and they want to vote right, but politically it would be suicidal. and ii spoke to someone recently added a asked what will happen when the negroes get the right to vote? i said i suspect we will have some of the greatest liberals. i suspect that they would like to vote. the voting rights section cannot be over emphasized. it is the guts of the democracy. >> coming up next, an overview of the civil war in 1865 by the editor of "the civil war: the final year told."

the professor spoke at the opening of the gettysburg civil war institutes annual conference which focused on the end of the war and its aftermath. peter: good afternoon. i am the director of the institute. it is my pleasure to invite aaron sheehan-dean, the professor of southern studies at lsu. he is professor of southern history as well as civil war and published a number of scholarly works, including a monograph on a book published by the university of virginia. he has done a number of things as well as the editor with myself for "civil war america" which is published by unc.

aaron came to cwi in 2013. this is your third year at lsu. we will have to note if there's a change in his accent. do you have a cajun accent now? he is shaking his head no. he will speak on the war in 1865. welcome aaron sheehan-dean. [applause] aaron: thank you, pete. i have not developed an accent. the giveaway i talk too fast. my students in particular i will do my best to speak slowly. i do cook jambalaya. native and that regard of the food of baton rouge. i would like to thank you for the opportunity to start things off.

it seemed appropriate that we congratulate ourselves on the -- survival of the sesquintenial. if you're civil war historian or somebody interested, the last couple of years may have seen longer than the actual war itself. here we are in june trying to route up. my hope was we would finish in april. i am trying to give an overview that is 1865, the narrative of what is going on the last couple of months when participants do not know how the war is going to end. it is exciting for me to tell you how it finishes after the years not knowing. i would like to shift to a slightly more omnipotent

perspective and talk about the ways in which participants were trying to make sense of the experience. how did they ascribe meaning to what they just went through? and one level up, how have we over time and i will do this quickly songs about the question of what the civil war means? that category of analysis, thinking about is distinct from why the war ended. this is the question a lot of civil war historians have spent time on, why did he turn off the way they did? in the last couple of decades with the rise of memory studies that historians have thought more about the legacies and outcomes of the civil war. let me start, if i sound like i was disparaging the why question with my estimation of how we got there. how the war eve out and why the north won or the south lost? and those are separate questions. central to what we do as historians for you cause and

effect is never perfectly clear, to capture the full range of outcomes. our job is to explain past events. how did the north win? they implemented a strategy of exhaustion that eliminated confederates. nouns and verbs matter. even from the titles of books that describe the war. if it is how the north won, it is different from how the south lost. it tells us the things you think are important. the north succeeded not because they had superior resources but they use them effectively. if it was a matter of material the war should've ended in 1862. for political and military reasons, it took several years to design a strategy that brought victory. you will notice that i did not

say the confederacy lost. i do not think the question of why did the civil war ended the way it did can be explained by the divisions among southerners. those divisions were certainly real and many loyal confederates despised jefferson davis for policies. resented them all the more important people in the confederacy resented the most of all because they live so close. the same poor people benefited from the redistributing properties and make supplies available, the purpose to give the confederate government the ability to redistribute to equalize the burdens of war. how they fail in social terms. southern men and women clash over the changes by the war and

black southerners provided aid to the union. the confederacy was ripe with internal bus of the north had the same dissent. [indiscernible] only the most obvious examples of these divisions. the democrats debilitating resistance to lincoln and the republicans across the southern tier of northern border states like missouri, kentucky, and maryland. tens of thousand men joined for private guerrilla wars. even though northern women do not assume such a larger role as their peers in the south the dead, they nonetheless accelerated the conflict about the proper role of women in life. dissent is prominent in both not

determinative of the outcome is the north had won we would blame the new york riots. the other crucial factor beyond military fortune, capacity deployed, the ones that boosted both sides during the war was simple contingency. what do we call it? fate. several pivotal moments the civil war could've ended or shifted direction and unpredictable ways. a short list is southern pines and gettysburg in atlanta and lincoln's reelection. i know you're spent the past couple of years over these moments of pivots. we can see the last of the surely contingent moments probably passed in 1864 with the union trifecta. even still the war did not end in 1864 as many hoped.

