Civil War Lecture Series: Gary Gallagher

folks welcome Billy people's the headmaster here in London we're delighted you here tonight one housekeeping detail before I talk briefly about this lecture series and then introduce dr. Gallagher there's a sheet that we're asking folks to complete some of you may have picked it up or maybe pick it up as you leave a little bit later in the evening it'll give us some helpful information in planning future lectures we plan to continue with this series through the culmination of the sesquicentennial in 2015 and trying to have these things at times during the week and times during the day that makes sense for the greatest number of people so if you have a moment to complete that that we grateful to you it's a privilege to have all of you here in our Hendricks should all theater to hear dr. Carrie Gallagher of the University of Virginia before I formally introduce him I want to thank our planning committee for this Civil War and the forging of character lecture series lots and lots of people have worked diligently to make this speech speaker series possible including trustees Lovett trustees Bob Glenn and Hampton Morris our communications director Kim Blass our chief advancement officer Andy Spencer Lovett parent Amanda Glen Brady and Morton Jones who's here tonight the senior military historian of the Atlanta History Center Gordon and Sheffield Hale the CEO there and his colleagues at the History Center have just been fabulous partners in putting this series two together for his gig where is Gordon he's here somewhere thank you sir Aaron Gallagher told me this morning that there's nobody better at what he does then Gordon Jones and so that's pretty high praise sir for and also thanks Andy we're done our director of communica Community Relations and also the folks who make this theater run Katy Keough as a lovett love who's working here in the interntional theater and she's providing all the background technical support for life and of course there's the N and Jacqueline foundation and their sons Austin Bob Jack and Lewis Lynn so grateful to them for creating the Glen character endowment fund which provides the resources that make possible the two Talk's today that dr. Gallagher will have given here by the end of the evening three of the Glen brothers are here if you'll please stand and accept our thanks Austin is here Bob and Lois lately to the blend others about of incredible generosity they may bestow upon Lovett it's an honor to have in our midst and to introduce Gary Gallagher the Jarnell now the third professor in the history of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia dr. Gallagher hails originally from Los Angeles California he earned his BA from Adams State College in Colorado and his MA and PhD respectively from the University of Texas at Austin he subsequently taught for twelve years at Penn State before coming to the University of Virginia in 1998 he is the author or editor of more than 30 books including two books the Confederate war in the Union War both published by Harvard University Press in which are available for sale in the theater if we haven't already sold out the theater for year following this lecture he's the editor of two books series at the University of North Carolina cross Civil War America and military campaigns in the Civil War he appears regularly on the arts and entertainment Network series called Civil War Journal and has participated in some 40 other television projects in these fields he's delivered numerous lectures about the Civil War at several universities across the country ten years ago who was the times-mirror Foundation Distinguished Fellow at the Henry Huntington Library in San Marino California two years ago he received the highest that's the highest teaching award that can be bestowed upon a professor at the University of Virginia the Cavaliers distinguished teaching professor chip he's intimately in all of the preservation of Civil War sites and served as a member of the board of the Civil War trust and has appeared before congressional committees on many occasions to provide provide expert testimony about the importance of preserving Civil War sites one writer and historian calls gary gallagher the most astute and provocative writer on the american civil war at all pretend to be an expert on dr. Gallagher scholarship I will tell you that he gave a stunning lecture to our study students and other loved' students and a number of guests this morning on the causes of the Civil War it was just stellar I have read some of his work and what really grabs my heart if you will as the depth of his research his passion for his topic is very clear and compact writing style and his great admiration for the truly extraordinary sacrifices people on both sides of this epic national battle were willing to make in service to their cause please join me in welcoming dr. thank you very much Billy this seems familiar I was here not long ago and had fun this morning talking till I thought I was going to come this morning and talk to a class and instead I came and talked to a whole roomful of students which was more fun and we had some nice give-and-take afterward which I hope we will also have tonight I may say some things that upset some people and some things that don't but either way it should be fun to talk about it afterward what my subject is is ahreally and the question of loyalty I think it's often presented within a Civil War context as people were either loyal to their States or they were loyal to the United States and at some point they had to make a choice what I want to do tonight is complicate that a little bit I think that is a far too simplistic way to look at LoyaltyOne oil teas and I'm going to use ahreally as a way to get at that notion tonight I'm not going to talk to a very long time 30 or 35 minutes and then and then we can start the fund after that I think they're very few historical figures who are so closely associated with their native state as ahreally his decision to resign from the United States Army and cast his lot first with Virginia and then with the Confederacy has inspired extensive discussion Charles Francis Adams jr. whose family rivaled the Lee's as a force in American history and who was a junior officer in the Army of the Potomac and fought against Lee during the Civil War fought against the Army in Northern Virginia address the topic of Lee and loyalty in a lecture titled shall Cromwell have a statue he spoke at the University of Chicago in nineteen two and Adams koechli is a man with powerful familial and emotional ties to the old dominion of him it might and injustice must be said avert Adams that he was more than the essence he was the quintessence of Virginia the most influential writer on the topic has been Douglas Southall Freeman whose four-volume Pulitzer prize-winning biography remains by far the fullest reckoning of Lee's life I read Freeman is a little boy growing up in southern Colorado I read Lee's lieutenants and I read re League my grandmother gave both sets to me one when I was 11 and one when I was 12 and Freeman is to a significant degree responsible for my interest in the Civil War I was captivated by him and later by Bruce Catton but Freeman was absolutely central to my interests and the Lee that Freeman presented was a Virginian self-proclaimed proud Virginian himself Freeman described Lee's decision to resign his commission in the United States Army he described that in a chapter he titled the answer he was born to make the rapid approach a Warroad Freeman had quickly and inexorably revealed which were the deepest loyalties of his soul anyone seeking to understand Lee believed Freeman need know only that Virginia always remained paramount in his thinking Freeman reproduced the entire text of Lee's letter to general and chief Winfield Scott dated April 20th 1861 that announced leaves resignation after all those years in the United States Army a letter that included one of the most frequently quoted sentences that Lee ever penned or spoke quote save in the defense of my native state I never desire again to draw my sword that's been quoted endlessly through the years this idea that leaves Virginia identity holds the key to understanding his life and career retrains retains great vitality I promise I'm not going to just start listing books that say this and read 20 or 30 of them to you to make my point but I am going to quote from three one is from Terry Jones's recent 700 page single volume history titled the American Civil War came out in 2010 it observes a quote although he loved the Union and opposed secession Lee's greatest loyalty was to virginia david goldfields america aflame how the Civil War created a nation which came out last year takes a similar tack his fealty to his native state of Virginia writes Goldfield superseded his loyalty to the Union and the most widely read single volume on the Civil War of the past two decades Jim Macpherson's battle cry of freedom also describes lee's decision to leave federal service after Virginia secession as quote for ordained by birth and blood there's also a literature that presents Lee as above all of Virginia and a literature very critical of Lee as a general that grew up in the mid seventies and continued until the mid nineties a literature that argued that Lee was prevented from becoming a great Confederate soldier because he couldn't even appreciate what was happening beyond the Appalachian all he could see was Virginia every decision he made was based on what was happening in Virginia he had a view of the West sort of like New Yorkers have of everything west of the Hudson River New Yorkers look everything's in sharp detail till you get to the Hudson yeah there's 8th Avenue 2nd Avenue they're all there beyond the Hudson it's just sort of hazy and way off in the distance there's something we think it's LA but we're not sure they say that's how Lee looked at the landscape of the Civil War Virginia's in sharp relief beyond the Appalachian 'he's he doesn't even really know what's going on well you can reach that conclusion only in one way and that's if you don't read anything that Lee wrote which is sort of liberating you're free to reach any conclusion you want if you don't read anything or know anything you might as well be a novelist but you can argue that about re Lee which many have I'll just quote from one Thomas L Connelly who was very prominent among those who questioned Lee's contributions to Confederate to the Confederate military effort who portrayed Lee as a man blind to the conflicts larger strategic