Historian Gary W. Gallagher on Command Relationships during the Civil War

good afternoon I'm professor Robert history department since professor I should say president Ayers is I can also introduce myself as the senior civil war historian at the University of Richmond it's my pleasure hi pleasure to introduce Gary Gallagher the Jarnell now professor of his in history of American Civil War at the University of Virginia professor Gallagher is a native of Los Angeles he received his bachelor's degree from Adam State College in Colorado and his master's and PhD from the University of Texas at Austin for the University of Virginia in 1998 he taught twelve years at Penn State University he's the author of more authors and editor more than 30 books some of his most recent books the most recent book being the Union War published by Harvard in 2011 which complements his 1997 book with Harvard the Confederate war Lee and his generals in war in memory the myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War history which he co-edited with Allen Nolan popular art shape what we know about the Civil War dealing with the Civil War three alone with the University of North Carolina one called Civil War America which has 95 titles military campaigns of the Civil War which has nine titles to date and the series which is sort of in the making now the Littlefield history of the Civil War which will eventually have 16 volumes each published by truly major scholars in the Civil War period in addition to his extensive publication record he is also as many of you know a superb teacher as well he has recently been the recipient of the Cavaliers distinguished teaching professor ship at UVA the highest teaching award in addition he has played a very critical role including serving as president of two major civil war organizations the Association for the preservation of of war sites now called the Civil War trust and also the Society of Civil War historians I may add as well that his many graduate students every year growing our also now having a significant impact on the profession and I know Gary's particularly proud of their accomplishments as well let me finish by just a short personal note probably no single paragraph as a civil historic Civil War historian that I've ever read has had more impact on me than a paragraph that professor Gallagher wrote a few years ago so I'd like to read just part of that paragraph and you'll see why it surely is not in one of his major works I don't think he called it his major work at all but it was in Robert Brent uplands edited war Ken Burns the Civil War in which a number historians wrote critiques of the burn series Gary's essay was called how familiarity breeds success military campaigns and leaders and Ken Burns's so now the reason this paragraph is a read in a moment a few centons had such an impact on these you should know that my orientation towards the Civil War is much less military than Gary's isn't and much less political than others primarily social history but when this book came out in the mid 90s and I read these sentences it had an enormous impact on the way I teach so let me read just a few lines in this essay professor Geller Kerr wrote millions of people north and south eagerly followed the progress of Union and Confederate armies on a daily basis according more attention to strategic maneuvers and battles than to any other non-military topics favored by modern scholars perceptions about the military situation influenced how people voted whether they bought government bonds and many of their other activities now I can't comment on how other civil war scholars may have thought when they read that but that that those words really did have an I've had a major impact on the way I teach it made me reassess what is true Civil War teacher needs to do not just to focus on social or political or what we may feel important today but we always have to consider what those people were most interested and they were interested not just the military in terms of the military history the battles at campaigns but every day they were reading in the newspaper about those and it affected the decisions they made well then I'd like to introduce professor Gallagher who will speak command relationships during the Civil War I'm going to switch to a different microphone can you hear me with this yes okay all the way in the back you can hear me thank you very much for that I love to come to the University of Richmond I end up here one way or another fairly frequently even before it was on the scene and I knew it before it was a civil war hystory and that's how far back we go it used to smile when I would say the civil war is really the most important thing to understand about United States history if you don't come to terms with that you have no chance of understanding much of anything else and he'd smile and sort of look off and now it's a civil war historian I'm quietly triumphant what I'm going to talk about today are it sounds as if I'm going to give you a general talk on command relationships during the Civil War hmmm not because I have 40 minutes it's now 22 minutes until 5:00 I'm supposed to talk for 40 minutes and then take 20 minutes worth of questions which is what I'm going to do but I don't have time to talk about that whole subject what I'm going to do is focus on what I think are the two most important command relationships during the Civil War the two relationships that have the greatest impact on how the war unfolded and the two relationships that if we really understand them will reveal a great deal about the broader framework of the war those relationships are civil military relationships one on each side between abraham lincoln and ulysses s grant on the United States side and between Jefferson Davis and re Lee on the Confederate side those two relationships are going to be my focus but before I get to those I want to just remind you of some things that I think and this may be so stunningly obvious to you that you're going to just sort of zoom out until I move on to something else but I think these are things anyone thinking about reading about trying to come to terms with the Civil War needs to keep in mind I know there's some of you who don't keep this in mind so maybe you're the main ones that I'm talking to so you probably do know first of we need to keep in mind the scale when we think about how these relationships played out we need to remind ourselves that the scale is gigantic during the American Civil War far greater than in any of our other wars in terms of its direct impact on the largest percentage of people in both the United States and the Confederacy if we were mobilized now to the degree Americans were mobilized during the Civil War we have 30 million people in uniform and if we were mobilized to the