speaker jerry desmond is going to talk about the hybrid jet

farmville and he hails from maine and recently retired from a six year stint as executive director, wrapping up the historical park. there's also served as director of the rome history museum and georgia and the birmingham history center in alabama. he was a recipient of the tennessee association of museums award of excellence for four consecutive years. from 1996 to 1999. mr. desmond is currently hard at work on several writing projects, so let's give him a warm return welcome. historical heart. good morning, everybody. it's good to see you all. and i just said, y'all, mary is going to keep track of the number of times i say y'all if it's more than ten. i'm moving back to maine.

it is a pleasure to see everybody today. i want to thank the guy who was in charge last year for letting me speak today. it's a great honor to be in company with these great historians in the back of the room, but i was a little bit disappointed when i found out the guy last year i wasn't his first choice. okay, it turns out that he had a couple other guys in mind and they couldn't have come, so i'm giving this talk on highbridge today. see if i can get this thing to work. well, i'll, as always, turning it on. that always works. good. doesn't seem to be working. there we go.

i am this at the wrong. there goes my. technological wizard. and you've just seen the best that i can do. okay, so obvious. the first choice to give this talk is chris coggins. chris knows more about the last 12 days of this war than anybody. fortunately, chris has been going along. siege of bad health and wasn't able to or could not be here today. but you know basically this talk is based on chris's work. he's he's published a couple of books on on this time period. and like i said, nobody knows more about him then nor about this topic than chris coggins. the second choice was william

marvel. bill marvel wrote this book, lee's last retreat. i think i think it came out in 2006, 27, somewhere around there. pretty good book except for the fact that he has a problem with joshua chamberlain. all of it, which we'll get to a little bit. mary, can you really understand that? yes, right. yeah. but even in his introduction, he disrespects joshua chamberlain. so, you know, very interesting. by the way, mary, stand up a little bit and wave at the camera, would you please. last year, mary told me that the only time that she sees herself on c-span is the back of her head. okay. all right. i gave you a chance.

anyway. you might also all remember that i did speak at the symposium a couple of years ago about the battle of ringgold. and at that time, i promised not to mention the state of maine, but i made no promise. this time. so in the words of betty davis, buckle up. it's going to be a bumpy road. all right. still, it doesn't seem to be working good. there we go. that's a picture of my father, a very handsome man, obviously, leo. all the men, all the desmond guys are pretty handsome. my father loved three things. of course, he loved his family, especially my mother. he loved the boston red sox. yeah, he too. a passion that you cannot

believe. and he loved the civil war. okay. and this is where i got my passion for the civil war. i got it from my father. my father was born in the depression, and he liked to say that he never got out of it. and so he was a very frugal man throughout his entire life. my brother says that he was cheap, but my father, my father did purchase and i don't know how he managed it, but he did purchase three different magazines that he loved. now, one of them was either time or newsweek, depending on which one had the best subscription rate that year. the other one was american heritage magazine. i remember when american heritage was a hardcover back in the fifties and sixties, came in a, you know, a box delivered. and it was a great magazine. bruce catton was the, you know, the guy, the editor in charge

and that came when it came, it was a big day in my house. my father was the type of guy who would not let you have something until he'd read the whole thing first. okay. so i would patiently wait for my father to read the whole thing. and then i would. and i would get american heritage magazine. now, my father did the grocery shopping because he was cheap, which explains why i weighed 128 pounds when i graduated from high school. but my father would do the grocery shopping in the big city. presque isle, maine population 7000. and there was only one grocery store. the a&p, the atlantic and pacific tea company. okay. now, they had a thing go in there once you came in and it was if you bought $20 worth of groceries, you got a free book. and the free book was american

heritage volume eight, the civil war. now, $20 is a lot of groceries back then. okay. but my father bought $20 worth of groceries because he wanted to give me this book and this is the book. i've got it with me. i've carried this thing around in 14 different places when i've traveled around. this is the first civil war book that i got. okay. so my father spent the money and bought me american heritage magazine for me. and i think there is a copy somewhere. there's a there's a button. what's going on? column. do you know? that's the button for me. it's a yankee. yeah. yeah.

there's a magazine anyway. i'm sorry, folks. yeah. now there's my mother. she was a major babe, but she only made one mistake in her life. and that was being born in canada. she spent about three months in canada. and then there she was, brought over to the northern maine with my grandparents, my mother, because of this being born in canada when she was a high school senior, she qualified for the for the main pageant beauty pageant. but they told her she couldn't because she was born in canada. okay. she would have gone on to win miss america, of course, obviously gone to hollywood, become a movie star and married

cary grant and they had to have a little dimple in my chin and i wouldn't have to wear this ridiculous beard. but there she is, 44 years a schoolteacher. she was also a seamstress. and for halloween in 1961, she made civil war costumes for us. so i'm there on the left and the yankee. my brother always complains that he had to play the confederate. and my sisters in the middle. and she's supposed to be scarlett o'hara and that was our halloween costumes in 1961. my brother has a rifle. i have a rifle. a pistol and a sword that so i outnumbered. and 3 to 1, which is about the right ratio for the war. so anyway, there they are.

now, the other magazine that they got besides newsweek and american heritage was civil rights. civil war times illustrated that came, i believe it was monthly at that time. this is during the centennial of course, 1960 through 1965. and i vividly remember this cover and this story by glenn tucker about robert e lee robert e lee and appraisal by glenn tucker. glenn tucker was a journalist. i think he graduated with a degree in journalism from temple university. and the thing about these early civil war historians, where they were mostly all journalists. okay. bruce catton, shelby foote, philip van doren, stern, douglas southall freeman. clifford doughty, burt davis. all of these people were journalists because these guys knew how to write a story.