landscape his concept of the war effort was almost totally identified with Virginia claim Connelly in his book the marble man which came out in 1977 and he felt that other theaters were secondary to the Eastern Front again he's a Virginian he's a Virginian and that guides everything that he does Lee the parochial Virginian also appears in the realm of popular culture of two films directed by Ron Maxwell include scenes that highlight the importance of Virginia to Lee's actions and attitudes in Gettysburg which came out in 1993 that's the translation to film of Michael Shara speed surprise winning novel The Killer Angels and not bad as Civil War movies go as you all know most civil war movies are so wretched it hurts to watch them this is not that bad it's better than that but it has Lee and Longstreet in one scene talking and discussing their loyalties it's the morning of July the 2nd 1863 and they're on seminary Ridge and they're talking about what is important to them and James Longstreet says what's important to him his loyalty lies with his state and with his family and robert e lee agrees neither one of them even mentions the Confederacy is something that is important in their range of loyalties Gods and Generals which came out in 2003 makes the same point only much more forcefully in a scene just prior to the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862 it has Lee looking across the Rappahannock over toward ferry farm George Washington's birthplace on the left bank of the Rappahannock they're just opposite Fredericksburg and Robert Duvall who is Lee in that film he's too old to be lead but he's Lee in that film neither film gets Lee right but never mind it's Hollywood who cares Lee Robert Duvall looks across the river and says there's something about these Yankees they don't understand they never will understand you see these rivers and valleys and streams fields towns even and the emotion rises in his voice they're just markings on a map to those people in the war office in Washington but for Lee and Confederates it becomes clear their birthplaces and grounds and battlefields where their ancestors fought they are the incarnation of all our memories and all that we are says Lee and then repeats again all that we are in an interview about the film's Maxwell explained his interpretation of Liam Stonewall Jackson he said I'm simply presenting the truth Virginia was their home they would fight for their home I believe it's a serious Distortion as you might have surmised already to approach Lee as a figure best understood as someone always motivated by his sense of being a Virginian a man whose principle identity always was as a Virginian I'll spend the balance of my time this evening looking at four loyalties that Lee had as I said earlier I'm going to look at his loyalty to Virginia his loyalty to the United States his loyalty to the slaveholding south and his loyalty to the Confederacy and try to put them in conversation with one another and show how they led reinforced and helped explain a much more complicated view of Lee in his range of oils I'm going to take my analytical cue here from a historian named David M Potter who I think is one of the great historians of the United States ever if you've never read anything by David M Potter you should go get something and read it by him because everything he ever wrote is worth reading and a good place to start it's a big fat book but a good place to start would be a book called the impending crisis that looks at the period between the war with Mexico and the Civil War he belongs on any short shelf or the most perceptive interpreters of United States history and especially the 19th century he wrote an essay called the historians use of nationalism and vice-versa terrible title but a very useful essay and that essay reminds us that every human being all of us possess a range of loyalties very complicated range of loyalties and different ones of those loyalties at different moments become the most important they percolate up and they drop down in terms of inspiring us to do this or not do that or not to do anything at all in lee's case as i said i'm going to discuss these four levels that became more prominent receded or intertwined at crucial periods in his life and I'll begin with Virginia which certainly loomed largest during the momentous spring of 1861 and I'll chronicle an abbreviated fashion Lee's road to resignation from the United States Army he was stationed out in Texas as the very difficult secession winter of 1860 61 came he was lieutenant colonel and he watched the Union that he'd served for more than 30 years drift toward disaster while he was busy with Duty out in Texas that he detested chasing Comanches whom he never caught serving on courts-martial which he found tedious beyond belief and suffering what in the mid 19th century was a Texas climate that would not be the most inviting that you might ever imagine I lived in Texas thirteen years gets hot in Texas it really does and then it stays hot and Lee talked about that the election of Abraham Lincoln triggered South Carolina secession on December 20th 1860 as everyone in this room knows and in rapid order six more Deep South states followed so that by February 1st the entire steer tier of the lower south of the deep south the cotton south had left the Union including Texas which was last and left on February 1st 1861 shortly after Texas seceded Lee received orders to report to Winfield Scott in Washington DC he had a sad parting with friends in San Antonio he had good friends in San Antonio and then began his long journey home he reached Arlington on March the 1st the national crisis deepened soon after Lee's returned to Virginia Jefferson Davis headed the new Confederate government in Montgomery Alabama and tensions escalated regarding the fate of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor that already been a tense moment as you know at Charleston back in January when South Carolinians fired on the star of the West a union vessel that sailed into the harbor but James Buckhannon had hunkered down nothing had happened then but now it was in the news again Fort Sumter and Charleston in early March Lee met privately for several hours with Winfield Scott was a protege of Scotts Scott much admired Lee service in Mexico considered him the best soldier in the United States Army as he said more than once he didn't mean that Scott thought he was the best soldier in the United States Army and he knew everybody knew that so he would say Lee was and everybody would understand he thought Lee was the second best soldier in the United States Army during that interview it's almost certain that Winfield Scott urged Lee to remain in the United States Army no matter what happened regarding Virginia lease promotion to Colonel of the first United States Cavalry Regiment followed on March 16th Jefferson Davis had created two elite cavalry regiments as Secretary of War in the 1850s and Lee was offered command of one of those in the meantime Confederate Secretary of War Leroy Polk Walker offered Lee a brigadier general ship in the Confederate Army Walker's letter dated March 15th reached Lee afterward of Lee's promotion to Colonel of the 1st Cavalry Lee apparently never responded to Walker's letter at least there's no record of it but on March 30th he accepted the promotion in the United States Army and so he's a colonel at the end of March 1861 and his command will be the 1st cavalry the final storm broke in mid-april as you know Confederates fired on Fort Sumter on the 12th the federal garrison formally surrendered on the 14th and Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion on April 15th and that is the great moment in terms of settling the fate of the upper South it's not the firing on Fort Sumter it's the call for volunteers to suppress the rebellion that's what sends the upper South out Tennessee in Virginia and North Carolina and Arkansas Arkansas matters just not as much as the others apologies to anyone from Arkansas here on April 17th Lee received requests for two meetings to meet separately with Winfield Scott again and with Francis Preston Blair senior Blair was the patriarch of a very well-connected and powerful Democratic family he'd been part of Andrew Jackson's kitchen cabinet they were very well-connected two of his sons would play key roles in the American Civil War Frank Blair Francis Preston Blair jr. and Montgomery Blair who would be in Lincoln's cabinet Lincoln and the Secretary of War Simon Cameron had asked the elder Blair to talk with re Lee both meetings took place on the morning of the 18th empowered by Lincoln to quote ascertain Lee's intentions and feelings and by Secretary of War Cameron to make an offer to Lee command of the Union Army making up outside Washington that would be used to suppress the rebellion I mean that's the background for the meeting with the senior Blair Blair asked Lee to take that command among the arguments he deployed Blair observed the people of the United States looked to Lee quote as a representative of the Washington family an allusion to Lee's marriage to Marianna Randolph Custis the daughter of George Washington steppe grandson he knew that would resonate with Lee because he knew that Lee's own Idol the person Lee admired above all others was George Washington and that his connection to Washington in the Washington relics through marriage into the Custis family had always been very important to lead but Lee declined Blair's offer and proceeded immediately to Scotts office where he recounted his conversation with Blair and reiterated that he would not accept the proffered command tradition has it that Scott who was from Dinwiddie County Virginia replied quote Lee you've made the greatest mistake of your life but I feared it would be so sounds good we don't know whether he really said that or not powerful emotions must have pulled it Lee as he pondered his future that evening in the next day word of Virginia secession appeared in local news papers on April 19th April 19th and in the early morning hours of April 20 Lee composed a one-sentence letter of resignation to Simon Cameron later that day he wrote a much longer letter to Winfield Scott noting that he would have resigned immediately quote but for the struggle it has cost me to separate to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted all the best years of my life and all the ability I possessed the penultimate sentence of that letter to Scott contained the already quoted statement regarding raising his sword only in defense of Virginia the War Department took