Media, what's losing my Civil War?
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
I didn't know how to I've got I've got one for part four. I promise you got one for part four, but I didn't have one for part three. Uh, this is all behind the Bastards a podcast about Robert E. Lee for the last week or so.
Mister silver medal head ass, mister.
Let's get I'll give me a bronze, right your bronze dude.
My one of my favorite moments in history was the first time I got to go to Crow Nation, Montana, the like little big horn sitting bull monument, and that this whole thing for General Custard, like this whole statue for it, and I'm looking at him and I'm like, this is a second place trophy that man lost, Like.
Participation, you get statues for losing like anyway.
I also, on a separate note, I think it's funny that we ever give out bronze medals because like gold, obviously precious, never tarnishes, silver a lot harder to tarnish, also pretty precious, and then bronze, Like, come on, guys, we stopped using that ship for swords, like two thousand years ago. That's a team.
It's named in age like it means a time.
Yeah, the bronze age which medal, Yeah, we'll give We'll give Robert E.
Lee a bronze medals, bronze Welcome, Welcome back to the show. Everybody say again, Jason Petty aka PROP. In our first two episodes, we established the background and life of Robert E.
Lee.
In part two we talked about some pretty fucking unpleasant stuff. And today we're we're answering the question. We're getting into kind of the critical moment of Bobby Lee's life, right, which is his decision to become a trader, to go back on his oath to the United States and his oath of loyalty in service to the military, uh, and become a fucking trader. So that's that's what I do.
Think he's a Bobby. I think he's a Robbie. You think he's a Robbie instead, And Robbin said, because I like to call you Bobby.
And I don't want to, but I hate being called that.
Yeah, but that's what's fun about it, and I don't want the association. So I think he's a Robbie because he's also he robs, he sucks, he does, he does suck, And it couldn't be it couldn't be a better time to talk about this, especially with what's going on in the Supreme Court about like, yes, what is what is reason? What is treason? What's a trader? Yeah, this law only applies to everyone except for the highest office.
I'm sorry, what.
Well with Robert It's at least stay a clearer case of treatretty because there's really there's really no other way to look at this.
But I don't nobody this article three is about you, bam. Yeah, the law exists because of y'all.
It's not a hard question like as to whether or not this guy is guilty. And it's one of those things where within kind of the Lost Cause mythology and within all of like the coverage of Lee's life that's sort of influenced by Lost Cause shit, this always still gets softened. It's weird we have this like hatred in the United States of actually calling traders traders if they're like white conservatives. Yeah, and that does actually extend to
Bobby Lee. Like I just said, it was very clear, but people still do this shit, and it kind of make that case, I'm going to start again by reading from our huge head on the cover children's book Who was Robert E.
Lee?
Which I'm giving these books some shit. They're actually not that bad. There's actually a decent amount of really good historic information, and they come across as like pretty negative towards the Confederacy. Why I keep bringing them up is because they still include these bits like this one where where they're taught they're introducing the concept of like the Civil War that we had killed about a million people and Robert's participation in it, and this is how they
describe it. Robert grew up with a great love for his country, yet in eighteen sixty one, the country he's so admired was torn apart by the start of the Civil War. Robert was torn too. He wanted the country to remain united. He did not want the South to break away from the United States and form a separate country.
But that is what happened. And what they're doing there, they're using that like special exonerative case of like English grammar that you normally use for police or the IDF where it's like the country was torn apart.
Listen, who who torn it apart? Yeah?
Who made that decision. Why wasn't torn apart?
You know, it's like that's.
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, a kid in Chicago walked into a police officer's bullet, Like how did that happen?
Yeah, exactly that, And.
I'm like, dude, just hearing them say it, it's like I made the mistake because, again, the child of a rather militant man that I thought, your children need to know as quick as possible when they ready to know the world they about to step into.
So I had.
No problem, I feel terrible about it now showing my third grade daughter images of the Middle Passage and what the what slave ships and how it looked and how we was laid out. I had no problem showing her this. My wife was like, Jason, she's eight years old. Maybe there's a more sanitized way to reveal this truth to her. And I was like, it's not sanitized. You can't clean up even right. So I was like, no, you gotta
tell them, you know. Now, second time around, having another child, I was like, yeah, this's probably a probably an age appropriate way to like lay out this, you know. So I'm saying that to say in on one hand, the Big Head Books is like this is four children. There's got to be a more age There's got to be an age appropriate way to say what's going on. I'm my argument is, I don't know if that's what they're doing though, Like that's more lost cause z and sanitized way to do it, you know.
Yeah, yeah, it really is. And I'm frustrated by this, but it also it's so consistent among the way people talk about Lee and I go, you know, there is one thing I do kind of I think is appropriate about this, although I don't think it means to be, which is one of the ways you do have to look at from the perspective of people like Lee and Lee is he's going to be an active player obviously in the treason of the South, but he's not up until the point that secession crisis starts, right He's not
a guy who's in politics. He's not a guy who's
advocating for secession prior to that. And for people like him, which is most of the country, I think there is actually a little bit in the way in which all of this comes on like a storm, like a weather pattern, and I think that those of us sitting in the country right now watching shit escalate to who knows what the fuck's gonna happen later this year with the election, you can to some and empathize with, like, yeah, these massive civil conflicts that up to a certain point, it's
a small chunk of the country that's actively ratcheting things towards calamity and for the rest of us trying to just trying to make rent, trying to like live your life. It does feel like a fucking storm hitting right. I don't say that to take any agency away from him, but I did. I found myself kind of torn between those two things right where I was just like, true, I do kind of feel like that sometimes, like it's a weather pattern that just moved in and you have to just kind of brace for it.
Braw feel you.
Man. There's even when we get into the Lost Cause episodes, the man, I keep going back to this. But the more that I say it, as much as I am a victim of that shit, it is it's so human, like the way that it's snowballed into being what it it's become, it's a human And then if you're not one of the creators of it, it's just you're just you just happen to live in Tuscaloosa.
You know what I'm saying.
You're just like, I mean, yeah, this is the air we breathe, you know, it's so human.
Yeah.
Yes, And that's kind of the only bits from Lee that are a little bit understandable, where he's writing back to his family as like stuff is escalating towards open violence and is like I can't believe this is happening, Like why is no one stopping this? Where it's like he's on the wrong side of it, But that basic emotion of like how the fuck is this happening? I
do actually understand to a degree of thanks. Yeah, It's just it's one of those things I'm reading right now, the book Nixon Land Again, which which covers like this massive period, this very undercover period in US history where all there was this unbelievable wave of violence towards the anti war movement, people assassinated and murdered for handing out pamphlets against the Vietnam War in the streets. That happen
over and over again. And there's almost a degree which it's comforting, not because that's good, because it's terrible that that happened, but because when I hear about the wave of violence that's hitting us now, particularly over like the anti war and Gaza movement, just to know that like, all right, well this isn't a historic novelty, Yeah, this is not This is something that happens again and again, you know, And I guess just knowing people made it
like went through that before. It's not good, but it is like, okay, we're not letting an unprecedented times exactly anyway. So in other words, while Lee is going to exercise a huge amount of agency from kind of the start of hostilities on afterwards, he is kind of carried along by the tide of history in the couple of years
prior to things. And he's going to spend the lead up to the eighteen sixty election actually in San Antonio, watching the Democratic Party shatter in the face of Lincoln's campaign and this debate over what to do about slavery. And it's this very interesting moment where he is like put into conflict with secessionists.
