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Speaker 1: Media. What mourning my Carl Weathers. This is Behind the Bastards,

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Speaker 1: a podcast where me and my friend Jason Petty aka

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Speaker 1: Prop are huge fans of the recently deceased Carl Weathers

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Speaker 1: prop Man exactly. Yeah, he was a fucking real one.

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Speaker 1: What was your favorite Carl Weathers?

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Speaker 2: You like you have.

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Speaker 3: To like pick a decade, you know what I'm saying,

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Speaker 3: Like that's the hard part with him. You know that

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Speaker 3: man had a fucking career because I mean obviously like

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Speaker 3: Happy Gilmore. Yeah, absolutely, it's in the pantheon screen. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: like that's in the pantheon. Like you can't, Yeah, you

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Speaker 3: can't pick a character, you know, just so important.

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Speaker 1: I think Happy Gilmore it was like my favorite movie

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Speaker 1: as a kid, Like we would paint Warhammer minies and

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Speaker 1: watch it every I probably saw the movie two hundred

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Speaker 1: times and yeah, he just and then fucking Predator too, and.

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Speaker 3: Rocky Rocky Creditor like the big old like twenty inch

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Speaker 3: pythons and like like looking huge, crazy dude.

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Speaker 2: I mean, rest in peace are real?

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Speaker 3: On this second day of Black History Month, matter of fact,

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Speaker 3: happy Black History Month. Yes, and I'll trade if I

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Speaker 3: could speak for the black delegation, Like I'll trade Tim

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Speaker 3: Scott for a let's say simply Red.

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Speaker 2: We're gonna call simply Red black for this month.

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Speaker 3: Okay, we're gonna call him black cause like we're gonna

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Speaker 3: call him black. Yeah, We're gonna we're gonna call him

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Speaker 3: black for this month. Like that that white boy has

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Speaker 3: some soul.

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Speaker 4: Wow.

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Speaker 3: Okay, hold and that there's no way that man ain't black.

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Speaker 1: We'll send out, we'll send out a letter. We'll send

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Speaker 1: out send it to Manchester. You know who definitely isn't black.

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Speaker 1: Prop Oh boy, Uh.

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Speaker 3: Terrible, take hibout, bro take about I'm saying in four seasons,

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Speaker 3: this is yeah, like this might be this this, this

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Speaker 3: might be a top five top five transition.

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Speaker 4: Yeah we are.

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Speaker 1: We are doing finally the Robert E.

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Speaker 4: Lee episodes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which, like you know, growing up in the South

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Speaker 1: as I did, I'm a Texan boy, right. I think

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Speaker 1: that people are broadly aware of that there were like

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Speaker 1: three heroes who were like the canonical three male heroes

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Speaker 1: because everybody loves Dolly Parton and Dolly's Dolly's Dollies gym,

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Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, But there were there were three men that

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Speaker 1: were like the holy Trinity of like Southern masculinity. When

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, there was Dale Earnhardt, Samuel Houston,

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Speaker 1: and Robert E.

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Speaker 3: Lee. Samuel who Samuel Houston, he's the founder, George Jackson.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I.

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Speaker 2: Was not prepared for I.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't call him like an arcana Southern masculinity though, And honestly,

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Speaker 1: of those three, Dale Earnhardt is the only one who

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Speaker 1: was actually a decent person. Right, that's brought people are

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Speaker 1: broadly aware of that. Now, Robert E. Lee was a

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Speaker 1: deep at least the kind of people who listened to

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Speaker 1: this podcast, was not a great man, But there's still

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Speaker 1: this kind of attitude that like, well, yeah, he was

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Speaker 1: obviously fighting for an evil side, and so that says

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Speaker 1: bad things about him. But he was a really good general.

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Speaker 1: He was a great commander, and for visionist history, we

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Speaker 1: will be talking about what he was good at and

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Speaker 1: what he was bad at in these episodes, and we

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Speaker 1: will also be talking about, in addition to his life,

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Speaker 1: kind of the ways in which his life has been

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Speaker 1: distorted and deranged by the kind of media that's come

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Speaker 1: out in the century and a half since the.

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Speaker 4: First Civil War.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and obviously you know you'll be doing an

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Speaker 1: episode in our second week of these about the Lost

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Speaker 1: Cause mythology and how that took off. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: sprinkle a little bit of that in here, because, for

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Speaker 1: one thing, Roberty Lee is kind of like on his own.

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Speaker 1: He's not like Saddam Hussein. He's not threatening his high

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Speaker 1: school teacher with a handgun to teach him how to

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Speaker 1: read right. He's he is kind of the slight goodie

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Speaker 1: two shoes. So in order to keep it interesting, we

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Speaker 1: do need a kind of pepper in some of the

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Speaker 1: deranged things people have said about him, since that really

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Speaker 1: exaggerates his legacy. And a good example of this, a

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Speaker 1: modern example of this is the book Who Was Robert E.

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Speaker 3: Lee?

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Speaker 1: By Bonnie Bader. Now you have seen books in the

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Speaker 1: Who Was? Series? These are these kids books where everybody

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Speaker 1: has a huge head, right, It'll be some yeah, like

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Speaker 1: massive head.

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Speaker 4: Yeah he had, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got one of those. And they're not from

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Speaker 1: what I can tell, they're not on the whole super problematic.

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Speaker 1: And I will say this one is not fully lost

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Speaker 1: cause it's more that it like absorbs some Lost Cause

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Speaker 1: stuff in the middle of like it's trying to be fair,

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Speaker 1: but it yeah, it's almost impossible unless you're actually being

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Speaker 1: a rigorous historian to not absorb some of that because

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Speaker 1: there's so much. I'm not saying that to like forgive

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Speaker 1: these people for doing it. But it's not like a

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Speaker 1: it's not like a pro Confederacy book, right. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: cover of this is very funny that all of the

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Speaker 1: the covers of these are unhindered.

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Speaker 4: I don't know why they give It's like everybody does.

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Speaker 1: Like the Golden Eye big head sheet for the people

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Speaker 1: on these books, yuh yeah, like.

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Speaker 3: When we got the Rosa Barks one for our daughter, like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: we had a fend of those. I will say this though,

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Speaker 3: speaking to speaking to like you know, obviously like as

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Speaker 3: far as like American bastards like Robert E. Lee's he's

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Speaker 3: on our rushmore, Like yeah, you can't not take him

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Speaker 3: off the Rushmore. But to add to his mystique, like

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Speaker 3: I can even say me as who again, listeners are

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Speaker 3: not I say it all the time. You know, I'm

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Speaker 3: a child of a freedom fighter or you know, black militant.

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Speaker 3: I'm the child of one. But kudos to him, because

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Speaker 3: the first time I heard of the General Lee was

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Speaker 3: Dukes of Hazard. Yeah, and I loved the show, and

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Speaker 3: I had the little I had a little General Lee

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Speaker 3: hot wheels with the Confederate flag on top and shout

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Speaker 3: out my dad for not ruining my innocence, yeah, and

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Speaker 3: letting me love this thing, having no idea. Are not

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Speaker 3: connecting the dots, you know what I'm saying. Why was

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Speaker 3: you know I'm saying, but like, I didn't connect the dots.

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Speaker 3: I thought it was cool seeing the car jump over

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Speaker 3: to you know, in the stupid eighties show they jump

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Speaker 3: over the ditches and yeah, the show.

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Speaker 1: I watched that show as a kid, right, And I

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Speaker 1: watched the I watched the reboot movie, which wasn't great,

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Speaker 1: and that probably I was like part of the Lost

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Speaker 1: Cause stuff, right, Yeah, But these like who Was books

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Speaker 1: that one of the things that's interesting about me is

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Speaker 1: the kind of dichotomy between the bits of Lost Cause

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Speaker 1: shit in there and the stuff that is trying to

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Speaker 1: be like accurate history. Like, for example, there's this paragraph

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Speaker 1: about the plantation system in the book that's like not bad, right,

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Speaker 1: and this appears this this is like a little box

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Speaker 1: that they put in when they say that, like the

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Speaker 1: Lee family had a plantation, it's like a plantation life

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Speaker 1: rich white people in the South lived on big farms

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Speaker 1: called plantations, where crops such as cotton and tobacco were grown.

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Speaker 1: Most of the workers on these plantations were slaves who

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Speaker 1: were either born in Africa or descended from people taken

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Speaker 1: from there. These slaves were forced to work for free

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Speaker 1: from sun up to sundown. The slaves had no rights,

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Speaker 1: and the plantation owners grew rich. And that's like, not bad.

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Speaker 1: That's a pretty good way to explain that to a kid.

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Speaker 3: I think those are yeah, bullet points. That is correct,

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Speaker 3: that's the important stuff. Yet, here's how the book summarizes

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Speaker 3: Lee's decision to fight for the Confederacy and fight for slavery.

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Speaker 3: When asked to lead Northern troops against the South, Robert E.

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Speaker 3: Lee was even more torn. How could he go to

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Speaker 3: war against his friends and family who lived in Virginia.

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Speaker 3: It was a hard choice. Robert thought about loyalty, he

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Speaker 3: thought about honor. In the end, Robert decided to fight

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Speaker 3: against the country that his forefathers helped to create. For Robert,

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Speaker 3: the most important thing was his family and his home, Virginia.

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Speaker 3: And that is bullshit. And yeah, we will talk. We

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Speaker 3: will be in the episode where we get to this.

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Speaker 3: We will talk more about that, but like, just as

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Speaker 3: a quick aside, he had multiple family members who fought

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Speaker 3: for the union, So like, no, it wasn't just a.

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Speaker 1: Matter of not wanting to fight his family, right, not

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Speaker 1: at all, because he did. He objectively did.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: That said, this is a good example of like the

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Speaker 1: milder and kind of the more modern side of the

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Speaker 1: pro lead spectrum.

