good afternoon as is our tradition we gather today to remember robert e lee who served from 1865 until his death in october 1870 as the 11th president of what was to become Washington and Lee University and being an academic institution it is fitting that we commemorate Lee's memory in a scholarly manner so we welcome today as our speaker Jeffrey D Wert a respected historian and author who has written extensively on the civil war especially the eastern theater after receiving a BA from Lock Haven University and an MA from the Pennsylvania State University Mr work taught history for over 30 years at Penn's Valley area high school for many years he has contributed articles reviews and columns for publications including Virginia cavalcade American History Illustrated and civil type Civil War times Illustrated mr. Wirt was also an associate editor and contributor to the historical times Illustrated encyclopedia of the Civil War he serves on the historical Advisory Board of the Gettysburg foundation and is the member of the honorary Board of Trustees of the Civil War preservation trust mr. work is the author of nine books including cavalry of the lost cause a biography of Jeb Stewart James General James Longstreet Confederacy's most controversial soldier and the sword of Lincoln the Army of the Potomac he has received several literary awards and was nominated for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize for his book Gettysburg day three his most recent book is a glorious army robert e lee's triumph 1862 to 1863 for which he has received a National Book Award nomination and the Richard B Harwell award from Atlanta's civil war roundtable the book has been described as a fresh assessment of Lee and has been praised as a page-turner and an essential read for both Civil War history fans and scholars we are most fortunate to have him here today to speak on Lee and the rebirth of an army from seven days to Gettysburg please help me welcome Jeffrey D Wirt [Applause] good afternoon as you heard Pat's say I'm a retired high school history teacher and if any of you are high school history teachers you know how precious questions are so we are going to allow time for questions and I'd be Warren happy to try to answer any or if you disagree what I about to say I would be happy to hear that too so please general robert e lee wrote out nine mile road from richmond to assume temporary command of the Army of Northern Virginia on Sunday June 1st 1862 the previous night at Fair Oaks is seven pines the army commander Joseph E Johnson was seriously wounded and so in the course of that evening Jefferson Davis with frankly little choice turned early and offered him temporary command of the army in Northern Virginia what is interesting about that at the time Lee's reputation was not very good he had wonderful Virginia lineage but in the fall of 1861 Lee led Confederate troops in a campaign in western Virginia a combination of subordinates who were rather fought with each other than the Yankees troops that were poorly disciplined poorly armed and bad weather the campaign failed and Richmond newspapers criticized Lee they said he was timid and in fact he even argued that he was afraid to fight the enemy they started to call him granny Lee after that Lee was moved to the South Atlantic coast where he oversaw the construction of fortifications and then in March of 1862 Davis brought Lee back to Richmond attacked as his military advisor so Lee was acting in capacity when these events transpired and he was given temporary command but what he would soon christen the Army of Northern Virginia but his reputation still was there there was questions of to be frank about it with in Richmond and within the army now I'll tell you what's curious though George B McClellan who would be his opponent immediately he wrote a letter home that when he heard to lead replace Johnson he was pleased with that because he said that Lee is timid and he would most likely not be very aggressive there is as you know well know a lot of irony and those that letter but an interesting conversation did occur within the first few days that has become rather famous in that regard and that was from Porter Alexander who was ordnance officer for in the army and Alexander was talking to Major Joseph Ives of Davis's staff and Alexander was expressing I think the same kind of thing that this granny Lee idea was and he said well the only way the Confederacy is going to win this war is we have to have someone who has audacity who is willing to be aggressive and bold and he asked sighs well what do you think of the General Lee and this is what I've said in return aiexander if there is any man in either army federal and Confederate who is head and shoulders far above every other one in either Army in audacity that man is General Lee and you will very soon have lived to see it Lee is audacity personified his name is audacity and you need not to be afraid of not seeing all of it that you will want to see well it certainly reassured Alexander but there was this uncertainty as I said and the army that Lee came to Joseph Johnston had good attributes as a general he was popular but he was a poor administrator so they were poorly equipped they were ill they were certainly ill-disciplined D H Hill who would tended to grumble about most things wrote a letter to his wife and said that you know thousands of men are in Richmond they're not even with the the regiments that are you know they're in there drinking and cavorting and things like that and we have to impose discipline so all these things but yet at the same time now thought about this as Lee wrote out that Sunday morning you think about