question for he he was written about the march and the destruction on that march. sherman had developed that hard war policy and that approach using destruction as a punishment. he had developed that really early on. clearly saw it. this was a very rare example. and saw the march itself revengeructions as probably asas

succession.actual soldiers had a delight in destroying the cradle of the confederacy. they use them as bringing the war upon them. >> i think we have one more question. >> why did it stop? citieswe not see further earned in the same kind of mercenary manner? withdrew back into virginia and they were occupied. did notticular strategy move forward from that point on. did theire certainly fair share of burning throughout the war.

they did not have the opportunity as much in the north. burn parts of town. for a monetary reason? >>. there were a lot of soldiers. ofy took great joy in our revenge on both sides. field or because these were the houses that a woman whose that at us or that kind of a vengeful action. that was more individually direct did.

screeria -- nigeria. - tenness

that resulted in the almost total destruction of his army. remind your children in this by centennial year, when we are the first generation of the americans who have experienced attacks on the continental united states, we are the first generation of americans to have felt what it was like to have our government buildings attacked.

remind your children freedom is not free. and that our country's greatness is found in one another. that's what the star-spangled banner is about. that's what this commemoration year is about. to tell that story, and to lift every voice, and to sing. >> a three-day fourth of july weekend starts friday on "american history tv," including the 200th anniversary of the star-spangled banner 8:30 p.m. eastern on friday. visit the college classroom of joel howell as he talks about u.s. government human radiation experiments conducted after world war ii through the cold war. sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a preview of presidential historian jeffrey engel's manuscript on george w. bush and the peaceful end to the cold war. next, on "american history tv," peter carmichael discusses confederate general robert e. lee's strategy in 1864. carmichael is director of the civil war institute at gettysburg college and delivered

this talk at the institute's annual summer conference in june. it's about an hour. >> good morning. so when we all get in this business of writing books, you know, we hope that our books have a lasting impact, that in the long march of his triography, we keep pace with the scholarship. but the reality is, most of our books fall by the wayside. and i had that realization at a recent book signing, in which i didn't have to strain my eyes very much to see the end of that line. and as people made their way up, a guy said to his wife, honey, this is the author of the book that i've been reading every evening. and she said, oh, the book you fall asleep to every night.

[ laughter ] douglas freeman, there's no risk of his work falling by the wayside. douglas freeman as many of you know was the biographer of robert e lee. he received a pulitzer prize for it. he did three volumes on the army in northern virginia. entitled "these lieutenants." all of his work is beautifully written. he had prose that i think is equal to catin, who did incredible research. freeman was very much enamored with the general. in fact, he admitted to this. every morning as he walked to work, he would salute the statue of robert e. lee in richmond. a little odd, i would say. mon the less, he had great

admiration por the general. and he was, i should add, a his or yan. preman grew up in virginia, did his undergraduate at the university of rich mobbed and went on to johns hopkins where he earned his ph.d. he decided to work for a living and was a journalist, two different papers in richmond. his historical output is amazing. this should remind us of our conversation with gordan ray who did a real job as a lawyer and has a historical scholarship. freeman also maintained an incredible work ethic. he got up every morning at 2:00, in fact, this is a picture of him in his office. he would work from 2:00, to i believe 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. if you note in the photograph, you can see there's a microphone where he did a daily radio show. then he went off to the newspaper office and was a full-time editor. so really quite remarkable his output. his scholarship deeply

influential, although it's certainly taken some hits. his interpretive foundation is there. there's a lot of rubble. because of the revisionist scholars. and of course, their critique of freeman, is that he simply presented us a sanitized lee. he was very selective in the evidence that he used in his presentation of lee. so i'll give you one example. he spoke to an audience at the war college talking about leadership. and in this, he made an observation about what constitutes the generalship during the civil war. he said a great general, a great general must recognize between what was profitable to what was desirable. a soldier who cannot make that distinction, freeman declared, will never get anywhere. freeman was referring to confederate gustav to

beauregard. beauregard had fantasies with joining with the forces around petersburg and richmond and marching on to washington, d.c., and on to philadelphia, and their final destination would be new york city. of course, that would be giving up richmond and petersburg. this kind of flam bouncy with pierre gustav to beauregard is understandable. if your parents name you this, you will have grandiose plans. freeman should have applied this rule to robert e. lee. if he had done so, i think he would laugh come up with a more critical, and actually more lasting interpretation of the general. so my argument is very straightforward. and note that i've just changed the slide to distract you as i tell you my argument. it is simply this. by the fall of 1863, lee's expectations of his army had far

exceeded what it could actually accomplish. during the preceding 24 months before june 1st, 1864, before the fighting at cold harbor, lee had lost roughly 100,000 men. of course, he was keenly aware of his diminished strength, but at the start of the overland campaign, robert e. lee was still searching for that elusive victory of annihilation, or you can call it an american waterloo. what's really odd here is lee's thinking on this subject, after 1863, in no way evolved, or changed many of his peers, especially on the union side, they had adjusted to the reality of civil war warfare. they recognized that civil war armies were virtually indestructible. and that the battlefield almost never resulted in decisive strategic results.

'64, lee has the grandiose plans. and the expectation that grant would be destroyed in a single battle. what's surprising is the southern press and the southern people, they were modest, and realistic in their expectations. this was not the case in the north. brook simpson wrote a very good piece called "great expectations." if you've got your pen out here, to write down the book titles, this is a fine volume on the essays of the wilderness campaign. that's where brooks' article appears. great expectations, in which brooks finds that northern editors promised their readers that grant would deliver a knockout blow in the overland campaign. lee never faced the same kind of pressure that grant did. and of course, he had the political clout in richmond to take a more strategically conservative approach.

grant simply didn't have that option. so finally i want to suggest this. that lee should have abandoned his spotsylvania line, and retreated across central virginia, that area was logistically barren, and of course, he could then consolidate his forces around richmond and petersburg, something we can discuss during the question-and-answer period. there's a perception that once the armies fell back in richmond, enter siege warfare, it was simply a matter of time. i honestly don't agree with that. if he had left the spotsylvania's line after may 10th, he probably would have saved himself about 20,000 men, according to my estimates. grant would have been obliged to do, what? to attack him. so the standard of victory in 1864 should not have been a victory of annihilation, it should have been a stalemate. as we know, in may, atlanta wasn't threatened. joseph johnston was grinding

down sherman's army. lee could have done the same, because what's the prize for these campaigns in 1864? it's defeat of abraham lincoln. in fact, it is the defeat of abraham lincoln that is the confederacy's last best hope for southern independence. before we dive into the details of this argument, we need to do a little his triography. when the word his triography comes out of my mouth, it's like ether. i'll make this succinct and to the point. it falls in line with many historians who critique lee for his excessive attacking. and that that attacking, or the commitment to the offense, that it ultimately brought upon confederate defeat. this idea that many scholars maintain today, has its origins in the work of many of these peers. including edward porter

alexander, the artilleryist, in the first corps. he described lee as audacity personified. james long street, alexander's superior, after the war said it was lee's up and at 'em courage that would not let him rest. these two examples, and there are many others, they infuse the writing of early scholarship on lee. i'll give you one example. george bruce in 1913, concluded that the aggressive warfare -- that aggressive warfare was congenial to lee's impulsive nature. scholarship has not removed itself from this idea, that lee had a peculiar lust for combat. michael feldman, in his 2000 biography of lee, titled the making of robert e. lee, he explained that lee's addressing this on the battlefield served as a release for pent-up sexual

frustrations that lee had throughout his adult life. at the moment, when it was most needed, aggressiveness thrust up through the passivity and deep reserve of lee. in a sense the most approximate emotional precedent for such an outburst was the considerable erotic energy that had forced its way up through the carefully controlled exterior, the young lee had normally shown the world in his relationships with young women. lee found a parallel, a conscious act given the choice he would attack, not wait. now, feldman's observation got a nice chuckle from the audience. some of you might find them very disturbing. if you read his biography, it's beautifully written, by the way, but if you read it, it's what many call -- i don't like using

this term -- psycho babble. you will reach the conclusion at the end, there are all these explanations for confederate defeat, i think we have a new one after reading feldman's book. if the confederacy only had prozac, r.e. lee would have been a successful general. i want to quickly remind you of this. the when douglas saw freeman, he wrote the following description in his 1934 pulitzer prize prize of robert e. lee, no one had a problem with his biological theories as long as it purported to explain lee's greatness. at the battle of fredericksburg, freeman writes, lee's eyes flashed as he watched the men counterattack and the blood of light horse harry fought in his veins with the calmer strain of the peace-loving carters. turning to long street. lee revealed the whole man in a single brief sentence. is well that war is so terrible,

