red granite, it is flanked by an elaborate stone bench, attributed to henry bank in -- lincolnesigner of the memorial. in >> today it stands close to the waterfront. the trevilian station battle. confederater railroad junctions. how the choices led to the decisive victory. symposium.rt of the

>> i would like to say the man i am about to introduce needs no introduction. it is so cool to be introduced that way. we all know that within the civil war community there are rock stars. historians, women we have all heard of. we have read their books. everyone knows who they are. we talk about them in hushed tones. andas been my privilege to be friends with one of those rock stars. is known byerg every civil war student across the country. hiss not only known for expertise in the union calvary opinion on many

challenging topics where he challenges people to reconsider what they know. he is never one who takes a position because it is popular. wellkes it because it is considered, well researched, and well thought out. sometimes not so afraid to challenge conventional thinking. sense of going for the truth that has always made me admire his work. starting out when i first got into the civil war, and thought this guy was fantastic. he has 17 books you can read. grown,friendship has someone who has challenge you to rethink what you think you know, it is my privilege to bring here from columbus, ohio the fantastic eric wittenberg. [applause]

>> wow, that is quite an introduction. thank you. [inaudible] that's true. it is a pleasure to be here. this is a challenge for me. i'm a litigator. i am used to walking and talking. for nearly an hour is going to be a challenge. our topic today is the second raid conducted by phil sheridan that climaxed in the today slugging match known as battle intrevilian station fought 1864. this is one of the few calvary battles one can use the word decisive. -- decisive means

it had an impact on the war. ofmuch as i love the battle brandy station and have devoted my life to studying it and understanding it, in the end the battle of brandy station delayed the outside of the gettysburg campaign by one day. it was not decisive. outcomen station had an on the war. we will address that. let's do some stage setting for you. i'm going to introduce the important personnel. i'm going to begin with bringing ulysses grant east and promoting him to lidded it -- to attend in general. he has a lot of challenges with the army of the potomac. he has to decide whether he is going to leave george meade in command. this is an army that has a lot of casualties in the 1863.

several were either badly wounded or killed outright. william the likes of french, the only aggressive he made in his life was on a bottle of whiskey. [laughter] commanding the third core. john newton, a solid soldier but not as spectacular. not a guy who is well-suited to core command. hancock, badly wounded. governor warren. we have to restructure the army. corps werend third merge. beingou have john newton transferred to the western theater. .ancock comes back to duty

the entire structure of the command has been moved around. we have a bigger problem. while 1863 was a decisive year and the development of the union calvary, the problem is that everything fell apart at the end of the year. it begins with the death of john december 18, 1863. you have the debacle of the kilpatrick raid. he was relieved of command in the third division and sent to sherman. what does that tell you? pleasanton offered had one real supporter in the army. george gordon meade. pleasanton stabbed him in the back. his testimony on the context of the war, when he testified that after the tickets charged and he

rode over to meet and said i will give you half an hour to prove yourself a great general. house, that my never happened. he was allergic to the truth. meade revokes his basic authority, keeping pleasanton in command. pleasanton is in missouri where he spends the war chasing after stirling prize. we have a calvary that needs commanders replaced. the first situation is who is going to command the core? have been the senior dimension commander. it is not going to be greg. it is going to be this fellow,

philip henry sheridan, raised in somerset, ohio. the west point class of 1853. nearly tossed out of west point for being insubordinate and threatening to run the cadet sergeant through with his bayonet. he was suspended for a year. he spends his regular army dutyr doing unspectacular and an unspectacular fashion, and is not well-known when the war breaks out. he ends up as a staff officer for hallock. brigade, where a he doesn't do too badly. before that he ends up being appointed colonel of the second michigan calvary.

a man who has never commanded a calvary in his life. his stand is going to last 60 days. 1862. he will end up in command of two regiments. he has been promoted to brigadier general. pedigreehil sheridan's when he is appointed commander. henry hallock says, who do you want to command? he suggests sheridan. grants response is just a fellow i had in mind. sheridan is a drinker. he is 5'2". he could scratch his angles without bending over. [laughter] he had a large bullet shaped head. he has a guy who was known for

temper. titanic irish this will come into play. we have to replace the first division commander. this fellow ends up in command of the first division. delaware, commissioned in the confederate army. he thinks better of that, resigns his commission, remains loyal to the union, spends up until the winter of 1864 is 4 his time commanding infantry. he has this much calvary command experience. not a single day. this is the division commander. man,ould have gone to this buford's protege. he will spend 43 years in the regular army commanding calvary.