it I know it's not something an historian should say his such but did not the stars align for the Confederacy because waiting for him were senior subordinates James Longstreet Jeff Stewart D H Hill ap Hill the Fayette McLaws Richard Anderson in the valley here you had Stonewall Jackson and Richard S you'll at brigade command you to the promises of a John Bell hood and the jeweler early and a William Dorsey Pender and if you looked at the Army of the Potomac who were just miles away you simply don't see that talent and solely who will come to this army who has to discipline him and mold them but what is waiting for him not only is this town in officers but there's something else I don't think you can really measure you can you can see it once he engaged but there was something about the men in the ranks they had a fighting spirit or the land for battle that was nowhere else DHL will eventually say there that incomparable infantry and they were just waiting for somebody they'd sort of they shown glimpses of it certainly at Williamsburg and may the fifth and then at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks and what does Lee do Lee immediately does what he will do for the next three years he goes to work and the surprising thing is in about two days time after talking to some of the officers Lee decides that they have to take the offensive against the army of Potomac that's lying outside the gates of Richmond during the winter of 1862 the Confederate administration the War Department adopted someone to be a passive defensive strategy well what did that lead to in Tennessee the Federal Army captured Fort Henry and Donaldson they occupied Nashville they occupied Memphis in April you have the terribly bloody Battle of Shiloh live which is a Union victory towards the end of April a naval fleet sailed up the Mississippi River and captured the South's largest city New Orleans earlier you had in incursions along the North Carolina coast at Roanoke Allen and most importantly perhaps is the fact that the massive 100,000 man Union Army Potomac under George McClellan was within a handful mouths from Richmond in June of 1862 in fact the War Department in Washington was so confident of victory that he shut down recruiting offices the war soon gonna be over we're gonna McLeod's going to why I won't say March in the Richmond he's going to sort of inch his way into Richmond the way they looked at it and the war will be over and Lee saw that and he had thought about that a great deal and I would argue more probably than anybody at the time Lee understood this is AG longshadow is deepening across the Confederacy and if something is not done the Confederacy is doomed and to leave the only thing that they can do is to be audacious to be bold to take the offensive see Lee understood clearly that the Confederacy could not win a military triumph in the Civil War and what I mean by that is they're not going to capture the north they're not going to go into the north and go through Pennsylvania to New York and New England they simply not what they have to win is a political negotiated settlement that grants the Confederacy independence in other words the ultimate end of the Confederacy were the northern people and their willingness to sustain the war in a contest between democratic societies it is that which society will continue to do you know go through the sacrifices to lose their husbands their brothers and son will they do that so to leave you either had to shorten the war with a series of victories or you had to stalemate a long enough to convince the northern people that you can't conquer us but you can't sit there like the Confederacy did and wait for it because if you do were doomed because he also realized - that's at some point and he looked at the odds against them at some point Lincoln's going to find a man who is going to unsee that northern sort of man power and might and when they do the Confederacy's probably finished so the Lee Baldus was the only course now I will tell you he had a by accounts he certainly had a combative personality one Texan soldier would later lacking them to Gamecock I don't know if that's exactly for Hurley but if you read these reports and stuff what's interesting when he went into battle he's didn't wanna win he wanted to destroy he wanted to crush and he wanted to wipe out his enemies those are his words in his reports the other thing about it is as we looked at this he wanted to do it if he could by maneuver particularly as a broad strategic turning movement which sure many of you are familiar with that he'll use and on the battlefield if you will more tactical turning movement but if he could maneuver the enemy into such a position where he can inflict a a crippling wound and part of it that was his goal so we come to the seven days so by the end of June Lee does take the offensive it's an interesting campaign in the sense if you look at it and we tend to forget it with Lee but it's important it does begin as a campaign of maneuver they try to you know he's going to attack part of the northern not unionized you know NAR me is south of it and he's hoping that McClellan won't push through the thinly held lines the Lee leaves behind South it's bull by its very nature he takes fifty five thousand men north of Chickahominy attacked leaves twenty five thousand to face seventy thousand but he found the weakest element and he would attack three times in the seven days campaign you'll attack against Mill where the opportunity came to quell day earlier Mechanicsville but that's a bungled miscommunication and mistakes he attacks against mill because he believes he has to he has to keep some clowns