kids. i saw how the food of both rich and poor came together in this corner of italy that's like nowhere on earth. and nearly 50 years later, i still keep coming back for more. xxxx. previously on lincoln, divided we stand. >> lincoln is dealing with personal tragedy at the same time that he is facing military defeat after military defeat. >> he knows that black people are his last card to play. lincoln issues the emancipation proclamation saying that on january 1st, 1863 slaves in sus

seeded states are now free. >> confederates respond saying, okay, fine, if we see black men carrying weapons against us, we will consider that the north's slave rebellion. >> that moment it becomes a war to abolish slavery. >> and there occurs the greatest battle of the war at getties berg on july 1st, 2nd and 3 in 1963. >> pennsylvania is as far as the north confederate army has ever gotten. if the union lost here, it cleared the way for lee to continue marching into new york. they could cutoff the northern states and new england from the mississippi river which would have been a huge disaster. >> the stakes were extremely high. >> a first day attack by the con

federal army sends the union army fleeing through town and then up into the heights. and then robert lee leads a massive charge against the open field. he gets charged with union artillery raining down on the con federal side. so it was really a slaughter house. >> three days of fighting, three days of horrific casualties in what becomes the largest battle ever fought in the western hemisphere. >> you could not walk from one end of the battlefield to the other without stepping on corpses. >> 50,000 casualties. at the end lee has to admit defeat. >> the union held the day. it was momentous. it was decisive. but what it wasn't was war

ending . >> when lincoln signs the emancipation proclamation, he frees slaves from the union territory and invites them to join the army. despite the influx of black soldiers, cities continue to burn, men continue to die, and the war continues to rage on. by the end of 1863, there are more than 600,000 american casualties on both sides. >> this was the destruction of people on a larger scale in greater numbers than in any other war in american culture. there was nothing that had compared to this.

and soldiers wrote graphic accounts about the cities and houses on fire. some of the illustrations were really gory. >>bloated bodies, head horses piled up in rows. people flooding the streets and there is crying and people are creaming. >> amputees everywhere. >> they write that the stench is overwhelming, whether it is the dead that pile up, the lack of bathing opportunities. and don't forget diarrhea is the leading cause of death at one point. people don't understand you can't use a latrine upstream and drink downstream. >> the soldiers do not write about the romance of a cavalier war. it is the hard and brutal reality of ugly death. >> as commander in chief, lincoln offers comfort and lividity to epkeep up moral.

>> terrible news from the front comes in. lincoln brings out a funny stuff to read to his cabinet. and he says, gentlemen, why don't you laugh? with all this strain that is upon me, if i did not laugh, i would die. his detractors at the time said thousands and thousands of people died and he's making jokes? >> looking at lincoln and saying where are my thousands of sons killed in battle? and lincoln, an ape-like figure sits contorted in the chair and says, this reminds me of a little joke. it was a way of saying, he doesn't care. he's insensitive. >> but i think they were being unfair. with everything he was going through, if he didn't have humor, it literally probably would have cracked up. >> lincoln became the consoler in chief of the united states.

>> lincoln would go off on his own. he would personally write letters to the widows. he took it really seriously. >> he wrote a letter to the daughter of a politician whom he had known in illinois, fanny mccullough. >> the memory of your dear father instead of in agony will yet be a sad, sweet feeling in your heart of a purer and holier sort than you had known before. >> he writes another letter to lydia of boston who lincoln heard lost five sons. >> leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the alter of freedom. >> like all truly remarkable people, he was a summary of his

contradictions. >> on the one hand, he was this enormous capacity for compassion. on the other, he was incredibly brutal, cold, callous way of thinking about war making. >> he was not skiddish about authorizing ever increasingly lethal weapons. lincoln was a one man research and development branch of the army. >> he started the development of gatling guns. he developed the 19th century equivalent of nay palm. >> the civil war begins as a gentlemanly fight. all of a sudden you have mass armies equipped with the weapons of the industrial revolution. >> the advance of killing technologies combined with the nonadvance of military tactics, commanders were still doing masked charges. that combination is what created the vast number of casualties. >> nowhere was this deadly

combination more apparent than in the battle of getties berg, which resulted in 51,000 casualties in three days. four months after the mass ka kerr, lincoln delivers the gettying berg address where he delivers the address on hallowed ground where so many lost their lives. they look to the president for leadership in the face of tragedy and uncertainty. in the fall of 1863, the nation at that time really at a horrid point. the cost of an astro nominal end. people need to know why. >> four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition

that all men are created equal. >> i am saying that the united states is rooted in this argument that all men are created equal and the unfinished work that needs to be done is try to continue to realize that vision of the united states. >> he basically conveyed this united states that all of these men had died for the union. so we need to make sure that it is worth it, that the union endures, that the country endures. >> 272 words. lincoln had just spoken for two and a half minutes. >> it is the ultimate mic drop. a very short, perfect piece of writing. >> it was widely regarded as a masterpiece. within a year, it was being an thol guised in school textbooks and we have been living it with as one of our great american texts ever since. >> the brave men, living and

dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. the world with little note will not remember what we say here, but they will not forget what they did here. >> and one of the things that makes lincoln a remarkable leader is lincoln finds the simplest res nant language with which to define what was at stake. >> between the time you wake up and get your cup of coffee, you are been hit with 900 opinions on twitter or cable news. we were very fortunate when we needed it most, we had somebody who had the ability to make this horrible war somehow worthy. that maybe more than anything else is part of the living legacy of lincoln. lincoln as the man who found a way to make democracy safe. >> we here highly resolve these

dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom, that that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. this cnn original series "lincoln: divided we stand" is brought to you by -- because when caught in early stages, it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers even in early stages. tell me more. it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your prescriber or an online prescriber if cologuard is right for you. i'm on it. sounds like a plan. it all starts with an invitation... ...to experience lexus.

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in a clinical test, 100% of women showed reduction of wrinkles, even deep ones. new revitalift night serum with pure retinol from l'oréal paris. lincoln dealt with passive generals throughout the war. but in the summer of 1863, he is determined to change his strategy. he puts his faith in western general ulysses s. grant who comes up with a plan to seize the river. >> grant undertakes a brilliant, dangerous move that is taking

his army across the mississippi river, marching down south, attacking vicsberg mississippi directly and then capturing it. >> once the union army captures vics berg, it was in union control and that whole stretch of plantation land now from memphis down to new orleans, that's hundreds of thousands of slaves that were recruited into the army. >> after vicsberg, grant becomes a national hero. so in april 1864, lincoln calls grant to washington and hosts him at a white house reception, which is so crowded that the little general has to be hoisted on to a sofa to stand next to lincoln so he could be seen in the crowd. >> and lincoln says grant

achieved the biggest military victory in history and he is now my man. >> and offers grant command of all union forces east and west. unlike mead who waited, unlick mcclenen who left the peninsula. he moves forward, churning battle after battle. and lincoln loves it. he says keep your bulldog grip and chew and choke until you win. >> grant had some magnificent victories. but, still, the south had major victories, especially in the whole area of virginia and the border states. and the war was just dragging on. >> as the war rages into 1864, lives continue to be lost at an unprecedented rate. the war has taken a severe toll

and lincoln knows if he cannot end the fighting by november, he has no chance for re-election. >> it doesn't do anything to shorten the war and neither do the victories in getties berg and vics berg. if anything, it looks as if the war is going the wrong way. and, so, before the election of 1864, lincoln is less popular than ever. there is also a misconception that america's heroes were always seen as heroic. not true. there was a jump lincoln movement heading into his election. >> there were a lot of northerners who thought he was a terrible president. >> there were those who condemned lincoln as a tyrant, as a king because he used

executive power unlike any president before him. he imprisoned people. and the lincoln administration cracked down on newspapers, arresting editors, closing down newspaper offices because they began urging soldiers not to reenlist. so freedom of speech, freedom of the press is aggregated on lincoln's watch. members of his own party want to not renominate him. and, so, now three years into the war, if lincoln is not re-elected, what has been the point of the hundreds of thousands who have been lost? what is the point of this struggle? >> while president lincoln toils for ways to secure his legacy and ensure the country's struggles have not been for naught, mary lincoln is also

frantic about the prospect of leaving the white house. >> she actually wrote to friends and said, i'm quite desperate. and her desperation was not over having to leave the white house, but having to reveal to her husband, the excessive bills that she had acquired. mary had become very, very grief stricken after willy's death. and she was really being neglected. she and lincoln were having the most difficult of communications. she saw him growing closer and closer to his young male secretaries. she felt out of the circle. it really led to mary's erratic behavior. >> mary assuages her grief with shopping binges.