We don't live.
This isn't really a period of Lee that I thought about, but like, he is a federal officer in a state that is actively preparing to secede, and he becomes the target of secessionist anger, right, because he's this representative of the federal government that he's going to wind up fighting against. But that hasn't happened yet, and so it puts him
in this very conflicted position. The New York Times, kind of echoing Lee's own thoughts in this period, writes that extremists in the Democratic Party were delighted at the idea of a Lincoln victory quote which will give them an
opportunity to rally the South in favor of dissillusion. In other words, secessionists are being written about and discussed by the centrists of the day as much as accelerationists are today, right where there's this like attitude that will A lot of secessionists want Lincoln to win because they think it's going to inevitably provoke him this conflict that we have to have, right, And Lee is diehard against Lincoln, obviously, but he's and he's against Lincoln in part because he
wants He thinks that like he agrees with the accelerationists, Basically, he doesn't want Lincoln to win, like the acceleration it's stupid. He agrees that if Lincoln wins, the conflict is inevitable right.
There's this thing like I'm thinking about I get this sometimes I get this like anti feeling, like it's it's very unique to my career. But like when you're backstage at like a big event or a festival concert and you see all the wires like all over there, like I'm like, I'm antsy that I'm like, let's just get it over with, and someone pull a chord, like just rip it up, just get it over with, like just.
Somebody do it.
Somebody destroy it, like or like if you know, for like some more violent stuff, when you're just like let's just fight, let's just do it, Like waiting for it's worse. It's like, let's just let's just fight. When you've been in a lot of violent situations. Yeah, you understand this intimately, which is that bracing for impact is worse than impact. It's worse, yes, yes, it's more so worse. It's not necessarily worse because you can die from impact. Yeah, but
it's more thinking about it. Yeah, your fear. You're just like, it's just let's just do it. Let's get it over with. You know.
It's the same reason most Americans are more scared of being on a plane than they are driving, even though you're a thousand times in more danger while driving, but you're in control of the car at least theoretically right now, realistically, are you in control of some drunk eye smashing and
fucking miata. No, of course not, but in your head at least your behind the wheel as opposed to sitting in a jet where you're much safer, but you have no agency on what's going to happen, right, And that is that is like most of the country, including Roberty Lee at this point, and for him it's it is particularly I'm not trying to say like empathize with him,
but you need to understand where his head is. Right after Lincoln wins, South Carolina authorizes a secession convention and this really sparks secession fever across the South, where Lee is a federal representative and he writes home to his family, the lone Star is floating all over this state as Texan independence becomes that people are like putting up lone star flags around the fort that he's at rights and that's a threat, right, you know.
Yeah, that's that's pretty poetic to say it like that.
The lone Star is floating all over the state, and I'm like, yeah, I hate I hate that. That's kind of poetic jerk.
He's not a terrible writer. Most people were better writers back then because you kind of had to be you could write. Yeah, the discourse around all this was as detached from reality as it is today, with one text and paper shrieking the North has gone overwhelmingly for Negro equality and Southern vassalage. Southern men, will you submit to this degradation?
So it is about oh whoa, oh so it is about the negro Oh yeah, you just say there was no debate about that at the time. Yeah, exactly. So it's about so it's about the okay, got it? Yeah, it really is some like white lives matter shit right, very much so.
Yeah.
And so by December, Texas hasn't started its own secession convention and Lee when this happens. He writes home to his wife and he's basically like, yeah, if they succeed, I will head home, you know, I will, I will like return, I promise, And he's it's because she's worried he's going to get killed by some Texas you know. That's and that's not an unrealistic threat. It started in Fort Sumter, but it could have started in Texas. There's
no reason for it not to have, you know. And so while Lee is in conflict with the secession is at this point, he's also it's also very clear from his letters that he was open, even at this early stage to the idea of fighting against the United States and breaking his oath. He expressed his wife a desire to fight under no other flag than the Star spangled banner. But he also said I would fight in defense of Virginia and and what else could that mean but successionally?
Right, Yeah, And.
It's this The fact that he always phrases it that way is evidence of a kind of wishy washiness that is belied by his claims to be anti secession because while secessionists are preaching nothing but revolution, and he says, like, I think that's irresponsible, but he also consistently says I would fight in defense of Virginia. He just doesn't have the courage to admit I am, in fact, willing to.
Say say you came in Oh yeah, yeah, just say it, bro like it is what it is. And maybe it's like, yeah, like the not to give him any grace, but yeah, just the piece of him that's like still kind of think this is stupid, but I'm definitely down, so like this is the way I can make my brain get around it.
I kind of have more respect for that, like random those like assholes in the Texas paper who are like, this is a wall for white equality and we'll fight it, because at least they're like, yeah, you're being honest about what you're willing to do. You know, this is what we're doing. Lee is just kind of pussy footing around it. Yeah,
and this continues. This is like a Lee family tradition because fitz Hugh Lee's book, which I've quoted from several times, written in I think eighteen ninety six, makes it clear that Lee's decision to join the Confederacy wasn't just something he did because he felt there were no other options. It was based on his fundamental sympathy for the Southern cause, which is the cause of slavery. Lee wrote, quote the South, in my opinion, it's been aggrieved by the acts of
the North. As you say, I feel the aggression, and I am willing to take every proper step for address. It is the principle I contend for not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity, and her institutions, and would defend any state if her rights were invaded. And it's like, yeah, no, you wouldn't.
Enough because you could.
You would not defend a state in which slavery was illegal or if the Fugitive Slave Acts were forced off right, which they were. You are not willing to actually defend any state. You're willing to defend states who want to have slaves. That's what you're willing to defend.
The thought hasn't crossed my mind till literally right now that he could have fought for the Union.
Yeah, that was an option, and in fact, Lee is a full bird colonel. By the time the war starts. There were nine full bird colonels from Virginia at the start of the Civil War. Eight of them sided with the Union.
Wow I could Yeah, yeah that like that just not the wind at all, Like alle o, nah fam you ai Yeah yeah, okay. I was like, so you're telling me all the homies, all of them you wouldn't like. So you you going against the grain, So you standing all your all going against the grain, and you.
Try to tell me you was conflicted about this. It is as we'll get into. It's always portrayed. It's like, well, he just felt like he had no option, you know, once Virginia was involved, that's where his heart was, That's where he had to go. That's not true.
Well, first of all, he lived at Texas one, so we'll get to that. Yeah. Yeah.