attention north of the river they will attack June thirtieth the Glendale where he had an opportunity to cut in half the Union retreat and probably destroy the army of Potomac or a major element of it and then you come if you think about it to Malvern Hill on July the first Malvern Hill as D H Hill wrote about it was not war it was murder it's a Confederate tragedy sixteen brigades one after another went up that slope and were slaughtered and it was a mistake and by that what I mean is Lee was ready to cancel the attack he was on the left in front of the army with James Longstreet near late in the afternoon of July the first and he could see in the crest of Malvern Hill and the rows of Union cannon and inventory up there and he received two pieces of information that were wrong one was that the Federal Army was in retreat well it wasn't in retreat they were shifting troops but see the Lee what had he had done for the past stays he's been trying to capture the Federal Army on retreat and destroy elements of it and the other was that they had made in the favorable advance Confederate units and made favorable advances against that that was wrong too so Lee orders and its salt based upon two pieces of information that were wrong the seven days levered right after under ordinary circumstances the Union Army should have been destroyed but the fact of the matter is the army didn't work well in the seven days Porter Alexander would write later than an army is like a machine and sometimes it claims while during the seven days the Army of Northern Virginia claimed Stonewall Jackson had a performance that I will be frank about Lee was bitterly disappointed in he could not understand it but I do accept the consensus of most historians to try to understand it that there must have been this physical and mental exhaustion on the part of Jackson what I always thought is remarkable about Jackson I am not read of any general in the Civil War truthfully well grant comes in my in a sense but in another element how Jackson could will unwilling men to do things you know if you remember in April of 1862 he writes his wife here in the valley that he liked to create an army of the Living God and I believed every word of that the problem always was that he commanded a lot of sinners so you have to go and you have to force these men to do things and he did and by imposing his will on his men who did not want to impose the bond he imposed his will upon his opponents Jackson was a relentless warrior but in the seven days even Robert Kate Crick who probably knows more about the Army of Northern Virginia any man who maybe ever lived had to admit that Jackson didn't do much and leave saw that and didn't you know he was barely according to staff offices but most importantly folks the seven days is a major turning point in the war I know we don't look at we always think of Antietam in Gettysburg but the fact of the matter is it was Lee takes well first importantly the armed Potomac is driven away from Richmond Lee will tell Charles Marshall that the best defense of Richmond is to always have the Army in Northern Virginia as far away from Richmond as we could have it so that is on the ground that but what it Lee now owns the battlefields in the East Lee is going to keep what is called a strategic or operational initiative for roughly the next two years Lee is going to shape the contours of a campaign Lee is going to find the battlegrounds now there are going to be a couple weeks at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville where his opponent is going to initiate and have the initiative but Lee will always get it back the war the east changes after seven days in a month time Lee recourses in his army the conflict in the east there has always been an argument among historians and it still is where did the Confederacy lose the war and the consensus is that the Confederacy lost the war in the West and I think that's right but my view is that the only place that could have won the war is in the east that is the nerve center beside Washington it's also the media center this is where the most of the news came from this is where the pressure could be put in the administration in Washington and Lee this is what he had the possibilities of doing so from the seven days he turned north into central bird by the way during the seven days campaign thousands and thousands of Confederate soldiers tracted Lee we'll call it the great curse of the army and well you know they have a wonderful battlefield discipline but in camping on the March I mean as much as Lee will try to impose his will and he's on remand it takes time they're just not going to bed to it there's so much individualism among them there's just not if they want to walk away for a while they're gonna walk away for a while and they're gonna come back and that's what happens in the seven days and there's a head north through central Virginia and what is the second Manassas campaign they're gonna straggle more there's going to start to reach some physical limits which is to keep in mind but I can't tell you where I can't tell you exactly when but somehow at some point the clanging Army in Northern Virginia became less clanging in the second Manassas campaign Jackson redeems himself this is an interesting to know that Lee even though he's disappointed Jackson will send Jackson initially to confront Pope because Jackson works well as he knew independently but they moved to the old killing gang ground of Manassas and they're in the words of James Longstreet if you look at the campaign's of Lee he considers second Manassas to be Lee's masterpiece it is a campaign where he used maneuver put his army