it's not nearly as important at the time as vicksburg vicksburg far overshadowed gettysburg in terms of its impact both in the united states and the confederacy now admittedly many people in the loyal states rejoiced upon first hearing about lee's retreat, of course, they did it seemed as the noted new york dire as george templeton strong observed. on july 63 that quote the rebels are hunted out of the north and their best army is routed in the charm of robert e. lee's invincibility broken. just as important in strong's opinion means performance had shown quote the army the potomac is at last found a general that can handle it. and he has stood nobly up to its terrible work in spite of its long disheartening list of hard-fought failures and in spite of the mcclellan influence on its officers ty i think that strong would have agreed that we should rename mcclellan's installation now put it on the list yet strong soon lamented the fact that meat allowed lee's army to escape intact across the potomac river newspapers bragged far too loudly about our having broken the backbone of the reb

beginning in november of 62, grants begins account offensive against vicksburg.and what happens here, ladies and gentlemen, is grant has not yet learned in his career that -- y'all are seeing something that not many people see. matt standing still. i hope you're and during this moment. i have to be tethered. i was about to walk off. there are two railroads right here. memphis is at the center top of your map. basically, grant is going to rebuild the railroad. he has not yet learned that he can forge the countryside. like they would later. so, he is tethering his army to a railroad. well, the confederate start off -- there are three main rivers that they can defend. the cold water, the tallahatchie, and the olive bushy. pemberton decides to keep retreating, back to the center of this map, tornado, the albuquerque river. and this is where van dorn it's going to come into play. he will go, or at least, if you want to take a deep dive, one of his texas cavalier will come to him and say general, why don't we ride around grant's army? grant is approaching grenade right

not nearly important at the time as vicksburg. vicksburg far and shadowed gettysburg, in terms of its impact both the united states and the confederacy. admittedly, many people in the loyal states rejoiced upon first hearing about leaves retreat. of course they did! it seemed, as the noted new york diarist george temple turned strong observed on july six, 63. that, quote, the rebels are headed out of the north, our best army is routed and the charm of robert ilyse invincibility broken. just as important, in strong opinion, quote, the army of the potomac as a left-hander general that can handle it. and it has stood nobly up to his terrible work, in spite of its long, disheartening list of hard-fought failures. and in spite of the mcclellan influence on its officers. ty, i think strong would have agreed that we should rename mcclellan's installation now, put it on the list. yet, strong still spoke about how meade allow the army to escape intact over the potomac river. newspapers brag far too loudly about our having broken the backbo

has worked at petersburg national battlefield, the national historical park, the battlefield and vicksburg military park he is currently employed as a ranger/historian at gettysburg national park and today matt will present about earl. [applause] >> this is the adjustment. were you find out what the mic is like. or like hank williams said in 1952 a good friend in georgia hank williams stepped up to the microphone and he blew in it. and he said well boys this works, let's see if i do. i appreciate you having me again, it is good to be back in davidson ridge and i have an impossible task i have 13 pages of singlespaced notes on earl van dorn and i have 45 minutes and i have a man standing in the back, this is such a big seminar they had a introducer of an introducer. that's when you're big time when you're an introducer of the introducer. i got time to do 13 pages of singlespaced, please excuse me if we have to do double for time i would love to spend time on p ridge with van dorn but i don't have it so you're going to get the 90-mile an hour tour of those, i need to tell you about the honda

of mississippi which was trapped in vicksburg at the result of grant's campaign. the victory at vicksburg winds up giving the union complete control of the mississippi river. it's a huge success. not a turning point but certainly another nail in the confederacy's coffin. and the fall of 1863, granted broadened to remedy as situation that has arisen from a disaster that happened from william astros crowns. rose kranz was defeated 1863 battle of chickamauga and. rose currents then allowed himself to be quasi-besieged inside of chattanooga. they bring in grant, and grant straighten things out. he defeats the confederates in november. at the battle check a new guy, he wins a big victory. at this point reinterpretation has become huge nationwide. there is a consensus among the northern people, not unanimity but a heavy majority of the northern people are very eager to see grant promoted, given command of all the union armies. there really is a feeling that as commander of all union armies grant ought to at least accompany the army up the potomac, if not outright comman

