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 fail you now.

will you, men? no! some poor corporal has to haul lee and traveler to the rear, gordon pushes forward, connects and begins to plug the gap. driving federals out of the mule shed. they hunker down, build works of their own. they will spread may 12th trading pot shots back and forth with confederates on the east side of the line. things over here go a little different differently. sweeping across this field. we have steven who will get shot down leading his men. his second in command will have to finish that charge and connect and drive the federals out and push up the line. abner will get sent in next. he knows this is a suicide mission, i'm either coming back alive major general or a dead

brigadier. he'll come back a dead brigadier. he's buried in the city cemetery in fredericksburg. but his men connect. they drive the federals out and begin pushing forward. nathaniel harris. mississippi's will come in and connect and drive the federals out. sam mcgowan south carolina ans, the monument ironically resembles a coffin. plugs the gap and continues to drive up a small hill in the section of the line. even as 20,000 reinforcements under the sixth core begin flooding forward. they get down into that swale i talked about, and all the bullets flying through the air. they want to stay protected as long as they can. instead of coming straight across into the gap, they let that swale funnel them. right over to this spot. even as sam mcgowan's men are driving up toward it.

that particular angle on the line, a 13 degree bend becomes the center of the mail strom. mcgowan's men have to fight their way up to that spot. as the sixth core comes pouring into that same area. soldiers will later call that area a gold gotha a place of skulls. saturn ail ya of blood. a ponopoly of horror. 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. using their rifles as clubs. using their camp hatches, sticks, rocks, fists, teeth, anything they can a sieging, bubbling, roaring hell of hate and murder. 20 straight hours. this fight has already been going on for 2. 22 straight hours. of the most intense hatred you can imagine. men wounded getting trampled into the trenches. too injured to pull themselves out. bodies stacking up 3, 4, 5 deep. men getting sucked into the mud or suffocating, drowning, being unable to do anything but suffer and be trampled.

men jumping up out of the works. throwing a rifle, like a speer, pinning guys to the works like trees. someone will pass another loaded rifle to them and they'll do it again. and then someone else jumps up and takes their place. and lee continues to feed men into this fight. because he's trying to save the life of his army he needs to buy time. he's going to trade lives for time. in order to do it, he's going to keep sending men into the meat grinder. and finally about 3:00 a.m. they get word that that line is finished. no orders given for these men to retreat. they slip back into this final position just before dawn they

realize there's a problem. they begin a cautious advance into the interior of the mule shoe. many of them got back in time to get captured. they open fire on that federal advance, discourage iing any so of shoot. hunker down just as dawn begins to drizzle the sky. they find out there's unprecedented in their experience. one union soldier talks about being able to walk from hancock's headquarters without ever touching the ground because of the carpet of blue bodies out there. some 9,000 federal casualties

compared to some 8,000 federal casualties. they don't look like men any more, they're so shot up, one ambulance described it -- the corpses of jellyfish. nothing solid enough to hold on to, they have to scoop the corpses into stretchers in order to evacuate them from the field. they have to pull bodies out of the mud and the fighting isn't over at spotsylvania. grant continues to find ways to breakthrough these lines once and for all. he'll shift, maneuver, try to attack across the same ground again on the 18th of may. this last line is so impregnable the feds can only get within

rifle range. we'll look at that next year as part of the great defenses. and that's when grants realizes he can't get at lee at spotsylvania, and will begin plans to pull away. lee will try one last stab on the 19th federals will stop that. if we're talking about the toll of battle. when richard yule marches on the 19th, he has 8,000 men. a year earlier when stonewall jackson marched that same eighth core, he had 28,000 men. where are those 20,000 men. grant waits for shenanigans, he will head down to the north

river. to pick up that story, come back next year and we'll tell you that one too. the landscape they leave behind is devastating. if you go out there today you'll hear the birds sing and the whir of insects. if you're lucky you can feel a breeze. it's beautiful, pristine. >> just as if was when they were fighting. i invite you to go out there and visit there. stand in that spot, listen to those birds, hear the whir of those insects, think about those men, the men who suffer ed. the men who died and sacrificed there. they would be glad you have come there to remember them thank

you. [ applause ] >> any questions? over here. >> yes, i've heard tell of a napoleonic war tactic that was popular with the french revolution armies, especially the napoleonic armies. >> you should direct this question to chris. he's got the great expertise. >> how does upton and for that matter, borrow his assault formations compare to the traditional french assault columns. >> they're a little bit more compact than you would see if i remember correctly.

they liken it to water. they try to come up and make that one last final assault. what he was trying to do on the change of that was to try to punch his way through on the first line with upton would be the fighting tactic. whenever you go with the core sized level, that's going to take it to a whole new level. feel free to talk about that. >> technology is vastly different. the notion of a mass column is pretty unusual because the idea in napoleonic times, mask yourselves and you give yourselves strength. when you mask yourselves like that, you make yourselves targets. so that works as a disadvantage here now instead of marching, it's a sprint. upton tells their men to not cap their muskets.

