one in just a couple of minutes. coming up tonight on c-span3, american history tv. programs from the emerging civil war blogs conference on great attacks of the civil war. we'll look at the battle of atlanta and lieutenant general john bell hood's assault on union forces. then the confederate army of tennessee's failed attack at the battle of franklin. a discussion on the engagements between confederate and union forces around petersburg, virginia, in the spring of 1865. later, a conversation with candice shy hoover about her book "lincoln's generals' wives."

c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday, center for public integrity reporter liz whyte talks about the opiate epidemic in the united states. then james kitfield hosbook "twilight warriors" which explains how the u.s. national security apparatus has adapted to fight post-9/11 terrorism. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern thursday morning. join the discussion. next, author stephen davis talks about the 1864 battle of atlanta and the engagements on july 22nd just outside the city. highlighting confederate general john bell hood's attack on union forces. atlanta eventually fell to sherman's troops about six weeks later.

this 40-minute talk was part of a symposium hosted by the emerging civil war blog. >> it's my pleasure now to introduce to you a man that i know as dr. edge. steve davis has got a little edge to him. his business card says author, historian, tour guide, yankee killer. so that should give you a little bit -- [ laughter ] so that should give you a little bit of context about the program we're about to here. i had the pleasure of meeting steve a couple of years ago at a visit to kennesaw mountain. he lives in the shadow of atlanta's great battlefield. and as we got talking, our mutual publisher said, when you sit down with steve, he's going to make eye contact with you, and it's like his eyes are going to bore right through your head. he's intense. and i found that to be true, but

what ted didn't tell me which i discovered on my own and ted affirmed later is not only is steve intense but also an intense pleasure. talk about a man who is just so deeply devoted to the story of these armies in the western theater. he's quick to jump up and remind everybody there was fighting out there, too. so we're going to shift from the overland campaign to look at the corresponding action that took place through georgia that led down toward the gates of atlanta and with the city on the brink of peril and the armies struggling and clashing there. steve davis put together the text and information for the civil war trust's electronic version of their tour of the bat atlanta. so you can take a look at some of steve's handiwork there. he's a former id tor of -- book review editor for blue and gray magazine and civil war news. he's got a pair of books on the atlanta campaign in the emerging

civil war series. most importantly, i'm delighted to introduce to you my friend from the great state of georgia, steve davis. [ applause ] >> i want to thank doctor mackowski for that very, very kind introduction, and i want to thank you all for having gone through and endured the tra vails of an overly hot room now into our sixth or seventh hour of lecture. i'll try to justify your attention. as chris implies, jim ogden, lee white and i are the three antidotes to what i call in the symposium eastern theatricalitc. we're the guys from the western theater reminding you that it was fought and won there by the yankees. it was fought and lost by my guys. now i'm drawing from my paperback that will come out, i

think, chris, in about a month or so. my brace of paperbacks covers a narrative of the atlanta campaign up to the chattahoochee, the first volume, second volume from the chattahoochee to the city surrender. i want to thank them for allowing me to write for them. let's talk about hood's great attacking battle of july 22nd, which has been called a the battle of atlanta. a misnomer as i and others will argue. first of all, after the battle, both yanks and rebs simply called it by date. here you've got general sherman in his report, a confederate artilleryman called it the battle of july 22nd. but general dodge and other yankees after the war started calling it the battle of atlanta. and the name stuck. look at this map from battles and leaders. you'll see the battle of peach

tree creek. the battle of ezra church and the battle of atlanta. when it was put together in the 1880s, they called it the painting of the battle of atlanta. it wiz albert castel who said let's call it something different. maybe the battle of build hill from decision in the west. but i still prefer calling it the battle of july 22nd. first of all, there was a lot of action on july 22nd, not just around the bald hill, and anyway, the hill has been kind of bulldozed through in the '50s by i-20, and even the marker that once rested atop the hill at moreland ave and i-20 has been moved south of the interstate. and finally, i'm a rebel, y'all, i object to any piece of georgia real estate being named after a yankee general.

