today's lecture is underwritten by the Celina and Walter Bram lectureship this lectureship was created to honor their memory admired and respected Chautauqua pnes judge Bram served as president of Chautauqua Institution from 1956 to 1960 and his wife Celina was a dedicated member of the Byrd tree and garden club among her many Chautauqua volunteer activities their children and grandchildren have equally served Chautauqua with great distinction in a number of volunteer capacities please join me in thanking the extended Bram Patterson and Johnson families for their commitment participation and generosity this morning we continued our reflection on America in 1863 with a presentation from dr. Gary W Gallagher W Gallagher is the Jarnell na the third professor in the history of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia he has delivered the Lamar lectures at Mercer University the Robert Fordham bow memorial lectureship at Gettysburg College and the Browse lectures in Civil War history at Penn State University he has also served as the George W little field lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin a much loved and respected teacher he received the Cavaliers distinguished teaching professor Shipp the highest teaching recognition awarded by the University of Virginia for 2010 to 2012 dr. Gallaher has written or edited more than 30 books including the Confederate war and the Union War and appeared on the A&E series Civil War Journal an active historic preservationist he served as president of the Association for the preservation of Civil War sites and as a member of the board of the Civil War trust he received his bachelor's degree from Adams State College in Colorado and his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas at Austin the title of his lecture is the year of Gettysburg and Vicksburg was 1863 a turning point ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming professor Gallagher to Chautauqua thank you very much it's really fun to be here anybody who deals with the nineteenth-century United States has to deal with Chautauqua of course we all teach about it a little bit and I am especially pleased about the fact that US Grant was here in 1875 and it wasn't important to early presence here he's an important guy in many ways as I'm going to talk about in just a few minutes so it's fun to be here and think of myself in a progression that goes back to the mid 1870s and to us grant on July 4th 1863 re Lee's army in northern virginia retreated from the battle field at gettysburg marching toward the passes in the south mountain range in a drenching rain that added to the misery of soldiers who had recently endured three days of horrific combat that same day more than a thousand miles to the southwest ulysses s grant accepted the formal surrender of the confederate army defending the stronghold of Vicksburg Mississippi these twin triumphs marked the first unequivocal good news for major United States military forces in more than nine months touching off celebrations among the loyal citizenry and spreading gloom throughout the rebellious States Josiah Gorgas the Confederacy's gifted chief of ordnance seemed to capture the importance of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in his diary entry on July 28th one brief month ago we were apparently at the point of success he observed Lee was in Pennsylvania threatening Harrisburg and even Philadelphia Vicksburg seemed to laugh all grants efforts to scorn yesterday we rode on the pinnacle of success today absolute ruin seems to be our portion the Confederacy Tatars to its destruction Gorgas his diary was first published in 1947 came out from the mass of evidence that lies hidden relating to the Civil War came out in 47 it has been quoted endlessly ever since then to buttress the idea that events in 1863 and more especially the twin united states victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg represented the great turning point of the American Civil War now other speakers this week have or will address many aspects of the war in 1863 my charge this morning is to talk about the military events of 1863 and I'm going to begin by noting that most Americans I think it very safe to say believed that 1863 marked the turning point of the war the conflicts decisive pivot when everything changed they see it as a year dominated by Gettysburg and Vicksburg which together doomed the Confederacy more than that for most non specialist in the field it's really about Gettysburg Gettysburg is really the key Gettysburg looms far above all other military events in the American Civil War look to Gettysburg if you want to know the moment when things took a sharp and clear turn toward eventual United States victory even some academic historians a good number of them in fact take this same tack Alan Kelso as a major new book on the Gettysburg Campaign of where's that if Confederate victory at Gettysburg had come it would have unleashed the most important rebel force on the northern landscape and in Gales owes words quote would have meant game over for the Union with this widespread conception of Gettysburg centrality in mind my theme this morning will be examining how 1863 allows us to appreciate the tension between reality and perception or more specifically between history and memory history and memory are two very different things I know you all already know this but it's absolutely essential to keep that difference in mind whenever you're trying to understand a historical event as complex as the American Civil War this is one of the hardest strings to get through to my students always that there's history and then there's memory of history something's actually happening here right now I'm talking you're listening you're where you are I'm where I am this is a historical event if not a historic one not even a little bit historic but it's happening some people in my world academia is a very interesting world pretend that there is really no history only different memories of history only an academic could say that I think and get away with it of course things happen but you're going to remember this differently you're going to go out of here some of you might have good memory some of you may need counseling after this morning there's no way to tell but there will be a difference between how you remember it and the fact that it's actually happened in a certain way in a certain sequence history and memory and of those two the more important one is often memory because it's our memory of what happened that guides how we engage with it guides what we think about it doesn't really matter what happened what matters is what we think happened and how we choose to remember certain events so my talk today is going to be part about memory and part about history and I will start with the memory portion of this program a light motif or the sesquicentennial observance of the conflict very clearly identifies 1863 as the decisive military turning point it's everywhere this interpretation aligns with popular American culture over the past 75 years and it is a perfect example of what I call the Appomattox syndrome you start at the end of the story with knowledge of the two great outcomes of the civil war that is United States victory and emancipation and they seem inevitable why because they happen they happened all right we know that's what's going to happen so now let's work back and see how we get to Appomattox on April 9th 1865 when we go back and we find these markers that seem to point toward Appomattox it's absolutely the wrong way to try to understand history not just Civil War history any kind of history never ever start at the end of the story and then work back to figure things out read forward read forward in the evidence and you will find complexity and contingency far beyond what that other way of looking at the past allows you to find do not ever start at the end in order to understand what happened if your goal is to understand how it unfolded and what happened don't start at Appomattox with the Civil War read the other way but in American culture the Appomattox Syndrome is everywhere novelist such as William faltering intruder in the dust in 1948 every southern boy