Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War 20240622

Who fought the bloody angle. He came out with his dog and we spend an afternoon walking the field and talking about Civil War History in graduate school. One of the best if not one of the best decisions next ameren my wife. I decided to study under him. It was not always easy. It was not always smooth. We had disagreements. I think hes misguided about some things. He doesnt think there has been any good music after 1980. Clearly wrong. [laughter] and also sometimes his use of evidence is somewhat questionable. For some time he has maintained that a book that he let me borrow, i returned it. He claims there is a copy stain on it. He treasures his books and i understand that but the problem with this charge is that i dont drink coffee. [laughter] in the face of evidence he maintains that i damaged his book, a serious crime for dr. Gallagher. The opportunity to be at his seminar was as you can imagine eyeopening. So that he impressed was to master the history auger fee, to appreciate the contributions made to the field. I think that we see that in his own work, the body he has built over these years is impressive and it pays homage to the past. It is my pleasure to introduce Gary Gallagher who will be speaking this evening on robert e lee and the army of Northern Virginia, and the reality of defeat. [applause] dr. Gallagher i never told peter it was a copy stain. I told him it was a liquid ring. Peters use of evidence is for all to see, easily compromised. It is called selective memory. It is important to distinguish between history and memory. That is what i tried to impress upon my students. That could only be argued by academics. Things do actually happened. Peter and i am much of our relationship has been a kind of ongoing drama about history and memory. We both love the colts, and that is important. Its wonderful to be here tonight. You must be pretty much exhausted. You have been at this all day. We were up early this morning and walked around the battlefield. I know many of you were up early as well. I am not going to keep you forever tonight. Im impressed so many of you are here. I have been coming to the Civil War Institute since the early 1990s. I have many wonderful memories of coming to these gatherings. It is fun to see old friends. It is fun to walk out of the Peach Orchard at 5 30 in the morning. Now im going to talk to you about what peter said. I was quite a talk about the grand review. I saw that i was talking about this. [laughter] because peter is in charge that is what im going to do. I have two main questions that im going to address tonight. They may seem obvious to you but i hope you will bear with me as i make my way through this premy first question is should we view leaves server and lees surrender as the decisive indicator of southern failure and treated as the effect ofive into the war . Did they understand that they had been beaten by United States military forces . I will take my hand in case some of you are teetering on the edge of your strength. My answer is yes to both of those. There is no more surprising what im doing tonight and you are free to leave. If all you are interested in is the bottom line. If not, here we go. Appomattox is the end of the war. I believe the war did in in the spring of 1865. Perhaps in part because recent military conflicts have lacked beginnings and endings. There is a tendency to ascribe similar characteristics to the american civil war. Within this reframing the war didnt begin at fort sumter, didnt and at appomattox that extended through reconstruction or through jim crow, or down to the present. The war never ended. It allows the war to go on and proceed without coming to terms with the war itself. There are plenty in the academic world and Popular Culture look at the cover of time magazine. It features a unfortunate rendering, a bad decision on his part. And the text that read why we are still fighting the civil war. Constructions of a long civil war should not have obscure the fact that the war in fact did end. It ended with the surrender of Confederate Military forces with the dismantling of the confederate state, the restoration of the union. The distraction of slavery, and the rapid demobilization of a million citizen soldiers wearing United States uniforms. 80 of them were out of uniform by the end of the year and as we move into the postwar years the army quickly reverted to its very, very modest size. The United States move through the 19th century with the United States army that had 30,000 main in a at a time when the Prussian Army had at 600,000 and so did the french army. The idea of moving into the late 19th Century Building on the experience of the civil war is wrong handed headed. You cant wait not to be a soldier anymore. As soon as you are not a soldier anymore things are back where they should be. These are huge outcomes of the civil war. Steve cushman then die got to oneandi i distilled into three words on the side of the monument, the essence of how people at the time would have viewed the importance of the war. Those words are the nation lives. That is all it says on the east facing side of that monument. The political and social conflict that ensued in the postwar era should not be considered an extension of the war by other means. Postwar violence however grotesque at times is not did not approach in scale or fury. The seismic military violence of the civil war