongs in Finnegans Wake not in a history/memoir book.

When a person's identity is entwined with them believing a lie, they will embrace the lie until they can change their identity. It is not really a brave thing to call white supremists out for their hate, there are not good people on both sides, sometimes a person just needs to realize that their identity needs changing. This author finally realized that but he blames everyone but himself for the lies he chose to believe.
1 review
Read
December 29, 2020
Just to note- In Lee’s era there was much more loyalty to one’s state than exists generally today. Therefore, Lee’s choice to remain loyal to Virginia isn’t as radical then as now.
As anyone should know upon a minimal analysis, the current emphasis on judging historical figures based upon current mores and understanding does not always accurately interpret the subjects character and today’s reader should be honest enough to question whether or not he or she would be more enlightened if he or she lived during the relevant past era.
Profile Image for Susan Paxton.
369 reviews38 followers
April 10, 2021
Brigadier General Seidule (US Army, ret.) taught history at West Point for decades. As a born and bred southerner, a graduate of Washington and Lee College, he grew up soaking in the toxic miasma of the "lost cause." Unlike too many southerners, he woke up before he drowned in sewage.

And when his eyes were opened, he saw a lot of horror, which he unflinchingly describes. His descriptions have to be read - the segregated schools he went to, the ridiculous textbooks that portrayed happy enslaved people, the towns he lived in with memories of lynchings within years of his family's residence, the hideous chapel at Washington and Lee (Seidule's northern-born wife's reaction is priceless), the Army bases he served at named after traitors - there is a lot to digest, and he pulls no punches. In particular, he covers his personal hero-worship of Robert E Lee, and his discovery that his treasured hero was an enthusiastic and cruel supporter of slavery, not the reluctant warrior he's too often depicted as being.

General Seidule's discussion of the Army bases named after Confederate "soldiers" is particularly searing, as is his description of the idiotic "healing process" that has led to memorials to traitors at places like West Point.

This is important reading. I have a few quibbles - sentence fragments make me crazy, and there's no index - but anyone interested in the social history of the South, the civil war, and in particular recent controversies over bases and monuments will find this a valuable book.
Profile Image for Darlene.
326 reviews138 followers
July 15, 2021
3-stars is temporary and based on listening to the audiobook. I know that some things are missing from audio versions. I need to check a print book to see if it was better annotated and I may add some stars. It is difficult to rate a non-fiction book based on listening to the audio version because authors do not always cite their sources in the text. That is the case with this book, but it may be well footnoted in the print version. If that is the case, I will add some stars.

That said, I really liked the book and thought it made some great points.
Profile Image for Betsy.
1,017 reviews145 followers
October 10, 2021
This is a different kind of tell-all book. It's almost an act of contrition for years of blind worship of a man and a cause which didn't deserve it. It's very personal, and yet strives for objectivity--certainly not an easy feat. The author succeeds to some degree, but from page one you know where this historian and former army officer stands on a topic that has wracked this country for centuries. Slavery may have officially ended with the 13th Amendment, but the horrors of Jim Crowism, lynchings, and hatred for African-Americans still linger even 150+ years later. You only have to watch television or read a newspaper or go online to know that the Lost Cause seems to be constantly simmering beneath the conciousness of this country.

Seidule is frank about his growing up years. He wanted to be a 'southern gentleman' and who better to emulate than Robert E. Lee? Lee was a man to admire--militarily and as a Christian gentleman--until you look deeper as Seidele does. The lives of Seidele and Lee intertwine at Washington and Lee University, especially in reference to the Lee Chapel, that shrine to the Lost Cause. The author is proud to be an American and a soldier, as well he should be, but he has finally come to realize that much of what he learned in life was a lie. It is to his credit that he has made it his purpose to acquaint others to the dark truths about slavery and the prejudice that many African-Americans still face.

