sir? >> yeah. the book was wonderful. something that you touch eed onn the book and you didn't have as much time for tonight, touched on the idea of general sherman. i've read two biographies of him. i just wanted to put as a question to you, do you think he's unfairly treated as a casualty of the smith and that he was actually an extremely effective general, but he gets swept up in this hatred in the myth and a reason to sympathize with the south. >> you're right. i didn't reach that point. that's sort of my last point had to do with the allegations that the north won only by total war. and the allegation is primarily that sherman in georgia and the carolinas and that sheridan in the shenandoah valley are the classic examples of the north using total war. there's a difference between total war and hard war.

total war is genghis kahn, tamerlane, what the russians and the japanese did in world wars i and ii. you go in and you have mass rapes and murders of civilians, intentional, deliberate destruction of civilian population. total to me meaned unfettered you use every weapon at your disposal and obliterate the enknee ene enemy. what the north did to win was to exercise hard war. that term is used a lot too and i think it's much more accurate to describe what happened. the north went in and did a lot of damage. they burned barns, burned craps, killed animals e . they basically imposed severe economic damage on the south, but that's not total war. books continue to be written.

what sherman did to us and things like that. and basically i said, well, sherman gave you break because he didn't go around killing people. very few deaths involved in his march. and the same thing is true of sheridan. there were sprinklings of minor skirmish skirmishes, basically go in and destroy the infrastructure. that's called hard war. many of the tens of thousands of deserters from lee's army were people who in good faith went home because they felt a greater responsibility to their wives and children than they did to what was left of the confederate cause in 1864 and 1865. >> thank you. >> sir? >> i want to follow up in a way. i think the morale issue is

something germane. you depicted very well, i think, the reasons for the myth. it was all very reasonable. when you get into this notion of morale and mindset and the other factors that did exist in the south that helped propagate the myth, i mean, they lost. they were ravaged not just by the war but by reconstruction. there was this endemic poverty. there was a romantic ideal to begin with that existed there and then the war really deflated that. so i think, yes, it's reasonable to look at the data and say, yeah, this is -- this myth is bogus. but that doesn't mean that it's easily dealt with, you know,

especially in the minds of the southern people who, you know, so strongly hold onto it. so you didn't get into that issue of the mindset that helps propagate the myth. i'm wondering if you have any comment on that. >> okay. i think that when you look at the minds behind the secession resolutions that were occurring at that time which we can put our fingers on and say these were all about slavery. now, if you back off and say, well, what about the people and their morale, then you get into almost an insoluble dilemma about individual soldiers fought for different reasons, individual people felt different ways about the war. and so it's very hard to pin that down. but i really think that the

kinds of evidence that i'm looking at, it's not just data. these are the words that the participants used and every one says nothing but slavery. now, you mentioned in passing reconstruction. that's a whole other book and a whole other field. basically my take on reconstruction very subjective, just like everything else i've been saying, is that -- is that reconstruction would not have been so bad if the southerners had done -- had responded appropriately to what the war was about. and that is in good faith ended slavery and truly ended slavery and slave-related practices and provided plaqublacks with the r to participate in politics, to vote and have representatives in government, which was only

allowed for a short time while the north was there to enforce it. so the stories about all the economic ravages on the south, there wasn't much left to ravage. and what the south was really concerned about, southerners as a rule were concerned about that blacks were being given rights. this was not something that they could tolerate. and so they eventually stopped it. you had jim crow laws and you did not have legitimate black rights until at least the mid 1960s. there are a lot of aspects of the myth that carry over into what was reconstruction was all about. i'm not an expert in reconstruction, but there are those that are. again, i would approach the traditional view of reconstruction with a great deal of skepticism. yes, sir? last question.

