more. beginning at noon eastern on c-span. >> next, from the gettysburg college civil war institute, confederate general braxton bragg. historian earl he is titled his biography of the general the most hated man of the confederacy. general bragg was the commander of the erm an of tennessee in 1862 and 1863. mr. hess now on the successes and failures of the general civil war campaigns. this is an hour. >> earl's going to speak to us today about a topic. i'm pleased to see we're not going to hear crickets here because the topic is braxton bragg who is the butt of all jokes and of course civil war histori histori historians. not a particularly humorous crew. they always fall back on what, it's either braxton bragg or george g. mccullen to get off their cheap jokes. those cheap jokes over time

accumulated and led to this really distorted view really of both men but today we'll be talking about braxton bragg. earl has written a fantastic biography of braxton bragg. it's published by university of north carolina press. i believe we have some copies of that volume as well. michael said to you all we come here because we want to complicate history. we do not want to put forth easy answers. and i think earl hess, what he has done in all of his work, but especially with bragg, he is going to get you to think long and hard. i don't think he'll suggest that bragg was the second coming of napoleon but will certainly get you to ponder and to think about this very important confederate general. it is my pleasure to welcome earl hess. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. thank you, pete, very much, for that generous introduction.

thinking about it this morning, what made me do this book, and i think it really is what pete mentioned. that whenever you go to a civil war roundtable and mention the name braxton bragg, there's a titter of laughter coming up from the audience. because he in some ways is kind of almost a joke. in some ways. in other ways, as pete says, a cheap joke. and also the question this morning that someone asks of john marsalic, was bragg or halack the most derived person of the civil war. the subtitle of my book, braxton bragg, the most hated man of the confederacy. it never dawned on me to say the most hated man of the civil war but maybe i should have said that. let me start out with a story. i know many of you know this story. i overheard at least two people this morning telling this story to somebody else and they didn't know i was sitting next to them.

in his memoirs, ulysses s. grant related a story about bragg that has resonated among students of the civil war it is commonly accepted as fact by everyone. even though grant himself admitted he did not know if it was true or not, but he said it's kind of emblematic of bragg. so i'm going to tell you the story. the story is that before the civil war, braxton bragg and the u.s. army commanded a company at a post on the frontier. but he also for a time acted as quarter master and commissary at that post. grant says as commander of the company, he made a wreck what signature upon the quarter master himself. for something he wanted. but as quarter master, he declined to wreck what signatu wreck what signature and his reasons for doing so. as company commander, he responded to this, urging that his recquosition.

by now bragg referred this paperwork to the post commander for his opinion. my god, mr. bragg, the commander replied, you have quarrelled with every officer in the army and now you are quarrelling with yourself. it's a good story. i like it. it's amusing. it's witty. that's probably why everyone accepts it as fact. even though ulysses grant did not do so honestly. the story grant is right. we have such a negative and one dimensional image of this guy based mostly on the wave of negative opinion coming from his critics at the time and from historians that we readily believe it is true. but honestly after studying bragg as i've done in writing a book about his civil war career, i cannot believe the story. we need to strip away the assumptions that has too long

substituted for a deep analysis of braggs, the person and the general. my own view of bragg is he was a very intelligence and very practical man. the notion that he would waste his time in sentenseless activi like this defies belief. he would never have engaged in something as foolish as writing letters to himself. even bragg's most severe critics admitted he was a superb adm administrator and organizer of logistics. and yet the public image of bragg among his contemporaries and readers of civil war history and many historian yas sis tha thorough failure, both as a man and as a general. following -- let me give you some bio graph call information. after that, i want to give you three or four major points about bragg that consists of public image and analyze the details and the reality and see how true those things are. first of all, he's born in 1817.

he's born in upper north carolina. he came from a middle class family. his father was a very successful contractor who owned slaves. he came from a big family. gosh i think he had seven or eight brothers and sisters. there is an interesting story that nobody has been able to prove. that his mother was in prison when she was pregnant with him because a black man insulted her and she killed him. and some historians like grady mcquinney, he wrote a pretty good biography of bragg from bragg's birth up until the time of stones river. argued that this probably was true. and argued that it must have shaped his personality to be very sensitive on the point of honor and very prickly when it came to dealing with people. i'm not sure that we need to pay -- i'm not sure that we need to put too much emphasis on that. another interesting thing that i found, he had a couple of brothers who were very

successful too. john bragg and thomas bragg both served in congress. and thomas bragg, who is a lawyer, also served as jefferson davis' attorney general in 1861/'62. he was in the confederate cabinet, his brother was. bragg himself opted for a military career. west point graduate. west point in service and the regular army shaped an awful lot of bragg. instilled in him a desire for and a respect for a high level of personal discipline. he saw his first service after graduation in florida where he contracted a horrible case of malaria that bothered him for the rest of his life. periodic bouts of the recurrence of that awful disease really weakened his health a lot and had a big impact on his ability to do well as a general in the civil war i think and other people think. of course his most famous precivil war episode is the mexican war. where his regular army battery did very well at the contentious battle of buena vista in

