When whittling down the list. There was so much to choose from. The way we did it was first we discussed the medium of the object we wanted. Photograph, painting, documents, relics. Then we wanted to represent every year of the civil war. First the year leading up to it, then 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865. By the time we went through the criteria, we had more than 50, but when we had 50 that represented both of those requirements. It was truly an embarrassment of riches. It was hard to whittle them down. That is definitely true. Tonight, we will be discussing two objects considered technology in the civil war. We can see the images of those. From circaipher key 1861. And a half model of the uss monitor from 1862. Lets consider the cipher key. Ofs is in the papers Alexander Robert chisholm, born in 1834, died in 1810. He was a stockbroker, a merchant, railroad investor. He died during the gilded age in new york city, where he had also grown up. Theis equally glamorous on confederate side of the civil war, he has a very curious background. Carolina born in south. Was also young and was raised by an aunt and uncle. He then inherited a plantation in south carolina, with 250 enslaved people. Whatever sense of new york he had, he quickly abandoned it, went back to the plantation, and began running it. Out,the civil war broke his allegiance was to work to savehis state and to slavery. He became engaged in the effort to oust the federal army in fort sumter in charleston. People of his enslaved were assigned to build it up. Slave labor. Thats one of the myths there were africanamerican confederate soldiers. There were no africanamerican soldiers that willingly fought for the Confederate States of america. Service. Ordered into they were building the batteries that would attacked the fort in april 1 1861. Lets talk about the cipher key. Chisholm had a role to send and receive coded messages. Our first object is the very key he used for deciphering these messages. How does it work . A curious looking object. It is. The idea of sending messages to distant areas in war is as old as war itself. Ancient times, it was done with fire at night with torches. In the early days of the civil war, it was messages sent in morse code by torchlight. Or through flags. That used to be done on a navy ships as late as world war ii. An alphabet by flagwaving. Cipher keys were pretty new and pretty revolutionary. What they did is first of all, they all came in that box on the bottom. At the top, you see the alphabet. Below it, corresponding letters that can represent the original letter, but would be different. And you can change the bottom row by pulling it and twisting it. Wre, a would be b, b would be. Xvo. The person on the other end of the message, which by the way by civil war time would be sent by telegram, hence the use of this alphabet, would receive the message and decode it. That was the idea. It sounds cumbersome, it sounds complex. Only experts knew how to do it. But it was revolutionary at the time. Forechnological advancement the 19th century. Circa 1861. The next image. In hism was a person, own words, a confidential friend to the flamboyant Pierre Gustave Toutant beauregard. Tell us who these men were and where they were at in 18 61. Beauregard studied at west point under anderson. Verys flamboyant, french, bornh, louisiana gentleman. Himself in command of the batteries built on slave labor aimed at the federal fort in charleston harbor. Major anderson was in charge of the garrison at fort sumter. Intersectedlives was in the early days of 1861. Before the cipher was coming into play, beauregard would sent messages to anderson by boat. Wouldlm, the coding guy, take them out of the boat and they would usually say surrender or be bombarded, anderson would say not on your life, and back and forth they would go. There was no agreement. War begins in april 1861 at fort sumter. Image, we see the bombardment of fort sumter. Beauregard saw action at the first battle of let me talk about fort sumter. Takefear bombing didnt any lives. There was no way they were going to recover or stave off this endless bombardment. Chisholm rode out and demanded they surrender the fort after this day and a half long seizure. Anderson accepts the terms. Chisholm later writes in his recollection, in the historical society, he thought anderson should be courtmartialed. Just an interesting kind of bullying recollection of this. Im sorry to have interrupted, but he did go on the second run. They supposedly led a successful calvary charge. The first major engagement of the war, the confederates won. But there is a myth about this win. What is that . There are several. First of all, the union shouldnt have lost. They outnumbered the rebels. The Washington Society turned out to watch this event with picnic baskets packed with lunch. In the afternoon, the federals came back and the confederates came back and routed the federals, the union. Chisholm was engaged in sending coded messages. He even did it from the command, because if the message was countered, it could give away the plan. So he becomes very active. But there are reports that he sent a cipher to Jefferson Davis saying we need your help at bull run. Davis arrived, but he arrived so late in the action that it was really over. Images show him coming to the rescue on a white horse, he actually came by railroad and the battle was all but won. So im not sure the coded message did