they're not able to take it. this is what the plank road interception looks÷ú like today. they show he did not havezv it r command, he and they hate each other. he's lee's bat r battle man and he loves him a lot. but pushed for richard anderson, and i on may 7th, longstreet is replaced as he's taken wherev: he's ultimately going to be taken down to georgia. we have visitor center, where you can see a movie about his

great +i-q1ñ jackson's great battle. you can see him use dedicated to him and there's few monuments him and there's few monumenti moving walking tour. you can go to james wall street. you can't park more thanzvzv 30 minutes. we've got lee jackson sitting here describing and discussing how to go into action. then we have that awesome movie where they ride forward like the magnificent 7 going down the road. i love the fact that they push jackson's hand at one point. this is a guy that couldn't draw a sword, he's going to ride down the road with pistol on his hand. this is what it's going to look

like. look at all of these sketches. it's a÷ú lot about the way ackson.÷ú you have it riding up behind. this was the second in command. this is the man who came in and saved the army. whenever they go forward towardv the courthouse. lee doesn't have a second in command chair. it's going to be a terrible blow to the confederate. then here we have one sign wherú longstreet fell by friendly fire. we had the eyes of march and men. we wrote an article about ÷úthi.

-- then you have jackson and now we look here.ym when you don't and jackson when he goes down to chancellor, there's a battle, to battle end a few days later. then lee has it in a periodu! where he can plan, reorganize and he takes strategic niche ty and he marches north. when wall streetcmçuju down it' through the midst of battle but it's taking on different opponent. and decision next day with anderson -- richard karen anderson and then that evening they're starting their march towards thezv courthouse. there's no time tov:p reorganiz-

this is what lee is going to go into action in sl 64 by the end. he's going to be one of the generals. then when he goes to the river on may 24th. he has nobody screaming, they need to strike them a blow, strike them a blow. wall street is not there. shortly, wall street is not there, tell them not to put it there. richard, you'll leave. he said, we can hold this line twice you'll -- it's proven to interact. there was no turning back. taking that intersection and holding it and the fall of long street has a huge impact on the confederate army, one is from uniong# perspective and one is

from confederate perspective. from union perspective holding that, losing u!longstreet, thiss the impact. it grant's army has attained a grip upon the throat of the confederacy. it is a grip that will not be relaxed until treason gas and die. edward perry has a little different take onzv it. this is coming from a confederate general. i want you to think about this one whenever i finish and think about jackson longzv street and what both of their woundings have meant. edward perry said, the evil genius of the south is still there hovering over those desolate woods where we almost seem to be struggling with destiny. i÷ú want to thank you folks for coming out today. if you have any questions, chris will be around with the microphone. thanks for being partzv of the

symposium. by chris's book.÷ú÷ú >> jenkins. james long street. and he wanted the brigade command. to try to fill some rolls and he failed miserably. up on charges. with the army phere.

. but he he is going to be the put that he's trying to get into the command. it hadko gotten so fast between long street and the general that the apartment had to wave chargesym and pettiness. and so jenkins, that's how he gets put in there and jenkins his brigade whenever÷ú jackson wounded marching up right behind. they're going to be the reserve. according to one officer, they were in brand new uniforms, they they almost look blue when they were marching through the woods when ma hone virginia fire on long street's column. they think it was because of jenkins men looking like a column of yankees moving forward

through ÷úzvthere. >> other questions? other ÷ú÷úquestions? . longstreet time and again is going to prove himself valuable commodity. when he goes out after, he starts to fight with brag and

fight with young men. he seems to be ap petty jealous guy and that kind of carries over into -- there's a essay that if james long street says is probably not true. it's one of the most, i think it's wholly unfair. he's not -- some peopl5ú say -- if you look at it you look here in the wilderness, the guy can go above. he can deliver a hammer-likes blow and one deliver that hammer-like ymblow. . . >> by the book.

