Robert E. Lee and Me

October 19, 2020
West Point history professor emeritus Seidule (coeditor, West Point History of the American Revolution) delivers a ruminative and carefully researched look at how the Confederacy is understood and memorialized a century and a half after its defeat. Frustrated by his realization that so many white Americans from all parts of the nation have “grown up with the same myths, really lies, about the Civil War” that he learned as a child in Virginia, Seidule takes apart the bedrocks of “Lost Cause” mythology, presenting evidence that the Civil War was truly about slavery, not states’ rights; that Robert E. Lee’s high moral character has been exaggerated; and that the North won because of its strategic superiority as much as its manufacturing capabilities. Seidule also delves into the history of lynchings in Walton County, Ga., where he attended high school, and the ways in which the U.S. military valorizes the Confederacy. He contends that, with the exception of an “extremist fringe,” most Americans who accept Confederate mythology do so out of ignorance rather than racism. Some readers may question Seidule’s assertion that the tide is already turning against the Lost Cause, but he makes a valiant and well-supported effort to bring essential facts to light. This heartfelt history has a worthy message.

Starred review from November 1, 2020

In 2015, Seidule produced a short video making the case that the Southern states seceded from the United States in order to create a slave-based republic. The video went viral and Seidule, a U.S. army colonel and historian at West Point, became a target of Confederate apologists, even receiving death threats. This book grew out of that video, and in it the author examines the power that the "Lost Cause" myth had over him when he was young and how he came to realize its fiction. Seidule grew up attending schools in Virginia and Georgia where the Lost Cause and veneration of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee were part of the culture. As he began to study the American Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras, he learned that the version of history he was taught was inaccurate. He makes a solid case that leaders of the Confederate states should not be honored because they betrayed their oaths to uphold the Constitution and in fact fought to destroy the very nation they were sworn to protect. VERDICT Seidule openly confronts his own indifference to racism, and this absorbing book will be of value to anyone interested in how history informs our present.--Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL

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