Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War 20160729

Atlanta. Both times he was greeted as a hero. Many atlantans said thank you for taking the torch to our Downtown Business area and getting rid of it. Weve been able to rebuild. The phoenix has risen. This is the symbol of atlanta is the phoenix rising. And so he was greeted as a hero by. People. It wasnt until the lost cause and the development of that narrative really kicks in in the late 19th century early 20th century that sherman becomes demonized to the extent he was. Theres a great book. I have my list of books and i figured somebody would ask me whats good to read. One of them that i would recommend to you is a book by Ann Sarah Ruben called through the heart of dixie, and looks at shermans march and the memory of how it develops on both sides. Another great book is called shermans march in myth and memory. They explore this is phenomenon of what sherman comes to represent. From their argument, he comes to represent everything thats the antithesis of the cavalier society. Its the industrial north. Its not romanticizing war in any way. Its doing what has to be done. Order to destroy and to win on a grand sort of scale. And as caudle and ashdown said, grant killed a lot more people than sherman did. But sherman becomes the great villain. They said that sherman, grant defeated an army. But sherman killed a culture. Theres instinct that in terms of the scale of it for one thing. Sheridan has got the Shenandoah Valley. Youve got all of this from atlanta to sfaf na asavannah an back up to South Carolina. South carolina, i think, the images of shermans march, the georgia thing. But South Carolina still remembered it, too. A lot of what we know today about it is filtered through movies and books. Probably the thing that popularized shermans march the most was gone with the wind. Both the movie and the book. It presented sherman as the wind that came through that destroyed the culture. It gets back to what caudle and ashdown said, its sherman that destroys the culture and that becomes that, i think the term they use was the wind. This fire and wind that came through georgia. Sarah reuben made an interesting point about the destruction itself. I thought it was interesting, i left it out of my talk. She said we have the sense of the march to the sea as being the giant tidal wave, this tsunami. 60 miles across from one end to the other as it goes out to the sea. She said in reality it was more like fingers of destruction, stitches through the landscape because the army was advancing down roads. And most places they stayed a day, if that much. So the destruction, the destruction is limited to how far off the roads they can go. So she said there are vast areas in between those roads. That were untouched by it. And those people of course supplied food and help to the other people ho had lost so much during the march. Its interesting, because i had not even thought about this. We do have this image of tsunami of fire going across, and in fact, it really is more like fingers of destruction going across georgia. Yes, sir. People in the valley recognized that sheridan not only planned, organized and carried out zonal destruction, so this was an order of destruction. And it was very thorough, although theres many other phases to it. But thats different than what happened in georgia. Well, georgia, there was the order to destroy. I mean shermans order was to destroy certain types of property. I think the same thing, as you pointed out, sheridan and the valley. Its interesting, the myths continue in both places as to what was destroyed. A very distinguished historian, bud, you and i know, was telling me about the fact that he was with a group of people and a meeting like this and this man swore that every mill in the Shenandoah Valley had been burned. After the program was over with, this historian said where are we going to eat tonight . This guy said oh, were going to this wonderful restaurant in this restored mill, this mill thats been converted, civil war era mill thats been converted into a restaurant. So theres, there is this image that again that everything gets wiped out and destroyed. I dont know in terms of differences there. Because sherman had set out, and these were orders to destroy, as well. Grant knew what was going on. All of this happened with his full consent. We have this image of sherman as a lunatic that convinced 60,000 other people to go along with him on the binge of destruction. Hes just out there flatheading through the countryside. Nobody knows whats hes doing, hes just doing it on his own. It was all done with the permission of his superior officers in much the same way as sheridan. Its not coincidence. Its all happening at the same time. The lincoln administration, the government of the United States is saying enough is enough. Lets get it over with. I tend to think about it as like the atomic bomb. No one would stand here and say the atomic bomb, dropping an atomic bomb is a good thing, its a horrible thing, horrible thing, beyond horror. And yet, its one of those things that at the time it was felt it was necessary to do, to end the war. To use the tools that were at the disposal of the government. And today in looking back, we realize that even though tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people died, the casualties would have been even worse on both sides. We talk about how Many Americans would have been killed if we would have invaded japan. Think about how many japanese would have died as well. It would have been a mass slaughter. Just based upon what we saw at other places like okinawa. So it was a horrible, horrible thing. We look back now on the consequences of it and what it led to. It destroyed slavery. It preserved the United States of america. Horrible thing that in the end had the consequence of giving us the world that we live in today, the great country that we live in today. With that, yes, sir, ive got one question in the back back here. Quick comment. You ended with temporary times. My question is the following, is you had mentioned that sherman fought a hard war to create a soft peace. And im just wondering in contemporary times it seems like were fighting a soft war, in many places, and these soft wars continue, and we have a very hard peace. And one comment i have is in the libra codes and enhanced interrogation techniques in my opinion, these individuals are not entitled to libra core protections, because theyre dressed as civilians, targeting civilians and to be entitled to the rights of the libra codes, you need knob full uniform and respect libra codes. My question is, if sherman was general or president for a day, would hard war be justified to create soft pieces everywhere you are . Because what i see, my bias is showing, that we have multiple soft wars, theyre going to continue to grow like a virus. Because we are not doing what sherman did in terms of bringing about closure to some of these conflicts. I love questions like this. To me these are the kinds of questions that tell me that history is relevant. Its not just something fun to do. But we want to understand what happened in the past, because of its relevancy today. It helps us to understand. I think what i mentioned this whole area of shermans career, the counterinsurgency, something that has not been explored very well. Thats a great question. I wish i knew the answer to that. Youre making me think about this, i love this. This is the thing i tell audiences, you may not buy a single thing ive said up here, although what ive said is a compilation of what all the historians, a consensus to a large extent on much of this now. You may not buy any of it. What i hope is you will never look at this man and this march the same way. Before i step away from the podium, let me say its a real honor to be here with so many distinguished historians. Theres so many great people, Richard Mcmurray and jeffrey wert. You started the day out with the best, you started the day out with bud robertson and you ended it with the least. As far as im concerned. So thank you very much. [ applause ] book tv on cspan24 hours of nonfiction books and authorize every weekend. Here are some featured programs this weekend. On saturday at noon eastern, the 18th annual harlem book fair, the largest africanamerican book fair and the nations premier black literary event held every year in har lerm. Coverage includes black writers and safety literature, diversity and book accomplishing, a Panel Discussion about zora hurston and thur hed i glad you discussing how race still enslaves the american soul. Saturday after words. Eric fair, author of consequence a memoir, talks about his experience as an sbag greater in iraq. Hes interviewed by the director of National Security advocacy for human rights first. There was a great deal of nudity inside the sight. It was cold, it was december. The image of a number of men chained to their cell doors with their hands between hair legs which was an enhanced technique and Donald Rumsfeld said he stands at his desk all day. I can tell you that seeing someone in a forced standing position has nothing to doing with standing at a standing desk. It was it was torture. On sunday night at 10 00 p. M. Eastern, fdr and church hills strained relationship during world war ii is the subject of nigel hamiltons book commander in chief. It examines the military and tactical frustrations between president franklin d. Roosevelt and winston churchill. Go to book tv. Org for the complete weekend schedule. Next, historian edward done camp ker discusses why the south fought the civil war and why the north won which examines postwar arguments made by former confederates seeking to justify their split from the union and their defeat. In bonakember argues that slavery and not states rights was the primary reason for secession and disputes the myth the death that confederate general robert e. Lee was a better commandsder than grant and that grant only defeated lee because of superior troop numbers and resources. The Smithsonian Associates hosted this twohour event. Good evening, everyone. Can everyone hear me well . Yes, good. Im marian mcglock lynn, a program accorder and id like to welcome all of you tonight to what props to be a very stimulating program on the myth of the lost cause. It is always a pleasure to welcome ed bonakamper back. Through the years he has presented many outstanding programs for us on civil war topics. This is his tenth appearance with the Smithsonian Associates. Ed is the book review editor of civil war news which reviews all 250 plus new civil war books each year. He was an adjunct lick ter tourer history at mulen berg college for eight years and has history degrees as well as a law degree from yale. He served as a lawyer with the federal government more than 34 years and as a retired commander in the u. S. Coast guard reserve. Hes the author of six books on Civil War History including the myth of the lost cause, why the south fought the civil war and why the north won, which was published last fall and on which tonights program is based. And his book will be available through smithsonian muck shops outside the entrance to this auditorium at the end of tonights program and ed will be happy to sign copies for you then. So with that said, we have a very packed two hours in store for you. This is going to be a very engaging program. We want to bring ed out. Please join me in giving a very warm welcome to ed bonakaer. Thank you very much. Thank you, mary. Its a pleasure being back here at the smithsonian to talk about the civil war. And i really appreciate the great turnout tonight. It certainly shows the length to which people will go to avoid president ial town halls. And also, i do have to confess that as you heard, ive got two the history degrees and a law degree so you will be hearing an argumentive historian this evening. Which is probe a good time for me to say that these are my personal comments, theyre based on my personal research. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the smithsonian at all. This is completely bonakamper talking to you. So mary and the smithsonian should be off the hook. Okay. Were theernt to discuss a very important topic and that is the myth of the lost cause. Now, ill give you a couple examples of the myth in action. And then go on to explain what the details are of the myth, what the components are of the myth and also then well take a look at each one. The myth of the lost cause was created by exconfederates. Mediocre general early totally incompetent. General William Nelson pendleton and reverend William Jones between 1860 and 1900 to basically justify the civil war. What had happened was, the north fought the war. The north wouldnt war. Northerners wen back home and resumed their daily lives and really didnt care much about write bth war until maybe 100 years after the war. Southe southerners, on the other hand, had a lot to write about, and a lot to justify. What had happened was almost the entire war was fought in the south and the south was just an economic basket case by the end of the war because northern armies had gone through and destroyed pretty much anything of economic value. In addition, you have to realize that the souths major institution, social institution that is slavery had suddenly come to an end and there were between 3 1 2 and 4 million slaves with Big Questions about what happens to these africanamericans. And so southerners felt compelled to explain why it was that this devastation had occurred and that for example, 25 of southern white men between the ages of 20 and 45 were dead, not just casualties, they were dead as a result of the civil war. So there was a lot of explaining to do. And thats the origin of the myth, those first 30 years. But it has continued, and probably the best example are the seven volumes by douglas free man in the 1930s and 1940s. First of all explaining in the first four volumes called r. E. Lee that lee walked on water and then in the next three volumes, basically explaining any faults that lee might appear to have had by blaming all his subordinates. Thats called lees lieutenants which could have been call cad lees scapegoats. That was a continuation of the myth of the lost cause. The reason i felt compelled to write the back was as i went around the country talking to members of civil war round table i found that a lot of people who in my view should have known better were greatly affected and bought into a very many aspects of the myth of the lost cause. So thats why i think its important for a of us to consider what the myth is and how much we want to buy into that myth. A good example of what im talking about sort of a little change of position that occurred among southern leaders was on the threshold of the civil war as seven Southern States were seceding before lincoln even took office, Jefferson Davis, a senator from mississippi gave a very emotional farewell address to the United States senate in which he said sigh norah, and in that address, he explained that he felt compelled to leave and that his state belt compelled to leave the union because the institution of slavery was being threatened by the federal government and by northern states. And so that was his discretion in 186061. I believe that was december, 1860. Two decades later in 1818, Jefferson Davis published his twovolume memoirs. And in that work, Jefferson Davis adopts the traditional myth of the lost cause position and says, well, slavery really had almost nothing to do with the war. In fact, he states specifically there would have been a civil war even if no american had owned a slave. Okay . Just i wont comment on which one i think is the truth or the fiction, but just note the contrast between the two and this is very typical. And its why it is so important to go back and look at the evidence at the time of secession and the time of the formation of the confederacy. Now, as i said, a lot of people have bought into this over the years. And i think it great lit affected the historiography of the civil war whether you were born north, south, east or west, you absorb some or all of the myth. And thats why its important to understand what that myth is and to examine how valid you think it is based upon the evidence. Now, the statement i have behind me, and ill try to not rely upon the lower left corner because i realize at least a quarter of you cant see it anyway. This is a quote from the john keegan. John keegan is or was an internationally recognized military historian, wrote about 20 military history books. And so he lived in england. To be honest, he did not understand the civil war that well. He wrote a book on it eventually. And it was not a vet good book. But in one of his other books on intelligence in war, he just made a general statement sort of off the cuff, and this is where historians run into trouble and i do it myself all the time. You try to make a gem statement about something which is tangential to what youre writing about and what you know about. Keegan said the southern people were resolute in their determination to preserve states rights. The legal issue over which they had declared separation. So he bought into what i consider to be the myth that states rights was what the secession and the formation of the confederacy were all about. So lets now spring board off of that and let me tell you what i see as the major components of the myth. The first one ive just stated and thats an absolutely critical one. Slavery was not the primary cause. States rights was the primary cause of the civil war. Im now talking on the left there. The the myth goes on that slavery was a Benign Institution beneficial to whites and blacks alike. But then all of a sudden, it jumps into the the myth jumps into something that sounds a little inconsistent with what ive just said and says, by the way, the civil war was unnecessary because slavery was going to expire on its own within a fairly reasonable period of time. And well take a look at that. Further, the argument goes the south never had a chance to win the war and one would ask, well, if thats so, why did you start the war. And thus the south did the best it could with the resources that it had and part of this then is that robert e. Lee was the great military leader. And that he was one of the greatest general whos ever lived and you will find a lot of the books that take the lost cause position. They talk about lee literally in christlike terms talking about goal gath that and gethsemane and blessing about the children, et cetera, et cetera. He truly is a mini god of the myth of the lost cause. Now, there were a couple problems with that. One is that he clearly lost a really big battle at gettysburg. So what to do about that . That became easy to deal with. James longstreet was made the scapegoat for lees losing gettysburg. And one reason for that is because he had the gall, longstreet had the gall to actually take a position in the Grant Administration as a collector of tariffs in the in new orleans. So he went over to the republican side and that was just death to aply career in the south and made him a sitting target to become the scapegoat of gettysburg. Also, of course, lee ultimately surrendered to grant and so had you an issue if lees so great, why did he lose to grant. So that myth goes that grant won only by being a butcher. Grant was a butcher and that he only won by brute force. And finally, sort of the newest spin on the myth of the lost cause is that union forces only won by engaging in total war, total war. Thats a phrase thats really, i think, being bandied about fairly loosely these days and we will take a brief look at that. Okay. We will start out with what was the nature of slavery in 1861. I dont really think we need to to deal very long with the issue of was slavery beneficial to lightweights and blacks. Certainly certain whites benefited from it, and keep in mind please, when i say slavery tonight in shorthand, i will be referring to slavery white supremacy. And one reason i do that is because if you were in the south and even if you did not personally or somebody in your family did not personally own a slave, you were still the social beshry of the existence of slavery and that can simply be explained by saying no matter how poor a dirt farmer you were and how little you owned, you always knew that in your society, there were 4 Million People who were interior to you as a matter of low and of social practice. So that said, lets look at slavery itself. The reason i said we dont need to spend much time is, beak we have a long history of rapes and murders of slaves. We have the beatings. We have the scars on the back. We have massive movements of slaves from the Northern Tier after Southern States from maryland and virginia primarily down to the deep south. The best estimate is that about 1 million slaves were sold out of the northern south of the border states or the northern Southern States into the deep south. About 1 million slaves. And if you take that million and adjust and then actually increase for the number of