I learned much from this book. I could only wish that many of those we saw on television on January 6, could learn from it too. It is so easy to hate, to lose control, and follow those false leaders who would destroy. Fortunately, the U.S. avoided destruction in 1865, while 4,000,000 enslaved human beings gained their freedom. That's the good part of the story, but we are still waiting 150+ years later when voter suppression, killings, and the prejudices of politicians and voters alike still exist. Frankly, I fear we have a long road ahead of us. Seidule was obviously heartened by the reception for his speech at Washington and Lee, but I sincerely think he was 'preaching to the converted' or they would have avoided the speech like the plague. On the other hand, what would have been the reaction of some of our politicians, the Insurrectionists, and the anti-vaxxers to his speech? I suspect the American Civil War and its consequences will be with us for many years to come.
Profile Image for Daniel.
140 reviews
October 31, 2021
This is a personal and professional story from a soldier who also happens to be an historian. The author confesses that he was blind about white privilege for most of his career but progressively developed an awareness for the inequalities of treatment for the black population. The author focuses on the question of the very positive treatment afforded to a traitor, general Robert E. Lee who led Secessionist troups against the Union. The general responsible for the highest number of american deaths at war is ...an american. But instead of being seen for what he was, he has been hailed as a hero, a legend. Statues abound with general Lee in the saddle leading southern troops killing other americans to preserve a society based on an economic slavery model.

The Civil War was never concluded decisively from a social perspective and more than a hundred and fifty years after the emancipation the discrimination against blacks is still prevalant and the admiration for a traitor still a powerful force. Racial discrimination is anchored in US society with many believing that blacks are an inferior race. That belief is still strong when members of a national party prepare state legislation to ensure ''the quality of the vote'' which is code for non whites should not be able to vote. This book helps to understand how powerful the forces of racism are in the United States where the Union is more imperfect than ever. In 1860 the Secession was about the denial of an election for the secessionist states; in 2020 the denial of the results of an election are another form of the same racist Big Lie. The Big Lie in 1865 is about the South losing because of a lack of resources not because slavery was defeated and in 2021 the Big Lie is about an election stolen by non whites who illegally voted.

History tends to repeat itself if you do not sufficiently change the parameters of society. Racism explains why we see strange political bedfellows where russian disinformation specialists and the republican party are allies against fair and free elections, both believing that democracy is dangerous. You even have a former president clearly stating that a high level of electoral participation is dangerous for the GOP. The race question almost destroyed the Union in 1861. Will it succeed in the 21 century?
Profile Image for Emily.
679 reviews24 followers
November 22, 2020
If Robert E. Lee takes precedence over Jesus in the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee College, how can that be justified? The justification is over a century of misinformation, outright lies, and massaging the truth to make Lee into the ultimate hero, perpetually resplendent because of inherited wealth, who answered the call of slaveholders to fight against America and lose a war. And in losing the war, the South has created a warped narrative about noble men fighting against a monolithic American army with the resources to win, thus making all the Confederate generals heroes for losing. Ty Seidule grew up believing in Robert E. Lee and the Lost Cause, until, years into his teaching career at West Point, he started to notice cracks in the narrative. Robert E. Lee and Me is a dissection of Lost Cause narrative, taken geographically by the places that Seidule grew up. Alexandria: birthplace of Robert E. Lee, which Seidule was raised to be proud of, while omitting Alexandria's carve-out from the District of Columbia to secure its place as a slave trading hub, its immediate occupation in the Civil War, complicity in Jim Crow law, and the early African-American resistance to segregation. None of these things have plaques or mentions in the history of Alexandria, and Seidule learned them as an adult. The same with Monroe, Alabama and its history of lynching. The same with Gone With the Wind and its wildly skewed narrative of slave owners fallen on hard times. Seidule explains the hidden histories, the things that were actually happening while the "slaves were happy and the Civil War was unfair to us" myth was being spun. And at West Point, which Seidule is committed to and honors well, after forty years of keeping Confederate memorials out because the Confederates forsook their oaths and killed American soldiers, Confederate worship has been sneaking in: most of the Confederate monuments at West Point coincide with moments of increased integration at West Point. Seidule writes a convincing, damning argument about Robert E. Lee and the Lost Cause. Absolutely must read. I deeply appreciate winning an ARC. Thank you, Goodreads!
Profile Image for Chris.
1,617 reviews30 followers
September 6, 2021
Read this book if you want to know how and why we have US Army bases named after traitors.