jenkins brigade, first south %-prifle. this south carolina and the palmetto. all this and more. >> one more question, anybody? >> ladies and gentlemen, mr. chris white. wednesday, american history tv in prime time continues with programs from the emerging civil war blog's contacts. at 8:00 p.m., john bell hood's assault at atlanta. at 8:45 p.m. the army of tennessee's assault at franklin, at 9:45, the federal breakthrough at petersburg, and 10:45 p.m. four influential civil war military wives. great attacks of the civil war, 8:00 p.m. eastern wednesday here

on c-span 3. military force is one of the things i think the american public very often gets impatient about. because they really believe they have this trump card, this great military that can defeat anyone it can only destroy things. >> journalist and professor mark danner talks about his career. spiral, trapped in the forever war, what we don't want to do is respond in such a way that will produce more of these militants, more of these militant organizations. they want us to over react. they want us to occupy muslim countries so they can build their recruitment. they want us to torture people.

they want us to do things that's going to allow them to make their case against us. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q & a. >> this weekend on american history tv on c-span 3. saturday afternoon, just before 5:00 eastern, architectural historian barry lewis, talks about the construction of the brooklyn bridge. why manhattan needed the bridge and how transportation in the city changed at the turn of the 20th century. >> when the brooklyn bridge was opened it did not put the ferries out of business. the ferries were still rung at capaci capacity. all through the 1880s and 90s, thecity of brooklyn which by then had reached 1 million people. >> then at 8:00. that's the interesting thing about country music, is that it's the music of poor white people. people who were privileged to be

white, and i'll talk about that in a second. but also, people who are underprivileged. in terms of their class identity and economic opportunities. >> dickinson college professor cotten sylar. how colonial america impacted the origins of country music. then, sunday afternoon at 4:00. >> a cautious congress, budget cut backs. created evidence that this crusade against society's greatest enemies may be slowed or worse may level off and fade. this is the climate, the land and the unfinished task that faced lyndon johnson on the first of december 1966. >> the film, the president, 1966 documents the final month of the year of president lyndon b. johnson.

awarding the medal of honor. william hazelgrove, madam president, the secret presidency of edith wilson. president woodrow wilson's second wife. she buffered access to the president as he suffered from a massive stroke in 1919. for our complete schedule, go to c-span.org. now, the may 1864 battle of responsible sponsylvania courthouse. he highlights the union assaults at parts of the battlefield known as the mule shoe and bloody angle.

i get to introduce my good friend, chris makowsky. he's brought to us by stevenson ridge, which is an 87 acre working bed and breakfast that's also a conference center, it's a great place to hold this symposium. he's also just written a book about stevenson ridge specifically, which will be available. he's also co author to magazine articles with me on the battle of spotslyvania courthouse. those are available through the emergic civil war. >> as i told you last night,

we're kind of like john and paul. we fight a little bit, we get along. but we're best friends. i was at his wedding, his reception right here, he met his wife right where our projector is set up. that's the got's honest truth. kris is what one of our friends described as rupert murdoch of civil war publishing, he's now becoming a very prolific author. chris teaches at st. bonaventure university as well as -- he was a former historian at fredericks berg and spotsylvania. he's going to talk about the mule shoe and it's my pleasure to bring you dr. chris makowsky. >> the first symposium i spoke

at here. jennifer is where matt is. >> i'm delighted to be able to share with you the story of spotsylvania particularly at the mule shoe, you know what a beautiful landscape it is. easily one of the best preserved civil war landscapes we have available to us. it's pristine. there are a few monuments out there, you're seeing what the soldier saw in 1864 when they first arrived. the tree lines are pretty accurate, the fields are pretty accurate, over the course of two years, 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'd be happy to take you out and show you some of those traces here at

stevenson ridge. i hope over the course of my talk, i'll be able to help you understand some of the traces that exist so the next time you go out there, you can see for yourself the stories still written on this most beautiful of landscapes. to understand how the army's got here, we pick up with chris left off, where they're fighting in the wilderness for two days. they fight in stalemate for a third, ulysses s. grant changes the war, it's the turning point of the civil war. whatever those gettysburg folks tell you, i don't pay attention to that. nonsense. because up to this point the army's clash. they withdraw, they spend a couple months catching their breath. reequipping, resupplying, reinforcing. grant realizes if he does that, it gives the confederates the chance to do that too. and he's opened the spring campaign realizing that if through no other means than by attrition, he writes, he will

