WEBVTT 00:13.220 --> 00:14.810 Professor David Blight: This week you're reading 00:14.806 --> 00:18.786 Hospital Sketches, the short and in some ways 00:18.785 --> 00:25.885 extraordinary little novel, written by Louisa May Alcott, 00:25.890 --> 00:30.040 based upon her--Louisa May Alcott of Little Women 00:30.041 --> 00:34.601 fame, if you happen to have grown up on that book, 00:34.600 --> 00:40.020 daughter of Bronson Alcott, a famous and extremely 00:40.024 --> 00:46.444 eccentric New England reformer and utopian--but she went to 00:46.444 --> 00:51.554 war, as a young nurse--couldn't stay 00:51.547 --> 01:00.117 away--and she kept her sketches about her experiences of a young 01:00.117 --> 01:07.597 woman confronting the horror of Civil War hospitals. 01:07.599 --> 01:12.749 This is a photograph of--it is not Louisa May Alcott, 01:12.747 --> 01:18.787 I don't think--of one of those young nurses sitting in a Civil 01:18.785 --> 01:25.945 War hospital in 1863, probably writing a letter; 01:25.950 --> 01:32.620 they spent a lot of their time writing letters for sick or 01:32.615 --> 01:35.885 dying or wounded soldiers. 01:35.890 --> 01:39.080 I think what you can find in Alcott's novel, 01:39.084 --> 01:43.624 among other things--it's almost like a descriptive documentary 01:43.617 --> 01:46.937 novel; it's almost like she summed up 01:46.938 --> 01:51.058 her diary--is the human encounter, particularly a 01:51.064 --> 01:55.594 woman's, a young woman's encounter with 01:55.591 --> 02:01.681 what war does to the human body, the human psyche, 02:01.680 --> 02:06.640 to human beings. Now, good Lord, 02:06.637 --> 02:11.997 it is eighteen years ago, Ken Burns produced--can it 02:12.001 --> 02:18.311 really be?--a series on Public Television called The Civil 02:18.312 --> 02:22.202 War, as every opening of it says, 02:22.199 --> 02:25.259 brought to you by General Motors. 02:25.259 --> 02:30.329 Nine episodes and eleven hours, garnered the largest Public 02:30.329 --> 02:32.689 Television audience ever. 02:32.689 --> 02:36.919 The estimate was that the first time through about thirty 02:36.924 --> 02:41.394 million Americans watched it, and then it's been rerun many, 02:41.385 --> 02:45.045 many times. I went to Germany to teach for 02:45.054 --> 02:49.534 a year in 1992 and '93, and when I arrived in the Fall 02:49.530 --> 02:52.180 of 1992, on German National Television 02:52.182 --> 02:55.922 they were running the Ken Burns film series, all eleven hours of 02:55.923 --> 02:59.313 it, dubbed into German. 02:59.310 --> 03:03.910 And it was weird, because there was one male 03:03.912 --> 03:09.052 voice and one female voice for all the voices. 03:09.050 --> 03:11.720 And of course one of the tricks, or one of the 03:11.720 --> 03:15.160 techniques, one of the quite brilliant techniques of Burns' 03:15.163 --> 03:18.663 film was the many different voices he used--Garrison Keillor 03:18.664 --> 03:21.624 for Walt Whitman, Sam Waterson for Abraham 03:21.618 --> 03:25.718 Lincoln, et cetera--voices that you, in many ways--or Americans 03:25.722 --> 03:29.762 in many ways--were comfortable with in their living rooms. 03:29.760 --> 03:32.140 They knew Sam Waterson; they didn't know him as well as 03:32.135 --> 03:34.155 they know him now from Law & Order; 03:34.160 --> 03:37.450 but they knew Garrison Keillor's voice, 03:37.448 --> 03:41.338 and when Garrison Keillor came on every night, 03:41.342 --> 03:43.422 it was Walt Whitman. 03:43.419 --> 03:46.479 At any rate, I was astonished at the 03:46.477 --> 03:48.397 reaction in Germany. 03:48.400 --> 03:52.080 There were articles in the paper, editorials and so on and 03:52.083 --> 03:54.543 so on. I had one German student come 03:54.542 --> 03:57.762 up to me one day, after watching an episode of it 03:57.757 --> 04:00.367 and listening to one of my lectures, 04:00.370 --> 04:04.210 and he said, "Why were there so many sunsets 04:04.210 --> 04:08.050 and moon rises in that documentary film?" 04:08.050 --> 04:12.690 I said, "Well…"--he caught me off guard. 04:12.689 --> 04:15.269 I said, "Well it's a good question." 04:15.270 --> 04:19.400 Probably because Burns is a sentimental filmmaker, 04:19.398 --> 04:24.198 and there's a great deal of sentiment in the structure, 04:24.199 --> 04:29.859 and in the music and in the mode of that film series. 04:29.860 --> 04:34.600 And I defy you to watch one or two hours and not be humming be 04:34.604 --> 04:38.964 the "Ashokan Farewell" in the shower the next morning. 04:38.960 --> 04:50.350 04:50.350 --> 04:53.860 It is a haunting violin. 04:53.860 --> 04:57.740 It wasn't, as some people say, written for that film series, 04:57.744 --> 05:00.084 it's much older. At any rate, 05:00.075 --> 05:05.605 it is assigned in the course, at least major parts of it. 05:05.610 --> 05:11.290 You can access it--I'm actually going to assign you episodes two 05:11.288 --> 05:17.008 through nine; that's eight out of the nine. 05:17.009 --> 05:19.069 If you skip one or two only the gods will know, 05:19.065 --> 05:20.445 I'm sure, but they will know. 05:20.450 --> 05:24.010 05:24.009 --> 05:28.039 It is all available on the Internet, at Yale, 05:28.044 --> 05:30.524 through the Film Archive. 05:30.519 --> 05:33.639 How many of you have done this before for courses? 05:33.640 --> 05:35.700 Fabulous, you've done this. 05:35.699 --> 05:39.219 All right, I checked this morning, the URL--if you can 05:39.222 --> 05:41.582 read this; I don't know if you can read 05:41.583 --> 05:42.983 this, can you read this? 05:42.980 --> 05:45.060 Yes, in the front. 05:45.060 --> 05:47.960 In the back? No. 05:47.960 --> 05:54.190 How about now? Whoa! 05:54.190 --> 05:58.380 yale.edu/clabs--c-labs, I don't know what 05:58.382 --> 06:02.052 that--something--that stands for. 06:02.050 --> 06:06.220 That's for Macs. They tell me that this is 06:06.221 --> 06:09.041 better on PCs, easier on PCs than Macs, 06:09.036 --> 06:13.476 and you might have to download a patch to do it on a Mac. 06:13.480 --> 06:17.700 True, false? Don't know? 06:17.699 --> 06:20.739 Anybody done it recently, in a course? 06:20.740 --> 06:23.960 Help? You all raised your hands, 06:23.964 --> 06:24.944 you've done this before. 06:24.940 --> 06:26.880 Don't remember? That's also easy. 06:26.880 --> 06:30.750 Okay, good. Over the next five--including 06:30.746 --> 06:34.666 Spring Break week--you're in Jamaica, Spring Break week, 06:34.670 --> 06:39.660 you can access Ken Burns' film, you can be humming the "Ashokan 06:39.662 --> 06:43.772 Farewell" in the shower with somebody in Jamaica. 06:43.769 --> 06:46.459 [Laughter] That's terrible, 06:46.458 --> 06:51.938 the best laugh I've had in this course was--[Laughter] 06:51.937 --> 06:55.657 You're just like everybody else. 06:55.660 --> 06:57.190 At any rate, that's the URL, 06:57.193 --> 07:00.033 ladies and gentleman, and then you--you need to use 07:00.033 --> 07:01.683 your net ID to access it. 07:01.680 --> 07:05.170 If you have any problem with this let us know immediately and 07:05.166 --> 07:06.266 we will help you. 07:06.269 --> 07:11.839 It is assigned, and we're going to discuss it. 07:11.839 --> 07:15.649 I love a final exam question--don't always use 07:15.647 --> 07:19.537 it--that actually draws upon it as a source; 07:19.540 --> 07:23.850 just thought I'd say that. 07:23.850 --> 07:26.760 Okay, there also is in the syllabus this week, 07:26.759 --> 07:29.729 of course, a very vague reading--you're reading 07:29.734 --> 07:32.724 Hospital Sketches, which is short, 07:32.716 --> 07:36.996 but then it says selective choices or selections from about 07:36.997 --> 07:41.347 fifty pages of documents in the Gienapp book and about forty 07:41.351 --> 07:45.411 pages of dispatches and documents and letters by Lincoln 07:45.409 --> 07:47.549 in the Lincoln reader. 