robert e. leeis army showed clearly as the confederacies greatest hope. ulysses s. grant had come east to manage the armies in virginia, but ulysses s. grant had never met robert e. lee in battle. at charlottesville -- a charlottesville newspaper editor wrote in april, the conflict has, in a sense, narrowed down to virginia. and to this campaign. uncertainty reigned in new york financial markets. gold inched upward towards $200 an ounce. the looming union presidential election gave confederates hope. from the richmond examiner, april 6th, 1864. there is a pleasing prospective collapse and ruin both financial and political for the yankee nation in this very year. it is due and overdue. but we must not forget to bring an account to a complete and final liquidation. we have to do our part, and our part is one crushing and crowning victory. and so, the armies came. >> welcome to all of you. we're very glad you're here. my name is john hennessy, i'm the chief historian at fredricksburg and spotsle vina

robert e. lee's forces. other generals had undertaken the same strategy and had met defeat. grant regarded a battle loss as merely a momentary setback. if bested, he intended to reassemble and attack again. and again. and again. until lee's outnumbered army was forced to play the sort of game it could not win. put another way, in may 1864, the union army stopped playing chess and switched over to checkers. both armies bled copiously that month. grant took a pounding in a two-day fight in the wilderness. the union general ignored the defeat and began side ling movements to crumble lee's life light and so began a deadly game of fight, flight and fight and flight and fight again. mile, mile, mile they kept pushing. they were approaching the wilderness, an unpredictable stream whose bites relied on when it had last rained. behind it was richmond. too bloodied but determined hosts gravitated to a place called cold harbor. soldiers found it more bake oven than cold and there was no stream within miles. c

robert e. leend his army shown clearly as the confederacy's greatest hope. ulysses s. grant had come east to manage the armies in virginia, but ulysses s. grant had never met robert e. lee in battle. at charlottesville, a charlottesville newspaper editor wrote in april, the conflict has, in a sense, narrowed down to virginia and to this campaign. uncertainty reined in new york financial markets. gold inched upward towards $200 an ounce. the looming union presidential election gave confederates hope. from the richmond examiner, april 6, 1864. there is a pleasing prospect of collapse and ruin, both financial and political, for the yankee nation in this very year. it is due and overdue. but we must not forget to bring an account to a complete and final liquidation. we have to do our part, and our part is one crushing and crowning victory. and so the armies came. >> welcome to all of you. we're very glad you're here. my name is john hennessy. i'm senior leader in spotsylvania. we welcome you to the ass

to be sure, robert e. lee has a greater role in confederate military history as it has been written. but as it happened, i think joseph p. johnston was the most important of confederate generals. he won the first major battle of the war in 1861 at a time when robert e. lee was a desk officer in richmond. johnston commanded a confederate army that was active in the field for two and a half weeks after lee surrendered in 1865. johnston commanded confederate armies in virginia, tennessee, mississippi, georgia, south carolina, and north carolina. in addition, confederate forces in florida, alabama and east louisiana were subject to his orders at one time or another. he commanded the confederate army in the two most important military campaigns in the war vehicles burg and atlanta. his quarrel with jefferson davis is a story in and of itself. i thought this was a war for southern independence, but it's just a quarrel between jeff and j joe. that quarrel runs like an angry scar through the history of the confederacy

we're not glorifying robert e. lee. ithout getting into the merits of his complaint, you should have heard a lot of white people howl about that. they said, why are you going to take down that picture of robert e. lee? this is terrible, this is racial chauvini chauvinism. and i wrote a piece. i said, wait a minute. i said, i don't care about the picture of lee on the floodwall one way or the next, but you've got a predominantly black city council in this city since 1977 or whatever, 20 years now, and in all that time, not only haven't they taken down the statues of confederate heroes on monument avenue, but they rebuilt -- you know where the lee bridge is, robert e. lee bridge? they tore down the old bridge and built a nice new one and they named it again the robert e. lee bridge. i said how much conciliation do you want from the black community. they just built you a new bridge and named it after general lee. i don't think the the confederate legacy is in danger here. now, there were two small bridges across the valley

