victorious. if he was not victorious he would have been fired, too, certainly. the effect of it in the long term, what i would suspect is that they would have -- the union would have mounted another expedition. they might have done it differently. it might have been bloodier. but it would happen. and with the iron-clad gun boats if ford didn't do the job they'd come back 20,000 guys didn't do the job they'd come back with 40,000. it would have happened. it would have postponed that, though. and this was the place to attack. this was the weak linkn the line. and it was going to come here. so long answer to your question, that's i think it would have happened eventually. >> if there were already discussion in the north by some people by saying we'll let the south go at that point because they were so discouraged and there was no win.

>> yeah, could be. with the success of donelson, if it happened there was a failure maybe. also to the -- donelson's first blow to the confederacys were gaining foreign recognition. with a successful defense of donelson and henry, yeah, we're getting a little gray area here of what ifs. >> it could have cost the presidential election. >> well, as they say in politics, if you didn't hear it could have cost the presidential election. could be. but two years is an awful long time in politics. yeah. yes, sir. >> when henry -- the navy took henry, the army hadn't even with belmont and with seeing

columbus, shouldn't the navy have been anticipated more elevation of their guns? >> yeah, probably. >> because that was a major problem. >> yeah, it was. but the gun boat design was interesting. the gun boats were designed for ship operations. so the guns had trouble elevating. yeah. they probably should have. but they didn't have much intelligence here at fort henry or fort donelson. they knew of their existence. fort donelson, even today people have trouble spelling the name for pete's sake. i still get fort donaldson. i get e-mails like that. so yeah, in hindsight they should have. but there's a couple of things working on -- i'll counter that argument with not being able to shoot high enough? on the river here most of the shots were overshot. so they were able to elevate. but what you have on the gun boats here at the time you're on

flood waters. very choppy. the boat's bouncing. looking down the hill at the guns they look pretty big. i challenge any -- not challenge but i encourage any of you to walk forward the gun line and look back. it's a thin little line with a couple black dots. and if you're a couple hundred yards away and you got this big 46-pound cannon trying to hit that one little do, pretty tough target. >> basically they were about amile away, weren't they? >> at first then they closed. in like at fort henry they closed in as close as they could almost point blank. that's when the gun boats got in trouble. they were able to shoot down onto the unprotected parts of the boat. okay. yes, sir. >> with the advent of the telegraph being used in the war, didn't that lead to a lot more micromanagement by the politicians?

and the rear echelon generals? >> the short question was with the event of the telegraph was there an increase in micromanagement? oh. certainly that wouldn't happen. look what happened in to e-mail. how many of you deal with e-mail, by the way? happens all the time. yes, it did happen. in fact, grant had problems with halleck. he's up in st. louis and he's telling grant while he's at fort henry, do an end run. take clarksville and grant's looking at the map and he knows what's on the ground. he says that's impossible. but i do know what grant is able to say to himself, i know the boss is getting impatient and he wants me to move. i need to cut the bridge at clarksville. in order to do that i have to take fort donelson. and so grant is being micromanaged but he's able to deal with it. part of that is because he's 500 miles away. don't you wish you had that with your boss? >> but at the same time, you

also had feedback going to washington where lincoln is sitting there and -- >> in this particular case grant is insulated from that, probably to his betterment. grant is dealing with halleck. he's not letting that stuff filter down. halleck is in control of the communications. so halleck discussing things with mcclellan discussing things with beull discussing things with the war department, grant is not part of that. the reason is halleck is looking at grant as a subordinate. you do my bidding, no more, no less. and he's dealing directly with grant. so yes, it can be a possibility -- a problem with micromanaging. but grant was able to correctly, selectively ignore some things. but he got the tone of what halleck wanted and was able to operate successfully.

yes, sir. >> could you speak about columbus and belmont and how that impacted -- defenses. in '61 and '62. the mississippi river had about seven major fortifications starting at columbus, working all the way down past memphis, to vicksburg. there was about seven of them. and they're all fairly substantial works. if you ever get to columbus, kentucky, it's well worth the trip. if you see what they have built there and what's still around them you see these walls that are 20, 30 feet high. they're 30 to 40 feet wide. they're massive constructionses. then you see the little chicken scratchings out here in the water battery in the little fort donelson, you could see where the confederate majority of effort was. where they were concentrating was on the mississippi river. because they knew that's what the federals wanted -- they

