bloom into full flower in the 1950s, a full strategy of using world opinion as a both a tool and a tactic to achieve civil rights change. so thank you very much. brief reminder your paper proposals are dual on wednesday. they should be submitted via moodle. if you have questions about those, please freel please feel free to come and see me. idea notes, you guys are up on wednesday. thanks. you're watching "american history tv" on c-span3 every weekend. during congressional breaks and on holidays, too. follow us on twitter, like us on facebook. and find our programs and schedule on our website, c-span.org/history. >> on the civil war, historian

chris makowsky discusses the battle of spots silvainian courthouse which pitted ulysses grant against robert several lee's confederate army. he details the movements and military tactics employed by lee and grant and gives special attention to the union assaults at parts of the battlefield known as the mule shoe and bloody angle. after two weeks of fighting the armies disengaged without a clear victor. lee failed to stop grant's drive south toward richmond this talk was part of a symposium hosted by the emerging civil war blog. >> i'm delighted to be able to share with you the story of spots sylvania. if you've had the chance to walk around particularly out at the mule shoe, you know what a beautiful landscape it is, easily one of the best preserved civil war landscapes that we have available to us. it's pristine. there are a few monuments out there, but you're seeing what

the soldiers saw in 1864 when they first arrived. the tree lines are pretty accurate. the fields are pretty accurate. then over course of two years like a swarm of locusts they transformed that landscape so dramatically that the traces of it are still there today. if you want to after our program this afternoon, i'll be happy to show you some of those traces here at stevenson ridge. but i hope over the course of my talk, i'll be able to help you understand some of those traces that still exist so the next time you go out there, you can see for yourself the story still written on had most beautiful of landscapes. to understand how the armies got here, we pick up where chris left off where they're fighting in the wilderness for two days, and fight and stalemate for a third and ulysses s. grant changes the war. it is the turning point of the civil war. don't whatever those gettysburg folks tell you, don't pay attention to that stuff. nonsense.

because up to this point, the armies clash, they withdraw. and then they spend a couple months catching their breath. reequipping, resupplying, reinforcing. grant realizes that if he does that, it gives the confederates the chance to do that too and he has opened this spring campaign realizing that if through no other means than by attrition, he writes, he will wear the confederacy down. he decides to go left and south heading towards spots veinia where he can get the inside road to richmond. he doesn't care about the village or the courthouse. it's those roads. he doesn't even care about richmond except he knows as he moves at richmond, lee has to come out and defend the confederate capital. that's where he's going to get lee out in the open into battle. to orient you, the wilderness is off in that direction off in the far corner. they're going to head down the brock road here to spots

sylvania which is going to be in this area here. and as grant makes that decision to go left and south, his men realize there's no turning back. grant is holding true to his word. and they cheer wildly with the wilderness burning around them as the army withdraws down the brock road towards spots sylvania. lee realizes he's got to block grant. he sends his cavalry to delay the union advance. the union's going to send their cavalry to try to flush him out and they fail. by the time grant gets to pods tavern, an he finds his troopers spread out in the field sleeping. george gordon mead, commander of the army starts kicking butts, get up, clear that road. where is your commander in phil sheridan. nobody knows where phil sheridan is. when sheridan finally comes galavanting into camp, he's irate because mead had the gall

to order his own troopers around. imagine that and the two get into an explosionive argument. two both of them have incredible volcanic tempers and mead's the one who dials in back, but it is an act of insubordination on sheridan's part. and so mead goes to grant and says can you believe this guy. >> here's what just happened. he had the gall to even say if you just give meet orders i'll go out and get jeb stewart by himself. grant instead of backing his army commander backs his pet phil sheridan and says well, sheridan generally knows what he's talking about. cut account orders and let him do it. oh, okay. so somewhat flabbergasted mead cuts the orders and lets sheridan ride off with 12,000 cavalry men leaving the army of the potomac blind and deaf. and i want to call that will very important fact to your attention. because what unfolds over the

