rosedale in the battle of antietam. and when he's killed in battle of, antietam, his unit is trying to form into a line of battle. and it is chaotic. and nobody knows how to do it. none of the officers know how to do it. none of the men know how to do it cause they never drilled it, never trained. they've never even fired their weapon. most these men. and that's what a lot of these regiments are like. so that in it's the ability of this army to do certain things and mcclellan that particularly in the early movements of the army he had to give these some seasoning. people often wonder, why didn't he marched 20 miles a day? can't march 20 miles a day with guys who've never done any marching? he's got a season them gradually and they're going to throw a lot of these units into the battle of. antietam and the experience is really for these troops, but for the veteran corps of, the army, these men who've been demoralized by the defeat on the peninsula. now that second manassas, the mood of these men, i think, is reflected by

that is from antietam. i know. but this lincoln in my column, and there wasn't any pitcher taking out the harrison's landing. so he goes to harrison's landing, in early july. appalling has been defeated in the seven-day battles. he is going to sit down and meet with me colin. and when he is, there are mcallen is going to hand him a letter holding harrison's bar ladder. and mccullough gets bashed for this letter. he is way of line. i do not think we calling as an ally at all. commander one of the largest field armies in the union. and he has a right to express to the president of the united states, what i think about policy. and what he tells the president is that a declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate are present armies. but that is a pretty clear shot across the back. i hear what is going on in congress. they are debating the second confiscation act. did not do something radical here. not a good idea. part of -- mcallen is a conservative but the other thing the macallan

and then one at least, and in place victory at antietam. three days later. the bad news was that none of this was sufficient to dispel the clouds of mistrust generated by second bull run over either mcclellan or porter. mcclellan fell under immediate suspicion in washington for not pursuing after antietam with sufficient verve, as well as for showing noticeably little enthusiasm for lincoln's issuance of the preliminary emancipation proclamation on september 22nd. if porter, who was even more explicit in his criticism of the proclamation to mount marble on september 30th, fared worse. throughout the entire day at antietam, mcclellan held porter and the fifth corps in reserve at his headquarters at the pry house. and the optics of that reserve looked like nothing. so much as a conspiratorial repeat of second bull run. david, a staff officer, noticed that porter spent the day with a telescope surveying, the battlefield and speaking to mcclellan in words so low toned and brief that the nearest bystanders had but little benefit from them, as though the battle wa

the antietam campaign and the battle over sharpsburg i'm not sure if it's clear on the map but we will try to make it work here. you will see stuart and the symbol for the cannons. stuart is overseeing the artillery over the battle bailed -- days but the first visit as it nicodemus heights. and out there on the confederate flank. pelham will fire some of the opening shots of the battle in the early-morning hours of september 17 come 1862 but as the battle unfolds and begin shifting pelham releases the candidates and these are just the canon of the artillery these are batteries that he's commanding from jackson's port and they will move from nicodemus heights where they were in danger of being captured. they are going to move to the ridge behind westwood's. as the union troops are plunging into westwood said thinking we are going to break the confederate lines pelham was waiting on the bridge and begins blasting into that area with artillery fire. pelham moves the canons back to nicodemus heights. he wants to go forward into various tartare way positions buddies driven back toward the e

and that's getting played out on the field of antietam. it's also important to note that jackson's chief of artillery, stapleton crutch field, is not the president present at the battle of antietam, he is still on harper's fairy organizing the captured artillery from a few days earlier. so pelham and stewart really go into that artillery role for jackson at this battle. on september 22nd, 1852, pelham promotes to the rank of major. and in the fall of 1862, he needs to refine his signature move, if you will, for horse artillery. a lot of this is going to happen in the chambers and in the lauden county campaign. and we start seeing that pelham can command all of these guns he has in the stewards horse artillery. he likes to take two guns and go out with those gun crews and to do something spectacular and fearless, and something that really gets the attention of the commanders above him. and this is destructive to the yankees approving him. on october 10th through 12, the chambers berg raid, where stewart takes cavalry into pennsylvania. they