>> should lee have been executed as a traitor? and if he had, what effect would that have had on the myth of the lost cause? >> okay. executing lee as a traitor would have been totally inconsistent with what lincoln wanted to do and would have served no real purpose. it would have served no real purpose and it might very well have aggravated the south so that the myth would even be worse than it is. so that would be an extreme step, but lincoln would not have wanted to do that. okay. thank you very much again, ladies and gentlemen. this week in prime time

cspan 3 has been showing american history tv programs. tonight's focus is the civil r war. at about 9:10 the president of the georgia historical society talks about union general william sherman, his background, the march to the sea and how he's remembered. and after that how post war arguments made by confederates sought to justify their split from the union. coming up this weekend on american history tv on cspan 3, saturday night at 8:00 on lectures in history, virginia commonwealth university proprofesspropr professor karen radar. and sunday morning at 10 on road to the white house rewind, the 1952 and 1948 national

conventions, in 1952 dwight eisenhower accepted the republican nomination. and in 1948 the first televised conventions where president harry truman accepted his party's nomination. >> the failure to do anything about high prices and the failure to do anything about housing. my duty as president requires that i use every means within my power to get the laws the people need on matters of such importance and urgency. >> the and at 6:00 on american artifacts we'll take an early look at the new smithsonian national museum of african-american history and culture with its director lonnie bunch. >> we were able to get amazing collection of movie posters such as the ones behind you. that's an early oscar movie poster from the 1920s. part of our job is to help

people relearn the history they think they know. that movie poster is from spencer williams. he is known by most people as playing in amos and andy. yet he was one of the most important black fim drlm direct. >> historians talk about the process of writing a presidential biography. for our complete american history tv schedule, go to cspan.org. wheaton college history professor teaches a class on the evolving northern war aims in the civil war. he describes how public support for emancipation correlated with whether union forces were perceived to be winning the civil war. he also argues that lincoln was seen as unlikely because of the state of the war in 1863.

>> our focus today is going to be on the period roughly from lincoln's announcement of the emancipation proclamation through the end of the war. can i ask you guys to help us all review major themes right now? someone mention one. someone please. >> views on race and slavery. >> we're trying to think carefully about what our visitation of the american civil war tells us about popular american attitudes in two regards. attitudes with regards to

slavery and racial equality. the relationship between those two is very complicated. it's not in any sense a simple kind of relationship. >> transmo morformation of nort aims. >> how the civil wargi begins aa war. lincoln is repudiating any broader goals than that. in a short period of time the war becomes refined in a very different way. a lot of what we're going to be talking about is how northern population responds to war aims. it will help us deal with the relationship of altitudes between slavery and attitudes towards race. those are probably the two themes that are most relevant this morning. keep in mind as you interact and listen and i think it will help

us in gleaning what's most important here. so let's touch base with where we ended last time. and that is just to remember that by the summer of 1862 lincoln for a variety of reasons is coming to the conclusion that there is a window of opportunity to strike at slavery that he did not anticipate when the war began. we talked about a variety of factors that were at play. the length and cost of the war in and of itself, right, is polarizing northern opinion and at least creating a kind of opportunity in terms of popular opinion to pursue a more aggressive war effort that's part of what's going on. there's also a constitutional window of opportunity that lincoln believes the war has presented to him. the role of the enslaved people themselves in eliminating any

kind of neutral role that the north might play with regard to slavery i think is a factor also. we mentioned two other things very quickly. lincoln had been hesitate to strike at slavery in 1861 in part because he was concerned about the border states. one of the things he concluded by the summer of 1862 is the border states don't play the role they would have in 1861 because the war has drawn about 100,000 pro-confederates into the army. they cease to play a political role at this point. they're not going to vote. they're not in the union states at all anymore in most cases. and the fear that the border states now might switch sides and support the con fed rfedera no longer pressing in lincoln's mind.

he could not have any kind of bipartisan support for it. by the summer of 1862 i think lincoln has pretty much given up on the possibility of bipartisan support for the war generally. the democratic party in the north is opposing him on every kind of congressional initiative. the idea that this war is not going to be one that divides the north politically is something i think lincoln more or less has abandoned. so what we see is new factors making emancipation desirable. old kind of obstacles falling by the wayside. with the result by august of 1862 lincoln has decided that when the time is right he will announce a new aim for the war effort that would add to union human freedom. that's going to come when it comes in september of 1862 with lincoln's announcement with the preliminary emancipation

proclamation whi proclamation. it's not going to apply to the border states. it's not going to apply to areas of the confederacy now subdued and under military occupation. tennessee is excluded, part of virginia, part of louisiana is excluded. even with those exceptions aside, no one denies that the war has been fundamentally redefined. what we want to focus on this morning is the aftermath of that. one of the things that i think james mcpherson's book is help fu ful for, he shows you union has can unify the union, northern divides. we see that in the years after the announcement of the policy.

