Very often if you look through the past to catch up. The military thinking and strategy. It tends to stay in the past war and Technology Goes ahead and the military thinking has to catch up with technology. What we see in the American Civil War is that most military was along the lines of the American Revolution. In other words, warfare that had happened decades earlier or even napoleon just a few years earlier. That was a hero. A lot of the american generals, their hero was napoleon bonaparte. They thought was the greatest general in the world. And the strategist. But the problem was they had you up and where they were planning, making their planning, based on old weapons. That is one thing im going to get to. The advanced weaponry that goes into the American Civil War and how that is going to affect have casualties happen. First of all, basic weapon. Its actually an american copy of a french musket that was used at the time. This is the french call it a surely bill but it is a single shot musket. Anybody ever hear about these . They are very slow and just a weapon itself dictated how any battle wouldve happen for really every 250 years from the American Civil War back. This kind of weapon dictated how a battle would happen. Its just because of the limitations. This weapon cant really be aimed. It is a smooth board weapon which means that the barrel yes, no . Possibly not. The basic idea behind the flip lock musket. Im going to use my artistic genius here. What would be the basic part of this musket . Most important part . Its the barrel. Now you can understand why my freshman art teacher started crying. If you think of a barrel it is really just along pipe. Its just a metal pipe. And its plugged up at one end and its opened at this and. See, this is the barrel. What we have here is that we jeweled the small horror on this side, im making a lefthand musketeer. What happens is, if you are going to load this, the soldier is told to load. They dont a military guy, a soldier, wouldve taken a cartridge. A cartridge was essentially around ball like this. This is a round lead ball. 69 to 75 caliber. In other words, three quarters of an inch and an ounce of lead. This ball itself would have been in a paper tube with black powder in it. The soldier himself would have been told to load. What he would do is raise the musky like this and then this is the lock. So you would have to take this, which is called the prison or the battery. It is very hard still. You flipped up. This is a hammer. At that time they called it the clock because it looked like a roosters head so that is why when you say cocked the weapon you pull that back to have caulk. You would fight the end of the cartridge, the paper tube, pour a tiny bit of powder right here in what is called the pan. If you see through the pan there is a hole right there. That whole that i just threw. So you put a little bit of powder in this pan. This lifts back. It holds the power in place. You then frog for drop the musky like this. You take the rest of the power powder. You put your ramrod and that is you have to do that. Can you imagine if somebody was shooting at you while you are doing this . It is a long time. Imagine someone shooting at you while you are doing this . You then finish that. You are now pretty much ready to go. Your officer or your starch and says ready. You put the full caulk and then they never said aim, they said level. You cannot aim the things. You just kind of level it at the other side like that and then pull the trigger. You have a piece of flint. This illustrates much better. This is a pistol from the same time. And this is a piece of flint, this is a steal. If you do it like this, you saw all the sparks come out. So its flint hitting the steel. That is why its called flint lock. If you are lucky, what is going to happen next . Well what happens next is when this fires, this goes forward, the sparks fall into the pan right here, the sparks go through the whole, hit the powder inside the musket and with luck, the ball this powder will explode and the ball will go rolling off the barrel. And if you are lucky, that ball might not go far. 50 yards, 100 yards. Its not going to go very far. And because its just rattling down the barrel, it is not going to be accurate. If i were shooting towards the back of this room, i might be able to hit somebody, i might not. That would be kind of discouraging, wouldnt it . And it takes a long time. Whats going to happen if it is raining . With this work . No. Its going to get on the powder, the spark will spark. If it is raining, if it is really humid, muggy, that might make it not work. Thats also why you as a soldier are then issued the bayonet which turns your must get into basically a spear. Let that is why we have that so youve got maybe two or three shots of the barrel and then you are just trying to go your enemy with the musky like that and the spear. That is typical fighting. Listen other words, if you did not follow a set of rules, the battle would not have worked. But because not only does it take so long to load, i must feel like this, if it went off, would create a huge amount of smoke and then if you are thinking youve got several thousand guys firing at the same time you are going to have massive amounts of smoke. So that is why we see a kind of its almost rules of war for a couple of hundred years. To make about a work, you are going to have very inaccurate slow firing muskets. And then you are going to have a lot of smoke. So for this reason, you have to follow certain rules. Soldiers would line up shoulder to shoulder in line and face another group of soldiers, the enemy soldiers mind up. In other words, shoulder to shoulder. The idea is i might be aiming at you but i might hit him. So if im shooting at least employs hit somebody. The same thing that happens if you are shooting at me, you might not miss me but you are going to hit the guy next to me. That is why they have to be very close just to make it work. Its also why you see the soldiers are color coded. In the American Revolution what color to the british soldiers where . The red quotes. What color did we wear . Yeah, we were blue. You know why . We very good we got our close, our weapons from the french. Guess what color the french war . Blue. So if you want to the American Civil War you see that is why we were wearing blue clothes like this in the American Civil War. Federal United States troops wore blue. The hats they wore the only reason they wore the hats like this this is called a copy it is french for cap. For this is why people felt like that. You have to have those colors so you can see each other in the