Eleven states voted to secede from the Union. They did so under declarations that the heart of the issue they were succeeding over was slavery. Right. South Carolina cited in their secession and they're the first state to do its sites in their secession declaration and increasing hostility on the part of non slave holding states to the institution of slavery.
In Mississippi's declaration of secession, they stated, quote, there was no choice less to us, but submission to the mandates of abolition or a dissolution of the Union, which is both untrue and what the whole crisis is about, because like Lincoln, by the way, had absolutely no intention of ending slavery. There was a desire to stop the expansion of it to new states, right, like he was not going like it's very clear. Yeah, yeah, he was not
willing to do that, you know, he was not that based. Now, it is worth noting that Lee's sympathy for the Southern cause still did not entirely at this point rule out the chance that he might fight for the Union, and in fact, if the war had started in Texas rather than at Fort Sumter, I think he probably would have sided with the Union purely because Lee is this kind of guy. Again, he is willing to eventually resign his commission and take up one in Virginia to fight for
the Confederacy. But if secessionists had marched on the fort where he was stationed in Texas to try to take their shit, he probably would have fought them purely because that was personal.
Yeah, and it was his job, man, Like, Yeah, how DAREI fuck y'all doing?
How dare y'all run up on me? You know? Well, you know what? Because you running up on me? Yeah? Yeah.
That is kind of an interesting counterfactual. If he would have like wound up against his will fighting against who would have been the new maybe Jackson or somebody. It would have been the new Lee of the Confederacy, Yeah, Stonewall. And it's interesting, Like, again, I don't give him like much moral credit for that, but I think it is
a possibility for a while. However, fairly quickly it becomes not possible, because, like, not long after he writes, you know, some of these letters back to his wife, he's relieved of duty at Fort Mason in San Antonio and sent to Washington to report to the head of the US Army.
His journey north was awkward, to say the least. The Texas Rangers were out in force and federal officials who were leaving Texas because this is he's part of kind of a flight where the government's like, well, we should probably get our people out of here, like this is, this is there's a good chance this is gonna go back.
It's all bad, like feeling this.
Yeah, he's not quite escorted underguard the entire way, but he and the others who are kind of like bouncing are are watched pretty carefully, and he's concerned enough for his safety that in short order when he starts his journey, he changes into civilian clothes. One colleague at the time claims that he quote declared that the position he held was a neutral one and that he intended to go home, resign from the army and plant corn. The website American
Heritage Rights quote. When he drove away from Texas, a fellow officer called after him, Colonel, do you intend to go south or remain north? Lee stuck his head out of the covered wagon and replied, I shall never bear arms against the United States, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I will not prove
recreant to my duty. In another moment of surprise confliction, Lee confusedly declared, while I wish to do what is right, I am unwilling to do what is not, either at the bidding of the South or the North. So he just he can't. He's just kind of a kind of gormless. He can't make take us. He's always saying I will fight for the Confederacy if it comes to that, But he's also never willing to say, yeah, I'm willing to turn trader right.
Yeah, it is such a weazly thing.
Yeah, so it's when snitches for his courage.
Yeah, it's when snitches and rats keep going. But I'm not a rat.
I'm not a snitch, And I'm like, you're currently snitching at this very moment, you are snitching to make tween.
Yeah, these January sixth insurrectionists who are like, h it was Antifa. I got tricked. It was just we were just sight seeing. And the ones who were like, yeah, it was an insurrection and like, I'll go to prison. I respect that, you know that's the plan. They're not good people, and I want I want them to stop. But like, of course that is at least someone who's taking a stand and yeah, you.
Got honest about the stand there take Yeah, you got a code, man, I would say as as a side note for everybody's life, kid, I think one of those things is, yes, you should have a code. There should be there's you should all and I don't I can't tell you what that code is, but you should all live by a code. To me, one of one of my core values is I say what I mean.
You know what I mean.
So that's like a code for me that like, and you stand on business. If I said something and it was wrong, look I said it, you know what I mean. Now it's time for me to be you feel me, And I'm gonna take creacts correction because I don't like being wrong. But another thing I've learned, and going back to something that Robert E. Lee did, which was like
realizing when it was time to bounce. I think that that's also a skill every person should develop, is being able to know when it's it's probably time to slide. We should probably leave right now. I say this in jest, but I'm dead serious. You should know when it's time to leave. Yeah, there's a good song about that and about poker. You know you gotta gottaay.
Now to run. Hey, I think it's time for us to go.
I don't get if you was in the middle of giving your best game to that qube pot, like, look, it's time to go. Fam you halfway through the greatest cocktail you have add in your life.
Sent that drink down.
There's a bit in heat about that too, right, if you're gonna be a fucking criminal, right, yes, you have to have a line it which like no, I just bounce, I pick up my bag, and I'm it's time to just.
Leave everything, leave it all.
Time to get Yeah, and Lee has now leaved it all. I was trying to make that work, but it just it simply did not. But you know what does work prop the sponsors of this podcast. They're always working hard to give you incredible value. We're back. You know, I was thinking about what my line is, you know where am I? And And honestly, I only have one moral line in my entire life, and it's that I will not sell baldness cures, you know, powers, won't do it, simply won't do it. Just be honest, you know.
And the truth is, like, dude, you you you can look good bald like I can google so many men who trick Stewart. They're good looking men. Yes, come on, just commit, just commit, bro, like you look better. You can own it. Like listen, it's it's almost seventy confidence if you're just just rocket whatever you have rocket.
Yeah, that's that's that's the message of this podcast.
Yeah, it's all confidence.
Lee comes back, returns to DC and he reports immediately to the commander of the US Army at this point, General Winfield Scott, who had been his commander during the Mexican American War. Scott is the guy who's like, Lee is the best soldier I've ever seen. Right, and by the way, Lee is pretty famous at this point, and there is huge buzz as it becomes clear that something is going to happen that's probably going to require military intervention as a result of the secession.
Like James, like where you're going? Are you going to take your talents to Miami?
Because Field Scott is too old. Everyone knows like and Scott knows this too unlike today. Old people back then were like Scott's like, yeah, I can't fight a war like not the other one, like an ancient oh no, guy what they used to be. And so there's a lot of talk that like, well, wh who should command whatever we wind up needing to do, and like Lee is kind of the front runner because he's like, he's famous,
he did really well in the Mexican American War. He's a full bird colonel, so he's like right at the point where he could be promoted to general. So there's a lot of talk in the papers that like, well, this guy could be kind of the savior of the union. You know, he really has talked about that way for a while. And so he gets invited to Winfield Scott's office in Scott and then there's a couple of different meetings. But the gist of these meetings is that Lee has
offered the command of a US Field Army. So that means a promotion to general. And this is what he's been waiting his whole career. For years. He's been writing his wife letters being like, I don't think I'll ever get promoted. This is so annoying. And he's offered the promotion of a lifetime and this is kind of seen as a fast track to well, yeah, there's a pretty good chance this in not too much longer leads with him just in command of the US Army. Right, he
could have had Grant's job. Maybe he wouldn't have been good at it. I actually think he would have been bad at it. Yeah, that in part four.
But he could have had it.
