WEBVTT - Part Two: Robert E. Lee: A Lifetime of Failure 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:11.200 Also media. What's inheriting wealth my southern landed gentry. I 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:11.559 don't know. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:12.039 I don't know. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:16.360 That's not a great not a great intro. But anyway, 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.239 Harry prop welcome back. How are we feeling. 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:22.759 Feeling good man? Third cup of coffee. We're back in 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:23.160 the game. 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:24.560 Yeah, ready to ride. 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:25.720 Got some banana chips? 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:30.640 Yeah, a little plantain that'll make everybody forget my dog 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.839 shit introduction for this. Speaking of dog shit, you know 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:36.040 what college is? Dog shit? Prop? 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:37.760 Well, college is dogshit. 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:44.320 West Point Man just a whole pile of better kaka. 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:47.320 I mean, I don't know, I don't know much about 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:48.360 the actual objective. 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:49.040 I'm sure. Yeah. 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:50.479 The only thing I know about West Point is like 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.040 what's in the movies? Yes, yeah, exactly, Yeah, yeah. 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.080 Army College. It's a you know, it's important to note 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:00.360 like the reputation it has today is largely formed by 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:02.680 they call it the class the Stars fell on. It 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.160 was the west Point graduating class that had like Patent 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:09.080 and Omar Bradley and I think Eisenhower, like all these 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.960 guys who are like real big world dub dub dose 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.120 fell us like we're in the same class. 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:14.760 Now. 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.120 It's one of those things where like West Point today 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.959 it's the place where the US military trains, it's most promising, 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.200 or if you talk to enlisted men, it's most frustrating officers. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.119 Right in the early eighteen hundreds, when young Bobby Lee 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.680 became a cadet, West Point was a lot smaller, and like, 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.240 the country's not very old, so it doesn't have a 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.839 huge proud history, and it is extremely focused on one 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.560 narrow sort of education engineering. Right, it is probably the 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:43.560 best engineering school in the country. So when you think 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.120 about West Point of Robert E. Lee's day, it's closer 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.600 to Mit than the way we think about West Point now, right, 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:52.600 And this makes a lot of sense if you understand 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.760 nineteenth century warfare today, a huge amount of modern warfighting 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.560 is like small unit tactics, right, Infantry clears buildings and 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.640 like engages in firefights. Does all this stuff because with 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.800 modern equipment and weaponry all the different the wide variety, 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.480 everything from drones and rocket launchers to like standard small arms, 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.000 there's a lot for small units to do, and a 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.359 lot of shit revolves around that. So that's going to 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.119 be a significant amount of training for any army officer 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.440 back in this day, especially when Lee's in it, it's 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:26.160 pretty much all smooth bores, right, So it's these muskets 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.120 that they only really are very effective when you have 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.080 a bunch of people all like marching and firing in unison. 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.960 So there's not a lot for you to teach someone about, 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.919 like other than how to reload quickly, about like how 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:40.480 to be a trooper in a formation beyond like marching 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:40.960 and stuff. 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:42.280 So do you want to want to be that way? 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:44.400 Gone that way? Yeah, if you're. 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:46.640 Teaching people to be an officer, though, you want to 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.480 teach them a lot about engineering and mathematics, about like 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.919 the way in which things move, about physics. You want 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.919 to be so that they can both know how artillery 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.280 would work, where to position them, how to fire them, 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.960 how to how to wield these blocks of men and 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.840 have them like fire in ways that's going to be effective. 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.880 Like that's all engineering is kind of the US makes 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.960 this decision pretty early on that like engineering is what's 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.680 going to make our officers effective. And this is actually 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.079 historically a good bet. You know, people the Roman Empire, 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.000 people talk a lot about, you know, every aspect but 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.720 this but like the reason the Rome became an empire 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.560 was not because its soldiers were like great individual fighters. 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.480 It's because every soldier in the Roman legions was a 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.560 combat engineer, and like, that's fucking useful. You know, they 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:38.320 made roads and bridges. Like the scrubway to fight a 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:40.720 war is stabbing another dude. The smart way to fight 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.000 a war is building a wall around him and starving 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:44.880 him to death. Yeah, a dude. 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.080 That a dude that gets to like a lake or 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.480 river and thinks, man, how are we going to get 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:49.840 across that? 