and lee fought at sharpsburg or antietam. we will make our stand on those hills, he said. some troops as they approach the position. hindsight if nothing else compels the question why. why did lee decide to stand and fight an enemy he knew would have many more guns and many more men and guns than the army of northern virginia, and he has the potomac river at his back and only one fort over the river in the event he needed a route of escape, and that fort was on his extreme right flank. any answer must depend upon conjecture. maybe lee believed that he would have to fight mcclellan somewhere and soon and so he chose to fight here and now. maybe he was afraid his army would only grow weaker from lack of rations and an increase of straggling if he attempted to maneuver more. and so elected to fight before his strength eroded still further. maybe lee believed that his defensive position would be sufficiently strong to achieve a malverne hill in reverse, that is, let the enemy beat himself to pieces attacking me. let the federals bleed themselves to death attacking him this tim

i know since then, you have had a book that you put out on antietam. and my question is, is it still your position that pretty much the turning point took place at gettysburg and vicksburg or have your views evolved since then? >> i identified what i called four major turning points in the civil war, and i think i would stick with that. the first one was actually a turning point from what looked like inevitable union victory in the spring of 1862, with all of the union successes in the western theater and along the south atlantic coast, and with mclellan's army at the potomac more than 100,000 strong looking like any day here at the beginning of june they were going to march into richmond. could the confederacy have survived this succession of defeats, climaxed by the capture of their capital? but of course what we know that counteroffensives by the army of northern virginia and other confederate armies turned that situation around. so that by the late summer of 1862, rather than being in danger of losing their capital, confederate armies had crossed t

he wrote is right after antietam or right after the preliminary emancipation proclamation. now to the gladness and joy he said of all who wish well to the country and sympathize with the sorrows of the enslaved negro. all is changed. the 22nd of september is the beginning of a new dispensation in america. the proclamation of president lincoln is the first chapter of a new history. he was worried, wary, he could still lambaste lincoln with one hand and talk about him with great hope and admiration with another that fall of 1862. but by december, and i'm not to quote him after december 1862, and man, if i could -- but in december, the last things douglass wrote before getting on the train to go to boston to be at that magnificent meeting in tremont temple in boston where all abolitionist new england would gather, where he would lead the crowd waiting for the news of lincoln signing the proclamation, where they would wait all day for the news to come. whoops, i'm in january 1st now, sorry. can't do that. sorry. except you should know that at that meeting, douglass even led the

this is child's play compared to the wilderness or antietam or gettysburg. but at this period it was shocking. what the south tried to do with this army was to go up the tennessee river, reclaim the border states and go into southern ohio and threaten cincinnati. they almost did it. sunday morning they got this army. no one thought they could do it. johnston brought it within a few hundred yards of the union line and no one knew it was there. they attacked at dawn. they almost broke immediately the right side of the union army. what i'd like to do at this point is not talk about the tactics but how this battle affected four people who were there in a way that i think affects all of us in this room right now. i should say before we start, there was a lot of famous people here. two future presidents, ulysses s. grant and james garfield fought there. henry morton stanley, the african explorer and john wesley powell who found or recorded the colorado river exploration. but one of them was william sherman. when the battle started at 5:30 in the morning sherman wa

wondering if you would care to comment on jackson's actions in the second manassas campaign, the antietam campaign and also the fredericksburg campaign which concluded in 1862. and whether you feel that it enhanced his qualifications for man of the year or was he just a really superior super subordinate executing lee's work? >> well, all three of those campaigns jackson did very well in. fredericksburg, the battle was pretty much a set piece, the most rigidly set piece battle of the war in the east. federals attacking, confederates resisting without a lot of movement. sharpsburg involved a lot of movement but not as much as subsequently chancellorsville. >> fredericksburg senior the joint plan that he and lee crafted and it certainly contributes mightily to the success of the confederacy. there's a very interesting quote from lee that pertains to all of this. and that is in the fall of 162 when the confederate congress finally authorized the lieutenant general's rank. northerners never did that far. they created corps legally officially and lieutenant generals to command those corps. lee

and then he -- by not losing the battle at antietam which very nearly did happen he saved the confederacy which could hardly have lived with the destruction of the army in northern virginia and he had his two tactical -- crushing tactical victories. >> i'll let jim mcpherson repliechlt what do you think of his case on robert e. lee? >> just tell him to stay tuned. there are two more nomination toss come this afternoon. and we may hear about robert e. lee yet. i would say that he certainly has a good case. in the end, though, the war was won by the union. and i think that the union navy played a crucial role in that victory. and admiral farragut was the foremost union naval officer. so i would rest my case on the leader who ultimately helped win the war. >> another california caller, westlake village. this is john. >> hello. i looked at your audience of old white primarily southern faces. and i see this spike in interest in the civil war. and i'd like to ask the professor what this says about our country, and in fact in our current politics many of the old issues and phrases that motivated

the armies and the battles of bull run in shiloh and the battles of richmond and the bloody day of antietam in 1862, my subject was and is a surviving veteran of an older, longer war. that state of war, the country called slavery and that the world called slavery. human kind's ancient desire and capacity to exploit and make property of its fellow human beings. if we could have the pictures there. i brought a photo. this guy is so handsome, it enhances my chances to finish at least fifth -- or fourth. i don't know if lee will show up today. lee was a gorgeous guy, too. check him out. my subject, of course, is frederick douglas. he was born frederick agustus washington bailey born on maryland's eastern shore in february, 1818. a little more on that background in