of 1861, then the first year -- the first year includes a piece of 1862. lee was undelivered promise. he was from a family of reduced means and the son of lighthorse harry lee who was a rascal. there was once a man named lee, a son of a hero with cash flow subzero and a blight on the family tree. winfield scott had proclaimed lee the best soldier i ever saw in the field. and i would suggest he was the sin qua none of victory in the

mexican war. he turned down the field command of the united states army offered by scott through lincoln. but during the first year of the war, he was probably the least influential great man that existed. he raised and equipped and trained virginia troops, but then turned them over to the confederate army and became a general with no soldiers. he was a semiconsultant, and that's my analysis, presided over the loss of the valley of what is now west virginia and some virginians will suggest that wasn't much loss. in any event, he did lose in the first campaign that he oversaw. he commanded the confederate department of south carolina,

georgia, and florida. arrived just as the federal army or navy essentially, dupont, captured port royal and secured hilton head so yankees could retire there. and lee himself in analyzing the military circumstance along the atlantic coast decided there was no way to defend the low country, the sea islands, which was, of course, the site of where the wealth and the power was in south carolina, georgia, and florida, and sea island cotton and the rice plantations and all the rest. lee said, no, we can't protect you. we'll have to withdraw up the

rivers and then build forts where we can secure the mainland. as lee expressed in a letter to his daughter, our people -- and he was talking about our people where he was -- have not been earnest enough, have not -- have thought too much of themselves and their ease, and instead of turning to a man have been content to nurse themselves, their dimes, and leave the protection of themselves and families to others. so, lee was concerned that the people he supposedly commanded weren't earnest enough in their conduct of this war. mary chestnut, the famed confedera confederate diarist summed it up, joe country gentlemen curse

lee, she wrote. and so then in march of 1862, he returned to richmond as a kind of sort of advisor to jefferson davis. maybe an incipient chief of staff, something that the confederate army certainly needed. and what had become of the confederacy during this time that lee had undergone frustration and failure? well, the confederacy in january of 1862 -- this is all '62 now. lost mill springs, kentucky. they'd lost roanoke island. remember, roanoke island is famous for being the site of the lost colony. this was in 1587-'89. well, in 1862, in february, there was a lost colony there,

too, and it was about 2,500 confederates who were lost to ambrose burnside's 10,000 federal. so, he lost mill springs. lost roanoke island as jack montcastle has pointed out, the confederacy has lost forts henry and donaldson on the tennessee and cumberland rivers. and what that does is open the tennessee, the cumberland, too, if they wanted it, to union penetration by combined arms, navy, army. up the tennessee river as far as they want to go, chattanooga if they'd like. what it did was eventually result in the battle of shiloh, well, pittsburgh landing. which the confederates lost, too, as well as p-ridge in arkansas.

so, you lose a good hunk of arkansas and any chance to make missouri a bona fide, de facto confederate state. jefferson davis in his inaugural speech delivered not too far from here on february 22nd, a few days ago, george washington's birthday, not by chance, said this is the darkest hour of our struggle. and our struggle in davis' perspective just got darker and darker after that. lee himself had lost arlington, his home, which wasn't really his home, it was his wife's home, but it was the closest thing he had to a home, ever. he lost his wife, who was trapped behind enemy lines during most of that spring. he had one daughter behind enemy

lines. all of his investments. lee was pretty shrewd. he invested in state bonds and railroad bonds, but most of those bonds were in places like kentucky and missouri. he wrote to his oldest son, i expect to be a pauper if i get through the war. so, how can this man be influential of anything? how can he be "times" person of the year? well, i think some of it had to do with his frustration. and his learning experience of traveling about and seeing what can go wrong. experiencing murphy's law over and over and over again. he responded to doom and gloom and desperation, and i think he learned that the confederacy was

going to have to have radical, desperate and daring action. and lee responded with just that. he created just about the most significant legislation in the confederacy. i think this ranks only a click behind the commitment in march of 1865 to accept african-american soldiers in the confederate army. but after that comes the draft, the first draft in north america, anywhere. the united states followed up and used lee's i think legislation as a model a year later, but with the it a of charles marshall, his aide, lee wrote the first draft law ever

passed in north america. and realize what this does. in the wake of fort sumter way back in 1861, there was a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of people flocked to the colors and joined the army. how long do they join for? three months, six months? a year was the standard. now it's the campaigns of 1862 are getting ready to begin. a year is up, and traditionally in american military, when it's -- when your time for which you have volunteered is up, you leave. you just pat yourself -- hey, you guys, good luck. see you later. hope you get home. and that was true. i mean, when winfield scott is approaching the gates of mexico,

a bunch of indiana volunteers, their team is up, and nobody even questioned the fact that they're going to go home. and scott even worked to get them home before the yellow fever season, to get them through veracruz and get some reinforcements in to replace them. i mean, they factored this into military thinking in the united states. and the confederate states shared this tradition. so, if you don't have a draft or some kind of legislation, you don't have an army to defend the confederate states of america. well, lee said everybody has an obligation to serve, and 18 to 35, later raised to 45, and there had to be exemptions.