but with her husband absorbed in the war, accumulating debt goes unnoticed. by the summer of 1864, she owes today's equivalent of nearly half a million dollars. >> if lincoln is defeated for re-election, these bills will suddenly be presented and she's terrified. she explains to her dress maker and good friend elizabeth checkly, it is important for me to dress properly because the public pays attention to what i wear and it is important for us to be respected. and she breaks into her tears. and her dress maker says, well, don't you think your husband should know about these bills? oh, no, no. he would be mortified if he knew i behaved this way. so it was high stakes for her. >> with limited options, mary decides to monetize the only assets she has, information and influence. >> she was engaged in something akin to extortion against

members of her husband's administration who had bribed her in order to receive political appointment at her recommendation. for example, one fellow wanted to have a very lucrative position in new york custom house. and, so, this one fellow, isaac henderson, sends a die monobrooch to give to a jeweler and says give this to mrs. lincoln if she can persuade her husband to make me a high ranking official. so she goes to her husband and says, dear, will you point him to this position. henderson turns out to be a crook. she was constantly going to bat for stretchy people who bribed her and gave her presents. now she told them that they owed her something. and then she padded payrolls, falsified bills. she sold the milk from the white house cow.

she engaged in all kinds of financial misdeeds. >> i also think that she really is charged with many crimes that are a misunderstanding of the context of the period. but, as a matter of fact, no one worked harder for lincoln's re-election than mary lincoln. >> while mary entertains the press, lincoln continues to focus on the war. but the union cannot turn the tide. it is certain that the president will not win re-election. (doorbell) rock on. tonight i'll be eating lobster thermidor au gratin. really? sh-yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt. makefor 175 years,es! new york life sh-yeah, and monkeys mighthas been helpingutt. people act on their love. so they can look back and say, "we did good."

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despite the emancipation proclamation, as the 1864 presidential election approaches, the future of slavery remains uncertain. lincoln is under immense pressure from radical abolitionists and modern yunists to come up with a permanent solution for the issue that is still tearing the country apart. >> in 1864, anny davis, an enslaved woman, sends a letter the president of the united states and simply says, am i free or not? and here was the challenge. she's writing this letter from the eastern shore of marylandment one of the board states to which the emancipation proclamation does not apply.

>> you have about 800,000 people not touched by the emancipation proclamation. >> lincoln freed a lot of slaves, but the laws establishing slavery the still on the books. >> the emancipation proclamation only lasted as long as the war because it was a fit and necessary war measure. once the war was over, it no longer applied. but it was clear you couldn't reimpose slavery. >> once the war is over, what will happen? >> various solutions had been proposed, including gradual emancipation, compensation for slave owners and colonization initiatives. but many northerners pushed for a return to the pre-war status

quo. >> a lot of people blamed the emancipation proclamation for prolonging the war. some republicans came to lincoln and said, you are going to lose re-election here. why don't you issue a statement saying if the south is willing to give up and come back, we'll forget about the emancipation proclamation and accept reunion. >> lincoln knew he had to hold together a very shaky coalition of many, many people in the union who did not want him to act against slavery and who were tremendously anxious about the problem of race, as lincoln himself was. but he's increasingly facing pressure from the radical republicans and the abolitionists in his own party as well. >> lincoln was caught between radicals and reactionaries. reactionaries said he was moving too fast. but a lot of folks on the

radical side thought he was too slow. the 13th amendment originated not with lincoln but with abolitionists. it was the women's national loyal league headed by elizabeth keddy and susan b. anthony that launched a constitutional amendment ending slavery. >> the women's national loyal league gathered a staggering 400,000 signatures to bring forth an amendment that would abolish slavery in the u.s. forever. >> but lincoln was not very involved in the initial aspects of that campaign because lincoln was concerned he was going to lose the election. >> by the summer, the 13th amendment has passed in the senate but not in the house. however, lincoln remains politically cautious and refeuds to alienate is moderate base of

his party by publically supporting universal abolition. >> so as an alternative to get the republican nomination in 1864, the radical republicans put forward john c. free month on a platform of constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. they wanted to push lincoln. >> he recognized that northerners generally support this idea of a constitutional amendment to protect black freedom. and, so, lincoln comes to embrace the 13th amendment because he knows it will be politically significant as he is facing a tough re-election campaign. >> of course lincoln is renominated and the republican platform now calls for a constitutional amendment ending slavery. it is a fundamental shift on how the issue of slavery is going to be resolved.