next two and a half weeks thousands of union lives are lost because phil sheridan has left with the eyes and ears. he tends to get a free pass in history. oh, i killed jeb stewart, ledee da but he also kills thousands of his own men by leaving the army blind and deaf. union is going to continue to advance down that road towards spots sill vabia, the cavalry is still block them. the you know cavalry ineffective at flushing them out so infantry is going to have to do the job. so the fifth corps is leading the march. their first division is trying to lead the way. they're going to deploy in the line of battle. push forward in this direction to try to drives the confederate cavalry away. if you look at these roads of chairs if you ride that rode it's ridge after ridge, row of chair afro of chair. the could be ted rats ride from

one to the next. they delay the advance again. the federals have to get back into the line of march, race up there at the double quick, redeploy try to push the cavalry away. they hop on their horses, go to the next row of chairs, line up, delay again. grant plans to be in spots sylvania by 8:00 a.m. but that defense is so effective it slows their advance. and so that gives lee the chance to cut his way out of the wilderness creating his own road through the burning woods, marched twice as far to get finally here where mr. davis is. and block the road. just as that final union push gets to this area. on the battle pooeld it's known as spindle field or laurel hill. sarah spindle is sitting at the breakfast table with her family when suddenly the armies appear on either side of their home. they flee to safety as the battle erupts around her. but the union infantry'ses they're getting pushback.

the cavalry aren't just mounting up and riding away, they're getting pushback. that's because at infantry is filing in, jeb stewart has sent a message to have the first confederate corps double time onto the battlefield. he's at this spot saying run into position, boys. because if you doan, billy yank is. and literally confederates are rushing to this spot even as the federal fifth corps is deployen and coming up across that field. stewart puts those men in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time. because of this cat and mouse that's been going on on the brock road, the union advance is discombobulated. so there's a lot of confusion. there's not a lot of cohesion and so this last push is not at division strength but at brigade strength because these guys have been getting into line, deploying, getting into line, they're exhausted, confused mixed up. and so the first line peter lils

brigade comes up on this side of the road. stewart is able to put just enough men at that spot to stop them. kershaw's brigade, boom. so the next advance comes up this side of the road. stewart's unable to put enough confederates right there boom, stops them. a third and then a fourth wave come across that field with confederates getting just into position just in time. fifth corps commander warren is a little upset by this. he knows his commanders eyes are on him. so he's got something to prove. so he organizes again for a concerted effort with a whole division. pushes them up but again more confederates flooding onto the field in time to stop that advance. now he's really upset. so he's going to take his whole corps and try to do it, but not just that. he's going to get the sixth corps to help him out. half of the union army is coming

on. but the confederates continue to rush onto the field extending their line anchoring down on the poe river and moving in this direction taking advantage of ridge lines to give them selves good topography if i, good fields of fire, good elevations. and as they do, the ridge line kind of curves up and around. and it forms a large bend. today we call them mule shoe because it's horseshoe shaped. unfortunately you guys are all in a nice convenient horseshoe and about to have a very bad day. i apologize in advance. okay? so confederate defense here holds. and as more confederates into defense, the line forms. the 9th of may comes. and it's time for both armies to assess their situation. has created a roadblock down account brock road. the union army is bottlenecked. the second corps got stuck way up at todd's tavern and finally

had to shift way over to the poe river. the 9th corps can't even get down here because of that bottleneck. they're going to swing over to the east and come down this direction. today modern courthouse road. and they're going to land right here at stevenson ridge, the 9th corps because they can't get to the battlefield over here. it's going to open a second front. as lee is looking at this, he's shifting his troops around and he realizes he's got this bulge. pretty inconvenient. a salient is inherent lit unstable. the reason is, let's pretend you guys for the moment are union soldiers and you're lined you on the outside and i'm in the salient and how many of you can be firing at me? all of you. all five of you can be firing at me once. how many of can i fire at once? only one, right. >> so they have what's called converging fire. i what's called diverging fire.

it gets weaker over a distance and fans out while theirs -- if somebody breaks through, they're in the rear of the whoa position. so everybody's got to pull back. we're also subjected to crossfire. you might fire in this direction and miss me but you can hit my buddies over here. so that's why a salient is inherently unstable. if formed again because they're taking advantage of the ridge lines there part of the line forms near dusk. they're not paying attention to exactly the overall view. there's a piece of high ground right here called the mccool farm confederates are worried if federal artilleryists have that spot, they can bombard the confederates. maybe it's a good idea to protect that. >> as lee looks at this, he realizes this is probably bad news. he talks to his second in command, richard eull and yule says i can defend that salient if you give me enough artillery.