general clay burn held that hill for a day. let's call it claiborne's hill. there were three battles of atlanta, not just one. i'm surprised russ bonds who wrote this fine book "war like the thunderbolt" called it the battle and burning of tlnts. there were three battles of atlanta. battle of peach tree creek and west of the city, ezra church. moreover, why should we commemorate it? it's been on a civil war bubble gum card. i was in the seventh grade when these things started coming out and look at this. here's the 5 cent packet of gum from 1961. that's a great, great bubble gum card, you'll. but the main reason that i'm boring in and i want to thank the sponsors of the symposium again for boring in on the

battle of july 22nd is it allows us to compare what happened when the confederates sought to launch two flanking attacks. one was successful. we've talked about it. general jackson at chancellorsville and hood aspider to be jacksonnian in his own right. he failed. let's talk about it. first of all, a step back. retweeting joe johnston from the first week of may to the second week of july, gave up nine successive positions from dalton all the way back to the chattahoochee. sherman, of course, outnumbered him at the start of the campaign, two to one, but did not use his superior numbers to blungeion his way through the rebel lines like grant was doing with spotsylvania and wilderness but using them instead to fix on a position with shelling, skirmishing, faint, while he would send a flanking column, usually mcpherson's army of the

tennessee, around the rebel left flank. and forcing johnston to retreat, as i say, successively. finally, when johnston got across the chattahoochee on july 9th, 10th, president davis had to fire him. he feared johnson was going to give up the city. the president and his cabinet and advisers spent a full week gathering the -- all the information that they could, especially from general bragg who was in the city july 13th through 15th. he even held a cabinet meet chicago i belieing. he talked with bob lee. lee didn't quite like the idea of relieving army of tennessee commanders, but the president went ahead and did it anyway firing joe johnston on the 17thth in appointing hood the next day. as i say, hood, lieutenant general, wasn't even the senior corps commander. was placed in command of the army of tennessee over sluffing hardee.

hardee had turned down the tennessee command in december after the disaster at missionary ridge. the local guardian angel of history where i come from atlanta is wilbur g. kurtz. here's his oil painting of the transfer of command. sherman has he holed up close to atlanta, as they say, did not intend to use his superior numbers, especially against the rebels fortifications, which as i show here in a diagram that was drawn april of '64, were formidable and even then, a month before the campaign started, ringed the city in circumference. sherman planned to capture atlanta by cutting off the rebel railroads. it's a testament to the weak cartography of the atlanta campaign that i had to draw my own map to show the railroad emanating from atlanta. the georgia railroad going to augusta. the macon and weston down to

macon and eventually savannah. the atlanta and west point eventually to montgomery. cut the railroads. and his plan was succeeding. david evans of athens, georgia, has written the book on sherman's cavalry in the atlanta campaign. he reminds us that rousseau had cut the line to montgomery in mid-july cutting fully 26 miles or so of that line. it was knocked out of operation for at least a month. moreover, when sherman was throwing his cavalry and mcpherson's army east of atlanta, they descended upon the railroad to augusta at stone mountain and started marching in tearing up more railroad on july 18th and more on the 19th, 20th as mcpherson was coming toward the city from the east. hood, on his first full day of command faced this situation with at least four of thomas'

14th, 14th, 21st, 4th divisions and corps south of the teapeache creek. schofield coming in from the northeast. as i see, mcpherson's army of the tennessee, the 15th, 16th and 17th corps coming from decatur. hood saw an opportunity to attack at peachtree battle on july 20th and as castel said, they actually had favorable odds when the attack began around 4:00 p.m., but they were repulsed by the end of the day retiring to their outer line of works. mcpherson was approaching from the east. we've talked about the perils and pleasures of colorization. his map colorized but poor wheeler, later joined by

claiborne was trying to advance the attack. he was thrown in in a night march to help bust res wheeler's troopers who were trying to defend leggett's hill. it was on the 20th at the yankee artillery got within a couple miles of east of atlanta and started lobbing shells into downtown. night of july 20th, 21st, sherman's biggest blunder of the campaign. he had a fixation about wrecking the rebel railroads. so even though gerrard's cavalry had wrecked the road, he orders the cavalry division to leave the left flank of mcpherson's army and start riding off toward covington to burn a couple more bridges and tear up more track.

this left mcpherson's left flank in the air. mcpherson was alarmed and notified shortly after gerrard headed oit, notified sherman, who didn't care. he didn't rescind gerrard's order. meanwhile, however, mack is worried and starts ordering grenville dodge to send troops down to help guard the flank and also an infantry brigade to guard his wagon trains in the rear at decatur. frank blair's 17th corps held mcpherson's left and warns him on the afternoon and evening of the 21st, watch out for attack. sherman's blunder gave hood a great tactical gift. wheeler within an hour or so of gerrard heading off to the east,

