[applause] [indiscernible] mr. mandel: the men involved with adolf eichmann is a hungarian jewish lawyer. a book was written about that situation. and you getner,

lots of information about my particular story. >> unfortunately, we will not have time for questions and. take this to opportunity to thank our panel today and say how it them -- how important it is for the soldiers who witnessed the atrocities and for the survivors who lived through it and did survive to be able to speak to such a group of young leaders. they remind us of the constant need to be vigilant, citizens, and stop in justice, prejudice and hatred, wherever that may be throughout the world. that is one of our jobs as soldiers and sailors. i want to say one word, yiddish, to these two gentlemen. language]foreign [applause] watching american

history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. next, a panel of historians discuss the battle of 1863,lors will in considered to be general robert e. lee's greatest victory. initially, union general joseph poker plan to envelop the confederate army, but chose to retreat instead. the resulting victory temporarily tipped the balance of war in favor of the confederacy, despite the fatal shooting a general jackson. the new york historical society hosted this hour-long event. >> good evening. it's great to be back at the new york historical society. it is hard to believe that there

actually is a battle this trio has yet to cover in our ongoing series great we have at least .ne more battle we thank you for joining us. as you heard, the subject is the battle of chancellorsville. there, we have to cover a little bit of the terrain. it is a neglected battle in an audit self. it has so many links to what came before and what came after that we wanted to do some context. you, thestart with by quite apreceded few months of quiet in the winter of 1862, 1863.

changed, as i will show you here. recruitment of african-americans for the union army begins following the emancipation proclamation, and legislation. much has changed. you set the scene for us chronologically. >> one thing that had been going on during the winter of 19 of -- decline in63 was a morality the northern armies, especially the army of the potomac, and also in northern public opinion after the dispiriting defeat at fredericksburg in december. there was an increasing concern with manpower in the union armies. attrition -- desertion's were high during the winter, casualties and a terrible battles that had taken place in the summer and fall and winter

preceding. there had been a growing effort to bring about the abolition of slavery. lincoln had issued the emancipation proclamation, and accompanying the pressure for emancipation was a growing conviction that the freed slaves constituted an important reservoir of manpower for union armies. abolitionists,he radical republicans, and increasingly most members of the republican party, including by the winter, president lincoln himself, who had initially been lukewarm towards the idea of black soldiers but had become a convert to that. in march of 1863, he writes a letter to andrew johnson, his military governor of tennessee, become active to

in the recruitment of black soldiers from among the freed slaves in central tennessee. if we could put 50,000 black soldiers in uniform, it would bring about an end to the war almost at once. convertis now a strong to that. is debating a bill to recruit black soldiers. the secretary of war establishes a bureau of colored troops in the war department. he sends general lorenzo thomas to the mississippi valley, which was occupied by union forces, with instructions to begin recruiting black troops in that area, which had tens of thousands of free slaves. mark.s is getting off the within six months of lincoln's

letter to andrew johnson, they were pretty close in march of 1862. >> which as we know did not stop the war and its tracks. >> not at all. talked brieflye draft,nother change, the military conscription, and then if you'd like, i hope we can move into what is on the screen now, which is the battle of fredericksburg. important first to consider because it covers part of the same terrain that will be covered five months later at the battle of chancellorsville. >> right. the thing that struck me, what jim said about the coming of black troops, sometimes we in

modern 21st-century america say, of course this is going to happen. but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen. in fact, there was a tremendous amount of resistance to this you wouldidea that give a weapon to a black man -- we would not think much of it today, but that whole concept was very concerning. was one of the reasons why people were not so sure what was going to be going on in 1863. what does this mean, that we are reaching a point where we have who werein these -- considered inferior people. you considered what happened in new york city with the draft riots after this time, you get some idea of the feeling that the average american had towards black soldiers.