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Speaker 4: Right, this is a.

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Speaker 1: Casual absorption of the of the lost Cause narratives as

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Speaker 1: opposed to a dedicated one. And I think it's interesting

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Speaker 1: to kind of look at that in addition to somebody

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Speaker 1: older and harder stuff.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I think I'm gonna, like, I'll when we

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Speaker 3: do the lost Cause thing, I'll probably hit this point hard.

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Speaker 3: But I think it's important too because it keeps coming

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Speaker 3: back like that, the difference between and the importance of

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Speaker 3: the difference between history and memory.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and like and.

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Speaker 3: That memory is really more about the future and history

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Speaker 3: is more about the past, because I like, memory is malleable,

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Speaker 3: Like you can shape that memory shape's identity. It forms culture,

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Speaker 3: it you know what I'm saying. It, It creates narrative.

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Speaker 3: That's what memory does. Whereas history is the factual truth

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Speaker 3: of what happened, which for most of us, even now,

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Speaker 3: for most of us is rarely The point is like

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Speaker 3: what actually happened. It's our memory of what happened, and

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Speaker 3: how that shapes how I view the world world now.

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Speaker 3: And I think that he's a perfect example of that

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Speaker 3: in choosing to remember him a certain way.

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Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting. I think that that that dichotomy

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Speaker 1: between like reality and memory is especially harsh when it

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Speaker 1: comes to war. And I can think of a modern

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Speaker 1: example this from my own life. I have a couple

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Speaker 1: of friends who served in a marine unit in the

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Speaker 1: early invasion of Iraq, and I've gotten to spend some

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Speaker 1: time both with them and some o their like like

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Speaker 1: gatherings of their old unit. And one of the interesting

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Speaker 1: things is hearing different people tell stories about the same

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Speaker 1: event and then talking to others about them be like,

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Speaker 1: that is not what happened. That is apps and they

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Speaker 1: were all there right like that, and they have some

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Speaker 1: people have convinced themselves of and who knows how much

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Speaker 1: of it is like wanting to believe that you did

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Speaker 1: better than you did. Who knows how much of it

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Speaker 1: is just honestly like it's a chaotic situation, like your

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Speaker 1: memory gets fucked up. Trauma fucks up memory. Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's super malleable. So when you get to the

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Speaker 1: history of warfare, right, Like, just even just because something

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Speaker 1: is an eyewitness account doesn't mean it's fucking true. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's just the reality of the situation. But to get

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Speaker 1: to the truth of who Robert E. Lee was and

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Speaker 1: why he did what he did, we have to start

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Speaker 1: a lot further back than his own life, back in fact,

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Speaker 1: to the earliest Les in the historical record. Now, the

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Speaker 1: precise reality of his genealogy pasted a certain point is

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Speaker 1: up for questioning, right, given the state of record keeping. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you should interpret what I'm saying is not like this

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Speaker 1: is the objective genealogical truth, but this is the family

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Speaker 1: lore that he was raised with, Right, So this was

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Speaker 1: the truth for him, which is what matters for how

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Speaker 1: his background affected him more than the reality of it, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the family lore of the Lees traces their line

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Speaker 1: back to the Norman conquest of England. The founder of

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Speaker 1: the family, according to legend, was Lncelot Lee from l Dune, France.

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Speaker 1: He marched into England with William the Conqueror and earned

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Speaker 1: a name for himself in the Battle of Hastings in

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Speaker 1: ten sixty six. Right that that is the origin of

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Speaker 1: the Lee family and family lore.

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Speaker 3: Right, wow, as they know it. That like they formed

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Speaker 3: modern England. Yes, yes, that's wow, that's quite and also

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Speaker 3: claim from the beginning military men and aristocratic military men.

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Speaker 3: Right that is that is a high social status. And

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Speaker 3: his descendants have continued up to the present day. There

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Speaker 3: have been les in modern wars, right, descendants of his

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Speaker 3: family and serving at a pretty high rate. So that

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Speaker 3: is I think probably a mix of both the weight

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Speaker 3: of legacy and just like yes, some people are naturally

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Speaker 3: inclined to be warriors, right, Like that's just a reality

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Speaker 3: of history, you know. Yeah, like if all of your

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Speaker 3: ancestors served in various militaries, it probably means like you're

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Speaker 3: drawn to that kind of thing inherently. Yeah, like yeah,

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Speaker 3: a good bit of like nature and nurture, like you know,

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Speaker 3: that's just like I said, how this is this is

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Speaker 3: how we form identity. This is what the men in

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Speaker 3: our family do they yes, yes, they are violent and

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Speaker 3: this is this is a consistent thing for the LEAs

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Speaker 3: generations after Hastings and eleven ninety two, his ancestor Lional

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Speaker 3: Lee was a cavalryman in the Third Crusade, which.

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Speaker 4: Sh ended well, I think right.

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Speaker 1: One of the things about the Lee is that, firstly,

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Speaker 1: who picked the Norman side is like the best of

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Speaker 1: them at deciding what side.

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Speaker 3: They're pretty much yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe two maybe two.

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Speaker 4: Well, well we'll talk about it the other world. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: OK.

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Speaker 1: Centuries of service though to the crown and expanding wealth

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Speaker 1: eventually kind of culminates in Sir Henry Lee. And he

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Speaker 1: is a Knight of the Garter under Queen Elizabeth. But

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Speaker 1: he's also a young son, so he's not going to

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Speaker 1: inherit any of the family money. If you know anything

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Speaker 1: about the colonization of the Americas, a lot of it

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Speaker 1: was done by like second third fourth, a lot of

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Speaker 1: like the leadership right would have been these these second third, fourth,

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Speaker 1: fifth whatever sons of wealthy families who like, I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to get anything unless I go take part in this. Right,

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Speaker 1: my family name can secure me a position, but like,

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to.

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Speaker 4: Inherit, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's what Sir Henry Lee does, and that's

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Speaker 1: why he winds up moving to America to be the

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Speaker 1: Colonial Secretary of the Virginia Colony under Governor William Berkeley.

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Speaker 4: One of my.

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Speaker 1: Sources for this is the very dishonestly named memoir of

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Speaker 1: Robert E. Lee, which is like it's build as his

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Speaker 1: autobiography that he never finished, so like other people put

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Speaker 1: it together based on interviews and notes, it's a biography.

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Speaker 1: It's a very cloying positive biography. But they call it

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Speaker 1: a memoir, which should let you know how reputable it is.

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Speaker 1: But it's interesting how it describes some things. And this

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Speaker 1: is how it describes Sir Henry Lee, the first Americanly

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Speaker 1: he was possessed of a handsome person, fine talents, and

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Speaker 1: popular manners, and by these qualities was enabled to secure

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Speaker 1: influence over the colonists. Now, when I say influence, what

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Speaker 1: that means is like the Virginia Colony is a corporate monopoly, right,

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Speaker 1: it is a corporation, and it is it is a

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Speaker 1: dangerous thing, like going there, you don't have a high

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Speaker 1: odds of surviving. About sixty five percent of immigrants to

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Speaker 1: the colony in the period that he came over died

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Speaker 1: soon after moving there, So this is a dangerous gig.

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Speaker 3: I'd also say too, like you know, to interrupt your

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Speaker 3: real quick is like, yeah, the the like telling of

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Speaker 3: it's it's man, it's just it keeps coming up. But

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Speaker 3: like the telling of even just the founding of America

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Speaker 3: that these it was these like lofty ideas of these

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Speaker 3: like extremely pious people searching for freedom to practice their

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Speaker 3: faith freely. Is like it's like, well, that's one way

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Speaker 3: to tell it, you know.

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Speaker 2: Another way to.

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Speaker 3: Tell it is kind of what was the majority of it,

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Speaker 3: which was like you said, it's like people that ain't

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Speaker 3: gonna get no inheritance, why I'm gonna go try to

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Speaker 3: get some land and we're gonna go make some money.

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Speaker 3: This was a financial move for the vast majority of

302
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Speaker 3: people that came over here. It was a money move.

303
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Speaker 3: It wasn't like that's one group of and according to

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Speaker 3: the rest of the the rest of the year, like

305
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Speaker 3: the colonists coming from from Britain, like the pears Is

306
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Speaker 3: were weirdos, Like yeah, like y'all are y'all are religious weirdos?

307
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Speaker 3: Like we are here trying to get this bread.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's a fight.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's like you said.

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Speaker 3: Virginia was like yeah, no, We're like we try to

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Speaker 3: get this bread, like that's what we're here for.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And that's what Dicky Lee is there for, right,

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Speaker 1: And he does pretty well in this position. He's able

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Speaker 1: to buy up huge tracts of land, which he works

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Speaker 1: with enslaved people. By his death in sixteen sixty four,

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Speaker 1: he presided over an empire for about sixteen thousand acres

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Speaker 1: in the northern Neck of Virginia. And this Lee is

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Speaker 1: the very first in his family line to serve during

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Speaker 1: a civil war, right, this is the English Civil War.

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Speaker 1: This is Cromwell versus the cavaliers. I think they're known

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Speaker 1: as right and obviously Cromwell wins. Unfortunately, one of we'll

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Speaker 1: be doing him. He's one of the very worst people

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Speaker 1: who ever lived. And kind of how this Lee makes

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Speaker 1: his name very differently from the last Roberty Lee, right,

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Speaker 1: who picks a side right away. This Lee's job, his

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Speaker 1: influence over the colonists, is to stop them from picking

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Speaker 1: a side until it's over. Basically, just like fucking we're

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Speaker 1: sitting there, we are about making money. We don't need

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Speaker 1: to get picking a sign we're not going to help

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Speaker 1: us and tell and then as soon as it becomes

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Speaker 1: clear Cromwell's winning, he's basically like, yeah, we thought you

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Speaker 1: were you were the tits this whole time, bro, congrats,

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Speaker 1: you know. And in return Cromwell didn't kill everybody, which

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Speaker 1: was his his general move right. So when the war ends,

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Speaker 1: Lee had to like he had acquired this land during

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Speaker 1: the English Civil War, but like he hadn't been able

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Speaker 1: to actually like lock it in as a legal purchase

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Speaker 1: because you couldn't do that while the war was going on.