wheeler reports circuit 230 to hood that the yankee flake is in the air. this gives hood the immediate opportunity to decide to launch his flanking attack. in the rear and flank. so on the afternoon of the 21st, he develops his plan. he's the outer line of confederate works. here's the perimeter. turg the night of the 21st, 22nd, they're going to withdraw from their outer line into the main confederate works. hardy's corps, one of his three, would keep marching through the city out by the mcdonagh road and head northeast and into position to attack the yankee army. mcpherson's army of the tennessee. general hood just asked for too

much. after an all-night march, hardee's infantry corps is going to launch a morning attack? confederates were supermen but they couldn't do it all. moreover, he asked wheeler to accompany hardee for at least part of the march and they'd keep going to attack mcpherson's wagon train at decatur. there's my map colorized from my first book "atlanta will fall." historians have recognized the jacksonian nature of hood's plan. connolly, flank and rear, samuel carter and a history of the atlanta campaign. emulating stonewall jackson. mcdonagh and jones. chancellorsville. castel. it promises to be a great victory. and here's russ bonds again, emulating lee and jackson at chancellorsville. everyone recognizes hood's plan.

emulates -- seeks to emulate jackson's great roll-up of the 11th corps. on the afternoon and evening of the 21st, he calls a high-level command meeting at the austin house downtown on peachtree these days. all three infantry corps commanders, plus wheeler and gustavus smith. hood goes through each of their roles. the movement is to begin after sunset to make sure they don't spot the rebels withdrawing from their outer line. cleburne had already been marching and fighting the night of the 20th, 21st, all morning of the 21st and now is going to march again on the night of the 21st, 22nd. that's asking a lot. maney's division is with cleburne as well and he doesn't get through the city until

middle of the night, 3:00 a.m. hardee with his late start knowing the debilitated state of his troops stops in at the lleyton house along the way, circa 10 or 11 and asked hood, hey, i can't get into the yankee rear by morning. can we modify the attack? maybe a flank attack? to their dying day, ascended to his dying day. no, i didn't modify my order. as i say, hood asked too much, underestimating the distance that hardee's troops would have to march. wilbur kurtz got in his car in the 1930s and traveled from the confederate outer line through town and by the route down the mcdonagh road and the decatur road that hardee's troops would have had to march. by the time that he left the outer line and got into where cleburne first attacked the yankees, it was 13 1/2 miles or

more. and if you follow that or walk the divisions, they had to walk even further. kurtz odometered it at 15 miles in an all-night march. wheeler's cavalry not particularly effective as they rode through town. some of the troopers peeled away and took advantage of the abandoned houses and stores and looted them. one disgusted confederate saw wheeler's cavalryman and said the horses were virtually covered ip. couldn't see them with all the plunder atop the saddles. moreover then during the march, wheeler's troops, undisciplined as they were, got in the way of the slogging infantrymen and further boll oxed up the march route. general hardee, his troops had been marching and fighting.

here's one confederate artillery private. he came and the men were virtually sleeping en route and they would just pile in to each other like box cars on a colliding train. here's gary eckelbarringer. hundreds of thousands of confederates simply straggled out and fell asleep along the line of march. he believes that maybe a quarter of hardee's effective strength was lost by the time of contact the next day. yet by 5:00 a.m., bates division had marched a dozen miles to within three miles of decatur. at this point, hardee, who is behi behi behind bate and walker. he's having to find his own guides. he stops at william cobbs mill. he offers to volunteer but warns of bad terrain ahead.

he warned that it's a tangle of wilderness according to kurtz that there's a swampy ground, a mill creek, sugar creek and he volunteered to lead cleburne and mainy and offered up one of his mill hands, case turner, to help lead walker and bate into battle. meanwhile, mack has his worries about a rebel attack which he had begun to fear on the afternoon of july 21st confirmed when a union signal station perched up in a high tree. lieutenant samuel edge sees dust columns over there and the horizon. they can only be rebel troops. by 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. he sent this intel into hq allowing mcpherson further to respond. so mcpherson orders an infantry

division. tom sweeney's division of grenville dodge's 16th corps. sends another brigade to the area. brought up artillery. by noon of july 22nd, the yankees are in position. moreover, they are perpendicular to the end of blair's line facing south. the very direction from which the rebels are going to attack. i'm married to a yankee, y'all. and there are times like this when she says, steve, i will give just shy of a prince's ransom if you will devote to me and my relationship with you just a portion of the passion you give to these long dead rebel rebels. says, i can't, sweetheart. you're a yankee. i know. i'm walking into the den of the lions. welcome south, brothers and

