Seidule and Twitter vs. Lee

If you were asked to choose a better judge of military acumen, General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower or Professor Emeritus at West Point General Ty Seidule, who would you pick?

Your first response would probably be, “Who is Ty Seidule?” Followed by, “Is this even a real choice?”

One man won World War II in Europe. The other played armchair general for most of his career and barely sniffed the battlefield.

One man became President of the United States and was the most respected American in the world. The other’s only claim to fame is an Internet video and a recently released mea culpa titled Robert E. Lee and Me.

In other words, you would probably choose Ike. If not, you might need a clinical mental examination.

And if you chose Ike, like millions of Americans did during the 1950s for president, you would know that Eisenhower considered Lee to be one of the four greatest Americans in history. Read that again. Ike thought Lee ranked with Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln.

He wasn’t talking about Southerners, but Americans.

This was standard for much of American history. That doesn’t mean that some people thought little of Lee, but they were in the vast minority, even in the North.

Much has changed since Ike was in office. We now have woke mobs tearing down Lee across the country, whether it’s a statue, a street name, or a name on a school, Lee has become the most vilified figure in the United States, 150 years after he died.

A group of “historians” spend a lot of time on social media attempting to tear down the man. They call themselves the “Twitter Historians” though most have produced little in the way of real scholarship, academic or popular.

They are good at being snarky, but that’s about it.

I took them apart in my Southern Scribblings in a chapter titled, “Robert E. Lee vs. Twitter Historians.” Add Ty Seidule to that list.

His ridiculous tome is nothing short of a polemical op-ed filled with sloppy research and opinion. He is fond of dishing out what he thinks about something without any evidence. “In my opinion” is one of his favorite phrases.

I discuss Seidule, Lee, and the Twitter historians in Episode 420 of The Brion McClanahan Show.


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