the Civil War did not bring a new birth of freedom the Civil War gave birth to profound and defective icy questions that Americans continue to grapple with today we might not find the answers in the Civil War but we will certainly find the questions 20 miles north of Atlanta Georgia 8,000 Union soldiers launched an assault they hope will break the back of Confederate resistance in the deep south atop the rise soon to be known as Cheatham Hill wait some 2,000 defenders from the army of Tennessee when the Yankees get within 40 yards the Confederates unleash a murderous crossfire a soldier from Tennessee remarked the cannons bellow like mad bowls with their backs to Atlanta the outnumbered Confederates atop Cheatham Hill are a dangerous some say even a desperate foe they believe victory and southern independence can still be theirs the bloodbath is just part of a larger fight known as the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain on May 1st 1864 100,000 soldiers under the command of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman had marched south from Chattanooga Tennessee into northern Georgia Sherman's goal to destroy the Confederate Army of Tennessee the added prize of the campaign is the industrial town of Atlanta Georgia population 10,000 Atlanta's crucial rail network binds together what is left of the Confederacy blocking Sherman's advance to Atlanta was the Confederate Army entrenched atop Kennesaw Mountain since the campaign for Atlanta began Sherman has tried to avoid battle by outflanking the Confederates at Kennesaw Mountain the Confederates dared Sherman to attack Sherman obliged ordering a disastrous frontal attack not on Kennesaw Mountain but rather a nearby pigeon Hill and Cheatham Hill he made a gigantic blunder it was just a mistake on Sherman's part out spake brave Horatius just before the assault on Cheatham Hill Colonel Dan macaque inspired his men with a poem about the Warriors of ancient Rome and how can man die better than facing fearful odds for the ashes of your father's and the temples of your gods a cook in his 52nd Ohio run the gauntlet straight into the teeth of Confederate defenses on Cheatham Hill like Pickett's charge at Gettysburg for the Federals storming st. Mary's Heights at Fredericksburg charges of march into certain death why did sabor soldiers make charges that appear to us as murder did they do it out of love of Comrade out of a sense of duty but not a question but they also did it because they knew what they didn't do it that they can be estranged from their comrades they could be disowned by the people back home for not fighting manfully they could be punished within their own army humiliated we carried him into that battle is that they had little choice because the consequences were so severe the assault takes them to a section of earthworks that will soon earn the name the dead angle it is here that the Confederate line protrudes at a sharp angle Sherman hopes Union forces can punch through and split his enemy in two ironically the safest place where we need soldiers on cheating Hill it's just below the earthworks Confederate rifles and head logs above can't point downward at Union soldiers just a few feet away against all odds the cook and a handful of others are able to make it to the dead angle alongside Colonel cook is private Samuel Canterbury of the 86th Illinois when I looked up at Colonel Dan was standing on the head log above me Colonel Dan for God's sake get down they will shoot you he turned partly around and said damn you attend to your own business then the gun was fired had I not pulled on his coat I believe he would have fallen inside the rebel works at the dead angle the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain turns its most savage one Confederate Road hell all broke loose in Georgia sure enough despite their heroic charge the Union attackers are driven baffling yet some of the federal survivors refused to leave Cheatham Hill just below the dead angle they dig into a fold of the slope the dip in the hill conceals the Yankees from the enemy just 30 yards above for the next three days they will be pinned down in the blistering heat of the Georgia summer for Sherman's troops the frontal assaults at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain are nothing short of butchery more than 3,000 Union soldiers are dead wounded or missing behind their earthworks the Confederates are bloodied and battered but they are victorious first lieutenant Thomas meny sums up the Confederate defense saying stand we must and stand we did President Abraham Lincoln receives news of the Union debacle victories at Gettysburg Vicksburg and Chattanooga have disintegrated into stalemate and uncertainty in Virginia and Georgia there's a great anti-war movement the north there are a lot of people who are tired of it they're not concerned about abolition they're concerned about their sons and brothers and fathers not coming home and they're beginning to question the cost in more than three years of civil war the cost is more than 300,000 