they knew what the hook was. and so that's what i grew up on, was all of these historians from from this time period. now, glenn davis. now, i'm sorry, glenn tucker. why is robert e lee today the most universally revered of american soldiers in all parts of the country? what makes him both a great military man and a magnificent person? here's an appraisal by a leading historian, historical writer. and i think there's a this is an april 18,. 1965 issue. and these are some of the quotes from the article today. a century later. lee's name is written in the brightest letters among the noble sons of the nation. he so skillfully, even though reluctantly, sought to dismember the his character, subjected it

to the penetrating scrutiny of historians for a hundred years, stands beautiful, even sublime. he was one of the greatest soldiers of the anglos saxon race standing with wellington cromwell in washington and well ahead of most of them in triumphs against great odds. now, as a 13 year old boy at the time, i kind of wondered what's going on here? lee was on the losing side. i hate to break that to people. you know, i once gave a talk in lafayette at georgia, which they pronounced lafayette, by the way, in which sometime it was the sons of confederate veterans. these guys were hard core people. some of them were unreconstructed. and, you know, some somewhere during the speech i mentioned, you know, the the north did actually win the war.

and somebody from the back yelled out, but it's only half time left. so what is going on with this? you know, lee character. and so and i apologize for doing this at the earliest speech. i know i supposed to be talking about highbridge, but i just have to get these things off my mind. this was the oath of office for commissioned officers in the us army in 1832. and this is the oath that lee took when he's promoted to lieutenant colonel of the second u.s. cavalry, ri in 1855. so this is the oath that he took in 18, 1855. i robert e lee appointed in 1855 in the army of the united states. do solemnly swear or affirm that i will bear true allegiance to the united states of america, and that i will serve them

honestly and faithfully against their enemies and opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the president of the united states, the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles of government, of the armies of the united states. what do you notice about this oath? what? is there anything missing? yes. in all enemies. foreign, domestic. it doesn't mention the constitution anywhere, does it? but the thing that i find interesting about it. using plural, there. before the civil war, we talked about the united states as a plural thing. you know, i will serve them in the united states. i will serve there against their enemies. okay. before the war, united states was a plural thing. the united start. the united states are a great

country. after the war, the united states is a great country. we got rid of the plural. okay, so in a way, did robert e lee really break his oath? no. in a way, in a larger sense, he did, but in a smaller way, he probably did it. it says, i will serve them while he was from virginia. virginia is one of those plural states, and he certainly did serve virginia. this is the oath in 1862. and i love this. i solemnly swear or affirm it. i've never borne arms against the united states since i have been a citizen that i voluntarily give no aid, continence, counsel or encouragements to persons engaged in arms are still state armed hostility thereto that i have neither sought nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatsoever under any

authority or pretended authority in hostility to the united states that i have not yielded voluntary support to any pretended government authority, power or constitution within the united states. hostile, hostile, inimical thereof. who is that name aimed at? pretty obvious, isn't it? okay. and then you've got the rest of it, which is pretty close to what our oath is today. for others, where a affirmed the best my knowledge or ability, i will support and defend the constitution in the united states. this is 1862. well, this oath was amended again in 1884, seven years after reconstruction. okay. and they took out the first part. so they left the last part, which is pretty much what we have today. there were some modifications made during the kennedy administration in 1960, 1961.

but that's the oath of office that robert e lee took. woops, of lost everything. now we go. we need somebody in the back to fix that. for me. there goes the. yesterday they told me that the computer broke about an hour before the first speech and we hooked up a laptop back there. okay. i have got to go back now. way back.

somebody change the batteries in this column. you know. this is a preview of what i'm going to be talking about. stop. i don't know what to do. i fancy you know, i'm it's

somebody checked the batteries. i need to go backwards. keep going. okay. now we can go forward. you've got the magic touch, colin. yeah. i'll let you keep it. just as i've expected it would end from the first. this picture of robert e lee before the war. this is what people in the north thought. he looked like during the war. there are no pictures of lee during the war and the picture was taken in richmond after the war. people were shocked how old you looked in 1865 compared to this. i mean, robert e lee was supposed to be the handsomest man, the army. and you can see that he's quite handsome. their picture taken.

in 1859. did lee think the south could win the war? when the war started, that's one of the questions i've always had in my head. and when did he realize that the war was lost? and just a few quotes that come to mind. we must make up our minds to fight our battles and win our independence alone. no one to help us. this is a letter to his wife, mary, in 1861. we should not therefore conceal from ourselves that our resources and men are constantly diminishing and disproportion in this respect between us and our enemies is steadily augmenting. 1863 the next one. we must destroy the army of grant before he gets to the james river. this is a famous one. if he gets there, it will become a siege and then it will be a mere question of time. congress nation will jubal early in may of 1864, if things

continue. the most serious consequences must result. and the last one, if a few more sailors creaks and it will be over ended, just as i have expected it would from the first. so my question is, when did lee actually know that the war was a hopeless situation? and what does that do for the morale of a leader? a man who leads the army of division of northern virginia all the way until april of 1865. the interesting thing about lee is that he often used honor as a as has the word honor as a method of self-justification. he always credit himself with honor, and it became his word. according to alan nolan, for what he wanted to do and won. in fact, he had already done,

for example, in a conversation with wade hampton, he stated, i did only what my duty demanded. i could have taken no other course without dishonor. in a letter to a relative, he wrote in 1861, he said, there is no sacrifice that i am not ready to make for the preservation of the union. save that of honor. go. by the way, you know, lee graduated second in his class at west point. he had a perfect score in deportment. i've always wondered what kind of guy that is that gets this perfect all of the time. you mean he never had a, you know, a buckle? dun dun, never unpolished button for four years. it's quite remarkable. but he only finished second in his class. the anybody know who? the first guy that was?