but it happened. >> compounded by resentment because of the draft. >> yes, obviously. for us to it's hard imagine this, although i think you could think that if president obama today said we will bring back the draft majore we have this conflict in syria and the middle east, etc. -- what do you think the reaction of the american public would be to that? i think it would be negative, to put it mildly. then you throw in fredericksburg. fredericksburg is one of those battles that had an enormous psychological impact on the american people, on the people in the north, and the people in

the south in a different way. fredericksburg sought a slaughter. i do not think you can put it any other way. the the battle is over, commanding general, general burnside, wants to do it again. burnside, in all his glory. i always say that john and i can take attention away from the obvious, just grow sideburns. >> that is where the name sideburn came from. he leads the disastrous battle of fredericksburg. pour lincoln. i can't imagine what he must've been -- i guess what he was going through, but he turns to his chief of what later on will become his chief of staff and said, what should i do in regard burnside?lan of

not up tos, that's me. it's up to the generals in the field to make that decision. and then, of course, even burnside says, please help me. give me your advice. he simply will not do it. butake a long story short, burnside comes up with the idea of a campaign in the winter. why not, it's a little cold. also muddy, it's difficult to move around, it's terrible if you are a soldier trying to work with that cold, and the result is the mud march, which is an absolute disaster. it's because of that that we have some changes made. burnside loses the battle of

fredericksburg. he is still in command. he wants a second chance at robert e dolly, -- robert e. lee, but his staff is not very sanguine about his ability to lead. tell us what happened with the morale of the leadership of the army of the potomac. >> when burnside comes up for , at plan for a new campaign the end of december, a lot of the corps commanders and vision commanders within the army do not support this. franklin,m would be and wasa mcclellan man behind the scenes of bringing mcclellan back to command of the army since two of his division commanders -- since two of his

division commanders to washington, and they seek a conversation with lincoln. newside is planning this campaign, and he will be a disaster again. lincoln sends word to burnside to suspend the campaign. burnside suspects what has happened, that one of his principal subordinates is gone to hide back. he comes to washington, he meets with lincoln and the advisor. burnside is angry. he goes back after this conference, which leads nowhere, and plans the campaign that buts to the mud march, after the fiasco of the mud angry about the within the ranking generals and the army of the potomac that he writes out orders firing several of them.

franklin in particular, joe hooker, who has been making noises behind the scenes -- openly to newspaper reporters that burnside is a disaster, the stanton, how like, and -- how he and stanton ought to be fired. what this country needs is a dictator. burnside does not like this. he sends orders dismissing half a dozen generals. lincoln says you can't do that, i'm commander in chief and i appoint and fire generals. >> my man henry raymond, editor of "the new york times," was with the army of the potomac when order number 8 was issued firing the staff here at -- staff.

totakes a copy to lincoln incite him against burnside. >> when lincoln revokes burnside's order, burnside offers his resignation and lincoln says, i will have to accept this resignation. low and behold, he appoints joe hooker. >> remind everybody -- the reason i'm spending so much time with context here is because all of this is crucially important, to know what's happening behind the scenes and know about the turmoil in the general staff. black troops on the horizon, the staff -- it's all part of what leads up to what will be hooker's great triumph at chancellorsville. political about the crisis at that time. >> in the days after , when theburg

newspaper editorials were saying that things are going to hell, there ought to be a change in the government, change in the army, things are just terrible -- the republican senators get and say,in the caucus we've got to do something. the government is falling apart, the country is falling apart. the problem really is that the heart of some of the members of the cabinet, particularly secretary of state william h. seward, are not in this cause. there were rumors that seward had opposed the emancipation proclamation. and so, they wanted to get rid of seward. and maybe 43 organization of the cabinet entirely. so they seek an interview with lincoln, say that seward has lost the confidence of the country, and maybe some other

cabinet members have lost the confidence in the country, and we think you ought to reorganize your administration. that creates a political crisis in washington. if lincoln had down to this pressure, he would have lost -- he would have yielded power to a click of republican senators in the united states senate. the newspapers are full of reports that the administration is collapsing, that there would be a wholesale change in the cabinet. maybe even lincoln will resign. unlink it tells one of his confidants, senator browning from illinois, the one republican senator, does not take part in this attempted coup, that maybe these people want to get rid of him and maybe i should oblige them by resigning. lincoln resolves it through political acumen. he calls the cabinet together