years. The former confederates who perpetrated much of the postwar violence have scaled back their goals from establishment of an overtly slaveholding republic to regaining political power and maintaining white supremacy. They are not equivalent struggles. They are very different in scope. Reunion played out as a torturous process that lasted longer than the war. It was marked by an effort by x confederates unable to reinstitute slavery, settled for a watereddown version of what the confederacy provided, namely the social structure within why people exerted economic, legal and social control over millions of black people. The jim crow south, a reality by the 19th century, lasted for many decades, the most obvious expression of the confederate generations response to defeat and emancipation. To describe postwar events as violent continuation of what happened during 18611865 robs the war of much of the singularity and meaning. If you want to make a quick comparison, add all of the violence in reconstruction and place them alongside on any today this of sustained combat in the civil war and you will get a sense of the relative level of violence. The war did end. I also believe that any exploration of confederate defeat must take into account the unique position of lee and his army. Trying to understand how it really saying can for the confederate people that this was over. This was over. To understand how that worked, to understand how people can determine that, you have to understand the position lee held. That the confederates were waging appomattox for most people in the United States and the confederacy as well as policymakers, lee and the army of Northern Virginia had become synonymous with the confederate nation. So long as he remained in the field Union Victory was uncertain. The supremacy of lee and his army invoked national imagination, unmistakable in wartime evidence. It is everywhere. You cannot escape it. Im going to give you a few pieces of testimony. I know there has been recent literature that argues confederates love Stonewall Jackson even more than they loved leave. Jackson is a great hero to the confederate people. He is a martyred icon of the confederacy in terms of how important he is to the confederacy of the war it is important to keep in mind that he is dead after may of 1863 and is a corpse underneath the sought in lexington. And there unable to affect what is going on as the war reached its last year and several additional months. Lee was alive. In command of the most Confederate Army and the fact that he was there and doing the things that he did prompt people in the United States, in the confederacy and in europe to reach judgments about him such as these. I will start with republican politicians. Charles sumner from massachusetts or deal revealed attitudes about northern politicians when he wrote that secretary of war stantons thought piece can be had only when lees army is dispersed. Sumner himself have been saying that when lees army is out of the way the whole rebellion will disappear. So long as we commanded his army , there is still hope for the rebels and the unionists of the south are afraid to show themselves. A couple of foreign opinions. A fullpage illustration of lee on its cover in june 1864. It said that lee was trusted by his government at the heart of his soldiers, and possessed the confidence of the country. All confederates relied on his patriotism and genius, opponents owned his superiority to all the success of generals of the federal army. Not since the duke of wellington and napoleon had struggled their skills on the marshall stage of the world witnessed in high perfection the poke your your combination of moral and intellectual qualities which fits a man for military command. In 1865, and lee is the idol of his soldiers and the hope of his country. Depressed each which surrounds his person and the fanatical belief in his judgment and capacity is the one idea of an entire people. Confederate testimony, i will quote clay burn. He writes from his office of senior surgeon in virginia, he captured the depth of feeling that most confederates held relief. No man on the content or any other felt so large or important a place for so many people. I barely believe under god our cause is in his hands and if he goes down the hope of the nation is extinct. If there be genius elsewhere there is no confidence that people in the government unite on him only. I have to quote and then admin sin. Kate is one of my civil war girlfriends. She has the best published diary of anyone. It is absolutely riveting. Wonderful quotations about all kinds of things. Kate edmonson watched early in the war. She wrote on june 11 what a position does he occupy, the idol, the point of trust of thousands. Then she shifted to a comparison between lee and officers who had failed another theaters. God grant that he may long be spared us. Youre supposed to chuckle at that because it is so perceptive and captures so much about the incapable in so many words for Jefferson Davis says something similar to that in his famous letter to his brother when he said what we need in a great war like this is a number of. We need a half a dozen great generals. What a spectacular success chancellors had built. People knew the odds were toone. They knew in the confederacy. Davis talked about it and then told his brother we need half a dozen of them. Such a general in the full affectation of the word comes along only once in a