Transcript for:
Overview of the American Civil War

welcome back to history 203. uh in this uh final segment uh we are going to look at the american civil war and so i'm going to attempt to do in really you know one video uh what in essence we teach an entire course upon and so i'm really going to be hitting the high spots uh as we've seen uh secession led directly to military conflict lincoln's election in 1860 and we have the electoral map here again the division of his opponents enabled the republicans to win the executive mansion to win the presidency and many of the southern states therefore concerned that lincoln may infringe upon or attempt to abolish slavery left the union i think i had this map the maroon or kind of dark red states initially leave the union and form the confederate states of america then the the lighter red states leave the union after the firing on fort sumter in april of 1861. uh and so what we want to do is think today though about primarily the military aspects of things like the military conflict the war itself uh in the gettysburg address in 1863 november 1863 after the battle had been fought in july lincoln almost as a 19th century pericles made this statement from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom and the government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth so the war in lincoln's view uh had was really there was there was so much at stake right uh what was at stake is the very nature of the american experiment in representative government and so he trusted he said to the living and i quote the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far nobly advanced and that work obviously for the north was the restoration of the union and with that by that point the war was also the destruction of the institution of slavery when we think about both sides each had certain advantages right so we're kind of looking at the the civil war here initially in terms of grand strategic concepts right i mean the different strategy and tactics folks is strategy is in essence the things you you are you're doing in order to try to win the conflict to accomplish the political objective that's grand strategy and that involves not only military activity but economic production diplomacy etc right tactics has to do with objectives on a battlefield right so in essence tactics are the means by which militarily you try to accomplish the goals of the strategic okay so as we think about the american civil war uh we need to kind of think a little bit about the the the advantages that each side possibly had right the north definitely had some significant advantages in terms of population so as we look at this slide you know the north had 23 states with a population of almost 23 million whereas the confederacy the south was 11 states with a population of slightly over 9 million 3.5 million slaves 132 760 were free blacks were part of that estimate and the white population is approximately 5.5 million uh and i have to also you know point out that of that population there were elements of southern society who were unionists uh who were going who are going to actually support the other side who had reasons for preferring the union and opposing uh the confederacy so that's certainly the case in terms of the scope of the conflict if we look at this slide uh union statistics here about 2.9 million served 1.5 million listed for three year duration 630 000 casualties 306 thousand killed in action or died of disease in terms of the confederacy 2.1.2 million served 800 000 enlisted three years duration 340 000 casualty 250 000 killed in action or died of disease so uh since you count both sides uh more americans die in the american civil war than any other conflict waged in american history the north certainly had an advantage in terms of industrial capacity if you look at this map we see uh you know production textiles et cetera much greater in the north uh than in the south right manufacturing generally uh was more significant in the north in fact the only place in the confederacy that had a rolling mill capable of producing cannon was actually in richmond right so in terms of industrial capacity obviously the north had a distinct advantage i mean that's one thing that obviously plays toward the concepts uh that are afforded sometimes by the lost cause mythology right that the industrial production uh of the north was so much greater than that of the south which were was you know more agrarian is the concept um and although i think there's quite a bit to that the confederacy did quite a bit to really produce what it could produce and actually did a much better job than i think many people really understand in terms of coming up with methods of production in places of production atlanta they developed atlanta for example uh during the war right during the war um in terms of railroads and this is vital so if you look at the railroad system in this map of the united states in 1855 and this is vital because the american civil war is the first war in which you have the major use of railroads for movement of troops and for logistics in fact 19th century army civil war armies were dependent upon steam-powered logistical systems you supplied your army through a rail head or for from a steamboat on a navigable river the further you get away from that rail head the further you get away from that navigable river the more and more you're using the same logistical system that julius caesar had used you're using wagons pack animals soldiers themselves carrying goods and materials right food stuffs etc and so you can see from this map that the north had more railroads than the south right that's 1855. notice especially in the mountainous region of the south right from what we think of as western west virginia down into east tennessee and western north carolina you know that you really didn't have many railroads right so that's 1855 here are the northern railroads right this is northern railroad so take a good look right you can see all the railroads that's 1861 so at the time of the war there are your north northern railroads 384 total junctions okay and contrast that with southern railroads okay so there's your slide for southern railroads in fact in what is now west virginia you can see there was only one railroad at the time of the civil war and that was the baltimore and ohio and you could almost even really kind of see where the junction was there at grafton okay uh that that railroad right below what is now west virginia is virginia tennessee railroad and that rover is a vital one because it was one of the few that had a standard gauge and it's vital in terms of connecting the eastern theater of the war with the western theater of the war in fact james i robertson jr virginia tech would refer to that as the umbilical cord of the confederacy right so if you want to move men and material from the eastern theater to the western theater that railroad was very important so much most of the military activity taking place in this area our area was really about trying to gain control or disrupt those two railroads baltimore ohio and the virginia and tennessee railroad but if you want to look at it in this way this slide the union had 22 085 miles of rail the confederacy had 8541 miles of rail right and by the way the confederacy had a tendency the southern states had had a tendency to have different gauges the gauge is a distance between the tracks so literally different states could have different gauges and so if a line went from georgia and alabama you might have to actually stop before you go into alabama because the gauge changes and move everything from one train to another train the union had a standard gauge the north had a standard gauge throughout and obviously that was a tremendous advantage that being said i will point out that confederate the confederate military leaders uh make very good use of rail lines uh a few times in in the course of the war and so as we think about uh these kinds of numerical advantages and industrial advantages there certainly is something to that idea that the north had those kinds of advantages what advantages did the south have well the confederacy basically fought the war on its own ground and so confederate leaders often had better knowledge of the road system the terrain uh they also had uh ideally the support for the most part of the local population right and i would think that you know the confederacy did have probably an edge in terms of field grade leadership at the beginning of the war right the north really didn't have anyone uh of the um of the perceived stature of a joseph e johnston who was the highest ranking member of the union of the united states army who actually joined the confederate army he was a brigadier general in the united states army uh when he entered into confederate service uh john joseph johnson or albert johnston our cindy johnson or robert e lee all of which had very vaunted reputations uh from the point of view of lee that was a reputation that was based not only on his act actions in the uh in the mexican-american war but the perception of him as an officer he had also been the superintendent at west point at one point and so you know there were advantages on both sides i don't think you can explain union victory or confederate defeat just simply by looking at material and numerical advantage and disadvantage okay a key concept here for us and when we need to think about and i'll mention it throughout is concentration in space as opposed to concentration in time concentration in space and railroads are important in terms of that concentration in space is bringing men together and gathering them usually through a rail line in this instance or rail lines to fight at a particular point right so concentrating your force at a particular point for an engagement or a campaign that's concentration in space concentration and time which is even more difficult to do but is important here concentration in time is actually trying to attack the enemy at in a in a broad sense in multiple areas at exactly the same time in order to make it difficult for the enemy to meet each attack essentially what the north must do is the north must concentrate in time because the confederacy does lack manpower does lack resources if the union can attack in several different places at one time uh the confederacy will have a difficulty meeting all of those thrusts and so concentration in time uh is a vital military concept uh in terms of what we're thinking about here okay if we compare the commanders in chief uh on just the resume if if we're just looking at the resume itself jefferson davis would appear to be the ideal wartime president i mean if you if you just look at his resume again uh he had six years or so of higher education that was highly unusual uh in the uh in the 19th century in america uh he had been a graduate of west point uh he also had served in the united states army uh he had been a commander of mississippi troops in the mexican-american war uh he had been senator from from the state of mississippi uh in which he involved himself heavily in military affairs uh in his in his tenure in the senate and he had been secretary of war for franklin pierce in the pierce administration so on paper jefferson davis would seem to be just the right person to be the commander-in-chief to understand military operations and to be able to manage them in an effective way that's on paper again i think i mentioned before davis was frustrated in a sense he didn't want to be president right i mean he served as president because he felt it was his duty but he didn't really want to be president of the confederacy davis wanted to command troops in the field and so davis often will interfere sometimes with his generals he shows up at some battles right that if they're nearby near rich near enough to richmond since richmond becomes the capital of the confederacy when virginia secedes from the union davis actually shows up on the field could think about that right the commander-in-chief on the field uh you know that that creates a tremendous problem for a commanding general right uh and so uh you know davis davis uh sometimes uh you know is is is willing uh to even micromanage in terms of military matters uh and turns out actually uh not to be uh an ideal uh figure is in terms of commander-in-chief i tell you the books plural that are probably uh the best secondary source on that particular topic davis strategist or commander-in-chief is by stephen woodworth right one is called one is entitled jefferson davis and his generals the other is entitled davidson lee at war uh and one looks at the western theater and looks at the east and tries to analyze davis uh you know as as a commander-in-chief he had a very difficult time um dealing with the stress uh of of his position uh he often worked himself to the point where he was sick and you know i mean davis struggled heavily physically in richmond during the civil war with all the weight of the responsibility that was upon him and he he really was not someone who uh one of davis's problems he will constantly have tensions with certain generals right certain generals davis uh had good relationships with usually ones who knew how to handle him uh or ones who could told him what he wanted to hear right he had a strange kind of friendship with braxton bragg who was not a very popular officer robert e lee knew how to deal with davis right but joseph e johnston didn't trust davis and davis didn't trust johnston and johnston became associated with the political opponents within the confederacy of davis louis wiggfall for example of texas the senator from texas and davis often thought of disloyalty to davis as being disloyalty to the confederacy and so you know some historians argue he didn't utilize certain generals who he had political issues with or who he had personal issues with johnston beauregard in particular and then you know coddled or even you know even you know supported despite despite evidence that he shouldn't do so other generals uh who you know told him the kinds of things he wanted to hear brag john bill hoods another example of that and so davis on paper would seem to be the ideal commander-in-chief but in reality uh he had several issues uh in that role conversely abraham lincoln had very very very little military experience right some as a volunteer in the black hawk war was which lasted only a few weeks right so lincoln was in every sense a military novice he knew nothing really about military affairs when the war began but the advantage that lincoln had i think in a sense may be that he went into the war without any preconceived notions and and lincoln had a tendency uh to to be able to learn right uh he he he read for example voraciously everything he could about military matters from the library of congress right and he sought advice from folks and so who are supposed to know and so lincoln actually proved to be an effective commander-in-chief because of his willingness to adapt right his willingness to learn he makes mistakes but when he makes a mistake very often he understands it's a mistake and learns from it lincoln also was more interested in finding generals who were capable than in finding generals that he liked personally and so lincoln turns out to be i think one of the biggest advantages that the north has so lincoln as commander-in-chief was in i think davis's superior considerably right uh ironically both men were from kentucky they were native kentuckians uh davis had ended up eventually in mississippi and lincoln of course eventually in illinois but they were both born in kentucky not far really actually from one another and so here they are in the in these separate roles as commanders and chiefs of these two different entities locked and engaged in warfare confederate strategy initially from davis's point of view was to try to hold as much territory as conceivable now this map shows everything that the confederacy claimed uh you know the new mexico territory missouri kentucky the confederacy claimed that the confederacy also claimed all of what was virginia before the separation of west virginia from virginia but never really effectively controlled the very northwestern part right so what we think of as northern virginia like grafton and above you know morgantown wheeling etc the confederacy never really exerted any kind of sense of control over that area uh very little also over parts of northern virginia and didn't control some of the other parts of the confederacy for very long but davis initially wanted to hold it all i mean he envisioned you know trying to secure all of that this turned out to not be not to be practical