transactions that did not involve such Long Distance transfers, i think it is a fair estimate that probably about a million slaves over the 200 plus years of slavery were separated from their families. In other words, children taken from parents, wives taken everyone husbands, et cetera. There was no thought really given to trying to keep the Families Together except in rare instances. Im saying its a very common practice to split the families. I put that in quotes because you have to keep in mind that part of the devastating effect of slavery was that slave marriages were not recognized. Slaves had first names. They didnt have last names. Again, marriage now the recognized. And children were the property of the mothers owner and as far as the owner was concerned, it was his economic decision as to what to do with those slaves, whether to hold them, whether to sell them, et cetera. So there was a devastating impact on the africanamerican family because they were really legally kept from forming family groups as we know them. Okay. I dont think i need to say too much more about justifying slavery. Except just to remind you that one reason this comes up is because of approaches to the south. Ill call it the mint julep approach as reflected in the movie and novel gone with the wind. So the just take a look at things with a with a big shaker full of salt. Okay. Now, as i said, there was something that seems to me a little bit inconsistent. In the myth which is that despite this wonderful benevolent institution, it was going to come to an end within a reasonable period of time. Well define loosely maybe as before 100 because it was no longer really beneficial economically to the owners and the thrown argument is made is because then it can be argued the civil war was unnecessary. Civil war was unnecessary. Northerners didnt have to fight the war because slavery was going to disappear anyway. If you look at the records, you will see that the value of slaves throughout the states that became the confederacy were on the rise in 1860. They had reached the highest point they had ever reached. Cotton sales were way up. The value you have cottoncontinued to increase but also keep in mind that slaves were not only used to raise cotton, slaves were used for tobacco, for rice, indigo. They were used for a lot of crops and farm production. Also by this time, a lot of owners had recognized that some slaves despite the fact that they were put down as a group, some slaves had real talents as artisans, black smiths, carpenters, et cetera. So they were being leased out, and in addition, as the south was starting to get industrialized in the very early stages, slaves were being used in industrial arenas. For example, in richmond, virginia, the tobacco plants and youre talking about creating cigars or cigarettes, slaves were almost the exclusive labor to run all of the tobacco factories and even more interesting, in richmond you had the treadinger iron works in the civil war making virtually all the confederate artillery and armory, they were the iron works which was the iron works and that was almost exclusively manned by black slaves. So the southerners were beginning to figure out from an economic perspective, there are a lot of other usees to which we can put slaves and part of the argument that slavery was going go away is also that the south had run out of land that could be developed for agriculture. I think the simple rebuttal to that is between 1865 and 1925, the amount of land dedicated to agriculture in the south tripled, it tripled. More recent studies really showed that the land was there to be developed for agriculture and its just that economically it wasnt being done at the time and also, in terms of slavery disappearing, the estimate of the southerners themselves in their secession resolutions was that they were defend ag institution which had assets in slaves from 4 to 6 billion and that was in the dollars of those days. That would be hundreds of billions of dollars now. In fact, if you categorized assets in the United States, that was the biggest single category of the most valuable single category of assets in the United States was the value of slaves. So i personally see no indication that slavery was to about go away. Now we get to the 64,000 question. And that is, what caused secession and what caused the formation of the confederacy. I say that once you had a number of states seceding is starting with 7 and going to 11, seven deep south states seceded between lincolns election and his inauguration in 1861. The seven deep south states seceded and they immediately began seizing all the union forts, armories, et cetera, weapons scattered throughout the south. The only ones that escaped seizure were fort pickens in pensacola and fort sumpter at charleston. Other than that, the south was already seizing these weapons and they were the states were buying weapons in europe. They were preparing for war and ultimately, the decision was made personally by Jefferson Davis authorizing beauregard to bombard ft. Sump tir to bomb the war. Given the reasons for the south seceding and forming the confederacy it should not be a surprise that once those things were in place there was going to be a war. As well see, there were a lot of people trying to avoid a war by dealing with the issue of slavery. Okay. The first thing i want to do is look at contemporary evidence, 1860, 1861. I think thats the only or the most valid way to determine the cause of secession and the formation of the confederacy. Which is relevant today. A lot of people display or wave the confederate battle flag and my question is basically when theyre doing that what does that flag stand for . Seems to me, thats the confederate flag, stands for the confederacy. What did the confederacy stand for and we as a society ought to look into that issue and draw our own conclusions about why the confederacy. Why the confederacy . Now, to me, anything that occurred, anything that is said after about the middle of 1864 when it was pretty clear the south was going down the tubes. Anything from that date to the present is second guessing. Its looking back and its imposing ones own personal views on the situation and god forbid i would impose my personal views on any of this, but my point is that im trying to focus on what actually happened in 1860 and 61 and look at that contemporaneous evidence. I think that is our most valid evidence of why there was a confederacy. I think you have a handout which has this on it. Okay. There are a couple of points i want to make from these statistics which i put together from a couple of different sources. The first thing is that only slave states seceded from the union. There are about 16 free states, 15 slave states. The only states that ever seceded were all slave states. That might tell you something, that there were more than just states rights at issue. Now, among the group of slave states and among the 15 there are three categories. The first category are the early seceders. The seven states that went out before lincoln was president and then you have four more who went out after fort sumpter, did not want to take up arms against their fellow Southern States and had a great deal of interest in preserving slavery, as well. And then you had four other slave states. Specifically delaware, maryland, kentucky and missouri which were known as the border states and those slave states never seceded so lets look at there data and see if theres a correlation between what ill just summarize initially as the blackness of a state and how likely it was to secede and when it was likely to secede. So the big numbers up here are oops. In the first group in the first group of seven that went out early, 47 of the population were slaves. 47 of the total population was slaves and heres a number that may shock some of you. 37 of the families in these states owned slaves. Now i say it may shock you because the promulgators of the lost cause like to say things like, did you know that only 1 of americans owned slaves in 1860 so slavery could not have been a cause of the war. Well, that, of course, includes everybody north and south and man, women, and children. So lets just focus on certain states and then not look at individuals because under that well, and let me move on. Theres another related rationale which is that you know that only about 5 of southerners owned slaves. 5 of southerners owned slaves. So therefore the war could not have been about slavery and what that does is it says if you have a family and you have a father who owns x number of slaves and hes married to his wife and hes got eight kids, thats really ten people who benefit from having one or more slaves in the family. And so i think it is rational to look at how many families directly own slaves. And this doesnt even get us into what goes beyond that which is the whole social structure and how well call lower class whites felt about having 4 Million People by law subservient to them. But lets look at this now. And 37 of the families in the first seceding states owned slaves. Now, the second batch is the ones after ft. Sumpter, we had 39 . 