American History Hit - What Happened to the Confederates?

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Across the defeated Confederacy, there had been an expectation that those who had taken up arms against their citizens would be punished. This did not happen however and instead ex-Confederates were gradually brought back into the fold. Decades later, they managed to cultivate a dangerous mythology that obscured the truth about the nature of the Confederacy and the Civil War in general...Our guest today is Brigadier General Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point and teaches at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He’s the author of ‘Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.’Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. It's early hours in southern Georgia, May 10th, 1865, at a pinewood encampment near the hamlet of Irwinville. Jefferson Davis sits under armed guard, exhausted after six weeks spent as a fugitive on the run.

Moments ago, in the pre-dawn gloom, wearing his wife's rain cloak and a black shawl for cover, the former president of the Confederate States of America was captured by Union Cavalry. Ever since the surrender at Appomattox in early April, all across the defeated South, Confederate politicians, military officers, and rank-and-file soldiers consider their collectively dismal fate, leaving their offices and commands and trenches behind them. Their government, which had waged a vicious war of secession for the last four years, has simply ceased to exist. The Confederacy is dead.

But as the smoke is cleared, a vexing question now confront. fronts the Union. What should become of these men who had fought so determinedly to destroy the United States of America? I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hip. Our guest today is Brigadier General Tai Siduli, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point. He is the author of Robert E. Lee and me, a Southerner's reckoning with the myth of the lost cause. So let's get to the question of this episode, what happened to the Confederates and to the nation they tried to found. Hello, Ty, hello, General. Thanks for joining us. Don, great to be here. Let's start out with what happened to the political leadership of the Confederacy, those key figures who shaped the idea

of the rebellion and led the war effort. But first, it's really important to understand how total was the defeat at this time, the context of all of this. 1865, the South is in complete economic ruin. What does that look like in the cities and the countryside? That's absolutely true. The United States Army has defeated the Confederate Army greater than maybe we've defeated any other enemy in our history. So cities such as Richmond, Atlanta, Columbia, and Charleston are devastated. Burned neighborhoods, damaged rail stations, abandoned factories, ruined warehouses. Campaigns through Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee have destroyed bridges, railroad tracks, livestock, crops, farm equipment, all devastated. The economy has collapsed. Confederate money is worthless. white southern societies and upheaval, there's probably two or three quarters of all adult men are

either sick, dead, or wounded. So this is a complete and utter devastation. Well, and the abolition of slavery, of course, strips the south of its main economic engine. I mean, the emancipation of over four million enslaved people in the south. So much of the infrastructure, railroads, bridges, major cities like Atlanta, they've all suffered damage without the means to rebuild, which would be that in many cases. Not to mention the loss of life. Close to a quarter of the men who served in the Confederate Army lost their lives. Is that right? Yeah, quarter dead. And then again, another two-thirds. So a total, three quarters are either dead, wounded, or disabled because they're sick. I mean, this is, it is a catastrophic defeat for the White South. Absolutely. And as you said,

four million black men, women, and children free trying to find their loved ones, reconnect with, their children who have been taken from them, reconnect with wives and husbands. It is a society in absolute upheaval. Yeah. And if the physical devastation of the South wasn't enough, one can only imagine the psychological effects on this entire culture. The disappearance of wealth is immediate. Society is completely disrupted and uprooted. So that turns us to the men responsible for creating the situation, the political leadership of the Confederacy. I imagine most of this leadership expected to hang. I mean, theirs was the ultimate treason. But as it happens, incredibly, some Confederate political leaders see brief stents of imprisonment, then receive

pardons. This is what we're going to talk about today in several different angles. But I'm always stopped by that right away. Would they have not believed that they were in deep, deep trouble at that point? Yes, and many of them did. I mean, several of them are departing immediately. We can talk about them later if you want to, but they really thought that. And because there had been historical precedent for this, if you think about the English Civil War, that's where Cromwell and others did hang or were disembowed. They were completely treated as traitors. And that's what they were called during this war is traitors. Remember, there's only one crime in the U.S. Constitution, and that's levying war against the United States as treason. So there was every reason to believe that there