he is very much john buford's protege and will command the calvary core as is last commander. he gets skipped over. this creates another problem. we have george custard. thes the commander of brigade in the third division. the third division needs a commander with kill patrick -- patrick being fired. another officer is brought in by the name of james h wilson. at -- is known as grant pet.'s

they hated each other's guts. wilson was promoted over custard. custard says he is junior to me i won't serve under him. i hate his guts anyway. the end of having to pick up brigade, bring the brigade to william gamble, and switch into the third brigade because it is commanded by george chapman in order to keep the seniority and the rank issues straight. wilson, the new commander, has never command anything bigger than a squad of cadets at west point. he is in the command of the third dimension -- division. we have a first division commander with zero days a solid capable

soldier, and finally we have james harrison wilson who has never commanded anything bigger than a squad of cadets. the third cavalry division. does this sound like a recipe for disaster? you bet. experienced very cavalrymen. he was known as buford's hard hitter. buford once said i cannot teach him, he knows more than i do. grade, west point class of 1855. one of my favorites, he spent the rest of his life in my hometown. there was a monument to him at sign of my doctors offices as a kid. i always was a big admirer of david gregg. he was appointed to commanded

1864,on in the spring of 1863. hill will resign his commission in 1865. davies, a new york city lawyer, no military training before the war. , commands one of greg's brigades. 6'5", they gregg, called him long john. he had no formal training. he became a very good commander during the civil war. capture just prior to the surrender at appomattox. not exactly a sterling attribute . cummings, west point trained.

he begins the war as lieutenant. during the civil war, he does some of the finest artillery the secondding united states artillery. he will play a big role in the story. on the confederate side, we have this fellow, wade hampton the third. reportedly the wealthiest man in the south. secession, butto when south carolina seceded he drew his sword on behalf of his native state out of his own pocket, paid for the equipping of the hampton legion. for companies of cavalry, a battery of all to laurie -- artillery. , thewill remain as it is

four companies will be actually becomeout, which will the second south carolina cavalry. hampton was six foot three. he was very proud of the fact he killed a bear with his bare hands. this was a tough customer who killed 13 yankees in one-on-one combat. when jeb stuart was mortally wounded, it is going to create a problem for robert e lee. hasbig problem lee has, he a void in command. stewart was very much the eyes and ears. leave relied on him heavily. he has a political problem. he is not a west pointer.

he is a member of the south carolina aristocracy. stewart's choice was his soulmate, his army soulmate. nephew of the commanding general of the army, and the finest example of nepotism i've ever seen. [applause] fitz lee had good days in the war. he ends at being the final .ommander of the army they were kindred souls. a joy.ared he was very much jeb stuart's successor. hampton out ring 10. hampton's commissioner was ahead of fitfully on the promotion

list. therefore he was the senior general. lee decides general that rather than appoint a new commander, he is one to create these as independent commands reporting directly to him. do you see a problem? who is going to be in charge in the field? by virtue of security is that guy. he is very much his protege, succeeded hampton. off by as a leg taken shell at the battle of brandy station. he has returned to duty in 1864 with a brigade of very green mounted infantry. , he the death of stuart

will end up in command of hampton position. , commander of the laurel brigade. we will talk about him more later. right -- gib wright is interesting fellow. he was ultimately acquitted of murder prior to the war. he liked his whiskey. he was a hard fighter. brigade.ds a veteran then there is fitz lee. prone to being obese. by the time of the spanish-american war he ways 320 pounds and wise as wide as he was tall. when he came back to the service of the united states army, it wasn't possible to get him on a horse.

he ended up not serving in the field. the favorite nephew of the commanding general of the army of northern virginia. one of them happen to be 1864 at the bottle of todd's tavern. conduct a delaying that will hold off the union infantry advance long enough to allow digg anderson's the army get ahead of of the potomac. one of the four good days that he had. lawrence wickham, one of the first families of virginia.