Union casualties for many northern voters the sacrifice is becoming simply too much to bear and as of this point in the summer of 1864 that even Lincoln begins to lose hope because 1864 is an election year he's going to have to submit to the test of re-election and the Democrats are nominating one of the most popular generals who ever served in the Union Army's George McClellan the same George McClellan who has always been such a critic and an opponent of the Lincoln administration George McClellan and Abraham Lincoln could not have been more different in every aspect than if they had been born on opposite poles Lincoln firmly believes the Union cannot be restored until total victory on the battlefield is achieved McClellan the former commander of the Army of the Potomac also favors Union but believes it should be achieved by negotiating with the Confederacy even if it means abandoning emancipation many in the North stand with McClellan people are sick and tired of learning that their sons and their and their husbands are have been killed in this massive battle and for what for up a bunch of slaves since the war began over half a million have escaped bondage but nearly 3 million remain enslaved if Lincoln is defeated in the coming election his Emancipation Proclamation will likely be overturned by the McClellan administration Lincoln is balanced way way out on a political limb and that limb is already beginning to show signs of cracking and unless something changes very very very dramatically and very very quickly in the war situation the branch that Lincoln is out on is going to crack under the sheer weight of public weariness and the attraction of George McClellan as the young Napoleon McClellan and Lincoln have been at odds almost since the very day Lincoln appointed him commander in 1862 when a Cleland failed to pursue robert e lee after the Union victory at Antietam Lincoln fired him now in 1864 the two adversaries will meet again this time on the political battlefield two days after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain Confederate and Union forces remain in a standoff on nearby Cheatham Hill more than 1,800 Union dead brought in the hundred degree heat for some a fate worse than death is to lie wounded along the Confederate earthworks for more than 48 hours they lie into the broiling Sun with no food and no water on the morning of June 29th a white flag is raised near the dead angle it's not flown by Union troops but rather by Confederates the stench from the Union dead is overwhelming the Confederates offer a truce to bury the Fallen slowly and cautiously negotiating parties from both sides emerge the officers agree to a two hour truce together Union and Confederate soldiers begin the gruesome task of burying the dead during the truce there are new Yankees no rebels on Cheatham Hill this day there are only Americans it's the better angels of humanity exhibiting itself when the darker angels seem to be in command these moments that are direct opposite of the context of the violence one Confederate remarked the strange sight of peace and unity after the two our truce was over another soldier remembered both sides resumed with their efforts to kill and maim and [ __ ] the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain is the latest in a series of fights in what is known as the Western theater the East has seen Titanic battles but little ground has been exchanged in the West the opposite battles have been decisively won and lost great distances have been covered and crucial territory gained by June 1864 the Union is now on the doorstep of Atlanta but in this election year the Confederacy has an unexpected ally time what had to happen is the South simply had to survive the North has to win and it looks like in the summer of 64 there's a chance that the north will not be able to win and the south will have held out long enough which in part explains the Confederates next move at Kennesaw Mountain on day 7 of the standoff at Cheatham Hill a detachment of Union soldiers emerges from the defenses to investigate an odd silence coming from the Confederate earthworks despite achieving a tactical victory General Joseph Johnston has little choice but to withdraw his outnumbered Confederates they form a defensive position on the northern reaches of Atlanta Johnston's caution infuriates Confederate President Jefferson Davis on July 17th he relieves Johnston and replaces him with one of the most impressive officers in Lee's army Lieutenant General John Bell hood was wounded at Gettysburg and had his leg shot off at Chickamauga Sherman's immediate reaction is this is great this is terrific because hood has a reputation of being an aggressive general who is not going to just fall back the way Joe Johnston fell back he's going to go on the offensive he's rash the point of being overly rash he's very bold he's gonna fight and even his hood took over commanded Sherman was already in motion his troops in motion for another turning movement that could would now have to fight to stop Sherman aims to destroy