supplies at some point, okay? now in january, in january the u.s. federal government tried to send a relief expedition down. confederate forces fired on that ship and it turned around. so ever since january anderson's been trying to hold out. what he's saying is, guys, i don't know how much longer i can do this, all right? we've got a serious problem. finally in early april lincoln decides he's got to resupply anderson, okay? but here's lincoln's problem. he don't want to start this thing. he's hoping that everybody's going to kind of get wrapped up in the middle of a speech, you're at a gathering and there's like the electricity to the crowd, amazing speech, everybody's all excited, yeah, all right. you're ready to go do it. let's go do this, man! then you wake up the next morning and you're like, oh, god. you know, let's just talk about it, okay? you know, just a little crazy, guys. i was kind of in the spirit

there, but let's just chill out. a lot of these states are looking around like, we only got seven. i thought we were going to get more than seven. i thought tennessee was with us. missouri was serious. they were going to come. we've got seven. that's not a lot. we have seven out of 33 states. were hoping for more. so what they're going to have to do is try and figure out, do we keep going? do we back up? i don't want to back up. that's just embarrassing, all right? i do believe in what we said, but i don't know if maybe we should have gone with a different option, okay? so what lincoln's hoping is that enough confederate leaders are going to start to say, look, let's see if we can't come up with a compromise. he does not want to give them a crisis to rally behind. when you are trying to talk a guy down from a fight, y'all are going to go to parties this weekend, all right, and it'll happen. if it didn't happen this weekend, it happened last weekend. two guys are going to want to get in a fight, all right? hopefully some of you guys are going to be, guys, come on, seriously, back down. the way to stop the fight is not

to sucker punch one of the guys in the face, all right? lincoln's saying, don't do anything. everybody just chill out. okay? but he's got to provide some sort of support to major anderson. so on april 6th, april 6th, 1861, lincoln's going to send a message to the governor of south carolina and say, look, his last name is pickins if you're curious. francis pickins, governor of south carolina. he's going to say, look, we are saenlding a relief ship down. this is not an act of aggression. got fresh food, fresh water, medical supplies. we might put a couple guys into fort, take a couple of guys out. we're not reinforcing the fort. this is not an act of aggression. the governor basically decides, i don't know. i'm going to pass this up the chain, see what everybody else says. they send the message to davis and his advisors.

jefferson davis and his advisors talk about this two days later, on the 8th of april, 18616789 they're debating it. they say, look, let the relief expedition in because we do not want to fire the first shot. the confederacy's whole argument is we're not starting this thing. we don't want a war, we just want to break away. we're not trying to overthrow the government, we just want to break away. if they start the thing by firing on a federal installation, that weakens their whole position, okay? problem is, you've got a u.s.fort incompetent side of confederate territory as far as they're concerned and you can't let that situation continue. you have to come up with some sort of a solution, and they don't want to let the fort get resupplied. they do not want to let that relief expedition through, okay? so on the 10th of april, two days later, on the 10th of april the confederate government tells bow regard, no, we have to

demand a surrendered. beuregard, who he is? we don't name our kids that well anymore, p.g.t.beauregard. all you have to remember is pgt beauregard, he's the confederate commander on the ground in charleston. confederate government's going to tell him, look, you have to contact that fort out in the harbor and tell them, forget about it. we won't let a relief expedition through. you have to surrender. here's the really weird situation. remember the guy i told you in the fort, major anderson, he was the artillery instructor at west point when beauregard was the stew dercht. now the student is demanding that the professor sur renders. he says, look, you have to surrender the fort. bow regard would have been anderson's favorite students. they know each other well.

look, sorry bud, but i've got orders and you're in the wrong as far as bow regard is concerned, you have to surrender the fort. anderson sends a message immediately back. he says, look, i can't. i'm under orders to hold the fort at all costs and i will, but i can't hold out much longer anyway. we are really low on food. we are really low on water. we're going to have to leave here soon anyway so maybe we can come up with some sort of a compromise. let's not get a whole bunch of guys killed over nothing. bow regard gets the message. you can just imagine. he's like, i wasn't expecting that. soon? how soon is soon? you have to leave soon? he sends a message back out to anderson and anderson says, i tell you what, if i'm not relieved by noon on april 15th, i'll have to leave the fort. what bow regard knows is the relief expedition is going to get there before then. anderson will get relieved and we're going to be stuck in the