it's a sprint, get over here, start stabbing, then you can cap your rifles and start shooting. it has to do with speed and technology as well. >> he spent a lot of times -- >> mike hardy has a question over here. >> afternoon may 12th, 1864, in your opinion, if burnside doesn't stop to see what's going on on his left. does he have enough men to punch through the confederate line? >> that's a great question. i call this responsible vein ya's forgotten front. because burnside comes in. a lot of confederates talk about how 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 in etech tulle because he's tepid in his advances. so on the morning of the 12th, he launches that weak attack, his guys get repulsed. we'll look at some of those trenches a little later. he refocuses and tries to attack heath. and gets caught up. it's always just a matter of not enough men, not enough attempts, not enough ambition, aggression. not enough, not enough, not enough. whether he could have on the 12th specifically broken through, i don't know. lee's looking at the battlefield saying, i'm going to ease up the pressure over here. lee's got his eye over here. it's not like burnside would be coming in unexpectedly. question in the back. do we have time for one more?

>> does he stay involved? does he continue to -- does his unit continue to participate? or do they pull back for refitting? >> he does. after this breakthrough, they're going to be part of that six core wave. they're going to get shifted around. they'll be pulled back and thrown back in the fight. he's going to go on to try to capture myers hill a couple days later, which is a position over here. we can't quite see it from here, if you went outside, would you see a radio tower on the far side of the road, that's myers hill. upton's men will successfully capture that. back and forth involved. again, provides a great union artillery position, strategically doesn't break things open. upton will go on to a highly successful career in the united states army. he'll be a very influential tactiti tactition, write a taxman you'll that will become the standard

bible for the army, he has an unfortunate personal life, has problems with his wife. has what we think is migraines that are sparked by brain tumor, he'll eventually commit suicide. a promising young man who goes on to a very unfortunate act. thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. appreciate it. american history tv in prime time continues with programs from the emerging civil war blog's conference on great attacks of the civil war. at 8:00 p.m., jong 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 at 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. >> sunday, january 1st, indepth will feature a live discussion on the presidency of barack obama. we're taking your phone calls, tweets, e-mails and facebook questions during the program. our panel includes april ryan, white house correspondent for american urban radio networks, and author of the presidency in black and white. an up close view of three presidents and race in america. how race still enslaves the american sole. and david marinous. author of barack obama historian. watch in depth on sunday on book tv on c-span two.

>> architectural historian barry lewis, talks about the construction of the brooklyn bridge, why manhattan needed the bridge, and how transportation in the city changes 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 running at capaci capacity. by the mid 1990s, the city of brooklyn, which connect the kings county had reached 8 million people. >> that's the interesting thing about country music, is that it's the music of poor white people, people who are privileged to be white, and i'll talk about that in a second. but also, people who are under privileged in terms of their class identity and their economic opportunity. >> dickinson college professor, cotten sylar, on the emerging definitions of whiteness and

blackness. how it impacted the origins of country music. sunday afternoon at 4:00 on real america. >> a cautious congress, budget cut backs and a tangle of state and local administrative problems created evidence that this crusade against society's greatest enemies may be slowed. or worse, may level off and fade. this was the climate, the land and the un finished task that faced lyndon johnson on the first of december, 1966. >> the film documents the final month of the year of president lyndon b. johnson, his meeting with mexico's president at a cooperative dam project, awarding the medal of honor to a marine. and celebrating the holidays with his family at his texas ranch. at 8:00, on the presidency, william hazelgrove, the secret presidency of edith wilson. edith wilson was president woodrow wilson's second wife.

for our complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org. >> next, a look at civil war battle tactics. then historians examine key battles. first, the september 1863 battle of chickamaga. later, the battle of spotsylvania courthouse. next, author david powell talks about civil war era military theorys, battle tactics, and formations, he describes the military manuals used and changes adopted over the course of the war. this 30 minute program was part of an event hosted by the

emerging civil war blog. >> pleased to begin this evening with my friend dave powell. dave is another expert on chikamawga and chattanooga. he's putting on the finishing touches. the definitive work on the battle. for those of you who have read the books, you know those first two volumes are exhaustive and fantastic. they're a must for every single civil war library. they're so popular, the atlanta civil war roundtable was chosen twice as the recipient of the book of the year award. the only author to be selected for that award twice. his third book will be coming out later this year. he's turning his attention to the battle of chattanooga, and then he's going to the battle of new market. dave is a graduate of the

virginia military institute. and so events at new market hold a near and dear place to his heart. he's going to be evaluating the challenge of readers to rethink what it was all about. >> he's here tonight to set the table for us. we're talking about great attacks, in order to do that, you really need to understand how attacks take place. how does the infantry move and maneuver. how do these attacks get set up. how does an army operate. >> i'm pleases to present my friend, dave powell. >> thank you for having me. >> in the next 15 minutes i hope to turn you all into competent brigade and division commanders. you will have more instruction than many of the actual men did.