For a while, right, damn. So, the most commonly depicted view at the heart of the Lost Cause is that he turns down this job because he simply couldn't bear to go to war with his home and his relatives, and like that is not a good reason to support
the Confederacy. But I actually will say, I get how a decent person could say I cannot participate in this war because I simply can't shoot at my brother or cousins, right, Like, that's that's understanding to see that and then be like and also I find the cause of the South to be untenable.
Sure, and but like, man, really, like history really turns on these like seemingly small decisions sometimes because like that's a like you said, that's a very logical and understandable thing. And then but then if you're like you're like seventh generation war general going all the way back to like the freaking norms, like the founding of England, you know what I'm saying, and now probably the biggest war in the history of your country. They've giving you a chance
to lead, and you're just gonna sit out. Yeah, it's like you can't. You can't sit out it, you know what I'm saying, because then you just broke tradition.
Yeah, and he's he's not going to And I think that the key point is that like this is portrayed as Lee had to go with the South because he couldn't fight against Virginia and he couldn't fight against his family, and that is not true. There were men who were in that position, and there were some officers in the US Army prior to the war who didn't fight at all because of.
That, right, Yeah, they were like I can't do it.
And I don't have an issue with that actually, Like I get it's like, this is just an impossible choice for me. I can't shoot my brother.
That's what I'm saying, Like it should have been if he's like if that was the case, that's what should have been. But I'm saying, yeah, the wrinkle in his brain is like, well, I'm not going to be the first grandson. He'd not, you know what. I'm saying, like, I ain't going to break this tradition, you know.
And he doesn't.
And here I want to to give you kind of how these sympathetic sources tend to portray this decision. I want to quote from again who who was Robert El describing his decision not to take this position commanding a US field army that would mean fighting against the South. Robert was a conflicted man. Clearly he had a lot to think about. He spent time with his family at Arlington, he prayed, He stayed up late at night pacing the floors.
In the end, Robert reached an answer. He would resign from the US Army that he had served for thirty years. Although he said he would never bear arms against the Union, his heart was with Virginia. He had to defend his homeland by bearing arms against the Union.
Right, it doesn't sound Yeah, that's that sentence. Don't even sound right?
Yeah.
And also side note, I feel like at some point you should be able to like slap the shit out of a cousin.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Point this scenario is like, all right, I'm listen, let's go to Granny's house and let's hash this out.
You know what I'm saying.
Like, I'm gonna say all my uncles, all my cousins down and be like, fellas, y'all, like, listen, you're tripping, and if you can't cross this line, listen, I'm gonna sign up with the Union cause, like I'm telling you right now, you're tripping, and righty.
Say, this is again kind of what I'm building towards. He's going to make that decision one way or the other. The idea that he wasn't willing to fight his family is untrue because he does choose to fight members of his family. But the summary of events from that who was Robert E. Lee book jives with one of the on the ground accounts from somebody who was present at
some of these meetings with Lee and Scott and Lincoln. Right, Montgomery Blair, who's Lincoln's postmaster general, the guy who has been asked by Lincoln to like offer Lee command of the army, and his son would later recall quote generally said to my father, mister Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I own the four million of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union. But how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my
native state. Now this is you know, from a secondhand source. But Blair will make some statements that back up this account of events and Lee's account of events. However, that's not necessarily the truth, because we get a very different description of both the nature of the offer made to Lee and his response to it from Simon Cameron, who was the Secretary of War under Lincoln and absolutely would
have been a part of the discussions with Lee. From the jump quote, General Lee called upon a gentleman who had my entire confidence, and intimated that he would like to have the command of the army. He assured that gentleman, who was a man in the confidence of the administration of his entire loyalty and his devotion to the interests of the administration and of the country. I consulted with General Scott, and General Scott approved of placing him at
the head of the army. The place was offered to him unofficially with my approbation and with the approbation of General Scott. It was accepted by him verbally, with the promise that he would go into Virginia and settle his business and then come back to take command. He never gave us an opportunity to arrest him. He deserted under false pretenses. I should have arrested him in a moment if I had the chance at him, and I have
always regretted that I never did get that chance. I think he behaved worse than any of the men who have acted so treacherously to the government. And what so Blair's account is that like, yeah, I offered him the job and he said I just can't do it. I can't fight against Virginia, which is like common narrative, it's what you get for everything. What Cameron says is like no, no, no, Lee said I want this job, give it to me. We said the job is yours. He said, I'll take it.
And then he said, I just got to go back home and settle some bitch and he bitched out and turned trader, and he did this, he lied to them to avoid getting arrested for treason. That's a really fucking different story, right.
So yeah, yeah, that's that is some whole ass shit.
Yeah.
One of these shows a man torn by this just the impossible choice to fight against your family and your state. The other shows a betrayer of his oath making a calculated decision, you know. And I will say, we simply don't know which of these stories comports more with reality, right, we never will, you know, you get there's actually these are not even the only two accounts of that meeting. I think these are kind of the two. One of
these two is probably more right than the other. I will say, I tend to believe what fucking Simon Cameron says because it comports with how weasily Lee is about his description of all this and.
The path of least resistance, Like you don't, like, no one wants that type of confrontation to have to like, you know, grow some ovaries and be like, yo, I'm gonna stand on business. This is what I'm gonna do, Thank you very much. I got a ride with Virginia, you know what I'm saying, Or to be like, you know, dude, you're right, I'm gonna do this. Let me at least look my family in the face and tell them what's going on, because both of them requires a certain type of courage, again, a code.
It requires you to have a code.
To be able to be like, I'm just gonna do it, and I'm gonna take whatever consequences come with it. No, the path of least resistance is to lie. You know what I'm saying, is to make y'all cool, get out of this moment right now, and then which one of y'all I feel like, are gonna hurt me the worse?
Right?
So, because if my family actually heard me say yes to them, right, they would have been like stop back no, what he means yes? And you can't be like no, no, I'm just lying to him, because then they're gonna look at you and being like, why are you being a coward about it?
Like, stand up? You know what I'm saying.
So he did the path of Lee's resistance, which to me is the most normal thing.
Yeah, And in terms of backing up Simon Cameron's account. In his biography of Lee, Alan Guelzo notes that Lee has to have known secession was coming and have already made his choice to fight against the union, Otherwise his
actions here simply don't make any sense. Quote. If Lee believed there would be no conflict, that some way would have been found to save the country from the calamities of war, then there would have been no risk in his mind that he would have to conduct any kind of hostile campaign, and certainly not against Virginia, and the golden prize of his professional life would fall neatly into
his lap. So again, if he even from this point, if he has not already made the decision to turn trader, why would he turn down the proportion he'd already wanted, Right.
Yeah, that actually makes so much sense, like you said, because it's like, if you already know we're not going to really go to war, then dude, take the job.
You know what I'm saying, It's take your dream. Yeah, take it.
That's what you always wanted. And it's like, oh cool, we figured it out. And then it's like, yeah, problem solved. I didn't have to fight against my I didn't have to fight against my family. I didn't have to pretend like I, you know, am loyal to anything.
