thank you so much for my colleagues and to all of you. [applause] author richard mcmurray talks about the civil war battles around atlanta in 1864. and he compares the strategies of confederate commanders joseph e johnston and his successor john bell hood. he argues that johnston's reluctance earlier in the campaign to engage with william tecumseh sherman place tied in a difficult position to defend atlanta once he assumed command. this is a 50 minute event.

i would like to echo what bud said about events. he came up to where i live in dalton. i told since that since i am a georgia tech fan. he was still coaching and george i was going to push him off the ridge. he had retired by then. although i don't know that as much help. i was also interested in what kevin said this morning. the old lady came out she heard the pearl harbor and said to the end he's going to be with us this time? december 8, 1941. a reporter for the local newspaper went out to interview them about what they thought about the events of the previous day pearl harbor was the old fellas to himself up and said

this never would've happened if albert sidney johnston had been killed at shiloh. maybe it's not just some of the college students today who don't know it's going on. it seems to run through. of time. aboutoffer some remarks the atlanta campaign of 1864. i want to put into context with you. itt is what i think makes very important. three mosttwo or important operations of the civil war. let's look at what happened in 1863 and earlier. the confederate cause started with the launch

of kentucky and mitch confederate history since then. trying to reverse the downward course. it began with the loss of kentucky. in 1863 confederate army in virginia seems to be on a roll. manassas andcond had invaded maryland. he slaughtered burnside's army at fredericksburg. he had won the battle chancellorsville and in the summer of 1863 he was in pennsylvania. he fell back to virginia at the same time the confederates suffered a devastating loss in mississippi. a similar defeat in middle tennessee with rosecrans captured at chattanooga.

they were chased back into georgia. so if you look at it from the perspective of someone just viewing the overall war it would seem like the union was now on a roll. union armies were winning in virginia and tennessee. 1964 will have to do be to follow up the victories they had won the previous year. confederacy that had suffered staggering losses of gettysburg in vicksburg chickamauga missionary ridge actually staggering losses. couldn't hold out much longer. winter the confederate authorities stephen newton

the loss for the cause. the manpower shortage. in the winter of 1863 to 64. documenting how the confederate authorities rebuilt the numerical strength of the confederate army that winter. age expanded the conscript itmptions for occupation ended the practice of hiring substitutes. akoni efforts to grab people and put them in the army. -- draconian efforts to grab people and put them in the army. sent some of his guards out of the theater. people came out of the theater and i stopped and asked why aren't you in the army.

authorization to be on furlough. you have an authorization for exemption from service. and if the man did not they dragged him off to the conscript camp. the newspaper reported that the .adies and gentlemen they did incredible job of rebuilding the army. they really don't a lot of us of -- they rebuilt a lot of the supplies that the army had lost. the blockade running ships were coming into service. bringing tons of supplies into the service. as of 1864 the confederates in damageys had repair the that they had suffered the previous year. from the point of view of federal authorities. the confederacy would just so topple over.

and it march of 1864 lincoln named to you the success grants to command all the union forces. authority advanced a five prime campaign to wipe out the confederates pen them down everywhere and went them out. one of these efforts would be made in louisiana are along the gulf coast against mobile. eastniel banks would move from new orleans to mobile along the gulf coast capture that city that not only was an important fort for the confederacy that was even more important was the real juncture because the only railroad line of communication between the east and the west of the confederacy at that time ran through mobile. if you capture mobile you have cut that. all the food that was grown in

the tombigbee river valley. a second restaurant, the shenandoah valley. under general franz sigel. they could destroy a lot of the food that was grown in virginia. supporting the civilian population there. the third thrust would come in southeastern virginia. general benjamin butler. both were really auxiliary operations. the main operation would come in virginia from grant himself would direct the army of the potomac against robbery lee -- robert e. lee.

