States civil war. All these pieces of legislation were passed, at least in significant measure, because senators absented themselves from the United States congress. And again, because American People voted republicans into office in 1860. Creek part of the civil war . It is an outgrowth of the civil war. It is an outgrowth of the same mechanisms and processes that that burst birthed the civil war, but also features civil war soldiers. United states soldiers on the payroll, who are mustered into the union army. Again, i wasnt being entirely glib when i said yes, i think t is. Is it as central a part of the civil war story as some of the events that others will be talking about here . No, i dont think it is. I dont want to overstate my claim. That is not the kind of historian that i am. But i do think it is a very important story and its worth telling. Thank you all again very much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] if you could sit tight for just a few moments, we have a few announcements. First announcement, get your program and turn to page 32. If you dont have it, that is fine. We have already planned cwi 2015, as you can see. And because we are in sync for the 50th, we, of course, want to see the battlefield in richmond and petersburg. These away for us to see battlefields is for us to go down there and have and the only way for us to see these battlefields is for us to go down there and have tonight two nights. Following through appomattox, the brick around petersburg, and richmond following in the steps of abraham lincoln. Again, a range of things. But as you can imagine, the only way for us to be able to do it nights into have two the area. If you look on the schedule, we have one component ticketed to gettysburg tours. Youll get your fix there. And we have all of our speakers lined up. I think it is a very good lineup. James mcpherson, gary gallagher, joan wall, Harold Holzer all of them speaking to a range of issues elated to the war in 1865. Related to the war in 1865. Our trip to petersburg means that everyone has to go with us. , bute, you could opt out unfortunately, we have to close out the dorms. Isnow for some of you, that really frustrating, because you really do enjoy her time at gettysburg. But there is no way for us to be able to do our adventure down to richmond and petersburg without that. And keep in mind that we have a limited number for this tour, 275. 275 is where its cap. 275 people, we cannot go one person over that, right, allison . There is just no way of doing that. There is open registration online. That is ready to go. And of course, if you have any questions about 2015, i can answer them, and alison as well. I would love to see you all there. I hope you are excited about the possibility of going down and seeing another part of the war in virginia. You will still get some of the things that you are accustomed to at cwi. Gettysburg battles as well. Allison has an announcement before we go off to lunch. Thank you for your patience, everybody. A couple of quick things before you head out the door. This afternoon, you will notice we are sick switching to our concurrent session format. There are three or four choices for each session. No reservations for those. You can decide on the spot which one you want to attend. They are as enough they are big enough that they can accommodate as many people that want to go. Display handy, strategically placed signage around the campus to help you as well. And there is a campus map in your booklet, of course. Fromhen you come back lunch, try to bring as many books as you have with you. We are calling it our mega book signing. It starts at 1 15 p. M. Mingus will, scott not be able to join us. He is the only one, though. Speakers, if you are listening to make you could try to swing by here a little before 1 15 p. M. , that would be wonderful. We will get you all set up. And dr. Come in will be down here for a few minutes to sign books. Usdr. Kelman will be with for a few minutes to sign books. He will be in the corner. Thank you. Watching American History tv, 48 hours of American History every weekend here on cspan three. Our live coverage of the conference in gettysburg, pennsylvania, will continue at about 2 p. M. Eastern time after they take a lunch break. Coming up this afternoon, at 2 p. M. , Brian Craig Miller of Emporia State University will speak on John Ford John hoods tennessee campaign. And then the focus is the confederate burning of chambersburg pennsylvania, with megan cate nelson of brown university. And at 6 00 p. M. Eastern time tonight, you can watch the entire days live coverage of this conference at gettysburg. Now from our lectures and history series, the aches you into the college classroom. Series that takes you into the college classroom, george main George Mason UniversitysChristopher Hamner explained how things like patriotism, money, and ideology initially factored into young mens decisions to enlist into combat. This class is about one hour, 10 minutes. Good morning. We have taken a topdown look at this middle part of the war. Today i want to change our focus, moving back to the individual soldiers. Lets start with an image we have seen here for a couple times. This is an artist rendition of one of the charges made by the army of the potomac at the 1862 battle of fredericksburg. At the top, that low stone wall, and a density of confederate soldiers because the frontage is so limited, they are stacked 6, 7, 8 deep. People in the back handing up loaded weapons. They are able to generate a volume of fire comparable to a world war i machine gun. More than 10 separate charges try to go up the hill. Remember, by the seventh or eighth charge, the Wounded Soldiers were struggling back and are begging comrades not to go. They think it is suicide. Yet, they keep going. Why do they do that . In the spring of 1864, this cadet and the entire core of the Virginia Military institute were called up to try to block a Confederate Army moving down the shenandoah valley. That corps was initially held in reserve, and at the end of the day with a federate position, the confederate position some , struggling, they were ordered to make one of those frontal assaults we saw at fredericksburg. 