same old situation all over again. it will just continue. you get the chain of events. lincoln sends a message to south carolina on the 6th saying we're gointo send a relief expedition down. this is supplies. we need water, fresh food, medical supplies, that's all it is. governor pickins sends the message on to president davis and the confederate cabinet. what do you want us to do? no, we can't have a relief expedition. they tell the military commander on the ground, pgt beaurard to demand the sur rinder. he contacts his friend and says you need to surrender the federal forces inside that fort. anson says, no, i can't. don't start shooting at us over nothing. i have to leave soon anyway. i can't just surrender when you ask me to right now. bow regard writes back and says, you know, i always imagined who are the guys running these

messages back and forth? i always think about these things. so bow regard sends a message back, soon? how soon are you going to have to leave the fort? what are we talking about? anderson says, noon on the 15th. bow regard knows though, that federal ship will be there respliegs the fort before the 15th. we'll be back in this purgatory that they've been living in for months. this has to come to a head. bow regard sends a message back saying, that's not going to work. you have to surrender the fort. anderson sends a message back saying, i can't. as long as i can hold out, i am under orders to hold out. so at 4:30 in the morning on the 12th of april, 1861, confederate forces inside charleston open fire on federal forces in fort sumter. that is the shot that starts the american civil war.

okay? in four years you're going to have 620,000 americans dead. that doesn't include wounded, okay? that's just dead. 620,000 in four years, north and south. again, remember, but we know that. nobody else knows that now. what a lot of the sides are hoping, there's worries that this might be longer than they think it will be. a lot of folks are hoping this is going to be over quick. one big fight, southerners are convinced, the north, the north is a bunch of clerks who work in factories, what do they know? they don't huntd, they don't fish, they can't survive in the youth doors. that's what southern men are all about. we'll punch them in the face, they'll run home to momma. northerners are looking at southerners, yeah, great, you guys got drunk and went gambling one more time. this time you decided to break up the country. way to go geniouses, thanks a lot. both sides are figuring it's going to take one fight, we'll

settle this thing once and for all. now when confederate forces in charleston open fire on fort sumter, that convinces lincoln, okay, i need to do something. you need to understand, lincoln has been under a heck of a lot of pressure, all right? a lot of northern ners who want this war who are saying, look, we have tried compromise, we have tried everything, all right? a lot of them -- there's a great line in one of the northern newspapers that says lincoln spans like -- can i say that, like an ass between two bales of hey wondering what to do. he's under all sorts of pressure, you know? come on, do something, man. we didn't elect you to sit there and stare the the last couple of presidents did that. he's desperately trying to find some sort of a peaceful solution. once confederates open fire, u.s. military troops, u.s. military installation, that won't wok work. war starts on the 12th.

15th of april, three days later lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers. okay? he says, look, we need you guys to help put down this rebellion. now the way it works, every state that's still part of the union is going to have to give a portion of that 75,000, okay? if you're teeny state, not a huge population, say vermont's not going to have to come up with as many guys as new york or virginia, okay? but everybody's going to have to put a portion into that 75,000. and there inlies the rub. virginia's going to have to help give to that 75,000 and go invade south carolina. tennessee is going to have to contribute to that 75,000 and go invade mississippi right across the border. you have a lot of family and shared experiences. what's going to happen is four more states are going to say, i can't invade and attack fellow

southerners. we can't do it. it's not in us and you can't force us to do it. the federal government is overstepping their bounds when they try to force us to do this, okay? and so what's going to happen, go to this one again. see these gray states here? what's going to happen is those gray states, upper south states, the last four that will join the confederacy, arkansas, tennessee, north carolina, and virginia. they leave in response to that call for 75,000. they do not leave because of lincoln specifically. okay? virginia met and voted, okay? virginia leaders voted on whether or not they wanted to secede earlier in the secession crisis and they said, no, we stay. after lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers, they vote to leave. that's why the upper south goes. we are not march on fellow southerners. we will not forcibly keep fellow southerners in the union. we weren't going to leave because of the election. we were going to stay and try and work within the democratic process but you cannot force

virginians to invade and march on south carolinians. we're not going to do it. that's how you get those last four states into the confederacy. remember that. that's classic material for your chronology section when you think about cause and effect. it's classic material to include in the essay. the other thing to remember, what about those green, teal, whatever color that is, all right? those are slave states that stay in the union. missouri, kentucky, maryland, delaware, slave states that stay in the union, okay? everybody has kind of in the back of their heads, all right, the slave states go in the confederacy, the free states go in the union. no, you have those border states. his whole presidency he has to deal with more states going into the confederacy. all right. and any position he takes against slavery he has to worry about losing those slave states and potentially more. so this is going to be a constant thing he has to think about. the other thing i want you

thinking about, okay, look at these areas for secession and against secession. mississippi, there are pockets in mississippi, particularly in poor areas, particularly along the river systems where they fear they're going to be right along the route of invasion where they are just not so sure about this whole confederate experience. jones county, county to the north is definitely going to be not necessarily pro-union but not so sure about the confederacy. there are pockets where you have these sections that, again, are not necessarily prolincoln, they're not abolitionists, but they're no so sure they're confederates. a lot of them will decide they absolutely are not. even as the confederacy is formed, even as more states are joining the confederacy, jefferson davis is also going to have to balance the fact that you're going to have these divisions, all right? he's going to be constantly worried about governing sections of his own country.