he meant every white southern boy I can imagine that it's one o'clock on July 3rd and anything is possible Confederate victories possible anything could happen and then after the picket Pettigrew of saw assault of course nothing is possible anymore except he's got a lot to write about y'all Capitol County still that's still coming down the road but the civil wars decided michael shara and his pilla surprised when he novel the killer angel sends the same message he sends it via Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who talks to the soldiers from Maine who aren't sure that they want to participate in the next battle and he tells them he looks at them he has great lines both in the novel and in the film and he says I think if we lose this fight we lose the war it's all riding on this it's all going to happen here Ken Burns spent more time on Gettysburg by far than on any other military campaign to the Civil War in his 1990 documentary that was seen so widely at the time and is rebroadcast at least on our public television stations every time they raise money each year that's one of the mainstays you hear that ashokan farewell oh it's time to send a check you can figure things how you don't even need to be watching television you know what is going on innumerable columnist everybody has to write about the Civil War during the sesquicentennial and columnist from across the entire ideological spectrum I don't care what end they're on whether they watch Fox News at night or are glued to MSNBC it's all about Gettysburg in 1863 that's when it was decided that's when it was decided National Geographic has a special issue out on the Civil War that labels the battle quote a fight that would last three days and turn the wars tide the BBC has its own hundred and fiftieth anniversary edition devoted to the Civil War singles out Gettysburg is quote more than just a disastrous mistake by the south it was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy and I can't resist adding of course Hollywood I love to see what Hollywood does with the past it does so much more than all of us in my world put together and cubed can do one bad Hollywood movie reaches far more people than the best books written by any historian Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter which I'm sure most of you have seen I was glued to it riveting Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter not only has Gettysburg as an important battle it's the end of the war you fight the Battle of Gettysburg the the slaveholding vampires are vanquished and then Lincoln gets on his gloves to go to Ford's Theatre that is their understanding of the chronology of the war Gettysburg is literally the end you don't need to know anything past that and with the kind of grasp of history many Americans have I have no doubt that thousands streamed out of theaters and thought well Gettysburg was the end of the war really interesting and Lincoln was so tall these examples represent strands in the fabric of our historical memory of the war they suggest as I've already said that I'm going to repeat it because it's worth repeating that the seismic clash in Adams County Pennsylvania changed the trajectory of the conflict before our Alize army Northern Virginia and George G Meade 's Army the Potomac collided at Gettysburg it's just as Faulkner would have it anything seemed possible for the Confederacy but after Lee's retreat it was only a matter of time before united states armies would vanquish their opponents and restore the republic in this formulation the roads that Lee's battered army took from the field at Gettysburg on July 4th 1863 led directly and inexorably to Appomattox Courthouse you have a sense everybody in the Confederacy got out their calendars put a circle around April 9th and said ok 194 days to go up 191 days to go because we all know that Gettysburg sealed the deal all about Gettysburg this notion has infiltrated the standard exam for high school students I learned I just did a week-long seminar for high school students high school teachers that I do every summer they told me that this that the exams have a question what was the turning point of the Civil War and of course the answer is Gettysburg and they said how should we deal with that I said tell your students to write Gettysburg and then tell them why that's not true that's how you should deal with it it'll be a learning experience for them it helped prepare them for life now all of this sounds so compelling so reasonable because we know things about Gettysburg now that they didn't know then we know now the Gettysburg was the biggest and bloodiest battle of the war we know now it's the last time that the most important rebel army moved on the United States soil we know now that Lincoln gave a speech that became a great landmark among all speeches in our political history it wasn't a big deal at the time as I'm sure you know it was like a tree falling in Siberia nobody paid attention to the Gettysburg Address at the time it was issued they just did not very small ripples from but but we know what it has become we know all these things about Gettysburg now that they didn't know didn't make it seem so much more important to us than it did to them Woodrow Wilson went to Gettysburg on the fiftieth anniversary Franklin Roosevelt went to Gettysburg on the 75th anniversary Lyndon Johnson as vice president gave a landmark civil rights speech at Gettysburg on the centennial of the battle in 1963 and the most popular National Park Service civil war site long identified as the high-water mark of the Confederacy Gettysburg stands unchallenged as the preeminent military ground in the United States that completes the memory portion of our program and now we're going to move on to history what about the importance of 1863 in 1863 how about the importance of 1863 within the broader context of the American Civil War where does it fit is 1863 the great pivot year I suspect some of you have an inkling my answer is going to be no but I'll devote the rest of my time to what I consider the most accurate and useful way to look at the year and it's celebrated battles I want to give a quick nod however to the non-military side of things which will provide necessary context far too much that's written about the Civil War is written either for people interested only in military history or people interested in everything except military history most of the popular riding would fall into the former category people love to read about battles and generals and read about them again and again and again people in my world in academia are very reluctant to engage with military history they don't like it you can read a lot of books that there's not even the whiff of gunpowder in these books about the Civil War you can take classes where there's not a whiff of gun power which is quite something considering how much gunpowder there was but what's important is to know that you must bring those two Spears into active engagement with one another because everything on the homefront was connected to what was going on with the armies look at the covers of Harper's Weekly for the whole war 80% of them feature military events or military personalities what were people reading about looking at thinking about the war it's it's gigantic beyond our comprehension if we were mobilized to the degree the United States was mobilized the whole country including the Confederacy there'd be 32 or 33 million of us in uniform if we were mobilized to the degree the Confederacy was we have 50 million people in uniform now 50 million it's hard to get students to make this connection to understand the scale I asked them would we do now imagine six weeks ago we started keeping track in between that day and right now six weeks we read in the New York Times today that there have been 1.2 million United States casualties in the Middle East how would we react to that how would we do that we're a nation of 300 million people we counted our casualties in Iraq one at a time the New York Times put pictures of them individually in the paper that's how many Americans were killed at Antietam in two and a half hours how do you make people understand the difference in scale it's very