degree the Confederacy was we'd have 50 million people in uniform we'd have 14 million dead if we lost at the rate that the Confederacy loss compared to any other war we've been in the Civil War is singular in terms of that impact the only one that comes even close is the American Revolution in terms of how many people it directly touch so the scale is important the scale of destruction the scale of loss all that is on a different level of course because the war took place here rather than somewhere else so I think the scale is something we need to keep in mind the second thing we need to keep in mind is if these are two Democratic Republic's at war the military of dance do not unfold in isolation during the American Civil War military commanders don't get to decide they want to do X and Y and then just do it because they want to there are tremendous political pressures brought to bear throughout the war on both administration's that we're trying to oversee this tremendous conflict and you have these odd situations where both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis had to deal with powerful powerful politicians who wanted to put uniforms on would be the equivalent of having a Sunday morning newspaper you open it up and say that's interesting Nancy is a commander in Afghanistan that's what you have during the Civil War you have Benjamin Butler commanding arm you have the former Speaker of the House Nathaniel Prentiss Banks command in the United States arms it sounds much otter when you put it that way Newt Gingrich is a major-general now he is commanding heat here that's what happens during the Civil War and if you have to deal with those kinds of pressures the repercussions can be significant in terms of what happens when those people are in charge Nathaniel banks managed to lose battles and Bumble campaigns and everything got moved around wherever he went you got the same result but he's an important fellow so there are political connections that help dictate not only he puts on uniforms but the allocation of resources which theaters are going to get more attention which campaigns are going to be considered most important it's not always because militarily they would be the most important it's because there are all kinds of other non-military factors brought to bear and those are factors that in our system which is also the Confederate system of course isn't in Paris wrote their constitution with the US Constitution open right here just copy it over here and make the adjustments for slavery you've got your new constitution with some other things civilians are in control in both of these systems they're in control doesn't mean all the generals are aware of that but the best ones are grant is Lee is George McCallum isn't Joseph Adelson Johnston isn't but the best ones are they defer to their civilian leaders because that's how the systems were that in mind we also need to keep in mind and this is really important the either side could have won the American Civil War either side could have we have this this Lost Cause notion that's a hopeless fight on the Confederate this is a post-war formulation either side could have one if there had been a Las Vegas in 1776 and 1861 the odds against United States success in the Civil War would have been defeated we would have put our money on the Confederates that would have been the smart bet not putting our money on the colonists to war we need to keep that in mind not a hopeless war the war the key thing for the Confederates is have a much lower bar to negotiate much easier for them all they need is to tie a tie is a win for the Confederacy the United States the Confederacy does not have to project military power into Massachusetts it does not have to threaten Detroit Iowa is safe from Confederate armies during the Civil War Maine didn't tremble at the thought of the Army of Northern Virginia coming near but the United States as we know in the end had to project its military power into virtually every corner of the confettis not most of Florida but almost everywhere else almost everywhere else so the conditions for success are easier to meet on the Confederate side in the key on both sides is the civilian population whichever civilian population gives up first that is the side that doesn't win that's the way wars go in our system it doesn't really matter who's winning the war militarily sometimes there's enough great hair in this room to remember Vietnam very well I'm not the only one it's when the population finally says to no we are not this isn't a war we're going to support anymore the war is over it doesn't really matter what conditions are on the battlefield and therefore you can get the situation in the middle of the bloody summer of 1864 and by any action measure United States military forces were crushing the Confederates in significant ways you get the phenomenon that that moment is the moment of greatest despair behind the lines in the United States that is the greatest crisis for the United States that not Gettys we have Gettysburg just drilled into our minds it's a great turning point just get that out of your minds probably none of you have it there but I've heard others do Gettysburg is not among the top six turning points of the war I use a bigger number but some of you may love Gettysburg so I won't push too hard on that it's the summer of 1864 won by all rational measures the Confederacy was losing and clearly losing the people in the United States didn't think so the Republican Party thought about dumping Abraham Lincoln and there was a spreading despair that was the greatest of the war on the part of the United States so don't assume this is what I call the Appomattox syndrome we start at the end of the story and assume that's the way it's going to end you as soon as the end with the United States victory and with emancipation in place why do you assume that well because again and because it's a modern nation it's the United States fighting against an anachronistic nation if you even concede that the Confederacy is a nation which of course it was it's not some squabble little family squabble and a bunch of people sort of get upset and oh shoot for a while it's it's a war between two modern mid 19th century nations one of which didn't last very long but it is a nation it is a nation and we need to keep that in mind and keep in mind that that nation that didn't last very long and seemed so anachronistic but really wasn't could have won the war I also think it's important to keep in mind that the two presidents I'm going to talk about now face the greatest crisis of any chief executives in our history they did we so sad that we live in a time of the 24 the demented 24-hour news cycles when the people who read the news and then stop to talk about history sadly have their sense