remember winfield scott when we talked about the mexican war? winfield scott calls robert e. lee to washington and he says, look, i want you to take command of these forgss that we're organizing, the u.s. forces. lee thinks about them but then he writes and says, ica not march on fellow southerners. he goes home. he resigns his commission in the u.s. army and he will later rise to the leadership of the army of northern virginia and eventually to the leadership of all confederate forces. that's the situation by the time we're in late -- once you have the secession of all the upper south, by the time we're in late may, june 1865. when y'all get back on monday is when we'll pick up with the start of the war. now do you want to go ahead? we can open up the mic if you want to be able to record any of the questions. y'all are going to freeze at this point. don't make me talk on television. all right? do you have any questions? go for it. >> fort sumter was held by the north? >> it's a u.s. military installation. it would be like fort hood in texas. if texas is he seeds and you have

remember that when winfield scott conceived his so-called n anaconda plan to defeat the confederacy, the capital of the rebellion was in montgomery, alabama. when the confederate congress vote today move to richmond in may 1861, it changed the whole pattern of the war. union and confederate armies struggled back and forth over roughly 200 miles of country if you allow for confederate raids into maryland and the union campaign on virginia's peninsula in 1862. elsewhere union armies were capturing nashville, new orleans, memphis, vicksburg, port hudson, chattanooga, and for the purposes of our story, the colored troops in virginia were overwhelming ly recruited n the northern states and were no more use than at first than an equal number of new white regiments. this is an important point. because as i found out while researching the book, escaped slaves were a source of expert local knowledge to union armies going at least back to the landing in south carolina in the fall of 1861. an escaped slave known only for us as brutus viewsed captain gilmore, an officer of engineers. he called b

army, winfield scott reme from the mexican war. and he essentially arranged his appointment to general. scott's faith in curtis was not misplaced. when the dust settled, curtis would be the most successful commander in blue or gray west of the mississippi river. curtis realized early on that his -- his greatest opponent, his toughe esest opponent would geography. the campaign would take place atop the ozark plateau in the middle of winter. the absence of railroads and rivers meant the federals would have to advance on crude frontier roads. the operative word is crude. under such circumstances the science of logistics assumed critical importance. every step forward would take the fed ralz farther and farther away from their base of supplies in ralleigh:mathematics of the process was inescapable. at some point the union army would reach the end of its logistical tether and it would simply grind to a halt. it could go no further. now precisely when and where that would happen could not be predicted. curtis prepared as best he could. f

one of them is the son of winfield scott, the great general from the war of 1812 and the mexican-american war and even the civil war. he was visiting madison in the 1820s with his son. his son became ill and died, and the family extended to him the privilege of having him buried here in this chemistry. his son became ill and died, and the family extended to him the privilege of having him buried here in this chemistry. the other individual buried here actually was an owner of montpelier in the later 19th century. there's a madison family association, and every three years they have their reunion here at montpelier. we're delighted to have them come, but it's no longer an active chemistry. there are no burials in this chemistry by the family or by anyone else. our archaeological evidence has indicated that this chemistry is really full. there's no room left. the chemistry had been neglected over the years and starting about ten years ago in fact many of the monuments were no longer vertical. part of the enclosing brick wall had collapsed, and vandals had pushed over the monument of marking

the whigs opt for a risky strategy to go after the immigrants, in 1852 they nominate general winfield scott, another mexican war hearer to be their standard-bearer. in the campaign they downplayed traditional issues. they down -- they downplayed their traditional opposition to unrestricted immigration. they downplayed some of their traditional issues like temperance, prohibition laws that they had long been champions of and tried to portray franklin pierce as anti-catholic which is quite a stretch. there's scott on the left and franklin pierce on the right. pierce was a brigadier general from the war with mexico and democratic -- excuse me, a party politician and scott, as i said, one of the -- well the most important general in that war. and so they try to portray pierce as anti-catholic. this proves to be a huge miscalculation as people are not suddenly convinced that the whig party immigrants are certainly not suddenly convinced that the whig party is now their friend. so immigrants continue to support the democratic party and the whigs thereby, remove the last major source of difference

his other great general winfield scott was also a whig. they had terrible relationship throughout the war. >> in those days what would a whig stand for and where would a whig stand today in what party? >> well, in terms of the big question that reverberates through our politics which is concentration of power in washington or out in the states, the whigs were more in favor of concentration of power in washington. in that sense they would be more along the liberal side. but what was emerging was an increasing consciousness and concern about the slavery issue. the whig party was really at the more of the vanguard of pushing on the slavery issue. there were some democrats in the northeast particularly in new york there were also raising serious questions about slavery. but if you go to massachusetts, which was the hot bed of abolitionism those abligss were largely whigs. >> how many slaves did james polk own? >> that's a good question. i don't know the answer to that. i didn't get into that. i got scored a bit in a review in ""newsweek"" whic

winfield scott calls robert e. lee and says, look, i want you to take command of these forces that we're organizing. the u.s. forces. and then lee thinks about it and says i cannot march on fellow southerners. he goes home, resigns his commission in the u.s. army and we will later resign to the army of northern virginia and to the forces. that's the situation by the time we're in late. really, once you have the succession of all the upper south, by the time we're in june, late may, june, 1865. and when you all get back on monday is when we'll pick up with the start of the war. now, if you want to go ahead, you can open up the mike if you want to record any of the questions. you are all going to freeze at this point, though. oh, don't make me talk on television. all right? but do you have any questions? about lee? maria, go for it. >> fort sumpter was held? >> it's a u.s. military installation. it would be like, i don't know, fort la hood in texas. you've got a u.s. fort in the middle of this country. >> well, it's