sisters. the confederates deployment was anything but easy given the terrain and the fact they were all tired and foot sore. bates men slogs through underbrush, muck and knee-deep water. walker runs into terry's mill pond. he got so angry when he faced it that he's going to shoot case turner until major cumming talks him out of it and cools him down. just a half hour before noon, hardee knows he's behind and knows he hasn't gained the yankee rear so he orders cleburne, mainey, bate and walker to attack in flank. he couldn't see where the yankees were. he said just go on ahead. i don't need to tell you how surprised bate and walker who opened up the attack were surprised instead of rolling up the yankeee flank they found

sweeney's division cloj elodged their front and ready for them. you see this marker along moreland avenue. general bate, i was ignorant of what i would see but certainly didn't expect to see yankees with batteries ahead of me. so his men tired and surprised, demoralized. the bates attack fell apart. general walker is shot from his horse even before his men get into action, and walker's division is also repelled in circa 1902. this canon was set in concrete at the presumed place of walker's death. now wilkinson avenue and memorial, i think. wheeler also got a surprise when he rode toward decatur. he found sprague's briggade of infaptry guarding the wagon trains. whoa. i thought that was going to

capture them en masse. sprague's infantry holds them off long enough for the wagons to gallop away. wheeler chases the infantry through decatur. by the time he's about to chase down the yankee wagons, hardee calls him back to assist in the attack that afternoon. meanwhile, at the start of the firing, mcpherson rode to the sound of the guns. he runs right into skirmishes of cleburne's advancing line. call upon by some tennesseans, i think, to surrender. he tips his hat, turns, tries to run away. bang, shot through the back. bullet exits his chest. falls mortally wounded. is dead within minutes. the federals after the battle during the occupation of the city marked the site. veterans of the 17th corps were there. and then circa 18 -- late 1870s, u.s. army officers raised this monument at that very site and you'll see it today. monument and mcpherson aves.

cleburne's attack, unlike bates and walker's which quickly withered enjoyed some initial success taking up some yankee trenches capturing prisons and a couple of batteries, but they run into stiffening resistance as they get close to the bald hill. meanwhile, general hood has ridden out from the city and an area that is today oakland cemetery photographed by dan davis, a great photo, dan, hood in the second floor of a house then watch the fate of cleburne's attack and mainey's attack and then he calls in some of frank cheatham's infantry to march east from the city works and pursue the attacking echelon way that we've talked about today. cheatham's center most division, john c. brown's, actually cracks the yankee line.

now some of you in the emerging civil war series may see this photograph in one of the paperbacks of general jackson's attack. and the folks at fredericks burg spotsylvania park label this as jackson's flank attack. now it's overrunning logan's line near the trooper house. don't still our ilitration of manigault's great victory. major general john logan, 15th corps commander, however, rallies his troops. there you see black jack and eventually pushed manigault's men back. brown and clayton's divisions have to withdraw back into the wor works. manigault behind cotton bails with the union overrun lines there. for a while they capture --

the yankee counterattack in the right sweeps over and retakes degresses guns. one last confederate attack trying to take the build hill fails. and at the end, the confessed rats are repulsed and pull back. casualties, 3,700 federal circa. 5500 confederate, including 3,300 from hardee's corps doing most of the heavy fighting. sherman watched from the house that is today on the northeast corner of the carter center perimeter. i pointed this out to president carter wln he had me to dinner to talk about this with his family a few years ago. despite hood's inability to deliver a flank attack, nevertheless, the battle of july 22nd was as close hood came to a battlefield tactical victory as any time during the tlnts campaign. actually during his generaleralship. it inflicted more casualties on

enemy forces than any of his other battles. it killed off general mcpherson, the only army -- union army commander if you discount nathaniel lions at wilson creek. then really commanding a corps. the confederates drove the enemy from a division worth of works. try finding that in a frontal attack. and recaptured a dozen pieces of artillery. lee at chancellorsville only rolled up 14 guns. so the confederate artillery haul, everyone isth largest on the field of battle, by my count. and as i say, it was as close to victory as hood got and, boy, didn't he trumpet that news. the press association blaired it and by the next day in richmond, this headline was appearing. glorious success of our arms. they ran an extra to carry the story. and general lee wrote president davis about, hey, is it true that general hood has won a

glorious victory at atlanta? well, we know it really didn't turn out that well, but, hey if you can come close to a victory, i say trumpet it. he certainly lost the campaign, however. long story short if you remember, a month later it was sherman who got his infantry on the railroad and cut the last confoed rat railroad leading out of atlanta south toward macon. and this is a map that i had commissioned for my first book. and i've colorized it. note the yankees here on the macon and western about the time, 3:00 p.m., that hood -- that hood has ordered his infantry to attack down here at jones jonesboro. it was the fact that fourth and 14th and 23rd corps infantry got hold of the railroad just about the time that hardee was launching his attack. eight or so miles south.