I just got the job and it's all good now.
The idea that Lee just loved Virginia so much she had no choice. This is how it was depicted to me as a kid in Texas public schools.
Right, and it was fright.
The way this was framed to me is that like, this is how everybody felt. Right, nationalism was not what it is now, and it would become people just weren't that loyal first to the US, that were loyal to their state. And that's how everybody felt. And so it was inevitable that a guy like Lee would side with Virginia. And this is not fucking true. This is simply not accurate to the way people were at the time. Welso Puts paid to this very inaccurate view in a succinct
passage from Roberty Leo Life. The LEAs, however prominent they had been in Virginia life, were mostly nationalists, Federalists, and Whigs. Moreover, Virgini Hi he had not, strictly speaking, been Lee's native state for most of his life his youth, from the time the family moved to Alexandria, had been spent within what werein the boundaries of the District of Columbia, and his professional responsibilities had scattered him for thirty years from
Texas to New York. Arlington was his home, but not his property, and it's facing across the Potomac River towards the capital was a constant reminder of where the Custuses always saw their loyalties residing. In other words, his family politics were nationalists, his personal politics were nationalists, and he barely fucking spent any time in goddamn Virginia.
Now so funny.
An account by Edward Townsend, who is the assistant adjutant to Winfield Scott and a witness to Lee's visit with the General, gives a quote by Lee that reinforces his decision was made by the financial realities of his family more than some kind of loyalty. And this is Lee talking to Scott General. The property belonging to my children, all they possess lies in Virginia. They will be ruined if they do not go with their state. I cannot raise a hand against my children. Now. First off, as
we'll cover that's still not true. But also if that is an accurate quote that puts Lee's primary concern being the wealth of his kids and how it's threatened by.
War, which makes the most sense.
Yeah, which makes the most sense, right, and is the least defensible.
Yeah, especially if you was willing to keep them slaves on air after your own father or your own father in law was like, yo, you gotta let them go.
Yeah.
You know, he's like, nah, man, I'm look, We're gonna make sure, we gonna make sure the legacy stays on yeaheah.
And it's again that said properties still can't explain all of this because Arlington is not just a valuable piece of land, it is strategically critical from Arlington. You can shell DC. That means the Union cannot allow Arlington to wind up in control of the Confederacy. And given just the way that things are laid out, it's also Arlington happens to be an area the Union can very easily get a lot of soldiers too faster. Lee is not an idiot on military matters.
He knows the.
Confederacy simply is not going to be able to protect Arlington at the early stage of the war, and Lee is also aware of the North's superiority and manpower and manufacturing capacity. When the war breaks out, his first thing he does is he orders his wife to flee the property. So he can't just be concerned about what's going to happen to Arlington and be making his decisions based on that.
Otherwise he would have stayed with the Union, because that's you know, unless the property he's most concerned about is slaves, right, yes, yes.
You know now.
Lee also tells one of his classmates from West Point, I would give it Arlington in a moment and all I have on earth if the Union could be preserved in peace, which again means that either way, whichever of these is true, he's lying to somebody. Right, If he's willing to give up Arlington to preserve the Union, fear that secessionists would take it can't be the driving force behind his decision. And if he's willing to give up Arlington to preserve the Union, then why doesn't he right Like,
why does that influence his decision at all? As I noted earlier, the most understandable conflict that Lee expressed was an unwillingness to fight against his family. But that's also not something he could have avoided. Because a lot of his family stay loyal. Now, John Fitzgerald Lee remains in service to the Union Army as a judge advocate general throughout the war. Samuel Phillips Lee, a Navy man, also stays loyal, as does Robert E. Lee's cousin Robert Jones.
His cousin John Upsher, stays loyal despite what he referred to as tremendous pressure from the Lee family, possibly also including Robert. So again, when you're talking about like this impossible decision not to fight your family, a bunch of his families stay loyal, and they talk about how the traders in their family, Like, I have a lot of respect for John Upsher. Your whole family is saying, no, we are going to fight against the Union, we have
to defend Virginia sovereignty. And you say, no, I'm going to stay loyal to my oath. That's a fucking honorable decision.
That's tough, dude. So he's the actual that's crazy in the.
Hero the hero of storys like, yeah, that is moral courage, right, wow wow.
And I haven't even gotten to the end of the Lee's who stay loyal? Right? Durrence Williams, one of his wife's cousins is aide de camp to George McClellan, who's gonna wind up running the whole fucking show for a while.
It is that little imaginary story of like that I made up, where it's like, Okay, I'm gonna go talk to my family and be like, look, guys, I'm gonna do this. They're all going, yeah, it's too a bunch of them. Yeah, they're like, yeah, we're staying at what are you talking about? Of course we're staying at the Union.
This is not just one or two. This is a significant chunk of the Lee family stays loyal.
Yeah, they're like, we surprised you. Eve mapp asked, like, yeah. Now.
It is often noted that a lot of Lee's loyalty to his family, his unwillingness to fight them, is because he has all these cousins who support his family after his father dies, they support his mom. He's like, these people they kept us, you know, afloat and fed and sheltered, you know, in the most diff part. I simply can't fight them. I can't betray them. My loyalty is to them, right.
This is something that Lee expresses, and it is a lie because one of the cousins who supports his family, who keeps it like the cousin who gives a huge amount of money to his mother to keep her afloat, is Philip Findall. Right, Philip Findall not only stays loyal, but both of his two sons fight in the Union Army against Robert E.
Lee.
American Heritage continues quote with great reluctance, Smith Lee became a Confederate naval officer, where he served without enthusiasm and is late in September eighteen sixty three still pitched into those responsible for getting us into this snarl, saying that both the Lees and his in laws had pressured him with ideas that Virginia came first. He grumbled, South Carolina be hanged. How what did I want to stay in
the old Navy? So there's even Lees that turned trader and are like, I can't believe I let you guys pressure me into this. This was the worst decision of my fucking life. Fuck all of you now. It is true that Robert Eli's three sons decided to fight for the Confederacy. However, none of them stated a position on secession until after Robert E. Lee made his decision, and based on what we know of them and just what we know about his family, I don't think any of
them would have chosen to fight for the Confederacy. If Lee had stayed loyal, that simply wouldn't have happened. There's no way his sons do that right. They were waiting for their dad to make a call. I don't think there's any validity in the claim that he had to fight for the Confederacy because he couldn't fight his own sons like he has a bunch of This is the most fucked up part. It's not just a bunch of cousins. His sister, Ann Lee Marshall lives in Baltimore and strenuously
supports the Union cause. Her husband, William Marshall, is a Republican delegate who nominates Lincoln to the presidency during that year's RNC Lee Robert E. Lee writes one of his last letters before the war to his sister Anne, and he again, this is such a fucking cowardly passage. I'm going to read this last letter to his sister where he's basically saying, yeah, you know, this thing that you know is horrible and wrong. I'm going to do it. Quote, I am grieved at my inability to see you, and
abhor myself more than ever for not having visited you. Now, this had been well within his power to do. He was too busy playing foot set with Scott and Lincoln as the nation lange towards disaster. He admits to his sister there's no necessity for Virginia to secede, but then claims, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home.
