mr. conners. >> that's why you fight spoiling battles. that's why you -- like washington, too, was dependent on public opinion, which is why he did raids and he attacked small detachments when he could pick up a win and say look at all of these guys i beat. >> that's a good point. and this is something -- >> it has to do with their relationship with davis because to say that he would have been sacked just because he wasn't doing anything is kind of a far stretch. for example, up north lincoln didn't fire half of his generals simply because of political reasons who were not doing as well. >> he had to wait a while. sometimes he does. mcclellan is a good example of that. lyndon doesn't like mcclelland early on, and eventually he gets rid of him. it takes a while. what's different about american political culture between the confederacy -- now i'm expecting you to remember a little about the american history and the jacksonian period -- what do we call it? democracy. in washington's era, public opinion is not as important. remember, in the e

mr. conners. >> the goal is not to defeat your enemies, just to exhaust them, to ruin public opinion and for that, you don't necessarily need to completely trust your armed forces. you just need to frustrate them, which is what washington did. washington never really, with the exception of yorktown, focused on one strong point. he took out, you know, detachments. >> yeah. >> he won moral victories, which is probably what lee should have done is, you know, hit small points as opposed to focusing on the large army where you risk your army in exchange. >> okay. that's what i was trying to get at. break down the enemy's will. >> okay. now, here's a question. in defense of lee, does lee actually disagree except for the mean, does he disagree with the ends of breaking northern will? >> all: no. >> no. but what's lee's sort of argument? >> he thinks the decisive battle is going to get them the victory that they want and break northern will. he doesn't -- it's against southern culture to do what all the historians say he should have done. they would have never done that. they want the classic co

mr. bart conner, we appreciate it. >> it will be my pleasure.>>> how cool is it to hear from bart conner on that? >> fantastic. >> one of the best all-time for americans and boy did he have some neat perspective on that. >>> sticking with the olympics, michael phelps may be hours away from another signature olympic moment. he'll be looking for his first gold medal of these london games when he hits the pool to the compete in the 200 meter butterfly if he finishes in the top three, he'll tie the all-time record of 18 career olympic medals. phelps telling cnn's piers morgan when this competition is over, his swimming career is over, too. >> i'm retiring and i won't be coming back. if i can look back at my career and say i've done everything i've ever wanted, no matter how many medals, no matter how many records, no matter how many this, that, whatever. if i can look back at my career and say that, it doesn't matter anything else. i consider my career a success. >> what more could he possibly want. phelps already has the most gold medals of any oly