first in the class. charles mason. charles mason. pretty much beat lee in every academic subject by one or two points. lee was not. lee only got a 97 and french, for example. so and anybody know who? the third highest score ever at west point, correct? very good. excellent. douglas macarthur. in 19 1902. go ahead, colin, if you can. one one more. okay. so i think i gave you this map. this is the situation in january through march. the gray areas there are areas still controlled by the confederacy. so that by the 1st of january, all those other areas with the lines in them and boxes in them, arkansas sold by union forces. so that's all that's left of the confederacy.

january 1st. go ahead. well, if you if you take a look at the bottom down there, you'll see the battle. you see mobile bay. august 5th, 1864, a mobile bay is invade it. and that closes off that port. a number on november 8th, 1864. lincoln is reelected. i do want to mention that the main soldier vote in the arm of the comic was 4174 for lincoln. and 741 for mcclellan. that's an 85% rate, which is higher than the armed atomic, 71%. so the main guys were really behind lincoln on december 25th.

sherman captures savannah. and presents that to lincoln as a christmas present on january 15th. fort fisher falls up in wilmington, an and by the way, the guy that led the final charge on that was adelbert ames from rockland, maine, just to mention maine one more time. february 22nd. schofield captures wilmington and moves to join sherman in north carolina. on march 2nd, sheridan wins the battle at waynesboro, and that ends the valley campaign. and he's free to come down to richmond to help grant. and on march 22nd, wilson raid into alabama starts. his goal is to get to selma to destroy the ironworks of selma

and that is successful. selma falls the same day as richmond. april second. april 3rd. go to the next slide, if you can. going. up there, sherman. and there we go. there we go. and we're we're invading alabama there. okay. now, next slide. all right. here's some major events. ben butler is replaced by major

general eoc, lord edward. also chris app, lord. very interesting name. i think the parents wanted to name him off or chris app and they decided, you know, we better give him a real name up front. so there is ben butler. he he's replaced which is good. grant really likes that. and actually, he requested it. jerry 15th. the capture for fisher. i mentioned january 19th, sherman begins as north march north through south carolina in the rain, through the swamps. nobody thought he was going to make it. that's the end of the yankee army. but he appears magically south of columbia and there's a fire i believe, in columbia. something happens and careless match thing. january 3rd, 31st. lee is named general in chief of all the confederate army, something that lee didn't want. and obviously and it was pretty much forced on him.

jefferson davis didn't want him to have it either, but the congress voted it and the us house of representatives passes the abolition of slavery. then on february 3rd you have the hampton robes conference where lincoln just basically says you're going to have to surrender. and by the way, the slaves are free and on february 5th through the seventh, you got the battle of patters run next line. there we have major change in the confederate cabinet. james seddon, who was one of jefferson davis's few friends, and he had been in that position probably two and a half years or so. he's probably the guy that served the longest as secretary of war, but he's replaced by john breckinridge. breckinridge is a very interesting man. in 1861, he stays in the senate. the u.s. senate, while all the

confederate states are leaving course. he's from kentucky. he eventually in october of actually november, november 2nd, he joins the confederate army. and it takes a month for the senate to eject him from the senate. so a very interesting last minute kind of addition to the confederate army. next slide. but the big change was to get rid of the commissary general lucius northrup was again another one of jefferson davis friends. they kept around too long, kind of incompetent. and he was replaced by isaac sun, john, who immediately changes the commissary department. and it makes it a little bit more efficient. breckinridge demanded that northrup be sacked as a condition to become secretary of war. since john was born in georgia, but he graduated from yale

university, he served as an engineer before the war and during the war, he's chief of the confederate bureau of night and mining. before he becomes the commissary general, there's, like i said, a drastic improvement on the commissary. he manages to somehow. gather 300,000 rations, which he posts in richmond on. fortunately, he's gathering these rations from the area where eventually the confederate army is going to be retreating. and so that turns out to be a big problem. he also puts rations in danville, lynchburg and greensboro, and then at lee's request, he also brings rations up to birdsville, which is a very, very, very, very key spot on the map. go ahead. february 17th, sherman captures columbia.

february 21st, ord and longstreet meet up specifically to talk about exchange of prisoners, but they get to talking about wouldn't it be nice if the generals ended this war, which was an interesting conversation. this led to longstreet recommending to lee he contact grant and say, let's let's meet and talk about this. but grant sent back the note direct orders from lincoln only lincoln would have the the the right to do this and so this this act that this peace conference thing never actually does happen. rebel forces capture wilmington. i mentioned sheridan defeats early force. and then march 13th, the confederate congress approves the use of -- soldiers. very interesting that they required that they be volunteers. which is an interesting concept.

battle of bentonville is on march 21st. and here's the deal about bentonville. that's only 155 miles. two computers burg from bentonville. sherman if he if he marched at a leisurely eight miles a day he could arrive in petersburg by april 9th. okay. now, what are what are grant's two major concerns here? one, he's and he mentions this in his autobiography. he's worried that lee is just going to he's going to wake up one morning and lee going to be gone. okay. the second thing he's worried about, that sherman's army is going to come up and take all the credit for capturing the army of northern virginia. and he doesn't want that to happen. he wants the army of atomic to actually get the credit for this. now, joe johnson's down there in north carolina. he sends back a message to lee, i can't stop sherman.