robert e. lee earned his greatest and final victory of the war, but it wasn't enough to stop grant from besieging lee and his men at petersburg. the richmond battle park organized this hour-long event. >> well, good evening. my name is rick raines and i'm the pastor here at the fair mount christian church, and we are really sad that you're here tonight. [ laughter ] we know you are much anticipating being over at the battlefield, but we're glad you're with us tonight. i've been asked to begin the evening with a word of invocation. please bow with me. father in heaven, we come to this place tonight, not to celebrate war, but to celebrate sacrifice, loyalty, bravery, and the things that have happened in our history to make us the great nation we are today. may we learn from the lessons of history. may we not repeat the lessons that divide us, but may we repeat those lessons that make us, indeed, strong. tonight, dear lord, i thank you for the national park service and their very hard work in bringing

robert e. lee and his army shone clearly as the confederacy's greatest hope. ulysses s. grant had come east to manage the armies in virginia, but ulysses s. grant had never met robert e. lee in battle. at charlottesville -- a charlottesville newspaper editor wrote in april, "the conflict has, in a sense, narrowed down to virginia. and to this campaign." uncertainty reigned in new york financial markets. gold inched upward towards $200 an ounce. the looming union presidential election gave confederates hope. from "the richmond examiner," april 6th, 1864. "there is a pleasing prospective of collapse and ruin, both financial and political, for the yankee nation in this very year. it is due and overdue. but we must not forget to bring an account to a complete and final liquidation. we have to do our part, and our part is, one, crushing and crowning victory." and so, the armies came. >> welcome to all of you. we're very glad you're here. my name is john hennessy, i'm the chief historian at fredricksburg

robert e. lee really liked jubal early. lee called him "my bad old man," even though lee was older than early. early had arthritis, kind of hunched over, scraggly beard, wore the slouched hat and lee liked him because -- it's interesting that lee should depend on him and admire early so much, because lee's personality was 180 degrees opposite. he was a god-fearing man, he didn't curse, respected women, and so on. robert e. lee said it's good war is so horrible, otherwise men would love it, compares to jubal early, who probably, if there was something the opposite of that to be said, he would have said it. sths a man lee entrusted to go on this mission and he was one of the more aggressive southern generals, and it's interesting because of what happened later at washington, his aggressiveness. washington was just across the river from virginia. 90 miles from richmond, from the very beginning of the war, the union was very concerned about a southern invasion of the nation's capital, so immediately troops were sent down into w

one of the pictures was a e, portrait of general robert e. lee. one of the pictures. a black leader who complained about this very vociferously and said, you havet to take that down, we're not glorifying robert e. lee. lo without getting into the meritsl of his acomplaint, you should y have heard a lot of white peoplt howl about that. what, you're going to take down that picture of robert e. lee? this is terrible this is racial chauvinism.an and i wrote a piece, i said, wait a minute, i said, i don't e care about the picture of lee or the flood wall one way or the next, bullet you've got a counci predominantly city black councie in this city since 1977 or whatever, 20 years now, and in e all that time, not only haven't they taken down the statues of confederate heroes but they rebuild -- tore down the old mc robert e. lee bridge and named it again the robert e. lee bridge. i said how much conciliation do you want from the black community? i don't think the confederate legacy is in danger here. tere now, there were two small bridges across the valley that were named af

we're not glorifying robert e. lee. ithout getting into the merits of his complaint, you should have heard a lot of white people howl about that. they said, why are you going to take down that picture of robert e. lee? this is terrible, this is racial chauvini chauvinism. and i wrote a piece. i said, wait a minute. i said, i don't care about the picture of lee on the floodwall one way or the next, but you've got a predominantly black city council in this city since 1977 or whatever, 20 years now, and in all that time, not only haven't they taken down the statues of confederate heroes on monument avenue, but they rebuilt -- you know where the lee bridge is, robert e. lee bridge? they tore down the old bridge and built a nice new one and they named it again the robert e. lee bridge. i said how much conciliation do you want from the black community. they just built you a new bridge and named it after general lee. i don't think the the confederate legacy is in danger here. now, there were two small bridges across the valley