of history goes back to Tuesday before Tuesday they're not aware and so everything that happens is the worst the biggest the only time we've never been as divided as we are now how many times did you hear that during the presidential election of 2008 we've never been this divided never I can think of one place we've been one time when we've been more divided than that because I teach about it the last time I checked we weren't slaughtering each other in 2008 no presidents ever been attacked the way George Bush was or the way President Obama is really the only way you can reach that conclusion is not to read anything from the past and that has a liberating effect if you don't read anything you can argue or believe anything you wanted but if you read anything you know that Abraham Lincoln were he given the option would say what is George Bush's worst day I want that one every day hey I want every day for my presidency because my bad days are really bad days compared to that one George Bush has not dealt with cold harder in the middle of an Overland campaign that would cost 1.1 million casualties now in a six week period if we got news 1.1 million casualties in a six week period whatever we were doing would stop whatever we were doing wouldn't have gotten that far wouldn't have gotten that far so I think it's important to keep in mind this comparative dimension and make those adjustments as you try to understand something such as these command relationships all right I'm going to talk about Lincoln a little bit and gave us a little bit as chief executives and their styles of functioning as commander in chief and then I'll talk about the relationships with their two most important generals and we should have plenty of time for questions or discussion or arguing when all that is over and let me start with Lincoln and Davis yes in chief once again if there had been someone offering odds on which of these two individuals would do the better job as commander in chief everyone would vote for Jefferson Davis because what does Lincoln bring to the presidency what is on his resume that prepared him to preside over this gigantic enterprise and the answer is almost nothing almost nothing he brought no administrative experience to the job he'd been a one-term congressman you know from Illinois weak for one term during the war with Mexico he's a successful lawyer he's not a back was bumpkin as he's sometimes portrayed he's a sophisticated successful lawyer who takes on all kinds of cases as he goes through his life his most famous race is the one he lost he got more votes but he lost to Stephen Douglas in the senatorial election of 1858 in Illinois military experience he was a company commander a captain of Illinois militia for a brief time during the Blackhawk war in the 1830s that's yet that is the extent of his military experience and he would tell a joke on himself as he often did he had his little company going across the field one day and there's a fence at the other end a number of you are familiar with this and there's a gate and he has his troops in line not in column and he can't remember the order to get them from being in line to being in column which would allow them to walk through the gate area in the fence and he got closer and closer and finally just said all fall out reform on the other side which is a practical solution to the problem but not the kind of commands you want from someone who's going to try to control troops in in a difficult situation he didn't bring anything to the job in that regard what he brought was a first-rate intellect and a willingness something all of our presidents surely have not had to listen to people who knew more than he did about something and to learn and the principal person he learned from early on was Winfield Scott who was the perfect person to teach him Winfield Scott's one of the five great soldiers in United States history for in my view for Civil War types he's often a kind of punch line because he's far past Meridian physically by that point he 75 and he's huge three hundred and fifty pounds he can't get around but he his mind still worked very well he in effect sketched out the grand strategy for the United States for the whole war essentially did when he suggested in the spring of 1861 but Lincoln learned a lot from Winfield Scott he learned from Scott Scott left the stage in the autumn of 1861 went off to West Point because he couldn't stand George Bheema clone anymore but he did learn from Scott Lincoln as the war went on developed a few ideas that he believed were crucial to winning the war and let me just give you these very quickly number one he believed that Confederate armies not places should be the principal target of the United States military forces as he told Joseph Hooker in 1863 Richmond is not don't obsess about Richland if you destroy the Army of Northern Virginia Richmond is yours the key is the Army of Northern Virginia not the places Lincoln argued this he pushed this early on he didn't understand that but he came to understand it was that was one of the key things he tried to do in the course of the world was to find someone who would take that view he also learned and Winfield Scott Chuck Tanner although Lincoln didn't learn it immediately early in the war he didn't know this that just because you put a uniform on someone doesn't they're not a soldier just because you have a uniform on doesn't mean your soldier Scott holding that others holding that Lincoln push for an early battle we got the the ignominious union failure at first Bull Run partly because of that but he came to understand that you the training was important and that logistics were important he came to grasp that armies can't just do I want this army to go do that you can't just go do that unless its logistical situation will allow and that's often very complicated and it's especially fraught with in a mid 19th century context in the winter when it's really raining or when you get away from rivers in the Confederacy because the Confederate transportation infrastructure was poor to begin with and then in terrible shape as the war unfolded because both sides would destroy railroads and knock down bridges and so the United States needed rivers to have really certain avenues of advance Lincoln came to understand that as well he did think the Mississippi was critical he got that from Winfield Scott he obsessed about the Mississippi River and I think he over obsessed about it especially about Vicksburg I frankly don't understand what the big deal about Vicksburg was because once New Orleans was gone and it was gone before the war was a hero sighing April of 1862 when New Orleans is gone the Mississippi is no longer a Confederate River it's of no real use to the Confederacy nothing can come in nothing can go out in terms