the north against south brother against brother the civil in war history victory will take far more than brute fire power on the battlefield technology communications logistics it's what happens behind the front line that will ultimately decide this battle for america's future we are pioneers and trailblazers we fight for freedom we transform our dreams into the truth our struggles will become a nation [Music] 1862 the civil war is at its height north and south locked in a bitter conflict for the future of america [Music] a new kind of bullet has brought this war to a terrible deadlock bringing death on a scale never previously seen in warfare here at a metal works in springfield illinois molten lead is beginning its journey to becoming a lethal instrument of destruction bullet known as the mini ball this crude piece of lead is the primary reason for the unprecedented levels of slaughter in this war invented in france just an ounce in weight and half an inch across one person can cast 3 000 mini balls an hour each one of these simple bullets can rip through a man's body in a fraction of a second the mini ball is used by north and south alike demand for this killer bullet runs so high that an entire industry springs up supplying mini balls to the front line in total the north makes over half a billion mini-holes ready to be fired from the 2 million muskets it supplies to its men [Music] in many ways the civil war was the first modern war because it was the first war that took place after the industrial revolution had begun to transform our country it will take over 33 hours for a bullet in this box to travel the 800 plus miles to the battlefield ready to find its target the new musket is much faster to reload than traditional weapons load the gunpowder ram down the bullet and it's ready to fire [Music] [Applause] imagine warfare where your ability to load a musket faster than the guy with the other musket would determine if you lived or died [Music] grooves on the inside of the barrel rifling spin the ball toward its target the improved accuracy and range are a deadly combination one second everything's great the next second your guys your buddy's head's gone or his arms flying off you don't want to know what a soft metal musket ball does when it enters the human body on impact the bullet flattens out bone shatters and splinters causing further damage to muscle and tissue more often than not the result of a direct hit death but for all the miniballs technological edge the army still uses traditional military tactics what made it particularly tragic was modern technology meeting much more ancient tactics so that the death rates were truly appalling the troops still face one another openly in lines across the battlefield but the mini ball is accurate over a range of 600 yards easily spanning this distance and it can be reloaded eight times faster than a traditional weapon [Music] the effects are catastrophic the kill rate increases dramatically compared to previous wars across the battlefield the results are carnage blood and death on a previously unseen scale they killed each other in droves in lines and in piles [Applause] soldier alexander hunter writes one lay on his face with his body almost in two parts another was shot just as he was taking aim one eye was still open while the other was closed and one arm extended in the position of holding his rifle which lay beside him on the ground the troops on both sides must live in the middle of this untold death and suffering horatio chapman records the experience in his diary the dead in some places were piled upon each other and the groans and moans of the wounded were truly saddening to hear some were just alive and gasping but unconscious others were mortally wounded and were conscious of the fact that they could not live long by the time of the north's final victory over six hundred thousand men on both sides are dead some two percent of the entire u.s population in current population terms that's the equivalent of six million people almost half of the dead remain unidentified the fear of dying forgotten on the battlefield leads soldiers for the first time to begin pinning their names and units on their uniforms these crude early versions of the dog tag will make it possible to identify their bodies after they're killed for the first time america's growing postal service means soldiers can write to their loved ones from the front with none of today's military censorship it allows soldiers like robert stiles to relay the terrifying realities of life on the front line the sights and smells that assailed us were simply indescribable corpses swollen to twice their original size some of them actually burst asunder with the pressure of foul gases and vapors fueling this carnage lies the deep political animosity that has led to this war in a bitter conflict that is pitted brother against brother the south is determined to defend its independence and its system of slavery but the north will not allow it to leave the union of states we fought and lost hundreds of thousands of men on both sides fighting for what they believed was right the unholy alliance of new weapons and outdated battle tactics means a body count on an industrial scale the war is locked in a bloody stalemate neither side can land a decisive blow in this bitter war of attrition victory will come to the last man's standing [Music] august 1862 over a year into the war general robert e lee's confederate army is readying to launch a wide-ranging assault against union forces in virginia highly motivated these men are fighting on their home turf and are ready to die for southern independence its traditions and its rural way of life its prosperity is built around a simple crop cotton known as white gold the south accounts for two-thirds of the world's supply of cotton it brings extraordinary wealth to the southern states but it is wealth built on the backs