all that much to turn the tide in this case. Since we are talking about cipher keys and codes, it was a romantic story that we could explore. On the coveretail of the key, which reads in beautiful handwriting, arrangements of cipher keys used by general border guard beauregard in command of the civil war army. Really cool to see the detail of this object. The men serve out the war together. Chisholm acting as beauregards aid to camp, scribe. After the war, chisholm saw a pardon from president Andrew Johnson and was the first confederate officer to go to washington, d. C. For that purpose. He sold his plantation, returned to new york, and became a shipping merchant. He had a great deal of money. But he valued his experience in the military so much that he saved all of his papers and donated them to the New York Historical. Did you look over this collection . What apart from the cipher key is in it . Andery well arranged classified, and decoded at the historical society. There were scrapbooks, which are interesting. Which he finds praiseworthy decreaseof beauregard as the years go on. Key,there was the cipher which was a remarkable thing. Happily for us, it was listed separately. Certainly there was a cipher system that opens like a fan and can be coded. We have no idea how this works. Must be some really secret code. Chisholm was completely unreconstructed, which is sort of shocking. Admirer of the confederacy for his entire life, wrote letters to the New York Times defending beauregard. He was the head of the local chapter of the sons of confederate veterans, which indicates to me, to my dismay, that there was an active camp of veterans who lived in new york. The good news is we have this amazing technological piece from the war. It did improve enough to save the confederate cause, but it is a marvel to have. Lets see the other detail of this object. Confederaten on ciphers differ at all . Almost fans, circles, accordions, like this one. They were definitely used in the union. Even when Abraham Lincoln wrote letters to his wife while she was visiting new york or other places. He would write on top cipher, which he consistently misspelled, cypher. He was not a great speller. But he used the cipher all the time. I have seen a few of the messages, and they look in code. So this is going on. This is side versus side. Mad magazine style, but in the civil war. I have never really seen too many ciphers. This is the only one i have ever seen. It is great, and beautifully intact. A wonderful object to begin our conversation with. Lets move on to the second object. This is a half model of the uss monitor, 1862. Continuing our theme of war and technology. It looks like a charming, decorative ship model, but it is a very important piece of history. Explain what this is. The first rendering of the first ironclad in naval history. Onet specifically designed in all america. The second in the civil war. The first was a rebuilt confederate wooden ship that became ironclad. This was more than an ironclad, although it was called that. This is the model that was created by thomas fitch roland. We believe, we have every reason to believe this is the model that was taken to the white house in 1861 to show Abraham Lincoln and convince him that we have the union side had better get with the program and develop this kind of naval vessel or be beat. Lets look at the picture of the swedish born inventor who was working in brooklyn. In 1861, a connecticut industrialist convinced john somethingas onto extraordinary. Who was erickson . What was extraordinary about this invention . Visionary war designer. He had the great right group with him. Roland was a great engineer. Bushnell was an advocate. The confederates are working on taking a wooden ship and putting iron plates on it. Erickson had an idea that no one had had. That is for a revolving gun. Waterould be low to the and would rotate. It had never been commonplace on a ship before. The ships had to settle up to each other and fire up on each other. Was a true revolution. Bushnell brought this model to washington. And he shows it to lincoln, has a talk with him about this work. What was lincolns response . s initial response is not my decision, lets go over to the navy board tomorrow and show it to the sages of naval warfare, which they did. They met and showed it to the naval board. They all looked at lincoln for his cue, he looked at them, and finally lincoln, in his immortal words, not the greatest of theon, it reminds me story of the young woman who pulled out her stockings and said i think there is something in it. I dont know if they got this, there is something in it, but they went to work immediately. I think it was a yes. Thats a go. It was a good thing, because the confederates were building this ship. They rushed to new york with the model and got to work on the actual ship. Shows image that sort of the launch of the monitor. I feel a certain kinship to the monitor, because it was built in my mothers ancestral home of greenpoint. There is still an ericsson park there. My mother went to the monitor school in 1921. It is still there, built in the 1890s. Ships a big place where were made. Almost converted from day to night, 24 7 production of this ship. A very recalcitrant group of workers. Some thought they were being drafted and conscripted, even though there was no draft. They got this amazing thing done. Here you see them sliding it into the east river. It went all the way to