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Speaker 1: So after the war, he and his descendants, in order

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Speaker 1: to basically lock in their inheritance have to make friends,

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Speaker 1: make themselves into the patsies of the most powerful man

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Speaker 1: in the area or powerful family in the area, the Fairfaxes.

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Speaker 1: And they basically do this by becoming their tax collectors.

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Speaker 4: Right. That's the Lees.

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Speaker 1: Are like musclemen for the biggest guy in the Virginia

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Speaker 1: planter aristocracy.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know that they become in the generations

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Speaker 1: after Dickie Lee, they become like one of the biggest

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Speaker 1: families in terms of like wealth in the area. There

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Speaker 1: are about seven thousand tax paying white citizens in the neck.

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Speaker 1: That means men, right, we're saying men, there's more white

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Speaker 1: people than that. By the late seventeen hundreds, and basically

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Speaker 1: none of them owned significant land. Only one percent had

355
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Speaker 1: more than three hundred acres. So the Lees are part

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Speaker 1: of that one percent. Like most yeah, very rich, and

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Speaker 1: like most generationally wealthy families, the Lees are kind of

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Speaker 1: full of themselves.

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Speaker 4: You can see some.

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Speaker 1: Of this from the fact that our Robert's grandfather, his

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Speaker 1: thirty five hundred acre estate is named Lee's Sylvania.

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Speaker 4: Oh they love there's a good bit.

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Speaker 1: Actually there's seriously, that's like the lamest thing I've ever heard. Yeah,

364
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Speaker 1: my god, there's that movie, that musical seventeen seventy six.

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Speaker 1: I haven't watched it since I was a kid, but

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Speaker 1: it stars it stars mister Feene from a.

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Speaker 4: World to My high teacher made us watch it.

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Speaker 1: Yep, ye one of the I'm sure that movie's got

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Speaker 1: some problematic things, but one thing it does get accurate

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Speaker 1: is it it portrays Robert E. Lee's dad in this

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Speaker 1: and he's like naming everything after he has a whole

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Speaker 1: song where like everything is Lee, and that does seem

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Speaker 1: to be the family's thing, right, It's like we are

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Speaker 1: obsessed with ourselves.

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Speaker 2: That's hilarious.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, now that said Robert's father, who's going to be

377
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Speaker 1: Henry Lee is not. He's again kind of like their

378
00:18:18,119 --> 00:18:20,679
Speaker 1: first ancestor in the Americas. He's not one of the

379
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Speaker 1: wealthy Lees. Like his family is wealthy, but he's not

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Speaker 1: going to get a bunch of money on his own

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Speaker 1: because of I think just his position, Like he doesn't

382
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Speaker 1: get you can tell this. He doesn't get sent to

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Speaker 1: England to be educated like his cousins in Stratford. The

384
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Speaker 1: Stratford Les send their kids to England to be educated,

385
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Speaker 1: but Robert E. Lee's dad doesn't get that.

386
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Speaker 2: So yeah, we're.

387
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Speaker 3: Clearly we're talking like patrilineal, we're talking dad side of

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Speaker 3: the family.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

390
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Speaker 1: So it's again, he's wealthy for normal people's standards, but

391
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Speaker 1: from the standards of the aristocracy, Robert E. Lee's dad

392
00:18:50,359 --> 00:18:52,959
Speaker 1: on his own isn't going to get the big payday

393
00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 1: right now. The Lees put a lot of stock in

394
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Speaker 1: being farmers. That is how they identify and it is

395
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Speaker 1: important to note that when rich white people in this

396
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Speaker 1: period talk about being farmers, they are not doing any

397
00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:08,280
Speaker 1: real far out right no, absolutely not. And one of

398
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Speaker 1: the major sources for this episode is an excellent biography

399
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Speaker 1: of Lee by Alan Guelzo, And I'm going to read

400
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Speaker 1: a quote from that now talking about the degree to

401
00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:19,000
Speaker 1: which these people were farmers, and it's talking about Lee's

402
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:22,640
Speaker 1: family and his cousins. The Lees, Taylo's, and Carters never

403
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:25,119
Speaker 1: owned fewer than fifty slaves each across the decades of

404
00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:27,760
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century. While Robert Carter owned three hundred and

405
00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:30,879
Speaker 1: forty five slaves, John Taylo won seventy three, and George

406
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:34,280
Speaker 1: Turberville sixty eight. Thomas Lee had, at varying times, owned

407
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:36,800
Speaker 1: between sixty and one hundred slaves at Stratford and his

408
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:39,600
Speaker 1: late ast seventeen eighty two. Eighty three slaves worked for

409
00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:42,879
Speaker 1: Thomas Lee's successors there, but these grandees were not necessarily

410
00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:46,160
Speaker 1: prospering on their land. Although Virginians had made early fortunes

411
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:49,360
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century through tobacco, the demand for Indian

412
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:52,280
Speaker 1: weed declined throughout the eighteenth century, as had the nutrients

413
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Speaker 1: in the soil of the Neck that supported it. Few

414
00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:56,840
Speaker 1: people in England Como played Richard Henry Lee in the

415
00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:00,359
Speaker 1: seventeen sixties, understood how much labor is required out on

416
00:20:00,359 --> 00:20:04,080
Speaker 1: the Virginian estate and how pole the produce. Interestingly, the

417
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:06,800
Speaker 1: great plantations turned to growing wheat fodder and pork for

418
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,040
Speaker 1: export to the West Indies, where they could be fed

419
00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:11,680
Speaker 1: to the slave and animal populations of the sugar islands,

420
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:15,240
Speaker 1: whose vastly wealthier owners declined to waste arable sugar lands

421
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Speaker 1: on growing food. So that is what that is what

422
00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:22,359
Speaker 1: the Lee family farming goes towards, is to feed slave

423
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:26,440
Speaker 1: plantations growing sugar cheaply, right, that is that is where

424
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:27,879
Speaker 1: their family money comes from.

425
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Speaker 4: Yeah, So like I.

426
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Speaker 3: Did a quick little Google starts going and make sure

427
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:34,440
Speaker 3: I got the numbers right. Yeah, like just to understand

428
00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:38,000
Speaker 3: like the economy of the time. I feel like, you know,

429
00:20:38,359 --> 00:20:41,959
Speaker 3: with anything, the further away from us, like timeline wise,

430
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,199
Speaker 3: the more like Narnia it becomes to us like we

431
00:20:45,240 --> 00:20:49,320
Speaker 3: don't really understand like one, how recent it was, into

432
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:51,680
Speaker 3: like the connections of it. So like you just say,

433
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Speaker 3: somebody had three hundred and eighty five slaves, like and

434
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Speaker 3: a slave at the time to purchase a slave was

435
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:02,199
Speaker 3: about like one hundred and fifty hundred and sixty dollars,

436
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:05,679
Speaker 3: and if you adjust that to like inflation, like you

437
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:09,240
Speaker 3: could it could be like like three two hundred dollars

438
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:14,960
Speaker 3: a person like that to purchase you know, and obviously

439
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:18,840
Speaker 3: you're not paying for the labor, but to have so

440
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:25,119
Speaker 3: to have a workforce of three hundred people want to

441
00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:27,320
Speaker 3: have the land acreage to even if you're putting them

442
00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:30,040
Speaker 3: in slave shacks, you stuf to house them, they're still

443
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 3: in a slave shack. Yeah, and they're still functioning on

444
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 3: your land like it is a It is a lot

445
00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 3: of money, and you're generating a lot of wealth.

446
00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:43,600
Speaker 2: And like you.

447
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 3: Said, it's like for for any of their lifestyle to exist,

448
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 3: which I'm fast forwarding but like to get to the

449
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:54,639
Speaker 3: lost costs shit, but like all of the whole Southern

450
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:58,679
Speaker 3: gentlemen Southern gentail shit, clearly means they're not working, like

451
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:02,120
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, And your whole lifestyle only

452
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:06,960
Speaker 3: works if you got enough money to support this type

453
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:10,560
Speaker 3: of labor, to do the labor that generates the money

454
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:12,879
Speaker 3: to live the lifestyle you live. Yeah.

455
00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:16,160
Speaker 1: And I also I also want to note something, which

456
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 1: is that like you talk about like it's cost about

457
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 1: like thirty five hundred bucks apiece something like that for

458
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 1: each of these enslaved people, even that kind of understates

459
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 1: how expensive this isn't how rare it is, right, because

460
00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:30,440
Speaker 1: not just like that makes it seem like, well, a

461
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:33,159
Speaker 1: middle class person might be able to have like slaves

462
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:36,160
Speaker 1: working their land, which wasn't really the case often because

463
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:40,400
Speaker 1: like most people just don't have money. People are going

464
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:43,320
Speaker 1: to have a whiskey rebellion right after the US is independent,

465
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:45,760
Speaker 1: And it's part of the whisky rebellion is that like

466
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:49,159
Speaker 1: whiskey is currency because people just don't have money, you know,

467
00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:51,919
Speaker 1: like we're poor White people do not actually have money

468
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: in this period. Yeah, so like the people who have

469
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:56,480
Speaker 1: slaves are so far above the norm.