grant's favorite subordinate william t sherman would lead a campaign into georgia. began, the union effort had a problem. the campaign along the gulf coast had to be abandoned because earlier in the year the federal's had gone to red river in louisiana. they continue to advance. by the time they got them out it was too late. the campaign in southeastern virginia under butler. grant said picturesquely not accurately that was a battle strongly corked.

it was defeated at newmarket on may 15. the corps cadets from the virginia military institute with a little help from the confederate army unit that happened to be there. it defeated sigel and drove them back down the valley. granted virginia and sherman in georgia. granted as but mention this morning. five or 10,000 above that. by the end of the summer lee was pinned down in richmond with part of his army. the grant was pinned down there too. he found himself facing a

problem when lead attached part of his army to the shenandoah valley. they marched into maryland the suburbs of washington. burned chambersburg. things are not going well in the late summer. that is why the atlanta campaign is so crucial. himself in a situation in 1864 where he'd come to change a lot of his views that he held about how to conduct a war. fighting had long battles if somehow you could drive the enemy off the field your own thatwould be so battered it could take which manages the victory. the result was as sherman wrote to one of his family members early in the year that if the result can be obtained without fighting i would do it.

sherman didn't want to fight at all. his opponent was joseph e johnston. who didederate officer a classmate of robbery lee. -- the confederate officer was joseph e johnston who was a classmate of robert e lee. joseph e johnston was a perfectionist. he may have been too conscious of his reputation. if you didn't fight you could lose. mary chestnut says in her wonderful book once before the had gone birdston hunting with some friends. although they walked along with andothers blasting away johnston never fired a shot. he was always wrong. the birds were too high or too low.

the dogs were too far off are too close. day's end of the reputation was still intact. he had missed a single time. that is sort of the way he liked to run battles. you have a campaign in which one general doesn't want to fight unless he is heavily certain he will win. and you can never be actually certain. the others do not want to fight all. the campaign in north georgia that year was a campaign of maneuver. you got a couple of maps in your handout. i don't propose to follow it in a lot of detail because we said we don't have time for that this morning. i question whether it be worth it or not. just a very simple campaign.

johnston would take up a strong position and fortify it to make it even stronger. sherman would come up and there would be a day or two of skirmishing. the skirmishers would determine how strong johnston's position was. they will march around usually to the west and come in through the south. the railroad that supply johnston's army. he would retreat 15 miles or so to the south. position, fortify. which are sherman. -- wait for sherman. and so it went. new hope church, kennesaw mountain. chattahoochee. it was not a campaign of battles. it was a campaign of maneuver.

by this time the confederate authorities in richmond were becoming extremely alarmed with what was going on. davis sent jefferson johnston of blood telegram. i desire to hear from you specifically as to the situation and your plans so i can anticipate events. johnston sent a message that was so vague and some most meaningless. the enemy outnumbers me to one. my plan depends on the enemy. not much of a plan. i'm looking for a chance to fight and fortify the city. incentive is a message suggesting that they remove the prisoners of war in

andersonville which was 120 miles south of atlanta. what does that mean? did it mean that johnston was contemplating retreating all the way down to andersonville? davis was convinced that atlanta must be held for both logistical and political reasons. it was an election coming up in the northern states. time of17, after a long annking it over, davis sent order to atlanta removing johnston from command. we'll have time to get into all the details. there is a wonderful book where better than i have seen anywhere else.

if you want a detailed discussion, which shows beyond any doubt that davis was justified in removing johnston it is not fair to judge people by what happened later. davis did not know a lot because johnston had not communicated with him. he was replaced with general john bell hood. in the next 10 days he fought three battles as sherman tried to get around to atlanta. he fought the battle of peachtree creek. atlanta is at the center of that creek. 22 hood struck again east of atlanta against the

flank of sherman's army. city they west of the fought battle at ezra church. the confederates were defeated on the battlefield. they did not achieve what could intended to achieve. hood intended to achieve. but sherman had to stop his flanking movement. he said i can't guess his moves as i could johnston's. johnston was an intelligent man who did intelligent things. [laughter] leftsherman had learned less of his army exposed.