29 of the population was slaves and 29 of the families owned slaves. And then finally in the four border states on the upper right here, the last ones on your handout only 14 of the population consisted of slaves and only 16 of the families owned slaves. So just on a demographic basis it appears to me that there is a significant relationship between slave population and family ownership of slaves and the willingness to leave the union and the earlier the better in cases where the numbers were higher. Okay. Enough about that. The best evidence. The best evidence of why there was a confederacy is as you would expect, in the words of the seceders themselves, in the words of the seceders themselves and that is mind boggling because you can study the documents issued by the states about why they seceded, and you dont find mention of the word tariff which is a red herring thats often thrown out there. And actually, you dont see states rights either. What you see is a long list of slaveryrelated issues and now the ive got some of these here, i think. We will just take a look at two of them. Let me first back off and say that of the seven first seceding states, six of them left clear statements about why they were seceding. Actual documents in their secession resolutions or companion documents saying heres why we did this. And only louisiana was silent, but we have other ways of looking at louisiana, as well. Right now were just exloring heres what people said about why they were seceding and why they were forming a confederacy. First of all, the first one out, of course, South Carolina, and so they issued a declaration of the immediate causes for seceding from the union and northern states and government failure to return slaves in accordance with the constitution and federal law. Quote, but an increasing hostility on the part of the nonslave Holding States to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations and the laws of the general government have ceased to effect the objects of the constitution. South carolina complained northern stateses had condemned slavery as sinful. Northerners had elected as president a man who had said government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free. They criticized the fact some northern states had the audacity to allow free blacks to vote. So my conclusion is far from respecting other states rights to pass liberty laws, for example or extend certain freedoms or rights to africanamericans, south carolinians were opposed to these states being able to choose for themselves what they would do or not do, but in addition we have them complaining that the federal government is not doing enough. The federal government is not, in their view, aggressively enforcing the fugitive slave provisions of the constitution and the federal law. You should be aware that believe it or not, the u. S. Constitution as originally adopted had a specific provision that required runaway slaves to be returned back to the states from which they had fled. This is not just a matter of fer law, and then about 1792, congress put that in law and as you well know in 1850, that statute was strengthened quite a bit. But this is typical. The southern complaint and fugitive slavery is a big, big source of aggravation and complaint by the Southern States. It is a complaint that the federal government isnt doing enough. It doesnt sound like theyre really concerned primarily with states rights, visavis the federal government and what they want the federal government to do what they want the federal government to do which is to preserve slavery. Now, mississippi was right in there behind South Carolina. And their governor urged the convening of a secession convention. And he said, the existence or the abolition of african slavery in the Southern States is now up for a final settlement. The legislature called for a cessation convention and they had a long list of grievances. So this is now the Mississippi Legislature convening a secession convention. They complained that the north had defied the constitutions fugitive slave provision, interfered with slavery, ensized slaves to three andage state the against slavery, and south to exclude slavery from the territories and opposed the admission of more slave states. Moreover, abolitionists sought to amend the constitution to prohibit slavery and to punish slave holders. They had encouraged john browns raid and had elected a president and Vice President who were hostile to the south and its system of labor and so the legislature left no doubt why they were convening a cessation convention. And the convention basically used the same kind of language and obviously seceded very quickly. The convention said in their declaration of the causes of secession, they said this. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world and a blow at slavery is a blow at civilization and commerce. That blow has long been aimed at the institution and was an at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left to us, but submission to the mandates of abolition or a disillusion of the union whose principles had been sub verred to work out our ruin. Thats not some summarily me. Thats verbatim what the Mississippi Secession Convention said. They had a long list of grievances, 16 slavery related grievances. The point being in all these documents in which the states explained why they were seceding and why they were forming a confederacy was one word that runs through it all, and that word is slavery. Slavery, slavery, slavery, and really, no other reasons given and most of these documents are readily available and you can google them and find them in the official records of the civil war, a civil war encyclopedia called hideler and hideler. These are around, if you want to checkup on me, be my guest because reading these things will be an eyeopening experience. Okay. Simultaneous with seccession, you had other things that were occurring which tells us a lot about why there was secession. First of all, there were settlement efforts being made to try to avoid war. The country was not stupid. The whole election of 1860, the fourway president ial election in which lincoln emerged the winner was all about one issue. That issue was extension of slavery into the territories or not with the candidates having different positions on that issue, but it was that issue which people were voting on almost exclusively. That was the issue. So when lincoln comes in and gets elected on the basis of no slavery into the territories, that sets off fire bells in the south and they are very, very concerned about that issue. As i said, people were not dumb, and there was a great realization that all of this could lead to war and so there were certain leaders in the federal government and in some of the states who wanted to try to avoid war. And so if we take a little look at what kinds of compromises they wanted to work out to avoid war, we get real good contemporaneous insight as to what was in peoples minds and what was thought to be the cause of secession and if we could deal with certain issues, how could we avoid a civil war. Well, the First Major Development was in december of 1860 and january 1861 when the senate and the house put together a massive committee, 33 members and one from each state and they came up with proposed constitutional amendments and these general called the john crittenton amends after john crittenton from kentucky who was the leader in this cop pro mize effort. Obviously, he comes from a stavely state, but that state never did secede. So crittenton was making a goodfaith effort to tri to avoid war, as were most of the other people who put this package together. But the key point is, what was the focus of the package . What were the compromises . What were the constitutional amendments that were recommended in the same months when South Carolina seceded and then other states started to follow suit. Well, here are what the crittendon amendments would have done to the constitution. Extend the missouri compromise slave free line to the pacific ocean, recognize and protect slavery in existing slave states and all present and future territories and then prohibit congress from interfering with the interstate trade from abolishing slavery in d. C. Unless concern conditions were met, freeing slaves brought to d. C. Congressmen showed up with their own slaves, they didnt want them to become free by virtue of showing up in the district, prohibiting or interfering in interstate transport of slaves. These were things that congress would be prohibited from the constitution from doing. And then here is the beauty and here is my favorite. Congress would be prohibited from passing any future constitutional amendments allowing any of the above or authorizing congressional and interference or abolishment of slavery. Okay. So in other words, we not only are going to address the variety of slave issues all in accordance with the wishes of the seceding states, but we also want to say in the constitution, and by the way, this can never be changed. This can never be changed. For our purposes, the point again is that every one of these points dealt with slavery. Theyre all addressing slavery issues. Theres nothing in here about tariffs and theres nothing in here about states rights. It is about slavery. Then, and by the way, the crittendon amendments went nowhere. They were considered in congress. Lincoln sent word to the Republican Leadership which now controlled the congress especially since southern democrats were bailing out which made it easier. Lincoln sent the word to Republican Party leaders that they were not to go along with any amendments along these lines because doing so would be totally inconsistent with why the Republican Party was formed in 1854 with the principles the Republican Party stood for and with the Election Results of 1860 when the plurality of americans voted not to extend slavery into the territories by supporting the republicans. So lincoln thought this would be a total sellout of everything that he and his party stood for so he passed the word no and so that guaranteed that these amendments were going nowhere, but again, for our purposes and the important thing to note is that major effort made to avoid war by addressing what issues . Slavery issues. Okay. Continuing that trend, the next month in february 1862 or 1861, there was a major peace conference in washington, d. C. And fortuitously, there is a brand new book out on that called the peace that is almost was, by mark tooley, tooley, and its an excellent book. I think there is a disconnect between the publishers title and the contents of the book which i have experienced myself, because i think the title is overly optimistic, the peace that almost was, because it wasnt going to happen. It wasnt going to happen. And what happened is that seven states were already out so the remaining slave states, the eight Southern States that had not seceded pretty much came, they all came and most of the northern states came to this monthlong conference in washington, d. C. And at that conference, lo and behold, what did they do . They developed proposed constitutional amendments to avoid war. That was what they were all about. So what did this set of constitutional amendments say . It said reinstitute the missouri compromise boundaries between free and save certificates. Require a majority of slave state senators to approve new territories. Prohibit congress from interfering with existing slavery, affirming the fugitive slave laws, fan the importation of slaves and unanimous approval is my favorite on this collection, require unanimous approval by the states to revoke any of these constitutional amendments. So in other words, these are going to be locked in forever, as well. So obviously, one month after thecritten don amendments were shot down, the peace conference recommendations were also going nowhere at all. In fact, its kind of ironic, expresident john tyler of virginia which had