in january 1865, richmond was held by the confederate, grant's efforts around petersburg which had been underway since june of the preceding year was progressing but had not produced the result he had hoped for. a very long time for northerners to wait for what they told was imminent victory. the people had turned diehard rebels. not just committed to victory but convinced of this eminence remained in control of the political and legal apparatus. these diehards mostly but not exclusively belonged to the prewar elite. the planters and their families who had the most to lose from a categorical defeat and they relied on a mixture of rumored to sustain themselves through this hard winter of 1864, 1865.

hutzpah is probably not a term they would have used. i had a student writes on an exam meaning to talk about the gentry of the south as both of them as the gentiles who owned the land. so -- my margin comment was that they were gentiles though i doubt they would have called themselves that and i suspect that went over his head like the gentry problem who knows for the jewish confederates out there. jefferson davis and robert e. lee knew more was needed to sustain the army both physically and in terms of our row. their most revolutionary policy and brought to legislative fruition in 1865 was a plan to enlist and enslave man into confederate ranks. if successful they hoped it would have the potential to alleviate the manpower in balance between north and south. the confederate congress could

not bring itself to offer emancipation to those slaves who might serve in the army. it says nothing about their status as slaves or free men. for some like general cobb, a question of consistency. if slaves would make good if slaves would make good soldiers, cobb admitted, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong. this interrogatory phrasing made a scene that cobb did not know the answer and did not want to know the is. maybe slave men were men after all. confederates shot down surrendering black soldiers on battlefields across the south about their own views of black men in uniform quite clear. they would've been baffled to

identify black confederates that populate the internet. approval of the act, davis added a proviso, that promised emancipation for black men and their families who served in the csa. as it went into effect, the order not only for enlistment but emancipation. a handful of these men never served in any serious capacity in the waning days of the war. for me at least, it erases from an academic perspective, one of the only ways it may have been beneficial for the civil war to go longer is the find out what happens in the experiment if more black men had fought in rebel gray but they did not. as a result, the order may have hurt more than held the confederate cause. an insightful diarist was a diehard rebel.

she sees every scrap of good news and rumors that passed through her home. her ineffective for yankees was only mask the bottles or for those confederates willing to compromise the principles that brought them into the conflict considering that the enlisting of black men into the confederate she wrote "to sell the birthright of the south for only the --" as a confederates grasped, the union project a posture. unexhausted and as we believe in exhaustible. this sounds arrogant but it was true in 1864.

the tone, lincoln is intending to dispirit the confederacy. republicans had won overwhelmingly in the fall elections. republicans win enormously gaining many of the seas they had lost. even though the members would not take their seats, the momentum behind lincoln and his war measures was unmistakable. those are the men that are going to be seated at the beginning a reconstruction. part of the reconstruction and empowered by union victory and comment in late 1864. that's momentum behind lincoln's administration could be seen in the carolinas which proceeded with seemingly unstoppable force. the joke told among the confederates revealed the truth. one says to the other, we caved in a tunnel to carry troops forward. i heard he carries a spare tunnel with him. this sense of throwing up your

hands in the face of juggernaut is an understandable one. sherman's passing through south carolina was more destructive and vindictive than georgia. than the ones in south carolina, strangely understated. though his soldiers did not start the fires that destroyed columbia and neither did they work to extinguish them. a young resident of the city described the fire as open will a nightmare that still oppresses." the state houston flame and imagine night turned to noon day with a scorching glare that was horrible, a copper color sky. sparks and flying embers, where all around us with showers of burning flakes. the palpitating blaze with solid

masses of flame as far as the eye could reach filling the air. by the morning when the true son came up, most of downtown columbia had been destroyed but not before soldiers entered and held a mock session. this play acting provided a welcome chance for soldiers to condemn those they blamed for the war. "here is where treason began," one of sherman's boys wrote "and by god, here is where it will end." the military was more static. lee knew it would not stay that way. desertion increased in february and march with over 100 men leaving per night. they let for the abundance of the union. others turned toward home. i would argue this flight is differ from traditional desertion during the war. it seems to be more political recognition by the soldiers the war was over and the obligation to remain in the army.