and the senators all meet with the government. -- polls the cabinet about whether they are united behind this cause and administration policy. the secretary of the treasury had been telling the senators that lincoln doesn't really consult his cabinet, the cabinet is divided. lincoln calls on one member after another, including chase, and they all say no. we know what we are doing, and the senators have to back down. seward's resignation in hand. n, with typical use of metaphor, he says now i have a pumpkin in each of my bags and i can ride. resignations.h

the cabinet remains the same and this crisis passes. the fact that there was a crisis is an indication that the mood of demoralization, at least in washington and across much of the north as well. >> i want to add to that, something i mentioned before -- halleck is supposed to be the general -- lincoln brought him on because he wanted a military man who would give military advice in washington. . halleck takes the position that it's up to the generals in the field. i can give them advice, up to a point, but i can't make them do anything. lincoln becomes very frustrated over that situation and says, what am i going to do? when we get into the coming of

fighting joe hooker, as he was happy, halleck is not because he knows ohchr from california and is not too thrilled with him. lincoln is not particularly happy with him. but they've got to have somebody. who can we pick? >> here is hooker. tell us about him, aside from his california sojourn. -- tohting joe hooker digress a little bit, the nickname, "fighting joe hooker," is not because of anything he particularly did but because of what some of harold's friends did in the press. he was involved in the battle and the headline was fighting, first line, second line, joe hooker. somebody forgot about the dash and from then on he was fighting joe hooker. the also has a reputation, and it's one of those things that is

difficult to really pin down, but this is why halleck did not like him from the california days, he drank too much. hooker just simply drank too much. the result was he did not do the kind of things that halleck thought ought to be done by a prim and proper general or gentleman, as the case may be. ofker is an intriguing sort guy. harold pointed out that he's working behind the scenes to get burnside out. time, he's an individual who knows his trade, and he takes over the army of the potomac and he sees immediately it is a mess. so he spends a lot of time reorganized, doing simple things like making sure the troops are , making sure that the

kitchens where the food is being produced if that is what is happening when they're in a situation, makes sure that they are hygienic, that the hospitals -- he does the kind of things, and he lets the boys go off on furlough. he does some good things, he organizes some good things. the first plan he comes up with for chancellorsville is not a bad plan. they could have worked, but there were some issues. >> my final prelude comment before we get to that plan and whether it was a good 1 -- he is a fighter. he does not want political injury the way mcclellan did. he's a fairly good organizer. certainly compared to your friend general halleck, he's

rather dashing. >> not a good picture, by the way. >> it's not a great picture. i would not call it dashing. >> compared to halleck, he looks good. >> compared to the three people on the platform. [laughter] gets wind of the fact that he has this idea of becoming a conquering hero and dictator, and i want to segue into the fact that lincoln writes one of his most famous letters to hooker, which i want to quote. writes, it was not for this, but in spite of it, i had given you the command. only those generals who gained successes can set up dictators. beware of freshness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victory.

it is an open letter. you want to be a dictator, come arnet. putdown of hooker, but hooker treasured that letter. he carried it with him throughout the campaign. >> another thing that has to be pointed out, lincoln appoints halleck to his position -- >> hooker. >> you said halleck. >> hooker. the good-looking guy in front of me. hooker to thiss position, he lets him report directly to the president. he does not happen to report to alex. -- halleck. >> that helps us into the next image i want to show, which is a raw sketch by one of the great

artist correspondence of the civil war, of lincoln visiting the army of the potomac, writing in a military procession. the blank there is supposed to be hooker. did not getrobably it as good as he wanted it to be, so he was going to redo it. extraordinary relic. is this also unusual the lincoln goes down to talk about the plan that hooker is formulating for going back to the same area? lincoln is trying -- my view of lincoln, at the beginning of the war he is saying, i don't know anything about fighting. generals who know their stuff around me. but as the war goes on, lincoln comes to see that he knows more than his generals. certainly --is

army of thed the potomac 11 different times over the course of the war. this was one of those 11 times. >> it's before 4 or 5 of them. we're talking about 6 at this point. as john said, by this stage of the war, lincoln is taking a hands-on role. he was commander in chief in name, but also in actual fact by this stage of the wars. of course, earlier on as i said a few moments ago, he had actually vetoed one of burnside's plans. it's not unusual for lincoln to consult with his generals. he meets with hooker and some of his corps commanders when he visits the army in april of 1863.

