Speaker 1: Media. What mourning my Carl Weathers. This is Behind the Bastards,
Speaker 1: a podcast where me and my friend Jason Petty aka
Speaker 1: Prop are huge fans of the recently deceased Carl Weathers
Speaker 1: prop Man exactly. Yeah, he was a fucking real one.
Speaker 1: What was your favorite Carl Weathers?
Speaker 2: You like you have.
Speaker 3: To like pick a decade, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like that's the hard part with him. You know that
Speaker 3: man had a fucking career because I mean obviously like
Speaker 3: Happy Gilmore. Yeah, absolutely, it's in the pantheon screen. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: like that's in the pantheon. Like you can't, Yeah, you
Speaker 3: can't pick a character, you know, just so important.
Speaker 1: I think Happy Gilmore it was like my favorite movie
Speaker 1: as a kid, Like we would paint Warhammer minies and
Speaker 1: watch it every I probably saw the movie two hundred
Speaker 1: times and yeah, he just and then fucking Predator too, and.
Speaker 3: Rocky Rocky Creditor like the big old like twenty inch
Speaker 3: pythons and like like looking huge, crazy dude.
Speaker 2: I mean, rest in peace are real?
Speaker 3: On this second day of Black History Month, matter of fact,
Speaker 3: happy Black History Month. Yes, and I'll trade if I
Speaker 3: could speak for the black delegation, Like I'll trade Tim
Speaker 3: Scott for a let's say simply Red.
Speaker 2: We're gonna call simply Red black for this month.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're gonna call him black cause like we're gonna
Speaker 3: call him black. Yeah, We're gonna we're gonna call him
Speaker 3: black for this month. Like that that white boy has
Speaker 3: some soul.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Okay, hold and that there's no way that man ain't black.
Speaker 1: We'll send out, we'll send out a letter. We'll send
Speaker 1: out send it to Manchester. You know who definitely isn't black.
Speaker 1: Prop Oh boy, Uh.
Speaker 3: Terrible, take hibout, bro take about I'm saying in four seasons,
Speaker 3: this is yeah, like this might be this this, this
Speaker 3: might be a top five top five transition.
Speaker 4: Yeah we are.
Speaker 1: We are doing finally the Robert E.
Speaker 4: Lee episodes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which, like you know, growing up in the South
Speaker 1: as I did, I'm a Texan boy, right. I think
Speaker 1: that people are broadly aware of that there were like
Speaker 1: three heroes who were like the canonical three male heroes
Speaker 1: because everybody loves Dolly Parton and Dolly's Dolly's Dollies gym,
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, But there were there were three men that
Speaker 1: were like the holy Trinity of like Southern masculinity. When
Speaker 1: I was a kid, there was Dale Earnhardt, Samuel Houston,
Speaker 1: and Robert E.
Speaker 3: Lee. Samuel who Samuel Houston, he's the founder, George Jackson.
Speaker 4: I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Was not prepared for I.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't call him like an arcana Southern masculinity though, And honestly,
Speaker 1: of those three, Dale Earnhardt is the only one who
Speaker 1: was actually a decent person. Right, that's brought people are
Speaker 1: broadly aware of that. Now, Robert E. Lee was a
Speaker 1: deep at least the kind of people who listened to
Speaker 1: this podcast, was not a great man, But there's still
Speaker 1: this kind of attitude that like, well, yeah, he was
Speaker 1: obviously fighting for an evil side, and so that says
Speaker 1: bad things about him. But he was a really good general.
Speaker 1: He was a great commander, and for visionist history, we
Speaker 1: will be talking about what he was good at and
Speaker 1: what he was bad at in these episodes, and we
Speaker 1: will also be talking about, in addition to his life,
Speaker 1: kind of the ways in which his life has been
Speaker 1: distorted and deranged by the kind of media that's come
Speaker 1: out in the century and a half since the.
Speaker 4: First Civil War.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and obviously you know you'll be doing an
Speaker 1: episode in our second week of these about the Lost
Speaker 1: Cause mythology and how that took off. I'm going to
Speaker 1: sprinkle a little bit of that in here, because, for
Speaker 1: one thing, Roberty Lee is kind of like on his own.
Speaker 1: He's not like Saddam Hussein. He's not threatening his high
Speaker 1: school teacher with a handgun to teach him how to
Speaker 1: read right. He's he is kind of the slight goodie
Speaker 1: two shoes. So in order to keep it interesting, we
Speaker 1: do need a kind of pepper in some of the
Speaker 1: deranged things people have said about him, since that really
Speaker 1: exaggerates his legacy. And a good example of this, a
Speaker 1: modern example of this is the book Who Was Robert E.
Speaker 3: Lee?
Speaker 1: By Bonnie Bader. Now you have seen books in the
Speaker 1: Who Was? Series? These are these kids books where everybody
Speaker 1: has a huge head, right, It'll be some yeah, like
Speaker 1: massive head.
Speaker 4: Yeah he had, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got one of those. And they're not from
Speaker 1: what I can tell, they're not on the whole super problematic.
Speaker 1: And I will say this one is not fully lost
Speaker 1: cause it's more that it like absorbs some Lost Cause
Speaker 1: stuff in the middle of like it's trying to be fair,
Speaker 1: but it yeah, it's almost impossible unless you're actually being
Speaker 1: a rigorous historian to not absorb some of that because
Speaker 1: there's so much. I'm not saying that to like forgive
Speaker 1: these people for doing it. But it's not like a
Speaker 1: it's not like a pro Confederacy book, right. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: cover of this is very funny that all of the
Speaker 1: the covers of these are unhindered.
Speaker 4: I don't know why they give It's like everybody does.
Speaker 1: Like the Golden Eye big head sheet for the people
Speaker 1: on these books, yuh yeah, like.
Speaker 3: When we got the Rosa Barks one for our daughter, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we had a fend of those. I will say this though,
Speaker 3: speaking to speaking to like you know, obviously like as
Speaker 3: far as like American bastards like Robert E. Lee's he's
Speaker 3: on our rushmore, Like yeah, you can't not take him
Speaker 3: off the Rushmore. But to add to his mystique, like
Speaker 3: I can even say me as who again, listeners are
Speaker 3: not I say it all the time. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: a child of a freedom fighter or you know, black militant.
Speaker 3: I'm the child of one. But kudos to him, because
Speaker 3: the first time I heard of the General Lee was
Speaker 3: Dukes of Hazard. Yeah, and I loved the show, and
Speaker 3: I had the little I had a little General Lee
Speaker 3: hot wheels with the Confederate flag on top and shout
Speaker 3: out my dad for not ruining my innocence, yeah, and
Speaker 3: letting me love this thing, having no idea. Are not
Speaker 3: connecting the dots, you know what I'm saying. Why was
Speaker 3: you know I'm saying, but like, I didn't connect the dots.
Speaker 3: I thought it was cool seeing the car jump over
Speaker 3: to you know, in the stupid eighties show they jump
Speaker 3: over the ditches and yeah, the show.
Speaker 1: I watched that show as a kid, right, And I
Speaker 1: watched the I watched the reboot movie, which wasn't great,
Speaker 1: and that probably I was like part of the Lost
Speaker 1: Cause stuff, right, Yeah, But these like who Was books
Speaker 1: that one of the things that's interesting about me is
Speaker 1: the kind of dichotomy between the bits of Lost Cause
Speaker 1: shit in there and the stuff that is trying to
Speaker 1: be like accurate history. Like, for example, there's this paragraph
Speaker 1: about the plantation system in the book that's like not bad, right,
Speaker 1: and this appears this this is like a little box
Speaker 1: that they put in when they say that, like the
Speaker 1: Lee family had a plantation, it's like a plantation life
Speaker 1: rich white people in the South lived on big farms
Speaker 1: called plantations, where crops such as cotton and tobacco were grown.
Speaker 1: Most of the workers on these plantations were slaves who
Speaker 1: were either born in Africa or descended from people taken
Speaker 1: from there. These slaves were forced to work for free
Speaker 1: from sun up to sundown. The slaves had no rights,
Speaker 1: and the plantation owners grew rich. And that's like, not bad.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good way to explain that to a kid.
Speaker 3: I think those are yeah, bullet points. That is correct,
Speaker 3: that's the important stuff. Yet, here's how the book summarizes
Speaker 3: Lee's decision to fight for the Confederacy and fight for slavery.
Speaker 3: When asked to lead Northern troops against the South, Robert E.
Speaker 3: Lee was even more torn. How could he go to
Speaker 3: war against his friends and family who lived in Virginia.
Speaker 3: It was a hard choice. Robert thought about loyalty, he
Speaker 3: thought about honor. In the end, Robert decided to fight
Speaker 3: against the country that his forefathers helped to create. For Robert,
Speaker 3: the most important thing was his family and his home, Virginia.