luther mills admitted as much to his brother. mills state in the ranks and told his brother the men things desertion no crime and is never shoot a deserter when he goes over. mills require that men going out and night carry 10 cartridges and said they always shoot but never hit. nine months of trench warfare with the doing to link supplies reduced soldiers to deprivation. rancid pork and poor health. the living conditions in the trenches around petersburg. this experience, these 10 months in trench warfare in the virginia mud and increasingly severe deprivations rations, the soldiers from their lives and

loved ones they left behind. on april 2, grant ordered an attack along the petersburg line hoping to trap lee. the confederates fought well but petersburg's loss was the fall of richmond. the city was evacuated. much to the dismay of all of us, records were destroyed. much of the city destroyed by the fire. what was left was a frightened population nearly destitute. sally putnam reported, richmond was ruled by the mob. the principal business section they surged from store to store, breaking and robbing and in some instances [indiscernible] this desperation revealed one of the logistical wars, the impact on civilians. a strategy of exhaustion is applied.

it falls evenly on soldiers and civilians. lincoln arrived in richmond two days later to inspect the city and his presence arriving at the war greeted by thousands of african-americans cheering for him as white richmonders huddled inside sent a very public signal the war was ending. the president of the united states to stand in the capital of the soon-to-be erstwhile confederacy. the capital of the confederacy was theirs. from new york, one said that it is nomadic. is probably in a dirty, damaged railroad car in a seat of government on the saddle which jeff davis. he was not far wrong. lincoln -- sorry, lee were retreated to reach a rations by rail. he joined johnson.

the better fed and clothed kept pace. but to their south and captured the vital supplies that lee hoped to find at the courthouse. grant's strategy was embodied in the erosion of the army as it marched toward appomattox, not having eaten or slept for the several preceding days. april 9, lee asked great for terms and the army stopped fighting. by the end of the ceremonial finish, most people heard rumors if not bona fide news reports

lee's capitulation. surrendering to sherman's army further north laid down. the war ended in early april. grant later remembered he was "sad and depressed" and what you call "the downfall of a foe that has suffer so much for a cause though it was one of the worst for which a people ever fought." going to explore the surrender in more detail tomorrow morning so i would like to shift my focus to the broader perspective i mentioned earlier. among america's anticipating the war's end, they all wonder what the postwar world would look like. from was white northerners, most importantly is the united states would behold. significant today often overlooked. we assume the inevitability of a unified america's direction -- stretching from the atlantic to the pacific. at the time, they are repudiating from the stars of the conflict abraham lincoln

described as a contest over the viability of self-government which understood to be the core of democratic republic. by abandoning the political process in the wake of unsatisfactory election, the rights of minorities could be protected under the constitution and gave up on self-government. the acts of secession cast in doubt the global future of democracy. one expressed this sentiment in his messages to a newspaper he writes. he wrote the north fought to preserve "the faith and intelligence and virtue of the common people and their ability

to govern themselves and maintain national unity without being asunder by internal strife and discord." lincoln said it was distinctly and believes northern victory would approve "among freemen that it be no successful appeal for the battle of the bullet." whatever shape the postwar world assumed would not include slavery. january 31, 1865 the house of representatives casts the 13th amendment as senate to the states and it was ratified and took effect in late 1865. the end of slavery and liberation all 4 million slaves african-americans overturned 2 centuries of slaveholding and forcing the reshaping of relations across the nation and within the south in particular. emancipation proclamation begun the process. that document as lincoln well knew was contingent upon a republican administration that would enforce a union victory. perhaps to a permanent end to slavery in the united states comes slavery have to be abolished. a proclamation of emancipation which applies individuals in the process of abolition which ends the institution of slavery which is why we deny get a slavery abolition.

these are different processes during the war. george julian, elite abolitionist, felt blessed to sign his name and describe the moment and reported "the cheering in the halls of a densely packed gallery. members joined in the shouting. some embrace one another in others wept like children." black southerners seize control of the two things denied to them under slavery, their families and livelihood. the first instinct was to find and protect their loved ones retracing the moves of slaves, spouses, children, and parents to reconstitute the families. in addition to reconstructing their families, ask slaves built churches, schools to anchor their communities. african-americans sought full

autonomous citizenship knowing it meant not only the right to vote but to an education and opportunity to move, work, and on land. during reconstruction, they engage in politics by voting and join the republican party area they pursue literacy. why southern resistance would eventually deny the promises of citizenship and implicit in the 13th, 14th, if 15 amendments. emancipation was not a failed