so lee says okay. they're going to put 30 guns here in the tip of the salient. and lee is going to let the position stand. it's important because what's going to unfold turns richard eull into a huge scapegoat but lee, the harry truman of the army of northern virginia, the buck stops here guy says yes, okay. grant looks at this and also understands how inherently vulnerable this position is. so he's going to look at ways to get at it. even as he's doing so, he's got a young up and coming officer named emeril upton. from ba tabbia, new york. pressure out of west point, hot shot guy and i got an idea. upton proposes an attack against a little bulge in the mule shoe. if this overall position is a big curve, about where you are, kim, you're kind of out even further. that's right.

okay? so you're like a bulge on the bulge. so you're already vulnerable. you're only a couple hundred yards away from janet. it's the closest the lines are. upton want to run from where janet is and punch through you. good luck, all right? don't hit a lady. all right. >> what upton wants to do though is different. instead of a typical line of battle where you line up half of your guys he wants to line his men up in a fist. 12 regiments, 5,000 men and he's going to punch through and then open up a hole. upton's told you succeed, you will earn your brigadier star. if you don't, don't come back. stakes are not very high there, are they? okay. upton lauxs this attack in the afternoon of may 10th. top get support, he's going to have warren's fifth corps over

here launch an attack to hold these confederates in place and he's also going to have a division under mott come straight down and punch the tip of the mule shoe here. problem, upton's running late. so he doesn't launch at 5:00 like he's supposed to. but nobody tells poor ger sham mott. meanwhile warren just decides to jump off early. he thinks he's got an opportunity. he launched at 4:30. his attack spends itself. ger sham mott comes across, these wide open fields, confederates have nothing else to shoot at, 30 cannon and prove with al tillry at the tip of the salient they can defend it. mott is wiped off the field. juneton finally launches at 6:00 with no support on either side. the amazing thing is that he runs across this field, punches through, splits open the

confederate line, successful. nobody knows what to do next. it is such an innovative tactic. he's a victim of his own success. and there are no confederate union reinforcements to flood into this gap. so confederates come rushing to the front. richardule does a fak job patching the hole. upton is driven from the field. he will earn his star because grant recognizes the failure was not upton's fault but his own. and one of the things i admire most about grant is he a quick learner despite the stereotype of him he's always experimenting and always trying and maneuvering. he looks at this attack and he says if upton can break through here with 5,000 men, what could i do with 20,000? and this time i've got another

20,000 reinforcements ready to take advantage of the break through. and so he's going to put into motion a plan where he's going to use that same idea to punch the confederate position right on the nose. and he's going to have the reinforcements ready in place. it's going to take him awhile to do this. he wants to use his second corps under winfield scott hancock to execute this attack. that's his hammer. hancock's men are way over here by the poe river. they've got to shift all the way up and over into position. it's going to take them hours. and as they begin their march in the afternoon of may 11th, it begins to rain. darkness falls. flooding the streams, turning the roads into muck. many soldiers describe this as the worst march of their entire career in the army. nobody's telling them where they're going. in fact, there's one officer who says well someone at least point me in the right direction? so that way i don't have to go

all the way around the world and approach the confederates from the rear. >> but finally they assembly at a place called the brown farm. i'll let your atlas of the civil war survey of the brown farm, there's the brown farm, ladies and gentlemen about, a mile away from the salient. thank you very much. that's really heavy. don't hold it up. it's a heavy hammer. i'll tell you. it's a heavy hammer. so as the army is shifting, robert e. lee is trying to read the tea leaves, intelligence that he's getting and he's getting reports of this movement and he's got reports of burnside having moved off into this direction and he starts thinking, in the wilderness, the earp's fought fought for a couple days, they came to stalemate and grant moved left and south. they've been here in spots sylvania fur a couple days. they fought to a stalemate and now he's got reports of federals moving left and south. what do you think that puts in