And again this is bullshit, and he's saying I couldn't raise my hand against my relatives to his sister, to my sisters, going to raise his hand against ye, He concludes this scumfuck passage. I know you will blame me, but you must think as kindly of me as you can and believe that I have endeavored to do what I thought right, to show you the feeling and struggle it has cost me. I send a copy of my
letters General Scott, which accompanied my letter of resignation. I have no time for more, and like, man, don't.
Even like I don't send that letter, like just look man, like whatever you're trying to do to scrub your little conscious clean like keep it, bro turns out his suckcess. Sorry yeah yeah, and like yeah who, Like it's totally like, man, you ever had somebody apologize to you and you're thinking, man, who is this for? Like you're you're not doing this for me, you know what I'm saying this, You are doing that for yourself. And all of us can hear it.
That's some bullshit. We can all hear as bullshit. I hope you have brain. Your brain has twisted into a pretzel enough to make you feel like you justified in what you're doing because you show ain't do nothing to me.
Yeah yeah.
And for her credit, and by the way, pretty based, she never forgives her brother. She just was like onto this letter and she never talks to him again. She dies in eighteen sixty four without attempting to resume contact. Part of this is because her son Lewis, serves in the Union Army fighting against Robert E.
Lee.
Yeah fucking nephew, you know, yeah, yeah, you finea murder your own nephew, my son. We're done. We're done.
Of course, we're done. We're done. And you had a choice.
Like that's the part that's like I'm like really newly getting angry about where I was like, you had a choice.
Yeah, yeah, it is. It is fucking vile. And I think in the end, again, it's not purely his property that he's doing this for because he knows he's likely to lose Arlington. It's certainly not because he's unwilling to fight against his family, because he definitely does that now.
I think to an extent, the idea that he can't bear fighting against Virginia is true, but not in the way the Lost Cause for biographies make it seem, because despite never expressing particular loyalty to Virginia over the Union before, once a conflict breaks out over slavery, he is willing to stand in defense of that institution and of white supremacy, even though it meant drawing arms against his own blood relatives. And this passage from American heritage makes it clear how
central the conflict over slavery is to his reasoning. He resented the North's badgering and feared Southern impotence at the hands of its majority population. He spoke out for the Crittenden Compromise, which would have guaranteed the permanent existence of slavery, declaring it deserved the support of every patriot, even though
the nation had been designed around perpetual union. He told daughter Agnes, if the bond could only be maintained by the sword and bayonet, its existence will lose all interest to me. And the fact that secession can only be carried out by the sword in the bayonet does not seem to have occurred to him. Likewise, he's not troubled by the fact that slavery can only be kept in place by violence, which he knows because he's done that. Yeah, like it is so fucked up.
Yeah, there is a piece of me, like if I'm being so reflective that is having to continue to remind myself that to keep zooming out and saying, we're still talking about my family here, Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like we're still talking about the institution of slay. I'm getting into the story and stuff like that, and then I'm almost even more resentful to this guy that you're even making me forget that sometimes like that I'm forgetting, like like forgetting to couch this in the reality of
we're still talking about chattel slavery here. Yeah, you know, and it makes me even more pissed at him. On April twentieth, a delegation of secessions showed up at his home to ask Lee to travel to Richmond, where they're
having their big secessionist conference. Virginia is like late in deciding this and actually they have a one vote to secede that fails, Like it actually was kind of possible that like Virginia might not have have gone with the Confederacy almost or might have tried kind of a new that's not what happens, but like almost Prince George, yeah he was almost PGC. Yeah, you could have stayed that. You could have had go go music. It could have
been great, but no, you want it smothered. Friedsess. Sorry he is.
He has offered a commission commanding Virginia State Forces, and again Virginia has not decided to join the Confederacy yet, but it's now that Lee is going to have to make his final call. His wife basically claims that he weeps tears of blood in this night of agony making the decision. Yet his family recall him on the day that he announces his decision to them as being calm and collected, not exhausted and distraught.
They're trying to the tears of You're trying to harken back to Jesus, like you're trying to make him Jesus, you know, in the garden of Guessemity here like yeah, praying, you know, tears sweating, tears of blood, like come on, man.
Yeah.
Anyway, we get one note from like an enslaved member of the family, Jim Parks, who describes Lee as pacing backward and forward on the porch, steadying himself. So, you know, I'm sure he spends some time agonizing over this. I don't think it's for moral reasons. I think it's like what's gonna wind up better for us?
You know?
Yeah, but you get some stuff like that here. So Lee is never able to work up the courage to admit to his old boss and mentor, Winfield Scott, that he has decided to turn trader. The last that reasons to Scott comes after Virginia votes to secede near the end of April, and all he says in it is He's like, thanks for twenty five years of kindness and consideration. You were always had my back, you know, great times working with you. Buddy, and then he concludes they have
a great summer. Yeah, he concludes it with the same old lie, save in defense of my native state, I never again desire to draw my sword. And again it was like, Okay, so you're saying you're willing to draw your sword, You're going to fight as a trader. You just can't even admit it to your old boss.
Yeah, but you're about to do it though. Yeah.
Yeah, this is why I buy Simon Cameron's claim, because he's so weasily about this every time. Yes, and it's also again for the whole Oh, he couldn't have betrayed Virginia his boss Winfield Scott of Virginia.
Yeah, he's so initiatively betraying Virginia.
Yes, so is George Thomas, Lee's colleague in the army back in Texas, like this guy who he's potentially about to fight alongside when they're worried they might get attacked by secessionists, and both Winfield Scott and George Thomas suffer because of their decision to stay loyal. Scott is accused of being a Free State pimp, and Lee does not defend him, does not defend the honor of his boss that he says has done so much to him, and George Thomas's relatives who turned trader asked him to change
his name. Like these men make real sacrifices for the Union. Fits you. Lee's biography, like most laws caused biographies likes to depict what happens with like Lee, is basically guaranteed just because everyone does this right. Everyone signs their state quote almost acknowledged that no selfish or unpatriotic motive influenced him in refusing to draw his sword against his native state, to which from early boyhood he had been taught by the wisest and the purest in the land. He owed
his first allegiance here. It is also just to remark that all who resigned their commissions in service of the United States to cast their lot with their native states were influenced by the same pure and unselfish motives. You want to hear the truth, forty percent of Virginia officers stayed loyal forty forty And that doesn't mean sixty percent turn trader because a bunch of them just chose not to fight. Like Lee's old instructor Dennis Mann at West Point,
We're just like I can't be a part of it. So, like it is not true that this was just how everyone moved. A huge number of people knew this was wrong and did the right thing.
You know.
Ye Lee chose the coward's way out, and that is a huge and critical part of his story.
I love this.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, there's nothing valuant about his choices, nothing diabolical. It's coward yeah, yeah, fucking coward.