so i want to begin with just some images that give us a sense of the way in which northern opinion is to some degree polarized. let's start with this particular image. this is a painting that's done in 1864. and it is aimed at in some sense imaginatively recreating the context of lincoln's fashioning of the emancipation policy. now, some of the details i'm sure are just too small for us to pick up on. but i think there are some things that i could call your attention to. this is supposed on the lincoln's study in the executive mansion. all kinds of paraphernalia scattered around him. there's a map of the united states. the artist has put this sword hanging done across the mapativ

has divide the country. some of the pieces of paper are various petitions from anti-slavery organizations that are imploring the president to strike against human bondage. behind him is a copy of his presidential oath. why lincoln would have a copy of his oath hanging up, it's hard for us to imagine. but the artist puts it there for a reason. on the shelf opposite lincoln is a bust of andrew jackson. in the context of the 1860s he's the embodiment of a staunch preservation of the union and the willingness to use whatever means necessary to maintain national supremacy. on lincoln's lap, a copy of the bible. the artist is telling us which is the context in which the emancipation proclamation is emerging. can you think out loud with me a little bit about the message

here? what is the artist wanting to convey about the proclamation about how americans should think of it? any thoughts at all? >> well, the bible is like an illustration of a more like moral ideal when it comes to emancipation. but then his oath is like what he is sworn to do. and then andrew jackson obviously for preserving the union. his goal is to preserve the union but at the same time he has these mora moral ob gas st.s obligations to preserve the union. >> he's balancing these competing obligations. the bible is the embodiment of moral obligation. the oath on the wall the em b

embodiment of constitutionality. we're supposed to see the emancipation policy as successfully doing that with the flag over the window with the bust of andrew jackson we always have that commitment to union. and so this is the -- i think the message. it's a very sympathetic message. it's really i think the way that lincoln would want northern opinion to think of his politician. we've talked about lincoln as being the anti-constitution politician. but also having to have some kind of moral dimension if possible. compare that image with this one. this is a kind of pencil sketch. it's not colorful in the way that the drawing that we just looked at is. this comes from an immigrant to

the united states who comes to the united states from before the civil war from one of the german states. he lives in baltimore. he is a northern democrat who is very critical of the policy. and i don't know if you can see the tale on this image well enough to pick up on the message. can you see any of the details well enough? kyle, what do you see there? >> he's standing on the bible. his foot's stomping on it. >> rather than having the bible in his lap, he's standing on it showing contempt. >> there appears to be a demon on the table. >> i think that's fair enough. if that's an imp of hell, yeah. in the back if you can see the framed picture on the wall, it is supposed to be john brown, who is best known for the raid at harper's ferry in 1859. he's carrying one of those pipes

that he had built specifically to arm slaves after the raid at harper's ferry was the plan. he has a halo. so he's sort of saint to st. john. what message is that perhaps sending? just the fact that brown is being shown favorably? any thoughts? >> maybe like brown was sort of reckless or overly violent and didn't really consider and weigh other possibilities or options. >> brown is sort of the embodiment of violent fan that the -- fanaticism. if the constitution defends slavery, the constitution is simply part of the problem and violence is the answer. anything else that you see

there? >> also the study was a mess and looked like he was really laboring over the document. this one he's kind of slouched in his seat. this suggests it's a fabrication of his own thinking. >> fair enough. there's not those influences. he is doing this over alone or we might say in consultation with the devil. those are the influences. finally what is this little devil offering lincoln? it's almost certainly meant to be alcohol. there's a decanter on the far side table. this devil is offering him a drink at the moment for inspiration. these two pictures encapsulate that kind of polarization that the emancipation policy created in the north. to come back to james mcpherson's theme, union unified, emancipation always

divides. emancipation is not the only issue that makes the middle of the civil war in the north an extremely contentious period. we're not going to have time to develop this a lot. but we can list some other factors that are at play. probably the most important link to emancipation is the recruitment of black soldiers into the united states armed forces. the congress had authorized the president to employ men of color for military purposes as early as december of 1862. but lincoln in the summer of 1862 is not prepared to take that step. he authorizes some experiments with the enlistment of black soldiers as early as december of 1862, but he keeps it under radar. in areas of the coast of south carolina, areas out in kansas on the remote frontier, there will