we should grow too fond of it. the feldman and freeman examples remind us of the dangers of comparing culture with biology. any historical interpretation that suggests that historical people were governed by animalistic impulses serves to legitimatate violence and oppression in people in contemporary society. birth of a nation, the movie, released in 1950, and a classic example, it, of course, shows african-americans as free people, taking over political governments in the south, running roughshod over whites. what's the greatest threat of all? that black men had this, not just lust for power, but lust for white women. and if you think about early turn of the century, especially in the south, we have on the rise, lynching. of course, the factors that explain the rise of lynching are extremely complex. the point is simply this, historical interpretations are very much critical to the

legitimatization of social relations and unequal power in any society. now, let's move back to when i'm more comfortable with, and that's an explanation of aggressiveness that has a cultural -- cultural -- foundation. and if we think about aggressiveness in the 19th century, men certainly prized it, but they didn't prize it in its raw form. they thought that courage should be something that's harnessed, and that should in fact be refined. an emotional equilibrium were of all 19th century men. you read elizabeth pryor's reading the man, probably one of the best book that we have on the -- in terms of looking at the inner lee. she does it by drilling down in research. she is just a fiend when it comes to primary sources. and she really gets into them. it's a brilliant, beautifully

written book that actually won the lincoln prize. which tells you something. a biography of lee that wins the lincoln prize, it's superb. she makes a compelling case that lee's engineering background flowed into his victorian sensibility of self-denial and control. lee was always worried, and very self-aware about mastering himself, but also we should note, he also wanted to master those people whom he deemed inferior, whether it be women, native americans, or slaves. now, where did lee learn his commitment to the offense, in a military sense. he probably got some of that schooling at west point, although there wasn't any formal training in military science. he probably read about napoleon's campaign. he probably had some appreciation of the offense. but then on the ground, where did it play out with dramatic

success, but the mexican war. where r.e. lee was a staff officer for winfield scott. that's where he learned to do what he called head work, getting on the ground and making reconnaissance as lee did for winfield scott, resulted in dramatic offensive-minded victories. so this is not about an animalistic impulse, it's that lee believed that the offense offered his army the best chance for success. we often look at -- let me get away from this now -- we often look at gettysburg in the anomaly of his career. that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. i think it's in part of the book "killer angels," movie not quite so good. martin sheen plays a very, i would say somber r.e. lee. and i don't think it captures lee's thinking at that time. the result is that we get to

picket charge. we stand in front of the lee monument and take in the fields and say, what was the general thinking. martin sheen got it right. lee was so depressed, he suddenly lost all his imagination and creativity and just lined up his men and marched them across those open fields. what it overlooks is the strategic possibilities of 1863, that they really required r.e. lee to do, what? to stay on the offense and to maintain an offensive disposition. there are so many possibilities that can be gained politically, and they could have only been achieved through attacking. once his army was engaged here, which he did not want, as you all know, nonetheless, he stands as one of the most complete victories that the army in northern virginia ever achieved. july 2nd was certainly a day of frustration for lee in northern virginia. but it still was a day of impressive assaults that nearly crashed the union line at a number of places. on july 3rd, it makes utterly no

sense why lee would suddenly relinquish the offensive. the idea that james longstreet had the vision that would have secured confederate victory here, it's not in sync with the reality of what was on the ground. when you stand in front of the lee monument, the next thing you need to do is the fact that the interpretive markers there don't really explain where the troops were. it appears that he simply lined them up along one extensive front, as portrayed in the gettysburg movie. that's not the case. 90% of the people who come to gettysburg knows where the division was actually formed. it's not in front of the lee monument. it's off to the right in front of the spangler house. the troops were concealed for most of the day. the point being is this. r.e. lee took great care on july the 3rd to try to ensure that that attack would succeed. as i said yesterday, r.e. lee

operated upon the maxim of possibilities, not probabilities. and there were possibilities. was it his best decision? no, it certainly was not. but it was not a decision that was a knee-jerk reaction. it was not a decision because his blood was up. it was a decision made after careful calculation. careful calculation. i would say what r.e. lee did at gettysburg was consistent to what he had done up to that point. the big question that the revisionist of r.e. lee have raised is simply this. could the confederacy afford lee's maneuvers, could they afford that kind of casualties that -- of course, he did run up some very, very, very high casualties. that's the big question. that is the question that historian allen olden raised in

his book "lee considered." the book was published in 1991. many of you know allen alden. another lawyer who turned civil war historian like gordan ray. always getting on our turf, lawyers are, as historians. he did another book called "the iron brigade." noelen's take was very controversial. but he's asking the right question. did his dairy maneuver, did lee's dairy maneuvers, could the confederacy afford them? no len couldn't understand why people were enamored with the campaign of r.e. lee. if you take them by themselves, they are very impressive. but in the end he believed that those campaigns ironically enough, they ultimately committed r.e. lee to the thing he said he feared more than anything else. siege warfare around richmond and petersburg.

there was a real uproar over nolan's book. it was really kind of sad and pathetic to be honest about it. many people never even read the book and criticized it. one person even suggested a book burning, a book burning, because, of course, that promotes healthy discussion in a democracy. [ laughter ] so, you know, in this uproar, as so often happens, people, of course, did miss where i think there's a weakness, to nolan's interpretation. that weakness is the timelessness, the timelessness of nolan's argument. look, if you apply nolan's question to lee's operations in 1862, and even in early 1863, it doesn't make much sense to me at all. it's a time when lee did have ample resources. he had reserve manpower. he also had political opportunities in which offensive strikes could, of course, have

brought incredible rewards for the confederacy. to not seize those opportunities by taking the offense and simply assuming the offensive posture, again, that doesn't make any sense to me at all. but i think it is important to know here that lee's thinking did not evolve as the war had changed. he continued to search for that victory of annihilation, and lamented the fact that his lopsided victories gained at fredericksburg and chancellorsville, that they didn't result in the destruction of the enemy. after chancellorsville, lee explained, we gained another victory, and our people were wild with delight. on the contrary, i was more depressed than after frederic fredericksbu fredericksburg. our losses were severe, and again, we had not gained an inch of ground, and the enemy could not be pursued. many union generals had reached a strikingly different conclusion about what they could accomplish on the battlefield. grant sherman meade, they all

saw that the tactical engagements, often left both armies bloodied, and they would simply retreat to go fight again. this is what meade wrote after gettysburg why he was unable to pursue the army in northern virginia. the government insists on my pursuing and destroying lee. the former i can do, but the latter will depend on him as much as me. for if he keeps away, i can't destroy. it's impossible to pursue and destroy an army nearly equal to my own. falling back on his resources and reinforcements and increasing its morale daily. here's the hard facts of the situation. i think it's explained brilliantly by her man had a way -- this is a book unfortunately difficult to find -- "how the north won." a great military history of the civil war. and in it, they make a compelling case, that in most civil war battles, you might

have a brigade, a division, sometimes a corps, that would be routed from the field. that civil war armies, rifled weaponry, because of entrenchments, they could recover quickly. a victory of a annihilation, you can only really find one in terms of a field fight. that's the battle of nashville in 1864. it almost doesn't count because by that point john bell hood wrecked his army before that battle. on the battlefield, it is a stalemate. it is a stalemate. meade got it. even sherman got it. i'm going to paraphrase sherman here. after the fall of atlanta, he began his march to the sea. grant as well as lincoln was unsure if that was the right policy. they felt they should hunt down hood's army that escaped atlanta. sherman said, let's not play their game. i'm paraphrasing. we'll chase them down, get ahold of them, and he'll do what? he'll escape and the battle and the fighting will keep going on.