now last but not least, okay, lincoln, what did i tell you, 15th of april lincoln calls for the 75,000 volunteers. 19th of april lincoln calls for the federal navy, the u.s. navy to blockade all southern ports. that, by the way, is when he recognizes the union. you can't blockade your own country, right? so by doing that he actually recognizes the existence of those southern states as a foreign country. he was actually furious about that one, that his advisors didn't correct him before he did that, but, all right, 19th of april, 1861, lincoln says the u.s. navy will blockade all of those southern ports. any of that money from cotton, any of that money from trade, we're not going to let those southern states benefit. weon't let those southern states get support from foreign countries, weapons, money, anything. the idea is we're going to cut the south off. that's when you're going to see more and more of these divisions, when that upper south will not contribute to the 75,000 and where a lot of people are going to have to decide who

they are going to side with, okay? robert e. lee, the guy in the bottom left-hand corner of the slide, hopefully most of y'all recognize him, he's got a big decision. he's one of the most well-respected commanders in the entire u.s. army. he's a graduate of west point. he's been superintendent of west point. he is a a hero of the mexican war. you guys know arlington national cemetery. that was his wife's family's home, all right? she is tied by family to martha washington. robert e. lee's father rode under george washington during the american revolution. huge ties in his family to the founders of the country. and lee's kind of split. there's this very famous quote that i wanted y'all to see where he talks about how ica not raise my hand against my home, my children, all right? ana lot of folks have argued that lee by nature was a virginian. more than anything else, americans during this time period tend to identify themselves more as mississippi

ans, more as new yorkers, more as virginians than americans. they define themselves by their state first than by their nation. lee, once virginia goes, yes, he has a national view, particularly as a man who served in the army, stationed down in texas, he has not spent his whole life in virginia, all right, but he says, you know, when it comes down to it, that lee very much viewed himself as a virginian. part of it has to do with, too, that lee is a slave holder. he has been for a long time. yes, he did ee mans si pay the a large number of slaves. but he's also -- remember what i'm always talking to y'all about. don't try to make people 21st century people. view them within their times. lee was very much a man of his times. he very much believed in white supremacy. remember the paternalistic argument we talked about when we talked about slavery in the old south. very much argued about the role and the responsibility of southern white male leaders within the community and that the basic social and racial

organization of the south was how it should be. remember winfield scott when we talked about the mexican war? winfield scott calls robert e. lee to washington and he says, look, i want you to take command of these forgss that we're organizing, the u.s. forces. lee thinks about them but then he writes and says, ica not march on fellow southerners. he goes home. he resigns his commission in the u.s. army and he will later rise to the leadership of the army of northern virginia and eventually to the leadership of all confederate forces. that's the situation by the time we're in late -- once you have the secession of all the upper south, by the time we're in late may, june 1865. when y'all get back on monday is when we'll pick up with the start of the war. now do you want to go ahead? we can open up the mic if you want to be able to record any of the questions. y'all are going to freeze at this point. don't make me talk on

television. all right? do you have any questions? go for it. >> fort sumter was held by the north? >> it's a u.s. military installation. it would be like fort hood in texas. if texas is he seeds and you have a u.s. fort in this country. >> they were guarded by the north? >> it's all the united states. the question is fort sumter is in south carolina but it's the north. what's going on here. wait until all the questions are done. all right. you're passing the attendance sheet. sorry. everybody sees south carolina. so we have got a u.s. fort in south carolina. south carolina see seeds but you have a u.s. military installation there. what do you do with it?

if you're the north you're like, no way, we're not letting go. you can't tell us to leave. south carolina is saying we're not part of the united states anymore. you might as well have a u.s. military installation in mexico. it's just not going to happen. you can't do that without our permission. so what's happening is the guys in the u.s. army who are stationed at fort sumt ter are saying, we stay. in some cases you'll get forts like in texas where everybody kind of goes home. if you're from the north, you can go home to the north. if you're in the south, you can stay here. a whole bunch of weapons we'll confiscate. texas will use them, thank you very much. it comes to a head in certain spots though. florida it came to a head and it really comes to a head in charleston harbor at fort sumt ter. that becomes the sticking point. that becomes that crisis point of who's going to go where. does that answer it? >> yes. >> any other questions? yeah. >> why did they fire on it if they knew they didn't have to keep the ship.

