family. it is a great representation of the larger homestead and culture and immigrant farm life endeavored to capture in her novel. ♪ weeknights at nine eastern c-span encore presentation of our 10 part series books that shaped america c-span partnered with library of congress had the profound impact on our country. tonight we will feature 1918 novel my antennae at the book addresses the immigrant experience and women's issues of the time our guests is melissa homestead english professor at the university of nebraska lincoln. watch c-span's encore presentation of books that shaped america weeknights at nine eastern on c-span or go to c-span.org books that shaped america to view the series and learn more about each book featured.

>> the first time i met was for the one or 50th anniversary of the vicksburg campaign. to american battlefield along with chris weitz out to do a series of videos. i met him on champion hill on the anniversary of the battle. which is a civil war i was totally kicking out about. it's even worse than that because i packed a whole suitcase tim smith books for him to sign. total fan boy going on. tim it was super gracious and very kind about it. and since then we have grown to become friends he is truly the epitome of the gentlemen and the scholar. he is the southern gentleman in the scholar. withis a really quaint drawl whh is wonderful.

he's so gracious with his time he is deeply deeply invested in his series about the vicksburg campaign. if you've not had the opportunity to read those books they are absolutelyy essential reading. the accounts of vicksburg for decades. but as he is in the midst of that i'm working on my wee little book about the battle of jackson he is so kind to take time out to look at the manuscript and offer suggestions he's very constructive about it. could have been more gracious in this time although he was hard at work at the umpteenth book he is on. and so for that i will always be grateful as well on my quaint little book on mississippi. he is the first recipient of the emerging civil war book award is book on fort donelson again just outstanding. i suspect it when he finally

conquers the west lincoln will bring him to the east and have him start writing out here. [laughter] we could only hope he will grace us with his pen on such thing because his work continues to set thefo standard for civil war scholarship in the west today. let me give you the official biography timothy b smith phd at mississippi state university 2001 is a veteran of the national park service currently teaches history at the university of tennessee at martin. in addition to numerous articles and essays he is an author, editor or coeditor of more than 20 books with several university and commercial presence they went numerous books book awards on the tennessee river campaign haven't won a total of nine book awards he is currently finished with five volume study on the

vicksburg campaign from university press of kansas a new study of albert sidney johnston for lsu press. he lives with his wife kellyanne daughters mary kate and leah grace and adam's fall, tennessee it is my extreme pleasure to welcome him here to the ninth annual emerging symposium at stevenson ranch. tim smith ladies and gentlemen. >> a while, thank you chris, did my mama tell you to sail about? [laughter] it is a pleasure to be here. i've always heard about the emerging civil war symposium and wow, consider me impressed. what a beautiful group of focusing a lot of folks i have known for a long time. a lot of folks that have been on

tours in the past. several people here with me last weekend and vicksburg weeded for five days in vicksburg there's some that's going to be next weekend on the tour. through mississippi and louisiana. a lot of folks back and forth on these tours is good to see all of you. if i haven't seen you come up and say hello and we will reacquaint. thank you for having me. this is wonderful for a i been looking forward to it for a very long time. brag on emerging civil war just a minutes i try to help out as much as i can. it's always a pleasure to help out chris and the folks that run it. helped out reading books, writing forwards and s' on it's a pleasure to be involved in anything like that. to be able to help out just a little bit.

i applaud you and you are doing keep up the good work. nine years of the symposium. keep up the good work you're doing great. let's talk about vicksburg how many of you have been to vicksburg? all right, that is good. obviously i'm not from around here. [laughter] you understand that. you folks talk funny up here for some reason and i don't know why. but vicksburg very extremely importantai campaign in the civl war. we could break at a pretty good argument up here about which is more important the east or the west argument closed we are done. the comparison between vicksburg and gettysburg we heard about

bragg and the importance of that. it's a pretty good week the first week of july it's a pretty good week not so good for the confederates. vicksburg i would argue to you vicksburg is the most complex largest and probably the most important campaign of the civil war. i am not one of these who says you have to pick out one at dates, one battle, one campaign and say that is at the civil wars over that's when it was decided. in fact i was thinking about this and i've come to the conclusion practically dealing early in the war the war was done in 1862. i have come to the conclusion in how many of you are baseball fans? how many of your braves fans? i know we've got one right there no we have phillies fans right there.

