Talking about your 1864 and were going to start with the action in virginia in 1864. Focusing specially now today on the action in may in june. And the famous duel between Ulysses S Grant and robert e lee. The big showdown between in each case the best general that each side had i think this campaign has been more misunderstood and misinterpreted than maybe any other campaign in the civil war. I think the reason reason is because of expectations. You know today in politics you would see say theres a president ial campaign. The primary campaign is going on and several candidates are seeking the nomination of one of the parties and theyre coming up on one of the nominating the primers the state primary and youll typically youll hear some politicians say oh if i finish in the top three, that will be a win that if i to finish in the top three, ill be very happy or Something Like that. And of course, hes trying to manage expectations. Because if he does that successfully and if people and the press and so forth buy it, yeah Top Three Finishes a win for him and he finishes number two, you know. Oh wow, thats great. You know he exceeded expectations. But on the other hand if he doesnt bother to manage expectations or if hes not successful at it doesnt get people to buy it then you know, he finished his second. Oh, wow. What a loser. What a defeat for him. He finished second the thing with this campaign right here. Whats called the overlyan campaign grands campaign up to the point that he gets to petersburg. Is that promoting there. Yeah the thing with this is that the guy who finishes first winds up being looked at as a loser because of expectations. Now grant weve already met grant before and weve seen some of the reasons why expectations are high for him. So we saw his brilliant success at the battle of fort donaldson which catapulted him to National Recognition fame and promotion to Major General and then we saw him stand off a very determined confederate counterattack at shiloh in 1863. He conducted a Brilliant Campaign of maneuver in the interior of mississippi. Which enabled him that was in may of 63, which enabled him to besiege vicksburg . Which then six weeks later surrendered to him. Not only the town of vicksburg confederate bastion in the mississippi, but the confederacys main army in mississippi, which was trapped in vicksburg as a result of grants campaign and the victory at vicksburg ultimate winds up within a few days giving the union complete control of the mississippi river. Its a huge success not a turning point, but certainly another nail in the confederacys coffin and then in the fall of 1863 grant is brought into remedy a situation that has risen from a disaster that happened to william s rosecrans. Rosecrans was defeated at the september 1920 19 to 20th 1863 battle of chickamauga rosecrans, then allowed himself to be sort of quasiabassiged inside chattanooga and they bring in grant and grant. Straightens things out defeats confederates at the in the november battle of chattanooga wins a big victory and at this point grants reputation has become huge nationwide and theres virtually a really a consensus among the northern people not unanimity, but heavy majority the northern people are very eager to see grant promoted given command of all the union armies and theres really a feeling that as commander of all the union armies grant ought to at least a company the army of the potomac if not actually outright commanded. In virginia and take on lee and finally beat lee and accomplish what the unions been trying to do futally that that union futility and virginia now for three years that grant should do that that should happen. Northern politicians are for it. Actually. Its a bipartisan thing. Its not just republicans who want to see that happen. It helps that grants political background is unclear grant by this time really is a republican but his and it seems for more democrat and hes never been very political. Anyway, so both parties are eager to see a main general. In fact the democrats kind of would like to recruit him to run for president in 64, which hes hearing nothing of that wont have that at all. But he gets that promotion lincoln is is eager to promote him. He gets the promotion to Lieutenant General. The only Lieutenant General threestar general in the union army at that time the only person to hold the rank of full threestar Lieutenant General since George Washington kind of a select company there. Winfield scott we saw before was a brevet Lieutenant General three stars. Will honorary Lieutenant General grant is a regular full Lieutenant General outranks every officer in the union army and officially is given the position of commanding general of all the union armies. And yeah, its like here you go grant here are the keys take it away win the war for us. And i dont think there was anything grant could have done. To have managed expectations after all that the expectations were that grant was going to come to virginia. He was going to win. Quickly cheaply and easily that within a matter of weeks grant would of course when the war and certainly by the end of the summer. Yeah. Grant will have won the war lee will be defeated in everything will be fine. And of course that is radically unrealistic. The generals that grant had defeated in, mississippi and at chattanooga were good generals confederate generals, john, pemberton and mississippi Braxton Bragg in chattanooga. They were good generals, but they were decidedly second cheer. Albertsoni johnston was viewed as a firstyear general. We really dont know how good or bad. He was grant beat him too quickly. And then he died at shiloh. But lee is obviously the best that confederacy has lees stature and reputation are towering dominating. The his soldiers had very high morale. They really dont believe he can be defeated. They dont believe they can be defeated. This is going to be stand them in good stead and they are quite good and lee has put