Women during shermans march to the sea. Plus a look at jesse james and his actions by the confederacy during the civil war. A panel this morning, of historians discuss the debates surrounding the leadership of George Gordon meade. He is also the author of an acclaimed book. To his left, scott hartwig. He is a longtime supporter and also a retired historian from Gettysburg National park. He has written a book on the battle of antigua. Antietem. To the left of scott is jennifer murray. She is a professor of history at the university of virginia and many of you met and last, we have brooke simpson, who needs no introduction. You do need an introduction . Not everyone on cspan audience knows you. Brooks is a professor of history at arizona state. Lets turn to George Gordon meade. The man who was behind one of the most important victories in American Military history is barely recognized for his role in defeating the army at gettysburg. Meade in fact, saw this coming. December 7, 1863, he wrote the following to his wife. I see the herald is constantly harping on the assertion gettysburg was fought by the common soldiers and there was no generalship display. As does come after while, it will be discovered that i was not at gettysburg at all. [laughter] it would have been a truly astonishing if he identified in the same letter that a kernel of a main regiment was the true savior of gettysburg. So, that leads us to this. Why doesnt George Gordon need George Gordon meade have a bobblehead doll by Joshua Chamberlain . Brooks suggested we should have double head dolls of all the cwi historians. Brooks bobblehead would be the biggest. [laughter] that wasnt scripted, i swear. My bobblehead would have have socks on. [laughter] im not surprised you dont understand a fashion statement. It is 90 degrees outside. We will do our best to turn the conversation away from us. Questiono to a serious and that is, why does george whys he forgotten here at gettysburg and really, his entire military career. Reason i think is the lack of capable by refers at this point in time. We only have a handful of studies. We have heard of many in the works at this time that i think will give him a lot of attention in the same way that other people like rent himself who is a subject of a handful of biographies over the last decade. People have not found him attractive until recently. Add that i think there are two things related to gettysburg. The damageelated is to meades reputation. Both the pseudonym articles in the new york newspapers that and really condemning filled with halftruths and lies testimony the war which perpetrated that, but also the conduct of the war. The hearings that they held in the spring of 1864 were tremendously damaging to his reputation. Initially, all the people they called forward were enemies. How he was a huge enemy. Decktried to stack the himnst meade and had testify in washington. He was not prepared the first time he testified so he did not come off well. The over link campaign, there was a correspondent who wrote for the philadelphia newspaper come i think the Philadelphia Inquirer and in a story, he wrote about the early part of the campaign. He mentioned actually a lot of this article was accurate. One of the things he mentioned retreate wanted to after the battle of the wilderness. He really took offense to what they put arote record on him, mounted him. Ackward on a horse the result of that was all the other correspondence got cut meade outhey of anything that was positive in any disaster to the army, they put his name associated to it. Combined toe things damage his reputation until today. A biggerd offer maybe lens on this question. Almost every book that spans the civil war will have say, 500 pages on the war and hundred 50 on Everything Else 150 on Everything Else. Had a chance to remedy the bad press that he received, as ae have such a fixation public and historians on the possibility of existential moments when we read about the the we like to hang on existential moments. We believe the war could turn in an instant. Participants at the time believed that the next big battle that they would participate in would be that moment, but after getting hurt it became clear to everybody or most people certainly lincoln, even abraham that the war would not hinge on a single existential moment. As consumers of drama, historians and the public alike, we have discounted. We dont like that as much. It is not as a medic to focus on the grinding war of accumulation or time. Aboutwhen he wrote military campaign, he often. Efer to them as operations not battles, but operations. Over time, he began to see the war much like grant. They began to see the war as an operation in those cumulative dont enrapture us the way gettysburg and the dramatic moments do. I think, quite simply, or mably simply butpturenot maybe not largely, our expectations of history in these moments i gettysburg, the union army is going to collapse like a broken camp still. We had that expectation that if the confederates had one at gettysburg the world have one would have been different. Theres nothing in the war that tells us that case. I will add to that. Mead is very much aware of his declining reputation. If you read through his letters, he is talking to his wife about his reputation on the decline. In like grant, sure sherman and sheridan are cleansing him. It wasnt always that way. When he gets to frederick on people bring him wreaths and trees re and he screwed it like a rock star. I thinkf the things goes back to what john is talking about. , youwe look at gettysburg go to the town and shops and there are all these paintings. You actually have to look very hard. There are a couple. They are not terribly exciting. Statue on Cemetery Ridge is standing there looking, trying to see the virginia monomer across the way. Only to see that liaison a higher pedestal and he is. The fact is we will go back to what peters is. If you look at those three days, you dont seem meade in those heroics perot core automatic moments. He is an army manager. It is hancock who comes to rally the field. It is other people who do dramatic things even if they are wrongheaded like dan circles. If im asking you give me an image of meade at gettysburg, that. Ardpressed to give even meet himself