wanted control of the mississippi. so they built at the fort at the fort at the fort on the mississippi river. for the tennessee river you had fort henry and fort hayman across the river from each other. that's it. that's all they had. fort hyman was incomplete on the kentucky side. fort donelson was stronger, but even then only 14 guns along the river. columbus had dozens on the river. you could just see where they're focusing their effort. it wasn't here on the tennessee or cumberland river, it was on the mississippi. so to get to your question, as fort henry in particular fell, that gave the ability of the union to come up the tennessee and swing over and get behind columb

columbus, cut the rail line off. once that's done, whoever is stuck up there in columbus is trapped. so once fort henry fell, quickly the confederates said we need to start pulling all our guys out of clup bus or we're going to lose them. so without a shot columbus falls and is occupied by essentially a regiment infantry from the union side. >> so there wasn't much of a battle. >> there was zero. >> okay. >> they just pulled back. the next fight would be island number ten which was on the tennessee line. and that came a quick battle, too. the iron-clads ran the batteries and then the union army got behind the fort. nothing there to stop them. so fort henry, fort donelson set off that chain reaction is that columbus essentially because fort henry did fell right behind it. yes, sir. >> the location of fort henry?

was it not doomed from the way it was set up? >> it was doomed right off the bat. the location of fort henry was built at kirkman's old landing. i don't know why they built it there. a number of gentlemen, captain taylor was probably the most colorful -- well, the people found problems with it. the fort was started in the summer of 1861 when the river was low. low water. and the fort did have a great field of fire. for three uninterrupted miles, you could shoot cannon three miles. and that's pretty good. but they didn't take into account the river floods. and the captain taylor was an artillery man who came out from nashville to teach the guys how to shoot the big guns. and during one of his afternoon walks he's up above the hills around the fort and kind of noticing these mud rings up on

the trees. he says -- asked the local farmer, what the hell is this? well be that's mud rings from the floods. you got to be kidding me. i mean, it's kind of -- okay, mud ring. it's over the fort. the mud rings are -- you got to be kidding. so he's writing a report. and he's writing to the state of tennessee, the confederate engineer bureau, the confederate army and guys come out and take a look at it. they say, well, too late. just keep building. and that's really what happened. now, was there some bureaucratic deal, real estate deal on this? i don't know. did some senator's nephew own that land? i don't know. but from an engineering standpoint, what were you people thinking about? and at the time of the battle, i think you're mostly familiar with it, the river rising, the confederate gunners were

standing in water fighting their guns. and it was like this close to entering the powder magazine which would have flooded the powder. if grant would have waited one more day, he wouldn't have had to fight fort henry at all. it would have been underwater. that was the timing of it. so general tillman who was commanding at fort henry at the time was looking at the army moving around his rear, looking at the gun boats, saying i'm out of here. he sends his guys to fort donelson. so leaving behind the skeleton crew with the heavy batteries to hold off the union. yeah, i don't know how to explain why they chose that site. any site along that stretch of the river go a mile up, a mile south, any position would have been better than that. even today if you go out there since the dam was built in '33, '34, the tennessee valley authority, it's under about 20

feet of water. and i'm not sure there's much of anything left. the existing photos from 1932 had a picture of an old man and the fort north wall fort henry was probably about three feet high when they were originally about 10 to 20 feet high. so it's been eroded by that time. and now being underwater under sediment and all that. i can't imagine anything is left of it, unfortunately. it would be neat. so you had a question earlier. >> who's the overall commander again for that region? >> north or south? >> south. and did he catch a lot of flack for having an in-depth defense? >> the overall regional commander for the south was albert sidney johnson, the western department. and yes, he did catch a lot of flack for it. and albert sidney johnson was actual lit second highest-ranking confederate general in the army at that time. very distinguished career. indian fighter, been in a regular army before the war.

was department commander in the pacific right before the war and came across the prairie to fight in the civil war. he had a tough job. the south had a departmental system in how they worked things. so johnson was responsible for raising armies, equipping them, dealing with all the governors, getting supplies from the governors. he was a military guy but he was also a politician. or he had to deal with the politicians. hard, hard job. where the union had a far more line of central authority here. general johnson will catch heck for the failure of ft fort henry, fort donelson and he's scrambling to recover from that which leads to the battle of shilo. he is forming the -- after fort donelson, fort henry fall, the new union army of the tennessee will move to pittsburgh landing south of here. general johnston, albert sidney

johnston, is collecting every confederate flag out of columbus, bowling green, nashville, assembles at corinth and this is his counter strike. and that's the battle of shilo comes about. someone else first -- >> there were a lot of other people went along with him. did they -- the different big grade generals or the different group leaders say -- not whole groups went. >> a case-by-case basis. the question is, when general forrest escapes from fort donelson, he takes his own command. but what about the other guys that went with him? about 800 to 1200 guys went with forrest. how did that come about? and the question was, was it a -- i'll just say it was a case-by-case basis. forrest was going to make a run for it and break out. if you had a horse like if