would be a harsh peace after this where at least the leaders would be brought to trial for this. And remember, there's only one leader who is executed during this war. And that's a guy named Wirtz, who was commanding the prison in Georgia that was responsible for so many U.S. Army casualties. But he's the only guy that hangs for this war, which is really incredible. Yeah. And just a tip of the iceberg, we'll start with three figures who stand out here. First, of course, the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. He attempts to flee Richmond as the war comes to a close, but he is captured in May of 1865 by Union troops. Can you take us through that scenario? Yeah, he is running. And Lincoln says, let him run, but he's captured in May of 1865. And famously, he is wearing his wife Farina's cloak over his uniform. And so that becomes propaganda that he's actually dressed in women's clothes, trying to. mind to get away. Not quite true, but that is the sort of propaganda that comes out. And he is put and

jailed in Fortress Monroe. That's on the far eastern coast of Virginia. And he's there for two years until 1867, refuses a pardon, never in his entire life expresses regret for secession and spent his entire life defending the Confederate cause. He dies in 1889. But his house to this day is still a state I mean, it's still paid for by the state of Mississippi on the Gulf Coast. There's one of the tallest monuments in the country is actually in Kentucky where he was born. So he dies not ever having to pay the price for his treason. I want to emphasize, President of the Confederacy for the length of the Civil War, he is charged with treason, but he never faces trial, Davis. He ends up being released. Do you think that the government feared that trial, any chance he would win that?

or were they just not wanting to replay the Civil War out for the public? I think there are a bunch of different reasons. It was hard to figure out how you would do a trial. If you have a trial, are black men going to be on that? If it is, where would it be held? Would it be held in Virginia or Washington or in the north? And if you do, is it going to be a jury trial under what crime would you do it under? So there were a bunch of different issues that were coming.

And eventually, it just becomes, listen, this is too hard for us to figure out how to do it. and he is finally paroled and then release. But, I mean, it is amazing that, remember this, Jefferson Davis was the Secretary of War prior to this. He's a West Point graduate. He's a veteran of the Mexican War. This is a guy who was in the United States of America, in the Army and in government for so long, and he has never, ever, ever held to account for what he did.

Remember, he led an insurrection that refused to accept the results of a Democratic election in 1860 and chose armed rebellion and led that rebellion and caused the deaths of more Americans than any other war we've ever been in and never had to pay the price in any meaningful way for that and refused to accept any. He didn't even sign an amnesty declaration, never signed anything saying that it was wrong to secede. This is the theme that works both on the individual level and the sort of macro level of this whole subject matter. So moving on to his vice president, Alexander Stevens, a guy very famous for different reasons that many people don't realize. Similar to Davis, he escapes, was captured, briefly imprisoned in Boston in this case,

again, eventually released. And his story, in a way, is even more astonishing. He ends up being elected later on, 1882, as governor of Georgia, 15 years later or so. That's how quickly these guys turn their lives around it. It's amazing to me. Yeah, and it's actually earlier than that. So the Georgia legislature elects him to the U.S. Senate in 1866 a year later. Now, he wasn't able to take that seat because Georgia wasn't allowed yet to send congressional representation.

And then he's elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1873. And he's there for nine years before becoming governor of Georgia. And this is the guy that said we are, this famous cornerstone speech that you were alluding to, which says in 1861, we're going to fight to preserve African slavery. that is the entire reason for our being. And yet he is allowed to begin and to serve in the U.S. government immediately afterward. It really is astonishing that he is allowed to hold elective office and really shows us that those who led the Confederacy that led this catastrophe are then back in charge very soon thereafter. Yeah. We're going to speculate in a moment why that was a case

or maybe not speculate and have some official reasons. But one more guy to talk about in that administration, Judah B. Benjamin, Secretary of State of the Confederacy, he flees with Davis, early 1865, separated from him, successfully escapes the United States, sails to Britain where he becomes a barrister. His whole career at that point, dies in 1884 in Paris. Nice. I guess he was living in life. Yeah, and Judah Benjamin was like that, but there's other ones like that, too, William Hutchison Norris, Frank McMullen, Lansford Hastings. There are so many of these people, and we can go on and on about those, and Benjamin is that group that leaves and never comes back. So that's one step of those people. Then there are those

that leave and come back, and then there are those that never leave. So, but there are a bunch of different ways, but the thing that they all have in common is that they are never held account for the crime of fighting against this country and of trying to destroy this. the United States of America to create a slave republic. Yeah. I mean, this is an armed rebellion that costs the United States hundreds of thousands of lives, untold treasure. And yet the ball gets completely dropped.