williams wickham resigns his commission in the fall of 1864 to take a seat in the confederate congress. his regiment broke at brandy station which allowed union troopers to surround and wound frank hampton, the younger brother of wade hampton. that will create command friction, as you might imagine. , attached to hampton's division. finally, we have major james james breathed. you, afterstage for

some inauspicious beginnings for sheridan, let's just say that by time that the expedition begins on the seventh of june, he has won one engagement. the battle of yellow tavern. other than that he has had his kicked regularly. he is not cold harbor. he comes up with a brilliant idea. this is a brilliant idea based on something he tried out in the early phases of the vicksburg campaign. cavalry raid. he will launch with the idea of creating so much chaos and havoc it will distract attention away and allow his army to steal a march. this is what grant did with

ryerson during the early vicksburg campaign. one of the lessons he has learned is he has allowed sheridan to go off on a raid. i mean to address that. back to todd's tavern. is engagedavalry with fitz lee before they drive him off. when george gordon meade arrives at todd's tavern he finds the and theirommanders, troops with their horses on saddled making letters and coffee. where to be no found so they do what soldiers do.

gets frustrated. he issues orders directly to the commanders. by the same time they arrive sheridan shows up and he gives conflicting orders. it is a mess. meade's gets someone to tent and ends up engaging in a titanic row with george gordon meade. the in mind, he didn't have nickname the goggle eyed snapping turtle for no reason. he had a titanic temper. sheridan had a titanic irish temper. they engage in a screaming match. meade andooked at said if you want to give orders

to the cavalry go ahead. i won't do it, and stomped out. he has told his boss to go stuff it. gross insubordination. meade goes straight to grant to report the insubordination and command.heridan of sitting, and he tells grant what happens. grant doesn't react. meade makes a mistake and says sheridan wants to take the cavalry out and find stuart and bring them to battle. grant says sheridan knows what he is talking about. let him do it. been grossly insubordinate to his boss and rewarded with an independent command. georgeely emasculating cornyn made.

it creates a deal of friction. part of the problem is when sheridan goes off heat takes all three divisions of cavalry with him. blunders into a great mess and ends up being a slugging match at spotsylvania courthouse. it is not a great situation. conflict great deal of and tension between meade and sheridan, such as they can't work together. grant does learn one lesson. when he orders this raid he is going to keep wilson's division with the army. he is going to send sheridan with two divisions. the object is to march along the north bank of the north anna railroadll upon the junction where the central railroads come together, destroyed the railroad junction, march down the fridge and you where he willads,

destroy the railroad junction, and meet up with the army of david hunter advancing up the shenandoah valley, bring hunters army back, which will cross and move on petersburg investing petersburg from three sides. butler's army in the east, the potomac in the center, hunters army from the west. it is a brilliant plan if it works. sheridan leaves on the morning of june 7, and within minutes the confederates know about it. servant who was loyal to the confederacy left the union this and supported movement. robert e lee will send hampton's division to pursue. and we are supposed to

be independent command. .here is no one in charge hampton sort of is but sort of is in. he doesn't have the authority. somebody has to have some ability to be in charge. they follow a long sheridan. sheridan's inexperience begins to show for the simple reason, as collin marches across the countryside, 9000 men, he doesn't send out flankers and scouts. he has no idea that hampton is in pursuit with 2 divisions. scouts are buzzing all around the edges of this union call him. sheridan assumes they are bushwhackers. he has no idea hampton is pursuing. hampton has perfect intelligence of the entire disposition. he figures out gordonsville is the objective and uses the

inside route, and he gets across sheridan's line of march at billion station, -- trevilian station. it is eight miles east of gordonsville. the commanders are going to pitch their camps in the area to the north. sheridan, no scouts and flankers, has no idea that fits lee is in the town, hampton is .t trevilian station they develop plans for the next day. the plans are sheridan is going go toit his command, trevilian station, cross the railroad, and head out in the direction of gordonsville. custard is going to take a

flanking position to send out some flankers. lee's command is going to come up the stage road and pinch sheridan. the plans are nearly mirror images of each other. hampton has perfect intel and sheridan has none. early in the morning, 4:30 in lee'sorning, fitz , they engage with the pickets of the seventh michigan cavalry, have a sharp skirmish. sheridan said his plan in motion