together quite a bit of a winning team one advantage that lee has had and putting together a winning team with the army of Northern Virginia. Is that lean knows how to handle Jefferson Davis and when lee once an officer transferred out of my army, this guys not getting the job done. Davis will let him do it now lee. Lee has to do it right lee has to use some tact and some finesse, but he knows how to do that and he can get it done and so lee has the team that he wants there in virginia. Well, he doesnt have Stonewall Jackson because hes dead. He would have liked to have had him. But otherwise lee gets to get the officers he wants there in virginia and hes got a good team. Hes very good his men are good. His armys good. So it is totally unrealistic to expect grant to win within a matter of weeks. Or to win very cheaply and easy and another another unrealistic aspect of expectations about what were going to be seeing here. Was that that somehow . Not that picture. Lets look at this one somehow. With an officer like grant people expect that hes going to call his shots. Hes gonna be like babe ruth the famous time that he points to the center field stands and then hits the ball there. I think ruth probably got lucky. But you really have to get lucky to be able to do that. So heres a plan. Im going to do this and this and actually to some degree grant actually did that is well see but you know grant really is an opportunistic general. He will look for you to make mistakes if youre as opposing general he will look for you to make mistakes. He will take advantage of them. And so he cant necessarily tell you everything thats going to happen in the campaign before it does. So anyway, grant does were gonna see is grant does pretty well, but because he doesnt meet the expectations that Unreasonable Expectations that people had going into the campaign. Both then that summer of 64 and since then theres been a tendency to look at this campaign as a failure for grant as a success for lee. Im an argue that it was not that at all. All right, so grant. All right, go over there. Great experience plans for this campaign now. Im going to briefly just tell you really quick. In addition to a campaign through virginia, you can see this old map of the interior, virginia. Label this railroads to richmond. Youve weve weve discussed this topic already review it in a minute. Before i discuss that grant does have a couple of peripheral campaigns planned in virginia. Its not just the grants going to take the army of the potomac and hes not going to be the army of the potomac commander. Hes gonna well get to that in a minute. But he is going to be supervising the army the potomac directly, but from a distance hes going to be supervising a couple of other other small armies and peripheral campaigns. That he hopes will pay off for him. One of those is going to be in the Shenandoah Valley now. Weve seen the Shenandoah Valley before we saw jackson was out there and made a real headache. For the union in the spring of 62. Well grants going to send an army into the Shenandoah Valley. Small army, which he hopes will keep the confederates from using the shannon to a valley to distract from his main campaign. And hopefully will distract some confederate troops out there himself. Hes also going to send another small army on a campaign somewhat similar to what we saw mcclellan do back in 62. That is approach richmond from the rivers going to off the map here. But the rivers well, yeah right here. James river right there now mcclellan, you know went up the york river and then followed the richmond new York River Railroad for various reasons. This little peripheral campaign that grants planning the smaller army is going to go along the james river. And well be able to strike either for richmond. Or for the smaller town of petersburg so what about petersburg well . In order for the confederates to feed lees army. And the people of richmond they need supplies. Supplies, come on. Four railroads the confederates would have to keep at least two of those railroads. At least two in order to keep richmond fed to keep lees army fed to maintain their position in virginia. Okay, so theyve got to keep two out of the four. Three out of the four come together at petersburg. So if the union that union forced that subsidiary arm is smaller army. Im going to tell you about little more in a minute were to go to petersburg and take petersburg now and the commander has an option go for richmond go for petersburg. If the confederates cover richmond leave petersburg uncovered and that Smaller Union army takes petersburg. The confederates are done in richmond. They will not be able to hold richmond. They will not be able to maintain lees army nor the richmond and theyre gonna lose Northern Virginia most of the state really so this is very this is a very sensitive target. The grant is poking out with a smaller army. It could be grants entirely open to the possibility that while he is up here in Northern Virginia directly supervising the army of the potomac. These guys will win the war. Well, it might happen. And so any hopes without by stretching lee and all those directions he will be able to gain an advantage over him. Well that leads to another problem though. Another thing that grants going to have to deal with is here. So hes got good things going for him and theres some things against him. Going against grant is the problem that this is 1864. This is an election year. And theres going to be a president ial election lincoln is up for reelection. Now there were actually some republicans. Who said and suggested to lincoln we ought to postpone the election. Lets not hold this election in the midst of a civil war. Its a huge civil war going on. The major faction of the Democratic Party at this time. Believes that the wars of failure theyve been saying for years the wars of failure we on a negotiate and kind of the subtext of that is and accept confederate independence. So