february 1847. where his battery played a key role in american victory over the mexican army that outnumbered zachary taylor's force three to one. this was also the famous incident where general zachary taylor supposedly said a little more grape, captain bragg. sardennic kind of command in the middle of crisis to bragg. bragg later admitted privately that it didn't happen. that there was -- the wording of that command was kind of exaggerated by newspaper reporters. but it made him a national hero after 1847. bragg resigned, however, from the u.s. army in january 1856. and it's because of jefferson davis who was secretary of war at the time. jefferson davis actually fought at buena vista as commander of mississippi volunteer regiment very near bragg's battery. the the two knew -- the two cooperated with one another. although they were not personal

friends in the mexican war. the reason that bragg resigned from the army is because davis was instituting a number of reforms in the army. some of which affected the artillery arm of the u.s. army. bragg thought they were mistakes. he was bitterly opposed to them. he couldn't stop it. and he became very bitter toward secretary davis. resigned in january of '56. and held a judge against davis for many years. until really basically the middle and latter part of the civil war. well, bragg put his life together. he found a wife. elise ellis from a wealthy plantation owning family in mississippi. he married. he used her money to purchase a sugar plantation in louisiana on the bayou lafouche. and he in thorough military style he called it the plantation bidwac, reminiscent of his military service. he treated his slaves. he had more than 100 slaves to

work with. he treated them as an army. it was difficult to grow sugar in those days. it demanded a high level of organization and smarts. and there were several lean years. but bragg did very well as a sugar planter. i argue in my book that the sugar planting business and the life he led in louisiana as a sugar planter had a big roll in shaping himself. his personality and his attitude toward discipline. another thing i found interesting, sherman, william t. sherman, was a friend of braxton bragg in these days. you probably know that sherman was hired as the director of the institution that later evolved into louisiana state university. that was created in the late 1850s at alexandria, louisiana. bragg was on the board of directors. he was delighted that sherman was hired. he knew sherman from his pre, from the time when he was in the army. i get the impression that bragg thought his friendship with sherman was deeper than sherman

thought because sherman was a little cold in some ways to him. there's a collection of half a dozen letters in the 1850s that bragg wrote to sherman and he's revealing his personal views of life. he's writing to sherman as a very close personal friend. the emphasis on those letters we need discipline. the south needs discipline. he was upset over these young turks who grew up in big wealthy plantation families and didn't take responsibility for beiwork hard and wasting their family's living. the only thing that can save the south is discipline. i will argue this attitude of severe discipline will rule bragg's life and affect the way he deals with his subordinate generals in the civil war. also, nothing about bragg. he was a deep supporter of southern causes in the 1850s. once he -- by the way, about

1859, he brags to sherman that through hard work, i made a profit of $40,000 on bibwac this year. he was very proud of that. bragg thought it was absolutely important to protect slavery. he thought that slavery was the only way to work southern land. he thought the only way to keep slaves under control was severe military-style discipline. when charles sumpter. was also killed by representative brookings in 1856 in an infamous incident for daring to give a speech criticizing the south, bragg wrote a letter saying hooray that sumptner got what he deserves. it was pretty chilling to read the letter. that was his attitude. he was an extremely strong supporter of slavery in many, many ways.surprisingly, he appr

the secession of louisiana. he also played a role in capturing the u.s. arsenal at baton rouge, a key role in that. he also accepted jefferson davis' offer of a commission as general in the confederate army in 1961. and for the first time, he begins to get an ingnin inkling maybe davis doesn't hate me like i assumed he did ever since 1856 and he begins to slowly warm himself toward the confederate president. the confederate president never hated bragg. he had always respected him. bragg wound up commanding an important post at pensacola, florida, in late '61, early '62. then he was shifted up to tennessee. just before shiloh where he helped to organize the confederate army of the mississippi. the field army that would become the famous army of tennessee in a short while. fought at shiloh which was the

biggest battle of his life so far. he had some very interesting letters describing his personal experience at shiloh. which are at the missouri history museum written to his wife elise. promoted to command the confederate army of the mississippi by may of 1862. well, those of you who know civil war military history know what happens. he takes the army on a massive invasion of kentucky. a slave state that never seceded from the union. in many ways did very well in that kentucky campaign. marching rapidly with very little logistical support, adding mobility to civil war field armies that had never been done before. by the way, many union commanders are very impressed by bragg's invasion of kentucky for that reason. in the end, however, he had to give up kentucky for many reasons. and therefore after evacuating the state was branded as a failure by the news media. jefferson davis continued to support him, however.