Speaker 3: And that is bullshit. And yeah, we will talk. We
Speaker 3: will be in the episode where we get to this.
Speaker 3: We will talk more about that, but like, just as
Speaker 3: a quick aside, he had multiple family members who fought
Speaker 3: for the union, So like, no, it wasn't just a.
Speaker 1: Matter of not wanting to fight his family, right, not
Speaker 1: at all, because he did. He objectively did.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That said, this is a good example of like the
Speaker 1: milder and kind of the more modern side of the
Speaker 1: pro lead spectrum.
Speaker 4: Right, this is a.
Speaker 1: Casual absorption of the of the lost Cause narratives as
Speaker 1: opposed to a dedicated one. And I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: to kind of look at that in addition to somebody
Speaker 1: older and harder stuff.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I think I'm gonna, like, I'll when we
Speaker 3: do the lost Cause thing, I'll probably hit this point hard.
Speaker 3: But I think it's important too because it keeps coming
Speaker 3: back like that, the difference between and the importance of
Speaker 3: the difference between history and memory.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like and.
Speaker 3: That memory is really more about the future and history
Speaker 3: is more about the past, because I like, memory is malleable,
Speaker 3: Like you can shape that memory shape's identity. It forms culture,
Speaker 3: it you know what I'm saying. It, It creates narrative.
Speaker 3: That's what memory does. Whereas history is the factual truth
Speaker 3: of what happened, which for most of us, even now,
Speaker 3: for most of us is rarely The point is like
Speaker 3: what actually happened. It's our memory of what happened, and
Speaker 3: how that shapes how I view the world world now.
Speaker 3: And I think that he's a perfect example of that
Speaker 3: in choosing to remember him a certain way.
Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting. I think that that that dichotomy
Speaker 1: between like reality and memory is especially harsh when it
Speaker 1: comes to war. And I can think of a modern
Speaker 1: example this from my own life. I have a couple
Speaker 1: of friends who served in a marine unit in the
Speaker 1: early invasion of Iraq, and I've gotten to spend some
Speaker 1: time both with them and some o their like like
Speaker 1: gatherings of their old unit. And one of the interesting
Speaker 1: things is hearing different people tell stories about the same
Speaker 1: event and then talking to others about them be like,
Speaker 1: that is not what happened. That is apps and they
Speaker 1: were all there right like that, and they have some
Speaker 1: people have convinced themselves of and who knows how much
Speaker 1: of it is like wanting to believe that you did
Speaker 1: better than you did. Who knows how much of it
Speaker 1: is just honestly like it's a chaotic situation, like your
Speaker 1: memory gets fucked up. Trauma fucks up memory. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's super malleable. So when you get to the
Speaker 1: history of warfare, right, Like, just even just because something
Speaker 1: is an eyewitness account doesn't mean it's fucking true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just the reality of the situation. But to get
Speaker 1: to the truth of who Robert E. Lee was and
Speaker 1: why he did what he did, we have to start
Speaker 1: a lot further back than his own life, back in fact,
Speaker 1: to the earliest Les in the historical record. Now, the
Speaker 1: precise reality of his genealogy pasted a certain point is
Speaker 1: up for questioning, right, given the state of record keeping. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should interpret what I'm saying is not like this
Speaker 1: is the objective genealogical truth, but this is the family
Speaker 1: lore that he was raised with, Right, So this was
Speaker 1: the truth for him, which is what matters for how
Speaker 1: his background affected him more than the reality of it, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the family lore of the Lees traces their line
Speaker 1: back to the Norman conquest of England. The founder of
Speaker 1: the family, according to legend, was Lncelot Lee from l Dune, France.
Speaker 1: He marched into England with William the Conqueror and earned
Speaker 1: a name for himself in the Battle of Hastings in
Speaker 1: ten sixty six. Right that that is the origin of
Speaker 1: the Lee family and family lore.
Speaker 3: Right, wow, as they know it. That like they formed
Speaker 3: modern England. Yes, yes, that's wow, that's quite and also
Speaker 3: claim from the beginning military men and aristocratic military men.
Speaker 3: Right that is that is a high social status. And
Speaker 3: his descendants have continued up to the present day. There
Speaker 3: have been les in modern wars, right, descendants of his
Speaker 3: family and serving at a pretty high rate. So that
Speaker 3: is I think probably a mix of both the weight
Speaker 3: of legacy and just like yes, some people are naturally
Speaker 3: inclined to be warriors, right, Like that's just a reality
Speaker 3: of history, you know. Yeah, like if all of your
Speaker 3: ancestors served in various militaries, it probably means like you're
Speaker 3: drawn to that kind of thing inherently. Yeah, like yeah,
Speaker 3: a good bit of like nature and nurture, like you know,
Speaker 3: that's just like I said, how this is this is
Speaker 3: how we form identity. This is what the men in
Speaker 3: our family do they yes, yes, they are violent and
Speaker 3: this is this is a consistent thing for the LEAs
Speaker 3: generations after Hastings and eleven ninety two, his ancestor Lional
Speaker 3: Lee was a cavalryman in the Third Crusade, which.
Speaker 4: Sh ended well, I think right.
Speaker 1: One of the things about the Lee is that, firstly,
Speaker 1: who picked the Norman side is like the best of
Speaker 1: them at deciding what side.
Speaker 3: They're pretty much yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe two maybe two.
Speaker 4: Well, well we'll talk about it the other world. Yeah.
Speaker 3: OK.
Speaker 1: Centuries of service though to the crown and expanding wealth
Speaker 1: eventually kind of culminates in Sir Henry Lee. And he
Speaker 1: is a Knight of the Garter under Queen Elizabeth. But
Speaker 1: he's also a young son, so he's not going to
Speaker 1: inherit any of the family money. If you know anything
Speaker 1: about the colonization of the Americas, a lot of it
Speaker 1: was done by like second third fourth, a lot of
Speaker 1: like the leadership right would have been these these second third, fourth,
Speaker 1: fifth whatever sons of wealthy families who like, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get anything unless I go take part in this. Right,
Speaker 1: my family name can secure me a position, but like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to.
Speaker 4: Inherit, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's what Sir Henry Lee does, and that's
Speaker 1: why he winds up moving to America to be the
Speaker 1: Colonial Secretary of the Virginia Colony under Governor William Berkeley.
Speaker 4: One of my.
Speaker 1: Sources for this is the very dishonestly named memoir of
Speaker 1: Robert E. Lee, which is like it's build as his
Speaker 1: autobiography that he never finished, so like other people put
Speaker 1: it together based on interviews and notes, it's a biography.
Speaker 1: It's a very cloying positive biography. But they call it
Speaker 1: a memoir, which should let you know how reputable it is.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting how it describes some things. And this
Speaker 1: is how it describes Sir Henry Lee, the first Americanly
Speaker 1: he was possessed of a handsome person, fine talents, and
Speaker 1: popular manners, and by these qualities was enabled to secure
Speaker 1: influence over the colonists. Now, when I say influence, what
Speaker 1: that means is like the Virginia Colony is a corporate monopoly, right,
Speaker 1: it is a corporation, and it is it is a
Speaker 1: dangerous thing, like going there, you don't have a high
Speaker 1: odds of surviving. About sixty five percent of immigrants to
Speaker 1: the colony in the period that he came over died
Speaker 1: soon after moving there, So this is a dangerous gig.
Speaker 3: I'd also say too, like you know, to interrupt your
Speaker 3: real quick is like, yeah, the the like telling of
Speaker 3: it's it's man, it's just it keeps coming up. But
Speaker 3: like the telling of even just the founding of America
Speaker 3: that these it was these like lofty ideas of these
Speaker 3: like extremely pious people searching for freedom to practice their
Speaker 3: faith freely. Is like it's like, well, that's one way
Speaker 3: to tell it, you know.
Speaker 2: Another way to.
Speaker 3: Tell it is kind of what was the majority of it,
Speaker 3: which was like you said, it's like people that ain't
Speaker 3: gonna get no inheritance, why I'm gonna go try to
Speaker 3: get some land and we're gonna go make some money.
Speaker 3: This was a financial move for the vast majority of
Speaker 3: people that came over here. It was a money move.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like that's one group of and according to
Speaker 3: the rest of the the rest of the year, like
Speaker 3: the colonists coming from from Britain, like the pears Is
Speaker 3: were weirdos, Like yeah, like y'all are y'all are religious weirdos?
Speaker 3: Like we are here trying to get this bread.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a fight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's like you said.
Speaker 3: Virginia was like yeah, no, We're like we try to
Speaker 3: get this bread, like that's what we're here for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And that's what Dicky Lee is there for, right,
Speaker 1: And he does pretty well in this position. He's able
Speaker 1: to buy up huge tracts of land, which he works
Speaker 1: with enslaved people. By his death in sixteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: he presided over an empire for about sixteen thousand acres
Speaker 1: in the northern Neck of Virginia. And this Lee is
Speaker 1: the very first in his family line to serve during
Speaker 1: a civil war, right, this is the English Civil War.
