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

With all that he has learned, Seidule reevaluates the figure of Lee whom he had revered his whole life. He begins with a brief biography of Lee, noting that his father squandered the family’s finances and left while Robert was a young child. He was a standout student at West Point, famously graduating without a single demerit—although he was not the only to do so. After graduating second in his class, he went on to a storied career in the Army corps of engineers, particularly during the Mexican War. Having earned a sterling reputation among his peers, he reluctantly accepted the post of superintendent of West Point. He returned to active service in 1859 to suppress John Brown’s efforts to stage an uprising among enslaved people. When Virginia seceded, Lee made the fateful choice to defend state rather than country. As commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee won several battles against vastly superior forces, although his penchant for going on the offensive ultimately undid him at Antietam in 1862 and Gettysburg in 1863. His skill at holding the army together even after a series of setbacks helped to prolong the war and the consequent destruction of Southern infrastructure.

After more than three decades in uniform, Seidule developed a new perspective on what it means to serve loyally. Lee spent the same amount of time in uniform as Seidule did, and when he instead chose to serve the Confederacy, Seidule believes that he committed treason. No enemy officer is responsible for the deaths of more Americans in combat. Historians have typically argued that Lee was compelled to fight for Virginia when it came into conflict with the Union. However, a West Point education even at that time emphasized national loyalties above sectional or party loyalties, and as superintendent Lee reaffirmed his vow of allegiance to the United States of America. He accepted a promotion to colonel only a few weeks before joining the Confederacy. Around that same time, he condemned secession and insisted on his fidelity to the US Constitution. His father had helped President Washington suppress the first major rebellion against the government, and most of his family would serve with the Union, including several cousins, close friends, and a nephew. Even his wife and children appeared to favor union until he made his defection. Most other Virginians in the regular army, including the great Winfield Scott, remained loyal. Of the eight Virginia colonels in the army, only Lee changed sides. Among the colonels of all “slave states,” 12 out of 15 remained. Given his reputation at the time, Lee’s unusual decision helped to sway others who may otherwise have been reluctant to defy the majority. In sum, Lee rejected the outcome of a democratic election and decided to take up arms against his country. For Seidule, the only proper name for such actions is treason.

Seidule then turns to the reasons why Lee made such a momentous decision, when so many others in a similar position chose otherwise. It could not have been simply to defend Virginia, as every other Virginia colonel stayed loyal, and Lee accepted a commission in the Confederate army, not the Virginia militia. Seidule affirms that Robert E. Lee was interested in defending slavery. Upon marrying into the Custis family, he inherited enslaved people. He even brought an enslaved person with him to West Point, contrary to New York law. After his father-in-law’s death, managing the family estate and the enslaved people there took precedence over his army duties, and he used the labor of those enslaved people to pay off family debts. He broke apart families of enslaved people, brutalized others, and kept in bondage those whom his father-in-law had promised freedom after his death. He only freed enslaved people when a court forced him to do so. Lee had for many years written critically about abolitionists, and following the Emancipation Proclamation, he condemned it for what he feared would be ruinous effects upon Southern culture and the white race. When conducting their Northern campaigns, Lee’s armies kidnapped both fugitives from slavery and formerly enslaved people, reselling them back into bondage. His army also employed thousands of enslaved people for menial labor, with many dying in the process. As defeat was imminent, Lee argued for arming former enslaved people and promising them emancipation, but only to defend the broader system of slavery.

When Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, he was praised for ending the war rather than pursuing guerrilla warfare. As it turns out, Lee kept his war going on for as long as possible, and stopped only when his army had been completely outmaneuvered by Grant and his supply lines exhausted. Grant deserves more credit for allowing Lee a dignified surrender and a general pardon for those who swore never again to take up arms against the United States. Lee, on the other hand, justified his defeat with an early version of the Lost Cause mythology, arguing that the North’s advantages came from immigration and finance capital, thereby rendering it illegitimate. To his credit, Lee reaffirmed his loyalty to the United States in October 1865, and he achieved amnesty in 1868. Privately, he blamed the United States for causing the Civil War and his subordinates for leading to his demise, and he publicly opposed granting Black Americans the right to vote. He believed they were only fit for servitude and longed for a return to the antebellum system. When Lee was president of what would later be Washington and Lee, his students harassed Black residents and warned them against crossing “General Lee’s boys.” According to Seidule, Lee’s attitudes toward this were indifferent.

To contemplate Lee’s legacy, Seidule imagines a world where the Confederacy won and slavery remained, the country permanently divided against itself. Acknowledging the horrors of slavery requires condemning Lee’s actions on its behalf. Many aspects of Lee’s career could be praised, but the inescapable fact is that he fought a war to defend and perpetuate slavery. The memorialization of Lee and other Confederates, advocates claim, is meant to preserve history. Instead, it is much more concerned with preserving a certain view of history that obscures the evils of slavery. More education in the real history of the United States is necessary to break the hold of Lost Cause myths, and Seidule is confident that his children and grandchildren will learn the truth much sooner than he did.