the interdiction of the railroad forced hood to evacuate atlanta. here's the famous scene. mayor calhoun surrendered the scene. artwork by wilbur g. kurtz. and sherman here photographed in a federal fort west of the city telegraphs lincoln. atlanta is ours. but let's get back to the comparison we have. i'm doing all right in time, aren't i? because you know what, when chris said, okay, steve, we're going to have a lot of eastern theatricality here, says i. so let me import some near victory from the western theater but throw a sop to your eastern theatricality cats and compare hood's attack with jackson's. and y'all it is most instructive

in terms of tactical differences between to the two fights to account for victory of our arms in the one and the failure of our arms in the second. one, lee's experience as a tactical planner. hood's inexperience. why lee had already made his bones planning great flanking attacks like at second manassas. sending longstreet and 25,000 troops against pope's left. if you'll remember, john hennesy said in his book "return to bull run" that was the largest attacking battle that hood -- that lee delivered during the war. 25,000 troops. so lee knew how to do it. hood had never done anything like that. indeed, just a couple of days into his army command, this was only his second battle as army commander. so that's an important factor.

two, understanding of and enthusiasm for the plan. i'm drawing on chris and chris' book, that furious struggle. why lee and jackson were so giddy about the possibility of rolling up the 11th corps. as they say, they were even excited at their prospects. on the other hand, hardee was worried. and if you remember, riding through town, he even asked hood to alter his attack. so he was going into battle worried and certainly not enthusiastic. third difference, the relationship between the army commander and the flanking column leader. when is the last time you thought of this? lee and jackson were marvelous. was a marvelous example of a great congruence of talent. on the other hand, hood and

hardee weren't especially best buds. as we know, later on in the campaign, hardee is writing his wife mary complaining that johnson is giving so much attention to hood. and if you remember, hardee had foresaken army command in december of '63 and a corps commander, his junior, is promoted over him. finally, in what i haven't mentioned to you, after the failure of this attack at peachtree creek, hood began to criticize hardee for a want of eolon in launching his attack. hardee knows he's already being stung at hood's headquarters. that's not a good working relationship. fourth, tactical talent and experience of the attack column commanders. jackson was brilliant. his most brilliant in this kind of independent flanking operation where essentially, as someone has commented today, he

told old jack, here's the plan. go and do it. on the other hand, hardee's best known epithet is old reliable. he's not brilliant. he's not a genius, but he's plotting and reliable. that's a big difference. condition of the men. jack allowed his men to sleep all night and have breakfast before they set out at 7:00 a.m. not so hardee's troops were slogging through all night. distance of the march route. jackson knew that his march route was 10 to 12 miles. hardee had no idea. in fact, hood later in his memoir thought, oh, it's probably just the distance between my outer works in decatur. no more than six miles. hood was completely in the dark about the length of his march route, which, as i say, thanks to kurtz and others, has been estimated as about more than a dozen miles.

maybe 15. time allowed for the march, and lee and hood's expectations of attack time? lee just said, get into position. he didn't order a dawn or morning attack or an afternoon attack. on the other hand, hood challenged hardee to keep marching and launch his attack in the morning. that's unrealistic. the weather. the first several days in may being pleasant in his diary. welcome to atlanta, georgia, in third week july, y'all. it ain't pleasant. and even at night, the temperatures are still searing and teetering toward 90 degrees. road conditions. we've talked about the brigade of -- gregg's brigade, i think. and caldwell talks about how the roads in the wilderness were

still moist and spongy to the step. hardee, this is atlanta, georgia, y'all. it's hot, dusty red clay. cavalry service. i've allude fd to the fact that hardee did not do well after he brought in the intel about max flank in the air. the service to the assault was mediocre. jeb stewart and fitz lee brought in the intel that the 11th corps was in the air and helped find guides and maps to direct jackson's column. and accompanied it all throughout. general hood did not help when he ordered wheeler off so that hardee was plumbing through the woods on his own while fitz and lee especially stayed with jack's column and directed him to the point they could see the yankee end of the line.

