War a authoril talks about his book justice at the appomattox. Describes robert e. Lee and ulysses s. Grant leading to the surrender of the army of virginia in 18 55. The gettysburg Heritage Foundation hosted this talk that is just under one hour. That is great pleasure get to introduce ralph peters. For those of you unfamiliar with ralph he is a prizewinning bestselling author of a wide range of books from his civil war novels to strategic analysts. As a former enlisted man with extensive overseas experience he is currently a fox news analyst. Analysis he has covered topics from africa to iraq. For a wide range of newspapers and magazines. Began withhich gettysburg, the valley of the shadow, the dam at petersburg and will conclude with justice at appomattox which will be released on august 29. He will all caps to see the initial copy of this. We do have Copies Available over labor day weekend. I apologize that this is not released until the end of august. You will have a opportunity to get one. You have been coming here since 2013, he is one of our favorites we havent the heritage center. Thank you. [applause] ralph let me get my regular microphone back. It is great to be back. Everyone knows that this is a special place. Certainly a haunted place. Whenever i go here i get excited and i want to give you the best i can think we have a general here today and i am very glad to see that, the chief of artillery. At the end of this decade of my these have been doing five book cycles of gettysburg at the appomattox. There is a sense of accomplishment but there is also that i am incredibly proud of these books, they are the best thing i have done in my life read nevertheless you are always aware that it will fall short. A member of the audience and i were discussing earlier you can approximate the best we can but we will not fully recapture what they felt and what they did. For those of you who have been kind enough to follow me through these books and i know many of you have created what i am trying to do is get beyond the famous names and give credit to thirdyear characters who will often when the battles. Behind the statistics of humanity. Wonderful, cowardly and courageous heroic ignoble, and selfless,ish this brilliant complexity of men who fought that war and the women behind the men sometimes beside them. You always know that you will fall short, you know you did your best. Is notough the new book out until august 29 i want to talk about it. I want to talk about the appomattox campaign. I am going to do something i do not do. I want to read a few passages. Directly to this effort to recapture what they felt, what it was like for them. First of all the appomattox most peoplek for who have a superficial awareness of the civil war it goes from petersburg and then to the appomattox. Which ifhis campaign you go from fort stedman onwards it is barely two weeks. Some historians will date that from sheridans move from the 29th. Isrever you date it, there incredibly high drama. Every single day is a fight. If it is at fort stedman in the inning with generally robert e. Lee breaking out on his own terms. Obviously theuse five forex. The union breakthrough. All of these skirmishes day today. Sailors creek, cumberland church, all of these dramatic fight right up to the last morning with a breakout attempt at appomattox. They are all high drama. Emotions are running very high. The union is out for blood and they have a sense of the endgame. We will not quit. The army is crumbling around. Stedman the attack on march 25. The winter has been hard. That winter snow in of 1865. A bitter winter. People are not starving but the troops are hungry and they are malnourished trade. Scurvy is one of the many diseases. Desertion is high in the army of virginia. If you hundred are coming over. They are hungry. Strangely enough you also have Union Soldiers deserting to the confederacy and then running for the petersburg line at night. That i cannot figure out. Except for the fact that they did not want to fight. When you get to fort stedman the back story is that robert e. Lee knows he is pinned. He knows his last desperate hope give grantout and the slip and get to carolina. Defeat sherman and their combined armies will turn around and defeat grant. It is a most helpless but he is not going to quit. Finding the bright star of the confederacy. He has no military background before the war. He has a genius for war. He had been a lawyer and a newspaper man. When john gordon puts on a uniform he finds it. There are several. Closest in some ways to grant. Grant was not meant to do anything else after he became a successful politician and so forth. Gordon was tasked with a plan to punch through the union lines between the confluence of the appomattox and punish them and badlyt them so much so that it buys time for him to move out and get to north carolina. President s time Jefferson Davis of the confederacy will not listen to him. He is trying to warn him. Knows he cannot hold out much longer. Davis is he is hurt all of this before. When all this collapses richmond is not ready and that leads to the panic in the fire. John brennan gordon does is very best. He gets control about half of the army of northern virginia. Fort stedman east of the james river. Over the month they are very heavily fortified. Fort stedman is not very far where there was a quite a summer before. It is the point where the lines get very close. He does his homework, he sends out his scouts, they have spies. They are getting reports that, they can a know everything that they cannot see. You are going to make a night attack, punch through and then you have broken through. Point go down the city and it will take a lot of coordination. He really thinks he has done everything. He is a man who always had good luck until fort stedman. After ifore that did the First Reading with the First Reading it describes what of thelike as a private platoon affiliated forever with louisiana. They are tough guys. They are overwhelmingly irish and the part i am going to read to you is about the initial wave of the attack. Forwardis own divisions that many trust and many know. As i always try to do in all of the books. Even the privates are real people. We do not know terribly much about