07:47.550 --> 07:50.630 We're going to pin that down for you at our lunch today and 07:50.634 --> 07:53.244 you'll be fired an email before this afternoon, 07:53.240 --> 07:56.250 perhaps--and then maybe individualized by your teaching 07:56.254 --> 07:59.604 assistant as to which of those documents you might especially 07:59.602 --> 08:01.112 want to concentrate on. 08:01.110 --> 08:03.640 But in those two sections of Gienapp and Johnson, 08:03.643 --> 08:06.443 if you haven't looked yet--and you should--you get, 08:06.439 --> 08:10.619 day by day in some cases, you get Lincoln's orders and 08:10.615 --> 08:14.875 dispatches to his generals, his attempt to become the War 08:14.882 --> 08:19.052 President, including that first document in that section where 08:19.051 --> 08:23.021 Lincoln lays--right after the disaster at Bull Run--he lays 08:23.015 --> 08:25.745 out nine or ten very direct orders, 08:25.750 --> 08:28.640 all beginning with the word "let": let there be this, 08:28.641 --> 08:30.811 let there be that, let there by this, 08:30.810 --> 08:32.700 let there by that. 08:32.700 --> 08:37.300 And you also find in these documents, especially in the 08:37.295 --> 08:40.605 Gienapp Reader, some of those incredibly 08:40.614 --> 08:43.344 megalomaniac letters by George B. 08:43.338 --> 08:46.288 McClellan. If ever there was a more vain 08:46.290 --> 08:49.140 character in American military history, and political 08:49.142 --> 08:52.102 history--well there've been a lot of vain characters in 08:52.104 --> 08:58.404 American political history, God knows--but if ever anybody 08:58.395 --> 09:06.705 left more egregiously vain, utterly self-serving letters 09:06.709 --> 09:14.569 and dispatches about his own sense of self-glory, 09:14.570 --> 09:17.970 it is McClellan, who by all rights probably 09:17.969 --> 09:23.339 should've been court-martialed, but wasn't; 09:23.340 --> 09:25.300 that's another story we'll come back to. 09:25.300 --> 09:28.420 09:28.419 --> 09:32.199 "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. 09:32.200 --> 09:38.220 He has loosed the fateful lightning with his terrible 09:38.219 --> 09:42.489 swift sword. He is trampling out the vintage 09:42.492 --> 09:45.832 where the grapes of wrath are stored." 09:45.830 --> 09:49.790 It's possibly the most famous poetry in American music. 09:49.790 --> 10:00.670 It's also apocalyptic; some would say purple in its 10:00.669 --> 10:04.229 blood. Julia Ward Howe wrote the 10:04.234 --> 10:08.344 famous "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in early 1862 while 10:08.336 --> 10:13.136 overlooking an encampment, a huge encampment of the Union 10:13.142 --> 10:15.082 Army near Washington. 10:15.080 --> 10:19.320 And she stayed until sunset and saw the fires, 10:19.316 --> 10:22.796 which she called "the watch fires." 10:22.799 --> 10:27.449 And she wrote the great apocalyptic paean of the Civil 10:27.453 --> 10:29.723 War. We will come back to this 10:29.716 --> 10:33.816 question, especially next week, when we deal with the story, 10:33.816 --> 10:35.966 the problem of emancipation. 10:35.970 --> 10:39.910 At the beginning of this war, as we'll see in a moment, 10:39.906 --> 10:42.746 most people expected something short, 10:42.750 --> 10:46.370 might even just be a lot of fun, a summer outing, 10:46.370 --> 10:49.840 an adventure, a chance to whip some Yankees, 10:49.840 --> 10:54.890 maybe shoot a Rebel or two. 10:54.889 --> 10:59.879 But if it became very long at all--and that's the point--if it 10:59.882 --> 11:03.202 became very long at all, its aims, its goals, 11:03.204 --> 11:05.654 its strategies, its purposes would have to 11:05.652 --> 11:09.372 change. That's why the thinking people 11:09.365 --> 11:12.165 of 1861 feared a long war. 11:12.169 --> 11:18.119 Lincoln most definitely and most prominently; 11:18.120 --> 11:21.270 he feared what, as he said in his--well, 11:21.270 --> 11:24.260 he said it in the Second Inaugural; 11:24.259 --> 11:29.099 he said it also earlier in his annual message at the end of 11:29.099 --> 11:32.599 1861--he feared a long, quote, "remorseless 11:32.603 --> 11:34.943 revolutionary struggle." 11:34.940 --> 11:37.020 Because a long, remorseless, 11:37.017 --> 11:41.557 revolutionary struggle would have very different fundamental 11:41.556 --> 11:44.006 results. In that Second Inaugural, 11:44.008 --> 11:47.248 again one of those famous passages from that speech, 11:47.250 --> 11:50.200 Lincoln said all had hoped--that was at the end of 11:50.202 --> 11:54.542 it--"All hoped," he said, for, quote, "a result less 11:54.543 --> 11:57.573 fundamental and astounding." 11:57.570 --> 12:02.700 But because this war will not be short, it will become all out 12:02.699 --> 12:07.749 and total, depending on whose interpretation and argument you 12:07.745 --> 12:10.505 accept, in terms of what is modern 12:10.510 --> 12:13.980 total war--and we'll come back to that question. 12:13.980 --> 12:21.950 The results would become fundamental, and transformative. 12:21.950 --> 12:34.440 Now we always steal titles from Julia Ward Howe, 12:34.441 --> 12:42.681 just like we do from Lincoln. 12:42.680 --> 12:45.880 12:45.879 --> 12:50.079 That's actually a photograph of Bull Run Creek. 12:50.080 --> 12:53.300 I know it could be a creek anywhere, I know, 12:53.302 --> 12:56.152 but trust me, that's Bull Run Creek. 12:56.149 --> 13:00.999 There were 523 West Point graduates who fought in the 13:00.999 --> 13:05.959 Mexican War, and that war, back in 1846 to '48 had become 13:05.963 --> 13:10.123 a kind of, if you like, military primer for so many of 13:10.122 --> 13:13.172 them, and the vast majority of those 13:13.169 --> 13:18.089 would end up in the Civil War, on both sides--Ulysses Grant, 13:18.090 --> 13:21.400 Class of '43; William Tecumseh Sherman, 13:21.400 --> 13:24.370 Class of '40; Winfield Scott Hancock, 13:24.374 --> 13:28.854 Class of '44; George Thomas, Class of '40; 13:28.850 --> 13:33.690 George S. Meade, Class of '35; Joseph Hooker, Class of '30; 13:33.690 --> 13:37.940 John Sedgwick, Class of '37; Joseph E. Johnston; 13:37.940 --> 13:40.450 most notably Robert E. 13:40.446 --> 13:44.776 Lee, Class of 1829, first in his class, 13:44.776 --> 13:48.646 later commandant at West Point. 13:48.649 --> 13:51.529 They'd all learned a kind of warrior culture, 13:51.525 --> 13:56.165 if you like. They all take a very deep and 13:56.169 --> 13:59.759 abiding oath. It was a very difficult thing 13:59.759 --> 14:02.909 to do for West Point graduates on the southern side, 14:02.906 --> 14:05.926 to abandon that oath and go with their states. 