470
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, because like you said, like there isn't like this

471
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:01,920
Speaker 3: is pre industrial revolution, Like there's no you don't go

472
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 3: to the office to work and you get a paycheck. No,

473
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 3: you grow your food right and you take care of

474
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,679
Speaker 3: your family and you hopefully chop down some timber and

475
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 3: sell it at the corner. But there's no jobs for

476
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:17,159
Speaker 3: you to be able, like you said, to have a

477
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 3: middle class thing, like I'll just save up one hundred

478
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:21,399
Speaker 3: and sixty, I'll save up three k. It take like

479
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 3: two months. Yeah, no, you have to have a job

480
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:25,640
Speaker 3: for that, like there is no jobs.

481
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.

482
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,679
Speaker 1: And now and again we also state like these people

483
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: are rich, but rich means a different thing. Because most

484
00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:36,160
Speaker 1: of them are really bad at running these plantations, especially

485
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: after a couple of generations. So they're rich in land

486
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 1: enrich in the number of enslaved people they have, but

487
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: they are also generally cash poor. Part of keeping up

488
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 1: socially in the culture of rich plantation owners is going

489
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 1: horribly into debt. And this is a holdover. This is

490
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:52,680
Speaker 1: something they inherit from the English aristocracy.

491
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 4: Right.

492
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:57,640
Speaker 1: You can't get be given money as an aristocrat, that's dishonorable.

493
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: But you can take loans often from other aristocrats and

494
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,199
Speaker 1: the like. And this is what all of these big families,

495
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 1: including the Leaves, would do to maintain these big, palatial,

496
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: beautiful manners that are such a part of this imagined

497
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: like southern heritage. All of this is taken on with debt. Right,

498
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: this is like such a thing. There's this Anglican parson,

499
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:19,040
Speaker 1: Jonathan Boucher, who lives in the Neck for a while

500
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 1: and preaches there, and he later said of his time there,

501
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 1: I can hardly remember a time when I did not

502
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:27,120
Speaker 1: owe sums larger than my credit might seem worth. All

503
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: I have to offer and vindication of it is that

504
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: determined as always to raise myself in the world. I

505
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 1: had not the patience to wait for the slow savings

506
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 1: of a humble station, and I fancied I could get

507
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:39,160
Speaker 1: into a hire only by being taken notice of by

508
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: people of condition, which was not to be done without

509
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: my making a certain appearance.

510
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 4: So all of these.

511
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 1: People, no matter how wealthy they are on paper, most

512
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:49,879
Speaker 1: of them are like desperately in debt. And they're in

513
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: debt purely because they're trying to keep up with each other.

514
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: They're trying to like it's all about image. Like the

515
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 1: degree to which this is shallow and irresponsible and always

516
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: based on a house of cars words is not discussed

517
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: enough when we talk about the self exactly.

518
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that that and that and that legacy of like,

519
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 3: so let's take our favorite person, Elon if he gets Yeah,

520
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 3: this guy gets a contract from NASA to be like, hey,

521
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 3: we want to build want you to build our next

522
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 3: four spaceships, and it's like okay, dope, Uh, it's gonna

523
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 3: cost me seven billion dollars to build these ships. He

524
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 3: doesn't just go to the bank and swipe his card

525
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 3: like he he doesn't have seven billion dollars. He goes

526
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 3: to someone else and says, hey, I got this po

527
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 3: I got this purchase order for these things, and I'm

528
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,160
Speaker 3: gonna make this much money. Will you give me the money.

529
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:46,440
Speaker 2: To make this?

530
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 3: But he ain't got it. Like I can't stress this enough.

531
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 3: They don't have the money.

532
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I it's it's important to note that. Yeah.

533
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 1: So this is all going to be important also for

534
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: just understanding what happens to rob its father and how

535
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: it influences the man he's going to become. And Robert E.

536
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:07,120
Speaker 1: Lee's daddy was Richard Henry Lee the third. He graduates

537
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: from law school in seventeen seventy three, but as you

538
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: can guess from the time, he's kind of diverted from

539
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: serving as a lawyer by the outbreak of what will

540
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:18,159
Speaker 1: become the American Revolution. Henry is a hot headed young man, and,

541
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 1: like his ancestor, insecure about being born without the expectation

542
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 1: of a great inheritance. He saw in war with England

543
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: an opportunity to make himself into a great man, like

544
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 1: his ancestor had done after the Norman Conquest. Hey, everybody,

545
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: Robert here, quick correction. I misidentified in the original edit

546
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: of this Richard Henry Lee as Robert E. Lee's father.

547
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: Henry Lee the third was Roberty Lee's father. Sorry, that

548
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: was something I flagged during editing and then forgot to

549
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: tell to the editor, So this one's all on me anyway.

550
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 4: Robert E.

551
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: Lee's dad was Henry Lee the third, and to his credit,

552
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: Richard Henry Lee is not just talk. He joins the army.

553
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: He becomes a captain in the dragoons, which is like

554
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: a mountain infantryman, and is an excellent soldier. That is

555
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: one thing you have to give the man. The LEAs

556
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 1: are all as foot soldiers, as grunts. Really, even Robert E.

557
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: Lee is a really good, like lower level officer. Like

558
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: when we talk about him being incompetent, it's as a

559
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: commanding general. But like, they are all good at normal

560
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: soldierly jobs. And Henry shows his skill particularly as a scout.

561
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: He is a small unit commander. He's basically an early

562
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: Special Forces guy. Right, He's leading these yeah yeah, his

563
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: dad yeah, okay, yeah. He's leading these small units of scouts,

564
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: often doing ambushes and the like on small British units

565
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 1: supply depots. And he kind of gets a reputation for

566
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,959
Speaker 1: this almost suicidal disregard for his own safety. He earns

567
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 1: the attention of George Washington after he takes a ten

568
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,400
Speaker 1: man unit out and there they are ambushed by two

569
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: hundred British cavalry and somehow fight off the ambush. Yeah,

570
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: he's good at he's good at fighting, right, and Washington

571
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: is kind of like, well, shit, this guy needs to

572
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: be in myanner's circle. Henry Lee earns the nickname Lighthorse Harry,

573
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: and in seventeen seventy nine he achieves one of his

574
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,959
Speaker 1: greatest successes, marching a small unit of men thirty miles

575
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: in the driving rain to attack a much larger British garrison.

576
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: Armed only with bayonets, they secure the element of surprise

577
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: and take one hundred and fifty eight men prisoners. Congress

578
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: minted him a special Gold Medal. This is an extremely

579
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: rare decoration for the period. There's like seven of them

580
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: given during the war. And then he sent South to

581
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: fight alongside Nathaniel Green and he basically his unit is

582
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: like the eyes of the Southern Revolutionary Army. Right, the

583
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: Southern colonies had been occupied by British forces in Green

584
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 1: and Lee carried out a successful campaign to retake them.

585
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: Lighthorse Harry played a crucial role here cutting off supply lines,

586
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: raiding depots, and forward bases. Now, he's a good soldier,

587
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: but he is not a good person. He is not

588
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 1: overly concerned with the niceties of wartime ethics. From an

589
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: article in the Gettysburg Compiler quote. During the war, he

590
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: was known for his brutal tactics. In seventeen seventy eight,

591
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: he assisted General Anthony Wayne in capturing a fort at

592
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: Stony Point, New York, where he caught three deserters, one

593
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: of which he ordered to be hanged and decapitated. He

594
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 1: then sent the deserters decapitated head to Washington. He also

595
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: interrogated a loyalist prisoner in North Carolina by pressing a

596
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: red hot shovel to his feet to get information out

597
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: of him. So this guy kills people. He puts heads

598
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: on on like pikes and shit, he's torturing prisoners. He's

599
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: not a nice man. Dude's aged with yes, yes today.

600
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 1: So despite these war crimes, Lee ends the war as

601
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 1: one of the USA's first great military heroes. On the

602
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: strength of this, He's elected to the Continental Congress in

603
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty five, and he partakes in Virginia's Constitutional Convention

604
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty seven, where he plays a crucial role

605
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: in talking his neighbors in Virginia into ratifying the constitution.

606
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 4: He becomes governor.

607
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 3: I think it's a good thing to stop. And you

608
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 3: said he became governor. Yes, you said, the guy that

609
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 3: like decapitated.

610
00:29:57,720 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh he loves he loves that shit.

611
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then sent heads in a bag was a

612
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 3: part of the constitutional convintion.

613
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, governor, Like, yeah, the.

614
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 3: Old baghead, old old baghead, right, I like you better

615
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 3: put him on there, because you don't want to piss

616
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 3: him off.

617
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: You know, who doesn't cut the heads off of prisoners

618
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: and stick them on pikes? Oh?

619
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 2: Man, I mean I so do hope that.

620
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope our sponsors don't do that, although if

621
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: they do, maybe they maybe those prisoners had it coming,

622
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: you know, you know, if they do, I just want them.

623
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: If they do, I just want you to know that

624
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: we had politics. Love everything, y'all.

625
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 3: Sell.

626
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 2: We believe in everything you do.

627
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, great, this is good.

628
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 4: And we're back.

629
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: So that's a pretty full resume for Lighthorse Harry. But

630
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: we're just actually getting started on this guy. Because after

631
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: the war ends, his life veers very quickly from like

632
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 1: military hero to hilarious failure. And this is because he's

633
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: one of these guys. You get these not uncommonly that

634
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: are like they're great in war, they're really good soldiers

635
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: at least in terms of their effectiveness in combat, but

636
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: outside of war, they just are completely useless. Now, there

637
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 1: were always some signs of the man's weaknesses. Obviously he

638
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: took too many risks. He actually that big raid he

639
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: carried out that he won an award for he got

640
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: court martialed for it too, because some people in his

641
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: command were like, yeah, it worked, but he risked a

642
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,239
Speaker 1: bunch of men's lives on what shouldn't have worked, Like

643
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: this was we shouldn't We should not award people for

644
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: being this reckless. In seventeen eighty two, Lee resigns his

645
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: commission in the Continental Army because he's angry that he's unappreciated.