-- robert e. lee and the entire confederate high command say we refuse to exchange black prisoners of war because we refuse to think of them as soldiers. in fact what the confederate army does for a short while is to enslave black prisoners of war, which is again a violation of every known rule of war at the time and is a throwback to the roman empire. and in fact if you add to this jubal early's incursions twice into pennsylvania where he spends his time hunting down blacks to bring them back to the south, the confederate army starts to look like some weird mars -- modern version of the roman empire going to hunt slaves in gaul or among the germanic tribes. or even more weirdly, it looks like a precursor of the nazis, who spend their time hunting juice and ukraine and russia, rather than fighting the russian army -- hunting jews in ukraine and russia, rather than fighting the russian army. so, i think the question of war crimes and the question of henry wirz is not does henry wirz richly deserve to b

well, lee had three infantry army corps, and one cavalry corps. robert e. lee's first corps begins under longstreet. but longstreet will be badly wounded after the second day of fighting grant. and he will be replaced by general richard heron anderson, a south carolinan. a man who liked to smoke mirchon pipes. we'll see a lot of him at cold harbor. the confederate second corps is under richard stoddard ewell. he will be replaced by early, a former prosecutor, tctjstrong-wd erasible guy. we'll see how early performs here at cold harbor. the confederate third corps commanded by ambrose powell hill of virginia, out of culpepper county, a.p. hill, though, had been quite ill. he's now commanding the larger remnant of stonewall jackson's old confederate first corps, as well as his former light division. a.p. hill will do very poorly. there's one thing about a.p. hill that most people haven't really focused on that i think would make an interesting story. being a storyteller and historian, i would like to write a book about it one day. a.p. hill had the unusual tal

we're not glorifying robert e. lee. out getting into the merits of his complaint, you should have heard a lot of white people howl about that. they said, why are you going to take down that picture of robert e. lee? this is terrible, this is racial chauvinism. and i wrote a piece. i said, wait a minute. i said, i don't care about the picture of lee on the floodwall one way or the next, but you've got a predominantly black city council in this city since 1977 or whatever, 20 years now, and in all that time, not only haven't they taken down the statues of confederate heroes on monument avenue, but they rebuilt -- you know where the lee bridge is, robert e. lee bridge? they tore down the old bridge and built a nice new one and they named it again the robert e. lee bridge. you want from the black community. they just built you a new bridge and named it after general lee. i don't think the the confederate legacy is in danger here. now, there were two small bridges across the valley that were named after confederates. little o

well, lee had three infantry army corps, and one cavalry corps. robert e. 's first corps begins the campaign under general james longstreet. but longstreet will be badly wounded after the second day of fighting grant. and he will be replaced by general richard heron anderson, a south carolinan. fairly undistinguished. a man who liked to smoke mirchon pipes. we'll see a lot of him at cold harbor. the confederate second corps is under richard stoddard ewell. he will become increasingly ill and by the time the armies get here to cold harbor, he will have been replaced by early, a former prosecutor, strong-willed irascible guy. i have a fondness for prosecutors, having been a prosecutor myself. we'll see how early performs here at cold harbor. the confederate third corps commanded by ambrose powell hill of virginia, out of culpepper county, a.p. hill, though, had been quite ill. he's now commanding the larger remnant of stonewall jackson's old confederate first corps, as well as his former light division. a.p. hill will do very poorly. there's one thing about a.

robert e. lee's forces. other generals had undertaken the same strategy and had met defeat. grant regarded a battle loss as merely a momentary setback. if bested, he intended to reassemble and attack again. and again. and again. until lee's outnumbered army was forced to and thousands of them gave their supreme offering in the woods and clearings at cold harbor. both armies bled copiously that month. grant took a pounding in a two-day fight in the wilderness. the union general ignored the defeat and began siding movements to crumple them and turn the southerners away from richmond. so began a deadly game of fight, flank, and fight and flank and night again. mile by mile, grant kept pushing. 50 miles in 30 days after the start, the two armies were approaching the river. an unpredictable stream whose banks depended on when last it had rained. behind it was richmond itself, less than a day's march away. two bloodied but determined hosts gravitated toward a place called cold harbor. soldiers found it m

