WEBVTT 00:02.720 --> 00:06.920 Professor David Blight: It used to be said that in 00:06.915 --> 00:10.955 the old wars fought by the Irish clans that they had an 00:10.961 --> 00:13.821 agreement. I don't know if this is true, 00:13.821 --> 00:16.821 but I love the idea, that no matter how much they 00:16.820 --> 00:20.010 slaughter themselves with broadswords and knives and 00:20.006 --> 00:22.376 whatever else those maniacs used, 00:22.380 --> 00:27.060 that they should always spare the poets. 00:27.060 --> 00:29.410 Don't kill the poets, because the poets had to be 00:29.407 --> 00:30.627 left to tell the story. 00:30.630 --> 00:34.210 00:34.210 --> 00:40.270 Most great poets don't go to war, they write. 00:40.270 --> 00:44.040 This week you're reading a great poet, E.L. 00:44.040 --> 00:48.260 Doctorow, a poet in prose, a poet in fiction. 00:48.260 --> 00:53.320 Doctorow, as some of you must know, is a famous American 00:53.324 --> 00:56.644 writer for his historical fiction. 00:56.640 --> 01:01.110 Much of his fiction is often very historical and you'll find, 01:01.108 --> 01:03.788 if anyone takes the time some day, 01:03.789 --> 01:08.329 that large chunks of the monologue you hear from William 01:08.329 --> 01:13.199 Tecumseh Sherman in this novel is directly out of his famous 01:13.199 --> 01:16.589 memoirs, and then every now and then 01:16.593 --> 01:20.513 Doctorow will embellish or add a few lines. 01:20.510 --> 01:24.580 Most of the people in this book were real people, 01:24.577 --> 01:27.117 but there are some invented. 01:27.120 --> 01:29.260 In some ways, possibly the most brilliant 01:29.256 --> 01:31.976 inventions in this book are the slave characters, 01:31.980 --> 01:38.040 or the freedman characters, and what Doctorow does with 01:38.036 --> 01:44.086 them through this sort of anguished crucible of all out 01:44.092 --> 01:47.112 war. Look especially for those 01:47.114 --> 01:51.364 journeys into Sherman's own mind, Sherman's psyche, 01:51.364 --> 01:55.024 those meditations of Sherman's on death. 01:55.019 --> 01:59.969 Page 88 and 89 to be exact is, I think, an unforgettable 01:59.966 --> 02:05.086 mediation by Sherman on the meaning of death and just what 02:05.092 --> 02:09.322 it means and why he in some ways enjoys it. 02:09.320 --> 02:13.940 02:13.939 --> 02:17.629 Herman Melville wrote a whole bunch of poems during the Civil 02:17.630 --> 02:21.120 War. He was one of the poets spared. 02:21.120 --> 02:23.740 He wasn't very famous yet, as you know, 02:23.736 --> 02:28.216 for Moby Dick; that was to come later. 02:28.220 --> 02:30.630 Maybe our greatest writer of the nineteenth century; 02:30.629 --> 02:35.719 also wrote a lot of poetry, and he wrote almost all of his 02:35.723 --> 02:39.923 poetry during the Civil War, as did, by the way, 02:39.922 --> 02:43.402 Emily Dickinson. Don't know if any of you are 02:43.396 --> 02:46.046 Emily Dickinson fans, but Emily, the Belle of 02:46.047 --> 02:48.897 Amherst, wrote between 900 and 1000 02:48.897 --> 02:53.017 poems in her life, and fully two-thirds of them in 02:53.020 --> 02:55.460 the four years of the war. 02:55.460 --> 02:59.450 She became obsessed with the idea of the war, 02:59.447 --> 03:04.787 and if you read her closely enough it's all over her wartime 03:04.793 --> 03:08.663 poetry. She became obsessed with death. 03:08.659 --> 03:12.219 Our greatest death poet was, of course, Whitman; 03:12.220 --> 03:15.850 more from him later. 03:15.849 --> 03:20.659 But one little piece by Melville, because it's about 03:20.663 --> 03:21.233 you. 03:21.230 --> 03:24.560 03:24.560 --> 03:28.070 This was Melville's meditation in poetry on the death of 03:28.067 --> 03:29.977 college students in the war. 03:29.979 --> 03:33.849 It's called "On the Slain Collegians." 03:33.849 --> 03:37.329 It's timeless, it could be about any war, 03:37.330 --> 03:42.120 although collegians don't go to war anymore very much in 03:42.115 --> 03:45.265 America. "Youth is the time when hearts 03:45.269 --> 03:48.999 are large and stirring wars appeal to the spirit which 03:48.996 --> 03:51.876 appeals in turn to the blade it draws. 03:51.879 --> 03:56.319 If woman in sight and duties show, though made the mask of 03:56.316 --> 04:00.156 Cane, or whether it be truth, sacred cause, 04:00.158 --> 04:05.208 who can aloof remain that shares youth's ardor, 04:05.214 --> 04:10.604 uncooled by the snow of wisdom or sordid gain? 04:10.599 --> 04:14.459 Woe for the homes of the North and woe for the seats of the 04:14.460 --> 04:18.520 South, all who felt life spring in prime and were swept by the 04:18.520 --> 04:20.650 wind of their place in time. 04:20.649 --> 04:26.169 Oh lavish hearts on whichever side of birth or bane or courage 04:26.173 --> 04:31.433 high, arm them for the stirring wars, arm them some to die, 04:31.426 --> 04:33.686 Apollo-like in pride. 04:33.690 --> 04:39.750 Each slay his python caught, the maxims in his temple 04:39.750 --> 04:43.040 taught. The anguish of maternal hearts 04:43.042 --> 04:45.212 must search for balm divine. 04:45.209 --> 04:49.159 But well the striplings bore their faded parts, 04:49.156 --> 04:52.156 the heaven all parts must assign. 04:52.160 --> 04:57.010 Never felt life's care or cloy. 04:57.009 --> 05:01.759 Each bloomed and died an abated boy, nor dreamed what death was, 05:01.760 --> 05:05.530 thought it mere sliding into some vernal sphere. 05:05.529 --> 05:08.829 They knew the joy but leaped the grief. 05:08.829 --> 05:13.959 Like plants that flower 'ere comes the leaf which storms lay 05:13.962 --> 05:19.532 low in kindly doom and kill them in the flush of their bloom." 05:19.530 --> 05:24.000 05:24.000 --> 05:27.370 The casualties in the Union Army alone, the Army of the 05:27.371 --> 05:31.341 Potomac, Grant's army, from the first of May through 05:31.344 --> 05:35.104 the end of July 1864, in this horrible war of 05:35.097 --> 05:39.787 attrition and the stalemate it produced in Virginia, 05:39.790 --> 05:44.820 the casualties in that one army in about two to two-and-a-half 05:44.820 --> 05:46.800 months was 66,000 men. 05:46.800 --> 05:51.080 It is the largest loss of life in the shortest period of time 05:51.079 --> 05:53.789 in all of American military history. 05:53.790 --> 05:58.190 How did it get to that? 05:58.190 --> 06:02.570 Why did the war go on, and on and on? 06:02.569 --> 06:08.769 Well let's begin with Grant and Lee, these two great warriors 06:08.769 --> 06:12.949 around whose names, symbols, actions, 06:12.946 --> 06:19.556 decisions a good deal of the war would hinge in the final 06:19.555 --> 06:22.665 year. Grant, from his successes in 06:22.670 --> 06:27.320 the West--fall of Vicksburg, siege and fall of Chattanooga, 06:27.319 --> 06:31.039 the victory at Chickamauga--came East, 06:31.040 --> 06:36.470 appointed by Abraham Lincoln as General of the Army. 06:36.470 --> 06:43.080 Congress actually revived a special rank that it hadn't used 06:43.075 --> 06:46.875 in years called Lieutenant-General, 06:46.882 --> 06:51.732 just for Grant. He came East and was appointed 06:51.726 --> 06:55.976 head of all Union Armies, on any front anywhere, 06:55.982 --> 06:58.882 in March of 1864, winter '64. 06:58.880 --> 07:03.010 07:03.009 --> 07:04.659 He was wined and dined at the White House and wined and dined 07:04.664 --> 07:07.824 in Congress. They had to keep telling him to 07:07.817 --> 07:10.047 put on a decent uniform. 