into a position where the Federals were essentially forced to attack and then at the right moment Longstreet in this case will deliver one of the great counter-attacks of the war I imagine almost everybody been to first Manassas battleground you know there's Henry house Hill up there and down down there is that intersection that's always crowded with about 10,000 cars it seems but the stone house is there well that intersection today was critical had Longstreet been able to push there to that and control that intersection the army of Potomac would have been scattered all across Northern Virginia arguably close to being destroyed it's a bridge conceived and executed campaign by Lee's army and as I said long free regarded as it leaves masterpiece in some ways I think he's right in that regard from there to Lee decides to take the war north now what's interesting about before he crosses the Potomac River he writes to Jefferson Davis's and asked permission if he can take the army across the river they'd already started across the river when he wrote the letter but he and Lee Davis had a very good relationship unlike what Davis had had with Joe Johnston but Lee was smart enough they knew I haven't worked with Davis what you had to do with Davis and he kept him informed and Davis respected Lee deeply for that and leave respected Davis so they were a very good relationship why did they go there where where were they going folks they were going to Pennsylvania even Davis had written about late 61 or 62 that we should carry the war north of the Potomac River southern people you know we talked about Lee's audacity and boldness as aggressive southern people wanted their generals to kill Yankees it was as simple as that they wanted them to take the war to them they didn't want a passive men back here waiting for the Yankees to come into our homeland no you take the war to them and Lee is going to cross the river into Maryland to take the war into Pennsylvania the problem was it's an army on the edge now for the last two months they've been campaigning hard particularly coming up second Manassas you have thousands of men who are going to refuse to cross the river for reasons that are they just can't physically do it and you're going to have once they cross into Maryland epidemic a strata men are falling now the ranks they're gonna go back to Virginia but it's a boldness of leaf that's still going to take that army there and of course as you well know what happens is a copy of his orders are found McClellan reacts now I'm you know I would like to defend George McClellan briefly the defense is usually brief McClellan but in a sense so Levi's way when Lee was asked after the war who was his most ablest opponent he said McClellan he didn't say grant he said McClellan McCloud was a gifted organizer and the army of Potomac will always be little max army there'll be others who come after him but they're always gonna be Lomax army but there was always this element about McClellan he is gone and it's a wonderful weapon the army of Potomac is overlooked because of the Army of Northern Virginia in history that's the way it is but the army of a komak was made up of very good men who become very good soldiers and this is a marvelous weapon and yet McClellan it's like he marches the army to the down a road to rise and across the rise he does not know what's there and he won't take him over that rise because there's a risk involved and that's what he does but when he gets a lost order and he finds it he acts fairly well really folks he wants to make sure that it's not a plant and once he finds out - yes the Confederates are marching as the order says they are he moves but is still Lee Lee could have left Maryland McCloud would not a captured Lee had Lee chose to leave Maryland but as Lee will say afterwards it was better to fight a battle in Maryland as not to the problem was he is facing an opponent with twice as number his ranks are probably down to 40,000 men and as he would say later September the 17th 1862 at Antietam or Sharpsburg was indeed the greatest day in the history of the army what Lee asked his men to do that day was stunning think about points in the battle you know it's one of these battles that progresses from the morning to the midday to the late afternoon late in the morning and around the cornfield the East and West woods the Stonewall division not Brigade division was down to 250 men and commanded by Captain 8,000 men late killed or wounded you know I'm one mile square area in the center leaves line when the sunken Road of the bloody Lane collapses and the Federals were storming through Piper's cornfield heading to just destroy the middle of Lee's army there's James Longstreet and his staff Manning cannon there's a D H Hill with three or four hundred men a major-general Lana leading a counter-attack because that's all you have in the middle of your line as the North Carolinian said in the middle of the battle my god my god when will the Sun go down and only because ap Hill arrived was Lee's army saved but it is at Antietam or Sharpsburg if you want to look at what the Army in Northern Virginia was made of you will find it there in those hollows who would lots and Lee was right it was the greatest day in the history of his army because had they been crushed he would probably been destroyed because he fought that battle with a river to his back and no dominant terrain Fredericksburg a Confederate soldier will say later was our easiest battle indeed it was but as I told you before if you want to find the the metal the army in Northern Virginia someplace and you can find it at Sharpsburg you can go to Gettysburg and you that long