WEBVTT 00:14.000 --> 00:19.300 Professor David Blight: The person whose writing drew me 00:19.296 --> 00:23.906 into the Civil War--and I confess--was Bruce Catton. 00:23.910 --> 00:26.620 Have any of you ever read any of Bruce Catton? 00:26.620 --> 00:30.950 Ah. It's a dwindling number in the 00:30.947 --> 00:32.497 twenty-first century. 00:32.500 --> 00:37.250 But when I was growing up Bruce Catton was the great narrative, 00:37.248 --> 00:41.538 popular historian--or popular narrative historian--of the 00:41.537 --> 00:45.317 Civil War. He wrote some seven books or 00:45.317 --> 00:50.827 so, from the late 1950s through the 1960s into the '70s. 00:50.830 --> 00:56.060 He wrote them around the time of the Civil War centennial. 00:56.060 --> 00:59.210 He was not an academic historian, he was a journalist 00:59.208 --> 01:02.658 and a former war correspondent in the Second World War, 01:02.659 --> 01:09.009 and the man had a beautiful sense of narrative. 01:09.010 --> 01:15.550 This is Catton from his book Terrible Swift Sword, 01:15.546 --> 01:20.566 which is 1862, the year of 1862 of the Civil 01:20.566 --> 01:24.156 War. He's trying to capture the 01:24.164 --> 01:29.394 situation, the strategic situation, the emotional, 01:29.390 --> 01:36.000 sentimental situation, the mood of already war-weary 01:35.995 --> 01:42.855 America, a little more than a year into this thing; 01:42.860 --> 01:47.010 which is where we're going to go, and a little bit further, 01:47.008 --> 01:48.788 in a moment. He's talking, 01:48.788 --> 01:51.418 though, essentially, about the most important 01:51.424 --> 01:54.664 argument I think we can make about that first year, 01:54.660 --> 01:58.200 year and a half, into the second year of the 01:58.196 --> 02:03.696 war. Both sides wanted a limited war. 02:03.700 --> 02:07.950 Remember that. On the Confederate side they 02:07.946 --> 02:13.376 just wanted to fight long enough to make the North or the Federal 02:13.379 --> 02:17.199 Government acknowledge their independence. 02:17.199 --> 02:20.429 The longer the thing went on, the more dangerous it was, 02:20.425 --> 02:22.355 of course, for the Confederacy. 02:22.360 --> 02:25.790 They were out-manned, out-numbered, 02:25.787 --> 02:29.717 they had lesser resources, et cetera. 02:29.720 --> 02:32.670 On the northern side, it was the stated policy of the 02:32.669 --> 02:35.619 Lincoln Administration to keep this a limited war; 02:35.620 --> 02:39.610 and a great deal more on this next week when we deal with the 02:39.612 --> 02:41.012 emancipation story. 02:41.009 --> 02:42.859 The whole idea again, for Lincoln, 02:42.855 --> 02:45.315 was to keep this from becoming, as he put it, 02:45.316 --> 02:47.606 a remorseless revolutionary struggle. 02:47.610 --> 02:54.500 That is exactly what it had become by the summer of 1862. 02:54.500 --> 02:58.850 And here is Catton's description; 02:58.849 --> 03:04.039 I can't do it any better: "There was nobility in the idea 03:04.039 --> 03:08.579 that there ought to be a peace without victory. 03:08.580 --> 03:13.630 By August of 1862, America's tragedy was that it 03:13.629 --> 03:20.289 was caught between the madness of going on with the war and the 03:20.290 --> 03:24.480 human impossibility of stopping it. 03:24.479 --> 03:30.079 Secession had been a direct result of the outcome of the 03:30.076 --> 03:32.006 Election of 1860. 03:32.009 --> 03:35.289 To restore the status quo would be to assume that either the 03:35.291 --> 03:38.241 North or the South had had a great change of heart, 03:38.240 --> 03:41.630 that the North would not again go Republican, 03:41.629 --> 03:45.789 or that the South would quietly acquiesce if it did. 03:45.789 --> 03:47.979 Neither Mr. Lincoln nor Mr. 03:47.980 --> 03:52.110 Davis was going to assume anything of the kind. 03:52.110 --> 03:57.750 Each man was fighting for a dreadful simplicity. 03:57.750 --> 04:02.000 Neither one could describe a solution acceptable to him, 04:01.997 --> 04:06.167 without describing something wholly unacceptable to the 04:06.167 --> 04:09.037 other. Neither man could accept 04:09.041 --> 04:13.601 anything less than complete victory without admitting 04:13.596 --> 04:17.836 complete defeat. Both sides had heard the 04:17.839 --> 04:22.029 trumpet that could never call retreat. 04:22.029 --> 04:26.449 The peacemakers could not be heard until the terrible swift 04:26.449 --> 04:28.429 sword had been sheathed. 04:28.430 --> 04:32.280 But the scabbard had been thrown away and now the 04:32.278 --> 04:37.168 Confederacy was carrying the war into the enemy's country." 04:37.170 --> 04:41.600 04:41.600 --> 04:47.920 Well, "never call retreat" is of course a very warlike 04:47.924 --> 04:54.014 language, but this was an awful and horrible war. 04:54.009 --> 04:56.699 Now Lincoln, of course--and you've read now 04:56.701 --> 05:00.101 some documents on this, and if you've started to watch 05:00.097 --> 05:03.407 the Ken Burns film series, which by the way is now up on 05:03.412 --> 05:05.912 the Classes Server, it is up on the Classes Server; 05:05.910 --> 05:10.230 well no it's up on CDigix but, as Sam Schaffer just informed 05:10.227 --> 05:13.517 me, if you go to the Classes Server there is a 05:13.521 --> 05:17.551 message--what's it called--under Information?--and under 05:17.546 --> 05:21.506 Announcements, it tells you exactly again how 05:21.514 --> 05:25.154 to use the URL. Have any of you already tapped 05:25.152 --> 05:27.362 in? Okay. 05:27.360 --> 05:30.550 Make sure you watch episodes two and three, 05:30.549 --> 05:34.569 through the one entitled "Forever Free," maybe by this 05:34.574 --> 05:38.604 weekend, certainly by the beginning of next week. 05:38.600 --> 05:42.410 At any rate, in that film series you'll see 05:42.408 --> 05:45.398 that Burns chose to make George B. 05:45.401 --> 05:49.391 McClellan a kind of comic relief--his vanity, 05:49.391 --> 05:53.111 his arrogance, his insubordination, 05:53.110 --> 05:57.730 his almost incredible, if complex, hatred of Abraham 05:57.728 --> 06:03.068 Lincoln, Edwin Stanton and all the leadership of the Federal 06:03.071 --> 06:07.691 Government that he was commanding the Army for. 06:07.689 --> 06:11.889 Lincoln wanted a strategy in the wake of Bull Run, 06:11.892 --> 06:16.012 the disaster at Bull Run that summer, in July. 06:16.009 --> 06:18.039 He puts McClellan in charge of the Army of the Potomac, 06:18.041 --> 06:19.021 as I said the other day. 06:19.019 --> 06:22.489 McClellan takes them into huge encampments all around 06:22.486 --> 06:25.016 Washington, DC, and began in August, 06:25.019 --> 06:27.739 September, October, and through the fall, 06:27.741 --> 06:29.851 to drill this Army, train it. 06:29.850 --> 06:34.240 And they came to love him; that is, all these green, 06:34.243 --> 06:37.683 young soldier boys from all over the North, 06:37.677 --> 06:42.007 and they were arriving now in whole new regiments, 06:42.009 --> 06:45.489 week after week after week, all formed in local communities 06:45.490 --> 06:46.630 across the North. 