Yeah.
And you know what, credit to the memory of the men who stayed loyal. That's a tough call. That's an honorable fucking move.
Yes, you are definitely going against the current. And and you know, like part of me is like okay, bare minimum, like all right, freaking Mike pints head ass, you finally decided to do something right. But on the other hand, it's like, no, for real, Like that was like when it finally came down to it, you was like no, I can't, yeah, I can't.
Fam you just a moment for the mic head pace.
At Mike pens Ass, like, oh, nigga, the last day of the job, You're gonna finally do something that's yeah.
Yeah, I would say the minimum is that minority of guys who just decided not to fight, right, Yeah, that's the minimum. Choosing to fight and stay loyal, I think is a step beyond that. Okay, well I'll I'll give him that. I'll give him. That's hard. And you see, you see who people are in moments of crisis, and Lee has made it very clear who he is. He's a coward.
Yeah, he saved his own ass, Like you're saving your own ass, you're saving your reputation. You're afraid to fess up, You're afraid to man up, You're afraid to stand on your own square.
Yeah, yeah, buck and coward. Now you know who's not a coward? Prop Sophie Lickterman, that's true and the other sponsors of our podcast Facts We are back. So Lee resigns his commission and he travels to Richmond, and as was a pattern he for him, he never quite has the courage to admit that he's doing this to take
command of the Virginia State military. He would later claim he was just visiting Richmond to look over family property, but by the time he arrived, the State Commission had voted him commander in chief of Virginia's military f forces, and he has given George Washington's sword. Now, again, this I think gets into one of the real reasons why he does this. Remember, he's ashamed of his father and
he's obsessed with George Washington. Washington is the father he wished he'd had, and Washington's is the legacy that he wants to have for himself. I think being offered the sword symbolizes to him finally taking on that heritage over the legacy of his father. And this is also if he leads secessionist forces to victory in a war of independence, then he's the George Washington of the Confederacy. And I think that, which is crude personal pride and benefit is
the primary motivating factor beyond everything else. White supremacy plays into it. Obviously a desire to maintain his property, sure.
But end of the day, I want to be the man he.
Wants to be fucking George Washington.
Yeah, I want to be the man.
This is not a uni Obviously this is not a universal belief among historians, but this is very much Alan Gwelso really kind of lands on this, and I like his book a lot, and also Gwells is interesting. He got some shit when it got anounced that he was writing this book because he is like a conservative man. Like politically he is a modern conservative today, he's taken
part in some like conservative like historical conferences. One of the reasons why I think his book is valuable is because writing as a conservative, he is unsparingly pro union and unsparingly anti like like he is. He's very open about like Lee was a fucking trader, right, love it, And I think that's actually it's useful because you can kind of get some of this shit across to people who are not like politically liberal or on the left. With Gwelso's biography, it's hard to argue.
You can't.
You simply can't argue with a lot of what the man says.
Yeah, I love that.
Obviously, it is debatable. Does he do this because he just wants to be his own? That is an arguable point. I'm not saying that's absolute, but I buy Gwells's argument there.
Yeah, I feel like that that The case you've laid out to me is like, I mean, I still am a firm believer that history is just us back then. So if you're just thinking, like whoever, like what would regular asks do do? And this is this is what regular ass do would do, and it's like, so that's probably what he did, you know, and all the different layers that informed his decision. Nobody in I don't think anybody is ever single minded and has and makes a decision,
you know, turning off one thing. There's multiple things at various levels of importance or whatever. Right, But like when you put it all together, at the end of the day, you're making a particular call, and you understand that this call, no matter how much you agonized it, you get that once you make this call, all the implications come with it, you know, and this is just what it is, and you're willing to accept it.
Yeah.
There were people who saw this who are close to Lee and saw how self serving his decision was at the time, including family who stayed loyal. I'm going to quote again from American Heritage here. Upon learning that Lee had spent two days prayerfully searching for a decision, a cousin remarked acidly, I wish she had read over his commission as well as his prayers. At West Point, someone drew a picture of Lee with his head attached to
the body of a louse. I feel no exalt of respect for a man who takes part in a movement in which he can see nothing but anarchy and ruin. And yet that very utteran scarce past Robert Lee's lips when he starts off with delegates to treat with traitors was the response of Francis Blair's daughter, who had married into the Lee family right where he's like, he says that this is he doesn't support seceession. It's a bad call, it's disastrous. So why in the fuck is he doing
this right? And the only answer I see is personal benefit, his own ego right.
Another antidote from my grandma. She would always say you already know what you want to do. No matter what it was, you would always be like, you already know what you want to do. Yeah, it's like, oh, you're gonna pray about it. You're going to pray about it. You know what you want to do.
Yeah, you just want you just want to be all able to argue that God told you to Yes, exactly. She was like, you know what you want to do. She used to always say that he know what he want to do, you know, And I'm like damn. Now, I'm like, wow, damn you right, mm hmm.
Yeah.
So Lee takes this job offered to him, commanding Virginia, and again he's not yet a Confederate officer, right. The Confederacy is starting to get like pulled together here, but Virginia's has not committed to be a part of it yet. So he is the He is at this point the supreme commander of all of Virginia's military forces, which are
dog shit at this state. Right, these are just a bunch of state militias, and like Lee had had to deal with state militias while he was in the US Army, they always suck ass, like they are incompetent, they're poor, they're actually not all that different from a lot of the malicious we have today. And he writes about them that way, where like they're not willing to fucking do shit. So this is a really stressful job, right, He's his early gig is like he has to turn this into
a functional military and he's pretty good at this. Again, this is Lee's period of competence. He knows how an army is supposed to work, so he is able. He promotes men to some of the jobs that they don't exist in the militia that need to exist, and he starts organizing this into something that's kind of functional. Now he is in conflict regularly with the fact that the militias are all like there's this fever to join the
Virginia military. When this all starts, like every man who can hold a gun basically declares themselves part of Virginia's army. But they don't actually like want to be real soldiers. They just they're hoping this is going to be over quickly and they can claim a little bit of glory. So one of the first things that happens is Lee is desperately trying to turn these militias into a functional army.
Is stonewall. Jackson takes a bunch of dudes with rifles and occupies Maryland Heights without orders, and when Kay, here's this, Lee is like, fucking retreat. Don't do Like they could attack us, and they have an actual army. We don't yet, Like we can't don't provoke them yet. We're not ready to fight any kind of a battle. This is reasonable, right, This is Lee is not bad at this sort of stuff. He's absolutely right, Like Jackson has put them all in
a terribly dangerous position. But the fact that he is consistently like, stop rattling your saber, stop trying to provoke the North. We have to actually have an army before we do any of this. This gets him in trouble with his new found countrymen. As Alan Guelzo writes, complaints about Lee soon blossomed in Virginia. No one admires General Lee more than I do, wrote Albert Taylor BLEDSDA Jefferson Davis on May tenth. But I fear he is too despondent.