and eventually the confederacy under especially this is lee right uh the confederacy from lee's point of view needed to win battlefield victories right for one you can't deny battle in the same way that washington had in the american revolutionary war because napoleon had revolutionized armies because of the utilization of the division system armies were composed of divisions and corps and divisions had their own command structure logistical structure et cetera and so they could operate independently and the idea is that an army could march along different roads and then concentrate at a particular point rather than march all along the same road in washington's day you kept the army together and they marched along the same route that made it easy for the enemy to deny battle uh the uh you essentially didn't have battle unless both sides uh you know were willing or once i was inept enough uh to actually blunder into it uh with the divisional system you can act moving along different roads you can make contact with the enemy and therefore bring about an engagement uh and so i mean for example napoleon was the veteran of uh 66 or so battles uh whereas you know like previous generals frederick the great didn't fight nearly that many battles right a medieval general like richard the lionheart only fought three maybe uh in his entire lifetime actual full-scale battles uh there's more battles right there's more battles in the american rev in the american civil war than in the american revolutionary war right i mean just sheer number of engagements that's the divisional system so you know the initial confederate plan of trying to hold territory really is not feasible but i will say that davis hated giving up territory hated giving you know any ground uh throughout the war right so confederate strategy you initially try to hold that but eventually becomes what is called an offensive defensive in which you try to defeat the enemy in major engagements to try to destroy the enemy's will to win okay and so that's basically how the confederacy approached the war the union strategy was formulated by general winfield scott and we met winfield scott already as a presidential candidate i think i also talked about him in terms of the context uh possibly of the war of 1812 but but scott uh was a virginian who remained loyal to the union but by this point was certainly long in the tooth in fact he physically was incapable of really taking the field uh he was become so large that he couldn't even really ride a horse very well uh but he's the one who's gonna articulate initially union strategy right he's also famous uh for you know he had written uh that robert e lee was the finest soldier he had ever seen in the field and he attempted uh you know obviously with lincoln's approval to offer command of union of union armies to lee right and lee of course refused that command and went with virginia right but scott basically develops you know the idea of how to how to win and so here's the here's the union strategy here's their objectives strangle the south of the naval blockade uh which is sometimes called the anaconda plan if you look at this illustration you know the notion is an anaconda you know big snake you know constricts uh so if you can if you can use the navy because that's definitely advantage of north have they have a navy right the confederacy has no navy uh the confederacy has to rely upon developing new weapons like you know iron clads and things like that or relies upon commerce raiders but if you can use the union navy you can keep the confederacy from trading with europe right and gaining aid from europe uh that is a little bit of a problem however the naval blockade uh indi if you place a naval blockade upon someone you're recognizing them as a belligerent the union the union point of view lincoln administration's point of view would would always be that secession was not legal that these states had actually not left the union uh this is a domestic insurrection uh and so europe needed to stay out but you are treating the confederacy as a nation when you actually impose an enable blockade you're treating them as a belligerent and that is something you know that that kind of compromises lincoln's viewpoint in terms of his foreign affairs right he's trying to make sure that that britain and france do not recognize the confederacy do not aid the confederates that's what the confederacy needs right the confederacy desperately needs european intervention right they need that more than anything right and so the north needs to keep that from happening and so i strangle the south of naval blockade it's the first point gain control of the mississippi river which would be very popular uh in states like ohio indiana illinois uh where access to the you know the ohio flows toward the from the mississippi access to that river and trade was vital to their economies but you also if you gain control of the mississippi river you will cut the confederacy in two and finally capture richmond the capital of the confederacy those are the strategic objectives that is how they win the war and that is how the north wins the war they were going to do all three of these things the first one turns out to be the easiest thing for them to do and that's and that is not an easy thing to think about it's a long coastline uh to try to blockade beginning control the mississippi river is going to be difficult right capture enrichment is going to be really difficult what should seem like the easiest objective is capturing richmond turns out to be by far the most difficult for them right the amount of bloodshed that's going to be involved in trying to eventually get to richmond is going to be phenomenal right and so those are the three objectives that is essentially how the north wins the war right that is essentially how the north winds of war and if you look at this map you kind of have a concept of the blockade right you have the concept of the blockade but you also also can see something else that i think is vitally important when you look at this map the rivers themselves turn out to be natural invasion routes of the south right they in fact if you really want to understand ulysses s grant's generalship and his success as a military commander i think a lot of it has to do with how well he worked in conjunction with naval force and you see that in several instances uh in his operations in the western theater right and so that again is how the union will win the war the confederacy desperately needed i'll say a word here about diplomacy the confederate confederacy desperately needed european aid and recognition but they're not going to secure it and part of the problem has to do with what we looked at last time they're you know they're they're founding documents i mean when i made the point that in essence they the confederacy was created to protect the institution of slavery i didn't use my voice to tell you that i used the voices of the people involved i used their words to tell you that the fact of the matter is britain had long since abolished slavery and there was a great animosity toward the institution among the british public that made it very difficult for them to consider recognition of the certainly you know the palmerston government uh and uh you know in in britain uh was very much interested in in the idea that if the confederacy won then america would be divided geopolitically that would be to the advantage of the of britain they understood that uh british aristocrats as european nobles and aristocrats generally often identified with the confederacy identified with the planner class saw them as nobles in a sense right and i think there's a lot to that but to get their populations to accept relations with essentially a slave-owning republic was going to be very difficult i mean the british minister to the united states lord lyons said early in 1861 or early in the war talking about you know the confederacy he said slavery will damn them slavery will damn them you know slavery is going to be the thing it's going to be the you know the catching point and i have to say that the davis administration had a tendency to send diplomats james mason of virginia uh you know slidell of louisiana tended to send diplomats to europe who are over so overwhelmingly pro-slavery right that it made this worse right confederate diplomacy is not ideal i mean they believed because the confederacy had a tendency to believe in something called king cotton diplomacy frank owsley wrote a great book about this way back in the 30s called king cotton diplomacy and the idea is they thought well if we can keep cotton if we can retain our cotton and not sell to them they will have to intervene in order to acquire cotton for their textile industries well a couple things were wrong with that one the british are not were not stupid and they did foresee the possibility of a civil war had been stockpiling cotton for some time secondly they found other sources of cotton and utilized other sources of god egypt and india and therefore no longer needed the confederacy to the same degree and although there will be some tensions between britain and the united states over the civil war for one the american navy seizes uh two confederate diplomats and that's actually mason slidell off of a british mail packet called you know you know called the trent and retains them arrests them the british protest because they were taken off of a british ship which given the war of 1812 is kind of you know earlier is kind of interesting ironic right but the british you know do uh you know do demand there were you know that they'd be released and lincoln you know says you know the sewer you know one war at a time and they release them right uh you know they you know they back up and release them so it's not the united states the union has to kind of play an interesting role interesting game here they have to not go so far that they agitate and drive the british to the point where the british have a reason to declare war on them but they have to often engage in some brinkmanship right they have to you know basically you know if you go so far in helping them clandestinely you know we may actually have to you know attack maybe try to take canada right and so it's an interesting kind of balance that union diplomacy has to engage in right but the confederacy is never going to gain that aid and another thing i think is helpful is john charles francis adams does have just a phenomenal job as minister united states minister to great britain and uh negotiates several deals of sales of wheat to great britain right and used as wheat uh in fact some people argued i know one historian argued king wheat trump king cotton right uh because you can't eat cotton but you need wheat right and so uh you know there were there were leadership issues that were important in terms of that component as well as the war began you have some initial operations in western virginia but the first major campaign obviously was going to be a union drive to try to take richmond uh the initial union commander in the east who's going to do try to attempt to do that was general ervin mcdowell uh and mcdowell uh site this is this this one campaign is his big claim to fame uh the only real kind of colorful story i can tell about him is he seemed to have had a very voracious appetite and they talk about how he could eat an entire watermelon for dessert after eating a big dinner and you could eat it you know in one sitting but mcdowell is trying mcdowell has an army mainly of like three-month volunteers i mean once you had had uh you know the the firing on fort sumter lincoln called for volunteers the problem was those volunteers eventually their enlistments would actually expire and they would be able to go home and so green so mcdowell saying that his troops are green lincoln you know who wants to use that army before it evaporates says yes they're green but you know you're the enemy's green too you're green alike right uh and it's really putting the pressure on mcdowell uh to march from washington down to richmond take richmond the close proximity of the capitals is something that certainly provides for a lot of military action in northern virginia uh the confederate general responsible for defending manassas junction a railroad junction which would be vital in terms of the union route uh was uh pgt beauregard pierre gustav tucson beauregard right pgt beauregard and beauregard uh you know a colorful character had a tremendous ego he has and here's a map that will kind of help us out here a little bit if i can get back here's a map and if you look at this map uh beauregard has about 20 000 at manassas junction right mcdowell about 35 000 going to march down that route in order to try to get to richmond but then you also have a confederate force about 3 000 under homes not far above fredericksburg and then you have about 12 000 in the shenandoah valley under general joseph e johnston right and i think i have an image of johnston there there's joe johnston right joseph johnson i think i mentioned just just a moment or two earlier was the highest-ranking officer in the united states army to actually resign from the united states army and join the confederate army right and that that's that's interesting uh in a sense that johnston was a classmate of robert e lee right and johnson and lee have a friendship but there's also a little bit of a rivalry there especially on johnston's part lee had been a colonel uh when he left the american united states army resigned but he had actually joined the confederate military first uh and in fact was given command of all virginia forces and johnston was always a little bit uh you know i guess you might say sensitive uh because he felt that lee was lee was improperly ranking him in the confederate army uh where because john because the confederate congress passed a measure that you know whatever your rank was in the union arm that that at least must be your rank uh in the confederate army when you enter right uh but uh all the all the ranks have been laid out before that measure was passed and so johnston was you know always very sensitive about his reputation very sensitive about about rank right and that's certainly a part of like who he is okay interesting biography of him written by craig simons by the way but johnson commands that force in the shenandoah valley against patterson patterson was actually a very elderly man at this particular point and johnson had had command up at harpers ferry but had fallen back he had argued that his position at harpers ferry was not tenable and he had fallen back to around winchester and patterson actually advances and then falls back and what what becomes pretty clear is that patterson is not really interested in assault and that may not have been his orders uh the notion being mainly to to keep an eye maybe on johnston but the confederates see an opportunity here and they make actually a bold move and so if you look at this map you can kind of see what's going to happen right here's the here's the layout july 18th and what's going to take place is uh the confederates are going to move the bulk of johnston's army by rail from the shenandoah valley to the battlefield at first manassas or bull run some some civil war battles have more than one name the confederates tended to name battles after places right uh union names for battles often are rivers or streams right so they tend to name it after bull run which is is a stream there so johnston actually is on the field for the battle of first manassas right this is first bull runner first manassas in fact johnson had already you know made sure uh that he had preempted primary command right he had already contacted richmond to make sure that it was clear who who had who had rank uh when he shows up uh that being said uh even though johnson was very sensitive about that kind of thing he was also somebody who tried his best to work with people uh when it came to you know situations uh you know in which in which you know they're involved in engagements and so johnston actually lets beauregard conduct must much of much of this battle and interferes very little right uh we see that the key point in many ways i don't know how well you can see a map is actually henry house hill that will take that will exchange several times throughout the engagement in fact uh at one point uh bernard b b as a general who tries to rally his troops and he he sees thomas jonathan jackson uh you know who is a vmi professor uh who had been in the in the pre-war army and got out of the army and was teaching mathematics at at virginia military institute he sees him and his uh brigade uh