That's the point of this conversation today. And there's several different angles, as I said before. I suppose the main desire, right, is to put this behind the country. It pales in comparison, but Ford Nixon on a civil war level, right? I mean, this is better for the country to leave this behind. Is that the primary union attitude? Yeah, I think it is. I mean, again, I go back to this idea of the, they're all, they're thinking of history

here, and they're thinking about the English Civil War, and they know that that is no way to bring the country back together. And their ideas, we have defeated this country. How do we bring them back together? Because it's not as though we're going to leave them on their own. We're having to bring them back. And it's the best way to bring them back is that to bring them into the country early. And there is something to be said for that.

We don't know what would have happened if actually the hangman's news had done hundreds or thousands of people. What would have happened? We don't know. The problem with the way they did it is that they came back into the government immediately without accepting the results of this of this. And the main thing that they didn't accept was the fact that black men through the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery. and then we can talk about the other, the reconstruction amendments as well, they did not accept a black equality. And because they wouldn't accept that, then they are going to fight against it, really until the 1960s. And even after that, they're going to fight against it. So, so that they did not

accept the results of this, of the win. Remember, and it wasn't just a little bit of a win. This is a complete demolition of the Confederate government, which, by the way, was never recognized by anybody outside the United States. It is a insurrectionist force that fought and lost a rebellion completely. Okay, so that's the stars of the political leadership. Let's move on to the military. Now, you're always in different territory with this discussion. We were following orders, is the standard line, I suppose. But let's start with Robert E. Lee, head of the army. Tell me about the consequences he faces as a result of surrender. Yeah, so he is, after the war, he is given parole at Appomat.

and this is what Grant does. And it probably goes a little bit further than what Lincoln would have wanted. But he basically says, you go home and nothing will befell you. He is indicted for treason, but he has never tried, never indict, never comes up for trial because of that. And then he says right immediately, two weeks after the war, he says, listen, if you give black men equality, this thing may not be over yet. And in 18, a little bit later, he testifies before Congress in, and during the, during Reconstruction, and he says, listen, if you give black men equality, then this thing may start again. In fact, what he really says is, is that black, if it was up to him, he would kick every black person out of the state of Virginia. This is after the war. And he does another thing called the White Springs Manifesto, where he says, he says, no black person should have any political rights whatsoever. So he continues this. He never apologized for secession. Becomes president of Washington College. That's my alma mater, which becomes Washington and Lee University, and opposes black equality really to the end of his

days. And he dies in 1870 and then becomes sort of the Christ-like figure of the defeated South. Yes. Well, some of that had to do with the fact that the man loses his home, right? Arlington House becomes Arlington Cemetery, the military cemetery. Under what means does that happen exactly? Well, the quartermaster general, a guy named Montgomery Miggs, his son dies, and there are so many people dying in 1864 during the Overland campaign led by Grant, that there's nowhere to bury all these remains. So he says, I know what, let's put them right in Robert Lee's front yard. And so they, they have seized this property because you have to seize it. They seize it within six hours of Virginia's seceding because if you don't control Arlington, you have to evacuate Washington. So if you've

ever been up there, it commands the Washington, D.C. from Arlington. Remember, Arlington used to be part of the District of Columbia, so it retrocedes back to Virginia in 1847 to protect the slave trade. So it is, it is captured by the United States, and they start interring American soldiers to include black soldiers there. And so it, it is never, ever going to go back to Robert E. Lee's family. And we should also remember that there were nine U.S. Army soldiers, colonels from Virginia in 1861, eight stay loyal to the United States, and Lee and only Lee chooses treason because of his absolute belief in slavery. Fairly soon after the war, you mentioned it already, he becomes the president of Washington College, as you've mentioned your alma mater, which then becomes Washington Lee in his

honor after he dies in 1870 of a stroke. But still to this day, Lee is on the same level as George Washington? Well, the school has gone a long way of stopping that. But remember, if you look at the seal of the Confederacy, it has George Washington on there. They're trying, the Confederacy is trying to say, listen, we're just like the revolutionaries were in 18 or in 17 76. It's just completely not true. But when I was there at Washington Lee, it was absolutely St. Bob, as we called Robert Lee, he was like a saint figure. So yes, he was on the same plane. They were both there in the chapel. In fact, Lee's statue still there in the chapel, in Confederate uniform, on the altar, as though he's asleep on the battlefield ready to rise up for his people,