the next battle is stones river. december 31st, 1862. in january 2nd, 1863. i argue in the book stones river was bragg's best day of the civil war. i think he performed magnificently. he got the drop on the union army on december 31st, attacked them when they weren't expecting it. drove the right wing of the union army three miles. put out of action 10,000 union soldiers. also, wreaked havoc with union supply lines and wagon trains by sending two brigades of cavalry to raid them. magnificent day of fighting. tactical victory par excellence for the army of tennessee. admittedly, it didn't result in strategic victory because the union general really refused grant's request to retreat. a misguided a ta ed attack.

after that, decided to retreat. so strategic defeat after tactical victory. that seems to be the lot of bragg's life. as a civil war commander. after stones river, everything went downhill for him. his generals rebelled. they openly said we don't have faith in you. this is where bragg's stubbornness comes into play. instead of resigning as at one time he said he would if he doesn't have the support of his generals. he instead dug in his heels. he called on president jefferson davis for support. this is what my generals are saying. do you want me to leave or stay? and davis said stay. he was helped in this. another confederate commander who was sent by davis to middle tennessee to look into the situation and recommend what should be done and johnston said it would be a mistake to relieve

bragg. he did very well at stones river. he inflicted so much damage. so comparatively few resources. it would be dishonorable to sacrifice him. johnston came to bat and helped him to stay in place. knew at this time the president was his supporter. many people believe that davis supported bragg because they were personal friends. as steven woodworth has clearly pointed out. and is very evident from the primary material, that is not true. jefferson davis more than once clearly said in a letter why i support bragg, i admire his administrative tallants. even though he may not be the best general on the battlefield, i don't know who else is better. and until somebody better comes along, he should stay where he is. that is the truth of the matter. in terms of that davis/bragg relationship.

well, as i said, it went downhill from there. braggs health worsened in 1863. his ability to personally deal with detractors in his command worsens also. bragg in some ways was losing it. i argue bragg's personality, he held himself to high standards. he was a perfectionist. you may say he was anal. that's probably true. people of that personality type tend to burn out. it wasn't helped by the fact that he had just a raging feud with one of his co-commanders. the two men detested each other from the meant they met in march 1862. one of the points i bring out in my book is you have to understand the effect on bragg's attitude of his commander's attitude toward him. what commander can be successful

if he knows his subordinates don't like him and won't obey his orders, in other words. well, you can see examples of this in the following campaigns. in the talahoma campaign. in july '6 3. sent out to murfreesboro to try to capture the rest of middle tennessee. bragg put together some good plans for attack. which were blocked, boand he ha to retreat. during the lead -up to the battle. there were at least two insuran incidents where bragg put together plans. his commanders refused to obey orders. and at chickamawa. the only battlefield victory of the army of tennessee. but afterward came the question what should we do to follow up. the defeated union army

retreated to chattanooga and dug in there securely. and there was a huge road block. all of his generals said we should bypass chattanooga, go through the mountain, hit nashville and invade kentucky. bragg said yes theoretically that's right but the army is exhausted, it doesn't have the land trans. the mountains are a barren waste. you can't live off the country when you go through the appalachian highlands because there are not enough farms there. bragg saw nothing but problems. his subordinates saw nothing but prospects. and, again, bragg brought in jefferson davis to support him. the result was that bragg won the revolt against him by his generals. in october 1863, they mounted a major effort to get him ousted. he survived that. but it was a victory for bragg. because he had very few vocal supporters. he was exhausted physically. healthwise, he was almost a wreck. and the result was he lost

control of a strategic situation, badly lost the battle of chattanooga in late november and finally offered his resignation. davis finally said yes. in december '62, he's out. after resting, davis appointed him to what many people considered to be a higher position in the confederate army. military adviser to the president in richmond. and as military adviser bragg served davis 100% faithfully. so much so that he basically stabbed joseph e. johnson in the back and helped to get joseph johnson relieved as commander of his old army, the army of the tennessee, in the middle of the atlantic campaign in july of '64. bragg's attitude was i work for the president, not for joseph johnst johnston. finally near the end of the civil war, davis and bragg in their letters to each other. signed themselves your friend.