and since his guys down the state road. when they get to a crossroads, bids cost roads -- bib's commander, and the runs into pickets out there of the fit and six south carolina of butler's command who opened the commander goes timothy got shot. another captain takes command of the regimen. gordon gets captured almost immediately. 2eridan is already down commanders. this is not an auspicious beginning. they begin to fall back. picket do what they are

supposed to do. they fall back. in the meantime, rosser and butler have been talking trying to understand what their role is to be. they are going to ride over and find wade hampton. hampton is sound asleep on a bench outside of the tavern. the wake him up. they say what is your plan for the day? he looks up and says my plan is to fight. that is what happens. they hear the first shots. they mount their horses, ride begin to commit forces to the fight. first, butler, then the gilbert rice brigade. at one point there will be a senball wilload and

given a medal of honor, he'll become the leading historian. he will end up coming back to duty, wounded severely at third winchester. he will lose an arm. he retires as a brigadier general. there will be a point where sheridan is going to engage. the one time that i could find i all the years i research or could find evidence of sheridan being out on the front lines. there is a situation where

hampton is beginning to get pressed. go back to the map. hampton is being pressed. you see this position. this is a plateau. -- weight hampton is going to ride off to find the only troops he can find, the citadel cadet company, part of the south carolina cavalry. hampton will fall in with the rangers. he will draw his broadsword. a will personally lead charge, crashing into the yankee cavalry. he will kill 2. he will drive them back and allow hart's battery to withdraw. sheridan sees this and asks devon to commit a good unit.

19th cavalry will advance and make a dismounted attack that will hit hampton's line at the right moment. hampton has ordered his command to fall back. as it is taking off hampton is ordering his men to fall back. they blame credit for driving him back. the commander of the ninth new yorker was killed in action, buried in a temporary grave, and it is quite a story. his wife had to retrieve his body and bring him home. it is why i chose this photo. i do have time to get into it today. if you want to hear it later asked me. in any event, the reason why hampton is ordered to withdraw, er at the head of the

column has spotted a glittering prize. he spots this and turns and to draw sabers in charge. they crash into this confederate wagon train. .hey capture much of it he then starts to commit other troops. one of the other units committed is the second unit and line. kidd, with his bugler, leads his unit into the direction of the wagon train. hampton has heard this chaos and

orders troops to fall back. kidd get cut off and they end up being captured. bugler freed but ends of andersonville. survives and -- he lives to the age of 85 years old. this was a tough customer. [laughter] custer pitches and blindly. -- fitz lees lee arrives. custer finds himself encircled. it is a june day. custer has made a charge of line enemy and has found

himself surrounded and cut off. does this sound familiar? [laughter] is custer's first last stand. the difference is that this time custer was reinforced. but not for a while. you realize he is in serious trouble. the officer he has put in charge of the ragan train says where'd you to take it? he says take it to the rear. then he says where is the rear? [laughter] having gotten his command into custer wasle mess, at his finest for the rest of the day. he fought bravely. , made aother men dismounted attack in order to

allow the gun crews to escape. the gun crew was tended by a fellow by the name of john kennedy. soldier,nd this other respectively with their hands bike, stood at the gun and defended it. long enough to allow the rest of the crew to escape. they got a trip to andersonville. one did not survive. kennedy did survive. in the 1890's he got a well-deserved medal of honor for his stand. custer is in trouble. he is completely surrounded. he is fought on all sides. in the meantime, for bert is 'sying to find out what custer disposition is. hisries to find out what

dispositions are. one of the staff officer says to coincidentally, captain marcus reno. [laughter] another was captain john j coppagnger. yates, a company commander under custer was the commander of a company of the seventh michigan calvary, that made it through the first last stand. the parallels are remarkable. they are. finally, one of the staff officers gets through. torbert finds out this problem. he orders an attack by his force by his brigade. in and they pitch pitch into custer. a rivalry,ey had

custer told him how glad he was to see him that day. he has managed to keep the uniformtalked into his tunic said it would be safe. it is a big deal. one of the people who was captured was his black cook, eliza. she was known as the queen of sheba. eliza was captured by the confederates when the wagon train was. so were all of custer's personal baggage and his letters from libby. they were published in a richmond newspaper. [laughter] chided her severely for these letters. eliza was so obnoxious and made such a pain of herself to the confederates they turn their backs and let her sneak away. that is how bad she was when she got captured.

