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

by Ty Seidule

I read through the Virginia history textbook with disbelief, followed by profound anger. I checked the publishing data: first edition 1957; second edition and the one I read 1964. All the lies of the Lost Cause myth in one convenient package to inculcate Virginia children, like me, with the same racist ideology: states’ rights and tariffs as the cause of the Civil War; slavery as a positive good; the War Between the States, not the Civil War; the evils of Reconstruction; the heroism of the Confederate soldier; the righteousness of the cause; the godliness of the Virginia way of life; and, of course, Lee as god. No mention in the book of Harriet Tubman, who led many enslaved people to freedom. No mention of Samuel Tucker. I expected all of that, but the way the text dealt with slavery was the most preposterous and the most chilling.