if the if the democrats were to win this election, theres a chance historian still argue about how much of a chance theres a chance. The confederacy could become independent. And theres almost a certainty that emancipation would be revoked. That slavery would survive. So people had said to lincoln you ought to cancel this election and lincoln said no. Were fighting. To preserve selfgovernment. Were fighting against the idea that if you lose the election you get to start a war and see if it can win it with the war when you couldnt win it in an election and were fighting against that kind of idea. And if we were to postpone the election because of the war. Weve already lost the cause we were fighting for. Yeah, we postpone the election so we say in power. But we were fighting to maintain the id of selfgovernment so we cant do that. Were going to hold the election exactly a scheduled were going to do exactly what the constitution says. Right but politics is tricky and hows that going to affect grants campaign . Well for one thing it means theres going to be a lot of scrutiny. Its going to be important. But another thing and ive already told you about the idea of political generals. That these are generals. Who are actually politicians because we cant trust the experts. Im not saying that but i mean the people kind of theres a belief among the people. I know this sounds incredible today, but we cant trust experts theyve been educated in this theyve studied this so in their naturally bad at it we need to we need to trust guys. You dont know anything about it. I and so that i yeah that idea was around back there too specifically with to the military. And so theyve got political generals and so why do you why are these guys generals because it will gain Political Support. And grant has been very respectful of lincolns need to have some political generals now and then guys like mclaren and grant tolerated him for quite a while. Grant knows that in this year of 1864 lincolns going to need to have some some of these political generals guys. These guys have been in the army for a while and they havent necessarily done well. But theyre going to need to have important roles because they garner important Political Support for lincoln and unfortunately, but probably unavoidably both of these two subsidiary campaigns wind up being under political generals. The campaign out in the Shenandoah Valley. Actually, theres the Shenandoah River thats right out there. The campaign out in the Shenandoah Valley is entrusted to a germanborn general in france eagle. Now i think 20th century history. Well actually 18 19th century history too is showed us that germanborn generals can be very good indeed. But francisco was not. He was not very good, but he has this command. You just hope that maybe this time hell perform better and hell do something good, hopefully. And then the command of this smaller expedition along the james river this goes to a real americanborn guy named benjamin butler. Hes a massachusetts politician a democrat. And hes important so the lincoln needs these guys. He needs siegel because having siegel in uniform helps link and win the germanamerican vote. Theres a lot of germanamerican voted that time. Having been butler an important command helps secure lincoln the support of new england democrats or former democrats who might vote for lincoln. So ben butlers important, too. And this leads to where i can dismiss these subsidiary campaigns and say theyre not going to do anything much because both guys performed at the level weve come to expect from political generals. Thus both subsidiary campaigns were complete failures. Butler didnt take richmond didnt take petersburg. Got his command a bottled up in the end of a peninsula between the james and appomattox rivers and that was that the confederates were able to contain him with minimal force and detach the rest of their troops to lee ziegel also failed in the Shenandoah Valley. So these two subserior campaigns that had the potential to help grant a lot. You know, theyre out. So now its going to be all on grant. And the army of the potomac which he is not commanding, but he is supervising. More in that in a moment. Well, yeah, its time for that not right now. Lets talk about the because this is a problem that grant has what would really work best we can say this with the benefit of hindsight is that would work best if as if there were two of Ulysses Grant and one of them commanded the army of the potomac and the other one commanded all the armies of the union, but unfortunately, there arent two and of course the confederacy would like to clone robert e lee too so they cant do that. You cant clone grant. You could potentially and maybe this would have been better. Its hard to say. You could just give grant say all right, grant youre going to wear two hats your commander the army of the potomac. Youre also commander of all union armies mcfolin actually had that job briefly in spring of 62. It didnt work out well. And it probably you cant expect that to work. Thats too big a job for one man. Somethings going to get neglected. So grant is traveling. What grant does he makes his headquarters with the army of the potomac headquarters, actually grant and the headquarters of grant and the headquarters of the army of the potomacs commander general george, gordon meade. Are kind of colocated theyre literally adjacent to each other most of the time during the campaign. Were going to talk about and but grant grant tells me, you know, i want you to be as independent as you would be if you were commanding the army of the potomac and i was in washington. But that cant be thats not realistic. Thats not going to happen. So in that grant really is trying to do something you cant do. Because grant is present with the army so grants responsible for what the army does if grant were in, washington. And me decided to do something dumb with the army. I grant would be responsible in the sense