experiment. african-americans efforts can be seen in the communities through the decades around the turn of the century. the foundation laid by the post-civil war generation enable the 20th century activists for full autonomy. america's north and south had confronted the central questions related to emancipation -- where would black people live and what would they do? these were the key issues. a topic that greg will take up later, i think sunday morning to talk about the transition of reconstruction we thing as the period after the civil war. land redistribution along carolina and georgia, the sea islands captured by the union navy in 1861. the planters fled inland. the navy found thousands of ex-slaves and cotton. the wartime experiment around the data did not yield what planters wanted. the government retained control of the land and it is important in january of 1865 as william sherman's army reaches savanna.

he presents to lincoln the city of savannah. sherman terms to the problem of the thousands of enslaved people who he moved across georgia alleges army and want to basically moving to south carolina without taking this mobile refugee camp with him. he meets with local black leaders and savanna to assess what should be happening. he was understand their attitudes toward emancipation. a revealing interview. these men who attended were prepared. sherman asked the leader's spokesperson how he understood of freedom. fraser's response "the proclamation is taking us from under bondage and place and is where we can reap the benefit of our labor and take care of ourselves and this is government in maintaining our freedom with a designed to please nor the republicans." some measure of social autonomy and during the war not yet over national loyalty. whether in response to this meaning or to light his burdens, sherman issued special field order number 15. this would've decimated or did

designate the sea islands, 40,000 acres from the coast inland as a territory for the settlement of the 18,000 families who had refugees with his army. this inaugurated with the most surprising and revolutionary land redistribution schemes in american history. these families began planting crops in 1865 understand from sherman's order it is now their land. the story has an unfortunate ending.

andrew johnson pardoned the planters. the influx of the waning days the efforts on the union to fumble to what a strategy of thinking what the postwar south will look like and the question land and economical ontology is paramount area alongside land and work, the other crucial elements sought by black americans was the vote. black leaders began to work to make sure any new nation formed would include lack men on full political and civil equality with whites. the test case transpired in louisiana where educated and wealthy black and mixed-race

elite try to make black voting rights a key issue for the readmission of the state to the union. louisiana reentered the union under lincoln's reconstruction plan called 10% plan where 10 percent of the voters who voted in 1860 take over the loyalty and it could be a member of the u.s. with full privileges. they were in the process of revising their state constitution, that was one of the requirements. lincoln received a petition from a large group of these leading new orleans african-americans and send a note to the new government encouraging him to an franchise and select group of black men bank "the very

intelligent and those who have fought gallantly in our own ranks." the new constitution did not grant blacks the vote but the black elite kept pressing the issue at the state and national level. in the last beach she delivered on april 14 right before he had it to ford's theatre he announced his support for a limited version of lack suffrage. frederick douglass's observations seems to be coming true, the black man -- let them get an ego and fill his pockets and no power on earth or under the earth which can deny he is the right to citizenship in the

united states. alongside these persistent policy and political issues, people struggle to make sense of the war's end. soldiers coming even if greatly desired --. new englanders might as well have explained why he were as did in music tones to lee's surrender. we never realized he surrendered admitted wells. i had an impression we shall fight them all our lives. he was like a ghost to children, hoping that haunted us for so long. it will take me some months to be conscious of this fact. that sense of shock that wells conveyed could be seen in the behavior confederate soldiers, regrettably those who stopped to write letters home. a terrible gap and that correspondence. beginning about april 2. not so much for the union who ran out of time to write. veteran soldiers had to find in their own way home. some rode, some walked and some went alone. all were weary, frustrated hungry. north carolina is free is a riot of their own as confederate veterans from lee's army brother to warehouses and pillaged for food. active confederate soldiers arrived and eventually opened fire, killing those select survived four years only to die at the hand the johnston. the experience of those who saw their protectors of predators as more and more wounded and damaged men dragged themselves home. none were diagnosed with ptsd

but the signs were visible with a spy in drug abuse usually opiate given in the war for pain, alcoholism and domestic abuse marked the return home. when jacksonville, florida build the veterans home, miles outside of town on the banks of the st. johns river, much more of an asylum or warehouse than anything respectable for veterans. confederate soldiers were not of the only white southerners who struggle to assimilate the meaning a defeat. the defeat by the yankee was incompatible with southern honor or pride. a young diarist that i quoted earlier looked on the union with contempt for you when sherman's troops raised the flag she described as "a horrid site, hateful symbol." the failure a white men to protect their families and harsh as a war directly contradicted the ethos of paternal that the southern rested. more difficult for white southerners was recognizing emancipation.