distance. Know who each other are. You have to be close together to be able to hit what you are going to shoot. Then we have a breakthrough in technology as we go from the 20s into the thirties to the 18 forties. One part of this breakthrough is the use of the rifled musket or rifling. You will all be able to see this in a minute. Somebody figured out that if you take this barrel and put grooves in the barrel and make them twist, in other words, they twist as they go down the barrel, you are going to take that bullet and instead of having it rattled down the barrel, if you have a bullet, just a little bit smaller than the bore, inside of the barrel, that you will fit tightly into those grooves. So youve got the soft lead bullet and, you know, i will just pass these around. Here is like a round ball for and there is a bullet. What we call the mini ball. For many ball is shaped like what we think of as a bullet. I am doing a little bit better now. The mini ball if you look at the base of it, its kind of hollow, isnt it . So if you look inside look its shaped like this. Its got this hollow in it. The idea is that when you fire the musket that the power of the charge will make this spread out a little bit so it will spread out, it will grab the rifling and it will go down that for. It will be much, much more accurate. So instead of missing that person at 100 yards, you only get what you are shooting at. As a matter of fact, you can hit somebody 300, 400 yards away. Factors he jumps way up to. You have super accuracy with these things. You can fire them quickly because instead of having the loose powder to set it off via, they invent what is called the percussion cap. I will pass this one around. This is the percussion cap, which i will switch to the musket i am talking about. This is a model, 1855 rightful musket which would have been produced at the harpers ferry, virginia at that time. This rifle has the percussion cap right here. You could use a percussion cap. He uses the mini bally and that means your loading is going to be much faster. So im taking this cartridge and again this is a paper cartridge. This is what you would use. You would take a cartridge like this, drop it on the floor laughs . By the way, as we archeological work you can see where people are trying to load. You could find old battle sites and tell the soldiers that were really nervous because you find a battle line, they drop cartridges all the time. They would just be shot at, they were afraid and you can find many balls like this where they just drop them and they are in perfect shape. The soldiers themselves will grab this cartridge, put it in the muzzle like that and you still use your ramrod but its fast. A lot of times the guys would stick it in the dirt like this so that they would not it will be faster the next time. You pull this back, you put that percussion cap on here and you could fire. The thing about it is, you could hit somebody hundreds of yards away but accurately. This is what led to a lot of the casualties in the civil war. Guys got way too close. There was no way to miss and you see tens of thousands of soldiers getting killed in a single battle so this is, you know, one of the reasons why we see the casualties. Something very accurate and its also showing a lot of the inventions. The one thing about this particular rifle and it Shows Technology that was too far ahead of its time. The rifle itself has an invention on it that was made to make the percussion cap even obsolete. Can you see what is going on in their . This is a roll of caps and these caps are like today, you can get them. They are toy captains. When you pocket, it pulls the cap forward and so that way you dont have to put on the percussion cap so its automatically itself. What is a problem with this . What happens when you run out . And very often that was a problem for soldiers who couldnt find the caps. But also they got white sometimes. Another problem was its a little bit more complicated than using just the cap. Some soldiers again, a lot of these soldiers are swayed off the farm. They had almost no almost no experience with real machinery. They kind of got confused. So the soldiers, or the ordinance officers, figured out maybe this is too complicated so they could still use the cap on it but you see an attempt to make these more efficient. So it was a pretty decent idea in practicality, it did not work. Four if you got any questions at all feel free to ask. Going to the idea of ideas that did not work. Does this look different from the last one . This was an attempt to make a soldiers weapon that you did not have to use a ramrod with. It was meant to be what we called a breach loading musket. The idea is, is actually two equipped with a bolt. If you do it right, you pull it back. Its like a modern weapon. You take your cartridge, you put it in their. You close the bulb and then it still needs a progression cap. Guess where . Its on the bottom. So this was like how this one was made. Again, you take your precaution cap and you put it there. Whats the problem with that . It could fall out. We noticed that earlier. Its a great idea it just confused soldiers and was not all that practical only about 1000 of these were made so its a great experiment. It did not work. Brilliant idea but impracticality, it does not work. Another great idea that does not work. Do you see anything odd about this law . What is strange about this . Its got to hammers. The idea behind this was an inventor whose brother had been killed out in the west fighting native americans in the battle. Thought that american explorers should have had more shots in their guns. So he creates a two shot musket where you put two cartridges in the barrel and then with luck, you have both hammer caught with. Look, one trigger the next trigger shoots the back of the cartridge and youve got two shots in one barrel. How successful do you think this was . Not, but it was a great idea. Sometimes great ideas just get pushed out of the field and not tested. John i think the biggest you jump in technology, we see in the civil war as far as firearms, we go it would not be for infantry. If you know about the military, you have three fields or at least three branches. You have artillery, you have infantry, you have cavalry. The infantry guys pretty much had these weapons. They were trying to keep it simple. We do see however, with the cavalry, there was much more innovation with cavalry. These are the soldiers that are on the horses. They wanted shorter weapons that could be easily used while on a horse and you also wanted weapons that could be fired fairly rapidly and loaded easily. So