five days to process Lee's resignation which became official on April 25th by then he had received an offer from Governor John letter to take command of all of Virginia's forces the 54 year old Lee traveled to Richmond on April 22nd talked with Letcher and accepted the offer of a major-general seat of Virginia State forces Letcher immediately sent his name forward to the Virginia state convention which had just voted to secede for confirmation accompanied by a brief text explaining that Lee had resigned his commission in the United States Army before being aware that a commission would be in the offing from Virginia in other words making it clear that Lee wasn't doing all of this at the same time there was a sequence to it a sequence that he thought was important and Lee would have as well on April 23rd Lee accompanied a four-person delegation to the Virginia Capitol in Richmond a few minutes after noon they entered the building where the conventions members were in private session as he waited outside the closed room you can still walk into that room today it's a very evocative place and right outside it today as when re Lee waited outside that meeting room is the statue of George Washington the very famous statue of George Washington by Jean Antoine who Don it's just Washington a full-size statue of Washington in his military gear there is Lee face to face with his military and civilian model really it's Washington both as a soldier and Washington as small R Republican citizen who was deeply important to re Li as someone who showed what impeccable behavior and performance looked like in a Democratic Republic he soon entered the crowded chamber and he listened to welcome in remarks from John Janey a former Whig and the conventions president like a majority of the delegates in the convention Janey had been a unionist he voted against the session until the very end Virginia was not on the verge of secession until Lincoln's call for the 75,000 volunteers Janey said it was a unanimous vote to appoint Lee and then he quoted Lee's father Light Horse Harry Lee who had offered the most memorable tribute to George Washington first in war first in peace first in the hearts of his countrymen that's Light Horse Harry Lee eulogizing George Washington and Janey turned to that he said we pray God most fervently that you may so conduct the operations committed to your charge that it will soon be said of you that you are first in peace and when that time comes you will have earned the still prouder distinction of being first in the hearts of your countrymen the tribute from Janie surely made Lee uncomfortable we never wrote about it but I am sure he did not like being compared to Washington especially the suggestion that he would become the Confederacy's Washington I think few if any in that chamber really could have imagined that in four years that's precisely what was going to happen that is exactly what happened with Ari Lee and the Confederate nation he became he and his army became to the Confederate attempt to establish their nationhood almost exactly what George Washington and the Continental Army had been during the American Revolution that is the most important national institution the most important rallying point the point to which people looked to determine whether their effort to establish their nation still had a chance to succeed much more important than Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Congress just as Washington in the Continental Army had been more important than the Continental Congress where is the Continental Congress who the hell knows they used to be in Philadelphia then they were then they went somewhere else in pencil I don't know where they are but where is Washington that's the key and that's what happens it's not by accident that Appomattox marks the end of the American Civil War it marks the end of the American Civil War because it's the end of the Army in Northern Virginia there are still scores of thousands of Confederate soldiers under arms at many other places in the Confederacy and it doesn't matter because they're not commanded by re leader commanded by Joseph Egleston Johnston and others from whom much less was expected then from Lee I know their secret Johnston admires in this room I do you're everywhere not many of you but you're there I know you have a secret handshake you get upset when people say Lee was more important than Johnston it's like saying an elephant's bigger than a gnat it should be obvious to everyone Joe Johnston's all right barely Lee becomes he becomes what Washington had been and it's an overt comparison for Confederates it's not something that maybe people are thinking they say it again and again and again and again they compare Washington to lead and they often compare Lee favorably to Washington in fact quite remarkable anyway John Janey did that as Lee stood there and listened and I think was uncomfortable after Janey finished Lee offered a few sentences excuse me a two sentence acceptance and he closed with this quote I will devote myself to the defense and service of my native state in whose behalf alone would I have ever drawn my sword the same thing same thing same sentiment as the letter to Winfield Scott he said the same thing you wrote lots of letters at the same time and the language is there it's like when we send ten emails on the same subject in one day they're all pretty much the same Lee had these sentiments and many letters from the time Lee the Virginian certainly held center stage in this dramatic moment of his life there's no question about that in a letter to his sister Anne Lee Marshall he explained quote I've not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives my children my home but in fact many members of Lee's extended family were staunch unionists including his sister and Marshall and many cousins several of whom fought for the United States during the war a number of whom never spoke to Robert Ely again after his decision in the spring of 1861 within his own household Marianna Custis Lee and most of their children were quite unionist in their sympathies his sons made their decisions later than robert e lee did two of them became confederate generals as you know Rooney Lee became a general Custis Lee became a general but they decided later only his daughter married fully embraced her father's decision moreover more than a third of all Virginians who had graduated from West Point remained loyal to the United States we often have a sense that they're really only two Virginians who stay loyal to the United States George H thymus it's one of the most famous and of course Winfield Scott but in fact a third of all the Virginia men who had commissions in the United States Army in 1861 kept the United States Army uniforms on the point being that for many Virginians including some very close to Lee severing long-held ties to the United States was not the only honorable course they could take you up and read that Lee did the only thing he could do the only thing that a Virginian could do was go with Virginia and then with the Confederacy it's a decision that many people made they didn't all reach the same conclusion that our aleady but Virginia was important and he's going to Virginia not to the Confederacy that's the thing to remember initially but of course very quickly Virginia was in the Confederacy had about six weeks as Major General of Virginia forces and then the Virginia forces going to the Confederate Army and re Lee goes into the Confederate Army not as the ranking officer in the Confederate Army but he does outrank Joseph Johnston which Johnston never from always keeping his eye on the really big issues Johnson he fumed about that for years all right the first level of loyalty now I want to move to the second and that's the United States what about re Lee's loyalty to the United States I think that loyalty certainly complicated his decision on April 20th indeed much in his background pointed the way toward a different answer he was born to make in the spring of 1861 I'll say again George Washington the greatest of all Virginians and the greatest of all Americans in the view of the Civil War generation and clearly even for us the most important of all American presence without Washington none of the rest probably happens it's hard to make an argument for anybody being more important than George Washington in American history it's really hard extremely hard and utterly unpersuasive if you try to that man is Ari Lee's idol there would be no nation without George Washington there would be no Regular Army without George Washington there would be no sense of the whole transcending state and local interests without George Washington and Washington was an ardent nationalist as you know always a nationalist in his view he absolutely stood at the center of those who believed the nation must come first in that formative period Lee came from a family of Federalists who believed in a strong nation in events little state-centered sentiment in 1798 his father had opposed the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions with their strong support for state power power authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison lifers Harry Lee argued that the Constitution quote was entirely the act of the people and not the state governments live her life Horse Harry Lee discussion of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions anticipated Abraham's Lincoln argument argument that the origins of the Const and thus of the nation lay with we the people not with we the states the language is almost identical Lee had rendered stop service to the Republic as a gifted engineer as a staff officer who contributed substantively to United States victory in Mexico he performed quite remarkably in Mexico especially in the last phase of the campaign from Veracruz to Mexico City overseen by Winfield Scott he'd also been an imaginative superintendent at the United States Military Academy although Whiggish or even Federalists in his personal views he applauded news of Democrat James by cannons election in 1856 Mr Buckhannon it appears is to be our next president he wrote to mrs. Lee in December of that year I hope he will be able to extinguish fanaticism north and south and cultivate love for the country and Union and restore harmony between the different sections Lee was equally hard on abolitionists whom he considered fanatics on one end of the political spectrum and fire-eaters whom he considered fanatics on the other end of the political spectrum and that was a sentiment shared by many Americans he opposed