departs to go back to washington after talking over with hooker his plan for this campaign, he tells hooker and the senior corps commander at , put in allxt time your best. that had been a chronic problem with the army of the potomac, piecemeal attacks rather than putting all their men in a coordinated attack. cooker says before or after beforesit -- hooker says or after this visit, may god have mercy on general lee. we have to remember there is an opponent. >> for i shall have none. >> still formidable, for all of his aches and pains and angina and whatever he was suffering at the time. still formidable, right? >> he is.

thinking about this program tonight, it struck me that if you look at lee and you look at hooker, and harold holds her would ask is, how would you characterize these people? i would think lee would characterize as audacious, and hooker you would characterize as hesitant. leeou look at this battle, does all sorts of things that by all standards of that time, you should not be doing. you should not be dividing your army that way. hooker, who have comes up with a decent plan. as soon as she gets some opposition, he backs away from it. >> this is supposed to be the battle of chancellorsville. what is happening here in may 1863? he's crossing the river, trying to get back to territory that burnside had lost. the idea -- throughout this

time, the idea is to capture richmond. all we have to do is capture richmond. growing,s already already on to the realization. it is not for geographic capital, it's the army. we have to destroy the confederate army. in this particular case, does the failure of fredericksburg having this enormous impact on people -- halleck comes up with this plan of basically doing the same thing, cutting off lee's back andforcing him cutting him off from richmond so richmond will then fall, and hooker will be a hero and everybody will live happily ever after. but it doesn't work out that way. plan for development, if he had continued it, i think

had a good chance of working. but as soon as lee makes a countermovement, hooker stops. he starts digging in. and iticize him for that, do, for digging in instead of continuing on the offensive. who has written probably the best book in chancellorsville and on hooker, makes the argument that really, hooker was doing the right thing by setting up a defensive perimeter, and forcing lee to attack can. -- him. you can argue that by stopping hooker gives the initiative to lee, then lee has control of that battle. it depends how you look at it. >> why is it called lee's masterpiece? >> i think we need to back up a bit before we can get to that, and talk about what hooker's plan was.

hooker's -- the army of the potomac outnumbers lee at chancellorsville nearly 2:. 1. lee had sent two of his division south of the james river to carry on a campaign against suffolk, virginia. some of the best troops and the army of northern virginia were not with lee. he had only about 60,000 men there. hooker comes up with a fairly complicated plan which if all on paper, has, great promise. he sends most of his cavalry on the deep raid behind the confederate lines to tear of the railroads between fredericksburg and richmond, and interrupt lee's source of supply. 2/3 of hisds infantry up behind the river to 10 or 15the forge,

miles from fredericksburg, to come in behind the confederates at fredericksburg, rather than try to assault them from the front the way burnside had. he leaves 1/3 of his armies there at fredericksburg to threaten the confederates there. it's a classic envelopment. it the first 2 or 3 days works perfectly. he gets 2/3 of the army across the potomac river, and they come in behind lee. rear marching toward lee's of fredericksburg. they get two miles or so beyond chancellorsville. chancellorsville is not really a town, it's a plantation owned by the chancellor family. it is a crossroads. stops, because he

runs into enemy troops, confederate troops. r issues the orders to his army for this envelopment move. says the enemy -- we must attack the enemy and he must seem gloriously fly. is confronted with this envelopment, by superior number, hooker has 110,000 men. lee would be forced to retreat to the north and a river and make a stand there. instead, lee decides to confront or 4/5 ofh about 3/4 his army, leaving behind only 10,000 troops at fredericksburg and marching west under jackson to meet with the hookers at the army of the potomac. .hen that happens, hooker stops

he expected lead to retreat. -- lee to retreat, when he saw that lee was going to be trapped between the hammer and the andal -- anvil. instead, lee since 45,000 or so of his troops to confront hooker 12,000 ates 10,000 or chancellorsville. sees this, rather than smashing through those troops, which is what he should have done, he retreats. stephen seer says that is what he should have done, but i don't agree with him. neither did the corps commanders under hooker.

