Feel i should add was chaired department of history at uva. He began life as a specialist in the American South. He gravitated toward the civil war. He is now the historian of both the American South and the civil war. Published very widely. It was a major reexamine of the postcivil war south. It was the first since the Landmark Book from the early 1950s. He is just finished the sequel to that but it i am not going to read the title because it is an out yet. The third is what caused the civil war, reflections on the south. Dayas the last slot of the when weve been here for a long time. He is going to explore how the war in the valley allows us to engage with some of the larger themes of the war. [applause] thanks to all of you. I hope you partook of the coffee in the back. I was at uva for 27 years. The work i am talking to you about again before this building began. The library was here. To uvaalways be grateful for allowing that to be created in for sustaining it all the years ive been gone. If you dont believe anything im saying today, you can see the primary sources for yourself. Not right now. When we are done. [laughter] im not really adding much to it. Show muchto try and of what we think of as being important, you can see it in the valley. During National Drama from beginning to win. Tens of thousands of soldiers served. S burned. Town people risk their lives to africanlavery, even as american troops rose to defend the United States. There were defiant speeches and jubilant rallies. All of these things happened not far from here in the valley. Were profound changes profoundly unlikely. Deep into the war, Many Americans on both sides did not foresee the surrender of the confederacy. A wealthy territory fully mobilized for war. The destruction of the largest and most powerful system of slavery in the modern world and accompanied by the connell is asian of free people had seemed impossible a few years before it came to pass. The valley embodied these changes. The valley actually helped these changes take place. Were thingsite happened, that moved American History. Virginia had been centrally important from the very first titles of the war. They rebuff the largest army ever with the valley playing a major role. In 1863 at the federal army of a great invasion of pennsylvania by lee and the battle of gettysburg that halted that progress still did not destroy wes army. Lees army. They watch them warily throughout the winter of 1860 32 o and 64, and they believe 1864, and they believe that would lead to the culmination of the war. The people of the United States had reason to be hopeful, because it seemed that so much of the confederacy had been overrun that the rubble nation would be unable to sustain their armies much longer. They controlled the rivers, ports, coasts, and the western part of the confederacy had been cut off from the eastern, the upper from the lower, black people now labored for the benefit of the union and the elves, from the vast Mississippi River valley to the west low lands of south carolina, to the rich farmland of each east tennessee. But the white people in the confederacy had their own reasons to believe that 1864 would bring the wars and, but with a different outcome. They had only to hold off the United States army long enough for the north to lose heart, to admit the south could not be conquered, and renounce lincoln. Nd the president ial election if they can hold on through the spring and summer, northern voters, judging that they had sacrificed enough of their sons, brothers, and fathers, would negotiate peace. As a result, the state of slavery might still be determined in 1864. Laboredn people still in slavery beyond the reach of the United States army in 1864. Slavery had unraveled everywhere in the south, the institution remained intact and helped feed the Confederate Army and civilian population. Lincoln hadlicy of made slavery a central purpose of the war, only war, war itself would determine how and when the nations long history of slavery might end. In 1864, friedman freedom for might yet bens compromised, sloot, or even halted. Even though people are to imagine gettysburg is the turning point of the war, that is not the case. More men died after gettysburg and before, as much remained at stake as war. This is not a decline in the story. Everyone awaited the culminating battle between grant ansley. Victories inentous 1962 and that 1862 and 1863, and arrived to take over all the command of the united dates forces and travel with the army of the potomac. He would try to do what no Union General had done for three years, destroy the army of virginia. Lee welcomed the chance to confront grant in a coal battle while the Confederate Army was still strong. To fightrmies needed as soon as possible that spring. Lee and his staff had struggled throughout the winter to feed and arm their soldiers, and had watched demoralization erodes the ranks. But by spring, most men who had left the ranks to visit home had returned, and lee was commanding over 6500 men 65,000 men. Many had persuaded themselves even the defeat at gettysburg had been a temporary setback. The command structure of the Confederate Army was stable, experienced, and ready. But the army of the United States had an even larger army thinly is, then lee with 120,000 soldiers. Everyone from Abraham Lincoln to the had confidence that grant, given his record, would be able to defeat lee and the rebellion in the u. S. Everybody knew in this titanic struggle, the dali valley of virginia would play a critical role. It has so far as battlefield, supply pace, base, root of invasion. The army who control the valley would control much of virginia and the state of the nation. The Shenandoah Valley was both in the center of some of the fighting, like the times of Stonewall Jackson, and sometimes on its western border. They had fought in the valley one battle after another, but it