not allow us to arrive at a tipping point where the behavior pattern alters the direction of this great country. i think that we -- i had an asian leader call me on the phone and say to me about six, eight months ago, i never thought i would live to see the day when adults in the united states government would be modeling america on europe. that that model doesn't work. it is not working. they are in a crisis, an economic crisis. we can't let that happen here. >> wow. a great honor and a great education. secretary donald rumsfeld, thank you so much for joining us here at the citadel. >> thank you, sir. [ applause ]

>> what year does it take effect? >> 1772, sir. >> it probably worked better when i was only 78. then, i would have taken you. all right. thank you. >> thank you all. join american history tv weekend next weekend when we will be live from wisconsin for a look at the history of alcohol in america. back story with the american history guys is a public radio show and podcast and will simulcast it live from the american historians annual meeting. the history of alcohol in america with historians ed airs, peter ona and brian balo.

next saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. >> this week, on the civil war, historianed and authors discuss the battle of shiloh fought 150 years ago in harden county, tennessee, on april 6th and 7th, 1862. the battle resulted in a union victory. over confederate forces servicing the strategically important mississippi valley region. nearly 110,000 troops took part in the fighting which produced almost 24 thousand casualties making it the bloodiest battle to that point in u.s. history. american history tv visited shiloh park where the ranger gave us a tour of the battlefield. it says no soldier fault at shiloh ever forgot the experience and there developed a bond of brotherhood among both

sides that was never forgotten. just very briefly. i want to read to you something that was written by a man that we don't associate with poetry, namely her man mel vil. in 1866, herman melville published a book which is entitled "battle pieces and aspects of the war, civil war poems." this particular poem deals with shiloh. it is a marvelous piece that expresses so much about that battle and what happened to the men that were there. it is a brief poem. shiloh a rec quee yum, april, 1862. skimming lightly, wheeling still, the swallows sfli low over the field and clouded days, the forest field of shiloh. over the field where april rains solaced the parched ones stretched in pain.

through the pause of night that followed the sunday fight, around the church of shiloh the church so loan, the log-built one, that echoed to many a parting grown and natural prayer of dying foemen mingled there. foemen at morn but friends at eve. fame or country least their care. what like a bullet can undeceive but now they lie low while over them the swallows skim and all is hushed at shiloh. i think that does express what went on for the soldiers. understand, shiloh was so important for so many reasons in grandeur, rather than individual history. consider the famous names of civil war leaders who were present at that battle.

grant, sherman, albert sydney johnston, pete g.t. beauregard, brag and on and on we could talk. the wonderful that shiloh has above all the other battlefields in today's world and listening to the additions that are going to be made to shiloh makes this more a fact. it is location. location in a rural part of tennessee, a place which in so many ways remains very much akin to what this area looked like in that previous period. so we are very fortunate to have a july like shiloh here. what we are going to do today as van indicated. we are going to hear from three of the leaders in civil war

scholarship as pointed out. i am not going to reintroduce them again. we have larry daniel at the en. we have wylie sore here at this end and in the middle, james lee mcdonough. the frightening thought is if a terrorist puts a bomb under this table and it goes off, we lose most of our historical knowledge in the battle of shiloh. if you see any suspicious packages, please inform your nearest agent. let me begin by asking our panelists, what we are going to do is have each person do an opening statement, an opening remark for about five minutes. i'm going to viciously try to keep everybody in line and then we will have a discussion in the panel and open it for questions from you among the floor. let's begin and start at that end with larry for five minutes

and so on down the road. i want to put the campaign in its historical context. i think the importance of the shiloh campaign is that it gave both sides the opportunity to significantly shorten the war. tl therein lies the problem. by april of 1862, the war was already 1-year-old. time is no the a good thing for the south. it means that the war. for the south, it means the war could become protracted. they cannot win a protracted war. the arithmetic will kick in. for the north, a protracted war is not good, because of war weariness and the fall of 1862, the anti-war democratic party

swept the congressional elections. so time is an issue. the thing that could have been done, after the fall at fort donnellson shall the army of the ohio coming out of nashville should have gone on to chattanooga. i this i that that was a crucial mistake on the part of the north. grant's army could have been reinforced from john pope's army, the mississippi and basijing island number ten. it fell the day after shiloh on april the 8th. that would have left bul almost unopposed to march directly on to chattanooga. for the south, it was important because the south had to accomplish at shiloh exactly what it failed to accomplish, which is it had to destroy a federal army.

they had their best opportunity, grant cooperated by putting his back to a river. they failed to do it. so i would say that this was a great missed opportunity for both the north and the south to shorten the war. >> jim? i want to say first that it is a pleasure and an honor to be here as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the great campaign and the battle of shiloh. it is good to be on the program with these distinguished gentlemen who have been studying and interpreting the civil war for many years and also i certainly am appreciative. we all are, of your presence.

