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acarman1 's review for:
This was an amazing and necessary read. If ever we are to get past the Lost Cause mythology surrounding the Civil War, those of us brought it up in it are going to have to puncture it. Colonel Seidule sets out to do just that. He openly admits he was raised to revere the Confederacy and straight out worship Robert E. Lee. That word is not idly chosen. He was literally raised to worship the man. He recounts the books and movies that taught him the South could no wrong, that slavery was no big deal, or even that it was a positive good for both master and slave (he mentions "Meet Robert E. Lee," "Gone With the Wind" and "Song of the South" among others). He mentions how his wife was eventually horrified when he brought her to Lee Chapel on Washington and Lee University Campus and she noticed that the reclining statue of Lee was in the spot where Christian chapels have their communion table. And thus began a long and painful journey to unlearn everything he thought he knew about Lee and the southern cause until finally he renders his verdict: Whatever else he was, Robert E. Lee was a traitor who betrayed his country, murdered his fellow citizens and all in the name of extending racial slavery forever. While I was raised in the North, I also was taught to think kindly of Lee and Jackson "the educated Christian gentlemen" of the south and to think that they were simply fighting for their families or their state or to protect their homes. That belief will not stand up to scholarly scrutiny. The cracks are appearing in the foundation of the Lost Cause and I hope to live to see it tumble. I hope someday kids will be reared to value "the better angels of our nature" that Lincoln and Grant and the United States Army (not the Union Army, the US Army) fought against the rebels intent on overturning a fair election and establishing racial slavery forever. If we don't teach the true past, it may yet be our future. In the aftermath of November's election and January 6, 2021, we can't afford to ignore the past.