the white people of the South. Well, I've mentioned it many times on the show. I grew up in Southern New Jersey in the north and patriotic family, dad in World War II. Robert E. Lee was exactly that in my upbringing. I just remember him being portrayed as a wise and I wouldn't say saintly, but definitely a wise military leader had amazing tactician. All the superlatives about how great he was had come to us through those generations. And I'm talking about being in the 60s and 70s. I definitely grew up with that feeling. And that's going to have a lot to do with what we talk about later, which is the lost cause mythology, which gets stirred up a century later. The next military leader is a fascinating story, James Longstreet. Now, this is one of the generals

serving Lee, very prominent, especially in Gettysburg. He's a general. He's been acquainted with Union General Grant, just like Lee was prior to the war. He is pardoned by Washington, D.C. in 1868. And as a result, he's looked upon differently by Southerners, almost vilified, right, for sowing support for the Reconstruction Act? Right. Well, remember, all Confederates are pardoned for the crime of treason on Christmas Day 1868. But Longstreet is different because he is one of the only senior Confederate commanders to support Reconstruction. He became a Republican, which was the party of U.S. Grant. In fact, he was in Grant's wedding. He is a friend of Grant. And what's amazing about Long

Street is he endorses black male suffrage. He cooperated with reconstructing government in Louisiana. And in 1874, he commands an interracial state militia and police force against the White League, a white supremacist paramilitary organization, and was wounded and even captured then. And so the writers of that say that he is a scalaug. And what that means, the scalaugue means is a white southerner who supports reconstruction, who supports the Republicans. And so he is truly vilified. He is blamed for Gettysburg defeat, not true. And in the South, all these statues go up. There's not one of James Longstreet until late into the 20th century. And one of the only ones is one put up in Gettysburg in the 1990s after the movie Gettysburg.

So Longstreet is seen as somebody who is not allowed to be in the memory of white Southerners because he supports black male suffrage. It is a fascinating case why he doesn't get the respect, even though he may have been the best Confederate commander, he gets none of the respect that Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and others get. Yeah. So in Lee and Longstreet, you see the contrast. On one hand, Lee never capitulates, ends up honored. Longstreet accepts reconstruction, working with the Republicans and Grant, scorned as a traitor to the South. How much does this come down to Andrew Johnson and his pardons? Well, I think that Johnson does pardon everybody, but I don't think that's why Longstreet gets seen the way he does, because everybody's pardoned. What happens with Johnson, so Johnson is one of our worst presidents ever. I think Buchanan is at the bottom, which is the president right before Lincoln, and Johnson sandwiches Lincoln on the other side, also in the bottom three or four.

And what he does is he is a Democrat who believes in white supremacy, just doesn't believe in rebellion. So what he does is he take, I think the best example of this is Sherman gives, this is General Sherman, gives black land to black farmers on the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. And when Johnson becomes president, he takes that away. So because he is so terrible to black men and women in the South, the Senate or the Congress then puts these laws in to overcome him to sort of the radical Republicans is what they're called. So because he is so awful, actually Republicans in the Senate pass laws, which will eventually become the 14th Amendment laws against the KKK and others, which are so crucial in making reconstruction, at least an attempt at biracial democracy. So Johnson is so inept that his every action creates a reaction. And basically his criteria is, so long as they swore allegiance to the United States,

accepting federal authority, they were able to pursue careers then in politics. or as private citizens. But I'm curious about the reaction across the north. I mean, there were some straight-thinking people, the newspapers and such. What was that reaction like? It's a bunch of different reactions. Soon after the war, there is a sort of alumni organization called the Grand Army of the Republic, and they are there saying, we need to make sure we keep on the straight and narrow, that we hold people accountable. But then there are also many people that don't hold them accountable and we just bring everybody back together. And we've got to remember that while there is slavery in the South, there is an enormous amount

of racism still in the North. So eventually, I mean, during Reconstruction, they're holding people accountable somewhat. But by the end of that, it's like, listen, we don't care anymore. And when the U.S. Army leaves, that allows the White South to extend their terror campaign, to create a system of white supremacy, to ensure white political power at the expense of black people. So while there is some support for holding accountable, that ebbs and eventually is gone by the time reconstruction ends in 1877. That's what we'll talk about, I'm sure, at the end of this program, because had that been a bigger priority, the white north, we would have been talking about a different kind of outcome. But they're willing to sort of put all that side, in a racist way, put all that aside, the fate of those four million people in favor of figuring out how to bring these white Southerners back.