secession during the winter of 1866 t1and in the letter to his sister Ann already quoted described quote his devotion to the Union and quote feeling of loyalty and duty of an American system of an American citizen his letter to Winfield Scott on April 20 that I've quoted from also attested to his love of the Union earlier that year in writing to his son Rooney Rooney's his middle son as you know he echoed his Federalist father insisting that the framers meant for the Union to be perpetual it is idle the talk of secession wrote Lee bluntly turning to his professional model as he often did Lee lamented the possibility that Washington's quote noble deeds would be destroyed and that his precious advice and virtuous example so soon forgotten by his countrymen secession for him seemed to be a betrayal of George Washington and by extension of all the sacrifice of the soldiers who served in the Continental Army despite his clear affection for the Union however we know that Lee left its army which brings us to a third level of loyalty and that is his loyalty to the slaveholding south this is the one of Lee's loyalties that receives the least attention and yet I think it is absolutely central to his decision in the spring of 1861 to leave the United States Army he strongly identified with the SAV holding south that's a that's a loyalty that's perfectly compatible with his loyalty to Virginia of course in letters and comments addressing his decision to resign from the Army he often mentioned the south as well as Virginia the focus is used on what he says about Virginia but he also talks about the south his political philosophy stood strikingly at odds with the virulent rhetoric of secessionist fire-eaters however as he wrote his son Custis before his resignation that's his oldest son the south in my opinion has been aggrieved by the acts of the north I feel the aggression and I'm willing to take every proper step for redress in his meetings with Francis Preston Blair and Winfield Scott on April 18th Lee proclaimed that while he opposed secession quote he would not take up arms against the south or against fellow southerners a desire to maintain racial control figured prominently in Lee's southern identity he's offered upon his anti-slavery somehow and I say Reese not at all anti-slavery why would he be he had very conventional views about race and slavery for someone of his time and class in place very much in the mainstream in his views he accepted the peculiar institution as the best means for ordering relations between the races and resented northerners who attacked the motives and character of slaveholders and seemed willing or even in his view eager to disrupt racial stability in the slave holding States in late December 1856 in a letter to his wife he observed quote slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country that's often quoted but he also believed the liberation of enslaved people should be left entirely in God's hands their emancipation will soon a result from the mild and melting influence of Christianity than the storms and tempest of fiery controversy and he unequivocally denounced abolitionists alluding to what he termed quote the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people of the north to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the south domestic institutions of the south means the slavery based social structure of the south such actions he said quote can only be accomplished by them abolitionists through the agency of a civil and servile war leaves resentment of northerners who would tamper with the South's racial order continued during the war although seldom quoted by historians his response to Lincoln's final proclamation of emancipation leads no doubt about the depth of his feeling Emancipation Proclamation the final version was issued on Jill On January 1st 1863 as you know nine days later Lee wrote to the Confederate Secretary of War James a sedin calling for greater mobilization of human and material resources in the face of Union military power that threatened complete social disruption in the Confederacy Lincoln's proclamation stood as quote a savage and brutal policy stated Lee with barely controlled anger which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death if we would save the honor of our families from pollution our social system from destruction Lee is not a little bit upset about the Emancipation Proclamation he is profoundly upset about the Emancipation Proclamation and the image that it raised of a possible disruption of social order a great fear as all of you know of quite sevinor's before the Civil War was that something like Santa Domingo could happen in the south a major slave rebellion the be bloody and could sweep away the world as they knew it and the Emancipation Proclamation raised those specters honor required this kind of response steadily two years earlier he'd also spoken of honor claiming that quote there's no sacrifice I'm not ready to make for the preservation of the Union save that of Honor as a member of the slaveholding aristocracy of Virginia and the south his sense of honor dictated that he stand with those of his blood in his class and his section he hated the idea of disunion but rejected the idea of a country as he put it that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets and he was unwilling to risk forced changes in a social structure predicated on the institution of slavery that shouldn't come as a surprise to us although it's not talked about that much let me move to the fourth level of loyalty here and that's one that's forged during the most famous period of Lee's life and is without doubt the most important of his loyalties during by far the most important period of his life and that period is the four years of the war and that loyalty is to the Confederate nation Lee is an ardent Confederate nationalist during the Civil War there's some people who don't think there was such a thing as Confederate nationalism they should read something that robert e lee wrote I don't just mean something I mean basically anything that robert e lee wrote you could still argue there's no confederate nationalism you can also look at the sun and wonder why it's warm during the day here but if you read Lee and read others like Lee the Confederate nationalism is not an elusive mystery it's everywhere his most important oil tea is to the Confederate nation something perfectly consistent with his southern and Virginia identities his national viewpoints point stands out vividly throughout his wartime correspondence both his official correspondence and his correspondence with mrs. Lee and his correspondence with his sons and his correspondence with others from the opening of the conflict until the final scenes at Appomattox he urged Confederate soldiers Confederate politicians can civilians to set aside state and local interests entirely in pursuit of national success if we don't achieve independence was Lee's argument basically none of your other loyalties matter I don't care what you want for your state or your locality if the Confederacy fails you can wash all of those away you're not going to have any of them so your eyes should be on the ball and the ball is waging an all-out war to achieve independence the rest can come later he articulated his views about the relative importance of state and national concerns on many occasions he wrote to the secretary of state of South Carolina in late December 1861 laying out his views very clearly he's only eight months into the war but he was taking the long view regarding the topic of subordinating state to nation the Confederate states have now but one great object in view wrote Lee the successful issue of war and independence everything worth they're possessing depends on that everything should yield to its accomplishment the Confederate people debated a number of issues relating to the expansion of national power this always happens in Wars how much you're going to let the government do in order to win a war Wars change things Wars run far beyond what anybody can imagine they put in place whole new sets of imperatives and possibilities there's a whole literature now about how Abraham Lincoln can best be understood that someone whose main goal was to be to create a big central government that could the devil people for the rest of American history well here's a little flash for you Lincoln didn't do anything that Jefferson Davis didn't do and he didn't do nearly as much in many ways the biggest most intrusive central government in our history until deep into the 20th century is the Confederate government and robert e lee is right on board with that because that's the kind of government he argued it's going to take to win this war his attitude is basically if it needs to be done for the war do it do it and do it now don't do it later do it now it's one reason he and Jefferson Davis had such a good working relationship they agreed on that they're absolutely on the same page they're absolutely on the same page and I'm going to use three especially important examples of Lee's willingness to have the government get big and do whatever it took one is conscription two is the impressment of goods and enslaved labor to support the Confederate war effort and third is arming some slaves to further the Confederate work and don't please don't miss read me here I'm not about to say there were a bunch of black soldiers in the Confederate Army because there weren't there were not side the other fifty thousand a hundred thousand I've seen a hundred thousand is the largest number I've seen hundred thousand black Confederate soldiers really somebody should have told Robert Elia about him because he would have wanted some of them he didn't have any of them that's a little aside during the winter in spring of 1861 62 Lee instructed his aide Charles Marshall to quote draft a bill for raising an army by the direct agency of the Confederate government Lee one of the legislation number one to extend the service of men who had previously enlisted in good faith for one year number two to place all other white males between the ages of 18 and 35 in the Confederate service and number three to give Jefferson Davis the power quote to call out such parts of the population rendered liable to service by the law as he might deem proper and at such times as he might deem fit Marshall aptly noted that quote this measure completely reversed the previous military legislation of the south the efforts of the government had hitherto been confined to inviting the support of the people generally thought