07:10.050 --> 07:13.300 There's a lot of truth to this idea of Grant the kind of humble 07:13.296 --> 07:15.496 plebian. He had after all been doing 07:15.499 --> 07:18.489 nothing but work in his brother's leather shop in 07:18.485 --> 07:21.155 Galena, Illinois when the war broke out. 07:21.160 --> 07:25.270 But, boy, did he have a nose for war. 07:25.270 --> 07:28.630 He was a great horseman. 07:28.629 --> 07:33.559 They said he could canter like nobody else and gallop like 07:33.564 --> 07:36.944 nobody else, and he loved his horses. 07:36.940 --> 07:39.810 Been to West Point. 07:39.810 --> 07:42.990 About the only thing he really got good grades in at West Point 07:42.992 --> 07:44.432 were painting and drawing. 07:44.430 --> 07:50.050 He nearly failed some of the military science courses. 07:50.050 --> 07:54.370 Some of his biographers have actually made a big deal out of 07:54.367 --> 07:58.167 that, that because he hadn't studied hard in Jomini's 07:58.171 --> 08:00.901 Manuals, those manuals of combat tactics 08:00.900 --> 08:03.470 and strategy, that he was therefore freer to 08:03.468 --> 08:05.138 simply invent as he went. 08:05.140 --> 08:10.870 I don't know. This war made Grant at the same 08:10.871 --> 08:12.201 time he made the war. 08:12.199 --> 08:15.209 He may have been, as many of his--and by the way 08:15.208 --> 08:18.988 there's been an industry of Grant biographies in the past 10 08:18.985 --> 08:21.775 to 15 years; he's been rediscovered after a 08:21.780 --> 08:25.500 long period in our history when he just vanished and the country 08:25.498 --> 08:28.168 forgot that "oh, by the way, the Union won the 08:28.174 --> 08:30.054 war and there was that guy Grant." 08:30.050 --> 08:34.180 08:34.179 --> 08:37.619 There are far, far, far more monuments to 08:37.622 --> 08:40.892 Robert E. Lee on the American landscape 08:40.892 --> 08:43.992 than there are to Ulysses Grant. 08:43.990 --> 08:47.890 I'll try to explain that at the end of the course. 08:47.889 --> 08:53.199 His casualty rates in this last year of the war were ghastly and 08:53.200 --> 08:57.840 horrible, and it nearly led to a sufficient level of war 08:57.837 --> 09:02.977 weariness across the North and disgust and just an overwhelmed 09:02.979 --> 09:07.619 kind of spirit that it was entirely possible by July and 09:07.615 --> 09:11.435 August of '64, if certain events hadn't 09:11.437 --> 09:15.037 quickly followed, that the North collectively 09:15.044 --> 09:18.984 would've given up the war and sued for peace. 09:18.980 --> 09:23.200 But Grant developed essentially a strategy of victory, 09:23.199 --> 09:25.189 and here's what it was. 09:25.190 --> 09:29.500 He did it in conjunction with William Tecumseh Sherman, 09:29.504 --> 09:32.944 Philip Sheridan, the previous General of the 09:32.940 --> 09:34.810 Army, Henry Halleck, 09:34.806 --> 09:38.156 and most importantly with Lincoln himself, 09:38.164 --> 09:41.444 and that strategy was basically this. 09:41.440 --> 09:44.800 It was first to determine that Richmond, the capital of the 09:44.798 --> 09:48.098 Confederacy, was not to be the objective of the war in the 09:48.098 --> 09:51.788 East; taking an enemy's capital not 09:51.790 --> 09:55.690 that important. Secondly, Grant grasped, 09:55.689 --> 09:59.809 as did Sherman, the political character of this 09:59.809 --> 10:04.739 war, that this was now a war to be won or lost in public 10:04.735 --> 10:08.255 opinion. Because it had become all-out, 10:08.264 --> 10:12.524 because it was now a war upon people, upon resources, 10:12.519 --> 10:19.559 it depended deeply upon morale and the will of either side to 10:19.557 --> 10:22.487 somehow see it through. 10:22.490 --> 10:25.280 Third, Grant, and Sherman especially, 10:25.279 --> 10:30.239 determined that this would now be a war on Southern resources. 10:30.240 --> 10:33.760 The destruction of slavery, of course, becomes a major part 10:33.762 --> 10:36.482 of that. And one of the great ironies of 10:36.482 --> 10:39.622 the war is that Sherman never, ever, for a day, 10:39.617 --> 10:41.387 wanted to free a slave. 10:41.389 --> 10:46.359 As he told his officers, "ain't gonna be no niggers in 10:46.364 --> 10:48.434 Uncle Billy's army." 10:48.430 --> 10:51.210 Sorry, that's what he said. 10:51.210 --> 10:53.510 He wasn't into having black soldiers; 10:53.509 --> 10:56.859 in fact there were no black soldiers who actually served in 10:56.855 --> 10:58.465 Sherman's army in Georgia. 10:58.470 --> 11:02.400 There will be thousands upon thousands of freedman following 11:02.400 --> 11:06.530 his army, and it will force him to a situation of a recognition 11:06.531 --> 11:10.771 that will it or not, he's crushing the spirit of the 11:10.773 --> 11:15.383 South to destroy slavery, and ultimately kind of admits 11:15.378 --> 11:17.458 it. Look for that in Doctorow. 11:17.460 --> 11:21.010 11:21.009 --> 11:25.249 In the East the object of the war now was to be Lee's army, 11:25.252 --> 11:29.122 to fight Lee's army anywhere, on ground especially, 11:29.120 --> 11:33.770 that the Northern troops could somehow choose to try to spring 11:33.767 --> 11:38.717 Lee out of his trench works, that he would build everywhere 11:38.721 --> 11:42.351 they would stop, and to simply kill as many 11:42.349 --> 11:47.099 Confederates as possible to force the South to quit. 11:47.100 --> 11:52.980 It was to be a war on an army, not for a strategic capital. 11:52.980 --> 11:56.650 Now strategic crossroads and rivers and so on would be 11:56.648 --> 12:00.528 important, but the object now was to destroy the fighting 12:00.525 --> 12:03.635 force of the South and its fighting will. 12:03.639 --> 12:08.309 And in the Western part of the war--and there were actually 12:08.309 --> 12:13.139 five major armies now that Grant was to try to coordinate; 12:13.139 --> 12:18.259 an army under Nathaniel Banks out in the far west that Lincoln 12:18.264 --> 12:23.224 wanted to go into Texas with, and they never really got into 12:23.220 --> 12:27.240 Texas. What Grant wanted 12:27.236 --> 12:37.326 eventually--excuse me one second--what Grant wanted was 12:37.327 --> 12:48.537 the army under Nathaniel Banks in Louisiana to move east, 12:48.539 --> 12:51.129 to take Mobile, the last remaining great 12:51.128 --> 12:54.978 southern port and then come smashing right through the Deep 12:54.977 --> 12:57.497 South across Alabama into Georgia, 12:57.500 --> 12:59.710 as Sherman's army, as we'll see in a minute, 12:59.707 --> 13:02.637 was invading northern Georgia, toward Atlanta, 13:02.639 --> 13:07.459 and sort of just invade the whole middle heartland of the 13:07.456 --> 13:10.806 South until the South would give up. 13:10.809 --> 13:13.939 And in Virginia, Grant took battlefield command. 13:13.940 --> 13:17.480 He didn't have to, he could've stayed at his desk 13:17.476 --> 13:20.716 in Washington, but it was quite decidedly not 13:20.718 --> 13:24.188 his style; he went into the field as the 13:24.186 --> 13:27.376 Commander of the Army of the Potomac. 13:27.379 --> 13:29.949 Now, on the other side, in Robert E. 13:29.951 --> 13:34.361 Lee, the South had without a question--we've said this before 13:34.360 --> 13:38.620 and there's so much been written on this you can't count it 13:38.622 --> 13:42.152 all--the South had a great general in Lee, 13:42.150 --> 13:44.330 a daring general. 