the Brooklyn Navy yard. It was a magnificent ship. Even though it was dubbed a cheese box on a raft by skeptics. Small, 170 feet long. A scale model was built about 10 years ago at the Nelson Shipyard by navy trainees. Its big. They built a deck as a party space, i hate to say. It is a big vessel. A lot of teachers inside. What speaks to the image of the continental works that was in greenpoint . A picturesque image. Monitor,was another maybe that is model, but they went maybe not this model, but they went into production. What they call first on the monitor, it was a class of ship. You see the revolving turret on top. What inspired that name, the monitor . How long did it take to launch the vessel . It was done in three months. Virginia. Ed to in bad weather. It all must capsized. Ericsson had the idea of calling , because he said it would be a monitor against the southern leadership that wants to destroy the union. It reminds me of when the first Governor Cuomo used to greet audiences by saying i looked up the definition of governor, the second definition it was something that gets in the way of machines and slows them down. Just an extra definition. Like a hall monitor who stops you from doing bad deeds. Efore, you mentioned it was towed to virginia, but before it could arrive, the confederate ironclad, a wooden boat that was was in iron, it virginia. It was proving to be very formidable herself. On thedoing damage union, which is very interesting. It makes the whole incident that much more dramatic. Into hamptons roads, virginia Hampton Roads, virginia. It was laughed at by the union fleet, which was in the harbor. What happened next was the deadliest and costliest day in American Naval history up until pearl harbor, when all the ships were destroyed by the japanese. In this case, the original meramec had a long battering ram at the end. , and rammed the cumberland the cumberland sank immediately. There was great loss of life. Then another ship caught on fire and more lives were lost. As small as virginia, the meramec was, it chased the petrified captain of the minnesota shore. So thee tide changed virginia repeated back towards norfolk. They had no doubt that the next morning, the meramec would reemerge from around the bend and, what was the last of the union navy. Smaller,hold, this lowlying vessel appeared on the horizon, enters the harbor, and what happens next is the monitor engaging the merrimack in the most famous naval dual in American History. Heres the depiction of that incident. Unforgivableic and unforgettable. You see the difference. One is like a big stack. Shells were all the fired that day, no damage was merrimack. One explosion blighted the captain blinded the captain, so he was out of the duration. The other thing that happened is was struck early and stopped revolving. It didnt stop revolving, it lost control it took to revolve. So the only times it can get on was it turned all the way around and somebody could shoot. It was agonizingly hot in that ship at that point. Maybe over 100 degrees and dangerous. This changed warfare. Nobody died, and there were a little bit and both sides claimed victory. Why does this socalled battle of Hampton Roads have such a mythic, inspirational, artistic quality to it . It that this became so mythic in our historical imagination . First of all, it was observed by so many people on shore. It was not far from the shoreline. The artisticd happenstance of the good guys, and the good guys are the ones that do the drawings, the good guys spewed whitesmoke and the bad guys spewed black smoke, which made it look more ominous. One was a relic, one was new technology. I think the real reason is this was the end of the era we were joking about a few minutes ago, with a reference to haro from movies, this was like the era of the end of the wooden warship and its romanticized impact on the culture. And sailors bravely shooting cannons in the face of fire. In a way, this was the dehumanization of war as it shifted from men to machines. There was a sense after this that the better machines would win the war. Lets see an image of the man and machine. What was lincolns reaction to this achievement . Was he still as drawn to the new technology as he had been initially . Toylike theck by how boat looks in that drawing on the bottom. After battle, it gets a little warmer in virginia. They put up this amazing canvas tent to shield the turret from the sun. But thats the turret. You see all of the rivets in it. It was recovered years later from the bottom of the sea and is being restored at the monitor center, as its called. I think the most extraordinary thing about this post battle depiction is if you look to the left of the court whole in the photograph, you see the indentations, the pock marks, that reflect the shells hitting revolvedet as it slowly around without any constraint. Without any monitor, right . He was alwaysoln, interested in technology. He is the only american president to hold a patent for an invention. What was the invention . It was a boat that would lift itself above shoals in shallow waters to be able to navigate the muddy streams of illinois. It was never manufactured, but he did devise it. The actual model of that is in the national archives. So he loved ships, even though he was a land lover. And he always liked technology. During the civil war, some said his office would sometimes look like a gun store filled with weapons. So he encouraged the creation