they el have the a personal friendship that lasted for the rest of their lives. well, you know, i have some more things to say about bragg after the civil war too. i don't intend to go on too long here because i would like to have your questions and your viewpoints of all this. let's look at just a couple of issues related to bragg's public image during the civil war and whether or not that is true or not. and that will give us some insight into bragg's problems. number one, bragg developed in 1862 it the image in the confederacy of a man killer. a general whose obsession with discipline led him to order the execution of his own men, sometimes for trivial reasons and sometimes without due process of military law. is this true? well, all of this stemmed from an incident when the confederate army of the mississippi evacuated corinth in early june 1862 and retreated to tupelo. the commander then beauregard

issued an order for nobody to fire a shot. we want this to be a quiet retreat. well, during the middle of the retreat, a man arrested a soldier from lumston bam baalab battery and brought him to bragg who was resting under a tree and told him i witnessed this guy shooting at a pig because he was hungry. the man said, i'm sorry, i didn't understand this, my unit had just joined the army of the mississippi about three or four weeks ago. i didn't know about the order. however, bragg wanted to make an example of him. he told the guard take him out into the woods and shoot him. we know this. because of a diary kept bien would of bragg's staff officers giles buckner cook which has never been published. i don't know it's ever been used at the virginia historical society. cook heard all this and he recorded in detail what happened. he said he was stunned when he heard bragg give that order. he went to bragg and interceded with his general. telling him to do this would be,

quote, the uprooting of christianity, as he put it, and it didn't take much argument for cook to change bragg's mind. bragg understood his perspective. he immediately sent orders to that guard to not do it. and then make sure that this offender is given into the military justice system. the irony is bragg did not shoot anybody without due process of law. but that didn't matter because wild rumors spread throughout the confederacy literally that he had done it. some said that the story's changed. some said a soldier had shot a pig. some said he shot at chickens. some said he aimed at a pig but the bullet hit a black boy and killed him. none of it was true. none of it was true. admittedly bragg was wrong to tell the guard to shoot this guy. he had no business doing that. it is important to understand when it was brought to his

attention, he was ready to rescind the order and not do it. yet this image of bragg as a man killer spread rapidly. it became so wide spread that by september of '62, the confederate senate tried to mount an official inquiry into whether bragg was killing his soldiers without due process and what should be done about it. bragg had enemies in the senate. they were pushing for this. also had supports in the senate. whether the committee on military affairs recommended congress drop that resolution to investigate bragg from consideration, the anti-bragg men urged the creation of a special committee to bypass that to investigate bragg. after heated debate, the senate voted to do so. but bragg supporters insisted that president davis be charged with the selection of the three committee members and davis killed the effort by shelving the committee resolution, never acting on it. but there was a point there at which the senate -- gosh, can you imagine, the senate getting

involved in investigating something like this? rumors through the confederacy. mary boykin chestnut, that famous southern woman whose a dirist, then living in richmond, was shocked by the rumors of bragg killing his soldiers. one of her acquaintance, a man named hallcross green, was equal stunned. a confederate soldier for a chi chicken? you can imagine the damage to a person's reputation of thoughts like this. sometimes civilians could even joke about this incident. there's a woman from kentucky named lizzie harden who was a refugee with her family in chattanooga and wanted to go back to kentucky and hoped that -- they wanted to talk with bragg, and hope it could get permission to go with bragg's army when he invaded kentucky. when her friend -- by the way, she said bragg was very kind, very considerate. a nice guy. but one of her friends joked with lizzie later on and said,

weren't you afraid that when he got you into the parlor he would say you had taken a chicken from a citizen and execute military law on you? well, you know, already bragg, the ogre and bragg the joke are coexisting side by side in the public image. it is true there's another incident that contributed to bragg's image as a man killer. just before stones river. corporal asa lewis of the 6th kentucky cs desseerted to atten to family problems but he returned to duty. his court-martial sentenced him, however, to death. and bragg refused to rescind the sbs. he wanted it to go through to serve as an example. despite impassioned appeals from many kentucky generals and officers to reverse the decision. understandably when louis was executed, it created a great deal of bitterness and resentment toward bragg. but, again, his attitude toward

discipline is so strong and unbending in this case. you may think this is cold hearted. but i would remind you that generals do not sentence men to death. court-martials hand down that sentence. it is up to the general to review the case and decide whether to approve or reject. and if you compare the number of men whose execution bragg approved with the number approved by other cs generals, it is about the same. me doesn't kill his own men at a higher rate than other people. there are some suggestion that robert e. lee killeded more of his own men than bragg did. from june of '62 to november of '63, bragg reviewed 41 death sentences and he saved 13 of those guys and approved the death sentence for 28. that's about one man that he killed for every 20 days that he commanded the army. joseph e. johnston commanded the

army of tennessee from december of '63 to july of '64 and approved one death sentence every 17 days. and johnston organized the largest mass execution of confederate soldiers in the civil war, 14 of his soldiers were executed on one day, may 4th, 1864, something bragg of course never did and would never dream of doing. and yet people like joseph johnston hate braxton bragg. so, you know, my point is that a lot of bragg's problems was public image, publicity. he made an enemy very readily of all -- almost all newspaper reports. it's like sherman, you know. newspaper reporters naturally hated sherman and sherman hated them. the same situation with bragg. he detested newspaper reporters. the irony is bragg had one newspaper reporter friend, a guy named john forsythe, who owned and edited the mobile register, who was a staunch supporter.