13:44.330 --> 13:47.350 In spite of his tremendous defeat at Gettysburg, 13:47.349 --> 13:50.819 where he actually did tender his resignation that Davis 13:50.818 --> 13:53.258 didn't accept and couldn't accept, 13:53.260 --> 13:55.550 Lee was already a legend. 13:55.549 --> 13:58.359 His men saw him as almost God-like. 13:58.360 --> 14:02.360 He was beautiful, they said, he was gorgeous, 14:02.355 --> 14:06.825 he was handsome. No one ever looked quite like 14:06.827 --> 14:11.227 Lee in a uniform with that curly white hair. 14:11.230 --> 14:14.070 There's a brand new biography out that I recently reviewed by 14:14.066 --> 14:17.246 a woman named Elizabeth Pryor; it's just won the Abraham 14:17.254 --> 14:19.904 Lincoln Prize. There's another lovely irony, 14:19.904 --> 14:22.064 a book on Lee wins the Lincoln Prize; 14:22.060 --> 14:23.270 that's reconciliation. 14:23.270 --> 14:26.330 14:26.330 --> 14:30.780 [Laughter] It's called Reading the 14:30.775 --> 14:34.995 Man. Sounds like a title of a porn 14:35.000 --> 14:38.400 movie or something but--[Laughter] 14:38.402 --> 14:41.292 Sorry, scratch that Jude. 14:41.289 --> 14:43.759 [Laughter] But she did the book from Lee's 14:43.756 --> 14:45.016 voluminous letters. 14:45.019 --> 14:49.299 He was a tremendous letter writer, throughout his life. 14:49.299 --> 14:53.569 Lifetime officer, son of Light Horse Harry Lee of 14:53.565 --> 14:56.315 the American Revolution fame. 14:56.320 --> 14:58.650 His father had been a total scoundrel. 14:58.649 --> 15:02.979 He had a brother that was an even greater scoundrel. 15:02.980 --> 15:05.800 His brother, and probably his father, 15:05.799 --> 15:10.189 had fathered children by slave women, had abandoned their 15:10.185 --> 15:13.235 homes, their wives, their families. 15:13.240 --> 15:16.440 He came from a very, very difficult, 15:16.439 --> 15:21.009 sordid but aristocratic, famous Virginia family, 15:21.009 --> 15:23.559 and he went to West Point just like his daddy, 15:23.561 --> 15:26.341 and he became an officer in his early twenties. 15:26.340 --> 15:28.290 He spent his twenties, his thirties, 15:28.294 --> 15:31.034 and his forties spread all over the United States, 15:31.031 --> 15:32.541 largely as an engineer. 15:32.540 --> 15:35.190 He was a great engineer. 15:35.190 --> 15:38.120 He helped build the first bridge across the Mississippi. 15:38.120 --> 15:42.420 He helped redirect rivers in the lower Mississippi, 15:42.415 --> 15:45.925 and on and on. He spent probably two-thirds of 15:45.925 --> 15:49.225 his life, up until the Civil War, away from home, 15:49.231 --> 15:52.681 away from that mansion that sits today in Arlington 15:52.675 --> 15:56.495 Cemetery. Arlington House was Lee's home. 15:56.500 --> 16:00.160 He inherited it by marrying into it. 16:00.160 --> 16:05.380 He married a Custis; he married into the family of 16:05.376 --> 16:07.576 George Washington, the extended family of George 16:07.575 --> 16:09.335 Washington. And, of course, 16:09.339 --> 16:13.109 it is Lee's own home, Arlington, that before the war 16:13.111 --> 16:17.181 even ended the United States Government confiscated. 16:17.179 --> 16:23.049 Lee's wife, to say the least, never got over this. 16:23.049 --> 16:28.709 They confiscated Lee's home and converted it into the largest 16:28.708 --> 16:32.008 national cemetery in the country. 16:32.009 --> 16:34.949 If you ever go to Arlington, go to Arlington House, 16:34.949 --> 16:38.069 or at least remember that that was founded to bury the 16:38.065 --> 16:41.765 thousands and thousands of Union dead killed by Lee's army. 16:41.770 --> 16:45.040 16:45.039 --> 16:47.579 At any rate, he may have hated war in the 16:47.579 --> 16:51.329 abstract but his biographers have taken us into Lee's psyche 16:51.326 --> 16:52.846 in some useful ways. 16:52.850 --> 16:56.230 I won't cite all these many biographies but some of them 16:56.234 --> 16:59.504 have really shown us a complicated man of great daring 16:59.495 --> 17:01.705 and audacity and aggressiveness. 17:01.710 --> 17:04.150 He always wanted to be on the offensive. 17:04.150 --> 17:06.210 He hated being entrenched. 17:06.210 --> 17:12.660 He hated being on the defensive and he clearly saw war as an 17:12.656 --> 17:16.696 emotional or psychological release. 17:16.700 --> 17:21.460 "I think a little lead properly taken is good for a man," he 17:21.455 --> 17:24.115 said. That was in the Mexican War. 17:24.119 --> 17:28.009 He didn't say that during the Civil War. 17:28.009 --> 17:31.339 Surveying the field of slaughter at Fredericksburg in 17:31.343 --> 17:35.773 December of '62 he said, famously, "It is well that war 17:35.769 --> 17:40.829 is so terrible so that we do not grow too fond of it." 17:40.830 --> 17:45.300 He appeared to change in battle. 17:45.299 --> 17:51.009 His eyes would be like fire, people said. 17:51.009 --> 17:54.509 An English journalist observer in the Battle of the Wilderness, 17:54.508 --> 17:57.668 a horrible battle fought in dense woods, observed this of 17:57.668 --> 18:00.158 Lee. "No man who at the terrible 18:00.160 --> 18:04.920 moment saw his flashing eyes and sternly set lips is ever likely 18:04.920 --> 18:07.940 to forget them, the light of battle still 18:07.944 --> 18:09.414 flaming in his eyes." 18:09.410 --> 18:13.270 And there are lots of people who said that about him. 18:13.269 --> 18:17.489 The debate about Lee is essentially, among historians at 18:17.486 --> 18:22.006 least, is essentially whether he bled the South to death, 18:22.009 --> 18:23.949 so to speak, with his aggressiveness, 18:23.953 --> 18:27.303 his two major invasions of the North and the cost that meant to 18:27.300 --> 18:30.250 the Confederacy, or whether he was the true 18:30.247 --> 18:34.267 military genius of American history and only through that 18:34.269 --> 18:38.149 offensive daring did the Confederacy survive as long as 18:38.148 --> 18:41.068 it did. Or, only through his devotion 18:41.070 --> 18:45.480 and his maneuverability of huge numbers of men across difficult 18:45.475 --> 18:49.375 landscapes did the Confederacy survive as long as it did 18:49.382 --> 18:53.292 through 1864 in his struggle against Grant's Army, 18:53.289 --> 19:00.639 which outnumbered him at times two to one, in 1864 and 1865. 19:00.640 --> 19:05.550 But he hated being on the defensive now in 1864. 19:05.549 --> 19:07.929 "I will strike that man a blow in the morning, 19:07.930 --> 19:10.470 I will strike that man a blow in the morning," 19:10.470 --> 19:16.910 he would say sometimes at night in his camp, even if he wasn't 19:16.908 --> 19:19.018 planning to do it. 19:19.019 --> 19:23.819 Now, the Campaign of 1864, the pivotal--in so many ways, 19:23.822 --> 19:28.362 decisive, despite the fact that it becomes a horrible 19:28.363 --> 19:33.783 stalemate--the decisive campaign of the Civil War in everyone's 19:33.777 --> 19:38.027 hopes in the North, a campaign once again that 19:38.028 --> 19:42.318 would only be one summer, was launched in April and May 19:42.324 --> 19:46.244 of '64. But it wasn't going to end that 19:46.235 --> 19:49.165 summer. It would end in a horrible 19:49.169 --> 19:53.019 stalemate and a siege of the city of Petersburg, 19:53.020 --> 19:55.150 just south of Richmond. 