of slaves now lincoln's victory at the ballot box threatens this traditional way of and life slavery it is built on [Music] rather than submit to northern rural the south decides to fight they want a separate nation general robert e lee takes command at the head of the newly formed army of northern virginia lee a brilliant graduate of the elite west point academy is already a veteran of the mexican war and highly regarded for his effectiveness on the battlefield lee could intuit the battlefield in a way that almost resembles rommel in world war ii or patton and as a result he could he could sort of almost sense where the place would be to take the gamble and where to hit manassas virginia 1862 confederate troops gather ahead of the second battle of bull run lee's forces are heavily outnumbered but this virginia woodland his home territory these volunteer troops know like the back of their hand rigid training and strict discipline have turned them into a formidable fighting force if you'd been a betting man back then you would bet the south would have won the south only had to hold its territory the north had to come and take it away the north had to be the occupying force which is far harder to do at bull run lee easily demonstrates his force's superiority [Applause] in one engagement lasting just 10 minutes the yankee 5th new york regiment loses more men than any other regiment during the entire civil war all told these men kill over 1700 union soldiers determination and local knowledge give the south their greatest victory in the war to date but lee and his commanders have underestimated the nature of this conflict and of their opponent president abraham lincoln because lincoln is fighting a totally new kind of war and his southern adversaries just don't get it a packed train speeds on its way south ready to replenish the union army with fresh troops and supplies lieutenant george benedict writes home we were stowed away in freight cars and started out of the city the train took 600 other troops besides our regiment and numbered 34 heavily loaded cars the railroad one of lincoln's hidden weapons in this war [Music] in one key operation ordered directly by the president 25 000 fresh troops are sent on a 1200 mile journey to the south by road it would take over two months by rail it will take these men just seven days following its introduction in the 1830s america's rail infrastructure has gradually spread its tentacles across the country lincoln realizes it can revolutionize the speed of troop deployments he strikes a deal with the rail owners to put the north's railroad network under government control it turns the railroad into a weapon of war instead of armies being limited to the speed at which they could march all of a sudden you had armies be able to move to uh to the front by rail and more importantly supplies supplies and troops pour out of the north towards the battlefront some busy lines carry 800 tons of supplies a day the equivalent of 80 railroad cars in lincoln's hands the 24 000 miles of rail track in the north becomes an arm of his war machine [Music] but the south has a far smaller network just 9 000 miles at the start of the war and it remains under private control in the four years the war lasts the north adds 4 000 miles of new track to its network against just 400 miles in the south [Music] this inability to coordinate rail supplies will prove disastrous for the south even though they're just 30 miles from their capital in richmond in the winter of 1863 four rail links mean southern troops in virginia starved [Music] for all their brilliance and determination in battle the south simply lacked the logistics to deliver a decisive blow and it isn't simply rail lincoln realizes that victory depends on mobilizing the entire industrial might of the north behind the war effort production of clothing in the north doubles during the conflict pitchfork manufacturers start making swords while the number of patents doubles in the course of the war manufacturing technology infrastructure it will change the face of america for the first time in history industry is put behind the war effort an approach to conflict that america will exploit in the first and second world wars it is the beginning of a new integrated economy that will be the hallmark of the modern age in a building just across the road from the white house is a small room that will become lincoln's nerve center in this war and at its heart a simple device that will transform how this war is fought and won the telegraph [Music] the invention of morse code in 1844 turns the telegraph into america's first tool of mass communication quickly encoded the basic system of dots and dashes is ideal for brief messages [Music] like twitter today it needs just seconds to send them and transcribe them where messengers previously took days on horseback over hundreds of miles and across every kind of terrain now the country's 50 000 mile telegraph network means communication is almost instantaneous as telegraphed poles snake out alongside the railroad lines this vast country begins to shrink it will transform the nature of this war as information and decisions can flow backwards and forwards at lightning speed it became kind of the early version of email suddenly it was possible to get a message to somebody from st louis you know to get a message to new york in a shockingly short amount of time lincoln immediately realizes the telegraph's potential as a weapon of war he insists on the installation of telegraph lines directly into the war department and he quickly acts to place all telegraph facilities in the union under military control the telegraph office becomes the central hub of lincoln's war operation his command and control center he even takes to sleeping here at busy times the telegraph office manager david homer bates describes how lincoln obsesses over every scrap of news from the front