14:05.929 --> 14:13.749 But of course many, many, many of them did. 14:13.750 --> 14:17.170 As Oliver Otis Howard--a West Point graduate, 14:17.172 --> 14:21.682 later Union Corps Commander, lost his arm in the Petersburg 14:21.684 --> 14:25.884 Campaign and later first leader--head of the Freedmen's 14:25.884 --> 14:30.474 Bureau after the Civil War and for whom Howard University is 14:30.474 --> 14:34.424 named--said, quote, "Probably no other place 14:34.419 --> 14:39.279 existed where men grappled more sensitively with the troublesome 14:39.275 --> 14:41.275 problems of secession." 14:41.280 --> 14:42.380 No kidding. 14:42.380 --> 14:46.020 14:46.019 --> 14:52.809 Now the numbers of this--there was a kind of a stampede of West 14:52.810 --> 14:59.710 Point cadets back to the South, at least to a certain degree. 14:59.710 --> 15:04.960 An Ohio cadet named Tully McRae wrote to his sweetheart--this is 15:04.964 --> 15:09.974 April 1861: "This has been an eventful week in the history of 15:09.968 --> 15:13.008 West Point. There has been such a stampede 15:13.011 --> 15:15.221 of cadets as was never known before. 15:15.220 --> 15:19.200 Thirty-two resigned and were relieved from duty on Monday, 15:19.201 --> 15:23.461 April 22, and since then enough to increase the number to more 15:23.462 --> 15:27.362 than forty. There are now few cadets from 15:27.356 --> 15:30.396 any southern state left here." 15:30.399 --> 15:33.979 In all, seventy-four southern cadets resigned and were 15:33.983 --> 15:37.973 dismissed for refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance to the 15:37.972 --> 15:42.312 United States; but twenty-one southern cadets, 15:42.314 --> 15:47.054 from slave states, remained and would eventually 15:47.051 --> 15:49.371 fight for the Union. 15:49.370 --> 15:54.770 This was a far higher proportion of loyalist than 15:54.768 --> 16:00.278 southern students at Harvard, Yale or Columbia. 16:00.279 --> 16:04.719 At Princeton not one southern student remained at the 16:04.720 --> 16:09.160 college--it's an old southern tradition at Princeton, 16:09.161 --> 16:13.251 make no mistake. There are many extraordinary 16:13.248 --> 16:16.898 witnesses to these breakups at West Point. 16:16.900 --> 16:21.010 Here's just one of them. 16:21.009 --> 16:25.949 The cadet, George Armstrong Custer, Class of 1861--that 16:25.949 --> 16:31.069 Custer--recalled walking sentinel duty in June of '61 and 16:31.070 --> 16:36.100 seeing fifteen defecting southern cadets marching toward 16:36.101 --> 16:39.761 a steamboat landing on the Hudson. 16:39.759 --> 16:43.219 I quote him: "Too far off to exchange verbal 16:43.221 --> 16:47.731 'adieu,' even if military discipline had permitted it, 16:47.730 --> 16:52.320 they caught sight of me as step by step I reluctantly paid the 16:52.323 --> 16:55.943 penalty of offended regulations"--that's why he's 16:55.938 --> 16:59.928 doing this guard duty--"and raised their hats in token 16:59.930 --> 17:03.470 farewell, to which, first casting my eyes 17:03.469 --> 17:07.509 about to see that no watchful superior was in view, 17:07.509 --> 17:12.599 I responded by bringing my musket to a present." 17:12.600 --> 17:19.380 17:19.380 --> 17:24.370 Custer would later be proud of how many southerners he had 17:24.371 --> 17:28.081 killed. Now, the next whole section of 17:28.080 --> 17:33.820 this course I want to suggest some questions that we want to 17:33.824 --> 17:38.014 hope that we leave you with answers for; 17:38.009 --> 17:39.239 and you can write these down and hold me to it, 17:39.236 --> 17:41.126 if you want. We can disagree about those 17:41.129 --> 17:43.999 answers, but that's what history's ultimately for. 17:44.000 --> 17:49.760 (1) Why did the North win this war? 17:49.760 --> 17:56.830 (2) Why did the South lose it? 17:56.829 --> 18:03.209 (3) What did making war, and experiencing it, 18:03.207 --> 18:08.857 mean to common soldiers, to officers, 18:08.859 --> 18:12.069 to their families, to the women left at home and 18:12.074 --> 18:14.404 the women who went to the front? 18:14.400 --> 18:17.480 18:17.480 --> 18:24.500 (4) How did the war unleash or reinforce or reshape nineteenth 18:24.501 --> 18:28.071 century values and attitudes? 18:28.069 --> 18:32.759 When Americans of the 1860s confronted war on this scale, 18:32.759 --> 18:37.279 eighty percent of all white males in the American South 18:37.282 --> 18:41.892 between the age of sixteen and forty-five will be in the 18:41.888 --> 18:44.148 army--eighty percent. 18:44.150 --> 18:48.240 In the northern states, fifty percent--a much higher 18:48.243 --> 18:53.143 population--of all white males between eighteen and forty-five 18:53.140 --> 18:56.030 will be in the Army or the Navy. 18:56.029 --> 19:00.859 Can you imagine if we had fifty percent of the American--let's 19:00.864 --> 19:05.544 just count the white males--in the United States today under 19:05.539 --> 19:07.599 arms, through a draft? 19:07.599 --> 19:11.939 A whole lot of you wouldn't be here. 19:11.940 --> 19:15.770 (5) What did the war itself mean on both sides? 19:15.769 --> 19:22.619 Its cause, its purpose, that developing sense of the 19:22.623 --> 19:25.583 reason people fight. 19:25.580 --> 19:27.470 What was it about? 19:27.470 --> 19:30.880 19:30.880 --> 19:37.510 (6) What were the war's results, what were its 19:37.509 --> 19:42.359 consequences? Do wars have meanings that we 19:42.362 --> 19:44.552 are obliged to discern? 19:44.550 --> 19:55.560 Yes. (7) Why were the slaves freed? 19:55.559 --> 19:59.689 How did emancipation come, when it came, 19:59.692 --> 20:04.912 the way it came? (8) Was the American Civil War 20:04.910 --> 20:08.550 a second American Revolution--yes, 20:08.551 --> 20:11.201 no, maybe in between? 20:11.200 --> 20:16.020 Is it the wrong term, is there a better one? 20:16.019 --> 20:24.919 (9) What is the place of this pivotal, transformative event in 20:24.923 --> 20:29.013 America's national memory? 20:29.009 --> 20:35.909 And (10)--God I hope we can answer some of these--was the 20:35.907 --> 20:38.737 Civil War a just war? 20:38.740 --> 20:46.160 Okay, when the war came--back to that little picture of Bull 20:46.156 --> 20:51.306 Run in a moment--but when the war came, 20:51.309 --> 21:02.909 of course, Americans had to now decide how to fight a war. 21:02.910 --> 21:05.360 They had never mobilized for--like they're going to 21:05.355 --> 21:08.605 mobilize in this war; although at the beginning no 21:08.607 --> 21:13.017 one really had any clue of the scale of the mobilization in 21:13.016 --> 21:17.036 industry and resources and transportation and in human 21:17.044 --> 21:19.784 power that the war would bring. 21:19.779 --> 21:24.039 Let's examine just for a moment this question of Union 21:24.037 --> 21:27.007 advantages and Southern advantages, 21:27.009 --> 21:30.319 strengths and weaknesses on both sides, at the outset of the 21:30.316 --> 21:31.826 war, and even through it. 21:31.829 --> 21:35.159 It has a great deal to do with ultimately explaining Union 21:35.157 --> 21:38.777 victory and Confederate defeat, although it is not by itself an 21:38.776 --> 21:41.416 explanation; the North didn't just win the 21:41.420 --> 21:43.960 war because it had more industrial capacity, 21:43.955 --> 21:47.375 or as Ken Burns has Shelby Foote say at one point--the star 21:47.375 --> 21:51.145 of his film--has Shelby Foote say at one point in the film, 21:51.150 --> 21:54.500 "The North fought that war with one hand behind its back." 21:54.500 --> 21:58.010 21:58.009 --> 22:00.529 Bullshit Shelby, they really did not fight that 22:00.529 --> 22:02.609 war with one hand behind their back. 22:02.609 --> 22:05.289 [Laughter] But it helps make a nice 22:05.289 --> 22:09.619 explanation, or the beginnings of a nice explanation for 22:09.623 --> 22:12.183 southern defeat. There were many Union 22:12.180 --> 22:15.650 advantages. Let me just tick off several. 