but even in the pages of that newspaper, there regularly appeared articles which condemned bragg's leadership. because foresight hired some newspaper reporters who detested bragg and they sneaked in their forscythe wasn't looking. well, another image of bragg is he's a general that seemed confused and inept. they criticized him for uncoordinated attacks at shy low. they downplay the victory he won at stone's river in december 31st. and argued he did not know what to do after the victory that day. to a degree that's true. bragg's mind was not as flexible as it should have been. please understand, this book is not a whitewash of braxton bragg. i think his image is too low and it needs to be balanced. my attitude was when i started this if you look at bragg fairly

it's inevitable his stature will rise because he's starting from zero as most people are concerned. so in that sense it can be seen as a rehabilitative biography of brag. as someone was talking earlier you can't afford to let the pendulum go all the way to the other side and portray him as the second robert e. lee. he certainly wasn't that. i think nathan bedford ford is the opposite of that. but anybody who wrote a book like that would have to have state police escort if they drove across tennessee. so i don't think bii'll be doin that. bragg i don't mind, but forest, i don't need to do that. one thing i argue in here, in

terms of bragg's inability to win battles and win campaigns, well, my gosh, how much other confederate generals can you say that about. think of robert e. lee who won so many battles and yet didn't win the civil war for the confederacy, right. and lee got more resources than the army of tennessee did for sure. they protected richmond, jefferson davis made sure he got the availability of troops and resources. the army of tennessee in the west was a second cousin. and the union dominated the context in the western theoretic more than the strategic context in virginia. bragg, joseph johnson, john bell hood, richard tailor, name them all, none of them did better than bragg in commanding these forces in the western theatre. the problems went beyond

personality and ability of any single individual. i put it this way. it is true bragg's army and by the way i call it bragg's army, he commanded that army 20 months much longer than anybody else did. whatever level of quality there was in that field army mostly comes from bragg's training his stamp of approval. that army only won one battle but i point out let's not look at battle, look at battlefield days were there any days the army of tennessee did well, and yes, there were at least four days of brilliant tactical victories on the battlefield that the army of tennessee achieved, bragg was responsible for three of the four. the army of tennessee suffered dismal tactical defeat on 14 days of the civil war, bragg was responsible for only four of them in short while commanding the army for 20 months he was

responsible for 75% of the tactical defense days but only 28% of the defeat days. bell led the army for six months and was response responsible for 70% of the defeat days. he was better than the other people that shared command of the field army which was the most important of the west with him. that army was bragg's army more than any other commander. there certainly was a negative side to bragg's personality. everybody recognize that is. i don't think even i would want to spend a day with him if i could go back in a time machine. maybe if i could stand around and watch him i wouldn't mind. but if i had to sit and talk with him, i'm not sure i would. i do disagree with his politics and he did tend to be a pick cli

personality. many of the people open to giving him the benefit of the doubt criticized him for being too focussed on selecting friends who sucked up to him and too readily dismissing people who didn't agree with him as enemies. that he personalized things too much and divided everybody into this category or that category. he didn't have subtle thinking, especially when it came to interpersonal relationships. he was friendless, had no supporters, that is not true. his staff members loved him. he had supporters among many of his subordinate generals. he obviously had enemies, of course, too but among his supporters would be ranked people like james patton anderson, are brigade and division commander. edward c. wall, john k jackson

one of his brigade commanders, joseph wheeler and a lot of rank and file men. look at his personal papers it is filled with letters written to him after leaving the army of tennessee by rank and file solders saying we miss you, when are you coming back. he gets letters like that for six months after leaving the army. the problem was people were afraid they liked him publically. they are quiet supporters that write letters to him but not to the newspaper and don't sign petitions saying we want you. they were afraid to say this because the nay sayers in the army of tennessee were high ranking men and were very vocal and had the ears of a lot of important people in the confederate government. so it is true that bragg had friends but those friends didn't do much to help him and his enemies had ample opportunity to make the most of what they had to say about him.