>> what if you don't keep the ship away, number one? theoretically you will starve them out. if the ship resupplies them, okay, they're going to be here andresupplies them. number two, are you an independent nation or not. we are trying to understand the u.s. government. i am saying that you can't have a fort in my country. you will have to respect that. they were southerners and will you do something like this or what. we are not trying to steal something, but y'all need to leave. you have a chance for it to come to a head and we will have to take a stand and maybe we wouldn't start this thing. maybe if we do, we will consolidate the support.

maybe they will consolidate. >> you get a lot of these areas that you will see in hitting four buttons at once. you get a border between the states where you get a lot of trade back and forth. it usually is if you have a lot of trade, it's going to be the more impoverished areas where they don't have a lot of say in this and they are not sure they trust them. the way they work, a lot of them argued they suffered through wealthy planners. everybody just chill out. they were breaking out of that and if we do this and you guys

will have pockets that are isolated pockets which was what it was. you had ties for folks who hadn't suseeded. they said i'm not so sure about this. sam houston gets kicked out of his leadership in texas. they told him to go home because he was pro union. he was like look, guys. it's hard.

sam houston was a classic 19th century expansionist. he was like go get cuba and mexico and somebody. go take canada. you have the unionists for a variety of reasons. there was a great book called the free state of jones that looks at what jones county does. not necessarily pro union as anti-conget raid and what they have used these wealthy elite confederates. if there more questioned, i want to let the people who have classes go and let the next class in, but if you have more questions, come on down. thank you and see you monday.

>> every weekend c-span 3 turns to american history tv. for 48 hours we feature people and events that help document the story of our nation. join us each saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight and sundays at 1:00 p.m. for classroom lectures on different topics and eras of american history. next weekend a look at north vietnamese strategy with donald stoker, a professor at the naval war college in monterey, california. for more information about american history tv including our complete schedule, visit our website at c-span.org/history. all weekend long, american history tv joins our comcast cable partners in shreveport, louisiana to showcase its history and literary culture. shreveport founded in 1836 has a population of about 200,000

people and located about 250 miles northwest of baton rouge. you are watching american history tv on c-span 3. . >> we are standing in open cemetery which was the original city cemetery that dates back to 1847 and the primary city cemetery until about 1895 or so. one of the reasons that 1873 is so important for this region and the city is that the great yellow fever epidemic decimated the city and changed the course of history of north louisiana and this city in particular. within two weeks, we lost a quarter of the population of the city inside the city limits. 800 to 1,000 people are in this cemetery. if you look at the top of that hill, that's the yellow fever

mound. trenched with 824 people confirmed in it. there other folks who died and were either moved or put in here. it killed almost all the doctors, all the nurses, it killed many, many prominent people in this city. it was devastating. the city was quarantined by railroad and river. nothing was allowed to come in and go out. money was raised. large amounts and new york and washington and new orleans and chicago. it was national. now nationally, reconstruction is going to last for another four years, but in shreveport,

shreveport is lucky in because reconstruction ends and the army leaves to save itself. and so reducing as it was called begins here. in this state. and local rule returns at that tight. on the negative side, shreveport was thought to be an unhealthy place and growth was stunted for many, many decades. it ends up returning, but it's going to take a while. this is the monument and grave of the united states army corps of engineers first lieutenant eugene august us would have rough. he graduated near the to which his class and allowed to be an engineer.

he is subject here with a detachment during reconstruction in 1872 and cleared the great log route. his brother was his second in command. he had a good detachment. he completed the work that henry schrev egan. he had to do great work and they did it. they used nitroglycerin, the first time it was used in a large project. in 1873 in august, they worked close to finishing the route. jello fever worked out in shreveport. the army ordered this detachment. he wrote his mother. he was a mama's boy.

he wrote his mother that these people need help. i'm saving my brother, george. i'm going to they and help. eugene stayed. he and five catholic priests acted as doctors because most of the doctors were dead. he thought he was going to be okay and felt okay. he comes down with it very quickly. september 28th he gets it by september 29th and 9:00 p.m., he's dead. the city wrote his mother and said we would like to send his body home. the telegraph lines are up and she said no, that's where he wanted to stay. they allowe