other commanders thought they , and that they should smash him. no, we are going to pull back into a defensive perimeter. he yields the initiative to lee. i was going to apologize for the absence of maps to show these positions. if jim mcpherson is here, you don't need a map. let's bring this man into the mix on stonewall jackson's part. jackson, the idea -- jim knows the details better than anybody does that i know -- what lee does is divide his army. and up a little bit, lee

stonewall jackson are having a conference, trying to decide what they are going to do. they look at the right flank of the union army, and that is anchored on the river. but then they look on the right flank of the union army, and they see that it is in the air. it's not anchored to anything. theman who is in charge of 11th corps believes, i think, that he really is anchored in those woods and nobody can get through. what happens in this battle is by 2 1/2 miles in front of the union line, stonewall jackson ands his troops around ofshes into the right flank the union position. it is what they talk about,

crossing the tee. this is what happens. he rolls of the 11th floor under howard for about two miles. here is where we begin as a little confusion. most people when they look at the battle of chancellorsville, lee said it's all over and has won the battle. but there's a great deal more to this that has to happen. not getting into too much detail, but you have two dies -- sides of the confederate army separated by 9 miles. they have to come back together, hooker is smashed into one and smashed into the other one. what does hooker do? and allows the

confederates to come together again. this is where i did not explain myself very well in respect to stephen sears. he says -- and i would be curious what you think -- that at that point, the confederates were out manning hooker by 36,000 to 24,000. he thinks pulling back at that time was the thing to do. i agree with what you said, but i'm curious how you would react to that. >> it's a question of who you are counting. hooker has only 24,000 men, he means in a particular area. in he's got three army corps a good position. this is on may 1 when hooker

decides to stop. he could have brought his hree corps -- three corps together. -- together, which would have outnumbered the objection. the main road are outnumbered by the confederates. happens after jackson, to pick up jackson's flank attack which happens late noon of may 2, that eventually is brought to a stop at dartmouth. but jackson wants to keep up the pressure, and he takes a few staff members -- there's a full moon that night -- and rides ahead to scout out the union position. what jackson wants to do is continue the attack and cut off the union forces from their

pontoon bridges and fords over the upper headache river. we do have a full moon. that turns out to be a tragic mistake for the confederates and for himself, because as he's riding back towards his own anes, and the moonlit night, regiment of north carolina troops which had earlier been , they hadion cavalry been charged early by union cavalry so they were nervous. horsemen heard these riding from the direction of the union line, they fire at them. two bullets hit jackson. >> here is the moment -- >> it makes it a lot lighter than it was. >> there is jackson falling. >> he falls off his horse, they

take them to the rear, they amputate his arm. while he is being carried to the nearby,shell explodes kills one of the litter bearers, and they drop him. that is what wound up killing jackson, not the bullet and the amputation of the arm, because from the shock of being dropped on the ground, and it affected his lungs, he contracts pneumonia and dies 9 dies later. this is an oversimplistic rendering of the death of jackson. he was taken to a house to recover. we thought it would be more appropriate if they set up a in. with his horse looking

>> it's also an interesting point that stonewall jackson's arm is the only limited military history to have its own monument. >> it's not the arm, it's the monument. it's a statue of it. >> the one i've seen is the small little thing saying, stonewall jackson. >>'s arm is buried and there is a monument where his arm is buried. we should ask anybody who has questions to please come up to the microphone on both aisles. >> while that is happening, let me add a little bit too kind of bring the story of the battle to a conclusion. this happens to stonewall jackson on the night of may 2, but as john said, the battle is not over. most of the battle was still to happen. indeed, the next morning

after some fighting that continues that night, the next an attacke launches which brings his troops back together on the union defense of position. from dawn on may 3 until the confederates breakthrough and drive the union forces off their defensive line, some of the heaviest fighting in the war takes place. we all know that antietam was the bloodiest day of the war. more soldiers were killed and wounded in one day at antietam than any other single day of the war. but the fighting, from 6:00 in the morning on may 3 until noon that day, almost equal the number of casualties at antietam which took lay's in 12 hours. some of the heaviest, most intense, most brutal fighting in the war took place on the morning of may 3.