let me see here. let me talk a little bit about bragg after the civil war and then i'll end with a quote -- two things i want to say. number one, i was interested in doing the research to find that bragg was usually well praised by his federal opponents he got more praise from his enemy than his friends. most generals who opposed bragg on the battlefield were impressed by his performance. when he invaded kentucky, he moved the army quickly. outmarched the army and henry halleck, you heard about henry halleck this morning, i have a good view of halleck he wrote the history of military campaigns affords no parallel to

bragg's example of an army throwing aside transportation, paying no regard to its supplies but marching 200 miles notice face of an enemy double its size. it was a also william sherman who wrote in praise of bragg's handling of the campaign. when buell had to move at a snail pace he wrote, bragg moved rapidly, living on the country, no military mind could endure this long and we are forced in self-defense to imitate his example. his handling of the battle at stone's river garnered a lot of praise by the federal troops he put out of action 2,000 union troopers, captured over 2,100 horses and mules and capturing 25 tons of union provisions,

forcing the union soldiers to cut off steaks from the car cusses of killed artillery horses to survive until the campaign ended. jones wrote to his family after the battle of stone's river, when you hear folks say that the rebels won't fight tell them to come and try them. i tell you, they fight like tigers. and he ascribed this to bragg's discipline and training of the confederate army of tennessee thomas kritton wrote it was fought according to to the plan of general bragg our uniform experience was, that whenever we went to attack bragg, we were attacked instead by him. and bragg never got praise like that from his colleagues in the south. it is certainly time we sooe

stop seeing him as a cartoon character. he was a smart man who valued discipline in himself and others. he was detailed oriented, intense, unrelenting. but, of course, he had severe character flaws let me read you a couple quotes and then we'll open things up. the first quote is written by someone who admitted has an ax to grind, william dudley gail, served as a staff officer and was a part of lee nigh tis polk and polk's fighting with bragg. after the war gail married polk's daughter. bragg was cruel yet without courage he wrote, he was obsta nint yet without firmness, he was crafty yet without strategy. he was suspicious, he was envie yous, he was jealous, he was

vain. he was a dung hill in disaster and yet in command of a better army that they had to concur mcarthur. the other quote by john c. spens who witnessed the battle of stones river kept a keen eye on events and a diary. he said bragg was underrated. he mused that bragg does not at all times get the credit he is entitled to. he is sometimes charged by some for the want of tact in the management of his affairs. this may be by those who know the least of what his designs are, but bragg has one trait spense said he can make a hard fight and if pushed close he can

get out of the way. his men respect him but they're not dispersed to worship him. that's my own view, it's closer to spence. he was anxious for history to write what he thought was the wrong done him during the civil war but he refused to write his memoirs. he said in a letter, if i do that anything i publish with my name on it will dredge up all sorts of muck from the underworld as it did in the civil war days. they'll say it's bragg spouting off. he tried to find other historians to write his story for him. he thought he did on two occasions a major who flirted with the idea of writing the buy ol. fi of bragg but he shied

away from it. wa wallthal new it was going to be more than the papers he'd get from bragg. he also found e.t. psychs, he was excited wanted to send information, wanted to influence sooik's interpretation. he wrote a neutral paper that wasn't critical but wasn't a champion of braggs he did not get his story told before he died in 1876 while walking across the street in texas, keeled over from heart disease and died a few minutes later. i appreciate you listening and i would much rather hear you guys than to go on talking about this. please, what do you want to say

about bragg? what do you want to know? i'm open to anything. thank you. >> i'm lee elder from ohio. in studying c-h-i-c-k-a-m-a-u-g-a it felt as though the issue with getting people what-to-do what they were supposed to do was his command style. it was the way he was telling them. is that fair? is that accurate. >> that's fair to bring up. that's something i've discussed with drew bledsoe. the issue was bragg giving clear

orders about what to do or unclear orders. my attitude was -- i know drew disagrees with this, but my attitude his orders were quite clear up to a point -- we're talking about the mac lemore cove incident where the union army was crossing the ranger mountains and beginning to enter the territory bragg was poised to defend, and they were sending ahead one division ahead of the others before other units could get there to support it, it was basically exposed bragg understand that and order divisions to pounce on these divisions from two sides. and told hindman he had the most responsible blt to do what he was to do.

and he sent another division under buckner to assist hindman. buckner was against bragg and hindman listened to him and decided not to do it. the result of that is a few hours later he sent an order to hindman giving him discretion, you can do it or not as you think right. and that is kind of the source of what i think you're referring to about an unclear set of directions. before that discretionary order bragg was clear you have to do it now. but once he reach that is point he gives him the option of backing out if he wants to. i agree with you that he shouldn't have done that. but on the other hand, i point out in the book if you're a commander and it's a risky endeavor and your local commander on the scene is hesitant about doing it and you

force him to do it and disaster comes about, your butt is in the fire not his. right? does a commander have a right to force a reluctant subordinate in a risky situation. i can understand bragg caving in and sending the order, i don't think it was the right thing for him to do, but i believe you can craft a scenario where you understand why maybe he did it. >> thank you. >> sure. yes, sir. >> i'm just really interested in picking that thread up regarding braxton bragg's health issues and what role that played in his command decisions and in his -- in his inability to get along with others. >> that's a good point. let me bring up two other historians who have written about this judith lee halleck,