on that hill and he says you know rally you know there stands jackson like a stone wall so that's where he gets that name stonewall okay there stands jackson like a stone wall rally around the virginia's boys right and they do and it's kind of interesting the battle first manassas eventually the union forces are driven from the field but members of congress and people in the society of washington had actually come out to watch the battle have a picnic and watch the battle and are caught up in the route of the union army uh as basically it's it's scheduling back uh to to washington right and so it turns out the first manassas is a is a confederate victory uh and um jackson of course becomes a hero getting that moniker stonewall at that particular engagement uh jefferson davis showed up near the end of the battle shows him on field he can't handle can't stand not knowing what's going on he shows up and actually uh you know to talk and confer with johnston and beauregard and and to see what see what's happening so again that's something that you know uh it puts a lot of pressure uh and you know it is a tremendous distraction for the army commander if you actually have the civil head of state there right security alone uh becomes just such a massive you know concern right what happens if the confederate confederate president is killed right there on the on the field right uh so this is something that you know is johnston didn't appreciate it right not one bit and we're going to see that you know this is just the beginning of a lot of distrust between johnston and davis which is to and beauregard as well i mean davis ends up not liking johnston or beauregard once really you know it has really a lot of uh distaste for both of them and this this rivalry this fight between them uh turns out to be something so detrimental to the confederate cause right there were some at the time who argued uh that you know confederate forces could have seized washington i think that unlikely lincoln always made sure that there were defenses to washington uh but the fact of the matter you don't organize and make an attempt is something that you know uh you know would bring about a lot of criticism eventually right this also proved in essence since the war goes on disproved the idea that the war would be short and decisive in fact that's not the nature of modern industrialized war and the civil war is not a short quick decisive war it's a long drawn-out war of attrition and so uh first we'll run uh definitely uh goes to the advantage obviously of the confederates right meanwhile in the west the union we're start we're starting to really score some significant victories right and we begin to see the the emergence of grant right as a major figure at this particular point uh and there's an image of grant grant had been a west pointer he had served the mexican-american war he had left the army under uh rather sketchy circumstances in the early 1850s and you know he would often be accused in of drinking in fact that was something that was constantly being bandied around about him right that you know grant was someone to give him the drink grant was someone who grant was a man of small stature i think sometimes it's easy not to know that uh and apparently could not keep frank could not hold his liquor very well right uh but kind of interesting enough at one point you know somebody's telling lincoln you know grant's a drink or he drinks too much and lincoln you know says you know we need to get a barrel of whatever he's drinking i'm paraphrasing here get a bearer of whatever he's drinking give it to my other generals right he fights right he fights and so uh grant is a persistent character i think that that's something about his generalship that's that's certainly true right uh he had really experienced hardships in the 1850s his family nearly destitute when the war came he is working for his father uh in his father's dry goods business uh and you know i mean that's that's there's a lot of frustration there grant was successful in two things marriage uh he had a very happy marriage with with julia with his wife julia and by the way when she's around grant doesn't drink and at one point lincoln actually issues an executive order for her to join general grant so when she's around and grant tends to keep her with him as much as he can by the way joseph johnson did that too he kept his wife lydia with him as much as he could whenever things look like there's going to be an engagement or something he would send her away right and grant would do the same kind of thing right and so uh grant was successful in marriage and he's successful in war and he scored some really significant victories uh kind of early on here right uh when he's able to take uh you know important important uh points on the rivers right so if you look at this map uh he uh in early 1800's he takes fort henry on february 6th and he takes fort donaldson on february 16th and i think that a good bit of this has to do with the fact that grant works well in terms of again operating in conjunction with naval force he had a real a real capacity to do that part of the problem part what they're contending about and and what have been going on in late 1861 is kentucky tried to stay neutral right uh kentucky had elements of you know people supporting both sides but kentucky tried to stay out of the war and so both sides for a while try to honor kentucky neutrality uh even though you know i mean lincoln would once say it would be nice to have it would be good to have god on our side but i must have kentucky right i must have kentucky and kentucky neutrality is eventually broken and you can kind of see that on the map polk moved into columbus kentucky right and that's leonindus polk and i think i have a there's a slide with general polk uh general polk uh general polka is definitely one of the characters of the war and by the way for these slides uh in case you're not aware which side i'm referring to a general being on i put csa for confederate states of america usa or u.s for the united states when i'm talking about a union general a polk was actually an episcopal bishop he was a west pointer and everything but he had he had he had went to the church and made him an episcopal bishop and polk is someone who [Music] uh who has a personal friendship with jefferson davis and has a tendency to write directly to him which is usually not good for whoever is pokes the media commander and polk can blunder sometimes and he certainly blunders here right he's moving into columbus violet kentucky neutrality enable the union to push in and that eventually resulted we go back to that map resulted in those victories fort henry and fort donelson uh and this opened up much of tennessee for a union advance so you can see largely along the tennessee river that the union forces is they are advancing and they advance to shiloh right or pittsburgh's landing and there's going to be a major battle fault there and but here's one point in which grant's caught a little bit off guard the confederate commander of the entire western theater which is a very thankless task was albert sidney johnston let's see if i can get my slide here albert sidney johnston and albert cindy johnston uh has a distinction of being an officer for three governments right military officer for the united states and he had fought the mexican-american war uh and jefferson davis was a great admirer of johnson had been since the mexican-american war right and johnson had a very very you know vaulted reputation but he'd also been a commander or general for the republic of texas right or he served in the republic of texas's army even before that right so so i mean so he and then he serves as a confederate general as well and so you know some i think one of his biographers the title of the book is something like you know uh you know commander general for three republics or something of that nature so albert cindy johnston you know is really in charge of everything going on that western theater again quite a thankless task but it also reflects the kind of confidence that davis had him in fact david said got a quote here from jefferson davis right so david said i hoped and expected that i had others who would prove generals but i knew i had won and that was sydney johnston right so he the the rising star of the confederate military in davis's mind was going the guy was going to be sidney johnson albert sydney johnston and what johnston and beauregard in fact is in the western theater business point is helping johnson in fact what they do is they actually conduct a concentration in space so if you look at this map you can see that right what johnson is doing is he's bringing confederate forces from all over by rail he's using rail line here and he's bringing them from all over and they concentrate near shiloh or pittsburgh's landing and that produces the battle of shiloh april 6th and 7th 1862 uh in which when you go back to this map grant is at shiloh but he's waiting for reinforcement from buell don carlos buell general buell who's coming down from nashville and grant shows up first right buell doesn't show up till late of the night or early the morning of the seventh and the confederate army is concentrated grant is unaware that and he's attacked right he's caught uh by surprise and is attacked i mean and one thing that you know that the union army did not do uh that they probably should have done was they they actually could they actually put in place no entrenchments right uh they they didn't dig in i mean even at standard military practice you know to establishing the camp in that way going back to the roman empire uh but they don't do that and so they're caught by surprise and attacked by confederate forces on the sixth and so this map confusing as it may be shows that attack right and uh beauregard actually uh actually does a lot of the the more general overseeing of the engagement and johnston is really seriously involved at various points trying to rally people at various points and at one point on the battlefield johnston is rallying soldiers he's there with the staff officer with him is actually a volunteer staff officer isham harris who is the confederate governor of tennessee you know most of tennessee has fallen to union arms he doesn't have much state to govern so he's actually with the army uh and johnston's there and there's a there's like a a a a bunch of cherry trees and it's in the spring and there's blossoms and and there's all this talk about how the cannonballs come through and the blossoms are everywhere and at one point johnston slumps over from his horse and he's falling off his horse and they're helping him and and he's he's white as a sheet and they notice that there's there's some blood around his leg and as they pull his his boot off his boots full of blood he had been hit by a mini ball a bullet right in the back of the knee and it had severed the blood vessel and johnston literally bled to death on the battlefield right and so johnston died and that took something out of the confederate effort at this particular point beauregard then has full command in every sense but on the sixth if we go back to the map they drive grant back to the to the to the camp right and you can see the tennessee river and you can see that line right uh and so they drive grant all the way back uh and that night grant has and here's again working with naval force grant has uh two naval vessels in the tennessee river shelling the confederate army throughout the night and by the way uh buell also will show up and reinforce the union army right so grant's driven back seriously the first day and there's a famous encounter between sherman and grant right and i have that slide here in which sherman says we've had the devil's own day didn't we there's a friendship between sherman and grant right they they have a professional relationship but they also have a very serious friendship there's a book in fact about about their friendship i'm trying to remember the author's name it escapes my mind at the moment but sherman says we've had the devil's own day didn't we and grant you know in the it's raining and he's he's actually and that's my favorite picture of grant uh but when this happens he's actually sitting under a tree or something he says yes lick him tomorrow though and so grant's confidence was that they would win and with buells reinforcement grant is able to articulate the army and on the next day drives the confederates from the field right and that flanking fire from the naval forces does not help and beauregard is driven back right beauregard has driven back and so shiloh is a battlefield victory a tactical victory for the north right here's some statistics in terms of the battle of shiloh okay in which we can see estimated casualties estimated strengths right the union army especially once it has the enforcement by buell is up to 65 085 the army of mississippi the confederate army 44 968 but your casualties right 23 746 total 13 047 u.s 10 699 confederate right so again i think i mentioned uh maybe earlier uh in a different context uh i don't know how many maybe i did or maybe i didn't but at shiloh april 6th and 7th 1862 since you count both sides more americans die at the battle of shiloh then died in the american revolutionary war the war of 1812 and the mexican-american war combined shiloh was up to that point a huge battle but there would be bigger ones to come with higher casualty rates to come so the cost was incredible right the cost was incredible and grant says something about this in his memoir that i think is worth looking at right and i i want to look at this quote so general grant says in his memoir the enemy not only attempted to hold a line farther south but assumed the offensive and made such a gallant effort to regain what had been lost indeed i gave up the i gave up all idea of saving the union except by complete conquest grant was convinced by shiloh the war is not going to be easy it's not going to be won in an easy simple quick fashion this is going to be difficult we're going to completely conquer the south uh this is we have to be in it for the long haul right and so this influences grant's thinking in a really big way okay so things are going well for the union in the west but not so well in the east there have been a change in command uh mcdowell is no longer the primary commander in the east the union commander in east is george b mcclellan right general george b mcclellan and mcclellan was a west pointer uh though he and like so many he left the army at one point in the 1850s and in fact been an executive railroad executive right and so the vice president one rail i think president of another railroad he was fairly young at this point only in his thirties uh and uh mcclellan has some distinct strengths uh he had been very successful in in western virginia uh in which you know forces at least under his command to some degree uh you know had won at uh well i mean he wasn't at philippi but you know forces you know that he was trying to coordinate uh had one in philippi ridge mountain corks ford right securing the baltimore ohio railroad for the union mcclellan was very gifted in terms of organization and logistics i think his experience as a railroad executive is part of that he was very good at training an army and extremely good at the process of supplying an army which made mcclellan really popular i mean mcclellan makes sure that you're well equipped well fed so he is very very popular his nickname is little mac right and he's very popular in the in the army of the potomac which is the primary union army in the east and you know he had those talents he had those abilities mcclellan however was very reluctant to actually fight the army right to actually engage very cautious extremely cautious and lincoln was going through all kinds of you know effort to try to get him to move against the confederate forces hopefully march toward manassas junction and march toward richmond in that fashion and johnston who was in command for the confederates is trying to find ways to uh you know to meet such a thrust right and mcclellan was reluctant to move and a famous story in which you know lincoln goes to mcclellan's headquarters in washington to confer with him one evening and he was not there right uh but lincoln decided to wait for him wait for him to come home and mcclellan actually enters in through the back doors told the president is there and showing tr he had disdain for lincoln right he seemed to he didn't have much respect apparently for lincoln he went upstairs with the bid and john haye who was the young one of the young secretaries for president lincoln who