this man. A know he is a recent immigrant into new orleans. Know he was captured at least twice that hes been some time in the hospital but he is now back in the fight to this is at the beginning of the battle. I will not even get to the bloodiest part. I am trying to give a voice to the dead. To bring them alive as people. How did they speak . How do they think . What was it like . These guys go forward into the dark. , with cloth white tied to the back of their color. It is something you can see in the dark when you do a night attack you have to the shoulder to shoulder, literally touching the guy next to you at these can spin out of control. As quiet as he could they have cleared the links to the obstacles and they have engineers ready to move forward. Forward anddy to go the unionay through and take the fort and push out and take the surrounding batteries and take the flanking force. Everything is supposed to go right. In more nothing ever goes right. Pushingprivate daniel out into the no mans land of the attack. twas black is a englishman so, he rushed out with the rest. With his rifle in his midst. A rifle left unloaded on different orders but the tip of the bayonet cap sharpened. Of strategyis wave irishman. Every man hoped he would not be skewered by a mess made. That fellll word forward in the dark. The time it past in took to stumble and move forward. No man spoke a word. Enough. Them not cries of asking to surrender. With the thump of axes no shots yet paid hundreds and thousands of shoes wore thin. Oneshot, too. Recovering to sense his way in the dark. It should have gone off at the circus. Extension is recognized for battles and prisons and brawls. Shouts and struggles as a surprise. Shots, help the kernel. Curiosity, a vice more trouble than drink. A hurry of hands pulled the kernel out. Shoes. Art, he shredded he cursed and ran out of was keeping why were they running downhill . Their purpose was to attack before. Even if they would not put it on a downslope that they have mistaken their way. A answer. How differently based on that he always knew the officers. Half left. Then came the price few of a candidate greeted by a bright flash of faces like his own. Other guns flared, they spotted the rampart ahead. Fearfuled for the wall of the cannons on the front. Up and over. Men howled out of habit. Reliably, instinct led his rifle as he blocked one men who are no ribbon. Bending him to a gas. The weapon raised a hand and clatter down. He brought this down onto his partners shoulder beating him to the ground. The yankee had been laid out properly. Heard the lovely crackup splintering wood. Not even a last cry. That is the point he grunted. Then the attack accelerates. Rate the attack starts out well. Surprised, are Brigadier General captured. They branch out and capture the batteries. Then inserts to fall apart. They cannot take the flanking force. The Union Artillery turns and insulates them. A general who is group ofmmand of a recruits manages to rally his men and the reserve and these Young Pennsylvanians right at the right moment when everythings hangs in the balance they slam into the confederates who are full of confusion. There has already been a big problem. He tried to bring order to things. They cannot get enough troops forward. The lanes they opened are too narrow. The troops that do get forward are moving into each other. First dawnhave the light as the union line is forming up. Commandos moving forward to take key areas. Been assured that they are thereby scouts and spies. He has these commandos out there, three teams looking for the fort and they sent runners back sammy cannot find them. They did not exist. It was just that intelligence. The intelligence is never perfect. Even with all of the stuff we have to date. Way the days by the union has much better intelligence than the confederates but that is another story. Last attackhis folders and falls apart. Back asps are running guns are hitting the stuff the sport on three sides. 3000 confederates are lost. The numbers are hard to pin down. 50,000, thehas union has a forced twice that size. The confederates have more rifles in the field per unit. He cannot afford to lose that many troops. There is a union counterattack elsewhere on the left flank that morning makes a little bit of progress. Setting upg up for the big push. They know it is coming. Then he gets a reprieve. It ranks and it rains heavily. He has artie the five orders by showing up at petersburg. Close the gap. Get to the appomattox. Who is in a member number of the books in the series. It is a snake of a man. He is vicious with his rivals. He is a very ambitious man that is for a hungry. Again a terrific soldier. A terrific soldier is not always a guide who is heroic and wonderful. You just never know what you are getting. At any rate after the conference will grantonferences is almost tired of him. He says fine, if you get through ahead and try it. Is heading for the courthouse. Is crawling slow. Best cavalry commander in charge of protecting the train. Why . He knows if anyone can move those wagons through the mud it will be the cavalry. They worked their way out to the courthouse and move forward. Cavalry is soon to be his finest hour followed by his worse. They really handed to sheridan. He is pushed back at the courthouse. He is only saved because custer has been pulled up and does his usual magic trick of luck. They stabilize the lines. The mother has been a attack. Governor laurent of little round has been thinking about what he saw that day. So, the court had held. There is this gap that opened up in the army. Is that weekend cut off part of the corporate body as it were. Raining, telegraph lines are not all the way out. Message and he is right. He takes this to grant but does not tell him that war and team up with the idea. Not because his record take the glory, grant is mad at work. Who is not a party to the boss what to do. Giving commandy to the general sheridan. Also the secret authority to relieve or in. Sheridan is that going a chance to going to miss a chance to push up a rival. They have really is at the last minute that they have to pull back. They cannot go back public to the railroad. He has made it clear that they have got to hold the area. That