generation. The import of his comment is clear. We have lee and we dont have anybody else. That is one of the problems of the confederacy. They only found one person who could command and army. They had more than one army. That is the problem. It is a problem they overcame. Many called for lee being complete power in the confederacy. One of peters favorites put it this way. He should certainly have entire control of all military operations throughout the confederate states. I should like to see him as king or dictator. He is one of the few great men who ever lived to could be trusted. And the behind the line seen in richmond he noted the same phenomenon in richmond in several entries. People saying that we should have all the power. We can trust him. They viewed him as the colonial population struggling against Great Britain had trusted george washington. You can trust almost no one with power but you can trust him. Lee and the army of Northern Virginia function very much as washington the Continental Army had. They are the point to which people look to see whether there is a chance to achieve their goal in nationbuilding. General henry there has been no country for a year or more. You are the country. To these men, they have fought for you. Even though significant Confederate Forces remain under arms in several places in mid april 1865 the surrender of lees army brought the reality of defeat home graphically and immediately to the confederacy. It brought the same sense of victory to people in the United States. Appomattox did signal the end of the war, never mind subsequent negotiations and surrenders. Without lees army in the field none of those other forces could inspire the type of confidence necessary to maintain the Confederate Military resistance. I dont think many people woke up in the morning anywhere in the confederacy and said i wonder what Joseph Johnston is doing this morning. I loved the woman who wrote in her diary that johnston seems to be intent on retreating out of virginia. To florida where he matrixin the whole world is open to him. He can retreat almost anywhere. The secretary of the navy, writing in his diary on april 10 1865 joins most other loyal citizens and celebrating news from appomattox. This surrender of the great rebel captain and the most formidable and reliable army of the secessionists terminates the rebellion. We have never had a good edition of Gideon Welles diary. It is one of the Great American diaries. One wretched awful three volume version was published and eight difficult to use one was published in 1960. There is a spectacularly good edition of his civil war diary. It doesnt do the reconstruction but it does the civil war part. If you dont have it and want a foundational primary account on the civil war get this new version of Gideon Welles diary, the end of that commercial. I get no money for that. Confederates dec agreed with Gideon Welles. Let me quote three women on this. I want to make this point. How can i ride it, asked the North Carolina in, to describe what has fallen us. Generally has general lee has surrendered. On who hung the hopes of the whole country. It seems to dreadful to realize. A young georgia woman 1865, no one seems to doubt it. Everybody feels ready to give up hope. It is useless to struggle longer, and the wanted men go hobbling about the streets with despair on their faces. From florida, another young woman reacted with which we were all dead. It is as if the earth has crumbled beneath our feet. In North Carolina in spoke for many soldiers and civilians in a single sustained statement. The life of the confederacy is gone when generally and his army surrendered. The impact of appomattox sheds light on another debate among civil war enthusiasts and relates to this notion of why people sought as the end of the war. That debate is on the importance of events in the western theater versus the eastern theater. The east was more important. That is my bottom line. Many dont agree. You are confused. [laughter] historians debated this. They make complaints, there is too much attention on virginia and gettysburg. For a while in the 70s they blame that on freeman. Too many people read his books about lee and the army of Northern Virginia and that was a trend print you commit a good case for the importance of the west. The geographic scale is impressive. The west arts in kentucky and ends up in North Carolina. That is where it ended up. Logistical damage was profound. Central georgia takes a big hit as we know in 1864. The loss of the Mississippi River hurt the confederacy. It did not hurt it as much as people often pretend. There is no doubt that within the context of the civil war the expert was more important than gettysburg. More important in the United States, more important in the confederacy. More damaging to confederates, more uplifting to people in the United States. I dont think it makes much difference at all. The war goes on for two years. The confederates have lost control of the Mississippi River in april 1862. It is not a confederate river after new orleans falls. What does matter coming out of vicksburg is that it helped elevate u. S. Grant. That is the most important thing for the west position grant to be called to the east. Where he could do with the real problem. Which was lee. Why did grant come east . Why did he accompany the army . Why did he abandoned his indirect strategy to defeat the confederacy for a direct confrontation with lee . He