19:55.150 --> 19:57.860 And the war, of course, would not end until 19:57.863 --> 20:01.033 the following spring, four Aprils into the war. 20:01.029 --> 20:05.069 But here's roughly what happened--and by the way I refer 20:05.071 --> 20:08.011 you here to the Ken Burns film series, 20:08.009 --> 20:11.939 and there's of course a very good reason that Burns decided 20:11.937 --> 20:16.267 in this nine-part film series to give two whole parts to the year 20:16.270 --> 20:18.710 1864. I have my own little criticisms 20:18.707 --> 20:22.177 of that film series which I'll be happy to share with you at 20:22.184 --> 20:24.624 some point, but I thought it was actually 20:24.624 --> 20:28.074 quite brilliant the way he just makes you agonize to get out of 20:28.074 --> 20:32.074 1864; I mean, God how long must 1864 20:32.069 --> 20:35.799 last? Because that's actually the way 20:35.797 --> 20:37.547 the country felt. 20:37.549 --> 20:42.079 In the Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6,1864, 20:42.079 --> 20:46.609 the two armies basically collided just west of 20:46.609 --> 20:52.459 Fredericksburg in a densely, densely wooded area that was 20:52.464 --> 20:56.044 known at that time as the Wilderness. 20:56.039 --> 20:58.929 They essentially just bumped into one another because there 20:58.927 --> 21:01.757 were only two roads that went North, South or East or West 21:01.764 --> 21:02.864 through this area. 21:02.859 --> 21:07.269 And they fought it out in woods for two days. 21:07.269 --> 21:10.389 It was a totally disorganized battle. 21:10.390 --> 21:13.230 Often men would only fire at what they saw other weapons 21:13.230 --> 21:16.330 firing, because they could really never see their enemies, 21:16.329 --> 21:22.049 and hence sometimes killed their own men. 21:22.049 --> 21:23.879 And the most horrible thing about the Wilderness, 21:23.881 --> 21:25.371 of course, as you perhaps have heard, 21:25.369 --> 21:27.329 is that hundreds, if not thousands, 21:27.329 --> 21:30.379 of wounded ended up being burned to death in the woods 21:30.383 --> 21:33.673 because the woods caught on fire in several places and the 21:33.667 --> 21:35.797 wounded could not be retrieved. 21:35.799 --> 21:40.369 Soldiers on both sides laid down at night in makeshift 21:40.369 --> 21:45.279 trench works along roadways and listened to their comrades 21:45.284 --> 21:50.634 scream as they were burning to death in the woods and could not 21:50.630 --> 21:54.000 save them. In two days of a really 21:53.998 --> 21:59.098 thoroughly disorganized slugfest in woods, Grant's Army lost 21:59.098 --> 22:02.468 18,400 casualties, dead and wounded. 22:02.470 --> 22:07.620 Lee lost about 11,000, dead and wounded. 22:07.619 --> 22:11.929 And it appeared that Lee had once again--for what, 22:11.934 --> 22:16.874 the fourth time now?-- stopped a Union Army invading into 22:16.865 --> 22:19.545 Virginia, and that that Union Army would 22:19.552 --> 22:22.382 probably have to retreat back out of this densely wooded 22:22.380 --> 22:24.790 wilderness, get up north of the 22:24.787 --> 22:27.187 Rappahannock, regroup again, 22:27.185 --> 22:30.645 again, again, as the Army of the Potomac 22:30.649 --> 22:33.539 always had. And yet what happened was, 22:33.538 --> 22:37.208 of course, Grant never intended to stop no matter what happened. 22:37.210 --> 22:39.370 He had the obvious advantage of manpower. 22:39.369 --> 22:44.039 He had tremendous resources behind him. 22:44.039 --> 22:47.379 Although that manpower was risky, because that very summer 22:47.382 --> 22:50.782 the three-year enlist--they weren't up by May but they were 22:50.784 --> 22:54.014 going to be up in June--the three-year enlistments, 22:54.009 --> 22:56.849 from '61 to '64, the great mass of the Army of 22:56.852 --> 23:00.012 the Potomac had been in--those who had survived, 23:00.009 --> 23:02.589 the veterans, the real soldiers--had been in 23:02.585 --> 23:05.335 for three years and their terms would be up. 23:05.339 --> 23:12.159 How in the hell to get these men to re-enlist when they were 23:12.160 --> 23:15.140 enduring this? And the government came up with 23:15.136 --> 23:17.166 three and four-hundred dollar bounties, they came up with 23:17.172 --> 23:18.592 thirty day furloughs here and there, 23:18.589 --> 23:20.859 percentages of regiments sent home. 23:20.859 --> 23:22.849 They'd do anything to get these guys to re-enlist. 23:22.849 --> 23:27.079 And Lincoln called for 500,000 more volunteers, 23:27.082 --> 23:28.832 a half a million. 23:28.829 --> 23:32.749 Now they will actually eventually get almost that half 23:32.754 --> 23:36.214 million men, but the problem, as the Union armies realized 23:36.207 --> 23:38.647 that summer, is that these new soldiers, brought in by being 23:38.647 --> 23:40.547 paid bounties and all sort of other things, 23:40.550 --> 23:43.070 were terrible soldiers. 23:43.069 --> 23:47.549 And Grant counted by July and August of these new recruits 23:47.552 --> 23:52.352 that about three of every four became deserters the first time 23:52.349 --> 23:54.079 they faced combat. 23:54.079 --> 23:55.919 So that manpower was not a certain thing, 23:55.923 --> 23:57.263 but Grant just kept moving. 23:57.260 --> 23:59.690 And there's a famous story. 23:59.690 --> 24:04.390 It's the night of the second day, it's the 6^(th) of May '64, 24:04.385 --> 24:08.455 and most of the Union Army is camped along a roadway, 24:08.455 --> 24:10.485 a North/South roadway. 24:10.490 --> 24:13.390 They've just fought the two worst days of the war, 24:13.388 --> 24:14.688 if they've survived. 24:14.690 --> 24:16.000 They're depleted. 24:16.000 --> 24:18.680 Woods are burning. 24:18.680 --> 24:22.050 They expect any moment to all have to retreat north. 24:22.049 --> 24:25.439 And there came Grant with just a few members of his staff 24:25.444 --> 24:27.934 cantering down the road, heading south. 24:27.930 --> 24:30.560 He didn't stop to say anything to anybody. 24:30.560 --> 24:35.570 He didn't even tip his hat; probably spit from his cigar. 24:35.569 --> 24:39.689 And as they saw him moving South, they began to realize 24:39.694 --> 24:41.684 they weren't retreating. 24:41.680 --> 24:46.230 And for about a mile and a half along this roadway these scarred 24:46.228 --> 24:49.908 soldiers started to get up and scream and holler, 24:49.910 --> 24:55.070 at the top of their lungs, for Grant, for Grant; 24:55.070 --> 24:57.290 they were going South. 24:57.290 --> 25:03.310 And they did. The rest of this terrible 25:03.308 --> 25:09.008 campaign would be an attempt by Grant now to outmaneuver Lee, 25:09.009 --> 25:11.619 to try to keep moving left, Grant's left, 25:11.616 --> 25:15.456 to try to get around Lee's army, to move faster than Lee, 25:15.460 --> 25:18.680 if possible, and ultimately to cut off Lee's 25:18.684 --> 25:23.564 supply line, either to Richmond or further south from Richmond, 25:23.559 --> 25:28.079 and if possible--forget about taking Richmond--but to try to 25:28.081 --> 25:31.761 cut off Lee's army from the rest of the South, 25:31.759 --> 25:36.419 and if possible with Sheridan's army in the Shenandoah Valley 25:36.423 --> 25:38.603 cut him off from the West. 25:38.599 --> 25:42.679 So when Grant gets accused of being a butcher that summer, 25:42.682 --> 25:44.762 there's some truth to that. 25:44.760 --> 25:48.010 25:48.009 --> 25:50.199 But it really was a war of maneuver, maneuver, 25:50.203 --> 25:52.513 maneuver. They collided--actually the 25:52.513 --> 25:55.863 first attempt was to see who could get first to this 25:55.863 --> 25:58.823 crossroads called Spotsylvania Courthouse, 25:58.819 --> 26:03.309 and at Spotsylvania they fought for about six, 26:03.313 --> 26:05.813 seven consecutive days. 26:05.809 --> 26:09.029 This was the rehearsal for World War One. 26:09.029 --> 26:13.319 Everywhere the army stopped they dug the deepest possible 26:13.323 --> 26:15.013 trenches they could. 