this is where we see most of the innovation i would say or the useful innovation. So i brought several cavalry weapons here, which were invented by individuals and each one has its own advantages and disadvantages. First one i pick up one. Does that look a little bit neater . This is whats known as a burn side it was invented by a famous civil war general by the name of and paris burn side. Guess what style we have that comes from and paris burnt side . Lets sideburns. The term sideburns, they just switch them around. The term sideburns comes from burn side who had magnificent sideburns so he was famous for that. So he invents this look i was a great adventure, he was a terrible general and a terrible businessman. He did not make a penny off of this really. He got cheated Office Patents but its a brilliant concept. The burn sidecar be as a lot it is short and easy to carry on your horse. Its got a ring so that you can put on the strap so you dont you lose it and to fire it instead of using a ramrod, you press this little lever and this drops open. You have the entire inside of this exposed so that is easy. You do not have to ramp things law. You do that and it uses a metallic cartridge. In other words, not made out of paper that gets messed up in the rain. Its got a brass or copper holder for the powder. So the powder is in the copper back. Its got the bullet in the front and its loaded. You just place it right here and push this forward. Still have to use the percussion cap but its much, much faster to use. It works in the rain and you can fire probably five to ten times more rounds in the same time as it takes to fire two rounds in one of these or one round really. So a big breakthrough. Not to be outdone, another inventor name smith invents his own power be. This is guess what its called . The smith carbon. Brilliant idea. If you want to load this you press a button right here, it pops open. It uses a cartridge like this. It was made out of the lead bullet with a rubber hard rubber cartridge in the back. That fits right there and you close it and you are ready to go. It also though needs percussion cap. After the top if you want to come up and being able to examine these, this is a good example of looking down the barrel and actually seeing the rifle in it so you can actually see those grooved cuts in the barrel that makes the bullet spin. Brilliant idea. If youve ever heard the term sharpshooter a lot of people think it comes from this particular car beam. This is called the sharps car beam, one of the most popular car beams used in the American Civil War. Well its nice, its light, its handy all. To load it you use a golf cart fridge either cloth linen or made out of animal skin and to load it you pull that down, you put your cartridge right there. The back of the cartridge has to be open. Theres like a razorblade in the back of this and it cuts it off. You are ready to go like a trooper. Then it also uses percussion cap. This is one of the more popular guns used in civil war. Again, some of the longer ones were used by sharpshooters for sniping. After the civil war, this became one of the more popular types of weapons used for buffalo hunting out in the west so it became a very popular weapon through the entirety of the 1800s really. So this is the famous sharps be. What the most revolutionary carving was this car be. This was invented by a man named Christopher Spencer and spencer came up with several brilliant ideas. One of which was a new cartridge. This cartridge was totally selfcontained. It looks pretty much like a modern cartridge, doesnt it . It looks like a giant 22. His cartridge was the standard led many ball but the cartridge itself is totally selfcontained. It has a powder in this copper case and instead of having a percussion cap for priming, the primer is in the rib of the base of it. So it has a rib going at the base of the cartridge. So you do not need a percussion cap. Is that a big jump . Its a huge jump. And if that was not a jump enough for, to loaded, he invents a magazine that goes in the back of the car the. So this magazine holds seven cartridges. If you have a spencer car beam and you are in a battle, a fight, the soldiers would typically have the thing loaded with this like that. They wouldve had seven magazines in a pouch or a box attached to their saddle and so to fire it all you have to do was float it, do that, khaki, fire it. So you can shoot it just dozens of shots within a very brief time. It was incredibly effective. Look does the army adopt it . Why would the army not adopt it . Its simple, its very efficient, super well made but why would they not adopt it . It was not that expensive but it was expensive to shoot. The army the guys counting the beans were looking at the fact that soldiers would waste too much ammunition. Its too easy to shoot, soldiers would waste ammunition. We are not going to buy this gun for the army. That makes sense, doesnt it . Spencer was one of those guys who does not give up. In a famous story, spencer takes one of his car beams, hes frustrated with dealing share with the army. He goes directly to the white house and gets a meeting with Abraham Lincoln and in a famous story, Abraham Lincoln goes out on the white house grounds and Abraham Lincoln test fires one of these himself. As soon as he does this, he orders his generals to accept the rifle and so it took a really a president ial order to take one of these. Or for us to adopt this. This is the famous spencer carbon. It works wonderfully. As soon as lincoln was dead, at the end of the civil war, the army took it back all of these spencer carbons, took a little device on it that turned into single shots left. So they were still worried about the money. But still a beautiful ibm. Going back to the cavalry, we also see another jump in technology. Before the civil war that, if you had a pistol, this is probably what it looked like, a single shot either flip lock or percussion pistol. You notice is also shaped like a club. It works great with one shot and then you can box somebody with it. Not very accurate, doesnt go very far. 20, 30 yards, maybe. Not an official weapon. Famously, an american inventor by the name of samuel colt. He invents the revolver while hes in the ship sailing around the pacific. He just like to carve stuff and he comes up with the idea of the revolver. Its a percussion weapon but you have it creates a cylinder and again this is rifled by the way. Its a cylinder with six cartridges in it. The cartridge was the little thing like this. Its got the powder in the piece of skin or paper and what with the colt revolver, you take your cartridge, you put it