after all. we know lincoln was fascinated with technology, jim? >> well, lincoln was fascinated with technology, he is the only president in the united states to hold a patent for an invention and i don't believe jefferson davis held a patent either. lincoln spent a great deal of time listening to inventors having them demonstrate the spencer repeating carbine and rifle, they had them demonstrating fast firing the ancestor of the machine gun. he spent too much time probably listening to a certain, paying attention to some quacks who had come up with all kinds of crazy inventions, but he very much was open to that and he actually overruled his chief of ordinance to order the first installment of spencer repeating carbines and rifles in 1862 which by the

last year of the war i i had had given union cavalry and some union infantry a great advantage in tactical combat and as you said, lincoln was instrumental in getting john ericsson the contract for the monitor, and spent a great deal of time at the navy yard with john dahlgren, inventor of the foremost naval gun, watching the testing of the naval guns at the washington naval yard. he also went up to west pointe in june of 1862 and watched the test of parent rifle cannon at the cold spring army, which is just across the hudson river from west pointe. so lincoln was very much open and on top of the changing technology of warfare, and did, in fact, play a creative role in

getting more advanced weaponry for the union army and navy. >> what about davis? >> davis is less hands-on than lincoln but i think every bit as interested in the potential of technology, and innovation and indeed in almost any conflict in history the underdog is the one who is most likely to be willing to try anything new, because what did they have to lose? so yes indeed, the confederacy inconveniently invents the ironclad with "css virginia" they more or less invent the torpedo which we call today a land mine, they were experimenting with a movable torpedo that could go out and strike a very willing, the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel as a confederate submarine. the confederates if you want to make the argument had the first aircraft carrier because they used balloons tethered to a raft on the james river. davis is not involved in much of that except some of the

logistical work behind the ironclad program but he did create and maintain an organizational staff culture in the people in the war department that was ready, willing and anxious to pursue opportunities to take advantage of anything of this sort. >> jim alluded to something i couldn't agree with more, and that is lincoln's interest in seeing everything, and his amusement at some of the contraptions that were sent, like sweat proof body armor, and correspondence is filled with these extraordinary suggestions. my favorite is a double barrelled gun with diverging barrels that lincoln got a letter from the inventor saying that this would be an ideal weapon for a cross-eyed soldier to use. [ laughter ] it's true. to clear out both sides of the potomac at once, and he was amused to keep that letter in his desk.

strategy, davis -- lincoln had to be on the offensive. davis could have stayed on the defensive, and maybe endured a longer war and maybe successfully sued for peace if it went on into the late 1860s without any outcome that could be decisive. why did davis go on the offensive and was that his biggest mistake? >> davis, as the underdog, is presented with an immediate problem and it was there on the map. he has all this vast territory that's now part of the confederacy that has to be defended and he's got perhaps half or less of the manpower resources of the north. he has no choice but to be on the defensive. it was argued at the time and has been argued since he would have had much more successful if he had simply abandoned arkansas and texas as indefensible and moved all the resources to the

east but that was political suicide, because he's creating a new nation, a civil democracy in which texas is just as entitled to be defended by its army as virginia. he has this practical reality of two few men to defend too much territory, territory that geographically is not favorable to the confederacy in large part and the rivers, especially west of the appalachians, tend to go into the confederacy as natural avenues of invasion, whereas the potomac is a wonderful barrier or briefly was a wonderful barrier in the east. so i don't think he had much choice but to come up with what he called the offensive defensive or the defensive offensive. i never know which it is exactly and i never know what the difference is. i wrote a book about it but i don't know what it's about. [ laughter ] it's essentially the notion of hold everything, spread your forces thin or hold everything to keep the enemy heel from your

homeland and as opportunities present themselves as a target of opportunity appears, concentrate forces quickly for a thrust into the north, not to conquer the north. it needs to be remembered lee did not invade pennsylvania in order to stay in pennsylvania. it was strictly a raid, as was the antietam campaign, the crisis campaign in missouri in 1864, the perryville campaign in '62, these are not campaigns of conquest, they're attempts to take the war into the enemy's country to have a psychological impact on the enemy, and perhaps to have some impact in northern nations. other than that, i don't see what davis practically could have hoped to do, and in fact, i would be prone to argue that davis, partly by his single-minded dedication to the confederacy himself, and by this policy, may have prolonged the