mary chestnut learned of lee's surrender of her anniversary which was the unhappiest day of her life. poor james, her husband. scrutinize her slaves. these negroes unchanged does not show a ripple of change. chestnut and smart enough to know but neither the mask, black southerners had their own desires and hopes for the postwar world. sung and told and whispered probably for his long as it's late people have lived in north america. jubilee, the concept heralded a new world. two years earlier, and south

carolina, black union soldiers celebrated a passage of the emancipation proclamation. as colonel higgins waived the regimental colors, the black men and women gathered and broken to the national anthem. never saw something so electric he wrote, it made all worsen cheap, the choked voice. strategic expression after the war when charlestonians celebrated the first independence. it was here that free people gathered to commemorate the fallen soldiers and in doing so asserted their loyalty to the united states in a place where they had few friends. like the northerners appreciated

and understood the gesture. mourning their men loss. few were willing to forgive or forget. signs of that attitude were everywhere. herman melville dedicated his collection all war poems to the memory of the 300,000 in the war for the main is other union sale under the flag of their fathers. no brothers, he would been puzzled by our 650,000 dead. for many northerners, it was 300,000 who died. the euphoria that greeted was quelled with the assassination of abraham lincoln, it in bitter to the north, man who blamed it on jefferson davis and encouraged a hard

reconstruction. walt whitman, came to find his injured brother used to observe lincoln and his melancholy walks but never interacted but whitman saw him. his poem captured the intimate sorrow that northerners felt after the assassination, more than losing just a politician. my captain does not answer and his lips are pale and my father does not feel my arms. the ship is anchored. exalt, but i with mournful dread. fallen, cold and dead. these competing attempts, people had maintained during it. northerners about the virtues a reunion in the mobility of emancipation bring southerners regretted their defeat and cast about scapegoats. it was rare to find a critical or true assessment of the war.

one show the few, i always understood we went to war on account -- i never heard of any other cause than slavery. why his peers cannot reconcile mostly said men fight for sentiment and they invent some fanciful theory on which an imaginative they fought.

they were essential in the war's waning days as lincoln sought to rebuild. academics said that lincoln picked intellectuals' pockets. in the second inaugural, he did something audacious. this sleight-of-hand substituted the celebratory tone that characterized most victors acted around the conquest with conciliatory one. i beseech my students not to write with the passive voice because it obscures the actors and without subjects we have people with out history, no history at all. lincoln used a passive voice print as of the war came. as he knew, wars do not come people making them. use this phrase to obscure the war's forage and pretty critique on the north and south together as those civil for the bloodshed. if god wills, lincoln wrote, unrequited until every drop of blood drawn will be paid by another with the sword still it must be said the judgments of the lord are true and righteous. that's blood from north and south alike. for lincoln the judgment was

clear. this decision to draw the equivalent of trash talk in favor of forgiven signaled his desire to a net reunion's, not just military victories. for the last few minutes, i would like to pull back from this analysis just to conclude. i would like to take advantage of hindsight. something we always worn our suits to be too careful and look at the legacy from a birds eye view. northern victory sanctioned free labor, the model of a spouse by the republican party. northerners, the value of autonomy encephalitis and restraint catalyzed working men

proved their worth by ensuring victory. this conception of the war was perfectly circular but nonetheless compelling for northerners. the system of free labor appeal to ex-slaves. on the other hand white southerners predicted slaves with no native intelligence or spirit would drag the economy down. this was proved false entering into contracts with employers and illustrating they understood incentives and capitalism as well as whites. a former slave from tennessee responded to his ex-master's response to return to work for wages.