22:15.650 --> 22:19.170 First in finances, the North had--most of this in 22:19.166 --> 22:23.636 New York City and a couple of other cities--had four times the 22:23.636 --> 22:26.636 bank deposits as the southern states, 22:26.640 --> 22:30.190 even though most of the southern states had their bank 22:30.194 --> 22:32.144 deposits in northern banks. 22:32.140 --> 22:35.560 In manufacturing, there were 110,000 22:35.563 --> 22:41.343 manufacturing establishments in the northern states with 1.2 22:41.335 --> 22:45.145 million industrial workers in 1860. 22:45.150 --> 22:50.210 The North had four times--oh I already said that, 22:50.213 --> 22:53.593 the bank deposits, forgive me. 22:53.589 --> 23:00.009 The North--excuse me--there were as many factories in the 23:00.014 --> 23:06.214 North as there were industrial workers in the South; 23:06.210 --> 23:10.660 in the neighborhood of 100,000 or so small manufacturing 23:10.657 --> 23:15.427 industrial workers of one kind and another in southern towns 23:15.427 --> 23:18.367 and cites; the northern states had that 23:18.373 --> 23:20.643 many manufacturing establishments. 23:20.640 --> 23:24.900 Eighty percent of all industrial capacity in the 23:24.897 --> 23:28.517 United States were in the free states. 23:28.519 --> 23:34.309 One Connecticut county, New Haven County--this town, 23:34.307 --> 23:40.657 and its county--produced firearms valued at ten times the 23:40.661 --> 23:47.131 entire southern capacity to produce firearms in 1860. 23:47.130 --> 23:51.180 Now the South's going to improve that greatly through the 23:51.177 --> 23:54.497 Tredegar Iron Works, in Richmond in particular, 23:54.502 --> 23:56.022 and other places. 23:56.019 --> 23:58.639 But New Haven, Connecticut produced ten times 23:58.637 --> 24:01.967 the firearms as the entire South put together in 1860. 24:01.970 --> 24:05.100 Those shells of some of those old factories in this town, 24:05.098 --> 24:08.098 that are no longer factories, were gun factories, 24:08.100 --> 24:11.310 and man did they get rich during the Civil War. 24:11.310 --> 24:15.040 24:15.039 --> 24:17.449 In transportation, eighty percent of all railroad 24:17.447 --> 24:20.057 miles in the United States, the former United States, 24:20.055 --> 24:21.655 were in the northern states. 24:21.660 --> 24:27.840 Of the 470 locomotives made in the United States by 1860, 24:27.835 --> 24:33.455 only nineteen of them had been made in the South. 24:33.460 --> 24:37.500 The North had the vast, vast majority of skilled 24:37.497 --> 24:40.587 mechanics who worked on railroads. 24:40.589 --> 24:43.719 The North tended to have uniform gauges to their 24:43.715 --> 24:47.035 railroads, three or four feet wide to the track. 24:47.039 --> 24:49.919 In the South they had this ridiculous problem, 24:49.922 --> 24:53.192 frankly, and they will not solve it very quickly, 24:53.190 --> 24:55.320 that the South built its railroads haphazardly, 24:55.319 --> 24:56.939 state by state by state by state, 24:56.940 --> 24:59.490 at all kinds of different gauges, three and a half feet 24:59.494 --> 25:01.874 here, four feet there, four and a half feet there. 25:01.869 --> 25:04.669 You'd go into one town with a railroad gauge that's one width 25:04.670 --> 25:07.330 but it goes out the other side of town with a gauge that's 25:07.329 --> 25:10.859 another width. You had to switch locomotives 25:10.858 --> 25:15.398 and switch trains, as ridiculous as that sounds. 25:15.400 --> 25:19.600 They found out in a hurry what a misery that would cause. 25:19.599 --> 25:23.329 Another northern advantage was simply in manpower--just look at 25:23.327 --> 25:24.827 the population numbers. 25:24.829 --> 25:29.439 The population of the North was approximately twenty-two and a 25:29.435 --> 25:31.695 half million people in 1860. 25:31.700 --> 25:37.900 The population of the South was slightly over nine million white 25:37.899 --> 25:43.409 people and about four and a half million black people; 25:43.410 --> 25:45.690 about 4.2 million of whom were slaves; 25:45.690 --> 25:48.980 the other 250 to 300,000 who were free blacks. 25:48.980 --> 25:54.680 25:54.680 --> 25:58.360 The northern states produced ninety-four of all cloth in the 25:58.364 --> 26:01.674 United States in 1860, ninety-three percent of all pig 26:01.674 --> 26:04.504 iron, and on and on and on; boats, ships, 26:04.497 --> 26:07.637 it's all eighty, ninety, ninety-five percent in 26:07.638 --> 26:09.138 favor of the North. 26:09.140 --> 26:12.820 William Tecumseh Sherman was sitting in New Orleans, 26:12.817 --> 26:16.347 where he was stationed when secession occurred, 26:16.349 --> 26:19.879 and the war broke out in April 1861, and according to his 26:19.884 --> 26:23.314 testimony he said to his friend, who had actually been a West 26:23.310 --> 26:25.460 Point buddy of his, he warned him and he said, 26:25.460 --> 26:30.280 quote, "No nation of agriculturalists ever made war 26:30.278 --> 26:34.228 on a nation of mechanics and survived." 26:34.230 --> 26:38.950 Yes, it's very prescient, but I don't want you to think 26:38.951 --> 26:43.941 that Confederate success or victory was somehow determined 26:43.936 --> 26:48.816 at the outset, because of all these economic, 26:48.824 --> 26:52.584 financial, industrial advantages. 26:52.579 --> 26:55.819 The North had certain political advantages. 26:55.819 --> 26:58.409 It did not have to create a government; 26:58.410 --> 27:01.120 it already had one, it had a functioning 27:01.117 --> 27:03.767 government. Now eleven of those states are 27:03.771 --> 27:06.871 no longer going to be represented, they're going to be 27:06.865 --> 27:08.905 gone, but there's a functioning U.S. 27:08.908 --> 27:10.308 Federal Government. 27:10.309 --> 27:14.489 The South has to create that government overnight and it has 27:14.486 --> 27:18.946 to create it out of a political culture rooted in states' rights 27:18.946 --> 27:21.876 and localism. And furthermore--and I think 27:21.884 --> 27:24.744 this is a very important point--the North had a 27:24.735 --> 27:27.085 functioning political party system. 27:27.089 --> 27:30.279 There were still functioning Democrats in the North, 27:30.281 --> 27:33.161 very strong in certain pockets of the North. 27:33.160 --> 27:35.920 They will be a genuine opposition party to Lincoln's 27:35.920 --> 27:37.490 Republicans during the war. 27:37.490 --> 27:40.550 They will make a comeback in the Congress in 1862; 27:40.550 --> 27:45.800 they got clobbered in 1860. 