of guns, balloons built for spying, and meteorological balloons. One letter came from the inventor of a double bound curved gun designed for cross eyed soldiers to shoot both sides of a river at the same time. Level deadly lincoln believed this, rath alone kills no rebels. Ofencouraged the production a primitive form of napalm to use in wartime. Andas all about winning using new technologies. He used to walk around the white house grounds and fire new kind of weaponry. There is one great sketch of him doing that. Fascinated with technology, and a big booster of military technology, as deadly as it became. That image of the monitor one more time, the half model, this is the technological achievement. In 1862. D that is remarkable. Donated around the time the monitor and the merrimack engaged in oneonone combat. Great awareness of its an historical importance. I think we are ready for our a q and a portion of the evening. Do we know of any examples of crucial messages interpreted by the cipher key . We think thats a good question we think the cipher was used to convey messages for the battle of shiloh. The battle of shiloh probably should have been a confederate route that ended the career of Ulysses S Grant before it really matured. There was a surprise attack from which the union was unprepared. And a total route. Somehow the union rallied and held back a total route on that first day and lived to fight another day. Grant famously turned to the shore meant and said lets get them tomorrow. And they did. To maintain the secrecy of battlefield instructions, but dont ensure they are the right instructions. It is still left to the human brain and technical and strategic skills to win a battle. He no doubt has hit own codes and his good vision. Monitorhe wreck of the ever recovered . If so, where is it displayed . Theres a little of that. The ship was followed by many monitors, but the original was pretty famous. It was never tremendously seaworthy. It stayed very close to shore. Instead it was dispatched to a famous graveyard for naval vessels. And new years day 1862. Just nine months after it became the most famous ship in the union navy. It saint off of cape hatteras. Years,t remained for 145 until the National Oceanic and organization located it. It was recovered parts of it were recovered. Disintegrated, although the shape was easily discernible to divers. They brought up the gun. A huge gun. They brought up the turret, an amazing achievement. Lanterns,rought up coins, dinnerware, spoons, all kinds of things. All of them are at the Mariners Museum at its new monitor center. In ahe gun and turret sit saline tank outdoors. You can walk on a plank to see it. There, these bubbles and oxidation oxygenation are being applied. These crustaceans are being removed from the relic. Five more years, you will be able to see the actual turret. You can already see some of the dense from the confederate shells. This question came up when i was rereading the essay. Wasnt the merrimack renamed the virginia . Do northerners prefer to call it the merrimack . Theres a look to the captions of the engravings, most of them say merrimack. So it was the uss merrimack. It was an American Ship the confederate seized and burned to the shoreline. Said lets call it the virginia, after the state we are in. The name never really caught on. Purists always say the uss virginia. But theres always that iteration, the monitor and the merrimack. It goes by both. Call it the merrimack more often than not. I learned about it when i first you left it open. Virginia was so slow and so heavy, when the tide went down, it left. To leave the field of battle, thats losing. By another calculation, the monitor was able to prevent any further destruction to the outdated wooden fleet. So it was a victory by those standards, too. Even though by winning the victory spelled the doom of the wooden navy itself. Name of thehe monitor and merrimack, do northerners prefer to call it the merrimack, or is it just just a sound right . It sounds right. Is aprefer it because it recovered vessel over the past that we had our way with, i guess. But civil war historians more often say the virginia. Eventually, its probably the only ship in American Service to be burned twice. When the union army marched near norfolk and looked about to capture the boatyard, the confederates burned the virginia so it could not be taken over by the union. So it vanished yet again. So heres a question about the cipher again. What is revolutionary about it . It seems very simple to the person who has the question. I think the notion of carrying around on ones person a wheel or booklet that would allow you to transpose letters and actually change the cipher during the course of a battle or campaign, as long as both sides understood what the new code was, was revolutionary. There was an understood symbol of flags, flag signals and torch signals, but they couldnt easily change. Because what constituted to a letter was a letter, morse code was morse code. So the cipher enable you to switch out. You can change it every week, prearrange to change it every week. Make a v this week, make an l next week, and the alphabet shifts. So it was an idea that was very portable. Offtopic time of the evening, did you find the recent threepart series on grant to be accurate and fair . Thats a heavy question. I thought it was more than fair, more than accurate, in some ways. The greatd achievements of grant and his amazing