200 young men making their way slowly across the field under into the teeth of heavy union fire. This soldier mcdowell and more , than a dozen of his fellow cadets were killed. Why did they do that . What are we looking at here . What do you think . [inaudible] can you read it for me . It says who he is and who his father is. I am captain o. W. Holmes, son of Oliver Wendell holmes, sr. It is a note that Oliver Wendell holmes, who would go on to great pinned inas a justice , his coat. Why did he do that . Improvising dogtags. Holmes knew many men killed or wounded would not be identified. This is his attempt to make it easier for people to identify him if he was incapacitated or unable to speak. Early summer of 1864, union troops on the eve of the battle of cold harbor, virginia, used a revised dogtags and put them in used to be improvised dogtags and pinned them in their coats. The next morning summit they got the next morning, they got up and made another one of those disastrous rental assaults that s disastrous frontal assault that had become so common by the war at that point. Elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder, one of the most lopsided assaults since the battle of fredericksburg. Some historians estimate more than 7000 union troops felt in fell in the first 10 minutes or 20 minutes. You have men the night before so theirng dogtags bodies can be identified the next day. Talking about death on a scale that is amazing. You had men the night before improvising dogtags, putting them inside their coats so that when the families can identify their bodies. There was a diary entry visit cold harbor, i was killed today. What i find fascinating about this is that men who were improvising dogtags and writing their diaries nonetheless went and made the charge the next day. Why did they do that . I think that is a fascinating question for us to explore. We have already talked about some of the characteristics of the civil war, the way the battle was both more destructive and less decisive. We talked about the extreme casualties that are incurred in battle after battle. But the battles do not settle anything. We talked about some of the reasons that warfare in the civil war was both more destructive and less decisive. Some of those things were inventions in agriculture and communication, the kind of technologies that allowed both sides to have larger armies and keep them at war for longer amounts of time here it we amounts of time. We looked at some of the weapons technologies. The rifle musket, canister shot, the new hardware that enables both armies to kill each other so brutally and so efficiently. There is one thing that we left out. There is a missing piece. Why did these soldiers continue to make these assaults . To continue to go into combat over and over again in the face of so much mounting evidence that it was brutal and bloody and incredibly lethal . Remember, we have talked about these guys before. These are not rational soldiers. They are regular, Young American boys. Farmhands and shop clerks, laborers, school teachers. Theyre not professional soldiers. Theyre not young man who spent years and years preparing for battle. They are regular american boys. In between 186165, they are hurled into some of the most vicious close infantry combat that the world has ever seen. If we are going to understand why the war went on as long as it did and why it would cost three quarters of a million northern and southern men their lives, i think we need to pull apart this big question why did the soldiers continue to fight . This is a fascinating question, central question for military history during that millennia. Going back millennia. It is a fascinating question into Human Behavior. Isnt it . What would make someone throw themselves into combat to see into combat into a hail of enemy bullets, to see friends and comrades killed, to risk your life and limb . It is a fascinating puzzle, even if youre not interested in military history. For civil war soldiers, it would cost so many of them limbs, their lives. We have this slide that you have seen a number of times, corpses in antietam. Why did they keep doing this . Why did they keep throwing themselves at the battle . It is a big question, one i think is sort of an intrinsic interest. It is an urgent question to military. Yet, maybe that one big question needs to be broken down a little bit. To recognize that the things that get you to join the army in the first place may not be the things that go soldiers to that got soldiers to mass up and charge on the third day of gettysburg, for example, or to make those assaults of the hill. Assaults up the hill. We can take the big question and break it down into component pieces. First we will talk about why soldiers get into the army in the first lace. What makes them join . Why would they leave their comfortable homes and join the military echo the military . Second, why would they stay with the army . It is arduous, the food is awful, conditions are miserable, everybody is sick all the time. Then the third part, how did the soldiers bring themselves repeatedly to face battle . In the mid19th century, this is prefreud, before a sophisticated psychological understanding of what makes people behave the way they do. In the 20th century, the u. S. Military would field scores and scores of scholars. Phd in history, political science, sociology, psychology, and they sent them into battle with the g. I. s to try to understand what was making them tick, why they did the things they did. This is a photo of one of the scholars who is right at the front line interviewing some soldiers who had just come out of combat, trying to understand what it was that was making the soldiers repeatedly expose themselves to combat. In the 20th century, they have taken our three questions here and broken them into three different categories. It is to try to explain each piece of this puzzle. An initial motivations, factors that get you to join the army in the first place. Sustaining motivation, factors that hold the army together during a months or weeks long campaign. And then combat motivation, what makes soldiers get out and face