hard to do my point is military events loomed enormous ly large as people lived through that war and we have to understand that and have to understand the myriad ways in which the home front and the battlefield intersected during the war 1863 was a very important year in terms of the growth of the central government in both the United States and the Confederacy how can they supply the manpower and material to continue this gigantic contest well they do things no one had imagined that they would do and issues became incredibly controversial the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st the first national conscription in American history in the United States history the Confederates had already done it a year before in March 1863 no one had envisioned that the government had never made anyone go into uniform they never said you're going wear fur in a war you're going into the uniform they said we're in a war we need your help you could tell them to go straight to hell and go to the next person not after March 1863 this was considered a fundamental abridgement of individual liberties by many people in the United States just as it had been in the Confederacy what is your government not do it does not make you go into uniform and risk your life does not make you do that we have a trend tradition of citizen-soldiers you do that because that's what you're supposed to do your government doesn't make you do it extremely controversial in the United States forty five percent of the loyal citizenry were Democrats in the United States they hated these things they hated emancipation they hated a government that would conscripted Lincoln is dealing with this and as he deals with it news from the battlefield either makes his life far more miserable or take some of the pressure off we always need to keep that in mind when we talk about battles all right so that's what happened at Chancellorsville but what are the ramifications of the ramifications of these fights were gigantic they were gigantic and a lots going on behind the lines when Lincoln found out that Joseph Hooker had retreated after the Battle of Chancellorsville he was overheard to say my god my god what will the country say well he knew what it would say he knew what it would say and he knew that these divisions in the midst of a great war could be extremely volatile and of course they were the largest urban riots in United States history broke out in mid-july right after the victory at Gettysburg the New York City draft riots which began as an anti conscription riot and turned into a race riot with black people as the targets you get both the volatile issues coming right together in the New York City draft riots emancipation conscription the worst rioting in United States history the Confederacy was also struggling huge problems with money huge problems inflation was already running at one to three thousand percent in the Confederacy they passed the national income tax in April of 1863 they passed what they call the tax in kind it doesn't even do much good to tax people and get Confederate money it's worthless so instead we'll take 10% of all their agricultural production 10% that's another step that no one would have imagined in 1861 Confederate government as many of you know this is of the many ironies in this war shot through with honors it becomes the most intrusive central government in American history until deep into the 20th century the allegedly state rights loving Confederates end up with this vastly intrusive central government because of the scale of the war because of the scale of the war it's gigantic so that's it's a fraught situation behind the lines in both the United States and the Confederacy and now back to what's going on on the military front it is not there are three big theaters during the Civil War as most of you I know are aware but I'll do this quickly anyway the eastern theater which is where Everly in his army and the army the Potomac were Virginia a little bit of Maryland Pennsylvania it's the most important theater everybody doesn't think that they think the Western theater is more important but they're confused deaths the eastern theaters more important because people at the time thought it was then the Western theater that great expanse between the Appalachian zin the Mississippi River and then the third is the aptly named trans-mississippi theater beyond the Mississippi parts of Louisiana all of Texas Arkansas and so forth for most of the top Union planners it's the Western theater that's most important they're looking most often to what grant is going to do in his campaign to reduce Vicksburg and gain control of the entire Mississippi River they're looking secondarily to what William Starke Rosecrans and his army are going to do as they maneuver toward Chattanooga capture Chattanooga gives you almost all of Tennessee it breaks communications lines for the Confederacy and opens the way to the heartland of Georgia which to that point in the war remained untouched all that Lincoln and his advisors really wanted to happen in the eastern theater was that the army the Potomac would hold Lee's attention time down inflict casualties and protect Washington from their point of view what happens in the East is less important than what is happening in the West the year 1863 is not the bloodiest year during the Civil War by any means 1862 was bloodier 1864 is bloodier than 1863 not that just sheer numbers indicate whether something's important or not but it is not the bloodiest by far the killed and wounded and missing in 1863 Civil War casualties are very tricky and imprecise the number of killed is always too low because they generally just counted somebody literally dead on the battlefield if I'm hideously wounded and died five days later I'm listed as a wounded person not as someone killed in that battle the killed numbers are usually higher wounded missing includes prisoners of war and people who crawl off and die and aren't found or people who've had enough and desert and just don't come back it's a kind of catch-all category but the total number of those casualties for the year is about a quarter of a million about a quarter of a million in the big battles and the small battles and the guerrilla operations that's out of about 1.4 million casualties during the war again compared to what comes later there are about there are fewer than 90,000 casualties in all the battles in the eastern theater they're only two really big ones Chancellorsville in early May Gettysburg in July total casualties about 90,000 when Lee and grant locked up in the Overland campaign in the spring of 1864 they would inflict a total of a hundred thousand casualties on one another in six weeks so it's a very different a very different scale even though the two biggest and bloodiest battles of the whole war happened in 1863 Gettysburg in the east Chickamauga in the West Chickamauga is handy to remember because if anybody ever asks you to make a list of all the great Confederate victories in the Western theater you can just write Chickamauga down and then say what's the next question I got a hundred on that it's like the question name all the great confederate army commanders you rightly down it's easy to remember and now you're ready for the next question again that was sort of a negative for the Confederacy that they only ever found one person who could command an army this fighting in 1863 breaks into three broad periods January through the end of May is a Confederate success story the aftermath of Fredericksburg which was very bad for the United States the great victory at Chancellorsville for Lee gray had not captured Vicksburg yet the maneuvering in Tennessee didn't seem to be leading anywhere in particular so there's a great deal of gloom in the United States during that period copperheads reached their Apogee the anti-war Democrats reached Apogee at that point when you throw in emancipation and conscription it makes it all the harder for the Lincoln administration and the United States in those first five months of 1863 but in June and July as we know you get a decisive shift in terms of how people perceive what's going on because you get Gettysburg in the eastern theater and you get