Speaker 1: This is Cromwell versus the cavaliers. I think they're known
Speaker 1: as right and obviously Cromwell wins. Unfortunately, one of we'll
Speaker 1: be doing him. He's one of the very worst people
Speaker 1: who ever lived. And kind of how this Lee makes
Speaker 1: his name very differently from the last Roberty Lee, right,
Speaker 1: who picks a side right away. This Lee's job, his
Speaker 1: influence over the colonists, is to stop them from picking
Speaker 1: a side until it's over. Basically, just like fucking we're
Speaker 1: sitting there, we are about making money. We don't need
Speaker 1: to get picking a sign we're not going to help
Speaker 1: us and tell and then as soon as it becomes
Speaker 1: clear Cromwell's winning, he's basically like, yeah, we thought you
Speaker 1: were you were the tits this whole time, bro, congrats,
Speaker 1: you know. And in return Cromwell didn't kill everybody, which
Speaker 1: was his his general move right. So when the war ends,
Speaker 1: Lee had to like he had acquired this land during
Speaker 1: the English Civil War, but like he hadn't been able
Speaker 1: to actually like lock it in as a legal purchase
Speaker 1: because you couldn't do that while the war was going on.
Speaker 1: So after the war, he and his descendants, in order
Speaker 1: to basically lock in their inheritance have to make friends,
Speaker 1: make themselves into the patsies of the most powerful man
Speaker 1: in the area or powerful family in the area, the Fairfaxes.
Speaker 1: And they basically do this by becoming their tax collectors.
Speaker 4: Right. That's the Lees.
Speaker 1: Are like musclemen for the biggest guy in the Virginia
Speaker 1: planter aristocracy.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know that they become in the generations
Speaker 1: after Dickie Lee, they become like one of the biggest
Speaker 1: families in terms of like wealth in the area. There
Speaker 1: are about seven thousand tax paying white citizens in the neck.
Speaker 1: That means men, right, we're saying men, there's more white
Speaker 1: people than that. By the late seventeen hundreds, and basically
Speaker 1: none of them owned significant land. Only one percent had
Speaker 1: more than three hundred acres. So the Lees are part
Speaker 1: of that one percent. Like most yeah, very rich, and
Speaker 1: like most generationally wealthy families, the Lees are kind of
Speaker 1: full of themselves.
Speaker 4: You can see some.
Speaker 1: Of this from the fact that our Robert's grandfather, his
Speaker 1: thirty five hundred acre estate is named Lee's Sylvania.
Speaker 4: Oh they love there's a good bit.
Speaker 1: Actually there's seriously, that's like the lamest thing I've ever heard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my god, there's that movie, that musical seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 1: I haven't watched it since I was a kid, but
Speaker 1: it stars it stars mister Feene from a.
Speaker 4: World to My high teacher made us watch it.
Speaker 1: Yep, ye one of the I'm sure that movie's got
Speaker 1: some problematic things, but one thing it does get accurate
Speaker 1: is it it portrays Robert E. Lee's dad in this
Speaker 1: and he's like naming everything after he has a whole
Speaker 1: song where like everything is Lee, and that does seem
Speaker 1: to be the family's thing, right, It's like we are
Speaker 1: obsessed with ourselves.
Speaker 2: That's hilarious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now that said Robert's father, who's going to be
Speaker 1: Henry Lee is not. He's again kind of like their
Speaker 1: first ancestor in the Americas. He's not one of the
Speaker 1: wealthy Lees. Like his family is wealthy, but he's not
Speaker 1: going to get a bunch of money on his own
Speaker 1: because of I think just his position, Like he doesn't
Speaker 1: get you can tell this. He doesn't get sent to
Speaker 1: England to be educated like his cousins in Stratford. The
Speaker 1: Stratford Les send their kids to England to be educated,
Speaker 1: but Robert E. Lee's dad doesn't get that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're.
Speaker 3: Clearly we're talking like patrilineal, we're talking dad side of
Speaker 3: the family.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's again, he's wealthy for normal people's standards, but
Speaker 1: from the standards of the aristocracy, Robert E. Lee's dad
Speaker 1: on his own isn't going to get the big payday
Speaker 1: right now. The Lees put a lot of stock in
Speaker 1: being farmers. That is how they identify and it is
Speaker 1: important to note that when rich white people in this
Speaker 1: period talk about being farmers, they are not doing any
Speaker 1: real far out right no, absolutely not. And one of
Speaker 1: the major sources for this episode is an excellent biography
Speaker 1: of Lee by Alan Guelzo, And I'm going to read
Speaker 1: a quote from that now talking about the degree to
Speaker 1: which these people were farmers, and it's talking about Lee's
Speaker 1: family and his cousins. The Lees, Taylo's, and Carters never
Speaker 1: owned fewer than fifty slaves each across the decades of
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century. While Robert Carter owned three hundred and
Speaker 1: forty five slaves, John Taylo won seventy three, and George
Speaker 1: Turberville sixty eight. Thomas Lee had, at varying times, owned
Speaker 1: between sixty and one hundred slaves at Stratford and his
Speaker 1: late ast seventeen eighty two. Eighty three slaves worked for
Speaker 1: Thomas Lee's successors there, but these grandees were not necessarily
Speaker 1: prospering on their land. Although Virginians had made early fortunes
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century through tobacco, the demand for Indian
Speaker 1: weed declined throughout the eighteenth century, as had the nutrients
Speaker 1: in the soil of the Neck that supported it. Few
Speaker 1: people in England Como played Richard Henry Lee in the
Speaker 1: seventeen sixties, understood how much labor is required out on
Speaker 1: the Virginian estate and how pole the produce. Interestingly, the
Speaker 1: great plantations turned to growing wheat fodder and pork for
Speaker 1: export to the West Indies, where they could be fed
Speaker 1: to the slave and animal populations of the sugar islands,
Speaker 1: whose vastly wealthier owners declined to waste arable sugar lands
Speaker 1: on growing food. So that is what that is what
Speaker 1: the Lee family farming goes towards, is to feed slave
Speaker 1: plantations growing sugar cheaply, right, that is that is where
Speaker 1: their family money comes from.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So like I.
Speaker 3: Did a quick little Google starts going and make sure
Speaker 3: I got the numbers right. Yeah, like just to understand
Speaker 3: like the economy of the time. I feel like, you know,
Speaker 3: with anything, the further away from us, like timeline wise,
Speaker 3: the more like Narnia it becomes to us like we
Speaker 3: don't really understand like one, how recent it was, into
Speaker 3: like the connections of it. So like you just say,
Speaker 3: somebody had three hundred and eighty five slaves, like and
Speaker 3: a slave at the time to purchase a slave was
Speaker 3: about like one hundred and fifty hundred and sixty dollars,
Speaker 3: and if you adjust that to like inflation, like you
Speaker 3: could it could be like like three two hundred dollars
Speaker 3: a person like that to purchase you know, and obviously
Speaker 3: you're not paying for the labor, but to have so
Speaker 3: to have a workforce of three hundred people want to
Speaker 3: have the land acreage to even if you're putting them
Speaker 3: in slave shacks, you stuf to house them, they're still
Speaker 3: in a slave shack. Yeah, and they're still functioning on
Speaker 3: your land like it is a It is a lot
Speaker 3: of money, and you're generating a lot of wealth.
Speaker 2: And like you.
