now lou wallace was an interesting character and he was the other main character of this story. he was from indiana, he was from a prominent family. he did serve in the mexican war as a 19-year-old lieutenant, but he had no military experience other than that when the war started. he did have a unit in indiana before the war. those were those drill teams that dressed up in these colorful uniforms. they became the 11th indiana when the war started, he was their leader and he scored an early victory at romney, west virginia, right after first manassas when the union was looking for heros. and the union press played him up really big and he became a general and that was sort of his high point. his low point happened at the battle of shiloh when his regiment got lost the first night. probably not his fault. it was rough terrain, bad weather, et cetera, dark, kind of a fog of war situation, but grant and hallock were very, very upset with wallace after shiloh. he did fight the second day, but they sort of shoved him to the side after that and his job was at this point in the war, he

number one, i do believe what lou wallace did save this from happening. dn't want to do it. the number of troops went down drastically. this was grant's grand plan to end the war. but it didn't work. if lee had not forced grant to do this, i really believe that the war could have ended sooner. maybe much sooner. maybe a matter of six months sooner. it's a what-if and can never be proven one way or the other. but it's a what-if that came pretty close to happening. and i want also goes to show that nothing is inevitable in history. nothing is inevitable in the civil war. and if you want to remember it this way, you know, you can remember that. >> tonight, american history tv takes a look at the civil war with the battle of crater. union forces detonated explosive underneath the confederate lines to create a gap in the defenses. >> they thought they could mun underneath a confederate valley and literally blow a hole in the con fed rat lines. the confederates were looking for the mine, rural morals were flying and anywhere where the lines were close, they were

now lou wallace was an interesting character and he was the other main character of this story.those drill teams that dressed up in these colorful uniforms. they became the 11th indiana when the war started, he was their leader and he scored an early victory at romney, west virginia, right after first manassas when the union was looking for heros. and the union press played him up really big and he became a general and that was sort of his high point. his low point happened at the battle of shiloh when his regiment got lost the first night. probably not his fault. it was rough terrain, bad weather, et cetera, dark, kind of a fog of war situation, but grant and hallock were very, very upset with wallace after shiloh. he did fight the second day, but they sort of shoved him to the side after that and his job was at this point in the war, he was the commander of the union's middle atlantic department, which was basically his job was he was military governor of baltimore. it wasn't a very plum assignment. well, reading the same intelligence that the union high command got and didn't

lou wallace, after the war, became a novelist and he wrote the second most popular novel of the 19th century, which was "ben-hur" and also wrote an 800-page memoir, which was really a god send for a historian, after reading these sort of dry memoirs and lots of them and letters and so on, journals, and orders, here you get lew wallace who writes his memoir, you know, 40 years after the fact, writes it in a flowery 19th century novelist style. and when wallace says that they arrived here in the morning and lit their campfires, he'll say something like, you know, the steely sky gave way to a brilliant orange sun as we made our way down to the junction and the campfire smoke curled up, which was great. of course, you have to balance what wallace says in his memoir with his telegrams from the battlefield, his after-action report the day after, his after-action report two weeks later, because wallace had a way of making himself sound really good, and, you know s he did a very brave thing here, can't get away from that, and as i say in the book, i believe and i think the judgment of histor

so number one, i do believe that what lou wallace did did save this from happening. allace was relieved of his command after he lost that battle. within two weeks grant had reinstated him. grant writes in his memoirs that had wallace not blocked for the day early very well could have caused havoc in washington, d.c. this is a battle that saved washington and changed the course of american history. think about it. lee's fourth objective and probably his most important in his mind was to try to force grant to try to take troops out. grant didn't want to do it. the number of troops went down drastically from like 137,000 at the end of june to like almost 70,000 two months later. this was grant's grand plan to end the war. it didn't work until april of '65. if lee had not forced grant to do this i really believe that the war could have ended sooner. maybe much sooner, maybe a matter of six months sooner, maybe three months sooner. it is a what if and can never be proven one way or the other t. was a what if that came close to happening. it also goes to show that nothing i