understood politics, he understood the civilian population of the United States demand it that their best general finally take the field to defeat this bogeyman who had been the devil in the United States and the civilian population for so long in the eastern theater. He believed the west was more important but he understood that perception, perception is more important than reality. People act according to what they perceive to be the truth. Perception was the east is more important. Lincoln complained about that famously in his long letter to the french diplomat in august of 1862. How can all of our Great Success in the west, and the capture of nashville and new orleans, all of that, we cleared 100,000 square miles of rebel territory. That is cast aside because of what lincoln calls a single half defeat outside richmond. The bungling of the seven days campaign. It is a hard truth that lincoln learned early on. The east gets more attention. The capitals are there. Increasingly, after the summer of 1862, lee is there, the own person who delivers bad news to the United States. Appomattox is so important because it was lee. And his army that surrendered there and the most important theater. Im going to move now to whether confederates understood the reality in scope and reasons behind their defeat. How did they, when they stand at that moment, and read about appomattox, do they understand what has brought them there . The confederates really understand the allencompassing nature, that they are not sort of defeated. They are profamily defeated. You cannot be defeated more dramatically than the confederates were. Everything that went into this nationbuilding is gone at the end of the war. Slavery which would have lasted a long time. It is good gone within four years because of their decisions. Did they understand the nature of their defeat . Historians argue whether they had gotten tired of fighting, whether they had given their support to the cause because of class and divisions whether they were beaten into submission by United States arms. Was it internal or external factors that settled the conflict . They knew that they had mobilized to agree they would have considered unimaginable in 1861. They had put 1 6 of their entire white population into the army. 52 million 500,000 people in the United States army right now if we were mobilized to the same degree. The confederate people understood that. They understood as well that that level of mobilization had been made possible by the existence of slavery. The war touched a huge percentage directly, not indirectly. In terms of direct impact on a civilian population there is nothing comparable in the history of white america. The confederacy lost a quarter of military aged white men killed. Just imagine how we would react if 1518,000,000 were dead now in the United States. They understood the property, the scale of the property laws, the amount of wealth gone with the end of slavery. Much other wealth gone as well. Estimates as much as 40 of all livestock. Destroyed railroads, industries bridges in ruins. They would be rebuilt but we are talking about in the aftermath of the war as they look around these are things they knew. They had refugees on an unprecedented scale. Refugees, scores of thousands not by choice. They knew their communities had been deeply affected. It would be deep into the 20th century before Spotsylvania County achieved its population. Petersburg never recovered fully. Never did. Understood these things in the spring of 1865. They understood they will put up with things that would have been unimaginable and 1861 back by the Central Government that would have been considered so far beyond the pale they could never happen. Conscription impressment passes to travel. Congress would have a pass to travel. They got upset. They understood that emancipation would bring a seismic change in the nature of how their lives were ordered potential resolution, e corley profound change in racial control. They did not know that jim crow was down the row. They did not know that. Im trying to imagine what they know in the spring of 1865. And what they know, we can try to recover it. Their world had been turned almost completely upside down. Filled with uncertainty as they solve the formal institutions dismantled, and they look at the future not knowing what happened. There would be restoration of the union. That had been the implication of the United States victory. There was no possible negotiation over the finality of slavery. Those are the two things. They dont get to say we will accept those. They understood because of the scale of their defeat, they dont have options. The options arent reunion or Something Else. It is going to be reunion. It is not emancipation may be. It is emancipation. Theyre not happy about that. They dont just say we tried, it is not a big thing. It is a gigantic saying to them. It is hard to recapture how big a thing it was. United states armies had demonstrated their ability to crush organized Southern Military resistance. Sherman had said in 1864, im going to show them i can go anywhere i want to go and do anything i wanted to and their government is powerless. Keep me from doing it. When they really realize that, the war will be over. The work of Jackie Campbell and others had shown us that historians misunderstood the impact on morale. He hard the confederate is all. When it same can that United States armies could do anything they wanted