not yet seceded chaired the conference, expresident , big name, and so he was a big pusher to try to get pro slavery constitutional amendments as part of their agenda. He got what he wanted, and he stated on the final day of the conference that it was now his obligation to present these to congress to try to see about getting them passed. So he basically sent them pro forma to the senate and never sent them to the house and the next day he showed up in richmond as a member of the virginia cessation convention and attacked all of the proposals as ridiculous, but again, those are all very interesting, but again, the point is trying to avoid war. This group came up with and these are political leads are now from the states, not from congress, political leaders from the states were virtually identical to the crittendon ones and what they shared in common was they all dealt with slavery. We now also can take a look at southern leaders statements early in the war or even before the war as to what this was all about. As i said before, davis had made his statement in his farewell address to congress when he went home, and his Vice President , Alexander Stevens of georgia, gave us a real helping hand in trying to understand what was going on. He delivered in savannah, georgia in, about february of 1861, an address which is called is the cornerstone address, and its called the cornerstone address because in his talk, stevens said confederacy is sla. Quite frankly, i had known that before. But when i pulled this entire speech out and read it through and its widely available too, i was astounded to the extent that stevens went into detail. And what he did was he said, you know, the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and those other guys, made a very serious mistake. Because he said all men are created equal. Well, we know that in the confederacy, confederate stands fort principle that all white men created equal and black men are here to serve us. He was very specific about this. Now, immediately after the civil war, he started the usual backing down and his backdown excuse was that he was m misquoted. One of the longest misquotes in world history. And the problem for him is not only did the savannah paper carry the story about the speech in savannah, the atlanta papers carried the same story about the speech he gave in atlanta in which he made the same speech. So now we have stevens bailing out. I told you before that davis bailed out later and said there would have been a war even if nobody owned any slaves at all. Thats why i say if were really looking at why the confederacy we have to go back to the beginning and look at it contemporaneously and forget about every elses rationales later. And i dont care what side the rationale was on. Thats nice to know, but its pretty much irrelevant. Lets go back to primary, original evidence. Okay. The confederacys constitution adopted at the same time. Im thinking very early april 1861, six states. And then texas came in. So they started doing this in february. And then they adopted a preliminary one and then a final one. Okay. If you look at the confederate constitution you would think that would tl you something about why is there a confederacy . And what the confederate leaders did is copy the constitution except built in a lot of extra protections for slavery and pretty much said you cant tamper with those down the road. But perhaps because im a lawyer i focused on one provision in the confederate constitution which i think tells us a lot. And that is that theres a supremacy clause in the federal in the confederate constitution. Very similar to the federal one, to the u. S. Constitution. Supremacy clause says the supreme law in the confederacy is this constitution, confederate treaties, confederate law. And it says state judges are bound by that supreme law regardless of what state law says. Hmm. Okay. It sounds like the Southern States had switched masters. And not that each state was going to stand alone and be its own government. But they were basically looking for a more compatible and understanding superior government and not doing it on state right. That one clause basically throws state rights out the window and puts the power in the confederacy just as the supremacy clause of the u. S. Constitution in general puts the power in the United States government when push comes to shove and theres any conflict over the issues. Okay. A lot of the rest of this is is is already outlined, so im not going to worry about exactly whats on the board at any given time. Okay. Especially since a quarter of you cant see it anyway. Sticking to the outline, the motivation of the four leaders in the seceding states is pretty much documented as being slavery related. The leaders talked about it. She session conventions talked about it. It is almost like a replay of the earlier seceding states. It reached a crisis stage because they were seceding in time of warfare. And a lot of them did not want to take up arms against their sister states and they wanted to defend slavery. In fact, four border states almost went too. And that was one of lincolns concerns. I have given you a lot of arguments contemporaneous about what the confederacy was about. Now i want to go beyond that and look at the confederate governments behavior during the civil war, which would shed additional light on their purpose. What i submit to you as their personal view is the behavior of the confederacy in several key areas demonstrates that the confederate leaders were more concerned about preserving slavery than they were, unbelievable, than in winning the war. And in winning the war, preserving their independence. And it was all about slavery. What are the kinds of things im talk building . Well, the first is a controversial area. The rejection of using slaves at soldiers. You might say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Ive heard that there were some slaves fighting for the south. I mean, look just in 2010 the commonwealth of virginia wellknown for the accuracy of its School Textbooks published a book that says 2,000 blacks were under the command of stonewell jackson. So the person who had come up with this to detect said, oh, that was on the internet. They could have is at least said it was wikipedia. It was on the internet. So that was the source of that. And i will be the first to admit that there were probably several thousand blacks who went with their masters to war because the masters werent used to pressing their clothes, doing their laundry, and all of those wonderful Little Things that slaves could do. So a lot of officers in the confederacy took one slave with them to the battle field. And there certainly would have been instances where the master gets killed or wounded, and the slave picks up a gun and fires it. Or takes care of the master. Gets the mastethe phafmasters. And in addition there is no doubt tens of thousands of slaves were used as slaves to build fortifications and mundane things that do not include actually engaging in combat. Now, another favorite example of those who say that slaves or blacks at least participated on behalf of the confederacy is the louisiana guards. That was a unit of mixed race blended. They had mixed blood. So they were characterized as black even though they were very mixed race. And they signed up at the beginning of the war. They said, okay, we have a Company Called the louisiana guards and we want to fight with our neighbors. It may have been to preserve their status in society. We dont know. It probably differed mantoman. Here you have 2,000 plaques lining themselves up with the confederacy. What happened to them . What happened to them is they were never provided with arms by either the federal government for state government. By early 1862, the Louisiana Legislature figured out this really didnt look too good. So they changed the law and said to be in the louisiana militia, you have to be all white. So that example turns out to turn back on itself and to demonstrate once again the south had a great deal of reluctance to use black soldiers. Now, lets get to whats really pretty clear. And that is that until five weeks before appomattox they never officially allowed the use of slaves. That tells us something right there this was an issue raised periodically throughout the war. And that until march of 1865, this practice was not authorized. Even then it had strings on it. So what that tells us is 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864 and more than two months into 1865 the Confederate Congress did not authorize slaves to be used in the confederate army. January 2nd, 1864, irishborn patrick claiborne, buy into all the social mores of the south. Patrick claiborne, one of the best, maybe the best confederate generals saw what was going on concerning manpower. The confederacy started the war out numbered three and a half to one of white men of fighting age. Three and a half to one they were out numbered. So they had a desperate need for manpower. Despite that they had not moved towards their slaves. This was chattanooga and many other bloodbaths. The confederacy was really down to the bottom. They were now not only recruiting but drafting boys and men from age 15 to 45. And still didnt have enough manpower. So he issued a well thought out issue paper on the subject in which he said we have been decimated. President davis has done all he could to drum up voluntarily or involuntarily support from the whites all over the south. We have gone out and dragged people kicking and screaming out of the appalachians to fight for the confederacy. But we still dont have nearly enough. And we are going to be beaten unless we find a way to address the manpower issue. He recommended that slaves be utilized as confederate soldiers. And in historical use of slaves in warfare, slaves would at the end of the war, together with their families, be free. So this is a lot to swallow for a lot of people. This was basically saying use blacks as confederate soldiers and, by the way, you should emancipate a large number of them. He got 13 of his own generals to sign off on it. They thought it was a good idea. At least they werent going to disagree with the boss. So they presented it to joseph johnston, the commander in the tennessee georgia area at the time. This was before the Atlanta Campaign started, early 64. He present this proposal and argued for it. Johnston called a germ meeting in response to response from claiborne. So johnston had all of his other division commanders, deputy commanders, and just a whole