he asked that he send him the $11,000 he and his wife were entitled to. he generously subtracted the cost of clothing and health care and three doctors visit and pulling a tooth for mandy but asked the former master include interest. i draw my wages, he is in southern ohio, a lot of the kentucky slaves in ohio, here i draw my wages every saturday night but intense the never know pay day for negroes. surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defrauded the labor of his hire. is further consolidation of political authority. critics of lincoln accused him centralizing authority in the federal government siding his mention of habeas corpus. these actions did little to alter the dimensions of federal power after the war. jefferson davis enacted the same

measures and neither sorters nor northerners imagine they will last past the war free more lasting consequence in terms of federal authority where the institutional changes that facilitate a union victory improved in the postwar years that facilitate economic growth. the federal government seized a great control especially economic information. the government acquired more reliable knowledge of everything from train schedules to the composition of the labor force in postwar years, this information proved invaluable as republicans encourage the industrialization of a nation. as northern investors organizing themselves, they roster confronted with the demands of an impoverished south. one of the radical effects of emancipation and the war itself was economic impact by freedom to the slaves, emancipation nullified at the capital value. at least $3 billion in wealth held by southern white people vanished from their households. the bodies of the slate people are the single largest investment of any kind. from the perspective of slaves liberation day on the profits of their labor. the structural effect on the south of eliminated the main

source of capital in enormously hindered postwar business growth. the inability of southern states to make good on their wartime bonds, the war can be said to a devastated the economy. the southern agriculture infrastructure was hit hard. northern alabama in central georgia where both armies consumed are destroyed equipment and animals and mills. the importation of hard or deliberate and sure the

destruction of millions of southern cows and pigs and demolition of communication networks. the average total wealth of southern farmers in 1860 was $22,000 and the war reduced it to $3000. most of in the value of slaves. it would be naive to argue the civil war alone was responsible from the south's economic problems but just as surely it must be recognized the war retarded southern economic growth for decades if not longer. in contrast the war promoted growth of the northern economy. the diversion -- overall the war allowed northern corporations to build on the strengths they had been developing. those industries that produce were related goods benefited but a steady demand and shored up and low unemployment. meatpackers in chicago formed the first assembly line techniques to supply nor the soldiers with fresh meat. confusing today with the usda at what fresh means and that started a long time ago. the foundation of postwar expansion as a result of contracts was in they built out of the experience was the workforce and technology and supply system to make themselves powerhouses in the 1870's and 1880's. shipbuilders, weapons manufacturers jewel on contracts to devise postwar growth. the war widened the breach between north and south in the levels of industrialization and technological development and access to capital. hardest to assessable most important because of the

long-term nature with the cultural changes. most prominent among these was the hardening of animosities. the south of 1861 was fragile and unlikely coalition commission experience of suffering loss called the democracy of devastation welded the why south together by 1865. nobody had to ask who was the south, the people just defeated. kentucky secedes later and rejoice. fear and anger over the uncertainty upheld many southerners to overlook the visible seams other ad hoc war nation in overtime most can to regard the south as the natural place of his own. it was partly a consequence of southern men in the separation of defeat. that rubbing the wound you cannot resist print in the aftermath of the civil war southerners joint the population that as some point had lost a war. this split in historical ? experience between north and south would disappear with the u.s. defeat in the vietnam war. this historic diversions of experience only exacerbated the cultural alienation that each side perceived. southerners now return home to devastated feels and fresher communities and have little goodwill toward their enemies. they believe the war enacted by the north show the barbarism of the yankee character. and the cities, proved their instability. alluding that sometimes the arm is revealed -- the greedy that characterize most northerners. tireless spoke in new york and

referred to william sherman as "kind of a careless manner about fire." one of the very few southerners who could even discuss this topic and grady is of the next generation. a very few confederate veterans would've made that joke. a projection of anxiety generated by the conflict. massive out what to changes on the south especially southern men the efforts had been the protection that white men offered to their dependents including women, children, and slaves. defeat and the occupation of the south and emancipation revealed the hollowness of that commitment. the war created a profound crisis desperate a recommitment to an earlier, more hierarchical gender relations by men and women in the wake of defeat. southern women left exposed of evading armies were forced to assimilate new responsibilities during the war. defeat left them seeking stability and gender relations. a stark contrast, rather than repudiation, the war confirmed the superiority of southern masculine values of protection

and authority. southern female performers having played a key role in the abolition of slavery use that to lunch a new recall -- launched a new call. gender divide as well. if the world cup located gender relations, it soured race relations. the efforts of his slate people to aid the union is seen their free been destroyed the old fantasy of the loyal slave. southern whites saw the actions of southern black southerners as a betrayal and treated them like enemies. southern blacks or perhaps not surprised by the reluctance of southern whites to accept them into society. it did not slow to achieve a real freedom. the result was increasingly violence by whites to the african-americans which culminated as you know in the legal system as jim crow disenfranchise them and lynching. the conflict in the postwar decades played a role in shaping race relations. the civil war self-created of these conditions for suspicion in anger.

