of negotiation that occurs between the two, right. if you go too far, i mean, i know this is not necessarily something that your ethics class wants -- if you go -- what happens when they clash and one puts too much weight on the ideals? what's the cost then? you lose. >> yeah, you lose. all right. on the other hand, a lot of times even military organizations don't want to do any -- it's not anything goes, right, because there's a sense that you've compromised what you wanted so much that you've now -- what's the point of this victory, the victory becomes hollow from a moral, political and ethical stance. and the two are frequently in collision and the two frequently collide and this may be an example -- i mean if wiegly is right and this is a way of maybe saying that in a sense both wiegly and gallagher are right. gallagher is right when he talks about what confederate public

opinion wants when it talks about the imperatives of southern white culture, all right. wiegly may be correct from a strategic perspective, a military strategic perspective that the more plausible military strategy is the fabian strategy, all right. they may be both right, but that's arguably perhaps the confederacy's biggest problem is making those two compatible, right? okay. so then now we circle back, right, to lee. do we think of lee as someone whose strategy -- well, do you think lee's strategy was plausible? >> no. say why. >> the south never had enough men or enough industry to compete with the north. the north was too big of a power. i forget who -- i think it was a gallagher reading. i forget who he was quoting.

they fought with a hand behind their back and the juggernaut of northern industrialization and manpower would have overwhelmed the south regardless plus lee's biggest problems is he was too oriented on virginia, his home state and that caused had him to completely neglect the west when he could have perhaps shifted troops out there to thwart some of the southern defeats there. he did well for himself for the most part in virginia, but the -- he sacrificed the west. >> that is an argument that hasn't come up. >> thought it was going to be a short war. it wouldn't have mattered so much down the line when in the late '60s they were running out of men. it would have paid off early in the war it wasn't have mattered later on. >> yes, and you know what, that

is lee's reply -- lee would acknowledge everything you said about superiority but turned that to support his strategy. i need to win the war early because eventually it will be a matter of time. the only chance for convict are i is to gamble early and he gambled and he lost. you can still say that's the only viable strategy. although -- well, both of you want to -- >> yeah, i was going to go back to the grand versus military strategy thing. i think it was a plausible strategy if they had won a few more key -- if they had defeated the north at antietam and not given the platform for the emancipation proclamation. hindered lincolns chance in 1864. things like that would have worn down northern will and kept o

out -- or kept them out long enough. >> my big thought is my criticism of lee comes when he finally does switch to the defensive which he's forced to because his offensives plans before the wilderness, which are kind of -- i would call them fever dreams almost because he thinks he can still move with the kind of speed and achieve the kind of depth that he did when he still had a functioning -- or well functioning offensive army. he makes all kinds of failures in these initial kind of defensive battles especially at the angle at sharpsburg which i guess is a tactical failure lesson as it is a strategy ig failure. >> yeah, although i mean i think consensus is lee does pretty well during the overlying campaign but he does it too late and that his army has bled white by that time and at that point it's -- he's already wasted so

many men that's part of the argument against his generalship in that case. but -- okay, so let's -- how many do you think lee was plausible? let's show hands. >> what? >> plausible, that his strategy was plausible. okay, so most of you think it was plausible. what did people think about the argument weigley makes this about lee's victories being holl hollow. >> because he'd suffer massive casualties to achieve them. >> as with gettysburg he'd win the battle and hold the land but the next day he would have to leave anyway because logistics couldn't keep up with -- >> better example, gettysburg is just a loss. where -- the big battles he won, remind us. chancellorsville, second manassas. does the federal army completely

dissolve? >> no. >> no. all right. it's at times -- especially in the case of second manassas it's in terrible shape, but it's not like he walks into washington n unopposed. all right. he mauls the federalists tremendously, but he still -- that's why he always needs to follow on victory. that's why you have the antietam campaign shall that's why you have the gettysburg -- he wants the follow-on. you need the three, all right. but let's say he wins at gettysburg, all right. what does he do? i mean so what, right? he wins at gettysburg and he loses a third of his men in the process. he still has the logistical problem. he still has all these sorts of issues. and this is an argument against lee and one that should be considered and part of it relates to -- part of it also relates to how plausible you think that gettysburg and that -- whether or not he really could have won many gettysburg or antietam.