begin to be the enlistment of black soldiers. but in areas of popular attention that doesn't happen until after his emancipation policy is announced. lincoln authorizes in a very aggressive way the recruitment of black soldiers. so you begin to see posters like this one. this is a poster that is published in philadelphia in 1863. come and join us, brothers. these kinds of appeals ultimately will lead to the enlistment of somewhere along the number of 180,000 men in the american armed forces. always in segregated forces called the united states color troops. maybe as many as a quarter of a million other african-american males serve in non-military ways, in labor details and other capacities with the united states forces. so it's a very large addition to

the armed forces of the united states. i would argue that the sort of government policy on enlisting black soldiers if anything is more controversial in the north than emancipation. if i made that claim and i asked you why that might be, do you have a thought? why is this kind of image, if anything, even more troubling? >> it implies a sort of equality between the two races that just emancipation doesn't really do on its own. >> yeah. michael says there's an implication of equality here that emancipation doesn't necessarily provide. taylor? >> well, maybe they're putting weapons in people's hands that they've enslaved. so they're worried that they've been freed and given weapons they might turn against the white men in the army. >> taylor raises a concern that in reality is often linked to

the policy in southern white perspectives which is that putting weapons into the hands of former enslaved people may even be inviting if not encouraging retribution. some sort of violent response against white civilians. i think that's a factor as well. i think one of the things that we've tried to identify already is that if you're an american in the northern state, in the middle of the 19th century, you can oppose slavery for many reasons separate from a principled commitment of racial equality. that might be your motive, but it need not be. we begin to talk about the recruitment of black soldiers. northern popular opinion cannot separate that from a policy pointing toward racial equality. so in a certain way i think this policy is more controversial, even more divisive simply than emancipation itself.

we could add to the list of controversial issues. i won't go into as much detail. but i will mention that in the summer of 1862 the north begins to move towards a conscription policy, meaning the forcible draft of soldiers. they do that calling for nine month volunteers in the summer of 1862. in the spring of 1863 they move toward a much more all encompassing draft law. anyone between the age of 18 and 45 is subject to the draft. it begins to have a very significant impact on popular opinion. one of the things you guys have been reading is a short excerpt of the diary of this new york republican named george templeton strong. he goes downtown to new york

city. there's a major battle rages in virginia at the time. strong describe what is s what n new york city. he says you'd never know the war is going on. men and women in their carriages, children giggling, the economy seems to be booming. no one seems to be acknowledging that men are fighting and dying. before conscription is added into the formula, it's possible for the war to be a total abstraction. conscription makes at least potentially every adult male liable to military service. so you can imagine how that adds a level of significant to political debates about what the war is about and whether the war is going well. conscription is a factor. a final factor i would mention quickly is the lincoln administration's record on civil

liberties. one of the things that strong writes when he talks about the political opposition of the lincoln administration, he says that civil liberties may be as important as emancipation in some areas in promoting opposition to the republican leadership. lincoln early on determines that there will be times when he needs to take extraordinary steps to crack down on voices that might weaken the war effort. now under the constitution article one, section nine, the congress is given the authority to withdraw, at least temporarily something called the privilege of the writ of habeas car pu corpus. the phrase comes from the latin. it means literally to have the body. what the privilege is effectively accomplishing constitutionally is preventing the government from arbitrarily

imprisoning people and not giving them a trail. someone could go to a court on your behalf, request that a judge issue an order releasing this political prisoner, a writ order of habeas corpus in order to have the body. but the constitution says that this privilege may be withdrawn or repealed temporarily in times of insurrection or invasion. so lincoln at different times during the war starting as early as april of 1861 sort of in broadening the policy will authorize the arrest of civilians without trial. one historian who is very systematically reviewed that policy estimates that somewhere

along the lines of about 15,000 civilians are arrested at some point during the war. relative to our population today, that would be something like 225,000 to 250,000 civilians arrested, typically for a few months at a time, almost always released. but yet this is going on. and so this is another factor that is a sort of considerable political opposition. so we have opposition to emancipation, opposition to the enlistment of black soldiers, opposition to conscription in some circles, concerns about violations of civil liberties as well. always, always behind these particular concerns are anxieties about the way the war is going. nothing informs popular support for or opposition to the war more than the momentum on the