Before there was the term disinformation there was and is the Lost Cause Myth, perhaps the most effective and successful lie in American History. Just as the Nazis studied the South’s Jim Crow laws on how to marginalize Jews I’m sure the Russians studied the Lost Cause for their disinformation dissertation. We won the war but lost the peace. So much for the line about winners writing history. Given the book’s currency I’m surprised the author didn’t specifically cite and link the term disinformation to the Lost Cause.

African Americans were the casualties of white reconciliation after the Spanish American War. Ty Seidule, the author, shows too how every time civil rights would gain some energy Confederate monuments would also appear- especially at West Point of all places.

I too like the author grew up in the Washington DC area and pursued a military career but I was raised in the border state of Maryland and went into the Marines. I had a subscription to Civil War Times Magazine in second grade and had already made a pilgrimage to Antietam. I respected the generals of the Confederacy for their elan. I would take a rebel gray cap over Yankee blue any day. But I never identified as a Southerner. I would cringe when Maryland was called a Southern state. I saw myself as Middle Atlantic. I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in high school and knew the war was about slavery. How could it not be? But I still respected the martial prowess of the CSA.

It would not be until I was a Marine that my views on their fighting strategy and tactics evolved. I found my boyhood idols wanting. Audacity to me was recklessness. Their planning was poor. Stupidity was called bravery.

Ty Seidule expiates his soul in this short, well organized book about himself and Robert E. Lee’s apotheosis. Lee is no hero and neither is he a gentleman. He is a traitor and the consummate racist.
Profile Image for Olivia.
360 reviews92 followers
May 4, 2023
“The Civil War wasn’t about slavery – ”

Oh, yeah? Who’s going to go back in time and tell the Confederates that? Because we’ll be picking their jaws off the floor for a week.

Seidule pulls no punches – not for his nation, not for his culture, not even for himself. Instead, he forcefully and effectively communicates the simple, objective historical facts to reach a simple, objective historical conclusion. Good on him.

(Note: The moral strength of the book does falter a couple of times – for instance, when Seidule reflects on the duty of the Army to “enforce democracy” instead of practicing it, even if individual soldiers find their orders morally abhorrent, as in the case of Army suppression of Native Americans. But the majority of the book is fantastic.)

One of the craziest things about the Lost Cause myth, to me, is the fact that its adherents often accuse critics of revisionism in insisting that the Confederacy committed treason against the United States of America. But even contemporaneously, people understood that that was exactly what the Confederacy was doing. Confederate Army leaders (including Lee) were officially indicted for treason – because they had, you know, committed treason. Objectively. Unequivocally. (Just as, objectively and unequivocally, they explicitly told us, in public writing, that they were seceding to preserve the institution of slavery. But people simply refuse to accept that reality. It’s wild.)

Particularly good/damning bits:

“I hope this book exposes the lies I grew up believing and why it took so long for me to see the evidence, the facts, that I now see so clearly.

Eleven southern states seceded to protect and expand an African American slave labor system. Unwilling to accept the results of a fair, democratic election, they illegally seized U.S. territory, violently. Together, they formed a new “Confederacy,” in contravention of the U.S. Constitution. Then West Point graduates like Robert E. Lee resigned their commissions, abrogating an oath sworn to God to defend the United States. During the bloodiest war in American history, Lee and his comrades killed more U.S. Army soldiers that any other enemy, ever. And they did it for the worst reason possible: to create a nation dedicated to exploit enslaved men, women, and children, forever.

As a retired U.S. Army officer and as a historian, I consider the issue simple. My former hero, Robert E. Lee, committed treason to preserve slavery. After the Civil War, former Confederates, their children, and their grandchildren created a series of myths and lies to hide that essential truth and sustain a racial hierarchy dedicated to white political power reinforced by violence.”