wear the confederacy down. rather than withdrawing, he simply decides to go left and south, heading toward spotsylvania where he can get that inside road to richmond. he doesn't care about the village, the courthouse itself, it's those roads. he doesn't care about richmond, except that he knows as he moves at richmond, lee has got 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 for our program. the wilderness is off in that direction. the army's are going to head down the road here to spotsylvania. in this area here. >> they cheer wildly with the wilderness burning around him. lee realizes he's got a block grant, so he sends his calvary

to delay the union advance. the union is going to send their calvary to try to flush him out and they fail. back by the time grant gets halfway down that road to potts tavern, he finds his troopers spread out in the field sleeping. george gordon, commander of the army, starts kicking butts, get up, clear that road. where's your commander. phil sheridan, nobody knows where phil sheridan is. when sheridan finally comes galavanting into camp, he's irate because we had the gall to order his own troopers around. imagine that. >> and the two get into an explosive argument. two have the incredible volcanic tempers, and immediate is the one who dials it back, it's an active insubordination on sheridan's part. and so meade goes to grant and says, can you believe this guy? here's what just happened. he had the gal to say, if you

give me the orders, i'll go out and get stewart myself. grant, instead of backing his army commander backs his pet, phil sheridan. he generally knows what he's talking about, cut the orders and let him do it. oh, okay. so somewhat fwlaber gasted meade cuts the orders and let's sheridan ride off. leaving the army of the potomac blind and deaf. and i want to call on that very important fact to your attention. because what unfolds over the next 2 1/2 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, i killed jeb stewart, ladidadida. he kills thosen adds of his own men by leaving the army blind and deaf. union is going to continue to

advance down that road toward spotsylvania, the calvary is still blocking them, they're in effect flushing them out, infantry is going to have to do the job, the fifth core is leading the march, the first division, trying to lead the way, they're going to deploy into the line of battle if you look at these roads of chairs. you ride that road. it's row of chair afro of chair afro of chair. they delay the advance again. the federals have to race up there at the double quick, redeploy, try to push the calvary away, go to their horses, go to the next row of chairs. line up, delay again. >> grant plans to be in spotsylvania by 8:00 a.m., but that defense is so effective it slows their advance. it gives lee the chance to cut

his way out of the wilderness, creating his own road through the burning woods, march twice as far to get here where mr. davis is. and block the road. just as that final union push gets to this area. on the battlefield it's known as spindle field or laurel hill. the army's appear on either side of her home. she and her family flee to safety as the battle erupts around her. the union infantry realizes they're getting push back. the calvary aren't mounting up and riding away, they're getting push back because the infantry is filing in, jeb stewart has sent a message to have the first confederate corps double time on the battlefield. literally, they're rushing to this spot, even as the federal

fifth core is deploying and coming up across that field. stewart puts those men in exactly the right spot at exactly right the right time. because of this cat and mouse that's been going on, the union advance is discombobulated. there's a lot of confusion, not a lot of cohesion. this last push is not at division strength, but brigade strength they're exhausted, confused, mixed up. the first line peter lyles -- stewart is able to put just enough men at the stop to stop them. the next advance comes up this side of the road. stewart's able to put enough confederates right there, stops them. a third and a fourth wave come across that field, with confederates getting just into position just in time.