you're an artillery man and you had a horse, get on the dang horse and follow. if you're on foot, that's kind of tricky. a lot of guys would have loved to break out but they were on foot and they knew they had to cross a creek down there. and once they even got clear at fort donelson the fear was being overtaken by union cavalry. so a lot of guys didn't make the bold choice to escape. it really came down to, if you had a horse, if you got word that there was even a breakout and you wanted to or not, that's how it came down to. there's a cavalry battalion under lieutenant colonel gant. they didn't go with forrest. refused to go. forrest asked them to go, alerted them, didn't want to go. there are other guys begging to go. so it was really by that time it was an individual decision. some guys tried to cross the river, break through the lines, sneak through.

>> total breakdown. >> yes. that's what makes head counting after the battle so tough. because there's some guys that were captured, put on the roll. but they had an opportunity to just walk away. he's a prisoner but where the heck is he? so record keeping was very lax on both sides during this campaign. which makes it kind of fun as a historian. but if you're looking for a definitive answer sometimes i got to say i don't know. there's no definitive answer for that. >> even after they had surrendered some of them walked away? >> yes. absolutely. most famous case is brigadier general johnson. he surrendered with his guys. didn't sign any paperwork but he was within the lines. most of the guys were being put onto transports. a couple more boats left to go. tell you, what captain, how about you and i we'll go. walked up the lines, found a couple horses and they split.

he paid the price for that, too. question? >> first of all, thank you for being here. i think your book is fabulous. the life of the common soldier. based upon your research that you've done, for a moment can we step back 150 years right now, february 11th, 4:00 in the afternoon, what's going on? both side? you said they're obviously digging crazily the southern troops are. >> what you have was re-enacted today. bless the re-enactors, the ones that did. they had a re-enactment of the guys camped out at fort henry and they made that march from fort henry to fort donelson much like they did 149 years, so many months and days ago. anyway, they made that march, god bless them. my goodness. with the nasty weather that we

had last night in particular, they went ahead and did that. now back to the question, what's going on here right now? 4:00 in the afternoon? chaotic. general tillman has allowed himself to be captured at fort henry. that was not his original plan by the way. he sent colonel hyman in charge of the column at fort donelson. he sent him back to fort henry to check on the gunners about to fire on the gun boats and he got caught up in the battle and he got all animated. the combat does that. you get all excited and he was serving the guns with the rest of them. he got surrendered. so now we're into the days after that is colonel hyman's here but he just happens to be the ranking colonel of this whole confederate column. a reminder, general tillman is not just the commander of fort donelson of fort henry but also fort donelson. he allowed himself to get captured there and leaving the

rest of his garrison without a leader. i find fault with general tugman on that. conduct was very heroic, very brave officer. i will certainly not take that away from him but he got caught up with things and captured at henry. bushrod johnson will be sent here that would have been yesterday, i believe. but that was very quickly overshadowed because general pillow would be sent here. and then latered it would be tomorrow i believe general floyd would show up along with general buckner. so very chaotic going on here. what the the confederates are doing on the 11th is still recovering from the fort henry ordeal and the long march and nasty road here. general gilmer should be here anytime. he's the major of engineers at the time. he'll start sketching out what we now know as the outer defenses. and well, that might be happening right now. starting to dig tonight. how's that? digging party. >> wow.

that's what's going on now. and what just comes to mind at this time, the big guns, the columbia down there, the 100 pounder and the not even mounted. they are wanting for spare parts. they tested it out a couple of weeks ago but it bent the cast iron carriage and they need someday extra parts. those are being forged in clarksville. again to be sent forward. the six-inch rifle is missing a couple of parts, too. the 6 1/2-inch rifle would be firing in operation. the columbiad is in operation. but because of the damage done to the carriage can only fire in one direction. what they did with what they had was remarkable. i think we will have time for one more. you're it.