it could more surely rely upon their intelligent obedience and that it might safely assume command where it had as yet only tried to persuade now Marshalls careful language softened the import of what Lee wanted Lee wanted a Richmond government that could compel white male military aged citizens to serve in the army that had never happened in American history before the United States government had never compelled men to serve it could ask I'm asking you to serve and you say how interesting that you ask go straight to hell okay and then I ask you and eventually some people come but have never forced men in it's a hue the United States is going to follow suit in a year the Confederacy does it first because a huge percentage of their men had enlisted for one year this spring of 1861 they are going to rotate out of service just as the campaigning begins in 1862 and that cannot happen they tried to entice the men to re-up by offering them a little money and in a month's leave and not many men did and Lee said okay we were going to do these things we're not only going to make everybody who isn't in the army eligible to be in the army but all those men who are in the army and in good faith signed up for a year good faith we're going to change the rules on them that was considered a direct assault on individual freedom and liberty by untold people in the Confederacy the Confederate government in affected had a contract with those men argued the men I agreed to serve for a year you agreed to do these things and now you're putting me in service for two more years there's a spike in Confederate desertion in the spring of 1862 that precisely coincides with the passage of this legislation Lee said doesn't matter we need to do this and in the end the Confederate people accepted it and then two years later when those men were eligible to get out again the Confederate Congress changed the rules again and now they're in for the duration here's the bottom line the Confederacy ever gets you into a uniform you don't get out you don't get out that's something the United States government did not do during the Civil War you're from Pennsylvania and you enlist for nine months you go home in nine months enlist for a year you go home in a year 20,000 soldiers in the Army of the Potomac got out of uniform in the middle of the Overland campaign in the summer of 1864 because their three-year enlistment ran out they went home that's not an option in the Confederacy and one of the principal supporters and architects of that policy is our elite it's a huge change if it's it's lost on us now what a sea change of a difference that is in the relationship between the central government and the citizenry a central government that can force you to risk your life Lee also supported the central government's right to impress food animals and black labor Confederate government knew that midway through the war Confederate money had devalued to the degree that it was worthless doesn't help to tax people because the money that came in wouldn't be worth anything so what do you do instead you take the stuff you need we need horses we'll take your horses we need your mules we'll take your mules we need corn we'll take 10% of your corn crop we need more labor to build fortifications we want you to contribute some of your slaves to the national service not the government's going to own them but that can use their labor for a period of a month or two months or three months all of those things Lee supported during the winter of 1864 he said all the material resources that the country should be Marshall he knew that this put a tremendous burden on the Confederate people he was very sensitive to that he said we need to do this we just mean we need to make sure that this pain is apportioned fairly and evenly across our population we have to do it but we have to try to do it in a fair and even-handed way he said at that time in the winter of 64 I think the present law and orders on the subject of impressed things should be so modified as to authorize the government to impress one to impress when necessary a certain proportion of everything produced in the country everything produced in the country government requirements might be heavy he said civilians are going to have to sacrifice but and I'll quote him again if it requires all the meat in the country to support the army it should be had the army needs all the meat nobody else gets meat in the Confederacy confederacies railroads also should be put to the test Lee said if we have to will bar civilian traffic on the railroads if it takes all the railroad traffic to support the armies then there is no non-military traffic on the railroads they all get taken over by the government whatever is necessary no civilian passengers no civilian Goods nothing on the railroads if we need them to support our military effort again that's a step the United States government never even contemplated during the Civil War the Confederacy is in a desperate fight against long odds they have to achieve a level of mobilization of resources greater relatively greater than the United States human and material resources and robert e lee says yes yes yes whatever it takes whatever it takes late in the war Lee supported arming some slaves and freeing all who served honorably you know all you know about this debate that came up there were people talking a little bit about it earlier in the war of the most famous discussion of it began with Patrick Cleburne in the army of Tennessee in the winter of 1864 when the Irish born Claiborne said that you should put slaves into the Confederate Army it percolated through the rest of the year Lee in the spring of 64 told Jefferson Davis listen every white man who is doing any job other than carrying a musket in the army should be given a musket and that work should be carried out by black men not black soldiers but by slaves or other put to that work he wanted as many white men as possible carrying muskets the debate over whether to arm some slaves continued into the fall Lee didn't say anything he finally weighed in in early 1865 and it's a measure of how important he was that when he weighed in that pretty much settled the issue and his argument was this has nothing to do with being a closet emancipation esc' he said look the Yankees are using our slaves against us if they win the war they are going to institute emancipation on their terms they're going to destroy our social system on their terms we can either do that or if we can use some slaves in the army and achieve success that way then we should do it because if we win the war we'll still be in control of our social system this is pure self-interest here that's driving our release a very pragmatic hard-headed argument that he's making but he said you can't get men to risk their lives for nothing he said if if a slave goes into the army serves well you should free him and you should free his family and you should let them live where they want to live in the end as many of you know the Confederate Congress very late in the war agreed to put some slaves in the Army but did not agree to do any of the other things that Lee said none of the none of the enticements if you like that Lee offered were made part of on it all happened too late to make any difference anyway it's March 1865 before any of this happened but my point is Lee in the name of Confederate nationhood was willing even to take this step as he put it we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves used against us or use them ourselves at the risk of the effects which may be produced upon our social institutions if the enrollment of some slaves in the Army would bring victory then the white people of the Confederacy would still be left in arge that's basically the bottom line of his argument I'm going to conclude by returning to April 1861 when Lee waited to be ushered into the room where he would accept that Commission in Virginia's forces Virginia was mostly on his mind that day I don't think there's any doubt about it but I also think it's very likely he saw George Washington twice that day he saw the big equestrian statue of him as he walked toward the Capitol building the Capitol with an O building the great equestrian statue that became the centerpiece of the of the Great Seal of the Confederacy and then he saw him again as I said the famous standing statue just outside the room where the men were meeting and I can't I don't find it a stretch at all to think that he at some point that day thought about George Washington and George Washington's efforts to forge a national resistance from the efforts of 13 sometimes obdurate colonies that was a crucial task that George Washington had to do and I think that perhaps Lee The Virginian on that day was already changing his loyalty to Virginia and the south beginning its transmutation into ardent Confederate purpose Thanks the floor is open now and I'll repeat your question there's a hand up already yes let's make sure no I said thousands of black men didn't serve in the Confederate military there are eight or nine hundred thousand soldiers in the Confederate Army and am I going to stand here and say that never did a black man pick up a musket and fire Yankee snow I'm not going to say that because I think that probably did happen but were there confederate black Confederate soldiers I mean really black Confederate soldiers my answer to that is no this idea that they're everywhere and they're serving the Confederacy no I just think there's absolutely no evidence to support that I've got a half a shelf of books at home that stretch that issue I just I just don't buy the evidence there we go we could continue that discussion sometime this isn't the forum but I but I will stick to my there's this and I don't I know why this I know this widest argument is out there this is an attempt retrospectively to get the Confederacy right on race and slavery and all I can say is just stop because you can't do it it can't do it doesn't mean all Confederates are monsters they are living in the mid nineteenth century they're coming out of their society and their social background and they were they they weren't embarrassed by slavery going into the war we talked about this earlier today read Jefferson Davis read Alexander Stephens but read them going forward from the late antebellum years into the war don't read don't don't ever bring me anything written after the war to prove that they didn't think slavery was important in the spring of 1861 just don't even bring it to me I'm not the least interested in that I want to know what they said