john dingell could planned to fight sherman around atlantic, it was pretty good. the problem was the execution of the plan. we don't know what would've happened if they afford as john bell hood intended. intended to attack piecemeal, one brigade at a time. they didn't communicate with each other. unbelievable for people who did commanding military forces for more than three years. hood wasral doing was trying to use a week part of sherman's line.

he developed good plans to deal with it. the problem was the execution of those plans. at any rate, they all failed. august, when it looked like the fighting around atlantic was a stalemate. sherman realized that something has got to be done. here firing sit artillery shells into the city. august, sherman took almost all of his army and went way out to the west of atlanta. some 15 or 20 miles to the railroad in jonesboro. the last railroad. supplied hoods army in atlanta. they can bungle to the tactical details of the battle.

units were lost in the battlefield. wandering off. sherman had possession of the railroad. had to evacuate atlanta. and renthen scarlett and percy had to evacuate atlanta. it was burning. [laughter] this is what the union needed if lincoln was going to win. lincoln's armies were achieving success. they lost in louisiana. they've been defeated in the shenandoah valley. atlanta, sherman has won this great victory. it notainly made inevitable and almost inevitable that lincoln would be reelected and to the north would see the war through to a final victory

with no compromise with slavery, no compromise with secession. sense, you can make the case that the atlanta campaign was one of the very decisive campaigns of the war. i call this topic a new framework. for understanding the atlanta campaign. if i'm going to deal with the new framework let me describe the old framework first. this is the way historians and others interpreted the atlanta campaign. almost from the time the civil 1960 ord down to about 1965 or 1970. they like to write that sherman on the inside was absolutely brilliant. and driving back confederates. trade as theer

general who won the great victory. argumentake a strong but you cannot make an argument that sherman did much of the battlefield himself. his strength was in logistics. supplying the army. in militaryld saw history that people who don't know much about the civil war talk about battlefield tactics. people know little bit talk about strategy. people who really know about it talk about supplies and logistics. that, the army cannot do much of anything. sherman was a master logistics. you should sit down and read his correspondence in the early months of 1864. when he is bringing his supplies forward. his armies in nashville and chattanooga.

he had prefabricated railroad bridges sitting on flat cars on sidetracks and chattanooga. the train comes down, you can jump right off and up here the bridge and within a matter of days perhaps even hours sherman's supply line back to chattanooga back in operation. that sort of thorough preparation for the campaign. on the battlefield, sherman was great leader. he did not have a killer instinct. he hampered his campaigns by showing undue favoritism to the part of his force that he had previously commanded. sherman amended three armies. of the ohio, the army of the cumberland and the army of the tennessee. sherman commended the army of the tennessee.

that was the part of his force to which he showed great favoritism. so much so that during one of hood's attacks on atlanta sherman did not send help to the because henessee thought the army of tennessee would be jealous. i wonder if some union soldiers pinned down of those trenches with bullets flying would really be jealous if other troops came in to chase the confederates away. i would suspect he would not be jealous. the attitude they took when the union army began taking in black troops. object, if sambo should stop a bullet coming to me direct?

i don't think they would be in the least bit jealous. inside, that is the established framework. sherman was it really in general brilliance is confined to logistics. side isederate different. because they're all kinds of controversies on the confederate side. began thegn confederate army was commanded by joseph e johnston. he had a great reputation. when he joined the confederate army. if you work in atlanta as i did in the 1940's and 1950's.

you would always hear that joseph e johnston was a brilliant general. if jefferson davis had just left him in command not only did he defeated sherman, but he would've pushed sherman back across the chattahoochee river and chased them through north georgia rounded amount of tennessee pursued them across kentucky even across the ohio river. walking on the water, he was so great. chasing sherman back. back into indiana and michigan. into hudson's bay. the pitiful remnants of sherman's army would've surrendered there. well, i have attitude growing up. when i get into graduate school i had the opportunity for the first time to read hundreds of letters and to diary entries and

telegrams and other documents written at the time. not things that were written after the war. there is a different picture emerges. johnston appears not to be quite so good. after the war johnston and his hoodf critic john bell coul engaged in a war of words. they wrote memoirs. johnston's narrative was published first. 1874. he was always correct. in his arguments with davis and his differences on strategy. he was always right. it was davis who was wrong. that was the view.