Vicksburg in the Western theater and then the aftershock of Port Hudson Louisiana just a little ways downriver from Vicksburg when it fell the second week of July then that's the end of any real Confederate presence on the Mississippi River and a campaign called a Tullahoma campaign which I suspect doesn't really stand out strongly in any of your minds was played out in southeastern Tennessee and maneuvered the Confederates virtually out of the state they're almost all the way back to Chattanooga so this is a series of successes all across the map in June and July for the United States very good news for them very bad news for the Confederacy the last phase going through the summer and through the fall has this one great Confederate victory at Chickamauga which led to absolutely nothing but closed on a triumphant note for the United States at Chattanooga for u.s. grant delivered yet another major success for the United States grant delivered four great successes in the Western theater Henry and Donaldson Shiloh Vicksburg Chattanooga he's four for four in the campaigns that count in the West I'll come back to that and talk about just how important that was in just a minute all right that's the very broad background for what's going on what are the most important military outcomes of 1863 I'm gonna deal first with Vicksburg and Gettysburg Vicksburg the more important at the time no question about it the furgus more important than Gettysburg in 1863 it was an irrefutable United States victory that resulted in the capture of an entire Confederate Army 30,000 men under John Clifford Pemberton and together with Port Hudson completed what had been much on the minds of people in the United States which was gaining control of the whole Mississippi River because that is something that Winfield Scott had talked about in the very first spring of the war part of his Anaconda plan as it came to be called get control of the Mississippi get control the Mississippi deny the Confederacy control the Mississippi that is a major goal and now that has been accomplished and people in the United States took great heart from that and the Confederates had no way to dress up what had happened at Vicksburg you cannot turn Vicksburg into anything but a catastrophe I've been ignoring all the people way over here through this whole talk yes we're bonding right now you can't dress it up and I'm going to quote my favorite Confederate diarist marry chestnuts the most famous Confederate Diaries forget Mary chesnut most of her book isn't even a diary it's what she wished she had written in her diary if you want the best the best history and memory if you want the best Confederate diary it's Katherine and Devereaux Edmund Stan's diary she lived in eastern North Carolina it's called Journal of a secession Lady and Kate Edmundston is spectacular for us because she wrote down everything she correspondent with a lot of people she read lots of newspapers and you can really chart attitudes about the war what they're learning what they're not what they're thinking by reading Kate Edmundston and if you get the second printing you get a picture of Kate on the dust jacket smiling almost nobody smiled in the mid 19th century but Kate yeah this is what Kate Edmundston wrote when she first learned of Pemberton's capitulation at Vicksburg she learned she said from a dispatch which freezes the marrow in our bones I have no heart to write she stated the next day in language that was echoed endlessly across the Confederacy Vicksburg has fallen it is all true terrible news for her terrible news as it was received across the Confederacy but did Vicksburg's fall really make a decisive difference in the trajectory of the war I don't think it did with one important caveat relating to grant which I'll get to in a minute much of its importance as I said was tied to people being able to say okay we can check off part of Winfield Scott's anaconda plan now check that off accomplished accomplished Winfield Scott's a great soldier I'll say parenthetically one of the five greatest soldiers in United States history we don't remember him that way because he was big and jabba the hutt like by the time the Civil War came 65 350 pounds 400 pounds however big he was too big too big couldn't get on a horse anymore they'd wind him up they'd bring the poor beasts underneath him they'd let him down the horse would walk a block or two they'd take our man off the horse would get a furlough and life would go on but but his mind was still absolutely first-rate Winfield Scott's was and he envisioned the way the war would be waged in that first spring of the war and now people could say we pecan please part of Winfield Scott's plan it's very important for that but I will say wait a minute the Mississippi River is a value to the Confederacy only if they control New Orleans if you don't control New Orleans the Mississippi is not a Confederate River nothing comes in nothing goes out and David Glasgow Farragut and the United States naval flotilla closed the Mississippi River by capturing New Orleans in April of 1862 April of 1862 is when the Mississippi is really gone as a Confederate River Vicksburg is flashy it got a lot of headlines it made people feel good but did it make a substantive difference in how the Confederacy waged its war going forward I think the answer to that is no I think it's no okay what about Gettysburg Gettysburg is a major United States victory please don't misunderstand what I'm saying in that regard it's huge it's huge because it ends this great run of success that Lee had had with Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville it would have been vastly difficult for Abraham Lincoln to deal with yet another victory by the preeminent rebel army and this one on United States soil in July of 1863 would have made his life a misery but but what did Gettysburg really change in the United States the political roiling continued at full-bore / emancipation / conscription and what we often lose sight up when we think about Lee's retreat from Gettysburg is something that was in many ways most important to Lincoln Meade didn't follow up on his victory did not follow up Lincoln viewed Gettysburg as a great lost opportunity just as he had viewed Antietam as a great lost opportunity because George Brinton McClellan let Lee get back across the Potomac River in one night on September 18th 1862 it took McCulloch more than a month to get across the river to go after Lee what struck Lincoln his odd it made Lincoln say when he visited the army I wonder if McClellan will let me borrow this army for a while I have some things I'd like to do with it the same thing after Gettysburg this is a dreadful reminiscence of McClellan thought the president who doubtless summoned painful memories of the aftermath of Antietam I need hardly say to you that the escape of Lee's army without another battle general-in-chief Halleck wrote to meade has created great data dissatisfaction in the mind of the president Lincoln wrote a famous letter to Meade wrote it on July 14th never sent it to me this is something we should all keep in mind when somebody sends you a note that you really don't like and you you tap out an email very quickly and it's really sharp and really you fiddle with it's even better makes them look like a pluperfect gasps but then what you should do is make a copy and enjoy it later but don't send it and that's what Lincoln did with this letter he said I'm very very grateful to you for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country at Gettysburg I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of misfortune involved in Lee's escape and in the end Lincoln said as it is the war will be prolonged indefinitely indefinitely this Abraham Lincoln think Gettysburg is a great turning point of the war absolutely not absolutely not and that attitude is echoed in many letters and diaries across the United States a great victory and then the days go by and nothing else happens Lee got away Lee got away Lee has become a sort of Bugaboo to the loyal citizenry by this time beat Robert Ely that's what we need to do is the only one who ever wins victories for the Confederacy we've got to beat Robert Ely this seemed