battlefield. it's going to sound like a gross over simplification but it's more or less something that has been verified by systematic analysis, the single most important factor that determines popular attitudes towards war in a popular context is, does it appear that the war is being won? wars that are being won, wars where victory seems tangible and at hand are popular wars. wars that are not being won, wars in which victory seems remote if at all likely tend to be unpopular wars. this brings us back full circle to the emancipation policy. how had lincoln presented emancipation as a military act. as a military act under his authorities, commander in dhech of the army and navy, as a

military act to bring victory and shorten the war. this is one of my favorite images from the civil war. this is one of the ways in which we see that justification of emancipation embodied. here we have a print that's done in 1862 or 1863. it was produced by courier and ives which is a very popular commercial house that produced artwork for private homes and public places. in this particular drawing you have a justification of emancipation as a military act. the symbolism i think we can define fairly quickly you have jefferson davis who's the president of the confederacy.

give what he's inviting people to do is to step up and try to break the backbone of the rebellion. we have this enormous vicious looking dog with the word rebellion along the backbone. so we have a variety of northern figures that most readers would immediately recognize or know of. and these northern figures have in various ways tried to break the backbone of the rebellion, tried to bring union victory. in the back sitting dejectedly with his head in his hands is a man named john crittondon. he was a congressman who had tried to come up with a compromise that would avoid war. so he has a tiny little hammer that's labeled compromise. we're supposed to see how

inadequate that was. then you have a general with a much larger hammer labeled skill. another with a hammer labeled strategy. these are well known union generals. next comes the secretary of war, a man named edwin stanton. he's talking to president lincoln. he tells lincoln these generals may try their skill, they may try their strategy, but i think my hammer is the one that's going to break the backbone of the rebellion. his hammer is labeled draft. the draft that's going to put us over the top and bring military success. lincoln, always with the stereo type of the rail splitter says to secretary of war stanton, you can try him with that, but i believe that this ax of mine is the only thing that will fetch him, as he puts it.

the only thing that will do the trick. and the ax is labeled emancipation proclamation. you see the symbolism there. this is all about bringing victory. it's justified as a military necessity on my authority as commander in chief of the army and navy of the united states. here we see the relationship between success on the battlefield and popular support for emancipation. it would correlate pretty closely with popular perception of whether the war was being won, whether progress was being made or not. the unfortunate thing is in the aftermath of lincoln's proclamation the union war effort takes a nose dive. the preliminary emancipation proclamation is announced in

late september of 1862. and there is not a significant union military victory for the next nine months. and in that period roughly until july of 1863 popular support for emancipation, popular support for the republican administration goes down, down, down. now, we don't have a lot of time in this class because we're going so quickly in our over view of the war to talk about specifics militarily. let me just remind you of a broad overarching pattern. you have some sense of what this map is conveying because we have talked about that. the grand strategy of the lincoln administration when the war began was primarily centered on three components, a blockade, a thrust toward the confederate capital and a campaign to take

control of the mississippi river. if we were going to make a br d generalization, in the eastern part of the theater of war, particularly in the fighting around virginia, the confederacy was doing very well, but the farther west you went, union success was more and more striking. so you have this pattern of union victory in the west, confederate victim ory or steaae in the east. what happens is that that pattern falls apart and republicans cannot point to significant success anywhere. the campaign for the control of the mississippi river has bogged down badly in a very expensive slow costly siege of a town called vicksburg, one of the

last out posts on the mississippi. there's a bloody battle in tennessee which accomplishes nothing in 1862. there are major confederate victories in virginia in december of 1862 and into the spring of 1863. one string of successive confederate victories with staggering human costs. now, this is interrupted temporarily july of 1863 is a hugely significant moment in the civil war because in the span of 24 hours there's a major union victory at gettysburg blunting a confederate invasion of pennsylvania. you see gettysburg at the top of the map. and the very next day vicksburg which was the last stronghold on the mississippi river of the confederacy surrenders to union forces. the rest of 1863 it appears that

union military momentum is building on that. by the end of that year tennessee has been completely rid of confederate forces. union armies are now in northern georgia. union armies are threatening within 30 miles or so of the confederate capital. everything seems to be pointing toward a regain of union momentum and the likelihood that the war will end by the following spring. one of the things that adds to that perception that victory is now likely is that lincoln has y identified a new general. lincoln has a very difficult time ever identifying a successful commander in the eastern theater of the war. but at the end of 1863 lincoln brings this man, ygrant.