06:46.629 --> 06:51.079 The vast, vast, vast majority of them had never 06:51.079 --> 06:57.269 shouldered any kind of musket in their lives except possibly in a 06:57.269 --> 07:00.409 local militia, and only a tiny percentage of 07:00.413 --> 07:02.013 them had ever been in a militia. 07:02.009 --> 07:05.649 They actually grew to kind of love McClellan at first because 07:05.646 --> 07:08.006 he held great parades, great parades. 07:08.009 --> 07:10.519 He made them march like hell and train like hell and learn 07:10.517 --> 07:13.027 how to march sideways and forward and backward and retreat 07:13.026 --> 07:14.166 and do all that stuff. 07:14.170 --> 07:17.220 But man, when he held a parade it was cool. 07:17.220 --> 07:20.360 They also hadn't seen any war yet. 07:20.360 --> 07:24.020 He didn't move the army. 07:24.019 --> 07:26.399 Lincoln wanted him to move it that fall, go back into 07:26.396 --> 07:28.586 Virginia, go find that Confederate Army again, 07:28.589 --> 07:33.199 find it on the right ground somewhere, attack it, 07:33.204 --> 07:37.764 end the war. Not going to happen. 07:37.759 --> 07:44.419 This young, 35-year-old general was a very cautious soul. 07:44.420 --> 07:48.850 "Who would've thought that I would be called up to save my 07:48.854 --> 07:51.554 country?" said McClellan. 07:51.550 --> 07:54.450 And we have those amazing letters he kept writing to his 07:54.447 --> 07:56.077 wife, over and over and over. 07:56.080 --> 08:01.010 "I am called to save my country. 08:01.009 --> 08:02.499 These buffoons in Washington don't know what they're doing. 08:02.500 --> 08:03.940 Stanton is an idiot." 08:03.939 --> 08:08.699 And at one point he called Lincoln "a baboon." 08:08.699 --> 08:13.499 That actually got into the public. 08:13.500 --> 08:18.230 He was also--make no mistake, and it's very important, 08:18.234 --> 08:22.884 especially when we get into '62--he was a pro-slavery 08:22.878 --> 08:25.788 Democrat. He was the farthest thing you 08:25.786 --> 08:29.036 could imagine in the Union Army from an abolitionist. 08:29.040 --> 08:30.770 McClellan wanted nothing to do with the remorseless 08:30.773 --> 08:31.643 revolutionary struggle. 08:31.639 --> 08:36.579 He did not want to move huge armies into Virginia or into the 08:36.577 --> 08:41.517 South, into densely populated slave areas, because he did not 08:41.515 --> 08:43.815 want to destroy slavery. 08:43.820 --> 08:47.690 He saw that as a revolution no army could somehow control. 08:47.690 --> 08:51.050 08:51.049 --> 08:54.749 He even wrote that fall to a democratic congressman and said, 08:54.753 --> 08:57.473 "You must help me"--quote--"help me dodge the 08:57.469 --> 09:01.599 nigger"; which was the way he put it. 09:01.600 --> 09:05.980 By January, Lincoln was impatient, to say the least. 09:05.980 --> 09:11.010 McClellan caught typhoid fever and was really quite sick for 09:11.006 --> 09:16.196 most of a month and refused to even answer Lincoln's messages, 09:16.202 --> 09:19.012 at times. This President of the United 09:19.007 --> 09:22.337 States, the Commander-in-Chief, is sending him messages, 09:22.341 --> 09:25.491 couriers, and for days McClellan wouldn't even answer 09:25.494 --> 09:27.904 him. And then there's the famous 09:27.904 --> 09:31.294 message that Lincoln sends in February, I believe, 09:31.289 --> 09:34.279 of '62; sends a message to McClellan 09:34.283 --> 09:38.403 and says, "General, if you're not going to use your 09:38.396 --> 09:40.696 army, might I borrow it?" 09:40.700 --> 09:47.000 09:47.000 --> 09:51.570 Let's move out West, as the war is going to break 09:51.566 --> 09:56.606 out all over the West, whether anybody wanted it to or 09:56.609 --> 10:00.699 not, whether anybody planned it or not. 10:00.700 --> 10:04.290 10:04.289 --> 10:09.309 I'll get the outline back up there in case you 10:09.311 --> 10:12.771 didn't--sorry--get to see it. 10:12.770 --> 10:27.710 10:27.710 --> 10:31.020 I don't know if you can see all this in the back row but I hope 10:31.015 --> 10:34.265 you can see enough to understand that what we have here is the 10:34.267 --> 10:36.937 region of Alabama, Mississippi, 10:36.940 --> 10:42.190 Tennessee, Kentucky and over into Missouri, 10:42.190 --> 10:44.940 Arkansas and so on. 10:44.940 --> 10:50.270 The war broke out in the West and is essentially a river war, 10:50.271 --> 10:55.341 a river war for the Tennessee and the Cumberland Rivers in 10:55.336 --> 10:58.836 Tennessee. Now you only need to look at a 10:58.838 --> 11:02.448 map with one eye open to understand how important 11:02.450 --> 11:05.010 Tennessee would be in this war. 11:05.009 --> 11:09.009 If Kentucky has still not seceded from the Union, 11:09.009 --> 11:13.259 and officially will not, and if Kentucky remains any 11:13.259 --> 11:17.409 kind of buffer for the Union, Tennessee is where the war is 11:17.408 --> 11:18.898 going to be fought, in the West, 11:18.903 --> 11:20.883 certainly at first--and it surely was. 11:20.880 --> 11:24.010 11:24.009 --> 11:29.269 Now, at first the war in the West was essentially fought with 11:29.271 --> 11:33.831 gunboats, little ironclad gunboats, and armies on the 11:33.830 --> 11:37.100 land. But the first major conflicts 11:37.103 --> 11:42.673 in the West were to try to hold, on the side of the Confederacy, 11:42.669 --> 11:45.949 and to take, on the northern side, 11:45.949 --> 11:51.319 two forts, one called Fort Donelson and one called Fort 11:51.316 --> 11:53.666 Henry; one on the Cumberland, 11:53.673 --> 11:55.413 one on the Tennessee River. 11:55.409 --> 11:58.759 These rivers were terribly important for transportation 11:58.762 --> 12:01.372 now, especially military transportation. 12:01.370 --> 12:05.960 They flowed down to Nashville, one of them. 12:05.960 --> 12:09.600 The other flowed southward and then into Northern Georgia. 12:09.600 --> 12:14.340 These rivers would be invasion corridors, if you like, 12:14.341 --> 12:18.011 invasion paths for the Northern armies. 12:18.009 --> 12:20.389 They were extremely important for supply and transportation, 12:20.393 --> 12:23.603 for the South. And hence these relatively 12:23.602 --> 12:29.522 small forts that guarded these two rivers suddenly became the 12:29.516 --> 12:32.666 focal point by February 1862. 12:32.669 --> 12:36.249 The Union forces that would attack Fort Henry first, 12:36.253 --> 12:40.843 and then Ford Donelson, were commanded by a young, 12:40.837 --> 12:46.817 only in his early forties, General who had been promoted 12:46.819 --> 12:52.769 rapidly from Colonel, named Ulysses S. Grant. 12:52.769 --> 12:57.679 Now Grant, as many of you may know--well, Grant has had a huge 12:57.676 --> 13:02.016 revival in scholarship in the last, oh, two decades. 13:02.019 --> 13:06.559 He was for a long time all but forgotten in American history, 13:06.556 --> 13:10.866 partly because his presidency was so awful--and we'll deal 13:10.866 --> 13:14.716 with that later on in the course--or in some ways so 13:14.722 --> 13:17.812 awful. He got miserably depressed and 13:17.806 --> 13:22.156 took to drinking--that part's true--when he was stationed way 13:22.160 --> 13:24.990 out in California in the late-1850s. 13:24.990 --> 13:30.390 He was a bit of a drunk in those years and he resigned from 13:30.394 --> 13:34.254 the army. He'd been a veteran of the 13:34.247 --> 13:39.027 Mexican War, decorated, but he quit the army, 13:39.031 --> 13:41.551 bored, depressed, and he went back to 13:41.553 --> 13:44.433 Illinois, his home--well born in Ohio but he went back to 13:44.433 --> 13:47.323 Illinois--and he was working, as the story goes, 13:47.316 --> 13:50.546 it's not a legend, in his brother's leather shop 13:50.546 --> 13:53.726 in Galena, Illinois when the Civil War 13:53.727 --> 13:56.357 broke out. And because he was a West Point 13:56.356 --> 13:59.526 graduate and the only one around, they named him Colonel, 13:59.529 --> 14:04.399 and he led the regiment that was formed from that area of 14:04.402 --> 14:11.652 northwest Illinois, and off to war went Ulysses 14:11.653 --> 14:14.923 Grant. Ulysses Grant is a classic 14:14.915 --> 14:18.975 example--and I want to give you an illustration of this--a 14:18.983 --> 14:23.993 classic example of an American, or an American male, 14:23.985 --> 14:29.515 for whom most of the rest of life, business, 14:29.522 --> 14:35.062 profession--except for horseback riding, 14:35.059 --> 14:38.389 and he was a hell of a horseman-- almost everything 14:38.390 --> 14:41.920 else in his life had been a failure or near failure or 14:41.920 --> 14:47.170 simply boring. He'd grown up on farms but he 14:47.173 --> 14:52.743 hated farming. He's a classic example of how 14:52.737 --> 14:57.757 sometimes war, tragically or unfortunately, 14:57.759 --> 15:00.269 can make a person. 15:00.269 --> 15:04.829 Were it not for the American Civil War you'd have never heard 15:04.828 --> 15:06.498 of Ulysses S. Grant. 15:06.500 --> 15:08.390 This is Bill McFeely's description; 15:08.389 --> 15:12.819 William McFeely who has written the finest biography of Grant I 15:12.822 --> 15:16.332 think still ever done, although there've been many 15:16.325 --> 15:19.045 since. And he's describing Grant's 15:19.054 --> 15:23.234 situation in Galena and how bored he was and depressed he 15:23.231 --> 15:27.571 was and so on. And then McFeely writes: 15:27.568 --> 15:34.088 "War, the ordinary man's escape from the ordinary. 15:34.090 --> 15:37.930 It was a way out of a leather store, and for some men it is 15:37.926 --> 15:41.226 much more than that, it is the fulfillment that the 15:41.234 --> 15:43.884 world will yield in no other manner. 15:43.879 --> 15:46.599 For these men, war appears as a refutation of 15:46.604 --> 15:50.444 evil, whether it be the evil of Hitler's threat to Marc Bloch's 15:50.444 --> 15:54.164 France or the slaveholders' threat to Thoreau's America, 15:54.159 --> 16:00.459 or less exalted but no less real, the evil of personal 16:00.463 --> 16:04.083 hollowness. War, for a man like Ulysses 16:04.080 --> 16:08.910 Grant, was the only situation in which he could truly connect to 16:08.909 --> 16:13.969 his country and countrymen and be at one with them and himself. 16:13.970 --> 16:17.830 Grant did not like the vainglory of victory or the 16:17.829 --> 16:21.609 drama of high strategy or the blood of battle, 16:21.610 --> 16:26.630 and he did not think that all wars were worth fighting, 16:26.631 --> 16:32.401 yet some essential part of his being was brought into play only 16:32.397 --> 16:35.327 in war. He never celebrated this fact, 16:35.333 --> 16:37.123 but neither did he deny it. 16:37.120 --> 16:39.120 He knew it was true. 16:39.120 --> 16:42.180 Only in war, and possibly at the end of his 16:42.178 --> 16:46.478 life in writing about the war, in what would be the greatest 16:46.475 --> 16:51.665 memoir of this war, did he find the completeness of 16:51.672 --> 16:58.492 experience that when engaged in it so intensely moved him." 16:58.490 --> 17:05.280 Well, Grant was a soldier and, not unlike Robert E. 17:05.275 --> 17:10.835 Lee, he did enjoy the spirit of battle; 17:10.839 --> 17:13.599 I don't think there's any doubt about that. 17:13.599 --> 17:17.159 And he moved on these forts, first Fort Henry, 17:17.161 --> 17:21.991 February 6, with about 15,000 men on land and a bunch of slow, 17:21.990 --> 17:23.890 cumbersome gunboats. 17:23.890 --> 17:27.770 Fort Henry was not well defended and basically just 17:27.765 --> 17:30.945 surrendered. A week later on the other 17:30.948 --> 17:35.308 river, the Cumberland, Fort Donelson was shelled into 17:35.313 --> 17:37.583 submission by artillery. 17:37.579 --> 17:41.089 This was the second week of February 1862, 17:41.085 --> 17:46.035 and Grant famously demanded an unconditional surrender from 17:46.043 --> 17:51.263 General Simon Bolivar Buckner, who had been Grant's roommate 17:51.256 --> 17:54.206 at West Point. There's a wonderful exchange of 17:54.208 --> 17:57.608 their dispatches that you can read if you want to look it up, 17:57.612 --> 18:00.942 easy to find. Grant writes to Buckner and 18:00.944 --> 18:05.434 says, "Hello friend, you will surrender all of your 18:05.433 --> 18:11.363 forces and all of your guns or I will move on you immediately." 18:11.359 --> 18:14.189 And Buckner writes back and says, "Well now, 18:14.194 --> 18:16.374 well now Ulysses, can we talk?" 18:16.369 --> 18:18.609 Grant writes back and says, "No." 18:18.609 --> 18:23.099 [laughter] And of course the press will 18:23.098 --> 18:25.208 pick this up; U.S. 18:25.209 --> 18:29.539 Grant will become "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. 18:29.539 --> 18:32.569 The significance of Forts Donelson and Henry were not only 18:32.569 --> 18:35.439 symbolic, because the Northern press picked this up, 18:35.440 --> 18:38.170 waiting for war--God, months and months and months 18:38.172 --> 18:39.792 had gone by since Bull Run. 18:39.789 --> 18:41.279 There'd been various engagements. 18:41.279 --> 18:45.009 The armies were growing all over the country. 18:45.009 --> 18:47.729 Men were going off to war and writing letters home to their 18:47.731 --> 18:49.421 mothers, sweethearts and families. 18:49.420 --> 18:53.110 Here was some real war and some Union victory and a hero. 18:53.110 --> 18:57.020 18:57.019 --> 18:59.609 Most importantly, strategically though, 18:59.607 --> 19:02.527 the city of Nashville, capital of Tennessee, 19:02.534 --> 19:05.534 had to be abandoned by the Confederates; 19:05.529 --> 19:14.009 they could no longer defend it, and they did abandon it. 19:14.009 --> 19:16.689 It was partly a strategic retreat and partly out of the 19:16.690 --> 19:19.370 reality they didn't have enough people to defend it. 19:19.369 --> 19:23.229 And a Confederate Army beginning to grow now--and this 19:23.231 --> 19:27.751 is into the spring of 1862--as thousands more southern boys and 19:27.748 --> 19:32.698 men would leave those farms, in hundreds of regiments from 19:32.700 --> 19:36.590 Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas in 19:36.585 --> 19:39.915 particular. They will come to join the Army 19:39.918 --> 19:43.858 of Albert Sidney Johnston who led the small Confederate Army 19:43.855 --> 19:47.915 out of Nashville, down southwestward into 19:47.916 --> 19:53.726 Southwest Tennessee, just across the border to the 19:53.726 --> 19:57.516 town of Corinth, Mississippi. 19:57.519 --> 20:00.409 And it was around Corinth, Mississippi, 20:00.406 --> 20:05.036 in the northeast tip corner of the State of Mississippi that a 20:05.041 --> 20:08.081 huge Confederate army was assembled. 20:08.079 --> 20:14.279 Now, Grant was now put in command of all Union forces, 20:14.275 --> 20:16.725 all over Tennessee. 20:16.730 --> 20:18.610 Grant, though, had no idea, 20:18.609 --> 20:21.939 really, what the Confederates were going to do, 20:21.936 --> 20:26.486 and what happened at the Battle of Shiloh was not only the first 20:26.491 --> 20:29.501 major horrible, bloody battle of the war, 20:29.502 --> 20:33.152 and it would shock the country, but it was a total surprise to 20:33.145 --> 20:34.335 the Union forces. 20:34.339 --> 20:37.179 Put simply, here's what happened. 20:37.180 --> 20:41.600 Albert Sidney Johnston had about 40,000 troops at Corinth, 20:41.599 --> 20:44.779 Mississippi, and Grant had at his disposal 20:44.779 --> 20:46.639 about 60,000 troops. 20:46.640 --> 20:51.830 These are still not the size of the armies that will begin to 20:51.827 --> 20:54.677 unfold in the East in Virginia. 20:54.680 --> 21:03.040 But Grant had his army split in two, and widely apart. 21:03.039 --> 21:05.369 About one-third of it was under the command of a general named 21:05.365 --> 21:07.715 Don Carlos Buell, and he was in central 21:07.720 --> 21:12.610 Tennessee, Grant's forces were sort of more western Tennessee, 21:12.609 --> 21:16.939 and both were slowly trying to move down toward southwestern 21:16.944 --> 21:20.844 Tennessee and maybe even into Mississippi to find this 21:20.837 --> 21:26.347 Confederate Army, in March and early April of '62. 21:26.350 --> 21:30.030 21:30.029 --> 21:33.289 What happened was that Albert Sidney Johnston attempted a 21:33.285 --> 21:35.725 surprise attack, and it was one of the most 21:35.726 --> 21:39.326 successful surprise attacks by these large unwieldy armies that 21:39.329 --> 21:41.189 ever happened in this war. 21:41.190 --> 21:46.230 He marched his men twenty miles, most of it in darkness, 21:46.228 --> 21:51.728 with all kinds of clothing and burlap used as muffling on the 21:51.725 --> 21:57.915 wheels of caissons and wagons; even men were told to put 21:57.924 --> 22:01.014 muffling on their boots. 22:01.009 --> 22:06.959 And they marched through night in the dark, April 5 to 6,1862, 22:06.961 --> 22:10.631 north from Corinth, across the border into 22:10.627 --> 22:15.037 Tennessee, and they attacked a remnant, a sizeable remnant, 22:15.039 --> 22:19.569 of Grant's forces that had just reached a place called Pittsburg 22:19.568 --> 22:23.738 Landing, or Shiloh Church as it's known--it's a tiny little 22:23.737 --> 22:26.917 village. And what happened on the first 22:26.924 --> 22:31.734 day at Shiloh was the bloodiest day of the war until that point 22:31.727 --> 22:34.887 in time. Grant's troops were literally 22:34.885 --> 22:37.265 caught with their pants down. 22:37.269 --> 22:40.109 They had no pickets out, they had no idea where the 22:40.110 --> 22:43.350 Confederate Army really was, nor especially that they were 22:43.347 --> 22:45.807 that close. There are many famous 22:45.805 --> 22:50.005 descriptions of this in soldiers' letters and diaries, 22:50.009 --> 22:53.219 and afterward by Ambrose Bierce especially, of how this sneak 22:53.223 --> 22:56.283 attack had caught them literally around their tents in the 22:56.277 --> 22:59.807 morning making coffee, some of them without their 22:59.807 --> 23:03.287 pants on. The first day at Shiloh was a 23:03.289 --> 23:06.039 complete Confederate victory. 23:06.039 --> 23:09.379 It drove the Union forces right back to the river, 23:09.383 --> 23:12.733 the Tennessee River, and by the time Grant and one 23:12.726 --> 23:16.446 of his other generals, William Tecumseh Sherman, 23:16.445 --> 23:20.795 arrived that night they found remnants of this completely 23:20.804 --> 23:25.164 defeated Union force hiding on the banks of the Tennessee 23:25.163 --> 23:27.863 River, many of them having lost their 23:27.860 --> 23:31.050 regiments, lost their command, lost their officers, 23:31.050 --> 23:36.010 didn't know where they were. 23:36.009 --> 23:39.969 Through the dark of night April 6 to 7, it was especially 23:39.970 --> 23:44.140 Sherman and other officers--as Don Carlos Buell's 20,000 men 23:44.143 --> 23:48.603 arrived at Shiloh in the middle of that night--Sherman and other 23:48.599 --> 23:51.659 officers, literally at times, 23:51.657 --> 23:57.537 whipped Union soldiers into order, tried to help men find 23:57.543 --> 24:01.673 their units. And when dawn came the next day 24:01.670 --> 24:06.030 they counter-attacked across the same fields in savage 24:06.031 --> 24:10.561 hand-to-hand combat that all of these soldiers had never 24:10.557 --> 24:13.187 experienced and never seen. 24:13.190 --> 24:16.780 24:16.779 --> 24:22.439 And by the end of it they completely reversed the first 24:22.438 --> 24:25.898 day's action. The Battle of Shiloh took place 24:25.901 --> 24:29.441 in an area about a mile to a mile and a half in diameter, 24:29.440 --> 24:33.670 and by the end of the second day, as Grant famously put it in 24:33.666 --> 24:37.886 one of the very few moments in his two-volume memoir where he 24:37.893 --> 24:42.193 ever kind of really broke down and described the carnage, 24:42.190 --> 24:46.510 he said, "I could've walked across that field as far as the 24:46.506 --> 24:50.896 eye could see and never touched the ground by walking on the 24:50.896 --> 24:54.146 bodies." For the two armies in 24:54.145 --> 24:59.525 forty-eight hours there were 23,841 casualties; 24:59.530 --> 25:03.210 23,841 casualties. 25:03.210 --> 25:06.740 25:06.740 --> 25:16.730 Now, Shiloh strategically was a Union success in the simple fact 25:16.731 --> 25:27.041 that the Confederate Army had to retreat back into Mississippi, 25:27.039 --> 25:30.369 and did not succeed in re-entering Tennessee and 25:30.374 --> 25:33.074 opening up a new front in Tennessee, 25:33.069 --> 25:36.189 or taking control of the Tennessee River in that region. 25:36.190 --> 25:38.930 But it was truly a shock to the country when these casualty 25:38.925 --> 25:41.325 lists came back and were published in newspapers, 25:41.329 --> 25:45.609 and when the adjutants of regiments--which was the job of 25:45.606 --> 25:50.336 an adjutant in a regiment was to record the casualties and send 25:50.340 --> 25:53.120 them home. And it was, of course, 25:53.115 --> 25:56.915 that site where Grant remembered realizing for the 25:56.915 --> 26:01.645 first time--and I had that quote up here the other day and you 26:01.645 --> 26:04.975 can read it in Gienapp--where he said, 26:04.980 --> 26:08.320 "It was at that moment I realized that this war could 26:08.317 --> 26:12.097 never--that the Union could never be preserved without" what 26:12.103 --> 26:15.123 he called "complete conquest of the South." 26:15.120 --> 26:18.350 26:18.349 --> 26:24.379 That's what Bruce Catton meant about how the scabbard was being 26:24.378 --> 26:27.968 thrown away. It was now a war where no one 26:27.968 --> 26:29.888 would ever call retreat. 26:29.890 --> 26:37.710 Now, back east, back to the melodrama between 26:37.706 --> 26:41.966 McClellan and Lincoln. 26:41.970 --> 26:44.510 No, that's not the one I want, excuse me. 26:44.510 --> 26:51.600 26:51.599 --> 26:56.839 I think you can see enough of this, I hope. 26:56.839 --> 27:00.949 Now McClellan throughout that winter kept training, 27:00.946 --> 27:04.966 training, and training the Army of the Potomac. 27:04.970 --> 27:08.940 And he did train them in to what many military historians 27:08.935 --> 27:13.245 still say was one of the most efficient and certainly the best 27:13.254 --> 27:16.374 supplied armies the world had ever seen. 27:16.369 --> 27:22.159 He would have almost 100,000 troops--he'd have 90,000 in the 27:22.164 --> 27:26.294 field--100,000 troops under his command. 27:26.289 --> 27:31.059 And he came up with a plan that Lincoln hated; 27:31.059 --> 27:32.529 Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, 27:32.526 --> 27:35.366 didn't like it; officers around him didn't 27:35.372 --> 27:37.102 particularly like it. 27:37.100 --> 27:39.760 But it was McClellan's idea. 27:39.759 --> 27:44.119 McClellan did not want to invade Virginia from the north. 27:44.119 --> 27:49.229 He thought it would be a better idea to sail the entire Army of 27:49.232 --> 27:53.932 the Potomac down the Potomac River out into Chesapeake Bay 27:53.933 --> 27:58.473 and land on the peninsula between the York and the James 27:58.468 --> 28:01.688 Rivers in Virginia, and invade Virginia, 28:01.689 --> 28:04.529 toward Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. 28:04.529 --> 28:08.049 Take the enemy's capital, was his aim here--a strategy 28:08.046 --> 28:09.766 eventually that Ulysses S. 28:09.772 --> 28:13.292 Grant is going to tear to shreds, and quickly realize, 28:13.289 --> 28:16.009 as he was realizing out in the West, 28:16.009 --> 28:20.639 that the Confederacy was its armies--not its capital, 28:20.640 --> 28:23.490 not a city here, a town there. 28:23.490 --> 28:28.490 The idea was to land this huge flotilla of an army on the coast 28:28.494 --> 28:32.534 and march it sixty, seventy miles inland and attack 28:32.530 --> 28:34.710 Richmond from the east. 28:34.710 --> 28:37.970 Now, part of the theory here was that the Confederacy had 28:37.974 --> 28:41.414 been fortifying the north side of Richmond but maybe not the 28:41.413 --> 28:44.073 east side. Now, it's no surprise folks, 28:44.065 --> 28:48.055 if you float 90,000 people down the river and land them on the 28:48.063 --> 28:51.213 coast that you might be coming from the east. 28:51.210 --> 28:53.280 Lo and behold. 28:53.280 --> 28:57.010 28:57.009 --> 28:58.999 But this is where--I don't want to make McClellan into just 28:59.004 --> 29:01.934 comic relief like Burns does; I think he overdoes it--but 29:01.929 --> 29:05.439 here it is important to understand that generals did 29:05.440 --> 29:07.300 have impact on this war. 29:07.299 --> 29:13.899 It was not that McClellan had a personal distaste for battle 29:13.903 --> 29:16.633 necessarily; those charges that he was 29:16.627 --> 29:19.407 somehow a coward and all that, I don't think that holds up at 29:19.405 --> 29:22.125 all. But he did not like huge 29:22.132 --> 29:26.942 general engagements, he did not want to sacrifice 29:26.936 --> 29:30.036 any more men than he had to. 29:30.039 --> 29:34.839 And remember, he doesn't want the war to 29:34.836 --> 29:37.416 become remorseless. 29:37.420 --> 29:41.660 He put the town of Yorktown, on the coast--the same Yorktown 29:41.661 --> 29:45.901 where Cornwallis had surrendered to George Washington in the 29:45.902 --> 29:49.862 American Revolution--he put Yorktown under siege when he 29:49.855 --> 29:52.345 landed, for an entire month, 29:52.353 --> 29:56.503 from April 5 to May 4, because McClellan was convinced 29:56.495 --> 30:01.415 that he was confronted with far more men than he really was. 30:01.420 --> 30:05.880 At one point McClellan actually wrote a dispatch to Secretary of 30:05.883 --> 30:10.423 War Stanton claiming that he was facing on the peninsula at least 30:10.418 --> 30:12.188 200,000 Confederates. 30:12.190 --> 30:16.680 There weren't 200,000 Confederates under arms anywhere 30:16.684 --> 30:18.724 in the South, in 1862. 30:18.720 --> 30:22.210 But McClellan was always overestimating his enemy. 30:22.210 --> 30:25.580 He hired the Pinkerton detectives. 30:25.579 --> 30:28.419 He hired this guy named Lowe with his balloons; 30:28.420 --> 30:31.260 this was the first use of balloons in warfare. 30:31.259 --> 30:34.199 They'd float these things up in the air and they'd go and they'd 30:34.200 --> 30:36.910 float over the enemy and they'd try to count the forces and 30:36.906 --> 30:39.566 they'd hope the wind was right to float them back and land 30:39.566 --> 30:41.606 them. They were pretty cumbersome, 30:41.607 --> 30:43.767 awful; and one time the thing floated 30:43.773 --> 30:47.343 and it crashed in the other side of the Confederate troops. 30:47.339 --> 30:51.959 He was getting his intelligence from all these new modern ways, 30:51.955 --> 30:55.825 and every time he got intelligence it's apparent that 30:55.826 --> 31:00.066 McClellan would just start doing some multiplication. 31:00.069 --> 31:01.959 Oh, and there's so many stories about this; 31:01.960 --> 31:05.920 I'll spare you. He didn't need to put Yorktown 31:05.917 --> 31:08.527 under siege for a month, he could've taken it in 48 31:08.529 --> 31:10.759 hours. The Confederates had built a 31:10.763 --> 31:13.413 lot of fortifications, huge fortifications, 31:13.407 --> 31:16.427 but they didn't have very many men behind it. 31:16.430 --> 31:22.200 And where one officer might see one Confederate in a 31:22.197 --> 31:27.397 field-glass, McClellan would see five or 10. 