WEBVTT - Robert E. Lee: America's Most Controversial General 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:14.160 And we continue with our American stories. Up next, the 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:18.440 story of one of the most controversial, beloved and complex 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.880 generals in American history. Here to tell the true story 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.600 of Robert E. Lee is Alan C. Kelzo, author of 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.920 Robert E. Lee, A Life. We'd like to thank the 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.559 folks at the Bill of Wrights Institute for allowing us 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.360 to use this audio, originally a part of their scholar 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.360 Talk series Take it Away, Alan. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.560 Robert E. Lee, just to give you the basic skeleton outline, 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.040 was born in eighteen oh seven at Stratford Hall on 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.480 the Northern Neck of Virginia, which had been the ancestral 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.000 home of many of the Lee family, a family which 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.880 had roots in Virginia back into the seventeenth century. He 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.320 attends West Point. He is class of eighteen twenty nine 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.240 graduates second in his class. When I say second, he 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:09.039 missed graduating first really by a couple of digits. It 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.320 was like one of those batting average contests where you 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.039 have to take it out to the fourth digit to 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.840 determine who the winner is. And is posted to the 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:21.920 elite Corps of Engineers and spends a good deal of 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.240 the rest of his professional life in the Army's Corps 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:30.319 of Engineers doing really corp of engineering things. He mainly 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:35.319 is devoted to fortification construction, and as a specialty within that, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.759 Coastal fortification is something of a specialty within that kind 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.880 of engineering, which requires a great deal of imagination. And 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.200 it has to be said that Lee was a very 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:50.040 good engineer and a very dedicated engineer. He also was 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:55.200 a very frustrated engineer because promotion in the Army as 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.520 a whole and in the corp of Engineers was sclerotic, 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.280 to say the lead. The great advantage of army employment 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.000 was that it was guaranteed and secure. The downside was 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:11.000 that it was slow. And Lee experiences this and it's 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.320 a source of great frustration. He would like to move up. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.280 When the Mexican War comes, he sees this as an 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.079 opportunity and he grabs it. He's sent off on one 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:23.280 engineering assignment, which doesn't look terribly promising, but then he 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.920 is seconded to the staff of Winfield Scott. Winfield Scott 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.959 is about to mount one of the most adventurous, amphibious 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:37.400 expeditions in American military history, and that is the Joint 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.960 Army Navy landing at Vera, Cruz on the eastern coast 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:47.480 of Mexico. Lee is immediately ticketed by Scott as an 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.400 up and coming person and becomes a major part of 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.960 Scott's staff as a major assistance to Scott in the 0:02:53.960 --> 0:03:00.320 capture of Vera Cruz accompany, Scott's invasion of Mexico, pass 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.440 the battle at Sara Gordo, up to the battles around 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.440 Mexico City, which eventually end in the surrender of Mexico 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.960 City and the end of the Mexican War with the 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.600 Treaty of Guadalupe Hitdalgo. All through it, Lee is very 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.680 much Winfield Scott's right hand man, and Scott would later 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.600 say years later that all of the plaudits he Scott 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.480 won in the Mexican War were really due to the 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.320 advice that he garnered from Robert E. Lee. But the 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.600 war is over, Lee goes back to doing coastal and 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:35.400 fortification with corp of Engineers. Is not terribly exciting, and 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.600 in fact it gets off anything. It gets worse because 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.040 in eighteen fifty two he's assigned to become superintendent of 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.160 West Point. Now that I know that it sounds glamorous 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.800 on the surface of it, in eighteen fifty two it wasn't. 