to do, what seal that, they can destroy the army in Northern Virginia. If they can destroy the army of Northern Virginia there is no other straw which you can grasp and try to pretend that they war can continue. Jefferson davis labored under the delusion that would happen after a while until he got into georgia. Most people did not. They knew that as a people they had expended blood and treasure in profusion. That all that they had done had yielded utter defeat in terms of their military resistance. In april and may they suppressed all thoughts of largescale resort to arms. They understood not only that they had been beaten but how they had been beaten. Im going to quote one woman. She hated the idea of relinquishing hope for an independent confederacy but left no doubt about what had compelled to surrender. One thing she wrote, we never yielded in the struggle until we were bound hand and foot and the heel of the desk that was on our throats. Bankrupt in men, money provisions, our cities burned with fire and our pleasant things laid waste. The best and bravest of our sons gone and the resources of our country exhausted. What else can we do but give up . Emancipation was the bitterest pill to swallow. You cannot overestimate how important this is. Slaveholders and nonslaveholders. It is not just a form of wealth. Lee is considered a moderate on slavery. Some people even managed to stand on their heads and pretend he was antislavery. He had conventional views about slavery for his place and time. And class. His reaction to the emancipation proclamation is something anyone should read when they are uncertain about how important slavery is to the confederacy. He wrote to the secretary of war alluding to lincolns proclamation. He said it is a threat to the southern social system. In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy of the savage and brutal policy has proclaimed which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution, our social system from destruction let every effort be made, every means employed to fill and maintain the ranks of our armies. He is in favor of 100 mobilization of the confederacy. Manpower, food s, anything you need. If you dont do that this is what is going to happen. What will happen . If we dont have slavery . Degradation, pollution. Profoundly important to lee profoundly important to the confederate people, and the bitterest pill to swallow. The head of the confederate bureau of war travel to virginia , and he recorded a number of observations about attitude. This is critical again to get at how important the abolition of slavery immediately and by a military order is the marked feature of this conquest of the south, conquest of the south. In virginia where i observe the effectiveness the result of it is striking. As they unfold, manumission will be regarded when it has borne its fruits in the passion of the hour has passed away as the greatest social crime ever committed on the earth. I think it is pretty important to him. Thank you for that appreciative chuckle over there. [laughter] many confederates unquestionably were relieved. They must have on some level taken a sigh and said that god the killing is over with. We are exhausted. We long for peace. Of course they did. People in both nations did. Often you will read strings of quotations from people who are unhappy with the confederate government about this or that. There was a lot to be unhappy about. It was very intrusive. They dont like it. They dont like Jefferson Davis. They say mean things about him. He had a safer he would have had to have a safe room written about him. He would have had to have a say from to read all the written things about him. Here is the question for all confederates out there. Would you rather live under the Jefferson Davis government or under lincoln and the republicans back in the United States . The answer overwhelmingly would have been i dont like Jefferson Davis but are you crazy . That choice . At least he is ours and he is not going to do things to us that lincoln and the republicans will do to us. It is possible to be angry at the government and not want your nation to fail. That was true in the confederacy. The people who struggle for confederate independence look the head one of the best ways to get at real confederate sentiment is to read the lyrics to im a good old rebel written in 1866 and dedicated to the honorable Thaddeus Stevens sarcastically. It combines several key points. I cant take up my musket and fight no more. But he hates them. We killed 300,000, i wish theyd killed one million. He hates every thing about the United States. He realizes the United States simply be the confederacy into submission. Hes angry about it. He hates the yankees. He accepts the verdict. There is not another option. The verdict rendered by military forces committed by hard eyed soldiers such as grant and sherman, and sheridan. These confederates are losers on an epic scale. Gail. Is losers in United States history by far. They knew it and they knew why. A quarter of a million men have died in uniform. That is using the old numbers. I dont know what the number would be if we use the number that has been adjusted up, the confederate number is going to go up in recalculating that. At least a quarter of a million of them are dead. Emancipation has destroyed their social system. No one knew what lay ahead. They were going to go ahead with reunion because they didnt have a choice. Most of them did