in the front of your cylinder. This is a ramrod, so you around these one in. You put your percussion cap do. Uses a little tiny one. You put your percussion cap on it. So you load it, you put your percussion cap back on here so on that effect you have six cartridges in this pistol. So just to fire it, all you have to do is cockatoo, pull the trigger, cockatoo and with each caulk the cylinder revolves and you have six shots. Its a big jump from having a single shot pistol to a six shot pistol. Yes, maam . Like several percussion phone they want to shoot . Its each cylinder has to have a percussion cap. So this would have six percussion caps and six cartridges in it. What takes a while to load. That is a disadvantage of the cold. It takes a little while to load. You loaded in advance. Most of these guys would carry to pistols at a time, so that gives you 12 shots. If you consider cavalry. If you had the spencer carving you got a massive number of shots from the car beam then to these you have 12 shots from the pistol. Again, i have seen an Archeological Site outside of greensboro where you could see theres a confederate position of local confederate soldiers who had conventional muskets like this and they were facing a much, much Smaller Union or federal cavalry unit. And you can tell that this tiny cavalry unit held off a much lighter confederate infantry unit because the cavalry soldiers had revolvers like this and spencer carving. You can tell what is happening because you could see these cartridges left on the ground that were about three inches under the dirt so you could see how effective the massive firepower coming from cartridge car beam and cartridge revolver. Faye reminds me that cold, even though a great inventor, held back invention in america for decades because of his path and writes. He patented this revolver actually and nobody else could really use it unless they bought a patent or the infringed on the patent. So he held it back. A much better pistol came out during the same time, which was this one. Im not going to illustrate this. This is a riminton revolver, the second most use pistol in the American Civil War but its a much better pistol than the colt. Especially if you like to fire rapidly. It is much heavier made. It feels much more solid and it could be loaded much faster than the coat. To load this thing, again, it works the same law and all you have to do to load it, you can trap the cylinder out so you can replace a cylinder. Here is a cylinder fit. Its a little bit heavy, isnt it . But you can see on the back you put those caps on the back. You voted from the front and some of these cavalry soldiers were carrying a bunch of these in the bag so if you had maybe like loading it like a magazine so they would have much more shots than otherwise. So lets see here live. I think so we could have a little bit more of questions. I will show one thing that is i find somewhat interesting live in that the ability to magma factor modern equipment during the civil war. There is a difference between what was issued to the south, what was issued to the north. When the civil war started, the north already had good resources that they developed their manufacturing skills in the factories. Was not like that in the south. This was agricultural one, we did not have the manufacturing skills in the self to match the north. You could really see that in some of the weapons that were produced at the time. Also the thinking. In the beginning of the civil war, there were very few arsenals in the south. There were not that many resources to create weapons. What issued spears to use against union forces. Not really a good idea, was it . I mean they did last but they were using something as primitive as that. They decided to copy union weapons. Here is a basic cavalry savior federal soldiers beautifully made beautiful leather, beautiful workmanship beautifully made, beautifully balanced. You can see it is dated, it is inspected, manufacturing marks are all over. This one through an intense inspection program. Beautifully made. Is it that sharp though . Its sharp enough but one thing that they found out that very quickly its almost like you had to have a sword you would probably never use it because if im going to you with assorted you are coming at me with one of these, whos going to win . Its almost like you had to have a sword because what you just have to have one but they didnt use that much. This is a good example of a beautiful quality on the other hand this sort was made here in North Carolina at about the same time. Do you see any difference so far . Open have a very simple, very crude looking. The plague is dark but the blade is not as well balanced. Its not as well made. It has very markings on it other than a couple of roman numerals. If you look at the full as whoever made this is not that good at it. So the stuff made in the south is not as good. It is couture made and not of quality big. Another example of that. We will have a sort fight in a few minutes. Another example of that is big as i showed earlier, this is a federally made United States government made musket. For. He we one the. What was the problem with this one manmade springs for this factory . To the day . I know he was really good friends with the local moonshine are. He would disappear for weeks at a time so they have everything ready to go because of one guy wasnt dependable that was another one of the issues. So between the first run it appomattox with the change of weapons, is there a shift in battle tack tactics that we see. Where have you found that the proximity was for the way for the soldiers. And they realize we have a better weapons lets keep the closer proximity. Sadly now. You would think. It sees some changes in cavalry tactics but it didnt seem to have registered in. Massive casualties towards the end. Massive groups of soldiers moving into getting mow down. One volley can just drop doesnt people at the same time officials after the war they. Had this the turn a sportscar being back in the single. Shot. The big bullets these are artillery shells. And they also show a champ in technology this is what you would have seen fired in a cannon during the revolutionary war a this is a cannonball from the battle of gifford county. Basically is just a big iron ball. If it hits you its going to make a mess but it has to hit you i was one of the other changes during the American Civil War. They made the jump to shells inside of this civil war cannibal found in a great battle here in North Carolina in 1865 the big champ you had explosives inside this. And a very complex fleece these would explode. You could time