everybody talks about antietam and emancipation antietam's not the key battle with emancipation the seven days is second confiscation act came a few days after mcclellan's defeat and charles sumner tied it directly to lincoln's to mcclellan's defeat lincoln announced to his cabinet on the 22nd of july 1862 that he was going to issue a proclamation of emancipation. that's the key battle antietam gives the moment when he can do it, but the decision comes in the wake of mcclellan's failure where they decide we are not going to be able to win this war. without upping the ante and what does that mean? we're going to put the ante as high as it can be the entire slave holding society. of the confederacies now on the table. can't get higher stakes than that. so it's and most people eventually not all many many millions of democrats never got on board with it. they're willing to dive to save the union. they are not willing to die to free enslaved black people beginning to end but even many democrats came around in the course of the war because they thought it was essential. that's a longer answer

like gettysburg and antietam battlefields have a battlefield setting up the coast of north carolina. this naval battlefield is where two world wars came home to america. the shipwrecks are great sites and memorials to heroes and fragile reminds us of our past and so much more. one of the things i really like to point out about the shipwrecks is obviously the history is amazing and the gravity of how these vessels were lost hits us hard. we want to tell the stories and honor the history and honor our veterans but we also look at it as a transition from weapons of war and they become habitat for marine life. they like to think of it as as an historian everyone wants to focus on history but we all know that's not true. some people dive in general just to see the marine life in these shipwrecks and these u-boats and allied anti-submarine vessels and these merchant ships these gigantic merchant ships on the seafloor are these beautiful homes from all sorts of marine life. we know when we find shipwrecks the fishermen nowhere these start. they are the first ones to know. that's where the f

to antietam. to fredericksburg. and to chancellorsville had not won and engagement against that enemy of theirs in any of those. nothing. and yet, the casualties in those campaigns continued to climb. lost some 16,000 on the peninsula. there were at least 16,000 casualties in the army of the potomac alone at fredericksburg and a similar number at chancellorsville. as we all know, by march, the lincoln administration in congress managed to get through a draft. why? because who would want to join the army. nobody. it had been nothing but a slaughterhouse. and there is been nothing gained. and so on the eve of gettysburg, the white house was concerned about riots breaking out in the streets. and then suddenly, a victory is given to them in the largest land engagement ever fought on the north american continent. and yet, and yet, after that, what happens? george meade is accused of not following the enemy. george meade is accused of not having the moral courage to make george meade decisions himself. george meade is acc

what they are expecting me to say as antietam or gettysburg or something like that.and i think wait a minute that's where the war ended. yeah and i put my finger on that as a rhetorical gesture but also to illustrate the fact that the american civil war could have ended very differently through much of its generation and especially right up to the re-election of abraham lincoln. if george mcclellan had been elected as the 17th president of the united states seemed to me at least there's no question about that if not mcclellan himself certainly as party would have moved as quickly as possible to open negotiations and if those negotiationsss had begun by 1864 nobody is going to go back to shooting war. they were just up and too much bloodshed in and too much awareness and too much exhaustion paper -- people in the north would have elected mcclellan because they anticipate an extended war beyond that. had mcclellan been elected negotiations would have ended in no other way than with confederacyou and confederate independence had occurred than a number of really unpleasa

was it -- or was it, as jimmy mcpherson i think said, the antietam.you don't seem to agree with that one. but -- >> i think there are lots of no turning points! summer military and some are not military. i think -- was a turning point because really politicized the war and brought the creation of the joint committee on the conduct of the war, which had a lot to do with how the united states waits the war later. vicksburg is certainly a turning point in some ways. atlanta and the shenandoah valley campaigns sheridan reelect abraham lincoln, but i don't think any battle however had more impact on the subsequent course of the war than the seven days, which i've already mentioned. they bring emancipation to the table on the united states side and they put in place, on the confederate side, lee. without lee in charge of that army -- i hate to say this. with eminent biographers of joseph johnston in the audience here, but joseph johnston was not going to do -- here is not going to prolong the war for two years. i have this image of mr. johnson waking up in