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:51.680 And then dude, it's like, we're gonna build a bridge, 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:52.040 all right. 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:53.200 And build a fucking bridge across. 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.520 So you just build a bridge, Like, yeah, not just 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.560 knocking down a tree and walking over the plane. 0:03:58.600 --> 0:03:59.720 No, We're going to build a bridge. 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:02.600 And the US at this point is an infant empire 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.280 and it sees itself very much cut in the image 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.440 of the old Roman Republic, which is another reason why 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:11.119 all of these guys are engineers. Right, So yeah, that's 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.440 that's gonna be the shit that like Lee does. He's 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:15.960 going to Army Nerds school and he does really well there. 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.560 He's a great student. He's not the best in his class, 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.640 but he's very close to it. He's also the most 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.560 boring boy in the whole school. He didn't drink, he 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.840 didn't gamble, he didn't like have fun. He graduates second 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.240 from his class, and he's one of only six students 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.320 in his graduating class that never receives a demerit. He 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:41.760 gets the nickname the marble Model as a resistance perfe Zach. 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.919 He gets an attendance award and he gets called marble 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:47.840 model a lot. And what they're saying there is that 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.400 like this is both like, yeah, it's kind of he's 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.279 kind of like exhausting and boring, but also like he 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.479 is a good soldier. He's a reliable guy. So like 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.760 people find him like make fun of him a little bit, 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.280 but he also is generally liked because you can you 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:05.120 can trust Lee to do his job. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.560 Yeah, he's he's he's a he's definitely a hall monitor. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.039 But yeah, we were stuck outside. You want him with 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:11.760 him because Nigga can follow directions and. 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.080 Yes, yes, and he's he's competent. He knows like how 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.840 to do shit right. Yeah. The mother of one of 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.640 his peers found herself surprised that after meeting him, he 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.040 was very human, is what she describes, So that should 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.719 give you some insight into how his classmates wrote home 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:33.520 about him to their family. Fun Yeah, that I don't 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:35.160 think he would breathe. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:40.360 Oh gosh, how much shade is it when your the homies. 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.320 Mama like is like, oh no, I thought he's a 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.400 little Weirdough it turns out like you're regular kid. 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.480 Hey, he's a nice enough guy. I didn't expect that. 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:51.000 Yeah, that's so funny. Yeah, your mom. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.000 Later in life, one friend of the Lee family would 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.800 state that she knew Robert's brother Smith Lee. Well, but 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.719 she writes quote and anybody say they know his brother, 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.159 I doubt it. He looks so cold and quiet and grand, 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.800 And that's very common from people talking about Bobby Lee. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:10.560 Right. 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:15.240 He is perfectly polite. He has impeccable manners. He is 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.440 the studious embodiment of Southern gentility, and he plays his 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.120 emotions so close to the chest that nobody people don't 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.039 really everyone's kind of confused, is like, is he just 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.560 hiding his true self for polar tests or is there 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:31.200 nothing inside of him? Really? 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:31.520 Yeah? 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.240 Right, Like, I know I know some street dudes like that, 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:40.040 Like I have a friend who even his closest friends 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.160 like we've sat down, like at a bar or something 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.000 and been like, yeah, I don't actually know him, and 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:50.600 they're like we've we met in middle school and they're like, 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.280 I honestly are I'm like, I'm not sure I know him. Yeah, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.239 like just they just keep Yeah, they play their cards close. 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.640 You know, this man twenty years and I can't say 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.240 anything but that he's always on time. Yes, Yeah, that's 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.200 that's kind of how people talk about Robert E. 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:05.680 Lee now. 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.600 They also very frequently will call him hot. He is 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:14.120 repeatedly described as fine as looking. One family friend called 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.880 him on the whole, the handsomest young man I ever saw. 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:19.840 He probably like you know, he ain't he like like 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:21.400 road warn because he don't drink. 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:23.760 So he probably got that skin. You know what I'm saying. 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.360 He's not doing drugs or ain't got no wrinkles. You 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:28.440 feel me. He had all his stress when he was 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.240 a child. Yeah, like I'm done with his stress. 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.640 Yeah, he's the only man in the eighteen hundreds who 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.000 ages like someone from the twenty first century. Yeah, it 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.240 is noted that, like he doesn't go gray until the 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:38.840 Civil War. 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:41.440 Yeah, now he got some stress. 