27:45.799 --> 27:49.079 The South doesn't have a party system; 27:49.079 --> 27:53.209 the South has a one-party system--they appointed Jefferson 27:53.210 --> 27:55.720 Davis. The South will not hold a 27:55.721 --> 27:59.891 general election for its presidency and vice-presidency 27:59.892 --> 28:03.122 during this war. Why is that important? 28:03.119 --> 28:05.559 Well, when you have a functioning political party 28:05.557 --> 28:08.347 system you have a way of organizing power and organizing 28:08.350 --> 28:10.230 patronage and organizing loyalty. 28:10.230 --> 28:14.850 We'll see this soon, Thursday. 28:14.849 --> 28:18.649 One of Jefferson Davis's greatest problems and biggest 28:18.652 --> 28:22.532 crises throughout the war is trying to get the southern 28:22.526 --> 28:27.186 states to go along with various Confederate federal policies, 28:27.190 --> 28:32.100 and in the end he will fail at much of that. 28:32.099 --> 28:34.309 Now, the South was not without advantages. 28:34.310 --> 28:38.880 Look at the map. You could argue that the South 28:38.881 --> 28:42.751 had a great advantage of geography, if they used it well. 28:42.750 --> 28:47.160 The South is a huge expansive territory, huge; 28:47.160 --> 28:51.470 thousands of--what is it, almost a 2,000 mile coastline, 28:51.468 --> 28:56.168 1,500 mile coastline I believe, if you add up Florida all the 28:56.168 --> 28:57.968 way up to Virginia. 28:57.970 --> 29:02.540 And when Lincoln announced the call for 75,000 volunteers in 29:02.540 --> 29:05.480 April of '61, he also announced a naval 29:05.483 --> 29:08.043 blockade of the entire South. 29:08.039 --> 29:11.209 Now this will forever be a tricky legal story and an 29:11.210 --> 29:13.510 interesting constitutional problem. 29:13.509 --> 29:15.359 Lincoln says the southern states could not 29:15.355 --> 29:17.195 constitutionally secede from the Union; 29:17.200 --> 29:22.010 they were not therefore a legitimate belligerent. 29:22.009 --> 29:25.549 He was not in any way recognizing them as a legitimate 29:25.549 --> 29:27.819 government, but, oh, by the way, 29:27.819 --> 29:32.799 he was going to put a total naval blockade on them 29:32.804 --> 29:35.324 nevertheless. Now, foreign countries, 29:35.316 --> 29:37.586 especially Great Britain, will look at this and say, 29:37.589 --> 29:39.679 "well you may not--secession you may not think is 29:39.680 --> 29:42.030 constitutional in your country and you may not call the 29:42.033 --> 29:45.143 confederacy a belligerent, but you sure as hell are 29:45.137 --> 29:47.007 treating them like one." 29:47.009 --> 29:49.669 At any rate, a blockade around that entire 29:49.674 --> 29:51.694 coastline will never be easy. 29:51.690 --> 29:55.160 And we know that it was very porous in the first year, 29:55.161 --> 29:58.701 even into the second year of the war, through 1862 very 29:58.699 --> 30:01.559 porous. But the naval blockade 30:01.555 --> 30:06.695 eventually was relatively successful, by 1864 and into 30:06.700 --> 30:10.980 early 1865. But it's a huge expansive 30:10.976 --> 30:15.146 territory. The South had rivers it could 30:15.147 --> 30:19.027 use, and it will use them effectively; 30:19.029 --> 30:21.869 of course so will the North, once they invade the South. 30:21.869 --> 30:26.319 Geography was an advantage to the southern cause, 30:26.320 --> 30:30.960 as many military historians have argued ever since, 30:30.957 --> 30:35.127 if and when they stayed on the defensive. 30:35.130 --> 30:38.330 When they chose to invade the North, as Lee will twice, 30:38.328 --> 30:42.138 two fateful invasions, the one resulting at Antietam 30:42.135 --> 30:46.815 in September of '62 and the other at Gettysburg in July of 30:46.824 --> 30:49.514 '63, he was giving up that advantage 30:49.511 --> 30:53.191 of the defensive position, forcing the larger armies of 30:53.190 --> 30:57.210 the North to come to them and attack on southern ground, 30:57.210 --> 30:59.240 on southern soil. 30:59.240 --> 31:04.860 This has always been a debate--had the South remained 31:04.861 --> 31:11.351 utterly defensive in this war, could the North have stood it, 31:11.347 --> 31:14.047 held out long enough? 31:14.049 --> 31:16.719 Thirdly, you could argue that the South has an advantage in 31:16.724 --> 31:17.974 its cause or its purpose. 31:17.970 --> 31:21.960 And perhaps at first maybe they did, or even later, 31:21.960 --> 31:26.270 after a terrible degree of war weariness had set in. 31:26.269 --> 31:29.069 The argument is simply that the South didn't have to win the 31:29.072 --> 31:31.212 war, they didn't have to conquer the North, 31:31.210 --> 31:36.010 they simply had to fight long enough as an insurgent. 31:36.009 --> 31:38.909 They were the insurgent, the Confederacy was an 31:38.910 --> 31:43.010 insurgency, let's use that term, that's exactly what they were. 31:43.009 --> 31:46.389 If they could hold out long enough and force the North into 31:46.388 --> 31:50.238 a degree of war weariness, into some kind of economic 31:50.236 --> 31:53.556 trauma, they might just sue for peace. 31:53.559 --> 31:59.839 After all, the goal of the Confederacy was national 31:59.844 --> 32:03.524 independence. Some have said their cause was 32:03.518 --> 32:07.258 clearer, less abstract; defense of the homeland, 32:07.260 --> 32:11.790 defense of hearth, is in some ways less abstract 32:11.786 --> 32:17.366 than defense of the Union or the Constitution or the social 32:17.370 --> 32:20.480 order. How many of you want your sons 32:20.479 --> 32:22.459 to die for the social order? 32:22.460 --> 32:26.120 Well maybe you do, not for me to say. 32:26.119 --> 32:29.979 If they had stayed on the defensive--and they know this; 32:29.980 --> 32:34.140 this is one of those testy questions about Robert E. 32:34.137 --> 32:37.217 Lee's legacy. They had an advantage here now 32:37.216 --> 32:40.436 of this new, relatively new invention--thousands upon 32:40.435 --> 32:43.525 thousands upon thousands of which were made in this 32:43.530 --> 32:46.130 town--and that was the rifled musket. 32:46.130 --> 32:51.880 Until the late 1840s and into the 1850s almost all firearms, 32:51.884 --> 32:54.814 all muskets were smoothbore. 32:54.809 --> 32:59.069 The shell or the bullet or the minie ball that came out of 32:59.065 --> 33:03.015 them, came out of a just a barrel that was flat on the 33:03.021 --> 33:06.681 inside and it would only go 100 to 200 yards; 33:06.680 --> 33:08.240 200 yards maximum. 33:08.240 --> 33:11.890 But with the creation of the rifled musket--and eventually 33:11.892 --> 33:15.672 rifled cannon--a rifled musket could hit something as far as 33:15.672 --> 33:18.902 800 years away; it didn't mean you could see 33:18.897 --> 33:22.907 what you were shooting at, but it was extremely deadly at 33:22.912 --> 33:26.202 2 to 300 yards now, in a war that's still going to 33:26.200 --> 33:29.790 be fought with these hideous old Napoleonic tactics of lining up 33:29.791 --> 33:33.491 men by the thousands, arm to arm, elbow to elbow, 33:33.486 --> 33:36.326 and simply moving across fields. 