sometimes reading dispatches word by word as they are deciphered lincoln's habit was to go immediately to the drawer each time he came into our room and read over the telegrams beginning at the top until he came to the one he had seen on his previous visit [Music] the north's telegraph network spreads its tentacles far and wide sucking information back to lincoln and his commanders in washington it gives him a vast strategic overview providing him an unrivaled insight into his commander's tactical thinking lincoln himself was able to stay on top of literally hour-by-hour developments in in the course of individual battles that had never happened before to the irritation of his generals it even allows him to issue his own direct orders telling them how to fight in one campaign with general lee's forces threatening washington lincoln responds by telegraphing direct orders to his generals [Music] the exposed position of general banks makes his immediate relief a point of paramount importance you are therefore directed by the president to move against jackson at harrisonburg this movement must be made immediately in the course of the war lincoln sends almost a thousand telegrams from this small office but the south never grasped the potential of the telegraph in creating a centralized command and control system it means southern generals like lee must plan their battles without that kind of strategic overview [Music] as the war continues lincoln brings down the hammer of his war machine industry lines of communication and supplies manpower and firepower are all marshalled to deliver blow after blow to the confederate army but the south bolstered by the belief in the rightness of its cause doggedly refuses to give in as a result the death toll just keeps rising at ann tatum in 1862 six thousand are killed seventeen thousand wounded over four times as many as during world war two's d-day landings the carnage will trigger a revolution in battlefield medicine three quarters of all operations conducted by army surgeons during the civil war are amputations letters from surgeon william watson record what these battlefield ers were like day before yesterday i performed 14 amputations without leaving the table i do not exaggerate when i say i have performed at the least calculation 50 amputations there are so many severely wounded through the joints there are so many operations yet to be performed surgeon theodore diamond describes the hideous wounds left by weapons like the mini ball the shattering splintering and splitting of a long bone by the impact of the mini ball is both remarkable and frightening an experienced surgeon can hack off a limb in just 10 minutes ether and chloroform are used as anesthetics if a bullet doesn't kill you then infection can gangrene is the greatest killer deprived of oxygen wounds become an ideal breeding ground for clostridium a bacteria that releases a poisonous toxin destroying tissue death can follow quickly approximately 60 000 amputations are performed during the civil war more than in any other war america has fought in twice as many soldiers die from infected wounds and disease as on the battlefield this unprecedented carnage forces a complete rethink of traditional battlefield medicine looking after the well-being of soldiers becomes as central to the war effort that the supply of guns and ammunition large numbers of women sign up as battlefield nurses [Music] one of them is clara barton [Music] clara barton is untrained and unpaid when she starts most nurses are men is a menial occupation the remedies she proposes for the care of the wounded are simple but revolutionary in their effect [Music] they want food clothing shelter medicines and a few calm practical persons to administer them she insists the injured have a ready supply of clean bandages [Music] first aid the sorting of the wounded to put the most serious cases first the civil war brings in a series of innovations that form the basis of battlefield medicine to this day twenty thousand women sign on as nurses during the war clara barton herself goes on to found the american red cross standards of hygiene begin to dramatically improve with the discovery of bromine this caustic chemical is effective against the bacteria that cause gangrene as a result nearly three-quarters of amputees survive surgery and gangrene becomes rare by the war's end with the war dragging on without a clear end in sight lincoln is increasingly forced to fight on a very different front the war for public opinion the spread of portable cameras means for the first time gory images of the battlefield can now reach every home while these simple cameras rule out dramatic action scenes they are ideal for capturing the gruesome aftermath of battle as many as 1500 photographers flood the battlefield their images are sold widely to members of the public for as little as 25 cents there was war photography coming back from the civil war that captured it in a way made it real and made people recognize the the really extraordinary unprecedented violence america's growing newspaper mass media reproduces simple woodcuts of the images more than 200 correspondents cover the war filing over 100 million words of copy this deluge of information about the war ensures the grim reality of this conflict is seared into the public consciousness never again will politicians be able to fight wars without public support the war means a soldier is five times more likely to die than a civilian where families used to grieve for the dead at home now men die on the battlefield it forces a fundamental shift in the rituals surrounding death nat bowdich dies on a battlefield in virginia yet his family in boston can still say goodbye to their son killed 500 miles away even though it has taken a week for his body to travel from the battlefield his father describes how it is free of any signs of decomposition though the marks of closely