liberated custer's mcallister.s is he is seeing the elephant that day. he is killed in action during the attack to free custer's command. mail --ried in the oakdale cemetery. what will end up happening is rosser and polar will fall back to a permanent ridgeline to the west of trevilian station. as the afternoon is for during the way they decide they are going to make an attack. with rosser on one side and

butler on the other they launch an attack. this is one of the few engagements during the entire battle. rosser is immediately wounded. he is carried off the field. delaney thatander he believes delaney should not fight dismounted. he should fight mounted. this attack is repulsed by the union troops. that ends the fighting at the end of the first day of the battle of trevilian station. , for reasons i cannot comprehend, doesn't send out scouts. isjust assumes hampton beaten and withdrawn. the battlefield is his. hampton's command is three miles away. none whatsoever. hampton spends the night

preparing a stout defensive position that uses part of the virginia central railroad. and, sheridan spends the morning having his troopers tearing up the railroad. at 1:00 on the afternoon he tells forward to take his division and make it out of the road. it is time for them to move out to gordonsville. with custer in the lead, they move out and they see this incredibly stout defensive line hampton has forged. because butler's men are mounted infantry, this is infantry they are facing. custer makes an attack and gets repulsed and falls back and refuses to attack again.

he is out of the fight for the rest of the day. the focus of the fighting shifts. there are seven union attacks launched from that position. by the end of the day, but the time the seventh attack is teed up the forces are no more than 15 yards apart on either side. 's divisiontime lee arounde a large march and has gotten into visitation around the union flank. after the report of the seventh attack womack sends word that he is in position and he orders to attack. simultaneously, with all of the rest of command attacking from the front, they roll up the flank and som send them off to

a wild route, ending the battle of trevilian station. sheridan had a worse allergy to the truth. he claimed this was a union victory. what were his orders? to go to gordonsville. he hadn't come close to gordonsville. he hasn't linked up with hunter's army. he hasn't accomplished the objectives he has been sent on. he calls it a victory. is like richard nixon. declare victory and go home like the at home. -- like vietnam. sheridan and of not returning to serve with the army for another 21 days. he ends up on this extended march having to pick up most of the supply depot. he has to bring the forces backed to the army.

on the 13th day after the second day of the battle, ulysses grant, having distracted robert he lead, steals a march across the river undetected. he moves on petersburg and it is only because of a spectacular defense cobbled with a scratch force by pure boers guard are able to prevent grant from taking petersburg on the 16th of june. on the way, sheridan fight another battle. he has left the two brick grades brigadedes of grants behind. gregg.ces on seven brigades versus two. was lucky to get out of there. i think it played in heavily in

his decision to resign his he knewon in 1865, sheridan will be coming back and he wanted no part of serving under him again. it is not documented. greegg was too much of a gentleman to say such a thing. but i believe that was the case. we have the trevilian raid. meants move on petersburg that the armies going to end up in siege warfare. grant new it. robert d lee knew it. the numbers did not favor him in such an adventure. 1862 by sending jackson to the shenandoah valley , he could pull troops away from petersburg and hopefully break this hammerlock grant was going

to be putting on the army of northern virginia. sends --th of june, he [inaudible] head into the direction of lynchburg. they march through trevilian station three days after the battle. by then the railroad has been repaired. they get to gordonsville. they take the trains to lynchburg. they arrive just in time to repulsed david hunter's army, which falls up the ohio river valley and is out of the war for the better part of a month, to march, andrly advance on frederick, maryland where they fight the battle on the sixth of july. the defeat lou wallace. they move forward and engage the outer defense of washington,

which in turn forces the 19th and six court to beat attached and sent to defend washington. setting the stage for what phil will talk about this afternoon with the 1864 shenandoah valley campaign. i will suggest to you that by beating phil sheridan at trevilian station, this was a decisive battle calvary fight. by defeating history teacher objective, preventing him from linking out, that enabled early to move to the valley and the sideshow that it created bought the confederacy six months of life it may not have had because hampton defeated phil sheridan. i want to finish with a touching story. tulls.s robert