not reconcile nearly as easily as many people would have it. Reunion reconciliation in the new book about the memory of the war tells a should never be confused. They are not synonyms. Reunion reconciliation are not synonyms and should never be treated. The reunion is coming. You can make that happen with military force. You cannot make reconciliation come. That is a matter of sentiment and judgment, excepting on different levels. Most never conceded secession had been unconstitutional. They harbored a firm belief that slavery had been the best method of dealing with a large black population and should not have been ended by force emancipation. They were crushed and they knew it and that realization has come home to them when news of lees surrender spread across their slaveholding republic in april and may of 1865. Lee and the army are gone. That is it. We dont know what is going to come. That is begin of the war and now Something Else is going to happen. We have 13 minutes for questions. 13 minutes for questions. Anybody have anything they want to bring up . You are stunned into silence. Someone striding purposefully turning on the mikccs. Earlier today steve said he would sing of no one has a question. If no one has a question steve will saying. Yes . As i understand from what you presented, people in the south understood that lee had surrendered his army. The understood they had been defeated. What did they do then . Take a deep breath and as they let out the breath Start Talking about the lost cause . Dr. Gallagher did they Start Talking but the lost cause immediately . As a result of the acceptance. Dr. Gallagher they start immediately to talk about how to explain what had happened, it is also hard to explain what had happened if you have a blue uniform on. We went to war, we won. A confederate, it is harder. We established a shortlived democratic republic. How we want to deal with that . The roots of the lost cause our early. Some of them are in the war itself. Thats not the most important thing on their mind in the immediate aftermath. They look around and the world they have to get on in the real world. Right now the what is the situation . It is pretty bad from their perspective. Yes . In cases like mosbys rangers, they never signed a surrender. Were they considered no longer confederates as soon as they disbanded . Dr. Gallagher what mosbys little command his not important command in Northern Virginia, never signed official surrender documents. Are they still confederates . If there is no confederacy you can be a confederate. You can have a Confederate Point of view and confederate frame of mind. In kentucky you are planning to become confederates because it is safe. We wont ratify the 13th amendment until the 1970s. You need to think about these things. [laughter] before you can really get on board with something that radical mother you want to get rid of slavery. If you havent ratified the 13th amendment until 1976, hope no one notices and be quiet about it. Ratifying it then only calls attention to yourself. I like kentucky. My dad was born in louisville. Trade show. I think we met at lunch. Dr. Gallagher we did great in number of great students. It is so wonderful to see young people who dont have hair the color of mine interested in the civil war. It is empowering. [applause] it is often a good idea just to sit down when you have gotten applause. But you can go ahead with your question. You mentioned that the morale of the southern people was very dependent upon what happened to the army of Northern Virginia. Have they won the war what a society founded on the dependency on military success and states rights have been attainable, or would it have survived . Dr. Gallagher could you have certified established [indiscernible] the confederate constitution talks about state rights and manages it in the preamble. The confederacy had done things during the war that made it clear they were willing to tolerate fundamental abridgment of what they would have considered individual rights and liberties in pursuit of independence, just as people in the United States did for the success of the union. That will not be a longterm problem. A confederacy would have had a tiny regular army as well. The wartime Confederate Army was really tiny. It would not have had the traditions were the same in both nations pretty citizen soldier they both want to be right with the founders predict and among the founding documents that suited them best. I see no inherent tension between the fact that state rights played a role in the confederacy. Mainly in pursuit of keeping slavery safe. And the right that they had had a large army and won their independence. I dont see a tension there. At appomattox, lee and grant had objectives to get as much as they wanted, as much as they could from the other. In your estimation, who won the surrender . Dr. Gallagher the United States won the surrender. Lee did not want to surrender his army. He wanted independence. Once he made up his mind to surrender, he wanted to get as much from the surrender as he could. Dr. Gallagher i think grant got what he wanted. Whatever Abraham Lincoln want to. They got what they wanted. They got the into the Confederate Army on terms that they thought would be most conducive to restoring the union , the point of the war in the first place for most of the white north. I would say grant does a superb job in getting what he wants at appomattox. Lee isnt renegotiating. If