26:15.009 --> 26:17.889 And at Spotsylvania, indeed, Lee's army got there 26:17.886 --> 26:21.116 just before Grant's army and they built this incredible 26:21.122 --> 26:23.402 trench work that was in a U-shape, 26:23.400 --> 26:28.790 and for about six days Grant's army just made one frontal 26:28.789 --> 26:32.999 assault on this after another, and it produced these 26:33.003 --> 26:36.033 horrifying scenes of the dead and wounded, three and four 26:36.028 --> 26:38.388 deep, in these trenches, 26:38.394 --> 26:43.134 day after day after day, most of it fought in 26:43.125 --> 26:45.995 rainstorms. At Spotsylvania, 26:46.001 --> 26:51.061 when you add it all up--they first encountered each other on 26:51.057 --> 26:55.597 the 8^(th) of May and they didn't really stop fighting 26:55.599 --> 27:00.829 there until about the 19^(th) of May--Grant's army lost almost 27:00.827 --> 27:06.307 30,000 casualties; Lee's army almost 20,000 27:06.309 --> 27:12.159 casualties. And yet Grant just kept moving 27:12.164 --> 27:16.494 and kept moving, left and south, 27:16.489 --> 27:19.899 left and south. And then Grant, 27:19.895 --> 27:23.115 the first week of June, would make his greatest mistake 27:23.119 --> 27:25.149 of the war, and he admitted it. 27:25.150 --> 27:29.340 It's the only place in his great two-volume memoir when he 27:29.339 --> 27:32.939 used the word regret, and he really regretted Cold 27:32.941 --> 27:36.041 Harbor. At Cold Harbor, 27:36.036 --> 27:39.996 Grant had misinformation. 27:40.000 --> 27:43.530 He somehow did not understand how much of Lee's army had 27:43.533 --> 27:47.323 actually concentrated in front of him and somehow he mis-saw 27:47.323 --> 27:50.873 the landscape. He didn't realize that Lee's 27:50.866 --> 27:55.896 army on each flank had a river, and those rivers were pretty 27:55.895 --> 28:00.235 high, it was May/June, and there was no way to flank 28:00.242 --> 28:02.242 him. So he just made, 28:02.243 --> 28:06.023 on the 3^(rd) of June, the largest frontal assault 28:06.021 --> 28:07.641 attack of the war. 28:07.640 --> 28:12.730 There were 50,000 Union troops engaged in this, 28:12.727 --> 28:18.807 and Grant's army took 7000 casualties in a half-hour. 28:18.809 --> 28:23.809 And many of the men--and they'd been fighting now day after day 28:23.812 --> 28:28.572 after day, and God only knows what fatalists soldiers become 28:28.572 --> 28:30.592 in that circumstance. 28:30.589 --> 28:33.929 They were asked before the attack at Cold Harbor to pin 28:33.934 --> 28:36.784 their names and home addresses on their shirts, 28:36.782 --> 28:39.262 at least much of the Union Army was. 28:39.260 --> 28:42.710 And they did. They had no dog tags in that 28:42.710 --> 28:44.870 war. They were told to pin their 28:44.870 --> 28:48.630 names on themselves so they could be identified when dead. 28:48.630 --> 28:54.010 And I believe Burns uses this story in the film. 28:54.009 --> 28:57.389 There was one Union soldier who etched into his diary, 28:57.393 --> 29:00.843 "Morning, June 3^(rd), I died today at Cold Harbor." 29:00.840 --> 29:09.550 And he did. This stopped Grant's movement. 29:09.550 --> 29:14.050 It protected Richmond. 29:14.049 --> 29:18.999 It meant that the war would now go on and on through that 29:19.003 --> 29:19.803 summer. 29:19.800 --> 29:23.010 29:23.009 --> 29:25.189 Rather than attempting any more assaults on Lee's forces, 29:25.189 --> 29:26.939 which were now constantly digging trenches, 29:26.940 --> 29:29.140 digging trenches, digging trenches, 29:29.141 --> 29:31.861 all around the eastern side of Richmond, 29:31.860 --> 29:35.010 Grant kept moving south. 29:35.009 --> 29:38.779 And this time he got to Petersburg faster than Lee, 29:38.775 --> 29:43.745 or at least most of Lee's army, and by mid to late June they 29:43.752 --> 29:48.562 put the city of Petersburg, just some twenty-five miles 29:48.560 --> 29:52.820 south of Richmond, under siege. 29:52.819 --> 29:56.049 And Petersburg would--and you can see many of these great 29:56.046 --> 29:58.116 photographs in Burns' film series. 29:58.119 --> 30:02.649 Photographers went crazy in '64 and '65 photographing these 30:02.651 --> 30:06.401 giant trench works, these trench cities that were 30:06.402 --> 30:08.592 built around Petersburg. 30:08.589 --> 30:13.019 There would be a quick attempt to break the siege at Petersburg 30:13.023 --> 30:17.103 in what is known as the Battle of the Crater--quick in the 30:17.100 --> 30:19.460 sense of about a month after. 30:19.460 --> 30:23.900 Grant's army concentrated all around the east side and the 30:23.904 --> 30:26.014 south side of Petersburg. 30:26.009 --> 30:29.389 They were always trying to cut Lee's supply lines off, 30:29.391 --> 30:32.711 either west or south, and never managed to completely 30:32.708 --> 30:34.748 do it until the next spring. 30:34.750 --> 30:39.040 But you may know the story of the Battle of the Crater. 30:39.039 --> 30:44.599 Some coalminers in the 48^(th) Pennsylvania went to their 30:44.596 --> 30:48.066 Colonel, who went to his General, 30:48.069 --> 30:52.279 who went to General Burnside, who went to Grant and said, 30:52.280 --> 30:55.280 "We can dig a tunnel, 500 yards, under the 30:55.283 --> 30:58.283 Confederate line, and we'll fill it with tons of 30:58.275 --> 30:59.805 dynamite, and we can do it with 30:59.813 --> 31:01.623 ventilation slats, we know how to do these things, 31:01.619 --> 31:03.609 and we'll blow the Confederate line to smithereens. 31:03.610 --> 31:07.800 Let us do it." And at first Grant and his 31:07.796 --> 31:09.236 staff said, "No, no, no, no, this is too crazy." 31:09.240 --> 31:13.630 They sat down with him, they convinced him they could 31:13.629 --> 31:15.739 do it, and they did it. 31:15.740 --> 31:19.350 Five hundred yards of a tunnel, they ventilated it, 31:19.349 --> 31:22.019 the Confederates on the other side. 31:22.019 --> 31:25.479 And the lines in some areas here were never more than 150 to 31:25.475 --> 31:28.235 200 yards apart. They actually did hear some 31:28.239 --> 31:31.719 digging, we're told later, but they didn't know what the 31:31.720 --> 31:34.030 hell it was. And then they dug a 31:34.025 --> 31:37.445 counter-trench at the end, inside, or a tunnel. 31:37.450 --> 31:45.020 They put in four tons of dynamite, fuses. 