33:36.329 --> 33:41.919 The defensive position with the rifled musket was a huge 33:41.924 --> 33:44.064 advantage, if used. 33:44.059 --> 33:47.319 Many have said over and over that the South had superior 33:47.316 --> 33:50.806 generalship in the first especially two years of the war, 33:50.809 --> 33:53.859 and I don't think there's much question that they did. 33:53.859 --> 34:00.879 And then of course some have argued that the South simply had 34:00.876 --> 34:06.366 the yeoman soldier--better soldiers, better men, 34:06.372 --> 34:09.822 so-called. Now they thought they did, 34:09.823 --> 34:13.663 and let me give you a couple of illustrations of that. 34:13.659 --> 34:18.959 They thought they did, in their rhetoric and in their 34:18.961 --> 34:21.001 war fever of 1861. 34:21.000 --> 34:32.980 34:32.980 --> 34:36.430 One young Confederate officer wrote home from the summer of 34:36.433 --> 34:39.173 1861. He said, "Just throw three or 34:39.170 --> 34:43.570 four shells among those blue-bellied Yankees and they'll 34:43.570 --> 34:45.410 scatter like sheep." 34:45.410 --> 34:48.580 So was the theory. 34:48.579 --> 34:52.839 "It was not the improved arm but the improved man," wrote 34:52.839 --> 34:57.479 Governor Henry Wise of Virginia, "which would win the day." 34:57.480 --> 34:59.550 He's writing this in 1861. 34:59.550 --> 35:03.240 "Let brave men advance with flint locks and old-fashioned 35:03.236 --> 35:06.916 bayonets on the popinjays of Northern cities and he would 35:06.923 --> 35:09.033 answer for it with his life. 35:09.030 --> 35:14.510 The Yankees," he says, "will break and run." 35:14.510 --> 35:17.890 The Yankees won't fight, or so was the theory. 35:17.890 --> 35:22.010 35:22.010 --> 35:24.010 Now, I don't know, at times I suppose there was an 35:24.010 --> 35:26.990 advantage. There was a certain warrior 35:26.985 --> 35:29.005 culture in the South. 35:29.010 --> 35:31.870 There were perhaps more hunters per capita in the South than 35:31.871 --> 35:36.941 maybe in the North; but don't make much of that one. 35:36.940 --> 35:40.080 The South had awesome problems though to fight this war as 35:40.080 --> 35:42.340 well, and let me tick them off quickly. 35:42.340 --> 35:46.840 They'll have a tremendous problem of supply, 35:46.842 --> 35:49.462 as the war gets bigger. 35:49.460 --> 35:54.340 Johnny Reb will never be very well clad, never very well fed. 35:54.340 --> 36:00.320 Always reliant on captured blankets and captured boots and 36:00.320 --> 36:04.410 captured food, and even captured medical 36:04.411 --> 36:06.721 supplies at times. 36:06.719 --> 36:11.299 In the South they will truly, in a biblical sense, 36:11.295 --> 36:15.025 have to make ploughshares into swords. 36:15.030 --> 36:20.040 They actually accomplished amazing things in the creation 36:20.042 --> 36:23.532 of weapons, of ordinance, of gun powder, 36:23.534 --> 36:28.014 of shells, by the thousands, almost overnight. 36:28.010 --> 36:30.210 They will also buy a lot from Great Britain, 36:30.214 --> 36:33.244 from the French to some extent, and much of that will get in 36:33.239 --> 36:35.699 through the blockade in the first two years. 36:35.699 --> 36:38.629 They had a huge disadvantage of not having a Navy. 36:38.630 --> 36:41.920 They had to somehow create a Navy--and we'll come back to 36:41.920 --> 36:45.210 this later when we look at the role of Europe in this. 36:45.210 --> 36:50.870 They will go to Britain and try to buy ships, 36:50.872 --> 36:55.122 and they will--ironclads, rams, 36:55.119 --> 36:57.469 and, ultimately, battleships, 36:57.467 --> 37:02.327 that will prey upon and destroy hundreds of Union ships. 37:02.330 --> 37:06.010 37:06.010 --> 37:09.720 And then you might say that they had a real political 37:09.724 --> 37:13.654 disadvantage--I guess I've already mentioned it--in that 37:13.652 --> 37:17.012 they were born of a states' rights impulse, 37:17.010 --> 37:20.890 and overnight now they have to try to centralize a government, 37:20.893 --> 37:26.493 to fight a highly centralized, coordinated war over a vast 37:26.485 --> 37:29.245 thousand mile front. 37:29.250 --> 37:32.260 And Georgians are supposed to cooperate with Virginians who 37:32.263 --> 37:35.433 are supposed to cooperate with Tennesseans who are supposed to 37:35.433 --> 37:36.943 cooperate with Arkansans. 37:36.940 --> 37:40.250 And it didn't always work. 37:40.250 --> 37:45.760 And last but not least, would slavery be an advantage 37:45.759 --> 37:50.739 or a disadvantage in the South's war efforts? 37:50.739 --> 37:55.249 To some degree it was an advantage, and thousands upon 37:55.246 --> 37:59.916 thousands of American slaves will be put to work for the 37:59.924 --> 38:04.494 Confederate military, for the Confederate industry. 38:04.489 --> 38:08.539 If you visited a Confederate army from 1861 on, 38:08.535 --> 38:13.275 if it was above 1000 men, you would see plenty of black 38:13.283 --> 38:16.013 guys, and some black women. 38:16.010 --> 38:19.040 If you were on a southern train by 1863, you'd see plenty of 38:19.040 --> 38:21.660 black workers on that train, most of them slaves. 38:21.659 --> 38:25.569 If you were in a field hospital in Georgia by '63 and '64, 38:25.573 --> 38:28.883 during Sherman's March, if you were in a Confederate 38:28.883 --> 38:31.333 hospital you'd see plenty of black nurses; 38:31.329 --> 38:36.329 about forty percent of all the nurses in Confederate hospitals, 38:36.331 --> 38:39.801 from '63 on, in Georgia were slave women. 38:39.800 --> 38:45.860 They were impressed into Confederate service by the 38:45.864 --> 38:49.134 thousands. So there's an advantage in that. 38:49.130 --> 38:54.840 But I think as we'll see next week, slavery ultimately was the 38:54.842 --> 38:59.152 Achilles heel of the Confederate war effort, 38:59.150 --> 39:02.160 because once the Union leadership--and that's going to 39:02.158 --> 39:04.938 happen, it's going to take a year into the war, 39:04.940 --> 39:09.280 but that's going to happen by 1862, and certainly '63--will 39:09.281 --> 39:13.851 come to see that the only way they can truly win the war is by 39:13.848 --> 39:15.568 destroying slavery. 39:15.570 --> 39:20.610 And once the Union war effort becomes an effort to destroy the 39:20.607 --> 39:26.357 social structure of the South, including its labor system, 39:26.355 --> 39:32.565 and an effort to destroy slavery, it becomes an all-out 39:32.565 --> 39:35.895 and total war of conquest. 39:35.900 --> 39:40.170 Now, quickly, to the extent there was an 39:40.170 --> 39:44.990 opening grand strategy, soon to be abandoned, 39:44.988 --> 39:47.628 it was this. Winfield Scott, 39:47.632 --> 39:50.132 the "Old Rough and Ready," as he was known, 39:50.131 --> 39:53.941 the old General of the Mexican War--he's very ancient by now, 39:53.940 --> 39:57.090 he's eighty-years-old, he's big and he's fat and he's 39:57.093 --> 40:00.913 immobile--but he was the General of the Army and he came up with 40:00.914 --> 40:03.284 what he called the "Anaconda Plan." 40:03.280 --> 40:07.780 The Anaconda Plan was basically to envelop the South, 40:07.784 --> 40:10.734 surround it by a naval blockade, 40:10.730 --> 40:15.090 use gunboats to penetrate the rivers down the Ohio, 40:15.087 --> 40:19.007 the Mississippi, the Missouri if necessary, 40:19.010 --> 40:21.650 from the west, and up those rivers of Virginia 40:21.650 --> 40:23.880 and down the coast of the Carolinas, 40:23.880 --> 40:29.000 and, in effect, suffocate the South from 40:28.995 --> 40:31.745 outside, over time. 40:31.750 --> 40:36.360 It might take a year, it might even take two years. 