of the Confederate commercial connections with the to the world the loss of New Orleans ends the functional value of the Mississippi River it takes until Vicksburg more than here 14 months for the river really to fall under United States control and Lincoln really pushed that that something thought and what came to be called is anaconda clams you know had pushed blockade the Confederate Coast take control of the Mississippi River which would split the Confederacy and then necessary project United States military power deep into the Confederacy is the third part of that it's the same strategy of the United States followed in the war with Mexico incidentally this isn't something that Scott had never thought about that's what the United States did in the war with Mexico well that's what how he thought in this one and Lincoln followed him on the Mississippi part Lincoln also wanted he knew the United States had more very than everybody knew it everybody with George McClellan I mean 1860 census told people everything they needed to know about the United States that you how many people lived in every state they knew how many were military aides white males they knew where the manufacturing was they knew everything so how McClellan could imagine that a nation of five and a half million white people could feel larger arms than one with 20 million white people has always seemed kind of odd to me Lincoln Lincoln as he went through the war would say we're going to give you the greatest number of tools possible please apply them relentlessly across the board that's what he tried to get people to apply the greater United States power relentlessly and across the board and in order to accomplish very this is the last thing I would mention about Lincoln he was willing to give a great deal of autonomy even to soldiers who had not proved loyal to him who had not proved dependable in soldiers he thought might bring victory George McClellan Joseph Hooker Don Carlos Buell are examples of those kinds of soldiers he was willing he intellect his personal feelings get in the way of allowing a soldier to succeed the soldiers who didn't succeed we can see in retrospect had big red flags flying all along but Lincoln we can see things that he couldn't he was willing to put aside he had a big ego he was willing to put aside his ego to get success that's another attribute that a lot of presidents haven't had I'll talk about one in a minute he didn't really have that but Lincoln could do that you all know the famous incident of Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward going to see McClellan at McClellan's house knee ball was gone they were putting aside Parliament Cullen came home he was told that the president and the Secretary of State were there he went upstairs I didn't say anything to them and then summoned his Butler about 20 minutes later and said you can tell them that I would be happy to see them some other time he put up with that he never went back to the clothes house again but that's an astonishing that's an astonishing bit of behavior on the part of a general I don't even think Douglas MacArthur would do that not quite that McClellan did Lincoln let him get away that he was willing to put up with a lot put up with a lot Davis had perfect resume in Congress everything he's a West pointer it's about two years separated from our Ely at West Point he commanded he commanded Mormon and battle when anybody except Joseph Johnston who commanded an army during the Civil War no one had commanded even a regiment in battle of all these diocese became were members during the American Civil War many of them for staff officers they were likely they literally never commanded anyone in battle as an officer of the line Jefferson Davis had the ballot when Easter he was a considered a war hero in the war with Mexico he was a very imaginative and successful Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce he chaired the Senate Committee on Military Affairs as a powerful senator from Mississippi he had done about all you could do to prepare yourself to oversee a war if commanders and gee all those things were on his resume all of them none had been on Lincoln's now he has basic ideas as well initially the partner because of political pressure he tried to defend all of the Confederacy and found out that that couldn't be done the courting defense you bid Confederacy didn't have the resources to defend Arkansas and Florida and Texas and Virginia and everyplace else he dropped that even though there was always political pressure to defend every place in the end he supported gathering Confederate manpower in a few large national armies positioning them at key points of threat hoping that they could block the United States advances and perhaps find a way to strike a counter blow historians have called this either an offensive slash defensive strategy or a defensive slash offensive strategy just to confuse people I think it's it's the formulation that makes more sense to me as the Confederacy is standing broadly on the defensive and hoping that there might be opportunities for successful counter blows that would that would harm the Union effort significantly so gather your resources in national armies when you think of Jefferson Davis think of nation Jefferson Davis is a nationalist as we'll see in a minute that's why he and Lee got along so well they agreed completely about that anybody who clings to the notion that all you need to know about Robert Lee is released from Virginia to understanding get that out of your mind right now if you want to understand why he gave up his colonel seat of the first United States cavalry in April of 1861 yes the faculties of Virginian is critical once he puts on a Confederate uniform he is an ardent Confederate nationalist and he and Jefferson Davis are absolutely on the same page there and that's crucial as we'll see to why they got along so well Davis's it was realist in many ways I think there were two things that hurt his and I think he was a good commander-in-chief for the most part but he did a couple of things that he shouldn't happen one is he was not look he tried I think in some ways he would have rather been in general than a president I really do believe that it would have been more comfortable I think and as a result I think he tried to be both the general an oppressed trying to be not only commander in chief but General in chief the Confederacy has no General in chief until the last winter of the war when it's too late it doesn't make any difference by then the United States has Scott and then McClellan and then Henry Halleck and then a little interlude and then u.s. grant almost always has a gentleman team a general who commands all the armies of the United States Confederacy does not have that ahreally is only an army