at the time that i was growing up in atlanta. others presented counterarguments. had failed to hold atlanta. johnston is second only to robert e lee in the minds of the southerners. some even said johnston was better that way. -- then leave. an lee. that i have a chance to read a lot of these contemporary records and telegrams. and i changed my mind about joe johnston.

the problem with johnston's argument about the atlanta campaign is that the facts keep getting in the way. >> if you look at the facts, it looks different. we don't have time to get into a lot of that. let me give you an example. johnston argued the best chance the confederates had was not to fight a head-on battle against slowly,but to fall back drawing sherman into the ,nterior, picking off his men and as you did this you would reduce the odds against the confederates. when sherman was deep into georgia, and his army had been reduced by casualties the confederates could turn and pounce on him and drive him back.

johnston maintained this conserved federate lives, and by the time they got to atlanta, the armies were closer in strength. he told davis it was art numbered -- he was outnumbered. people have an amazing ability to get around absolutes. johnston was one of them. armyd a statement that his had lost 9972 men come a killed june ofded in may and 1864. 9972, killed and wounded. infantry and artillery, may and june. men.id no, he lost 22,750

who is right? 9972 as a place to start. what about deserters? what about men lost to sickness? artillery.d what about the cavalry. what about the first two weeks of july? if you do all of that, make reasonable estimates for those who deserted, you can demonstrate his army lost at least 22,000 men. a lot of this has come out recently with a book by stephen hood on the lost papers of john bell hood. it changes a lot of things about atlanta. when i wasd had it

wrote that biography of the. he has found even more. if you look at the facts, like the casualties, the strength of the confederate army, the casualties of sherman's off -- army. he's lost 10 times as many men as i have. lost 900 -- 9972, that would mean sherman had 90,000 casualties. he outnumbered johnston to-one. do you see what this leads? they just simply repeated what was in johnston is -- johnston's memoirs. you do that and things change a great deal. out i grow up, i started

with the idea over here joe johnston was fabulous. he was great. the greatest thing since grits. i got into all this stuff. he was the antichrist. he's always wrong. i have been wrestling around with this for a large number of years. i hope it's coming back to a balanced view. that johnston was right sometimes and wrong sometimes. to argue that he was right in the atlantic campaign is a stretch of the imagination. hood on the other hand had been criticized in the traditional framework of the atlantic campaign. it appears now from an examination of the facts, a lot of this stuff that is in stephen hood book, that is a fascinating thing.

how many of you read that? 1879.ied in he spent the previous 10 years or so collecting documents and information. earlier he had taken a lot of them to richmond and washington to sell them as part of the archives. he left them there with william t sherman who was a friend after the war. sherman wrote a moving letter of condolences to hood after his wife died. it didn't arrive until hood had died but it is a moving document. blood left those papers in washington with sherman. i found them when i was working on the book. i sit on the greatest disk -- greatest historian.

, they closed up his house because they did not know what caused yellow fever. they didn't go back into the house until december. his children were young and had been scattered around. when they went back in the house they found this box of papers. hood had no adult descendents. found a collateral relative and sent the papers to him. he gets this box of papers. son, whohem to his left them to his son, who lives in philadelphia, who is even more of a misanthrope recluse then i am. [laughter] hood, who goes by sam, was trying to get information.