that's a graduate student. john mentioned this earlier. he's a well known civil war historian wrote the first volume of a two volume by on. fi of brag. and the story is that he became so disgusted with bragg he didn't want to do volume two and he got his graduate student to do that and professional halleck did that several years later. judith wonders if bragg was an opium eater to get relief from his physical -- from the physical effects of having malaria, she didn't prove it but she does suggest it might be a possibility. the other person is kenneth know who's here this year, he's talking on a different topic over in another building right now so he's not in the audience

but in his book on perriville, he suggests not a health problem but a -- but a psychological problem called -- let me see here -- it's a psycho se mat ik illness, narcissistic personality disorder. i have to look at it because i don't remember the terms. knoll believe that bragg exhibited the symptoms of the psychological disorder which resulted from excessive parental expectations and an inability to meet them. in other words bragg presented a competent and idealized false self to the world but doubted his ability to fulfill that role and that led to mood swings and

to find scapegoats when things went wrong. it's up to you to decide which is true with bragg. i'm not convinced of either of them frankly. my idea is his personality and inability to get along with people can be explained in much more mundane people that i see in people i meet on a regular basis. you know what i mean, i'm not sure we need to dig too deeply to understand why somebody acts like an s.o.b. or something like that. but the malaria thing is a good avenue there. it's no doubt he suffered from the 1830s to the end of his life horribly from the effects of malaria poisoning. >> i read robert e. lee

contracted a type of malaria precivil war that would revisit lee and particularly during the antietam campaign it disabled him. >> that's an interesting point. i know nothing about it. what you're describing, a type of malaria that's serious enough to recur on a regular basis and cause fevers and incapacitate you seems to be what bragg had. he also talks about car bungles appearing on his hand, big blisters. i think that was the treatment for malaria which had a lot of mercury in it. >> why did the military name a fort for this confederate general. >> that's a good question. i'm asked it all the time and i have to confess, i don't know. because i didn't look at it.

if you look across the southern states a lot of world war ii era are named after generals like ford hood, et cetera. i don't think it has anything to do necessarily with whether they're perceived as a good or bad general. if you're going to name a ford after hood, why not after bragg? hood has a worse -- well, forget it. yes. >> bragg's poor relationship with the media, with newspaper men, it reminds me a little bit of harold's book who's right behind me, "lincoln and the power of the press" the newspaper men wielded so much influence and so responsible for the distortions that the public had of generals, particularly when it cams to expectations. so i'd like for you to reflect maybe your work and harold's work should remind us that the

emphasis on the battlefield and on command decisions are, of course, extraordinarily important but if we wanted to try to understand military operations dysfunctional element and it's a democracy that cannot come to grips with the reallistic nature of warfare so these generals have the command decisions and they have the issues of having to manage their army but there is something beyond their control that does, in fact, impact operations and that's the press, which seems to be an influence no matter where you turn. >> very good point. i'm glad you brought it up. it was one of the more fascinating aspects of doing this book. i looked at newspaper editorials, the reporting situation, i even came across a diary kept by one newspaper correspondent for south carolina newspapers, his name is reed, i

believe. he wanted to accompany bragg's army into kentucky and bragg refused to give him permission to come with the army. that day in his diary he said i spent several hours tonight cutting down bragg in my next report. this is one of the many problems that far too many newspaper correspondents in the 1860s had no sense of professionalism, dignity, fairness. they used their position to exact personal revenge on people they didn't like. >> we hope that the problem is less today. i pray that it is. especially how influential media is today. but i was stunned by some of the stuff i read about and by these newspaper correspondents who acted like little children instead of public servants. and there were many, many of them like that. another point pete made, even if

they were honest about it they didn't know what was going on anyway. they weren't military experts so who are they to criticize a general for not doing something when they're not privy to all the information the general is about the decision making process. and there's no doubt at all that bragg's press was thoroughly negative most of the civil war. in '62 a little bit into '63 you can find some newspapers who try to be a little balanced. by '64 he's the bad guy, the big ogre and there's no doubt at all it had a huge impact on his effectiveness, creating a negative view of his ability across the boards jefferson davis talked about that in his letters to bragg, commiserating with him saying i'm sorry you have the problems but i have the same problem. bragg wrote to davis saying i know your problem is worse than

mine in terms of these awful newspaper guys. i think there's a dissertation there or a book waiting. we need an up-to-date examination of the media in the 1860s vis-a-vis public service, military operations. i'm doing research on the chickamauga campaign. you know, sherman's battles with the newspapers in the bayou campaign are a bigger, more interesting story. >> who what extent did polk have an easy time putting together what i guess is an antibragg coalition in the army of tennessee? >> i try to skirt polk a little bit in my presentations knowing somebody like you will bring him up. i'm happy for you to do it.

