Three Generals Reconsider Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee.

I watched this conversation, broadcast by CSPAN history this afternoon, between three American Generals, reevaluating the legacy of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, the context of the discussion focusing especially on racism in the US Army, West Point,

Retired Generals David Petraeus, Dana Pittard and Ty Seidule discussed military bases named for Confederates, various memorials to Robert E. Lee on the campus of West Point and whether Grant should posthumously be made a five-star general. The Grant Monument Association provided this video. One can view it at the link below and I recommend it highly for anyone interested in the history of racism in this country.

General David Petraeus is famous for the Iraq war of course, and is a graduate of West Point, as is Brig. General Dana Pittard, who is African American, who discusses his experience as an African American officer in the US Army beginning with his years at West Point.. General Ty Seidule is the former head of the military history department at West Point.

There was much discussion of General Siedule's book, ROBERT E. LEE AND ME A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause. This is definitely on my reading list; had I known about it I would have requested it from my sons as a Father's Day gift.

General Siedule got his undergraduate education at Washington and Lee University in Virginia and he describes his trajectory from being a student at a University where there is a chapel dedicated to Robert E. Lee, festooned with Confederate flags - flags that General Pittard describes as being to him the equivalent of Nazi flags - to a serious historian who has recognized that Robert E. Lee was a traitor to his oath and his country. General Siedule discusses how US Army bases, such as Fort Hood, Fort Benning and Fort Bragg came to be named after traitors to their country who actually killed US soldiers. He now is on the commission to remove the names of all of the Confederate traitors from the names of US Army bases.

I recommend watching this conversation highly. It is available on line here:

Generals Grant and Lee Reconsidered.

CSPANs text describing the video: