WEBVTT 00:13.130 --> 00:17.250 Professor David Blight: I want to start with what 00:17.252 --> 00:20.102 many Americans therefore do with it. 00:20.100 --> 00:24.390 Some of you in this room may have grown up Civil War buffs, 00:24.393 --> 00:26.173 like I did, I confess. 00:26.170 --> 00:29.070 There are millions of Civil War tourists. 00:29.070 --> 00:34.760 It has this enduring--the military history in particular, 00:34.762 --> 00:40.352 the battle history--has an enduring, eternal hold on our 00:40.353 --> 00:43.733 imagination. But this is a first for me. 00:43.730 --> 00:47.380 I just got this email, well, a couple of weeks ago, 00:47.383 --> 00:50.893 from a woman named Nicki Blackburn in Charleston, 00:50.891 --> 00:54.761 South Carolina; has her photograph on it. 00:54.760 --> 00:59.830 She's a real estate agent, a pretty real estate agent. 00:59.830 --> 01:03.460 [Laughter] And she wanted me to know as a 01:03.462 --> 01:09.182 Civil War historian that she and her firm have put a twenty-four 01:09.182 --> 01:14.182 hour webcam on the Calhoun Mansion near Battery Park--on 01:14.176 --> 01:19.076 the cupola of the Calhoun Mansion--near Battery Park in 01:19.079 --> 01:23.799 Lower Charleston, which looks out directly onto 01:23.795 --> 01:28.345 Fort Sumter, a mile away, so that you can dialup on the 01:28.349 --> 01:33.239 Internet and watch Fort Sumter twenty four hours a day. 01:33.240 --> 01:39.650 01:39.650 --> 01:44.530 [Laughter] I've experienced a wide variety 01:44.534 --> 01:51.214 of bizarre phenomena about the Civil War with reenactors, 01:51.206 --> 01:56.326 at sites and so on and so on and so on. 01:56.330 --> 02:02.160 And if you're on C-SPAN enough believe me, you get every kind 02:02.156 --> 02:06.716 of late-night, crazy American writing to you. 02:06.720 --> 02:08.780 But that's a first. 02:08.780 --> 02:11.710 Twenty-four hours, webcam, Fort Sumter. 02:11.710 --> 02:15.430 I don't know what the hell you're supposed to see. 02:15.430 --> 02:18.240 [Laughter] Maybe there are ghosts of 02:18.239 --> 02:22.729 Confederates that come out at night, and if they have the 02:22.734 --> 02:27.154 right kind of night vision…God I don't know. 02:27.150 --> 02:29.680 But she's serious! 02:29.680 --> 02:30.570 I'm sorry. All right. 02:30.570 --> 02:38.750 02:38.750 --> 02:47.300 In 1863, on the beautiful little hilltop cemetery on the 02:47.298 --> 02:53.358 south edge of the town of Gettysburg, 02:53.360 --> 02:57.330 Pennsylvania--a small, sleepy town with a large 02:57.333 --> 03:02.013 population of German immigrants, a couple of little shoe 03:02.012 --> 03:06.102 factories, a crossroads town, a market town--they had a 03:06.101 --> 03:08.981 cemetery in this beautiful setting. 03:08.979 --> 03:13.929 And, over the archway, or as part of the archway into 03:13.930 --> 03:18.310 that cemetery that would soon become famous, 03:18.310 --> 03:24.330 there was a sign that read, quote, "All persons found using 03:24.328 --> 03:30.658 firearms on these grounds will be prosecuted within the utmost 03:30.657 --> 03:32.937 rigor of the law." 03:32.940 --> 03:35.410 Irony makes the world go 'round. 03:35.410 --> 03:39.680 03:39.680 --> 03:44.380 Okay, today I want to take up with you at least the beginnings 03:44.375 --> 03:48.835 of the question of Confederate defeat and Union victory. 03:48.840 --> 03:52.100 We're going to focus in particular on battlefronts. 03:52.099 --> 03:55.169 There are numerous reasons, explanations, 03:55.170 --> 03:59.320 causal interpretations for Confederate defeat and Union 03:59.316 --> 04:03.766 victory that have flowed forth in Civil War scholarship for 04:03.768 --> 04:06.648 years. And we began to have a new kind 04:06.648 --> 04:09.678 of heated argument about it, at least in books, 04:09.680 --> 04:14.480 about 10 years ago, in part because of a series of 04:14.484 --> 04:19.784 two books by historians named Hattaway and Beringer. 04:19.780 --> 04:21.260 They wrote two big tomes. 04:21.259 --> 04:23.649 One was entitled Why the North Won the Civil War, 04:23.650 --> 04:26.130 and the other was entitled Why the South Lost the Civil 04:26.128 --> 04:29.958 War; not very subtle titles. 04:29.959 --> 04:33.359 And they were the ones who posited, more than anyone ever 04:33.357 --> 04:36.877 had before, in a much more sophisticated way--and I want to 04:36.875 --> 04:40.165 come back to that, and it's part of exactly what's 04:40.168 --> 04:43.578 at stake in these two wonderful books you're reading, 04:43.579 --> 04:45.719 or have read, or are about to read, 04:45.723 --> 04:47.933 by Drew Faust and Gary Gallagher. 04:47.930 --> 04:51.030 Gallagher's Confederate War and Faust's Mothers 04:51.034 --> 04:54.304 of Invention take up this question of the so-called loss 04:54.304 --> 04:57.294 of will. Did the South lose the Civil 04:57.293 --> 05:02.443 War because it ultimately lost its will to sustain the fight? 05:02.439 --> 05:07.429 There are many sides to that argument, and I'll take it up in 05:07.425 --> 05:09.715 a moment. I want to do--. 05:09.720 --> 05:29.110 05:29.110 --> 05:31.200 Well anyway, the Civil War, 05:31.203 --> 05:35.713 as we've said many times, is the first great photographed 05:35.713 --> 05:38.133 event of American history. 05:38.129 --> 05:39.809 There are thousands of photographs. 05:39.810 --> 05:43.420 We'd have had thousands more if people hadn't destroyed so many 05:43.418 --> 05:45.088 of them. And, of course, 05:45.089 --> 05:49.449 Ken Burns's film series is in part--in great part--reliant on 05:49.445 --> 05:52.925 those photographs, and he and his cameramen, 05:52.929 --> 05:57.479 of course, they have cameras now that can take right inside 05:57.476 --> 06:02.336 almost these old daguerreotypes and tintypes and make them live 06:02.337 --> 06:05.627 in ways that they didn't at the time. 06:05.629 --> 06:08.729 But that's an image of soldiers at the front, 06:08.732 --> 06:11.132 smoking a pipe, petting his dog. 06:11.129 --> 06:14.079 It's an officer whose wife has come to the front, 06:14.081 --> 06:17.071 of course. It's winter quarters, 06:17.074 --> 06:21.694 near Culpepper Courthouse, Virginia, 1863. 06:21.689 --> 06:27.499 They always built these cabins with these chimneys. 06:27.500 --> 06:30.430 They built thousands of these, with barrels on top; 06:30.430 --> 06:32.770 those are their chimneys. 06:32.770 --> 06:35.980 06:35.980 --> 06:38.470 Since I've been discussing this question of mobilization, 06:38.468 --> 06:40.288 there are many, many images in the war, 06:40.290 --> 06:42.600 from the war, that show this kind of 06:42.604 --> 06:44.724 industrial might of the North. 06:44.720 --> 06:49.330 There's incredible photographs of the James River landings in 06:49.330 --> 06:53.450 Virginia by 1864, and just as far as the horizon 06:53.447 --> 06:57.607 can see supplies, the materiel piled up all over 06:57.611 --> 07:01.311 the wharves. This is an image in Virginia of 07:01.312 --> 07:05.292 the wagon trains of the Potomac, Army of the Potomac, 07:05.291 --> 07:07.741 by 1864, thousands of wagons. 07:07.740 --> 07:13.370 This is mobilization for total war. 07:13.370 --> 07:17.070 And I just for the sake of reality want to show that also 07:17.072 --> 07:19.452 photographers, like Matthew Brady and 07:19.452 --> 07:23.292 Alexander Gardner and their troops of photographers--it was 07:23.286 --> 07:27.246 Gardner in particular who went to Gettysburg after the Battle 07:27.253 --> 07:30.893 of Gettysburg and photographed so many of them, 07:30.890 --> 07:33.770 so many of the dead. 07:33.769 --> 07:36.289 This is a soldier, a Union soldier, 07:36.293 --> 07:38.003 killed at Gettysburg. 07:38.000 --> 07:42.360 It became a kind of macabre fascination, especially in the 07:42.363 --> 07:47.113 North where these photographs were often displayed publicly. 07:47.110 --> 07:50.970 Brady first started doing it in '62 and early '63, 07:50.965 --> 07:53.715 and hence that famous comment by, 07:53.720 --> 08:00.230 I believe, George Templeton Strong who said it was Brady who 08:00.234 --> 08:04.434 brought the war into people's homes, 08:04.430 --> 08:09.070 into their living rooms, if they went to witness these 08:09.073 --> 08:13.163 photographs. Now, more on that perhaps at 08:13.160 --> 08:15.930 the end. But go back with me now to this 08:15.932 --> 08:18.742 question of Union victory, Confederate defeat. 08:18.740 --> 08:21.810 We're not going to end the war today, that's next week, 08:21.808 --> 08:24.818 and we're going to take the war today through 1863, 08:24.819 --> 08:27.769 and major military turning points where you can begin to 08:27.769 --> 08:30.129 make an argument, from this point forward. 08:30.129 --> 08:33.999 From this point forward, it would be very difficult for 08:34.000 --> 08:37.370 the Confederacy to win, although not impossible, 08:37.368 --> 08:39.158 as we'll see in 1864. 08:39.159 --> 08:42.449 Now on any list--and I'm going to just give you a list out 08:42.454 --> 08:45.924 front and then we'll kind of take up some of them--but on any 08:45.921 --> 08:49.101 list of why the North wins and why the South loses, 08:49.100 --> 08:54.990 of course, are these elements: One, resources and numbers. 08:54.990 --> 09:00.530 It goes without saying in a world of war that is becoming 09:00.525 --> 09:04.965 more industrialized, more modern in its weaponry 09:04.965 --> 09:08.985 and, to some extent, its tactics--although that's 09:08.993 --> 09:12.803 one of the reasons, of course, casualties in this 09:12.802 --> 09:16.862 war were so ghastly because they were fighting with much more 09:16.862 --> 09:20.412 modern weapons, repeating rifles and of course 09:20.407 --> 09:24.827 the rifled musket that could actually hit something at 800 09:24.830 --> 09:28.710 yards and it could be deadly at 2 to 300 yards. 09:28.710 --> 09:31.040 Think of that, 2 to 300 yards. 09:31.039 --> 09:35.659 You could hit something and see it. 09:35.659 --> 09:39.669 But they were fighting with old tactics, line upon line, 09:39.665 --> 09:42.355 shoulder to shoulder, double ranks. 09:42.360 --> 09:45.170 If the front of the rank fell, the second rank was supposed to 09:45.168 --> 09:48.018 be there, and they were supposed to have loaded their rifles in 09:48.022 --> 09:50.462 time to be up front while the other ones went back and 09:50.463 --> 09:53.743 reloaded again, and that a veteran soldier in 09:53.737 --> 09:58.267 this war could load his muzzle loader--you had to load the 09:58.271 --> 10:02.371 minie ball and the cap, back here, and then with your 10:02.367 --> 10:06.627 ramrod--a veteran soldier could do that without pressure about 10:06.632 --> 10:08.312 three times a minute. 10:08.309 --> 10:12.059 Of course under the pressure of battle and being shot at and the 10:12.060 --> 10:15.400 cacophony of sound and the terror and fear a soldier went 10:15.395 --> 10:18.015 though, sometimes they couldn't perform 10:18.018 --> 10:20.418 that. And all over battlefields in 10:20.419 --> 10:24.749 this war they would find dead soldiers sometimes with a rifle 10:24.748 --> 10:28.858 they had loaded three and four times, and never fired. 10:28.860 --> 10:30.180 They just kept loading. 10:30.180 --> 10:32.720 They'd sort of lose their minds. 10:32.720 --> 10:36.740 But in a war that is now fought with such weaponry--and it's 10:36.744 --> 10:40.914 going to depend on industrial production--there is an argument 10:40.906 --> 10:44.856 that this war was won by the North in the shoe factories of 10:44.863 --> 10:46.773 Lowell, Massachusetts, 10:46.765 --> 10:50.895 or the gun factories of New Haven, or the gun factories of 10:50.898 --> 10:54.378 Springfield, Mass, in the sheer productive--or on 10:54.379 --> 10:58.729 those railroads of the North, which was so much better, 10:58.730 --> 11:01.260 more efficient, than the railroads of the 11:01.263 --> 11:04.373 South. There's certainly an argument 11:04.372 --> 11:07.662 for that. Now, that handwriting was on 11:07.658 --> 11:11.068 the wall from the beginning of the war. 11:11.070 --> 11:16.000 In a lovely old book that David Donald did once called Why 11:16.004 --> 11:19.034 the North Won, he quotes on the first page of 11:19.029 --> 11:21.099 the book a newspaper in Lynchburg, Virginia, 11:21.100 --> 11:25.510 summer 1861; the Battle of Bull Run hasn't 11:25.512 --> 11:28.532 even happened yet, and all this fury for war. 11:28.529 --> 11:32.419 The editor of the Lynchburg Virginian wrote, 11:32.419 --> 11:37.009 quote: "Dependent upon Europe and the North for almost every 11:37.009 --> 11:41.909 yard of cloth and every coat and boot and hat that we wear, 11:41.909 --> 11:44.949 for our axes, scythes, tubs and buckets, 11:44.952 --> 11:49.012 in short for everything except our bread and meat, 11:49.009 --> 11:52.979 it must occur to the South that if our relations with the North 11:52.978 --> 11:55.988 are ever severed we should"--they'd already been 11:55.987 --> 11:59.637 severed--"we should in all the South not be able to clothe 11:59.635 --> 12:02.115 ourselves. We could not fill our 12:02.118 --> 12:05.518 firesides, plow our fields, nor mow our meadows. 12:05.519 --> 12:09.499 In fact, we should be reduced to a state more abject than we 12:09.495 --> 12:12.835 are willing to look at, even prospectively, 12:12.836 --> 12:16.926 and yet all these things staring us in the face, 12:16.933 --> 12:20.773 we shut our eyes and we go in blindfold." 12:20.770 --> 12:23.840 Man, was that prescient. 12:23.840 --> 12:26.340 One of the most remarkable facts about the American Civil 12:26.340 --> 12:29.060 War--and James McPherson makes a big deal of this in Battle 12:29.063 --> 12:32.403 Cry of Freedom, over and over--is that despite 12:32.398 --> 12:36.938 their lack of the industrial productivity in relation to the 12:36.937 --> 12:39.987 North, it is amazing how long the 12:39.987 --> 12:45.157 South held out and amazing how close they actually came to 12:45.156 --> 12:49.686 winning their version or definition of victory. 12:49.690 --> 12:55.080 The North had more banking, more labor capacity, 12:55.079 --> 12:59.159 everything. Two, an argument has always 12:59.158 --> 13:04.618 been made that the North in the end had superior political 13:04.622 --> 13:08.172 leadership, i.e., Abraham Lincoln. 13:08.169 --> 13:11.919 Now a lot can be made of this, and a lot has been made of 13:11.924 --> 13:15.684 this, in book after book comparing Lincoln with Davis. 13:15.679 --> 13:18.389 And there's no question that as an executive, 13:18.392 --> 13:20.122 as a leader, as a politician, 13:20.118 --> 13:24.378 as a manipulator of people, in terms of an acumen, 13:24.378 --> 13:28.968 even a genius for politics and organization, 13:28.969 --> 13:33.879 Abraham is about as good as we've ever had. 13:33.879 --> 13:36.289 Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, 13:36.291 --> 13:40.691 smart and brilliant man that he was, a long military career, 13:40.690 --> 13:43.870 long service in the Senate, the War Department and all 13:43.870 --> 13:46.930 else, was nevertheless not a very good executive. 13:46.929 --> 13:52.569 He always had one foot sort of tied in the States' Rights 13:52.566 --> 13:56.286 tradition, and that other foot now, 13:56.289 --> 14:00.239 really where his soul was by 1862, '63, '64, 14:00.237 --> 14:03.447 was in trying to create a nation, 14:03.450 --> 14:07.460 a centralized nation state, doing all the things that the 14:07.457 --> 14:10.747 States' Rights tradition said he should not. 14:10.750 --> 14:14.130 He was not in the end a great war President, 14:14.125 --> 14:18.595 in part, some have argued, because he would have preferred 14:18.600 --> 14:23.310 to be on the battlefield and not in an executive's role. 14:23.309 --> 14:27.099 He listened to those generals who were his friends and didn't 14:27.103 --> 14:29.573 tend to listen to those who were not. 14:29.570 --> 14:34.440 He often made sort of leadership mistakes such as the 14:34.437 --> 14:39.587 time he personally went out West--I'll come to that in a 14:39.586 --> 14:44.616 moment--during the, just before the great campaign 14:44.615 --> 14:48.735 for Chattanooga, in late summer and then the 14:48.736 --> 14:52.566 fall of 1863, for the possession of this 14:52.569 --> 14:57.079 terribly important strategic crossroads in southeast 14:57.080 --> 14:59.620 Tennessee, to the gateway into the Deep 14:59.623 --> 15:02.213 South, the crossroads of two great southern rivers, 15:02.210 --> 15:05.980 the crossroads of the two main east/west southern railroads and 15:05.983 --> 15:08.203 so on. He goes out there in the wake 15:08.204 --> 15:11.554 of the fall of Chattanooga, when Braxton Bragg's army had 15:11.553 --> 15:13.983 to retreat south, and he goes to the 15:13.975 --> 15:17.925 whole--there'd been terrible dissention in that Confederate 15:17.925 --> 15:20.555 Army. All the generals wanted Bragg 15:20.556 --> 15:24.146 fired and Davis goes out personally to the camp and 15:24.153 --> 15:26.963 gathers all the generals around him, 15:26.960 --> 15:30.290 with Bragg standing there, and asked all the other 15:30.286 --> 15:33.746 generals whether they thought they should have a new 15:33.749 --> 15:36.439 commander. And to a man they basically all 15:36.439 --> 15:38.739 said "yes," in front of their commander. 15:38.740 --> 15:41.560 And then Davis re-appointed him. 15:41.559 --> 15:44.659 It was one of the most bizarre decisions of the war. 15:44.660 --> 15:46.640 Bragg was a disaster. 15:46.639 --> 15:50.149 But this is the sort of thing that--and Davis and Bragg went 15:50.149 --> 15:52.469 back years and they were old friends. 15:52.470 --> 15:55.150 And Davis made some strange decisions. 15:55.149 --> 15:57.589 But Davis also was handicapped tremendously, 15:57.588 --> 15:59.518 politically, by this States' Rights 15:59.516 --> 16:01.616 tradition. And I would argue one other 16:01.620 --> 16:03.350 thing; and it's really a third reason 16:03.348 --> 16:06.118 you can put on this long list of why the North's going to win 16:06.124 --> 16:06.684 this war. 16:06.680 --> 16:10.020 16:10.019 --> 16:13.459 The North had an existing political culture, 16:13.464 --> 16:16.994 it had an existing political party system. 16:16.990 --> 16:20.120 Now we can argue that that political party system was 16:20.116 --> 16:21.916 greatly divided, and it was. 16:21.919 --> 16:26.039 By '63 you've got what are called Peace Democrats. 16:26.039 --> 16:29.259 The Democratic Party in the North is beginning to argue for 16:29.259 --> 16:31.479 a negotiated peace, an end to the war; 16:31.480 --> 16:34.200 a divided America, a Confederate States of America 16:34.204 --> 16:36.044 and a United States of America. 16:36.039 --> 16:38.809 And in 1864 they're going to run McClellan on that 16:38.807 --> 16:42.307 platform--and we'll talk about how pivotal the '64 Election was 16:42.309 --> 16:45.039 next week. But you had an existing party 16:45.041 --> 16:48.721 system that could organize politics, that could organize 16:48.723 --> 16:52.343 dissent, that could channel opposition, 16:52.343 --> 16:57.533 and it also gave Abraham Lincoln the cudgel or the whip 16:57.533 --> 17:01.163 of partisanship. He could build enough of a 17:01.161 --> 17:05.321 coalition to sustain not only the war effort but also to pull 17:05.318 --> 17:09.198 off some of that remarkable legislation that I started to 17:09.198 --> 17:12.368 talk about last time, especially economic 17:12.373 --> 17:16.713 legislation, that really in some ways, for awhile at least, 17:16.710 --> 17:21.900 transformed the American central government. 17:21.900 --> 17:26.800 Fourth, one of the principle reasons the North's going to win 17:26.804 --> 17:29.914 this war is that it does ultimately, 17:29.910 --> 17:33.560 through some remarkable diplomacy--especially by Charles 17:33.556 --> 17:36.006 Francis Adams in London, the U.S. 17:36.005 --> 17:40.625 Ambassador to Great Britain, grandson of John Adams, 17:40.627 --> 17:45.427 son of John Quincy--the fact that in the end the Union 17:45.431 --> 17:50.961 government succeeds in keeping Great Britain ostensibly out of 17:50.960 --> 17:53.880 the war, at least militarily, 17:53.881 --> 17:58.021 mostly, out of the war, is absolutely crucial to Union 17:58.020 --> 18:00.480 victory. Had Britain--had Lee won at 18:00.480 --> 18:02.970 Antietam--and this is what McPherson means, 18:02.969 --> 18:06.409 and many other historians were really doing this before Jim 18:06.406 --> 18:08.186 was, but he's made it his own 18:08.194 --> 18:10.914 argument--that you can't understand Union victory and 18:10.911 --> 18:13.581 Confederate defeat without dealing with all kinds of 18:13.577 --> 18:17.227 contingencies, moments in the war. 18:17.230 --> 18:19.110 If this hadn't happened then, that can't happen; 18:19.109 --> 18:20.729 if that doesn't happen then, that can't happen. 18:20.730 --> 18:24.090 And so putting your eggs in any one basket to explain this, 18:24.092 --> 18:27.342 or for that matter anything in history, is a bad idea. 18:27.339 --> 18:31.099 But one of those contingencies is if Lee wins at Antietam, 18:31.098 --> 18:33.998 succeeds in moving further into the North, 18:34.000 --> 18:37.460 threatens Northern cities, and the British government 18:37.458 --> 18:40.918 formally recognized the Confederacy and formally sent 18:40.916 --> 18:45.166 British troops to fight with the Confederacy--rather than just in 18:45.173 --> 18:47.903 a sense sending them a shadow navy, 18:47.900 --> 18:51.090 which was helping the Confederacy, and building them 18:51.094 --> 18:54.794 ships--could've had a very different outcome to this war. 18:54.789 --> 19:00.379 If the United States had had to fight a second front, 19:00.376 --> 19:06.386 in Canada, against the British, just imagine the possible 19:06.393 --> 19:11.653 outcomes. So, a very important factor. 19:11.650 --> 19:16.560 Fifth, much has always been made about the so called, 19:16.559 --> 19:21.559 in the end, superior military leadership of the North, 19:21.563 --> 19:25.313 in the end. And we'll deal with this much 19:25.314 --> 19:28.374 more next week, and a little bit today, 19:28.373 --> 19:32.963 when Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and General Thomas and 19:32.961 --> 19:37.791 a few others actually finally become the principal leaders of 19:37.790 --> 19:41.830 this entire, ultimately coordinated West and 19:41.834 --> 19:45.654 East strategic effort against the South, you can 19:45.647 --> 19:50.677 argue--although I think too much is often made of this--you can 19:50.677 --> 19:54.487 argue that in some ways Grant won the war. 19:54.490 --> 20:00.030 There are books that literally argue that, that want to give 20:00.029 --> 20:04.629 Grant in so many ways credit for Union victory, 20:04.630 --> 20:08.010 and that will argue--and I'll come back to this next 20:08.007 --> 20:11.137 week--that in some ways, as great as Robert E. 20:11.144 --> 20:14.854 Lee was as a battlefield commander, as daring as he was, 20:14.848 --> 20:19.088 the risks that he took, the ability he had to somehow 20:19.086 --> 20:21.306 see a terrain, to see land, 20:21.314 --> 20:26.374 to see the possibilities of a landscape and how to move huge 20:26.372 --> 20:30.772 numbers of men through it, and the way that he could 20:30.769 --> 20:34.939 inspire through a quite amazing level of charisma his officer 20:34.942 --> 20:38.142 staff--there's a lot to the fact that Robert E. 20:38.142 --> 20:42.182 Lee himself had a lot to do with sustaining the Confederate 20:42.177 --> 20:44.887 war effort as long as it lasted. 20:44.890 --> 20:48.170 And Gary Gallagher's going to make a pretty big deal of that 20:48.168 --> 20:50.278 in your book Confederate War. 20:50.279 --> 20:55.179 It's just worth remembering that Gallagher's source set by 20:55.179 --> 20:59.219 and large is the officer corps of Lee's army. 20:59.220 --> 21:04.910 It's a fine book but you got to remember where his sources are 21:04.905 --> 21:07.955 coming from. These are Lee's lieutenants 21:07.961 --> 21:11.981 that he's quoting over and over and over, and they become about 21:11.981 --> 21:15.741 as loyal to a military commander as anyone has ever been in 21:15.743 --> 21:17.173 American history. 21:17.170 --> 21:20.470 And then sixth, or whatever number I'm on--and 21:20.466 --> 21:23.686 we've dealt with this a good deal already, 21:23.690 --> 21:27.060 we'll come back to it later--the policy of 21:27.058 --> 21:30.588 emancipation, the transformation of this war 21:30.590 --> 21:34.370 into far beyond its original limited aims, 21:34.369 --> 21:38.029 into a war that will become a war of conquest. 21:38.029 --> 21:41.369 A war, as Lincoln comes to define it in late '62, 21:41.372 --> 21:43.812 and it's absolutely clear in '63, 21:43.809 --> 21:48.309 has to be a war to the ultimate aim of the unconditional 21:48.306 --> 21:52.336 surrender of the South, which means a war on their 21:52.341 --> 21:56.251 resources, on their society, on their transportation 21:56.247 --> 21:59.817 systems, and on slavery--their labor 21:59.824 --> 22:06.514 system, their greatest source of wealth--and war on their cities, 22:06.510 --> 22:10.740 the people; or as Sherman will say, 22:10.743 --> 22:13.353 he wanted to make Georgia howl. 22:13.350 --> 22:17.150 22:17.150 --> 22:20.660 All right, now that's a short list. 22:20.660 --> 22:25.750 Now fold into that this theory--it's a theory--that in 22:25.753 --> 22:29.793 the end, you add all this up--resources, 22:29.789 --> 22:31.559 political leadership, military leadership, 22:31.556 --> 22:33.276 the policy of unconditional surrender, 22:33.279 --> 22:35.629 emancipation, keeping Great Britain out of 22:35.634 --> 22:37.994 the war, diplomacy and so on and so on, 22:37.990 --> 22:41.120 and battlefield victories, as I'll point out in a 22:41.121 --> 22:44.711 second--you get this argument for the loss of morale, 22:44.710 --> 22:48.660 loss of will. Now, this was fashioned by 22:48.656 --> 22:52.706 historians really who cut their teeth on the Vietnam Era. 22:52.710 --> 22:56.070 And they argue that there are plenty of examples throughout 22:56.074 --> 22:59.964 history of insurgencies like the Confederacy--that's what it was, 22:59.960 --> 23:03.340 it's a big one, it's not just a little guerilla 23:03.340 --> 23:07.460 army pecking away at oil lines--but they argue that there 23:07.455 --> 23:09.655 are many cases in history. 23:09.660 --> 23:14.870 And the most obvious one in the 1970s and '80s to Americans was 23:14.866 --> 23:17.696 North Vietnam, which held out for a 23:17.701 --> 23:21.651 generation, really two generations, against the French 23:21.653 --> 23:25.833 Empire and then against the United States of America, 23:25.829 --> 23:28.069 the biggest military machine in the world. 23:28.069 --> 23:33.159 They lost three and half million people, 23:33.161 --> 23:36.431 and they won. So suddenly through that 23:36.426 --> 23:39.746 experience, through those eyes, some American historians began 23:39.747 --> 23:42.847 to look back at the Civil War and say, "You know what? 23:42.849 --> 23:47.399 Well wait a minute here, why didn't the Confederacy hold 23:47.398 --> 23:48.968 out even longer?" 23:48.970 --> 23:52.250 Yes, there were bread riots, there was some starvation, 23:52.250 --> 23:55.590 there was a hell of a lot of desertion, but maybe that's 23:55.591 --> 23:57.111 telling us something. 23:57.109 --> 24:01.889 That in the end it wasn't just Marse Robert and his loyal men, 24:01.890 --> 24:06.670 it was the civilians behind the war, it was the home front. 24:06.670 --> 24:11.450 This is what Drew Faust went to all these women's diaries to try 24:11.454 --> 24:15.564 to test, and the argument essentially is that the South 24:15.556 --> 24:19.426 didn't have a sufficient degree of nationalism, 24:19.430 --> 24:27.100 of an emotional psychological devotion to a historic nation 24:27.096 --> 24:34.626 state that they would do anything to save and preserve, 24:34.630 --> 24:37.490 in the ways, let's say, that the Germans did 24:37.485 --> 24:41.065 to the absolute bitter end against the Russians and the 24:41.071 --> 24:44.791 Allies on the Western Front in the Second World War. 24:44.789 --> 24:47.759 Beringer and Hattaway love the example of Paraguay; 24:47.759 --> 24:52.099 nobody knows anything about the story of Paraguay and the way it 24:52.104 --> 24:54.794 held out against Brazil, I think it was, 24:54.793 --> 24:57.693 as an early twentieth century example. 24:57.690 --> 25:00.810 And there've been other kinds of guerrilla insurgencies over 25:00.806 --> 25:03.476 the years. At the bottom of this argument 25:03.475 --> 25:07.615 was why didn't more Confederate forces, rather than surrender, 25:07.615 --> 25:09.985 go off and form guerrilla bands? 25:09.990 --> 25:13.950 Why didn't the American Civil War end the way so many civil 25:13.948 --> 25:16.198 wars end--they never quite end? 25:16.200 --> 25:19.550 A band of twenty men here and 300 there, going off into the 25:19.547 --> 25:21.737 hills, supplying themselves somehow, 25:21.740 --> 25:29.880 forming a kind of alternative insurgency that never quite 25:29.882 --> 25:32.212 dies. You read a lot of lost cause 25:32.213 --> 25:34.753 literature by the late nineteenth century and you would 25:34.747 --> 25:36.527 almost think that is what happened. 25:36.530 --> 25:38.930 But it didn't happen. 25:38.930 --> 25:42.590 And Beringer and Hattaway have also argued that, 25:42.587 --> 25:46.397 in part, the South, once it begins to lose the war 25:46.401 --> 25:49.611 in '63 and '64, that it was Southern Unionists 25:49.612 --> 25:52.902 that began to come to the fore, that there were large--and 25:52.902 --> 25:55.272 there were--large pockets of unionism, 25:55.269 --> 25:57.899 people who didn't really support the Confederate war 25:57.895 --> 26:00.825 effort, in western Virginia and western North Carolina, 26:00.829 --> 26:02.809 eastern Tennessee, upland Georgia, 26:02.805 --> 26:06.395 in those hills that Sherman's Army begins to move through and 26:06.398 --> 26:09.928 discovers there's some white folk around who want to support 26:09.931 --> 26:12.191 him. In fact, Sherman was much 26:12.194 --> 26:16.064 kinder to those Georgia whites than he was to those Georgia 26:16.057 --> 26:19.917 blacks who tried to gain freedom by coming to his army. 26:19.920 --> 26:23.740 More on Sherman's racism next week. 26:23.740 --> 26:27.470 Now, in the end this is an argument that what the South 26:27.472 --> 26:31.622 lacked was a deep mystical emotional level of nationalism. 26:31.619 --> 26:34.899 Well that's been countered, that's been countered by 26:34.896 --> 26:36.306 numerous historians. 26:36.309 --> 26:38.779 Drew Faust is one of them, in an earlier book called 26:38.783 --> 26:41.163 The Creation of Confederate Nationalism. 26:41.160 --> 26:45.580 She's been joined, or she actually joined a whole 26:45.577 --> 26:49.347 group of historians studying this idea. 26:49.349 --> 26:53.839 It's been one of the recurring, fascinating questions about the 26:53.840 --> 26:57.750 Civil War, and the question is essentially what kind of 26:57.751 --> 27:01.591 nationalism did the Confederacy actually develop? 27:01.589 --> 27:03.509 After all, it only lasted four years. 27:03.509 --> 27:07.169 The question really is, was there a confederate nation 27:07.174 --> 27:10.984 or were they just a band of states that came together in 27:10.978 --> 27:13.258 military defense of homeland? 27:13.259 --> 27:16.879 Well there are arguments on all sides of this. 27:16.880 --> 27:20.430 And I'll just say a couple of things. 27:20.430 --> 27:26.240 I think those--and it's Drew Faust, it's John McCardell, 27:26.237 --> 27:28.557 numerous historians. 27:28.559 --> 27:31.269 The weight of the best argument, I think, 27:31.271 --> 27:35.201 is that the South did indeed, rather quickly--and there's a 27:35.204 --> 27:38.804 lot of lessons in this historically--develop a serious 27:38.797 --> 27:42.117 level of this mystical kind of nationalism. 27:42.119 --> 27:46.589 They developed an ideology that they said their nation was based 27:46.594 --> 27:47.874 on. They said right up front, 27:47.866 --> 27:49.476 at the beginning of the war, Jefferson Davis, 27:49.480 --> 27:50.800 speech after speech after speech, 27:50.799 --> 27:55.059 he said the Confederacy is the logical vessel of the American 27:55.057 --> 27:58.227 Revolution; what the Confederacy really was 27:58.230 --> 28:00.190 was the carryover of 1776. 28:00.190 --> 28:05.280 1861 was 1776. That George Washington, 28:05.278 --> 28:07.688 they will argue, was the founder of the 28:07.688 --> 28:11.048 Confederacy. That true American democracy 28:11.051 --> 28:14.671 was in this resistance to centralization. 28:14.670 --> 28:19.330 They created seals and songs and images and heroes and 28:19.331 --> 28:22.851 paintings, poetry, all over the place. 28:22.849 --> 28:26.789 They used religion, the same kind of millennial 28:26.786 --> 28:29.606 Christianity. The same kind of theory of a 28:29.608 --> 28:32.468 divine providence that Northerners are praying to and 28:32.465 --> 28:35.865 arguing for is the same kind of millennialism that Confederates 28:35.871 --> 28:37.411 are going to argue for. 28:37.410 --> 28:39.990 They're going to say that they are the chosen nation. 28:39.990 --> 28:43.440 28:43.440 --> 28:46.990 All over the place, among Southern clergy, 28:46.989 --> 28:52.009 that argument is put forth, especially early in the war. 28:52.010 --> 28:54.580 And then lastly, slavery. 28:54.579 --> 28:58.309 It is in some ways almost amazing how much Southerners 28:58.307 --> 29:02.247 began to defend slavery and the ways they began to defend 29:02.246 --> 29:03.866 slavery, during the war, 29:03.872 --> 29:06.742 and the ways that they began to link it to their nation, 29:06.739 --> 29:09.889 the Confederacy, of how the Confederacy was put 29:09.889 --> 29:13.559 into this world to perfect slavery, to improve it, 29:13.559 --> 29:15.899 to show the world that this slave society, 29:15.896 --> 29:18.286 this system, this biracial system where one 29:18.290 --> 29:21.540 race is the labor and the other race is the educated, 29:21.539 --> 29:25.129 to show the world the possibilities of that. 29:25.130 --> 29:31.030 They even developed a whole variety of traveling Confederate 29:31.029 --> 29:34.599 minstrel groups. Minstrelsy had been primarily a 29:34.595 --> 29:36.015 phenomenon of the North. 29:36.019 --> 29:39.659 Often the audiences were largely white working class, 29:39.664 --> 29:44.014 but during the war suddenly you had these Confederate troops of 29:44.008 --> 29:46.618 minstrels, all over the place, 29:46.623 --> 29:51.613 and new songs and new poems were written that were tied now 29:51.609 --> 29:55.219 to the sort of fate of the Confederacy. 29:55.220 --> 29:57.060 I'll just give you one example. 29:57.059 --> 30:01.369 There was one minstrel troop known as--these were whites in 30:01.374 --> 30:03.684 blackface, keeping morale up. 30:03.680 --> 30:07.470 One of them was called Lincoln's Intelligent 30:07.470 --> 30:12.580 Contrabands, and one little verse ran: "I'd rather work the 30:12.582 --> 30:17.872 cotton patch and dine on corn and bacon than live up North on 30:17.871 --> 30:21.751 good white bread of abolition makin'." 30:21.750 --> 30:26.190 And it gets worse and it goes on and on. 30:26.190 --> 30:29.520 And the story or the argument of all these Confederate 30:29.523 --> 30:33.233 minstrel songs and the poetry they're based on is that black 30:33.234 --> 30:35.314 people don't want to be free. 30:35.309 --> 30:39.069 They don't want anything to do with this free labor nonsense, 30:39.067 --> 30:41.257 they want to stay where they are. 30:41.259 --> 30:46.899 Now, I invite you to read Gallagher and Faust on this. 30:46.900 --> 30:50.860 And Gallagher's going to make a pretty aggressive argument 30:50.858 --> 30:55.208 against the loss of will thesis, and he's going to argue that 30:55.208 --> 30:58.758 Confederate nationalism ultimately resided in those 30:58.759 --> 31:02.719 armies, the armies that stuck it out 31:02.717 --> 31:06.657 against almost unbelievable odds. 31:06.660 --> 31:14.010 All right, but in 1863 the war had major military turning 31:14.008 --> 31:16.898 points. And let me take you through 31:16.898 --> 31:19.368 some of that, well the three major ones, 31:19.367 --> 31:20.757 with some dispatch. 31:20.759 --> 31:24.189 But these are, on that short list of I believe 31:24.191 --> 31:28.311 five major turning points in the Civil War, I mentioned 31:28.308 --> 31:30.518 Gettysburg and Vicksburg. 31:30.519 --> 31:32.859 Well, kind of add to that, if you would, 31:32.856 --> 31:36.146 the fall of Port Hudson, only a week after Vicksburg out 31:36.151 --> 31:40.251 on the Mississippi, and then the ultimate fall, 31:40.251 --> 31:46.501 final fall of Chattanooga to Union hands by the fall of 1863. 31:46.500 --> 31:50.160 Now, some maps are in order. 31:50.160 --> 31:56.460 31:56.460 --> 32:04.320 The Confederacy won a major victory at the Battle of 32:04.317 --> 32:13.707 Chancellorsville near----just west of Fredericksburg the first 32:13.714 --> 32:16.954 week of May 1863. 32:16.950 --> 32:20.610 This was yet again--you'll remember the whole, 32:20.613 --> 32:23.873 the previous year, a year before this, 32:23.869 --> 32:26.759 McClellan had invaded the peninsula up toward Richmond, 32:26.759 --> 32:29.059 the Seven Days Campaign and all the rest, 32:29.060 --> 32:31.620 defeated, retreated. 32:31.620 --> 32:34.200 Lee then invaded the North. 32:34.200 --> 32:37.360 He's going to do exactly the same thing in the summer of 32:37.363 --> 32:39.553 1863, in the wake of what was truly, 32:39.549 --> 32:41.999 without a question, a decisive victory at 32:42.004 --> 32:43.174 Chancellorsville. 32:43.170 --> 32:47.820 Lee held a Council of War in Richmond with Davis and other 32:47.822 --> 32:49.942 generals. This time, of course, 32:49.944 --> 32:51.874 Stonewall Jackson was not there; 32:51.869 --> 32:56.159 he was shot and killed by his own men, after the battle, 32:56.156 --> 32:58.646 at night, of Chancellorsville. 32:58.650 --> 33:00.030 He lived about a week. 33:00.029 --> 33:03.769 That little house where he died and they amputated his arm is a 33:03.766 --> 33:06.686 shrine today. If you want to see some Civil 33:06.692 --> 33:10.182 War weirdness go to the Stonewall Jackson shrine. 33:10.180 --> 33:14.340 And if you ever saw the movie, if you ever endured the movie 33:16.771 --> 33:18.411 hours of it, which I did because I had to 33:18.408 --> 33:21.558 write a review of it, you know that they took almost 33:21.563 --> 33:24.683 a half hour to have Stonewall Jackson die. 33:24.680 --> 33:28.630 33:28.630 --> 33:30.260 [Laughter] I'm sorry, for those of you who 33:30.264 --> 33:31.424 are Stonewall Jackson fans. 33:31.420 --> 33:32.880 It's just quite remarkable. 33:32.880 --> 33:34.850 But at any rate, Lee lost a terribly important 33:34.846 --> 33:36.896 commander then, there's no question about it, 33:36.900 --> 33:40.170 and it will always live in Southern lore--what if Jackson 33:40.169 --> 33:42.249 had lived? Or what if he'd had Jackson at 33:42.248 --> 33:44.848 Gettysburg? What if he'd had Jackson at 33:44.852 --> 33:46.602 Cold Harbor, wherever? 33:46.599 --> 33:49.439 At any rate, Lee went to Davis and said, 33:49.436 --> 33:51.906 "Let me invade the North again." 33:51.910 --> 33:55.120 Davis was a little cautious because the first time it didn't 33:55.120 --> 33:57.570 work and he almost lost the war a year ago. 33:57.569 --> 34:00.489 James Longstreet, now second-in-command to Lee in 34:00.490 --> 34:03.350 the Army of Northern Virginia, had another idea, 34:03.349 --> 34:05.599 and Longstreet almost always did. 34:05.599 --> 34:08.799 And there's a whole debate in Civil War military history about 34:08.799 --> 34:12.049 just whether Longstreet should have been listened to throughout 34:12.050 --> 34:14.470 '63. Longstreet's idea was to take 34:14.467 --> 34:17.767 at least two divisions, if not an entire corps of 34:17.773 --> 34:19.973 infantry, as many as possible--20,000 34:19.967 --> 34:22.957 men--and move them out West, because Longstreet worried that 34:22.955 --> 34:24.875 the war was being lost in the West. 34:24.880 --> 34:25.820 And you know what? 34:25.820 --> 34:27.300 He was right on that. 34:27.300 --> 34:30.260 But Lee said no. And always in Civil War 34:30.257 --> 34:33.347 scholarship there's been this question, did Lee ultimately 34:33.347 --> 34:36.327 lose the war because of his obsession with Virginia, 34:36.329 --> 34:38.739 his home state, his homeland, 34:38.737 --> 34:43.377 in not allowing Confederate troops to be moved West? 34:43.380 --> 34:45.550 Well they weren't moved West, not at this point in time. 34:45.550 --> 34:49.890 All over the war now, even though Lee had won this 34:49.887 --> 34:52.807 major victory at Chancellorsville, 34:52.807 --> 34:58.027 the Confederacy was potentially hemmed in, potentially. 34:58.030 --> 35:02.660 So Lee's response to this was daring, and had he won at 35:02.659 --> 35:07.289 Gettysburg decisively we wouldn't be--well I don't what 35:07.289 --> 35:10.699 we'd be debating; I'm not sure I want to know 35:10.699 --> 35:12.069 what we'd be debating. 35:12.070 --> 35:14.930 But Lee did decide to go West, up over into the Upper 35:14.932 --> 35:17.902 Shenandoah Valley and invade this time all the way into 35:17.904 --> 35:23.774 Pennsylvania, which he did in June, 1863. 35:23.769 --> 35:29.539 Lincoln's Commander of the Army of the Potomac, 35:29.536 --> 35:36.176 now seriously defeated, was a general named Hooker. 35:36.179 --> 35:40.239 Hooker resigned on the 28^(th) of June 1863 and was replaced by 35:40.240 --> 35:42.730 a general named George Gordon Meade, 35:42.730 --> 35:48.560 only three days before what would become the greatest battle 35:48.556 --> 35:55.036 of the war. What Gettysburg became was in 35:55.044 --> 36:05.274 some ways an attempt by the Union armies----it's an effort 36:05.272 --> 36:10.952 by the Union armies, blue here, of course, 36:10.954 --> 36:14.664 to catch up with Lee's army as they invaded up into 36:14.655 --> 36:18.195 Pennsylvania, and to stay between Lee's army 36:18.197 --> 36:19.687 and Washington DC. 36:19.690 --> 36:24.630 It's in some ways a replay of what had happened just the year 36:24.629 --> 36:27.019 before. Now, they actually ended up 36:27.017 --> 36:30.737 meeting at this little town of Gettysburg almost by mistake; 36:30.740 --> 36:32.050 they hadn't planned that. 36:32.050 --> 36:34.940 Lee wanted to move all of his troops into Central 36:34.937 --> 36:37.687 Pennsylvania. The whole idea here was to live 36:37.692 --> 36:40.802 off the land and the rich farmland of Pennsylvania, 36:40.800 --> 36:45.230 to take the war out of ravaged Central Virginia, 36:45.225 --> 36:48.705 relieve Richmond, and Lee believed, 36:48.710 --> 36:53.660 tap into the war weariness of the North and possibly even 36:53.664 --> 36:56.854 reinvigorate British intervention. 36:56.849 --> 37:00.349 There wasn't a lot of likelihood at that point, 37:00.346 --> 37:05.206 but he hoped at any rate that there might be some possibility. 37:05.210 --> 37:09.870 It was a great calculated risk. 37:09.870 --> 37:12.650 Had it worked, who knows? 37:12.650 --> 37:16.040 It did not. They collided near Gettysburg 37:16.042 --> 37:20.062 because a group of Confederate infantry were marching toward 37:20.055 --> 37:23.995 the town from the West on July 1,1863, because they'd heard 37:24.001 --> 37:26.451 there were shoes in Gettysburg. 37:26.449 --> 37:30.249 And they were confiscating, by the way, everything--cattle, 37:30.250 --> 37:33.850 hogs, food, everything they could take from Pennsylvania 37:33.854 --> 37:36.704 farms. And rather than tapping into 37:36.698 --> 37:40.998 war weariness in the North, what Lee accomplished was to 37:40.997 --> 37:43.887 stimulate resistance in the North. 37:43.889 --> 37:47.949 Nothing like an army invading your land and stealing your 37:47.952 --> 37:51.002 animals to cause you some consternation. 37:51.000 --> 37:56.050 Lee's army also took scores of free blacks, living in southern 37:56.048 --> 38:00.598 and central Pennsylvania, and shuttled them quickly back 38:00.599 --> 38:02.999 into the South as slaves. 38:03.000 --> 38:08.420 And when this got into the press it also had an effect on 38:08.418 --> 38:11.118 Northern morale. The first day at 38:11.116 --> 38:14.756 Gettysburg--and I can't go into the kind of detail I'd love to 38:14.761 --> 38:16.641 here, and I know some of you would 38:16.638 --> 38:19.628 like me to, although I'm going to invite those of you who are 38:19.633 --> 38:22.333 military history enthusiasts to an evening session, 38:22.329 --> 38:24.689 perhaps next week, perhaps the week after, 38:24.692 --> 38:26.712 on a Wednesday, if anybody wants, 38:26.710 --> 38:29.720 where we can go into more detail on this and you can open 38:29.717 --> 38:32.937 your veins and get a really good shot of military history, 38:32.940 --> 38:34.660 if you'd like. [Laughter] 38:34.655 --> 38:38.645 And if you OD, that's your fault. 38:38.650 --> 38:42.630 The first day at Gettysburg was a Confederate victory, 38:42.631 --> 38:44.511 almost a complete rout. 38:44.510 --> 38:47.540 It's actually nighttime that stopped it. 38:47.539 --> 38:50.779 The second day at Gettysburg, if you look at this map over 38:50.775 --> 38:54.115 here, you'll note that the Union battle line--the Union Army 38:54.123 --> 38:57.123 barely got there in time, by the second day, 38:57.118 --> 38:59.438 to actually oppose Lee's Army. 38:59.440 --> 39:00.950 They had marched all day. 39:00.949 --> 39:04.539 Some of these Union troops had marched 30 miles in a day just 39:04.541 --> 39:07.331 to get there. But the second day at 39:07.325 --> 39:10.915 Gettysburg were attacks, massive attacks, 39:10.916 --> 39:14.946 on the two ends of the line, the left flank and the right 39:14.945 --> 39:17.215 flank of the Union armies, which were both very high 39:17.215 --> 39:19.265 ground. How many of you have been to 39:19.269 --> 39:22.169 Gettysburg? You know Little Round Top and 39:22.168 --> 39:24.528 Culp's Hill then--large hills. 39:24.530 --> 39:29.270 Huge battles were fought on those hills on July 2,1862, 39:29.269 --> 39:33.659 with huge numbers of casualties, especially for the 39:33.657 --> 39:37.087 Confederates. By the third day, 39:37.086 --> 39:42.096 Longstreet urged vehemently that Lee retreat, 39:42.099 --> 39:45.919 a strategic retreat, and move south, 39:45.917 --> 39:50.547 southward, and then toward Washington and threaten the U.S. 39:50.548 --> 39:55.098 capital, but to choose other ground to fight on because of 39:55.099 --> 40:00.289 the way these hills and ridges were set up in front of them. 40:00.289 --> 40:06.559 Longstreet counseled a kind of strategic defensive move. 40:06.559 --> 40:09.209 They are on enemy's land, enemy territory. 40:09.210 --> 40:14.980 Every day is a total risk here, and they've got a real problem 40:14.976 --> 40:17.336 with their supply line. 40:17.340 --> 40:19.750 But Lee said no, his blood was up, 40:19.745 --> 40:22.945 and there's evidence all over the dispatches, 40:22.951 --> 40:26.451 Lee wanted to win there, he wanted to fight. 40:26.449 --> 40:31.109 And I'll come back to this question next week about Lee's 40:31.111 --> 40:36.271 own psyche for war and what they said happened to his eyes when 40:36.272 --> 40:38.522 it was time for battle. 40:38.519 --> 40:42.119 So, on the third day at Gettysburg he ordered a 40:42.122 --> 40:46.902 concentration at the center and it became the largest military 40:46.898 --> 40:50.158 assault of the war, the largest infantry assault of 40:50.162 --> 40:52.952 the Civil War. It's known as Pickett's Charge 40:52.946 --> 40:56.956 because it's named for one of the three Division Commanders 40:56.960 --> 40:59.930 who led it, George Pickett--who hid behind 40:59.929 --> 41:03.929 a barn through the whole damn thing, by the way--while two of 41:03.927 --> 41:06.457 his brigade commanders were killed, 41:06.460 --> 41:10.560 and all of the thirteen colonels in his brigade were 41:10.561 --> 41:12.171 killed or wounded. 41:12.170 --> 41:15.180 So Pickett's Charge, the charge of 13,000 men, 41:15.183 --> 41:17.933 for one hour, across a wide open field, 41:17.929 --> 41:21.999 slightly rising toward a ridge, lasted about one hour, 41:22.001 --> 41:26.691 and almost exactly one-half of those 13,000 men were killed or 41:26.687 --> 41:31.447 wounded and never got back to the ridge they started from. 41:31.449 --> 41:34.609 It was Lee's greatest mistake in the Civil War. 41:34.610 --> 41:37.210 He knew it. He rode out in the middle of 41:37.207 --> 41:40.707 this field when the thing was over, as the men were straggling 41:40.710 --> 41:42.100 back, those who survived, 41:42.096 --> 41:45.066 and he kept going up to them and saying, "It's all my fault, 41:45.070 --> 41:47.690 it's all my fault, it's all my fault. 41:47.690 --> 41:51.400 Please help me." He even offered his resignation 41:51.399 --> 41:54.919 to Jefferson Davis a couple of weeks later, but of course Davis 41:54.917 --> 41:56.447 wasn't going to take it. 41:56.449 --> 42:02.389 The great significance of Gettysburg is many things, 42:02.388 --> 42:04.948 it's several things. 42:04.949 --> 42:08.929 It's the greatest battle of the war in terms of its sheer scale. 42:08.930 --> 42:13.230 Casualties were ghastly; 28,000 casualties in three 42:13.230 --> 42:16.310 days--that's dead, wounded and missing--on the 42:16.310 --> 42:17.680 Confederate side. 42:17.679 --> 42:20.979 One-third of all the men engaged were dead or wounded at 42:20.980 --> 42:24.190 the end of it. On the Union side there were 42:24.191 --> 42:29.621 23,000 casualties; that's one of every four. 42:29.619 --> 42:32.169 My guy, Charlie Brewster, whose letters I edited, 42:32.171 --> 42:33.821 was actually held in reserve. 42:33.820 --> 42:35.660 They didn't even get there in time. 42:35.659 --> 42:40.419 The 10^(th) Mass was brought out to be burial crews, 42:40.422 --> 42:45.472 and his letters about the fields at Gettysburg are just 42:45.465 --> 42:48.355 quite--almost unbelievable. 42:48.360 --> 42:53.480 There's a particularly poignant letter where he--they always 42:53.478 --> 42:58.418 rifled the pockets of the dead--he rifles the pockets of a 42:58.424 --> 43:03.634 dead Confederate soldier and in his pockets is a letter, 43:03.630 --> 43:05.580 a love letter home. 43:05.579 --> 43:09.059 And he reads that letter and he quotes from it, 43:09.063 --> 43:12.703 to his own mother, and then he buries the guy and 43:12.699 --> 43:14.289 saved the letter. 43:14.289 --> 43:18.309 And this was his job for about three days in a rainstorm, 43:18.312 --> 43:20.972 burying Union and Confederate dead. 43:20.969 --> 43:25.259 It is the carnage at Gettysburg, the vast number of 43:25.260 --> 43:28.950 dead, 56-odd-thousand casualties overall, 43:28.949 --> 43:31.789 that forced the United States Government to create to the 43:31.787 --> 43:34.977 first national cemetery which would be created at Gettysburg, 43:34.980 --> 43:38.660 and that's, of course, why Lincoln went there the next 43:38.660 --> 43:41.300 fall to give the Gettysburg Address. 43:41.300 --> 43:45.360 Now, but strategically it's hugely important. 43:45.360 --> 43:48.180 Lee had to retreat as fast as he could. 