you know, i've got 15,000 men. maybe. he says the only thing i can really do is annoy him and so, you know, this brings us to what is lee actually thinking in these last two weeks of the war? go ahead. here's lee's staff. imagine running a whole war with just four guys, for one thing. lee was lee stafford, terribly overworked. lieutenant colonel charles venable. he was called faithful old venable. by lee venable is 19 years younger than lee. but professor math at the university of virginia is born in farmville, a house called longwood house, which is actually the same house that joe johnson was born in. kind of an interesting little tidbit of fact. they're charles b cook was born in 1838 in portsmouth. graduated vmi. although at one time he was

expelled and then was allowed to come back on the staff of bragg at shiloh. he became inspector general on lee's staff. wounded at sailors creek, kept a diary of the war. and he died in 1937. but he was the oldest, surviving member of lee staff. he was interviewed by a south african, which is interesting. he his diary and papers are at the virginia historical society. charles marshall, born in warrenton. matt, you notice that these guys are all from virginia, right? he wrote most of lee's after action report. marshall delivered the dedication address for the monuments to lee and the monument to grant and new york city cousin of george c marshall and then walter taylor, born in 1838 and norfolk graduate of vmi. taylor is really the key guy.

he's no ordinary staff officer, but he's really the aide de camp. throughout the war. lee was noted for his small, overworked staff, but taylor wrote all of the dispatches and orders for lee before him. personal reconnaissance. occasionally. he's the guy that promoted that transmitted the famous if practical order from lee to your fellow cemetery hill at the battle of gettysburg. taylor greeted all the people who came to see lee and usually decided whether or not they'd be announced to the general and during the peninsula campaign, he became the assistant adjutant general. he wrote two books after the war, first one in 1877 called four years with general lee. and it's generally just a lot of little stories. his his major work, though, was published in 1906. robert e lee. his campaign in virginia and

from that we get a lot of the inside information about robert robert e lee. go ahead. so what are lee's options or when we come to the end of march of 1865, he's meeting with breckinridge consistently. he has a few meetings with jefferson davis. he actually is trying to think about what he could possibly do. we all know what his plan is eventually, because we all have hindsight and we know exactly what happened. he wants to get down to joe johnston in north carolina and he realizes that the siege of petersburg is over. so he goes to, of all people, john gordon, to try to think about what his options were going to be some time in in late february. john gordon is an attorney, a slaveholder in and plantation

owner in georgia. he's only 33 years old in 1865. he had suffered five really horrible at antietam. and you always see a picture of gordon. so i flip this around because i wanted him to give a stern look. jefferson davis. so if you flip it around, it's always that side of his face because the other side of his face was horribly disfigured at antietam. he died in 1903, wrote a book, reminiscences of the civil war, and douglass, also freemen, called it charming but subject to. the critique applied to off told stories committed to print late in life. he immediately at 2:00 in the morning. lee is having a hard time sleeping and he's up at 2:00 in the morning, one morning and gordon happens to show up and he and lee have a two hour talk about what we should do.

now. why isn't he talking to longstreet? why isn't he talking to you? because these guys are 20 miles away. i mean, this guy's here, so let's. let's have a little talk. and what do they talk about? and lee asks for gordon's opinion. now, in gardens book, it was lee asked me what my opinion was, and i told him, and that's gordon saying that probably it's more of a conversation that starts with lee. but this is what the options that they came up with. go ahead. three options. one, make terms. you know, end the war right here. get the best terms that you can while we still have an army. to retreat abandon. richmond and petersburg unite with jo johnson in north carolina to strike sherman's army. now, what do you think the odds

are of this is actually going to work? for one thing, they're going to retreat 125 miles down to sherman defeat. i'm down to jo johnston, defeat sherman and then turn around and defeat grant. i think we're talking about maybe a 3% chance, maybe. and the third option attack. fight here without delay. and which one does lee like? yeah, very aggressive. always. lee likes the third option. go ahead. okay, so the evacuation plan. what is the plan going up going forward? because to me, this this these last two weeks are kind of chaotic. it doesn't look like lee has a, you know, a good plan. and, you know, the last two

weeks, it seems like he's just reacting all of the time to what's happening instead of this is what we have to do. step by step by step. we do know that lee sent out about 30 engineers to look at the routes that he might be traveling and to see what the bridges look like and so on. but so what's going on? well, you can see from this map that the key spot. there's the spot there that circled. that's brookville. and that's where the danville line meets the south side railroad, the junction. lee thinks that if he can get there, where he's asked and john to actually put some supplies, he was going to be able to get down to danville and then it's over to joe johnston. so that's that's basically the plan. okay. so you've got to go back. yeah. so you've got that's part of the plan and you can see over the

person that made this map or worked on this map. also circle circled lynchburg burg. my question again, this is hindsight. my question is, why not have joe johnston come up and meet a lynchburg? then you've got the mountains at your back. you're on the other side of the james river and, you know, maybe there's a better chance doing that. now, joe johnson has got 15,000 men. we don't i personally don't know what his supply situation was. i don't know how many wagons he had and so on. but why not bring joe johnson up and meet with him in lynchburg instead of lee traveling with his men with a thousand wagons and 200 caissons? it's a thousand supply wagons with animals that have not been fed properly for at least three months. they're very weak on on roads. and in march.

why not? why not? the lynchburg option? but anyway, that's just me. and some other things to consider. lee not physically. well, he's emotionally exhausted. he's a very old man. at the age of 57. he eventually dies at the age old age of 62. the odds, as i mentioned, are very, very, very, very small. and the odds of achieving independence are even smaller. in 1865, brick in and i think this is key and march 28th, breckinridge sends a telegram quote, i have given the necessary orders regard to commencing the removal of stores, etc. but if possible, i would like to know whether we might probably count on a period of 10 to 12 days notice. so he's asking, lee, can you give me ten or 12 days so that we can get organized in richmond

before you're going to make your retreat down to johnston? does lee really? and lee replies, i no, i have no reason prevent your counting on the time, suggested he's saying yeah, i think i can guarantee that. does he really think that grant is going to wait 10 to 12 days before making a move? he's got sheridan now. he's got the six corps now. the second corps and the fifth corps. our freedom to maneuver now, because they're not in the lines anymore. so ten or 12 days is unreal, mystic. and of course, you know, just several days later, the army is in bad shape. they lack clothing, they lack shoes, the rations are are coming in better, but not not enough. he's also losing 50 to 100 men every night from the middle of february to the middle of march. just leaving the the army. some of them are coming across