sorry. bless them i saw him he was wearing a phillies jersey that was in october of last year i think. they won the world series or they played in the world series. anyway, the idea that you cannot win a pennant in april and may of the baseball season. cayou cannot win it then but you can sure lose it in april or may you can dig yourself a whole. presidential politics are coming upon presidential election pretty soon. you cannot win an iowa or new hampshire but you sure as heck can lose it. that's like golf, i don't play golf but you cannot win the tournament on thursday but you can sure lose it on thursday. that is kind of my view. i had to say one particular campaign that was probably the most important for number of for a number ofdifferent reasonk

about that it had a lot to do with ulysses s grant outgrowth vicksburg or i might be biased. i will argue that point. so the way i want to deal vicksburg tonight is dual ulysses s grant will talk a little bit about pemberton. but in particular will look at his decision-making process and the decision he makes. eight key decisions that ulysses s i grant makes in the vicksburg campaign. in our day of constant news media and everything coming through a phone and so on i have noticed the news networks, whichever you prefer and other people sport sites and so on are going to the top five takeaways from so-and-so top eight that helps us in our fast-paced world to wrap our minds around boom,

boom, boom, different things. we see this a little bit and literature and this is by no means patterned but it is something similar. how many of you read george bush's presidential memoir every president writes a memoir. the way george w. bush did it was take the 10 key decisions that he made in his life like stop drinking and the surge and so on.ok he major decisions we will look at the eight major decisions that ulysses s grant makes. these are military decisions we will talk about military aspects and this is actually a takeoff on one of the book cited several years ago and i signed several for people out there and some of you have it. you all know john the biographer we did a series with the southern illinois university press on the world of ulysses s grant sprayed the whole idea was

after the 32 volumes that he published of the great papers the idea it was a take the knowledge we have learned from the published papers and start producing monograms new series called the world of ulysses s grant this is one of the books in the series so it's different on different aspects of ulysses s grant life. take a look sometime you might find something you're interested in his diplomacy, his worldwide tour, his treatment of native americans of course there are several civil war volumes as well. so in that volume i dealt with a lot of different things going on. military commanders you don't just concentrate holy on the military aspects. it would be nice if you could but t generals have families they're worried about back home. grant had a wife and children read part of the time his son fred was with him in the

hecampaign. but julia and some of the children were back home. eight worriedll about land sales selling land and renting out property. things, justancial personal things in terms of his family pretty had to worry about is daddy trying to make a quick buck off of what he was doing and at the same time we can somewhat associate with this family in his familyhis did not get along. julia and his father were at each other's throats he had to write them both a letter saying calm down, get along. i've got big things to do here i need you to to get along while i am doing this. so the personal aspects are very important. tihiat the same time that grants conducting this campaign the political aspects of this grant keeps politics in mind much better than a sherman or somebody like that.

and he realizes in fact he says later on we were all kind of on probation there anywhere. he realizes his leash is pretty thin or pretty short here. if he does not produce something quickly politically they're going to be calling for his head. he has got political things to worry about. personal in 1862 there's a lot of different things he has going on in addition to the military aspects. but the military aspect is what were going to concentrate on tonight. let's look at the eight key decisions that u.s. grant will deal with in the vicksburg campaign. i assume this is what's going to turn my thing here. this is a quote of his is as i think all councils war, he did he just did not admitted he did. [laughter] he would actually make most of

his own decisions. we will look at a little bit of that as we go forward. alright let's start out the decision number one if you are taking notes i was it tickle that my students when i am lecturing and going different things and so what you can tell and the kind off peace out a little bit. we always say number one. every pin goes down every head goes down and they start writing. whatever it is they don't know what the writing sometimes. number what what's the first key decision that grant makes? that is to go and capture vicksburg. [laughter] okay, i know i am underwhelming you at this point. i tell you something we did not already know. it's actually more complicated than that. grant begins a vicksburg e campaign outrage. now obviously there been things goingsu on back in the summer, may, june, july, of 1862 what we

are talking specifically or grants major vicksburg campaign the outright vicksburg campaign from late october 1862 to july the fourth 1863. the fact that grant decides were going out vicksburg that is nothing new. but here's the kicker. this should have been done much earlier grants actual decision to start doing it is like a breath of fresh air that comes forward and says were actually going to do this. in fact i would argue the vicksburg campaign should have commenced in jun' of 1862. whois command in june of 1862? nothing is going to proceed. especially in the summer of 1862. he takes corinth in the last day of the may united states navy the brown water navy has moved southward after its victory at

memphis on june the sixth all the way to vicksburg. flag officer has moved up the river from new orleans to capture newew orleans and late april. all of the components together in may, june 1862. all they need is a a large army. but hallock does not go in this view of consolidating what we arty have. gaining decisive points. secure supply lines, all of the by the book stuff he says no we are going to sit tight and consolidate what we have plus it's too hot anyway you cannot operate in that claimant in the summer in june and july. proved wrong a year later obviously you can. this should have been done in june of 1862. it certainly should have been done in july of 1862 because

when hallock is called to washington in mid july he leaves grant in charge of the district that he is arty in charge of in tennessee. instead of elevating grants up to the western theater commander which hallock had been harping on we really need a western theater commander out here. what he argued of course he wanted himself to be that commander obviously. but once he goes to washington he doesn't elevate anyone to that position he held he just let's it go back to the very independent district commander so grant is technically still underec hallock although he is w many miles away and as a result grant doesn't have the autonomy or the authority to start the vicksburg operations on his own. had hest been booted up i have o doubt sprint would have gone right on but he doesn't and as a result the vicksburg campaign does not start in july either.