there was a recognition amongst the union high command. lee never had that epiphany. so now we start to the campaign of 1864. lee has high expectations of his army and of his subordinates. he did have doubts about his senior corps commanders. commander of the third corps, holmes is the man who initiated the fighting on july 1st, which r.e. lee did not want. and then hill mysteriously sort of disappeared for the rest of the battle. on july the 3rd, hill's soldiers were in essence transferred, or given over to the command of jangs longstreet. hard to know why lee did that. but certainly not a vote of confidence. just a few months later, in october of 1863, a.p. hill makes a reckless assault at bristol station that results in terrible losses, and this is one of the few instances on record, at least, in which lee rebuked his

subordinates, to a.p. hill. he was very disgusted about what he had seen, and told hill, let's bury these dead and never speak of this again. there is certainly some concern about hill. many of you probably know this, and i think too much is made of it, but i will say it anyway. hill had shaky health. he had shaky health when he was a cadet at west point. he had some leave in government am, in new york city. he appears to have contracted gone re a in new york city. it was the gift for life for him. so he always had to contend with health issues related to that. so he was sickly. and lee was certainly concerned about whether he had thewhere withal to keep up. the other corps commander is richard yule. there's also concern at headquarters about yule and his health, which was -- certainly

was not physical health was not sound. yule had earned his stripes in lee's army in the shenandoah valley under stonewall jackson. he was a superb divisional commander. he went on to serve lee well. at second manassas, richard yule was wounded severely that resulted in the amputation of his leg. when lee's army was reorganized, yule got command of the second corps. while he was recovering from his wound, he also got married. got married to his cousin. a woman named lazinka campbell brown. one of the wealthiest women in the south, from tennessee. her first husband had died, because of a suicide. he was part of the percy literary family, where in fact depression runs through that family. but she endured a brutal, horrific marriage with this man, who had all kinds of affairs, paraded his mistresses in public. it was an awful, awful situation

for her. then, of course, she has her cousin, richard, who had been in love with her for supposedly from when he was a young child. and richard's stepson said, after the war, that lazinka married richard because she felt sorry for him. now, i can speak for all the men here. we've all had pity dates. but a pity marriage, that's really quite impressive. so she was -- this is fascinating. leslie gordon, who will be speaking next year at cwi, she and carol blesser, they edited a book called "intimate strategies." it's about marriages of generals and their wives. intimate strategies, leslie gordon. and there's a piece on yule and lazinka. she was considered to be a strong minded woman. that's not a compliment back in the day. she made her headquarters with

the second corps after gettysburg. she was with the general. and many of yule's officers, they said that they were living under petty coat government. and there was such concern about a man who got married during a war, like yule, that people started to assume that they lost their fighting edge because they got married. they got hitched. in fact, there were articles in the richmond paper, not pointing out yule, but in general reflecting upon confederate men, single men should do during the war. of course, the answer was, stay single. because a married man would lose his fighting abilities. so yule himself -- and i like yule a lot, so that's why i'm spending a lot of time talking about him. yule is very funny and witty. all of his letters have been published, edited by -- i'm throwing a lot of books at you, by a long-time historian at

gettysburg. wrote a biographer of yule. that's the best source to go. there's great anecdotes about yule. he was a curiosity. one anecdote is yule used to pretend when he was sitting in his tent -- i should say pre tent, hallucinate, that he was a bird. he would chirp softly to himself and ask his staff to bring him sunflower seeds to eat. i'm pretty sure that didn't inspire a lot of confidence in the troops. [ laughter ] all right. i'm going to move quickly through one example of the wilderness. i want to give you time for questions and comments. as i said before, lee had high expectations of confederate forces. at the start of the overland campaign, this map in front of you gives that opening phase on may 3rd and may the 4th, as the

army of the potomac enters the wilderness. lee's hunting ground nullified the artillery. lee really lost his opportunity on may the 4th, that he could have maybe attacked the army of the potomac, while he was straddling the river. that did not happen. the army of the potomac as it entered the wilderness, yule men are north, below the orange turnpike you have the orange plank road. you need to imagine that the first day of fighting at the wilderness were almost two separate battles. one on the turnpike, one on the plank road. about mile or so between the two confederate forces, r.e. lee made his headquarters with ambrose poul hill. yule was on the hook, all by himself. he did extraordinarily well to bring the union army at bay. many of you will be going to the

wilderness with brooks simpson and others on monday. one of the thing the park services has done brilliantly, was a scene rehabilitation. there are areas in the wilderness that have been restored to the wartime appearance, where yule fought the saunders field. that is one of those places that brings it back to life. when i was a kid, you got off at the saupders field and all you saw were trees everywhere. now you can appreciate the historic landscape. second day of the battle of the wilderness, lee has more ambitious plans for richard yule. he hoped that yule, and there we have the fighting on may the 5th. i should have pointed this out earlier. confederates on the turnpike, on the plank road. you can see the gap between the two confederate lines. right now this is the final day of the wilderness, may 6th. you can see where it says, cedric and to the left of it, rickets, and the far right flank of the union army.

lee hoped on the 6th that the confederates would swing around the right flank and that they would cut off the union army. again, an ambitious, ambitious design. and of course, ambitious design that would only be realistic prior to gettysburg. lee's army simply didn't have the reserves for that kind of attack. it's simply not within the cards. there's a lot of delay, a lot of controversy, which we can talk about as well. the lost cause comes in here. after the war, everyone uses yule as a scapegoat. gettysburg is central to this. yule blew it at gettysburg. by the way, he didn't, but that's what they claim. who's above the fray, r.e. lee. we get to the wilderness and it's once again richard yule and gettysburg the second time. you know the song, right? it's a lost cause song. the line is always the same. lee had the vision, had the right ideas. his subordinates stumble, they

made mistakes. if they had only followed lee, there would have been a crushing confederate victory. confederate independence was almost within their grasp and we would all be singing dixie today. that's how it goes. that's the same explanation for the wilderness. again, this wasn't simply possible at all. after much delay, lee finally launched an assault against the right flank. one reason he was not able to launch a major attack, he didn't have any reserves. one brigade arrived on may the 6th. one brigade. you're just talking about a few thousand men, that's it. with that final attack, he was able, yule, to slam into two brigades. they retreated, he captured a few officers as well. it goes back to my point of the indestructibility of civil war armies. yule had the el the of surprise. it's ideal. that's what every civil war

officer wants, to be able to pitch into an unsuspecting army. you're fighting in the wilderness, the thickets of the jungle. the results were limited. after the war, after the war, yule was, i think, turned into a scapegoat by lee. in a private conversation, in 1868, at washington college, lee was still holding on to that fantasy of a victory of a annihilation. in this conversation that he had with william preston johnston, this is what lee said. yule showed vacillation. that prevented him from getting all out of his troops that he might. if jackson had been alive and been there, there we go, right? lee predicted he would have crushed the enemy. the desire to destroy his adversary, persistent for lee after the battle of the wilderness. it continued to motivate him

throughout the summer of 1864. lee said in atlanta, we must strike them a blow. we must never let them pass us again. we must strike them a blow. two days later, may 21st, lee promised jefferson davis that wherever grant moves, that he will promise to be in a position to move against him. and shall endeavor to engage him while emotion. seems to me, lee added, that our best policy is to unite upon the army of the potomac, and endeavor to crush it. now, lee's sense of urgency, of course, is understandable. his desire to strike grant's army is reasonable. but his overall designs were not in alignment with the expectations of the southern people. or the southern press. this is a critical point here. they measured the success of military operations differently now. early in the war we know that the southern people wanted

offensive gained victories. and lee served them up with p panac panache. they were in line with one of lee's maxims, that he said early in the war, and i think this is very interesting point that lee made. he wanted easy fighting, and heavy victories. easy fighting and heavy vi victories. it's more critical that the contemporaries in 1864 started to applaud r.e. lee for his defensive skills. that was his greatest virtue and the surest course to confederate victory. by the end of the overland campaign, june the 1st, many confederates equated aggressiveness with desperation. the defense became a sign of confidence. intelligence, fortitude.

and i'm just going to read you one -- i could spend the next 15 minutes reading quotes -- but i'll just read you one from the editor of the richmond wig. a bully who rushes an antagonist is met and checked. that's probably u.s. grant. and then skulks away in search of great safety. he is whipped. that is the most satisfying reflection, and it is a renewed triumph of our arms. it has been achieved with comparatively small sacrifices of life. so here we have it. lee in many ways who was so sensitive, so aware of public opinion, and especially northern public opinion, he had always had his strategy in tune and in sync with what the people wanted. of course, it's an absurdity to think that lee or any other general was as concerned about public opinion today. we can't function especially on facebook without getting likes and approval of everyone. i sort of imagine lee during the

overland campaign, should i counterattack after spotsylvania. please like, if you want me to do that. lee wasn't beholding to the people's whims in that way, and thankfully not. it's interesting here, and i want to leave this point alone, that i believe that lee, unlike joseph johnston, he had all the political clout in the world. he could have done almost whatever he wanted. and a more conservative course maybe would have gotten a few folks worried, but everybody knew lee well enough and trusted him enough that he could have in fact retreated back to richmond and petersburg and raised a few eyebro eyebrows, but that's about it. my critique of lee's generalship. this is just another example of armchair generalship by historians who sit on a pedestal of hindsight feeling high and mighty and making it clear that they are so much smarter than people in the past.

the what-if scenarios that promise confederate victory as mine sort of suggests, i think they're really troubling. because they obscure, if not obliterate, the political and racial reality of a world where slavery and secession would have prevailed. if i had these concerns, what could be gained from this inquiry into lee's generalship. we're currently a nation at war, and what appears to be a never-ending conflict against terrorism. i think we need to ask ourselves two basic, but strangely enough, ignored questions. what are the u.s.'s political goals? and are they in harmony with the military strategy abroad? no matter how you answer this, whether you're a hawk, a dove, democrat or republican, or member of the tea party,

democracies at war will not succeed unless political and military aims are in harmony with public opinion. in the end, an historical military leadership, to quote allen aulden, is a concern not only to the leader but to the followers and to the enemy, to ordinary people, many of whom die, are maimed and otherwise suffer. in short, nolan concluded, military leadership involves responsibility for what happens to other persons. nolan's observation is essential, if we are to seek a critical assessment of lee, the moral as well as the military consequences of his decisions, and the human price of organized killing for the political ending of slavery and secession. thank you. [ applause ]