40:36.360 --> 40:41.830 The idea here was to surround the South and to force them 40:41.830 --> 40:47.690 ultimately to not just see the error of their ways but to see 40:47.691 --> 40:51.111 that they had no chance to win. 40:51.110 --> 40:56.050 This was a plan now that would not invade the South with major 40:56.047 --> 40:59.767 armies and seek major battlefield victories, 40:59.769 --> 41:04.909 it was almost a kind of an economic plan to win a war. 41:04.909 --> 41:08.609 It would take time, patience and an ever-growing 41:08.609 --> 41:11.019 Navy. But the American people 41:11.022 --> 41:12.482 wouldn't have it. 41:12.480 --> 41:14.660 The northern people wouldn't have it. 41:14.659 --> 41:16.659 They wanted an army forming around Washington, 41:16.662 --> 41:18.362 D.C. in April, May, 41:18.362 --> 41:21.742 and June, 1861, to move, to act. 41:21.739 --> 41:23.279 Horace Greeley, the most important editor of 41:23.283 --> 41:25.153 the most important newspaper in the United States, 41:25.150 --> 41:26.570 the New York Herald-Tribune, 41:26.569 --> 41:28.489 in New York, published that famous headline, 41:28.489 --> 41:34.009 "On To Richmond"--or "Forward to Richmond," it said. 41:34.010 --> 41:37.490 Attack that Confederate army, stop the insurgency, 41:37.486 --> 41:40.036 whip them once, end the rebellion, 41:40.039 --> 41:44.699 punish its leaders and get this thing over before the end of 41:44.699 --> 41:45.409 summer. 41:45.410 --> 41:48.960 41:48.960 --> 41:53.000 Now, the problem here is not unlike--think about it--the 41:53.001 --> 41:55.721 problem in the American Revolution. 41:55.719 --> 42:00.589 If the British could've ended that American insurgency in the 42:00.593 --> 42:03.993 American Revolution quickly, in the first year or two, 42:03.988 --> 42:05.978 instead of letting these American armies under George 42:05.982 --> 42:08.132 Washington and others keep retreating away from them, 42:08.130 --> 42:11.180 and not engaging in any real pitched battles, 42:11.178 --> 42:14.018 and continuing to give up their cities, 42:14.019 --> 42:17.579 and retreat inland and inland and inland, the Americans would 42:17.580 --> 42:19.480 not have won their revolution. 42:19.480 --> 42:25.030 42:25.030 --> 42:29.330 As long as the Confederate armies could exist, 42:29.328 --> 42:34.868 the Confederacy could exist, if indeed we interpret it as a 42:34.869 --> 42:39.319 revolutionary insurgency; and, ultimately, 42:39.324 --> 42:45.014 that is virtually how they will interpret themselves. 42:45.010 --> 42:49.690 And, hence, we can see that if this war lasts very long, 42:49.690 --> 42:53.010 if it lasted frankly beyond one year, 42:53.010 --> 42:58.060 it had all the potential of becoming a war of conquest, 42:58.064 --> 43:02.374 all out and total, requiring the destruction of 43:02.369 --> 43:07.329 the southern infrastructure and southern society. 43:07.329 --> 43:12.929 Now, both sides in this war--and I'll get around to Bull 43:12.928 --> 43:17.918 Run and the way the war broke out in the west in a 43:17.916 --> 43:24.326 moment--both sides in this war will engage in conscription, 43:24.329 --> 43:29.669 they will create the draft for the first time in American 43:29.666 --> 43:33.786 history. The Confederates were first to 43:33.790 --> 43:36.170 do it. The first Conscription Act in 43:36.166 --> 43:39.606 American history is passed in April of 1862 by the Confederate 43:39.609 --> 43:42.319 Government. It said that all able-bodied 43:42.320 --> 43:46.090 men eighteen to thirty-five, later raised to forty-five, 43:46.093 --> 43:49.663 would be conscripted into three years of service. 43:49.659 --> 43:54.129 They allowed the hiring of a substitute, which led to the 43:54.134 --> 43:57.334 charge of elitism, which was accurate. 43:57.329 --> 44:01.659 There were brokers and all kinds of dishonest substitutes. 44:01.659 --> 44:06.679 One man is alleged to have sold himself twenty times for the 44:06.681 --> 44:09.831 bounty that he got paid to get out. 44:09.829 --> 44:14.359 There were exemptions in the Confederate conscription--public 44:14.359 --> 44:16.729 servants, ministers, teachers, editors, 44:16.725 --> 44:18.445 nurses, factory and railroad workers, miners, 44:18.451 --> 44:19.511 and telegraph operators. 44:19.510 --> 44:24.170 Among the Confederate troops out at the front they called 44:24.168 --> 44:27.328 these people "bomb-proof" positions. 44:27.329 --> 44:30.789 And then, worst of all, in the Confederate Conscription 44:30.786 --> 44:34.496 Law in 1863, they passed what was known as the Twenty Negro 44:34.498 --> 44:38.268 Law: if you owned twenty or more slaves you were exempt from 44:38.273 --> 44:41.043 service. The reason for that was the 44:41.035 --> 44:44.215 deep fear setting in, in 1862 across the South, 44:44.215 --> 44:47.735 that if all these white men--eighty percent of white 44:47.739 --> 44:51.959 males in the South will be in the Army--and if all these white 44:51.955 --> 44:55.885 men left the plantations it would be black men left on the 44:55.894 --> 44:58.594 plantations running the place. 44:58.590 --> 45:02.440 Any man who had twenty or more slaves was exempt, 45:02.444 --> 45:04.054 if he chose to be. 45:04.050 --> 45:07.980 This will cause tremendous resentment in the Confederate 45:07.984 --> 45:12.424 armies and ultimately become one of the causes of desertion. 45:12.420 --> 45:17.300 The Union Conscription Law came later, it didn't come until 45:17.300 --> 45:20.080 early '63. It drafted every able-bodied 45:20.077 --> 45:23.357 man twenty years of age to forty-five years of age. 45:23.360 --> 45:26.970 It had--its exemptions were more limited. 45:26.969 --> 45:34.649 You could escape if you could find a substitute and pay $300; 45:34.650 --> 45:37.180 hence the charge, not inaccurate, 45:37.179 --> 45:41.049 that in the North, this "people's war," as Lincoln 45:41.053 --> 45:44.523 called it, this war to save democracy, 45:44.518 --> 45:48.708 became a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. 45:48.710 --> 45:52.700 Generous bounties were paid if you enlisted, 45:52.695 --> 45:58.255 and in the end only about six percent of all the Union forces 45:58.256 --> 46:01.496 in the Civil War were draftees. 46:01.500 --> 46:05.740 The social pressure in some communities, since regiments 46:05.741 --> 46:08.441 were formed locally, was tremendous, 46:08.439 --> 46:11.369 especially in the first two years. 46:11.369 --> 46:17.629 Approximately twenty percent of all Confederates were draftees 46:17.634 --> 46:21.644 and only six percent of Union troops. 46:21.639 --> 46:28.959 Now, I only have a few minutes left, and I'm sorry for that, 46:28.958 --> 46:35.158 but I wanted to lay out our aims and goals here. 46:35.159 --> 46:38.739 But let me leave you with how this first battle of the war 46:38.736 --> 46:40.706 actually came; and we'll pick it up there 46:40.707 --> 46:44.607 Thursday; it makes as much sense Thursday. 