Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule

 

Title:  Robert E. Lee and Me

Author:  Ty Seidule

Narrated by:  Ty Seidule

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 45 minutes

Source: Checked out with Libby through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

What is the last book that was recommended to you?  Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule was recommended to me by one of my favorite high school teachers, Mrs. Parkison.  She was a great history and health teacher!

Ty Seidule is a Professor Emeritus of History at West Point.  He served 2/3 of life in Army.   He grew up in Virginia revering Robert E. Lee.  He attended Washington & Lee University and then was in the military.  As he grew older and served in the military himself, he had a reckoning with the legacy of Robert E. Lee, the Civil War, and the lost cause myth.  He realized that Lee had signed an oath to the United States just days before he turned against his own country and fought against it.  Lee profited from slavery, and he had members of his own family that went against him when he became a traitor and resigned from the United States military.   His actions was directly responsible the deaths of many American citizens.  After the Civil War, the lost cause myth started.  “The Lost Cause became a movement, an ideology, a myth, even a civil religion that would unite first the white south and eventually the nation around the meaning of the Civil War.”

Siedule also states that history is dangerous.  When you go against people’s long-standing views, such as the lost cause myth, they can react very angrily and sometimes violently.  It’s always interesting to me that people stick so firmly to views that were passed down to them, even when they don’t match actual historical accounts from the time period. 

This book was part memoir and part a history lesson.  It was a very interesting audiobook to listen to and it made me wish I had him for an instructor.  I liked that he narrated the book himself. 

The Audiobook has a great interview with the author at the end.