>> lincoln wasn't the author of the abolition movement. he was the target of the abolition movement. >> our history in the united states has been dominated by history of great men who are thought to have changed history almost by themselves. but what actually happened is that lincoln over time was convinced by other people who were more radical than him. it was people who the left of lincoln had the vision that most closely ascribes who what we believe as rights to say. i say that to try to accurately reflect how changes happens. >> we think about presidents as if they are weather makers. but they don't create history. they surf history. he's drug to them by events as he tries to surf the waves. and it shows that people can make a difference whether you are in office or not. >> now that lincoln is being nominated, the republican party officially adopts universal

abolition as its platform. after decades of moderate and conciliatory effort on slavery, lincoln becomes a full-fledged abolitionist. >> once he goes all in in support of the 13th amendment, there is a commitment. and he gets bolder with time, going into the 1864 election he grows into his political beliefs as an abolitionist. >> he had seen what black men had done to help preserve the union. and lincoln understood that the nation owed a debt of gratitude to these men. he realized that he had to get rid of slavery if you were going to ensure that none of this happened again. >> the amendment fails to pass in the house, and its future hinges on the result of the upcoming election. running against lincoln on the democratic critic is his

adversary. >> george mcclenen is not necessarily immune to thoughts of having one slave country and one free country. he would have canceled the emancipation and seen if we restored the status quo with status in the south permanently protected. after everything that's happened, would lincoln hike the decision to made by someone else on the future of this company, on the future of slavery? no. >> ultimately, lincoln's position on universal abolition is irrelevant if he cannot turn the war around by november. he will lose the election and all hope for a united free nation will be lost.

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during the summer before the 1864 election, the union army suffers devastating defeats. nearly 65,000 union soldiers are lost in just these three months alone. lincoln is sure this crushes any hope of re-election. >> he thought out what would happen with his defeat, and he wrote a letter laying out how he would fight during the transition to win the war.

he folded the letter up. he glued it. and he asked every cabinet secretary to sign on to the letter without knowing its content. but then before 1864, his many victories in the valley, far got is winning battles in mobile bay, sherman has captured atlanta, the tide has turned. >> despite the military wins, on the evening of the 1864 election, lincoln is fraught with worry. but as the numbers come in, state by state it becomes clear that sherman's victory had secured the country's faith in lincoln's presidency. >> and, so, against the odds, against expectations by lincoln

himself and members of his own cabinet, lincoln wins re-election. it is a triumphant victory. he wins with a greater margin than he had won four years before. he's pulled off the enormous gamble of conducting an election during a civil war. >> now that his presidency is secured for the next four years, lincoln is determined to push the 13th amendment through the house before the end of the war. his advisers urge him to be patient and to wait for the new republican congress to be sworn in. but lincoln refuses. he gets to work securing the 112 votes needed to pass the

amendment. >> he wants this done. >> lincoln knows that once the war is ended, there might not be enough political will to follow through with the end of slavery. >> so he is pulling every trick out of the book, every favor he can muster to get congress to pass this legislation quickly. >> lincoln uses a lot of influence to try to get votes. particularly from border state democrat, northern democrats when he's been repeated for re-election because they wouldn't vote for it even if they voted against it the last time around. >> it is a monumental effort of political persuasion. lincoln is not above twisting arms. >> he promised them offices.

he promised their relatives offices. there is some people who say there was illegal bribery going on. >> and in january, 1865, the amendment passed. it had to be ratified. the african-american population was hence forward free. >> the 13th amendment passes by a vote of 119-56. >>ed that use stevens, the great radical republican said this great act was passed by the lowest means possible by the most honest man in america. ( his role shows a remarkable change over the course of lincoln's career. >> you could see that his th

thinking was changing. lincoln had experiences that led hum to see the world differently. lincoln was intelligent. he was pragmatic, and he did evolve. it is not a criticism of him to say he evolved. it would be a criticism to say he was a man who never changed his mind, never learned anything. >> with a string of union victories and the passing of the 13th amendment, it is clear that the war is almost over and that a free america is on the horizon. after a first term plagued with turmoil and tragedy, an exhausted lincoln is finally able to look forward rebirth and reconciliation. >> lincoln wants to win the peace as well as win the war. >> lincoln believes that black people should be allowed to vote. >> that sets the stage for the next five weeks of his life. >> lincoln, next sunday night at

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to hear the president deliver his second inaugural address. >> it is the first integrated crowd. it is the first time that black soldiers are intermingling with their families in uniform with white soldiers. it's been raining, and literally as he speaks the clouds part and the sunlight shines down, and he gives what is acknowledged as the greatest inaugural speech of all time. >> both parties depry kated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. and the war came. >> one of the most profound things about the second inaugural is lincoln's embrace of the idea of letry buttive justice. >> he talks about the suffering that america is undergoing as being the price we paid for slavery, north and south. >> he says all of us have been involved in this terrible crime

of slavery, and this war is a judgment on the entire nation for its complicity. >> yet, if god wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bonds men's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with a lash shall be paid for another drawn with the sw sword. >> he balances the blood drawn by the sword, the terrible death in the civil war, with the blood drawn by the lash, the violence of slavery. he's telling people, don't forget violence didn't begin in 1861 in this country. violence began 250 years ago when the institution of slavery was created. >> the war represents the consequences of slavery for this