the lines. the federal army actually gave a bounty of $8 if they brought their weapon with them. and the federal army had to appropriate $10,000 for all the weapons that were coming in. so he's losing men and this is the condition of the army. and they're going to have to make 120, 25 mile trip down into north carolina. mark, now you can go ahead, call him. this is the famous map, of course, of the of the retreat. i don't want to get into all of it, but there are some questions, because we know that when lee does get to a military courthouse, there's no rations there. and after the war and during the war, lee says that's the reason why he had to stay for a day, because we didn't have rations. well, i kind of disagree with that. i think it's because he had to wait for ewell to come from richmond in order to have the army together. now, ewell is supposed to be

coming along the janitorial road and there's supposed to be pontoon bridges. they don't show up and a lot of some historians say that's the key factor here, that you'll have to find a different way to get across the river and that that causes a delay probably more than the rations. the rations thing nobody's ever been able to really explain since john, after the war bristled at the fact that he was an advocate of that. he said, i never got an order from that day. and by the time i did get an order, it was too late. the trains were gone. the rations i you know, i sense something on the train's down, but obviously they didn't get their and the other rations were distributed among the citizens of richmond. so there's 300,000 rations there and they're not there at amelia courthouse. so lee, who has retreated from petersburg, has to wait a day at

amelia courthouse and he loses his day advantage over grant and the rest of it is skedaddle all the way to appomattox. now on sherman broke off from atlanta and crossed across georgia. jefferson davis said this is going to be like napoleon's retreat from moscow. is he going to be harassed all way? and he's not going to make it? and the grant famously said something like, well, who's going to provide the snow. but this is the moscow retreat. at one time during the retreat, there on one road, the whole army is on one road, something you don't want to do is have your army is going to be stretched out. i mean, longstreet was at rice rice station and gordon was still in amelia string springs. so, you know, this thing is spread out. and of course, what's happening is the union cavalry is coming in, attacking supply trains and.

it is the moscow retreat we're talking about here for several days. and there's other problems. colonel taylor decides that he needs to get married that day. and so in the middle of the day and april 2nd, he leaves, although he after the war said, i didn't leave until after dark, but he leaves to go marry his intended in richmond. that day. this is the guy that's in charge of all of the staff stuff. this is the guy that's in charge of all the messages and so on. he has gone, oh, okay, so you've got that little thing to consider. also. so you've got the pontoon bridges, you've got the rations, you've got taylor is gone and what were what's happening on april 2nd you have an army has broken through the turnbull

house. lee's headquarters is being shelled. they just barely get the telegraph operator out of there before it's destroyed. and so of course there's confusion and this is the day that lee decides to make his retreat down to joe johnston. but instead of doing a george washington lighting the fires one night and slipping away, now we're in chaos. on april second and it just goes downhill from all of that. okay, go ahead. so we're finally getting to the bridge and here's the bridge. oh, no, no, wait. anybody know what bridge this is? as from my very good, it's the ludendorff bridge and ramgen. it's the one bridge that was left over the rhine river. now, the us army tried to destroy this bridge six times with bombers. with bombers, high altitude

bombers trying to hit a bridge that's no wider than the section here. okay. in fact, three days before they captured the bridge they tried to bomb it. this is what's happening at high bridge. okay? the union army is sent to destroy the bridge, and the next day they want to save the bridge. okay, go ahead. so this is the ludendorff bridge, captured march 7th by the ninth armored division. great movie, the bridge and wrap remark. and by the way, i can't remember who the actors are robert vaughn. george segal. yeah. yeah. and great score by elmer bernstein the way but anyway i think it came out in the late sixties ahead okay fine final say we're here and here's here's the bridge today you can see the old piers there and this is just

a little interlude about the bridge itself because with all due respect to the people in the back of the room, my bridge is than yours. it's longer than yours. it's higher than yours. it's more sturdy than yours. and i'm still talking about bridges. south side railroad was formed in 1846. construction began in 1849 and completed in 1854. originally, the line was going to go south of farmville, but the people in farmville wanted the train to actually go through farmville, so they appropriated $100,000 to build a bridge a couple of bridges to go across the appomattox and then re cross the appomattox back to where they should have been in the first place. ahead. the it's a famous span how many people but we took you there a few years ago. how many people have been okay?

21 spans all together. the structure 2400 feet long and as high as 117 feet high in the center, it was one of the largest built bridges built in the world at the time. it took over a million bricks to make the pylons and the bridge was rebuilt. 1914 and an express train from lynchburg to petersburg could do the trip in 5 hours at a speed of an amazing speed, 24 miles, an hour guy. now, the south side railroad was a did not use a standard gauge. they had a five foot gauge. the standard gauge is, i believe, four foot eight and a half, something like that. it's three and a half inches narrower. and so and this was the only railroad in the country except for, i believe the chattanooga national railroad that had a

five foot gauge. and they used an a u rail, which is very unstable oh, we've got a oh oh you rail in our exhibit over there. and so and the rails were made in wales, brought over to the united states because it was cheaper to ship from wales than it was to build them here. all of the engines were also made in wales. okay. in 1854, the southside railroad acquired what became known as the city point railroad. so they had a full ride all the way to the james river. next slide. down below. of course, this is what it looks like today. you can see the new structure and the old structure there. somebody told me once they went down there and there was like a seven foot snake that kind of fell off one of the bridges. in 2005. this corridor was abandoned. and today the high bridge is a

park that's opened on april 6th, 2012. and it's a beautiful place. of course, the people that have been there know this. it's open to hiking and biking and horseback. go ahead. october 2nd of this year, i went down just to take some picture, a beautiful day. and here's some of the structure. and there's the appomattox river by the way, when i was a kid, i thought it was pronounced apple mattocks. so today i travel across the appomattox almost every day, which is interesting. go ahead. there's the top of it. they just replaced all of the timbers about four years ago. it is a beautiful walk. i paced it and i got 2700 feet, which is 300 feet more, probably because the new bridge is 300 feet longer. go ahead. there's the appomattox there. go ahead.