is the key to hold in the railroad and everything else. His plan even though there is still a cap, his plan is good. His cavalryto take corps and attack frontally well his divisions are moving around their flank. Orders toim specific be on this axis. Cavalry got it wrong as to where the confederate line is. The six car is moving right past the confederates. Here but it ends actually ends over here. He is going out this way. Suddenly they see that the confederates are over there. It turned out better because the six core pivots. What other confederate commanders doing while all this is happening . The Union Cavalry is pushing on the front. The entire court is swinging around to envelop them. Pixley and pickett have been invited to a whipping. He was assured that he would not attack that day. They are not even two miles from the battlefield. There is a sound anomaly where under the cover of clouds they cannot hear the canon let alone the rifles. There is a battle going on. Where is fixedly . These guys are getting drunk. It is a nice afternoon and they are telling stories and having a good old time. Ony find out what is going and they think they may have heard a little bit of rifle fire. They sent some scouts down. As and as they cross the stream and feel of this the Union Infantry emerge from the woods and capture the lead scout. After that they relate something is up. A absolute ball. It is just shattered. Cavalry are terribly embarrassed. It is a debacle and they lose good men and there was thousands of listeners. They are push back on surveillance station. At this point grant knows it is time for the big push. In the very early hours of april 2 to push comes. The breakthrough at multiple points. Easternes to hold the front to keep them out of petersburg. They are just delaying the union long enough to get to the afternoon. Describing this very much in detail in the book. It is incredibly dramatic. As the confederates are just trying to hold on till dark so they cross the bridge of the appomattox. They had gone to a peninsula and they had less. There is fighting down at sutherland station. There is battle after battle. They moved so quick that the davise reaches jefferson while he is still at church. He is for you because you cannot believe that his general let him down with this. Richmond turns into a debacle. It becomes one thing after another because they do not want drunkenness they break open all of the whiskey barrels and pour them out. You have people lying in the gutters drinking all of the whiskey. They decided to destroy the government stores. The confederates would set them on fire. The fire got out of control. What happens when you wait a fire near ammunition . There are explosions. Heart is burned out. The flames are stopped just shy of the federal capital. That is still with us today. That is a wild absolute debacle. Confederatese the are moving with amazingly agile grace and speed. He gets his troops north of the james river. They are leaving half of their guns and provisions behind. They are already low on provisions to begin with. The men are already hungry. Trains, not to supply trains to meet them at the courthouse where the army rendezvous. They will bring the garrison of richmond down. They will rendezvous at the courthouse, get some russians and keep moving. A very short version of this there is drama and for more drama. And get to the courthouse there are seven buskers waiting period boxcars waiting not one ration. These groups have nothing to eat. They have got to eat. Out aays and sends proclamation to the people, please our troops in your troops need food or they will have a celebrity proclamation. They pause overnight. The wagons come back almost all of them empty. They have been picked over. The governor has already confiscated everything. The people are just trying to survive. Is a killer. He is rushing ahead and pushing ahead. I am sorry, i forgot. After war and is hillary does not do much. After war and his leading charge himself. He fires them. He claims all the genius of the victory for himself. The governor served alter the war her likely courageously. Annoying, is brokenhearted, clearng decades trying to his name. His great rival is george me. Sheridan figured out the public has room for three heroes, grant , it will be sheridan if he can help it. Meade, when it sheridan is pushing ahead, meade forwardshing supplies to help sheridan. Everyday is a fight for delaying action. Then you get to the real lack thursday of the confederacy, Sailors Creek. If you havent been there, you need to go. Three separate battles. What has happened is long streets corps has pushed ahead. Gordons corps is the rearguard. In the middle you have the anderson voice, picket, yule, the naval brigade about the size of a battalion actually drawn from the navy yard and defense batteries. Two surrender are the sailors. They fight to the bitter end. Custer is at his best. He sees a break in the line as the light rains are Holding Things up. S. Am simplifying thing the wagon trains are Holding Things up. They start chewing and fake charge and charge again. They dont get decisively engaged, but they dont let the confederates move forward. The Confederate Center is fixed at five force. Another train that gordon is supposed to be protecting yet ordered off to the north to hybrids, and gordon is ordered to follow the trains, so he follows the trains, and that opens the center. Immediately, and earlier i said the sixth corps when i was talking about warren, i met the fifth. Apologies. The sixth is coming up. It is his favorite corps. He likes it. He knows it. Gordon is pulling off to the north to protect the trains. It opens at half direct to Sailors Creek and the middle of the confederates, who are soon virtually surrounded. The cavalry fight is progressing. Infantry moves up and hits them after initial setback. The union troops just swarm over the confederates. Lee loses a third of his army. The only one that performs well that they is John Brown Gordon day is John Brown Gordon. They protect the trains as best they can. They take a hammering, but they hold together. Corps will hold his together the best he can. They will fire the last shots fired by the army of northern virginia. After five forks, it is