mile-long slope in front of the Stonewall marine side and there you will find what the Army of atonement was made of on that cold day 35,000 men six and a half divisions of Yankees would send that slope at what some points a gun fire was so intense that the dead were moving because of being struck by so many bullets and the live were coming after them this is where the army of Potomac encouraged went together their problem of course was as who they were led by the army of Potomac only ever wanted a fair fight on a fair field and they're gonna have to wait that what about Chancellorsville I know I'm going through these campaigns but to give you an idea of it oh by the way they license sorry Fredericksburg Lee was not pleased but he was pleased with the victory but what did they get of me and that's what he wrote about the Yankees go back across the river when the time comes are coming back and they'll probably be more though you know it's a Pyrrhic victory in his mind because he could not get at him there was no way you know Jackson wanted the counter-attack you know and that day but you know Stafford Heights across the river and all that Yankee cannon and that sort of dismissed that idea and Chancellorsville innocence folks will be the same thing now Chancellorsville is arguably leaves greatest battle by his stories and everybody who confronts twice his number he divides his army you have Jackson's famous flank March that crushes the 11th Corps and Lee will on May the 3rd Lee will attack the United wings of his army and pretty much the Federals are beaten at Chancellorsville by the way I just interject I'd Jeb Stewart who is a fascinating man his maybe his best day in the war was May 3rd 1863 by way he was Jackson's best friend in the Army there so disparity personally disowned the like except for certain things they were devoted to the cause they respected each other as soldiers and they were both deeply committed Christians and they have this odd relationship it's not like anything else in the army and it is ironic that you know a distortive gets the message about little after midnight on May the 3rd that you are non commander your old friends second Corps and Stewart will have about four hours to figure out what's going on in those woods around Chancellor bill in the wilderness and put together an attack it's against two orders from Leeds as you will attack that first life because we need to unite the army and Stuart rides forth that day and it's not he doesn't perform any brilliant tactical maneuvers he just rides along the line cheering the men on one point he's singing Oh Joe hooker won't you come out the wilderness won't to come out the wilderness and the men are cheering him and all that it's a great day for a great soldier he had a veneer carefully-crafted Stewart wanted to be you know I wrote it the Confederacy neither the night and Jeff Stewart needed to be that night but if you look at that cloak and that plumed hat that you're missing the point Jeff Stewart was a consummate professional soldier I think the finest like cow broom in the Civil War ever produced but then we moved in Jackson's death was proceeds irreparable you can't replace Jackson Lee had already talked a little bit about forming three Corps and now he circumstances made certain that he did that and he would head north if you read Lee's report on Gettysburg you would think that he is taking the boys north to have a good time in Pennsylvania we're gonna sort of vacation there you know we happened to meet the Yankees we'll fight but if we don't we won't I will tell you they had a good time I'm my wife with Native Pennsylvania the Cumberland Valley is just the Shenandoah Valley across the Potomac River it's so fertile the Johnny Reb's thought that they had I'm going to heaven with all the food Dorsey Pender's I think a telling thing Dorsey Pender's division commander now wrote to his wife the folks in Pennsylvania of people of barns and not brains we're proud of our barns in Pennsylvania they're wonderful barns and you know in fact I will tell you some what I'm a German the Pennsylvania Dutchman if you will I'm not related to those down there but anyhow somehow believed in hexane if you don't know that and they would stand in the gate of their house and as a confederacy arch body they hexed them to keep them out of chicken houses it did not work but anyhow that's not widely went to Pennsylvania the campaign to Gettysburg was a reckoning Lee was taken to his army there to end it please keep the miners a critical difference before Pennsylvania is free soil Pennsylvania is a home of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution which in those days mattered a lot to the American people kids in school knew that and so he's taking them there in fact if you read his letters to Davis in June they're talking about the the political situation in the north and the attitude of the northern people I mean he has just strung together in a year look what they just did these victories after victories is now Chancellorsville remember after chanson ville Lincoln said my god my god what will the country say at least taking them North to settle it now he did not want to fight the battle in July the first his army was not concentrated but it was handed to him and one of the few cases in the war for leave his men outnumbered the on the field and they destroyed the 1st and 11th Corps the army of Potomac killed John Reynolds very popular general and moved towards well they controlled the town of Gettysburg and then they will go in the attack of July 2nd then come close I'm not gonna go through the controversies of Gettysburg because there's - there's too many