Speaker 3: Said, it's like for for any of their lifestyle to exist,
Speaker 3: which I'm fast forwarding but like to get to the
Speaker 3: lost costs shit, but like all of the whole Southern
Speaker 3: gentlemen Southern gentail shit, clearly means they're not working, like
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, And your whole lifestyle only
Speaker 3: works if you got enough money to support this type
Speaker 3: of labor, to do the labor that generates the money
Speaker 3: to live the lifestyle you live. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I also I also want to note something, which
Speaker 1: is that like you talk about like it's cost about
Speaker 1: like thirty five hundred bucks apiece something like that for
Speaker 1: each of these enslaved people, even that kind of understates
Speaker 1: how expensive this isn't how rare it is, right, because
Speaker 1: not just like that makes it seem like, well, a
Speaker 1: middle class person might be able to have like slaves
Speaker 1: working their land, which wasn't really the case often because
Speaker 1: like most people just don't have money. People are going
Speaker 1: to have a whiskey rebellion right after the US is independent,
Speaker 1: And it's part of the whisky rebellion is that like
Speaker 1: whiskey is currency because people just don't have money, you know,
Speaker 1: like we're poor White people do not actually have money
Speaker 1: in this period. Yeah, so like the people who have
Speaker 1: slaves are so far above the norm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because like you said, like there isn't like this
Speaker 3: is pre industrial revolution, Like there's no you don't go
Speaker 3: to the office to work and you get a paycheck. No,
Speaker 3: you grow your food right and you take care of
Speaker 3: your family and you hopefully chop down some timber and
Speaker 3: sell it at the corner. But there's no jobs for
Speaker 3: you to be able, like you said, to have a
Speaker 3: middle class thing, like I'll just save up one hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty, I'll save up three k. It take like
Speaker 3: two months. Yeah, no, you have to have a job
Speaker 3: for that, like there is no jobs.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And now and again we also state like these people
Speaker 1: are rich, but rich means a different thing. Because most
Speaker 1: of them are really bad at running these plantations, especially
Speaker 1: after a couple of generations. So they're rich in land
Speaker 1: enrich in the number of enslaved people they have, but
Speaker 1: they are also generally cash poor. Part of keeping up
Speaker 1: socially in the culture of rich plantation owners is going
Speaker 1: horribly into debt. And this is a holdover. This is
Speaker 1: something they inherit from the English aristocracy.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: You can't get be given money as an aristocrat, that's dishonorable.
Speaker 1: But you can take loans often from other aristocrats and
Speaker 1: the like. And this is what all of these big families,
Speaker 1: including the Leaves, would do to maintain these big, palatial,
Speaker 1: beautiful manners that are such a part of this imagined
Speaker 1: like southern heritage. All of this is taken on with debt. Right,
Speaker 1: this is like such a thing. There's this Anglican parson,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Boucher, who lives in the Neck for a while
Speaker 1: and preaches there, and he later said of his time there,
Speaker 1: I can hardly remember a time when I did not
Speaker 1: owe sums larger than my credit might seem worth. All
Speaker 1: I have to offer and vindication of it is that
Speaker 1: determined as always to raise myself in the world. I
Speaker 1: had not the patience to wait for the slow savings
Speaker 1: of a humble station, and I fancied I could get
Speaker 1: into a hire only by being taken notice of by
Speaker 1: people of condition, which was not to be done without
Speaker 1: my making a certain appearance.
Speaker 4: So all of these.
Speaker 1: People, no matter how wealthy they are on paper, most
Speaker 1: of them are like desperately in debt. And they're in
Speaker 1: debt purely because they're trying to keep up with each other.
Speaker 1: They're trying to like it's all about image. Like the
Speaker 1: degree to which this is shallow and irresponsible and always
Speaker 1: based on a house of cars words is not discussed
Speaker 1: enough when we talk about the self exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that that and that and that legacy of like,
Speaker 3: so let's take our favorite person, Elon if he gets Yeah,
Speaker 3: this guy gets a contract from NASA to be like, hey,
Speaker 3: we want to build want you to build our next
Speaker 3: four spaceships, and it's like okay, dope, Uh, it's gonna
Speaker 3: cost me seven billion dollars to build these ships. He
Speaker 3: doesn't just go to the bank and swipe his card
Speaker 3: like he he doesn't have seven billion dollars. He goes
Speaker 3: to someone else and says, hey, I got this po
Speaker 3: I got this purchase order for these things, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna make this much money. Will you give me the money.
Speaker 2: To make this?
Speaker 3: But he ain't got it. Like I can't stress this enough.
Speaker 3: They don't have the money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I it's it's important to note that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is all going to be important also for
Speaker 1: just understanding what happens to rob its father and how
Speaker 1: it influences the man he's going to become. And Robert E.
Speaker 1: Lee's daddy was Richard Henry Lee the third. He graduates
Speaker 1: from law school in seventeen seventy three, but as you
Speaker 1: can guess from the time, he's kind of diverted from
Speaker 1: serving as a lawyer by the outbreak of what will
Speaker 1: become the American Revolution. Henry is a hot headed young man, and,
Speaker 1: like his ancestor, insecure about being born without the expectation
Speaker 1: of a great inheritance. He saw in war with England
Speaker 1: an opportunity to make himself into a great man, like
Speaker 1: his ancestor had done after the Norman Conquest. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: Robert here, quick correction. I misidentified in the original edit
Speaker 1: of this Richard Henry Lee as Robert E. Lee's father.
Speaker 1: Henry Lee the third was Roberty Lee's father. Sorry, that
Speaker 1: was something I flagged during editing and then forgot to
Speaker 1: tell to the editor, So this one's all on me anyway.
Speaker 4: Robert E.
Speaker 1: Lee's dad was Henry Lee the third, and to his credit,
Speaker 1: Richard Henry Lee is not just talk. He joins the army.
Speaker 1: He becomes a captain in the dragoons, which is like
Speaker 1: a mountain infantryman, and is an excellent soldier. That is
Speaker 1: one thing you have to give the man. The LEAs
Speaker 1: are all as foot soldiers, as grunts. Really, even Robert E.
Speaker 1: Lee is a really good, like lower level officer. Like
Speaker 1: when we talk about him being incompetent, it's as a
Speaker 1: commanding general. But like, they are all good at normal
Speaker 1: soldierly jobs. And Henry shows his skill particularly as a scout.
Speaker 1: He is a small unit commander. He's basically an early
Speaker 1: Special Forces guy. Right, He's leading these yeah yeah, his
Speaker 1: dad yeah, okay, yeah. He's leading these small units of scouts,
Speaker 1: often doing ambushes and the like on small British units
Speaker 1: supply depots. And he kind of gets a reputation for
Speaker 1: this almost suicidal disregard for his own safety. He earns
Speaker 1: the attention of George Washington after he takes a ten
Speaker 1: man unit out and there they are ambushed by two
Speaker 1: hundred British cavalry and somehow fight off the ambush. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's good at he's good at fighting, right, and Washington
Speaker 1: is kind of like, well, shit, this guy needs to
Speaker 1: be in myanner's circle. Henry Lee earns the nickname Lighthorse Harry,
Speaker 1: and in seventeen seventy nine he achieves one of his
Speaker 1: greatest successes, marching a small unit of men thirty miles
Speaker 1: in the driving rain to attack a much larger British garrison.
Speaker 1: Armed only with bayonets, they secure the element of surprise
Speaker 1: and take one hundred and fifty eight men prisoners. Congress
Speaker 1: minted him a special Gold Medal. This is an extremely
Speaker 1: rare decoration for the period. There's like seven of them
Speaker 1: given during the war. And then he sent South to
Speaker 1: fight alongside Nathaniel Green and he basically his unit is
Speaker 1: like the eyes of the Southern Revolutionary Army. Right, the
Speaker 1: Southern colonies had been occupied by British forces in Green
Speaker 1: and Lee carried out a successful campaign to retake them.
Speaker 1: Lighthorse Harry played a crucial role here cutting off supply lines,
Speaker 1: raiding depots, and forward bases. Now, he's a good soldier,
Speaker 1: but he is not a good person. He is not
Speaker 1: overly concerned with the niceties of wartime ethics. From an
Speaker 1: article in the Gettysburg Compiler quote. During the war, he
Speaker 1: was known for his brutal tactics. In seventeen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: he assisted General Anthony Wayne in capturing a fort at
Speaker 1: Stony Point, New York, where he caught three deserters, one
Speaker 1: of which he ordered to be hanged and decapitated. He
Speaker 1: then sent the deserters decapitated head to Washington. He also
Speaker 1: interrogated a loyalist prisoner in North Carolina by pressing a
Speaker 1: red hot shovel to his feet to get information out
Speaker 1: of him. So this guy kills people. He puts heads
Speaker 1: on on like pikes and shit, he's torturing prisoners. He's
Speaker 1: not a nice man. Dude's aged with yes, yes today.
Speaker 1: So despite these war crimes, Lee ends the war as
Speaker 1: one of the USA's first great military heroes. On the
Speaker 1: strength of this, He's elected to the Continental Congress in
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty five, and he partakes in Virginia's Constitutional Convention
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty seven, where he plays a crucial role
Speaker 1: in talking his neighbors in Virginia into ratifying the constitution.
Speaker 4: He becomes governor.
Speaker 3: I think it's a good thing to stop. And you
Speaker 3: said he became governor. Yes, you said, the guy that
Speaker 3: like decapitated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh he loves he loves that shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then sent heads in a bag was a
Speaker 3: part of the constitutional convintion.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, governor, Like, yeah, the.
Speaker 3: Old baghead, old old baghead, right, I like you better
Speaker 3: put him on there, because you don't want to piss
Speaker 3: him off.
Speaker 1: You know, who doesn't cut the heads off of prisoners
Speaker 1: and stick them on pikes? Oh?
Speaker 2: Man, I mean I so do hope that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope our sponsors don't do that, although if
Speaker 1: they do, maybe they maybe those prisoners had it coming,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, if they do, I just want them.