war longer than it might have gone otherwise, even if the end was perhaps inevitable. >> well, the union strategy under lincoln's leadership and the leadership of his top commanders was an evolving strategy from a limited war in the first year or two of the war to suppress a rebellion or suppress an insurrection but not to destroy the infrastructure of the south, not to abolish slavery, that was not the initial purpose of the war, but as the war went on, it evolved into subsequent steps that took it to a higher or more intense level, not just conquering territory in order to bring the south back into the union, but eventually to destroy the capacity of the confederate armies and infrastructure to wage this war. so by 1864 you have lincoln supporting a strategy of

destroying the confederate infrastructure, which includes slavery as the chief form of labor in the south. you have him supporting campaigns like shermans in south carolina and the sheridans in the shenandoah valley to basically wreck the capacity of the confederate economy to continue to sustain its armies, so a war that started out with limited strategy of the anaconda plan in 1861 becomes a war of scorched earth by 1864 and 1865, not because lincoln wanted it to. i think he would have much preferred a limited war to bring the south back into the union,

if that had been possible, if it had been successful, but because it wasn't successful, the union strategy had to keep moving to this more intense and more destructive level during the course of the war. >> if i could just add, i think that lincoln's is a subtle and nuanced response to what the war has become by 1863 and '64 to most outsiders, it looks like the confederacy is losing at this point and if you stand back and look at it dispassionately, by 1864, it's pretty much hard to see a lot of hope for the confederacy, yet this phenomenon occurs that i can't completely explain yet that as late as early 1865 the confederates are willing to keep going. they're not just going to stay beaten, and faced against -- faced with that, even with an underdog, why there's not much choice really but to adopt a shift in policy as jim has outlined to destroy their ability to continue making war in the hopes that eventually you may destroy their will to do so, knowing all the time that the longer the war goes on and the greater the cost of the south, the harder it's going to make the reunification later.

>> i want to do a follow-up question on emancipation, but this is a good time to tell you that i think the mikes are in place, so if you have questions, you can begin lining up at either aisle, and as soon as i see some folks ready for questions, i'll turn to you, but let me follow up on emancipation and a couple of stubborn myths and one of them is that jefferson davis was willing at the end of the war to embrace the idea of emancipation, to swell the ranks of the confederate army, indeed that african-americans served in the confederate army, that's one of the questions that we get all the time so let's dispose of them quickly. jefferson davis for emancipation and did african-americans voluntary serve in the confederate army. >> i see that as a two-part question. >> answer with one. >> no, and second part, utter nonsense. >> okay, good. >> there's not one genuine verifiable incident or instance of an african-american serving

as an enlisted soldier in the confederate army, that is to say on the muster rolls, issued uniform, weapons, fed, paid, all the rest. who knows how many. there's no question some small number of freed and enslaved african-americans in the confederacy did say they wanted to serve, and you're welcome to speculate on what their reasons might be, but this notion that there are legions of them with lee's army invading gettysburg is simply nonsense. there were tens, maybe hundreds of thousands hired out by their owners to the military. >> or brought to the front by officers. >> or brought to the front by officers. >> enslaved people. >> yeah, they're teamsters, working with the army. most are not there by choice. they're there because their owners have hired them out. >> agreed, jim? >> well, the second part of the question, davis was as a last act of desperation in the spring

of in february and march of 1865, willing to support the negro soldier bill that was passed by the confederate congress in march of 1865. >> which makes a mockery of his own constitution. >> it does make a mockery of his. it also sent a confidential mission to europe, that duncan kenner mission to england and france in march of 18 -- february of 1865 to offer the confederates, a confederacy would -- the offer was rather vague. some degree of emancipation, maybe not complete abolition of slavery if the british and french would recognize the confederacy and intervene on their side and the british and french turned them down, nothing came with that. i don't think davis did this willingly in the sense that this was a last gasp of effort of hope that somehow the confederacy could salvage defeat

from the jaws of victory, from the jaws of defeat, but nothing ever came of it. >> you're first, sir, tell us your name and if you want to direct the question at anyone in particular, feel free. >> very good. my name is arnold smith from yonkers, and i just want to ask you this question, all of you, as a matter of fact. david donald a long time ago discussed the pros of both, pros and cons of both lincoln and davis, and he came up with this interesting proposal that if davis and lincoln had switched sides that he felt that lincoln would have been a major factor in the south and that maybe the south would have won with lincoln as president. how do you feel about that? >> well, i'll answer first by saying that that was my final question. [ laughter ] so you've usurped me so i will

let the others answer. >> well, first it was actually another david, not david donald but david potter who made that assertion in the famous essay that he wrote and gave as a paper at gettysburg back in i think 1959 or 1960 called jefferson davis and political factors in confederate defeat, i think in which he said of the two sides that switched presidents the confederacy might have won the war. i think he was saying that tongue and cheek personally in order to make a point about what he saw as davis' failures of leadership, more political than military failures. i don't -- who can know the answer to that question but i don't think that really is a serious proposition. >> i'll just say i hope he was speaking tongue and cheek because i have a lot of regard for david potter, but i've seen