>> he knows his commander's eyes around him. he has something to prove. he organizes again for a concerted effort with a whole division. pushes him up, but more confederates flooding on to the field in time to stop that advance. now, he's really upset so he's going to take his whole core and try to do it, not just that, he's going to get the sixth core to help him out. half of the union army is coming on. extending their high. anchor i anchoring down. good fields of fire, goodell vagus. it forms a large bend. today we call the mule shoe --

it's horseshoe shaped. you guys are all in a nice convenient horseshoe, you're about to have a bad day, i apologize in advance. confederate defense here holds. and the line forms. the ninth of may comes, and it's time for both armies to assess their situation. this has created a roadblock down the brock road. the union army is bottlenecked. the second corps got stuck way up at todd's tavern and had to shift way over to the poe river. the ninth core can't 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. they're going to land here at stevenson ridge, 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 that he's got this bulge pretty inconvenient. a salient inherently unstable. let's pretend you guys for the moment are union soldiers. and i'm in -- how many of you can be firing at me? >> okay. all of you? all five of you can be firing at me once. >> how many of you can i fire at once? only one. they have what's called converging fire. i have what's called diverging fire, it gets weaker over a distance, it fans out while theirs concentrates. if somebody breaks through, they're in the real of the whole position, everybody's got to pull back. and we're also subjected to crossfire. you might fire in this direction and miss me, you can hit my buddies over here. that's why a sail yen the is

inherently unstable. it formed again, because they're taking advantage of the ridge lines, this part of the line forms near dusk, they're not paying attention to the overall view. they're worried if federalists have that spot, they can bombard the federalists. maybe it's a good idea to protect that. this is probably bad news. he talks to his second in command. yule says, i can defend that salient if you give me enough artillery lee says okay. they're going to put 30 guns in the tip of the salient. lee is going to let the position stand. what's going to unfold turns richard you'll 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. he's going to look at ways to get at it. even as he's doing so. he has a young up and coming officer named emery upton from batavia, new york. upton poses an attack. if this overall position is a big curve, about where you are, kim, you're out even further. you're like a little -- you're like a bulge on the bulge. you're really vulnerable. you're only a couple hundred yards away from janet. it's the closest the lines are. upton has to run where janet is and punch through you. good luck, all right? what he wants to do is

different. where you line up half of your guys and a couple steps behind the other half. he wants to line his men up in a fist. if you succeed you'll earn your brigadier star. in you don't, don't come back. to get support he's going to hold these confederates in place. upton's running late. so he doesn't launch at 5:00 like he's supposed to. nobody tells mott meanwhile,

they just decide to jump off early, he thinks he has an opportunity, he launches at 4:30. his attack spends itself. mott come as cross, these wide open fields. 30 cannon, boom. and they prove with artillery at the tip of the sail yant, they can defend it. mott is wiped off the field. upton finally launches at 6:00. with no support on either side. the amazing thing, he runs across the field, punches through, splits open the confederate lyne, successful, and no one knows what to do next. it's an innovative tactic, he's a victim of his own success. there are no union reinforcements to flood into this gap. so confederates come rushing to the front. richard yule does a fantastic job patching this whole. there's another lead to the rear of the incident and upton is

driven to the field. he will earn his star, grant recognizes the failure was not upton's fault, but his own. one of the things i add meyer most about grant is a quick learner. forward frontal assaults, he's always experimenting, always trying, always maneuvering, he looks at this attack, and says, if upton can breakthrough 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 breakthrough. 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 a while to do this, he wants to use his second core under win field

scott hancock to execute this attack. hancock's men are way over here by the poe river. they have to shift all the way up and over into position. it's going to take them hours. darkness falls, flooding the streams, turning the roads into muck. many soldiers describe this as their worst march of the entire career in the army. nobody's telling them where they're going. there's one officer who says, will someone at least point me in the right direction? that way i don't have to go all the way around the world and approach the confederates from the rear. finally, they assemble a place called the brown farm. i'll let your atlas show the brown farm. it's really heavy, don't hold it up there, you'll hurt yourself. it's a heavy hammer, i tell you. it's a heavy hammer.