of them we'd be here three hours everybody keeps fighting the Battle of Gettysburg over all I will tell you in the words of James Longstreet in July the second has been did the best three hours of fighting the troops ever could given the circumstances given the ground they came awful close in some ways the first Corps those Georgians of Mississippians and South Carolinians and Texans and Alabama they were Jack's now they were these shock troops and they're going to sweep across that field and they're almost going to do it and I know if any of you going to Gettysburg I used to take my students there I live about two hours north of there and we always make a field trip down I always took the students out to Alexander's guns if you will there in front of the Magnificent Virginia monument and you look across that ground you think why Matsu Sorel long streets chief of staff said we had to make that attack and he's probably right now one thing I should tell you to keep in mind Pickett's Charge and I'll use that word it's a common one Lee planned to use Pickett early that morning to resume the attack of July 2nd well Longstreet and if he's the fall for anything there he did not send the order to pick it to have his division on the field of day the break so what happens is we has to patch together a new attack and that new attack and will become Pickett's charge and so he does and you know if you walk that and you think about it and I don't think they had a chance because Lee's plan was predicated on taking arguably his weakest arm his artillery not because the men Amanda gun because of the type of guns he had the ammunition he had it gets clearly the strongest arm the arm Potomac and that was their artillery under one of the heroes of Gettysburg if you look at it that way that was Henry Jackson hunt so we had to believe that they could do that and think about that they had come so far together and there it was on that Ridge ahead of them and he was going to make that last one attempt to do it couple things he didn't understand I told you earlier that the Battle of Gettysburg was a reckoning it was on both sides the army of Potomac came onto that field and they knew what was at stake all you do is read the letters and diaries not only was it a reckoning for them there was a search for redemption and when they saw these men that afternoon of July the third appear suddenly as if he rose out of the ground they're standing up there and I know if you watch the movie Gettysburg they're gonna yell Fredericksburg Fredericksburg after you're dead know they're yelling Fredericksburg Fredericksburg before as they're seeing coming in fact one Union soldier in the second Corps stood up said come on come on come to death these boys have been slaughtered in the West woods they had charged up at Fredericksburg this was their chance they're probably the best Corps in the Union Army the second Corps and the fact that matter is had be broken through had his men broken through they would have been seen the vanguard of roughly 13,500 troops who were under orders to move to any section of the line where there's a break that morning we always forget about the other side in this remember it was John Mosby who told a Confederate veteran who was going after the war listing all the reasons why they lost to Gettysburg and Mosby says why I think the Union Army had something do about it and they did he did and that says and you read them there's a wonderful quote that surgeon in the Army wrote afterwards there's a lot of truth in it whose 154th New York he wrote it I think a day after these army crossed back into Virginia and he ended his letter to his wife with this who sent it this army meaning the Army Potomac this army is an anomaly is an army of lions commanded by jackasses but gettysburger Roenick lee there were less of those latter finally the army of potomac got leadership that they deserved see the one thing about Chancellorsville that lee could not have known is he did not defeat the army of Potomac at Chancellorsville he defeated his commander Joe hooker so the army that he meets a Gettysburg is an army ready to prove their worth but if you look back on these of course we tend to look back at Gettysburg and pick us charge and we think of Lee and historians have argued Lee has taken always took the bloodiest road in fact he had yes he in this period of time we're talking about he suffered somewhere like ninety thousand casualties he will have more field officers killed wounded and captured and than any other army in the Confederacy in fact about half of them but he expected aggressiveness he inflicted in that period of time ninety seven thousand casualties I've read were one of the favorite things is to compare leave and the number of casualties he sustained to grant and the problem of that is they throw in grant in the West of the 12 bloodiest battles in the war nine Omar in the East the three in the West grants only in one of them so if you're going to compare Lee and grant like we like to compare things you compare lien grant head-to-head the Army of the Potomac in during the Overland campaign in those six weeks if you will in May and June of 64 will lose more men than they did it Antietam Chancellorsville and Gettysburg combined some will say the least greatest moment in his Army's greatest moment was that the five defensive fight that they put up there I would think though as you look back in this period of 13 months as we're talking about and the war is gonna change after Gettysburg and Lee's not going to have the offensive weapon he did but if you weigh okay Lee it costs the Confederacy these men but look what this army does it changes the