>> we have plenty of time for questions, if you have -- or criticisms, concerns. please go up to the mics. and we have john over there. >> hello. john of chicago, illinois. i think you're right in that had -- >> stop right there, john. that's perfect. let's go on to the next question, please. [ laughter ] >> i think you're right that had lee, prior to the large conflict that spotsylvania, gone back to richmond and petersburg, i think that obviously would have helped their cause. but i have a difficult time believing anything like that while obviously it didn't happen. but because lee is so offensive-minded. i feel like it's difficult for me to consider that as something that might have happened because lee just -- i feel like isn't

thinking in this way. >> even if, again, you don't believe that r.e. lee had it in him to simply maintain a defensive posture, i would agree with you. in fact, that wouldn't have been a wise policy. what most people i don't think fully appreciate are the operations around petersburg. we think of the creator, and that's about it. if you come to cwi next year you'll find out there's a lot more to petersburg. the operations in june, july, august, into the fall, as the union army starts to make its way to the south of the city, snipping the important railroad links, there are open field fights, they're not in the trenches. lee's army does extraordinarily well. the main reason, i believe, is the very best men and officers in the army of the potomac are either wounded or buried in central virginia. 20,000 veteran volunteers, their three-year commitment in 1864. the green army is filled with lots of substitutes, lots of bounty hunters. lee does extraordinarily well.

it's an offensive-minded approach that helps slow down that union advance. my point is that if he had preserved more of those men, think about 15,000, 20,000 men more, and the other thing to consider is lee maybe should have relied on a rating strategy, where the federals turned, the crucial element to their ultimate success, i think if lee used that as well, it would have assisted the confederacy more in political support. little victories, which is all you could get with the ratings strategy, they are amplified in the papers. if you want to buck up morale on the home front, these raids, they're fueled for morale. i think john moesby is a good example of that. okay. yes? go ahead. >> lee elder from ohio. and i'm curious how it would have been different for lee to fall back to the petersburg line earlier than it eventually was

in reality when he fell back later? how do you feel that would have been different for the confederates? >> so, here again can is a great question and opportunity for me to acknowledge the limits of my knowledge. for me to say, well, i'll look at a map, and lee after, you know, may the 10th, should have abandoned that decision and headed south. of course, removing one's army from a position in which grant got ahold of you, right? that's probably easier said than done. we should all be aware that looking at a map as i did in my talk and said, simply take your troops and go back down to richmond, there's all kinds of problems. one, grant's not going to allow that to happen. he desired that, because he knew lee's army would be vulnerable and a long retreat back to richmond. i think there's all kinds of difficulties that would present itself, that would be very, very difficult for lee to get back to

richmond. think about antietam. lee maintained the position around sharpsburg. the aggressive lee, that he's refusing to give up the field, that honor, taking hold of him once again, pride is in the way. he's risking his entire army. that overlooks the basic fact of, he just can't get across the potomac overnight. it takes time. it takes time to move an army. i think you raised a very good point. i think there's a hole in my sort of theory of what lee should have done. because i think it would have been very difficult, i think, probably to pull off. >> grant is my man. i'm from wisconsin. i studied grant almost all my life. general lee, i remember back at the university, he had a visitor and they sat down there discussing the war.

and this visitor said to general lee, grant was a horrible general. and i can't understand how he didn't -- he was such a wonderful general. and he looked at him and said, if i was such a great general, why did general grant defeat me. and then the other thing about grant is, he was an enigma. people say why did grant succeed. everybody said, we don't know why, but he was successful. >> let me take your first point. no offense, i don't believe that conversation probably ever happened. knowing enough about r.e. lee, he was -- he did not believe that he had been defeated by hen that position would be. he had respect for grant, but i shink he would argue that hi army was worn down. the same way felt about lee. he had respect for lee, but he

-- wee had out generaled need to think about grant as a mastermind of u.s. strategy. you can focus on just virginia. he orchestrated all the union armies. we can't just focus on virginia. he's orchestrating all union armies. one reason why he relinquished s so much control to george gordon meade, because he simply could h not handle those administrative duties. so he had lots of other responsibilities and he did that brilliantly. bringing about simultaneous nfer advances throughout the fro confederacy was a waym to stop the confederacy from shifting he troops from various critical pre areas to meet uncoordinated union advances. grant was able, i think, to solve that problem. and then and then to rely on it on a ratings strategy. certainly grant wore down the confederacy, he didn't simply do

it byan lining up his men and attacking.nt out >> al mackey from mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. lee's actual target was the northern morale, so that they would get depressed and then force the lincoln administration to negotiate an end to the war e endingat confederate independen? how would this retreat that you postulate play into that? it seems to me that would be mat counterhi productive, if gallagr is correct? >> well, dr. gallagher is right about many things, he's wrong about this. he had a great job training ere. graduate students. he did a great job there. i think he's just flat out wrong.

they were in retreat.so they were in a retreat, and that, of course, didn't appear to affect southern morale. at the same time northern moralf is on the brink of collapse. my point being lee gave up a loo of ground. he gave up a lot of ground with a high body count that still hurt northern morale. ras in may. nobody knows that atlanta's going to fall. when atlanta fell, that sealed the deal for lincoln's re-election, we need to reinforce the point here, where you look at military campaigns,l they're inseparable for politics.ded to this is the great prize. the great prize is to make sure that lincoln is not re-elected.p they needed to be more patient. and keith will probably speak ea about this, i hope he agrees with me when he talks about the atlantic campaign. it's my sense that the army of tennessee had great faith. and johnson's problems were very much a problem with richmond ngt

authorities. i wish that --nf i think that i you're looking at it from the th confederateav perspective, some. patients need to be showing toward johnson. they've been through the stance before with johnson, in 1862, the keys to richmond. i think they saw the same thing happening. >> my question is that at the beginning of the war, both the union and the confederacy were able to wage war. but at this time, obviously lee was focused on the relentless attack in 1864 against the e' invading union army. but in 1863 he had already tried to push into the north with gettysburg, and he obviously -- i'm not going to say swanderred, that's not what he did. earli he gave up a lot of resources in that attack, in that advance in the two-year period before lincoln's election.o the

perhaps maybe if he had waited until 1864 to carry on that sort of push into the north with this kind of strategy, if he just waited. would he have had more of a chance -- >> the raid into the north, which is i think the proper waye to define or describe what lee did in '63. it had to be set up on victories. as lee saw it, and i think -- rightfully so, those moments, th those opportunities, whoey knows when they're going to present themselves again. and so the spring/summer of '63g e to bring the war into the north. and he that's something that these -- all these forces have to come a together, and lee understood that he's not controlling the war with a joystick. the second point, and this is an important one. if you want to read.milita i think the finest work in terms of a military campaign study is

joseph harsh.f book josephs harsh, you can look hie up on amazon, the number of books on the war in 1862 culminating with the raid into maryland and antietam.lass of he looked into the war, before he understood there was only so much sand in the hourglass of the confederacy. it was the limited resources that lee knew was at the south's disposal that that's what propelled him to fight. that puts nolan's argument on e his head. it sees the war from lee's eyes. and i -- it's compelling work. i do we have time for one more question? one more. >> david rosen from alexandria, virginia. >> i wonder if we had had a lee

who would -- rather than being the general that he was, had been a hybrid lee johnston, the whether he could have given risn to the lost cause legend and the icon that we now enjoy chipping away at, or whether -- cau >> let me step back from that, in terms of the lost cause. something we've always talked about, let me just -- in a y an generic way say this, white southerners, they have a uniquei history, in that they faced military defeat, they faced the destruction of slavery. and with that there is a guilt and burden having to live up to military defeat and the ownership of sl slaves, an explanation that came out of that that we call the lost cause, i don't care who thl cast of characters ultimately, defeated people, who believed they were a christian people, who believed that god would

ultimately decide this conflict in their favor, and they wake uh in april of 1865 and say, thingh didn't turn out the way we had imagined, they have to do a lot of explaining. explaining to themselves and to the outside world. that lost cause is mythical and false. as it is in some instances, ino there is a realism to it, and that realism is very much grounded into the reality of the post war world in which the bobo and rail is now on top of thatu african-americans, and, of course, we're going to do everything they can, fight awayy to try to regain that authority that was lost in war. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> remind your children in this bicentennial year, when we are the first generation of americans to have experienced attacks on continental united

states. we are the first generation of americans to have felt what it was like to have our government buildings attacked. remind your children that freedom is not free. and that our country's greatness is found in one another. that's what the star spangled banner is about, that's what this commemoration year is about. to tell that story, and to lift every voice. and to sing. >> a three-day fourth of july weekend starts friday on american history tv, including the 200th anniversary of the star spangled banner, friday at 8:30 p.m. eastern. saturday night at 8:00, visit the classroom of joel helm as he talks about radiation experiments conducted after world war ii. and a preview of jeffrey engle's manuscript on george w. bush and the peaceful end to the cold war. >> on the next washington journal, daniel stein of the federation for american imgas

station reform and benjamin johnson of the american immigration council, discuss whether immigration to the u.s. helps or hurts the country. after that, charles murray looks at american exceptionalism. plus your phone calls, facebook comments and tweets. washington journal is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. next on american history tv, brooks simpson of arizona state university discusses union general ulysses s. grant's strategy for fighting in virginia in 1864. this is from the civil war institutes annual summer conference that took place in june. it's about an hour. >> i am a professor of history here at gettysburg college.