now what is critical in mid october i believe october 16 that have to look back grant is promoted to the higher authority where he has autonomy to conduct his own operations he actually takes command. about 10 days later on october 25 the very next day what does grant do question the key issues orders to move, move to vicksburg were going to take vicksburg. obviously you start the process of going to vicksburg everybody knows. but it's more complicated than what it seems it should have been done much earlier. but finally in the fall of 1862 grantl does start southward and he will actually do things and buy the book. we'll have supporting columns, secure supply lines. we will take significant decisive points and results in basically two attempts to reach vicksburg. you can see that here.

you can seat the mississippi central campaign living southward along the central railroad, oxford towards water valley. the confederates will pull back from the rivers the full water back behind the river there. and it will basically stop and grant him a look at that in a second print at the same time sherman is moving southward of the mississippi river likens a 48 columns they are supposed to support each other but they are too far away to support and he moved southward along the mississippi river with the intention of landing near vicksburg and taking vicksburg. what is the result? obviously both our failures. are failures. grant himself will be turned back by a couple of calvary built writer and a west tennessee breaking foil road bridges on the ohio earl van dorn won't move northward and hit holly springs. grandson big supply base is destroyed.

brandt's ability to refill the supply base is destroyed and so grant has to pull out and mississippi central campaign is done. no more of that. at the same time sherman has met defeat at chickasaw just north of vicksburg on december the 29th. suffers heavy casualties there and as a result of that attempt is also a failure. the first two attempts to reach vicksburg are really better get to reach the outskirts to go to the high ground to the east of vicksburg both end in failure. so grant's decision is a good one number one let's go to vicksburg. but if this not really work out in the first two attempts are unsuccessful. that leads us to the second major decision. before we talk about that we have to introduce the whole military there are some aspects of this. matt is one of former

congressman arrives right in the middle of this to take command of the expedition against vicksburg. well grant does not likeic mcclellan he's not a west pointer he is egotistical. and as a result i am going to have to take sole commands. what had been two different prongs of the federal advance into the mississippi will now become one. grant will make a decision to make a one prong advance. and who is going to be the commander of that? of me grants. in order too supersede grant makes it a one prong basically one access of advanced movement. now. you get into the vicksburgof

campaign operations in january, he gone off to arkansas that is about what i figured nobody goes arkansas post we've got a couple out there that have, okay. not much out there. that's where the river is now. but it is an important political it's a pretty important battleground i think they lose like a thousand soldiers pretty goodpo little battle. but the political aspects of this are what are so important. grant goes bonkers when he calls a wild goosewi chase he's gone f on a wild goose chase and grant request permission to be able to remove him. if you want to get rid of mclaren and grant, that is fine you go right ahead. at least take sole command of the expedition against vicksburg and that's exactly what grant does regret makes the decision

to make this one axis of advanced movement and grant late january won't move us southward along the mississippi river down to where he keeps his headquarters at young's points. on the louisiana side just up river from vicksburg. the first decision. number two let's make it a one axis of advanced movement. but by this point we are in january entering february march, april 1863 the whole place has flooded. the mississippi delta. have you been to the mississippi delta? but as a pancake. floods easily. every year at floods. and as a result most of the operating area vagrant has to deal with is pretty much underwater at this point. it is not going to receipt anytime soon it's going to take a months for the water to

receipt the historian talked about like noaa grant stood and watched waiting for the waters to subside. so what do you do for two or three or four months? grant talks a lot about were going to keep our guys busy so were going to do busy work keep them thinking we are actually doing something we're not going to take vicksburg were just going to wait. i admit that i am a granta fan. i like brandt's but he tells some whoppers in his memoirs, right? just because somebody writes their memoirs don't take it as the gospel truth. because obviously what they're doing is to try and make themselves look as good as possible and theat people they don't like as bad w as possible not just wages memoirs. it's a good good thing to read good book, good source but you've always got to check it. the best place to check his memoirs is to see what he was

saying contemporaneously about whatever he was talk about his memoirs go back to the 32 volumes ofmo his papers of ulyss s grant. if he says something it doesn't make sense and memoirs go back and see what he is writing about in those letters at the time. there are several instances you will find grant is telling a big fat lie is what he is doing. and what he was saying at the time to not really add up. the third decision grant makes is tock try to get to vicksburgy other means. and that is, if everything is flooded how to get to flooded area? mainly by boats. our son but the vicksburg campaign extremely unique, extremely complicated. you got the naval presence here very, very important the navy comes into play here and several of these attempts that you have heard of, that you know of these attempts grant basically tries to tread water and get through