would later be like uh mckinley and theodore roosevelt's secretary of state uh john haye was you know incensed so angry and lincoln according to hay says to to hey well you know if it would if it brings victory right i will hold the bridle of general mcclellan's horse right now by the way whether that story is true or not no one tell would tell a story like that about jefferson davis right jefferson davis is never going to have that kind of attitude toward any general right he and once you get on davis's bad side you can't get on his good side right it's just not possible and so mcclellan you know uh was often arrogant even in dealing with lincoln uh eventually lincoln's issues a general order right here it is general order number one ordered that uh the 22nd day of february 1862 be the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces the united states against the insurgent forces i want everybody to move whatever i concentrate in time right i want everybody to move and everybody to to act and this is what this really is he's doing is he's pushing mcclellan to act mcclellan comes up with a different plan to to attack richmond and forwards it he doesn't want to go down through manassas junction what he wants to do is use naval power and this map kind of helps us use naval power land a force on the peninsula between the james and york rivers and march up the peninsula to richmond right and lincoln agrees to that right it's going to get if it means that mcclellan will move he's all for it so as we look at the map and look at the dates so march 17th and we see they're pushing on toward yorktown there's a force under magruder that's trying to defend at yorktown uh eventually april 5th they made it that far may 5th i mean so we're talking about nearly nearly a couple months here they're only at about williamsburg so mclean's very slow in his advance now by the way mcclellan was always convinced that the confederate army was numerically superior and at no point was that ever true in fact he had tremendous numerical superiority over johnston johnson had to shift had to come down to try to defend richmond now from johnston's point of view johnston uh you know is looking for a possible opportunity to counter attack uh but you know he's very careful and wants to make sure that's one that he thought might have you know some possibility of success uh so the union advance is slow and so lincoln was probably frustrated by that but what johnson does is he constantly backs up right and davis is concerned about that i mean johnston had already you know said when he was at harpers ferry you know this position is untenable and it really wasn't and had fallen back to winchester now he's falling back along the peninsula right davis wants him to and david scott uses this kind of language strike a blow right he wants him to strike a blow against the union army but johnston keeps falling back uh and that's something that you know is concerning davis in a very very serious way uh i mean and of course you know another point of view lincoln's like i wish i wish mcclellan would push push a little bit more you know uh but as we see by may 31st right by late may the union army is very close to richmond just a few miles from richmond they can hear the church bells in richmond right now one of the things that had hindered the union effort here again mcclellan was always convinced he was outnumbered he he was using hot air balloons some to do some reconnaissance but that that tended to overestimate the confederate forces but one thing i think is is working against him and this actually is was the brainchild of davis's primary strategic advisor general lee okay lee was you know lee was organizing and organizing an effort to try to siphon force off from from mcclellan by making an offensive in the shenandoah valley and that offensive was under jackson right so this this map right kind of shows that as you see mcclellan moving toward richmond and jackson is conducting operations in the shenandoah valley and using his superior knowledge of the road system in the valley is wreaking havoc upon smaller forces and winning a series of battles and you can see those marked on the map and this this is stonewall jackson is best right in fact this is a campaign that really emphasizes his mobility his ability to to strike right to find the weaknesses in an enemy to to concentrate by using mobility in fact it's a campaign that's still studied uh today uh you know still studied by any any military establishment or military schools in fact uh this is a campaign that erwin rommel the german field marshal in world war ii it studied very heavily right so it's a highly influential very important campaign in that sense this from the strategic point of view lee is trying to use it right to siphon off force again from mcclellan but meanwhile uh again davis is concerned davis was concerned that johnston might give up richmond without fighting a battle and he had backed up all the way almost to the gates right so there's a lot of pressure on johnston to fight an engagement and johnston does that eventually at this engagement this map the battle of seven pines right he's attempting uh to attack the union army uh at this point uh and with limited success and probably the the most important aspect of this battle is the fact that johnston is wounded right and he is uh he's wounded especially in the leg and i think also in the chest and through shrapnel right and uh is carried off the field now one of the things that was problematic for johnston is when this engagement starts going davis and lee actually show up right so the president's on the field again and as johnson when johnson was wounded they're bringing him back to the rear uh you know there there's the president and there's general lee the president's primary strategic advisor and davis sees johnston wounded and what happens is after this johnson obviously cannot continue to command that army he has to recover right and he does recover and he will come back to service in fact uh before you know too long uh i will point out that as he's convalescing he really really uh gets his friendship with louis wiggfall the senator from texas and perennial political critic of jefferson davis that really flowers even though him and his wife go and stay with the wig falls in fact in richmond uh at one point and so this really intensifies davis's uh you know distrust of johnston which is a mutual feeling but davis appointed lee to feel johnston's place in that army and so at that point robert e lee becomes the commander of the army of northern virginia and there's there's general lee uh and and lee so far had mainly been kind of a troubleshooter he'd been given an assignment in western virginia didn't go very well he had also been given some other assignments in terms of of certain uh uh points that coastal defenses and things of that nature and he had mainly served as kind of an advisor strategic advisor uh and so the initial reaction uh in johnston's army uh you know had been it had been johnston's army was somewhat negative and one of the least first orders is to do more entrenchment in richmond right so some critical richmond newspapers start to refer to lee as the king of spades because they're digging in uh and many people thought you know that lee was going to be so passive in fact when colin when he finds out that lee uh was offered command was given command you know believe all lee is going to be way too cautious it's funny that mcclellan would say wait dude actually colin that's projection right mcclellan's the one who's way too cautious lee in fact the audacious is the only really way to describe him right he's a gambler and that may not have been something that everybody knew was going to be the case but it becomes pretty evident early on he launches a series of attacks on the union army he realizes that mcclellan has part of his force on one side of the river and part of his force on the other side of the river and he attacks one side right and so this leads to what is called the seven days battles right so here you are you have these battles that are fought in the seven days oak grove beaver dam creek gaines mill garnets and goldings farms savages station white oak swamp glenville mount vernon hill and all of these engagements are very costly i might point out for the confederates i mean those who are critical of lee's generalship point to even even his successes often can be extremely costly can the confederacy afford that loss of manpower is a legitimate question right it's certainly a legitimate question and many of these battles you know are very very costly but here's the result look at this map okay so if you look at this map there's there's the positions but when this when this begins okay you go from this to this to this right so let's go back right so there to there to there so in essence lee drives mcclellan off the peninsula now that last battle at malvern hill tactically is terrible for the confederates it's it's basically a frontal assault and frontal assaults tend not to be very effective in the civil war i mean weaponry has changed i mean you no longer using muskets with a range of 180-100 yards you're using rifled muskets with a range of 300 or so yards but you're using the same tactics and i mean you can't one thing people often ask this why they line up in those lines whether what they're doing is trying to get you know a field of fire the tactics are still linear it's the war is modern or industrial in some ways but there are other ways that it's not uh you don't have radio so it's impossible to spread the men out you have no command and control so you still have to mask them in but frontal assaults often can be extremely costly and there are several examples of that malvern hill is one but that being said even though some of these engagements are not tactical victories the entire entire campaign is definitely a confederate victory because mcclellan is driven away from richmond right look at the casualties though i mean lee had about 92 000 but suffers 20 000 204 casualties so very very high he suffers more casualties than the union army so he definitely takes a much higher percentage of casualties uh but he does accomplish uh the goal of securing richmond right so in that sense lee becomes his stock rises obviously when that's the case and and mcclellan mcclellan is falling all the way back to harrison's landing and i think one of your documents is his letter from harrison's landing to lincoln if you look at that document remember that he is writing that document after he's been driven back from the peninsula and you can see just how much nerve he had to say what he's saying to lincoln to make a bunch of suggestions of lincoln uh you know to try to advise lincoln when he had just made a retrograde movement from the gates of richmond all the way to harrison's landing and so how must lincoln have viewed that letter so you know if you if you write on that option you know if you wrote on that option you know uh in in terms of the document based essay i mean remember that context right uh that that's something else uh so lincoln turns toward the other approach to richmond and after that the the traditional approach the one the mcdowell tried but appoints pope right general john pope to lead that effort and this uh results uh in a situation not any better than first manassas from the union viewpoint what happens here is pope he's operating against lee and lee's able to basically catch pope almost in around the same area you know around manassas and basically catching between two wings of his army and again drives the union army from the field right uh so second manassas uh is a distinct uh confederate tactical victory right in fact this is a painting i think uh showing lee and his staff uh at s at second manassas right uh so if you look at the casualties right uh union cash is approximately ten thousand right so uh union casualties are very heavy uh this is a very significant significant battlefield defeat uh and you know so things in the east don't go over things in the west for the union going very well but in the east things are starting to really look better in many ways for the confederates davis said this at this particular point right he said and i quote we are driven to protect our own country by transferring the seat of war to that of an enemy who pursues us with a relentless and apparently aimless hostility and what's happening here is the confederates are going to go on the offensive right in fact in a letter to davis lee right writes and i quote from the slide we can see it the present seems to be the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the confederate army to enter maryland and so lee wants to take his army into maryland and he lays out several objectives uh in terms of that in terms of that kind of a campaign right and so here are his objectives uh maintain the initiative and momentum right which is always important for lee it's better to have the enemy reacting to you than you reacting to the enemy right he wants to provision the confederate army outside of virginia if they can make this move in the in the fall you know earl late summer early autumn then possibly virginia farmers will be able to harvest their crops right he might be able to impact northern off-year elections more democrats would be elected perhaps and would oppose you know the republican war policy you wanted to rally maryland to the confederate cause right the perception that maryland was being kept into the kept in the union by force lincoln had squashed the amer the maryland legislature to prevent them from voting on secession and so you know the hope was uh that you know marylanders would rise up uh for the confederacy right uh in fact when lee's army marches into maryland they're singing a song maryland my maryland which uh you can you can hear that song and by the way back in the during the centennial celebration of the civil war uh the singer tennessee ernie ford is most known for 16 tons and when i was a kid around christmas time you always had to hear tennessee ernie ford's christmas out right very very popular i mean my grandmother thought tennessee ernie ford was you know he was the guy right and tennessee irony ford recorded uh two albums uh in the early 1960s one was you know civil war songs of the north one with civil war songs of the south right well on the album civil war songs of the south you probably could hear this on youtube it would be i'd be surprised if you couldn't uh there is uh maryland my maryland the song that you know lee's army sings as they as they march into into maryland which is set to basically the same tune as old christmas tree right it's the same kinda [Music] and uh you know it's it's talking about how you know you know the you know the the despot's boot is on is on her neck and all the things we've got we've got to you know liberate maryland right uh there was some confederate support for confederates in maryland there were confederate maryland units uh there were prominent marylanders who served in the confederate army i mean uh isaac trimble general trumbull was a marylander maryland doesn't rise up uh as as lee hoped they would right but that was definitely one of the objectives and last the fifth objective sway the european powers if you could gain a significant victory over a union or if you can march maybe into pennsylvania right and gain a tactical victory over a union army on northern soil maybe that would help in terms of the diplomatic effort as far as the confederacy was concerned so there are the objectives set out by lee now i'll point out that you almost really have and whether it's a conscious or planned thing or whether it's just all these things come together at the same time there's almost a concentration in time for the confederates right so lee's going to be pushing into maryland at the same time a confederate force that musters in what we think of as beckley right pushes into the kanawha valley the confederates had lost the canal valley in charleston early in the war in 1861 where they're going to try to push into the into the kanawha valley sees charleston sees the salines of the canal valley and they do for a short period of time right marching from what we think of as beckley right there's also going to be a large offensive into kentucky as well that's the kentucky campaign under general braxton bragg right who's uh one of the most enigmatic figures in the civil war he he's someone who was able to alienate people he had a very abrasive very difficult personality and almost always ends up alienating his subordinates right uh well he's commanding against uh buell in kentucky