31:27.400 --> 31:31.790 Given this caution, given this slowness, 31:31.787 --> 31:38.197 the Confederate command in Richmond sent the young General 31:38.200 --> 31:43.830 Stonewall Jackson with about 20,000 men over to the 31:43.825 --> 31:47.195 Shenandoah Valley, here. 31:47.200 --> 31:50.680 While McClellan had landed this massive army on the peninsula 31:50.677 --> 31:52.877 and it was slowly beginning to move, 31:52.880 --> 31:55.770 they send Stonewall Jackson with an army of about 20,000 men 31:55.768 --> 31:58.548 to the Shenandoah Valley, where Stonewall Jackson 31:58.549 --> 32:01.909 conducted one of the most famous military campaigns in 32:01.912 --> 32:05.592 history--and they still teach this in minute detail at West 32:05.592 --> 32:07.632 Point. Actually he only had about 32:07.631 --> 32:10.281 17,000 men. The purpose of this was to 32:10.282 --> 32:14.582 throw fear into northern Virginia, fear into the capital 32:14.581 --> 32:18.021 at Washington, and to keep about 30,000 Union 32:18.023 --> 32:22.323 troops in Northern Virginia, that McClellan had left behind. 32:22.319 --> 32:25.739 The idea here was that McClellan would move from the 32:25.739 --> 32:28.419 east, 30,000, roughly, Union troops would 32:28.420 --> 32:31.790 move from the north, and they would crush Richmond 32:31.791 --> 32:34.401 from two sides, and the war would be over by 32:34.404 --> 32:37.204 July. The Confederates saw this and 32:37.204 --> 32:38.964 they said, all right. 32:38.960 --> 32:43.590 Jackson spent the period April 29 to June 5, 32:43.586 --> 32:48.636 five weeks roughly, marching all up and down the 32:48.643 --> 32:52.343 Shenandoah Valley, driving his men to utter 32:52.343 --> 32:55.013 exhaustion, twenty and twenty-five miles a day. 32:55.009 --> 32:59.069 He fought five major battles, marched 400 miles in those five 32:59.066 --> 33:01.766 weeks, fought lots of kind of contact, 33:01.769 --> 33:06.319 rearguard actions, eluded three different Union 33:06.322 --> 33:11.372 armies or parts of Union armies at various times, 33:11.369 --> 33:14.829 threw fear into Washington, kept the 30,000 Union troops 33:14.827 --> 33:18.407 all occupied in Northern Virginia and Western Virginia, 33:18.410 --> 33:22.930 and then escaped, back down the valley and back 33:22.934 --> 33:27.464 to Richmond, by the time McClellan attacked. 33:27.460 --> 33:30.030 It was an extraordinary campaign. 33:30.029 --> 33:34.699 It made Stonewall Jackson's fame. 33:34.700 --> 33:40.630 Now, the first major contact finally between the Union forces 33:40.632 --> 33:46.662 and Confederate forces on the peninsula came at a place called 33:46.662 --> 33:49.532 Seven Pines or Fair Oaks. 33:49.529 --> 33:54.429 It's a place about some six, seven miles east of Richmond. 33:54.430 --> 33:59.920 It would be the first major bloody affair for this Army of 33:59.921 --> 34:03.591 the Potomac. And I want to describe it for 34:03.593 --> 34:07.683 you by simply reading excerpts from a few letters, 34:07.680 --> 34:12.390 of a Union soldier, leading up to the moment of his 34:12.391 --> 34:14.371 first major battle. 34:14.369 --> 34:16.909 And I want to do this in part because we need to 34:16.910 --> 34:19.780 understand--and we'll come back to this question a bit 34:19.775 --> 34:22.745 later--that what a common soldier out there in the field 34:22.747 --> 34:25.177 understands about what is happening is, 34:25.180 --> 34:31.080 of course, almost always a blur; it's the fog of war that he 34:31.080 --> 34:34.010 sees. I had the opportunity about, 34:34.010 --> 34:38.350 oh God, fifteen years ago now, to edit a collection of Civil 34:38.351 --> 34:42.841 War letters that were lopped in my lap by a young soldier from 34:42.839 --> 34:45.929 Massachusetts named Charles Brewster. 34:45.929 --> 34:49.229 Charlie Brewster was a store clerk in Northampton, 34:49.230 --> 34:53.340 Massachusetts when the Civil War broke out in April of '61. 34:53.340 --> 34:56.870 He was 27-years-old, he felt like a total failure in 34:56.874 --> 34:58.964 life. He was not yet married. 34:58.960 --> 35:02.020 He had nothing going on. 35:02.019 --> 35:05.509 And he enlisted as fast as he could in the 10^(th) 35:05.512 --> 35:08.512 Massachusetts, and he spent that whole fall 35:08.506 --> 35:10.926 and winter of '61/'62 in camp. 35:10.929 --> 35:13.339 And I will mention Charlie again next week, 35:13.339 --> 35:15.519 because Charlie was no abolitionist, 35:15.519 --> 35:20.449 trust me, but he comes to realize through this experience 35:20.446 --> 35:23.786 that the war has to destroy slavery. 35:23.789 --> 35:29.709 It's an interesting model of the average Yankee. 35:29.710 --> 35:34.720 But he wrote incredible letters, always to his mother or 35:34.724 --> 35:39.484 his sister. He writes this on May--Battle 35:39.475 --> 35:46.355 of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines occurred on May 31 of 1862. 35:46.360 --> 35:47.750 He knows a big battle's coming. 35:47.750 --> 35:49.990 They don't know exactly where or when. 35:49.990 --> 35:52.380 It is raining like hell. 35:52.380 --> 35:58.010 He's sleeping in the mud on what he calls a rubber blanket. 35:58.010 --> 36:00.840 He gets diarrhea that nearly is killing him, and he will almost 36:00.844 --> 36:02.494 die of diarrhea twice in this war. 36:02.489 --> 36:05.049 But he keeps writing to his mother. 36:05.050 --> 36:09.440 And one morning the rain has stopped and he tells her what a 36:09.443 --> 36:11.383 beautiful morning it is. 36:11.380 --> 36:16.030 "Mother, I wish you could see what a splendid morning this is. 36:16.030 --> 36:20.390 The trees are in full foliage and the birds are singing in the 36:20.391 --> 36:24.111 trees and the water ripples and sparks at my feet, 36:24.110 --> 36:27.340 with the sun shining gloriously over all. 36:27.340 --> 36:30.450 And if it were not for the regiment I see before me, 36:30.448 --> 36:33.798 each with his deadly end-field rifle on his shoulder, 36:33.800 --> 36:40.100 I could hardly imagine that there was a war anywhere in the 36:40.100 --> 36:44.570 land." Now, day by day--he writes 36:44.565 --> 36:49.955 every day to his mother, long letters. 36:49.960 --> 36:53.410 Some of these letters handwritten were fifteen to 36:53.409 --> 36:57.079 twenty page letters, and he wrote about 240 of them, 36:57.075 --> 36:59.155 in the course of the war. 36:59.159 --> 37:04.799 May 22, in a clover field, he says: "Dear Mother, 37:04.799 --> 37:09.379 it is just sunset, a most beautiful day, 37:09.380 --> 37:13.610 though it has been dreadful hot. 37:13.610 --> 37:16.680 I was relieved this morning from my guard duty, 37:16.678 --> 37:20.188 at General Keyes' headquarters, and joined the regiment and 37:20.193 --> 37:22.533 immediately took up my line of march with them. 37:22.530 --> 37:26.660 We came on about two miles, or perhaps not quite as far as 37:26.659 --> 37:29.339 that, and bivouacked in this field. 37:29.340 --> 37:35.010 It's the best place we have had since we left Warwick. 