to be a chance and not just smack him around a little bit beat him part of it is the different that McClellan instilled a culture of command in the Army of the Potomac that did not involve a killer instinct dimension of what they were up to and it's it's the antithesis of the culture of command in the Army in Northern Virginia if you get your foot on your opponent's throat stomp on it that's the attitude in the army in Northern Virginia that is not the attitude in the army the Potomac in the aftermath of Gettysburg is another example of how McClellan's continuing influence proved a deterrent almost through the rest of the war Lee know he'd been defeated at the battlefield at Gettysburg but one of his big goals had been to siphon supplies out of Pennsylvania he'd accomplished that he also said that even if they'd stayed in Virginia he would have fought big battles that would have been bloody and he said you watch what happens now he said that army meaning the army the Potomac will be as quiet as a sucking dove for the next six months because we injured it so much when's the next big battle in Virginia it's not six months later it's ten months later when the Army's collided in Saunders Field to open the Battle of the wilderness on May the 6th 1864 Gettysburg had no impact on the long-term reputation of Lee and his army absolutely none it's fascinating it's always interested me that this was the case but there's no doubt that it is the case didn't have a long-term impact on national morale didn't have any impact on Lee's reputation Confederate Diaries in 1864 are filled with passages similar to this one I was gonna rude read three but I'm only gonna read one because I want to leave as much time at the end as possible this is from a Confederate officer serving in Louisiana he wrote in May 1864 he'd heard rumors that Lee and grant were colliding with one another in the East he said I believe nothing one way or the other until further word is received his name is Felix Pierre Bouchet great-great diary but I continue to have complete faith in General Lee who has never been known to suffer defeat and who probably never will never been known to suffer defeat what he lost the battle that settled the whole war we all know that how come this guy doesn't know that in 1864 I can't resist one more this is from another one of my favorite women Diaries Kate Stone the books called broken burns he lived up in northeastern Louisiana great diary really works with students because Kate stone is just my students age she's living in a sort of Jane Austen world at the beginning of the war and then it gets really difficult loses a brother and so forth Kate stone wrote in her diary that same mace he said a great battle is rumored in Virginia grants first fight in his on to Richmond he's opposed by the invincible Lee and so we are satisfied we won the victory Gettysburg has no impact on robert e lee's reputation none absolutely none okay and i want to return to josiah Gorgas who's tottering to destruction phrase has beguiled so many historians here's the thing about picking one entry out of a diary sometimes it doesn't really represent what's in the diary there's so much evidence from the Civil War you can argue anything in the Civil War and you can have real footnotes that refer to real documents and sleep soundly at night or sort of soundly but it really helps to read a little bit farther into some documents and if you continue in Gorgas diary you find this on August 24th he said Lee's army appears to be nearly in its original good condition and by September 6th he said linky Lee's armies in excellent condition in fact he said I think Lee is considering another invasion of the United States so no longer are they tottering toward destruction they're thinking of taking the war across the national frontier again taking the war across the national frontier the two most important military outcomes look at the page just walked down of 1863 as far as I'm concerned have to do with u.s. grant and our elite the the two Colossus of the Civil War in terms of military affairs us grants victory at Vicksburg and his victory at Chattanooga positioned him to become the man in the United States he would soon be in command of all Western forces and then very soon after that be made general and chief of all United States armies and that is the essential appointment that is eventually going to bring victory you need Lincoln and Grant and Vicksburg and Chattanooga give us grant position to become general in chief we've lost sight of what a towering figure grant was absolutely lost sight of it when at the end of the war it's not Lincoln and Grant it's Lincoln and Grant Lincoln and Grant appears at the end of the war that's hard for us to imagine but it's true you're gonna listen to Joan wah speak on Friday if you want to get some sense of Grant's stature why he had the largest funeral in American history why is tombs the largest in North America why it was the most popular tourist attraction in New York City until the depression why more people saw him in person than any other American who's ever lived in person we're talking about look at Ulysses and look at Joan's book on u.s. Grant and you'll get a sense of it why he was a towering figure and then what happened then what happened to him it's the most striking example of any individual in American history that I know of that shows the difference between history and memory grant the towering figure in the 19th century and beyond and grant who is not that now although he's enjoying a bit of a resurgence that's one of the great military outcomes the other one is with Lee Chancellorsville solidified the process by which Lee and his army became the most important national institution in the Confederacy they became to the Confederacy what Washington in the Continental Army were to the colonial effort against Great Britain they're more important than Jefferson Davis in the Confederate government Confederate people don't say what's going on in Richmond they know that's a sad story is Lee still in the field if Lee is still in the field there's still a chance for independence it's not an accident that Appomattox is the end of the war it's not really the end of the war there scores of thousands of Confederates under arms all over the place it's the fact that Lee is no longer in the field that means it's the end of the war that's how important he was a nap came out of Chancellorsville it came most dramatically on the morning of May the 3rd when the two wings of Lee's army fought their way together after being divided the Chancellorsville mansion is burning Joe hooker had been stunned by an artillery round and Leslie's infantry fought its way together he rode into this clearing in the wilderness of Spotsylvania and they saw him and he saw them and there was this incredible outpouring of emotion on the part of his soldiers I think they looked at him at that moment and decided we can do anything the old man asks us to do and he looked at them and decided precisely the same thing they can do anything I asked them to do if you want to understand Pickett's Charge is not a mystery to me at all you want to understand Pickett's Charge go back to May 3rd at Chancellorsville and you will understand Pickett's Charge Lee's lieutenants are letting him down he's just gonna let his infantry take care of it that is a very important outcome of 63 the tremendous completion of that bonding and the ascension of Lee in his army to this position as the preeminent national institution in the Confederacy this much as certain I think if we had been able to pull people during the incomprehensibly bloody spring and early summer of 1864 no one would have said Gettysburg and Vicksburg or all the military events of 1863 put together had sealed the fate of the Confederacy not Lincoln not Jefferson Davis not the loyal citizenry of the United States not the citizenry of the Confederacy not the more than three million African Americans who remained enslaved in the Confederacy none of them would have said that for them living in the midst of continuing military and political and social turmoil the events of 1863 lay far in the past well remembered but scarcely connected to expectations