that string robert e. lee and his army showed clearly as the c c. had never met lee in battle. in april, the conflict has narrowed down two virginians in this campaign. uncertainty reigned in new york financial markets. gold inched up up. from the richmond examiner, april six, april 64, there is a pleasing prospect of reign from the yankee nation in this very year. we must not forget to bring an account to a complete and financial liquidation. our point one crashing victory. and so the families game. >> welcome to all of you. we're very glad we're here. my name is john hennessy. the national military park, we welcome to this. our great and honored guest is dr. robert on. o if ever a single place refliecs what this war came to be, this place is it. when people came to grapple on this farm land of may of had the time to let go. this war was not about suck suggestion or union. it was also about freedom. the extent and nature of the american government and a future of the united states driving for an entity and trength n strength and determination only

well, lee had three infantry army corps, and one cavalry corps. robert e. lee's first corps begins under longstreet. but longstreet will be badly wounded after the second day of fighting grant. and he will be replaced by general richard heron anderson, a south carolinan. a man who liked to smoke mirchon pipes. we'll see a lot of him at cold harbor. the confederate second corps is under richard stoddard ewell. he will be replaced by early, a former prosecutor, tctjstrong-wd erasible guy. we'll see how early performs here at cold harbor. the confederate third corps commanded by ambrose powell hill of virginia, out of culpepper county, a.p. hill, though, had been quite ill. he's now commanding the larger remnant of stonewall jackson's old confederate first corps, as well as his former light division. a.p. hill will do very poorly. there's one thing about a.p. hill that most people haven't really focused on that i think would make an interesting story. being a storyteller and historian, i would like to write a book about it one day. a.p. hill had the unusual tal

to be sure, robert e. leeas a greater role in confederate military history as it has been written. but as it happened, i think joseph p. johnston was the most important of confederate generals. he won the first major battle of the war in 1861 at a time when robert e. lee was a desk officer in richmond. johnston commanded a confederate army that was active in the field for two and a half weeks after lee surrendered in 1865. johnston commanded confederate armies in virginia, tennessee, mississippi, georgia, south carolina, and north carolina. in addition, confederate forces in florida, alabama and east louisiana were subject to his orders at one time or another. he commanded the confederate army in the two most important military campaigns in the war vicksburg and atlanta. his quarrel with jefferson davis is a story in and of itself. i thought this was a war for southern independence, but it's just a quarrel between jeff and joe. that quarrel runs like an angry scar through the history of the confederacy and is

he said robert e. lee earned his greatest and final victory of the war, but it wasn't enough to stop grant from besieging lee and his men at petersburg. the richmond battle park organized this hour-long event. >> well, good evening. my name is rick raines and i'm the pastor here at the fair mount christian church, and we are really sad that you're here tonight. [ laughter ] we know you are much anticipating being over at the battlefield, but we're glad you're with us tonight. i've been asked to begin the evening with a word of invocation. please bow with me. father in heaven, we come to this place tonight, not to celebrate war, but to celebrate sacrifice, loyalty, bravery, and the things that have happened in our history to make us the great nation we are today. may we learn from the lessons of history. may we not repeat the lessons that divide us, but may we repeat those lessons that make us, indeed, strong. tonight, dear lord, i thank you for the national park service and their very hard work in bringing

. >> was charles lee part of the major lee family, robert e. lee? >> no, he's not related. he had good family blood through his mother, aristocratic blood, but he was not related to the lees of virginia. his last house is in what is now we town, west virginia, named after him -- leetown, west virginia, named after him. there was a story told he could not afford to put walls in the house, so he was drawing lines in the dirt for the living room and study. he did not have a successful postwar experience unfortunately. thank you very much. i would be glad to sign any books you have upstairs. thank you. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook. >> all weekend on american history tv, we are featuring historic sites and local historians from cities across america. these are highlights from c-span's 2014 cities tour. see the schedule of where we have been an watch video of all our stops. >> this is a f-100 super sabre. the first airplane we built this country that would go supersonic in-f

this was by robert e. lee to change the strategic balance in the war in the east. not just militarily but also politically. though militarily robert e. lee thought predominantly through the state of his whole career, he wanted to break the stranglehold of u list is s grant and others on the richmond petersburg line. you may recall in the west the atlanta campaign had become bogged down on the coast lines, mobile bay and wilmington north carolina and others were not blockaded by the union. in this election summer of 186 4shgs everything was kind of at a stand still. the war had not been won after gettysburg. forget gettysburg. forget an teet yum. they all hung in the balance. it all hung in the balance on an afternoon here at fort stevens. my favorite confederate general hard swearing had children out of wedlock, spit tobacco. lee's bad old man of which i have a biography coming out shortly pointing out many of the foibles. he was a fighter. what about eight to ten maybe 12,000 men battle hardened veterans and was becoming a game changer here in this war in the east.