no basis for it whatever, if anything i might wonder if the union might have won faster because davis could have hit the ground running and wouldn't have had to go through the course of study that lincoln did. >> that's interesting. >> yes, we'll go to this side. >> my name is dennis middlebrooks and my question is for both panelists. could you comment on the respective relationship of both presidents with their congresses and who are the smoothest relationship and how that affected the course of the war? >> go ahead. >> jefferson davis' relations with his congress sort of went from bad to worse, for a variety of reasons. number one the confederate congress was formed largely by a man who would later form -- there is no second party in the confederacy, there's the administration party and for what for want of a better term was the anti-jefferson davis party which had no platform except opposition to davis on the part of a number of men who all thought they should be president instead.

davis was remarkably successful with his congress in that he got every war appropriation bill he sent to it through his secretary of war and secretary of the treasury. he hands down 32 vetoes and only one of them is overturned, but it needs to be borne in mind that all the while the confederate congress is carping and backbiting at davis they also realize this is a war, stupid, and we've got to support the soldiers in the field. he expended virtually no effort at trying to curry good relations with congress. there again is this, davis' pride and his unwillingness to be seen by others as currying favor. there are at least two accounts i can recall of davis getting involved in shouting matches with a couple of congressmen and his office, one is some congressman from north carolina as a virginian, we always point that out. [ laughter ] and there are, it is at least

reputed that when davis was walking down the street in richmond, if he saw a congressman approaching him on the sidewalk, he would cross to the other side of the street, so as not to be seen speaking to the congressman publicly for fear of people might think he was politicking with him. that's not a good way to work with your most important branch of government. >> lincoln had basically a very constructive relationship with congress because he was working through a party of which he was the head, the republican party. the republican party supported most of his war measures. they were ahead of lincoln in some respects, especially in matters of confiscation, of southern property, and for a while, emancipation of the slaves. lincoln didn't have to veto 32 bills. as far as i know he only vetoed

one and that was the pocket veto of the way davis billed in july of 1846 so it couldn't have been overridden by congress and that may have been the low point of lincoln's relationship with congress because there was a struggle between the leadership of the republican party in congress and lincoln over who was going to be responsible for the process of reconstructing the union once the war was over or the beginning of that process, even while the war was going on. so there were tensions between lincoln and congress, but because the republican party had such solid control of congress and because lincoln was not only present and commander in chief but also head of his party, he was able to work pretty much constructively with congress on most measures during the course of the war. >> tom keegan. president davis had great hope for sidney johnston. was that just divide or warranted and if he had lived could he have made any type of

difference in the west? >> johnston referred to as not the evil joseph e. johnson is alfred sidney johnson who davis would often say was his closest friend which i find interesting. johnston was a year or two ahead of jefferson davis at west pointe and johnson allowed davis to join his set. this was the term they used, we were all in high school, those of us who weren't in high school before the civil war. [ laughter ] it was a click. or you're a group. and this was a heady feeling for young davis, boy from out in mississippi to be allowed into this elite set, it was polk and a few others and davis i think really idolized sidney johnston ever after and thus when he became president of the confederacy his first concern for his military establishment was to make albert sidney johnston his premier, his senior field general, yet this man davis said was his closest

friend, he and johnston as i could tell hadn't seen each other more than three times in 20 years so this really is a case of idolizing, i think, rather than anything else. i don't think we know enough. johnston got killed so early in his first battle that we really don't have much of a basis knowing how he was likely to perform later, how good would he be at learning the art of war in this kind of a theater. we do know that he allowed himself to be pretty much dominated by pgt beauregard whom davis had banished to the western theater to make number two to johnston. the plan for the battle of shiloh is basically beauregard and he loses his nerve the night before the fight and says, we should retreat. of and johnston went on. johnston had courage. he was worshipped by the

president, perhaps by some of his men, but i think there's not enough evidence to make prognostication. >> my name is craig, and both davis and lincoln faced divisions and dissent and resistance to their policies, and i'm wondering if you can comment on a comparative scale and character of that resistance. >> well, in the case of lincoln, most of the opposition to his policies came from the democrats who voted solidly against many of the war measures and solidly against the antislavery or emancipationist measures in congress. in the case of davis -- well, i'll let jack talk about that -- it didn't come through the political party process. but because -- i'm just repeating myself -- the party