646
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: And again, this man got a gold medal awarded to

647
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 1: seven dudes total in the entire war that they made

648
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: he custom made gold medal. He's not really unappreciated. I

649
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 1: think what it is reading between the lines, he's frustrated

650
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 1: that he's not George Washington like he loves Washington. They're

651
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: close buddies, and like Washington's his patron kind of you

652
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: get the feeling he's like, why does Washington get to

653
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: be the father of the country and not me?

654
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 4: I was a really good soldier, y'all? Yeah, exactly, shit man,

655
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 4: And you get teeth.

656
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this insecurity, this is going to drive

657
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: the Washington insecurity is going to drive Roberty Lee iseth No,

658
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:19,479
Speaker 1: you are no.

659
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 4: They sure weren't, no c.

660
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: But this insecurity is going to drive Henry Lee as well.

661
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: So Washington, for his part, consideredly a reliable officer and

662
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to make him feel appreciated and also

663
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: betray the spirit of the revolution. At the same time,

664
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: in seventeen ninety four, a bunch of Pennsylvania farmers started

665
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: protesting against attacks on whiskey, which was their primary form

666
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: of currency, despite the fact that their grievances absolutely mirrored

667
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: the ones that had sparked the revolution. Washington, now that

668
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: he's in charge of a country, sends the army in

669
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,719
Speaker 1: to crack down this is the Whiskey rebellion, and Henry

670
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: Lee is the guy who's going to command that army. Now, well,

671
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: actual rebellion itself had a few clashes and a small

672
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: number of deaths. Harry's not involved in that. By the

673
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: time he gets there with the army, he's basically there

674
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: to swing the nation's newly tombescent dick around until everybody

675
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: goes home. You know, he scares them with an army.

676
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 3: Right.

677
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: That is the end of his military career. And now

678
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: that he had earned a position of what he saw

679
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: would be everlasting respect and fame in the heart of

680
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: the new nation, he sat down to accomplish the true

681
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: goal of any ambitious man, making a bunch of fucking money. Now,

682
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: unfortunately he's terrible at this. He knows nothing of farming,

683
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: he knows nothing of business, so his attempts to get

684
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: rich to evolve into a series of incompetent get rich

685
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: quick schemes. These seem to have been inspired in part

686
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: by the advice of George Washington. In letters, Washington warned

687
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 1: Henry that investments in such hazardous and perishable articles as negroes, stock,

688
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: and chattels were prone to be swept off by innumerable disasters. Thus,

689
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: an enterprising man with very little money should invest in

690
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: the rich backlands in the new settlements and wait patiently

691
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: for them to appreciate. So that's yeah, pretty bad. Yeah,

692
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: don't buy Washington.

693
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't buyo slaves man. It's gonna go out of style.

694
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 3: Man, it's just too much work homeie like shy they died, bro,

695
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, gold rush like millionaires word as shovel salesman,

696
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:21,280
Speaker 3: like like you know, you got you gotta think a little.

697
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, You're going to be out

698
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 3: here pan for gold? Well, they got to use pans,

699
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:26,280
Speaker 3: So why don't you sell them to pans?

700
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:27,280
Speaker 4: Yeah? Damn.

701
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: And that is we see it between Henry and George Washington.

702
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: We see the difference between a smart bad man and

703
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:33,280
Speaker 1: a dumb badman.

704
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 4: Yes, right, George Washington is a smart bad man.

705
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 1: He's good in making money like Henry Lee is a

706
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,720
Speaker 1: dumb bad man, and he is. He tries to follow

707
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,760
Speaker 1: this advice, but he is dog shit at picking real estate,

708
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: and rather than slow sober investments, he approached his finances

709
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: the same way he approached war, with a series of

710
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:54,320
Speaker 1: risky gambles. Here's the Gettysburg compiler. One of these schemes

711
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: was to build a canal in Great Falls, Virginia, that

712
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: would link the United States to western Lands on the

713
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,320
Speaker 1: other side of the Alleghenies. He bought five hundred acres

714
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 1: around Great Falls that he hoped would make into a

715
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: city named Matildaville, named after his first wife and second cousin,

716
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: Matilda Lee, who died in seventeen ninety. Neither the city

717
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:12,799
Speaker 1: nor the canal came to fruition. He tried to get

718
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: out of debt by borrowing more money and buying more land,

719
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:17,800
Speaker 1: but he only ended up digging himself deeper. He started

720
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,359
Speaker 1: selling property he did not even own, and he put

721
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: up chains on the door of his house to keep

722
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: creditors out. He became very mobile in the early years

723
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,399
Speaker 1: of the eighteen hundreds, hardly staying at home in order

724
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: to keep from paying his debts.

725
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 3: He is.

726
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 2: Wretchet.

727
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 4: He is such a redneck.

728
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,320
Speaker 1: Like, first off, marrying your second cousin and t a

729
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 1: town after her, like yeah, hiding from bill collectors.

730
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:47,760
Speaker 3: Don't answer the phone, Yeah, don't answer it a do

731
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 3: don't answer the phone as day'd look, they don't get

732
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 3: they money? I get it on to dig Yeah, get

733
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 3: tea next Tuesday. And this was Auntie look as a Southerner.

734
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 3: I'm not proud of this heritage, but this is definitely

735
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 3: our heritage from.

736
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: The bill collectors selling things you don't really own. Yeah, that.

737
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:11,240
Speaker 4: Scance.

738
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,919
Speaker 3: Yes, I was like, okay, wait, of all the things

739
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 3: you said, I'm like, yeah, that's the really shit.

740
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, as it tells you're weird though, but that's real.

741
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: As a as a child who grew up on a

742
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:23,760
Speaker 1: farm in Oklahoma that I knew like forty of those guys.

743
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 3: Listen, let me tell you some all my friends in

744
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:31,879
Speaker 3: elementary school have bad credit because the electric bill was in.

745
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 2: Our name because they just you know, Mama put it,

746
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:37,839
Speaker 2: put the gas bill in the old name.

747
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 3: And this because we just try to like, look that

748
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 3: they won't give me no more powers.

749
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah.

750
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: Uh So, despite owning on papers somewhere around a million

751
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: acres at the height of his investments, which is an

752
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: enormous that's bigger than multiple countries today, Henry Lee never

753
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: realized any return on his investments. The Townsend canals speculated

754
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: on never came to pass, and his creditors came calling

755
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: long before he could flip them. Twenty years down the line,

756
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: as Washington had advised his first wife, Matilda died midway

757
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,320
Speaker 1: through his long road to going broke. He'd already sold

758
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 1: off most of her inheritance a plantation in Stratford to

759
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 1: pay off his own debts. Showing a surprising degree of fortitude.

760
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,399
Speaker 1: While she was dying, Matilda signed a trust with two

761
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 1: of her cousins as executive executors, so the remainder of

762
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: her inherited property would pass on to her sons with

763
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:28,439
Speaker 1: Henry when they.

764
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 4: Were old enough.

765
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 1: She was basically her last act was like, my husband

766
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: cannot get what's left of my property, he will just

767
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:40,439
Speaker 1: waste it, being a dipshit smart that is smart, right, Yes,

768
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,319
Speaker 1: this does put Henry in a desperate state, though his

769
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 1: bills were come due and legally there was no one

770
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: he could pressure to sell her properties. So he remarried.

771
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: That's how he decides to get out of debt. He

772
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 1: marries somebody rich. Right here, here's a week, gon'll do.

773
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 2: Okay, let's depress up a little bit.

774
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 3: Okay, maybe so off with you to my heads got

775
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 3: chopped off, and uh does find us a new Dane.

776
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:12,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a what a respectable honorable man?

777
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:15,240
Speaker 4: So Leah, what a real one.

778
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, you simply have to give the man credit.

779
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 4: You looked up. Yeah, so yeah.

780
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: Lee remarries, using his cachet as a war hero to

781
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 1: win the hand of Anne Hill Carter. The Carters are

782
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: a wealthy planter family, and Anne's father tried to protect

783
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 1: her from Henry's or from Harry's well both. This is

784
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: fine profligacy by putting her inheritance into the equivalent of

785
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: a trust and I'm gonna quote from Robert E. Lee

786
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 1: a life here, a trust fund that was to remain

787
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,280
Speaker 1: securely in Anne's name, free from the claim demand, hindrance

788
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: or molestation of her husband, General Henry Lee, or his creditors.

789
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 1: Ann soon learned how well founded her father's reservations about

790
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: Harry Lee were. In the short space of a fortnite

791
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: recalled her cousin Mariah Farley. She awoke to a life

792
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: of misery, as every loose Carter penny she could beg

793
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: from her family was soon thrown away upon his debts

794
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: contracted previous to marriage. By seventeen ninety seven, Henry's legal

795
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: or financial situation was beyond repair, and he would spend

796
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: the next few years juggling debts and loans. But he

797
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: eventually loses the ability to keep up entirely, and he

798
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:21,319
Speaker 1: goes on the run, hiding from his creditors. It's during

799
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: this period of Henry's life when he is a broken,

800
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 1: failed shadow of himself, that his third son comes into

801
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: the world. Robert Edward Lee that's our boy, that's our well,

802
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: that's that's our subject.

803
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 4: That the subject.

804
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, yeah like that that origin sounds like I mean,

805
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 3: he's like, better call Saul.

806
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 4: He's such a piece of shit. It's so such a yeah, I.