somewhat dour conclusion that the civil war do not accomplish very much and i do not want to leave that impression. i would argue the civil war changed on what everything. it took old problems in american life, slavery, states rights national identity and transformed them into the modern problems we wrestle with. racism, federalism and a truly national culture. participants it may have believed that perhaps briefly the civil war would solve these issues forever. even the civil war is a part of history not a conclusion. keep other pros continue their probably our grandchildren will be here in 50 years for the bicentennial still debating and learning about the past that made their world.

the efforts of enslaved people to aid the union is seen their free been destroyed the old fantasy of the loyal slave. southern whites saw the actions of southern black southerners as a betrayal and treated them like enemies. southern blacks or perhaps not surprised by the reluctance of southern whites to accept them into society. it did not slow to achieve a real freedom. the result was increasingly violent by whites to the

african-americans which culminated as you know in the legal system as jim crow disenfranchise them and lynching. the conflict in the postwar decades played a role in shaping race relations. the civil war self-created of these conditions for suspicion in anger. somewhat dour conclusion that the civil war do not accomplish very much and i do not want to leave that impression. i would argue the civil war changed on what everything. it took old problems in american life, slavery, states rights national identity and transformed them into the modern problems we wrestle with. racism, federalism and a truly national culture. participants it may have believed that perhaps briefly the civil war would solve these issues forever. even the civil war is a part of history not a conclusion. keep other pros continue their probably our grandchildren will be here in 50 years for the bicentennial still debating and learning about the past that made their world. thank you. [applause]

aaron: we have times for questions. you need to come up. there's a microphone in each aisle. i can hear you. >> i need an opinion, one of the reasons why lee brought the army of northern virginia is an fought of gettysburg was with the idea of achieving a decisive defeat of the army of the potomac, believing that if he could do this decisive defeat of the union army it would end is a war. that the support of the war, but now he believed if he could put a killer blow on the army of the potomac that at the north would give up.

is that so? was lee in error? aaron: i do not think so. unlikely that the battle of gettsyburg goes against the north-- lincoln would resort and initiate, chancellorsville which [indiscernible] a strong piece party and popular will write a push in the direction that forced some kind of resolution. lincoln is committed to avoiding that. at what point does he the end or respond to popular demand? lee is smart in reading northern newspapers and taking the tenor of the north accurately. a decisive defeat is hard to accomplish with civil war

armies. it is the goal of every commander even though they know what happen, i will destroy the enemy's army. they are almost too big to suffer that catastrophic defeat. battles like nashville do not happen very often. very unlikely it would happen. politically the north at its most vulnerable in july of 1863. a significant defeat would turn in an unpredictable direction. >> lee was thinking right? aaron: taking a big risk which people knew. the army said we are not an invading force, we are intended to be an army of defense and we are changing the war in important ways. lee is taking a measure of risk

that is understandable from my perspective. >> thank you very much. >> when sherman was very notoriously a racist yet -- a huge shock for that to come out of him specifically. you did touch on two factors that could of impacted that, getting rid of the burden of his army and a meeting with a free people. i would add the reaction of getting stanton off of his back. what do you think about his personal contact with african-americans along the march? hitchcock row about sherman having conversations about african-americans along the march and given them a reward or supporting the union. what you think about those as

factors impinging on his issuing of special orders 15? aaron: like every union command economy is grateful to african-american soldiers for giving the army the intelligence as they need you about the location of the confederates. maybe some sense he is recognizing, offering thanks. i do not necessarily view special order field 15, not necessarily a magnanimous gesture. in some sense, it's the equivalent of an indian reservation. a lot a debate within and among the union command about the future of african-americans in the united states. where are they going to be? northern democrats have been doing their best to with hysteria up about the movement north that black men will come and take our jobs and critical reservation that ensures black southerners are putting what did are.