and and like lee's trying to uh rally maryland uh bragg's trying to rally kentucky right install a confederate kentucky governor and that results by the way actually in the battle of perryville and bragg ends up having to actually withdraw from uh from kentucky so that turns out not to be a successful effort in fact here's a map uh you can see that the main battle takes place in october at perryville in fact when that engagement begins bragg was actually at frankfurt attending a ceremony installing a confederate governor of kentucky right and it has to come to the field and essentially uh it has to withdraw from kentucky after perryville right and so it's kind of similar to what happens actually uh with lee's army right so lee as bragg is operating in kentucky lee operates uh in in maryland right now one thing is harper's fair if you look at this map harper's ferry would be as lee advances north harper's ferry would be on his on his on the left flank of his army so he felt that there's there's a union garrison there he he felt it needed to be captured and so he detaches part of his force to capture it and marches into maryland right uh and he marches into maryland uh something happens actually at uh i think you can see that at frederick right you can see frederick on the map both armies at one point camped at frederick and lee has dispersed his army to do various things here's kind of another map kind of showing uh the campaign but leah dispersed his army to do various things in fact uh here is a picture in fact i think it's one of the few pictures of the confederate army in motion right actually in movement but if you look at this map this was the dispositions of the confederate army and and uh per special order 191 and so lee had directed various parts of the army part you said parts of harper's very sent and parts uh sent toward hagerstown and so he's got he's got his army spread out in different places with different objectives trying to you know find choir food stuffs etc and this assumes that you know the the union army was moving fairly slowly because lee was aware that the commander of the union army is mcclellan mcclellan's been placed back in command of that primary army and something happens here lee's orders a copy of them are left behind by mistake by a confederate staff officer in fact they wrap some cigars with the order and somehow it falls out of the guy's pocket or something of that nature and when the union army camps there they're found and one of the union staff officers recognizes because all these people know each other recognizes the writing the handwriting of the confederate staff officer and so they know therefore that the orders that this order is legitimate and so mcclellan knows the dispositions of his enemy i mean this is what james mcpherson called the all-time military jackpot i mean to actually know where where the enemy is located and how they're dispersed so mcclellan you know is sending back word to washington right uh wanting uh one in lincoln to know uh that he he knows this and so here's mcclellan and here's his quote this is two lincoln right he says i have the whole rebel force in front of me but i am confident and and no time shall be lost i think lee has made a gross mistake and that he will be severely punished for it i have all the plans of the rebels and will catch them in their own trap if my men are equal to the emergency will send you trophies so i mean talk about confidence right i've got his plans i got him now if my men are equal to the emergency that's kind of an interesting statement right almost kind of leaving up the possibility if he's not successful he can blame the troops for it right uh and so you know he's like i've got lee i've got him right lee begins to figure out that mcclellan is moving uh you know very effectively against him or somewhat effectively against him and at least starts to concentrate his army right and you can kind of see that happens and he's going to try he's going to concentrate that army actually near sharpsburg maryland you can see it on the map and he has long street actually trying to defend the gaps and he's trying to hold the union army back at south mountain it's called the battle of south mountain while lee concentrates his army at sharpsburg right this is what leads to the battle of antietam september 17th 1862 which is the single most costly day of the war and um lee has all of his army there except for a good portion of ap hills division which was still in harpers ferry you know paroling union soldiers right uh and so uh the battle of antietam is fought lee is actually in a defensive position right it's a the union army will be attacking lee will for the most part would be receiving the attack uh here you kind of get a general uh look at the battle in some ways the battle is like three battles if you look at the map uh hooker's first core attacks uh down through the cornfield northwest toward the dunker church you can see the little symbol for the church that actually takes place early in the morning then the battle by later morning early afternoon shifts toward the sunken road which you know long street's part of the uh of the of the engagement uh and uh you know that sunken road uh is where you see that that part of the engagement and then in the evening uh there's a bridge crossing antietam creek that burnside is trying to to basically cross to attack the confederate army uh the union attacks are not coordinated uh mcclellan in fact spends the entire battle at the prior house at the pry house sorry and really is not moving around and what happens is it's like it's three different battles and that enabled lee by the way to use some of the same artillery at each particular point in the field right so uh this is something that you know you know mcclellan had the opportunity to really destroy lee's army but there's a lack of coordination uh that act the activity up near the uh the dunker church here's a a photograph of uh you know dead bodies uh near the dunker church uh you know after the battle a few days after that a couple days after the battle and that's how that's how it looked then this is how that looks now by the way so i mean that's there if you go to antietam uh you can you know still auntie is a good battlefield to visit uh you know here's here's some some bodies along uh you know a fence line you know a few days after the battle this is that that sunken road in the center of the of the battlefield which the confederates initially use as a uh i guess you might say a a trench to defend themselves as they're being attacked but eventually they're attacked from the side and it becomes not a place of defense becomes a place in which they're they're being butchered and many of the long streets men have to fall back in fact uh but they leave you know so many dead bodies in that sunken road this is what this looks like today if you go and visit today there are monuments for very in markers for various units that's actually from there's a tower and i was you know the last time i was there you couldn't go up to tower but one of the other times i was there you could and so there's a tower where you can kind of see down through there you can climb up to the top and so the confederate position was there union advance was against that position but then when they involved it that's when you went from you know that's when you had that situation okay so you know that's that's an antietam uh let me go back a couple maps right here burnside's bridge uh actually there was a place where they could forward the creek and burnside eventually does find that but he sends unit after unit across that bridge and you can see where tomes tombs had tombs has a position there confederate position that's up on a really really steep hill i mean it's it's about like that right and it's a considerable hill uh it's a very formidable position tombs has very two troops there but the position is so good uh and and they're able to really kind of shoot those union forces as they're trying to go across that bridge if you go there you're really really i wish i'd had a slide on this on this powerpoint to show you uh but once they take the once the union army does finally get that position forwards and able to come up through there they're hoping to attack the flank of the confederate army but ap hill shows up right uh from harper's ferry you know in the late in the afternoon it's just the right moment his light division had marched 12 miles right and they show up and go right into battle and hit the union forces and stop the assault lee in fact stays on the battlefield the next day almost daring mcclellan to attack but he can't just stay in maryland he has to withdraw from maryland right so in a sense tactically the battle of antietam is is almost like a draw but strategically right in terms of you know broader concepts since lee has to leave since he has to withdraw a crawl back across the potomac it is a union victory right and in fact mcclellan uses i mean mcclella and lee lincoln sorry lincoln uses it as an opportunity to issue the emancipation proclamation and it really kind of shifts the purpose of the war as a result right you know whereas before lincoln had been continuing that the goal of the war was to preserve the union he even said famously in a letter to horse greely that if he could preserve that if he could save the union and free some of the slaves and leave some of them in slavery he'd do that if he could save the union and free all the slaves he'd do that if he could save the union and free none of the slaves he would do that but more and more lincoln was identifying slavery as the achilles heel of the confederacy and uh was contending that we need to attack slavery and so doing kind of sees the moral high ground it has a lot of implications in terms of foreign policy again it certainly would work against any notions of recognizing the confederacy on the part of the british and so i mean it's brilliant strategy uh but it becomes more the union the union cause more and more becomes identified with emancipation especially from the point of view of the lincoln administration now in the army of potomac very interesting here you will have commanders uh generals of various cores and divisions uh who are abolitionists and in favor of this who are die hard for this and then you have those like mcclellan uh who really are not interested in abolition of slavery and in fact believe that that's a wrong-headed policy right so i mean the army of potomac has has politics and it's democratic republican you know republicans you know for you know abolishing slavery democrats are really not right uh but it's it's also uh you know it also has to do with mcclellan too i mean those who would like mcclelland support him those who wanted to see him gone right as we look at the casualties right casualties are extremely high right uh you know twelve thousand over twelve thousand casualty union over ten thousand uh for the confederates the single most costly day of the war but again it does redefine the war uh as slavery right becomes a central issue in that sense and and i got to tell you what destroys slavery is not the 13th amendment the emancipation proclamation actually doesn't free any slaves it frees slaves in the confederacy if you don't win the war it means nothing i mean it's it's a great propaganda value it's i mean it was a foreign policy document but it doesn't really free slaves the victory will only only do that right the 13th amendment you know of course makes slavery illegal right it abolishes slavery technically constitutionally but what really destroyed slavery was the war right the war destroyed slavery uh you know as as as slaves began to understand that the union army meant freedom you know they they acted on that right they uh they they they would you know they would aid union the union army in various ways right uh they would flee to the union army uh and so the confederacy has all most of its manpower it's interesting like for example the confederate conscription law exempted you from conscription if you own 20 slaves the other did you need to be there to oversee slaves because if you don't do that you might have slave uprising right you know that's that's telling that's very telling uh but the fact that you have so many men off in the confederate army you know you no longer can and slavery has to be it's not something that's natural has to be enforced right and so slavery is destroyed by the war right by the war itself and it was a volatile problem that the davis administration never actually was able to get around lincoln was dismayed though that lee was able to move back across potomac in such good order he goes to visit mcclellan's army confers with mcclellan becomes convinced that mcclellan is not anxious to move against lee and fires him again right so this time mcclellan is sacked and sacked permanently and lincoln selected as his successor ambrose burnside general ambrose burnside and burnside has a different kind of a plan i'll look at a map here and kind of show you what he wants to do we see that lee had part of his army on one side of the blue ridge and jackson was on the other side there in in the shenandoah valley and what what burnside wanted to do was shift the entire effort down toward fredericksburg and use actually a potomac river you know as a navigable river as a supply line cross at fredericksburg and march on richmond in that direction and so what he did is he tried to get pontoon bridges moved down toward fredericksburg so he could cross the river at that point the rabbihonic and can move in that direction he says in a message to lincoln i think now the enemy will be more surprised by crossing immediately in our front than any other part of the river the commanders of the grand divisions coincide with me in this opinion i have accordingly ordered the movement we hope to succeed not nearly as confident as mcclellan right so this results in the battle of fredericksburg lee actually understands what's going on here eventually and concentrates the confederate army on high ground above fredericksburg uh this is the images the pontoon bridge is trying to get across the river he's able to even contest that crossing to some degree but for the most part what lee does if you look at the subsequent map i have here is you do have jackson's core actually down near hamilton crossing in a kind of a swampier type of area but then marie's marie's heights is a high ground and burnside will conduct several frontal assaults against that entrenched position they have a stone wall they're able to enhance it for defense the the core commander on that part of the field for the confederates is james longstreet right and long street uh who had connections really with south carolina and georgia long street was at his best on defense right he's a west pointer going to be a controversial figure for things that are happening later but he's best on defense his artillery commander colonel porter alexander's later a general uh said this right i mean longstreet asks him you know about artillery dispositions and he says and i've always loved this quote he says general we covered that ground now so well that we will come as with a fine toothed comb a chicken could not live on that field when we open on it alexander actually wrote two memoirs about his experience and a lot a lot of civil war memoirs are not very good right and they're not worth the paper they're written on some so many of them are so biased and they're not not just again not really against the enemy so much is against the people you fought with right alongside you know johnston writes memoirs basically to to show how davis had lost the war right and you know davis will criticize him and rise and fall confederate government porter alexander i think is one of the one of the better reads it's it's well written but porter alexander seems to have a little more balance in terms of his memoir that's not from his memoir that's that's what he says to longstreet before the battle right so these assaults against in transpositions and this map really shows that what you end up having is several thousand union dead right there in front of that wall right in fact lee is supposed to have turned to long street at some point and said it is good that war is so terrible lest we grow too fond of it because of you know the lopsided nature of what was going on in terms of frontal assaults again are often not very successful in the civil war uh and you have a series of them uh and you know burnside even wanted to possibly leave one personally and has to be restrained uh by his staff right so this turns out terribly uh for the union army and