he'd been successful in tennessee, in mississippi and now he had brought to command ultimately all you knunion armi all theaters of war. lyincoln and grant talk a lot. lincoln is convinced that grant will end the war as soon as the weather improved enough to begin campaigning in the spring of that year. the story of 1864 in terms of the civil war is the story of the way in which that expectation ultimately comes crashing down. in the spring of 1864 there is going to be significant fighting in two areas. i don't care that you remember these specific details. but i want you to try to put yourself in the perspective of northern civilians who are

already in the throes of a war that are vastly more expensive than anyone had anticipated and ask how it would inform your anticipation of the future. two areas of fighting primarily. it's more complicated than this but we can focus on these two areas. one is in between virginia d.c. and richmond. there's going to be fighting starting in early spring 1864 between an army commanded by grant and an army commanded by robert e. lee north of richmond. the army is going to move east and south, east and south, east and south, always trying to get around the confederate army defending richmond and strike directly at the capitol or get between the confederate capital and the confederate army. doesn't succeed in one sense.

what it leads to is a series of very very costly battles. the result is that from early may 1864 to early june of 1864 there are a series of battles with casualty levels that dwarf anything that had ever been recognized before this. the pattern of military history in the civil war in its first half is a pattern in which two large armies would come together and they would clash, sort of monumental clash of humanity, wreaking untold casualties and then the armies would separate from one another and take weeks, often months to recover and to reequip themselves to resume the fighting. what changes in the spring of 1864 is that one battle gives way almost seemle leseamlessly

next. for a period of almost six weeks the armies in northern virginia are constantly in contact with one another and they're inflicting casualties on one another that are astounding. let me give you an example of grant's army. grant strikes south the first week of may, actually the first day of may with an army of approximately 115,000 soldiers. in the next six weeks, that army will sustain 64,000 casualties. now that's killed, wounded and missing. we would add to those 64,000 casualties the fact that the terms of service of many of his soldiers are expiring. many had enlisted in the first year of the war and served for three years. to those 64,000 taken out of action, 18,000 go home because their term has expired. so the army that grant began

with in may of 150,000 men has now only a little less than one-third of that original army left just six weeks later. it's a degree of devastation that no one had witnessed in the western hemisphere every before. ultimately this campaign bogs down. it doesn't lead quickly to victory. it leads instead to a siege of a well defended city south of richmond called petersburg. that siege is pretty much in place by mid june and not going to be broken until early april of the next year. grant's hope for a quick campaign has been totally frustrated and the cost, the human cost involved has been staggering. at the same time that there's fighting going on in northern virginia, there's fighting going

on in northern georgia. not going to go into much detail here except to say there's a union army that had struck south from the area around chattanooga right around the tennessee-georgia border and was trying to move on atlanta. atlanta is one of the very important, really transportation cross roads in the western theater at this time. and as sort of like is going on in northern virginia it's going to be union army under a man named william sherman. union army, confederate army, constant conflict as they're engaged in a two-step dance for the defense of atlanta. let me add up for you what happens in the these two campaigns in the spring of 1864. the total number of casualties if you combine the casualties in northern georgia and northern virginia, 89,000. that's 89,000 in less than three

months. i don't know if that sounds like a lot to you or not. i hope that it sounds like a lot to you. the population of the free states or the loyal states in 1864 is about 20 million. if we take these casualty figures and try to translate them into our population today for the united states forces to experience the same proportional loss today would require casualties of 1.5 million. in the span of less than three months the united states is involved in a war taking 1.5 million soldiers. those are not all fatalities. that's killed, wounded and missing. 1.5 million out of action, what would be the popular response? it's hypothetical but just think out loud with me.

what would it be? >> overwhelmingly negative. >> christian says overwhelmingly negative. any others? >> i think people would just want it to be over. they probably wouldn't care so much anymore about what they were fightings ove over. they would want it to end. >> some are going to say, i'm sick of this, cost is too great. any other response? >> some of them might think that such a high human cost requires some staying the course and justifying the sacrifice of so many people? >> does that make sense to you? joe is taking a different tack. he's saying that the high human cost becomes an argument for per

sis tan per s persi we have kind of bifurcated response, greater polarization as maore and more americans say the cost is too high and more and more americans that say we must do whatever it takes. imagine the united states is involved in a war in the last three months 1.5 million casualties have been sustained. the president of the united states goes before the american people in a press conference and