during the secession crisis I want to know what they said is they're establishing the Confederacy and I'll save you some time they're saying slavery is absolutely central read the Confederate Constitution read the secession documents that come out of the secession conventions in the various southern states read Alexander Stephens is cornerstone speech read Jefferson Davis's message the Confederate Congress in on April 29th 1861 you cannot read those documents and pretend that slavery is not what's going on you can't do it they're not out of their minds they've got three billion dollars worth of wealth at stake the slaveholders of the south do they are the wealthiest people in the United States they control more wealth than anyone else in the United States we don't think that the 1860 census tells us that property in slaves three billion dollars all manufacturing interests all railroads put together in the entire United States 2.2 billion dollars in 1860 the two wealthiest states per capita in the United States South Carolina and Mississippi in 1860 what do they have in common there's a vast amount of wealth at stake a party has just been elected that isn't doesn't even pretend to be a National Party doesn't even pretend isn't even on the ballot in ten southern states Abraham Lincoln is not on the ballot and slaveholders don't care that the Republican platform in 1860 says we have no designs on slavery where it is because people know that in 1858 both the new president in his house divided speech and the new Secretary of State both of them Secretary of State in his irrepressible conflict speech said the United States cannot exist in the long term part slave and part free it is going to be all of one or all of the other and slaveholders knew which one they wanted it to be this is a gamble this is a gamble on the part of people who control a great deal of wealth and habits take not only wealth but control social control Lee mentioned it three times in the things that I read to you just now how do you control millions of black people that is much on the white South's mind there are no black people virtually in the North that same 1860 census tells us that the free states were 98.8% white now are white northerners racists of course they are by our standards they are virtually all Americans I say virtually I would say all but like saying that there no black man picked up a musket you can't say that when so many people are risk but virtually all Americans by our standards are racist there's nothing easier than determining that and nothing more boring to me oh gee we're better than they are okay that's a tough that's a very tough hill to climb just as we talked about this today two and fifty years people will look at us and think we're unbelievably benign I can't believe they did that in 2012 time they're so backward racism is everywhere black people are not and where the black people are the white people want to have a means of controlling them and that means of control is the institution of slavery and that is why all white people not just slaveholders have a stake in slavery yes two-thirds of the families in the Confederacy did not own slaves it does not mean that two-thirds of the families in the Confederacy have no stake in slavery they absolutely have a stake in slavery absolutely next question yes I who said that in the that made it into the PBS Lee really okay well I was on that program and I watched it once and I don't remember that but if it says that I would say no no I mean how can you guarantee to a soldier that no anyway I would say no I could go look maybe well of course he couldn't no is Scott did tell Dan that and hoped he would make a certain decision did you have your hand done nicely understated now why did he have to know that this I love this did the people who criticize and I'm just gonna are not being that funny I'm just using you as a FOIA people who like to argue that Lee wasn't a good general he should have listened to James Longstreet James Longstreet knew better than Lee cuz James Longstreet said stand on the defensive everybody knew that was the way to win the war stand on it you didn't say Lee wasn't a good general you just said you should have said that because the picket surgery should have understood that you have an advantage if you're on the defensive everybody didn't know that and James Longstreet told him that at Gettysburg the notion that that hadn't occurred to leave of course I love to quote dick Taylor on this Richard Taylor who was a curry tailor son was a Confederate Lieutenant General when someone commented once that Lee should have done what James loved that James Longstreet knew something that wasn't apparent to lead dick Taylor said anyone who knew both of those men would find it odd to think that anything James Longstreet knew would not be apparent to lead Lee had about 50 points of IQ on James Longstreet I think Longstreet was a very good soldier standing on the defensive my dear friend Alan Nolan who wrote a book called Lee considered which argued against Lee's generalship in many ways said that the model campaign was Fredericksburg where you get a great defensive position and the Yankees attack up hill and you slaughter them and then they retreat back across the Rappahannock River that's a great idea as long as you have an inexhaustible supply of Ambrose Burnside's on the other side and that's hard to guarantee because the very next Union General is Joseph Hooker and Joseph Hooker got all the way around Lee's flank and should have defeated him at Chancellorsville anybody can look up maurice heights and decide maybe it's not a great idea to attack up there one brigade at a time all afternoon on december 13th 1862 I think what Lee understood what those critics don't understand is that the key lay with the civilian populations the war would end when one of the civilian population said that's it we not going to support this warning or could the Confederacy defeat the Union absolutely no they did not have the resources to do that but did they have a chance to win the war absolutely this Lost Cause idea that it was a hopeless effort against insurmountable odds is baloney that's post war baloney the Confederates didn't feel that way during the war they didn't they weren't suffering from some mass delusion in 1861 or some idea that let's have a gallant fight and slaughter a quarter of all our military aged white men just to make a point no they were not thinking that way they thought they could win we believe the key was the civilian population of the United States and he knew that the fastest way to demoralize the civilian population of the United States was to inflict bloody defeats on Union armies in order to do that you said profligate Lee the blood of the Confederacy - he's in a race what's going to happen first is the Confederacy going to run out of men or is the United States civilian population going to run out of the will to continue the war that's the question and leaves the bloodiest general in American history poor grant grants known as the butcher grants not nearly the butcher Lee is not nearly all those wars out west in that part of the United States we can't really see because it's indistinct and kind of murky all grants abet great victories out there Henry and Donelson Shiloh Vicksburg Chattanooga 35,000 casualties for grants forces 35,000 Lee's casualties in the same period 95,000 when does grant get bloody when he's introduced to re Lee the same time everybody else gets bloody you can't be around Lee and not have heaps of casualties that's just the way it goes and yet the three times that the Confederacy comes closest to persuading the people of the United States that it wasn't worth it we're in the wake of the seven days and second Bull Run these two victories in the wake of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville Lee's next two victories and most obviously in the hideous and blood-soaked summer of 1864 when the casualties even within a civil war framework just went off the charts and the people in the north came this close to saying that's enough Abraham Lincoln told his cabinet we're not going to win the war on August 23rd 1864 we're arguing we're not going to be re-elected we have to win the war before the Democrats come in because they won't win it the Republicans didn't even call themselves Republicans in 1864 they called themselves the Union Party hoping to attract more support from the Democratic side only Philip Sheridan and I'm going to say it out loud in Atlanta William Tecumseh Sherman re-elected Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans and now you have a quick rebuttal because that was a long response to a question I didn't even let you finish asking yeah that's what Longstreet said yeah I think Lee here's what I think happened to Gettysburg I think Lee didly didly no it would fail of course he didn't know hope would fail why would he order an assault he knew would fail as he said after the battle now that I know what happened even as dull fellow as I am know that it wasn't the best idea he knew that here's what he thought at Gettysburg I take lead his word he wrote this to his wife he wrote this to Jefferson Davis he simply expected too much from his infantry he said he asked his infantry to do too much why did he do that because every other time he'd asked him to do something they had done it and I think the most pertinent moment in terms of understanding the third day at Gettysburg which came on the heels of two days one of which was a spectacular tactical victory for the Army in Northern Virginia July the 1st and the second was a day filled with the closest of calls on the Union left on the Union right and one Georgia Brigade Ambrose writes got all the way up to the cops of trees in the Union Center on the late afternoon of July 2nd with no coordination they still came close in Lee's view I think he decided Richard Ewell is vacillating ap Hill has disappeared James Longstreet is not himself for some reason James Stewart is off being Jeb Stewart I'm going to let my infantry take care of this he had seen it exactly two months before exactly two months before on the 3rd of May 1863 at Chancellorsville when his army was divided with the much more powerful army of the potomac in between the pieces Lee with Lafayette McLaws and Richard Anderson on one side Jeb Stewart commanding the divisions of Stonewall Jackson on the other side and through incredibly hard and bitter fighting on the morning of May the 3rd the wings of the Army of Northern Virginia fought their way together and midst of that success in