and i'm also the director of the institute. it is my pleasure this morning a to introduce brooks simpson, he is the asu foundation professor of history at arizona state th university. he is a historian of 19th century america. focuses on the american the ci presidency as well as thevi civ war and reconstruction.s. gra he has written extensively about ulysses s. grant.e he's the author of let us have t peace.ho and he's also the author of u.sy grant's triumph over adversity, and that book earned the distinction as a new york times. notable book of the year. just recently he's published, edited a volume by the library of america, it's actually four volumes, voices of the civil war. it's a wonderfulseries of

books. steven sears and sheen. many are familiar with brooks at cwi, he's given a number of foc talksus focusing on the war and the east.he is and we also know that he is a sue push battlefield guide. many of you will have the day of pleasure on monday of followingl him around thede wilderness. those that have been with brooke before, in antietam, where he - managed to get his co tour guido to tour rdantietam creek. i wonder what he's going to do to his tour guy this year in thy wilderness. is he going to go bushwhacking in the wilderness? you're setting them on fire, g e nice, brooks. brooks is going to speak to us contingencies and circumstances, u.s. grant and the problem of virginia in 1864.ks brooks simpson. s

[ applause ] >> well, good morning, everyone. i'd like to first thank the teas at the civil war institute. especially alison and diane as well as peter. i must admit that i feel naked up here without a scarf on. peter's fashion attire will whie understand that reference. while peter recognizes that his adviser gary gallagher made d nc mistakes, my binder did no suchs thi thing. i also thought they would dwell on the sexual practices and fantasies of confederate generals and their historians.n

i thoughtab i'd tell a little story of my own in this regard. not about me. that's a tmi moment, you'll have to join me on facebook for that one. that several years ago, my wife, cheryle and i went to wife haven, which is the plantation where ulysses s. grant's in-laws had lived and was later owned by grant during his presidency. and we went in and i asked my ea wife nott to reveal who i was. i had worked there before, but whenever you go to a place, it's better to try to see it, at least from my point of view as e are someone they do not know. then you can see what kind of presentation they give to normae visitors to the area asbo oppos to somebody where they say,

well, you know this, and you know -- it disrupts the entire experience. and cheryl has made it through exactly five chapters of migrant biography, she says once they th begin firing at each other, she goes to bed. o she had read a certain description of that book. she talked about when her went t fiancee hado gone off to war in mexico, that she has the want of anyone of the time named a bed post after her fiancee. and so we walked in, and the gu. says, well, looked at my wife, and he figures that women like to look at kitchens to see what kind of modern appliances there were in the ke t1870s. he looks at her and says, what room would you like to see? she says, i want to see the bedroom, i have to see that bed post.what i

the rest of the trip was marked by that peculiar exchange. what i'm here to talk about today is about the problem of fo virginia in then minds of union military strategists and ulysses s. grant. virginia was more than just a state. in fact, it was m more than jusa state of mind, although it seemed to take up space rent free in the minds of any union civil and military leaders. but virginia was the major obstacle facing united states military strategy during the american civil war. and this is for two reasons. number one because the state

contained the confederacy inia,h capital, richmond, virginia, pl which soon became an obsessive point of attack for union planners.ce the c and that capitol was defended by robert e. lee. those two reasons there, lee an. richmond transfixed union military planners. it's the way in which they pose a problem. it poses a problem militarily ii for unions, planners. it is after all the home field of lee and his army.irgini the army of northern virginia won all the big ones in virginia. they left virginia, they may encounter a little difficulty. if they were in their whom nst u

ballpark, they equipped themselves exceedingly well in against union forces. how do you change that? how do you break the pattern ing aet tennis parlance of serve. that was the target of the army with serious problems of its y l own. the army of the potomac, which could be a fine reality show, at least in terms of its office corps. i don't know who kim kardashian would play in this army, but someone would. maybe governor warren. it was a dysfunctional and defeatist officer core at many critical points in the war, in its command element. its soldiers may not have felt r the same way, if the army of the potomac had ever fought as welle

as they fought eachnc other, we wouldn't be having an 1864 conference today. it seemed in virginia the army of the potomac always found a way to lose. the biggest victory that the heg army of the potomac had experienced in virginia was a battle it had never fought. at least they had not assaulted lee in december of 1963 in an assault that would have been a w catastrophe in the minds of general warren and some other people. my run becomes a golden moment c byit emptying empty cities was e fantasy as george mcclellan beforehand. militarily virginia poses a major problem. it also poses a major problem la politically. it is thelle focus of a 19th century media.medi because the proximity of the two

capitals, richmond and washington. people pay attention to what p i happens in virginia, in a way they do not pay attention to what happens in tennessee or mississippi or any other state west of the appalachian in mountains. abraham lincoln notices in 1862t how can we win all these in seven days? why do people pay attention to l what's going on in the east? to this day we're eastern concentric. in terms of generalship, it has to be a story of confederate generalship in the east.br no one is seriously going to make the argument that braxton bragg and joe johnson, earl van dorn and others were the cream of the confederate leadership n crop. when you talk --fi you go into town, you will not find a cup ae with a brag picture on it maybe

a rearview camera so you can back up to joe johnson in a parking space.erior we talk about confederate superior generalship, we're talking about the eastern theater. and, of course, richmond, it's as the east was everything. and, of course, richmond is a t target, notsy only had military value, but it had symbolic, political value. and it was a notion which by the way, would have been betrayed by anyone studying military history, if you capture the opponent's capital you want. we know that's not true, the american revolution shows that. if you capture richmond, the wa, will be over no matter what elsn might happen. logistically, virginia poses a o problem, of course, given the resources afforded by the

shenandoah valley. richmond and its iron works. it's manpower. the confederacy augmented the military manpower it august sle meanted its enslaved population. people forget that the largest e export from the commonwealth of virginia were enslaved human beings. you're adding 400,000 people tog your workforce. a valuable one if you're waging a war. finally, top graphically, offer virginias poses problems. though it also offers opportunities. you'reea familiar with the east/west network of rivers. each of them providing an excellent point for con fed rats armies to sit around and challenge themselves.nock

the most famous is the r rapahannack river network.those there's an opportunity for union military planners in that thoses rivers, plus the chesapeake bay and the james river that runs all the way up to richmond. can operate in a can cooperative army/navy campaign. you can in fact penetrate rather deeply into the commonwealth of virginia, and you can do so with fairly secure supply lines.t a e you can cut railroads, but you p really can't cut a river.we there's an opportunity for military planners and we all ad knowid somebody who did take th opportunity to understand that, george mcclellan and look how that turned out. and there's a legacy from that,e which is, of course, afterwardsh it would beer hard for the unio civil high command.war

in other words, abraham lincoln to accept the notion of another waterborne operation against the richmond area.t that because that would suggest thatt mcclellan had been right all wat along. that's something you don't wanty to risk submitting, especially in a year where you're running against george mcclellan for president of the united states. we all know about the shenandoah valley. it runs toward washington and other interesting places. like gettysburg.he m it runsid away, into the middler nowhere, inms terms of southwes virginia. though i'm sure someone will tell me that virginia tech is - not nowhere. that's you al mackey. but that shenandoah valley cone allowed the confederate superhighway, to launch quick e. strikes. counter employees against invading yankees in the center

part of the state.nd virginia offers the confederacy and it imposes a lot of challenges for union commanders. it's those challenges, lessons,d solutions i want to talk about as they evolve in the mind of ulysses s. grant between 1863 and 1864. grant assesses the situation, tries out solutions, adjusts to circumstances. improvises, innovates. thing i it's one thing that's t interesting about grant. when things didn't go well, grant had another idea. simpl he just didn't simply sit and pout and say, it didn't work, my plan was perfect. it went awry. gee, tough luck. back to let's remember first, the reason i bring it back to 1863, in thay august of that year, grant heard that there had been a movement e afoot to have him place george

g.meade. grant made clear he did not wany that job, he knew the capabilities of his generals and men where they were, he also knew the devils that were there like the recently ousted john mcchainen. and he had to learn everything, and knew if he went east, fight with generals and men he did not know their strengthens and weaknesses. he also knew the last time a t e westerner had gone east, things had not gone well.f the feathers were ruffled. and he knew that the army of the potomac would resent the imposition of another outsider. so he's already aware. the rumors about the army has already made their way west by the middle of the conflict. in january 1864, however, henry hallick asked grant to outline t

campaign for the west in 1864, grant is a theater commander, yr but he also asks grant, what's your thinking about the easternd theater. grant turns to two people to help draw up a strategic plan. this plan is often overlooked but it's something you should understand, if you want to understand what happens in 1864t what grant did do versus what grant wanted to do. and the whole plan was based upon the notion that the best way to deal with virginia was to avoid it as much as possible.not that while the army of the b wol potomacd may stay in north shint centraonl virginia, it's major b would be to protect washington and keep lee in place. the major operation would be an amphibious operation against the north carolina coast.