into the business of government, if not the life of the nation. So let's take a short break. We'll be back to talk about what happened to the rank and file soldiers in the South in those post-war years. Welcome back. We are speaking with Brigadier General Ty Sedgely, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point Academy, about the fate of the Confederates. Ty, we've covered the most famous political and military figures, everybody from Jefferson Davis to Robert Lee. what about the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Confederate soldiers? How did the union treat them? What was the policy? Yeah, so the United States Army, particularly at Appomatics, under Grant, is incredibly lenient. So basically they say, throw down your government-owned or Confederate weapons and go home. They allow the officers to keep their pistols, their sidearms. They allow anybody to take horses that they want. They feed the men and then they go home. What's interesting is when Lee is captured, he is a about 9,000 Confederate soldiers there. And yet within a week or two weeks or 28,000 parole passes issued because so many had deserted. So they come back and then they start to go home. And how do they

get home? They walk. So prisoners of war in the north. Remember, there are thousands, tens of thousands of prisoners of war in the north. They have to take an oath of allegiance. So that's the one thing that occurs. Everybody has to take an oath. I think it's fascinating to know that the oath that everyone in the federal government, including all military take, is an oath that we still take today that was written in 1862 to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. So they have to do that. And then they have to sign sort of it, if they want to participate more, they have to sign an amnesty, request for amnesty, which says they accept the results of the war, including the end of slavery. There are political

restrictions on some, not most, but some, but they, most everybody can vote. And they're very, very few prosecutions. So most of them just return home. But again, that what do they return home to? The loss of enslaved people, the devastation of the economy, and so many orphans who have, because there's so many soldiers that have been killed. Is it fair to call this a parole? And if so, what would happen if they violated it? Right. Almost nothing. I mean, the only thing that would really get people upset is if that parole is if they go back and fight against United States, government. But what they do do is they take up arms against the black populace. And that's what is allowed to happen at least initially until the congressional Republicans start doing something

about it. But that's what there is. Is they're after that because they went to war to protect and expand the institution of slavery. Now imagine that they went to do that. They sowed the wind with that. And in biblical terms, they reap the whirlwind, which is free, four million free black men, women, and children. And that is the thing that violence starts almost immediately. Right. As far as the general policy, I suppose it's safe to say they're trying to pacify the South as fast as possible. The Union doesn't want any guerrilla wars to start. But there were some troops who refused to submit, right? Folks that even left the country. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think I give two examples of generals that didn't submit, and one of those is jubilerly.

So he is responsible for the sack of Harrisonburg, Pennsylvania. He thinks he's going to be tried as a war criminal. He flees to Canada and eventually says, listen, I hate a Yankee so much. If I saw a woman, a Yankee woman, I would scalp her and her child. Another one is George Pickett, a famous from Pickett's charge, who because he summarily executed 22 U.S. Army soldiers, he flees to Canada as well, thinking that he is going to be charged as a war criminal. So many of them come back. But there are a group called the Confederados who leave for Brazil and that they set up a, they're between 2,000 and 4,000 of them. They set up a society that

is still there to this day. Why do they go to Brazil? Because that is one of the only countries that still allows enslaved people. And they're looking for people that know cotton and no no slavery. So they go there. There's some that go to Mexico. They don't stay there very long. So there is a, and then there's another group that just goes out west. So the Confederates go everywhere. And in fact, to this day, there are groups of Confederate that are in California. I mean, they're no longer Confederates, but they have sort of Confederate daughters of the Confederacy that are still in California and in many of the states out west. So they go all over the country and even the world. Ty, you say about two to four thousand white southerners flee to the Empire of Brazil. I'm stuck on this idea. They were obviously largely enticed by the legality of slavery, but I imagine cheap land, of course. And they found what is the modern day of Americana near Sao Paulo, right? Right, right. Which remains to this day, 1888.