commander he and grant are not you can't really compare them in many ways during the war because grants responsibility is much greater than Lee's for the last year of the war Jefferson Davis held too much of that he tried to do too much he tried to have his and in too much in this Great War II tried to see too much paper that came across his desk he just he needed to be willing to trust someone but he there is no one as general-in-chief until I think finally there such such a groundswell support for me to happen and Lee gets it but when he gets it in early 1865 if there's not much he can do with it because Confederate resources have been so badly depleted by then Davis also didn't have Lincoln's of no way to to put his ego aside he had an endless and some really important generals are on his enemies list and I would have put him on mine too Joseph Johnson he'd be on anybody's enemies Hollow Jefferson Davis's and Jefferson Davis's enemies list function black those Roach traps that let things go in and don't let things go out once you're on Jefferson Davis's list your honor and Gustav - Tom Beauregard was on I'd love to say his name he's my favorite name from the Civil War Gustav - Tom warrior he's on the list Johnston is on the list those are two of the five ranking officers in the Confederacy that's a problem if you are really at odds with two of your five ranking officers he also tended to be perhaps too understanding of those who were very supportive of him he loyalty was everything to him loyalty absolute loyalty the kind of loyalty that Lyndon Johnson demanded and because there's some people in the audience I won't give Lyndon Johnson's definition of loyalty here in public but Jefferson Davis would have agreed with it don't talk to the press don't talk to politicians don't talk to my enemies don't go behind my back don't agree don't these are all the things you don't do if you want to stay in Jefferson Davis's good graces Lincoln worked with a lot of generals who talked behind his back went to the press called him names Lincoln knew what they knew it and Lincoln still worked with them Jefferson Davis was not nearly as good at that as Lincoln was so I think Lincoln has a little edge there he has an edge with his veto but overall I think both of them in very difficult circumstances did very well I can't imagine I can't think of anyone in the United States who would have done better than Lincoln doesn't mean there wasn't someone maybe there was I can't think of who that might have been and I certainly can't think of anyone in the Confederacy who would have done a better job overall the Jefferson Davis did in even more difficult circumstances than Lincoln had in some ways I think they both did a good job all right now these two key relationships Lincoln is searching for someone who will at the very fundamental level take United States superiority of manpower and material and apply it in such a way that the Confederacy cannot match it if we apply our power that way recently across the strategic landscape they simply cannot match us because we do have 20 millions of people and they don't so who will do that who will do that that's what the story of the High Command on the Union side is to a significant degree Civil War the search for someone who will do that and there are various officers that show elements of Lincoln's style of command relationships in the Civil War George V McClellan is a perfect example of Lincoln's willingness to put up with a difficult fellow in pursuit of victory I have a hard time in McCall there are people who love McClellan I'm not one of them because I've read his letters I could buy a huge or venal clause letters which are conveniently published and edited by Steven Sears you can't read more than about 20 pages at a time without just going yeah I don't think mrs. McClellan liked him because she saved his letters and now now we have his letters which reveal him in all his unbelievably self-referential ugliness someone who will say actually say I hope John Pope fails so I can succeed is a problem I think you should want John Pope to succeed for the nation even if you don't like him and even if you are over wienie ambitious but at any rate Lincoln put up he put up with McClellan McClellan had virtues he built a great army he built the greatest army in the Republic in the summer of 1860 when he built the Army of the Potomac which as all of you know carrying on its bayonet by far great part of the heavy fighting of the Civil War among all United States Army's there there are people who have irrational attachments to the Western armies which did a fine job talking about all fighting the Western armies did the fighting is in the East it was in the east because Lee was in the East where Everly is that's where the blood flows close on the Confederate side close on the United States side and 40 of the 50 regiments had suffered the highest casualties in the Civil War on the US side were in the army the Potomac 40 of the 50 make a list of its anyway it's the army the Potomac he built it anyone use it and he instilled among the officers in that army his own culture it's the McClellan culture that gets in the way of the army the Potomac for most of the war it's a culture that prizes caution not taking risks trying to make sure everything is just right before you do anything you know all of us know world enough to know that in life everything is never right you have to do something at some point you have to take a risk that's not what happened with McClellan Lincoln final McCullen always demanded more he lectured Lincoln on delicious he'll actually want emancipation he lectured him on all kinds of things he did not respect the divide between military sphere and the civilian sphere in that regard and Lincoln put up with him and put up with him and put up with him through the seven days which should have been a United States victory and then finally at Antietam he'd had enough without the pursuit and he finally got rid of McCallum but McClellan shows us what Lincoln was willing to put up with when he thought when people were telling him he's the man who's gonna win the war he's our smartest soldier he's our best commander he's our best commander McCall was 35 years old when he was made general and chief of all United States Army's 35 years old I promise you that will never happen again hey well I mean it since it's a young man's war in many ways Union generals even younger than the Confederate ones he's a perfect example of that a perfect example but grant is the example of how if things go the way they're supposed to go the system could work very well Scott helped link and learn McClellan tried Lincoln's patience and finally went because he didn't deliver what grant shows us is that if you get a talented soldier who understands how this