807
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 3: Like looking for sugar Mama, Like yeah, like ed and

808
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 3: the sugar MoMA's daddy was like, uh, this nigga like this,

809
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 3: Y'll do yes and body Lee is like a goodie.

810
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 1: He's a good ee two shoes within an evil society.

811
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: So he's still doing bad stuff, but he has a

812
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 1: goody two shoes. When I found out about what a

813
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:07,959
Speaker 1: piece of shit his dad was like, oh thank god.

814
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 1: We really needed something fun to lead into this way.

815
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, we really did, because yeah, this is like this

816
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 3: history I had no idea about, and yeah I am.

817
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 2: It fills me with so much joy.

818
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 3: To just just how just how ain't shit that man was?

819
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:27,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's funny.

820
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 1: There's a Christmas movie that my mom always had us

821
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: watch that. Actually, I mean it's got some great stuff.

822
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:35,839
Speaker 1: It's got Bing Crosby and what's Danny Kay and at

823
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,720
Speaker 1: White Christmas And there's a line in there. The plot

824
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: is these guys were all in a unit together in

825
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 1: World War Two and then they become famous entertainers. They

826
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:46,839
Speaker 1: meet their their old commanding general and he's like sunk

827
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 1: all of his money into this resort in Vermont that

828
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: like is hemorrhaging money. And one of like one of

829
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: his his like workers compares him to light Horse Harry.

830
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 1: But so he's like light Horse Harry, but he's like

831
00:40:58,360 --> 00:40:59,359
Speaker 1: charging off into debt.

832
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 4: And I didn't really I.

833
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 1: Was like, oh, that was just a reference to the

834
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 1: fact that Lighthorse Harry was a piece of shit who

835
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: was like wasted all of his money on bad investments.

836
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 1: Good on you, White Christmas with the historical accuracy.

837
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 2: Dagger in there for you to go google later.

838
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: Funny funny so man Robert Edward Lee was born January nineteenth,

839
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:23,439
Speaker 1: eighteen oh seven, at Stratford Hall Plantation. The year after

840
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: Robert was born, Henry went to Debtor's prison for a year. Right, so,

841
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: Gunny Lee is one years old when his dad goes

842
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: to debtors prison, you better have my money today, And

843
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 1: it's basically he was he was tired of being on

844
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 1: the run and hiding. So he's like, look, if you

845
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:41,719
Speaker 1: put me in prison for a year, can I get

846
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: out of some of these debts and is left to

847
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 1: look after Henry's two sons from his first marriage and

848
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 1: the five children he'd left her with.

849
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're you're.

850
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,799
Speaker 1: I'm a big I'm a big separate checking accounts guy.

851
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 1: You know, Like I said, best to keep that out

852
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 1: of the.

853
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,760
Speaker 3: Last I've made fourteen years. She got her own account.

854
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 3: I got her own account, We got account the bills

855
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 3: come from. Don't buy argue over it what she's when

856
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 3: she if she if seventy two Amazon packages come to

857
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 3: my door, that wouldn't not If that's her account, she

858
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,280
Speaker 3: buy whatever she want. Not I judge her from buying

859
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 3: an Amazon you know what I'm saying. But the point

860
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 3: is you don't say it her money.

861
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 2: I was waiting for the shade. I saw it in

862
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:25,439
Speaker 2: her eyes.

863
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 4: She saw it in my eyes.

864
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:28,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, I don't know why you keep ordering

865
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 3: from that evil corporation, And she says, shut your whole ass,

866
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:34,760
Speaker 3: because my wife's a gangster.

867
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: So Bobby Lee eighteen oh seven, Stratford, Hell Plantation. Yeah,

868
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: and so you know, not long after Henry gets out

869
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 1: of prison, his oldest son from the first marriage that

870
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: he'd had to Matilda comes into his inheritance the property

871
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:51,760
Speaker 1: they're living on Stratford, and the way Gwelser depicts it,

872
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:55,280
Speaker 1: Henry's new wife is kind of Mary is uncomfortable living

873
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: under a roof that's not hers. So they put the

874
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: family financials into kind of order right to where they're

875
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:04,240
Speaker 1: not completely drowning. They sell off a bunch of stuff,

876
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: and then they moved to Alexandria. This is done out

877
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 1: of a degree of desperation. The family no longer has

878
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: a plantation house, nor could they afford one. They had

879
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:17,919
Speaker 1: also lost most of their enslaved people. During their last

880
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: days at Stratford, they probably had around thirty human beings

881
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: enslaved attending to their needs. By the time they moved

882
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: to Alexandria, they had sold all but six, three of

883
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: whom they hired out to make money to pay Harry's debts. So, which,

884
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: by the way, super f like, that's who's actually trying

885
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: to like, make up for his horrible financial decisions is

886
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 1: the people that they own. Not an uncommon situation with

887
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 1: the landed gentry. Here now, Harry blames his financial situation

888
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: on Thomas Jefferson, and in doing so, became the first

889
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 1: great American hero to blame the Democratic Party for his

890
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: own fuck ups.

891
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, wait, you got to connect that dot for me?

892
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, did he know the guy like, wait,

893
00:43:58,560 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 3: connect is nothing?

894
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 4: I mean I think they did.

895
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: But his argument is, basically, their financial policies are why

896
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 1: none of my investments worked out. No, that's not the case,

897
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 1: lighthorse area, you piece of shit fucking Demorats. Yeah, he

898
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 1: called the Democrats that party which has consummated the ruin

899
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: of the most glorious republic the sun ever shown on.

900
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 1: And now it's obvious that the move to Alexandria was

901
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:23,399
Speaker 1: a source of shame for Henry and probably the other

902
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:26,920
Speaker 1: men in his family. Yet Robert's not actually written by him.

903
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: Memoir brushes over this entirely, saying, in eighteen eleven, Henry

904
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: Lee moved with his family to Alexandria for the purpose

905
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: of educating his children. There's nothing Henry Lee was less

906
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: interested than educating his kids. He was barely there, hiding

907
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: from debt collectors.

908
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 2: Putting a buying a horse in Robert's name. Yeah is

909
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 2: this guy? Hey? This says the guy signing this doesn't

910
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 2: know his avc's yet.

911
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you get the feeling. This.

912
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: The fact that they have to move away from a

913
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 1: plantation to live in the city is a source of

914
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: enduring shame for the Lee family. I found a biography

915
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 1: written in the eighteen nineties by Fitzhugh Lee, one of

916
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:07,839
Speaker 1: Robert's descendants, that says, this is all it says about

917
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: the move. Robert was four years old when his father

918
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: removed the family to Alexandria. Why did they do that?

919
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: Was it deep financial failure?

920
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 4: In shame? Yeah?

921
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 1: Cool stuff. So Harry's next and last attempt to get

922
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 1: rich was to publish a memoir, one he actually wrote

923
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: while in jail. He hoped it would be a huge

924
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: hit and like restore the family finances and it was

925
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,280
Speaker 1: widely read. But Henry learned a lesson that every writer

926
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: eventually learns, which is that there's very little money in books.

927
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:39,799
Speaker 4: You are not George R. R. Martin bro It's not

928
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 4: gonna work.

929
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:43,319
Speaker 3: You got You better get your advance and get out

930
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:48,919
Speaker 3: because that's all you go seek. Yeah, relatable, Yes, he's

931
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 3: got man, I'm telling you man, this guy's like his

932
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:52,720
Speaker 3: seesaw is balancing alchemy.

933
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:55,800
Speaker 2: That's because that's real. That's real too.

934
00:45:57,560 --> 00:45:58,720
Speaker 4: You know what else is real?

935
00:45:59,360 --> 00:45:59,880
Speaker 3: Yes, I do.

936
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: The products and services that support this podcast all real.

937
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 1: None of them are a money laundering scheme for the

938
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: Sinaloa cartel. That's not what sponsors this podcast, you know,

939
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 1: So don't think about it too much. We're back. So

940
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: the Lieze are now in Alexandria. They wind up renting

941
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:27,359
Speaker 1: for a while this like two bedroom apartment basically, which

942
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:32,320
Speaker 1: is that's not great for a family of the landed aristocracy, right.

943
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 3: You had descended to somebody that like fought with the

944
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 3: norms and now an apartment.

945
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: There's an apartment. Now they move pretty quickly into a

946
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: large house that's owned by some of Anne's relatives, which

947
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: is why they're able to afford it white right, because

948
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:51,359
Speaker 1: they are broke. This is not an uncomfortable situation. Again,

949
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: they're still doing better than ninety nine percent of people.

950
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 1: But for Henry it's intolerable. During the War of eighteen twelve,

951
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: which he opposed, he took a job providing secure for

952
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 1: a federalist newspaper. This was more dangerous than it sounds,

953
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: because the Jeffersonians, who he'd roundly criticized in his book,

954
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 1: regularly attacked the editors. This blew up in late July

955
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 1: eighteen twelve after a series of attacks on the paper.

956
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: Lee recommended surrendering and letting a local militia protect them

957
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 1: in jail. This proved bad advice, as the mob just

958
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 1: burst through the jail, killed one of Henry's colleagues and

959
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:23,959
Speaker 1: slashed him.

960
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 4: With a sword. They tried to blind him by uring

961
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 4: hot candle wax in his eyes.

962
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:30,399
Speaker 1: Wax.

963
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:37,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, your yeah, listen, dude, Like it's important to remember. Okay,

964
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 3: it's it as ill timed as this might sound. Like,

965
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:50,360
Speaker 3: you know, we are collectively, as a species vastly less

966
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 3: violent than we were.

967
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, like led yeah.

968
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:55,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, don't get me wrong.

969
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 3: Violence has not been eradicate wayne fully evolved, yet obviously

970
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 3: points wildly across the whole spectrum of our world.