Yeah. Every year they have a celebration about it. But why did they go to Brazil? It cheap land, demand for their cotton growing expertise. and boy, they have legal slavery until 1888. So there are a bunch of people that go there, Joe Shelby, Sterling Price, John B. Magruder, Isham Harris. So there are a bunch of people. The last one was the Tennessee Confederate governor. So, you know, they're people who go to, that go there and just never come back. So it is a, it is a crazy thing. But remember that slavery, it's all about slavery. And they go so that they can. ensure that they do that. And again, there were some people, I think I just mentioned, those weren't from, they went to Brazil. They went to Mexico. So they're trying everywhere they

can to set up what they want, which is an expansionist power, slave power, all over the world. That's what the Confederates were about. And they're trying to do that now in Mexico and particularly in Brazil. Tell me how the actions of ex-Confederate troops in the South impact the reconstruction, you know, in terms of its efficacy. I'm thinking of these, these, the violence, due to the Black codes and all the laws that are passed and enforced by white supremacist governments. That is a huge factor during this period. Yeah. So I think, you know, you mentioned the Black Code. So what are those? Those require black workers to sign annual labor contracts. They punish employment as vagrancy. They allow authorities

to convict those convicted of vagrancy into labor. They restrict movement, firearms, and they apprentice black children. So they're basically trying to reinstit them. They're basically trying to reinstate slavery that's not slavery. And how do they enforce that? Well, veterans create terrorist organizations, the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, the red shirts. They have these local rifle and saber clubs. What do these groups do? They murder with kidnap and threaten black voters, teachers, ministers. So this is a targeted violence. And what's the worst part about this is it works. Terror campaigns can work. And it works. And it works. here. And this is when we see the rise, the Ku Klux Klan, right? That's right. So we see these veterans,

these are Confederate veterans that create terrorist organizations. And they are the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, red shirts. And, you know, where do you see those? Well, you see, the best place to see them is gone with the wind or these other movies that come in in the 20th century. And that, they are seen as a positive. So these Ku Klux Klan are the ones that save white people. So this idea of white supremacy is what they're going after and white political power, and they are seen as a positive among the white people of the South for ensuring white dominance at a time where you have free black people. And what are they, though? They are terrorists who are killing and killing black people to ensure political power of white people. Okay, let's take another

quick break. When we come back, Ty and I will discuss the lost cause mythology, which underscores everything we're talking about, which developed in the decades following the war. While it's natural for any people, any nation, to want to put the horrors of war well behind him, the American Civil War has another aspect of this process, often ignored, the concerted effort on the part of many Southerners, especially, to retell the story of the war and the South's intentions, to revise the history, and they were quite effective at it, what we now call the lost cause. Ty, why was this myth created? Who did it? And how was it spread so completely?

Yeah. So the myth starts because they went to war, that white Southerners went to war to protect and expand slavery. And what they had instead was devastation. And then they figure out that, my God, we went to war for the worst possible reason, slavery. How do we make this seem like a good thing? So the first is that it starts when Lee signs the Appomattox surrender, which he says we were overcome by, by too much men and material, which is just not true. So the first thing about the lost cause is they say it wasn't about slavery. It was state rights or protection of the homeland or any of tariffs, all these different things. No, the White South went to war to protect and expand the institution of slavery. Second, enslaved were happy in their condition. They were they were kind masters and happy slaves. This is just baloney. In slavery was the most evil, morally degrading thing you could imagine in all ways. A husband separated from wives, mothers from children. That the Confederates fought honorably. Well, they were fighting honorably for what, this cause of

slavery? And that they were led by the greatest leaders in history, which is Robert E. Lee. And remember, Lee, if you could see me now, I have an L on my forehead for loser. No enemy in American history losses completely as a Confederates and Robert Lee. Why did they do it? Well, they're doing it to ensure white political power at the expense of black people. It's all about political power. And what they do is later on in the 1890s, they create constitutions, which created Jim Crow State. They put up monuments to say the whites are back in the saddle after reconstruction. And then they create a terror campaign of lynching, 5,000 black men, women, and children are lynched. All of this to create a white police state, which is the south that I was

born into. How then do they promote this? Well, the most, the best one to think about it is United Daughters of the Confederacy. And they create two monuments. The first monument is in, is granted out in front of every courthouse to ensure that black people know the only way you're going in that courthouse is as a defendant or a custodian. And the most important were children. And they have, and to this day, there's still the children of the Confederacy where you can memorize the loss-cause myth and earned scholarships for that. And again, that's what is so successful is to make children, generation after generation, understand that the South was honorable in going to war. They were honorable generals and they were the right people at the right time. And slavery wasn't

that bad. Segregation is okay. And it creates a problem that we still have to this day, which is a myth that white people should be in power at the expense of black people. Yeah, there are all sorts of primary source materials to explain the reality of why they went to war. First and foremost, I would put on the list what we mentioned before, the Cornerstone Speech of Alexander Stevens, March 21st, 1861 in Savannah, Georgia. I'm going to read the words. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.