command relationship is supposed to function together with a commander-in-chief who is willing to push and push and push then you have your best chance for success I cannot imagine United States victory without both of those men by the latter stages of the war early on it could have different things could have happened before various factors were in place but at the end I think we need both of them in Grant Lincoln found the anti replevin he found where has Mathon always demanded more grant sent Lincoln is a bit did this astonishing note early on that said in effect I know you're giving me everything you can give me I know you want to win the war as much as I want to win the war I'm gonna do my best with what you're giving me Lincoln must have danced around about the Executive Mansion when he got that heat he thinks I'm giving him all I can get him which of course I am doing and he'll do his best with what I give him grant also whatever his personal predilections and political philosophy might have been Lincoln's policies were his offices the national policies emancipation grants policies emancipation the national policy is no retribution at the end of the war grants policy at Appomattox maybe it would have been his policy anyway but what he's doing at Appomattox is what Lincoln told him he met on the James just a few days earlier when Lincoln and Sherman and Grant and Admiral David Dickson Porter met grant does what his government says is the National Policy Sherman McCallum didn't grant did he understood how that relationship worked he understood and said I know you're doing what you can for me it's a remarkable partnership that develops especially after Vicksburg and especially after Lincoln for short time if it was an old wait Lincoln knew what the most famous wait generals did in the mid nineteenth century they did what James K Polk was terrified they would do they ran for president and one of it was elected both Virginians Taylor and one of them wasn't Scott but they did both running for president grant seemed to be a good presidential candidates like Eisenhower both Democrats and Republicans thought grant looked like a good potential nobody knew what he was he's only voted once and voted in 1856 for James Buckhannon but the Democratic but his reason for doing so was utterly unrelated to party politics Macallan was running against John Charles Fremont and Grant explained and he said no the cannon but I didn't know bremond so he voted for James Buckhannon when Lincoln was satisfied grant did not have presidential ambitions then the partnership really came together in Lincoln said in essence you know I am grants and he is mine for the rest of the war and that's the way it played out when Grant came east he also had this wonderful grasp of how important civilian expectations were grant didn't want to fight the Overland campaign grant has Grant's armies through the entire war in the West when he was there totaled 35,000 men 35,000 total Shiloh Henry and Donaldson Chattanooga Vicksburg all of his campaigns least campaigns during that same period 95,000 casualties for the Army in Northern Virginia 35 grand is not grant the butcher doesn't become the butcher until the Overland campaign what's the new part of the equation it's already laid you cannot be around RLE and had white casualties then that's a law if you're around r eally you're going to have heavy casualties and grant want to be coming by a warning direction distract the logistical capacity of the United States of the Confederacy he figured out very quickly that the civilians in the United States demanded that he go head-to-head with Lee and smite the great rebel gentleman who was still seen as unbeatable despite Gettysburg it's another measure of how important unimportant Gettysburg was relatively at the time he understood that and some actually did that's what the Oldham campaign and being that was not his first choice he did it because he knew that Lincoln was under tremendous political pressure to have that kind of campaign and one of the of any ironies in the civil war is that it's by fighting the kind of campaign that the nation wanted is almost destroyed the nation's will to wage the war because the Overland campaign brought those endless casualties with no real sense of who was winning and Richmond wasn't captured and neither was Atlanta and so northern morale plummeted but he's doing what northern public morale why in April and May and what was the political imperative in the end grants overall plan reluctantly did because Sherman captured Atlanta because Philip Sheridan won that string of victories in the in the Shenandoah Valley between September and October I couldn't just be enough to grant Linton would not have been really and of course Lincoln didn't think he was going to be realized in the summer in that awful sign of 1864 but in the end he did find a man who tried to apply pressure across the ward and got the kind of pressure that allowed the great Republican victories in the election of 1864 and once those great fries were in place with Grant and Lincoln both in the key positions that's the real back seat you're looking turning points that's the final turning point Republican success Lincoln and grant in charge then I think it is a matter of time it's still going to be months before the war is over but those are the key components that need to be in place for the United States Lincoln had found the person in grant grant had proved to be the ideal soldier in a democratic republic a gifted soldier a resolute soldier and the soldier who understood what his role was and who ended up working seamlessly with his commander-in-chief for the good of the Republic on the Confederate side you have the same thing with Davis and Lee some historians have argued there was a good deal of tension between the two I think they had a great relationship a great relationship primarily these yes as a military politician Lee was in Richmond right here where we are as Jefferson Davis's principal military adviser in early 1862 as many of you know he observed Davis close up he understood what worked and what didn't work with Davis he knew Lee's Lee is very perceptive in that regard there no he's just he's like I in that regard I could oversee you know what I must have thought when he woke up and he thought okay it's a nice day oh wait a minute Patton and Montgomery are both like how am I going to work with that well Lee had that in the Army of Northern Virginia all these egos and yet everything works there are no big public battles within the High Command nothing like the army of Tennessee's succession of public bloodlettings at the high command level Lee if someone was a problem you look up one day and they're not in the Army in Northern Virginia where did Daniel Harvey he'll go he was so proud