>> -- how the south -- where the south was not originally planned. >> let me pay you off for that one. my publisher if he sees this probably will not be happy. the title was "we are defeated valor lives." in the publishing world when you give a manu script over you lose a lot of control over what happens. it was decided, this was ten years ago, provocative and thought-provoking title. they wanted that and they insisted one it. i had to accept it or find another publisher. i was younger. so thank you for the question. that was the original title of the book. and i do not make the point.

there are so many different points in the war that you cannot say this is where it was lost. but i will make the point like i did earlier, this is the most decisive one. i challenge anyone to tell me a more decisive battle than this and, by golly, it's real -- i'm real proud to be here to be part of the commemoration experiences here, and i'm so glad you guys made the time and trouble to make it as well. god bless you all folks, and thank you for coming. and i will pass it on to professor richardson. [ applause ] >> what an honor to have you here, sir, thank you very much. a few days after the battle, general grant wrote that the name ft. donelsonill be forever spelled in capital letters across the maps of our nation. he and many others recognized how important this battle was in

the timeline of the civil war nvd this story, ft. henry/ft. donelson campaign has some of the most incredible stories associated with it. there are thousands of stories and it is such an honor and a pleasure to be able to share those stories and to preserve the resources here at the park. we who work here at ft. donelson, this is our home away from home. we just love being here, but this park is yours. this belongs to you. and so as much of an honor as it is for us to be part of the civil war cess questisesqesentes possible because of your support. the professor will be out front to say hello and sign your book. have a peaceful and safe day. thank you for being here. [ applause ]

as commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the civil war continues, join us every saturday at 6:00 and 10:00 pm and sundays at 11:00 am for programming featuring the civil war. for more information, go to c-span.org/history. and to keep up with us during the week or to send us your questions and comments, follow us on twitter. we're at twitter.com/c-spanhistory. there is a new website for american history tv where you can find our schedules and preview our upcoming programs, watch featured video from our regular weekly series as well as access ahtv's history tweets, history in the news and social media from facebook, youtube, twitter and foursquare.

follow american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3 and online at cspan.org/history. hosted by our comcast cable partner, c-span's local content vehicle recently visited many historic sites in shreveport, louisiana's third largest city. learn more about shreveport all weekend long on american history tv. >> the inevitable end. retribution. clyde barrel and bonn parker who died as they lived by the gun. the officers were on the left side of the road nearest the driver. this explains the fact that bonnie's body had more bullet holes than clyde's. any one of these bullets would have been fatal to both. but after having killed 14 people, most of whom were officers of the law and having come safely through so many gun battles it did not seem

advisable to fire just one bullet. >> bonnie and clyde were probably some of the most notorious gangsters of the 1930s crime era in the united states because their crime story began in texas, east texas and involved louisiana, they are very sort of connected to the 1930s story of shreveport as well. probably most people associate bonnie and clyde with a very intense two-year period from 1932 to 1934 when they were involved in a string of armed robberies and murders throughout this part of the united states. we think thatonnie and clyde actually met initially in 1930 when bonnie parker was working as a waitress in dallas, texas. and soon after that, clyde barrow went to state prison and so we know they resumed their relationship in 1932 in texas and their first crime took place in hillsborough texas, not too

far from shreveport. the shreveport times was reporting their exploits in the newspaper and people in this area kept up with it as they did the big gangers in american history. it was the age of john dillinger and pretty boy floyd. as a matter of fact, most people don't realize that all three of those, bonnie and clyde, john dillinger, pretty boy floyd all were killed by law enforcement in the same year, 1934. so people were really engaged in that story, probably simultaneously horrified but fascinated by these criminals in the great depression. in early 1934, they were implicated in a prison escape involving a former associate of clyde barrow's in texas. a man named raymond hamilton. they helped him escape from prison and in the process of that shot and killed a prison guard. and so that's when the really, the net of law enforcement began

to close around them was after the murder of the prison guard early in 1934. so it was april of 1934 that clyde barrow, we know, was in and around shreveport. as a matter of fact, there was a car that was stolen in shreveport. clyde barrow stole a car here in shreveport and actually abandoned it in kansas. and his fingerprints proved that, of course, he had been in this area even before he was spotted here. we knew they were in and about the vicinity. just a few days before the ambush took place, in gibson, louisiana, the -- there was a local cafe here, not too far from where we're standing, called the majestic cafe. and on this street, somewhere between the point we're standing and a couple of blocks from here, clyde barrow was spotted somewhere near the majestic cafe and someone in the neighborhood

phoned the local authorities. and it was because of that report that law enforcement from the region, including, of course, texas rangers, knew that they were in the vicinity. and so that is when the net sort of began to close around bonnie and clyde. and they their ambush occurred just four days after clyde barrow was spotted here on this street. they were ambushed not far from gibson, louisiana, on a rural road. there was actually the ambush laid in place by local law enforcement over in that part of louisiana who knew -- had good intelligence on where they were going to be, what their movements were and they laid in wait for them on a stretch of road. and, of course, as many people know, opened fire on the car they were riding in.