Vice President of the Confederacy says this. That's what's so incredible that you can tell the story so clearly through these documents and citations. And yet the entire story gets twisted into another telling altogether. That's what results. Really, the door is open with the Hayes election of 1876, right? That's when they withdraw as a result, all the federal troops from the South. That's right. And that allows this terror campaign to happen. Remember that in this period, Mississippi and South Carolina are majority black people. And they're very honest about this to say, listen, we can't have democracy because if there's democracy, black people will have political, will be in politics. And in fact, during Reconstruction, that's 1865 to 1877, 2,000 black men

hold elected office, including a black U.S. Senator from Mississippi and many black Congress. It's when public education starts. This is a chance at biracial democracy, which dies in starting in 1777 and by 1905 with these new southern state constitutions, we have a racial police state. And that was the Virginia of my birth, was a racial police state. The term the lost cause I have is popularized immediately after the war by Edward A. Pollard's 1866 book The Lost Cause. So this is not a mythology that emerges really decades later, as we're saying. It's the foundations that are laid almost immediately at once.

It's that the later organizations then take that and spread it forth right to the 1920s when all those monuments go up that are now being taken down. It's a falsification of history that serves both the political and emotional purpose that it's created to do. I'm curious, Ty, you've acknowledged so much of your childhood. What was it like to grow up and then have an understanding that was completely different than what you'd been raised among. Yeah, it's a good question because my textbooks when I was a kid in Virginia said that slavery was not that bad, segregation was really good.

And so when I started to understand this, particularly when I was at West Point, first it was like, oh my God, I was lied to. Then it was, oh my gosh, I participated in this lie. And then after that it was, hey, I am free to tell this story. I'm liberated to tell the truth. And so that's kind of what I feel now. it's a liberation to tell the truth to the American people whenever I get a chance, which is I'm thankful to have this opportunity with you, because the more people that know about this have a better understanding of why we have

the problems that we do. History doesn't tell us what the future is going to be, but history does inform our present. It helps us understand why we are like we are. And the lost cause myth helps me understand why I grew up like I did in Virginia and Georgia. and helps me understand the institutions, whether it's the segregation academies I went to or the Army or West Point, that all of this history helps me understand why my, the things that I love in my life, the Army and West Point and my country are like they are. So, yeah, I feel liberated to be able to understand the truth. Yeah. I mean, I remember 19, I think it was a 60s, late 60s. There was a big anniversary of Gone with the Wind and it had been remastered or something like that. And my parents took me to see that in my hometown theater in Pittman, New Jersey. And it was, you know, hard to make it through as a little kid as a long movie. But what do I remember? I remember Butterfly McQueen. I remember all the, the humor and the, you know, the humanity that was shown and how the enslaved were happy in their roles. And, you know, this whole crushing. of a good society that deserves.

All of this, that was what was made so famous by Gone with a Wind, which still to this day sells a lot of books. I think it's the largest selling book in American fiction. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's one of them. Anyway, all that feeds into this confusing picture, which was really the point of lost cause to murk the water, not for the south, but for the north. That's so true.

And I think what you did so well was to give Alexander Stevens' Cornerstone speech, as long as you can remember that the South fought for slavery and that you know that slavery is immoral and horrible and is a part of our American history, then you're going to be on the right track. We don't own the actions of those who fought in 1861 to 1865, but we do have a responsibility to understand why they fought and the effect that it has had on this great country of ours. And so that's what I'm always remembering. Remember why it started and we don't have to have that action today. But that lost cause is always there like a zombie to come back. And part of it is Gone with the Wind because I think it was Gore Vidal said the person who screens the history

makes the history. It's these movies that often create our worldview of that. And Gone with the wind certainly did that for me. Another movie called Song of the South, which was a Disney movie that did that for me when I was a kid. And luckily now we have movies like 12 years of slave or emancipation, Harriet, which tell a more complete and honest story. Brigadier General Ty Sedgley has been a professor of history at West Point and now teaches at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He has authored a number of titles, including the book we've discussed today, Robert E. Lee and Me, a Southerner reckoning with the myth of the lost cause. Tai previously joined us in 2025 on episode 264.

Myth of the Lost Cause. General, thanks for joining us. Don, thanks so much for having me on. Been an honor. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend.

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