war it gives the Confederacy a chance to win the war you don't see anywhere else and that's what you have to look at or you can speculate this and that but no American army facing those odds that change the course of a war so and nearly one it's a record does not surprise no no American armies is equaled at record in this period of time Lee and the army came to embody Confederate nationalism the hopes of the Confederate people rested with them when Lee surrendered at Appomattox the war is over two Confederate people didn't matter what joe johnson did it didn't matter what they did in texas of trans-mississippi it is Lee's army and that's what the happens in this period of time even you know folks if you look back on it in August of 64 Lincoln gathered his cabinet made him sign on read a letter saying you will support the next administration because Lincoln thought that he could not be reelected but then of course things change beginning with the Lana but Lee and driven them to a stalemate a bloody stalemate and his political fortunes were sinking which he's each passing week in the East but is in this period of time we were talking about from the time Lee took command to Gettysburg where the possibilities were very real real excuse me of attaining Confederate independence I think and I say this I think figuratively and literally I think that the Army in Northern Virginia was reborn on a June Sabbath in 1862 thank you [Applause] we can have questions and answers right now we do have a microphone so that we're recording this so we can hear your questions as well as mr. warts answers yes sir question is I did mention Coldharbour June of 64 right Kathleen it is a misnomer and we know Gordon rain is really what I think is a magisterial study of the Overland campaign pretty well shows that grant did not lose seven thousand men in 30 minutes he probably lost 7,000 men over a course of a day many of the Union soldiers went to ground and what I mean by that they just when they were given the order they sort of started up there and and stopped oh we lost about I did a book on the Stonewall Brigade in the am brigade I took them through the war together a brigade was a remarkable Yankee outfit but when they came to the 64 campaign they went to ground twice and what happens is it shows you when you ask men to do so much so often there's a point where they can't do anymore and that that happens to the best and I'm and I'm telling you the best in the Army of Potomac was the Union a brigade of the five regiments of Lee's army that suffered the greatest number of casualties forum fought those boys so I just tells you if at that time hope I answered your question yes sir [Music] [Music] [Music] well you're right in fact you could make a case the door Denis appomattox campaign the best troops in the Union Army were the Calvary because as I told you the army of Potomac that we think about it Antietam and chance trail ok they died in the wilderness in Spotsylvania and North Anna and Coldharbour but to quote a Confederate on July 2nd 1863 in Longstreet's Corps as he they're charging across the wheat field I think he said my god do we have the universe to fight because more Yankee just kept coming and that's what happens but yeah I the argument that he says what Lygia done is adopt a passive defensive and find out defensive bow well you can't always do that folks if you look at his record of attacks war times is not in the major gods I thought he's on the defensive yeah but everything seems to be framed around Pickett's charge in Malvern Hill and there are novelties in some senses with Lee though a case can be made if you don't know it the first time the Army of Northern Virginia the Army Northern Virginia together is driven from a field of battle that they defend is April 2nd 1865 and a week they're gone so you can think about that know what they never so if you do attack these boys you're probably not going to drive them so but that's what it's toys but yeah I don't know you it's like you want to prove this point but why don't we just look at what happened that's why I look at they could have tried they could have won the war and now that's what he's supposed to do thank you right here the question I'll give it just a converse to this good friend I know he's spoken here Gary Gallagher Gary just came out with a book last year called the union war it's an excellent book it explains why Yankees fought and he argues that they fought to restore the Union and you're hearing this Hyun cried it's oh no no no no yeah that's why they did Nina oh you read them Samuel Moore he was a lawyer from Berryville Virginia goes in the second Virginia and what strike me a couple things he goes in an April 61 in two weeks Yankees go from fellow Americans to invaders and it's the same tone but he wrote to his son to explain why he was away from you know them and their mother and he said and I'm paraphrasing that I'm here to protect your mother and you from the the enemy who's going to come into Virginia and burn our homes and things like that most southern boys it is that idea I think Shelby Foote said far better than I did because he sells says simply but there's a lot of truth to that and they also did they did see themselves so the Yankees own it is a curious thing they saw themselves as the legitimate heirs of the Revolution son boys are fighting for liberty and independence northerners were in sense fighting for the country that was created from the revolution many Northerners I will be honest with many the federal soldiers simply could not believe the Confederacy seceded they couldn't understand that as one of them said this is the best place on earth for the