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.320 At this point, West Point is still very much a 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.760 corp of Engineering school, which means that even though Lee 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.520 is the superintendent, he has virtually no discretion about what 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.760 to do. He is micromanaged for three years by the 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.040 chief Engineer in Washington, DC, and finally, at the end 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.360 of it, he is only too happy to grab an 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:15.160 opportunity to transfer out of the Corps of Engineers and 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.520 accept a commission as lieutenant colonel of the second Cavalry 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.719 in Texas. Texas is not what you would call in 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.480 those days an ideal posting. It gives you an idea 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.440 of some degree of his frustration that he's willing to 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.719 accept this. But off to Texas he goes as lieutenant 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.600 colonel of the second Cavalry, and there he really does 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:42.159 nothing more than chase commanches and various outlaws around the 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.360 countryside to no very particular purpose. He never really fires 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.760 a shot and anger himself. It is not intol eighteen 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:53.240 sixty one, the things begin to warm up. In eighteen 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.360 sixty one, he's recalled to Washington by Winfield Scott, ostensibly 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:02.039 to help rewrite the army regular relations, but really Scott 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.279 wants him in Washington, because the country is splitting apart. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:10.360 Seven southern states have seceded from the Union. There is 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:15.599 a possibility of conflict. Scott wants Lee in Washington because 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.599 Scott's feeling is that if anyone should take command of 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.360 federal forces in dealing with secession, it should be Robert E. Lee. 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.560 The firing on Fort Sumter takes place, and indeed Abraham 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.400 Lincoln puts into process an invitation to Lee. It comes 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.080 through Old Francis Preston Blair, one of the great political 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.640 wire pullers of Washington. Blair sits down with Lee and 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:39.960 it basically says to Lee, President lincol would like you 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.320 to take command of the armies in the field. And 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:48.800 Lee says no, which is a great surprise. But Lee 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.240 explains it this way, I cannot raise my hand against 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.719 my native state. Now Virginia at that point had not 0:05:55.560 --> 0:06:01.520 yet seceded, but it was hovering on the of doing so. 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.640 And Lee simply says, I can't. I can't do that. 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:10.799 What Lee does, in fact, is not only refuse that invitation. 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.479 He then goes home and writes out a letter of 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:19.119 resignation from the army. And he might have stopped right there, 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.360 but at that same moment he receives an invitation from 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.760 the state authorities, the Virginia State authorities in Richmond, to 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:30.719 come there and help them oversee the organization of state forces, 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.560 and he agrees to do that. So he goes to Richmond. 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.440 He is commissioned as a brigadier general of Virginia Forces. 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.520 When Virginia joins the Confederacy, he's made a general in 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:45.000 the Confederate Army, and from that point he takes off, 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.720 he becomes General Lee. A lot of interpreters of Lee 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.880 had wanted this to be, as Douglas Southall Freeman once 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.160 put it, the decision he had to make, the decision 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.640 he was made to make. And I don't really think 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:04.919 that's the case at all. I think that Lee found 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:09.960 himself staring at not just one decision, but several decisions, 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.840 and each one of them was a swamp. For one thing. 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.640 Robert E. Lee had been serving in the United States 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:22.840 Army for thirty years when he confronted this crisis, and 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.920 he understood that secession from the Union was a dodge 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.440 the southern slave states, which couldn't abide the election of 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.080 Abraham Lincoln and were determined to break up the Union 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.320 rather than tolerate Lincoln's presidency. Tried to explain what they 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:42.480 were doing as secession. They argued six ways to Sunday 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:47.640 that this is somehow constitutional. Nobody but they really believed that, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.200 And Robert E. Lee didn't believe it. He characterized what 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:55.520 they were doing pretty frankly as revolution. But characterizing it 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.080 that way was the easy part. The hard part was 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.960 going to come if he was expected to do something 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.880 about it, And of course that's what he was. That's 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:08.080 what the Francis Preston Blair offer was about, and that 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:09.960 was where he had to make the first decision because 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.160 Lee balks. At that point, Lee makes it clear to 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.520 Blair he's not refusing this offer out of any interest 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.880 in slavery. He says to Blair, if I could free 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.080 all of the South slaves in order to avert the 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.160 crisis being posed by secession, I'd do it. I would 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.840 do it. Yet he says, I can't draw my sword 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:34.040 against my native state, against Virginia, which is a little odd. 