had also need various forms of guerrilla, partisan, and a regular conflict. The valley, more than anywhere else, had all the different kinds of warfare that we see in the civil war. Stanton felt the suffering of the first battles of the campaign with terrible immediacy. You remember that the map that we had on the screen . Rail frommiles by richmond to stanton, the longest railroad tunnel in the world at the time. Feels the Overland Campaign as train loads oh wounded men poured into these talents towns on small virginia railroads. The hospitals and hotels had slowly emptied of Wounded Soldiers from gettysburg, and valley used the turnpike, as you saw the previous presentation, planted them at the beginning to be brought back into virginia. Buried, sometimes not all along the road, but stanton was the place where they would be gathered to richmond. These buildings filled again leading and dying leading men. Ing and dying soon, the valley would be swept up in a more direct way, feeling the grab emotional gravitational pull of the Overland Campaign. I do not know how the cursor disappears when it goes down there. If i just click on it that is not do it. Perhaps you can help me. He is actually wrapped in my conversation. Well figure out how this how to do this. Heres the thing. Iswe imagine that the valley not a series of battles like pearls on a string, which is so often the way we think of these battles, isolated from one another and there is the cursor. If it turns out it is not the thisnt to start with is the first overview of what the situation is. The dark gray area is where the Overland Campaign is being waged. It is around fredericksburg. You can see the confederacy is up there, gray, and you will see that grant, as one of the free strategies three valley n in the working on to take virginia, he takes the valley. After that, we says i guess we are done with that, come back to. E that is why that pattern shows what it does. They are leaving. But that is not the end of the story. Siegel is removed and hurt our is put into place, his charges to take the rest of the valley. He takes over, and his goal is to take stanton, which is central to everything that they are trying to do because you can see the central railroad, but it is also because the mountains are filled both with human soldiers, but also all kinds of irregulars who are constantly threatening the guerrillas. He was really worried about being threatened. There are also grilli guerrillas all throughout the valley. He comes and fights the largest battle in the Shenandoah Valley. A larger valley then even one Stonewall Jackson was involved in. One afternoon, i told my longsuffering wife lets go see that, i am writing about it, but smaller thanr this lecture, and there is not even a place to allow the road. I crushed anyink majoralks, but this is a battle, and i am showing you because this is my whole approach to all of this. Unless we understand all the things that are going on at the same time in the valley, you cannot understand what is going on in the valley. It is all tied into the gravitational pull from this. You are seeing how central the railroads are. There is not a railroad that valley, butdown the they are cutting in from the east and west. So they are making their way up, trying to friend that defend stanton. They do it at piedmont, one of there,acters down grumble jones, as he is gets tonately known, lee maybe one hour before he is killed. Takes them down to southwest ear i81. N but the valley as a whole different situation. What you see in all of this is that the civil war, if we imagine it not as yuri disconnected battles but if we all the camera back and look at the web of connections, it is all about connection and a vast expanse. It is about railroads, logistics, and the personalities of siegel being a failure and hunter being a great. Isk, not a failure yet but it is also about luck and vision and longing for vengeance. To understand the civil war, you have to have all of these things happening all the time. You cannot hold something constant what we do with this part of it, we have to see it where it is. After hunter marches into stanton and they say finally, the stronghold of the valley has fallen, the place that has been a city dell for the confederacy now in union hands, they walk in happy. T but here is the way a stanton woman, a confederate, describe what it was like with Union Soldiers arriving. They dismounted and rushed in. Have you got any whiskey . Flour, bacon . The soldiers pushed into the house. Come on boys, says one. They will find it all. They spread themselves all over to a fine moving barrel of flour, filling sacks and pillowcases, scattering a large percent on the floor until it is nearly exhausted. As much their fooded to see taken, she saved her fury for a different kind of searching. For were searching everything, even my nice bonnets, pretending to be looking for arms. Women did not say anything to provoke them, but they did not disguise the old. They would peeping under the beds, looking for rebels. A 12yearold girl spoke up and said we are all rebels. A yankee soldier looked at her and said thats right. The confrontations and stanton showed that soldiers on both sides allowed women and girls to a things they would never allow or boys toy say. Women frequently took advantage of that to lend their your he and express their contempt for the men going through their bonnets. Soldiers and officers proclaimed themselves amused by these exchanges, patronizing females on their opinions as a matter of course. But on the other hand, they found in these words a reassuring just occasion for looting and destruction. They would have looted in any case, but the soldiers who were met with such contempt could think of themselves as attacking rubble household rather than defenseless civilian women. Later in this same conversation, he says listen, you do not want to be