by any way that he can. the amount to deal with that hugo grants attempts and there are four orso more major ones there are less major ones before major ones number one he tries to dig a canal across this hairpin turn of vicksburg here. dig a canal to divert the mississippi river. [laughter] that's been tried a little bit beforehand. you talk about going against the book, there is nothing about diverting the largest river on the continent. [laughter] it doesn't work. the river actually later changes course to pretty much the area grant wanted to but thousand 1876 it was a little bit late to help grant but he tries to dig thiser canal. the lake providence operation they cut a levy, flooded lake

providence ever of the bios to get around vicksburg to the west. the two on the eastern side of the mississippi river you are really fascinating they will cut the river at moon lake go to the pass to the cold water river dumps the tallahatchie bridge rr that's the same one billy joe mcallister jumped into. [laughter] seriously it's also the same river you may have seen recently president biden had it declare a national park or monument or whatever and disseminate through the body into and later recovered. down where was coming as the river the path expedition is stopped at greenwood,pp mississippi and they have to get out of there. the expedition goesbl up over it

to deer creek over to rolling fork.ju they are going through ditches that are just flooded at the time. but none of these work. but these are her small-scale attempts that are low risk but could provide really high rewards at low risk high reward you can see what grant is doing here. the ironic thing grant almost loses the fleet and the expedition when he gets in there in the confederate start cutting trees behind them and all of that. they managed read the fleets out but these are low risk high reward efforts but grants put a lot of stock into. if you read the letters at the time and grant is talking yes this is going to be our ticket to vicksburg or to the position we can get to the point forget the past we've got another route.

he was very high on each of these things until they prove to be failures. the ideas never put stock into guthem we do busy work. not really the truth. i'd wanted these succeeded he would have been aesthetic. but none of them do. the third is to tread water try anything we can to get to vicksburg. but none of them worked. okay what are we on number four? have to ask my students are what are we on? number four that's right. here within the decision this is the big a decision. and it really in terms of the entire civil war this is one of the biggies is one of the big decisions.ok

everyone heard of bruce canton? i saw several of his books back there. label this as one of the two or three big major decisions in the civil war. it is that big. that is the decision to quit pedaling around up here north of vicksburg the canal and all that kind of stuff. we are up to six failed attempts now. what grant is going to do is shift his army southward through a series of a bios and or roadways the water starting to receipt a little bit in april. he will move his weight southward through the wilderness down there to a point south of vicksburg he can cross the river and move on a much more favorable land up to this high-growth east that he is

after. and so that is very risky. this is an extremely risky decision he is making and again goes completely against the book becauseg number one there's no supporting columns but number two there is no decisive points to take. number three you're putting the whole enemy army between your self and your base of supplies which is literally back in memphis but you do not have a secure supply line by any means this is going totally against the book. but grant says what have we got to lose? we are going to try it. the key thing here is this is not like the low risk high reward whisks before. this is do or die. there is no backing up from this. once you start this there is no coming back. we had been through plan a, b,

c, d, e, f this is plan g there is no plan eight. [laughter] there's no plan h. if this does not work grant are probably in the political atmosphere loses his commands. itit may lose his army for thisa good possibility he could lose his life or spend the rest of it in a confederate prison camp somewhere there is no going back on this. just an example of how critical this is the navy's going to be very, veryet involved. when you get to the west side of the mississippi river you have to crossd over to the east side you cannot build a pontoon boat bridge across the mississippi river. you have to have the navy there. as a result when he talks to officer porter he's like really? you want to do this? okay i will do it.

but you have to understand and he tells grant this, this, this, this this is critical porter tells grant if we go south of vicksburg were going to have to run these batteries there's no guarantee our boats are going to get past these guns at vicksburg. like we do get he says i'm going to send the best boats that i have to knock out this and the guns there. i'm not going to send the weakest vessels i'm going to send the best i've got one just does not leave more to vicksburg. porter says alright, if we go south of vicksburg there is no hope whatsoever of getting the vessels back up north to vicksburg. if this option doesn't work you may be able to pull your army out but we cannot get the vessels back north of vicksburg and here is the reason is the current of the mississippi

river. it's five or six knots. how many knots does the average civil war ironclad make? four or five or so? if you add that together with the current you're making pretty good at speed southward past vicksburg. if you try to come back up against the current you beat making it best to one or two knots which meanstt what? you will be sitting ducks for the confederate artillery. porter says once we go below there ain't no getting back. so be careful what you wish for. if you really want to do this, i will do it i will risk my vessels. but just know there is no going back. this plan h is the final one, succeed or fail. grant says okay got nothing else it let's do it. [laughter] not really it's paraphrasing he's is in actuality there is no other choice. this is what we have to do.