he tells the country that he's calling for more "volunteers." and the number of volunteers that he needs, he specifies clearly. he says, i need 8 million more. and volunteers we put in quotation marks why? because there is a draft law in place. and if volunteers are not forthcoming, there will be another way to ensure that the m manpower need is met. what lincoln asked for in 1864 is 500,000 more volunteers. which in our numbers today would be between 8 and 8.5 million. now, final detail, imagine that the united states is currently involved in a war, 1.5 million casualties in the last three

months, a president who says i need 8 million more volunteers. and finally that same president is running for reelection on his war record. let's add that to the mix. because at the same time that lincoln is asking for half a million more volunteers, he's also asking for the american people to support him for a second term. it's impossible for us to feel the weight of contingency in the summer of 1864 unless we let it sort of sink in how unlikely abraham's reelection really was. certainly lincoln at various times believes that his reelection is unlikely. so what i'd like us to do in the remaining time is to take a quick visit of the 1864

presidential election. keep those big themes in mind about the war as a window into attitudes of the american people and in popular the attitude towards slavery and racial equality. and i think you're going to find a lot that's embedded in the campaign that is relevant. now, first of all, a little bit of context. when lincoln is seeking a nomination for a second term, he is doing something that today we absolutely take for granted. we assume that incumbent presidents will be candidate ed for a second term and we assume they'll get the nomination. we know that statistically incumbents have pretty good chances. that's not the case in the

middle of the 19th century. the last president to be reelected to a second term was andrew jackson. that was in 1832. so 32 years have transpired since the last time a president was reelected. the last time an incumbent was nominated for a second term had been 1840. almost a quarter of a century had passed since that happened. no one is automatically assuming within the republican party in the spring/early summer of 1864 that lincoln's nomination is possible or desirable. in fact a lot would like to replace lincoln because they simply have presidential aspirations of their own. lincoln's cabinet member is secretary of the treasury is someone who'd really like to be president. there are others with

presidential aspirations. but there are other members of the republican party who simply just don't think lincoln is re-electable. with that reason, with a concern for the war effort, with a concern for the future of the party they believe that that is the wiser course to follow. lincoln will be reelected in the summer of 1864 with pretty muted enthusiasm. almost by default, no one person was able to develop a broad enough base of support to unseat lincoln. so lincoln is going to be nominated in june of 1864 but the way in which he is nominated

and the rhetoric and strategy of the party -- i want you guys to tell me what you see and try to make some inferences about what this tells us about campaign strategy in that election. so let's begin with this. this is a poster that would have been widely circulated in the state of new york. it's showing nominations at various levels of public office starting with president but going down to a variety of offices at the new york state level. so just look at that poster and tell me what you see or don't see. i know you can't read some of the fine print. christian, what jumps out at you? >> it doesn't say republican nomination. it says union nominations. >> let's start right there. did you notice that? opponents of the republican party in 1864 are going to be using the label republican in

talking about their rivals. republicans don't use the label very much at all in 1864. they're going to use the label national union. national union. national union nominations here we see. so let's start there. before we move to anything else, talk to me about that. talk to me about that strategy and what it seems to be suggest i ing. samantha? >> it's interesting because with the emancipation, they kind of demonstrated a shift in focus towards emancipation of slaves but by using the word union they're kind of returning to their initial focus which was more popular, focus on keeping the union together.

>> samantha is saying what we see here what kind of look as a kind of backtracking in the announcement of the emancipation policy, there has been a clear redefinition of returning to the the emancipation policy. they look like they're trying to attract northern democrats. >> it's an obvious effort at bipartisan support. it's obvious effort to say regardless of party, if you stand for what we stand for, you need to be with us. and what do they stand for? according to their label, union. now to pick up on something samantha said, i think they would try to argue that in

emphasizing national union, we're not backtracking, we're perpetuating what we always emphasized. emancipation had always been about preserving the union. i think that is the argument. anything else you see here? and you may not be able to read it well enough. anything else that jumps out at you? i have in mind the vice president nominee. if i asked you, i won't, we never mentioned it because life is too short. if you ask you who lincoln's vice president was in his first term, you might not immediately know to answer hanibal hamlin of maine. he was his vice president. in the convention in june of 1864, the republicans, calling themselves national unionists, kick out their vice-presidential person on the ticket. he had been an anti-slavery

politician from new england. the rens wanted to balance the ticket by putting a prominent new england we are a prominent northwesterner. and hamlin had done his job. but his reputation was too strongly anti-slavery. republicans want to deflect criticism of emancipation, not doenl they drop the label republican, but they drop their vice president. and they replace him with andrew johnson. andrew johnson, we would talk about much more if we were moving into the reconstruction period. because we know that he will figure centrally in that era of american history. real quickly, what do we know about it? andrew johnson had been born and raised in the south. risen to maturity in tennessee, a slave holding state. he had owned slaves himself. he was a democrat.