- - - - -

“As a schoolkid in Virginia, I never received an honest accounting of slavery. . . . Every aspect of slavery was just as evil as the abolitionists and the peerlessly honest former slave Frederick Douglass described it. If anything, the conditions were worse. The only way to argue for slavery, then or now, is to believe that the enslaved weren’t real human beings. That the lives of those who had darker skin had less worth; that the color of skin meant the difference between human and not quite human.”

- - - - -

“. . . Lee’s actions undeniably violated the Constitution he and I swore to defend. He waged war against the United States. Because he fought so well for so long, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died. No other enemy officer in American history was responsible for the deaths of more U.S. Army soldiers than Robert E. Lee.
{emphasis mine}

- - - - -

[in response to the argument that Lee faced tremendous, overwhelming “peer pressure” to resign and serve the Confederacy] “Looking carefully at those eight U.S. Army colonels from Virginia confirms that Lee’s decision was abnormal. Of those eight, seven remained loyal to their solemn oath to the U.S. Constitution. Only one colonel resigned to fight against the United States. Robert E. Lee. Put another way, 88 percent of long-serving Regular Army colonels from Virginia stayed with the United States. If we expand the scope to include all slave state U.S. Army colonels who graduated from West Point the total number jumps to fifteen. Of those fifteen, twelve remained loyal, or 80 percent. Lee was an outlier. Most officers of his experience and rank remained with the United States.”

- - - - -

[regarding Lee’s pre-War management of his late father-in-law, George Custis’s, estate] “During Custis’s time running Arlington, he recognized marriages and kept families together, never selling them or hiring them out. By 1860, Lee had used the hiring system to such a degree that only one enslaved family remained together at Arlington. {emphasis mine}

- - - - -

“In March 1865, the South began a limited type of Black conscription. It was far too late. The war ended before one single African American soldier in Confederate gray fired a weapon against the forces of freedom. Yet by passing a bill to allow the enslaved to fight for a white supremacist regime, [Howell] Cobb was right. The paradox of Black men fighting for the rights of white men to hold their brothers and sisters in bondage meant that the revolution had failed.

Thank God it failed. Thank God Lee failed.
{emphasis mine}

- - - - -

Despite all the states’ rights blather of the Confederacy, its constitution allowed no states’ rights on slavery. One clause barred any state from making a law ‘impairing the right of property in negro slaves.’” {emphasis mine}

- - - - -

“Lee did fight bravely in army blue in the Mexican-American War. He was a superb college president. He did take the loyalty oath in 1865. For me, however, Lee is no hero. As an army officer, I can’t honor a colonel who abrogated his solemn oath, sworn to God. As an American, I can’t honor someone who killed so many U.S. Army soldiers. As a human being, I can’t honor a man who fought so hard for so long to keep millions of people in perpetual bondage.”
Profile Image for Charlotte.
58 reviews
February 27, 2021
Thanks so much from one VA Southern to another. I grew up in Richmond showing out of town guest beautiful Monument Ave . I didnt even think about WHY they were put up. I drove from MA, where I presently live, to see them come down. Hope Lee comes down before I die.
BUT we can’t stop at statues. We need to repair what we have done to Black people for 400 years- discrimination in
Education, housing,zoning,transportation , wealth, legislation. Many books out there, but 2 you may not have heard about are
The Black tax. By Shawn Rochester
And Ben Campbell’s Richmond’s Unhealed History
Profile Image for David Allen White.
358 reviews3 followers
June 13, 2021
Wow! I never give a book five stars unless it teaches me something important that I didn't know, or causes me to see something I did know in a new light. A century and a half after the War of the Rebellion, to use its correct term, we are only just beginning to deal with the poison of racism that runs so deep in our culture. This book is a valuable contribution to that effort.
Profile Image for ..
87 reviews1 follower
Want to read
January 7, 2021
It seems all the negative reviews come from people with a partiKKKular worldview.
515 reviews219 followers
May 8, 2021
A solid and passionately argued book -- part memoir, part history, part social commentary. Seidule has the credentials to talk about his topic: He was born and raised in the South and went to Southern schools from first grade through college graduation (he went to Washington & Lee with the aim, he says, of becoming a "Christian Southern Gentleman). He's been in the Army for nearly 40 years -- he retired as a Brigadier General after comanding a cavalry unit in the 82nd Airborne Division during the Gulf War, as well as 3rd Battalion, 81st Armor Regiment. He was the head of the History Department at West Point and served as their very first professor emeritus of history. He grew up revering Robert E. Lee and believing with all his heart in the Lost Cause myth. It wasn't until he was out in the world and became a serious student of history that he learned the truth: that the Lost Cause myth was made up out of whole cloth by the losing side, and that behind it lay an agenda that ignored historical fact and perpetuated white supremacy, and that has been so successful that even Northerners and liberals have unknowingly used its tropes in talking about the country's past.