the staff developed five themes for antietam going forward.se themes will be conflicts, terror, survival, memory, and freedom. "we are trying to reach a broader audience," one of the staffers said that was interviewed. " i think it's safe to say that some folks are not as interested in battle tactics as they are in the concepts of freedom. both concepts are equally important in a battlefield, but if you tell the story logically, you will have a broader audience." a story looking at how the national park is focusing on the anniversary of antietam. there is plenty on the civil war and antietam specifically on c-span's american history television. all of our offerings available online at c-span.org. if you go to the american history tv tab, you can check out our civil war offerings. saturday at 2:00 p.m., our focus on the civil war. each saturday, a different topic, different lecture, different offering on the civil war. check out american history tv on c-span two. walter in maryland, democrat. you are next. caller: good morning. i am a 25 year a

every year in the anniversary of the battle of antietam, holmes would present white with a red rose.white's response? my god, if we had one. and i think that come in that same stricken tone of voice, is what we have to say is the answer to that what if. >> host: "in depth" you had a long association with gettysburg college, live in the area or have an intimate knowledge of the area. can you get a good sense of the battle by walking the battlefield of there? >> guest: all the time, altai. the battlefield, battlefield, a gettysburg is such a wonderful place to walk, to visit, to meander, to analyze, to think about. and sometimes of course the temptation to second-guess. that always comes. you wander around that marvelous battlefield and you, in my mind anyway, you come to the central location of pickett's charge smashed against the union defenses and you think, this small, this small plot of ground may be the most hallowed of hallowed ground in the north american continent. it is a marvelous and magical place to be in, to walk around it, yeah. yeah, i have never lost an interest, i've

frederick, antietam, manassas. they've been through enough of that. yet, meade no sooner got to frederick on the 7th and 8th of july than general hal accent him a message from the president. the presidents congratulating general grant on the surrender of vicksburg and then says, now if meade can finish the glorious work he had accomplished thus far, by the literal or substantial destruction of lee's army, the war will be over. the literal or substantial destruction of lee's army? do you destroy leads army, an army that sophisticated? no. no. meade must have read that dispatch with some dismay. the bar of success was now way up here. on the night of the 13th of july, lee evacuated those trenches. he had built a pontoon bridge across the potomac and falling waters. took him 68 hours to build an 800 foot span of bridges. and got that army across the potomac. to stretch s ha absolutely remarkable story to be -- and what does lincoln say? meade had only to stretch out his hands and they were hours. a golden opportunity, he said, of destroying a lease army

leave antietam campaign and brags 62 kentucky campaign.so, van dorn is this third leg, some would argue, fourth like of this offensive which is happening right here. here he goes. the first thing that van doren does is march past karen. i know that doesn't make sense, but he marches to the northern side, acting like he's going to go through middle tennessee, into western kentucky. he is not doing that. he turns back around and attacks carne from the north, he is slow getting into position, you hear this over and over, and on october 3rd, the union army is allowed to consolidate and is awaiting his a rival. this is going to be william rosencrantz. a trap, i don't know, there's a small gap in between one of the two union brigades -- the confederate eventually exploit that gap -- and drive the union forces back. so, here's the front lines, the exterior alliance is the word i'm looking for. and union forces are going to fall back closer carne to. on october 4th, this is going to happen. now, the attack is delayed because we a number of differe

the ecw book on the gettysburg campaign, co-author of an immediately coming out book on ohio and antietam. and also the co-editor of the "emerging civil war" tenth anniversary series that has just recently come out, one on gettysburg, another on tullahoma and vicksburg. with not too much else to say, i want to introduce dan welch, who will talk about the man we love to hate, john pope. so, here is dan welch, the man with not enough free time. >> [applause] >> good evening, everyone. one of the things i've not shared with a lot of you is my absolute love of the southern rock band lynyrd skynyrd. i've been very fortunate to meet some of the plane crash survivors and meet those who perished in the raves of october 1977. one of the stories i've heard is that as lynyrd skynyrd was getting popular and their fame was rising, a lot of the acts that they would open four would go to the tour manager and say, don't let them close with "free bird", we can't top that. >> [laughs] >> this would be from bands like peter frampton and the rolling stones -- so now i know exactly the situation they were in