fill your can teens boy. some of you will be in hell before night and you will need it. those were the words of pew. he was a white-haired officer who had seen action in mexico. the date was sunday, april 6th, 1862, when the colonel's striking cry rent the air. he was badly shot-up regiment was moving towards the rear. the colonel spotted some fresh troops advancing to the front and there upon, he yelled out those memorable words, fill your canteens, boys, some of you will be in hell before night and you are going to need water. four decades have passed since i read the colonel's cry. i thought his words symbolic, symbolic of the crude humor some might say sick humor manifest on many a battlefield down through the ages. also symbolic of, quote, this

who a horrid and unnatural war as william tecumseh sherman wrote when americans fought americans in the floodiest of all american wars. i think it fitting that the colonel's words came during the first day of the first truly great battle of the war. that sunday, suggested biographer, lloyd lewis, just may have been relative to the number of troops engaged and i emphasize that, relative to the number of troops engaged. lewis said it just may have been the bloodiest single day of the war. ulysses s. grant considered shiloh the severest battle ever fought in the western theater. bloody shiloh, to borrow his book title was more bloody than

the casualty figures that have been accepted, 23,746. i prefer particularly to the number of lives that were lost in the great clash. on average, about 15% of the men wounded in civil war engagements died as a result of their wounds. this factor alone would significantly raise the number of deaths resulting from shiloh, making a total of almost 6,000 dead. furthermore, general grant wrote in his memoirs that by actual count, more con federal dead were buried in front of sherman's and mcclarn divisions alone than the total number of dead acknowledged by the con federals for their entire army. grant's assessment is complimented by the most recent scholarship relative to the areas of the heaviest troop

concentrations, the most intense fighting and the burial sights on the battleground. by any standards, shiloh was an awful battle in an awful war, the bloodiest clash to that day. a terrible preview of battles yet to come. for the first time in the conflict, men on both sides came to envision a measure of the war's eventual cost in suffering and death. not only were deaths at shiloh higher than the traditional figures, it also seems appropriate to note that the long-sighted number of soldier deaths for the entire war, 622,000 is almost certainly a striking undercount. how fitting that one of the most important articles ever to appear in the scholarly journal "civil war history" came out in

the december, 2111 early on in the ses quengs centennial. j. david hacker makes a persuasive case that the probable number of civil war deaths is more like 750,000, approximately 20% more than the traditional figure. finally, a word strategically. the consequences of shiloh cast a long and indelible shadow. the strategic results were of far greater significance than the horrendous casualty. the u.s. army had turned back a main group maintaining their position within a few miles of the memphis and charleston railroad, the confederacy's most important east/west rail connection. the confederates on the west bank of the tennessee

surrendered the chance to stop a decisive union drive and possibly undo much of what the yankees had achieved during the winter and spring campaigning. for the federal army, the path lay open to split the confederacy along the mississippi river and that in the long run men the rebels could never win the war. that was what it was all about, controlling the great father of waters. the con federals hads lo the a battle they simply had to win. robert henry sus sinkly stated, the issues were the defeat of major armies. the stake was immense. on june 10, 1862, william tecumseh sherman wrote his wife, i think the mississippi, the great artery of america and whatever power holds it, holds

the continent. a little later, in 1863, he would say, the valley of the mississippi is america. a little wonder that sherman pronounced shiloh one of the most important victories that has ever occurred on this continent. he also considered it the turning point that made possible all our western campaigns. new orleans author, george washington kabld dramatically captured the decisiveness of the clash and the emotion of the day when he famously wrote, the south never smiled again after shiloh. shiloh stands in a class by itself. very well said by these fine distinguished historians. a pleasure to be here and indeed thank you all for coming. i am going to talk a little bit about some new information about

the battle that has developed recently. the battle of shiloh has long been known as the pearl harbor of the american civil war. millions of words have been written about the battle over the span of more than 150 years. incredibly, it would seem, new material has surfaced repeatedly with each passing year to bring the battle into sharper focus. considering that over 110,000 men were present during the shiloh fighting, perhaps it is not unusual that new material would periodically surface in attics and storage boxes and long-forgotten letters and documents are discovered. thus, as a prelude to our discussion, i would like to mention but one of the recently discovered original shiloh

details that gives a new perspective to the events within the battle. one of the major aspects of what happened at shiloh involved the lack of information among the con federal high command about the exact location and the extent of defensive fortifications and the number of enemy troops that were camped in the pittsburgh landing area. among general albert sydney johnson's initial preparations for the surprise attack, he asked on march 26th, which was 11 days before shiloh, that a corp of at least 20 reliable citizens be formed who were familiar with this section of the country, he said, particularly that portion of it lying between the memphis and charleston and mobile and ohio

railroads. and the tennessee river. these men were to be used as guides and recruited from farmers and residents in the region. what johnson did with this corp of citizens has not been fully explained. this being one of the many mysteries of shiloh. from an obscure source, found in a period newspaper, we now have an account of a federal sergeant in the 25th missouri infantry from colonel everett peabody's pr brigade that explains, quote, the day prior to the battle, three spies were arrested by the 25th missouri regiment. two of whom were confined in our