43:48.179 --> 43:51.509 The great problem now for the next week was whether Meade, 43:51.513 --> 43:55.083 the Union Commander, would follow this up and push 43:55.084 --> 43:59.184 like hell, in spite of how badly hurt his army was. 43:59.179 --> 44:01.679 And Lincoln was sending dispatch after dispatch to 44:01.683 --> 44:03.623 Meade, "Please move, you've got them in 44:03.624 --> 44:05.774 your"--Lincoln was saying things like, 44:05.770 --> 44:06.980 "You've got them in your grip. 44:06.980 --> 44:08.720 Destroy them. The war will be over, 44:08.723 --> 44:10.133 the war will be over." 44:10.130 --> 44:17.790 And Meade didn't move for three days, and Lee's Army escaped on 44:17.789 --> 44:23.759 the 13^(th) and 14^(th) of July, on a pontoon bridge they 44:23.761 --> 44:27.971 hastily managed to build; what was left of Lee's Army 44:27.967 --> 44:32.367 managed to get across the Potomac River and back into 44:32.372 --> 44:34.662 Virginia to fight again. 44:34.659 --> 44:39.929 Gettysburg's a major Union victory, but it could've been 44:39.928 --> 44:43.588 even bigger. Out West--and terribly 44:43.589 --> 44:50.129 important, you could argue even more important--were the sieges 44:50.127 --> 44:54.237 and the capture of two major places, 44:54.239 --> 44:58.449 I guess you'd call them fortresses or ports, 44:58.454 --> 45:04.044 along the Mississippi River, Vicksburg and Port Hudson. 45:04.039 --> 45:07.089 Vicksburg was laid under siege--Vicksburg had been 45:07.088 --> 45:10.568 brought under siege for months by a Union Army Commander, 45:10.573 --> 45:11.883 by Ulysses Grant. 45:11.880 --> 45:16.130 They had even at one point tried to alter the course of the 45:16.133 --> 45:19.283 Mississippi River, with the biggest military 45:19.280 --> 45:22.440 engineering scheme the world had ever hatched. 45:22.440 --> 45:24.660 And it didn't really work. 45:24.659 --> 45:27.219 That's a big river -- don't mess with it. 45:27.219 --> 45:30.989 But finally Grant was able to put Vicksburg, 45:30.987 --> 45:34.227 in the spring of 1863, under siege, 45:34.230 --> 45:38.450 mostly from the east, and it was especially under 45:38.447 --> 45:44.067 complete lockdown siege from May 22 to the first week of July, 45:44.070 --> 45:48.020 in which time the civilian population of Vicksburg that was 45:48.015 --> 45:51.615 left, and a roughly 30,000 garrison of the Confederate 45:51.621 --> 45:53.391 Army, began to starve. 45:53.389 --> 45:56.609 The civilians were living in caves because much of their 45:56.610 --> 45:59.480 housing was destroyed by artillery bombardment. 45:59.480 --> 46:03.990 On June 28 the Confederate Commander John Pemberton 46:03.990 --> 46:07.780 received a petition from his own troops, 46:07.780 --> 46:11.220 signed by lots of them, which said in part, 46:11.219 --> 46:15.969 quote, "If you cannot feed us you had better surrender." 46:15.969 --> 46:20.369 And so Pemberton sued for--he didn't sue--he asked for 46:20.374 --> 46:24.354 surrender terms. He met with Grant on the 3^(rd) 46:24.347 --> 46:29.297 of July, the same afternoon as Pickett's Charge is happening in 46:29.301 --> 46:33.621 the East--they don't know it--and Pemberton surrendered 46:33.616 --> 46:37.446 30,000 Confederate troops in the blink of an eye, 46:37.452 --> 46:39.692 on July 4^(th), 1863. 46:39.690 --> 46:43.590 Central Mississippi would within weeks be abandoned by 46:43.588 --> 46:47.628 Confederate forces and the whole of central and northern 46:47.633 --> 46:51.093 Mississippi would come under Union control. 46:51.090 --> 46:53.140 And that is, by the way folks, 46:53.141 --> 46:56.961 the most densely populated slave region anywhere in the 46:56.962 --> 46:59.882 South, and it is the escape of slaves 46:59.875 --> 47:04.355 now, by the hundreds and then thousands, into Grant's lines, 47:04.360 --> 47:08.030 that forced his hand in the creation of numerous contraband 47:08.030 --> 47:11.320 camps all over northern Mississippi and Tennessee and 47:11.321 --> 47:13.221 even down the Mississippi. 47:13.219 --> 47:16.449 A few days later, on July 8, at Port Hudson, 47:16.448 --> 47:19.978 down the Mississippi, just north of Baton Rouge, 47:19.977 --> 47:22.227 a second fort surrendered. 47:22.230 --> 47:25.830 It too had been under siege since May. 47:25.829 --> 47:28.969 And when Port Hudson surrendered, the Mississippi 47:28.972 --> 47:32.902 River now was completely in Union hands and Union control. 47:32.900 --> 47:36.900 On the 16^(th) of July a merchant steamboat tied up in 47:36.904 --> 47:40.614 New Orleans, having successfully traveled from St. 47:40.606 --> 47:44.456 Louis all the way down the river, unharassed at all, 47:44.459 --> 47:48.239 by Confederate guns, and Lincoln famously wrote his 47:48.236 --> 47:51.406 memo or telegraph to Grant saying, 47:51.409 --> 47:57.139 "Now the father of waters again goes unvexed to the sea." 47:57.139 --> 48:00.659 It's terribly important because if you just look at a map you 48:00.659 --> 48:04.409 realize now, that by controlling the entire Mississippi River and 48:04.413 --> 48:08.483 the region around it, you not only are sowing havoc 48:08.484 --> 48:11.814 into Southern society, freeing slaves, 48:11.806 --> 48:16.436 confiscating land and property, controlling the South's 48:16.444 --> 48:19.754 greatest seaports, but you've cut the Confederacy 48:19.752 --> 48:22.352 in half. And one of the Confederacy's 48:22.354 --> 48:24.994 largest supply lines was through Texas. 48:24.989 --> 48:28.119 They were actually being supported, to this point in 48:28.119 --> 48:30.389 time, by the French through Mexico; 48:30.389 --> 48:33.849 well, that was a supply line that never worked terribly well. 48:33.849 --> 48:37.159 Now, the clock is running out on me. 48:37.159 --> 48:40.679 That's okay because what happens at Chattanooga doesn't 48:40.682 --> 48:44.602 happen--that's the end of 1863, which is a nice place to pick 48:44.595 --> 48:47.075 it up next time. But let me leave you with this. 48:47.080 --> 48:55.960 48:55.960 --> 48:59.000 Across the South this was horrible news, 48:59.000 --> 49:02.820 and especially when Chattanooga's going to fall in 49:02.821 --> 49:05.551 the fall, it's even worse news. 49:05.550 --> 49:09.480 And these kinds of expressions now came from Southern leaders 49:09.481 --> 49:12.431 and privates in the Army and women at home. 49:12.429 --> 49:16.089 And here comes your loss of morale thesis. 49:16.090 --> 49:20.500 On July 28^(th), after the fall of Port Hudson 49:20.496 --> 49:25.496 and Vicksburg and the debacle, the disaster at Gettysburg, 49:25.499 --> 49:27.849 the Confederate Chief-of-Ordinance, 49:27.853 --> 49:31.483 Josiah Gorgas, wrote into his diary. 49:31.480 --> 49:35.900 Quote: "Events have succeeded one another with disastrous 49:35.901 --> 49:38.671 rapidity. One brief month ago we were 49:38.668 --> 49:41.198 apparently at the point of success. 49:41.199 --> 49:44.829 Lee was in Pennsylvania threatening Harrisburg and even 49:44.831 --> 49:47.851 Philadelphia. Vicksburg seemed to laugh at 49:47.850 --> 49:50.220 all of Grant's efforts to scorn. 49:50.219 --> 49:54.469 Now the picture is just as somber as it was bright then. 49:54.469 --> 49:59.049 It seems incredible that human power could effect such a change 49:59.046 --> 50:00.666 in so brief a space. 50:00.670 --> 50:04.160 Yesterday we rode on the pinnacle of success. 50:04.159 --> 50:07.649 Today absolute ruin seems to be our portion. 50:07.650 --> 50:12.610 The Confederacy totters to its destruction." 50:12.610 --> 50:15.120 The war isn't over. 50:15.119 --> 50:19.819 And I'll argue next week the Confederacy still could have won 50:19.823 --> 50:22.413 its version of victory in 1864. 50:22.409 --> 50:31.009 But those battlefield successes of '63 were handwriting on the 50:31.012 --> 50:32.002 wall.