he said i've got these papers you should look at. sam didn't want to do it. he spent so much time. but he went to philadelphia and upstairs.id they are he opened the box and in five minutes he came down and said these belong in a safe deposit box. there are literally hundreds of documents. letters from jefferson davis. from william t sherman. from robert e. lee. from stonewall jackson. of amirate -- commission lieutenant general. beautifully engraved documents. beautiful documents. that is probably unique. there can only be one other. kirby smith was the only other .en who held all of them

i've used his papers in chapel hill. i don't think i've seen them again. i don't think they are there. we will say it is unique. how is that for good serious scholarship? if it sounds good, say they are unique. page day by or 15 day account of the medical doctor who attended hood after his leg was amputated. why is it detailed? you what it said but you a breakfast this morning and you don't want to know. it proves he was not using drugs. the doctor records i gave him morphine after the leg was amputated at night to help them get to sleep. then he writes for the first time he went to sleep without

morphine and there is no more mention of it. that goes against the slander that hood used drugs. now you have proof. it shows what a great historian steve is. the point i'm getting at, if you go into this and look at this from some point of view rather than the traditional one, the one based on the memoirs of johnston, of sherman, the postwar recollections. back, looking at the time for word. instead of looking at the fall 1865, look atm the atlantic campaign from january, 1864. it will look quite different.

what it looks like is that johnston's long retreat to atlanta with the -- the ,onfederates in a position desertion, casualties in johnston's army, weakening morale, correspondingly sherman's morale in army, less casualties in sherman's army. johnston retreating into the heartland of the confederacy, down to atlanta, this crucial rail center. crucial manufacturing. government offices. this is good strategy? this is a brilliant campaign? most historians now who deal with the atlantic campaign from the way it looks at the time will see it differently. to labelo so far as

johnston's campaign in georgia in 1864 one of the great failures, great military failures of the civil war. if you change your view of johnston you need to change your view of sherman and hood. if johnston was such a failure does that mean sherman was a bad general because he took so long to capture atlanta? ,f johnston's campaign failed does that put hood in a position where situation was hopeless? and hood may have held it longer than johnston would have? i think theygain were two major results of that change of command. it saved joe johnston's reputation. he had not lost atlanta. he'd not sure any birds.

the second thing it did was it enabled the confederates to hold montha for 2-3, maybe a longer than they would have. head.is nodding his the great brains agree on that read that's a good time to quit. -- the great brains agree. that is a good time to quit. i hope i have given you something to think about. [applause] ok. we got started a little late. if you have any questions? [inaudible] >> yes. >> i admire your work and your emphasis on the western he enter. -- theater. i also oh steve davis some money.

>> he owes me some money. >> you mentioned, your evidence is good about the overrating of johnston. in terms of the specific examples, if the casualties were worse, wouldn't that make the hood's policy that much more full hearty if he had less resources? if the army was in that much worse shape? >> you could make the argument hood was dealing with a much weaker army than he thought. he makes the argument that hood was trying to run the army of tennessee likely had run the iny of northern virginia 1862, which was a strategic agressiveness but also tactical defensive stand. ,ee fought on the defensive

tactical and. strategically he was maneuvering his army around in it offensive manner. the problem with johnston is it is so passive. if he is sitting in trenches waiting for sherman to attack, and sherman is not going to attack, this fails. good [inaudible] -- [inaudible] hood did not say let's find some fortifications and charge area ther. we are going to attack into that gap. the confederates concentrated what was a slightly superior force against the federal's on the south side. nationalk was to be an with the right hand of the confederate line moving into that gap. they would swing to the west.

other units would come beside them. they would have a confederate line of battles perpendicular to the union line. the general that was to go into the gap and swing to the west swung to the northeast. he lost control of its. -- it. he didn't get them back under control. didn't find they were out from control for several hours. ahood was sending his part of his army out to by ezara road going church. , july 29, another

part of hood's army was to clean around the federals and attack from the west. lee discovered the federals already had the road. instead of notifying hood he decided to launch an attack read this is not what hood plans. that is what i meant when i said the problem here is the execution of these plans. what would have happened if they were carried out as hood intended, we can never know. opinion.s a high .ven as it was they came close casualties weekend hoods chances -- hood's chances. they came not by carrying out