so great attacks. what separates 10,000 men from an armed mob? and that is organization and contr control. you probably heard a lot about civil war tactics. people write about it when you go to battlefields. maybe you've seen re-enactments. i suspect that most of you have witnesses what a civil war regiment looks like. two ranks, close order, shoulder to shoulder, men marching across the field. i won't spend too much time on regimental tactics, i want to hit one point that i think is important. in any war, in any time, weapons dictate tactics, you've probably heard that the civil war was fought with modern weapons and antiquated tactics, that's not quite true. the civil war is actually anev lucien airy war as both weapons

and the men who employ those weapons learn different methods to fight with. in 1861, many of them carried muzzle boarding muskets. in order to mass firepower, the armies had to mass men. and controlling those masses of men was -- became a difficult proposition on the civil war battlefield. just as in earlier times. the united states army went to war with emmanuel.

1830s manual was commonly known as hardee's tactics. you probably heard the name. william j. hardy revised the tactics in the 1850s. adopted some things from the french and updated some things to make formations move more quick quickly. the 1830s u.s. army manual was a three volume manual, and general hard hardy soon to be general hardy in 1861, hardy only updated the first two volumes that have manual. when the army went to war, brigade and divisional commanders were left to rely on the tactics written by win field scott. scott's manual of tactics was

the third volume of this three volume set, and that's what dictated how you would handle any formations above a regiment. in 1862 -- at the beginning of 1862, the u.s. army revised those tactics, for one thing, hardy was a confederate general. always a bad thing to have -- to be training under the enemy's field manual. and also, with some experimentation, the u.s. army wanted to update higher level tactics, what today we would call the grand level of warfare, or perhaps in the 19th century, what would be considered the operational art.

>> here we go. this is what the primary difference was. this is two union infantry divisions. you see palmers division on one side there, and johnson's division, they're both at the top. those are union divisions. this is a modified view of an engagement during the battle of chikamawga. you see cheatham's division of confederate soldiers this is six union brigades facing off against five confederate brigades. notice that the union formations are what the military would now call square formations with a brigade of two regiments in front and two behind. the confederates are going into

battle using scott's tactics. scott's fairly standard formation. which all lined up in a single front line. consider for a minute the frontages of a brigade using the two different formations this confederate brigade down here, jackson's brigade is line of regiments here, from the first georgia, to the second georgia sharpshooters. he's facing off against baldwin's four regiments there, but notice that baldwin's frontage. if he were alone here, jackson's brigade would extend past both his flanks. that's the key difference. one on one, johnson's people

would only be able to bring back half the firepower against jackson's brigade. but as the -- baldwin's formation possesses certain advantages, that don't necessarily leap out at you at first glance. the other factor that we have to consider when a civil war brigade goes into battle is control. look at where jackson's line is, this is a line of roughly 450 yards. this line, the first ohioan fifth kentucky is approximately 200 yards. if you're baldwin, you're supposed to be right where that red dot is, right in the middle of your brigade or perhaps back here. but mostly here, and that way, if one of your regiments gets engaged, you have a distance of

no more than 100 yards to go. suppose you're jackson. suppose you're in the center of your brigade, you get engaged out here. you come over here to see what you're going to do, it will be almost 400 yards to the other end of your line. it's beyond voice control. and it's beyond immediate sight. so this is the primary reason why the union army adopts casey's tactics, it gives the brigade commander greater control and flexibility. he can respond more quickly to a crisis. he doesn't have to fight with those four brigades or four ridge emts in this formation, he can bring the 33rd ohio up here, he can bring the 6th indiana up here, he could even turn those two regiments and form a flank if he needs to. it's designed to be a quick response, flexible formation.

and as long as you're not outnumbered and as long as your flanks are supported by other brigades down the line. it's a relatively secure formation. without that support, of course, the enemy brings to bear more firepower on you. so that -- those are essentially the differences that a brigade commander has to decide, and an interesting note about casey's tactics. even though the u.s. army officially adopts this formation on january 1st, 1863 -- 1862 most federal brigades through the war won't really use this formation. the most -- the army of the cumberland, rose grant and later george thomas' army adopting it almost universally. an order issues by the original

army commander, don carlos buell in april 1862 dictates they will use this formation and fight this formation pretty much through the war. but unlike perhaps today when filters are done more quickly, in 1862, 1863 our officers who were used to the old ways of fighting, didn't necessarily change very easily. and so its use is very intermittent in the two main armies, the army of the potomac and the army of the tennessee. so even though it's the official doctrine, that doesn't mean it gets used that way. >> let's take a step up and talk about how division commanders are going to form for battle. this is an early war example and a mid war example.