this is about the place where the wagon bridge was down at the bottom. that becomes crucial during actual battles. go ahead. they're building a visitor center there, which is going to be really cool. it's going to open next year on the anniversary april six, which. very nice. go ahead. now, these are some of the pictures of the bridge taken directly after the war. you can see the 21 spans there. this is at the southern end of the bridge. go ahead. can you see the wagon bridge down below? down in the corner down there. it's a better picture coming up on the next slide, there's the

wagon bridge down below and there is the bridge in. i think this taken in august or september of 1865. and i also believe that's the photographer there on the bridge. now, go ahead. after the war, of course, they had to. they had to fix the three, three and a half spans were destroyed during the war. and this is a picture of them fixing that. and that is billy mahoney and billy mahoney, of course, general, during the war after the war, he took over the south side railroad. he was the manager, 450 foot section was burned and repaired at the cost of $15,750. it took 83,000 feet of lumber to fix the bridge. billy mahone of course, is going to be very crucial in this story in a couple of minutes. but after the war, he very

dapper looking, the best probably beard in the confederate army. mahone was a very small man, probably weighed about 110 pounds, wounded at one of the battles of the war, and apparently this is my favorite story about him. apparently, word got back to his wife in richmond and the ex-governor came down and told, don't worry, it's just a flesh wound. and she said, now i'm really worried because billy doesn't have any flesh. go ahead. you can go ahead. gone. and this is the area that we're talking about. go ahead. there's the high bridge over there. and if you can quite see, there were four different forts. there are fortifications built to on the south end, southeastern end and two on the north eastern end. and you can see there's a couple of little red dots there. so it was actually defended.

go ahead. and you can see in farmville right here, there are two other bridges. the second bridge going at the railroad bridge. and then there's a covered bridge that goes across the appomattox river right there. those two are also going to become crucial in this battle. go ahead. now, the guys who were manning the fort, there was an artillery unit from louisiana, the donaldsonville artillery. these guys had been stationed here for a while and their job was to terrorize the females in farmville. for the most part, there were several children born after the war to french people, and so they were there. and also there was the third virginia reserves, which is basically a bunch of old men and young boys guarding the bridge.

so if you go there today, it's called camp paradise. and if you go there today, they've kind of restored it a little bit. the the one on the other side of the bridge is in the forest. chris coggins took me out there once and it was tic paradise. and we came to this area and he said, here it is. and i looked and said, where? well, you could see there was an outline of something going on here and so that's where that other fort was. i would not recommend walking out to see it, however. go ahead. there's gap paradise today. go ahead. oh, there is a a marker on for 60 about the cavalry, a fight at high bridge. and this is just a picture of it. i think i'm the only person that visits it now. but anyway, go ahead. okay. so april six, 1865, general

grant has learned through sheridan spies that the confederates seem to be moving towards high bridge to cross, go across the upper maddox river there, and he sends a message to general ward ortho. chris beau. chris beau, chris at ward to do something about this or was born in cumberland, maryland. so the son of james and rebecca ward family tradition is that james was really the illegitimate son of george. the fifth of george, the fourth. and mary, if which is an interesting story or was considered a mathematical genius, appointed the west point by andrew jackson. he was a roommate of william tecumseh sherman at west and he graduated in 1839. he was busy that serving and

also had 13 children. so yes, a busy man gone now. ord sends out a couple of regiments and some three different companies of the fourth massachusetts and the guy in charge of the fourth massachusetts was francis washburn. washburn is a harvard man. he's only 26 years old. he had been a captain in the second mass and was moved over to the fourth massachusetts. he's got about 80 men with him, 80 men on horse and they're doing the bidding for these these two other regiments. go ahead. there's the two union commanders of highbridge, horace kellogg of the town, 123rd, ohio. or he is hearing rumors that long street is sending some cavalry out to defend bridge. and so he sends his chief of staff, our colonel theodore reed, out to take control of the

whole situation over there. go ahead. no, go ahead. the confederate commanders are james daring and thomas mumford. and there three different divisions of the cavalry that are sent by longstreet. they've got about 1200 men altogether. so they've got the union guys outnumbered. 1200 to 800. go ahead. okay. so press the button, please. oh, oh, you. the fourth massachusetts is sent ahead. their orders are to burn the bridge while the two regiments sit on a hill outside of major watson's house along the bush river, which flows under the

appomattox, the third virginia reserves fire a shot and run, which is what reserves are supposed to do. go. go ahead. up comes the confederate cavalry. first leap stays back at those crossroads down there to protect about any incursions from that direction. so i've got deering mccausland and mumford. they start attacking the infantry. go ahead. go. washburn hears this and comes riding back down the road very impressive. a little charge, tj. they come down and columns of four, they make a left turn and then they attack four lines of 20 men attacking 1200 confederates. okay. and their first charge is successful and they push some people back, but pretty soon

they're outnumbered. obviously. and there's a battle, of course. leading the charge. washburn does do the charge. four lines extra at 20. he charges sabers drawn. this is a charge the light brigade stuff. okay, this is you know, it becomes famous here after the war, as you know, a gallant charge, although crazy and intense hand-to-hand combat at washburn, a shot in the mouth pistol shot suffers a saber cut to his head, daring is mortally wounded while firing reed and possibly is. he falls dead, possibly from reed falls dead, possibly from daring bullet. and then, you know, they're all killed here, basically, of the 11 officers in the fourth