Chancellorsville clearing our Ely road down the Turnpike / plank road into the midst of his infantry and there was one of those great epiphanies that took place a few times during the Civil War the troops went wild when they saw him there's the old man there he is and here we are in victory against the odds they attack far more numerous Federals who were behind fieldworks on part of the line and they succeeded and they looked at Lee and Lee looked at them and I think that is the moment that finished that process of bonding that began in the seven days and forged this absolutely unshakable bond between Lee and his soldiers it's unlike any other bond in any other army in the war even exceeds that between McClellan and the Army of the Potomac the men believed Lee could do anything and Lee believed them in could do anything and I know that because they both said it the soldiers letters are filled with that they didn't even contemplate the thought of defeat in Pennsylvania and I think that's what explains Pickett's charge Lee said it and I believed him I think when he rode out among his troops as Arthur James lion freemantle tells us from his diary and says this is all my fault he it was all his fault and one of his admirable characteristics it's like grant when he did something wrong he took responsibility for it he's not Joseph Johnston he's not George McClellan the first thing they do is find someone to blame can't be me can't be me must be somebody else could be a cabal people are always plotting against me that's not the way Lee and grant handled it it's all my fault said Lee mine it was and he took responsibility and I think it's because he believed his infantry as they had it gains his mill and as they had it second Bull Run and as they had a Chancellorsville would simply take care of things and he hoped that another Georgian would help Porter Alexander with his Tillery he put a little bit too much faith in that pre assault bombardment that's another story yes the Gatling gun was a critical element in the Civil War it was an absolute non element in the Civil War it didn't make any difference on any battlefield in any theater at any time other than that it was the key yes you're quoting my man Porter Alexander again there what about the way Lee surrendered some of his junior officers wanted him to take to the woods and fight a guerrilla war Porter Alexander I'm going to make a little pitch for Porter Alexander here although I assume most of you have read Porter Alexander if you haven't you absolutely should because he is the most astute observer and analyst of the war who wore a Confederate uniform grant is the best on the Union side Porter Alexander is the best on the Confederate side in Porter Alexander wrote two books he published one in 1970 memoirs of a Confederate but he wrote an earlier one that got penned this is going to sound self-serving but I'm going to plow ahead it sort of disappeared in the southern historical collections at Chapel Hill and I put it back together in the late 1980s I mean it was all there they had just filed it in different files and so it disappeared and then I found out how and in the end there's a manuscript that goes from page 1 to page 1200 he is the best he's honest he wrote the first one that came out later for his children he had no thought of publishing it so it's very frank and it's he quotes people he has a great portrait of Lee Lee losing his temper Lee's humor quotes profanity some of it pretty saucy from different people it's an amazed it's analysis of Gettysburg stands up with any analysis that anyone has ever written about Gettysburg he says that he talked to Lee just before the surrender at Appomattox and says disband the army he tells he talks about how when he talked him out of it he said it won't do any good all it will do is prolong the war won't change the verdict and it will bring destruction to areas that haven't yet experienced it Lee said essentially the same thing in a letter to Jefferson Davis just a little bit after Appomattox so I think that what Lee Lee was a realist I'll say it again there are no options left at Appomattox after April 9th Sheridan and some Union infantry have gotten in front of him the George Meade is right behind him there's nowhere to go he just and his army had evaporated he left Richmond with at least 60,000 men Richmond and Petersburg 28,000 signed paroles probably only 10 or 12,000 actually laid down their arms the army just melted away during that week of retreat a medical question okay right because I'm not a medical person I the question is was least did Li have a heart condition that clouded his judgment get that why he behaved the way he did there and I can't say I can't give you a medical opinion about that I the only time I know in the war when we're sure that Lee's help had a had a real impact was at the North Anna in May of 1864 when he got grant in a position where grants army was on there's a big loop in the river there and grant had troops in three different places that couldn't support one another easily and they were very vulnerable to a counter-attack but Lee was so sick that he couldn't oversee it and because Longstreet had been shot and because he didn't trust you'll or ap Hill there was no way to get at them and so the opportunity passed that's the only time I'm sure his health played a role could it have Gettysburg at Gettysburg I suppose it could have but I think it's important to remember that Lee's behavior at Gettysburg it's entirely in character with his behavior throughout the rest of the war there's nothing odd about what he's doing at Gettysburg his first urge is always to be aggressive his first Ortiz's he is as offensive minded an officer is there is on either side in the war so he's he's could he been sick he could have been sick he had a heart problem in in the spring of 1864 excuse me 1863 said he felt better by the time the gettysburg campaign but he hadn't been getting much sleep one of his staff officers said he never got more than two hours of sleep in a row any night during that campaign and he was in his mid-50s that didn't used to mean anything to me I've zoomed past my mid-50s now and it means something to me I don't see I've seen that torture rack he slept on in the field unlike other officers lead it in commandeer the biggest house in the neighborhood he uses his headquarters he slept in a damn tent on this contraption that's at the Museum of the Confederacy now I don't see how he did it but so I can't answer that but I know it's the lead that's lots of other places yes I know you did yes well the question is the first the observation that many of you in the audience grew up learning that it was a War Between the States and not a war of Nations and all I can say to that is that I mean on one level of course it's a War Between the States there are states in the United States and their states in the Confederate States so but I think the way to view the Civil War is a war between two modern within the mid nineteenth century context nation states states that certainly have the pretensions what did the Confederacy want to me this is one reason why the Confederacy there a couple of reasons why it didn't way to guerrilla war that's an anachronistic notion about what they should have done they wanted to be accepted as part of the Western community of nations how do you do that you set up a government you have a regular army you have a regular Navy you have regular governmental institutions it walks like a duck it quacks like a duck it's a duck you can't have a real duck if the only army is a bunch of guerrillas that's not a duck it's something else they wanted to be a nation they consider themselves a nation and so I think the best way for us to view that is that it's a war between two nations one of which doesn't last very long because unfortunately for it its entire history was played out in the midst of the greatest war in America history but it is a nation and I think the lingering allegiance to it suggests that I mean the there are the trappings of nationhood that carry on past the point at which there is a nation the United States gathered the Union Daddy national cemeteries there were no national cemeteries before the Civil War you need them because you've got a third of a million dead United States soldiers so you go to the battlefields you disinterred them and you put them in national cemeteries that just happened to be at a student ask me once why are there so many national cemeteries next to Civil War battlefields let's think about that hey there's one at Shiloh but they don't put the Confederate dead in cemeteries you don't put Confederate soldiers in United States national cemeteries so lady and there's no Confederate government to do that that's a job for the central government there is no central government so ladies Memorial Association's came into being they oversaw the disinterment and reinterment of the Confederate dead in what amount two Confederate national cemeteries 30,000 Confederates at Blandford Church in Petersburg 18,000 in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond buried by state there they are the parts composing the whole the Tennesseans the South Carolinians the North Carolinians in the Confederate cemetery even at little Spotsylvania where they did that and then you go and have Confederate Memorial days at that Confederate Cemetery if there's not some notion of nation in place during the Civil War I would ask what the hell is going on after why is there one after the war why is there one after the war it's two nations I really do think that it's not and it's not the North vs four southern states stay in the United States Missouri and Kentucky and Maryland and Delaware our southern states they're slaveholding states they stay loyal to the United States through the war Kentucky I said this is afternoon but a true Kentucky became a Confederate state after the war because was it was so upset with emancipation that it became a Confederate state after the war and then everybody in Kentucky had been a Confederate retrospectively it did get around to ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment however in the mid 1970s so god bless Kentucky but they're sort of the last ones to that table it's the United States versus the Confederacy everybody doesn't agree with that no they don't and I don't hope to convert everybody and I have people ask me why do you say the United States why do you refer to the United States and I said well only because it was the United States they didn't change the name during the war to the United States against