lee's mind? i'm being flanked again. grant's on move. lee starts to mobilize portions of his army to hit the road and try to block grant again. and the first parts of his army that he's going to move is his artillery because that's the slowest moving part of his army. it's raining and turning roads to muck. so the first artillery pieces he's going to pull are these right here at the tip of the hul shed because they're the farthest away from the roads, only a few farm lanes that service this area. so he pulls these out to get a head start on grant. and he doesn't tell dick yule. yule finds out because one of his subordinates edward allegheny johnson in charge of this portion of the line comes home and says where is my artillery? yule is like what do you mean. >> it's gone. and yule has to go to lee and ask for his artillery twice before lee finally acquiesces and sends artillery back. by that point, things are so far

away, the artillery is so far away, he says it will probably be morning before they get there. this has johnson nervous because he's heard sounds of movement out there and he's convinced it's not grant trying to outflank them but instead it's grant getting ready to attack. and he's a crusty old bugger. i don't know if you know much. old allegheny but he did some great work on the valley till he got wounded in the foot, the bottle of mcdwoul in the spring of 1862, goes back to richmond to convalesce. despite being a crusty old bugger somehow earns a reputation for being a man about town with the ladies. i don't get it. when he cops back to the earp, he's got a wooden walking stick because of the injury. his men call him old clubby because of that stick. he's pacing the lines with his club worried about these reports convinced something's coming.

when he finally goes to bed that night, he goes to bed with his boots on and his cane next to his bed ready to jump up at a moment's notice. indeed, an attacking is coming. 208,000 federals under winfield scott hancock headed right to the atlas of the civil war at the brown farm. thank you very much. hancock's going to take upton's model and build on it. so the left part of hancock's attack under francis barlow is going to be that fist and in support david bernie is going to line up at a traditional line of battle sweeping forward in this direction. time of the attacking is set for 4:00 in the morning. but this rain has conjured up fog from the bottom lands. it's been hot. hot summer in the wilderness so far. this rain has cooled it off. taken the edge off. and the fog has made the forests

impenetrable. hancock can't see and he's not had time to recon nointer the land in front of him. no one knows what they're heading into and they can't see it they just know they're heading into trouble. the men stand there, some of them so exhausted think sleep on their feet. others so pumped up with adrenaline or fear that they can't sleep at all. some write letters to their families at home on the backs of the man in front of them and tuck those letter away hoping they've got some form of identification on them should this go terribly awry. whether he 4:00 comes, hancock can't give the order for those men to advance. making them even more nervous. jacking them up even more. and finally, at 4:20, dawn is just breaking enough to turn that fog translucent. and hack cook's going to order his attack forward. so that he doesn't lose the

element of surprise. those 20,000 men come forward sweeping through some bogs, through some forests toward the confederate position. those of you who have been out there, there's a farm lane that runs right about where you guys are and keeps heading out in that direction, runs away in a diagonal away from this position. confederates have some skirm shies out there as their advanced eyes and ears. it's a sunken farmland. they've got a good strong position out there. by the time the federals come sweeping out of the forest and up onto the farmland, they think they've captured the main confederate line and under orders to advance silently. when they grab the position, they're so excited they yell hazah and give away their element of surprise. and that haza echoes across the field and alerts the confeder e confederates in the trenches. about a third of them are actually in the lines. a third of them are back

sleeping. and another third of them are huddled against their campfires trying to hunker down against account rain, the rifles stacked next to them cooking up breakfast. but the skirmishers come running over in the wake of that echo. there are yankees coming, and everyone floods into the trenches. there will be blood enough for supper one confederate said. by the end of the day, there was blood enough for all. the federals having given away their position have to reform and then they flood forward even as the confederates launch their first volley. but they were aiming at that ridge line and the federals have swept down into a large we'll that cuts across that field. and so the confederate fire goes over their aheads and they advance sweeping forward. barlow's men having farther to go come around like a big left

hook, smashing through right between the two of you, peeling open a gap in the line. barlow's men begin to drive in this direction. in fact, they're so successful they get all the way down here to where james lane's men are. lane's men are good stalwart soldiers, hard fighters dependable. but they've been plagued by the shadow of having killed stonewall jackson accidentally a year earlier. they're already putting up a defense against a feeble assault by am broce burnside. they're holding off burnside like this and suddenly, where did you come from? and they're having to do a two-front defense but labor's men hold. >> beerny's men come up out of that swale and hit the tip and begin sweeping in this direction. their attack is so overwhelming they wipe confederate units right off the map. some of the most storied, hardest fighting veterans in the