hood's plan but by the way in which they screwed a lot of that. i hope that answers your question. somewhat. you are not quite convinced. buy the book. [laughter] >> i have. needunds like you may another copy. , in terms of-up him atlly you look at seven pines, what he tried to do at cast fill. i don't know he was afraid to shoot that pigeon or whatever it was until he had the perfect time. the same thing happened in terms of exit houston -- execution and luck. cassville, johnston had taken advantage of a place with

a fort to kingston. he figured sherman would use both roads. he did. the main part of the army would go down to kingston and johnston sville.o to cas becauseixed up that day who washn bell hood supposed to command the attack, discovered as he was deploying to make the attack there was a union force behind and to the right rear and right flank of his group. decided to fall back. johnston said there was no enemy force there. we know today there was. a small party of union cavalry.

they had blundered on the wrong road. therefore there were union troops out there. hood wisely decided not to make the attack, not knowing what to go for. >> i reread that portion of your dissertation from 67 under dr. wiley. i want to credit richard as having been one of the first people since the centennial to turn the head on the old arguments, richard wrote in his dissertation it can now be said with certainty there was enemy cavalry off to hood's flank. moreover the argument in favor of hood has only amplified. reread the section of castell's decision. on hood'sons were flank on the morning of may 19, causingally installing,

-- that was the only time during the whole campaign union calvary served sherman well. so we won the fight. >> one of the things i didn't get into, massive misuse of cavalry during the campaign. almost total misuse of it. there are some documents by sam hood from union soldiers who were out with that group out there. you might just out of interest ask yourself what would have happened if they have been ordered to make an attack and discovered there was a union force of unknown strength behind it. would he have gone ahead and made the attack? raises severe questions. one more. >> this is beyond the scope of your talk.

>> everything is beyond the scope of my talk. >> would you give us an insight about the options hood faced ap had to choose after -- after the fall of atlanta. essentially 2. he could remain in front of sherman. it would be difficult. if nothing else, the terrain becomes less and less favorable. south of macon it is essentially flat all the way to key west. it would have been hard to dodge and duck behind mountains and bridges. it was not a very appealing option. sherman could have gone in any of three directions. he could have dropped back to gonehattahoochee river and down the right bank of the river, and cut the confederacy off from all available am a and

mississippi. been a total disaster. hood's other option was to do what he did. i would suggest a lot of the problems he ran into was the problem of not the idea but the execution of the idea. somebody, i haven't found out who, it was approved by jefferson davis, herded away his cavalry. they will replace them with itest, which was fine except took 2.5 weeks to get there because they couldn't hurry. so they sit there in north alabama. reinterpretation of this thing about the confederates. johnston is looking a lot worse

than he traditionally has. sherman is not looking quite so brilliant. hood is beginning to look a little better. thank you, folks. [applause] >> interested in american history tv? visit our website, c-span.org/history. .ou can see our schedule or monday, on the communicators. michael o'rielly on several key issues facing the fcc like net neutrality, spectrum auctions, and set-top boxes. he comments on the political divide between the fcc. >> the direction from fcc

leadership to take the most approach is little ground. when that becomes the primary goal of the id., when the policy direction becomes the first goal rather than any consideration of any collegiality to develop consensus, you wind up with the scenario we have today. you're going to find i'm less likely to be supportive and i'm going to express my views. >> watching the communities on c-span 2. asked, holocaust survivor sz recalls her family's experiences including their hometown and anti-semitic laws. the family was confined with other jews to a ghetto when nazi

germany occupied hungary. they were transported to auschwitz and forced to perform hard labor. the event was part of the united states holocaust memorial museum's first-person series. it's a little over an hour. holocauste stories of survivors transcend decades. but you are about to hear from anna is one individual account of the holocaust. we have prepared a slide presentation to help with her introduction. she was born into a jewish transylvania, in a part of romania. birthdayrated her 90th yesterday. [applause] the air on this