so as grant marches his army southward on the western side of thehw mississippi he move southward on his vessels on the ninth of april 16 work transports follow on april the 22nd. and eventually they cannot reduce the guns onn the 29th but grants will have to move a little further down the river and there thehe army embarks on the gunboats and the transports and the barges and anything that will float they are moved across the river to land in mississippi to a place called bruins berg from their grant marches in and he will fight the battle that day on the battle of fort gibson built move across and sit and wait and gather his thoughts there. and so one of the key to our three big decisions that grant makes right here and then there is no going back success or

fail, do or die, conquer or perish as they said prior. now, so this is dangerous. the supply issues, naval issues but it is successful grant actually gets across there is no opposition. in fact the confederates do not meet him until near fort gibson itself thee reason for this are many diversions grant has going on the entire division is gone up the river to greenville and operating along the deer creek area. sherman his self some back to the chickasaw bio or he's been defeated several months ago and he is showing himselflf there wh the gunboats and the army to make the confederates think is going to land there the biggest diversion it rides through the whole part of mississippi. and causes just all kinds of ruckus.

takes pemberton's views from grant really should haveat been. in fact with all this going on there so many diversions and everything, all to the northeast of vicksburg were grant is moving to the southwest. poor pemberton we could do a little talk on pemberton i guess. this is not about pemberton. anyway i'll try my thinking on pemberton. if somebody would create a bobble head doll. [laughter] that would perfectly encapsulate what's going on with pemberton because his head is literally -- it is bobbling. he's got so much going on in every different direction. and in the process grant is crossing the river easily and the decision works. okay that's decision number

five. no that was number four. [laughter] number five, ca get mixed up.. i was testing you to see if you're paying attention. some of you are taking notes fvery good you get an a for the class tonight. all right, number five what do we dos now? grant has a couple of options. once he sits and gathers his thoughts and gathers some supplies and this other core that's been flungks off to chickasaw sherman's 15 coral move in and joine grant here nr willis springs then he has a couple of choices, what do we do then? the obvious choice will be to cross some of the theories and moved straight up towards vicksburg. he does not want to do that though mainly because he does not want to get caughtic in this triangle that is the mississippi river on the left the river on

the right and the railroad in the north. the confederate army can defendg from the mississippi river to the big black river and as a result get grant into this area or grant cannot maneuver he wants to be able to maneuver and as a result of you get hemmed into a restricted area that is going to be problematic. so the better idea it would be to move northeastward on the west side of the big black river reach of the railroad one single railroad that is feeding vicksburg literally feeding vicksburg. may be more important to the transportation of supplies and ammunition. that is important but by this point and may lead the communication the railroad provides side of vicksburg that is extremely critical as well. as a result grant will decide let's move up using the big

black river as a shield on our left let's move northward somewhere between clinton, bolton, edwards right in this area. we cut that railroad get a stride of the radio no more trains are going to come through. no more telegraphic messages will move that we will have vicksburg cut off similar to the pacific in world war ii and variousjapanese islands and installations were cut off and allowed to wither on the vine. he's going to isolate vicksburg as he moves northward into the middle part of may in doing so he will fight five battles in 17 days talks about fort gibson on may the first he will meet a confederate brigade at raymond on may the 12th jackson on the 14th i hear there's a good book on jackson that just came

out recently. [laughter] what's that guy's name that wrote that? i cannot remember max something. anyway. it is a g goodd book. jackson on may the 14th. grant makes the decision to turn from the railroadca here because of the resistant he met at raymond on his right flank heat will decide we don't know it's there we got to turn we might as well cut the railroad at jackson. so kill twowo birds with one stone. they moved to jackson, take jackson, deprive the enemy as a concentration area. then he will turn westward and he will finally meet the confederate army under pemberton. who by this point is not about pemberton but i have thoughts. the shield of the big black river is very important. even more so than that he comes

out from behind baker's creek he gets totally caught out of position. pemberton is totally caught out of position and as a result hiss hit on may the 16th ands retreating across not only baker's creek he loses the whole division retreating across baker's creek but then on may the 17th the big black river bridge heat nearly loses a whole another division there.t it is a major debacle there so 7 day grant fight five battles many just outnumber the enemy each time and manages to defeat the enemy each time. may not be saying much when you say this is john pemberton we are fighting against. had this been a robert e lee and command of vicksburg i'm not sure grant would've been able to do this. i'm not sure grant would've attempted it like this getting into a little bit of what if's there.