37:35.010 --> 37:37.420 Our small brigade is in the advance and we go out on picket 37:37.419 --> 37:40.379 frequently. We do not know anything of what 37:40.375 --> 37:43.955 is going on in the world outside of our camp. 37:43.960 --> 37:46.510 How I wish I could see a late paper. 37:46.510 --> 37:50.750 We've got a rumor that there's been a battle out in Corinth, 37:50.749 --> 37:53.769 Mississippi, and that Beauregard and 23,000 37:53.767 --> 37:57.287 men are prisoners, but I presume there is no truth 37:57.287 --> 38:00.167 in it. Our artillery had a skirmish 38:00.174 --> 38:02.854 last night, in a swamp in the front. 38:02.849 --> 38:07.919 We're expecting a great battle Mom, but I reckon that Little 38:07.922 --> 38:13.172 Mac will make his dispositions for it and the chivalry"--which 38:13.166 --> 38:18.406 means the South--"will take a distant view of his preparations 38:18.410 --> 38:22.100 and then skedaddle, as usual. 38:22.099 --> 38:25.369 If they don't they will get a terrible licking, 38:25.371 --> 38:29.571 though it is reported that they are concentrating everything 38:29.567 --> 38:32.267 there and have got 140,000 troops. 38:32.269 --> 38:35.679 A contraband"--meaning an escaped slave--"that came in 38:35.680 --> 38:39.350 yesterday says that they are talking terrible fierce about 38:39.348 --> 38:43.378 burning Richmond, fighting over the ashes. 38:43.380 --> 38:48.650 But I think that's all bosh." 38:48.650 --> 38:53.930 Thursday morning, May 23: "On picket," he says. 38:53.929 --> 38:56.639 "Dear Mother, Captain and myself slept under 38:56.637 --> 39:00.407 the same blanket last night and on the ground in front of the 39:00.414 --> 39:03.564 muskets, and it was harder than 39:03.556 --> 39:08.216 Pharaoh's heart. But it promotes early rising, 39:08.223 --> 39:10.173 for it's now 7 a.m. 39:10.170 --> 39:12.020 and I've been up for three hours." 39:12.020 --> 39:16.700 39:16.699 --> 39:22.409 "In an oat field, Saturday, May 24. 39:22.409 --> 39:26.189 I had the best view of the army in motion there that I ever had 39:26.188 --> 39:29.778 as they came down a long slope of low hills to the creek and 39:29.784 --> 39:33.504 then up the other side, and as we arrived at the top of 39:33.501 --> 39:37.441 the latter slope I turned and took a look back and could see 39:37.444 --> 39:40.674 the long line, looking like an enormous snake 39:40.670 --> 39:44.500 winding back for two and three miles, and bristling with 39:44.503 --> 39:47.083 bayonets, and at a short distance the 39:47.080 --> 39:50.820 Stars and Stripes and the flags of different states and the 39:50.820 --> 39:54.450 guidons, presenting a scene that occurs 39:54.451 --> 39:57.081 but once in a great while. 39:57.079 --> 40:02.139 It is raining like great guns again and the order has come to 40:02.140 --> 40:04.080 pack up and move on." 40:04.080 --> 40:08.020 40:08.019 --> 40:12.139 "Oh dear Mother,"--this is the next day--"A large mail has come 40:12.143 --> 40:14.873 and everybody has got something but me. 40:14.869 --> 40:17.829 I cannot write any more under such circumstances. 40:17.830 --> 40:20.710 So goodbye, my love to all. 40:20.710 --> 40:22.680 [Laughter] And if you can, 40:22.677 --> 40:26.687 any of you, spare time, please write me a letter. 40:26.690 --> 40:32.450 [Laughter] Love, Charlie." 40:32.450 --> 40:33.860 Wednesday, May 28^(th). 40:33.860 --> 40:37.800 "Dear Mother, Today the sun shines brightly 40:37.795 --> 40:39.945 and it is brazen hot. 40:39.949 --> 40:43.919 But at half past two this company has got to go out and 40:43.922 --> 40:46.572 dig in the trenches for two hours. 40:46.570 --> 40:52.040 One thing is very certain, if they do not take Richmond 40:52.037 --> 40:58.107 soon they will kill the whole army by this ceaseless exposure 40:58.112 --> 41:00.572 and toil." May 31^(st), 41:00.571 --> 41:03.871 the day of the Battle of Seven Pines. 41:03.869 --> 41:08.339 "Mother, and now in relation to the coming battle, 41:08.342 --> 41:12.822 if anything should happen and I should get killed, 41:12.815 --> 41:16.005 you will be entitled to my pay. 41:16.010 --> 41:20.560 There is three months due me, but if I should not get paid 41:20.560 --> 41:24.950 off before anything should happen, my pay will be in two 41:24.951 --> 41:27.031 places; that is from the 41:27.031 --> 41:30.491 March"--meaning the month--"there will be fifty 41:30.485 --> 41:34.985 dollars per month in the State Treasury of Massachusetts, 41:34.989 --> 41:38.419 which I have allotted there subject to my own order. 41:38.420 --> 41:41.460 The rest of my pay is drawn from the U.S. 41:41.461 --> 41:43.211 Paymaster, as usual." 41:43.210 --> 41:48.600 Imagine being his mother. 41:48.599 --> 41:52.519 And then it's this letter after the battle. 41:52.519 --> 41:55.839 "June 2,1862, six miles from Richmond. 41:55.840 --> 41:59.750 Dear Mother, I presume this letter will find 41:59.748 --> 42:04.018 you most anxious, expecting a letter from me. 42:04.019 --> 42:07.389 I'm sitting in the hot sun and can write you but a few lines. 42:07.389 --> 42:11.919 Oh Mother, I cannot begin to give you any idea of the 42:11.922 --> 42:15.502 terrific storm of bullets, shot and shell, 42:15.497 --> 42:20.027 that poured over us as we lay behind those pits. 42:20.030 --> 42:22.520 We could not get into them for they were full of brine of 42:22.520 --> 42:24.700 water, but we lay right behind them in the mud. 42:24.699 --> 42:27.869 After half an hour of this the firing ceased and we were 42:27.866 --> 42:30.396 ordered forward behind some fallen woods." 42:30.400 --> 42:34.640 And then he goes on to describe how they were attacked from the 42:34.644 --> 42:37.794 rear and how he heard the bullets flying by him 42:37.793 --> 42:41.813 constantly, and how he considers it a 42:41.810 --> 42:44.920 miracle that he is alive. 42:44.920 --> 42:50.200 And then at the very end of this letter: "I cannot succeed 42:50.198 --> 42:53.438 in giving you any idea of battle. 42:53.440 --> 42:57.720 But I know this much, that I had no possible hope of 42:57.716 --> 42:59.306 coming out alive. 42:59.309 --> 43:04.249 And I thought it all over, how terribly you would feel, 43:04.248 --> 43:07.208 and all that. But I came out without a 43:07.212 --> 43:09.542 scratch. I look back upon it and I 43:09.536 --> 43:11.466 cannot think how it can be. 43:11.469 --> 43:15.779 It does not seem as though any man that had been there could 43:15.781 --> 43:17.171 come out unhurt." 43:17.170 --> 43:21.720 Then he begins to describe his friends and buddies who were 43:21.722 --> 43:24.632 killed, by name, how they were killed, 43:24.627 --> 43:26.587 where they were shot. 43:26.590 --> 43:30.280 And he ends, "There are so many incidents 43:30.284 --> 43:35.274 crowding my head Mother, that I cannot write clearly at 43:35.271 --> 43:37.501 all. And even when I sleep, 43:37.497 --> 43:41.277 the minute I get into a doze, I hear the whistling of the 43:41.284 --> 43:43.994 shells and the shouts and the groans. 