massachusetts, all 11 of them get shot, go go ahead. oh, i had trouble finding this picture. it is actually in the brockton post city hall in massachusetts. it's big wall mural. i called the brockton post city hall and said, could i get a, you know, a copy, a nice copy of this? and they say, well, yeah, we don't usually do that. one of the problems in this in a hallway and you can't stand back far enough to get the whole picture, which is interesting. so that's the charge. and apparently washburn's guy on the end over there. go ahead. and so this battle, of course, the confederates push back. everybody. they managed to capture the whole union force. confederate capture, 780

prisoner, six flags, an ambulance and a brass band, because you want to have a band when you're burning something, you know. so there was a brass band back camp general rosser showed up riding a fine black horse, carrying a new saber, both of which belonged to general reed. so he got a new horse out of it. washburn died at his home in massachusetts on april 22nd, 1865. general deering died that same day in lynchburg. a few days before his death. he was visited by his west point classmate, ranald mackenzie, who signed his parole papers. so before he died, he was paroled. go ahead. now, as almost as soon as the as the as a stop at highbury edge, we have the battle of sailors creek. and i'm not going to get into that. obviously, that's another story. i do want to mention, though

that there's another cavalry charge lightsabers drawn. this might be the last saber charge in american army history. basically, i've always this keith rogo print the next slide. 5000 men on horse sabers drawn, which pretty much disorganize those duels. the line there and anderson and pickett and those guys. i mean confederates union army bags, maybe 6000 to 7000, you know, prisoners that lee has the army dissolved go go ahead. go ahead. all i always like this one because at the same time that's going on, you've got the battle log. it's farm. oh, humphreys is up he's he's he's been on gordon's tail the entire time harassing him the bridges are out. the double bridge is down here.

there's a problem down there. the wagon train is stuck. gordon has to turn and fight. so you've got the battle log as far i love this marker at the lockett's it's farm which reads here lee fought his last battle you almost all most want a great victory. as daughters of the confederacy. you got to put a good spin on things you know go ahead. now april 7th, lee has given orders, pressed the button to general the home as soon as gordon gets over the bridge, destroy the bridge and the bridge down below the wagon bridge down below. go ahead, go ahead. mahone believes that lee gave the order to colonel talcott the head of the engineers. go ahead.

mahone also believes that general gordon, who's the last guy over be given the order to get to alcott after the war. gordon said, well, i never heard anything about that. all right. go ahead talk about believes the order has to come from the home go ahead mahone doesn't know anything about that after the war glad so talcott sends his second in command. lieutenant colonel blackford, to find mahone. and he finally finds him four miles away. the yankees are coming back, finds him four miles away. he comes back and tells tyler to go ahead to burn the bridge. go ahead. and talcott then orders lieutenant john to burn the lower wagon. so who do you think gets the credit for this mess up? who would you give it to?

go ahead. yeah. mahone after war? mahone well, you know, i thought, gordon, you know, i'm a believer, but it's actually my own fault. i think now, apparently, when lee heard that this had happened and that it now the yankees were going to be on the same side of the river with him again, armistead long, who was had been one of lee's aides at the early in the war, said he spoke of blunder with a warmth and impatience which served to show how great a repression he ordinarily exercised over his feelings. isn't that just a nice way of saying got in go, go ahead. so. ha. hey, look at that. second car comes up and who's in

the lead? the 19th man regiment. there's colonel isaac starbird, who i think should be in charge of a united federation of planets spaceship with that name. but colonel isaac is in charge. they are the. regiment in the second corps coming towards the bridge. andrew humphries. was the corps commander. william hayes was the brigade commander, but he was replaced that morning because his men were still asleep. then we hear this before last night somebody was asleep and he's replaced by general smyth no smith or smith then was killed at cumberland church and who took over but barlow becomes the brigade commander. he had shown up that day. he had been on leave for a very long time and he shows up that day and all of sudden he's in charge of the brigade.

19 man has a quite a, quite a history. they were there at pickett's charge at gettysburg and the day before they beat back lang lang brigade a whole brigade at cemetery hill starbird was from litchfield enlisted as a captain and this regiment was from kennebec, somerset and knox, sarah hawke and waldo county. now you might ask, where's waldo? and waldo is on the coast guard. go ahead. now it's balding. lieutenant colonels joseph spaulding, because starbird is shot on the bridge, spalding takes over the regiment. colonel joseph spaulding, who was from richmond, maine, which

is interesting as a first lieutenant and he wrote a couple of after after action reports, one of them is in the congressional record. i mean, not congressional record. the the the final records of the war. it's two paragraphs. it basically we saw the bridge, we took it put out the fires. but i like this one better and i'm going to read a couple of sections of it, if you don't mind. very quickly, the next morning, friday april 7th, air corps advanced it in three columns. colonel miles division having the road. barlow's second division to which we belong 1000 yards to the right of the road and the detroit beyond third division, 1000 yards to the left. the march on the early hours was through woods, was bright, beautiful day. the birds were singing trees. the troops were exuberant came turn of our brigade to have a lead in our division that day. and the 19th man had the lead in our brigade and thereby we headed the right column about