it by doing if he is he could fire this it troops and up to five seconds delay and when it got to where you wanted to go it would explode chunks of break off was full of ballistic could go on. Hit and this was much more deadly. This was found at these battles during the civil war they typically have to names the south name the battle after the local name and the north named it after the local body of water so. The first battle in the south it was called masses because of the town and in north it was called a bull run because of bull run creek. This is where this was found. This was an artillery shell fired out of a cannon, and weighs ten pounds. You can see it shape like a bullet. So the canyons firing us its going much farther much more accurately and it would explode making a much deadlier anything else you never seen in the revolutionary war. Its heavy isnt it . Anyone else . Question . Well thats the case i have other things if you want to see basically articles of clothing. Again, what you wouldve been wearing in july if you are in the union artillery. Will. So this is what people wore at the time. The soldiers are wearing will close, will pants, long sleeves, shirt, jacket fast. He would be not a pleasant to fire happy would be burning a pot. I just wanted to know, how did you gather all the stuff . Also no other some initials on that gun. Is that your initials are that from the soldier and back in the days initials . I love that. Actually, im old enough that these were issued to me and i just kept them. Its kind of my profession, ive been doing this for years. It is to youll see, some of these have been personalized by soldiers. You dont see it is much and you need weapons but in the south, this was made in the north, this was captured by a southern soldier and he was just personalizing it. A lot of times in the military, he just spent a lot of times just board so youll see things like that. Somebody with the initials ge had that. This one i think over here you can see a, lot of the guys personalized are muskets. And they did other things. For example, what else did you when you get bored. Here is a bullet that a person carved into the fishing lore. Its a wait for a fishing line. So we took a bullet any carved it. He can tire line here. So this was made for fishing. You see that soldiers personalize just about everything they had so yeah thats exactly what they would. Do you see that quite often. Somebody else. Yes sir with black rifles, it seems a tick pretty hard. When inventions would come around this time or even later that we make the recoil a little better. I like that. They do kick. They kicked more the you fired it. That was another issue that i didnt mention. You dont really see something that will lower the kick. He could put lots powder in it. That will do that. But they would want to do that, because that takes away range. It does illustrate one of the problems of these muskets. Black powder is dirty. If you fire a block powder weapon and leaves a lot of crowd residue in the viral. Thats kind of grainy and messy. But every time you fire a black power musket, it leaves this residue in the rifle. This means that it gets harder and harder to to load it. So every time he loading after really ram down that ramrod. I was one of the problems. I dont see any license it helped with the recoil. With these things they do kick and again they kicked more when it is harder to load them. Because he had more buildup in them. Again if you want to come up afterwards, i have bullets here that you can actually see where the soldier really had to ram it. You see the impression at the end of the ramrod and these bullets before they got fired. The guy had to really cram it down like that. That was a good question. They still kick. Anyone else . I know you showed us the wool coats they wore during battle. Were there numbers that were shown that showed large casualties not from puncture wounds and ammunition and things like that but from heatstroke and things like that from hygiene traveling from war . More people. That was a great question thank you. More soldiers died of disease and other problems than really bullets. When youre looking at casualties, you see almost no casualties from the bayonet because during the revolutionary war, you are supposed to get close to use it. But youre not gonna get close enough to the other guy teams. If your civil war soldiers were getting easier bayonet more than. Ending stick it in the ground and put our candle in. Makes lovely canada over. Thats what they would use it for. I look at all sorts of casualties. You rarely see casualty wounds from a bayonet or from a sword. Because you couldnt get close enough. You see quite a few moments, the biggest wounds come from the rifle musket this is the biggest weapon. But the soldiers are in camp. The idea of pregerms in a lot. The big killer wouldve been things like any kind of disease going through cap. Measles couldve killed people. Dysentery being a big killer, typhoid being a big killer. Ive seen issues of heatstroke because i just do not see how people couldve fought in weather at that time. Gettysburg is in the middle of the summer its in early july. This is summer weight, its also winter weight. But a soldier wouldve been wearing really long johns with a linen shirt and that coat and he couldnt leave it unbuttoned. It was part of the informant had to be button. See wearing that, you wouldve been wearing wool in pants and and it almost useless swollen cap. The evidence in the shoes by the way, leather soles and issues wouldve been hideously uncomfortable. You notice that the sole was not sold on it was pegged on with little pegs. If you want to see that. Yeah theres evidence that you wouldve seen the soldiers. Ive read a lot of letters where they were just dying of thirst. At a very low capacity canteen and you wouldve seen people dropping from heatstroke. Since this is nationally televised, and ask you the Million Dollar question. In your mind, in your research, its gettysburg still considered a major turning point or do you see it as something else, another set of circumstances . Yes, i would say it would be the big turning point. I know some people would disagree but gettysburg was a desperate move by the confederacy, robert e. Lee, trying to get a major victory over northern soil. His biggest purpose for that was to bring in european help for the south. A lot of people in the south, a lot of leadership in the south were really counting on bringing in france and england on the side of the south to go against the United States. One of my Research Topics was a french nobleman who right up to the very end of 1965 1865 was hoping to bring france in the side of the confederates. What these european powers were looking for was to see if the south had a chance of winning or at least coming up with a negotiation to choose. It had been a great victory and ago shaded truce. I might have persuaded some foreign powers to release recognize the confederacy as its own independent government but that fell through. I was a little bit delusional i think, or very delusion, but that was the big goal. Once they lost that, the war still goes on, there are horrendous battles afterwards but i think that really was the turning point. Anybody else . If anybody wants to come down and enjoy, take a look, if he never held a mascot, heres your chance. Lets give a handed ocher contours. Again, be prepared for your second exam coming up next week. Thank you for being here. 