43:43.989 --> 43:50.319 And to sum it up in two words, it is horrible." 43:50.320 --> 43:55.230 43:55.230 --> 43:58.710 Charlie will survive the war. 43:58.710 --> 44:02.300 He nearly died of dysentery twice. 44:02.300 --> 44:04.960 He had two horses shot out from under him. 44:04.960 --> 44:09.160 He was deeply proud of his commission as a Second 44:09.155 --> 44:13.345 Lieutenant and as an adjutant of his regiment. 44:13.350 --> 44:16.990 His regiment was devastated. 44:16.989 --> 44:23.099 There were so few men left by July of 1864, 44:23.099 --> 44:26.299 they were disbanded. 44:26.300 --> 44:30.760 He went home to Massachusetts. 44:30.760 --> 44:32.410 He couldn't imagine being a civilian. 44:32.410 --> 44:35.180 He hated civilians. 44:35.179 --> 44:40.809 He re-enlisted to be a recruiter of black soldiers. 44:40.809 --> 44:44.669 This racist young man from western Massachusetts, 44:44.671 --> 44:47.891 who will freely use the word "nigger," 44:47.889 --> 44:51.449 was employed from August of 1864 through the end of the war 44:51.451 --> 44:56.031 recruiting black men in Norfolk, Virginia, and his principle job 44:56.034 --> 45:00.784 was sitting in an office writing love letters for illiterate 45:00.782 --> 45:05.152 black women, to their husbands at the front, 45:05.152 --> 45:11.682 whom he thanks for teaching him the art of love-letter writing. 45:11.679 --> 45:17.149 Well, the battle of the peninsula ended up in what's 45:17.153 --> 45:19.733 called the Seven Days. 45:19.730 --> 45:25.550 The Battle of the Seven Days were the battles fought all 45:25.554 --> 45:30.434 around Richmond, from June 25^(th) through July 45:30.425 --> 45:35.015 1^(st), seven consecutive days; 45:35.019 --> 45:38.149 places called Mechanicsville, Gaines Mill, 45:38.150 --> 45:40.440 Savage Station, Frazier's Farm, 45:40.441 --> 45:43.061 Malvern Hill. They're all little 45:43.064 --> 45:47.264 crossroads--they're not even really villages anymore--that 45:47.256 --> 45:49.386 are just east of Richmond. 45:49.390 --> 45:52.650 45:52.650 --> 45:57.050 It was sustained, day-to-day fighting. 45:57.050 --> 46:00.510 Both sides suffered horrible casualties. 46:00.510 --> 46:04.320 The result was essentially the fact that McClellan did not 46:04.321 --> 46:08.801 succeed in taking Richmond; in fact, on the contrary, 46:08.797 --> 46:14.787 McClellan's forces were forced down south of Richmond to the 46:14.785 --> 46:20.765 edge of the James River to a place called Malvern Hill where 46:20.773 --> 46:27.433 McClellan put his wounded, damaged army into camp for too 46:27.428 --> 46:28.128 long. 46:28.130 --> 46:32.010 46:32.010 --> 46:34.340 The Battle of the Seven Days saved Richmond, 46:34.344 --> 46:35.814 it saved the Confederacy. 46:35.809 --> 46:37.459 It also brought Robert E. 46:37.459 --> 46:40.889 Lee into the command of all Confederate forces in the 46:40.890 --> 46:43.790 eastern theater of the war, because Joseph E. 46:43.794 --> 46:47.164 Johnston, who had been in command of the Confederate 46:47.159 --> 46:50.719 forces, was wounded on the first day of the Seven Days, 46:50.722 --> 46:53.892 and Jefferson Davis put Lee in command. 46:53.889 --> 46:59.219 And it was in some ways Lee's aggressiveness in the Seven Days 46:59.216 --> 47:02.006 that actually won that affair. 47:02.010 --> 47:04.780 And now Lee made the first fateful decision of the war, 47:04.777 --> 47:08.267 for him. After many consultations with 47:08.266 --> 47:14.526 Jefferson Davis and his other commanders, he made the decision 47:14.528 --> 47:16.888 to invade the North. 47:16.889 --> 47:20.079 And this was fateful, to say the least, 47:20.077 --> 47:25.027 and it will bring us to the first major turning point of the 47:25.025 --> 47:28.395 Civil War. I've just run the clock out, 47:28.401 --> 47:30.361 I fear. Oh damn. 47:30.360 --> 47:32.970 I have two minutes. 47:32.970 --> 47:34.390 Let me leave you here. 47:34.390 --> 47:44.560 47:44.559 --> 47:48.299 The idea Lee had, and it's not that complicated, 47:48.304 --> 47:52.054 is that the war was now devastating Virginia. 47:52.050 --> 47:57.010 Richmond was all but under siege. 47:57.010 --> 48:00.230 The theory here was take the war to the North, 48:00.229 --> 48:04.449 take the war out of Virginia, take the war to northern soil, 48:04.450 --> 48:06.740 hopefully get into Maryland. 48:06.739 --> 48:10.129 And he believed there were thousands of Maryland men who 48:10.133 --> 48:13.463 would come to the Confederate standard, if they saw the 48:13.464 --> 48:14.764 Confederate Army. 48:14.760 --> 48:17.760 Threaten the capital, Washington, DC; 48:17.760 --> 48:20.740 threaten Philadelphia and Pennsylvania; 48:20.739 --> 48:26.139 threaten the North, take the war to their soil, 48:26.137 --> 48:30.007 to their farms, to their homes. 48:30.010 --> 48:32.990 And strategically--and this is where Jefferson Davis agreed 48:32.994 --> 48:36.134 with him, although he was very leery about this--a strike into 48:36.134 --> 48:39.224 the North that could win a major victory on northern soil and 48:39.221 --> 48:43.091 threaten the Union capital, possibly even enforce an 48:43.090 --> 48:47.970 evacuation of the Federal capital, might bring the most 48:47.973 --> 48:53.313 important thing the Confederacy needed--and they were on the 48:53.307 --> 48:58.007 verge of it--and that was British intervention, 48:58.010 --> 49:01.510 British recognition and intervention on the side of the 49:01.512 --> 49:04.832 Confederacy. I'll discuss that possible 49:04.829 --> 49:10.299 intervention more as a piece of how emancipation becomes the 49:10.297 --> 49:14.557 result of this Antietam campaign next week. 49:14.560 --> 49:16.960 But let me leave you here. 49:16.960 --> 49:21.210 49:21.210 --> 49:26.790 Lee decides in the face of a kind of quiescent McClellan to 49:26.786 --> 49:32.166 leave only a small force in Richmond, and move north into 49:32.170 --> 49:35.440 Virginia and invade the north. 49:35.440 --> 49:39.580 McClellan's army, having suffered 20,000 49:39.578 --> 49:44.878 casualties in the Seven Days, is not going to move, 49:44.884 --> 49:51.044 and he's not going to move until he absolutely has to. 49:51.039 --> 49:55.019 It is the first great daring move of the war. 49:55.019 --> 49:58.759 It will fail, but it nearly succeeded. 49:58.760 --> 50:02.470 And the reason Antietam is the first major turning point of 50:02.472 --> 50:06.442 this war is not just because of the decisive battle they fought 50:06.440 --> 50:09.000 on the Maryland side of the Potomac, 50:09.000 --> 50:12.190 but because it will be the occasion to allow Abraham 50:12.186 --> 50:15.806 Lincoln to do what he'd been planning to do through much of 50:15.810 --> 50:19.140 that summer, and Congress had been prodding 50:19.142 --> 50:24.122 him to do, which was to announce to the world that this was a war 50:24.119 --> 50:25.829 to free the slaves. 50:25.830 --> 50:28.000 See you next week.