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:37.599 And there are odd things about this decision process that 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.120 poke out at every point. He says he couldn't raise 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.839 his sword against Virginia. That's odd. Because actually Virginia had 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.200 not yet seceded when he has this interview with Blair. 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.720 Not only had it not succeeded, but the secession vote 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:55.200 that the Virginia Secession Convention does take actually has to 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.800 go through a referendum process that will not conclude until 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:03.440 the twenty fifth of May. So strictly speaking, he is 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.120 not in a position where he necessarily has to draw 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.120 his sword against Virginia because Virginia is not out of 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:13.400 the Union yet. The odder thing still is Lee talks 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.720 about Virginia as his native state, but the truth is 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.559 he hadn't lived in Virginia for most of his life. 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.600 In fact, if you add up the exact amounts of time, 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.840 I think it's safe to say he probably spent more 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.000 of his life in New York. So that's an odd 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.840 argument as well. How do you untangle these arguments? 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.760 When we come back more of this remarkable story, this 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:41.520 complicated and rich story of General Robert E. Lee. His 0:09:41.640 --> 0:10:09.320 story continues with Alankelzo here on our American Stories, and 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.560 we returned to our American stories and with Alan Galzo 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.440 telling the story of Robert E. Lee. When we last 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.320 left off, Lee had made a decision that would alter 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.320 the course of his life and history itself. He rejected 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.760 command of the Union Army and resigned from the military. 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.960 His stated reasoning that he could not possibly raise his 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.800 sword against his home state of Virginia. And while that 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:40.839 may be true, it's not the full story. Here again 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:42.600 is Alan Gelzo. 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.520 He says he couldn't raise his sword against Virginia. That's 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:49.080 odd because actually Virginia had not yet seceded, So strictly speaking, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.199 he is not in a position where he necessarily has 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.360 to draw his sword against Virginia, because Virginia is not 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.520 out of the Union yet. The odd thing still is 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.800 Lee talks by Virginia as his native state. But the 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.360 truth is he hadn't lived in Virginia for most of 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.280 his life. How do you untangle these arguments? I think 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.920 you untangled him this way. First of all, he himself 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.800 may not have lived all that long in Virginia, but 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:18.120 he did have an enormous sway of relatives in Virginia. 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.760 These were relatives who had come to the rescue of 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.319 his family when it was on hard times in Alexandria. 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.280 These were people he owed big time. When I say relatives, 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.720 I don't mean just someone that he exchanged a Christmas 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.240 card with and there were a lot of them. He 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.560 had eighty first cousins. I think it could be safely 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:40.920 said that if Robert E. Lee had thrown a brick 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.360 down a street in Alexandria, he would have hit one 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:47.040 of his relatives. And when he says he can't raise 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.319 his hand against Virginia, I think that's the Virginia he's 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.160 talking about. It's the Virginia of that family. But there's 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.160 another complication that also enters into this, and that's Arlington. Today. 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.439 When we think of Arlington we think of the National Cemetery, 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.680 But before it was National Cemetery, it was Arlington House, 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.120 and he called Arlington home for a lot of his 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.760 adult life, yet it was never actually his property. He 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.120 is there because he married into the family of George 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:19.439 Washington Park Custos, who did own Arlington. Mary was as 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.840 wedded Arlington her parents' home, as she was to her husband. 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:28.920 It's a really obsessive relationship. When Lee is put to 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.439 this situation in eighteen sixty one, what he has to 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:36.280 calculate is what is going to happen to my family? 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.600 What is going to happen to the property If I 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.720 make a decision in a certain way. If I decide 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.839 to accept command of the Union armies, doubtless Virginia will 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:50.200 confiscate Arlington. Sure it will, because Arlington sits on this 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.360 bluff overlooking the Potomac River. I mean, it's the perfect 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.960 place to put artillery to bombard the national capital. People 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:02.320 were calling in Richmond for the seizure and fortification of Arlington. 