Atlantis railroads supply lines to and from the rest of the Confederacy to the north the Union already controls the Western and Atlantic but the eastbound Georgia railroad eventually leads all the way to Richmond the Macon and Western rails roll south to Savannah and the Atlantic Ocean the Atlanta and West Point railroad lead Southwest to Alabama and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico the coming battle for Atlanta will not only be the climactic event in the Western theater it will be one of the most important battles of the entire war to take Atlanta Sherman splits his force into three the army of the Tennessee swings to the southeast the army of the Ohio moves in from the Northeast to destroy the Georgia Railroad and the army of the Cumberland crosses Peachtree Creek to attack from the north just as Sherman's troops cross Peachtree Creek hood proves he will indeed fight the union forest is bloodied but holds off hood savage attack hood soldiers fall back to Atlanta at the Battle of Peachtree Creek the Confederates lose 2,500 men nearly three times as many as the Union two days later hood again goes on the offensive he sends almost his entire army on a 15 mile march to attack the flank and rear of the Union Army to the east of Atlanta in what becomes known as the Battle of Atlanta Union commander James M McPherson is killed McPherson is the highest-ranking Union officer to die in battle during the war as at Peachtree Creek the Confederates fight desperately and again hoods beaten forces driven back to the defenses of Atlanta in this single day of fighting known as the Battle of Atlanta hood loses 8,000 more men it is the bloodiest battle of the Atlanta Campaign John Bell hood in Atlanta I think is a disaster for the Confederates there is no way I don't think that that he could accomplish what he's thinking of doing he doesn't have the wherewithal strategically or tactically to do what he wants to do what hood has done is show Sherman that Atlanta will not be taken without a desperate struggle thus far Sherman has lost more than 5,000 soldiers near binary etta the Masonic Hall has been transformed into a field hospital one of the nurses is Emma Stephenson sitting on the ground Emma was born a slave in the border state of Kentucky your town Emma was emancipated when she joined Sherman's army as a nurse in the spring of 1864 but she chooses to serve humanity and she chooses to serve both black and white people despite the brutalities in the horrors of an institution that was meant to denigrate people into objects here is a woman who rises above that she chooses to be of service she chooses to show compassion one of the soldiers under Emma's care is ASA Sopher of the 30th Illinois mother I take my pen in hand to write you a few lines I hope you are well I am in a building and dry the few nurses here work all day and night we have a slave woman who cares for us on this floor she has kindness and treats us with tender care the my only hope is to come home to you ASA ASA Sopher never makes it back to Illinois he dies from his wounds in the summer of 1864 Emma Stephenson succumbs on July 16th most likely from disease Emma was buried amongst the soldiers she served during the Civil War more die from dysentery typhoid and other diseases than they do from wounds on the battlefield 600 miles to the north near Richmond Virginia generals US Grant and Robert Ely are engaged in bitter trench warfare the Union and Confederate armies dig in at Petersburg a critical rail center connecting Virginia to Atlanta and the Southern Confederacy as at Vicksburg a year earlier graduate tends to bomb the enemy into submission Grint the victor in so many places out west has moved east but he can't finish leigh off and so Sherman really becomes very very central can he take it Lana can he captured the answer at the beginning of August is unequivocally no the Battle of Atlanta is a union victory but the city of Atlanta is still in the hands of the Confederates it's ringed with a network of earthworks and defenses after the Union disaster at Kennesaw Mountain a frontal assault is out of the question another Hood attack this one west of Atlanta at as research results in yet another confederate bloodbath but once again the southern forces escape to the defenses of Atlanta meanwhile Atlanta's supply lines south of the city remain open like grant at Petersburg Sherman's assault on Atlanta has turned into a stalemate while his troops recover from hoods reckless attacks Sherman turns to Union artillery vows to make the inside of Atlanta too hot to be enjoyed in the spring of 1864 cable in the North had been confident that grants campaign in Virginia and Sherman's Atlanta campaign would bring an end to the war now three months later many are losing hope Henry Raymond the editor of the New York Times writes unless some prompt and bold step be now taken all is lost like the Confederates in Virginia and Georgia Lincoln too is under siege with military operations outside Richmond and Atlanta is stalled Lincoln thought his presidency