where a calm of approximately 60,000 men would land, penetrate into north carolina where it was known that many white southerners were dissatisfied with the confederacy, or you could sniff those rail lines, where in fact you could enlist . african-americans in support of and the cause of the united states and freedom. and so this invasion plan was bt not only militarily interesting, but it also had political ramifications which would have shown just how revolutionary rtn this war had become. and address the issue of the as hearts and minds of many white . southerners as well as the thirst for freedom of many blace southerners. lee would be neutralized in this. unless he went to north carolina, unless lee left his ol state. and think about this, during the american civil war. once lee is put in command of r the northern army in virginia.

he never visits another ad tha confederate state. you may forget that lee, beforen he had that position did in fact spend some time in south carolina, georgia, the coastal r defenses. but once he's put in command of, the army, he's never going to go into another confederate state. he'll go into maryland, he'll go into pennsylvania, but he's notc leavingom virginia. this plan would have forced lee to come out and fight or attack an advantageous situation in northern virginia. at least that was grant's hope. the plan's rejected.not he makesgo it clear, we're not going to do that. he claimed they didn't have enough men, in fact, they had n enough men in early 1864 to th execute this plan. they're supposed to be 60 to 70,000 men in this column, start doing the math and see how many people grant had at the outset, plus the army of the james.

there was sufficient manpower. why didn't he want to do this? and he's still the general and chief at this time, he's very . good, provided a map in front of him, and an empty file cabinet e to be filled. he points out very nicely that we aregy committed to the overland strategy as much as possible. i point out this plan from the beginning. grant reall sy didn't want to fight in virginia. he didn't see that it made a lo. of sense to fight robert e. lee on his home turf.being and far from this notion of a war of grinding attrition as being grant's initial attempt. this is a war of maneuver using the union's advantage in naval power to seek to move the war out of virginia all together as a theater of decision.

he's told by his superiors, you're not going to be able to do that.wh that plan neveren comes up agai even when grant is named general in chief in march of 1864. grant then goes back to the drawing board, what's he going o to do this time? well, by march of 1864, grant'si learned some things about his e future, he learns he's going to wear three stars. he's going to be the general in chief of the armies of the e tof united states, he's going to have to face the challenge of robert e. lee, because that's ok wants.verybody and he can't go back west. he's got to go east. people expect him to take lee on in a clash of titans. he also realizes when he's in the east, that people in the of district of columbia mettle far too often with the army of the potomac. and some people are far too interested in what's going on ie washington. everyonets forgets the first ti grant meets meade in virginia,

he goes back with meade to eforh washington, meade has to testify before the joint committee about meade's great defeat at gettysburg, and how he was saved by dan sickles and dan butterfield, and a cast of midgets. and that teaches grant something. one of the first orders grant issues upon becoming general in chief, you can't go to washington from the army withouf having a counter advance from headquarters. there's not going to beti anyc e of this back door back stabbing, that is characteristic of a none culture that had been promoted s by none other than the president of the united states, abraham lincoln. grant also knew he had the challenge of popular expectation, that's why you get a third star, overall command.a because you're goingon to have dress the problem of virginia

head on. until grant devises a plan, which you heard elements of already. a plan which in virginia has four prongs. operation southwest virginia, an operation through the shenandoah valley. a column moving toward richmondn and petersburg along the james river, and then the main army maneuver in north central virginia, the central virginia, the army of the potomac that a would move to engage lee, this was again a plan that didn't look toward bloody battles of attrition. grant ino fact, hoped to shred the confederate logistical network. threaten richmond indirectly, hw and force lee to fight a battle not of his own choosing. the that if this plan worked, the union would finally possess the

shenandoah valley, thus depriving the confederacy of the superhighway of invasion, the r plan worked either richmond or petersburg would fall, or at hes least the railroads between those cities south, toward the , rest of the confederacy would bh severed. and leeer would find himself either in central virginia trying to do something against the army of the potomac, or rushing back to defend richmond with the army of the potomac on its heels. yes, i understand, this is a sentence the army of the potomac on its heels. this is not a phrase you will hear very often except in one's imagination, you don't see that happen until april of 1865.t ina you're going to force lee to fight in this advantageous way by threatening his flanks, his i rear, hiss logistical network.l this is a shrunken version of

what you can call the comstock e north plan. you threaten lee's rear and his flanks at the same time.th there's only one problem with this plan, that for all the leeway that abraham lincoln was willing to give ulysses s. nders had to suffertill with certain subordinate kmanters to demand army commands, including franz siegee and benjamin butler with the wd army of the ajames. that the heat of the plan would be grant or someone who supervisedn thede army of the potomac thiss directly. what's really important here, understand, this is not seen toa be aring war of attrition in tes wearing people down through continuous combat. it's supposed to be something else. it's supposed to force lee intof a difficult position where no mr

matter what he does, it won't turn out well. we forget that actually for the first week or so, this plan wilh worked inea central virginia, le you'll hear all about what was a going on in the wilderness, and then responsibsponsylvania. we do find out that grant can'to crush lee's army, despite all his efforts to move his men around, sometimes asking a s ofi little too much of that army, iy terms of the command capabilities. trying to figure out how that army works. ,ut on the other hand, robert e. lee could not do that either, because he didn't listen don, w sufficiently to john b. gordon whose recollections are how we t could have won the war had they listened to me.orry a we don't have to worry about arm chair historians being arm chais generals, but we have some arm chair generals writing their

memoirs, i could have won the war. grant finds out the army of the potomac is not responsive enough to his impatient touch.touc but still, by the time of may 11th, the day before the assault, grant writes back to washington and says, you know, i will fight it out if it takes all summer.eek. he promised grant would give up within the week.ht he why was he doing that? he thought he had lee pinned in place at that moment. if you have to fight that ight battle, you might as well fight in sponsylvania. if butler does his job, the armo north of virginia will be swallowed up. cut off from its supplies, the confederate capitol will fall. as we all know, that's not what happened. rather, at new market, franz

siegel captured defeat on may 15th, benjamin butler decided to enjoy the beautiful vacation vistas rather than move any more aggressively than he could. grant's plan breaks within the first two weeks. we talk about how no plan of combat survives initial contact with the enemy. and this is one of those cases.c and so what you have to evaluate with grant here, is not that hiw plan fails, but what does he doe when his plan fails? because we know too many generals when their plan fails,e theylv went back home.an cried themselves to sleep, and then prepared to write a memoir saying, it's not my fault, boss

sometimes writing to the president of the united states and the secretary of war saying, the fault is not with me, the fault is with somebody else in washington. grant said this has been on his mind since the beginning as an option. he makes his way to unite with the army of the james at the james river. which is what he does, and then we all know the story of pearl harbor where we don't, and we think we do. because the fact of the matter is, the cold harbor is by no means quite the physical disaster that might be a psychological setback, in terms of actual damage done to the army.