46:44.610 --> 46:48.080 Along that creek--you can see the picture here, 46:48.078 --> 46:53.528 an extraordinary photograph, actually taken in 1862, 46:53.532 --> 46:59.782 of four children, two of them wearing what are 46:59.779 --> 47:08.109 probably Union kepis--hats--and seven Union cavalrymen across 47:08.107 --> 47:12.967 the creek, as though they're at attention 47:12.970 --> 47:15.010 for the photographer. 47:15.010 --> 47:20.510 It's a remarkable picture of, it seems to me, 47:20.510 --> 47:25.010 the influence of war on the young. 47:25.010 --> 47:28.930 But it was along that creek on the 21^(st) of July, 47:28.925 --> 47:32.215 1861, a Sunday afternoon, that the first collision of 47:32.219 --> 47:34.539 amateur armies occurred, and the first major battle of 47:34.536 --> 47:35.756 the Civil War came about. 47:35.760 --> 47:38.360 Lincoln, under the pressure of public opinion, 47:38.358 --> 47:40.608 forced his commander, Irvin McDowell, 47:40.610 --> 47:43.510 to move this army, that was not very well trained, 47:43.510 --> 47:46.410 it wasn't prepared to fight--they hadn't even been 47:46.410 --> 47:49.310 taught how to retreat, which they're about to 47:49.307 --> 47:52.407 demonstrate. McDowell complained to Lincoln, 47:52.414 --> 47:56.954 he said, "These people can't fight, we haven't learned this, 47:56.949 --> 47:58.779 we haven't learned that, we're not ready, 47:58.775 --> 47:59.775 don't make us move." 47:59.780 --> 48:01.400 And Lincoln said, "I have no choice, 48:01.395 --> 48:04.615 you must move." And he wrote to McDowell and he 48:04.622 --> 48:09.432 said, quote, "You are green, it is true, but they are green. 48:09.430 --> 48:12.940 You are all green alike." 48:12.940 --> 48:15.090 Well, thanks a lot, McDowell probably said, 48:15.089 --> 48:17.849 and off he marched about twenty miles south and west of 48:17.852 --> 48:20.972 Washington to collide with this Confederate army that had been 48:20.974 --> 48:23.844 forming now for three months in northern Virginia, 48:23.840 --> 48:27.260 threatening the U.S. capital. 48:27.260 --> 48:29.740 It was a summer outing. 48:29.739 --> 48:31.989 A couple of hundred civilians in carriages, 48:31.989 --> 48:34.989 many of them congressmen and their wives and families, 48:34.989 --> 48:37.239 got in carriages, packed picnic lunches, 48:37.242 --> 48:39.092 went down to watch the battle. 48:39.090 --> 48:43.430 They sat on hillsides to watch this spectacle; 48:43.429 --> 48:47.349 you stay far enough away you wouldn't see any blood. 48:47.349 --> 48:50.739 Oh, there's going to be some casualties but that's--there's 48:50.737 --> 48:54.617 supposed to be. They took picnics. 48:54.619 --> 48:57.259 Two U.S. congressmen wound up captured 48:57.258 --> 49:00.608 and spent the next year in a Richmond prison. 49:00.610 --> 49:03.320 It was a crazy battle. 49:03.320 --> 49:08.160 It lasted only three hours, and both commanding generals, 49:08.156 --> 49:13.246 Beauregard on the Confederate side and McDowell on the Union 49:13.252 --> 49:15.092 side, had the same plan, 49:15.086 --> 49:17.666 a fake to the right and a move to the left. 49:17.670 --> 49:20.430 This was old-fashioned stuff. 49:20.429 --> 49:22.359 Now, if they both had managed to pull it off and their men had 49:22.361 --> 49:24.961 known what they were doing, they'd have simply moved each 49:24.960 --> 49:28.440 other around and the Confederate army could've walked up into 49:28.438 --> 49:33.168 Washington. But nothing came off as planned. 49:33.170 --> 49:36.510 At first the Union forces took several hundred yards of the 49:36.509 --> 49:38.029 field; it looked like, 49:38.025 --> 49:42.245 in these field glasses people were using, that this was going 49:42.250 --> 49:44.010 to be a Union victory. 49:44.010 --> 49:45.330 First clash, a Union victory, 49:45.332 --> 49:47.882 send the Confederate Army retreating back into Virginia 49:47.882 --> 49:49.112 and end the rebellion. 49:49.110 --> 49:52.140 But then as fast as that happened it turned around, 49:52.135 --> 49:53.825 and a counter-attack came. 49:53.829 --> 49:57.369 It was led by a general named Thomas Jackson, 49:57.373 --> 50:02.203 who gets his name at Bull Run, Stonewall Jackson--more on him 50:02.204 --> 50:04.694 later. And suddenly these Union 50:04.693 --> 50:08.693 soldiers--knew nothing of retreat--they threw down rifles, 50:08.691 --> 50:13.111 they ran through creeks and found the first road they could. 50:13.110 --> 50:16.190 So they broke ranks, and they retreated, 50:16.194 --> 50:20.784 many of them running the rest of that afternoon and through 50:20.781 --> 50:23.631 into the evening, back to Washington, 50:23.629 --> 50:26.909 D.C. in utter defeat and retreat. 50:26.909 --> 50:31.659 It was so bad that the wagons and the caissons of the 50:31.660 --> 50:35.040 artillery started running over men. 50:35.039 --> 50:37.469 Albion Tourgee, later to become the most 50:37.467 --> 50:40.887 important novelist and writer of the Reconstruction era, 50:40.890 --> 50:44.260 was badly wounded; he had his shoulder smashed and 50:44.261 --> 50:48.201 broken by the wheel of a caisson in the retreat from Bull Run, 50:48.199 --> 50:51.039 and would have to leave the war for year; 50:51.039 --> 50:53.289 he'll return to it, but he'd never be able to use 50:53.287 --> 50:55.157 one of his shoulders very effectively. 50:55.159 --> 51:02.059 Bull Run--First Bull Run--was a complete Confederate victory, 51:02.056 --> 51:05.656 a Union defeat. The Union Army retreated into 51:05.664 --> 51:08.294 the national capital, a shock to the country. 51:08.289 --> 51:13.439 The casualties were this: 460 killed on the Union side, 51:13.441 --> 51:17.831 over 1100 wounded, and 1300 men missing for the 51:17.829 --> 51:23.629 next month; a total of almost 2900 51:23.627 --> 51:27.427 casualties. On the Confederate side, 51:27.425 --> 51:30.545 387 killed, 1500 wounded, and only thirteen missing; 51:30.550 --> 51:35.160 about 1900 total casualties. 51:35.159 --> 51:39.109 In the wake of Bull Run, Lincoln brings George B. 51:39.105 --> 51:43.125 McClellan, this vainglorious but handsome as hell, 51:43.133 --> 51:47.333 smart, West Point graduate of thirty-four years-old, 51:47.325 --> 51:49.375 to the White House. 51:49.380 --> 51:52.850 He'd had a couple of small little victories out in Western 51:52.853 --> 51:56.513 Virginia where there'd been a couple of clashes with southern 51:56.509 --> 51:58.599 troops, and he brought this 51:58.601 --> 52:03.241 gold-sash-wearing young officer to the White House and gave him 52:03.238 --> 52:07.428 command of this army that they then named The Army of the 52:07.427 --> 52:09.657 Potomac. And the army was being 52:09.657 --> 52:12.457 increased daily now with hundreds and hundreds and 52:12.458 --> 52:14.628 thousands of troops from the North. 52:14.630 --> 52:17.860 And McClellan put them into camp, Camp Brightwood, 52:17.862 --> 52:21.162 among others--huge camps--outside of Washington, 52:21.159 --> 52:28.249 and he'll start training them, for months and months and 52:28.249 --> 52:32.829 months. And the Civil War got longer 52:32.830 --> 52:35.640 and longer and longer. 52:35.639 --> 52:41.389 And McClellan's not going to move that army for another ten 52:41.387 --> 52:46.637 months, nine months, until the late Spring of 1862. 52:46.639 --> 52:49.899 Meanwhile, the war is going to break out in the West too, 52:49.902 --> 52:52.002 and we'll return to that Thursday.