in mississippi, which was trapped in vicksburg as a result of grants campaign and the victory at vicksburg ultimate winds up within a few days giving the union complete control of the mississippi river. it's a huge success not a turning point, but certainly another nail in the confederacy's coffin and then in the fall of 1863 grant is brought into remedy a situation that has risen from a disaster that happened to william s rosecrans. rosecrans was defeated at the september 1920 19 to 20th 1863 battle of chickamauga rosecrans, then allowed himself to be sort of quasiabassiged inside chattanooga and they bring in grant and grant. straightens things out defeats confederates at the in the november battle of chattanooga wins a big victory and at this point grant's reputation has become huge nationwide and there's virtually a really a consensus among the northern people not unanimity, but heavy majority the northern people are very eager to see grant promoted given command of all the union armies and there's really a feeling that as commander of all the union armies grant ought to at least a com

he does address this at vicksburg. but the war still going on for the seem to be an assumption with the emancipation proclamation and the assuming victory slavery will come to an end. but all along the route home there are examples of confederates that are forcing enslavement in women to accompany them, to help them. they are hiding their slaves. there is one cavalryman who takes off immediately and the first thing he goes to do is hide the people that he owns to prevent them from making their way to the union army. so, i would love to investigate this, figure out who added with horse and servant. obviously that is not printed on the original passes given score has printing presses with them. this is something for me too tuck away to pursue this is fascinating. >> now you've got me thinking to try to compare the signature, that is going to have to be a project for another time. two to let me add one other we could talk about these. brian is one of the officers that i mentioned the notion of ashley wilkes in one or two

he his unit goes on to participate in the siege of vicksburg, as i mentioned. he, however, does not. it takes him some time to recover from the wounds he received at champions hill. he's placed in some roles guarding railroads and whatnot behind the union lines as he recovers from that. but rachel continues to write to isaac and john wesley throughout their service. again, acting as this this nexus. and she, of course, continues to write to david while he's in the field. so this letter that we selected from rachel to david is about a year after that one from john wesley. it's mid-may 1864, and her life is rather busy on the home front. she's again sharing all the news about the family, the health of the neighbors. anisalking about the union cause. but much of it focus o herself. and there's many things that she's dog. so i'll read you a long p that sheasnd let her words speak for themselves. quote, i'm still trying to tch school. and the prospect begins to look a little fairer. myl average from about 20 to 4 to about . this week. looks a little more encouraging

he his unit goes on to participate in the siege of vicksburg, as i mentioned. he, however, does not. it takes him some time to recover from the wounds he received at champions hill. he's placed in some roles guarding railroads and whatnot behind the union lines as he recovers from that. but rachel continues to write to isaac and john wesley throughout their service. again, acting as this this nexus. and she, of course, continues to write to david while he's in the field. so this letter that we selected from rachel to david is about a year after that one from john wesley. it's mid-may 1864, and her life is rather busy on the home front. she's again sharing all the news about the family, the health of the neighbors. and is talking about the union cause. but much of it focuses on herself. and there's manyhings that she's doing. so i'll read you a long passage that she has and let her words speak for themselves. quote, i'm still trying to teach school. and the prospect begins to look little fairer. my school average frombout 20 to 4 to about 28. this week. it looks

he does address this at vicksburg, but the war is still going on. there seems to be this assumption that with the emancipation proclamation and seemingly union the cute wreath, that slavery will come to an end. all along the route home there are examples of confederates that are forcing in slaved men and women to and company them to help them. they are hiding slaves. there is someone who takes off immediately and the first thing he goes to do is to hide the people that he owns, to prevent them from making their way to the union army. so i would love to investigate this and figure out who was the servant. because obviously that's not printed on the original passes that gibbon's core, they have printing presses with them. this is fascinating. >> you've got me thinking of brian signature. and that's going to have to be a project for another time. >> one other, grimes is one of the officers. one or two soldiers, walking away. grimes and others, there are higher divisions that march away. the surrender terms that are created by the commission on the morn

it says we have certain information that vicksburg surrender to general grant on the fourth of july. now if general mead can complete his work so gloriously prosecuted thus far by the literal or substantial destruction of lee's army, the rebellion will be over. abe lincoln. so you can sense the presidents optimism in this. as many of you know, things were not going well the first couple years in the eastern theater for the union army. now lincoln is looking at, there's a victory in pennsylvania, a couple days later, he finds out there is a victory in vicksburg. he has two huge victories, and now you can imagine him taking care of mead, and it's over, the whole thing is over. with what's going to come after this is going to be a week of telegrams, goading need to do more and be more aggressive, to go after robert e. lee. it comes to ahead a week later on the 14th. and it gets to the point where he sends the telegram to mead that basically says that the president is disappointed in his performance. -- telegrams back and asks if he can leave the army of potomac. lincoln see is this lett