31:45.019 --> 31:47.339 You to this day can see the openings of that tunnel and you 31:47.339 --> 31:49.819 can still see the suppression in the landscape where the crater 31:49.819 --> 31:53.269 was. And on July 30,1864 they blew 31:53.267 --> 31:59.737 it up, and they blew up an area of the Confederate line about 31:59.738 --> 32:03.888 200 yards long. Men's bodies were simply 32:03.891 --> 32:06.011 exploded into the air. 32:06.009 --> 32:09.189 It's the opening scene of Cold Mountain, 32:09.192 --> 32:11.062 if you've seen the movie. 32:11.059 --> 32:13.409 Not bad, it's one of the best parts of that movie actually. 32:13.410 --> 32:16.130 I thought Nicole Kidman was badly cast; 32:16.130 --> 32:17.140 I don't know about you. 32:17.140 --> 32:19.390 [Laughter] When you're suffering and you 32:19.389 --> 32:22.729 haven't got enough to eat and you're laying in the snow you 32:22.734 --> 32:25.334 can't look like Nicole Kidman, I'm sorry. 32:25.330 --> 32:29.260 [Laughter] It ain't right. 32:29.259 --> 32:32.489 But the problem was the Battle of the Crater became a Union 32:32.487 --> 32:34.917 disaster. Instead of exploiting this as 32:34.917 --> 32:36.797 they should have, and been far, 32:36.797 --> 32:40.237 far more organized--they should've managed to get around 32:40.243 --> 32:43.753 this crater--actually they didn't even understand how big 32:43.752 --> 32:47.512 this gigantic hole in the ground would be--a huge hole in the 32:47.512 --> 32:50.272 Confederate line had been exploded, 32:50.270 --> 32:51.930 hundreds of yards wide. 32:51.930 --> 32:56.410 But Union troops started marching into the hole--I'm not 32:56.407 --> 32:59.417 kidding--and within an hour or two, 32:59.420 --> 33:02.780 as Confederates regrouped, in sheer shock, 33:02.784 --> 33:07.384 they said it was just like picking out fish in a bowl, 33:07.380 --> 33:12.030 and they stood all around this giant hole in the ground. 33:12.029 --> 33:17.419 And 4,000 Union troops were killed in the Battle of the 33:17.419 --> 33:22.409 Crater, which turned out to be a Union disaster. 33:22.410 --> 33:25.740 Now, out West. 33:25.740 --> 33:36.440 33:36.440 --> 33:48.960 Where's Sherman? There he is. 33:48.960 --> 33:51.010 Can we see this? 33:51.010 --> 34:00.530 34:00.529 --> 34:05.379 Now, the other major campaign of the war that of course will 34:05.383 --> 34:09.583 ultimately lead to Union victory--and I won't get us 34:09.578 --> 34:15.088 quite to the dead-end of the war today by any means--but it is, 34:15.090 --> 34:19.200 of course, William Sherman's Atlanta Campaign through 34:19.203 --> 34:22.293 northern Georgia, the fall of Atlanta by 34:22.288 --> 34:23.948 September of '64. 34:23.949 --> 34:26.539 The campaign lasted all that summer. 34:26.539 --> 34:31.529 At the same time this stalemate sets in in Virginia, 34:31.530 --> 34:35.540 around Petersburg, with these thousands of 34:35.542 --> 34:38.412 casualties. And you must try to, 34:38.408 --> 34:42.458 if you can imagine Northerners standing in post offices and 34:42.464 --> 34:46.314 telegraph offices all over the towns of the Midwest, 34:46.309 --> 34:50.189 New England, waiting for casualty reports, 34:50.187 --> 34:55.007 and the adjutants of regiments writing the lists. 34:55.010 --> 34:58.090 Standing in a small town post office and a telegraph comes 34:58.085 --> 35:01.745 through with a list of the dead; a dozen, two dozen, 35:01.750 --> 35:05.800 three dozen, men, from a town that only had 35:05.795 --> 35:10.795 1000 people. It was beginning to destroy 35:10.799 --> 35:14.439 Northern morale. And things weren't that much 35:14.436 --> 35:16.126 better in Georgia, or so it seemed, 35:16.132 --> 35:17.432 throughout that summer. 35:17.429 --> 35:23.449 Sherman finally outmaneuvered General Joseph Johnston's 35:23.448 --> 35:27.348 Confederate Army, toward Atlanta, 35:27.349 --> 35:31.879 won at Kennesaw Mountain in two days in June, 35:31.878 --> 35:36.408 late June of '64, and essentially put Atlanta 35:36.407 --> 35:41.997 under siege in July and August, and kept trying to get around, 35:41.998 --> 35:45.578 around, around--especially to the left, to the east and 35:45.579 --> 35:49.359 south--Atlanta to cut off the supply lines to this biggest 35:49.358 --> 35:52.008 city in the heartland of the South. 35:52.010 --> 35:56.460 He finally succeeded, at great cost, 35:56.457 --> 36:03.317 when Atlanta fell on the 4^(th) of September in '64. 36:03.320 --> 36:08.700 And the fall of Atlanta is in some ways, both strategically 36:08.700 --> 36:12.880 and in terms of morale, one of the most important 36:12.875 --> 36:17.175 little turning points of the war, that has a huge impact on 36:17.180 --> 36:21.260 the political situation and the Election of '64 about to 36:21.263 --> 36:24.013 occur--more on that in a second. 36:24.010 --> 36:27.130 It was then that Sherman, based on this strategy of 36:27.126 --> 36:30.676 conquest, destruction of resources and war upon people, 36:30.679 --> 36:34.729 made the decision, really quite quickly, 36:34.726 --> 36:38.146 to launch his march to the sea. 36:38.150 --> 36:43.580 It took him a couple of months to organize it but from November 36:43.581 --> 36:49.191 15^(th) to Christmas Eve--that's about five weeks--Sherman's army 36:49.188 --> 36:54.968 marched 285 miles from Atlanta to Savannah with 62,000 troops. 36:54.970 --> 36:58.080 They were almost unopposed. 36:58.079 --> 37:01.479 General John B. Hood's Confederate Army, 37:01.482 --> 37:05.762 that had surrendered--in effect given up--Atlanta, 37:05.757 --> 37:09.157 had retreated south to fight again. 37:09.159 --> 37:12.219 And Hood's idea, but actually without Jefferson 37:12.220 --> 37:15.680 Davis's approval--well if Sherman was going to invade 37:15.679 --> 37:18.269 toward the East, toward the sea and destroy 37:18.267 --> 37:21.017 Georgia, Hood took an army of about 30,000 men and invaded 37:21.022 --> 37:24.692 back up into Tennessee, hoping that Sherman would stop 37:24.692 --> 37:26.302 and come after him. 37:26.300 --> 37:28.810 Sherman said, "Let him go." 37:28.810 --> 37:32.070 37:32.070 --> 37:37.070 It was a kind of a game now, of time, resources, 37:37.072 --> 37:41.012 destruction, and who would give up. 37:41.010 --> 37:44.050 "We are not fighting a hostile army anymore," Sherman said, 37:44.051 --> 37:46.251 I'm quoting him, "we are fighting a hostile 37:46.253 --> 37:49.413 people. His aim and objective now was 37:49.408 --> 37:54.028 the civilian population, and Americans had never made 37:54.031 --> 37:59.011 war on civilians quite like Sherman would in Georgia. 37:59.010 --> 38:02.930 "We cannot change the hearts of those people," Sherman wrote of 38:02.925 --> 38:06.645 the South, "but we can make war so terrible and make them so 38:06.651 --> 38:10.381 sick of war that generations will pass before they will ever 38:10.377 --> 38:12.017 again appeal to it." 38:12.020 --> 38:15.040 38:15.039 --> 38:19.079 Now up in the Shenandoah Valley, Philip Sheridan's Union 38:19.083 --> 38:22.763 Army, under similar orders, to make war on society, 38:22.759 --> 38:25.699 gave a simple order to his officers; 38:25.699 --> 38:28.729 and most of that army was cavalry. 38:28.730 --> 38:33.680 His order was put in the starkest of total war terms. 38:33.679 --> 38:37.239 He said, quote, "Leave them only their eyes 38:37.243 --> 38:39.113 with which to weep." 38:39.110 --> 38:43.030 This was now savage war. 38:43.030 --> 38:46.650 To win the war with fear was Sherman's goal, 38:46.653 --> 38:51.543 to win it with destruction and to win it with maneuvers. 