common man and that's what they fought for to save the common man's best place on earth where yes many of the Confederates they saw it as the issue of home and defensive home and I think that's right in fact that's one of the reasons some of the men refused to go into Maryland with Lee was because they were they were leaving the Confederacy the day didn't have those sentiments in 63 when he headed north again I hope I answer your question dress pedicures roll biggest charge he would form up behind garnets Brigade and they would advance one of the finest letters I've ever read came from a soldier in Armstead Brigade 14th Virginia I wish I would have looked up his name for you I have to be a farm boy and he says as they stepped out and they remember they were about a hard 20 yards I think beside garnet and by the way garden Kemper I don't know what a PowerPoint presentation is so I'm just gonna sort of do this but God they had to shift over to close the gap and Armistead's back here so they're all shifting this way but if you go there were they lined up in that hollow they're gonna do it and as they literally would come out the ground it's like these just suddenly appear to the Federals across the way but what's the Union artillery opened on him and they were hitting everybody this soldier wrote you know I have had even title my one chapter this part of it he said arms and legs flew in the air like feathers before the wind and so armor says men will follow and they will push over through there there's been a dis historic debate over how many Confederate soldiers crossed the Emmitsburg Road many I'm stating the road I can't blame them by the way the road would have been deeper they think maybe that you would have a protection of perhaps two feet you know rose war way in those days I don't know for sure how many men cross that second fence but they either were a fool or a brave man and I would vote through the ladder in almost all cases and they were to send that slow an Armistead more than likely if you to hit at the very end he may have taken three or four hundred men across the Stonewall in that final lunch to try to break through but by then the Yankees from down on the southern part of the line they're swarming up in fact he gets to the point where there's so many the Yankees surrounding them that the ones in the back can choose days to grab rocks and sorry he went over hoping to hit somebody but they're just they're just swamped it's over very shortly and he is not seriously wounded and he's taken to the rear and he will die though probably more from physical exhaustion than anything else but he is not seriously when there's an arm and leg I read the surgeons report on him he hasn't been I hope that's but that's his room and by the way pic has been criticized or where he was and where he wasn't but I think George Picard did his job he wrote between garnets Brigade and Armstead as far as we know and probably reached the Emmitsburg Road his job was to make sure his men were supported and by all counts he sent aides to do that and of course but it wouldn't have mattered in my judgment yes tactical victor you'd have to give it to Lee in his army but the importance of it cannot be denied Hadley won there in a sense of driven the clown from the field that would have been important but with Lincoln and issuing Emancipation Proclamation the war changes in the sense it certainly makes it far more difficult for Britain to intervene and they were considering it but I was i saying about Gary's book eventually the most of the federal soldiers you read they accept the fact of black soldiers in african-americans in the army out of necessity and they I don't warm to the Emancipation ish allele but never nice throughout at all they they were having to sustain but I would you have to give the tactical certainly the lead but to Street G strategically it was a Union victory because Lee retreated back when is it's Johar slate Johar sure has written wonderfully on that Tetum and then one thing is called Confederate ID rising and it really was and if I had to pick between you Aunty and McKenna's burgers more profoundly important turning point I'd pick Antietam in that sense of what happens as a result of it and actually these army they they thought that Vicksburg was far more important than their defeat at Gettysburg cuz they just thought the well they got whipped once but dealt with the Yankees again so it didn't matter it's only much later as we look at Gettysburg yeah wait last question [Music] ever hear the question which way was the only man who arguably came closest if not to really destroying an army was George Thomas and Nashville it was simply beyond the abilities of Confederate Army our Union armies either army to destroy the other grant didn't destroy the Army of Northern Virginia in the Clacton climactic battle he's bled into death and that's what he did and then when finally the assault in April the second there's just too few Confederates in the law trenches anymore Petersburg to stop it so he nobody manages to do that what I'm saying is Lee's closest shot at that actually was second Manassas but it just doesn't you know there are limits to what men do and the fog of war mistakes that are made and they're not able to do it but no believe me he tried that's what he wanted to do because he he thought that was their only hope of victory our independence well thank you [Applause] I want to thank you all well I want to thank Jeffery Burt and I also want to thank all of you for coming I want to ask also if you will just sit in your seats for another 30 seconds while I escort the words out so we can take them to lunch thank you you