as the army is shifting. robert e. lee is trying to read the tea leaves, the intelligence he's getting. he's getting reports of this movement. he starts thinking, in the wilderness, the army's fought for a couple days, they came to stalemate, and grant moved left and south. they've been here at spotsylvania for 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? lee is going to hit the road and block grant again. the slowest moving part of my army raining and turning these

roads to muck they're the furthest away from the roads. only a few farm lanes that service this area. he pulls these out to get a heads start on grant. and he doesn't tell dick yule. yule finds out because one of his subordinates comes over and says what do you mean. my artillery is gone twice before lee finally acquiesces and sends artillery back. by that point, things are so far away that lee says, it will probably be morning before they get there he's heard reports, heard sounds. he's convinced it's not grant trying to outflank them. rather grant trying to attack. he's a crusty old buzzard.

he did some great work until he got wounded in the foot in the spring of 1862, goes back to richmond to con va less. >> when he comes back to the army, he has a wooden walking stick because of the foot injury. his men call him stubby. his boots on and his cane next to his bed and indeed, an attack is coming. 20,000 federals under hancock headed right to the civil war. hancock's going to take upton's

model and build on it, so the left part of hancock's attack is going to be that fist. and in support, david bell bernie is going to line up at a traditional line of battle sweeping forward in this direction. time of the attack is set for 4:00 in the morning this rain has conjured up fog from the bottom lands. cooled it off, taken the edge off. the fog has made the force impenetrable. no one knows what they're heading into. they can't see it. they just know they're heading into trouble. the men stand there, they sleep on their feet. others so pumped up with adrenaline or fear they can't

sleep at all. when 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 hancock is going to order his attack forward. so that he doesn't lose the element of surprise. there's 20,000 men coming forward, sweeping through some boggs, through some forests, toward the confederate position. those of you who have been out there, there's a farm lane, runs right about where you guys are, and heads out in that direction. runs at a diagonal from this position. confederates have skirmishes out

there. it's a sunken farmland which they fortify even more. they have a good strong position out there. by the time the federals come sweeping out of the forest and up on to that little farmland, they think they've captured the main confederate line. when they grab the position they're so excited, they yell hazaah and give away their element of surprise. about a third of them are in the lines, a third of them are back sleeping, and another third of them are huddled against their camp fires. trying to hunker down against the rain, the rifle stacked next to them cooking up breakfast. the skirmishers come running over in the wake of that echo. there are yankees coming, there are yankees coming, 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 they flood forward even as the confederates launch their first volley. they were aiming at that ridge line, and the federals have swept down into a large swale that cuts across that field. and so the confederate fire goes over their heads and they advance sweeping forward. barlow's men having further to go. come around like a big left hook smashing through, right between the two of you, peeling open a gap in the line. his 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 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 ambrose burnside. they're holding him off like this, suddenly, where did you come from. lanes men hold. his men meanwhile, sweep across that field come up out of that swale, hit at the tip, and begin sweeping in this direction. their attack is so overwhelming, they literally wipe confederate units right off the map. some of the most storied, hardest fighting veterans in the army. louisiana taggarts, gone. they keep sweeping this way, the stonewall brigade, gone. james walker, stonewall jim to his men is shot down in his efforts to try to stem the tide. nothing can stop the federals as they finally get down to about where upton had his breakthrough

two days earlier. they're finally stopped by the men of junias daniels, he's shot through the bowels and will die. but his men will hold. now robert e. lee has a whole in his line, a half a mile wide. and these federals are filtering into the interior with 20,000 more in the sixth core, getting ready to flood into that gap. here's where lee rides to the battlefield with his army on the brink of annihilation. he has to figure out what to do. first man he looks to is richard yule, his second in command yule is going off like a tea pot on the boil. slapping them with the broadside of the sword. and they continue to stream past him in panic, and lee the calm picture of composure rides up and says, general yule, how do

you propose to control your men if you cannot control your ssel and he gives yule a time-out. gordon is ready to go, send me in, coach lee is going to personally leave gordon's men to hook up with lane and drive in this direction to plug the gap. except the men won't go. they start yelling general lee to the rear. we will not go forward unless general lee goes to the rear. a very angry lee, starts to visibly get upset, that's when gordon steps up, he's in full cheerleader mode. these men are virginians, they're georgians, they have never failed you, they will not