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:43.960 Now he's got some stress. Yeah. So when you read 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.360 through different bits of the multiple books about Lee. As 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.320 I have, you encounter repeatedly people talking about how hot 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.800 he wasn't it. It's sort of like how Kissinger's a 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:55.440 sex symbol, and that's well known at the time, but 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.800 then in modern days because he's like this old goblin 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.600 of a man, like you don't really real it's surprising 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.920 when you read it. And this paragraph from Smithsonian Magazine 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.800 summarizes the phenomenon of hot Lee well. His hair was 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.880 eban and abundant, as his doting biography Douglas Freeman puts it, 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.200 with a wave that a woman might have envied, a 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:19.400 robust black mustache, a strong full mouth and chin unobscured 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:23.120 by any beard, and dark mercurial brows. He was not 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.560 one to hide his looks under a bushel. His heart, 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.400 on the other hand, the heart he kept locked away, 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.160 as Stephen Vincent Binet proclaimed in John Brown's Body, from 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:36.800 all the picklocks of biographers, such a horny way to 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:37.520 describe this. 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.240 He was just so hot, mysterious. He was so mysterious, 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:42.560 you know, you don't know what's going. 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.600 On, putting it on a little straw. 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.280 And a boy, and a boy got a baby face 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.720 like zid wouldn't hidden by a beard, and that helps, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.560 you know, I'm saying, why you're looking around. Everybody else 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.480 looked like a silver backed gorillas, you know. Yeah, here 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:56.480 yet here with a baby face, you know. 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.760 Yeah. So when he he finally does Mary, and he 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.760 does like flirt or pursue anybody, at least not on record, 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.840 he is very chaste. He marries right after graduation, a 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:11.480 woman named Mary Custis. They had been sweetheart not even sweethearts, 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:13.679 but they had known each other basically their whole lives 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.480 since childhood. I don't know if he was really in 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.200 love with her the whole time, or if it was 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.120 more that he was in love with her family legacy, 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.600 because she is the great granddaughter of Martha Washington, so 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:29.120 she's descended from or related to, George Washington. Right and 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:34.120 Lee again, George Washington is like the guy he idealizes, 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:38.360 particularly compared to his shameful father. Right. His father is 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.839 like the warning sign. Washington is the model he wants 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:44.760 to follow, And so you get the feeling. Part of 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:50.079 why he marries Mary Custis is like he wants that 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.360 Washington legacy to be a part of him, right, maybe 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.080 to wipe away some of his father's shame. In the 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:02.040 nineteen sixty nine Lost Call history book Meet Robert E. Lee, 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.800 it rather humorously stated Robert E. Lee was the last 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.440 great man of Old Virginia. In many ways, he was 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.920 closer to his hero George Washington than he was to 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.560 the men of his own time in literal because he 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.600 basically wants to fuck George Washington, right, Like that's what's 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:18.560 going on here. Yeah. 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:20.600 Yeah, like I'm gonna change my legacy, Like I don't 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:21.439 want the legacy to. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.840 Be all, oh, no money. You know what I'm saying, 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.720 broke ass Lee exactly. I'm with Disney, Yeah, exactly. 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.280 So they had known each other since they yeah, since 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.199 they were kids. The one thing I'll say for him, 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.120 they're like the same age. They're born the same year, 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.880 which is pretty good for high society marriages of this period. 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.120 So congratulations, Robert E. 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:41.400 Lee. 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:48.520 You get the coveted behind the bastards not a pedophile award. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.240 that's a proud honor, very rarely handed out. Yeah, we 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.599 are mailing your last descendant a gold medallion with the 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.320 words I Don't diddle kids written on it, So go, 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.160 you know, congratulations that's a real honor for the family. Yeah. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.199 Yeah, So that's big. 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:06.440 That's it's huge. 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.440 Ye, that's really big, man, because there's a lot of listen, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.200 there's a lot of things we can say about you, 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.720 and we will, but you do like them, y'all. 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.960 Yeah, not a childsterious. That's so good for you, Robert. Yes, 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.880 So the Custis family were significantly wealthier than the Lee's, 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.559 and Mary's father is understandably he never really trusts Robert E. 