“History is dangerous.”
This refrain repeats throughout Ty Seidule’s autobiographical history of the Lost Cause and it is a fitting chorus. The Lost Cause is testament to how dangerous history, or in this case the distortion and denial thereof, can be. The Lost Cause has long since collapsed within the halls of academia but it continues to hold significant sway in popular memory and there’s plenty of work to be done still to fight against its sway in politics and wider American society. While plenty of authors have broken down the specifics of the distortions and horrors of the Lost Cause, what Dr. Seidule does in this book is a more personal account of neo-Confederate mythmaking. I found this to be a highly valuable approach, but I have to acknowledge that it may not work for everyone. Still, I think this is a valuable addition to the corpus of literature combating the Lost Cause in the 21st century.
Like Dr. Seidule, I am Virginian born and I grew up with the Lost Cause around me, and this shared background was a significant part of the appeal of this book for me. Unlike Siedule, I didn’t go to a segregation academy and I was not sunk nearly as deep into Lost Cause thinking, I was still taught it in Middle School and the legacy of its influence on my early education is something I have had to contend with in my development as a professional historian. This shared personal history with neo-Confederacy was what drew me to it - I wanted to see how someone who was even deeper into this world that I was managed to emerge from it. To some extent I think this puts me in the target audience for this book since I can relate to the author’s experience, but I think the Seidule does an excellent job of conveying what it is like growing up in this mindset and explaining how it permeates Southern society, even for people who haven’t lived it. If you want to understand how the Lost Cause has sustained itself in popular culture, this book does a great job of showing it via a fascinating case study of one person’s journey deep into the Lost Cause and his eventual escape from it.
The book does more than just cover the author’s personal journey through the Lost Cause, though, and it is Seidule’s ability to clearly outline the horrors of the Lost Cause that I think is the book’s greatest strength. Each chapter is dedicated to a section of the author’s life, and in particular the geography he inhabited during that time. He discusses his original home of Alexandria, his later home in rural Georgia, and his time in West Point. More importantly, however, he discusses how these places related to the American Civil War, how the Lost Cause took root there, and the horrors and violence that were persecuted to sustain those myths. It can be difficult to convey to non-historians the danger of people believing the wrong history - I can easily see someone dismissing the belief in the Lost Cause as just “people disagree”. Seidule is not content to let it sit at that and with a passion he digs deep into the violence of the Lost Cause - the lynchings, murders, and rejection of democracy that came hand in hand with it. This is an unflinching look at the violence committed by white America against black Americans.
Perhaps the greatest takeaway I have from reading Robert E. Lee and Me is the importance of terminology. This is something I was already aware of on some level, but Seidule digs deeper into it than I had ever thought. I was already aware of the contested name of the American Civil War - growing up in the South one can hardly be unaware - but Seidule’s goes further than that. I had never questioned the habit of calling the Northern army “The Union”, but of course they were in fact the United Sates Army, the same one that exists today. To someone who served in that army for nearly four decades, like Seidule, I can see how this name distinction would be enormous and I think I agree - the use of the name “Union” makes it easier to commit the absurdly horrific act of naming US Army bases after Confederates who fought against and killed American soldiers. It pretends as if the Civil War happened outside of time. Seidule similarly rejects the term plantation, with its Gone With the Wind-esque antebellum serenity, and prefers Slave Labor Farms, a term that more accurately conjures what they were. He also repeatedly hammers home the point that the South, and as a result the US as a whole, was not a democracy during the era of Jim Crow when the Lost Cause was practically the law, a point that intellectually many of us know but always bears repeating.
This is not a book for everyone - it comes from a very specific perspective that will not suit or even be necessary for all audiences. In many ways this is to its benefit, a white southern male army officer tearing these myths down has the potential to reach an audience that has so far proved entirely resistant to the ongoing assaults that have been made on the Lost Cause. However, for some people that will not be the best way to engage with this kind of material. This book isn’t necessarily saying anything totally new, but its confessional nature gives it a distinct approach. Other readers may find more value in the writings of W.E.B. DuBois or other non-white authors who have made enormous contributions in tearing down Lost Cause myths over the past century and more. On the whole, though, I welcome this addition to the war against the Lost Cause myth and I hope it all the success in the world. As the author says himself, he has the fervor of a convert when it comes to this topic, and we can always use more converts.