Robert E. Lee and (Woke General) Please Like Me 

I recall Ty Seidule's PragerU video years ago which was little more then "The U.S. government and Army were all saints from 1861-1865, and Southerners should be thrilled that their county was invaded, their people killed or maimed, their land ruined, and that they were treated as conquered subjects and abused for a decade after." I suspected from that video's title that it was going to be your standard neo-con position on the war, but I was still shocked by just how childishly black-and-white Seidule's version was and is. I appreciate the Abbeville Institute's rebuke of Ty's latest revision of history!

Excellent video! Deo Vindice

Uhhhh...yeah most of us that have studied Lee knew this. Seduile's book is poorly researched, relies on abstractions rather than historical facts, and presents a clear lack of objectivity. Its a Karamazov wet dream.

I didn’t read the guys book but I’m glad people are calling him out. You can see d-bag written all over his face. And the narcissism. I hope his cry for attention continues to backfire.

Fantastic video!

Too bad you didn't mention contraband camps or what the Union Army did to the Indians (find me one officer of note from Dakota 38 to Wounded Knee who wasn't in the Union Army).

Appreciate your insight.

Imagine being someone like “Ty Seidule” and devoting so much of your career to defaming the reputation of one of the greatest Americans in history. Good enough for Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Churchill, and even the men he fought against (like US Grant), but not good enough for “Gen.” Seidule? Okey dokey! My grandfather taught “History of the Military Art” at West Point (where he graduated from in 1951) and he revered Lee.

We need to see more short video’s of Truth like this, great job.

So did Seidule even read the book he co wrote?

Thank you for this and other efforts to correct the self-serving falsehoods that have been labeled history.

Well done

This is honest history.

All the salient details - great job, Mr. Leigh! The reader should be immediately suspicious on reading the title of Seidule's book: What's this "and Me" stuff? Can you imagine Churchill writing "World War II and Me" or Pershing writing "The War in the Trenches and Me"? The text of the book corroborates its title: Seidule is a primping, posturing dandy who has jerked the spotlight away from historical events to focus instead on his very pretty and fashionable "woke" self.

Concise, nice production value and compelling.

Beautiful video to remind people that southern intelligence is still strong

My biggest disagreement and disappointment in PragerU was their decision to air BG Seidule's speech on slavery and the War Between the States (no, it was not a "civil war"). Professor Seidule looked fanatical and unhinged - suggesting that a harsher reconstruction would have worked out better for the nation. He selectively ignored racism in the US Armed Forces - which were not desegregated until 1948 by executive order - and this wasn't even put into practice until the Korean War was underway.

Keep up the good work, kings.

What about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman? Heros and role models that we can be proud of. We should have statutes and celebrate their legacy and contribution to our great country.

You left out the comments Grant made "after" Lee decided to "behave very badly," and regretted having intervened on his behalf twice; the second came after a federal judge was preparing indictment for treason. Northerners certainly called Grant a butcher seeing loved ones drafted into his army and the staggering totals of the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, etc, but the tag has been maintained to a far greater extent within the mythology you are so dedicated to uphold.

These new short, concise and narrowly targeted subjects in defense of the South and Southern culture are the best things the Abbeville Institute has done to date. Simply brilliant! It's time we stop falling back and take the fight to the enemy! Great work!

God Bless our Confederacy❌

Truth based on historical facts is irrefutable to all but fools. Thank you Mr. Leigh for an outstanding, factually accurate video about the late, great CSA General, Robert E Lee.

Ohio Copperhead here: good job!

Excellent as always. Thank you Abbeville Inst.

Definitely not crazy about people demonizing my family.

If it were not for the abbeville institute I would just be another brain washed lemming. Thank You!!!

I think most critics of Lee can be understood by taking a brief glance at the 'Early Life' section of said critics.

This post just proves the point of what it is trying to critique

Thanks

Comment

Thank God for good research and honest scholarship like this.

Thank you sir!

Seems this fellow is a retired general and is on a commission to rename military installations.

Robert E. Lee stunk. Such a noble man, violently defending slavery and all.

A question, if Grant won the 1868 presidential election, due to the minority vote, then who were these minorities, where did they live and how did they secure the right to vote. Just one credible citation, please.

I agree fully with Mr. Leigh's assessment of Seidule's silly book, but not with his presentation of the facts. For example, Grant's quote Leigh cites expresses a contradiction plain to see. If the two sides were equal in numbers, then Grant's reliance on the principle of attrition would be stupid. Grant knew he could afford to throw away 60,000 lives into the fire and have the loss instantly replenished by the vast manpower pool of the adhering states. Lee, on the other, had no means of replenishing his losses in the butcher's relentless push upon Richmond.

Lost Causers are so pathetic. 🤣

So glad to see someone standing up for Dixie. The deeper you dig the more you realize the south was right. God Bless. 👍

I have seen that book and scanned over it. The author believes Lee inordinately fought for Virginia soil at the expense of other Confederate territory, and botched the transfer of Longstreet’s corps to the West following Gettysburg.

Excellent insight, very well done.

It’s so nice to see lost causers playing desperate defense like this 😂 now do McChrystal ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hxpGE8-ERdo.html

I don’t understand all this lee defending. He fought for slavery and lost. Slavery was evil take the fucking statues down. This video just cherry picked certain points but fact reminds he was on the wrong side of history.

I have to buy that book. Ty is a very intelligent man. He did a great video for Perdue University a few years ago explaining that the Civil War was indeed fought over slavery. I also have Karen Coxs' Dixies daughters. A very informative book too.

He's ignoring all of Seidule's research and chooses instead to answer a very general question, "was Lee good or bad?", by pulling a couple of isolated quotes out of context. First, no responsible historian would approach his subject in terms of making a value judgement, and Seidule did not do this. Instead, he dispassionately examines the myth that has grown up around Lee (as similar myths have grown up around all of the major figures of the Civil War, including Lincoln and Grant), and looks for the root causes of the myth's creation and perpetuation. Second, you can't pull a single quote out of a single editorial that appeared in a single Northern newspaper and conclude that Northerners generally thought that Grant was a butcher, just as you can't pull a single quote from Grant about how Lee is admired in the South and conclude that Lee had the respect and admiration of the entire officer corps of the Union army. What you're seeing is an amateur who doesn't understand historiography trying to take down Seidule simply because Seidule's conclusions clash with the amateur's prior beliefs. But Seidule is a highly respected historian, author of numerous books and articles that have undergone endless peer review, and the former head of the history department at West Point. That's not a role that's given to people with sloppy scholarship, or leftist polemicists. It's a position that Seidule earned through years of rigorous, dispassionate scholarship. And the guy trying to take him down? Never heard of him.