has subsequently reintegration of the south with the perception from mathematics and certainly robert e. lee to a good vantage when he was invited with the grant to say the implication is i would not be indicted so with the post civil war history with baffle scholarship and research i highly recommended. chris matthews has written a book that i liked a lot is a story of the relationship of tip o'neill and president ronald reagan a republican and the story that now seems long ago unfortunately where the democrats could come together to make a difference and everybody who works in capitol hill ought to read the book to take it to heart because a lot got done because of the relationship. they did not always loved each other but they would reach across the aisle. >> a wonderful book with a history of congress on the adoption of the civil rights act of '64 so house legislation happens it is an hour by hour recount of food did what and it makes me sad because republicans were at the forefront in had to do a lot of those past sins and unfortunately most of those republicans are not here anymore but

so robert e lee is the question. can we hold robert e. lee accountable for the killing of u.s.colored troops after they stopped the battle? lee is very near the battlefield the whole time, less than a quarter of a mile. , they comel bogart out onto the field and we are and it is myear observation that they must have seen some killing. i do not know -- what i hold accountable for and grant and meade is they leave their in the battlefield in the 100 plus degree heat because meade does not want to admit defeat. to leaveposterous these people out there bleeding and agony and by the time they will be recovered, the other member meade's staff made is the bodies are so black white withn and also maggots eating the flesh and i'll could've been avoided if the letter that meade wrote he had sent it over to the confederates. intricacies ife you want to talk about it we can with the where the letter is going and how will arrange and it takes a day and a half. it is really disgusting. i always say to those people, these men are not heroes. thank you. [applause] the civil war years here ever

audience, so i want to see whether anyone can guess the right answer here -- which president pardoned robert lee?- robert e. anyone know? after the end of the civil war, told his troops, "lay down your arms, go home, swear allegiance to the united states," which he did, and he reapplied for united states citizenship. it was gerald ford who pardoned him. so i am 100% on that one. shows and movies center around washington, d.c. i would like to hear your opinion on whether or not this accurately depicts the city and all of its beauty. >> that bruce willis movie that i love, "live free or die," and he comes to washington, d.c., in that movie. ever watch tver, shows that are set in washington, d.c. people have told me that my cover looks a lot like the ,"tflix show "house of cards which was unintended, but "house of cards" is filmed in baltimore . for me, i have lived here for 30 years, and it just bothers me too much. i watch murder stuff -- tbs murder mysteries. but if it brings in tax dollars, why not? revenue, why not? >> the washington monument is off-center, and i wondered if you could tell us

robert e. lee really liked jubal early.y so much, because lee's personality was 180 degrees opposite. he was a god-fearing man, he didn't curse, respected women, and so on. robert e. lee said it's good war is so horrible, otherwise men would love it, compares to jubal early, who probably, if there was something the opposite of that to be said, he would have said it. sths a man lee entrusted to go on this mission and he was one of the more aggressive southern generals, and it's interesting because of what happened later at washington, his aggressiveness. washington was just across the river from virginia. 90 miles from richmond, from the very beginning of the war, the union was very concerned about a southern invasion of the nation's capital, so immediately troops were sent down into washington, d.c., and then after the battle of first manassas, the feet 35 miles from washington, they started building a series of forts and fortifications that by the time a couple of years later, washington was completely ringed by interconne