about how and when the seemingly endless bloodletting would cease much as it goes against what I think most Americans believe was the case neither United States victory nor emancipation was a sure thing at the end of 1863 thank you thank you if if you are leaving at this point please do so quietly and hold your conversations till you're outside the fence of the amphitheater our Usher's will be circulating to collect your questions since we're not gonna do a year from now the anniversary of 1864 what goes wrong for the Confederacy militarily after this 10 month respite from Gettysburg when you think that they some level would be recharged and ready to go again what goes wrong they were recharged but here's what went wrong that the Confederates didn't get the message that the war was over and so you have in 1864 tremendous expectations in the United States because Grant is now in charge grant didn't want to confront Lee directly he wanted to do it indirectly but he was very astute politically and knew that the that the civilian population wanted somebody to smack robert e lee around and so that's what he decided to do that results in the Overland campaign with its hundred thousand casualties in six weeks those casualties a new kind of war comes in 1864 there used to be a big battle then there'd be a time with it when there wasn't fighting you had continuous fighting beginning with the Overland campaign and the civilian population became somewhat numbed by this and wondered why Richmond didn't fall and why hadn't Sherman captured Atlanta those are the two great things they're looking at it got to the point that the most problematical moment of the entire war for the United States is in the summer of 1864 that is the closest the Confederacy comes to achieving success as you all know Abraham Lincoln had his cabinet sign a blind memorandum on August 23rd saying it looks like we're not going to be reelected we have to win the war before the Democrats come in next spring because they're sure as hell not going to win it he didn't say sure as hell but they're not going to win it the Republicans didn't even call themselves Republicans in the election of 1864 they called themselves the union party they threw Hannibal Hamlin off the ticket who was considered too extreme on emancipation by many people and put Andrew Johnson on the ticket boy sometimes vice-presidential choices count and that one really counted they were trying to get as much of the loyal union centered citizenry as possible to support the war wouldn't worked except to great outcomes on the battlefield from the United States perspective as you know William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta at the beginning of September and then Philip Henry Sheridan waged a really effective campaign in the Shenandoah Valley that essentially took the Shenandoah Valley out of the Confederate side of the equation between September 19th and October 19th 1864 those two campaigns re-elected Lincoln sent huge Republican majorities to the House and Senate and guaranteed sometimes it doesn't seem like there's much of a choice in elections in 1864 you vote for the Democrats you might get an armistice and who knows you won't get emancipation if they have their way you vote for the Republicans you push the war through to victory and get emancipation stakes couldn't have been higher and Sherman and Sheridan re-elected Lincoln and the Republicans and that to me is the final turning point of the war war still goes on for several months but that's the end of it two questions about general Longstreet his contributions to Lee and wood at Gettysburg have been different if if Jackson had been there oh I have that question - I knew yes again was the death of Stonewall Jackson I could be giving a lecture on mortgage rates in Peoria in in 1863 and the first question would be what if Stonewall Jackson had been at Gettysburg I've had it so many times that my tendency is to not take it seriously and please don't take this wrong whoever sent it but to say it would have made no difference because he would have been a putrifying corpse he'd been dead for two months but anyway James Longstreet what do I think of James Longstreet Longstreet was an exceptionally able Corps commander he's the senior corps commander and Lee's army through the whole war he's senior to Stonewall Jackson Lee trusted him li called him the staff in my right hand after the seven days I think Lee was genuinely mystified by Longstreet's behavior at Gettysburg but as long she was not a good subordinate at Gettysburg he didn't agree with what Lee wanted to do and instead I think you have if you're a subordinate and your superior gives you orders I think you and you don't agree with them we have two options you either carry them through to the very best of your ability or you say I can't do that and you step aside and let somebody else do it but Longstreet was a lethargic sort of pouting subordinate at Gettysburg it's not his finest hour although overall I think he's a very very good corps commander what if Jackson the what if Jackson had been there always comes down to would he have captured Cemetery Hill and East Cemetery Hill on the afternoon of July 1st Richard Ewell didn't we know Stonewall would have and then it was just a kind of Autobahn to Washington DC after that in this view who knows what would have happened there it would have he might have tried to capture them and he might not have succeeded there's just no all those kind of what if things can't be answered but would he have been aggressive of course he would have been he would have been more aggressive than Richard Ewell he is the culture of command in Lee's Army as I said it prizes aggressiveness ruthlessness risk-taking and Jackson absolutely personified that dimension of the High Command he absolutely did but it rippled all the way down all the way down an opportunity presents itself you have orders to do a butt on the ground be looks like it's going to inflict greater damage on your opponent do be in the Army the Potomac never do be you play it safe you make sure everything's just right you don't do anything until everything's just right and I can tell by the fact that many people in this audience have hair the same color of mine that you are well aware of the fact that if you wait till everything is just right to do something in life you will not ever do anything in life because everything is never just right never is Jackson probably would have tried but we can't even be sure about that long as we're dealing with what-ifs I'll bring him on I love what if they're the what what would have been the impact if the Union had law Gettysburg is it solely pullet a political impact on Lincoln or well I think it's a political impact would have been huge but no and it would have been a problem militarily I but it doesn't mean that Lee would have just gone and captured Washington he had no intention of capturing Washington Washington was really heavily defended as you know girded by this very complicated series of forts that were well man mounting hundreds of guns it would have meant that the army the Potomac would have fallen back probably to the pipe creek line which is a long which is just not far from Frederick Maryland now it's part of the Monocacy River Network probably would have fallen back to there and then Lee would have done who knows what it would have been bad for the United States no question about it it would have been bad but how bad would it have ended the war certainly not necessarily but it would have been bad news no one is yet mentioned General Sherman and the march through the south how important was this well Sherman's capture of Atlanta was more important than his march through the south but they're both important for years we thought that Sherman's march that 60 mile swath between Atlanta and Savannah that he made that that destroyed Confederate morale and that's what he wanted to do it was grants idea to destroy the logistical base of the Confederacy but historians call the strategy of exhaustion you don't have to kill Confederate soldiers to defeat their armies just deny them the things they need to wage a war and that's what grant wanted Sherman to do he'd already