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.560 Lee in his whole life, not because Lee does anything wrong, 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.000 but because of how bad his father was, which not 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:39.480 necessarily an irresponsible decision. Right yeah, no, I yeah, now 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.120 that said George Washington Park Custis, Mary's dad is also 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.560 a huge piece of shit. For one thing, he owns 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:51.560 some two hundred enslaved people, and he's like Thomas Jefferson, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.760 he's one of these guys who's who is vocally anti 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.240 slavery while owning a bunch of people, And like Thomas Jefferson, 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.600 he has children with a lot of his slave people. Right, yeah, 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.319 this is rape, right, Like that's the only way to 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:09.680 look at this. Alan Guelzo writes, the elder Custis burdened 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.600 with his own private guilt over slavery, had been quote 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:16.480 an easy going master, requiring little of his slaves, especially 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.400 because it was rumored that over the years he had 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:19.960 fathered fifteen of them. 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.960 Good God, here's the thing, man, Look. 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:28.280 I don't know if there's anything I hate more besides 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:32.880 like just the institution of slavery, but the defense that like. 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.640 But he was like a nice one though. Yeah, he 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:37.120 was kind of. 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.040 Nice to his Like, I don't know if I don't 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.040 know if anything makes me want to like flip a 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.240 table more than that answer. 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.400 Yeah, I think you know, it's worth understanding the difference 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.760 between quote unquote nice and mean slave owners, for understanding 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.960 the lives of slaves, but not for making a moral 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.480 decision about those slave owners. It's under It's actually very 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.600 similar to like when you read Hullo cost memoirs from 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.600 survivors of Auschwitz, they will talk about like, well, these guys, 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.480 these remember, this particular member of the SS was polite 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.600 to us. He treated me relative, and I was able 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:12.199 to get stuff out of him to help. I was 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.000 able to get food or whatnot out of him. Yeah, 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.880 that doesn't mean that guy was he was still a 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:21.160 concentration understand, Like, yeah, okay. 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.240 You know, I appreciate you pulling the fly out of 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.040 the rat poison you're about to feed me. 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:27.839 I appreciate. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.000 Yeah, it's worth understanding because again, if you want to 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.600 understand the lives of these enslaved people, sure, if you're 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.720 if you're with a guy like this who is like 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.880 less like violent and shitty, then like you can maybe 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.280 work a better get more freedom, get more personal liberty. 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.400 But like that does not reflect still on. 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:48.400 The very much. 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.480 I might have got a little here, but I wasn't cheating, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.040 you know, which is like in one of the upcoming 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.960 Hill Politics episodes, like we're talking about the International Court 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.920 for Justice and like that's like bb net and yah, 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.040 who's like argument to where it's like, well, I don't 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.560 know if it's like genocide genocide, you know, or it's 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:10.040 like maybe it's not like air quotes genocide, Like yeah. 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:11.880 It's a little bit of hit. 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:13.120 You know. I wasn't really cheating. 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.920 It's like Fama, it's only genocide if it comes from 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.480 the genocide region of France. Otherwise it's just a sparkling massacre, 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:22.400 right exactly, Yeah, exactly. 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:24.320 Yeah, So yeah, I was like, well you know what though, 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:25.480 But we didn't really like. 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:30.440 Beat our slaves. Yeah, so it's a little different. 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:32.080 Yeah, No, I'm good. 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:36.920 Yeah these people. So he is eventually kind of is 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.120 won over by Robert E. Lee, although never entirely. Lee 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.160 takes an absence, a brief absence from his time as 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.720 a lieutenant to have his honeymoon. And then he sent 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.560 to Hampton Roads, which is a port on the Virginia coast, 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.760 and they'd had a bunch of fortifications but they looked 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.720 like shit, and he's going to like renovate the fortifications 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.280 on his honeymoon. No right after right. 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.840 Oh, I was like, I was hoping that this train 0:14:59.880 --> 0:15:02.600 of I thought wasn't going to lead to its sexual prowess. 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.400 No, no, nothing about that. I assume he was bad at. 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.800 Sex, Haley Louiah, Yeah, thank you, Gez. 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.640 He spends the first four years of his career like 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.960 reinforcing these fortifications at Hampton Roads, and the only interesting 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.280 thing that happens in that period is that there's an 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.960 insurrection by enslaved Americans in Southampton. This is the Nat 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.760 Turner Rebellion. Right, let's go. No, he's not involved in it, 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.200 but it happens near enough. And it's it's relevant because 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.280 he again doesn't do anything in this, but he writes 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:35.640 about it to his mother in law, and the single 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.320 paragraph we get of him writing about Nat Turner's rebellion 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.280 is one of the bleakest and most infuriating things I've 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:42.960 ever read. And I'm going to read this to you now. 