his attention would be totally on robert e. lee's forces.ther generals had undertaken the same strategy and had met defeat. grant regarded a battle loss as merely a momentary setback. if bested, he intended to reassemble and attack again. and again. and put another way, in may h 1864, the union army stopped playing chess and switched over to checkers. both armies blaired copiously that month. grant took a pounding on a two day fight in the wilderness. the union general ignored the feet. so began a deadly game of fight, flank, and fight and flank and fight again. mile by mile, grant kept pushing. 50 miles and starting days after the start, the two armies were approaching the checkered army level an unproedictable string. behind it was richmond himself less than a week's march away gravitated to a place called cold harbor. there was not a stream within miles. it was nothing more than an intersection between country roads. by june it was obvious that the escalating skirmishes were reaching a point where full-scale battle was imminent. grant's r

you could write a history of the confederate army of virginia, robert e. lee's army and never go more than 150 miles from richmond. that would take you to raleigh, durham, chapel hill to the south and washington and baltimore to the north. and you couple that with the charlottesville and the material in richmond itself, there's no point in going elsewhere to write a history of the confederate army in virginia. to write a history of tennessee, you have to go all offer the map, from austin, to tallahassee, to baton rouge, to raleigh, nashville, to little rock, to new york, you have to go everywhere because that stuff was so scattered. we're getting collections now and published information on the confederate army on the west so it won't be quite as bad in the future as it has been in the past. but the result of all of this was that joe johnson's view the atlanta campaign was almost completely accepted for decades in the 20th century. the fact you grow up in atlanta as i did in the 1930s and 1940s, that's what you hear. joe johnston was the greatest thing since gri

which president pardoned robert e. lee? does anyone know? >> jimmy carter. >> no. >> close. >> so after the end of the civil war, robert e. lee told his troops, lay down your arms, go home, swear allegiance to the united states, which he did, and he reapplied for united states citizenship and it was gerald ford who pardoned him. >> so i'm 100% on that one. >> so many tv shows and movies center around washington, d.c., i would just like to hear your opinion on whether or not this accurately depicts the city and all of its beauty. >> so what is that bruce willis movie, that i love, "live free or die" and he comes to washington, d.c. in that movie and i'm just sitting there going nuts, because it is baltimore. so i actually -- >> no way out. >> -- never, ever wash tv shows that are set in washington, d.c. people have told me that my cover looks a lot like the netflix show, "house of cards", which was unintended but "house of cards" is filmed in baltimore. so for me, i have lived here for 30 years and it just bothers me too much. i watch pbs murd

though militarily robert e. leethought predominantly through the state of his whole career, he wanted to break the stranglehold of u list is s grant and others on the richmond petersburg line. you may recall in the west the atlanta campaign had become bogged down on the coast lines, mobile bay and wilmington north carolina and others were not blockaded by the union. in this election summer of 186 4shgs everything was kind of at a stand still. the war had not been won after gettysburg. forget gettysburg. fee eforget antetum. they all hung in the balance. it all hung in the balance on an afternoon here at fort stevens. my favorite confederate general hard swearing had children out of wedlock, spit tobacco. lee's bad old man of which i have a biography coming out shortly pointing out many of the foibles. he was a fighter. it was the last thing he had as an instrument of war. he appeared with about eight to ten, maybe 12,000 men battle hardened veterans and was becoming a game changer here in the war in the east. how cl

i grew up near robert e. leepark, and i knew there were several civil war monuments, but this is one after another. and including one to confederate nurses, by the way. there's even an entry for john brown's raid. that might strike you as odd, but you need to remember that he planned his raid in maryland and stayed at a farm owned by a family named kennedy. what's striking about the entry on the raid is it doesn't tell you why john brown raided harper's ferry. it just says john brown raided the arsenal at harper's ferry. there is no mention of the thought of freeing the slaves. none of that. none of that as it slides. >> as a good thing? >> oh, no. it's almost encyclopedic. let fee get the facts down and let's be done. in fairness, most were done like that. >> it's odd they would have commemorated that. >> it, too, is part of the -- john brown is part of kind of a segregationist memory, because everyone agreed that john brown was crazy, right? in my high school history textbook, we had a picture of john brown and

