So no, it’s not a reconciliation based, I would say, on an America we want today.” Magnanimously, the United States of America pardoned all former Confederates in 1868 … reconciliation is sort of an agreement among whites that Black people will be treated in a Jim Crow fashion. “The problem with that is it was reconciliation among white people, at the expense of Black people. Seidule rejects the notion that memorials to Lee and other Confederates – PGT Beauregard, a West Point superintendent fired for sedition, William Hardee, a commandant who fought in the west – might be claimed as symbols of reconciliation. The last West Point black graduate was 1889. “So in the 19th century, they would not have done this … the first memorialisation of a Confederate at West Point is in the 1930s. And particularly about Lee, who renounced his oath, fought against this country, killed US army soldiers and as Grant said, did so for the worst possible reason: to create a slave republic. Outside academia, Seidule is a member of the Naming Commission, a body set up in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd and the protests for racial justice it inspired, tasked with recommending changes to military memorials to Confederates who fought in the civil war.Īsked how the US military came to name bases, barracks, roads and other assets after soldiers who fought to secede from the union and keep Black people enslaved, Seidule said: “The first thing to know is that in the 19th century, most army officers saw the Confederates as traitors. His online video, Was the Civil War About Slavery?, has been viewed millions of times, and in 2021 he published a well-received book, Robert E Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause. Visit megaphone.An emeritus West Point history professor, he now teaches at Hamilton College. Support our show by becoming a premium member!

Our interview with Colonel Seidule focuses on the special challenges he and his team confronted in crafting this text, and the place of the Civil War in the American experience.

Lavishly illustrated and featuring well-conceived maps and graphs, The West Point History of the Civil War is served by a fully digitized version, optimized for use on tablet platforms. Unlike most surveys, the new West Point History of the Civil War draws upon some of the best talent in the field of Civil War history, all called together to craft a synthetic text that not only forms the basis of the Military Academy's course on the subject, but also provides a very informative overview for the general public. We're very fortunate to be joined by the editor of The West Point History of the Civil War (Simon and Schuster, 2014), the Head of the History Department at the United States Military Academy, Colonel Ty Seidule.

A southerners reckoning