>> i think the problem is is strategy -- i personally don't think it's his strategy, but what was needed for the south to win but i think the problem goes back to his positive trait was also another one of his weaknesses was aggressiveness because he became way too reckless with his men and when he saw the tide of certain battles starting to change he would throw more men into the battle and they'd just get mowed down but would work to wear down the north. >> all right. and that's -- mr. steinberg? >> i have issue with sort of his strategy going into gettysburg because the point of his campaign was obviously he wanted to win a big battle in the north as a moral victory and reduce the will but wasn't the military objective to get to harrisburg. because there was a real hub there. gettysburg happened to be where the army ended up meeting. >> he doesn't intend to fight in gettysburg but somewhere in the north. >> if he's going after a transportation hub like harrisburg or an industrial

center, so what? you make it and even if he wants to take over a hub or factory, so what. >> his goal is really to bring -- to force the federal army to a battle and to defeat it decisively and that by itself should crush the northern public opinion. all right. that's -- it's not completely -- let me throw this out. what happens in new york city around that time? >> the draft. >> the draft riots. the north is deeply, deeply divided in some respects about the war. so imagine draft riots, plus the prospect of -- but, you know, the reality is, though, this is alterably complicated. for example, you guys got the traditional explanation historians use why sherman's campaign is so important and lincoln, the capture. >> because it it turns public opinion in 1864 -- >> we have a famous letter where he says i'm going to lose this election, all right. who is lincoln's opponent?

this is actually not in any of your readings. >> mcclelland. >> mcclelland is on a platform that -- the democratic party platform. i mean they've -- parts of the democratic party which wanted to declare an armistice. if you do one, the confederate is basically won -- a lot these northerners -- so-called peace democrats don't realize that the confederates really want their independence. they think if you do a cease-fire you can renegotiate this and the confederates sometimes talk openly how they want to encourage this misconception. we want our own country at this point. but if you stop you're not going to be able to start the machine back up again. this would become a fait accompli. but mcclelland's own position is somewhat different. we don't completely know in all honesty what mcclelland would have done. for all -- yes, he was not in favor of emancipation but he was a union man still and mcclelland

would have been president, so that dynamic might have -- is that counterfactual is problematic and that's another -- and this is related to a larger question, all right. that's not -- this is not just about lee. this is about how much chance does the confederacy as a whole have at victory? if you come up with so many barriers to the confederatele victory anything lee does would be impossible. whether or not you buy that but that's -- you see the questions are related. if you say a confederate victory is too many things are against it this is almost a stupid question. we shouldn't have this class. we should have a class about -- then i should be writing out tables of manpower and industrial capacity and things like that. all right. >> just on like lee's -- confederate strategy, this is in retrospect obviously. we see how good he is at the defensive strategy when he's

forced to do. wouldn't it made more sense, they would have been in the confederacy, the size of europe, closer to their supply lines and more logistics and could have given up land and broken northern public opinion and will and giving up small amounts -- not losing the massive amount of casualties in the aggressive northern campaigns he embarked on. >> didn't he go to the north because the south was losing all the supplies and had the food stock and all that so went to pennsylvania they just took advantage of all the fields there. >> a lot is -- remember, a lot of the supply system is sort of legalized theft, right. and that's -- the federals do the same thing and the confederates partly -- northern virginia is completely devastated. sort of opposite of what you think of virginia being now, gallows row with funny street names, but -- and that's part -- there is a supply imperative there, all right. but, of course, lee is -- lee

does well in the overlining campaign. what's interesting he's doing exactly what he doesn't want to do and then the interesting question then becomes, you know, is he just personalitywise unsuited to fighting that? also, gallagher makes this point, let me point this out too, lee fights a masterful delaying action in the overlying campaign. johnston if weigley is right, but what happens at the end of all these things? >> you still lose. >> you still lose, why, you're pushed back and what happens? what kind of operation occurs that plays to all the federal advantages? >> a siege. >> a siege, all right. and lee says that very early on. he says this very early on. if this becomes a siege, we're done, all right, because and he says this as early as the seven days because if mcclelland can bring up his heavy artillery, all the northern logistics and

material is just gradually going to overwhelm the confederacy and therefore siege -- what happens after a siege? what happens after things like donaldson, henry, vicksburg? you lose an entire army so that's one of gallagher's arguments against this, the stuff doesn't actually work because -- mr. conners? >> i'm going to say i think there's definitely something to do with the opposing generals. he -- >> explain. >> he has a really good read on people like mcclelland or even burnside. burnside has this problem where he'll freeze up when he's given too much. it's shown -- kind of burnside -- it takes him a long time to get across that bridge. burnside can be taken advantage of and exploited as can mcclelland obviously. mcclelland will break if pushed right, but he doesn't get that good a read when it comes to

grant. >> yes, i think and while -- also what should be added good read on the army of the potomac. there's something deeply wrong of that. i don't know if historians have done a great job -- even bruce cannon talks about this. they fight really hard, its rank and file are pretty effective but its generals -- kind of an organizational problem. partly because of mcclelland because a lot of the officers he selects and the culture he creates is a very defensive passive-minded one and the sports team that gets beaten by the same team too often, right? there seems to be a sense that they get the culture of losers, all right, and what is the opposite thing in northern virginia? they think they're always going to win. and what's interesting about it is, one, it's not just the army thinks that. who else thinks that and gallagher has a lot of that. >> norman thinks that the army -- >> that's part of it.