Speaker 1: If they do, I just want you to know that
Speaker 1: we had politics. Love everything, y'all.
Speaker 3: Sell.
Speaker 2: We believe in everything you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, great, this is good.
Speaker 4: And we're back.
Speaker 1: So that's a pretty full resume for Lighthorse Harry. But
Speaker 1: we're just actually getting started on this guy. Because after
Speaker 1: the war ends, his life veers very quickly from like
Speaker 1: military hero to hilarious failure. And this is because he's
Speaker 1: one of these guys. You get these not uncommonly that
Speaker 1: are like they're great in war, they're really good soldiers
Speaker 1: at least in terms of their effectiveness in combat, but
Speaker 1: outside of war, they just are completely useless. Now, there
Speaker 1: were always some signs of the man's weaknesses. Obviously he
Speaker 1: took too many risks. He actually that big raid he
Speaker 1: carried out that he won an award for he got
Speaker 1: court martialed for it too, because some people in his
Speaker 1: command were like, yeah, it worked, but he risked a
Speaker 1: bunch of men's lives on what shouldn't have worked, Like
Speaker 1: this was we shouldn't We should not award people for
Speaker 1: being this reckless. In seventeen eighty two, Lee resigns his
Speaker 1: commission in the Continental Army because he's angry that he's unappreciated.
Speaker 1: And again, this man got a gold medal awarded to
Speaker 1: seven dudes total in the entire war that they made
Speaker 1: he custom made gold medal. He's not really unappreciated. I
Speaker 1: think what it is reading between the lines, he's frustrated
Speaker 1: that he's not George Washington like he loves Washington. They're
Speaker 1: close buddies, and like Washington's his patron kind of you
Speaker 1: get the feeling he's like, why does Washington get to
Speaker 1: be the father of the country and not me?
Speaker 4: I was a really good soldier, y'all? Yeah, exactly, shit man,
Speaker 4: And you get teeth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this insecurity, this is going to drive
Speaker 1: the Washington insecurity is going to drive Roberty Lee iseth No,
Speaker 1: you are no.
Speaker 4: They sure weren't, no c.
Speaker 1: But this insecurity is going to drive Henry Lee as well.
Speaker 1: So Washington, for his part, consideredly a reliable officer and
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to make him feel appreciated and also
Speaker 1: betray the spirit of the revolution. At the same time,
Speaker 1: in seventeen ninety four, a bunch of Pennsylvania farmers started
Speaker 1: protesting against attacks on whiskey, which was their primary form
Speaker 1: of currency, despite the fact that their grievances absolutely mirrored
Speaker 1: the ones that had sparked the revolution. Washington, now that
Speaker 1: he's in charge of a country, sends the army in
Speaker 1: to crack down this is the Whiskey rebellion, and Henry
Speaker 1: Lee is the guy who's going to command that army. Now, well,
Speaker 1: actual rebellion itself had a few clashes and a small
Speaker 1: number of deaths. Harry's not involved in that. By the
Speaker 1: time he gets there with the army, he's basically there
Speaker 1: to swing the nation's newly tombescent dick around until everybody
Speaker 1: goes home. You know, he scares them with an army.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: That is the end of his military career. And now
Speaker 1: that he had earned a position of what he saw
Speaker 1: would be everlasting respect and fame in the heart of
Speaker 1: the new nation, he sat down to accomplish the true
Speaker 1: goal of any ambitious man, making a bunch of fucking money. Now,
Speaker 1: unfortunately he's terrible at this. He knows nothing of farming,
Speaker 1: he knows nothing of business, so his attempts to get
Speaker 1: rich to evolve into a series of incompetent get rich
Speaker 1: quick schemes. These seem to have been inspired in part
Speaker 1: by the advice of George Washington. In letters, Washington warned
Speaker 1: Henry that investments in such hazardous and perishable articles as negroes, stock,
Speaker 1: and chattels were prone to be swept off by innumerable disasters. Thus,
Speaker 1: an enterprising man with very little money should invest in
Speaker 1: the rich backlands in the new settlements and wait patiently
Speaker 1: for them to appreciate. So that's yeah, pretty bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't buy Washington.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't buyo slaves man. It's gonna go out of style.
Speaker 3: Man, it's just too much work homeie like shy they died, bro,
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, gold rush like millionaires word as shovel salesman,
Speaker 3: like like you know, you got you gotta think a little.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, You're going to be out
Speaker 3: here pan for gold? Well, they got to use pans,
Speaker 3: So why don't you sell them to pans?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Damn.
Speaker 1: And that is we see it between Henry and George Washington.
Speaker 1: We see the difference between a smart bad man and
Speaker 1: a dumb badman.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, George Washington is a smart bad man.
Speaker 1: He's good in making money like Henry Lee is a
Speaker 1: dumb bad man, and he is. He tries to follow
Speaker 1: this advice, but he is dog shit at picking real estate,
Speaker 1: and rather than slow sober investments, he approached his finances
Speaker 1: the same way he approached war, with a series of
Speaker 1: risky gambles. Here's the Gettysburg compiler. One of these schemes
Speaker 1: was to build a canal in Great Falls, Virginia, that
Speaker 1: would link the United States to western Lands on the
Speaker 1: other side of the Alleghenies. He bought five hundred acres
Speaker 1: around Great Falls that he hoped would make into a
Speaker 1: city named Matildaville, named after his first wife and second cousin,
Speaker 1: Matilda Lee, who died in seventeen ninety. Neither the city
Speaker 1: nor the canal came to fruition. He tried to get
Speaker 1: out of debt by borrowing more money and buying more land,
Speaker 1: but he only ended up digging himself deeper. He started
Speaker 1: selling property he did not even own, and he put
Speaker 1: up chains on the door of his house to keep
Speaker 1: creditors out. He became very mobile in the early years
Speaker 1: of the eighteen hundreds, hardly staying at home in order
Speaker 1: to keep from paying his debts.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 2: Wretchet.
Speaker 4: He is such a redneck.
Speaker 1: Like, first off, marrying your second cousin and t a
Speaker 1: town after her, like yeah, hiding from bill collectors.
Speaker 3: Don't answer the phone, Yeah, don't answer it a do
Speaker 3: don't answer the phone as day'd look, they don't get
Speaker 3: they money? I get it on to dig Yeah, get
Speaker 3: tea next Tuesday. And this was Auntie look as a Southerner.
Speaker 3: I'm not proud of this heritage, but this is definitely
Speaker 3: our heritage from.
Speaker 1: The bill collectors selling things you don't really own. Yeah, that.
Speaker 4: Scance.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was like, okay, wait, of all the things
Speaker 3: you said, I'm like, yeah, that's the really shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as it tells you're weird though, but that's real.
Speaker 1: As a as a child who grew up on a
Speaker 1: farm in Oklahoma that I knew like forty of those guys.
Speaker 3: Listen, let me tell you some all my friends in
Speaker 3: elementary school have bad credit because the electric bill was in.
Speaker 2: Our name because they just you know, Mama put it,
Speaker 2: put the gas bill in the old name.
Speaker 3: And this because we just try to like, look that
Speaker 3: they won't give me no more powers.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So, despite owning on papers somewhere around a million
Speaker 1: acres at the height of his investments, which is an
Speaker 1: enormous that's bigger than multiple countries today, Henry Lee never
Speaker 1: realized any return on his investments. The Townsend canals speculated
Speaker 1: on never came to pass, and his creditors came calling
Speaker 1: long before he could flip them. Twenty years down the line,
Speaker 1: as Washington had advised his first wife, Matilda died midway
Speaker 1: through his long road to going broke. He'd already sold
Speaker 1: off most of her inheritance a plantation in Stratford to
Speaker 1: pay off his own debts. Showing a surprising degree of fortitude.
Speaker 1: While she was dying, Matilda signed a trust with two
Speaker 1: of her cousins as executive executors, so the remainder of
Speaker 1: her inherited property would pass on to her sons with
Speaker 1: Henry when they.
Speaker 4: Were old enough.
Speaker 1: She was basically her last act was like, my husband
Speaker 1: cannot get what's left of my property, he will just
Speaker 1: waste it, being a dipshit smart that is smart, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: this does put Henry in a desperate state, though his
Speaker 1: bills were come due and legally there was no one
Speaker 1: he could pressure to sell her properties. So he remarried.
Speaker 1: That's how he decides to get out of debt. He
Speaker 1: marries somebody rich. Right here, here's a week, gon'll do.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's depress up a little bit.
Speaker 3: Okay, maybe so off with you to my heads got
Speaker 3: chopped off, and uh does find us a new Dane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a what a respectable honorable man?
Speaker 4: So Leah, what a real one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you simply have to give the man credit.