Seidule goes over his youth, recalling how one of the first books he ever read -- the first book he ever loved -- was a work called "Robert E. Lee and Me." From that beginning, and through all of his education and social acculturation he was taught to believe that Lee was a hero, perhaps the greatest gentleman soldier the country has ever seen, that he fought nobly, that the South was defeated because of the North's superior numbers, and so on. In short, the Lee the South has mythologized is just slightly below God in the universe. (I'm not exaggerating or misrepresenting him on this point. He shows repeatedly how this is the case, most clearly in his discussions of Washington & Lee's Lee Chapel, where Lee is buried. Above his body, where an altar would be in a church, is an enormous statue of Lee lying recumbent in his uniform. The symbolism throughout the chapel glorifies Lee to such an extent that Seidule's wife, a serious Christian, refused to go in, saying the chapel was patently blasphemous.)

The book begins with a decision by West Point officials to memorialize graduates who died in war. The question was raised: Should the memorial include the names of the many West Point graduates who fought for the Confederacy? To Seidule, the answer was a hard No! The grads who fought for the South had betrayed their oath and their country. Others argued for the names, saying it would be a mark of reconciliation.

I won't offer an in-depth description of the book. Rather, I'll pass on some of the author's major points:

Lee (and others in the Confederate army) was not a hero, he was a traitor as the word is explicitly defined by the Constitution (Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort). What's more, mere days after being granted a promotion at West Point and swearing an oath to protect and defend the United States he decided to resign his commission and waged war against the country.

There was no conflict between Confederate soldiers and the "Union" army. That language is expressive of the Lost Cause myth. The war was fought by the United States Army on one side and on the other, insurrectionists who refused to accept the outcome of a legitimate national election and waged war to destroy the Republic.

There are statues throughout the South -- and many places in the North -- memorializing and celebrating the Confederate past but nothing to indicate that they were fighting against the United States. And there are no statues or street names commemorating Northern figures.

The South, Seidule says, was nothing less than a "racial police state," with everything those words suggest.

The Lee Chapel at Washington & Mary (before the war, it was Washington University in gratitude for a grant that the first President made to the school. After Lee died, the school was renamed in his honor. Donations to the school skyrocketed, saving it from likely bankruptcy) had two portraits: One of Lee in his Gray Confederate uniform, and one of Washington -- in the red uniform of the British Army he wore in fighting the French & Indian War.

There are (and have been) numerous Army bases named after Confederate generals and officers, including several who were terrible soldiers and one who served for only five days. One base was named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, who fought for the Confederacy and in time became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

The halls at West Point are named after US Army generals. The only person who was not a general was Robert E. Lee, who left the Army as a colonel.

Seidule does a very good job recalling his upbringing in the South and exploring the lies and misrepresentations were proliferated and embraced throughout his education and in Southern culture; how the Lost Cause myth spread throughout American culture; how it was -- and still is -- used to perpetuate White supremacy; and a good deal more. Seidule is straightforward in expressing his anger about the US Army's -- the United States' -- continued veneration of traitors.

"Robert E. Lee and Me" is a powerful book. It's not without flaws -- the author does tend to make the same point again and again -- but I believe his arguments are irrefutable. I also fear that they will fall on deaf ears. Seidule did a brief youtube presentation sharing evidence that slavery was indeed the cause of the Civil War, and that the stuff about "States Rights" was invented after the South lost. He still receives death threats.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 969 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.