remember lead reading Lee's lieutenants as a kid and I like Daniel Harvey Hill he said when somebody tried to get into the band he said denied shooters not tutors needed tutors t OoT ers I love that I like the angle Harvey Hill I got the Chancellor still and he wasn't there anymore and I went back to try and find out what happened to it well what had happened to him is that Lee had decided he's a good combat officer but he is a part of my language a pain in the ass in every other way he's gone I'm gonna send him somewhere else I'm sending him somewhere else he's good at that he was also good at reading his chief executive and he got along he gave lots of information he deferred to him in almost every way he had this ability to make Davis think that some of these ideas were Davis's ideas and then we would say that's a good idea I think we should do that and the result was that Davis gave Lee more latitude than he gave anyone else the key things there - absolutely critical factors that allowed Lee and Davis me along one apart from the fact that we read in well this one is that Lee duties that's the one thing that Lee does that no other Confederate General does he's all by himself there when someone asks you to list a successful confederate army commanders it's easy it only takes three letters to list all of them you rightly down and ask for the next question because in another one and that's a problem with the Confederacy Davis wrote a fascinating letter to his older brother Joseph right after Chancellorsville Joseph who was sort of a father at least an avuncular maybe even a bother me or her Jefferson Davis he said he talked about what a great victory Chancellorsville had been a victory against great odds and yet Lee had won he said in a war life said it took a general can just paraphrasing the true meaning of the word only comes along once in a generation but in this great war of ours we need several and yet the only one he ever found was Lee and so course he daily a little more latitude of course he sided with Lee in April of 1863 when everybody wanted to weaken the Army of Northern Virginia to reinforce either Brae or John Z Pemberton and he said no used one of his careful phrases he said sending me sending his strength from the Army of Northern Virginia converting his army he said he was uncertain of its application that's a wonderful way for Lee to say are you out of your mind you're going to take men from me Fredericksburg Chancellorsville so you're going to take troops from me and give them to John Pemberton come on and in the end Jefferson Davis didn't that helped lead the victories the other thing is I'm is that they absolutely agree on a nationalist attitude toward how to prosecute the war right from the beginning the Confederacy had bitter internal fights bitter internal fights about the degree to which the central government should be able to trample on what would have been considered fundamental individual rights and liberties in order to fight the war this allegedly state rights society put up with the most intrusive central government in American history by far until deep into the 20th century far more intrusive than the Lincoln government and Lee and Davis are in lockstep yes do that do that do whatever it takes conscription there have never been national conscription in the United States history the United States government have never said grimoire I would like you to put on a uniform and you look at me and say you know what go straight to hell and okay I want you in a uniform then it's your it's your patriotic submission that the government relied on your small our Republican virtue that would have you do your bit but you wouldn't be compelled to do it Lee and Davis and Lee took the lead in the spring of 1862 when all those Confederates who had enlisted for one year we're about to get out they said no we are going to have conscription all white men military and all of you guys who enlisted in good faith for one year are now in for two more years and that's the biggest desertion spike of the war until the very end for the Confederacy because there was a sense the government had broken thing they've broken a contract Lee said we have to do this Davis said we have to do it logistic Lee Lee at one point said it takes all the Army in the nation to feed the soldiers then no one else gets me it takes all the meat to feed the soldiers nobody else get me we should take over all public transportation he said it should only be devoted to military needs only when those needs are met should there be any private use of railroads these are radical ideas within a mid 19th century American context and Lee and Davis are on board with those in the NT even said if it takes arming some slaves in order to win the war so we can keep control of the rest of our slaves and we'll do that too this is something that abetted their good working relationship is that they are on the side of whatever it takes we do there are a lot of letters from Lee to governor's and other state officials that say we need this in South Carolina and Lee will say no we need it here I don't care what you need in South Carolina we need those troops in the army Northern Virginia because what the Army of Northern Virginia does affects South Carolina we are South Carolina in the Army of Northern Virginia we're also Tennessee in every other state and that's how you need to fit quick thinking about South Carolina and start thinking about the Confederate States of America that's his attitude and that's Davis's attitude and that helps their relationship they got along extremely well they appreciated each other I think although they weren't Lee I left warmer personality and sense of humor the Jefferson Davis did I think but they have a good relationship as do Lincoln and grant the war gives us these wonderful examples of how badly civil military relationships can work in the midst of a Great War I've done a little bit too long so we're only on ten minutes of questions or 15 we stay longer but it also has these examples of these relationships that work almost perfectly in terms of what's possible within the kind of structure both the United States and Confederacy had and these to show the very best and we couldn't unless you were rooting not to have United States you have to be often pleased that Grant happened to be in the same place as Lincoln at least for the last year of the war and a little bit more because they are they're the they're the key architects of victory I think and even then it was close even then it was close but those two were absolutely necessary and if you look as I'll just say one more time if you want to get a nice way into understanding the broader contours of the war and the ways in which non military and military factors intersected influence looking at these