the Confederacy one more question no more questions two more questions there's one well I'm from Los Angeles so I would appeal in other orange and say let me know how it turns out that's probably what I would do yes well I think we made a number of mistakes other than I think he made a mistake staying north of the Potomac during the Maryland campaign I think once he lost the gaps in the South Mountain Range there was absolutely nothing for him to accomplish he pushed his army past the limit which he knew he admitted to Jefferson Davis that between a third and a half of his men had fallen out of the ranks through stratagem and desertion and just simply breaking down because they'd outrun their logistical capacity at that point so what in the world is he hoping to accomplish by fighting the Battle of Antietam with his back to the Potomac River and only one Ford over the river Baudelaires Ford is it beau de leurs Ford is it if something goes wrong on the battlefield at Antietam the Army of Northern Virginia is toast he and it isn't because he knew George B McCullen would not push him that's another bunch of retrospective baloney the only time I know in the war when we're sure that Lee's help had a had a real impact was at the North Anna in May of 1864 when he got grant in a position where grants army was on there's a big loop in the river there and grant had troops in three different places that couldn't support one another easily and they were very vulnerable to a counter-attack but Lee was so sick that he couldn't oversee it and because Longstreet had been shot and because he didn't trust you'll or ap Hill there was no way to get at them and so the opportunity passed that's the only time I'm sure his health played a role could it have Gettysburg at Gettysburg I suppose it could have but I think it's important to remember that least behavior at Gettysburg is entirely in character with his behavior throughout the rest of the war there's nothing odd about what he's doing at Gettysburg his first urge is always to be aggressive his first Ortiz he is as offensive-minded an officer is there is on either side in the war so he's he's could've been sick he could have been sick he had a heart problem in in the spring of 1864 excuse me 1863 said he felt better by the time they get his Byrd campaign but he hadn't been getting much sleep one of his staff officers said he never got more than two hours of sleep in a row any night during that campaign and he was in his mid-50s that didn't used to mean anything to me I've zoomed past my mid-50s now and it means something to me I don't see I've seen that torture rack he slept on in the field unlike other officers Lee didn't commandeer the biggest house in neighborhood to use as his headquarters he slept in a damn tent on this contraction that's at the Museum of the Confederacy now I don't see how he did it but so I can't answer that but I know it's the lead that's lots of other places yes I know you did yes well the question is the first the observation that many of you in the audience grew up learning that it was a war between the states and not a war of Nations and all I can say to that is that I mean on one level of course it's a War Between the States there are states in the United States and there are states in the Confederate States so but I think the way to view the civil war is a war between two modern with in the mid nineteenth century context nation-states states that certainly have the pretensions what did the Confederacy want to me this is one reason why the Confederacy there a couple of reasons why didn't way to guerrilla war that's an anachronistic notion about what they should have done they wanted to be accepted as part of the Western community of nations how do you do that you set up a government you have a regular army you have a regular Navy you have regular governmental institutions it walks like a duck it quacks like a duck it's a duck you can't have a real duck if the only army is a bunch of gorillas that's not a duck it's something else they wanted to be a nation they considered themselves a nation and so I think the best way for us to view that is that it's a war between two nations one of which doesn't last very long because unfortunately for it its entire history was played out in the midst of the greatest war in American history but it is a nation and I think the lingering allegiance to it suggests that I mean the there are the trappings of nationhood that carry on past the point at which there is a nation the United States gathered the Union daddy national cemeteries there were no national cemeteries before the Civil War you need them because you've got a third of a million dead it's eight soldiers so you go to the battlefields you disinterred them and you put them in national cemeteries that just happened to be at a student asked me once why are there so many national cemeteries next to Civil War battlefields let's think about that hey there's one it's Shiloh but they don't put the Confederate dead in cemeteries you don't put Confederate soldiers in United States national cemeteries so lady and there's no Confederate government to do that that's a job for the central government there is no central government so ladies Memorial Association's came into being they oversaw the disinterment and reinterment of the Confederate dead in what amount two Confederate national cemeteries 30,000 Confederates at Blandford Church in Petersburg 18,000 in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond buried by state there they are the parts composing the whole the Tennesseans the South Carolinians the North Carolinians in the Confederate Cemetery even at little Spotsylvania where they did that and then you go and have Confederate Memorial days at that Confederate Cemetery if there's not some notion of nation in place during the Civil War I would ask what the hell is going on after why is there one after the war why is there one after the war it's two nations I really do think that it's not and it's not the North versus the South four southern states stay in the United States Missouri and Kentucky and Maryland and Delaware our southern states they're slaveholding States they stay loyal to the United States through the war Kentucky I said this is afternoon but a true Kentucky became a Confederate state after the war because was it was so upset with emancipation that it became a Confederate state after the war and then everybody in Kentucky had been a Confederate retrospectively it did get around to ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment however in the mid 1970s so god bless Kentucky but they're sort of the last ones to that table it's the United States versus the Confederacy everybody doesn't agree with that no they don't and I don't hope to convert everybody and I have people ask me why do you say the United States why do you refer to the United States and I said well only because it was the United States they didn't change the name during the war to the United States against the Confederacy one more question no more questions two more questions there's one well I'm from Los Angeles so I would appeal in other orange and say let me know how it turns out that's probably what I would do yes well I think we made a number of mistakes other than I think he made a mistake staying north of the Potomac during the Maryland campaign I think once he lost the gaps in the South Mountain Range there was absolutely nothing for him to accomplish he pushed his army past the limit which he knew he admitted to Jefferson Davis that between a third and a half of his men had fallen out of the ranks through straggling and desertion and just simply breaking down because they'd outrun their logistical capacity at that point so what in the world is he hoping to accomplish by fighting the Battle of Antietam with his back to the Potomac River and only one Ford over the river boulders fort is it Baudelaires ford is it if something goes wrong on the battlefield at Antietam the Army of Northern Virginia is toast hehe and it isn't because he knew George B McCullen would not push him that's another bunch of retrospective baloney we don't know that he knew George B McClellan wasn't the most aggressive fellow in the world but he but McClellan almost smashed the army in Northern Virginia at on the battlefield at Antietam it came that close and there's no way Lee could have known that ap Hill the half of his division that hadn't collapsed would get up in time to turn the tide late in the day so I think that's a mistake on his part I think that one and the third day at Gettysburg are probably the two biggest mistakes I'm with Porter Alexander I think we should have hunkered down after the first day at Gettysburg after this spectacular success on the first day hunkered down on seminary Ridge and say come and knock me off of this Ridge this Porter Alexander said they never could have knocked us off they never knocked us off any Ridge so why didn't we just do that but that's not Lee the cat the culture of command in the Army of Northern Virginia just tells us all we need to know about robert e lee what is it if you're an officer in the army nor the what do you encourage you to push smash your enemy inflict the greatest possible damage take risks don't give them any risk but hound them and Stonewall Jackson's the perfect subordinate for him James Stewart Porter Alexander all of these guys are what's the culture of command in the in the Army of the Potomac it's George B McClellan's every institution has a culture in the Army the Potomac the cultures don't take risks don't do anything till everything is ready well most of people in this audience maybe you three guys in front not quite old enough yet to know that in life nothing is ever perfect so if you're waiting for things to be perfect to do anything you've got a long wait because it's never going to happen that's the culture in the Army the Potomac that is not because it's just the antithesis of the culture in the Army in Northern Virginia it's a fascinating comparison of how these different personalities can mold such different sensibilities if you like of command and attitude in the two most important armies with all due respect to the armies that fought Atlanta I think the two most important armies in the Civil War the army the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia thank you very much

Channel: LovettSchoolAtlanta

Views: 104,264

Rating: 4.7454543 out of 5

Keywords: Civil War, lecture, history

Id: wMGrDmUjZCg

Length: 99min 27sec (5967 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 19 2012