what other important group of people? >> confederates. >> average confederate. so when you look at things like gettysburg, what's interesting is how gettysburg is a defeat for lee, but the public reaction is not that negative. it's sort of, well, yeah, we wish it went better but the first day went for the confederacy and where did it happen? in pennsylvania, so, okay, we didn't get a huge victory there but we fought the federals to a draw, we survived. the first day went better for us. vicksburg is seen as a complete disaster in contrast. no one says vicksburg is good. the same thing occurs to some degree after antietam which is -- lee's army is mrauled but he stays an extra day and is able to kind of say this is a draw and mcclelland doesn't attack him. that's partly mcclelland. lee almost dares him to attack the day after the battle and mcclelland makes the mistake and refuses. possibly could have destroyed lee's army on the spot, but there is -- and this is the

importance of psychological factors and if you're going to defend lee the way gallagher does you'll put a heavier premium on these things that lee is able to build this culture of winning so he has to take risks and there are positive effects to this. as late as '64 the army of northern virginia will be an effective fighting force. but you wouldn't have built that culture of winning if you had done the fabian strategy that washington would have done, all right. because men aren't going -- yes, you can rationally explain it. mr. conners, you want to push back on that. >> culture of winning is as useful as it is, but even the army of the potomac, i think, the description of them is like a bulldog was's been whipped a lot, is used to getting whipped but will keep fighting and fight pretty hard. >> and will eventually win. >> and will eventually win so there's a culture of tenacity that i think develops in the army of the potomac whereas, the

army in northern virginia, when they lose, yes, they still have a culture of always winning, but that loss somehow will stick with them. i think. >> well, stick with them because they might have a culture of winning but so many of them will be killed, it won't matter. >> essentially. >> by the way, arguably that is what happens to the army of northern virginia. at the end of the day, the best troops in the world if they're half starved because their supply lines are cut, their running low on ammunition and respect that many of them left, and by '6 awhat has happened to a lot of your best officers? they're all dead. >> or wounded. >> or wounded or lame. this happens on the federal side too, especially after the overland campaign. you know, eventually that preponderance of military -- but, again, this is an argument for why confederate independence is very hard to get in the first place. so the question is, is this even a good discussion to have, all

right, so i'm just throwing that out there, okay. i think most military historians, though, and perhaps it's just because we're military historians don't think that the confederacy's convict/or confederate defeat is automatic, all right. i think most of us come to the agreement that lee came close enough to changing the tide of the war by winning -- came close enough to the hat trick we have to take this seriously, all right. that being said, you can still make the argument like weigley that that was one way of getting victory but there's another way of getting victory and that way would have been something more like washington, something more like a fabian strategy and would have been more operationally effective but, remember, that might be true. weigley might be right in military terms but if gallagher is right in terms of opinion, that's still not a viable strategy, would not have actually been a workable thing.

all right. so keep a lot of this in mind. we'll get to grant on friday and we'll talk more about that, but mr. goral. >> on deck. >> all right, leave. >> more from u.s. naval academy history professor wayne hsieh as he talks about the generalship of ulysses s. grant, called "the way of war." it's 50 minutes. >> so today we will do grant. with lee, obviously one of the ways that class was structured you had obviously one historian who thought lee was an excellent battlefield general and a terrible strategist and then you had another historian, my former teacher gallagher who made the argument that lee's strategy was plausible. it didn't work out but it wasn't because his strategy was implausible or not well executed.

today is -- what you might have noticed, i didn't really give you an anti-grant reading meaning grant is terrible. and the reason for that is the known, i didn't give you an anti-grant reading, meaning grant is terrible. the reason for that is the consensus of you amongst most modern historians is that grant was a great general. there's always issues for debate. but the current scholarship is extraordinarily positive. you know, i more or less subscribe to that view and it's hard to get a really good grant the butcher reading that -- some of you heard this term, give you a current reading like that that's actually plausible. so i don't.

but i should mention that. historiography meaning the changing interpretations about the past. grant's example is very -- very interesting about that because grant during the war, after the war, what happens to grant, you know, after the war, shows how americans like him. he becomes president. he's incredibly important. he writes his memoirs, how many of you read pieces of grant's memoirs? a few of you. maybe even in english class. even in the history of american prose style grant is important. we call it the plain style, the type of writing we teach, the very kind of unvarnished, clear, taking out a lot of the rhetorical flourishes we associate with victorianism, with romanticism, grant has something to do with that. so grant's reputation is very high. and then you have this term where grant becomes -- people become indifferent to him and you get a powerful driven in large part by the writings of

