Book Review — “Robert E. Lee and Me” by Ty Seidule

Book Review — Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2020) by Ty Seidule

In recent weeks, I’ve become engrossed in the American Civil War, a subject I’ve had little exposure to as a Canadian historian. I’ve read books such as David Blight’s Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001) and listened to podcasts, including the The Last Best Hope? — a history podcast presented by the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. In one particular episode about Robert E. Lee, historian Ty Seidule discusses his book, Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause (2020).

Seidule pulls no punches. His conclusion about the American Civil War is clear from the book’s first pages: In 1861, the Southern states rebelled against a democratically elected U.S. government to protect and expand a system of slavery. Moreover, the Confederate’s leading General, Robert E. Lee, committed treason, resigning his U.S. military commission to defend white supremacy. It is Seidule’s journey to these conclusions, however, that make his book so compelling.

Born in Alexandria, Virginia, Seidule dreamed one day of becoming a southern gentleman in the mould of Lee, his boyhood hero. Seidule’s chapters explore his childhood, his time at Washington and Lee University, and his career in the U.S. Army. In the process he examines how these external factors combined to inculcate him with the Myth of the Lost Cause. Into adulthood, Seidule accepted arguments that the South was justified in trying to overthrow a tyrannical federal government that intruded on states’ rights. That the South only lost the Civil War because of the North’s numerical advantage and that Robert E. Lee was the epitome of the Southern, Christian gentleman. Most importantly, Seidule accepted the South’s arguments that slavery was not the primary cause of the Civil War and in fact, slaves were treated well by their enslavers.

As a historian at West Point, U.S. Military Academy, Seidule eventually begins to question these beliefs and to conduct historical research that conclusively sets the Myth of Lost Cause on its head. For example, he learns that Robert E. Lee resigned his military commission, not out of a sense of duty to his home state, Virginia (as he had been taught), but because Lee owned 200-plus slaves, “identified more with his fellow slaveholders,” and believed deeply in the system of “human bondage” perpetuated by the Southern states. Upon further research, Seidule’s language to describe the U.S. Civil War and its consequences changes dramatically. No longer does he refer to the conflict as the “War between States,” as many Southerners did following the war. Rather, Seidule calls the war what it was: “The War of the Rebellion.” Similarly, he begins to refer to Southern plantations as “enslaved labour farms,” and argues that during the period of Reconstruction and subsequent Jim Crow era, that the South practiced racial apartheid supported by a violent racial police state.

Seidule has done a 180, yet there are still moments that his conservative upbringing is evident. In 2015, West Point formed a committee to re-examine the Confederate memorials and monuments on campus. No changes, however, were ever made — the result of explicit instructions from the Pentagon in 2017. Upset by the decision, Seidule nonetheless argues “an order is an order,” and that “West Point should not…make any changes until the chain of command allows it.” Seidule, West Point, and the Army have missed the chance to be leaders in racial reconciliation, to lead by example.

Ultimately, what makes Robert E. Lee and Me such a fascinating book is Seidule’s eagerness to share his most intimate emotions with the reader — his fears, regrets, and confusion when all the beliefs he had grown up with are turned upside-down. Seidule, refreshingly, admits that he was wrong about his beloved General, the causes of the Civil War, and has taken significant steps to address the gaps in his knowledge. Part biography, part history, Robert E. Lee and Me is a great book for anyone interested in the memory of the U.S. Civil War and how that memory is critical to understanding American society today.