Speaker 4: You looked up. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1: Lee remarries, using his cachet as a war hero to
Speaker 1: win the hand of Anne Hill Carter. The Carters are
Speaker 1: a wealthy planter family, and Anne's father tried to protect
Speaker 1: her from Henry's or from Harry's well both. This is
Speaker 1: fine profligacy by putting her inheritance into the equivalent of
Speaker 1: a trust and I'm gonna quote from Robert E. Lee
Speaker 1: a life here, a trust fund that was to remain
Speaker 1: securely in Anne's name, free from the claim demand, hindrance
Speaker 1: or molestation of her husband, General Henry Lee, or his creditors.
Speaker 1: Ann soon learned how well founded her father's reservations about
Speaker 1: Harry Lee were. In the short space of a fortnite
Speaker 1: recalled her cousin Mariah Farley. She awoke to a life
Speaker 1: of misery, as every loose Carter penny she could beg
Speaker 1: from her family was soon thrown away upon his debts
Speaker 1: contracted previous to marriage. By seventeen ninety seven, Henry's legal
Speaker 1: or financial situation was beyond repair, and he would spend
Speaker 1: the next few years juggling debts and loans. But he
Speaker 1: eventually loses the ability to keep up entirely, and he
Speaker 1: goes on the run, hiding from his creditors. It's during
Speaker 1: this period of Henry's life when he is a broken,
Speaker 1: failed shadow of himself, that his third son comes into
Speaker 1: the world. Robert Edward Lee that's our boy, that's our well,
Speaker 1: that's that's our subject.
Speaker 4: That the subject.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, yeah like that that origin sounds like I mean,
Speaker 3: he's like, better call Saul.
Speaker 4: He's such a piece of shit. It's so such a yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Like looking for sugar Mama, Like yeah, like ed and
Speaker 3: the sugar MoMA's daddy was like, uh, this nigga like this,
Speaker 3: Y'll do yes and body Lee is like a goodie.
Speaker 1: He's a good ee two shoes within an evil society.
Speaker 1: So he's still doing bad stuff, but he has a
Speaker 1: goody two shoes. When I found out about what a
Speaker 1: piece of shit his dad was like, oh thank god.
Speaker 1: We really needed something fun to lead into this way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we really did, because yeah, this is like this
Speaker 3: history I had no idea about, and yeah I am.
Speaker 2: It fills me with so much joy.
Speaker 3: To just just how just how ain't shit that man was?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's funny.
Speaker 1: There's a Christmas movie that my mom always had us
Speaker 1: watch that. Actually, I mean it's got some great stuff.
Speaker 1: It's got Bing Crosby and what's Danny Kay and at
Speaker 1: White Christmas And there's a line in there. The plot
Speaker 1: is these guys were all in a unit together in
Speaker 1: World War Two and then they become famous entertainers. They
Speaker 1: meet their their old commanding general and he's like sunk
Speaker 1: all of his money into this resort in Vermont that
Speaker 1: like is hemorrhaging money. And one of like one of
Speaker 1: his his like workers compares him to light Horse Harry.
Speaker 1: But so he's like light Horse Harry, but he's like
Speaker 1: charging off into debt.
Speaker 4: And I didn't really I.
Speaker 1: Was like, oh, that was just a reference to the
Speaker 1: fact that Lighthorse Harry was a piece of shit who
Speaker 1: was like wasted all of his money on bad investments.
Speaker 1: Good on you, White Christmas with the historical accuracy.
Speaker 2: Dagger in there for you to go google later.
Speaker 1: Funny funny so man Robert Edward Lee was born January nineteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen oh seven, at Stratford Hall Plantation. The year after
Speaker 1: Robert was born, Henry went to Debtor's prison for a year. Right, so,
Speaker 1: Gunny Lee is one years old when his dad goes
Speaker 1: to debtors prison, you better have my money today, And
Speaker 1: it's basically he was he was tired of being on
Speaker 1: the run and hiding. So he's like, look, if you
Speaker 1: put me in prison for a year, can I get
Speaker 1: out of some of these debts and is left to
Speaker 1: look after Henry's two sons from his first marriage and
Speaker 1: the five children he'd left her with.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're you're.
Speaker 1: I'm a big I'm a big separate checking accounts guy.
Speaker 1: You know, Like I said, best to keep that out
Speaker 1: of the.
Speaker 3: Last I've made fourteen years. She got her own account.
Speaker 3: I got her own account, We got account the bills
Speaker 3: come from. Don't buy argue over it what she's when
Speaker 3: she if she if seventy two Amazon packages come to
Speaker 3: my door, that wouldn't not If that's her account, she
Speaker 3: buy whatever she want. Not I judge her from buying
Speaker 3: an Amazon you know what I'm saying. But the point
Speaker 3: is you don't say it her money.
Speaker 2: I was waiting for the shade. I saw it in
Speaker 2: her eyes.
Speaker 4: She saw it in my eyes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, I don't know why you keep ordering
Speaker 3: from that evil corporation, And she says, shut your whole ass,
Speaker 3: because my wife's a gangster.
Speaker 1: So Bobby Lee eighteen oh seven, Stratford, Hell Plantation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you know, not long after Henry gets out
Speaker 1: of prison, his oldest son from the first marriage that
Speaker 1: he'd had to Matilda comes into his inheritance the property
Speaker 1: they're living on Stratford, and the way Gwelser depicts it,
Speaker 1: Henry's new wife is kind of Mary is uncomfortable living
Speaker 1: under a roof that's not hers. So they put the
Speaker 1: family financials into kind of order right to where they're
Speaker 1: not completely drowning. They sell off a bunch of stuff,
Speaker 1: and then they moved to Alexandria. This is done out
Speaker 1: of a degree of desperation. The family no longer has
Speaker 1: a plantation house, nor could they afford one. They had
Speaker 1: also lost most of their enslaved people. During their last
Speaker 1: days at Stratford, they probably had around thirty human beings
Speaker 1: enslaved attending to their needs. By the time they moved
Speaker 1: to Alexandria, they had sold all but six, three of
Speaker 1: whom they hired out to make money to pay Harry's debts. So, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, super f like, that's who's actually trying
Speaker 1: to like, make up for his horrible financial decisions is
Speaker 1: the people that they own. Not an uncommon situation with
Speaker 1: the landed gentry. Here now, Harry blames his financial situation
Speaker 1: on Thomas Jefferson, and in doing so, became the first
Speaker 1: great American hero to blame the Democratic Party for his
Speaker 1: own fuck ups.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, wait, you got to connect that dot for me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, did he know the guy like, wait,
Speaker 3: connect is nothing?
Speaker 4: I mean I think they did.
Speaker 1: But his argument is, basically, their financial policies are why
Speaker 1: none of my investments worked out. No, that's not the case,
Speaker 1: lighthorse area, you piece of shit fucking Demorats. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: called the Democrats that party which has consummated the ruin
Speaker 1: of the most glorious republic the sun ever shown on.
Speaker 1: And now it's obvious that the move to Alexandria was
Speaker 1: a source of shame for Henry and probably the other
Speaker 1: men in his family. Yet Robert's not actually written by him.
Speaker 1: Memoir brushes over this entirely, saying, in eighteen eleven, Henry
Speaker 1: Lee moved with his family to Alexandria for the purpose
Speaker 1: of educating his children. There's nothing Henry Lee was less
Speaker 1: interested than educating his kids. He was barely there, hiding
Speaker 1: from debt collectors.
Speaker 2: Putting a buying a horse in Robert's name. Yeah is
Speaker 2: this guy? Hey? This says the guy signing this doesn't
Speaker 2: know his avc's yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you get the feeling. This.
Speaker 1: The fact that they have to move away from a
Speaker 1: plantation to live in the city is a source of
Speaker 1: enduring shame for the Lee family. I found a biography
Speaker 1: written in the eighteen nineties by Fitzhugh Lee, one of
Speaker 1: Robert's descendants, that says, this is all it says about
Speaker 1: the move. Robert was four years old when his father
Speaker 1: removed the family to Alexandria. Why did they do that?
Speaker 1: Was it deep financial failure?
Speaker 4: In shame? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Cool stuff. So Harry's next and last attempt to get
Speaker 1: rich was to publish a memoir, one he actually wrote
Speaker 1: while in jail. He hoped it would be a huge
Speaker 1: hit and like restore the family finances and it was
Speaker 1: widely read. But Henry learned a lesson that every writer
Speaker 1: eventually learns, which is that there's very little money in books.
Speaker 4: You are not George R. R. Martin bro It's not
Speaker 4: gonna work.
Speaker 3: You got You better get your advance and get out
Speaker 3: because that's all you go seek. Yeah, relatable, Yes, he's
Speaker 3: got man, I'm telling you man, this guy's like his
Speaker 3: seesaw is balancing alchemy.