38:51.539 --> 38:58.009 Freed slaves swarmed behind Sherman's army. 38:58.010 --> 38:59.240 He hated it, he didn't want them to be 38:59.235 --> 39:01.255 there, he didn't know what to do with them--what the hell am I 39:01.256 --> 39:02.216 going to do with this people? 39:02.217 --> 39:03.407 First it was 5,000; 10,000; 15. 39:03.409 --> 39:07.999 He had 25 to 30,000 refugee slaves tailing right behind his 39:07.996 --> 39:10.296 army; it was about half the size of 39:10.296 --> 39:13.676 his whole army. Follow that in Doctorow. 39:13.679 --> 39:18.449 Sherman didn't always play kindness or niceness with them. 39:18.449 --> 39:22.259 At one point his troops lifted up the pontoon bridge across a 39:22.261 --> 39:25.881 river and scores of freedmen trying to get across with him 39:25.881 --> 39:27.471 drowned in the river. 39:27.469 --> 39:32.429 Sherman's attitude was "the way it goes." 39:32.430 --> 39:36.010 39:36.010 --> 39:38.690 They made it by Christmas Eve to Savannah; 39:38.690 --> 39:41.910 just before that into Liberty County, just south of Savannah. 39:41.909 --> 39:44.279 And to this day in Liberty County, Georgia, 39:44.277 --> 39:47.487 there are plenty of people around--I have a former student 39:47.491 --> 39:50.541 who lives there and runs a historic site--who will tell 39:50.536 --> 39:53.456 you, "This is where Sherman turned 39:53.460 --> 39:58.010 left." Okay. 39:58.010 --> 40:00.060 And you think, well okay, there must've been a 40:00.055 --> 40:02.595 left turn sign or something, this is where Sherman turned 40:02.600 --> 40:04.950 left. I'll also never forget the time 40:04.947 --> 40:08.257 I was doing research in the Caroliniana Collections in 40:08.260 --> 40:09.660 Columbia, South Carolina, 40:09.663 --> 40:11.893 and I don't remember exactly what I asked for in the 40:11.886 --> 40:14.366 Archives--I spent a good week there--I don't remember. 40:14.369 --> 40:18.509 Oh, it was records about the state capital and the buildings. 40:18.510 --> 40:20.640 I wanted to know about the ruins and destruction, 40:20.635 --> 40:22.595 and I asked for this stuff, and the archivist, 40:22.603 --> 40:24.313 who was a woman, looked up from the desk at me 40:24.312 --> 40:26.192 and she said, "Don't have it. 40:26.190 --> 40:27.090 Sherman burnt it." 40:27.090 --> 40:30.520 [Laughter] Okay, thank you very much, 40:30.524 --> 40:35.394 I won't be able to look at that stuff apparently. 40:35.389 --> 40:40.529 Now, if you follow the purple line here, of course, 40:40.528 --> 40:44.638 you realize that this is the destined, 40:44.639 --> 40:48.209 this is the route of Sherman's--this is about 280 40:48.210 --> 40:50.590 miles from Atlanta to the sea. 40:50.590 --> 40:55.410 It would give us some of the best songs of the war, 40:55.408 --> 40:58.008 marching through Georgia. 40:58.010 --> 41:02.060 It also gave the Civil War its anti-hero, its principal 41:02.059 --> 41:06.879 villain, of Union victory, some say the architect of total 41:06.884 --> 41:11.194 war--that's a little too much to lay on Sherman. 41:11.190 --> 41:17.010 But it was now a war of conquest and destruction. 41:17.010 --> 41:22.270 He did not destroy Savannah but when he got to Charleston--well 41:22.274 --> 41:27.374 actually much of Charleston he didn't have to destroy because 41:27.368 --> 41:32.548 it was being destroyed already by Union gunboats and artillery 41:32.547 --> 41:35.007 from around the harbor. 41:35.010 --> 41:40.060 But the city he did destroy was Columbia, the capital of South 41:40.055 --> 41:43.685 Carolina, which was burned to the ground, as, 41:43.694 --> 41:46.014 by the way, was Atlanta. 41:46.010 --> 41:48.320 Now, Sherman would always say these were just fires that broke 41:48.317 --> 41:49.677 out because of extensive shelling. 41:49.679 --> 41:54.059 That was not the case in Columbia. 41:54.059 --> 41:57.769 They burned about everything that was standing in Columbia, 41:57.773 --> 41:59.953 and then they kept moving north; 41:59.949 --> 42:02.519 north, north into North Carolina. 42:02.519 --> 42:06.079 And I'll come back to that later because the final, 42:06.078 --> 42:09.138 final surrender of the Civil War, of course, 42:09.138 --> 42:12.268 came in North Carolina, not in Virginia. 42:12.270 --> 42:20.010 42:20.010 --> 42:25.930 Now, before we get to Appomattox--I'm going to save 42:25.931 --> 42:31.681 the Siege of Petersburg, the lifting of the siege and 42:31.676 --> 42:37.006 the march to Appomattox and the surrender for Thursday, 42:37.010 --> 42:40.710 because it makes a perfect segway back into wartime 42:40.705 --> 42:44.175 reconstruction plans, because the nature of that 42:44.179 --> 42:48.539 surrender at Appomattox has a great deal to do with the kind 42:48.539 --> 42:52.899 of reconstruction ideas and plans that were boiling as early 42:52.900 --> 42:56.130 as 1863 really, out of Congress and from 42:56.127 --> 42:59.537 Lincoln himself. And let me just end with this 42:59.543 --> 43:02.783 little story. I mentioned that Sherman made 43:02.777 --> 43:06.767 it to the sea at Savannah, marched part of his troops up 43:06.774 --> 43:09.504 to Charleston, took Charleston, 43:09.495 --> 43:14.875 the seedbed of Secession and all of that, although actually 43:14.882 --> 43:20.452 Charleston didn't fully fall to Union hands until February of 43:20.454 --> 43:22.774 '65. It had been bombarded 43:22.773 --> 43:26.383 throughout the last eight to nine months, as I said, 43:26.376 --> 43:29.976 from Union ships and guns all around the harbor. 43:29.980 --> 43:34.040 And if you've ever been to Charleston, that glorious, 43:34.039 --> 43:37.119 beautiful colonial city, that Caribbean city, 43:37.119 --> 43:39.269 as it looks, with all those mansions about 43:39.272 --> 43:41.742 fifteen to twenty blocks up from the harbor, 43:41.739 --> 43:48.159 you must imagine it almost completely in ruin by early 43:48.161 --> 43:51.281 1865. All the white people evacuated 43:51.280 --> 43:54.840 and abandoned the city, and the only people left 43:54.836 --> 43:58.996 principally were slaves, freedmen, thousands of them, 43:58.998 --> 44:01.948 and they in effect took over the city. 44:01.949 --> 44:07.029 The first Union regiment that marched up Meeting Street in 44:07.029 --> 44:11.059 Charleston was the 21^(st) USCT, a colored infantry, 44:11.062 --> 44:13.602 a black regiment, and they accepted the surrender 44:13.596 --> 44:15.176 of the city from its mayor. 44:15.179 --> 44:19.339 And then they began to hold ceremonies, the black folks of 44:19.339 --> 44:24.009 Charleston, they began to hold ceremonies all around the city. 44:24.010 --> 44:31.260 They held a parade in late March--or was it early April--of 44:31.260 --> 44:33.070 '65. They had this huge parade where 44:33.065 --> 44:34.695 they had two floats and they had, on one float, 44:34.699 --> 44:38.369 they had a little slave auction occurring, a mock slave auction 44:38.367 --> 44:41.027 with a woman with her baby being sold away, 44:41.030 --> 44:45.310 and on the next float they had a coffin labeled "Slavery," and 44:45.306 --> 44:47.896 it said "Fort Sumter Dug its Grave, 44:47.900 --> 44:51.880 April 12^(th), 1861." 44:51.880 --> 44:55.440 And then they planned one more ceremony, and--oh and by the 44:55.443 --> 44:57.413 way, the war, when it finally, 44:57.409 --> 45:01.929 finally, finally ended, they held an extraordinary 45:01.931 --> 45:04.331 ceremony on Fort Sumter. 