his idea, his plan was to choke robert e. leeal early, and he took them outside of the defenses of washington on a bold plan, a four part plan he hoped would mess up general grant's grand plan to end the war the first part was to kick the union forces out of the war. robert e. lee's giggest problem was supply, food. most of their food came from the shenandoah valley. the second part of the plan was to threaten washington, d.c.. the third part of the plan was to free confederate visitors at the point lookout prison camp which was on the tip of southern maryland in the chess peak bay. the fourth part of the plan, and the part that lee considered most important was to force grant to take groups out of petersburg, in the early morning hours of july 13th, an entire core of troops left the defenses of richmonds they marched 70 miles to charlottesville, virginia they got on rickety old trains. on june 18th came the battle of lynchburg that not many people heard of because it didn't last very long. hunter fled once he saw early's troops

to be sure, robert e. lee has a greater role in confederate military history as it has been written. but as it happened, i think joseph p. johnston was the most important of confederate generals. he won the first major battle of the war in 1861 at a time when robert e. lee was a desk officer in richmond. johnston commanded a confederate army that was active in the field for two and a half weeks after lee surrendered in 1865. johnston commanded confederate armies in virginia, tennessee, mississippi, georgia, south carolina, and north carolina. in addition, confederate forces in florida, alabama and east louisiana were subject to his orders at one time or another. he commanded the confederate army in the two most important military campaigns in the war vehicles burg and atlanta. his quarrel with jefferson davis is a story in and of itself. i thought this was a war for southern independence, but it's just a quarrel between jeff and j joe. that quarrel runs like an angry scar through the history of the confederacy

during the course of the siege, a number of confederate officers worshipped here, robert e. lee, george pickett, a.p. hill, among some of them. e.p. alexander, who was chief of artillery for james longstreet. lee's rector, i believe someone held their hand up, there's a plaque recognizing that. if you want to get pictures of that, certainly feel free to do so. without further delay, i would like to introduce our speaker tonight, mr. kevin levin. he completed a master in history of the university of richmond. his thesis became the basis of his most current book "remembering the battle of the crater, war's murder" which was published in 2012. he's currently an instrekter of american history at gan academy near boston. and fortunately, kevin in his day-to-day work, gets to challenge his students to conduct original research, critically evaluate historical sources, and analyze historical events. in addition to his book, he has written several essays for the "new york times" and the "atlantic" as well as popular magazines in a number of academic journals. you can follow him, follow h

it was also robert e. lee's final major victory. cold harbor was the climax to grant's 1864 overland campaign. never before had armies fought like they did beginning in may. for a solid month, they had not been out of contact. every day somewhere along the lines, there had been action. in four weeks, union losses were averaging 2,000 a day. generals were dead and others wounded. regiments, even brigades, had melted away. soldiers on both sides were bone tired, dirty, oblivious to the stench of rotting horses and men in the humid springtime that swept over virginia. a month's fighting had produced near 60,000 union casualties. roughly two of every four soldiers in the army of the potomac. grant, however, had inflicted 32,000 losses on lee. now after cold harbor, federals still outnumbered confederates by a two-to-one margin. grant had a reservoir of manpower in the north. lee could not replenish his ever-thinning ranks. at cold harbor, lee won only time. even victory was becoming too expensive for the army of northern virginia. monum

i grew up near robert e. leenew there were i plenty of civil war memorials, l but this is one civil war bu memorial after another.anothe including one to confederate o nurses, by the way.confeder there's even an entry for john brown's raid. brow now, that might strike you as s odd, but you need to remember that john brown planned his raid in maryland and stayed at a farm owned by a family named kennedy. before entering harper's ferry. but what's striking about the entry on the raid is it doesn'th tell you why john brown raided d harper's ferry.

his idea, his plan, was to choke robert e. leeing hours, he took an entire corps of troops, 12,000 troops under general early, and he took hem outside of the defenses of washington on a bold plan, a four-part plan, that he hoped would mess up general grant's grand plan to end the war. the first part are was to kick the union forces out of the shenandoah valley. now at this time of the war, robert e. lee's biggest problem was supply, including food. most of their food came from the shenandoah valley. so the union forces under general david hunter had taken over just about the entire shenandoah valley. second part of the plan was to "threaten" washington, d.c. the third part of the plan was to free confederate prisoners at the point lookout prison camp which was on the very tip of southern maryland in the chesapeake bay. and the fourth part of the plan -- i think the part of the plan that lee considered the most important -- was to force grant to take troops outside of richmond and petersburg and to ease this chokehold that grant ha