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Now an lectures in history a classroom and the university of canada etiquette from the reconstruction era and the civil war and whether it should be view as a success with new Constitutional Rights given to African Americans or as a failure because Racial Discrimination was illegal in and African Americans remained on equal. So today, we are going to be talking about reconstruction right. So what is reconstruction . It really is the period immediately after the civil war. Its the period of reconstruction. Why is it called reconstruction . Because we are talking about the reconstruction of the union. Others states stated form the consent federer see. They are now defeated and the question then becomes is how do they reenter the union. How do we reconstruct the union . And that is why this period is known as the reconstruction. It is not that wellknown in American History as the civil war. So so far weve been talking simply built a civil war . Right before the midterms we covered the civil war. But Everybody Knows about the civil war, it has kind of a triumphant and. At least if youre not a confederate. The union winds, slavery is destroyed. Reconstruction on the other hand does not have a happy ending. Its a great experiment in into racial diplomacy immediately after the war but it is overthrown. Maybe we all like happy endings and thats reason why we dont know that much about reconstruction. But it really is a crucial period in American History. Extremely crucial because many of our modern ideas about citizenship, what constitutes democracy, about equality all comes from reconstruction. In a way, it is like a second founding of the American Republic. You had 43 constitutional amendments, you havent had that since the bill of rights. Thats just when the constitution is adopted, at the founding moment of the American Republic. So its a crucial period that one that americans should be more aware of. Okay. So what are the issues of reconstruction that really are still pertinent today . Heres an image from harvard weekly and its sort of personifies some of the essential issues involved in this period of reconstructing the union. From the questions that it raises. So have a look at it. I dont know how clear it is for you. You may not be able to read all the writing. But here is clearly a he has something it is hand a piece of paper and beyond that he may not be able to read his red is written equal rights. Thats a union of army officer. Someone who seems to be seeking protection and there are a bunch of southern whites there with placards saying kkk, go home your troops. They want federal troops to leave the south etc. So just looking at that image, can you think of what may have been some of the issues of reconstruction . Probably was the need for federal troops to secure troops in the south because they feared confederates would retake back and forth slavery back on to the newly freed people and all my name. Excellent. Excellent. I think thats exactly why what the picture illustrates. There may be a danger that once the federal troops leave that southern whites would want to go back to the way things were. So what was the war fought over then . That is real danger and the fact that the rights of black people are so connected with the presence of the federal government of these troops in the south, tells you something about the issues of reconstruction. Black citizenship, you know what would freedom mean for black people . Theyre no longer slaves. Are they going to be citizens . Are they going to be given equal rights . What is their status in the American Republic . The presence of the federal government of the union army, the u. S. Marshals officer. Quite clearly we are getting a new sense of the nation state of the federal government. Old ideas about federalism, which is a principle of dividing political power between the federal government and state governments are going to be revisited. The states succeeded from the union. What will the status of these rebel states now be . The federal government is sort of a symbol of the victorious union. How are they going to negotiate these rights again . Will the expansion of the National Government and the federal government as a base of victorias union be connected to the issue of black . Rights clearly here that seems to be the imagery. This is an image from in the middle of reconstruction. This is the issue is represented represented in the north. At the federal government is closely connected to this issue of black rights and that the issue of federalism does involve a renegotiation virtually or a reimagining of what one of the powers the federal government . Renegotiation of that relationship. Why do you think states tried to be somewhat discredited . Any ideas . The idea that states have certain rights. Remember, who are the people who have evoked statesrights before . After what . Purpose before the war. Yeah abby. Make sure the mic is close to you so that everyone can hear. Before the civil war, it was southern politicians but that was fundamentally to do with slavery. You know, some politicians like in a succession of South Carolina and vote states rights and the sovereignty between the states but now the federal government has won that idea cannot stand anymore because theyre now having to be reintroduced. Slavery is abolished and theres no sovereignty between the states. The federal government absolutely very good. Thats exactly why states rights are somewhat discredited. That idea. First it had been used to defend slavery by southern states. They didnt want the federal government to interfere with slavery. And second, it was also used to succeed from the union. The right of the state. To secede from the union. In order to protect slavery. So states