nation. >> and only in the last photograph does he pivot towards reconciliation and reunification. >> with mall las toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as god gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have born the battle and for his widow and his or fan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. >> that last photogaragraph is f the most important paragraphs in politics today. what lincoln is saying is, we have an obligation to stop the cycle of violence because there are a lot of folks in his own political party who are hell

bent against venn geng on the south. they want to rip the roots of southern society out. lincoln wants to win the peace as well as win the war. that sets the stage for the next five weeks of his life. >> fed rick douglas went off to the white house reception that followed the inauguration. and lincoln sees him, and he calls out for everyone to hear. there is my friend, douglas. douglas, i am glad to see you. >> and lincoln welcomes him right in and goes, this is the person whose opinion i value more than anyone else. just think about what it means to have been enslaved and then to have the president of the united states welcome you in. that has to be a profound experience. and then lincoln says, what did you think of the speech. and frederick douglas says, it

was a sacred effort. he wasn't just responding to the words. lincoln has condemned slavery morally before. but now when he says slavery is wrong, he's saying it having signed the emancipation proclamation and the 13th amendment, really committed in a new way. the speech without those other actions would not have mattered. >> that was the last time they captured each other. >> this cnn original series, lincoln: divided we stand, is brought to you by fidelity investments. for cash flow that lasts, even when you're not working, so you can go from saving... to living. ♪ let's go ♪ it all starts with an invitation... ...to experience lexus. the invitation to lexus sales event. get 0% apr financing on the 2021 nx 300.

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up to four years of devastating civil war, you lis cease s. grants cuts a supply line to the capitol. general robert e. lee has no choice but to abandon richmond. >> richmond will fall on april 2nd of 1865. lee sends a letter that he's going to retreat, that they need to evacuate the city. confederates actually set their capitol city on fire in an

attempt to prevent the united states army to get hold of their key supplies. >> so lincoln decides he's going to go to richmond with his son tad on his son tad's 12th birthday. >> quite a birthday present. >> with his youngest son by his side, lincoln makes his way to the fallen enemy capitol. now soldiers and in ruins. >> they are basically unaccompanied. a trip that would never be okayed by the secret service today. and they begin to walk up into the city, which has been dedicated to his destruction and the destruction of the union for four years. the slave markets are burns on the right side as he holds tad's hands on the left. >> he's recognized right away. a very distinctive looking man, obviously. the black community knows what

his presence means. they are free. this is emancipation day. and they flood the streets. >> and they raced up to him, some knelt to him, praying, crying, tugging at his coat, and he said, please do not kneel to me. you must kneel only to god and thank him for your freedom. and that was the day abraham lincoln saw for himself the impact of his presidency and the proclamation on real human beings. >> lincoln is given a captured confederate flag, and he gives it to his son tad as a birthday present to remind him, this is what we did by doing right. >> one week after robert e.

lee's retreat, grant's baaal onintercepts his army in virginia. lee has no choice but to accept de defeat. >> grant offers a very generous and magnanimous set of peace terms. the soldiers will be pardoned. >> grant says you have to surrender your weapons, but we'll allow all of your men to take their sources. we'll give you provisions. and then you just go home. >> radical republicans lost their minds. they thought we should confiscate their lands. we should confiscate their estates. we should make it so that the south never rises again. but lincoln had no stomach for retribution. he wanted to find the way to restore the union. >> after lee signed the final terms, he stood up and shook

hands with all of the members of grant's general staff. when it came to kol noll eli parker who was a native. he was taken aback for a minute. he says, oh, i see, kerr noll there is at least one real american in the room. and parker looks at him in the eye and says, general lee, today we're all americans. >> word of lee laying down arms triggers a series of surrounders across the south. abraham lincoln is finally able to breathe a sigh of relief as the four-year war comes to a close. >> lincoln is kexhilarated that we will be able to work out the problem of reconstruction. as mary later relates, he turned to her and he said, the war is over, and this day i am happy.

>> but the glory of victory is brief. the violence of the civil war that took more than 800,000 american lives will claim one more. independence day. get ready to fire up the barbecue, says president biden, because we could be there by summer. >> i will not relent until we beat this virus. >> i need every american to do their part. >> but can the vaccinations come quickly enough to ward off another spike. dr. anthony fauci and larry hogan are next. and in crisis. the biden administration struggles with a surge of minor children at the border. >> the border is not open. >> voting rights advocates stacey abrams and veronica escobar ahead. andrew cuomo