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:47.200 Prop It is ascertained that they use their religious assemblies, 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.160 which ought to have been devoted to better purposes, for 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.000 forming and maturing their plans, and that their preachers were 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.400 the leading men. And first off, I'll say, I don't know, 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.080 just remembering the Old Testament, I feel like slaves using 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.800 their religious service to plan rebellion is actually very biblical. 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:04.520 I was like, I don't know, man, Like, if you're 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.280 actually reading the book, that's pretty all part. 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:12.440 Feel like that happens a couple tis yeah, he continues. 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.240 A man belonging to a Missus Whitehead, and one of 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.360 their preachers was the chief under the title of Major Nelson, 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.960 and his first act was to kill his mistress, five 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.240 children and one grandchild. However, there are many instances of 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.040 their defending their masters, and one poor fellow from the 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:31.240 inconsiderate and almost unwarrantable haste of the whites was sadly rewarded. 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.800 He belonged to a mister Blunt, and himself and two others, 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.640 assisted by his master and his son Nobody, fought with 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.320 them against twenty of the blacks. After beating them off 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:41.520 and running in great haste after horses for them to 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.080 escape on, a party of white suddenly came up and, 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.120 thinking the horses were for other purposes, shot him dead. 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:53.280 So he's talking about here that some of the enslaved 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.480 black people fought alongside their white masters against this slave uprising, 0:16:57.640 --> 0:16:59.600 and he's like, and then they got killed by white 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.400 people who just like shot first and asked questions later 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.000 because they were spooked and killing every black person they saw, 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:09.040 which you would think might cause a man to consider 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.879 like the overall evil of the system that he looked made. 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:13.280 But lead does not lead is not. 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.320 Yeah, yeah, it's just because gravity works the way gravity works, 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.600 So like, yeah, I get it. I as a funny 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:25.199 side note, in junior high, I left La went to 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.080 a middle school in the suburbs and the Inland Empire, 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.560 and then my parents split and I went back to LA. 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:34.560 But anyway, but. 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.960 In middle school, I was in the Burbs, like and 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.720 it was probably the most like concentrated amount of white 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.720 people I've ever seen in my life, like you know, 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:48.280 And and I'm saying this like like strictly from a 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:52.600 like anthropological perspective, like not even a not even a 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.120 statement on its culture, because I just I just wasn't 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:56.840 familiar with white culture at the time, you know what 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:57.879 I'm saying, Like, I just didn't. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:17:59.240 It just wasn't my world. 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.240 I just who I went to this to this middle school, 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.400 and we had to do a. 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.720 Historical person's report. I did it on that Turner. 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:09.440 Oh shit. 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:14.800 And at no point did it cross my mind that 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.440 this world of white people would have an issue of. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.400 That, Like, I just I never thought about it. 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.120 Now as an adult, I'm like, dude, I can imagine, 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.280 like I'm putting myself in like poor old you know, 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:34.080 misdorsed my seventh grade history teacher. I walk in with 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.639 this with this book report on Nat Turner, and she 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.800 looking at me at like one of seven black people 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.600 in a fifty mile radius. 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.240 And I walk in with this report on a slave rebellion. 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.320 How she I just wonder what was going through her 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.920 head at the time that everybody else is doing book 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.040 reports on normal stuff, but I did it on that turner, 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.159 and now as an adult, I'm like, I would have 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.080 loved that if I would to this Bourbon school and 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.119 his little boy walking well report on Net's owner. Was 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:10.160 just no concept that anyone else would view this as 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.800 any different than I and my. 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:14.400 Family view it. I'm like, what are you talk about 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:14.920 this guy zero? 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.880 You know, yes, yeah, it's one of those things obviously, 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.439 like you know what Lee says, there is not wrong, 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.600 like the like children were killed during the uprising, and 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:26.920 my stance on this it's similar to how I feel 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.000 about the killing of the czar and his family. Children 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.080 never deserve to be murdered. That is not their fault. 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.480 The children of slave owners and tzars are not guilty. 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.439 But I put the blame for their deaths on the 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.320 adult slave owners and the adult czar and his wife, 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.400 not on the enslaved people who felt like they had 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:46.280 no other option. 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.800 Yes, right, yeah, you have institutionally put your children in 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:55.360 danger by allowing and upholding this institution that will, invariably, 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.439 like you said, cause a person to respond the way 0:19:58.480 --> 0:19:58.720 they have. 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.840