and that is basically what won the battle for the confederates. there was more going on. hooker since word back to general john sedgwick, the was in charge of the union troops at at thecksburg, to attack same place that the army of potomac had come back to greece . they breakthrough. hooker's idea is that they will come up on the rear of lee from that direction. all his other plants have failed, and he still hopes he will be able to win the victory. makes progress, he breaks through at fredericksburg and race west towards chancellorsville, but lee divides his army yet again in order to confront sedgwick and tries him to retreat across the potomac, and then reunites his army against the rest of the

army of the potomac. hooker decides to retreat across the river. >> the union did a lot of retreating across the river. >> yes, he did. >> the reason it is called a masterpiece is because he repeatedly defies the military conventions against dividing your army, repeatedly divides his army, since one part of it then it reunites the army, then divides it again to confront sedgwick, and he maintains control of the battle through this process because he initially sees the initiative from hooker or hooker yielded to him, and he never lets it go. >> lets see if we can get some questions. >> thank you for a wonderfully enlightening lecture. my question deals with john sedgwick and george made. they both were really angry that

they were held in reserve. some but not what he was going to get. had meade been put into action, would he have been able to attract jackson as jackson made that attack down main street? >> quite likely he could have. that goes back to the advice that lincoln had given. meade and john reynolds division hardly fired a shot in anger. hooker had the superiority almost 2-1 over meade, but he did not use 2 1/2 of his own army corps. you are quite right that meade

was angry. urias couch, commander of the yes, they were angry with hooker, because he did not handle his army in the effective way that lee was handling his army. >> at the same time we have hooker blaming his corps to matters. >> he blames sedgwick. >> and howard? fore also blames stoneman not -- hooker has tried to divert blame from himself. >> i took some quick notes before i came here tonight. comment about the latest masterpiece -- listen to these statistics.

men, injured,,000 killed, etc. about 13%. lee had 60,000 men. 12,821, which is 22% of his army. that blew my mind, but the number of killed a chancellorsville -- booker lost 1606. 1665.st lee actually lost more troops killed at chancellorsville than hooker. and yet we talk about it as a masterpiece because of what we talked about. hugemasterpiece with ramifications for the future. that is another topic we can get into, did lee use his troops in

the best way? did he preserve his troops or pitter them away over a period of time? i know the personalities are very interesting to talk about. and walked the battlefield, it's difficult to see where anything is. it is the same as the wilderness battlefield, difficult to see. i wonder how much there is a pattern of operational failure when the union army is on the .ffensive same type of terrain, difficult to see where anything is. there is a total effect that aspens there at the river well. >> one of the things we just take for granted, that everybody knew where everybody was during the civil war.

they did knowme where they were, in particular i think you're right, in that wilderness area, the confederates knew that terrain better than did the union troops, who really did not have decent maps until long in the war. grant fought in that same terrain, and he figured out a way to get through it or get around it. >> later. >> later. you are absolutely right, much of the battle of chancellorsville took place and what was called the wilderness, an area in virginia of second growth pine and scrub oak trees. the first growth had been cut down to create charcoal for the iron smelting industry. when the second growth grew up, it was very thickly wooded in that area.

the visibility is very limited. but that leads to another comment about hooker. 1 as his army was moving towards lee's rear, they marched out of the wilderness. east oft 2 miles chancellorsville crossroads, the country opens up. it's open farm country, different soil. by pulling back into this defensive position on the edge of the wilderness, hooker creates two strikes against himself. jackson has been able to use the concealment of this thick woods to carry out his flag march, and then to attack through the woods that howard thought was impenetrable.