slew of military leaders in the western theater attending this meeting. And johnston remained silence after the presentation was made. And one person spoke up in support of claibornes proposal, and that was his former law partner out of arkansas, general hinman. Hinman himself had written an anonymous letter to a newspaper a month or two before pushing for the same idea. But other than that, everybody else opposed it. Not only that, but they violently opposed it. They said, among other things, and this came up again and again on the question of using plaques at soldiers. They said, look, we fought this war. We are fighting this war over the issue of slavery. Our contention is that slaves are not capable of being soldiers. If we admit they are soldiers or if they are successful at being soldiers, we undermine the whole argument that supports the rationale for slavery. So we cannot do this. Johnston sat on the proposal. Claiborne had wanted him to send it to richmond. One of the other generals at the meeting who violently opposed it snuck a couple to president davis, directly to president davis. And davis saw and exploded. So davis, along with his secretary of war, john seden is and his chief military adviser Braxton Bragg who had been promoted to daviss military adviser, the three of them started using words like treason, take names, keep a list, watch these men. And davis finally had the is secretary of war send the word back to johnston, destroy all copies of the proposal and no one shall ever discuss this again. And he almost succeeded in destroying the records because the only copy that ever appeared was found 20 years later when confederate records were being assembled to produce the official records of the war of rebellion. So thats in the official records if you choose to read claibornes very thoughtful and thoughtprovoking proposal which at that time got nowhere. One clear effect it had was it stop his Career Advancement because over the next 10 months before he was killed in general hoods suicidal attack at franklin, tennessee in november of that year, there were three times that core commander positions became open in that army, the army of tennessee. And that meant also there were three possibilities to be promoted from two stars to three stars. Claiborne got nothing even though he has a brilliant record in the war. So his idea was rejected. Now, ironically, about the same time that he was killed, all of a sudden Jefferson Davis and robert e. Lee come around. Because theyre at the top of the pyramid. They is see whats going on on a nationwide basis. 1863 was bad. But 1864 is even worse from a confederate manpower perspective because of the tremendous losses the confederacy suffered in the grant overland, although they suffered knnumerically less tha grant did. And at the same time sherman had a very Successful Campaign in georgia and by this time had captured atlanta, georgia. So confederates continued to take heavy casualties. Their manpower situation was now something that could not be ignored. So davis and lee then began an effort to convince the Confederate Congress that they should authorize the use of black soldiers. Specifically free slaves and use them as soldiers and then emancipate them and maybe their families as well. So november, december of 1864, and then on to early 1865, they continued to make this push. But you want evidence about what the confederacy was all about, what you have to do is look at the politician statements, the congressman statements, the senator statements, the public statements and the press, the southern press. And, again, we have this rejection of a concept because its inconsistent with what we are fighting for. And if we did this, it would just undercut our whole rationale for slavery. So because of the strong opposition, the proposal got nowhere until finally about march the 8th or 9th of 1865, one month before appomattox, the Confederate Senate by 98 and the house by a very narrow vote finally approved using some black slaves as soldiers in the confederate army. But there were a couple catches. There were at least three catches. One was the master of the slave had to agree, the state from which the slave came had to agree. And number three, there was no emancipation promised as part of the deal. So that is what passed. That is what passed. And basically it became something of a fiasco. There were about 200 black men out of hospitals organized into two companies. And they were paraded and drilled in richmond. In fact, they performed the manual at arms. They werent given any weapons but they performed the manual at arms. They never played any role or fighting in the waning days as richmond fell and appomattox well shortly after. In order to win the war, the confederacy consistently rejected that approach until the last desperate hour. And, by the way, the defenders of the lost cause who always throw this out and say, well, you know the Confederate Congress authorized the use of slaves. Yeah, they did. They did. One month before the war was over. And they did it in such a manner that nothing ever came of it. Now, other things the confederacy did during the civil war which gave us you an indication how important slavery was prisoner exchange. So they benefit greatly the first half of the war because the north engaged with them in prisoner of war exchanges. They were essentially one for one. You might have some refined rules like one colonel equals 10 privates and that kind of thing. But you essentially had one for one tradeoffs between the confederacy and the union for the first half of the war. Ah. But then along comes the emancipation proclamation in 1863. So what happened there is black soldiers who were on the losing side were off shot down as they tried to surrender. And if they were lucky enough to survive, they were treated as slaves, as property, as assets and not as prisoners of war. In the south, specifically davis and lee refused to exchange them. So grant and lincoln said, well, thats too bad then because were going to stop prisoner of war exchanges. So the exchanges were stopped until almost the end of the war until davis and lee changed their view. But for a critical year and a half of the war when the south needed every man it could get, they refused to trade prisoners with the north. Well, they refused to trade blacks. And the north reciprocated by not trading at all. Now, you would have to say that its pretty clear that lincoln and grant werent acting solely out of consideration for the captured blacks. Lets be honest. They also knew that the fallout would be that the confederacy was no longer benefiting from these prisoner of war exchanges. But i think as a classic example of slavery driving the issue and even though the actions taken on slavery were inconsistent with what the confederates needed to win the war. And the final area i point to is international diplomacy. Suffice it to say that the south was very reluctant to guarantee england in particular and also france and the pope that they would end slavery is and make sure the International Slave trade was completely stopped. And if you want some real good insight into that, there is a book that came out probably two years ago called our man in charleston by christopher dickey. And the British Consul was there from 1854 to 1864. Obviously he was a white man. Obviously being pro slavery, et cetera. So they were way too frank for them for their own good. So he kept feeding all of this information to britain and made clear during the civil war itself, dont trust them. They are not going to back off of slavery and obviously britain was not going to intervene on the side of a statement that was actively promoting slavery. So once again they acted at their pearl. Okay. I have one other book to mention to you. That triggered one other issue. So if i may retreat for just a second and say that one other piece of evidence about this is contemporaneous evidence of why she session occurred. As the first seven states went out, five of those states appointed 51 delegates to go to other slave states. Nowhere other than slave states, to try to convince them to leave the union and joint confederacy. And i dont need to tell you what the arguments were. They were all the same arguments i told you about all night. But i do want to tell you if you want to look into that there is a small book a few years old called apostles of this union very clever title by charles dew. And it talks about these missionaries for the southern cause of the Southern States and every argument they made was slavery related. That takes care of the three books that i want to make sure that i mentioned. Okay. Moving on. Did the south have a chance to win the war . The miss says no, the south never had a chance to win the civil war. I would beg to differ. They were pretty much unanimous in thinking they would win. There was a great precedent called the American Revolution in which the outgunned gunned less powerful party won. The colonists ended up doing things very intelligently. He avoided major conflicts and acted very defensively. And frustrated the british and ultimately the British Population gave up on the war. They got the european assistance that the confederacy did not get. At that early stage of the war, you had the london times military correspondent. You had southern leaders almost unanimously. Because of course one confederate soldier was the equivalent of three northern soldiers. So there was great belief that the confederacy would win the war. Now, there are very sound reasons for thinking that was likely to happen. Because after the second batch of Southern States seceded you had 11 states forming this massive land area about twothirds of the size of western europe which had to be conquered by the north. All the south needed was a tie or stalemate. But the north needed an affirmative victory. And the south, however, ended up not being satisfied with a tie or stalemate. Whether it didnt seem dramatic enough, whether lees personal convictions about what was the right thing to do, the south, under lee in particular, went on the attack, went on the aggressive, strategically and tactically. We have the Gettysburg Campaign into the north again and again. Ill talk about it through these when i talk about lee in a few minutes. But the south did not play its cards well at all. There were all kinds of reasons to stay strategically and tactically. And it did not do so. And theres no reason to believe south could not have won the war military on that basis alone. Huge area. Difficult to conquer. Especially with the Weapons Development that had occurred between the mexican war and the civil war. So i was saying that the south could militarily have won the war. In addition, theres a whole separate line of thought that ive developed over time, which i think has some validity to it. And that is south had an excellent chance of winning the war politically. And this is not rationale. In 1863 and 1864, the correspondents, the diaries of confederate leaders indicate they were looking forward to the election of 1864. They recognized how important that election was. Because Abraham Lincoln was the steel backbone of the civil war. The election brought it about by bringing the slavery issue to the floor. And lincoln was the steel backbone of the press and the congress. But lincoln was solid. Confederates realized this. They were looking forward to this and said if we can defeat lincoln in 1864, well get a lot of what we want. s it turned out because gorgeous mcclellan was running against him. He wanted nothing to do with ending slavery whatsoever. And george was also willing to have some kind of a truce, pause, ceasefire to talk things over. Well, i think once that happened, thats pretty much the end of it. So how could the election have gone in favor of mcclellan . The first thing is that superficially weve always heard the election of 1864 was a landslide. 