was doomed the northern public turned against him his administration his generals Lincoln faced tremendous dissent within the nation with Atlanta and Petersburg under siege delegates from around the north descend upon Chicago Illinois for the Democratic National Convention it's a bitter raucous affair but the delegates unanimously nominate George McClellan and in a way I suppose that election of 1864 in that election season may have been the most critical juncture in the nation's history if I were a wagering man in August of 1864 and I was laying bets on who was going to be elected who was the most popular with the people then the smart money would have gone with George McClellan in its party platform the Democrats declare the war of failure and call for a negotiated peace the platform states the war is being fought under the pretense of a military necessity and that the Constitution itself has been disregarded it also boldly calls for an immediate ceasefire with a view to an ultimate convention of all the states whether McCullen agreed with that difficult to say but McCullen if elected would have faced insurmountable pressure within his own party to bring this conflict to a premature close it would have been a close that could have very well resulted in two separate nations and of course one of those nations still clinging to the institution of slavery the idea of the election of George McClellan and its impact not just on the war but on emancipation and slavery is the kind of thing that makes me want to put my head in my hands because had McClellan been elected then certainly he would have gone to the negotiating table with the Confederates and if he had gone to a negotiating table with the Confederates they would have folded their arms and said there is no way under the Sun that we are going to come back into the Union without our slaves as slaves so the Emancipation Proclamation would have and I'm confident in saying this it would have simply been put aside as an aberration of the Lincoln administration as an unlawful unconstitutional seizure of imperial power by an overweening president so take the Emancipation Proclamation out of the picture completely on the very day the Democrats nominate George McClellan Sherman is taking the prompt and bold move that newspaper editor Henry Raymond called for many in Atlanta including hood himself believe Sherman is in retreat and that the battle for Atlanta is one Sherman is indeed on the move but is not in retreat instead he sends most of his union force on wide sweep West and South Atlanta 20 miles south at Jonesboro they begin destroying the Macon and West railroad their action will cut Atlanta off from the rest of the Confederacy but again responds by attacking at the town of Jonesboro the Union force is ready a Yankee soldier described the approaching Confederates as an infuriated mob at Jonesboro the Federals unleash what one soldier called a murderous fire of grape shrapnel and musketry after desperately defending Atlanta for six weeks the Confederates have little fight left the two day clash at Jonesboro leaves the outnumbered and bloodied Confederates on the brink of exhaustion the federal route leaves hood in the battered army of Tennessee no choice they must abandon Atlanta on September 2nd 1864 Union forces enter the devastated city before evacuating Confederate officers had ordered the destruction of five locomotives and 81 boxcars packed with ammunition for the residents of Atlanta the blast is a thunderous exclamation point to the Union victory on September 3rd Sherman wires Washington with news that reverberates throughout North and South Atlanta is ours and fairly won Ilana this loss was a blow to the southern psyche it signified to ordinary southerners that their own armies couldn't defeat them that their own armies couldn't even protect and defend a city as important as a Lana the fall Atlanta September of 1864 was like a spout of cold clear water in the middle of the Sahara Desert politically speaking it was exactly the thing that refreshed northern public opinion gave it confidence once again made it clear that the war was in fact being won and that should be seen through to that conclusion the fall of Atlanta was the greatest political gift Abraham Lincoln could ever have received and that was how northern public opinion interpreted because in the end of the day nothing succeeds like success for Lincoln success is not limited to Atlanta federal victories in the Shenandoah Valley at mobile all together confirm in people's minds that this war end was within reach and they went to the polls and overwhelmingly voted Abraham Lincoln to a second term in November Lincoln achieved something he failed to do in the 1860 election he wins the popular vote more than 3/4 of Union soldiers fighting the war vote for Abraham Lincoln with the election decided Sherman convinces Lincoln and grant to let him deliver a final crushing blow in the deep south one that he says will make Georgia howl Sherman is now thinking about that next phase of the war which is to move