rights as really connected with the institution of slavery and misses section so its somewhat of a discredited philosophy at this time. So these issues of course the issues of reconstruction is something that is still with us. When i introduced the period to you, this is the period where you have farreaching federal laws being passed on civil rights, in fact there are cases being fought in this Supreme Court today that revoke the laws of a reconstruction. Area farreaching amendments to the constitution. May not have heard of the 14th amendment to the u. S. Constitution, but it has been so important in our times. The right to privacy. Marriage equality. Roe v. Wade all those decisions that have been made, having constantly expanding rights in the United States evoke the 14th amendment. So its really this moment in history that forms our modern notions of equality and citizenship and what democracy in america should look like. And so, yes it excess an extremely important period but its a contested. Period you can see that in the picture . You can see the condensation there. Does the defeated south or the defeated confederacy people doesnt look as if they have accepted defeat . At least in this northern representation . As youre gonna be peace after the war . No. Right . This looks like a contestation. Why would the army even be needed in the south. To protect black rights that there was not gonna be contestation. So theres notion that there was no peace after the war, that somehow the issues that define the war were still being contested in the south is something that is really important to understand reconstruction. It is in fact one of the most contentious periods in American History. We could have the mic here. I find it interesting that Andrew Johnson was also prostate writes when he was doing reconstruction so it also made it hard to implement federal rights for reconstruction as well. And also made heart the president during reconstruction wasnt really in favor of so much federal reaching federal power so thats interesting to. Excellent point. Andrew joints johnson presents a big problem for us to. Hes a states rights democrat before the war and because of an assassins bullet, he becomes president. He is clearly not on board with the Republican Program of black rights. He is clearly not on board with this expansion of the federal government to ensure black rights and ensure the rule of law in the south. Hes not gonna go with that and that would create one of the biggest constitutional crises in American History. The first time in american prat president has brought up on articles of impeachment. We are getting ahead of ourselves. But im glad you brought up johnson because we will be talking about that. Today were gonna be talking about these issues raised up by reconstruction, we can be talking about johnson and president ial reconstruction, and eventually how congress implements a program of reconstruction based on the idea of block citizenship and comes close to impeaching Andrew Johnson. Now this is as i said a very fraught period because of the content contention taking place in the south contention taking place in washington d. C. , the president and the congress. Its kind of disowned by his own party in a way. But how of historians understood this period . Number talked about the civil war, we talked about slavery, and differing interpretations of slavery and the same is true for reconstruction. Historians had interpreted this period and very different ways. Much of this is not in reading the done for today but it is in the introduction in the book a short history of reconstruction. And some of it will be new, some of it i add to that. Now the historiography of reconstruction was defined by what was known as the gunning school, named after columbia professor historian and have to apologize for my alma mater because this was a very furnishes interpretation of reconstruction put forward by william a dining. If you want the exact spellings of the names it is in the introduction of the book. And a bunch of their students. And they basically said that this was like a terrible period in American History. Reconstruction was awful because of vindictive northern radical republicans forcing black rights on to the south. That was a period of corruption who was a period of misrule, incompetent. Former slaves were suddenly given political power and they retire on the defeated south. So the sympathies with the south. Its a very racist view of that period because if you just read dining and bridges, this kind of a crude upfront racism that they had. There are people relapsing the barbarism, there are people just simply incompetence because they are bad people, because of african descent. Period of black supremacy. So according to the dining school, giving equal rights to those people met hurting southern. Rights that we worse that it was just a failure, there was no achievement really. Nothing redeeming about this period at all. And the pernicious thing of course is that dining and his students dominated reconstruction historiography. It was about states rights, not about slavery. States rise to do . What so this kind of pernicious interpretation was really dominance for a very long time. Few members of Progressive School of historians the neck fierce an article in the civil war the talked about a civil war and a second American Revolution. His idea was first put forward by the Progressive School. They used to talk about the triumph of the industrial northwest in the agrarian south and then we can keep that idea of the revolution but what we cant do is see it has some sort of economic conflict between the north in the south. The real conflict was over save slavery. The revolution was about getting an end of slavery, getting rid of slavery. So the Progressive School of historians said, of this whole race top, that was not really the real issue. They saw a rip reconstruction republicans as trying to reforce northern capitalism on the south. What was this is just window dressing for the real economic interests of the north and south. Here gonna get a double dose of and rightly so, you read a short history on the radical of republicans . What is phone or say . Does he say that radical republicans are really arguing about, you know if you have your book handy, even just go quickly check it out. Are the agents of northern capitalism . They have a unified Economic Policy that they wants to implement in the south . Most we can have the mic here . So foreigner said there wasnt really a unified Economic Policy in the Republican Party but black writes moving reconstruction forward was really the main