by may 17 grant has cracked the shield that is a big black river shielding vicksburg, he will continue to move on westward to invest vicksburg. the key thing here is grant reaching the yazoo river north of vicksburg. they are fall back inside vicksburg of course by the 17th, 18th grant and sherman both r on several trips have reached the river which is critical in terms of supply. where is grant supplies coming from during the inland campaign here in may? either from the land, they are gathering bread and bacon, not a lot of bread. bacon and poultry and all of that off of the land. he does somewhat live off the land. but you can't go out into a farmers view and pick a mini

ball bush i've yet to see bush we can pick those in the critical need is bread. not a lot of breads available in the plantation area here in the farming area here. and as a result what grant is moving a wagon trains to the army or things that he cannot acquire by living off the land that is mainly bread and ammunition. it is critical that grant reach the yazoo river were supplies will come through and start flowing unhampered. because the federal navy hasn'ts proven even go down the mississippi and a few miles up until the big guns at snyder's bluff stop your movement in this area back at the chickasaw bio battlefield where sherman had landed back in december and landed again in late april and early may. you can certainly unload supplies here and that becomes

the big major depot for the union army at vicksburg. this ends what i call the first real phase of the vicksburg campaign. if you would divide the vicksburg campaign into two different phases you can do that by saying okay number one they spent about seven months getting into a position on the delta appear the mississippi river and the way it has laid out they spent about seven months just getting into a position where they can then start the second phase of actually taking vicksburg. now grant writes about this. i had to maneuver to get into a position to fight the enemy.

simply to get into a position and i'll give you an example of what i think it is.it grant talks about this in his memoir, sherman t admits this. when they finally ride to the point overlooking chickasaw bio where sherman had been defeated back in december sherman turns to grant and says all right in' really was not interested in this i did not think it would succeed and read between the lines they sing i thought you were an idiot for ordering this. but you do not tell your commanding general he is an idiot. the idea here is sherman tells grant i can see it now with the supplies open we have vicksburg hemmed in but there's not' doubt there's a result of this thing there is the end of this campaign. sherman says you need to make a report to washington about thiso campaign we have not taken vicksburg yet i don't know what's going to happen in the

future but this campaign has ended and it is brilliant and you did a good job you are not an idiot like i thought you were. [laughter] and grants us okay, thanks. [laughter] so, the end of the first phase of this is getting into a position to actually take vicksburg that is the first of five major decisions. that leaves us tonu decision number six when grant approaches vicksburg on the 17th and 18th of may what do you do now? what is next? well, we can just sit here and wait for them to come out and surrender or starve or, we could starve them out that includes the siege operations there's a whole new can of words i do siege operations. it is lengthy. it takes a lot of effort. it takes a lot of patience and grant says i do not want to do

that. what's the other option? what end this thing today by doing what? attack assaulted. so let's assault vicksburg. he tells his entire army that we are going to assault. on may the 19th he will tell everybody, go but only one division goes on may the 19th. it is a hurried operation. in fact at 2:00 p.m. on may the 19th. grants headquarters this is one of the few messages in the official records that has a timestamp on it, but the time state on grants order to attack at 2:00 p.m. is 11:16 a.m. you have an hour and 44 minutes to get prepared here. not forward thinking too much that is rushing it up a little bit. and as a result it fails. along the graveyard road.

grant says okay i can understand we rush itt up a little bit, let's take our time. let's consolidate the armyp. les get the entire army up. let's get supplies distributed and let's do this thing right. and so he says all right, may the 22nd is when were going to do this thing right and would mark your watches, put your watches together set your watch by my time are allng going atf 10:00 o'clock. at 10:00 a.m. on the morning of may the 22nd the entire army of tennessee will assault vicksburg. what you see here. and everything will fail. he will say i made a little progress and he doesn't much. vicksburg still holds fast why does she make this decision? i have discussed this with others and they are of the opinion grant should not have wasted lives and should not have

attempted to take vicksburg but some are military folks who am i to argue with military folks on wasting lives? i would say grant had pretty good reasons for doing this but first and foremost he thanks the confederate army is dejected and will basically roll over and play dead at the first force that is shown against him. remember in the last two or three days champion hill on the 17th. has taken a thumping. they are very discouraged. the problem is grant does no' realize the troops that his army will encounter on the assaults on may the 19th and the 22nd are the two fresh divisions i've been guarding snyder's bluff and haynes bluff and those that had not been involved in the debacles at championchk hill and the river bridge. so they need a fresh troops and as a result are turned back.

grant logically thanks he got them on the run. why not add a little more pressure and they will fold? i can see his thinking there. grant also thanks it is may. if we go ahead and handle this thing today we've got more good weather before it really gets hot and it really gets hot in mississippi in july and august for those of you on the tour at last week and figured that out, didn't you? it was hot. the idea is we can do more. june. so there's other things that we can do if we go ahead and take care of this, they will have to send us reinforcements, which later during the siege, of course, their numerous reinforcements are sent to grant. he says those could be used somewhere else. they wouldn't have to send them to us. if we can go ahead and take care of this. he also says that his he didn't think they would conduct siege operations if they had not had a chance to assault, you know, if they had a chance, take care of