contested battle was still upon the face the features were placid as if he was sleeping that's because of the new technique known as embalming chemicals like arsenic and zinc chloride are injected into the corpse to halt the natural process of decay the business of death and the preservation of bodies turns undertakers into overnight millionaires one undertaker boasts i would be glad to prepare private soldiers they were worth a five dollar bill apiece but lord bless you a colonel pays 100 and a brigadier general 200. [Music] if you've got the money all sorts of new techniques are available airtight coffins and embalming are most popular and for the wealthiest even elaborate refrigerated coffins packed with ice the war drags on lincoln is determined to end it and abolish slavery in september 1862 he gives the south an ultimatum rejoin the union he threatens to forcibly liberate their slaves if they refuse but the south having tasted independence does not want to rejoin a union where slavery would be at risk they reject the ultimatum lincoln is in no mood to negotiate if the south won't free their slaves he will do it himself for white southerners it was a confirmation that their thoughts about lincoln all along that he was in fact somebody who was bent on destroying what they thought was the southern way of life in the north in a sense it gave people a different understanding of what the war was about on january 1st 1863 lincoln issues a proclamation abolishing slavery in the rebellious southern states thanks to the telegraph the news quickly spreads on the first day of january in the year of our lord 1806 lincoln had totally grown to where he said that not only should blacks not be slaves they should be treated as equal citizens with full enfranchisement right to vote right to participate all persons held as slaves shall be then henceforth and forever free [Music] [Applause] in the wake of lincoln's emancipation of the slaves black american soldiers rushed to enlist for the union almost 200 000 sign up by the end of the war general james blunt describes their skill as fighters i never saw such fighting as was done by the negro regiment they make better soldiers in every respect than any other troops i have ever had under my command the emancipation proclamation changes the dynamics of the war the union army becomes a force for liberation now fighting to end slavery they understood that saving the union would give them some sense of freedom some sense of dignity it was the dignity that i'm a soldier i'm not just a servant i'm a soldier i have a uniform i have stripes i'm somebody lincoln follows the proclamation with his master stroke his address in 1863 dedicating america's first national cemetery for soldiers at gettysburg is perhaps the single most famous piece of political rhetoric in history four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth it is an emotional thing to think about people sacrificing given their lives for an ideal and it's lincoln at his absolute best the genius the simplicity that conveys a great amount it's spiritual in a way it's a hymn to america and it's the hymn to the possibilities and the great sacrifices of this country but in 1864 the war remains deadlocked [Music] with an election looming and a challenge coming from those who want to negotiate a peace with the south lincoln knows he needs to land a decisive blow at some point somebody gets tired somebody blinks somebody makes a mistake and when you're talking about war that mistake that's everything lincoln puts the north's entire industrial might behind one final push the man who will lead the charge from chattanooga to atlanta william sherman his orders to stop for nothing i would make this war as severe as possible and show no symptoms of tiring till the south begs for mercy advancing under the cover of night sherman's march is sustained by one of the greatest logistical operations yet seen in this conflict sherman knows he needs to throw everything he's got at the confederate army while he uses his own supply lines to maximum effect he destroys those of the south ripping up their railroad and bending it beyond use in one day the north supply lines replace 200 000 bullets while the south is left scavenging on the battlefield for spent rounds food even old boots [Music] sherman calls it total war a scorched earth approach that becomes the trademark of modern warfare finally with atlanta under siege confederate forces set fire to their own munitions stores before abandoning their city to the union soldiers [Applause] sherman's tactics of total war have won out his victory helps secure lincoln's election in the fall with atlanta and ruins he just keeps going now launching what will be his final assault the march to the sea in the 19th century equivalent of shock and awe 62 000 union soldiers wreak a 60-mile wide path of destruction across georgia from atlanta to the coast at savannah [Applause] supply lines are cut villages are sacked and crops torched anything of military value is destroyed within six months general lee has tendered the confederate army's surrender the rebellion is over the south will have to submit to the union and bring an end to slavery by the act of winning the north both validated freedom and validated the industrial model and so you have an american confidence an american sense of achievement an american willingness to go out around the world for all the confederacy's commitment its inferior logistical infrastructure has been no match for the north's unstoppable war machine its industrial heartland its growing network of railroads its telegraph network all bring victory to the north [Music] within a week lincoln lies dead from an assassin's bullet but america has pulled back from the brink the nation is once again united and out of that unity now grows a modern industrialized economy that will reach right across this great continent [Music] you