10:00 in the forenoon we were halted for a moment as we approached the edge of the woods with green fields and pastures in front of us. we saw in our immediate front a long high hill with sloping sides and earthworks on region the top, a broad view, a broad opened up before us. we were at high bridge. the river was not favorable. you have the second corps must cross at just that point, the bridge must safe. so, said general humphreys, our scampered down the steep bank to the burning, driving away the rebels. three companies were rushed across to form a line of skirmishes on the other side. the line a semicircle with two hands resting on the river. the remainder of the regiment spread over the bridge and with our depots caps and hats, anything that would hold water, which would take a dip from the river so low was the bridge. and so high the water. my. that's my main accent. at that time, i had a nervous

mayor which had twice been wounded and learned defect to sound as if in bullet so. she acted in an engagement just as i felt. but she had the advantage of him not having the fear of a court martial before her eyes. and so she had just had to go to the rear where i set her that morning soon as the enemy started for us, we could see them advancing every step of the way. we could see they were ten to our one. but humphreys said the bridge must be saved and there was nobody there but ourselves to save it. i just reported to colonel starbird who sat upon his horse on the bridge where bullets constantly singing. when he directed that i give the skirmishes to retire about so stubbornly before the enemy. but at the same quickly enough at the last cross the bridge i quickly responded. i given those instructions when starboard fell from his horse into my arms, was such a painful wound from a bullet, which he still carries in his person that we all thought it meant his

death. he was quickly taken to the rear, his bravery and gallantry in action was ever conspicuous. draw in the attention of his own men. then such a fight for the little as follows is hardly ever been witnessed. the usual and ordinary commands of lively now keep cool don't get excited far low take aim lively so on we're not heard and not needed. every man was exerting himself to the utmost, without the least indication of any undue excitement and taken deliberate aim when he fired shortly men of the officers were supplied with arms of the muskets, of the wounded, though their bullets greatly outnumbered. we they apparently were not doing as much execution. still, they felt the bridge must be reached, destroyed. and we're clearly amazed that such small handful of men were holding them back. they pressed on and on, the distance between them and the bridge, growing, consuming less and less. just one, it seemed that in spite of all we could do, they would reach the bridge and come to the bayonet where our numbers

would still. where numbers would still be still of advantage in their favor. a shot was heard by us coming from the rear, turning our heads for a moment we beheld the second brigade of our division, descending on the back took a few moments for the head of the column to reach the bridge. in the meantime, our in line to the right and left of the bridge without order. we're also rushing for the bridge. you can put the next slide up there calling company at the end of the bridge commanded by captain lewis, rushed across in advance. general smyth, two companies already over the melee, all others fast as they reached the bridge, joined the columns of our rescuers and reaching the bridge spreading out like a fan. i think not one of those johnnies escaped capture very soon and before we had all the men assembled. general humphreys rode along and noticing us he stopped his horse and said, i have just left colonel starboard and the little

house on the hill. he dying when i left you done enough for one day, you boys 19th may rest here as long as you please. then follow on. go ahead. go ahead. and so you're across the bridge. lee now has to worry about rearguard actions, and it's it's not fun. you can just press a couple of times down. there's another one, another those are the main regiments, just so you know. okay, go ahead. that night in the hotel in farmville grant a letter to lee, which is quite famous. the results of last week must convince you of the happiness, the fervor, resistance.

he gives. he gives this to general seth williams from augusta, maine. just so you know, williams was one of the nicest men in the army and he had been on the staffs of most of the generals, the army tomic, and he manages to work his way through the lines, meets with a confederate officer and gives him the message, go ahead and the rest of this is just history. now lee is on a road that's going to take him 36 miles to get to appomattox and the union army has only 28 miles to get there. and of course, we're talking about sheridan and his cavalry getting there first. now this pointed out to lee at the time by general general porter, alexander but lee says we'll just with it as it comes to us, which seems be his, you

know, mantra for throughout the last seven days. go and all that's is to surrender. joshua chamberlain after that i don't know about appomattox courthouse. chamberlain is from brewer, maine. so there he is now, of course, william marvel says chamberlain was a big self-promoter namely a general, the war that wasn't a self-promoter. and. you know, marvel says lee chamberlain was not really in charge of the ceremonies. well, donald griffin, the fifth corps commander who was a member of the three man commission about the surrender, picked the first brigade of the first division of the fifth corps. and who's in charge? that brigade? joshua chamberlain. so chamberlain was in charge day, i'm sorry to say. and chamberlain actually, it's very dramatic. and of course, went along with

the story to it's very dramatic that they give a final salute to the confederate officers. go ahead. just a couple more slides. so what's the price of honor? war is over on march. in march, march 25th, actually was lee's failed attempt at fort the war is over, but there's still more. two more weeks to go. and these are the casualties. and those last two weeks,. 13,209 union casualties and 21,009 and 50 confederate casualties. and that doesn't include the number, 28,000 or so that actually surrendered at appomattox. okay. so in those last two weeks, that's the total that's the blood total of of the slow retreat to appomattox. and, you know, mostly these are my numbers. i just went back to the some of the major battles and found out what the casualties were. at every battle. thomas livermore, who wrote his book the 1880s, said that

between march 29th and april 9th, there were 1316 killed, 7750 wounded, and 1700 missing in the union army for a total of 10,000. and chris hawkins put the number of confederate killed and wounded at 6266. now that like a pretty definite number to me is you know it's and she didn't say 6300 he said 6266. so that's the number of killed and wounded on the confederate army. one more slide. here's the surrender ceremony. if you look in the middle of the guy, that's kind of bald, that's south williams. most people agree that custer not there, but the the commissary general of the army, the potomac was there. rufus engels, who was from

denmark, maine, just to mention that, there were actually two main men there at the surrender ceremony. and, you know, this is a quote. go ahead from grant's autobiography, which i consider to be the best autobiography written ever written by a union by a general. what general? these feelings were? i do not know. but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant at the receipt of this letter, were sad, depressed. i felt like anything, anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly and suffered so much for a cause. though that cause was, i believe, one of the worst fought for people ever fought, and one for which there is the least excuse. now, most historians put this quote in their books about appomattox, but i leave out the last. go ahead. i do not question. however, the sincerity of the

great mass of those who opposed to us. i kind of feel the same way. thank you for listening to