across the heart of Georgia which is largely been untouched and take it to the populous in a military styled maneuver on November 15th 1864 Sherman's force of 60,000 begins a 250 mile march toward Savannah and the sea by Sherman's design the march to the sea is largely unopposed Union soldiers freely and systematically descend upon farms they take livestock and feed from the newly harvested crops his soldiers tear up railroads and destroy anything that can be used to aid the southern war effort in the end Sherman's march to the sea sands an undeniable message that rings throughout the entire Confederacy what Sherman is saying to the Confederates are marching to the sea is you don't have a prayer that if you don't surrender if you don't quit this war your infrastructure your interior is going to be destroyed there is no hope you must quit and he does he gets into the psyche of the Confederate civilian and soldier and I sometimes have argued that he got into that psyche of the southerner so much that he's still there in some areas today on December 22nd Sherman Telegraph's Washington with news that Savannah has been captured he offers the city and 25,000 bales of cotton to the President as a Christmas present Sherman may have been victorious at Atlanta but he did not destroy hoods army like their commander the Confederate Army of Tennessee is crippled bloodied and still dangerous remarkably while Sherman makes his march to the sea hoods force moves in the opposite direction towards Nashville you have a confederate army of some 30,000 that is still mobile and and still a threat and truly it is hoods army that is the last hope of anything for the Confederacy and it is a very very desperate time once again hood will fight this time along the Harpeth River in the small town of Franklin Tennessee as he did time and again in Atlanta hood orders his men into a frontal assault hoods Confederates make a desperate some say suicidal attack on the entrenched Union Army hoods army is essentially destroyed crippled on the field south of Franklin what you see it Franklin is the last gasp what you see it Franklin is what you don't see anywhere else what you see it Franklin are 20,000 Confederate soldiers who have been at Shiloh Perryville Murfreesboro Chickamauga Chattanooga Peachtree Creek Atlanta Jonesboro Kennesaw they've been everywhere what you saw at Franklin was a very emotional dark sad look into who we were as Americans that you had this one group of men who had been through hell and back who were willing to just put it all on the line one last time surrender was not an option death was a preferable option I think they saw what they perceived as their way of life disintegrating in front of their eyes it was all going to be over their way of life would not exist and they were correct because America changed fundamentally because of this war the slaughter at Franklin prompts memories of Pickett's charge at Gettysburg the Confederates lose 6,200 men including six generals private Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee called it the blackest page in the history of the war two weeks later what is left of hoods army is soundly defeated at Nashville for all intent and purposes the Battle of Nashville is the end of the army of Tennessee its commander John Bell hood soon resigns with his nemesis now subdued in Tennessee Sherman launches a final punishing blow in January 1865 his force turns north from Savannah and blazes a path of destruction through the Carolinas well what Sherman does is he wins in the Western theater and then he moves into the east when he's going through the Carolinas toward Virginia that's the eastern theater so the West indeed comes east to Sherman's north is Petersburg where Lee's battered Army of Northern Virginia has been under siege for nine months one of the things that Lee had to think about almost the chief thing that Lee had to think about was the fact that Sherman was coming with a hundred thousand veterans and that within a few weeks Sherman's hundred thousand men were joined grant nearly doubling the size of grants force on April 2nd 1865 Lee evacuates Petersburg in Richmond escaping in the only direction he can West at Appomattox Courthouse his exhausted Army of Northern Virginia is run down by Union cavalry on April 9th Lee surrenders to grant 17 days later in Durham North Carolina Sherman accepts the surrender of 30,000 Confederates including what was left of the army of Tennessee the war leaves unimaginable destruction to the homes farmsteads and cities in its path ruins is its economy compared to the loss of human life in May 1861 the first tennessee marched from nashville with 1,000 men when they surrendered four years later only 65 remain Sam Watkins is one of them he writes the bones of our brave seven boys lie scattered over a loved' south Watkins makes it back to his Tennessee home some 250,000 Confederate soldiers never do they are buried in a series of simple and largely forgotten cemeteries scattered across the south with the end of the war nearly four million human