Speaker 2: That's because that's real. That's real too.
Speaker 4: You know what else is real?
Speaker 3: Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: The products and services that support this podcast all real.
Speaker 1: None of them are a money laundering scheme for the
Speaker 1: Sinaloa cartel. That's not what sponsors this podcast, you know,
Speaker 1: So don't think about it too much. We're back. So
Speaker 1: the Lieze are now in Alexandria. They wind up renting
Speaker 1: for a while this like two bedroom apartment basically, which
Speaker 1: is that's not great for a family of the landed aristocracy, right.
Speaker 3: You had descended to somebody that like fought with the
Speaker 3: norms and now an apartment.
Speaker 1: There's an apartment. Now they move pretty quickly into a
Speaker 1: large house that's owned by some of Anne's relatives, which
Speaker 1: is why they're able to afford it white right, because
Speaker 1: they are broke. This is not an uncomfortable situation. Again,
Speaker 1: they're still doing better than ninety nine percent of people.
Speaker 1: But for Henry it's intolerable. During the War of eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: which he opposed, he took a job providing secure for
Speaker 1: a federalist newspaper. This was more dangerous than it sounds,
Speaker 1: because the Jeffersonians, who he'd roundly criticized in his book,
Speaker 1: regularly attacked the editors. This blew up in late July
Speaker 1: eighteen twelve after a series of attacks on the paper.
Speaker 1: Lee recommended surrendering and letting a local militia protect them
Speaker 1: in jail. This proved bad advice, as the mob just
Speaker 1: burst through the jail, killed one of Henry's colleagues and
Speaker 1: slashed him.
Speaker 4: With a sword. They tried to blind him by uring
Speaker 4: hot candle wax in his eyes.
Speaker 1: Wax.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your yeah, listen, dude, Like it's important to remember. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's it as ill timed as this might sound. Like,
Speaker 3: you know, we are collectively, as a species vastly less
Speaker 3: violent than we were.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like led yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3: Violence has not been eradicate wayne fully evolved, yet obviously
Speaker 3: points wildly across the whole spectrum of our world.
Speaker 2: Right now. However, they just sliced a man with a machete.
Speaker 3: And airport hot like we.
Speaker 1: Were a violent, violent man trying to blind him with
Speaker 1: hot candle wax. That's creative, bad dog, Yeah, and it's funny.
Speaker 1: Like his writing about this, he describes himself as so
Speaker 1: covered in bruises that he looks like a black man, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's how Henry Lee describes his injuries, which does
Speaker 1: nicely evaporate my sympathy for him.
Speaker 4: So there you go, so.
Speaker 2: Like he's balancing like probably never mind.
Speaker 1: I've never known a guy before who I thought like, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe he should have been blinded by candle wax. But
Speaker 1: maybe he should have been blinded by candlews.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Robert E. Lee was four again when the family
Speaker 1: moves to Alexandria, and he's six when his father gets
Speaker 1: injured by that mob. After getting injured, Henry makes the
Speaker 1: decision to abandon his family and move to the West Indies.
Speaker 1: He's hoping, basically, he describes as like I'm hoping that
Speaker 1: if I move to the West Indies, I'll recover him
Speaker 1: from my injuries, which like, bro, I don't know how
Speaker 1: going to the tropics is going to help you with
Speaker 1: getting stabbed.
Speaker 4: I'm not.
Speaker 2: Too cold out here. Let's just go down to where
Speaker 2: the weather is nice.
Speaker 4: That doesn't and it's fine, it.
Speaker 1: Says a lot about medicine of the day. That like
Speaker 1: a doctor's like, yeah, that stab wound will get better
Speaker 1: if you move to the tropics.
Speaker 4: That seems like the solution.
Speaker 3: Listen, listen, hear me out, sun, humidity, coconuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does not work. He wanders around for five
Speaker 1: years mooching off of some friends from the war until
Speaker 1: he dies horribly when Robert E.
Speaker 4: Lee is just eleven.
Speaker 1: Now he's gonna get buried back at home. Lee will
Speaker 1: not visit his grave until he's a middle aged man,
Speaker 1: which should tell you something about like the degree of
Speaker 1: esteem in which he holds his father.
Speaker 4: What he say? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Given all this, it probably will not surprise you to
Speaker 1: learn that the future famous General Lee is a mama's boy.
Speaker 1: As fitz you Lee wrote, if he was early trained
Speaker 1: in the way he should go, his mother trained him.
Speaker 1: If he was always good, as his father wrote, she
Speaker 1: labored to keep him. So Lee's own memoirs say just
Speaker 1: this about his childhood. Person's are yet living who remember
Speaker 1: Robert Lee in those days of childhood, and who have
Speaker 1: an abiding recollection of his thoughtfulness of character, and of
Speaker 1: his earnestness and the performance of every duty. So that
Speaker 1: is what you'll find from basically everybody. He is a
Speaker 1: really dutiful kid. He's very serious. He doesn't really have
Speaker 1: a childhood, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this I have found that for like yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's probably true in like a lot of our lives,
Speaker 3: Like when you're when your parents are like absolute messes
Speaker 3: and just chaos, like for you to just have a
Speaker 3: stable psyche, yeah, you you the children are usually square, yeah,
Speaker 3: because just like there's no there's no stability, so you
Speaker 3: have to like create your own stability by being as
Speaker 3: just square as possible, you know.
Speaker 1: Because when I when I started getting into this, one
Speaker 1: thing that struck me as weird. Lee is a very
Speaker 1: well documented man. For one thing, he grew up in
Speaker 1: a time when people were taking documentation. There's tons of
Speaker 1: letters from all of his family because there's social class,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who knew him and who
Speaker 1: talked about him, and there's almost no anecdotes about him
Speaker 1: as a kid. And usually when that's the case, it's
Speaker 1: because of something being covered up, But in this case.
Speaker 4: I think there's just he's he's he is the head.
Speaker 1: Of the family from the time he's eleven. His job
Speaker 1: is managing the family. Businesses, being the man of the house.
Speaker 1: I don't think he has time to be anything but
Speaker 1: just like a little basically cleaning up his dad's mess, right,
Speaker 1: that's his job starting at age eleven.
Speaker 3: When I was, when I was, when I was teaching,
Speaker 3: it sounds like I mean, obviously it's not the same.
Speaker 3: But when I was teaching, Uh, there was there was
Speaker 3: this kid that used to like I mean, I taught
Speaker 3: freshman and like he was if he didn't if he
Speaker 3: didn't drive a Cadillact to school at thirteen or fourteen
Speaker 3: years old, just driving, you know, he would be on
Speaker 3: his bike. He'd show up like ten fifteen minutes late
Speaker 3: all the time, street dude, but like always had his work,
Speaker 3: super respectful. Hey miss petty, what I miss? Here's my homework,
Speaker 3: just like and I could not, for the life of
Speaker 3: me figure out like why this little hood dude was
Speaker 3: so mature and number one, like why are you driving
Speaker 3: a Cadillac at fourteen years old? Right?
Speaker 2: And yeah he was like pop was alcoholic.
Speaker 3: He had to learn how to drive to go pick
Speaker 3: up his dad every night, you know, so he drove
Speaker 3: him home from like the bar, had to drop his
Speaker 3: little brother off at school. You know, before he got
Speaker 3: to school and he just had to be an adult already.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, but also live but he was just
Speaker 3: a hood kid. So he was like like it wasn't like,
Speaker 3: you know, like don't fuck with him, Like he went
Speaker 3: the shits, But like eventually I just stopped marking him
Speaker 3: tardy because I'm like, well, you're.
Speaker 4: You're adult, k You're doing stuff and you're doing.
Speaker 1: Like you're adulting, bro, Like you're good, you know, And
Speaker 1: that that is Robert E. Lee in a nutshell. His
Speaker 1: family's not like what we would call poor, right, they're
Speaker 1: poor for rich people, but he is. He is the
Speaker 1: man of the house and in addition to like needing
Speaker 1: to fix his disastrous financial situation help his siblings, his
Speaker 1: mom is sick the whole time that he's he's a kid,
Speaker 1: so he is also he's also here live in nurse
Speaker 1: you know, and that's how he spends his childhood.
Speaker 4: Most of what he will get, yeah, he.