republicans' discipline in congress, lincoln was able to overcome most of that dissent and opposition. now, in the press, i think the democratic opposition was stronger, and you'll get an awful lot of sniping at lincoln from the democratic press and from sort of quasi-independent newspaper like the new york herald which had the largest circulation in the north. so you get the impression that there was a lot of opposition and criticism of lincoln from the prominence of some major democratic newspapers plus the "new york herald". >> and some opposition from the left, i guess. >> well, there was opposite from the radical wing of the republican party. you thought lincoln was moving too slowly, especially on the question of slavery and

emancipation but also on the question of confiscation of southern property. >> the opposition to davis as i indicated earlier was far less organized and far less substantial and generally pretty weak in its effect. there is an opposition press headed by the "richmond examiner" and the "charleston mercury." most of the opposition is based around davis' military decisions because there was no internal or civil policy to speak of. it's a very small group of people let by robert barnwell whet rhett who owns the newspaper. in fact, in the fall of 1864, rhett who will say that jefferson davis was born for his work as judas was born for his. this is not a reasonable man. rhett and a few others will actually hatch a scheme to try to remove davis from office and

install robert e. lee as a military dictator. i don't know if they ever approached lee, of course i'm sure he would have nixed it immediately. it never got anywhere because it was so crack line. but it was also a small but extremely vocal opposition. >> i think what we agree on is that part of the vociferousness to lincoln as it seems to exist in history is because of the two-party system. there a natural opposition that's gearing toward elections that just don't take place in november. they take -- >> almost year round. >> year round. yes? >> i'm norman ornoff. i would ask you to comment on two aspects of general mcclellan. did he make a positive contribution to the north by his organizational skills? and also, how do you explain his slows with respect to conducting

campaigns? >> organizational and timidity. >> i think mcclellan did make a major contribution. he created and organized, trained and inspired the army of the potomac. but he didn't know how to use it. but it was there for somebody who did know how to use it when grant finally becomes general and chief and kind of de facto commander of the army of the potomac. how do explain mcclellan? grant was asked that question in 1879 and said that mcclellan has always been a puzzle to me. and i think that that is true of

historians and biographers who have look at mcclellan. i personally think that mcclellan was afraid to fail and, therefore, afraid to take my risks because any kind of a risk risks failure. but a military commander, by definition, combat commander, has to take risks. but mcclellan i think was constitutionally, psychologically unable to take risks. i'll let jack comment, too. >> the great confederate die rift once wrote a great -- who had a reputation as a crack shot with a rifle or shotgun. she described a time when he went out on a hunt with several other men and the others banged away blithely, missing all the time but now and then they got a bird and brought them home. but for johnston, the bird was always too high or the sun was

in his eyes or -- he never took a shot so he came back with no birds but his reputation was intact. and there may be some of that with mcclellan. i think jim also touched on an explanation possibly early on when he talked about not everybody has the same idea of what victory should be. mcclellan and baiul and a couple other union commanders did not want to defeat the confederacy in detail. of they wanted as easy on the south a victory as possible in order to the reunion later would be a good, conservative, small sea reunion in which there was no vast change imposed and confederates could go back to the business of being american citizens again as easily as possible. the more destruction you do, the harder you'll make that reunification. >> i want to bring that back to the political aspects here. again, we still have political generals -- >> we do today. >> -- in the north whose politics are well known. mcclellan after his triumph at antietam sees the war change in scope with the announcement five days later of the emancipation proclamation and he tells

lincoln in no uncertain terms that he doesn't support the proclamation. he becomes almost treasonous at that point and he's questioning the civilian authority of the president and questioning the most important change in the concept of war and rationale for the war that occurs during the war. so i'm taking it back to politics. yes? >> my name is jack from long island. my question deals with the strategic judgment of jefferson davis. when lincoln speaks of the mystic cords and memory stretching back to every patriot's grave, part of that memory was the fact that we were a confederation from 1781 to 1789 and it was a dismal

failure. the states were printing their own money, tariffs, they couldn't put down shays' rebellion. and did not davis or any of the confederate leaders take this into account? i mean, at boten college he suggested in the 1850s that maine break away and link up with canada and stowe and chamberlain were pretty upset with that. >> form it in a question. >> okay. did not the confederate leaders including jefferson davis feel that there could not be two countries, united states and the confederate states, that sooner or later the confederate states under the banner of state sovereignty would split apart and we'd have, you know, many, many stations here? >> thank you. >> there -- i don't recall any of them being specifically on record about that, though there were concerns. there were rumors going around georgia in 1864 that governor