beings are no longer considered property there was a passage of the 13th amendment that stated that slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist except for his punishment of a crime so there is this moment of Hope right after the Civil War that in fact the country can become what Jefferson had intoned the 14th amendment written to protect civil rights and the Fifteenth Amendment which prohibits the government from denying citizens a vote are also ratified within five years of the war's end the progress is short-lived by the end of Reconstruction many of the very same politicians and soldiers who supported the Confederacy are elected back into office the journey from Civil War to civil rights will be long and arduous they started passing laws limiting black freedoms the violence against african-americans is permitted the law will turned a blind eye to what's going on and by the time reconstruction ends in 1877 you'll now have 90 years of a different struggle where African Americans or once again have to fight for their freedoms this will culminate in what we will see as the modern civil rights movement starting after World War two thirty-six days before his death in 1865 Abraham Lincoln expressed his vision of a reunited nation in his second inaugural address Lincoln spoke of binding up a nation's wounds in a smoldering ash of Civil War his was a message of forgiveness and hope no malice then let's have charity for all let's stay just in a lasting peace with ourselves and with all nations what a novelty that Lincoln wants to end this war without mass trials without political executions without a Nuremberg courtroom and people looked at that and said that's not what we want we want blood we want vengeance and Lincoln says there's already been too much blood in too much vengeance let's admit our guilt I said no that we were equally guilty let's look at each other and see that we are all sinners and a fallen short the price of those sins is staggering more than 1 million Union and Confederate casualties the sacrifice was not limited to white Americans more than 20,000 Hispanics fought for north and south as did some 28,000 Native Americans 200,000 African Americans also joined the Union cause many of them former slaves some 40,000 died defending their right to be free in many ways 150 years later the wounds have not yet healed the Civil War is not that far in our past many families still feel very closely tied to those who fought in this war the meaning of that War slavery emancipation freedom that is something that we're still wrestling with today we are still fighting we're still trying to realize and really carry out the legacy and of what those men fought for it was those who fought that took the first steps to bind our nation's wounds on the anniversaries of the great battles of the Western theater the veterans would gather at places like Shiloh and Vicksburg their legacies would be the preservation of the grounds consecrated with the blood of their fellow soldiers in 1895 Chickamauga became the first National Battlefield to be created Shiloh and Vicksburg soon followed the battlefields of the Civil War are powerful reminders of the loss but they are also powerful symbols of the freedoms gained a nation were now all men are created equal by all historical rights the Civil War should have destroyed us as a nation we should have been able to look back and say democracy was an interesting moment a wonderful theory but the Civil War showed that in fact democracy cannot be trusted because at the end of the day people cannot get along on their own people need to be governed what we saw in our American Civil War was what every wise hit in Europe wagged and said see the Americans thought they could create a democracy you see even the Americans couldn't make it work the Civil War was a trauma that we emerged from with democracy intact not only intact but stronger being able to stand up to the world and say you know democracy is not inherently defective democracies do not just fall apart at the stress of the first pressure that's put on them democracies are so important the thing that ordinary people are willing to die to preserve them they are willing to die in the name of a proposition that all men are created equal democracy is something transcendent something worth dying for something worth incorporating into a notion that trumps even race and we won against all odds we won and we went forward from that so much so that democracy has almost been what we now today think of as a default position democracy is what people normally should desire no one thought that in 1860 we could have lost it not only for ourselves we could have lost it for the entire world but the Civil War showed not only that we could design a democracy it showed not only we could write a constitution it showed that we could not only function in periods of isolation and peace it showed that under the greatest stress imaginable a civil war a democracy could live and prosper and emerge stronger that was the greatest accomplishment of all Oh
