Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause

Seidule decides to attend college at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, which is notable for its colleges (it also includes the Virginia Military Institute) and its monuments to the Confederacy, especially Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The university in its present form began with a donation from George Washington to a small academy, which later renamed itself Washington College in the donor’s honor. After barely surviving the Civil War, its trustees invited Robert E. Lee to become its president in order to attract students and donations. Desperate to settle his family after losing their home at Arlington, Lee served as president until his death in 1870. By all accounts he was a skilled administrator, expanding the curriculum and stabilizing both enrollment and finances. As an 18-year-old, Seidule saw Washington and Lee as the perfect place to achieve his dream of becoming a Southern gentleman.

During Seidule’s freshman orientation, the student leaders emphasized the role of Lee in shaping the culture of the college, sitting them in the hallowed Lee Chapel to teach them an Honor System which Lee purportedly authored. Lee ordered the construction of the chapel to accommodate the growing student population, and upon its construction he attended daily services to provide a moral example to students.