His remarks are calculated to dispirit our people. I have heard such remarks myself and energetically dissented from them. I fear he does not know how good and how righteous our cause is. Over exuberant Southerners began glancing over their shoulders at Lee. One of Mary Chestnut's South Carolina notables whispered that Robert E. Lee is against us that I know, and another predicted that General Lee will surely be tried for a trader. So because he's like, I don't care
how enthusiastic you are. If we don't have like supply lines set up, and like, actually, if we're not organized like a functional military, we're going to lose, and they're like, but our cause is righteous.
What are you what? Coward?
Like he's being called a trader for being like, don't start a war when we don't have an army.
You get shits, you know?
Yeah, you sound like I don't know, guys. Yeah, he kind of sounds like a bitch. It's like, no, fellas like you. No, I'm just saying.
And this is he has found himself in a hell utterly of his own making.
Yeah, you did not have to do this.
Yeah, maybe this is a sign you made the wrong fighting choice, Robert.
What have I got myself in?
Yeah?
What the fuck am I doing? Yes?
So, Virginia votes to join the newly formed Confederate States pretty shortly after this point, and Lee goes When this happens, he goes from the supreme commander of an independent Virginia to one more general under Jefferson Davis. Right, And this is also the moment where he loses his house. Lincoln is not stupid, and the Union waits to actually move on Virginia until they commit to the Confederate States because Ligan he's not going to like start a fight until
he knows he has to. He's not a reckless man about this sort of shit. But as soon as Virginia's like, yeah, we're the Confederacy now, the Union moves to occupy and seizes Arlington. Right now. Lee is not at Arlington. He has gone down to Richmond to take this job commanding Virginia's army, and he never returns. He never will see
Arlington again. In letters, he's warning his wife as all of this is building up, He's repeatedly like, you got to get our shit and bounce take the silverware, Like he knows what's going to happen, and he knows that the Confederate military, the Virginian military, none of it's going to be able to stop the Union from taking Arlington. His wife holds out until the last minute and departs right before the property could be occupied by Union forces.
And it's basically it's initially turned into like a forward operating base. Fitz Hugh Lee frames this as an act of courageous sacrifice by Lee rather than the inevitable result of the Confederacy being a bunch of arrogant pricks who launched a war they weren't ready to fight.
Quote.
In addition to the high position offered him, in the United States Army. He yielded his private fortune with his beautiful home Arlington, a home endeared by historic associations and many years of happy married life, a home of unsurpassed beauty, of situation, and adorned with all that midmost value, now destined to be the sport of rude soldiers. It's priceless relics scattered, it's beautiful surroundings desecrated, its choicest attractions destroyed.
And I think it's funny that fits you. Thirty years after the war, is still sore enough to call Union soldiers rude, Like, oh, they're putting their feet upon the tables, this is matters. Yeah, it's not really true. And actually the officers who occupy Arlington are like, if Mary Lee had stayed, we'd have let her kept living at her house. Right, We're not going to kick an old she's an invalid, Right,
she's sick, she can't really move very well. Like, these guys are not going to kick a sick old woman out of the house, right.
So mama family, Yeah, it's fine, Yeah, Mama's fine.
Yeah, yeah, but you know she bounces anyway. And I will say, as the war goes on, these guys who are initially like, yeah, we'd have let her stay, they get angrier because all of their friends start getting killed, right, and this gets us to one of the funnier side stories of the Bobby Lee saga. So we're jumping ahead a bit here, but by the summer of eighteen sixty two, this is like a year or so into the act actual fighting in the Civil War, Congress passes a law
to let them collect taxes on real estate and Confederate areas. Basically, I know you're traders, but we don't recognize the Confederacy as a separate state, so you still have to pay your fusing property taxes. And the intention here is to
twist the screws in traders like Lee. Writing in Smithsonian Magazine, Robert Pool states appropriating the homestead was perfectly in keeping with the views of Lincoln, Secretary of War Edward M. Stanton, General William T. Sher and Montgomery Meegs, all of them believed in waging total war to bring the rebellion to his speedy conclusion, make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would then appeal to it. Sherman wrote, and Mary tries to pay their tax bill.
She sends like a cousin who stays in the north to like pay the bill on her behalf. But county commissioners and Alexandria are like, now you got to pay in person. Yeah, you can't do that, So they seize Arlington. The government does and puts it up for auction. And if you want to know how the process of auctioning a property works, you can refer to the documentary Happy Gilmore. But sadly, Roberty Lee is dog shit at golf, so he's not able to get his property back.
Yeah, rest in peace. It all comes back to comes back to.
We're going to talk more about what becomes of Arlington in part four, and we're also going to take a look at Lee's actual performance in the war and whether or not he deserves to be remembered as the greatest general of the war. Furthermore, we'll talk about the rumors that he had an unhealthy love affair with his horse Traveler.
But yes, today I really wanted to you have to kind of spend an hour talking about Whitedly turned trader because there's so much disinfo about it and what we do know, what we can verify is so fucking clear. I feel like, yeah, I hope anyone who had any lingering doubts about that has had them assuaged.
At this point, you had some color to like a narrative I understood, which I really appreciate. I do want to go back to this, like the reality on the ground of like the Confederate States, we're still paying taxes. Yes, it's it reminds me of like you know, your kid being like.
Get out of my room.
It's my room, stay out of my life, and then they slam the door and then you're like, okay, cool, I was just going to walk over to the router and turn off the internet because I'm out of your life. Apparently you know what I'm saying, Like you understand your room is attached to my house, right, and then when you come out of that room to try to go to my refrigerator. Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm out of your life. This refrigerator full of food is for people.
That's part of my life. Yeah right, Oh you're gonna eat it. Okay, cool, You're right, I'll get out of your life now. I still expect the trash to be emptied in the next, so you out of your fighting as you empty in the trash. Maybe you still got chores here cuz like I like you. Okay, I'm gonna give you some space. Go ahead and give you some space. It's still my house, right, So I think it's so funny. It's like we're succeeding. Also, what's tax rate? Eight percent?
Yeah, you still gotta pay your taxes. Gotta pay your taxes. Fab now that that's definitely one of the more baller moves of the Lincoln administration. Yeah, yeah, like all right, well we simply don't care fifteen guys. Yeah, coming up, you still gotta pay, still gotta pay fam uh huh, all right, prop, where can the people find you? Should then want to do this?
Find me in the hood. I'm posted, I'm just playing. You can find me prop hip Hop Talk Politics Pod. You know, we really turned it up this year to make sure that, like we're really giving y'all our a game. Who Politics Pod is the Instagram prop hip Hop is my everything?
Excellent? Well, everybody, this has been behind the bastards. If you want to get more from us, you can check out Better Offline, our new tech Focus podcast covering the disaster that is the tech industry and how it's fucking up all of our lives with the great ed Zitron. If you want to find my novel After the Revolution, just type that into Google with ak press, or just go to whatever bookseller and type it into their thing
and you can buy my book. This has been a podcast I have been Robert Evans come back for part four. We will answer the question on everybody's mind, did Bobby Lee fuck that horse?
The answer will surprise us all. Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.