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, he's a kid, right, He's
Speaker 1: not able to choose to He hasn't like, he hasn't
Speaker 1: done anything bad at this stage. He's a child, and
Speaker 1: most of what you get from his friends and family
Speaker 1: is a mix of a lie. They will talk constantly
Speaker 1: about how handsome he is, right, which everybody does, so
Speaker 1: I assume he actually was good looking, you know, for
Speaker 1: the time. But they also would say he's like weirdly
Speaker 1: weighed down with duty for a boy so young. Everyone
Speaker 1: knows like it's peculiar how serious and dutiful he is,
Speaker 1: and he's got, you know, a demanding childhood. He would
Speaker 1: later describe himself in this period as by mother's outdoor
Speaker 1: agent and confidential messenger. Now one of the very rare
Speaker 1: anecdotes we do get of him as a child comes
Speaker 1: from that memoir quote, the boy chance, during a vacation
Speaker 1: to find himself an invited guest in a house where
Speaker 1: these undesirable customs I think they're talking about alcoholism were
Speaker 1: kept up. The host was a fascinating gentleman, possessed of
Speaker 1: all graces of mind and manner, yet while not dissipated,
Speaker 1: his mode of life was such as a shock to
Speaker 1: the sternersons of morality of his youthful visitor. Robert made
Speaker 1: no comment on what he saw, but his unspoken rebuke
Speaker 1: proved more efficacious than any words of reproach could have done.
Speaker 1: The night before his departure, his host came to his bedside,
Speaker 1: and an affecting language, sought to excuse himself for the
Speaker 1: wild life into which he had fallen. He offered his
Speaker 1: sorrow for the loss of those dearest to him as
Speaker 1: a reason for habits which he could not seek to defend,
Speaker 1: And he impressively warned his young guests to beware of
Speaker 1: similar habits, advised him to persist in his commendable course
Speaker 1: of life, and earnestly promised that he would himself endeavor
Speaker 1: to reform, if but to render himself worthy of the
Speaker 1: respect and affection of so ubsteemable a care. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of why the memoir says Lee is a
Speaker 1: teetotaler his whole life. Right, He's probably not very much
Speaker 1: inclined to abuse of alcohol or other narcotics because people
Speaker 1: do have access to other narcotics.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Opiate abuse is not uncommon in this period. People are
Speaker 1: using nitrous oxide in this period of time creationally, which
Speaker 1: I like, pre Revolutionary war. People are huffing nas fascinating shit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this I think this, this seems to have an
Speaker 1: impact on him, right. He's also his mom is extremely religious.
Speaker 1: She is Mary Lee is the kind of religious that
Speaker 1: Christians in rural eighteen hundreds Virginia noted as being a
Speaker 1: little much right, so she is very serious about this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and his other her other son, Smith Lee, recalled that
Speaker 1: she lectured them to quote repel every evil, by which
Speaker 1: she meant drugs and alcohol. The Lees are Episcopalian, which
Speaker 1: is like Catholicism with a worse set designer right. Ye,
Speaker 1: he was well educated for the day, and his mother
Speaker 1: hired him as a two or higher, him a tutor,
Speaker 1: telling him he'd regret it if he neglected to lay
Speaker 1: in a store of knowledge now while he was young,
Speaker 1: which is an odd way to look at an education,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily a bad one, So there you go.
Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty three, Robert announced to his family that
Speaker 1: he wanted to attend West Point, which had become the
Speaker 1: nation's premier military academy. His oldest brother was at Harvard
Speaker 1: and his second oldest brother was a navy man, so
Speaker 1: it was surprising to his family that he chose to
Speaker 1: join the army and follow in his disgraced father's footsteps. Again,
Speaker 1: joining the army is like doing the thing his dad did,
Speaker 1: and that does kind of like shock his mom a
Speaker 1: little bit because like, he does not like his dad.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so this is the thing he decides to
Speaker 1: do and enrolls him in a preparatory school.
Speaker 4: To get a you have.
Speaker 1: To get a west Point. Now we think about it
Speaker 1: as like a school that teaches you how to be
Speaker 1: like a soldier. In the general sense. It's an engineering
Speaker 1: school in this bone time. So he has to get
Speaker 1: a serious math grounding, right in order to be able
Speaker 1: to compete at west Point. Now, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: his mom puts in the effort to make sure he's
Speaker 1: able to get this grounding, she does not want him
Speaker 1: to go away to college. She wails, how can I
Speaker 1: live without Robert? He has both son and daughter to me,
Speaker 1: which says a lot about the family relationship. I think
Speaker 1: the siblings, right, yeah, yeah, he's got a he's got
Speaker 1: a sister, and he's got older brothers. Now, gaining admissions
Speaker 1: to West Point would be the only time in Robert's
Speaker 1: life when the existence of his father is a positive.
Speaker 1: And basically, and this is actually today, west Point still
Speaker 1: works this way, right that if you've got a family
Speaker 1: member who went or who was a successful officer in
Speaker 1: the military, you get their other officers and whatnot. Who
Speaker 1: knew them to write you letters of recommendation, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's that's how people often get into West Point today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, somebody in that missions office saw that boy last name,
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, oh shit, Oh I love the way he
Speaker 1: cut people's heads.
Speaker 2: Crazy, Yeah, he'd be cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, obviously I actually don't think and that like this
Speaker 1: is a agree if nepotism, But given the how much
Speaker 1: shit his dad put him through, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: unfair to like try to get something out of the relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it is interesting. In his memoir, his biographers try
Speaker 1: to pretend this didn't happen. They write the line no
Speaker 1: one knew better than he that in a republic and
Speaker 1: in a great wall, a man's ancestry could not help him.
Speaker 1: But that place in promotion depended on individual merit, which like, Noah,
Speaker 1: he does get into West Point because who his dad.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's less on him and more on
Speaker 1: the start of the lost cause myth like he was
Speaker 1: completely self picking.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, entirely, no man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these people ever are and prop that's gonna be
Speaker 1: part one for us. Again, not a lot of bastardry
Speaker 1: on Lee's side Today Part two, a lot of bastardy
Speaker 1: from Roberty Lee. So don't worry, We're getting into it.
Speaker 1: This one on a lot on his dad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, glorious, Yeah dad, did dad sound like he does?
Speaker 2: Sound like you know, Chuck from down the street. Just yeah,
Speaker 2: just messy, like.
Speaker 1: He is such a modern kind of scumbag. Yes, pretty funny, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's so there. It is so modern.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he's selling you VCRs that ain't his Oh.
Speaker 1: My god, this man would absolutely try to sell you
Speaker 1: steaks out of the back.
Speaker 4: Of a van, right, Bobby Lee, Bobby Right?
Speaker 1: So Jason, yeah, Pop, you got me pluggables to plugged?
Speaker 1: Do you have a cast?
Speaker 2: I Do I have a podcast?
Speaker 3: That's uh yeah, man, that's kind of kind of gonna
Speaker 3: be your like you're your primer for the uh the
Speaker 3: ship show. That is like our political spectrum right now,
Speaker 3: politics for.
Speaker 2: Prop Man new season.
Speaker 3: We got music with it and uh yeah man, it's
Speaker 3: like this year is no shortage of incredible things to
Speaker 3: talk about that can feel all over the place. So
Speaker 3: we like really upped our game as far as like
Speaker 3: research development, Like yeah, we're really really put a foot
Speaker 3: on our gas this year with politics with Prop.
Speaker 2: So he's tapping with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, put your foot on the gas
Speaker 1: with Prop and do uh uh. I forgot the name
Speaker 1: of that movie where the two women drive off drive
Speaker 1: off the cliff together, but it's like nom in Louise,
Speaker 1: tell me and Louise, yeah, yeah, let's all do the
Speaker 1: podcast movie.
Speaker 2: Why did you not know that?
Speaker 4: I don't remember most nicks.
Speaker 3: I would plug Terraform, but like, I'm out of money,
Speaker 3: so there's no more coffee left, so I still got
Speaker 3: to buy more coffee first, so like, but you could
Speaker 3: buy like hoodies there, like I got, yeah, I got.
Speaker 4: Murder hoodies, so prop can buy coffee.
Speaker 3: You could also plug Terrorform the book oh yeah, which
Speaker 3: came from a book yeah, terror Form, the poetry book
Speaker 3: I forgot. Speaking of things that don't make you money,
Speaker 3: I put together a book called Terraform Building a Livable World.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: Sort of this is a rambling plug, but it's a
Speaker 3: plug for our network completely. Like I think one of
Speaker 3: the things that is unique about and I mean, if
Speaker 3: you listen to the show, you probably already know, but like,
Speaker 3: what's unique about our sort of collective of shows is
Speaker 3: it's equal parts how the world is awful and also
Speaker 3: the beauty of how it could be and people actually
Speaker 3: trying to make it better. So it's like it's both,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So like terror form is
Speaker 3: that too. It's like, man, it's building a livable world.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what like what we all share
Speaker 3: in our network.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, that is going to do it for us
Speaker 1: for part one, check back in later this week where
Speaker 1: we will have part two.
Speaker 4: Of the Bobby Lee story.
Speaker 1: So until next time. I love some crit I love
Speaker 1: a minority of you, But if you assume you're in that,
Speaker 1: then then maybe it'll make your day better.
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia
Speaker 4: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.