that is why they are able to surprise the 11th corps on may 2. >> some union soldiers saw stonewall jackson's movement and told hooker and howard, and they ignored it. they said, he's just retreating. >> they said, ok. let him go, great. >> it's a great question, remember terrain as an element. is, could you comment on hooker's injury and the impact that had? fallout from the porch fall on his head. >> that's one. there's always a lot of focus on jackson's flanking maneuver. warren, i think in his report 10

days after the battle, seem to minimize that and say although the 11th was routed, it was short up and it wasn't destroyed. he seems to play somewhat more and the on the third delays in getting out of fredericksburg. the second one is a little bit complicated. >> we are running out of time. the injury first. issues is,he other the issue that jim brilliantly talks about in his book about the drinking, was he on the wagon, was hooker on the wagon, and jim makes a brilliant point that he really needed some liquid courage that time. >> are you maintaining that he fell on the pillar? stuff.resting >> during the fighting on the

morning of may 3, as i talked about a moment ago, hooker has his headquarters. he is standing on the front porch about a mile from the confederate lines, with an artillery range of the confederates. a confederate cannonball hits the pillar holding up the canopy over this porch, and the roof falls on hooker's head. he is unconscious for several minutes. >> and might have taken himself out of command. >> the question is, should he have remained in command? he suffers a severe concussion. while he is out and as he's on theto, he's vomiting ground. clearly not with it. couch and some of the other corps commanders tried to persuade jonathan letterman, the medical director of the army of the potomac, to rule that hooker

is no longer competent to command. but letterman did not feel like he had that power. hooker refuses to yield command. part of the speculation is that if he had yielded command, couch and wasve taken over, eager to counter attack the confederates. instead, hooker gives the orders to pull back to a new defensive position and two days later to retreat back. >> there were no heroic renditions of the porch falling on hooker, as there are many, many depictions of jackson's meeting, and stonewall being shot by friendly fire. the second question --

>> the delays in getting out from fredericksburg, how important they were. sedgwick could have shown more aggression and initiative in responding to hooker's orders. blamingt that hooker's of sedgwick was entirely without foundation. sedgwick probably did not perform up to expectations. he was a bit slow, but he did finally carry the position and come in partly on lee's rear until he divides his army and counterattacks and eventually drives sedgwick back across the river. >> 1.i would like to make, -- one point i would like to make, consider this is happening in may. the battle of gettysburg is a couple months later in july. hooker loses his command, but i

think it's fair to say that that is hooker's army, the army that he brought together that is fighting for meade. i'm not saying evoke her -- if hooker had stayed as general, the same thing would have happened. >> at gettysburg. >> we have to at least give hooker that credit. >> for bringing the army to the point -- >> exactly. >> hooker wants to continue fighting. "r" word again, rashnes. -- rashness. pursue, doesn't want an ox to be caught on a fence. when he hears about the he says, my god,

what will the country say? at the same time, we have the smith developing that meade becomes the successor on the battle of gettysburg. we have this astonishingly strong legend, the last meeting of lee and jackson, a great commander and his lieutenant. it was one of mark twain's favorite paintings. he said, the only problem is, we askingnow whether lee is jackson what his plans are or how his family is our whether he can get him a cup of coffee. ripn wrote this wonderful on this picture. we have covered what happens and in our gettysburg talks we will be back soon to talk about more actions of the war. you have been a wonderful audience and we thank you. [applause]

>> you are watching american history tv. 40 hours of programming every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter @cpsn anhistory for information on our schedule and to keep up with latest history news. sawne of the things that i throughout this entire timeline was that most of the founding fathers knew in their minds that slavery was wrong. they knew it. but they weren't willing to inconvenience their own lives to make that come true. >> something eight, on q&a -- sunday night, on q&a, "the in visible," the untold story of african-american slaves in the white house. >> the majority of the founding fathers that became president were all slaveowners.

they would bring in slaves from the plantations. george washington did this as well. keyboarding slaves -- he brought in slaves from mount vernon. they served as the first domestic staff to the u.s. president. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q&a. >> coming up next on american history tv, authors ralph ehrenberg and herman viola talk about "mapping the west with lewis and clark." the co-authors displayed the original map made by lewis and clark after their exploration of the western landscape of the united states. they discussed the role native americans played in the expectation. the library of congress hosted this hour-long event. >> thank you john. herman and i are going to act as a tag team today.