at more people die in the bloody angle than die at cold harbor. what we view those actions wa significantly differently. the real question is, was there any payoff? pay the answer is no. there's no payoff.om >> he talked about with people from the beginning of the campaign, there's an idea that a will go around, that all of a sudden, inspiration struck grang on june 4th or 5th.he jam i guesses we'll go to the army the james, just call amazon prime and get pontoons moved to the james river. >> grant had a much better understanding logistics. rather he thought about this ino the u beginning.kn go across st. ped to the james. the failure to take petersburg, and the story of this being a

matter of time. robert e. lee.hought i it's not a matter of time, everyone forgets the matter of time that is involved here is o that it's aof presidential election year, you're going to run out of time on the first two -- in november, 1864.cumben. you have to produce the resultsu that persuade the electorate to elect the incumbent. the last president to be renominated by his party at that time was martin van buren in he 1840lp who lost amid rumors he wore women's underclothing to help a bad back. see, my knowledge of sex goes far beyond carmichael's knowledge of civil war sex.u ge

you say something about blogging, you get it in return he also found out that he thought lee was an impressive opponent, his army was flawed. at one point he turned to james h. wilson and went what's wrong with this armor? how do i fix this up? tom you have an indian chief on staff, give him a tomahawk and let him go to work. and grant interesting in this notion -- who should he target? indiscriminate violence and kill ing by the end of june, 1864,

grant is stuck around richmond o and petersburg. he has achieved one goal here, . goal that robert e. lee does ft understand, which is if he's stuck, so is robert e. lee, lee's effort to become unstuck this is awfully daring. lee has sent jubil early north lee's detaching a significant part of his army to try to haveo mischiefn. that will catch somet off balance, threaten n' washington, get inside lincoln's head this has happened before, why couldn't it have happened again? the story of july and august 1864, while grant finally

decides, i think, is that he e t can't win f here he might try t win the most famous instance of which was the battle of the crater probably cannot have that battle he wants to have here.. he wants to make sure if he doesn't win, neither does robern e. lee. this is taking lee out. those of you who are sports fand s the new york jets had a wide receiver named don maynard who e left asr. the afl all time leadg pass catcher much during super e bowl three. joe namath and the upstart jetsr over the baltimore colts,

maynard never caught a pass andg afte r namath just missed connecting with him in the games they used maynard as a decoy to take himtr out and free up othec receivers. he's going to be the decoy, take people out, he's going to neutralize them while other individuals might accomplish the task that grant might somehow be his own. grant made sure in the summer of 1864, that if virginia can't be the theater of decision for him, it will not be the theater of decision for robert e. lee either. to do this, however, he does e have to wrestle with the issue of jubel early in the shenandoah vall valley. after -- this is what the peoplh underestimate, exactly how much damage early did.

he was expecting reinforcements, including the 19th core to arrive at petersburg when early moves north, not only does grant have to send the sixth porter, he also has to earmark the 19th floor, which he thought would reinforce his operations around petersburg and form what's called the army of the shenandoah. early, did a lot of damage by no diverting resources. and making people pay attention to washington, which again in ae election year,r you can see confederate forces, looking at n the silver spring metro station. that's something you might want to worry about. and so there's an image problem here. image is everything. in a presidential election year grant has to labor through,

reconstructing a command structure around the district os columbia, this is oneoo of the odder stories of the war, he soon found out that henry iquor hallick -- whenever confederates were near, henry hallick knew where his liquor cabinet was drunk. there was talk of -- hold your breath, george mcclellan being appointed to defend a a nu washington, which would havemb been ironic on a number of other levels. there was george of george meade who wasrs truly irritable by th time, and unhappy with his might commander. and if you w had ambrose as a eg supportive commander, you might understand why. and then we talk about transferring meade to the e wash washington area, and in the end, of course, after first trying out david hunter for a few days. david hunter steps aside, and

phil sheridan takes over. to and it's sheridan's mission not only to defend washington but ta track down and eliminate jubel early, take away lee's last ace. the last chance lee has of upsetting the apple cart. >> although he took his time to the point grant visits him to say, when are you moving. trainb only to find out that sheridan -- to find out by the time he got back by train and city point that sheridan had inh fact moved. that onl vyal would sheridan's t victories, was grant able to take the shenandoah valley out h of the war, and to rob robert e. lee of his last chance to upset the apple cart in virginia. what grant had done, he couldn't win, but he needed to make sure lee couldn't win either. and the war would have to be heu

decided elsewhere. where again union military leadership was superior to its confederate counterpart. and you see that in september and october of 1864. september 2nd, empty city. partially burned already, sherman is a completist. he takes care of it later on. grant makes sure around richmon. petersburg, lee can't move. he's not sitting in place, by the way, he's probing, he's extending his lines, he's launching a limited offensive, he tells his commander not sometimes, do not attack in trench positions, if they come out in the buopen, fire away. sheridan scores a series of dramatic victories.hi winchester, fishers hill and . cedar creek. gets to ride his horse all the way back. remember that tree stump, we

talked about that yesterday. you turn from the tree stump,'s you see sheridan's stuffed horse looking very still. i have no idea why civil war generals likeho the stuff. they're horses, i've seen enough of them by now.on displ putting old baldy, who just has his head on display now. but sherman's and sheridan's a'' victories, which capture the popular imagination, which between them assure abraham lincoln's elections are made possible in court by grant neutralizing lee, lee was the u only guy who could have turned the tables for the confederacy.u and if you take lee out.ificed y if you sacrifice yourself.ther th just as the jets havere used maynard to open up other receiving opportunities, you can take out the confederacies only chance of victory on the field.

others do the stuff that you get attention for, but in the end, e you get what you want to do, and this is why people forget, we talk about grant's campaign in 1864, grant's the general in chief, it's all his campaign. virginia is just a part of it. he doesn't care whether it's one in virginia or georgia or even outside nashville, tennessee. he just cares that it's warm.sha and that's where his generalship in 1864 shows a resilience. a determination not to be checked, which makes grant a model of american military command. and so that is how ulysses s. grant dealt with the problem of virginia in 1864. thank you. [ applause ]

>> now on to the nightclub portion. i will end with frank sinatra, new york, new york.ybody bu but if any of you questions, we have microphones and anybody but al mackey can ask a question. here's the challenge to the rest of you. make it so that al can't ask a question. run to those microphones right now. al is a man who loves the camera. okay, you're all cowards, i got all and your name is, sir? al >> al mackey, virginia tech. >> by the way, there was not

much in southwestern virginia a the time. at the >> some things never change. go ahead. >> three words. decade of dominance. a little bit about the history. if you can answer a question nt that is boggled my mind for a little bit. does grant actually order specifically order that assault at cold harbor that is so famous in his memoirs.etted porters said that grant said that he regretted the assault it more than any that he had ordered. whereas when grant wrote about it, he talked about it basically in a passive voice. he regretted that the assault was ordered. meade in his letter to his wife said that he had command of the field all day. so did grant actually order that particular assault or was that e

more meade's order. >> it would be meade's order, in fact, meade and grant had had a- difficult time about ten days before the north anna. in which meade would not be abla to control his army. one of the results of this, by m the way,ea he puts ambrose burnside directly under meade. where before they have this cumbersome arrangement where nd burnside's ninth core would be directed by grant and is now t t placed under meadehe. gra the concept of the operation generally is grant's. the buck stops here, he's the guy responsible. but in terms of issuing of orders and preparing for what t goes on on june 3rd, that's up to george g. meade.ssues meade issues orders to his sub

ordinances. his core commanders.corps and the evidence shows that those three core commanders especially hancock did not do their job on june 3.he in ascertaining where the confederates were and how to move ahead.rag ab and you're right, who else would brag about being in command of cold harbor, but someone who is frustrated about not being in command at all. >> the last assault, the renewal assault was at the end which was again, meade kept on saying, push forward, keep on saying grn what you want. grant saw that as a useless -- d they used to say an effusion ofd blood without any result. i think that's what grant understood, it's one thing to shed blood to achieve something, when blood is shed for no apparent purpose. that's something that moves a guy like grant. >> john lester of chicago

illinois. why do you think it took lincole in the north so long to find a commander who wasn't so interested in politics in d.c., such as grants. did it have anything to do with the great popularity of political patronage in the army that started back with andrew jackson? why do you think it took so long. >> first off, we're afraid that grant had political ambitions, there was talk, in fact in the 1860s, that grant would be an ideal presidential candidate in 1864. grant tried to handle this in a jokingly and more serious way. all i ever wanted to be was mayor of my hometown.my they haven't finished the sidewalk to my house yet. i'd like that done.had th grant already hade taste for tha guilded age back in 1863. when grant comes to galina in