told Sheridan to do the same thing in the Shenandoah Valley Sherman's not the first Sherman's the second to be doing that Sherman had his own twist he added a psychological twist to it I want to destroy their will to resist I want to show them he said that their government is powerless to protect them that we can go anywhere we want to go and if they really believe that we can go anywhere we want to go and can do anything we want to do they'll give up and historians believe that's what Sherman's march did for a long time and what they often quoted was Sherman who said that's what they did but we've had two studies of what actually happened now one is published and one's about to be published one by a historian named Jacqueline Campbell the title is when Sherman marched north to see Jackie Campbell shows that the initial reaction among civilians in Central Georgia and the Carolinas was that their morale plunged but that very quickly it came back up and they were even more determined than ever not to give in to an opponent who would do the kinds of things that Sherman did so you got a hardening you had an initial period of despair and then a hardening and Sherman of course is quoted the historians loved to argue about whether women were part of the problem in the Confederacy's continuing or whether they propped up the Confederacy most United States soldiers during the war they would have said what are you talking about Sherman said repeatedly yeah the men are one thing it's the women who were the real problem in the Confederacy we need to break them and he hoped that's what his campaign to the sea did and in the end it didn't but it's important destroyed a lot of stuff $100,000,000 Sherman said he said they used about 20 millions and that's when a million was you know not 11 seconds of what we spend now wait that's another thing students have a hard time with I tell them that the federal budget was 63 million dollars in 1860 the whole federal budget and Lincoln's last budget was 1.25 billion and I'd know by the expression on their faces they say 1.25 billion jerry jones the stadium cost more than that he destroyed a lot of stuff what was the Navy doing in 1863 what was the Navy doing in 1863 well the Navy was supporting operations on the Mississippi River the u.s. Navy one of the huge advantages that the United States had in the war of course was its Navy it started with about forty five vessels in commission it ended with 700 the United States Navy was as big as the Royal Navy at the end of the Civil War it did this astonishing example of what the United States economy can do this is the war that sets the pattern for how we have fought all our other wars what do we do crank up the economy produce on an unbelievable scale an unbelievable scale that's what the United States did during the American Civil War and the Navy is a striking example of that it assisted grant up and down the Mississippi River it closed Confederate ports there was a lot of naval action off Charleston in 1863 they they couldn't reduce Fort Sumter but they tried those have you've seen the film glory while that's going on the US Navy is also very active then they're chasing down Confederate commerce raiders those are the things they're doing the Navy is a wonderful story it's just it the Civil War is a story of what goes on on land for the most part questioner notes that you refer to the United States versus the Confederacy rather than the Union seems most historians refer to the Union why this choice of terms is it significant I think it's significant I didn't do that inadvertently I get tired of it's the North versus the South stuff this isn't a war of the north versus the south they're 15 southern states slaveholding states in 1860 and four of them stay in the United States four of them stay in Missouri in Kentucky and Maryland and Delaware and a fifth one in essence is created on West Virginia breaks away from Virginia should have been about 38 counties but they rounded it up to 50 to make our current West Virginia so you get that it is not the North versus the south it is a war between two modern mid 19th century nation-states one of which didn't last very long and its whole life was played out in the midst of this military trauma but the the British looked at the Confederacy the the French looked at the Confederacy and the duck analogy comes in here the confetti that it walked like a duck it quacks like a duck it pretty damn well looked like a duck it just didn't win enough victories in the end these are nation-states that are fighting one another and it didn't change the name of the country when the Confederacy it's still the United States it's the United States it's the United States Army it's the United States Navy no one thinks Union is a more important term than I do the Union if anyone who doesn't understand what Union meant in the mid 19th century has no chance of understanding the Civil War none zero absolutely none and 99.99% of Americans have no idea what the Union meant in the mid nineteenth century none unions mean labor related things to them they have no clue you cannot understand the Civil War if you don't understand what Union meant and what the concept of the citizen-soldier meant if you don't understand those things don't pretend you understand anything about the Ameri mean go ahead and pretend if that makes you happy I told my son Lott long ago that when I looked in the mirror my hair still looked brown and he said pop if that makes you feel good I think it's great and so if it makes you feel good not to come to grips with the Union then don't that's fine no penalties no exams no harm no foul except you won't understand anything in the movie Lincoln the Confederate peace delegation plays an important role in the plot can you expand upon the history of this peace mission and its influence yes that is I wish I wish I could close my eyes and excise that whole part from the movie it's ludicrous it has nothing to do with anything the here here's the deal Jefferson gave us had one minimum demand for any negotiation confederate independence Abraham Lincoln had to minimum demands for any negotiation no Confederate independence and emancipation you tell me where the common ground to debate things is there there's absolutely none absolutely none it's a it's a it's an absolute I don't know who thought that was a good idea to make that a big part of Lincoln luckily Daniel day-lewis is so transcendent that it doesn't matter in the end and they did get Jackie Haley who looks so much like Alexander Stephens you thought he'd been cryogenically frozen someplace and brought out to look I mean where can they find an actor who looks like Alexander Stephens did wait 98 pounds oh there he is so the casting was good but the strategy for insinuating that as a major plot I think was questionable why so little mention of General George Thomas the best fighting general the Union had apparently in the opinion of our questioner I love a question that it doesn't have a point of view George Thomas was a really able general he's you often get the idea that he's the only Virginian who stayed loyal to the United States when in fact there were six Colonels from Virginia in the United States Army in 1861 only one of them left the United States ahreally is the only one who did the rest stayed loyal about 30% of all the Virginians in the u.s. army stayed loyal but Thomas along with Winfield Scott are the two most important ones and Thomas was an able army commander the idea that he was the best General in the war of course you can't prove that in any way I think you could make a better case if he'd ever been up against anybody his own size and as talented as he was which he was not he simply slike Sheridan if you have overwhelming advantage it's it's hard to gauge just how good you are but he was clearly a very good soldier and he paid an extremely heavy price for his decision he only lived till 1870 and when the United States Army officers went to tell his sisters who had stayed who had gone with the Confederacy that their brother George was dead they closed the door in the guy's face and said our brother died in 1861 died in 1861 no forgiveness there there have been four biographies of