971
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:08,760
Speaker 2: Right now. However, they just sliced a man with a machete.

972
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 3: And airport hot like we.

973
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 1: Were a violent, violent man trying to blind him with

974
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 1: hot candle wax. That's creative, bad dog, Yeah, and it's funny.

975
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 1: Like his writing about this, he describes himself as so

976
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 1: covered in bruises that he looks like a black man, right,

977
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: Like that's how Henry Lee describes his injuries, which does

978
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: nicely evaporate my sympathy for him.

979
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 4: So there you go, so.

980
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 2: Like he's balancing like probably never mind.

981
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 1: I've never known a guy before who I thought like, yeah,

982
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:44,840
Speaker 1: maybe he should have been blinded by candle wax. But

983
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: maybe he should have been blinded by candlews.

984
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:48,880
Speaker 2: Yeah.

985
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 1: So Robert E. Lee was four again when the family

986
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: moves to Alexandria, and he's six when his father gets

987
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 1: injured by that mob. After getting injured, Henry makes the

988
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:01,640
Speaker 1: decision to abandon his family and move to the West Indies.

989
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 1: He's hoping, basically, he describes as like I'm hoping that

990
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 1: if I move to the West Indies, I'll recover him

991
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,400
Speaker 1: from my injuries, which like, bro, I don't know how

992
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: going to the tropics is going to help you with

993
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 1: getting stabbed.

994
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 4: I'm not.

995
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:17,719
Speaker 2: Too cold out here. Let's just go down to where

996
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 2: the weather is nice.

997
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 4: That doesn't and it's fine, it.

998
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 1: Says a lot about medicine of the day. That like

999
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 1: a doctor's like, yeah, that stab wound will get better

1000
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: if you move to the tropics.

1001
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:29,320
Speaker 4: That seems like the solution.

1002
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:34,959
Speaker 3: Listen, listen, hear me out, sun, humidity, coconuts.

1003
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does not work. He wanders around for five

1004
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 1: years mooching off of some friends from the war until

1005
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 1: he dies horribly when Robert E.

1006
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:45,320
Speaker 4: Lee is just eleven.

1007
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:48,879
Speaker 1: Now he's gonna get buried back at home. Lee will

1008
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: not visit his grave until he's a middle aged man,

1009
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: which should tell you something about like the degree of

1010
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: esteem in which he holds his father.

1011
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 4: What he say? Yeah, yeah.

1012
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:01,320
Speaker 1: Given all this, it probably will not surprise you to

1013
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:04,799
Speaker 1: learn that the future famous General Lee is a mama's boy.

1014
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 1: As fitz you Lee wrote, if he was early trained

1015
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 1: in the way he should go, his mother trained him.

1016
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: If he was always good, as his father wrote, she

1017
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 1: labored to keep him. So Lee's own memoirs say just

1018
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 1: this about his childhood. Person's are yet living who remember

1019
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: Robert Lee in those days of childhood, and who have

1020
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 1: an abiding recollection of his thoughtfulness of character, and of

1021
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:29,319
Speaker 1: his earnestness and the performance of every duty. So that

1022
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 1: is what you'll find from basically everybody. He is a

1023
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 1: really dutiful kid. He's very serious. He doesn't really have

1024
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: a childhood, right.

1025
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:41,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this I have found that for like yeah,

1026
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,760
Speaker 3: and it's probably true in like a lot of our lives,

1027
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 3: Like when you're when your parents are like absolute messes

1028
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 3: and just chaos, like for you to just have a

1029
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:55,879
Speaker 3: stable psyche, yeah, you you the children are usually square, yeah,

1030
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 3: because just like there's no there's no stability, so you

1031
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 3: have to like create your own stability by being as

1032
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 3: just square as possible, you know.

1033
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:07,480
Speaker 1: Because when I when I started getting into this, one

1034
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 1: thing that struck me as weird. Lee is a very

1035
00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: well documented man. For one thing, he grew up in

1036
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 1: a time when people were taking documentation. There's tons of

1037
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 1: letters from all of his family because there's social class,

1038
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:21,319
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who knew him and who

1039
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: talked about him, and there's almost no anecdotes about him

1040
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: as a kid. And usually when that's the case, it's

1041
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: because of something being covered up, But in this case.

1042
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 4: I think there's just he's he's he is the head.

1043
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: Of the family from the time he's eleven. His job

1044
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:38,760
Speaker 1: is managing the family. Businesses, being the man of the house.

1045
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 1: I don't think he has time to be anything but

1046
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 1: just like a little basically cleaning up his dad's mess, right,

1047
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:48,000
Speaker 1: that's his job starting at age eleven.

1048
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 3: When I was, when I was, when I was teaching,

1049
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 3: it sounds like I mean, obviously it's not the same.

1050
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:55,080
Speaker 3: But when I was teaching, Uh, there was there was

1051
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 3: this kid that used to like I mean, I taught

1052
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 3: freshman and like he was if he didn't if he

1053
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:04,240
Speaker 3: didn't drive a Cadillact to school at thirteen or fourteen

1054
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 3: years old, just driving, you know, he would be on

1055
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:11,359
Speaker 3: his bike. He'd show up like ten fifteen minutes late

1056
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 3: all the time, street dude, but like always had his work,

1057
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 3: super respectful. Hey miss petty, what I miss? Here's my homework,

1058
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 3: just like and I could not, for the life of

1059
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 3: me figure out like why this little hood dude was

1060
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 3: so mature and number one, like why are you driving

1061
00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:29,319
Speaker 3: a Cadillac at fourteen years old? Right?

1062
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 2: And yeah he was like pop was alcoholic.

1063
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 3: He had to learn how to drive to go pick

1064
00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 3: up his dad every night, you know, so he drove

1065
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 3: him home from like the bar, had to drop his

1066
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:41,439
Speaker 3: little brother off at school. You know, before he got

1067
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:44,840
Speaker 3: to school and he just had to be an adult already.

1068
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 3: So I'm like, but also live but he was just

1069
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 3: a hood kid. So he was like like it wasn't like,

1070
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:52,759
Speaker 3: you know, like don't fuck with him, Like he went

1071
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 3: the shits, But like eventually I just stopped marking him

1072
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 3: tardy because I'm like, well, you're.

1073
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:01,040
Speaker 4: You're adult, k You're doing stuff and you're doing.

1074
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:03,400
Speaker 1: Like you're adulting, bro, Like you're good, you know, And

1075
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:05,719
Speaker 1: that that is Robert E. Lee in a nutshell. His

1076
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 1: family's not like what we would call poor, right, they're

1077
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:10,920
Speaker 1: poor for rich people, but he is. He is the

1078
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 1: man of the house and in addition to like needing

1079
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 1: to fix his disastrous financial situation help his siblings, his

1080
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: mom is sick the whole time that he's he's a kid,

1081
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 1: so he is also he's also here live in nurse

1082
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: you know, and that's how he spends his childhood.

1083
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,319
Speaker 4: Most of what he will get, yeah, he.

1084
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, he's a kid, right, He's

1085
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 1: not able to choose to He hasn't like, he hasn't

1086
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,719
Speaker 1: done anything bad at this stage. He's a child, and

1087
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 1: most of what you get from his friends and family

1088
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:40,760
Speaker 1: is a mix of a lie. They will talk constantly

1089
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 1: about how handsome he is, right, which everybody does, so

1090
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:46,360
Speaker 1: I assume he actually was good looking, you know, for

1091
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: the time. But they also would say he's like weirdly

1092
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 1: weighed down with duty for a boy so young. Everyone

1093
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:54,880
Speaker 1: knows like it's peculiar how serious and dutiful he is,

1094
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:58,239
Speaker 1: and he's got, you know, a demanding childhood. He would

1095
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,040
Speaker 1: later describe himself in this period as by mother's outdoor

1096
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 1: agent and confidential messenger. Now one of the very rare

1097
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:07,200
Speaker 1: anecdotes we do get of him as a child comes

1098
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 1: from that memoir quote, the boy chance, during a vacation

1099
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 1: to find himself an invited guest in a house where

1100
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:16,239
Speaker 1: these undesirable customs I think they're talking about alcoholism were

1101
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: kept up. The host was a fascinating gentleman, possessed of

1102
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 1: all graces of mind and manner, yet while not dissipated,

1103
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: his mode of life was such as a shock to

1104
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:27,399
Speaker 1: the sternersons of morality of his youthful visitor. Robert made

1105
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 1: no comment on what he saw, but his unspoken rebuke

1106
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:32,880
Speaker 1: proved more efficacious than any words of reproach could have done.

1107
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: The night before his departure, his host came to his bedside,

1108
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 1: and an affecting language, sought to excuse himself for the

1109
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,840
Speaker 1: wild life into which he had fallen. He offered his

1110
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:42,799
Speaker 1: sorrow for the loss of those dearest to him as

1111
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 1: a reason for habits which he could not seek to defend,

1112
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,279
Speaker 1: And he impressively warned his young guests to beware of

1113
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:51,600
Speaker 1: similar habits, advised him to persist in his commendable course

1114
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:54,560
Speaker 1: of life, and earnestly promised that he would himself endeavor

1115
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 1: to reform, if but to render himself worthy of the

1116
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 1: respect and affection of so ubsteemable a care. And this

1117
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 1: is kind of why the memoir says Lee is a

1118
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: teetotaler his whole life. Right, He's probably not very much

1119
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: inclined to abuse of alcohol or other narcotics because people

1120
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 1: do have access to other narcotics.

1121
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:12,640
Speaker 4: Right.