guard tent when the battle began, end quote. this confirms that sydney johnson was actively seeking critical enemy deployment information right up to the hour that the fighting began. in fact, due to the need for specific intelligence, despite the shiloh attack, having been planned for nearly two weeks, sydney johnston was compelled to seek this crucial data as a basis for key operational decisions right up to the final hours. the fact that some of his civilian scouts guides were discovered, captured and detained, thus denying the confederates vital information contributed for the need of captain s.h. lockett's, personal

rec reconnaissance on april 6th. it finally discovered colonel david stuart's brigade on the far right flank of the con federal attacking army and led to the biggest con federal mistake of the battle, rerouting southern troops so as to confront stuart after capturing prentice' camps. this resulted in the costly delay of four hours before a major assault was resumed beyond his camp and allowed the formation of the hornet's nest line. further, the rebel spies captured on april 5th alerted the uneasy soldiers of the 25th missouri and peabody's brigade of the enemy's active presence

nearby. this seems to have added to the empa tus of major james e. powell's predawn patrol and initiated the battle of shiloh at 4:55 a.m. on april 6th. this patrol, of course, was later later regarded as having saved grant's army from utter destruction, giving early notice of the confederate's heavy presence and warning union troops giving them precious time to prepare. thus, it is apparent when new data such as this, that we have much more to learn about why and how the shiloh events occurred as well as what happened. >> thank you. >> that's great to work with

pros because we ended almost exactly five minutes a piece. which is a miracle. a compliment. don't you guys ever run for office. that would be a problem. i hope you will remember some of the things that were said. perhaps you have some questions. we will give you a chance to ask some questions. one of the things that's going on in history scholarship generally, we are looking at things we have never looked at before, that we have kind of taken to are granted, obvious things, the role of african-americans in american history, the role of women. historians are kind of slow. it took us a while to realize that women represent 51% of the population. so they must have had something to do with all this history. we are starting to study that now. in military history, we talk about the new military history where we study all sorts of elements that we never took any interest in. i thought it would be kind of

interesting to see what these scholars on shiloh would say about the impact of the environment about what went on at the battle of shiloh. by that, i mean, what impact about the tennessee river actually have? what about those creeks on the battle site? the forests, the geographic location of where shiloh is, the rain that was going on throughout this period which resulted in muddy terrain and muddy roads. the farmland that was part of the shiloh battlefield. did that make any difference? the clearings, did that make any difference? any number of other things. i simply throw this out to our panel. what about this question of environment? what role in this battle and how did the battle perhaps develop because of where it took place and all these conditions we talked about.

who would like to take that on first so i don't have to talk about it since i don't know anything about it. >> i will make some observations here in terms of the way the battle was fought, initially you have a perception, i think, and this issue has been debated by even artists such as the vegetation. the vegetation at shiloh, what was it like? this was early in april but there had been some warm weather. was it just twigs with a little bit of green or whatnot? recently, we discovered a letter written by a soldier on april 5th, of course, the day prior to shiloh he said in this particular letter, he said, the vegetation here is so lush and the leaves are so fully formed it reminds me of being back home in illinois in the middle of the

summer. he said, so many days of warm weather have occurred that the blooms and the blossoms are pretty much old hat now and many of them are gone. what does that translate to in terms of the battle? it translates to the battle of visibility. if you have a lot of vegetation and attacking and a attacking in a wooded terrain, you have got a problem in terms of seeing the enemy and the enemy seeing you. this had a major impact on the battle as well as some of the geography. one of my favorite subjects just to quickly change the issue is the fact that we talked a little bit about that, the spies that were utilized. the spies were not only told essentially to find out about the enemy encampmentes and a number of troops and whatnot but

there was some missing information about the terrain. unfortunately, beauregard, who had been in the area for a number of months had not taken the time, eve thon though an at was planned at least a week in advance, to scout and determine what the terrain was. one of the major mistakes of the battle was the confederates trying to roll up the fleeng along the tennessee river where the deep ravines were because you get to the tennessee river at the landing and you have all of this who are endoes terrain in terms of trying to attack. so this terrain indeed was still being investigated as late as the day before the battle. those are my observations. jim? >> i might add, in thinking about the terrain and i

certainly agree that the terrain was extremely rugged and had a major impact but also keeping in mind then relative to the confederates that you have an army coming to battle in which 80 to 85% of these troops are totally inexperienced. they have very little training. most of them have never made a day's march. and then general beauregard drawing up the plan of march to shiloh comes up with a very complicated march plan and when you put the complicated march

plan, the rugged terrain, the inexperienced troops all together. no wonder it took them so long to get there and then when the rain coming down as well. plus -- never really understanding the battle as well -- terrain on the -- close over to the tennessee river as wily has been bringing out. >> larry. >> the biggest terrain feature in the battlefield is of course, the tennessee river. that leads to the biggest mistake on either side in shiloh, grant's decision to leave the safety of savannah tennessee and cross over to the west bank. had he not done that, there would not be a battle of shiloh, because the confederates at that point in the war had no way to cross the tennessee river. they would get a pontoon train in 1864 that comprised 130 pontoons and 600 mules to pull it.