>> luck. that unquantifiable but certainly present factor everywhere on the battlefield. as jackson's forces are marching across his front, some of the 3rd corps soldiers are able to see rebels off in the woods and report it. sent the reports and the intel up the chain of command. as sears points out in his book, no one responded. on the other hand, as we saw, mack was already apprehensive. then when lieutenant edge on the morning of the 22nd sent in his observation report, mack acted, that's just kind of luck. hooker and his officers were so indifferent to this intel that will green in his essay for this gallagher collection says even if stoneman and his cavalry had been present in the wilderness,

it probably wouldn't have mattered because what could -- if stoneman and his troopers have spotted jackson, sent word in who is to say hooker wouldn't have disregarded those words, too? i think will makes a good point. a dozen -- we're up to a dozen differences between chancellorsville and east of atlanta? maps and local guides. jed hochkiss drew a map. reverend tucker lacy already alluded to elwood and charles willford corroborated it. hardee had no such maps and didn't have local guides with him. he had to find his own guides at the cobb house two-thirds of the way toward his objective. difficulty of deployment. jackson's went smoothly. if you remember, jack was in position saccirca 3:00 p.m. and spent time getting his troops

into just the right position. hardee had run out of time and was operating blind into the thick, muck, swampy underbrush east of atlanta. at a certain point, walker says let me redirect. my men are stuck in the briars. hardee has to say, no, sir. this attack has been delayed. follow my orders. numbe numbers. jackson had 28k against 11 better than two to one adds. hardee had 11 -- remember the attrition from straggling. you count up the 16th and 17th corps, ecclebarringer's number counts them. they outnumber -- the yankees outnumber the confederates. certainly not a 2 1/2 to 1 advantage for the southerners. the 16th corps.

segal had left. hadn't fought. and most of them had never been in a successful battle. so much for the 11th corps. on the other hand, mcpherson's army, 16th, 15th, 17th, they are veterans and they share their commander's confidence. condition of the troops. kind of a factor. enemy's awareness and preparation for the attack. the yankees had seen jackson's column of march but the army hq at corps and army command. they thought that the -- that jackson was leading a retreat of lee's army. the enemy is fleeing. meanwhile, mcpherson was ready and used every bit of intel in every hour to amass troops

facing the likely direction from which the rebels would attack. for all of these reasons, jackson's attack may 2nd rolled up the 11th corps. hood's attack july 22nd, despite initial success, failed to have those similar successes. quoting hood's memoir. no man is justly entitled to be considered a great general unless he has won his first. i will submit to you that general hood failed in his attacking flanking battle of july 22nd. so he was no jackson. the opportunity he acted upon it, he marshalled his troops with as great command as he could. in other words, he tried as hard as he could and, thereby, despite the absence of success, on july 22nd, john bell hood

earned his spurs that day, ladies and gentlemen. i'll close with this. i'm a big fan of broken arrow from john woo in 1996. if you remember when deacons tells pritchett, battle is a highly fluid situation. ask john bell hood about that. he took atlanta july 22nd, y'all. that's the story of the war. see you around. >> time for a couple of questions. anybody have something for dr. edge? >> see how i get this nickname, chris? >> i think we discussed this a bit this morning that it would seem one of the other big differences, too, was i think by this time, a lot of sherman's men had repeaters. >> good point. >> how much of an impact do you

think that had? >> i don't know how many of those guys had repeating rifles. i know some of sprague's guys at decatur had repeaters. i don't know of the preponderance or raw number of repeating rifles in the 15th, 16th, 17th corps. but thanks very much. that's worth a looking up later. >> other questions? >> you show that we know that the audience is in need of air conditioning and hydration, dr. mackowski when after the first one, the first question, the audience has fairly flagged in exhaustion. thank you all. [ applause ] this holiday weekend on c-span, here are some of our featured programs. on saturday, we'll take a look

at farewell speeches and tributes for outgoing members of congress and the white house. at 12:30 p.m. eastern with senator barbara mikulski of maryland and vice president john biden. then christmas at the white house. join first lady michelle obama as she receives the official white house christmas tree. tour the white house and see this year's decorations. make christmas crafting projects with children of military families visiting the white house. and finally, the tree lighting ceremony on the national mall. at 8:40 p.m., hear from former house speaker john boehner on the trump presidency and his time in the congress. and at 9:40 p.m., attend the portrait unveiling of outgoing senator minority leader harry reid, democrat of never neve. speakers include hillary clinton, joe biden and charles schumer. on sunday at 12:30 p.m., we'll hear from retiring member of congress representative charles