1865, there's a big banner. the sidewalk is built. but then, of course, they give them another house somewhere be else, by the way, the people understood to keep their job, they had to keep their general happy. gra later on, grant in fact writes letters, making it clear that h has no political ambitions, he n politician is an awful job. it's a slavish life as he puts k it, and he writes a letter to frank blair, who is one of his generals, who is now a s, i d congressman in o washington, an he says, i don't want to be president, do not show this letter to anyone unless it be the president himself. otherwise, show lincoln. and it's not until that lincoln ascertains that grant has no political ambition, that he get, behind the lieutenant general bill. before that, that had been believ stalled ine congress. g why did it take so long?liticall i believe all these generals arn politically networked. william t. sherman hated fa politicians, thright? but his foster

father/father-in-law, you want to talk about sex and family relationship, let's talk about the shermans for a while. his fathers, foster fathers, political adviser. his brothers have been -- his other brother john is a senator from ohio. they're all pretty well connected. besides that, grant and sherman had no political connections. the real question was, why did it take so long?presid grant didn't want to be en president at that time, that's going to change.g, you have to understand, until vehicles burg grant's record is pretty mixed? he wins here, stuck outside of vicksburg here, then he wins at vicksburg, that's job security at vicksburg. then he's not going to be fired, if you're lincoln, would you move him east?usly in or might you use him more n

advantageously? grant holds out and makes me rank third star in a bill - do n introduced -- don't say that these guys aren't politically connected. they all t are. i think the thing is, how do nni they use those focal connectionl and do they challenge lincoln? or do they work with lincoln?rro you willnd never find correspondence characterizing lincoln and the words used by george mcclellan in the correspondence of ulysses s. grant. and i thinkrk when we're talkin about subordinates work. it's how the subordinates work that's often important? at the end of your presentationl youle alluded to the business around nashville.acy at and, of course, after that was the destruction of the army of the confederacy at that point.

and the success of general mome thomas. could you talk about that for a moment or two, and perhaps a ths little bit about the relationship between grant and thomas? >> the relationship between the grant and thomas was a strained one, there was no chemistry between the two men. that problem was mutual. if you read the telegraphic correspondence between thomas l grant andle henry hallick, prioi to nashville, you find that thomas doesn't want to tell grant what's going on.ng grant's being very impatient asking thomas what are you doing. i expect you to attack thomas, . i'm going to attack on decembern 5tt h.we finally grant would write what happened? i didn't attack because of this, we didn't have enough horses. okay, you better attack.ram. a couple days down the road, i promise. no telegram from thomas. what's going on here.n.

i decided to delay the attack again. now, you can say -- and i think understandably so, that thomas being the man on the scene, and given the obstacles he's facingc is showing prudence. i'd say on the other hand if yu someone's asking you a why you n aren'tot getting something donei becauseon you're not keeping upo date. you have a communications problem to. i think if we look at grant's anxiety and grant's doing all these other things at the same t time he's addressing nashville. he's trying to get ready to take wilmington and ft. fisher, cut the james river canal. dealing with operations opposite lee at petersburg. you kind of want to know from g. your subordinates keep me informed of what's going on. mes don't make mek ask you.me we all know this as parents, don't make me ask you. make me . tell me. thomas wouldn't do that but he could tell hallek. same

if you read the other correspond ens he's getting flack. why isn't thomas moving? they compare thomas to mcclellan and rosekranz. i think one of the things you have to do i think as a historian is put yourself in someone's place and take away a that great advantage of hindsight. think that's ridiculous is a relationship and that grant's a fool because nashville is such l signal victory. grant doesn't know that. in fact, thomas tells grant thad hood poses a serious threat. het so if you heard that, wouldn't you think hood posed a serious threat in that's what the man on the ground tells you. so you look at that network end communication and you also get p the fact that in the end many do peopleye in this room could hav destroyed john bell hood at nashville because john bell hoom had done such a good job of

destroying the army of tennessee himself. that fbo relationship becomes - think you have to be fair to both men by saying, they didn'tl work well with each other. they did not communicate well with each other. they did not trust each other and so i can't single one man out over the other.et, an i thinkd relationships are two way streets and that the s relationship is a dead end at each end>> of the street. yes? >> your reference to grant's comment about being mayor of oke galina prompts me to ask you, or was that an unusual stroke of sen humor for him or was he someone with a real sense of humor in these years? >> well, yes. i won't have the version of u.s. grant jokes. but my favorite might be the one about charles sumner in which ie grant was apprised of the fact sumner did not believe in the

bible and grant'ss, b reply tha because he didn't write it. >> was grant upset when he came out east, he was so familiar with the west and all his sp generals out there and he couldn't be caught up to speed out east when he was wit transferred, was he almost confused with the -- with meade? and subordinate and all the conflicting areas surrounding that? >> he certainly was personally r frustrated.ext many of you know or hear the lad tale in the next several days ie the o opening of the overland campaign in the battle of the wilderness, grant's whittling and seems almost calm and smoki

smoking cigars. grant was workinrkgs oftener vo energy and not about robert e. lee but the army of the potomac. a new car for new the first time - and he doesn't know how it operates and what iw can do and what it can't do.hose and at the end of those two s, t days, grant has hacked the cotton gloves he'd worn into threads.ne day through one day smoking 24 cigars. and when yule attacks on the evening of may 6th, lots of accounts show that grant was veryrath frustrated and who ras quarter's account which is mman. rather famous is go back to thel command. think about what you're goingngd do. some of you think that robert e. lee is going to turn a double th somersault and land on the was flanks at the same time. he explodes. i thought it was chancellorvills

at the point but he is upset. he is angry. he is frustrated. and he's got to figure out ways to manage that because that's not the sign of a good commander to behave badly. yes? >> this might be a similar question to his.landscap did grant have an issue with the natural landscape in virginia? because this is his -- because he transferred from the west to the east. >> he wasn't familiar with it.s- so,sm for example, that smith , plan, he sends it over to thomas and after all grew up as a virginian and gets thomas's feedback and says maybe he does should invade in suffolk, virginia, instead. he doesn't know this place. robert e. lee knows it like the back of his hand and if he doesn't his men do. the army of the potomac, they don't know the terrain very well. the maps ares wh poor during th campaign. they go to places on maps which don't exist. and so it's kind of hard to do

certain things if there's no jet hodgekiss in terms of managing these things. most commanders, in fact, do get feedback at maps are awful. so no. it's not his -- i think we haveh time for, what, two more? yes? >> i'm struck with the -- of those union forces that are poised to launch attacks in the edring of 1864, you've got some awfully weak reads leading those prongs. except for sherman and grant and meade. was there nouc other choice? was grant stuck with those guys? i mean, would it be impossible a for an mvecpherson or a sheridaa to have gone into one of those spots and so why not? >> he was stuck with those guys not because they're politicians. because they had seniority. coud more than anything.s, the m

they could demand. they could request and demand in certain cases and get the position. grant finally gets to fire o shw people because t they're incompetent but they have to show they're incompetent first and the specific reference ther is nathaniel banks in louisianae so they have to do something incompetent. grant has to overcome lincoln'sn interest in these people politically and butler's case il doesn't happen until after the f campaign's of '64, early '65 and then lincoln says, okay. lincoln's re-elected. so there are restraints upon and constraints on what grant can do. and it's a tribute instead of grant writing letters to other o peoplens expressing frustration about the constraints we worked within them. >> jeff skillings, brit toll, am rhode island. this might be a terribly nooif s question in a, room filled wit historians and authors, but, is

there anything that today's the military leaders involved in f p today'sle wars can learn from t generalship of people like sherman and grant? >> understand why you're fighting. and the way and how you fight se should serve the purpose of why you're fighting. more than anything else.an i want to congratulate all of fo you. none have asked me a question about grantut g and drinking.ki i toast you as a result.pplause] thank you very much. remind your children in this bicentennial year when we are the first generation of americans to have experienced the attacks on the continental united states. we have the first generation of americans to have felt what it was like to have our government

buildings attacked. remind your children that freedom is not free. and that our country's greatness is found in one another. that's what the star spangled banner is about. that's what this commemoration year is about. to tell that story and to lift every voice and to sing. >> a dlee-day fourth of july weekend starts friday on american history tv including the 200th anniversary of the star spangled banner. friday at 8:30 p.m. eastern. visit the college classroom of professor joel howell talking about u.s. government human radiation experts after world war ii through the cold war and sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern a preview of jeffrey engel's manuscript of george h.w. bush and the peaceful end to the cold war. on the next "washington journal," daniel stein and benjamin johnson discuss whether

immigration to the u.s. hurts or helps the country. after that, charles murray of the american enterprise institute looks at american exceptionalism. plus your phone calls, facebook comments and tweets. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. now you can keep in touch with current events from the nation's capital using any phone any time. simply call 202-626-8888. to hear congressional coverage, public affairs forums and today's "washington journal" program and every weekday listen to a recap at 5:00 p.m. eastern on washington today. you can also hear audio of the five networks sunday public affairs programs beginning sundays at noon eastern. c-span radio on audionow, call 202-626-8888. long distance or phone charges may apply. next on american history tv,

a ri kelman out university of california-davis discusses the sand creek massacre. november 29th, 1864, attack of u.s. army troops on a cheyenne and arapaho indian village in colorado territory. this is from the gettiesburg college war ins tult annual summer conference taking place in june. it's about an hour. [ applause ] >> thanks very much for that very kind introduction. thanks to all of you for your u patience in advance. you i woker up this morning quite nervous. more nervous than i often am u when i'm going to be giving a talk and i think i noticed yesterday a number of you are teachers. is that right? yes? thank you.of