in my own personal interpretation, polk was a horrible guy. he was unfit to command a cor. e because he didn't have the ability to do it, he didn't support his commander. he had a tendency to play this game -- you talk about a friendship between a president and general, it was polk and davis they were friends -- >> roommates. i think they were roommates. >> i think you're right. davis kept polk in command in high levels of command longer than he should have. there's no justification for it. the interesting thing is that -- as i mentioned, as soon as bragg takes his army up to tennessee to form the army of the mississippi he dislikes him from day one because polk is shallow, super official. he had a ten denty to live a

lavish lifestyle and wasn't professional. so from the beginning the two men didn't get along with each other. in general polk had a very positive public image. virtually everybody in the civil war liked and represented him. not for his military ability but his personality. he was a bishop -- what was his title. >> fighting bishop or something like that. >> i forget the title. >> i think he's in the early -- he's the fighting bishop. >> and he played the role of a bishop really well. he was a good holy man. people in the south liked that. you can read so many diaries and letters where people are bowled over by polk the holly man and ignore the fact he didn't know what he was doing when it came to military command. he viciously undercut bragg overtime.

he wrote letters to jefferson davis saying you know what bragg is doing for gosh sake? what kind of effect can this have on bragg's ability to command when he knows this is going on. the irony is jefferson davis kept bragg in command and polk in command when the two men couldn't get along with tooe each other. and davis hoped that some day they would reconcile and work as a team and it never happened. and bragg was unable to deal with this. he finally de did relieve polk of command, but davis let him down easily and gave him another command. i think that -- i really blame polk primarily for creating this poison nous atmosphere that permeated the army of tennessee. bragg deserved some criticism

for not responding to it in a positive way. but bragg didn't initiate it, polk did. yes. okay. okay. yes, please. >> christian keler, u.s. army war college. bragg is given a little bit more credit in strategic circles because he actually proposed early on a viable confederate strategy in 1861 to president davis. would you comment on bragg the strategist verses the army commander. >> he was in favor of withdrawing in the spring of '62. he certainly was a proponent of the idea of getting away from this idea of holding all territory equally well and e va vakting cost lines for example and concentrating on key points. that strategy was followed,

whether bragg was able to convince people to do it, i'm not sure because other people had the same idea and et cetera. he was certainly on the right track in there. and also, i would argue -- i try to make an argument in the book that if robert e. lee's strategy is the correct confederate strategy, what i mean by that is by whipping the pants off every union invasion and knocking them back creating heavy casualties and reducing northern will power to continue fighting -- and i think that's one way to understand lee's strategy in virginia. i would argue that bragg, at least in the stone's river campaign, tried to do the same thing. because in order to defend after the kentucky campaign he decided to positioning the army of tennessee only 30 miles away from union hill nashville in a rather exposed vulnerable position. he felt it was important to do

that to shove it into the face of the federals. and when they came, bragg vicio stunned the union solders and federal soldiers alike. obviously bragg wasn't able to follow through with that and win the campaign like lee could. so he's not lee, but he's half of lee maybe in the western theatre. >> well, said. thank you. >> i have a positive view of bragg, in short. thank you for bringing that up. thank you very much. appreciate it. this is american history tv normally seen weekends here on c span 3. today presentations on the civil war. a review of the general robert e. lee's military strategy and

battlefield leadership. why james bu cannbuchanan. and later general armstrong custer how he advanced to where he did and his impact on the civil war. american history tv continues tonight in prime time with recent civil war conferences tonight programs from day 3 of the gettysburg conference continues on general george e. mead and escaped prisoners of war. >> coming up this weekend on american history tv on cspan tv saturday on reel america, the 1944 u.s. office of war film, "why we fight. the battle of china".

>> three facts must never be forgotten, china is history. china is land. china is people. >> on sunday, at 11:30 a.m. eastern political economy professor and author robert wright on hamilton's view of the national debt. >> hamilton advised the creation of an energetic efficient government. one that did one thing well for as little money as possible. that one thing was to protect american's lives, liberty and property from tyrants foreign and domestic. at 7:00 p.m. eastern new jersey residents discuss the 1967 newark rebellion. >> zero snipers were ever found. no evidence of any snipers.

no gun shells other than the police gun shells. no footprints, fingerprints, nothing was found. and yet 26 people were killed, one policeman, one fireman, the rest citizens, all by the three police forces that were operating. >> american history tv all weekend every weekend, only on cspan 3. don't be a sucker is a 1947 war department film that uses the experience of a hungarian american to warn against the dangers of persecuting minorities. reacting to a hate filled speech in an american city he recalls how similar speeches led to the destruction of german society. this is just over