burnside has this problem where he'll freeze up when he's given too much. it's shown -- kind of burnside -- it takes him a long time to get across that bridge. burnside can be taken advantage of and exploited as can mcclelland obviously. mcclelland will break if pushed right, but he doesn't get that good a read when it comes to grant. >> yes, i think and while -- also what should be added good read on the army of the potomac. there's something deeply wrong about the army of the potomac. i don't know if historians have done a great job -- even bruce cannon talks about this. they fight really hard, its rank and file are pretty effective but its generals -- kind of an organizational problem. partly because of mcclelland because a lot of the officers he selects and the culture he creates is a very defensive passive-minded one and the sports team that gets beaten by the same team too often, right? there seems to be a sense that they get the culture of losers, all right, and what is the opposite thing in northern virginia? they think they're always going to win.

known as fighting joe hooker who had commanded the first core under mcclellan and burnside. he was crushed in turn by lee at chancellorsville. in june, lee invaded pennsylvania. on june 28th, on the eve of gettysburg, hooker was abruptly removed and replaced with george meade. who was rather surprised. meade though a democrat, hooker and burnside i should tell you by the way were republicans. the committee was pretty friendly to them. i went generally went easy on them. i'm not going to take time to devil into that but there may be a little time to say a few more words about how they handled republican generals as opposed democrat ones. a fairly conservative was largely an apolitical professional. but not very likeable. bruce catten, the historian rereferred to him as crab and decemb dispep tick, after his deployment, he led the army to victory in gettysburg and despite meade's overwhelming numbers after the battle and troops high more ral, he failed to vigorously pursue lee who managed to escape to virginia with his army. lincoln wrote in a letter to meade the following. i

as commander of the army of the potomac and then his general in chief, at the time when he chose burnside to succeed mcclellan and chose john pope in the summer of 1862 to command another army in virginia, which was supposed to cooperate with mcclellan's army of the potomac, and then when he chose joe hooker to replace burnside, and then george g. meade to replace hooker, when he made these choices, every one of them seemed to be of the best possible man based on their record, at the time to that stage in the war, and on their promise and their potential as commanders, but each one of them obviously turns out to be a great disappointment to lincoln. i have always thought that that was not so much because of lincoln's poor choice, but because these men turned out not to have the character, the abilities, the capacity for decision, the right kinds of decision that all of the previous, of their previous records would have suggested they had, but that's something that could continue to be debated. the one key thing about lincoln and his choice of commanders is that he early on recognized gran