there's a victory in pennsylvania, a couple days later, he finds out there is a victory in vicksburg. he has two huge victories, and now you can imagine him taking care of lead, and it's over, the whole thing is over. with what's going to come after this is going to be a week of telegrams, goading need to do more and be more aggressive, to go after robert e. lee. it comes to ahead a week later on the 14th. and it gets to the point where he sends the telegram to meet the basically says that the president is -- i made them telegrams back and asks if he can leave the army of potomac. lincoln see is this letter that starts with, i don't want to relieve you of command. and then he writes a scathing letter to meade that basically is -- literally, he puts it all on meat and says you didn't do what i ask you to do. the war is going to go on because of you, was the letter that he wrote. he didn't fold it up, put in the envelope, and on the envelope he writes to general mead, not send nor signed. meade never saw that letter. meade never knew about that letter. it pains me to say this, because i

it we have certain information that vicksburg surrendered to general on the 4th of july. now, if general meade can complete his work so gloriously prosecute to thus far by the literal or substantial destruction of army the rebellion be over yours truly lincoln. so you can just sense the president's optimism in this as many of you know things were not going well the first couple of years on the eastern theater for the union for the union army. and now lincoln is looking at there's a victory in pennsylvania. a couple of days later, he finds out there's a victory in vicksburg. so we have two huge victories. and now he's imagining meade can take care of lee and then it's over the whole thing's over going to come after this is going to be a week of telegrams from halleck kind of goading need to do more to be more aggressive to go after robert e lee it comes to a head on literally a week later on the 14th it gets to the point where he sends the town out sends a telegram to me that basically that the president is disappointed in his performance. meade then telegrams back and ask

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 was squandered. meade wanted to lead we escaped so there wouldn't be another battle. these are remarks from the president. folks, i hope you get a glimpse today from this and hopefully you'll buy the book and get a better gli

near vicksburg. >> he's like the anti-politician and this was really interesting but reveal who grant voted for four president when grant ran for president. >> he's did not vote for himself. he wrote in names and he was not a self promoter at all. in the least. he was this guy that was so self-deprecating and so self-effacing that before he's running for president and by the way it comes from his mom who despised pomp and circumstance and formality to the point where she was seen sweeping her front porch when he was being inauguration. she did not go to the inauguration. she hated all of the pomp and all of that and she actually, crossing books here, he reminds me a lot of the eisenhower's mom who is the exact same way and didn't really care that he was the winning general of world war ii. so maybe there's something in the mom that is just not that into it. lincoln called him up to washington and he brings his son fred and grant does not dress well. he's got a rumpled uniformity is muddied boots and he walks into the willard hotel. that's a really fancy hotel in washington and he walk

where the president is congratulating general grant on the surrender of vicksburg and then says now if mead 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. that literal or substantial destruction of lee's army. do you destroy lee's army and army that's sophisticated. no. mead must have read that dispatch with some dismay suddenly the bar of his success was now way up here. on the night of the 13th of july lee evacuated those trenches. he had built upon pontoon bridge's across the potomac and falling waters took him 68 hours to build a 800 foot spans of bridges and got that army across the potomac. it's an absolutely remarkable story to be and and what is what is lincoln say? mead had only to stretch out his hands and they were ours. a golden opportunity. he said of destroying lee's army was squandered. mead wanted to let lee escape, so there's no so there wouldn't be another battle. these were remarks from the president. well folks i hope you get a glimpse today from this. and hopefully you'll buy

number ten in the mississippi river which pried open the river to federal gunboats as far south as vicksburg. but his real qualifications were political. the son of the one time presiding judge lincoln's old court circuit in. and one of the four officers who formed lincoln's personal bodyguard card for his inaugural trip to washington, pope was solidly anti-slavery and hence regarded as the coming man of the army. john pope was evng. mcclellan was not, and porter did not mind saying so. in late july, afte had assumed command of army in of virginia, porter described him as what the military world has. long known asks and will reflect no credit on mr. lincol as july to august. porter up the heat in his letters describing pope to manton marble as a fool and. worse still wishing that mcclellan was in command in washington to rid us of the incumbents ruining country. by the time porter in the fifth corps had by rode boat and rail reported pope on august 27th. porter earnestly wishing myself away from pope with all our old army of the potomac and, begging ambrose burnside. if can get me away, plea