as we look at casualties right uh it's lopsided right confederate casualties around five thousand three and seven seven twelve thousand six hundred fifty three casualties right so very very high casualties a disastrous campaign things again are not going well in the west in the east for the union uh lincoln now turns to joseph hooker and here's a image of joseph hooker fighting joe as he was known who had lobbied and actually you know had uh uh i guess we might say uh behind the scenes you know kind of uh you know tried to gain appointment uh to try to you know get burnside fired right uh lincoln appoints him and br and hooker had even told some reporters apparently that what the country really needed was a military dictator like a caesar and kind of seeing himself as a possibility lincoln actually responds to this i think it's interesting right so this is lincoln to general hooker and so look at what lincoln said he said i've heard it in such a way as to believe it of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator of course it was not for this but in spite of it that i have given you the command only those generals who gain success can be dictators what i now ask of you is military success and i will risk the dictatorship in our terms in our parliaments we would say that lincoln is saying to hooker put up or shut up uh you know the army the potomac had went into winter quarters after you know fredericksburg exactly fought in december and went into winter quarters and when spring comes and the campaign's going to begin you know hooker's one of the points going to get the appointment and lincoln is saying you know it's time to give me victory right i mean you know if you're going to be a dictator you got to win i mean julius caesar became dictator because julius caesar defeated pompeii right he won so hooker needs to win is the idea hooker's plan is not a bad one i don't know how well you can see this map but essentially you can see fredericksburg there on the far side what hooker's going to do is he's going to try to cross at ford's and come down behind the confederate army right and he's actually successful in getting in lee's rear and he's pressing on on lee and part of lee's army under long street is actually somewhere else he's actually in north carolina and so lee's in a really inter a rough position he's got kind of a skeletal force on an early you know defending fredericksburg in sedgwick and and lee and leah got the bulk of the union army though pressing him uh you know from around the chanceller house right the chancellor house and that is where hooker will have his headquarters and what lee does here is he has a meeting on the evening of may first the battle begins may 1st with with jackson and stewart you know as the confederate cavalry commander uh and and calvary's main responsibility was reconnaissance right screening the movement of infantry from the enemy uh and reconnaissance i mean stuart had made a a very uh sensational ride around the army of potomac during the peninsula campaign when mcclellan was in command uh and you know so stuart stewart really loves you know his role right and and likes to likes to do things that gets his name in the paper uh but in any event uh stewart discovers that the union flank right howard oh howard the 11th core is unprotected and so jackson suggests taking his entire core and flanking the position attacking that flank and lee this is gambling i mean you want to talk dividing your face dividing your force in the face of a superior enemy this is extremely dangerous uh but lee gambles right and sends jackson with the entire core and they attack howard's flank uh he doesn't get over to over there to about three or four o'clock on may 2nd right and he attacks howard howard is unexpecting it drives that drives that flank in and in fact one of the things that happens here is the attack is continuing and as night falls jackson actually does a reconnaissance to kind of possibly conduct a you know a night assault which is very rare in the civil war he he exits confederate lines at one point and tries to re-enter at a different point and he's taken by some confederate pickets as as a union as federal union calvary him and his staff uh and he's shot by his own men right and wounded uh in fact he'll lose an arm eventually pneumonia will kill him right he'll die right so chancellorsville will be jackson's last battle uh and so and and jackson was a very reliable subordinate there's no doubt about that but this is a successful flank assault and so you can see stuart actually takes command of jackson score and they're actually able to push you know hooker back across the river and so very successful engagement very costly though for the confederates i mean they lost 13 000 casualties so i mean this is where he's i mean if you look at the the forces i mean lee was really operating at a numerical disadvantage but he was able to gain tactical success at this particular juncture but it was extremely costly right the army of northern virginia suffered heavily in terms of casualties so again those who are critical of general elise generalship tend to focus on the price that's paid in terms of even his victories right even his victories are pricely are pricey and so things in the east though are definitely not going well i mean lincoln is very dismayed by hooker's defeat at chancellorsville but in the west you know it's a different it's a different matter i mean for one thing one of those strategic objectives again was to kind of split the confederacy by seizing the mississippi river and grant has that as his primary responsibility uh in fact by you know chancellorsville thought in may of 1863 by this point the confederates only really have two points on the river i mean they had lost new orleans to an amphibious assault early in the war uh vicksburg is the main point they also have port hudson but vicksburg is the main point on the river and both sides understand that if vicksburg falls if the confederates lose vicksburg then they lose the mississippi river so davis says right vicksburg is the nail that holds the south's two halves together it's the nail and vicksburg is especially important to president davis because he's from mississippi right in fact his his plantation is not far from vicksburg right so he's very very sensitive about what's going on in mississippi and what's happening in vicksburg uh lincoln said and i quote vicksburg is the key the war can never be brought to a close until the key is in our pocket and so both commanders in chief understood the importance and significance of vicksburg okay the confederate commander at vicksburg who's responsible for defense of vicksburg was general pemberton lieutenant general john pemberton and pemberton was a pennsylvania native but had married a virginian and therefore threw in his lot with the south and it's his responsibility to defend vicksburg now i'll point out that johnston after he recovered had basically been given a role similar to albert sidney johnston's role earlier in which he has you know this massive theater that he's responsible for really a very thankful thankless task in many ways and so pemberton's trying to defend grant's trying to find a way to take vicksburg and he's gonna try several different things right uh there'll be one uh assault uh that uh will be kind of a frontal assault that sherman will make at uh at chickasaw bluff uh that will be unsuccessful frontal salt that will be very costly in fact sherman had said very cynically you know we're going to lose 6 000 men we might as well lose it here or lose them here but he also attempts a movement down on the east side of the river but that movement is plagued by calvary attacks by nathan bedford forest and van vandoorne who are two calvary commanders forrest is famous for uh actually being the the founder of the ku klux klan after the war our infamous i guess we should say for that vandoorne he's a he's a fascinating guy who's actually killed later in 1863 by a jealous husband and probably for just cause in many ways but their calvary actions makes it impossible for grant to actually make that movement so grant comes up with a different plan and i think it's one of the most brilliant strategic plans in american military history what grant's going to do is he's going to get the navy and here again working in conjunction with naval force to run the gauntlet right and so here's an image of this uh you know admiral porter's fleet's running you know here we have ironclads ironclad ships right running the the rebel blockade of the mississippi and vicksburg and so you know vicksburg get out it's cannon and you're trying to sink these ships but porter's able to get the you know the vast majority of his ships through right and the idea is he's going to be past vicksburg in that direction grant can march an army down on the on the you know west side of the river and the navy can ferry him across the mississippi he even tried at one point i guess i will mention this in passing he you can see where the the river loops at vicksburg he had tried to construct the canal to divert the river to actually move the river which hadn't worked right so he tried several things but this is what he's gonna this is this is his plan that's going to work right and so he's going to move that army down the west side uh and use naval power naval force to help them cross the river and now he's on the east side of the river and he's south of vicksburg but he doesn't march up the river toward vicksburg he actually marches and you can see on the map toward jackson and you can see him moving here you know he fights several battles he fights at port gibson he fights said raymond and then he fights at jackson and takes jackson on may 14th and after taking jackson he moves toward vicksburg and pemberton has come out at that point with a force fights him and loses a champion's heel then loses his big black river bridge and marches all the way back to vicksburg now johnston has a small force in the area and what davis wants is for johnston to go and attack uh grant and keep keep uh keep the siege from taking place and save vicksburg right pemberton uh you know falls back into into vicksburg and grant lays siege this is a statement and a message written to pemberton from johnston right so johnston writes may 17th 1863 your dispatch of today was received if hanes bluff is untenable vicksburg is of no value and cannot be held if therefore you are invested at vicksburg you must ultimately surrender under such circumstances instead of losing both troops and place we must if possible save the troops if it is not too late evacuate vicksburg and its dependency and march them to the northeast now come and meet me and we'll join together and then may we can operate against grant and that this kind of strikes at the heart the heart of johnston's view of how to conduct things and this is why him and maybe why he and davis don't see eye to eye davis davis pretty much has told pemberton defend vicksburg to the last right you must hold vicksburg johnson is saying vicksburg's not as important as your army right i mean if it's a choice go back to the quote you know under such circumstances instead losing both troops and place we must if possible save the troops you know if you lose an army we can't replace that places can be re-taken but men cannot be as easily replaced right and that that is a big part of how johnston thinks and there are some historians many historians in fact uh and some disagree with this but you know there are some historians who think well johnson definitely had a point right uh you know you could retake vicksburg but you know you lose 20 000 men and they have to be paroled some of them will come back in the army and some will not uh you know davis had wanted vicksburg to be reinforced and bragg's army is technically in the theater that johnston is overseeing uh you know johnson did johnson thought moving men from bragg's army to vicksburg was a waste it'd be better to keep them with bragg's army and continue to operate uh but you know i mean for one entire division is taken from bragg's army that's a that's stevenson's division carter lepage stevenson general stevenson and it's moved to to vicksburg uh it takes it because you know it takes a long time for it to happen and actually what's interesting is they depart they depart from bragg's army at a time bragging to fight into battle stones river murfreesboro tennessee and so they're not there for that engagement because they've been siphoned off to be sent to vicksburg for johnson that was nonsensical right so jonathan's you know view was pemberton needs to you know abandon evacuate vicksburg let's wisconsin he always wants to concentrate for us because he believed if you concentrated force that you you and it could win victory you could retake places but that you couldn't replace force right uh but but pemberton is not going to listen to this right and and part of it pemberton's in a very uneven enviabilization position because of the president's view right and so grant does lay siege uh grant tries to frontal us all on the very early in the siege which is unsuccessful very costly and then he settles in for a long siege and what happens here is johnson was right i mean you're eventually going to surrender and they did i mean the the troops and and the folks in vicksburg were starved out and eventually pemberton has to ask for terms uh grant meets him uh and gives him terms right here's an image of pemberton and grant meeting uh grant will only accept surrender right uh and he does but grant does agree to parole uh the confederate army he's not gonna try to you know come up with prison camps and things like that the parole the idea is if you're paroled you will not engage in military activity you will not fight until you are properly exchanged the two sides did develop an exchange system and so nearly 20 000 confederate troops are paroled uh at vicksburg uh and grant has gained a victory and takes vicksburg on july 4th 1863 right and so uh lincoln says this to grant uh this is a great quote right lincoln says my dear general i do not remember that you and i ever met personally i write this now as a grateful acknowledgement for the almost inestimable service in estimable service you have done the country i wish to say a word further when you first reached the vicinity of vicksburg i thought you should do what you finally did march the troops across the neck run the batteries with the transports and thus go below and i never had any faith except accept a general hope that you knew better than i that the yazoo pass expedition and the like could succeed when you got below and took port gibson grand gulf in the vicinity i thought you should go down the river and join general banks that would be going south south along the river and when you turn norfolk east of the big black i feared it was a mistake now here's the part that i think is so neat lincoln says i now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right and i was wrong you were right general grant thank you you know for your success so you know this is a tremendous victory for the north a strategic victory right they have gained access to the they've gained control of the mississippi river the father waters as lincoln referred to it now was completely in northern union hands from the confederates is a terrible loss and it's going to bring about quite a bit of acrimony for some time to come richard taylor says and i quote got a quote from taylor he said federer general he says he meaning pemberton had joined the south for the express purpose of betraying it and this was clearly proven by the fact that he surrendered on the fourth of july a day sacred to the yankees uh that that that idea is a little absurd that you know pemberton you know in this long plot had you know purely intended you know to do the confederacy harm in fact pemberton i think is very sincere uh in his effort but he i think he's very much tied to what davis tied him to right davis said about the fall of vicksburg and i quote yes from a one of provisions inside and a general outside who wouldn't fight and he's talking about johnston right he's talking about general johnston so davis would blame johnston for for the rest of his life he would blame johnston for the loss of vicksburg so this is a very serious defeat defeat for the confederates but even before its fall i mean some some within confederate leadership circles were believing that that lee should find a way to you know send force to to help in vicksburg leah disagreed with that policy and argued instead that the confederate army should make another offensive into the north and