55 to 45 . And electoral votes were 21221. Sounds like mcclellan had no prayer. There were 4 million voters. And if less than 1 , 29,000 had changed their votes, mcclellan wins by one electoral vote is. E were a lot of close states. It would not have taken much. Less than 1 votership would have given the election to mcclellan. Which i found astounding in light of the fact that in the 10 weeks leading up to the election, all kinds of military developments had gone in favor of the union. You had the fall of mobile harbor. You had the fall of atlanta. You had the cleaning out of the Shenandoah Valley. So there should have been no reason to give up on the war. No reason to do anything other than support lincoln and lets bring this thing to an end based on what positive developments were going on. But despite all of that, as i said, the election was very, very close. A lot closer than is is commonly understood. So thats enough of my opinions about it was not at all inevitable that the north would win or the south would lose. You had to examine very deeply the possibilities of southern victory. And part of this ties into robert e. Lee. Now we will move into lee. Lee was, according to the legend, one of the greatest generals who ever lived. He was made the mini god of the myth of the lost cause. Several years ago my late fatherinlaw and i, after reading a whole slew of books on the civil war, came to the conclusion that each one of these authors had something negative to say about lee but always apologized for it. Now, it was uncharacteristically lee did that. Out of character, lee did this other thing. And the authors were not all pointing to the same thing. They were point to go ava right of issues. So that is what i said to my fatherinlaw, you know, im going to write a book on how robert e. Lee lost the civil war. That was my book number one. I lived in virginia at the time. I now live in pennsylvania. Anyway, i have criticisms of lees generalship. First of all, lee was ava van first and confederate second. No big surprise there. Before the civil war, a lot of people identified themselves with their states. No one ever said the United States is. They said the United States are. In the case of virginians and lee in particular, he was really into almost a religious faith in the state. Wherever virginia went, he was going to go. When he declined command of all federal armys at the beginning of the war, he said i will lift my sword only in defense of not the confederacy, the old dominion. And so from the beginning he was very open, aboveboard. And people realized hes invested in virginia and maybe not much else. Thats the way it played out. My favorite example is that 1862, lee, without any approval from anyone, or decided to cross the potomac and invade pennsylvania. Now, he got bogged down in maryland in the maryland campaign. And when he wrote to davis he said, by the way, we are crossing into the territory. Its a long shot but i think it is worth it. Gave him some political advice. Lee said in the letter to davis, by the way, since i am leaving richmond uncovered by taking his whole army into enemy territory, said i recommend that you bring Braxton Bragg from tennessee to protect richmond. At the time Braxton Bragg in east tennessee was outnumbered 31 by union opponents. And so which leads me to conclude, and not just that, but i will generally conclude that lee either did not know or did not care what was going on tpheuz theater outside his own. When reinforcements went elsewhere is when long street went down to chick mawing ga. During the three weeks, Union Soldiers captured knoxville, tennessee, blocking the easy and simple route to get down to the chattanooga area. And that forced long street, who started three weeks late, to stake an eight to tenday trip, using eight to ten railroads to get to the chick phau ga battle field. Long street showed up in the middle of a twoday battle, had roughly one half of his troops, had none of his artillery, none of his horses and mules. He went in with one armed tied behind his back. Now, due to some federal incompetence and good luck for the con fed rats long street was in a strong position to pretty much destroy rose krapbtss arm. But George Thomas became known as the rock of chick phau ga by defending the high ground, snodgrass hills, it has a couple names for the whole afternoon and into the evening before he made an orderly retreat to address the rest of rose krapbtss army back in chattanooga. He could have had his committee force, including all of his artillery so far as trying to blast thomas off the high ground at chick phau ga. Lee was ordered by davis. Very unusual. He was ordered by davis to send long street down. Two days after long street started moving, lee wrote to davis and said, among many other things, he said, ive got an idea about long street. After he gets down there and he fights the major battle that is obviously in the offing, what should be done with long street, he should be moved from the chattanooga area up to northeastern tennessee to knoxville where he can chase out the union forces that are there and then, this is lee, he can come quickly back to my army. The only army that really counted, the army in northern virginia. And this may sound like a almost like a joke, a funny little proposal, but this had fatal consequences. Because what happened after the battle of cicma ga, the confederates on scene got into a huge finger pointing contest with basically bragg pointing the finger at all subordinates and all of them pointing the finger at bragg as to who let rose krapbtss army escape. Why are they esconced back in cicma ga. He settled it in typical fashion in which davis, you have to recall, either loved you or hated you. And bragg was one of his buddies. So in what must have been one of the most intriguing conferences of the war, bragg subordinates sat there and all recommended bragg be removed from command. Subordinates telling the president to remove this commander. And what happened . Davis basically sustained bragg in his position and removed most of the subordinates. Now, one little problem was that long street was sort of a subordinate on loan. And there is little doubt that long street went out to the theater with the idea that bragg screws up, maybe i can get that command and have my own independent command and not just be working for bobby lee. And so after cicma ga, long street realized, well, there goes that plan. And then on the other hand, bragg knew what long street had tried to do, that he had stirred up this dissent among the subordinates. And it didnt need much stirring up. But long street did stir it up. So davis then thinks, hmm, you know, i had this wonderful suggestion about robert e. Lee about what to do. And that is to send long street off to knoxville and lee bragg with the rest of his army in the chattanooga area. So he suggests that both bragg and long street. For separate reasons, they both agreed. So long street is sent away with 15,000 troops up to knoxville. This is when the confederates semi encircle chattanooga. And the union realized the critical importance of chattanooga as the gateway to atlanta and also a defensive area of protecting against the confederate invasion into the heart of the northern midland, into the midwest. So the union at the same time, number one, they brought in grant and said we want you to take care of this. We want you to save the army thats trapped there. Get rid of the confederates who are in that area. And they sent around two corps. 20,000 went by rail from the virginia theater, down west to alabama and then into chattanooga. In addition, sherman was marched from the Mississippi Valley across the length of tennessee to get in the fray as well. So what happens on a numbers basis is that while the union is building its forces in chattanooga to 75,000 to 80,000 troops, lees wonderful suggestion has resulted in the confederates going from 50,000 to 35,000. So confederates were spread thin. When you had the miracle break through at missionary ridge, confederates had no reserve. Their line starts being rolled up from the middle, and the entire army flees back into georgia starting the campaign for the next year. So this is a good example of the kinds of impacts that lee had on other theaters other than the virginia theater. So thats number one. Virginia first and a confederate second. The other major problem with lee is is given everything, given all the relevant circumstances, he was way, way too aggressive, way too offensive. He fought as though he was a Union General with unlimited resources and the strategic necessity to go on the attack. My theory is that the south only needed to tie or stalemate. They needed simply to make it very difficult for the union to capture southern armies, to capture southern territory, and to retell the union attacks of at least making it so bloody that the northern morale would decline, northern people would give up on the war. Believe me, that came very close to happening in the middle of 1864. But instead of doing that, lee, for whatever reasons, went on the strategic conferencive, the Gettysburg Campaign and took about 75,000 casualties. In addition, within virginia