army. hayes louisiana tigers, gone. as they keep sweeping this way, the stonewall brigade, gone. james walker, stonewall jim to his men trying to rally the stonewall brigade is shot down. and his efforts to try to s.t.e.m. the tide. but nothing can stop the federals as they finally get down to about where upton had his break through two days earlier. there they're finally stopped by the men of june yas daniels. daniels is shot through the bowels and will die. but his men will hold. but now robert e. lee has a hole in his line a half a mile wide. and these federals are filtering into the interior. with 20,000 more in the 6th corps getting ready to flood into that gap. here's where lee rides to the battlefield with his army on the brink of annihilation and he has to figure out what to do. first man he looks to is richard

yule, his second in command. but yule is going off like a teapot on the boil. just cussing, swearing, sputtering, yelling at his men, calling they will quourds, slapping them with the broadside of his sword extolling them to get back into line and they continue to stream past him in panic and lee, the very calm picture of composure rides up and he says, general yule, how do you propose to control your men if you cannot control yourself? and he gives yule a time-out. instead, he's going to turn to one of yule's subordinates, john brown gordon, aggressive lawyer from georgia. gordon is ready to go. like send me in coach, come on. so lee is going to personally lead gordon's men into the mule shoe to hook up with lane and drive up in this direction to plug the gap. except the men won't go.

they start yelling general lee to the rear. lee to the rear. we will not go forward. unless general lee goes to the rear. in a very angry lee starts to the visibly get upset. that's when gordon steps up in full cheerleader mode and he's like general lee, these men are virginians and georgians they'll never failed you and will not fail you now. lumen? no. the crowd goes wild. that's right. some poor corporal has to haul him to the rear while gordon pushes foorksd connects and begins to plug the gap driving federals out of the mule shoe. federals simply hunker down, build works of their own and will spend may 12th trading potshots back and forth with confederates on the east side of the line. things over here go a little differently. sweeping across this is field, we've got steven who get shot

down leading his men. his second in command will have to finish that charge and connect and drives the federals out and push up the line. abner mariners alabamians will get entin next. he knows this is a suicide mission. he says i'm either coming back a live major general or a dead brigadier. he'll come back a dead brigadier. he's buried in the city cemetery in fredericksburg today. but his men connect. they drives the fers out and begin pushing forward. nathaniel harris's mississippis will come in and connect and drive them out. sam magowan's south carolinians whose monument ironically resembles a coffin. plugs the gap and continues to drive up a small hill in this section of the line. even as 20,000 reinforcements

under the 6th corps begin flooding forward. and they get down into that swale that i talked about and all the bullets flying through the air, they want to stay protected as long as they can so instead of coming straight across into the gap, they let that the swale funnel them right over to this spot even assam mcdowntown's men are driving up toward it. so that particular angle in the line, a 13 degree bend becomes the center of the maelstrom as magowan's men have to fight their way, traverse by traverse up to that that spot as the 6th kor corps comes pouring into that same area. soldiers will later call that area hell's half acre. a gol goth that, a place you have skulls. a saturn aia of blood. panoply of horror.

today most of us remember it as the bloody angle. where men were not as men said one soldier but as demons. for 20 straight hours, they will fight hand to hand in the pouring rain in water in those trenches up to their knees shooting each other at point blank range, stabbing each other with their bayonets using their rifles as clubs, throwing them like spears, using sticks, rocks, fists, teeth, anything they can. a seething bubbling, roaring hell of hate and murder. one soldier says. 20 straight hours, and this fight's already been going on for two. 22 straight hours of the most intense, personal hatred you can imagine up close and ugly.

the earth works were slippery with rain and blood, one soldier said. men wounded getting trampled into the trenches. too injured to pull themselves out, bodies stacking up, three, four, five deep. men getting sucked into the mud and suffocating or drowning or being unable to do anything but suffer and be trampled men jumping up onto the works firing a rifle and throwing it like a spear pinning the guys to the trees. someone will pass another load rifle to them and they'll doo it again over and over till they're shot down. someone else jumps up and takes their place. and lee copies to feed men into this fight because he's trying to save the life of his army. he needs to buy time so he's going to trade lives for time. and he's going to seal off this bulge. but in order to do it, he's going to keep sending men into

