officer in a bag. they never wanted to see a petty officer getting ready for a flogging. it s the phrase you still hear today, don t get the cat out of the bag. that s today at 7:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. also this weekend, more from the contenders, our series on key political figure who is ran for president and lost but changed political history. today, 1928 democratic presidential candidate former new york governor al smith at 7:30 p.m. eastern and pacific. this week on the civil war, two speakers from the u.s. capitol society s civil war symposium. first, the joint committee on the conduct of the war. the congressional panel monitored affairs. then jenny bourne talks about how the war was financed. this portion of the symposium is a little over an hour and 15 minutes. our first speaker tonight is fergus bordewich who is an independent scholar and written a number of books including most recently america s great debate which is of fabulous read on the debate over the
for his conservative politics as well, if i didn t say so earlier, i should reiterate, that mcclellan was an outspoken conservative democrat. every man, this is julian speaking, every man who loved negro slavery better than his country and would sooner see republican ruins than the slaves set free is the unflinching champion of mcclellan. perhaps an overstatement but you get the point. he was replaced as chief of the army of the potomac by ambroes burnside who was unready and correct. he was crushed by lee at fredericksburg. he was followed in january 63 by joseph hooker whom you heard a moment ago. known as fighting joe hooker who had commanded the first core under mcclellan and burnside. he was crushed in turn by lee at chancellorsville. in june, lee invaded pennsylvania. on june 28th, on the eve of gettysburg, hooker was abruptly removed and replaced with george meade. who was rather surprised. meade though a democrat, hooker and burnside i should tell you by the way were
he was crushed in turn by lee at chancellorsville. in june, lee invaded pennsylvania. on june 28th, on the eve of gettysburg, hooker was abruptly removed and replaced with george meade. who was rather surprised. meade though a democrat, hooker and burnside i should tell you by the way were republicans. the committee was pretty friendly to them. i went generally went easy on them. i m not going to take time to devil into that but there may be a little time to say a few more words about how they handled republican generals as opposed democrat ones. a fairly conservative was largely an apolitical professional. but not very likeable. bruce catten, the historian rereferred to him as crab and decemb dispep tick, after his deployment, he led the army to victory in gettysburg and despite meade s overwhelming numbers after the battle and troops high more ral, he failed to vigorously pursue lee who managed to escape to virginia with his army. lincoln wrote in a letter to meade the foll