enemy fire, sometimes over and over again. So they explore each of these i want to take todays lecture and explore each of these pieces as they pertain to the army in the 19th century. I have spent most of my professional career studying soldiers and their experiences under fire. It is difficult to say that one kind of combat is worse than another, because they are all amazingly terrible. The middle 19th century and the infantry combat that these civil war soldiers participated in is some of the most brutal and most horrific. When we get to the battle of 1964, places like spotsylvania. Battle of 1864, in places , you will seenia a viciousness and brutality, and there is a willingness from some of these soldiers to repeatedly expose themselves, and that is something to pull apart. What are the things that would get a regular 20something american man to join the army in the early days of the war . We could come up with tons, so lets start. You have recruiting posters that make it sound excitable. So you will have one poster that says come join me army and see the beautiful south. All right, lets focus on the documents. We have sources that might give us a window into the mentality of young men who are joining the military at this point. Certainly, a sense of adventure is a big part of it. In 1861, it is not uncommon to be conceived, born, married, work, die, and buried within 50 miles of the same spot. The idea for a young 20something man of going on some grand adventure was what many recruiting posters try to play up. It was something appealing. The only chance to get away from home and see a little bit more of the world. Adventure is one thing. Another one . I think a lot of it is the concept of patriotism. Wanting to fight and save the union. Ok, patriotism or ideology. This is one of the quintessential ideological wars. For the north, there was the desire to restore the union and take down the rebellion. In the latter years of the war, for many Union Soldiers, it becomes a war of emancipation. For the south, it is defending their southern way of life, a Southern Society built on the foundation of racial slavery. These are wars in which there are important patriotic and ideological motivations to get out and join the army. It is interesting, when i give this lecture, how quickly people bring up patriotism and ideology. Sometimes people leave it until the very end. Those are the cynical classes. You guys are not quite as cynical. Youre putting it right at the top, which i like. What are some other reasons . Same line as patriotism, but honor. Both south and north. Remember, one of the things that shows up a lot in these posters, if you closely read the text, you know, ablebodied men, free man, brave man, courageous men needed to come, and this idea of honor, particularly a kind of masculine honor. Particularly in the south, many men went in voluntarily and flooded the recruiting stations in the first week of the war. But there were a few that were a little reluctant, could see little bit into the future and imagine military service was not their cup of tea. It was not unusual for those young man to get a package from a sweetheart in the mail that had frilly ladies undergarments in there. Not as a sexual overture, but to send a message that if you are not going to join the army, you should probably get used to the idea of wearing this around. There was a lot of gender pressure being put on men. The sense of honor, the sense of this is what men do. What are some other reasons people would join . Money. Money. And a lot of the things that show up here, a months pay in advance, 100. As you would get more of the as we look at more of these posters as the war drags on, pay becomes a more important part of it. And bounties become part of it. So there is more and more emphasis on what you can get by serving. So there are financial reasons to join as well. What else . [inaudible] yes. How are they recruiting these civil war units . Get your friends and your brothers ok, can you see look for what is popping out at you. The 16th maine regiment. We have got the third delaware. It is on a local basis. Yeah, they are all recruited locally. So you would serve alongside people that you knew and probably trusted from home. But think about the kind of pressure that that might exert. If a whole town of young men are all signing up for the military, it becomes a little harder to stay behind. What are your employment prospects if you are the one young man who stays behind . Technically there should be more work to be done, yet, if youre the one ablebodied young man when everyone else is husband or son has gone off, that might get attention. What are the romantic prospect if youre the one guy that stays behind . They very deliberately recruit from localities and specific geographic regions, towns, where people know each other, where there is a sort of pressure being exerted. A sense of glory, honor, ideology, some more practical things. Money, bounties. Anything else . It is to avoid the draft. Ok, there are two reasons then. By 1862 and 1863, both sides have resorted to conscription. So many people will be in the army because they have been compelled to do so. Both north and south, conscription starts as a way to force up the last reluctant volunteers. Slightly more honorable to volunteer than to be conscripted. By 1864, you will find many soldiers in both armies who are not volunteers but who have been compelled or coerced legally. So we have got all sorts of carrots and sticks, things that are pushing people into the army and things that are driving them in less reluctantly or less enthusiastically. Other things that we could pull off . We have money here, 50 million in prizes. The poster here sends a message why do you join the army . Why do you join the navy . To get out of service in the army. A lot of it is about the equipment you will be using. They are making statements about why you would want to join a particular regimen. Some are organized around ethnicity. There are irish regiments. There are some that will talk about the fact that the colonel of the regiment is a u. S. Soldier with some experience and they will be armed with a particularly useful new ki