joining me now, austin goldin from vicksburg, mississippi.ought about how important the mississippi river is in this country when it comes to transporting goods. so you deal mostly with petroleum. you can plan a little bit for a drought. but given what we've seen and how long it's lasted, what is the impact on what you can transport and also those charges down the line? >> well thanks for having me. the first thing that we've done is lighten the load on all of our barges. so they don't draft as deep in the water. when the water becomes shallow, you have to reduce the size. and so when you reduce the draft and the number of barges, you scale back on the efficiences that your industry offers that makes our industry less competitive. it is very tough to get by during times like this. >> it is astounding to ship things on the mississippi versus using rail or even the roads. and i know you ship mainly petroleum, but i'm sure you're talking to other folks involved in shipping here. when we look, i believe it is 92% of agriculture exports depend on

and helped grant, critically, at vicksburg.herefore there was no falling out as a consequence of that. john? >> i love the comparison between the two. you are the person to do it. but i want to ask an open-ended question. since you mastered civil war history in world war ii history, and have been in both fields for so long and so well, as you've worked, any other comparisons either of people or episodes that come to mind as you are working in world war ii? anything that comes to mind that you find notable? >> that's a great question. i think it's important to recall that these are two existential wars of american history. these are the two wars that had to be fought. a lot of force are josh like that. we choose them, we went to vietnam, we went to afghanistan, who knows where we will go next. those are wars of choice. the spanish american war, the mexican american war. these wars are existential. there was no way, in my opinion, that slavery could have been eradicated from the american culture absent a war like this. it had to

louis, all the way to vicksburg, mississippi, we call that the lower mississippi river. and that's where we're having the most difficulties. there's probably between 10 to 20 spots, areas that are critical during that stretch of waterway, 400-mile stretch that are causing us to stop -- right now it's closed. so we're not passing but we expect to open back up here in the next couple of days. and so those areas are critical. you know, the corps of engineers working with the industry in the u.s. coast guard are out there doing everything we can. we are lobbying for some additional efforts, additional resources and dredges from the core and, you know, the industry and the u.s. corps of engineers and the u.s. coast guard have worked well together. we have to work better together, be more proactive as opposed to being reactive, so that we can pass these spots if we don't, we will continue to shut down this river and 2,000 barges will grow to a lot more >> what we need is a lot of rain hopefully not all at once, because we won't be able to handle it, but we need the water level

was aware but he was tolerant of that as well then he also knew that he helped grant critically at vicksburgand therefore the falling out as a consequence of that. john pretty. >> i love this between you and you're the person to do it but i want to ask an open-ended question that sense you mastered it civil war history and world war ii for so long and so well, as you worked, any of the comparisons the people are episodes that come to mind in any other as you're working world war ii anything that comes to mind from years working in the civil war that you find notable. >> that is a great question and for small all is important to recall that these are the two existential wars of american history and these are the two wars that had to be fought and a lot of wars are you know, we choose them. we went to vietnam, we went to afghanistan in his who knows what we will go next of those are course of choice in spanish working were in mexican war in these wars were x potential and there is no way that slavery could have been eradicated from the market culture absent a war like this, it had to be fought

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 trying to follow gary gallagher. but in all honesty, i want to begin by thanking my colleagues sarah, john and eric, and thank my colleagues for their tireless work

and so this launches a whole retaliation incident with pemberton, the confederate general at vicksburg, and these incidents are always very different because the problem is that the confederate military leadership, while they would use retaliation to defend partisans, they actually are also uncomfortable with unaffiliated guerrilla. and other, words the confederate leadership could see is that the guerrillas are not a civilized component of war. people who are not in uniform, who are not responsible to the commander who is part of the state because their violence is not regulated, it is out of control. and so the confederacy kind of fails in all of their retaliation incidents in the mississippi because the confederate leadership was basically conceding the union position on gorillas. and they won't do anything about unions summary executions of gorillas in missouri, kentucky, and along the mississippi river. so, we often get comments on social media about the events that we are hosting. this reminds me, one of the comments i saw about this event was something like civilized warfare, th

during the period before the gettysburg campaign, when saddam was very concerned what was going on at vicksburg, and he wanted to move part of lee's army out there. and lee reminded him all movements, all decisions in war entail risk. you just have to calculate the risk. so lee's calculated risk. he feels that the best option for the confederacy is to march into maryland. now, two armies that will confront each other in maryland are very different in certain ways. the army of northern virginia begins the campaign much stronger than almost confederate writer will ever acknowledge to you. the army is probably about to 75,000 men. it is extremely poorly supplied, particularly the troops that have been in the second manassas campaign. these guys have no regular food. their uniforms and clothing is beginning to fall apart because they've had no resupply of clothing because they're beyond their supply line. the only troops that are well-supplied are troops that come up from richmond and reinforce lee after second manassas. so the army is in rough shape. lee knows that of dawsey. pender writes the fol