it today. they needed to be proven today they needed to be proven wrong in order for them to put effect which takes time and patience. if i was a soldier i would have said the easier way. i've got plenty of patients. i have got more patients of them i do blood that's going to run out if i get a shot or something. for a number of different reasons including what he is god confronting him, and here is a little bit. he is lurking out there and after grant leaves he is building an army of relief, very misnamed. but grant is worriedut about it, almost paranoid about it. getting into warfare here and actually the next decision,

number seven is the only option you've got so number six is to assault but in tandem, no other option. so when you lay siege there are definite terms that are used. the line that goes into actually bowing in the confederates in vicksburg or any other place under siege is a lot of circum- relation. has anyone heard the term? we are getting technical. that's much better. [laughter] just making sure you are still awake. the lion of relation will basically circle vicksburgw and cut them off. this is not actually done until mid c june. everyone thinks they cut vicksburg off. it's not sealed off until the reinforcements come in mid june with of the arrival from

missourial that grant actually prettyd much seals off vicksbur. behind that i'm out here will be what's called a line of calm tribulation and the two are almost interchangeable. what that is is a real world line that will defend your career while you are besieging vicksburg and by the end, grant will send sherman out to defend the line. see sherman, with about or third or more of the troops on this line while grant and the rest are left to the 77,002 try to continue the approaches.

the siege operations in the civil war history. if you include the assault yes it is 47 days and this is splitting hairs almost, but the assaults were not actually part of the siege. the siege operations don't commence until the 23rd and are not order by grant. if you take out the four or five days of assaults when grant thinks we are going to end this right now it cuts it down to 43 days or something like that. that's one of the reasons there are two distinct operations.

there's a volume on the assaults themselves and one on the siege. so for six weeks or so grant will lay siege to vicksburg and slowly dwindle away. the muscles will slow down, food supplies will start to run out. it gets pretty bad. ultimately they will surrender. he starts the negotiations on july 3rd. they carry over to the next day on july 4th and this is the same that gettysburg. he is getting checkmated almost in terms of so a lot going on in those couple of days. it leads to the last decision and that is what to do with all

of these prisoners. here is another in the memoir. he later says everybody wanted to send them off to prison camps. 30,000 confederates all of a sudden. send them to prison camps but i saidm no because we want all of them to go home and maybe they will not come back. in truth everybody was saying except grant and one of the divisionly commanders had been booted up when sherman went to take command back there but still saying let's send them to prison camps and he liked this unconditional surrender thing. so they captured the whole army. three major armies captured in the civill war. if you include donelson, vicksburg,n you see a pattern

here. you've got a bunch of small ones as well. parole that way you don't have to tie up the entire navy or transport and all that. they literally well just go home and a lot of them will not come back so we will just do that. so the eighth decision i think the vast majority does go home and never comes back. there are some that do. they are exchanged and some are captured again which makes you wonder if they really agreed to their exchange in pearls and all that. many of them went to fight in theus campaign, but a lot of thm simply did not come back and that's kind of what grant

actually wanted. so the decision about 29,000 in change so eight major decisions and i think it illustrates a lot ofil things, the capability of o grant is operating again into sometimess we joke about with robert e lee was he that a good or is it because he was against mcclellan and all the rest of the stooges in the east. more in the eastern theater. i don't do eastern theater. forgeti' i said that. i will leave it to some of these others. but there's no doubt that if grant had been facing leave things might have been a little bit different. there is no doubt that had grant

faced earlier things probably might have looked a little different as well but it is what it is and we have grant facing but it says more about grant and if you take away the genius to plan a campaign like this and then to follow it through that is the stuff they both talk about in the military genius. the bulldog never give up mentality if something happens we just go a different route and do it another way. it shows the adaptability. how many times in the campaign do we see grant hit a brick wall and say okay can't go through that a brick wall we will go around different way. he adapts and that is the stuff

even those who don't adapt in life don't make it very successfully. and grant certainly does that. that's the military aspect. have i used up all my time? in the larger context we are talking just military but if you and the personal family stuff that he's dealing with at the same time and the economic trade issues and political overtones, grant has a lot on his plate, a lot of different things going on and i think that he handles it pretty well. it shows the genius of ulysses s grant and probably the most complex, most unique, probably

most important campaign in civil war i think we see the genius come outut very well. thanks very much. if you have any questions not sure how long we have. >> when grant proposes crossing the river, sherman doesn't agree, tells grant he doesn't, he still does his duties and supports grant. doesn't seem to affect grant and sherman's relationship even though he's like this is a terrible idea. cangr you speak to that a little bit? >> we hear about the grant sherman relationship. it probably starts when grant is going after, sherman is back in paducah funneling goods and

supplies into grant is very appreciative of what sherman is doing even though he outranks him at that point but sherman is willing to put that aside. when we get to this point grant has figured out sherman and knows he's just the bombastic type and we all probably know people like this, the type he would come in that door mouth first and he's going to talk and to be the social butterfly. grant comes in the door and he's going to hunt the first corner but grant knows sherman at this point. this is not going to work this isis a dom all that kind of stuf it's like okay i've heard that before. sherman does write a letter and verbally tells grant as well and