relationships will do it it's a nice way to come at that question it's a nice way to get a sense of how these two nations try to move toward their individual goals the goal of Independence on the part of the Confederacy and of the Union on the part of the United States all right the floor is open for questions or get one right there I'll repeat the question so we can could you spend a little time and go into the decision but Richmond is the capital yeah why what about the decision to make a Richmond the capital of the Confederacy the Confederacy seven states as you know early on the the cotton states the deep south states that and that's not they need more than that second half of the slaveholding states they're fifteen slave holding States in 1860 and the Confederacy initially comprises just seven of them and not the ones with the most people in them and so forth Virginia is the most important slave holding state by far no one is confused about that everyone knows that Virginia had been the most important state early in the history of the United States it was the most populous state there will never be another state that has the presidency thirty-two out of 36 years in a row I'm pretty sure that will never happen again I mean Virginia it's even in 1800 Virginia has more members of the House of Representatives than any other state but by the time of the Civil War it's tied with Indiana so things have slipped but among the slaveholding states it's critical and part you get all kinds of things with Virginia it's the most part they're more white people there are million white people in Virginia half a million enslaved people in 1860 so that's a lot of bodies for the army you get this wonderful link to the revolutionary heritage which was essential to both sides both sides want to be right with the founders in 1861 and there are a lot of founders from Virginia really important ones whose on the whose on the Great Seal of the Confederacy and what George Washington the George Washington from the statute on the capitol grounds everybody wants we write with Jorge especially and Virginia brings you that Virginia brings you that it also brings you Tredegar Iron Works which all by itself represents 40% of the industrial capacity of the Confederate States of America early in the war they'll build a wartime industry later but you get all these things with Virginia they also needed a city that was of a certain size Montgomery was too small there are only a handful of cities in the Confederacy that are even cities if it can the 11th state Confederacy the greatest cities in New Orleans it's very vulnerable and as we know it was gone within a year Charleston is big enough sort of that's about 40,000 people in so original that's about 40,000 people in 1860 in essence Alexander Stephens talking to some Virginians and others said you know if you'll join the club you'll get to be the capital of the club that wasn't the only thing that was in play but that was an important one Virginia is really cannot overstate how important it was even more important than they thought they got Tredegar with Virginia and they got more soldiers than any other state gave but they also got our Ely and our Ely is why the war lasted as long as it did re lead this is another lecture I release why emancipation came during the war because he linked in the war long enough so that the mass of white northerners would conclude that emancipation is necessary to defeat Confederacy war almost ended right here in the summer of 1862 it should have if it had been anybody but McClellan and anybody but lead if it had been I hate the batch job that Joseph Eccleston Johnston had not been shot at Seven Pines on May the 31st 1862 we know what he would have done he woke up every morning said it's a great day to retreat which way shall I go Richmond is 5 miles back if he would have been in Richmond and there's one thing George B McClellan could do he could lay siege to someplace you don't have to move you just have to get close and then you bring up the guns Richmond would have fallen the Confederacy could not have sustained a loss of Richmond in the summer of 62 in tandem with the catastrophic losses out west by June 15th of 1862 New Orleans was gone Memphis was gone Nashville was gone virtually all of middle and West Tennessee were gone there was an army of a hundred thousand United States soldiers in Corinth Mississippi by the end of May 1862 the West a catastrophe a catastrophe you add to that the loss of the capital length the war was over I don't like counterfactuals but I like that one I think the war would have been over and of course it would've been over why is emancipation really surge in late that's in response to the failure of the seven days second Confiscation Act comes right after the seven days Lee Lincoln announces his ideas about proclamation right after the seven days the seven days signal this war is going to be longer it's going to require more radical measures to suppress the rebels and emancipation was a way to suppress the rebels yes 90 day volunteers sure why did Lincoln think 90 day volunteers could win because he didn't know anything but lots of other people fought that - nobody nobody that's not true Winfield Scott and Lee Lee wrote letters to his wife in that first spring he said this is this force in last year's Winfield Scott said - but most people did not there was nothing in their experience that would suggest that this would be a long long war and no one no one imagined not even Winfield Scott not even ah really not either not even others that it would take on the proportions again but Sherman when he heard about the call for those volunteers he said you I'll try to put out a house fire with his work done he said that's that's not going to work but I think it's because there was so little experience it had been a long time since there's been a war here and it's just people couldn't imagine it with less that would become what it became let me see if there's stairs okay I was looking in the back but it's quite curious about the sort of Davis's unwillingness and loyalty to not change generals and Lincoln's willingness where's that come from well the question is about the respective willingness or unwillingness to change generals there are always a lot of factors in play let's use McCullough as an example Lincoln had handed really had enough of a felon after the seven days but then in the wake of the defeat at second Bull Run he needs someone who can pull the forces together around Washington and McCullen's that if that's when the phone comes back then he'll he wins the battle that doesn't follow up that's what

Channel: University of Richmond

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Length: 61min 57sec (3717 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 07 2011