and realize what this does, this makes the war department -- puts them in control of the confederate economy, the industrial war industry economy. because you control labor just like the war department would control raw materials and also try to control transportation. it set the stage for the closest thing to a managed economy that the american continent had ever seen. i think. and this from the confederacy. this is part of that internal revolution that creates what i suggest was at least a would-be confederate nation. after this lee saved richmond and the government and the war.

from a collection of dominos. we know that in march of 1862 the "css virginia," the merrimack, sallied forth and raised holy hell with union ships. sank one, grounded another, and then fought a duel with the monitor in hampton rhodes. after that there was a series of sort of shadowboxing between the virginia and the monitor, but the "virginia" stationed itself so it could control access to the mouth of the james river. on may 9th, 1862, in his infinite wisdom, joe johnson in retreating up the peninsula from the yorktown line, abandoned

norfolk. we can't hold norfolk if we're withdrawing up the peninsula. now, and abraham lincoln it was himself who was down at fort monroe and said, excuse me, guys, if they've abandoned norfolk, why don't we take it? it was the closest thing lincoln ever came to field command. in any event, the united states captures norfolk. this means the "merrimack," the "virginia" is a ship without a port and realized it's got to have coal in order to travel its little six knots per hour. so, on may 11th, i believe it was, the crew of the "virginia" had to scuttle her.

this means the mouth of the james river is wide open. union troops or the union navy can sally up the james. and lee, you know, connects these dominos. you lose norfolk. you lose the "virginia." the james is open. and here come five union ships with the "monitor," another ironclad and some wooden ships and they're steaming up the james. lee it was who sent his son, custas, to command some troops at a place called drury's bluff about seven miles downriver from richmond. there is a bluff there. it's not that high, but it's high. high enough so that the "monitor's" guns wouldn't reach, couldn't elevate to fire on the confederates and indeed some of those guns were manned by a crew from the "css virginia."

so, these guys got a chance to shoot at the "monitor" again and stop it along with sunken vessels and obstructions in the river keep it on may 15th from shelling richmond from, you know, the richmond port, rockets. so, all lee has done thus far is write this legislation that became the first draft law passed in april. and then in may he saved richmond by sending some people down with guns to drury's bluff. but he's still got to confront george clinton mcclellan and 105,000 union soldiers, who as we know have landed at fort monroe, have encountered the yorktown line. decided to approach it with, quote, regular defenses.

that means slow. they're ready to move in early may, and, yes, they move. but this time joe johnston has begun a withdrawal up the peninsula and there's a not a dry sock in the union army. that's the way they describe the effect of the weather on troop movement. lee by this time has adopted, and actually jefferson davis as well, the strategy of the offensive defense, that is, allow the enemy to penetrate your soil. initially jefferson davis said we'll not give up a single inch of our soil. well, that's impractical. and it didn't work out that way either. so, you allow the enemy to penetrate, but then you -- in

circumstance of your choosing when the enemy is lost or has made a mistake or can be numbered or you can attack the enemy's fractions with your mast, you attack, the offense. go on the offense. davis believed in that strategy i think, and this is gravely oversimplified, davis said we will outwill the united states. we will exist. every day we exist we're winning. the united states is losing every day we survive. and the longer we exist, the more regular we will seem to the rest of the world and even to our enemies. and if all else fails, we will just abandon conventional modern war, take to the hills, and be

guerrillas. davis is anticipating post-modern warfare. imagine. good old boys as vietcong or i.r.a. or other post-modern forms of warfare. and this is what davis anticipates as a last resort at least. meanwhile, he believes he can outlast the union will. lee is less sanguine about that because he has a better opinion of the union will. those people, as he called his enemies, those people are not going to quit. we're going to have to defeat them, destroy them if you will. and it is lee who plots that

destruction, and lee believes also that all of this has to happen sooner rather than later. because as time goes on, the enemy is going to get stronger. he can look at this -- lee can look at the census and knows it as well as anybody. they have more people! they have more resources! unless we get -- and we can't count on foreign intervention. lee says that. and that being the case, god as usual is going to be on the side of the larger battalion. that's not lee's phrase, but i think napoleon said it. but i associate it with t. harry williams in any event.