misses the climax of the battle and says my god, has the enemy already been repulsed. I have not even seen this. The only other time we have an getting away from the bombardment is he goes to round time that meade was here after the battle contemplating what to do next do of course, he chose to nothing great we might find that to be a wise decision, but theres nothing about what meade does that captures that imagination that is looking for that decisive turning point. He is a poor manager. My argument is very simple. At gettysburg, he proved he was not the general who would lose the war. He showed confidence which was lacking of his predecessors. Add anything to s point in what i would add that need was in many respects he developed into a modern soldier. One of the things that gets me is that meade constantly developed alternative plans in case this happened or that happened. He wanted to have plans in place. That was relatively rare amongst the war commanders. And at alternatives plans they use that against him. He was a businesslike warrior so when you think about some of the ,reat leaders that emerged sherman never cultivated the press, but the press loved him. Meade never cultivated the press. Either whether it was with politicians, the people, the respect and heed also did not do anything to build his reputation. You look at before the battle battle of gettysburg in your hardpressed to find an officer with as good a record as he has. He was one of the most aggressive officers. He was a hard fighter, but people in the army knew that. People outside the army did not know that. He did not cultivate the press in any way. Meadefact, the only time try to cultivate the interest of anyone to not work well. Meade writes home to his wife. Part of his lunch flirting with mary todd lincoln. Usually this would merit a combat service. Badge. [laughter] sawt was the only time mary someone flirting with her instead of her husband. Thingsnderstood these and even then he was clumsy in trying to advance these things. He was very conscience of his reputation and was not very skilled at selfpromotion. He would have been awful at twitter, for example. His Facebook Page would be bland. Kind of like hennessys. Case, he does not have those things. It is filled with pages that there are tributes to meade and how he has been unjustly overshadowed why others. Meade doeses not not have that skill even though he wish he had it as an artificial promotion of his image. Himself at a sees quintessential 19thcentury philadelphia german. He writes over and over in his letters about duty. Is duty. Him, it a sense to be dutiful and follow orders which is not parallel to shameless selfpromotion. Simpsond been more like then you would have a much more interesting biography. Big bobblehead. At least my bobblehead has a scarf around it. Usmaking sure none of have to sit in a loveseat with books. Something that we tend to overlook during the war and in life in general, we have all experienced in. When youre in a subordinate position, commenting on your superiors, it is very assertive aggressive, or imagine that you wouldve been, but the greatest on the earth is responsibility and wants have responsibility is yours, you see these leaders, especially of noticeably most the but also meade first responsibility is to avoid disaster. Verysubordinate, meade was vocal in his letters home in the need to be more aggressive. When he assumed command, he found it wasnt always as simple. It is also to me noticeable or worth noting that to assess meade you have to assess the army he commanded. His reception is a function of their relationship with their prior commanders and rearrangement of how they perceive the commander of the army in total. By the time he took command, there had been mcclellan, john pope, hooker in the army in one wanted or did love a couple of them. By the time the army of the potomac came to themselves. H the army that march 2 gettysburg had a very powerful sense of identity in the reason, in my was soettysburg important to the nation because it was so important to be potomac. Afterwards, you see a rush to memorialize it service at gettysburg. The creation of the national cemetery. All of these things are a reflection of how important gettysburg was to the army and a reflection that the army identified so strongly with itself. Grant as its identity, although they admired grant and came to admire meade as well. Was the decision not to do something. As army saw the decision careful solicitation of their wellbeing without risking the cause for which they want. They appreciated that a great deal. So it kind of low simmering placement of americas heritage in many ways a function of all these things. This is probably the large group of people that got up early since the great review in 1865. Because interesting medes own correspondence is that it did not take place. Meet own correspondence was i was ready to go. He gets credited with iron run, but oddly enough this is a battle in which she wanted to be aggressive. Meade did not always have a good pr since. It is a very interesting letter that he writes his wife on june 4, 1864, in which he claims credit for being in command on the field the entire preceding day. That was coal harbour. Generally speaking, you would not want to take credit for what as commander of the attacking forces, but meade was so much into im in charge of this army that he had command on the field the whole day. Meade was so proud of data, schmidt that he did not realize it was not much of an accomplishment at all but it was part of that grinding war that john is talking about. Offorget the vast majority july 3,vices is after 1863 and that he plays an essential role in the campaigns of late 1863 which most people forget altogether and the campaigns of 1864 in 1865. His inability to avoid a spotlight that he craves privately but never talks about publicly george need is not present in the room when robert ely surrenders. Robert e lee surrenders. The only comment is that he says you have gotten a lot greater. They said sheridans there, bring him in. I guess we are still how meade tries to present himself. We should emphasize private letters to his wife. I think we have forgotten something that is more fundamental and that is about