a major loss at manassas in august and that is not a victory until september, september 17th, at antietam. so while this is going on, lincoln is waiting for this victory to come, he does several things to try to prepare the white, racist north, the white, racist electorate in the north, for what is coming. he knows he's going to issue an emancipation proclamation, he knows he's got to wait, but he might as well begin to prepare and shape public sentiment on this issue. so he does several things. one of its as he writes a very famous letter to horace greely, where he says my paramount object in the struggles to save the union. and it's not either safe or destroyed slavery, he's trying to get people on board. if you are willing to fight for the union, think about how ending slavery might help do that. and then, he also calls in this black delegation and he brings a stenographer into the room to write down everything he says. and the messages, what you just very ably described, the reason for the war is because you're here and, if you aren't here, we wouldn't be cutting each other's throats,

at manassas and i in august and then there's not a victory until september of september 17th at antietam. and so while this is going on while lincoln is waiting for this victory to come he does several things to try to prepare the white racist north the white racist electorate in the north for what is coming. he knows he's going to issue an emancipation proclamation. he knows he's got to wait, but he might as well begin to prepare and shape public sentiment on this issue. so he does several things one of which is he writes a very famous letter to horace freely where he says my paramount object in this struggle is to save the union and it's not to either save her to destroy slavery. he's trying to get people on board if if you are willing to fight for the union think about how ending slavery might help do that and then he also calls in this black delegation and he brings us stenographer into the room to write down everything. he says and the message is what you just very described it. the reason for the war is because you're here and if you were here we be cutting each other's throats. an

at manassas and i in august and then there's not a victory until september of september 17th at antietam. and so while this is going on while lincoln is waiting for this victory to come he does several things to try to prepare the white racist north the white racist electorate in the north for what is coming. he knows he's going to issue an emancipation proclamation. he knows he's got to wait, but he might as well begin to prepare and shape public sentiment on this issue. so he does several things one of which is he writes a very famous letter to horace freely where he says my paramount object in this struggle is to save the union and it's not to either save her to destroy slavery. he's trying to get people on board if if you are willing to fight for the union think about how ending slavery might help do that and then he also calls in this black delegation and he brings us stenographer into the room to write down everything. he says and the message is what you just very described it. the reason for the war is because you're here and if you were here we be cutting each other's throats. an

what they're expecting me too see as antietam, gettysburg or something like that.ouse. and they think wait a minute and i put my finger at that partly as a rhetorical gesture but also partly to illustrate the fact it could have been differently especially through abraham lincoln. if for instance lincoln had not been that seems to me at least there is no question about that if not mcclellan himself and certainly his party and if this negotiation had begun no one is going to back to shooting war they'd been too much bloodshed. there is too much awareness of tumescent exhaustion. people in the north would not have elected mcclellan they anticipate an extended work beyond that. so had mcclellan been elected there would have been negotiations. it would have ended and no other way than with confederate independence. if confederate independence had occurred, there are a number of really unpleasant things that i think were very likely resulted. one is the united states would have continued to dissolved in secessions. once you have a successful succession there's no reason

comrades of the very thief thief that this timepiece had been stolen from an officer at the battle of antietam. so plumaker inquired further about that officer's identity and how he had died. the officer's death was caused by cannon fire. he was shot down 16 paces from the canon's mouth. we make her didn't elaborate on the significance of the proximity of the officer to the canon but underlying his statement here is the knowledge that the officer would have been severely wounded possibly mutilated. and the thought of this horrified plumbaker. he never wore the watch again. any eventually seems to have tried to atone for what he considered a disgraceful act by sending the watch to the governor of the state of virginia not knowing the name of the man who had owned it. eventually, it became part of the confederate museum in richmond, virginia. so although both poolmaker and hunter had owned and used at least for a time articles that were taken from a dead man's body. they had opposite reactions to the experience. that contrast suggests that what matter to their sensibilities wasn't the act of wea