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.000 So if he makes a move like that, kiss goodbye 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.760 to Arlington. On the other hand, if he goes to Richmond, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:15.320 or if he declares neutrality, then maybe there won't be 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.080 a war, there won't be a federal occupation of Arlington, 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.719 and he can squeeze through the cracks and preserve the 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.480 property for his family, and in large measure, I think 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.000 that's what he intends to do. A lot of the 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.120 evidence suggests that Lee goes to Richmond with a view 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.240 towards thinking that he's going to act as some kind 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:38.600 of peace broker. Because all along in this process, in 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:42.480 the months prior, people had talked incessantly about the Union 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:47.000 breaking up, about it organizing itself into one, two, three, four, 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.800 five different confederacies. But then after a period of time, 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:56.079 everyone cooling off and getting together in a constitutional convention 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.880 and reconstructing the union. By the way, that's where the 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.319 term reconstruction first it's used. And there's evidence that Lee 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.840 saw himself as being part of a process like that, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.160 that he would help to guide the reunification process once 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.520 the secession fervor had worn off, and by May of 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:14.960 eighteen sixty one, it's clear there isn't going to be 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.120 any reconciliation. It's clear that Virginia is going to unite 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.160 itself to the Confederacy. At that point, he actually writes 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:23.840 to his wife and says, well, maybe it's maybe I 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.200 should just resign now, maybe I should just retire and 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.480 wash my hands of all this. But by that point 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:34.080 it's too late. So he finds himself now an advisor 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.920 to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a Confederate general. But 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.880 it's the kind of process you watch him going through 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.960 and it looks like he's shadow walking, always thinking that 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.560 the result is going to be different, but the result 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.960 never is different. So it's not a one off, one 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:57.960 time dramatic movie edit decision, and it's certainly not as 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.600 Freeman made it look. The decision he was doomed to 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.359 make from the very beginning in his life. It's an incremental, 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.720 step by step getting sucked further and further in kind 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:17.840 of decision. When you watch Robert E. Lee in action 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:22.480 as a general, bear in mind that this man learned 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:29.320 the practicalities of real war under Winfield Scott in Mexico, 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.320 and the primary lesson he learns from Scott in Mexico 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.560 is the importance of the continuous offensive. Even if the 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.640 numbers are not on your side, keep the initiative in 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:45.160 your hands, keep moving onwards, because that is what will 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.080 eventually demoralize an enemy and allow you to destroy the 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:54.320 nime army. That is the rule by which Lee took 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.760 his army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac in eighteen 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.800 sixty two, and probably would have taken it into Pennsylvania 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.080 at that point. There might have been a Battle of 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.800 Gettysburg in September of eighteen sixty two. Instead, there's the 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:12.440 famous incident of the Lost Orders. The terrible intelligence coup, 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.760 which allows the Federal commander, General McClellan to understand what 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.440 Lee's plans are results in the Battle of Antietam, and 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.760 Lee is forced to retreat into Virginia, but Lee never 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:28.080 loses sight of the need for taking the war northwards. 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.080 Lee understood, and I think he understood this better almost 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:37.000 than any other Confederate leader, that the Southern Confederacy's resources 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:43.080 were too meager to last for a fifteen round heavyweight 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.160 bout with the North. He'd lived in the North quite 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.240 long enough to know what the North's resources were like, 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:51.480 and he knew that the souths could not compare to those. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.880 If the South was to win its independence, it would 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.800 need to score an early knockout in the early rounds, 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.440 a surprise knockout, and the only way to do that 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.159 would be get across the Potomac, get up into Pennsylvania 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.560 and either win a battle there, or even if you 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.520 didn't fight a battle at all, just run around the 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:17.520 countryside showing how the Lincoln administration was incapable of defending 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.920 its own home turf. That would then have a political 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.159 knock on effect. It would convince the Northerners that the 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:30.159 Lincoln administration was incapable of defending them and that the 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.720 war really ought to be brought to an end, because 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.280 there is really no way to subdue the Confederates in 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.480 the fall elections of eighteen sixty two, Lincoln has just 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.960 issued the Emancipation Proclamation and he is punished for it. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.320 The Republican Party loses thirty four seats in the House 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:50.199 of Representatives. It loses two key northern governorships in New 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.919 York and New Jersey. That's eighteen sixty two. In the 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.120 summer of eighteen sixty three, there are two more key 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:05.200 Northern governorships up for grabs, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and both 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:10.879 have serious Democratic anti administration contenders, Clement Volandigum in Ohio 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:16.280 and George Woodworth in Pennsylvania. If Lee is able to 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:20.080 score a victory in Pennsylvania, or even just use Pennsylvania 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.840 as a base of operations that the Union Army can't 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:27.399 nudge him from, then when the gubernatorial elections take place 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.080 in Ohio and Pennsylvania, people will turn out and vote 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:31.760 for Democrats, to vote for the end of the war. 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.320 And if you have a corps of states at the 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.600 center of the North, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.639 with Democratic anti Lincoln governors, they're going to fold their 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.840 arms and say we're not cooperating with this bloodshed anymore. 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.840 This is a useless war which is being foisted on 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.200 us by radical abolitionists. We want an end to this war. 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:55.880 We're not sending any more troops. We're not permitting any 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.040 more supplies to go to Lincoln's army. You have to 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:03.679 open negotiation with the Confederates. Well, once you opened negotiations 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.960 with the Confederacy, they weren't going to go back to shooting, 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.960 and the independence of the Confederacy would virtually be conceded. 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:17.040 When we come back more of Alan Galzo's storytelling on 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:38.639 Robert E. Lee here on our American stories, and we 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.760 returned to our American stories and the final portion of 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:46.160 our story on Robert E. Lee telling the story Alan Gelzo, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.160 author of Robert E. Lee, A Life. When we last 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.439 left off, Lee had determined that what the Confederacy needed 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.480 to win or at least draw even with the Union, 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.919 was to plunge the army of Virginia deep into the 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.080 north to so chaos that perhaps would cause the governors 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:08.159 in the area Pennsylvania and Ohio, or Lincoln himself to 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.399 be voted out of office. Let's return to the story. 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.520 That was Lee's strategy, and he saw that that making 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.520 war in effect on the political will of the North 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.680 was the way for the South to win the Civil War. 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:29.520 Lee crosses the Potomac substantially ahead of the Federal Army 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.359 of the Potomac, and his army arcs northwards through the 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:37.320 Cumberland Valley all the way up to the Susquehanna River, 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:41.639 just across from the Pennsylvania capital at Harrisburg. But his 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:46.240 real goal is not Harrisburg. His real goal is to 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.240 make the Army of the Potomac chase him so far 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:54.880 and so fast that it becomes winded, exhausted, disorganized, and disconnected. 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.439 And when it does, then he can turn and concentrate, 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.160 pick off peace of the Federal army one by one, 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.080 and defeat them in detail. And that is what he 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.879 has in view as a military plan. He puts his 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.800 finger down on Gettysburg on a map and says, this 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:17.000 is where we will probably meet the Federal army and 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.600 defeat it. Well, he was close. He planned to concentrate 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.560 his army at Gettysburg on the first of July and 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.720 then wait for this straggling Federal army to come up 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.920 and get its nose bloodied piece by piece. What put 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.479 that out of kiltr was that pieces of the Federal 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.440 Army got to Gettysburg first, got there on June thirtieth, 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.480 and were prepared to hold on to Gettysburg as tightly 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:44.600 as they could until the rest of the Army at 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.400 the Potomac could come up and support them. This surprised 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:54.560 and discomfidently, but there weren't that many Federals holding Gettysburg, 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.280 so he decides to push ahead with his plan and 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:01.000 push the Federals out of Gettysburg. He succeeds in doing 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.280 and in the process he basically ruins two of the 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.879 seven army corps of the Federal Army of the Potomac. 