saying things to me, dont let me kill your brother. She said i do not have a brother, but if i did i would want him to be shooting you. This is all part of the same war in the valley. At the same time the streets are coming in, the presence of union and confederate armies was testing the relationship between enslaved people and white people , as previous events had. Slavery in the valley had been disrupted and undermined for three years now. Yet, without an occupying United States force, use late people enslaved people could not claim any local allies. There was nowhere to go. There is a big mountain between you and richmond, so it is not clear what you are supposed to do if you are held in slavery. The farms and towns were slave people had been laboring were worn down, but whitelaw had not turned into black again. What64, that gave at might lay ahead, but the comfortable Union Presence left africanamerican and white residents alike who might next control their town. If you are a slave for some, do you show your hand . And might be confederate coming back into town a few days later. When do you let it be known what you want to do . One Union Soldier noted what he considered self delusions of the slaveholders of the valley. The satisfaction of these people in regard to their negroes is surprising. They seem to believe firmly that their negroes are so much attached to them, they will not leave them on any terms. The soldier had seen terms. Inhe soldiers had seen this way, our supply cattle has been kept up. Roes were running to us of with information of all kinds, and they were the only ones whose truth we could rely on. To that is another thing about the military history of the valley. You have to remedy active role of enslaved people. White southerners did not focus on this as much. They dwelt on stories of loyalty on the part of the slave people, and they believed that any fleeing of enslaved people was the result of betrayal by federal soldiers. One woman wrote about a black off, so he had been nursed by his mistress as tenderly as if he had been a brother, and she was always kind to him. Many white slave ownerships are sending off their servants in one direction, some were overtaken and captured, others escaped. What with these words mean if you were in slavery . Who was captured . . Ho was overtaken it was not clear what that would have meant. White southerners studied the northern men who suddenly appeared in their midst to see what they really thought about what people, looking for fanaticism or hypocrisy or conventional racism, and they found whatever they were looking for. Soldier disgusted the discussed the debacle of West Virginia reported this scene. But lets look at this, which shall refer to that to give you a sense of the scale. This is the battle, that is the , and ithunters retreat was just brutal. Cures the railroad, here is the railroad, and by the time they talk about this as being sometimes dragged through the mud, that is how worn out the rails are, but still a lot faster than marching. They are able to, through all of this kind of, past together, and they have to march because the tracks have been torn up between charles the charleston and richmond to make it to lynchburg, and they make as much noise as they can in lynchburg, marching around create the illusion to hunter that there are more confederates than there are. They said you know, there seemed to be a lot of confederates. Thats an idea. Lets go through West Virginia. Why . Save the army. We cannot let this army be destroyed. Look how far we are from our supply line. Only one wagon train made it to lynchburg in the valley. That is how much the guerrilla presence was. He was not wrong. They literally ran out of ammunition. Theyre waiting, taking their time, burning down large part of lexington, poking along so their supply trains can keep up with them. We think about the union army being allpowerful and equipped, but by this time they are the ones in enemy territory. Hunter says i will take the army to fight another day rather than being captured by an army who is much larger than ours. You can see that Overland Campaign, and we took position of sending early out of the Overland Campaign casinos how important the valley is. You see lynchburg is even more important, because lynchburg has both a canal and a railroad, and europe river from the earlier map that railroads run all the way down into tennessee. That is a major supply line for lee. Grant says if we can get for one day, that is all i need you to do. If we can break it for that long. Thatnion general said would not happen. They will not allow us to take lynchburg. Lynchburg and stanton are central to all of this. The Valley Campaign is not just running up and down route 11 or i81, but it is a very distended road. Soldiers are coming in in the mountains of West Virginia. The valley is also east and west. You have to see this convergence of all of the people. As they are marching through the mountains of West Virginia and it is a brutal, horrifying march. No food, places have been burned. He talks about one image. For the past four or five days, i have seen an old negro had, about 75 years of age, strutting along on foot with wonderful endurance and feel. She is walking for a dirt m, i suppose. This is someone walking, keeping. Ace with the army for freedom it is one person at a time, taking a risk, associating themselves with an ally or getting a piece of information here or there. Is not enormously immerse and normas numbers leaving at one time large numbers leaving at one time. The cycle of violence in the valley demonstrated to americans what they could do to one another, and that is very important. The valley has the episodes of destruction before sherman, and we will see why that is important. Not just because i wrote a book about it, but because it is important intrinsically. The largescale violence of the United States