philosophy. I think scott is 22 it and you ieed meade as a more think scotts point to it in using meade as a more he came to an understanding that civil war armies were indestructible. He came to that conclusion, one that lee never reached. Sherman certainly did. I dont know about grant. I think for us to really understand the decision in the field was the recognition you they recovered pretty quickly. He had seen that time and time again so he understood the limitations of what an army could achieve. That to me explains the conservatism that you mentioned. It is a great concern for the welfare of his men in a way that he never had that persons ability before. Meade andere i think sherman sandow. You cant take the campaign and extracted from all operations because if you look at that, im notelieved sure he did, but if you look at the campaign with the rest of the operations, it is possible to seek consistency in what meade did on the ground. He had to get a hold of the army and not let go so that sherman and others could do the maneuvering. Remember what sherman said after alanna. Lets not play their game. Ill have i think what we are missing is that he stands out in terms of his philosophy. Would say that part of being a good general is knowing when to fight and when not to atht and meade was good determining that. As john mentioned, you could his formalt controversial decision not to attack lee at the end of the gettysburg campaign. He had some of his corps commanders who wanted to attack. It was wadsworth and howard indie once he trusted recommended against the attack. I think that is a good example of meade analyzing potential gains and risk. Fighting a battle is a tremendous risk because battle is so uncertain. Joker had a brilliant battlefield planned and then things started to go awry. Meade there is a couple of things. And he sees when you fight when you dont fight, but i think the other thing that meade sees is you cant win the war without fighting so youll see people say he was criticized and he didcampaign not lose all his casualties. Is you are doing transferring where the fighting is going to be. Going to fight because you have to be his army. I think meade understands that seewhere you can look and , this iss not to fight a general who fights hard when he needs to, sometimes clumsily and sometimes not well, but he knows you have to fight to break down the confederates and he also realizes armies are very resilient. Youre not going to fight in battle and destroy the enemy army. It is going to be a grinding process. That leads to my next question. To describessible as dysfunctional when you consider from may the to june 24, 55,000 casualties. To me, that is a dysfunctional partnership. Grantmeade he first of all the grantmeade lee. Tionship, not grant much more is achieved between the wilderness and the crossing of the james then the army of potomac. Just like the stanley cup so ice sou win on the home to speak. Thes only in 1864 that hankies gain and retain the Initiative Time and time again and it really doesnt matter that they dont win a decisive battle. They keep moving on. They keep persisting and theres something to be said not only about the officers and men, but the generals and they will keep plugging at it until it is done as opposed to pull back afterwards and reconsider what theyre going to do. Theres things grant and meade understood which is the clock was ticking. 1864 is an election year. Time was the one thing that grant in meade did not have. Many had to produce a result and at least nullify lees ability to turn the table while other subordinates of grant like sherman could take care of business. When you focus tightly on the grantmeade relationship, you dont share grants appreciation of meade. Time isant at the same keeping an eye on benjamin , keeping an eye on sherman, the authorities at washington. Grant to exercise the responsibilities and grant himself pointed out to Staff Members that grant could manage the entire war effort at the same time. For your focus on casualties, also conflicted 33,000 george meade is a Union General most responsible for the disruption of the army of Northern Virginia. Never forget that. True we would not forget that. How many casualties does lee suffer at gettysburg . Meade suffer at gettysburg . 28,000. If you want to look at a man who lost a lot of men, you want to look at robert lee. Matter what you say that these 55,000 casualties tapers over a number of things. A number of casualties there were a number that were lost because meade and grant for whatever reason did not indicate well. There was some miscommunication that were failed opportunities. That 55,000 casualties nearly lost lincoln the election. Best soldiers and officers. They are dead, wounded, maimed all the way down to richmond. Lets be clear there were a lot of missteps along the way and there were lost opportunities because grant and meade did not get their act together. There were also a lot of officers and men suffering short timers disease. We talked about a number of that isho reenlisted under 50 . One of those people is disillusioned. Correspondence in 1864, basically the messages i cant wait to get out of here. Ive had enough. One of the reasons is because people say im about to go home. Im not going to get killed at this point in time. I think that is a understandable calculus. Both armies have wrecked themselves by midjune. Neither army has performed as ,ell from a larger perspective that achieves a great deal for the union because what had robert e. Lee been able to do then reverse the flow of a daring counterattack. Lee has no cards to play. It is a feeble reprise of 1862. Grant has nullified lee. He could not have done that. Ithout meade lee took the confederates confederacies greatest asset out of the war and now youre left to rely on joe johnson. , who does not like to fight for hood. Larger pointom a of view that takes us away just from the battlefield and looks strategically, this partnership achieves a major objective. It takes the army of Northern Virginia out of the war. Of 1864 as aink of a case ofthink cancer. The campaign itself is chemotherapy. There are all different types of cancer. For theome with a chemotherapy is mild. And there are some types where the chemotherapy comes