basically makes the argument any confederate general would gladly maneuver a year to put grant in a position he was willingly assuming with 1 foot astride of the mississippi river but grant says there is no other choice so we are going to do it. your worry is duly noted. the key to that is sherman by this point even though he doesn't like it he still says i'm going to do all i can. we've got to support grant and do our best. and to his credit later he says i didn't like it but you are right. we did it your way and it worked. by the wayse president lincoln also send a message after the

vicksburg campaign and says i've been watching and when you turn northward i thought you were making a mistake that you should have done this and also one book lincoln stayed out of it and at the bottom of the letter says i want to make the public admission that you were right and i was wrong. how many other presidents would write a letter like that? i don't know many that would. so the relationshipt there is y but grant doesn't let it stop when he says grant is in charge and grant makes the decisions. the decision was on my own he says. w >> please stand and introduce yourself and where you're from and i will hold the microphone as you ask your questions. >> you talk about grant. most of us who've been in the military know that staff do

planning. the general does it. have you been able to delve into the research? >> that is very much an issue. grant, one of the problems with grant is that he is a very poor diligenter character whether ite his staff during the civil war it's a lot of cronyism. he would say you would make a good staff officer. but grant is loyal to them. you see this later on in his administration when there's a bunch of crooks that are his cabinet officials, don't serve him very well at all so there are a few good ones and there's a book on this.

the argument ises the farther, e more proficient and professional. but early on through the campaign they were just ovens of cronies and really don't serve him very well and as a result i think grant new a little bit of this and he actually says this whole roundabout things i didn't even mention it to any of my staff until it was time to do it because well couldn't do anythig now with all the water and so and so so it's all been in the back of my mind for all these months but i didn't mention it to the staff. so it's quite clear grant is the one doing the planning, not the staff because they are probably at thish point not capable, whih adds even more to the genius of grant. >> dale robertson.

you said a couple of times grant may not have made that move and one thing and i am i to be paraphrasing the greatest fear that lincoln would appoint a commander he didn't understand. it did grant know him and if he hdid, how much would that have factored into the decisionet to put the confederate army to supply and take that risk? >> they served in the mexican war together, same division actually and that is kind of a training ground for these officers.' in fact there is a new book coming out and i don't think i'm going to say anythinges i shouldn't. but we've written an article a about it. it deals with the lessons learned in mexico when they knew

each other and learned each other and how they put that to use in the civil war and grant mos' famously of course when he's approaching for donaldson and there is no opposition whatsoever, afternoon falls, he tells him if i was in command, which he was, he said if i had been in command you wouldn't have been able to march up like that and he tells him if you had been in command i wouldn't have tried it like that. so kind of the same thing here. he knows that he is passive and administrative. he is a born administrator who has no business whatsoever out commanding an army and has no experience in it so grant definitely uses that to his advantage because he knows.

>> coulden you speak to the relationship? >> you have a lot of different campaigns.na even in the shenandoah valley, there's no water maybe a few little rivers or whatnot, but with the mississippi river being right smack in the middle of this whole campaign, the navy becomes extremely important and it's complicated a little bit by the fact the brown water deviance being the oceangoing ships, but the ironclads and the timber clouds and so forth, they will initially be under the

army's command to support henry and for donaldson could command flag officer we need you to do this, go do this and he could balk a little bit but he ultimately had to do it. in the fall of 1862, the navy transfers those vessels or linkedin transfers them to the navyvy and so they are no longer under army command so that relationship between grant and porter is absolutely critical because grant wins him over almost immediately so he will do not everything. there's some examples where he will do some things grant wantss but by and large even like past the vicksburg by and large he will do pretty much anything grant wants because he can see he has. a pretty good idea and this is what we've got left so the interworking between grand and porter is just absolutely

critical and you can't turn at itthe other way around and say f porter had to work with another army officer, while you can say that i guess, but for instance if it hadn't been grant and it had been as lincoln supposed when he gave this order to go take vicksburg, i don't think we would've gotten the cooperation between porter and mclaren in that regard between porter and grant. so if you turn that around if it was a different naval commander it would have been grant he may not have been the same relationship back and forth with grant and a different naval commander so there's all those soulmates. navy, army officer, they get along so well and work together so well in tandem and we see the results of it in this very unique and a very, very important campaign against

vicksburg. thank you very much. [applause] a five to six minute video addressing one of these questions. in the next 20 years what is the most important change you would like to see in america or over the past 20 years what has been the most important change in america as we do each year we are giving away $100,000 in total prizes with a grand prize of $5,000, and every teacher that has a student to participatein this year's compes the opportunity to share a portion of an additional $50,000. jaary 19, 2024. friday,

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