he had and listed with his brothers. killedthe brothers was in october of 1863. the other was killed at todd's cavern. he was mortally wounded on the first day at trevilian station. decided they were going to keep the brothers together in death. the other brothers were luisaerred and brought to . they rest under a single monument in the single -- and the cement terry. it is a moving thing, akin to a civil war version of the saving private ryan story. towles go visitthe the

brothers. another grave, a sergeant of the fourth virginia who was mortally wounded carrying a wounded combat comrade off the field. i have every reason to believe it was robert towles. you can visit mcallister's grave and spend some time and reflect on the single decisive cavalry battle fought in the civil war. thank you for your time. [applause] >> now i couple of questions. missed one major thing there that you didn't tell us, when custer got his personal

belongings confiscated, he was left with one thing. we have to know what that is because we need to laugh about that. factll is referring to the that the only thing custer had left was his toothbrush. custody of up in the tom rosser. he will get his revenge on rosser at the battle of toms october 1864. he will capture rosser's uniform . he and rosser had been friends. he will send a note across the lines to rosser saying next time you have a uniform made, have it made shorter so it fits me better. [laughter] >> another question. >> i'm having a hard time imaging in my mind what it means to say custer and his brigade are surrounded by confederate

cavalry. does that mean they are in a circle pointing outwards. do they start dismounting? >> that's a good question. a point.lect to raise tom rosser would hear the commotion and will order his brigade without orders to make a mount to charge. that is what crashes into custer's command. they are being fought on the front by rosser. when hampton falls back they go to a middle position and fitz lee fills around. they call it a living triangle. the point remains the same, they are getting shot at from all sides. the end of dismounting because the horses are a liability. they end up fighting in a circular position until they get

relieved. >> [inaudible] to usehe continue standard tactics, when you dismount calvary, one out of every four holes the horses of himself and his buddies. somebody had to watch the horses. you have to maintain those horses as safely as possible. the answer is yes. they did have to do that. could you say a word about the armament? >> the relative armament of the two sides. army oftime, 85% of the the cavalry had been armed with spencer car beams -- an effective range of 300 yards. on sunday and fire

all we. confederates are going to be armed with a smattering of miscellaneous single shot car beams, such as the sharks. difference inor the technology, and a major difference in the weaponry used. it is that weaponry that is one of the reasons why they wanted forward. -- torbert. having been an infantry commander he conducts much of the battle as if he were commanding infantry. thank you very much. [applause] irsthe civil war a every saturday.

to watch more visit our website. c-span.org/history. you're watching american history all weekend. >> each week, american history tv brings you archival films that tell the story of the 20th century. assassination, president johnson investigates the circumstances surrounding the fate of day. the commission released the final report on september 24 m in 1964 and concluded lee harvey all's walled acted alone -- lee oswalt acted alone. looked at it for a few seconds. a wanted to make sure they were looking at me. for so manywed it

seconds. then i did take the picture. >> there was a shot. this is what she found in her polaroid. i heard the shot. i say shot because i immediately thought it was a shot, a rifle shot. i have hunted a great deal in my life. i thought it was a rifle shot. why? i don't know. i immediately thought, an assassination attempt. it is the ultimate cross my mind. fear swept through me. i immediately thought of him. i was on the jump seat in the passenger car in front of him. i turned, thinking the shot had come from over my right shoulder. i turned to look in that

direction. motivated by two things predecease i could see anything unusual. equally, at that moment in my thought process, a desire to see if anything had happened to him. to see if he was all right. i obviously saw nothing but a tremendous crowd of people from where we had just come. i saw nothing out of the way except people had startled looks on their faces. they were looking. i didn't catch him in the corner of my eye. i was in the process of turning to my left to look over my left shoulder. to see if i could see him in the back seat. that is when i felt the impact of the bullet that hit me. pain.was no great

it win in my back shoulder and came at my chest. i felt as if someone had just hit me in the back with a fist. it was an impact rather than a searing pain. it knocked me where it looked down and i was covered with blood. i frankly thought that i had been fatally hit. recall, they want to kill us all. >> next, dickinson college professor matthew ginsberg talks about steven spielberg's movie "lincoln." he goes into detail about the historical events but also highlights areas where steven spielberg uses artistic freedom. this is part of the