Thomas lately so there's lots to choose from let me try these three questions that I've got up here about Lee does he lose his spirit after Gettysburg what position if any was he offered in the US Army beef prior to his resignation and well if he had been brought to trial for treason what do you think the outcome would well he was a he was a colonel in the United States Army promoted just before secession what he was offered was command of the United States of the volunteer army that was gathering outside Washington in in April the offer was made by Francis Preston Blair when an old well-connected he'd been in Jackson's kitchen cabinet and so forth so that's what he was offered that's the command he would have had and he turned it down resigned from the United States Army and then and then a few days later went to command the Virginia state forces he didn't go straight to the Confederacy he went to Virginia right after that what position was Lee cast down after Gettysburg was that the question essentially was he lose his spirit well he he wasn't used to losing and he didn't like losing then he wrote this letter to Jefferson Davis a whining letter which was kind of out of character with him saying all the papers in Charleston are saying mean things about me and I hear that even some officers think maybe I shouldn't have done some things that I did and all I know is if everybody doesn't have faith in the commander he should step down so I'm tendering my resignation he sent that to Jefferson Davis and got just what he wanted back you're wonderful you're wonderful you're perfect you're the boss it's what we tell all students now no one's been as wonderful as you are if only I had time to tell you all the ways you're wonderful and I'm sorry you only got an a-minus plus because you're really up blah blah blah Jefferson Davis wrote him a letter and said of course I'm there's no one who can replace you of course I can't and then Lee wrote back and said okay that's what he needed and and so he continues on he continues he continues on what have he been put on trial nobody knows what would have happened if any of these people had been put on trial Jefferson Davis hungered for a treason trial after the war desperately wanted a treason trial after the war because he believed the Constitution would not be shown to say you cannot secede and if secession was not unconstitutional every drop of blood was on Abraham Lincoln's hand every single one he wanted it his lawyer who was a very smart Irish born guy from New York City top almost copperhead lawyer from New York City he knew the best thing to do was just drag this out and the US government in the end would not have a trial and that's what happened there different people were going to lead the prosecution the Constitution's tough on treason you need to try someone where the treason was committed treason was committed in Richmond the jury is going to be drawn from Richmond I'll say that again the jury is going to be drawn now can you get 12 pickin you can you be certain 12 people from Richmond are going to say this guy's guilty hang him in the end they thought it was simply too risky and so they let Jefferson Davis go Davis really wanted that he was his his counsel just didn't want day he wanted to get Davis out of Fort Monroe Davis wanted to show trial he didn't get a show trial it would have been no different with Lee I think it would have been so if it was very that's the pesky Constitution doesn't tell us that smart lawyers argued that both ways in 1860 61 the Supreme Court finally stepped in with Texas v white retrospectively and ratified what the armies had settled in trial by battle which is how lawyers talked about it then pour a little more the comment that the problem might have been Southern women yes and I don't want to be misquoted on that it's so easily done these there's been a debate about why the Confederacy fell apart and it in it and there's a long tradition going back to the 20s and 30s and 40s and then picking up steam in the 70s and 80s and continuing down that it fell apart from within fissures along gender lines and class lines and racial lines nobody really cared about the Confederacy and so it didn't win because the Confederates didn't try hard enough in the end because they were just they never thought of themselves as a nation that's a simplification but that's it in broad outline and women are a big part of this women finally just say there's nothing in this for us we're not going to support this to me that overlooks the elephant in the room and the elephant in the room is that the white South within a within our economy ricchan context suffered far more than any other element of white American citizenry in our history it's not even close I mean it's so far off the scale they lost one in four of all their military age white men killed and that's with the old number that's with the 620,000 number if we bump the number up to 700,000 for overall dead in the Civil War that goes up think about our society now losing 16 to 18 million dead in a war and then say what we did just didn't try hard enough when he lost 18 million should have lost more I think that it I think that we sort of but was there class conflict in the Confederacy of course there was of course there was there's always class conflict it's like going to the beach and riding home so how was at the beach I found some sand if the beach it was exciting hadn't expected to find it's always there it's in the United States it's everywhere the question is did it really make a difference one of the old things that people would trot out is that what was called the 20 Negro law in the Confederacy which exempted one white man for every farm or plantation exempt from conscription from military one white man on every farm or plantation that had at least 20 enslaved people that that became a hugely controversial class-based problem for the Confederacy sounds good makes sense to us it's just simply not true the people who have looked at thousands and thousands and thousands of letters from Confederates and back home Joe guitars perhaps the most obvious he said just a demonic researcher teaches at UNC he looked at he estimated 25,000 letters he found six complaints about this and far more that said we need no leave some white men at home although after the war former Confederates pretended all the enslaved people were happy of course we know that's not true and they knew it wasn't true and they didn't want all the able-bodied men gone because they were scared to death of Santa Domingo or Nat Turner and you have to have some white men around from their point of view to maintain white supremacy that's just an example so that the argument I think women did some women become disaffected of course they did one of the sources people go to is letters to the secretary of the war a Secretary of War in the governor complaining about things well who's gonna write to the secretary nobody writes and say Secretary of War said and you're doing a great job I'm so happy you're such a good bureaucrat keep it up of course they're not they're gonna write when they're unhappy about something here's the question that I wish we could ask Confederates even in 1864 here are your choices continue fighting this bloody war where you have a central government that's far more intrusive than you ever imagined or go back into the United States under Abraham Lincoln with emancipation those are your choices and I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of the Confederates would have said we will fight it out we're not gonna put at risk the entire social structure that allows us to maintain control of three and a half million enslaved people who live among us I mean it's just it's it to me it would have been an overwhelming land side so it's it's interesting and you can't prove it either way because no matter how diligent we are as researchers we read this many documents this many I mean that we can see such a tiny sampling and it's not of statistically significant entry letters I've read thousands of them it takes a long time the thousands I've read compared to the millions that were written ladies and gentlemen please join me in thanking Gary Gallagher you you