maybe that would relieve the pressure lee was at the height of his military career at this particular point uh even though i'll point out and this is a picture taking of lee around this time in 1863 uh at this point lee was also beginning to have some some health issues he clearly had at least a a mild heart attack at some point here and he has a stressful job he's an extremely stressful job i mean you think about the weight of the responsibility i mean if you look at pictures of lee i mean lee was in his 50s when he took command of the army of northern virginia you know he's not really by our standards he's not a really old man when he dies in 1870 he's not even 70 years old but he looks like he's much much older when you look at pictures of him after the war and that's just the weight you know the the stress and the strain that's on him the death of jackson was an issue it meant that the army of northern virginia had to be reorganized in terms of its structure uh the the army of northern virginia had been organized in two core one under general long street one under the general jackson the first quarter long street the second under jackson lee decides to reorganize the army into three core he's going to have the first court under long street but he's going to have the second core is going to be under yule and you can hear you can see the reorganization right so richard s ewell who had been wounded and lost the leg as a result uh at 2nd manassas he will be the commander of the second corps and general ap hill who had been so fundamental in saving lee's army at antietam is given command of the third corps so in this subsequent campaign the army of northern virginia has an entirely different organization and has to try to work out and get used to that organization and it doesn't usually work very well i might point out okay and so he's he's arguing for the offensive and and davis goes for that and so the north the army of northern virginia the confederate army pushes again into maryland and pennsylvania there's a map showing that there is a change of command in terms of the union army hooker is removed from command the event will be sent west and commander core and the new commander was general george gordon mead of pennsylvania who is appointed here it's kind of interesting mead is not you know really enthusiastic about the emancipation proclamation i mean politically he's kind of a mcclellanite but many of his core commanders have become more ardent about the cause of abolition and so there's a tension here uh politics within his army but there's attentions of politics in the confederate army too right uh you know the idea that you know uh many folks many someone like lincoln i mean someone like long street sorry a general like long street was convinced that virginians had too much there's too much virginia in the army in northern virginia right too too much promotion for virginians non so you have virginians non-virginians there's a little tension there and it to me it's interesting it's fascinating how how how armies have their own kind of politics so meat is going to command the union army as lee is pushing into pennsylvania uh stuart as the calvary commander is supposed to basically uh screen uh lee's movement uh but at one point he makes a ride around the army of potomac which actually deprives lee of a considerable amount of knowledge of positions right reconnaissance you know sometimes i mean bruce catton said that like lee's army was like a blinded giant groping around i think that's a little much i mean lee did have some calvary uh he had a brigade under beverly robertson who was not a very gifted uh commander and he had a brigade of western virginians right west virginians essentially uh under general jenkins general jenkins was from what is now cabell county west virginia right and so he does have some calvary and so to say that he's completely blind i think is unreasonable but stewart's movement is problematic right is problematic and what results is actually the battle of gettysburg as you look at the map uh you had some uh some cavalry under buford actually uh you know defend the high ground uh you know to to the west of gettysburg uh against uh some of uh uh some of the troops of heft's division he's division sorry uh and reynolds brings in the first court and here's where the politics plays in general reynolds uh of you know the first core commander uh is is you know more inclined toward abolition and those kinds of things he's part of that faction within they wanted to fight uh in pennsylvania they want to fight at gettysburg uh whereas mead had a position actually i think back in maryland and if you go to gettysburg it's not really far from maryland i mean emmitsburg maryland is just a few miles away uh he wanted to fight at a place i think called pipes creek and he's really planning that position but you know many members of the of his army prefer this and reynolds is definitely one of them right and reynolds of course gets involved in the engagement here and is killed and reynolds is killed on the field killed by a sharpshooter and dies at gettysburg but what happens is both armies concentrate uh gettysburg on the first day of the battle uh the confederate forces are a little closer and coming in from all different directions take the town of gettysburg and the union forces fall back to cemetery healing sit on the map and ring around towards cemetery ridge lee sends a a message to general yule commander of the second corps and says take that hill meaning cemetery hill if practicable right and that's the wording if practicable uh and yule does not see it as practicable and this turns out to be controversial because i mean clearly that that that commands the town it's a it's uh certainly a uh a prominent spot on the field on the field uh the second day again remember the union army keeps coming in right both sides are concentrating on the second day uh initially the confetti the union position is like a fish hook uh stretching out you know from corpse hill cemetery hill down cemetery ridge down toward little and big and and big round top and sickles the commander of the third corps didn't like his position in the line you can see hancock when when phil scott hancock general hancock is a core commander and moved his men up into the peach orchard uh and here's here's and kind of you know separates from the rest of the line mead was incensed uh and this was you know really not the smartest thing to do hancock in fact sees it happen and tells a staff officer he'll come tumbling back right sickles was a an example of a political general he's from new york he had been a congressman he was appointed uh to you know he's given a commission because of his political influence uh he uh he he's a very erratic character a very fascinating interesting guy uh he was acquitted before the war in the 1850s uh really basically uh and edwin stanton who is at this point secretary of war had been his attorney he was tried for murder he had killed his wife's lover in the streets of washington uh and stanton contended that sickles was not responsible for his actions because he had become insane temporary insanity and it worked right uh he was actually acquitted uh you know despite the fact he killed him right there in broad daylight in this in the streets uh but sickles is definitely a character later on he'll be minister to spain uh but he moves these men up into the peach orchard and if you go back to the map what lee is wanting to do is attack both flanks right he's got long street he wants long street to tackle and attack along and try to roll the flank up and yule to come in the other direction long street and this will be a controversy for years to come longstreet has to redirect his core he's trying to keep them out of the site of of union forces on high ground and it takes him a long time to get his core imposition to attack and that delay is something that you know juba early and others writing after the war will really criticize him argue that you know he was he botched this but one thing that happens is when he makes the assault you know sickles has moved his core up into the into the absolute worst place and then they're getting butchered there uh in in the peach orchard and the wheat field right in fact sickles himself is hit with a cannonball and ends up going to lose a leg in fact this is actually sickles leg bone right so you know 12 pound iron ball you know does a lot of damage uh you know in fact the leg was just holding on just by some skin uh when sickles was was they wrapped the tourniquet around him and moved him from the field all right so i mean sometimes he'd he basically later donated the leg to some medical institute and he would go visit it right but but sickles you know gets chewed up there in the peach orchard but crucial in terms of the union left flank right is actually a little round top union forces on a little round top are able to keep from being flanked and sometimes then there's controversy about this but a lot of credit is usually given to colonel joshua chamberlain of the 20th maine who will later be a general and chamberlain uh was he had been like a philosophy professor at boudin college in maine and he is in charge of the 20th maine on the very end have you ever seen the movie gettysburg he's portrayed by jeff daniels very well but he's in charge on on the very end of the flank and there you can see a map kind of showing you know even regiments i'm getting down to the regiments at this point you can see where company b of the 20th maine is and he actually at one point orders a bayonet charge he's run out of ammunition and he you know the notion is that this happens at a crucial moment and that he saves the union flank right now the others argue that it's not quite as important as that but you know it is a dramatic moment to say the least in the battle so the second day you know you essentially uh you know lee lee had been very successful on the first day but had not taken cemetery hill the second day is very bloody on the third day here are the positions and lee attempts to snap the union line in the center at cemetery ridge what he's going to do is have a massive artillery barrage designed to clear off the cannon on the union side we had about 200 guns a 200 cannon in uh in in gettysburg at that time at gettysburg and then he's gonna send uh essentially three divisions picket trimble pettigrew somewhere around 13 000 men and they're going to try to attack the center of the line right now of course he if he the idea is that both flanks are so too strong right and he understood that on the second day uh there had been you know some moderate success even in the center on the second day and so he's going for it on the second day in the center the problem is the confederate forces and of course this is often called pickett's charge because pickett general pickett of virginia who is one of long streets division commanders uh is you know one of the one of the major you know figures leaders in terms of this charge the problem is that they're taking fire from all different sides right i mean once once that that force moves out uh you know you have artillery from around little round top and devil's den they're able to hit it in the flank even down right and long street had been opposed and tried to convince lee not to do this but lee was intent on conducting this assault longstreet would write later in his memoirs in the 1890s long after lee's dead he would say about lee and i quote that he was excited and off his balance was evident on the afternoon of the first and he labored under that impression until enough blood was shed to appease him longstreet wanted to maneuver right longstreet did not want to attack and the attack does not go well right i mean most of those 13 000 men do not make it to that wall but the few do are killed or captured and in many ways this does kind of deprive lee's army of its offensive capability right uh and you can see pickets uh picket and trimble and pettigrew as they're charging in you can see uh pickets brigades there and armistead garnet kemper and uh you know kemper's brigade on the very right flank was the 24th virginia and the 24th virginia drew largely from mercer county right so there are mercer canyons uh involved in pickett's charge right uh but it's unsuccessful armistead in fact she actually does get to that place that's labeled the angle in fact here is the angle that marker uh there that you can see on uh you know i'm on i'm facing the screen would be to my right uh that marker is the marker that uh marks where armistead fell right where he is wounded and he's mortally wounded he dies in fact kemper is also when a guard is killed i mean there's a lot of leaders killed in pickett's charge but also the casualties especially among the men is extremely high right so this is a very serious defeat and so that's july 3rd 18th 63. so gettysburg and vicksburg together uh form uh you know a very very difficult moments for the confederacy militarily these are very serious blows at one time uh much to lincoln chagrin uh lee is able to withdraw right lee was able to draw successfully uh from pennsylvania uh mead is not very energetic in his pursuit now i gotta remember the army of potomac has been pretty roughed up all right uh but lincoln was convinced that mead could have been a little more energetic right uh lee by the way once he even gets back into virginia he he actually writes to davis and offers to resign right he accepts responsibility for the outcome and davis's sentiment is like you know who else could i appoint i mean no you you mean he he could he profess his continued confidence uh in lee but lee lee had accepted responsibility even on the field he had told men returning you know this is my fault right so uh he accepted that responsibility but davis was not inclined to fire him uh you know ironically he lost the battle still has the president so it still has his president's confidence mead had won the battle and lincoln uh is somewhat dismayed because he thought that you know it could have been an even greater victory okay uh so you know vicksburg and gettysburg are definitely crucial moments in the war uh the tide was definitely turning in many ways uh toward the union uh meanwhile in the west general rose crans commanding the army of the cumberland was operating against bragg in tennessee he had been able to move bragg after the battle of murfreesboro stones river he had maneuvered bragg out of tennessee essentially into north georgia and in september bragg is looking for a way to kind of strike rose crane's army and at this point in fact bragg is reinforced from the east the better part of long street score is dispatched from the army of north virginia by rail to the west and actually participates in the battle chickamauga in september of 1863 right and so braxton bragg against rosecrans and interestingly enough what happens here in the map kind of shows it is rose crans was convinced by one of his staff officers that there was a gap in the line and rose cranes attempts to plug that gap and then so doing it the gap doesn't really exist and so doing it creates a real gap right now what bragg was trying to do is attack you know especially on the on the on the union on the union left uh but what happens is long street pours through the gap uh and divides the the the union army uh and most of rose crane's army is in fact you know routed from the field what is left there in fact under the command of general thomas george thomas of virginia remains loyal to the union he's able to basically in orderly fashion defend what's left of the army and bring them off the field so chickamauga is actually a confederate tactical victory it's a confederate battlefield victory but bragg is unable to basically get any strategic fruit out of it part of the politics in the army of tennessee is terrible i mean so many of his subordinates are he can't get along with him they hate him and they are lobbying for his removal right and davis even comes and visits the army uh and and brings together together all the commanders and tries to you know ask them personally if they believe brad should be and they're saying yes he should be removed right there with him sitting there but davis refuses to to remove brag uh and but bragg has does not have the confidence of his commanders right so bragg lays siege to chattanooga but grant comes in is able to establish a supply line and they conduct an offensive attack on bragg's position on missionary ridge you have a lookout mountain missionary ridge and this turns out to be extremely successful right and bragg's really kind of lost control of the situation it