policy rather than Economic Policy. Absolutely. Very good. Former says that what unites northern republicans in the north is not Economic Policy. Some of them are free trade. They dont have any unify policy. Its what he calls a civic idea of rights and citizenship that they want to make it sure its extended to former slaves. The radicals just want to go with the right to vote. But thats the ideology that holds a Republican Party together the way anti slavery did before the civil war. They had an Economic Policy, they call it free labor ideology. People should be traded as free labor, they should have rights in the marketplace. They should be paid wages for their work, they should be allowed to leave their employer if they find better wages and better conditions in another place. That they should not be enslaved basically. And that ideology may be some kind of ideology that they have, but in terms of implementing an economic ideology on the south, and reducing the south into the kind of colonial status was simply not what happened. Now, besides these two, you can understand why the progressive historian said this right . They of course were dominant during the progressive air era and if you think of u. S. History, trying to address the problems of the guilds age. Theres a lot of conflict, or strikes, as mass immigration. This is a time when the idea the government should regulate the economy, we should have clean food, clean air, clean water. All sorts of things come into being. That was the progressive reform, that government has a role to play. You can understand why the progressives were influenced by that type of reform attitude. Im talking about Economic Issues far more than the issue of the war which was slavery and race and questions about rights. One person who says stands against this view, about the progressive you so much. He descent to the Downing School, which remains the dame did view. Even though the Downing School even though we have these challenges coming up, in terms of popular culture, they are dominant. Theres a journalist who writes a book called a tragic era and he recaps the Downing School for a broader audience. There is a birth of a nation which is basically the Downing School, the first hollywood classic. Its about reconstruction. As anyone seen the birth of a nation . Yeah. You dont want to see it. Talk about the propaganda of history. What was insidious up about the Downing School was at its view percolated into the popular culture, into film. The first hollywood classic which premiered by the way in the white house. About the first southerner elected after the civil war was woodrow wilson. Wilson was a progressive of Economic Issues but when it came to race, he was really retrograde. Not only did he prepare premiere the birth of a nation which was all about black men being rapists and a ku klux klan as redeeming the south. Its pretty horrendous to watch, kind of painful if you have the time you can look at it. It caricature is the radicals, especially fattah stevens. Woodrow wilson was progressive mostly and Economic Policy and maybe to a certain extent in international relations. Hes really retro grass of when it comes to race. Hes segregation in washington d. C. He fires all black federal government officers because he doesnt want any black people in the federal government. He establishes the league of nations of course or helps establish it even though thats voted down by the u. S. Congress. But he has this idea of national selfdetermination for everyone and the moment said is a supply to asia and he says of course. Not i met only europeans. So when it comes to race, hes extremely retro grass of. That is how pernicious the Downing School was. It was in the white house, it was in hollywood, it was everywhere. That was the picture of reconstruction that was dominant. Theres one dissenting voice here and that is the famous block intellectual one of the founders of the an acp w. Ecb duboiss. The boys wrote a book called black reconstruction in america and show you that he wanted to center the role of american. Read the subtitle which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in america. From 1860 to 1880. From the civil war to well after reconstruction is over in 1880. And he published this in 1935. De buoys. He said this is not just a matter of reconstruction union, its a matter of reconstructing american democracy. Its values and black people are demanding citizenship and equal rights. Theyre imagining the interracial democracy that we live in today. So its really coming up with a whole new conception of american democracy and its very contested in the 19th century and continues to be contested until today. Who is an american citizen . Should people have equal rights . You would imagine that these questions were settled after the civil war but in fact there are extremely contested in the period after the war and afterwards. So hes saying that and demanding equality of people are helping to reconstruct american democracy. That was his idea. More importantly, the boys said what he writes about reconstruction has a chapter called the propaganda of history. It literally takes the Downing School to task. He quotes them and theyre extremely racist views about black people and the fact that they wrote bad history. They just wrote what southerners had said about reconstruction and pretty much reproduced that. He actually has a wonderful quote that im gonna read out to you. He says in his book in this chapter the propaganda of history. The magnificent figures of Charles Sumner and that is stevens. These were the radicals right . Have been besmirch beyond recognition. Portrayed these vindictive people the birth of the nation. We have been controlling and flattering the south and slurring the north because the south is determined to rewrite history and the north is not interested in history but in wealth. Or hes condemning the republicans a ban on another reconstruction project. Its conversion to the party of anti slavery to the party big minutes during the gilded age. A flood from the white south reinforced its reaction. But the simple of a conquered people and thats how the birth of the nation. These were defeated people and they were just being vindictive and revenge all to him. And he says the resulting emotional and intellectual revolve of the nation made it almost inconceivable and 1876 at the end of reconstruction the ten years earlier and human equality. Right. So there is a real indictment of historical pressure and the way in which historians had written about reconstruction. The book was not even
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