--at ensures black southerners are staying put where they are. not necessarily generates but astute and strategic given the dynamics of the north. certainly sherman and members of his army demonstrated this. their attitudes about african-americans as people change because of the march. sherman is mostly a man of his times. i will not regard them as fundamentally different. he says the more. worse than you hear from other people. i do think that within his army there is a growing respect and appreciation for african-americans as human beings which is essential to them thinking of the postwar world. many of its soldiers from the western states had very little interaction with african-americans. a very important experience. >> thank you. i am from portland, maine. my father's family is from louisiana. my cousin is a graduate of lsu. without invading your privacy,

overstepping my question, what are the challenges you face teaching the civil war in the south? aaron: that is a good question. well -- i have been lucky. as a civil war historian, i am in a place where people care passionately about the conflict and the past. my first semester teaching i was discussing the battle at fort hudson and afterwards a student came up and said, the battlefield has got it wrong. the surrender where there is a state park today. my grandfather, it is my grandfather's land. if you ever want to see it, we can go up and see it. those things, it's hard to do

that in maine. if you are teaching the civil war. it means that students come with a baggage sometimes. a cultural stereotype that southern students are polite and observe hierarchy. actually unusual for them to challenge professors in a hostile sort of way. even if they hold strikingly different opinions. i will say that this is something that change within my lifetime. the first school i taught at in jacksonville. to one of my colleagues right when it opened described his first day as he got his degree at north dakota. fresh off the boat and lands in jacksonville and the campus mostly swamped. and he goes in with the civil war as his first class and barely got into hello students and a woman stood up as slams her book and said i've been waiting to take this class and i'm not take it from a

blankity-blank yankee and stormed out. he was petrified. brand-new. he told me after i'd been there what a great teaching moment to try to unpack that experience. she is not coming there to you hear a critical story about the civil war. she wanted a reassuring and offering story. for southern students in particular that i think are interested in learning and understanding the challenges of what they heard, i find it a very rewarding a valuable place to teach. one more over here. >> and north america has several examples of what can happen to an army in enemy territory like the retreat from pittsburgh. and saratoga. these behemoth armies going through the woods. what prevented that from happening in the carolinas?

aaron: the simple answer is there is no men left. south carolina had lost a high percentage of its men. i know virginia better but i think south carolina is close to 90%. 15% left. by 1865, most of those units are in guerrilla units or somewhere else and are predisposed not to participate. there is also an enormous amount of fatigue. sherman's armie is a powerful force moving across the landscape -- army is a powerful force moving across the landscape. gloria is working on a book about confederate pows. in the process of moving them,

hundreds escaped. they moved like a plague of locusts across the south carolina countryside. you do get in the spring of 1865, not a guerrilla war but communities banding together to cap sure -- capture these runaway union soldiers and the lack southerners hiding them. traditional south carolinians are overwhelmed at that point. there is too much going on in their state to engage in the sniping that happens in other places. >> sean murphy from alexandria, virginia which some would say it was the first southern city captured by the union. perhaps more importantly, robert ely's -- robert e lee's boyhood home. his property was seized during the war and became what is now

arlington cemetery. talking about lee what affect his actions have if any to reconciliation? aaron: the common argument is that lee promoted reconciliation. he doesn't adopt an adversarial tone. it is true that he does those things. i think there has been some good work on lee's management of the college and what happens in lexington. it is a pretty unpleasant story. particularly, the treatment of african americans around lexington by students. there is a great article about the harassment and acts of violence perpetrated against black lexington audience. -- lexingtonians.

he looks like any other white southerner. he is seeing how to exert authority but is not bucking for higher office. he is it somebody like mosvyby who becomes a republican and tries to work actively with the new governing coalition. i would say that his contribution is neutral. >> thank you. aaron: thank you. [applause] >> the civil war heirs fear every saturday. to watch more of our civil war programming anytime visit our website, c-span.org/history.

>> university of virginia history professor gary gallagher has written or edited over 20 books on the american civil war. up next, professor gallagher discusses general robert e. lee's surrender --