RETIRED ARMY BRIG. GEN. TY SEIDULE spent two decades teaching history at West Point. His new book, Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning With the Myth of the Lost Cause, which combines history and memoir, reflects on Confederate memorials and Seidule’s education in segregated academies and at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., where R.E. Lee was venerated. His book got its start when he wondered why there were so many Lee memorials at West Point, where until around 1898, Confederates were reviled.
CWT: You revered Confederates.
I grew up in Alexandria in Northern Virginia, the last outpost of segregation. I was bused from the white elementary school to an all-Black school named RE Lee, named in 1961 to