former confederates grant is portrayed as grant the butcher. what's the criticism of grant, you can also draw that out of wigley though he sees grant as a great general. what's the complaint? >> throws his men away. >> yes. grant is extraordinarily blood thirsty. you get all sorts of stories, things like supposedly grant liked his meat well cooked partly because he worked at a tannery. the criticism, there is this blood thirsty general who can't stand the sight of blood. so you get all of this very, very negative, hostile interpretation. then really around the time of the inner war period, a few british -- important british military writers start to rehabilitate grant and who see him as a more important general and give the interpretation that wigley more or less repeats and

what you got is kind of the consensus though there will be people will dispute pieces including myself. but that's more or less the general view. so but you should realize that grant's reputation has ebbed and flowed and i still want you, though, to make a valid judgment but it tends to inspire less debate than lee. i wouldn't be surprised if this class is affected by that. or maybe it isn't. so, why don't we step back after giving you that little bit of context, why don't some of you start flushing out why is grant at least in the reading you got, why is grant a great general? what makes him special? all right. okay. all right. that is a great opening line. you've kind of advanced the class in the way i wanted to get to that issue. this sounds preposterous. there is a reason why grant's reputation is going to be easier to defend than lees, because he wins the war.

and lee doesn't. >> also argues that he is this long term -- sees the bigger picture. it's not this instant battle where he has to like -- his ultimate goal is to crush lee's army but he sees the bigger picture of the war. >> at that level, what are the three levels of war again? strategy, operations, tactics. grant is the master strategist. does grant always get his way on the operational, tactical level? no. any one remember an example? one of them i remember reading. what happens at shiloh? is that grant's greatest battle? no. what happens? yes. the federal army is -- and

sherman has some doing with this. the federal -- the union army is basically caught napping to some degree. but how does grant retrieve the situation? wigley refers to it as a character trait. grant doesn't panic. so he recovers, but it doesn't mean that he's flawless operationally, doesn't mean he is flawless tactically. >> i think he's got the nerve. mcclellan breaks and burnside breaks, all of these generals break, but shiloh doesn't break, the wilderness when he gets outflanked he doesn't break, he withdraws and stabs again. >> how does that relate to having the big picture? how do those two connect? >> he loses the battle doesn't mean he's done. >> yes. >> he's able to get over the

fact and go on to the next one. >> you have your -- and this is a traditional military historian's argument why you focus. wigley uses it. who is the contrasting figure on this question of character? who is the guy who gets the strategy right but due to a moral failing, that's basically the way 19th century america sees it, doesn't succeed. it's mcclellan. if he knows what is wigley's evaluation of the strategic concept of mclellen's peninsula campaign? >> pretty positive. just he didn't have the guts to follow it up. >> exactly. that is what -- not only that, what does wigley talk about, how does he character ice mcclellan's political ideas? >> he was a lot less revolutionary than -- he would have rather had the civil war

carried south there weren't any changes, slavery wasn't touched and restore how it was. >> whether or not that was a good or bad thing, is it plausible? >> it wouldn't be plausible to bring the union back together because the south was in their own mind-set like they wanted the war to end, and they wanted to stay the same the way they were. >> wigley is kind of on the fence. if we read his other work there is a sense in wigley that battle and wars are -- there are downsides so he clearly has a fondness for mcclellan's desire to have a military strategy that leaves civilians alone and things like that. and wigley doesn't seem to care a lot, a huge amount about slavery. that's one of the reasons you can take that position. but i think you're right to say that other point wigley seems to indicate that's politically that strategy probably wouldn't have worked. there was something in it. it becomes implausible because mcclellan fails on the battlefield. his only chance to make his strategy work requires him to

achieve a military victory which he does not. then you are replaced with the grant strategy, much more, well, what are the -- so grant has the better strategic conception. let's flush out, step back again. what's the -- he's got the good strategic view. what's his view? the title of the chapter, right. the strategy of annihilation. what does that mean? >> destroy the army. >> so how are the different ways of doing that? mr. roth. >> he's going to follow the big thing is he had people follow lee's army and they keep picking off people and follow him and make lee like make the mistake. >> so -- >> not just following the army as well as johnson. he divided his forces to engage the southern army at the same time on multiple fronts. >> so you have various examples, right. you have attrition. what's that a fancy term for?

what mr. roth said. in this case you can associate it with guerrilla warfare. in this case it's wearing down your opponent. that's the overland campaign with fighting. high casualty count. mr. goodwin you're probably -- did you mention vicksburg? >> not this time, sir. >> that's an example where grant doesn't wear down his opponent through a heavy casualty sort of grinding away. what does he do instead. >> figured out the siege. but originally when he started at vicksburg he launched two or three assaults and failed at that. one could argue he tried to anile late this confederate army in vicksburg, too. >> he does. in the end he does win, right. the assaults don't work but how does the siege conclude? where else does grant achieve maneuver, decisions by siege? >> petersburg. >> that's another thou i