Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning of the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule - 4 stars

[Jen K]

Warning: I toned it down but it is a somewhat political review.

With the passion of a convert, Seidule shares his personal history growing up in the South revering Robert E Lee in the league with Jesus. All Seidule wanted to be when growing up and well into the age of attending university was to be a good Christian gentleman like his confederate heroes. Seidule grew up with several myths, phrases and interpretations of the civil war as well as giant gap of what was not said mostly on slavery and racism that he found common across the south which learned as truth. It was even in the school history books. Much later in life as a history professor at West Point Academy, through research found that the truths he believed were actually myths. Seidule shares is meticulous research though often supplemented with his personal story to share his findings that the confederates including Lee were not just good Christian gentleman who were still in the right despite losing. They were fighting their own country which many had pledged to protect for the sake of maintaining slavery. He notes that all memorials, statues, dedications and naming of landmarks were done not immediately after the Civil War but in response to any civil freedoms or rights given or upheld make systems in the US more equal. For him, any support for the confederacy or any confederates is support of slavery.

Having grown up in a somewhat rural and conservative area but less than an hour from Canada, I have seen and heard the racism but I truly did not understand this Myth of the Lost Cause that seems to be held true in the South and how deeply it was felt. I didn't realize how the cause of the Civil War was massaged so to leave out slavery as the cause of the succession but some other reason of entitlement that was declared to be just and noble. I hope that Seidule continues to speak his message and I hope that his being an older white man with a strong military history helps others to hear the message.