alone, tactically, seven days battle, the first major battle i believe too command of his army was a one week series of attacks by lee on mcclellans army. And lee did achieve a strategic success by driving mcclellan away from richmond. In fact, he started fleeing the instant lee started attacking. Lee had achieved the strategic goal of getting mcclellans army in retreat away from richmond at the end of one day. By the end of two days, lee knew from reports by stewart this was the case. But he kept attacking for the rest of the week. So in that campaign, lee took 20,000 casualties to mcclellans 16,000. And mcclellans casualties were soft. They included a lot of missing. Lees were hard casualties, killed and wounded, 20,000 pretty much all can killed and wounded. It was not a good start. Not an auspicious beginning. Because the south could not afford to fight the war in that way. Now, one you may not have heard of is the back end of the battle of chancellorsville lee was on the back end and took very heavy losses there. And the one that you definitely know about is gettysburg where on days two and three, lee essentially did nothing but assault strong federal positions on high ground against long streets advice. And took just a severe, severe beating. So again and again during the war, the record is replete with strategic and tactical aggressive behavior by lee, which was inappropriate for the south because of the fact that the north had the burden of winning the war and that the south so badly outnumbered could not afford to squander its manpower. In addition, one other factor is is this. The weaponry had changed significantly since the mexican war. And so during the course of the civil war, youre talking about widespread use of rifles instead of muskets. Breach loaders instead of muzzle loaders. The bullet was much more accurate. What did they all do . They moved the power from the offensive in the mexican war to the defensive. The defense had the power of the civil war. You did not want to attack unless you had to. Lee did not have to, but he did. And some demonstration of my point is that about 80 of the battles of the civil war, the tactical winner was the defender. Just could not be budged from where the defender was. So you really did not want to attack unless you had to. And lee attacked again and again. So those are some of my reasons for some of my reasons for lee not being a great general that weve heard of. Now, one second on long street he is blamed for gettysburg, scapego scapegoat. On lees birthday, big celebrations starting the year after he died. 1871 to 1872 on lees birthday, famous speeches were given. The first one by drew. The second by pendleton. They created a story and they said that lee had ordered long street to attack the enemy at dawn on day two of the threeday gettysburg battle. Suffice it to say it was a total lie. It had nothing to support it. That has been well proven over time. Although it took about 100 years for people to seriously look into it and come to the conclusion that that was not so at all. What we think is is lee ordered long street to attack 10 00 or 11 00 in the morning. He gave long street until noon. Long street saw troops coming up the road, which tells you it is unlikely lee would have ordered an attack at dawn, since he only sent out scout issing parties at dawn. The whole thing was a lie, but it was to tar the reputation of james long street and to take lee off the hook. Lee committed a slew of errors on day one. At the end of day one when the union armies were in retreat through the town of gettysburg, back towards the high ground, total disarray, lee came on scene, gave the worst order to general richard uhl in which he toll the second commander, take the high ground if practical, if practical. Had jackson been alive he had died two months before and commanded that corps. Every effort would have been made to capture. There is an ongoing debate if the con fed rats would have done it, would they or would they not have captured the high ground. I will say that was the best chance had to capture the high grouped the entire time he was at gettysburg and he did not take it. He gave a weak general a weak order. And so nothing, nothing came of it. Okay. So thats the long street story in a nutshell. Oh, and also i need to point out that lee then on days two and three of gettysburg launched a continuous series of attacks on the high ground. And her never did so at the same time. It was never a contemporaneous attack on all the union forces. He had long street attack on the south. And within an hour after that attack peters out, finally 24 hours late richard uhl attacks from the north. And that attack is out. The next day, picket goes up the middle. So you have south, north, middle. And essentially oversimplified. But twothirds of lees army watched the other onethird carrying out these attacks. It was an abominable campaign. And military historians are pretty much in unanimous agreement about it was lees worst and it was devastatingly bad. Okay. That moves us along to euless sees grant. It was said he was only won through brute force. We dont have time to go through his brilliant Vicksburg Campaign in which he was out numbered in the theater. Won five battles in 18 days because i didnt just use brute force. He used speed, he used concentration of force. He was outnumbered in the theater until he began the siege of vicksburg when he won these five battles. Yet by fooling the enemy, each of the five battles grant had more than the enemy did because the enemy didnt know where he was. They didnt know where they should be. It was an absolute brilliant campaign. Again and again, grant has a record during the war. He captured the First Major Union victory. He captured vicksburg. He then was brought in, saved chattanooga. Rescued a union army trapped there. So well regarded that he was promoted to general and chief and three stars and asked to win the war, which he did in 11 months. So the record is is pretty clear about grants success. Let me deal one win with the casualty statistics which i studied to a fair thee well. And i have some here. Okay. These are grants casualties. I dont know if we have a total. No. Okay. We do. Up top of the righthand side. Heres the story on casualties. Comparing grant and lee. Not just against each other. But against all their foes in the course of the war. It is my favorite synopsis. Grant commanded five armys, three theaters, was a winner everywhere that he went and did all that he did, including capturing three armies at a cost of 154,000 casualties. Casualties are killed, wounded, missing, and captured. Grant did all that he did in three theaters. In total, 154,000 casualties. Lee, on the other hand, commanded one army and one theater which he lost and did so at the cost of 209,000 casualties. 55,000 casualties more than grant. So you can understand based on that analysis anyway, where i really have to say we have been sold something of a bill of goods about how great lee was and about how bad grant was. And quite frankly, the majority of civil war historians are now believed that grant was the greatest general of the civil war even if the general public is not. Thats where the real damage has occurred, is the general public has been saturated with this story for 150 years and has bought into a lot of it. So i regard the myth of the lost cause as the most successful Propaganda Campaign in american history. So i leave you to be the final judges on that. And thank you for listening to my biased opinions. [ applause ]. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. There are microphones in each aisle. And we have just 15 minutes to deal with any questions anyone would like to ask. And we will stop at 8 45 sharp. So you can get out of here and go home if you would like. Does anybody have any questions . Sir. Theres a mike back there. You can go back. Go ahead. How far along did efforts come for the north to wfp the freedom of the slaves to stop the civil war from happening. And if they were e considered, what was the total cost of them compared to the cost of the civil war eventually . Thats a real good question. I assume everyone heard it since he has a mike. Okay. Abraham lincoln explored the purchase of slaves compensated emancipation is the term generally used. And lincoln at first when he explored this was willing to consider migrating to Central America or the caribbean. But lincoln explored the concept of buying the freedom of slaves. And he had done the kind of calculation that you talked about. And he used delaware, which had a very small number of slaves, no more than 2,000. So he had calculations that for the cost of one day of war you could free 1,000 slaves. And go on from there. So he tried to sell this to the border states. These are still members of the union. They had not gone out. And they just would not go along with it. He held meetings with delaware. He held meetings with the four border state representatives. And no one bought into it. No one at all. So even in the border states there was is such a firm belief slavery that they were not willing to consider selling their slaves in order to avoid the war which, again, tells us something about, hmm, maybe the slavery thing was not Just Economics but economics plus politics plus social. A lot of those things went hand in glove. Sir. Thanks very much for your presentation. I was just wondering whether you consider the shelby inaudible . A lot of it is. Shelbyfoot was a southerner, very entertainer on the civil war. And i would say dont read his early read about 20 other civil war books before you go to his tri logy. It doesnt have any dates. It doesnt have any footnotes. It is is very readable because foot was a novelist. He did a lot of research. And he pull his heart into it. He tells a great story. I found it very useful because i had read 30 books on the civil war at least. And i just had all of these pieces. And i felt that shelby put it all together. He would simply say heres what was happening in virginia. And meanwhile, down in mississippi. So he sort of made it possible, for me anyway, to be able to visualize the war as a total entity. And i find it very useful in that regard. Its very colorful. Some people might not just want to read historian books with lots of footnotes and may find his colorful approach to be good. But i do warn i would say i wouldnt do that until you familiarize yourself with a lot of other books. And for gods sake, do not use it as a case book. I made that mistake and used it as a course book in a college