unless we reverse the way the world works, the stronger side is going to win the war. and so lee set about trying to reverse the way the world works. to be the stronger side in where it counted to destroy an enemy army. so, in the wake of the seven pines, lee comes to command. now, realize robert e. lee in the mexican war where he is the finest soldier scott ever saw on the field really didn't have a command. he was on scott's staff. lee has never commanded anything more than two companies of marines at harper's ferry on act 16th, 1859, when they stormed the fire engine house and captured five rebels commanded by john brown.

harper's ferry, 1859. now, maybe commanding two companies of marines is all you need. the marines contend that way anyway. but here is lee confronting 105,000 yankees who are in the suburbs of richmond. and what did he do? he set his men to work digging trenches, field fortifications. and so this man who had been called granny lee, the overcautious, is now known as the king of spades because all he wants to do is have these trained killers, these warriors, dig ditches with shovels with picks and things and that's not much fun. but that's what soldiers do! and lee points that out.

what he wants to do and what he did was to hold richmond with 25,000 troops, fall upon mcclellan's flank which he discovered was exposed by way of stewart's dramatic ride around mcclellan, the raid in june 12-15, 12th through the 15th of 1862. and he's going to fall upon mcclellan's flank with 45,000 troops. and then he's going to bring jackson in from the valley with 20,000 more to attack mcclellan's rear. here is this guy, 200 soldiers at harper's ferry and now he's commanding, add all that up. 25,000, 47,000, 20,000, 92,000 people.

and, guy goby god, it worked, f limited perspective anyway. mcclellan was halted, embarrassed and overrun, at least on his flank at gaines mill and lost his nerve and called for a change of base, which sounded like a skedaddle. a withdrawal to the james river, and lee followed. in his general order, he wrote on thursday, june 26th, the powerful and thoroughly equipped army of the enemy was entrenched

in works vast and extent and most formidable in character within the sight of our capital. today the remains of that confident and threatening host lie upon the banks of the james river, 30 miles -- that's a little bit -- more like 23, i think. 30 miles from richmond, seeking to recover under the protection of its gunboats from the effects of the series of disastrous defeats. that's a little hyperbole. about his campaign, he wrote to mary lee, his wife, our success has not been as great or complete as i could have desired. and in his official report to the government lee stated, under ordinary circumstances the federal army should have been destroyed. that's what he was after. well, at that point the union called upon john pope to command

something called the army of virginia up -- back up at manassas. and with the combination of new troops and mcclellan's troops, lee sent jackson with one wing of his army to occupy pope and with longstreet and another wing fell upon him and maybe this was lee's greatest battle, second manassas. almost destroyed pope. this was august 30th, 1862. at that point lee confessed. the army is not properly equipped for an invasion of the enemy's territory. it lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being much reduced and the men poorly provided with clothes and in thousands of instances, destitute of shoes. still, we cannot afford to be idle.

and though weaker than our opponents in men and material and military equipment, we must endeavor to harass if we cannot make our success -- our complete success is not impossible and we shall endeavor to guard from law. so, he's going to maryland. he writes to davis, and this is lee's relationship. he writes to davis all the time. i will keep you informed. i will keep you informed. and lee and davis -- davis thinks that he and lee are in perfect harmony, when in reality lee is pushing the envelope, deceiving davis, trying to do more than davis would wish to do, risk more than davis wants to risk. because lee believes the army has to win now, before the enemy gets stronger and stronger.

so, he goes to maryland. he loses order 191. mcclellan has the perfect opportunity. but does not follow-up. and lee fought at sharpsburg or antietam. we will make our stand on those hills, he said. some troops as they approach the position. hindsight if nothing else compels the question why. why did lee decide to stand and fight an enemy he knew would have many more guns and many more men and guns than the army of northern virginia, and he has the potomac river at his back and only one fort over the river in the event he needed a route of escape, and that fort was on his extreme right flank.

any answer must depend upon conjecture. maybe lee believed that he would have to fight mcclellan somewhere and soon and so he chose to fight here and now. maybe he was afraid his army would only grow weaker from lack of rations and an increase of straggling if he attempted to maneuver more. and so elected to fight before his strength eroded still further. maybe lee believed that his defensive position would be sufficiently strong to achieve a malverne hill in reverse, that is, let the enemy beat himself to pieces attacking me. let the federals bleed themselves to death attacking him this time. maybe he was anticipating fredericksburg when they, in fact, did. lee, more than anyone, knew the costs of offensive operations in this war, programs the stand at

sharpsburg was perhaps his chance to pursue an offensive war by means of defensive tactics. whatever lee thought about this, one conclusion was pretty obvious, he believed he could win. he didn't lose at sharpsburg. it was a bloody draw, and barely so. now, i know that jim mcpherson contends and -- contends nobly and righteously that sharpsburg, antietam was a significant turning point in this war, that this was the point at which the war was destined for union victory. bob crick insists, who is not with us -- he's now watching virginia v. north carolina in baskll