the only other thing we might add was that he was a stanch, stanch unionist. so when we think about it, the republican -- or i should say national union ticket in 1864, has the northern anti-slavery, republican lincoln, paired with the southern -- i don't know if i would call johnson pro-slavery, but he's not opposed to slavery on anymore grounds. he is a democrat. what do they have in common in almost nothing but they do have one thing in common, christian? >> reservation of the unionists. >> they're unionists. these two have almost nothing in

common other than their political values, expect union, is driving home the point. this is a union coalition aimed as preserving the union, a big tent, on the issues of slavery. we see this in a variety of ways. just a few more images, just real fast. this is a campaign banner, put out by the republican party, the label again, "grand national union banner." the slogan in bottom says "liberty union and victory." the platform of the national union party in 1864, has about i think 11 or 12 points. the very first one is going to say "this is paramount. it is the highest duty" right? the highest duty of every american citizen to maintain against all their enemies, the integrity of the union and the

paramount of the constitution and laws of the united states. as we go on this particular plank in the platform, going to talk about quelling the rebellion, about bringing traders to justice. the national union party is all about preserving the union. but look at a phrase, still, this very long sentence, after we were talking about the paramount authority and the laws of the constitution of the united states, the resolution says, "laying aside all differences of political opinion, we pledge ourselves to this." so, it's a fiction largely, but the strategy here is to say this is not the old republican party. this is an entirely new movement. it is a new bipartisan coalition that has as its only sort of cementing blue commitment to union. they will endorse emancipation and endorses the constitutional amendment that would end slavery

in all the us but look how it phrases that. this is the third plank in the platform "resolve that safely was the cause and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion. and as it is hostile in the principles of republican, it doesn't mean republican party, but government grounded in the consent of the government. we are in favor" and it goes on to say "the constitutional amendment to end slavery everywhere." but that gets to the link, as something you said, samantha, we are opposing slavery, but doing so as part of our commitment to preserve the union. this is the cause what sustains the rebellion and it must be ended if we are to end the rebellion.

this is the approach of the republican party in 1864. lincoln as late as the end of the sum early in 1864 is basically resigned to the inevitability to his defeat, more weariness seems to be mounting. he does not expect to win. in fact, don't have time to sketch all the details, but one of the most striking episodes i think in lincoln's presidency, 23rd of august he goes into a cabinet meeting with a memo that he has written in which he basically says, it is exceedingly probable that i will not be reelected. the democratic party is just preparing to meet in its convention in chicago, very near us, in chicago illinois, and that convention will ultimately nominate as its standard bearers, these two individuals. the presidential nominee on the left side of the banner, we've met before. this is george mcclellan, the commander of the army of the potomac early in the war, a very

prominent, very famous and well-known union general. mcclellan within the democratic party represented a faction known as war democrats. war democrats were members of the northern democratic party that favored the prosecution of the war very aggressively, definitely wanted to continue the war to preserve the union, but always opposed emancipation. his rung mate is a man who you'll heard of as george pendleton, a congressman from ohio. he's significant in this regard because he wants a party called peace of the democratic or copper heads if you ever come across that label. peace democrats had basically arrived at the cause that war is a fall and you are continuing the war was a tragic mistake. the democratic party will put these two member together on the same ticket.

war democrat and peace democrat. mcclellan, even earlier in the war, he staked out his position to regard with abraham lincoln. so mcclellan's position, continue the war, absolutely repudiate slavery. now the democratic party is closely enough divided between it's peace and war wings there are a lot of peace democrats at chicago, not very happy mcclellan is the nominee because he's a democrat. the party lets them write the platform, which is utterly bizarre, but they're going to have a war democrat lead the democrats. this is what they come up with. after four years of failure, to restore the union by the