talent. Seeing action for relentlessness. Made a strong case that he did not win the war just because of superior numbers and ruthlessness, and willingness to take casualties, but out of a master plan. What it didnt do was talk about his shortcomings. None of them, that i think is worth remembering, is his zeal to root out spies, disloyalty, risk perfections. In 1862d all jews theater of the war. It saw jews from paducah, kentucky leaving their homes in search of rescue. This order had to be countermanded at lincolns insistence. New york rabbis went to the white house to say let my people go back. Lincoln obliged. Although he took pains not to embarrass grant. The series could have spent time on his shortcomings, including his drinking, which was only alluded to briefly at the beginning. The accurately portrayed grand was pretty good the actor who portrayed grant, was good. Lincoln, not so much. Too skinny, too short. Back to our objects. Were there other nations who made ironclad ships around at the same time . Thats a really good question. Ours were not the first. The french made a few before the civil war. They were also more unwieldy. There were never permanently adopted as a design or style. Combined both keeping your sailors under the waterline and having them breathe, because of a submarine. Above, a gun up impregnable he, and also having it rotate, that was the new design of choice. There were submersibles used in the civil war. A little fleet of four man things that were sort of human torpedoes that never came back from their missions. But this was the model for modern Naval Submarine warfare. Also, battleship guns that can turn around and follow the action. Codes, or our cipher the codes ever broken during the war . There were instances of a cipher code being broken. Antietam, battle of some orders that i believe were in cipher. The good thing about our series is i am corrected every week if i make a miscue. I dont tell you about it, but i get lots of them. Orders that were found rolled into a cigar before the battle of antietam. They were discovered and decoded. He shouldve known everything about the battle plans, and this was not sufficient. But codes were broken. Again, you just move the bar, as some say. Our man chisholm, if he where there any help of the union army relieving him, or he held out . Was told by the Lincoln Administration his forte would not be reinforced, it would be resupplied. It was running out of ammunition. He had no way to defend himself for much longer. Ships returned back from the shelling. There is a great story about anderson, he was allowed to leave. There were casualties. Up. Rea of the fort blew him, wente flag with on a boat, and went all the way back to new york, center of the universe, even then. He admitted when he was on the ship to new york, he didnt know whether he would be given a courtmartial or a parade. Guess what . He was given a parade. His flag was put over the equestrian statue of george washington, and 100,000 people came out. Then when the seventh regiment, new yorks elite regiment marched down broadway to board ships to head to virginia and fight, they passed by a jewelry pediment ofh had a which major anderson was waving the flag of fort sumter tattered, fluttering in the breeze. It became a great symbol of resistance, ultimately. Hisrson went on to continue not so dramatic career in the union army. One more question about cryptology. Did it advance at all during the civil war . Saw is whathat you you got. Has it advanced since . Im not sure it has advanced from the basic premise of substituting letters. When radio came in, messages were sent to the resistance in europe during world war ii. The messages would be in code, like the church bells will ring at 4 00, which meant something opposite. So they would know it would be a signal. Basically, i think the cipher was the big advancement. Was one if byt land, and two if by sea before the civil war. As always, a pleasure. It looks like our time is up. Thank you for being such a compelling and gracious guest. Watching,all for listening, and supporting the New York Historical society. We will see you all again next week. Thank you. Learn more about the people and events that shaped the civil war and reconstruction, every saturday at six clock p. M. Eastern, only on American History tv, here on cspan3. This is American History tv, on cspan3. Feature 48d, we hours of programs exploring our nations past. Now on the presidency, we continue with a film thats in the holdings of the franklin d. Roosevelt president ial library, which is marking its 80th anniversary this february. Well see Eleanor Roosevelts 1958 interview with mccalls magazine on the occasion of her 74th birthday. She looks through family photographs and tells the stories behind them. This is 15 minutes. Regardless of Political Sentiment most people agree that Eleanor Roosevelt is the outstanding woman of our time. Mccalls magazine is proud to have her as a member of the family, a regular monthly column, if ask me. In our current issue, in celebration of ms. Roosevelts 74th birthday, we are running a special ninepage story entitled Eleanor Roosevelt, her life in pictures. We thought you would enjoy hearing mrs. Roosevelts own comments about some of the photographs were running in the current mccalls. Shes become a pinup girl at mccalls through this charming photograph that we use in the story
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