45:04.329 --> 45:08.129 They crammed about 3000 people onto the little island. 45:08.130 --> 45:11.770 All kinds of dignitaries came. 45:11.769 --> 45:16.079 Now General Anderson--not the Colonel who had surrendered the 45:16.082 --> 45:19.462 fort four years ago--came and raised the U.S. 45:19.460 --> 45:24.400 flag, four years almost to the day that they had taken it down. 45:24.400 --> 45:28.140 William Lloyd Garrison was there from the North, 45:28.140 --> 45:33.000 the great abolitionist who wept uncontrollably when he heard a 45:32.995 --> 45:38.005 small black children's choir sing John Brown's Body. 45:38.010 --> 45:41.360 And the very night of that ceremony, which was the 14^(th) 45:41.362 --> 45:44.032 of April, they held a banquet of a sort 45:44.033 --> 45:48.013 in a building that had a roof on it, back in Charleston, 45:48.010 --> 45:51.270 and that was the very night, of course, that Lincoln was 45:51.266 --> 45:54.046 assassinated at Ford's Theater in Washington. 45:54.050 --> 45:57.440 But the black folks of Charleston had planned one more 45:57.437 --> 46:02.407 ceremony. That ceremony was a burial 46:02.408 --> 46:05.758 ceremony. It turns out that during the 46:05.756 --> 46:08.986 last months of the war the Confederate Army turned the 46:08.986 --> 46:12.586 planter's horse track, a racecourse--it was called the 46:12.592 --> 46:16.692 Washington Racecourse--into an open air cemetery--excuse me, 46:16.690 --> 46:21.960 prison. And in that open air prison, 46:21.964 --> 46:25.554 in the infield of the horse track--about 260-odd Union 46:25.549 --> 46:29.739 soldiers had died of disease and exposure--and they were buried 46:29.744 --> 46:33.264 in unmarked graves in a mass gravesite out behind the 46:33.262 --> 46:35.632 grandstand of the racetrack. 46:35.630 --> 46:39.220 And by the way, there was no more important and 46:39.217 --> 46:43.737 symbolic site in low country planter/slaveholding life then 46:43.740 --> 46:46.350 their racetrack. Well, the black folks at 46:46.351 --> 46:48.631 Charleston got organized, they knew about all this. 46:48.630 --> 46:49.700 They went to the site. 46:49.699 --> 46:51.789 They re-interred all the graves, the men. 46:51.789 --> 46:58.099 They couldn't mark them with names, they didn't have any 46:58.101 --> 47:01.041 names. Then they made them proper 47:01.039 --> 47:05.079 graves and they built a fence all the way around this 47:05.077 --> 47:07.827 cemetery, about 100 yards long and fity, 47:07.825 --> 47:10.665 sixty yards deep, and they whitewashed the fence 47:10.669 --> 47:14.479 and over an archway they painted the inscription "Martyrs of the 47:14.481 --> 47:19.301 Racecourse." And then on May 1^(st) 1865 47:19.296 --> 47:27.006 they held a parade of 10,000 people, on the racetrack, 47:27.010 --> 47:29.680 led by 3000 black children carrying armloads of roses and 47:29.680 --> 47:31.350 singing John Brown's Body, 47:31.349 --> 47:35.439 followed then by black women, then by black men--it was 47:35.439 --> 47:40.059 regimented this way--then by contingents of Union infantry. 47:40.059 --> 47:42.109 Everybody marched all the way around the racetrack; 47:42.110 --> 47:45.200 as many as could fit got into the gravesite. 47:45.199 --> 47:49.369 Five black preachers read from scripture. 47:49.369 --> 47:51.819 A children's choir sang the national anthem, 47:51.818 --> 47:54.948 America the Beautiful, and several spirituals, 47:54.949 --> 47:59.679 and then they broke from that and went back into the infield 47:59.683 --> 48:04.183 of the racetrack and did essentially what you and I do on 48:04.176 --> 48:06.676 Memorial Day, they ran races, 48:06.684 --> 48:10.274 they listened to sixteen speeches, by one count, 48:10.271 --> 48:15.081 and the troops marched back and forth and they held picnics. 48:15.080 --> 48:17.980 This was the first Memorial Day. 48:17.980 --> 48:22.070 African-Americans invented Memorial Day, 48:22.066 --> 48:25.416 in Charleston, South Carolina. 48:25.420 --> 48:27.910 There are three or four cities in the United States, 48:27.907 --> 48:30.047 North and South, that claim to be the site of 48:30.053 --> 48:32.593 the first Memorial Day, but they all claim 1866; 48:32.590 --> 48:36.070 they were too late. 48:36.070 --> 48:39.550 I had the great, blind, good fortune to discover 48:39.545 --> 48:43.455 this story in a messy, totally disorganized collection 48:43.464 --> 48:47.754 of veterans' papers at the Houghton Library at Harvard some 48:47.752 --> 48:51.152 years back. And what you have there is 48:51.154 --> 48:54.784 black Americans, recently freed from slavery, 48:54.783 --> 49:00.203 announcing to the world, with their flowers and their 49:00.199 --> 49:06.009 feet and their songs, what the war had been about. 49:06.010 --> 49:11.130 What they basically were creating was the Independence 49:11.129 --> 49:14.799 Day of a second American Revolution. 49:14.800 --> 49:20.900 That story got lost, it got lost for more than a 49:20.901 --> 49:23.651 century. And when I discovered it, 49:23.653 --> 49:26.683 I started calling people in Charleston that I knew in 49:26.677 --> 49:29.437 archives and libraries, including the Avery Institute, 49:29.439 --> 49:31.729 the black research center in Charleston--"Has anybody, 49:31.730 --> 49:33.410 have you ever heard of this story?" 49:33.410 --> 49:37.010 And no one had ever heard it. 49:37.010 --> 49:44.190 It showed the power of the Lost Cause in the wake of the war to 49:44.187 --> 49:47.827 erase a story. But I started looking for other 49:47.831 --> 49:51.011 sources, and lo and behold there were lots of sources. 49:51.010 --> 49:56.070 Harper's Weekly even had a drawing of the cemetery in an 49:56.069 --> 49:59.809 1867 issue. The old oval of that racetrack 49:59.812 --> 50:01.782 is still there today. 50:01.780 --> 50:05.230 If you ever go to Charleston go up to Hampton Park. 50:05.230 --> 50:10.070 Hampton Park is today what the racecourse was then. 50:10.070 --> 50:12.230 It's named for Wade Hampton, the white supremacist, 50:12.232 --> 50:14.532 redeemer, and governor of South Carolina at the end of 50:14.525 --> 50:17.375 Reconstruction and a Confederate General during the Civil War. 50:17.380 --> 50:21.910 And that park sits immediately adjacent to the Citadel, 50:21.907 --> 50:25.007 the Military Academy of Charleston. 50:25.010 --> 50:29.210 On any given day you can see at any given time about 100 or 200 50:29.207 --> 50:33.267 Citadel cadets jogging on the track of the old racecourse. 50:33.269 --> 50:37.529 There is no marker, there's no memento, 50:37.527 --> 50:42.007 there's only a little bit of a memory. 50:42.010 --> 50:44.450 Although a few years ago a friend of mine in Charleston 50:44.451 --> 50:47.121 organized a mock ceremony where we re-enacted that event, 50:47.119 --> 50:51.459 including the children's choir, and they made me dress up in a 50:51.463 --> 50:55.383 top hat and a funny old nineteenth century suit and made 50:55.378 --> 50:59.008 me get up on a podium and make a stupid speech. 50:59.010 --> 51:03.600 But there is an effort, at least today, 51:03.598 --> 51:10.238 to declare Hampton Park a National Historic Landmark. 51:10.240 --> 51:12.000 See you Thursday.