you dont give 25,000 rations to my soldier am going to hold my breath for 20 minutes. Grant just says i will give you some rations. They are not negotiating. Lee is perfectly ready. He has to be to sign on the dotted line. He doesnt have an option. If he is on happen unhappy he cannot say i want to go talk to general long street and we will continue the war. It is over. It is not negotiation in my view. What are the terms, these are the terms. Grant says a couple of other things. These kinds of things. It is not really a negotiation. Grant got what he wanted i at appomattox. David rosen from alexandria virginia. At any point toward the end of the war and just afterwards did there come into existence a body of southern thought which said what a terrific disaster we brought on ourselves . Dr. Gallagher sure. They were smart people. The people in the past are as smart as we are just living in a different time. Many solve this, that they are watching a train wreck in slow motion. Not all of them are thinking that way. We heard an illusion that the diehard confederates who managed to maintain, i wrote on it, until he was wounded he had this and believed it. If we try hard enough things were war things will work out. They could appreciate the irony of this. Irony is an overused word but it is ironic to decide in 1860 it is worth the gamble because lincoln another people are quite occupy the white house and keep the senate, that makes this prophylactic move to get out of the nation before slavery has been compromised, it is a gamble but lets do it. One of the great gambles in the United States history. An effort to protect a slaveholding society that would have lasted a very long time. We would have been the last western civilization to get rid of slavery. Instead it is gone in four years. Appreciated that. They thought a lot about it and could not imagine. They dont know how things are going to be. They dont have our omnipotent view of knowing we can work backwards and see how they got to it on racial things kind of where they wanted to be. They did not know that. It seemed even worse in the moment. At the beginning of the war it is fair to say the south understood that the north had economical advantages but they had the believe that the superiority of the southern manhood could overcome that. How do they deal with the puncture of that map . That myth . Dr. Gallagher its hard on male egos to know they lost in a big way. It is not just all about gender notions. We will beat them because we are better men. There is a wonderful example of a much weaker contestant defeating a much more powerful contestant. All they have to do is look to the American Revolution by any way of gauging this. The call in the confederacy. The confederates knew that. No one knew how europe with would respond. They believe caught was essential. They believe they held powerful cards and they had this example of a very weak power, very weak however overcoming an imperial power of the first rank. Not that long ago. They talk about it early in the war. They talk about that no people has ever been subdued if they tried hard and now. It is this idea, part of that, the idea that they must have known that it was hopeless and so forth and the United States victory was inevitable, that is retrospective gloss. It is the appomattox syndrome. Starting at the end, knowing about the United States victory, knowing emancipation came, and assuming both were going to come. It is a fraud question very fraught question. The union cause reaches its lowest point in 1864 after gettysburg where we all know the war was decided. [laughter] i love gettysburg, it is just not that important in some ways in the civil war. I think it is very easy to imagine the confederates, they must have known this, no. Of course they believe they could win. They are not suffering from some mass delusion. They are not. The thing for us to understand they had a lower bar to cross to achieve victory. All they needed was to persuade the civilian population that it was not worth the effort, let them go. We have lost enough. Whenever like South Carolina anyway. Let them go. That is all they needed to do. Always because what the Northern Army was doing if you have an epiphany about this water stain on my book . [laughter] thank you very much. [applause] youre watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like us on facebook at cspan history. Each week, American History tv sits on in a lecture with one of the Nations College professors. You can watch the lectures every saturday evening at midnight eastern. Next steve voguit talks about the actions president roosevelt took during his terms in office. His classes about 45 minutes. Professor voguit good morning. Today we have reached the point where we will see the story or two men that are going to run for president in 1932. Herbert hoover is the last in a long series of republican president s. Since the civil war, there had only been to democrats. One was grover cleveland. Been two democrats. That you terms were not consecutive. And woodrow wilson. In 1920s, we had three consecutive republican president s with Warren Harding calvin coolidge, and then herbert hoover. I see him as being at the very least, one of the unluckiest president s of American History. Hes elected november 1928, sworn in march 1929, and the start market crashed in october. He gets blamed. People who are homeless living hooverville, people who have bad shoes have hoover