the meat grinder. and finally, been 3:00 a.m., they get word that that line is finished. and the order is given for these men to retreat. in twos and threes they slip back into this final position. just before dawn, federals realize something's up, they make a final push over the works. capture the last couple hundred confederates and begin a caution advance into the interior of the mule shoe. those artillery pieces i talked about earlier, many of them had gotten back just in time to get captured. but the rest of them are in this line. and they open fire on that federal advance. discouraging any sort of pursuit and federals go back to the, tier yore of the mule shoe, hunker down just as dawn begins to lighten the drizzling sky. seeing that they find out there is unprecedented in their

experience. one union soldier talks about being able to walk from hancock's headquarters to the angle without ever touching ground because sglor. they had to pull bodies out of the mud. and the fighting isn't over at spokesen vainia.

it will go on for yet another week, as grant continues to find way toss break through these lines once and for all. he'll shift, maneuver, try to attack across the same ground, but this last line is so impregnab impregnable, that they can only get win rifle range. we'll look at that next year. that's when grant realizes he can't get at lee lee will try one stab in that direction in the corner federals will stop that. if we're talking about the toll of battle, when richard joule, he's got 8,000 men. a year earlier when stonewall

jackson marked. he had 28,000 men. where are those 20,000 men? after that, grant waits for any other confederate shenanigans, nothing comes, he'll begin to pull out on the night of the 20th. to pick up that story, come back next year, and we'll tell you that one, too. the landscape they leave behind is devastated, but if you go out there today you'll hear the birds sing and the whir of insects in the trees. if you're lucky you'll feel a breeze. we could all use one of those, right? it's beautiful. it's pristine. >> it was a soggy mess yesterday. >> just as it was when they were fighting. but i invite to you go out and

visit there, stand in that spot and listen to those birds, hear the whir of those insects, feel that breeze, think about those men, the men who suffered and died and sacrificed there. they would be glad you have come there to remember them. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you for the fantastic talk. one right over here? >> i've heard of a tactic called the column, which is positive many law e -- >> you should direct this question to chris, because he has the great expertise.

>> how does upton and for that matter boroughs assault formations compare to the traditional french assault columns. >> they're a little more compact than you would see. if i remember correctly, one of the readings i looked at -- thanks for throwing me under the bus, chris. >> i'll answer, too. >> dural upton's assault they likened it to waterloo. what mae was trying to do on the chairman of that was to try to punch hi ways through with that first line and the second and third lines with upton would be the fighting tactic. now, whenever you go with the core size level, that's going to take it to a whole new level. feel free to talk about that. >> the key to remember, too is the technology is vastly different by the time they're fighting in the war. the notion of this mass column is pretty unusual, because the

idea, like in napoleonic times, mass yourself, but when you do that, you've matter yourself a target for high le targeted weaponry. it's a print. upton tells his men not to even cap that rifles, because he doesn't want them to stop and shoot on the way over. it's a sprint, get over here, start stabbing, then you can cap your rifles and start shooting. so i threw chris under the bus, because he spent a lot of time studying napoleonic tactics. there's a question over here. >> i'm going to work my way over to you. >> afternoon the may 12th, 1864, if your opinion, if burnside doesn't stop, does he have enough men to punch through the confederate line? >> that's a great question.

i call this spokesen vainia's forgotten front. burnside comes in and actually slides in here on the 9th and has the opportunity to burst all the way through, and he doesn't. a lot of confederates talk about if he had acted aggressively, there's nothing that could have stopped them. that's the story of burnside over here on this flank for the first week. he is ineffectual, because he is tepid in his advances. so on the morning of the 12th, he launches that weak attack, his guys get -- they use stevenson ridge for the staging area for that, but then he refocusesing try toss -- another little bulge over here and gets caught up. it's always just a matter of not enough, not enough men, not enough attempt, not enough ambition, not never aggress, not

enough, not enough, not enough. whether he could have on the 12th specifically broken through? i don't know. he's i'm going to launch my own attack so lee's got his eye over here. does that answer your question, mike? do we have time for one more? >> one more. after his initial attack, does he stay involved? or do they pull back for refittic? >> he does. after this breakthrough, they're actually going to be a part of this -- shifted around to several positions over here on the 12th. three be thrown back into the fight. he's going to go on to try to capture miers hill a few days later. we could seat it quite from here, but outside y