becomes a route bragg is totally discredited as a result right and so bragg will finally be removed from command and interestingly enough one of the reasons why davis did not want to remove bragg from command was you know the pressure in the confederate congress was to appoint johnston and davis doesn't like johnston what what davis does is brag is removed from command but bragg becomes his his key strategic advisor right kind of like lee was before lee took command of the army in northern virginia so brad's going to continue to have a lot of influence but he's going to have a desk job in richmond is the notion and johnston has commanded the army of tennessee now johnson tries to you know really does a lot to try to improve the um the supply system of that army and one thing that's clearly obvious is he has you know for the most part many of his subordinates prefer him right over bragg and he's much more popular uh with the army than bragg right he was someone who could inspire uh people with confidence right there's one exception to this i mean hood general john bell hood i think i have an image of hood here right hood who had been wounded at gettysburg and lost the use of an arm and then had been wounded again at chickamauga and lost a leg uh you know he had spent time convalescing in richmond and it really ingratiated himself with the davises he was he was in love with uh with a with one of the the you know one of the uh uh one of the the most you know beautiful young ladies in richmond uh whose nickname was bucky right and he was you know pursuing her and she was somewhat reluctant but he he took mrs davis as a confidant and he ended up going to church with the davises and and davis was just you know so big on hood and and brag liked hood uh and so hood will be the subordinate that will basically work against johnston right i mean johnston's gonna try to defend atlanta as you know the the union army is pushing down in 1864 but he doesn't know it davis is writing back to richmond writing to brag and writing you know which is improper right it's unethical he's moving around his commander he's moving around the chain of command and he's you know he's influencing people who don't want to who don't want brag in there anyway right but here we see you know johnson's campaign sherman commanding the union arm because grant goes back uh east and of course is going to take on lee uh sherman what sherman does is he uses you know he has a he has a numerically superior force and what he does is he tries to hold johnson in place and always find the flank right very rarely does sherman actually engage in a full-scale assault right i mean johnson's looking for a place to attack maybe to counter-attack davis is always on his case always sending him messages demanding that he attack uh and uh he does try to attack there's a battle at dalton at resica you know he does there is an engagement but johnston is always dealing with the fact that sherman uses his numbers to flank him and in fact in some ways johnston actually is you know pretty competent in terms of meeting all those thrusts in fact sherman who had been a friend of johnson's before the war sherman was you know always you know a little frustrated then he couldn't quite get he couldn't quite you know always get all the way around johnston right he saw johnson as a worthy foe he was doing quite a bit with what little he had right and so john but johnson's continuing to make what retrograde movements you know he keeps moving back he's falling back right new hope church eventually fights the battle kennesaw mountain sherman very frustrated that point you know the union army conducts a massive frontal assault which is extremely costly johnston was someone who didn't want to do frontal assaults and you know very much avoided that he again and here here again i think you see that that element in a sense that johnston thought that saving the troops was more important than the place right i mean politically losing atlanta is problematic but johnson was thinking only militarily right but davis is afraid that he's not going to conduct a major offensive and eventually just give atlanta up uh and hood of course has been lobbying against him and eventually what davis does is he relieves johnston and puts hood in command now hardy uh you can see his name at kennesaw mountain hardy uh actually was senior but had already expressed you know that he would not uh he did not want the entire command so hood has the command and hood does conduct some does go on the attack and loses a bunch of battles and loses atlanta right he loses atlanta so hood is unsuccessful in trying to keep atlanta in fact what hood does at that point and go to this map is he tries to basically lure sherman back into he goes on an offensive into tennessee hoping that sherman will follow him sherman just back sherman basically has like three armies right he's got you know an army under thomas an army under uh an army under uh um she's got an army under thomas he's got an army under i'm trying to think of the other general here he's got an army under schofield uh and he he has an army uh man what is that third army see if i can think yeah he's got thomas hooker right he's got a hooker there too well anyway he's got like three armies right and so uh he says at one point that you know if if if hood will march to the ohio i'll give him rations he can go up and do whatever he's going to have thomas watching hood and thomas is going to be successful man because hood is so overly aggressive in fact hood uh you know conducts a bunch of frontal assaults at the battle franklin and then has to receive he tries it at nashville and receives a counter assault thomas conducts a great counter assault on the flank uh and the army of tennessee is down below 18 000 men i mean you know it's not far from not existing after those engagements meanwhile sherman is decided that he will march through georgia and uh to savannah and in fact he says in a letter to grant or a message to grant well he says wars cruelty and you cannot refine it and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and male addiction that people can pour out uh he tells grant until we can repopulate georgia it is useless to occupy it but the other destruction of its roads houses and people will their military resources by attempting to hold the roads we lose 1 000 men monthly and will gain no result i can make the march and make georgia howl and so what he does is he's going to burn uh and you know pillage his way through north georgia right in fact here we see a map and on a 60-mile swath and the purpose here this is kind of like the concept of modern war total war that you find in like the the writings of klausvitz sherman's going to convince you know the people of georgia that the confederacy cannot defend them uh and he's going to destroy railroads destroy cotton all that kind of stuff right uh and demoralize uh demoralize the uh the people right and he's successful here right he moves through georgia uh you know and take savannah eventually right and then he's going to try to march up through the carolinas back toward virginia meanwhile in 1864 grant is facing lee grant does not remove mead at the head of the army of potomac but grant basically is with the army of the potomac and grant said the art of war is simple enough find out where your enemy is get at him as soon as you can strike him as hard as you can and keep moving on and so in 1864 grant is going to take the offensive to lee something long street says in 1864 i think is interesting right long story says if we can break up the enemy's arrangements early and throw him back he will not be able to recover his position or his morale to the presidential election is over and then we shall have a new president to treat with and so the confederates were banking on the democratic candidate george mcclellan and the democrats uh you know often talk about a negotiated peace with the confederacy hoping that the democrats will win the presidency and if lincoln is not re-elected that they'll be able to negotiate peace so they're banking on that and so grant says to mede lee's army will be your objective point wherever lee goes there you will go also and so here you see the overland campaign or wilderness campaign and what what grant does is he's attacking and at every point he moves to his left forcing lee to move to his right to cover richmond and many of these are incredibly costly assaults from the point of view of the union but obviously the north has can replace that manpower much more effectively than the confederacy at cold harbor for example a grant loses you know several thousand men in just a few moments i mean during this campaign this is when dog tags come about you know soldiers are writing their names on cloth and sewing it or pinning it to the back of their coat so that their dead bodies can be identified right but he's constantly moving and lee has to respond to that right and eventually this was going to result in a siege in petersburg and lee says right too early he says we must destroy this army of grants before he gets to the james river if he gets there will become a siege and then it will be a mere question of time right and so he's trying to keep that from happening uh and but grant is really dictating the tune and lee is having to dance to that tune right early uh and remember back during the peninsula campaign lee's basic strategy was we'll have have jackson in the shenandoah valley uh as a means of siphoning off right what the union are doing is they're trying to attack at different places all at the same time right you're doing this through georgia uh you know at the same time that you're conducting the campaign in the wilderness in the overland campaign early is sent with a force you know in the shenandoah valley and even threatens washington but it's not strong enough to take it uh but loses a key battle which is which i don't even think's on this map at cedar creek in 1864 right uh here's the battle of cedar creek early is actually successful early on but the counter attack dr by sheridan the union commander drives him from the field uh the fall of atlanta the union victory at cedar creek these things probably have an impact on the election lincoln was re-elected in 1864 uh overwhelmingly right so there you can see the electoral map uh this does turn out to be a siege in petersburg right and so grant is trying to reach around if you look at the map he's trying to reach around and cut the railroads right the south side railroad and the the weldon and petersburg railroad these are the primary supply lines and a lot of the the food stuffs coming out of the raleigh north carolina area come into lee's army through those rail lines and so in late 1864 and early 1865 grant is threatening that rail line through this siege right and you can see him kind of extending you know extending his extending the flank and at least trying to cover it and use what little force he has and spread it as thin as he can and eventually that rail line is cut and the south side rail line is the only one he has left in early 1865. and so this is kind of the strategic situation by the fall of 1864. but in early 1865 the crucial moment's going to come actually at five forks and you can see that uh over pickett you see pickett's name april first the defeated five forks meant that the entire confederate line was untenable and richmond therefore could no longer be defended and in fact that meant the confederate government had to evacuate richmond uh davis was sitting in church when someone when an aide comes in and tells him you know that uh you know lee is lee is informing him in essence that you know i can no longer secure richmond and so that meant that the confederate army has to fall back and what grant does is he's trying to block lee lee's trying to find a way to make it into north carolina there is a what's left of the army of tennessee is under command again of joseph e johnston and they're trying to you know hook up and what happens is grant actually catches up with lee at appomattox courthouse there's a battle fault at sailor's creek in which the confederate army is really mauled and so desertion is very heavy so what lee has is a very much a skeletal force and at appomattox he's going to have to surrender right and so uh he you know it's interesting after the uh evacuation of richmond davis issues this statement which shows that you know he clearly was not uh he was not in touch with reality right he was trying to convince himself somehow the war could still be won when really it was lost right he said relief from the necessity of guarding cities in particular points important but not vital to our defense and he had been the one who'd been so adamant enough about not giving up cities and points right with an army free to move from point to point strike in detail the attachments and garrisons of the enemy operating on the interior of our own country where supplies are more accessible where the foe will be far removed from his own base and cut off from all sucker in case of reverse nothing is now needed to render our triumph certain but the exhibition of our own unquenchable resolve let us but will it and we are free and who in the light of the past dare not doubt your purpose in the future and so he's still trying to cling to some hope that they could win but lee's in a position where he cannot uh he cannot escape and so lee says then there is nothing left for me to do but to go and see general grant and i would rather die a thousand deaths right so he uh he and grant exchanged some correspondence right uh and so lee is writing grant here and he says you know he's asking for what terms uh you know what terms uh grant would i propose to receive the surrender of the uh now grant's writing the league rather sorry i proposed to receive the surrender of the army northern general in the following terms uh and he actually you know grant meets lee at appomattox courthouse and lee's army is given really you know very very lenient terms uh no one is going to be detained not even lee right they're all going to be paroled uh lee lee makes the point that confederate calvary own their horses not the government and is able to get grant to allow confederate calver men to retain their horses he's even able to get some supplies from from grant you know to feed his starving troops and i think that the lincoln administration was uh you know advocated about was adamant about a hard war really going after the confederates but when it wanted to conciliate wanted to reconcile the sections and so uh they wanted a soft peace now there were members uh many prominent people in lincoln's own republican party who wanted a harsh treatment of the south right uh but that was certainly not the case uh you know from lincoln himself right he wanted to make things conciliatory and so i think that's why you have such lenient terms and so lee signs the surrender at appomattox courthouse and there's an image of that and grant says the war is over the rebels are our countrymen again uh very tragically in the midst of victory right in april here that's april 9th right in the midst of victory lincoln in fact is assassinated right by john wilkes booth uh at uh ed you know in washington and ford's theater and dies early the next morning uh and uh you know this this is this meant uh that you know what reconstruction policy would be i mean lincoln was con lincoln wanted a again a more conciliatory approach but republican leaders you know in the debt after the death of lincoln more and more want a harsh approach right so this turns out you know and some southerners really realize this i mean lincoln i mean lee understood it uh you know johnston was upset to hear about this because they really began to realize that this was not this is the worst thing for the south right uh that lincoln was assassinated the last significant army the confederacy had under johnson what was left of it was surrendered to sherman initially johnson tried to negotiate peace for the end of the entire war which you know sherman was willing to do but then was informed by superiors that that was unacceptable that he could only negotiate the military surrender that army so johnson's army surrenders on the same terms and so the war was over davis in fact was captured and you know in irwinville georgia and the war came to a conclusion obviously some things were resolved secession as a constitutional principle was resolved and slavery as a legal institution was resolved but the war had brought about changes that even the victors could not have anticipated and led to some very very interesting situations during reconstruction