1122
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 1: Opiate abuse is not uncommon in this period. People are

1123
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:19,319
Speaker 1: using nitrous oxide in this period of time creationally, which

1124
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:25,040
Speaker 1: I like, pre Revolutionary war. People are huffing nas fascinating shit. Yeah,

1125
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:27,360
Speaker 1: and this I think this, this seems to have an

1126
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:30,600
Speaker 1: impact on him, right. He's also his mom is extremely religious.

1127
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:34,080
Speaker 1: She is Mary Lee is the kind of religious that

1128
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: Christians in rural eighteen hundreds Virginia noted as being a

1129
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: little much right, so she is very serious about this. Yeah,

1130
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,719
Speaker 1: and his other her other son, Smith Lee, recalled that

1131
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 1: she lectured them to quote repel every evil, by which

1132
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:52,239
Speaker 1: she meant drugs and alcohol. The Lees are Episcopalian, which

1133
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 1: is like Catholicism with a worse set designer right. Ye,

1134
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:58,480
Speaker 1: he was well educated for the day, and his mother

1135
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: hired him as a two or higher, him a tutor,

1136
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:02,879
Speaker 1: telling him he'd regret it if he neglected to lay

1137
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:05,640
Speaker 1: in a store of knowledge now while he was young,

1138
00:56:06,040 --> 00:56:07,840
Speaker 1: which is an odd way to look at an education,

1139
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 1: but not necessarily a bad one, So there you go.

1140
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:13,640
Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty three, Robert announced to his family that

1141
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:16,360
Speaker 1: he wanted to attend West Point, which had become the

1142
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 1: nation's premier military academy. His oldest brother was at Harvard

1143
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:22,480
Speaker 1: and his second oldest brother was a navy man, so

1144
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:24,719
Speaker 1: it was surprising to his family that he chose to

1145
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 1: join the army and follow in his disgraced father's footsteps. Again,

1146
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 1: joining the army is like doing the thing his dad did,

1147
00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 1: and that does kind of like shock his mom a

1148
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 1: little bit because like, he does not like his dad.

1149
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:39,880
Speaker 1: But yeah, so this is the thing he decides to

1150
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: do and enrolls him in a preparatory school.

1151
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:43,399
Speaker 4: To get a you have.

1152
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:46,000
Speaker 1: To get a west Point. Now we think about it

1153
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 1: as like a school that teaches you how to be

1154
00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: like a soldier. In the general sense. It's an engineering

1155
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: school in this bone time. So he has to get

1156
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:57,239
Speaker 1: a serious math grounding, right in order to be able

1157
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 1: to compete at west Point. Now, despite the fact that

1158
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:02,040
Speaker 1: his mom puts in the effort to make sure he's

1159
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:04,879
Speaker 1: able to get this grounding, she does not want him

1160
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,840
Speaker 1: to go away to college. She wails, how can I

1161
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:10,759
Speaker 1: live without Robert? He has both son and daughter to me,

1162
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 1: which says a lot about the family relationship. I think

1163
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 1: the siblings, right, yeah, yeah, he's got a he's got

1164
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:21,480
Speaker 1: a sister, and he's got older brothers. Now, gaining admissions

1165
00:57:21,520 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 1: to West Point would be the only time in Robert's

1166
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:26,880
Speaker 1: life when the existence of his father is a positive.

1167
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:30,280
Speaker 1: And basically, and this is actually today, west Point still

1168
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 1: works this way, right that if you've got a family

1169
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 1: member who went or who was a successful officer in

1170
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:38,840
Speaker 1: the military, you get their other officers and whatnot. Who

1171
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 1: knew them to write you letters of recommendation, you know,

1172
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:43,959
Speaker 1: like that's that's how people often get into West Point today.

1173
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:46,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, somebody in that missions office saw that boy last name,

1174
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:46,960
Speaker 3: it was.

1175
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:51,400
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, oh shit, Oh I love the way he

1176
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:56,680
Speaker 1: cut people's heads.

1177
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:56,560
Speaker 2: Crazy, Yeah, he'd be cool.

1178
00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1179
00:57:57,120 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 1: Now, obviously I actually don't think and that like this

1180
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 1: is a agree if nepotism, But given the how much

1181
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:05,000
Speaker 1: shit his dad put him through, I don't think it's

1182
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:09,000
Speaker 1: unfair to like try to get something out of the relationship. Yeah,

1183
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 1: but it is interesting. In his memoir, his biographers try

1184
00:58:13,040 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 1: to pretend this didn't happen. They write the line no

1185
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:18,080
Speaker 1: one knew better than he that in a republic and

1186
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 1: in a great wall, a man's ancestry could not help him.

1187
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:24,200
Speaker 1: But that place in promotion depended on individual merit, which like, Noah,

1188
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 1: he does get into West Point because who his dad.

1189
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:31,320
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's less on him and more on

1190
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:33,760
Speaker 1: the start of the lost cause myth like he was

1191
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:34,960
Speaker 1: completely self picking.

1192
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:37,919
Speaker 4: Well yeah, entirely, no man.

1193
00:58:38,200 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, these people ever are and prop that's gonna be

1194
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:45,400
Speaker 1: part one for us. Again, not a lot of bastardry

1195
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 1: on Lee's side Today Part two, a lot of bastardy

1196
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:51,960
Speaker 1: from Roberty Lee. So don't worry, We're getting into it.

1197
00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 1: This one on a lot on his dad.

1198
00:58:54,200 --> 00:58:59,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, glorious, Yeah dad, did dad sound like he does?

1199
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 2: Sound like you know, Chuck from down the street. Just yeah,

1200
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:06,640
Speaker 2: just messy, like.

1201
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: He is such a modern kind of scumbag. Yes, pretty funny, Yes, exactly,

1202
00:59:12,520 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: it's so there. It is so modern.

1203
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he's selling you VCRs that ain't his Oh.

1204
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:22,840
Speaker 1: My god, this man would absolutely try to sell you

1205
00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 1: steaks out of the back.

1206
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:30,840
Speaker 4: Of a van, right, Bobby Lee, Bobby Right?

1207
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 1: So Jason, yeah, Pop, you got me pluggables to plugged?

1208
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:37,600
Speaker 1: Do you have a cast?

1209
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:40,480
Speaker 2: I Do I have a podcast?

1210
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:43,320
Speaker 3: That's uh yeah, man, that's kind of kind of gonna

1211
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:48,160
Speaker 3: be your like you're your primer for the uh the

1212
00:59:48,200 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 3: ship show. That is like our political spectrum right now,

1213
00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 3: politics for.

1214
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 2: Prop Man new season.

1215
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,360
Speaker 3: We got music with it and uh yeah man, it's

1216
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 3: like this year is no shortage of incredible things to

1217
01:00:02,000 --> 01:00:04,960
Speaker 3: talk about that can feel all over the place. So

1218
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:07,080
Speaker 3: we like really upped our game as far as like

1219
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 3: research development, Like yeah, we're really really put a foot

1220
01:00:10,720 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 3: on our gas this year with politics with Prop.

1221
01:00:12,520 --> 01:00:13,840
Speaker 2: So he's tapping with me.

1222
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, put your foot on the gas

1223
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 1: with Prop and do uh uh. I forgot the name

1224
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:22,919
Speaker 1: of that movie where the two women drive off drive

1225
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:24,920
Speaker 1: off the cliff together, but it's like nom in Louise,

1226
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: tell me and Louise, yeah, yeah, let's all do the

1227
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:29,120
Speaker 1: podcast movie.

1228
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:30,760
Speaker 2: Why did you not know that?

1229
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:34,000
Speaker 4: I don't remember most nicks.

1230
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:37,280
Speaker 3: I would plug Terraform, but like, I'm out of money,

1231
01:00:37,600 --> 01:00:40,800
Speaker 3: so there's no more coffee left, so I still got

1232
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:43,520
Speaker 3: to buy more coffee first, so like, but you could

1233
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:45,680
Speaker 3: buy like hoodies there, like I got, yeah, I got.

1234
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:47,520
Speaker 4: Murder hoodies, so prop can buy coffee.

1235
01:00:47,520 --> 01:00:51,160
Speaker 3: You could also plug Terrorform the book oh yeah, which

1236
01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 3: came from a book yeah, terror Form, the poetry book

1237
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 3: I forgot. Speaking of things that don't make you money,

1238
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 3: I put together a book called Terraform Building a Livable World.

1239
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 2: I think.

1240
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:06,000
Speaker 3: Sort of this is a rambling plug, but it's a

1241
01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:08,760
Speaker 3: plug for our network completely. Like I think one of

1242
01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:12,240
Speaker 3: the things that is unique about and I mean, if

1243
01:01:12,280 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 3: you listen to the show, you probably already know, but like,

1244
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:18,240
Speaker 3: what's unique about our sort of collective of shows is

1245
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:23,680
Speaker 3: it's equal parts how the world is awful and also

1246
01:01:23,840 --> 01:01:26,440
Speaker 3: the beauty of how it could be and people actually

1247
01:01:26,480 --> 01:01:28,920
Speaker 3: trying to make it better. So it's like it's both,

1248
01:01:28,960 --> 01:01:30,560
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So like terror form is

1249
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:32,919
Speaker 3: that too. It's like, man, it's building a livable world.

1250
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 3: And I think that's what like what we all share

1251
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:35,320
Speaker 3: in our network.

1252
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:38,800
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, that is going to do it for us

1253
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 1: for part one, check back in later this week where

1254
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 1: we will have part two.

1255
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:46,000
Speaker 4: Of the Bobby Lee story.

1256
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:51,439
Speaker 1: So until next time. I love some crit I love

1257
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:55,200
Speaker 1: a minority of you, But if you assume you're in that,

1258
01:01:55,880 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 1: then then maybe it'll make your day better.

1259
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:04,200
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1260
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:07,840
Speaker 4: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1261
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:11,200
Speaker 4: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1262
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:13,720
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.