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.560 He ruins the first Corps, he ruins the eleventh Corps. 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:14.359 He probably would have mopped them up completely but for 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.440 the fact that his army had been marching all day, 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:20.960 fighting all day, dusk was coming on because it was 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.200 an overcast day up, dusk was coming in somewhat early. 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.840 The Federal forces managed to regroup on Cemetery Hill south 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.439 of the town, and Lee's feeling is, all right, well, 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.359 we're not going to try and push head now. Let's 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.080 regroup and tomorrow morning we'll finish them off and be 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:39.359 in a position to deal with the next parts of 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.200 the Federal Army as it comes up the road. Well, 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:47.040 that was a mistake, because by the next day the 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:49.920 other parts of the Federal Army had in fact gotten 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:54.119 to Gettysburg, and when he launches an attack on July second, 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.480 to his surprise, he finds out that there are three 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:00.160 more pieces of the Army of the Potomac in place 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:05.280 in his path. Even so, his attack almost succeeds on 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:09.200 July second, it really comes within inches of a complete 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:13.080 destruction of the Army of the Potomac. So his solution 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:15.600 is that, all right, tomorrow, we will finish them off 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:20.680 tomorrow July third. He wasn't entirely wrong either, because by 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.760 the morning of July third, of those seven infantry corps 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:26.680 in the Federal Army of the Potomac, basically five of 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:29.960 them were out of action, one of them was being 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:34.200 held in reserve, and the other one only had about 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:38.320 parts of two divisions prepared to defend the rear of 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:43.440 Cemetery Hill, whereas Lee had an entirely fresh, untested division 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:47.919 that belonging to George Pickett. So on July third, he 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:52.200 launches George Pickett's division, along with some supporting troops at 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:56.959 these remnants, holding onto Cemetery Hill, and it fails. It 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:02.720 fails against every expectation, and at that point Lee realizes 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:07.200 he has no more wherewithal to continue this fight and 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:12.720 begins a withdrawal back across the Potomac into Virginia and Gettysburg, 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:16.600 very much to many people's surprised, turns out to be 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:22.000 a Union victory. People often asked after the battle, and 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:25.800 continue to ask to this day, what caused the Confederacy? 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:28.480 What caused Robert E. Lee to lose the Battle of 0:24:28.480 --> 0:24:31.400 Gettysburg when it seemed like he had everything going for him. 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:34.400 George Pickett answered that question, and I think he gave 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:38.000 probably the best answer that could be given. I think 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:40.440 the Yankees had something to do with it. It was 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:42.480 a tenacious fight on the part of the Army of 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:46.040 the Potomac, and that is really the best explanation I 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:48.600 think that people can come up with. It was pivotal, 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:52.200 but it was also not pivotal. Let me at least 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:54.840 do the pivotal part first, What if, in fact Lee 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:59.440 had been victorious at Gettysburg. If he had, I think 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:02.919 there's a of strong possibility that the Army of the Potomac, 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:09.520 which had met with so many defeats Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg. I 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:11.679 think the Army of the Potomac might very easily have 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:15.439 gone to pieces like Napoleon's army after Waterlow. It had 0:25:15.480 --> 0:25:18.280 just been defeated so many times under so many generals. 0:25:18.280 --> 0:25:20.280 It had just seemed like it was no longer worth it. 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:22.760 Some parts of it would have cohered, but other parts 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:25.040 of it would simply have walked away as from a 0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:28.560 lost game. At that point, Lee would have been able 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:34.200 to threaten Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia. There would probably have been 0:25:34.240 --> 0:25:38.800 political uprisings in the North demanding an end of the war. 0:25:39.480 --> 0:25:41.879 I mean, as it was only two weeks after the 0:25:41.920 --> 0:25:44.879 Battle of Gettysburg. There's a major draft riot in New 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:47.719 York City that turns New York City upside down. New 0:25:47.800 --> 0:25:49.720 York City is not the only place where riots like 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:53.399