WEBVTT - Lincoln: 1864

0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.240
<v Speaker 1>And we returned to our American stories. Up next, the

0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.720
<v Speaker 1>story about a consequential year and a consequential man. Here's

0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.440
<v Speaker 1>the late historian Charles Braslin Flood to tell the story

0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.840
<v Speaker 1>of eighteen sixty four and Abraham Lincoln.

0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.840
<v Speaker 2>On that New Year's Day of eighteen sixty four, the

0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.200
<v Speaker 2>Civil War had been going on for thirty three months,

0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.480
<v Speaker 2>on its way to being what is the bloodiest war

0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.640
<v Speaker 2>in American history to date. In November of eighteen sixty four,

0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:39.920
<v Speaker 2>there would be a presidential election that was going to

0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.840
<v Speaker 2>be a referendum on the war. In hindsight, it's easy

0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.680
<v Speaker 2>to say that, of course Lincoln was re elected and

0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:48.800
<v Speaker 2>the North won the war, but there were an endless

0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:51.720
<v Speaker 2>number of times during eighteen sixty four when it did

0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.080
<v Speaker 2>not look that way. Please remember that military success or

0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.600
<v Speaker 2>failure was inextricably linked with what would be Lincoln's political

0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.800
<v Speaker 2>success or failure. Four days before the Baltimore political Convention

0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:06.679
<v Speaker 2>in early June that nominated Lincoln to run for a

0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.959
<v Speaker 2>second term, Ulysses S. Grant presided over a military disaster.

0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.880
<v Speaker 2>His forces had been taking terrible casualties as they moved

0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.640
<v Speaker 2>south against Roberty Lee through the battles of the Wilderness

0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.039
<v Speaker 2>and Spotsylvania. Now he started one of the largest attacks

0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.080
<v Speaker 2>of the war at a place in Virginia called Cold Harbor.

0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.040
<v Speaker 2>Grant had one hundred and eight thousand men and threw

0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.120
<v Speaker 2>them straight at Lee, whose fifty nine thousand men were

0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.160
<v Speaker 2>well entrenched. In the first hour, and some say even

0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.800
<v Speaker 2>within the first twenty minutes, seven thousand of Grant's men

0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.080
<v Speaker 2>were killed or wounded. With the Union attack repulsed and

0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.280
<v Speaker 2>nothing gained, but the bad news went on for many

0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.319
<v Speaker 2>more weeks. At one point Grant had lost more than

0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.320
<v Speaker 2>forty thousand men in thirty days, and that figure grew

0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.880
<v Speaker 2>to his having lost sixty thousand men in forty five days,

0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:58.120
<v Speaker 2>sixty thousand men dead and wounded to advance sixty miles.

0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.920
<v Speaker 2>Also during that time, Juble Early once again erupted from

0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.160
<v Speaker 2>the Shenandoah Valley. He led a massive raid that brought

0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:07.960
<v Speaker 2>a force of twelve thousand men right to the edge

0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:12.440
<v Speaker 2>of Washington's fortifications, five miles from the White House. Lincoln

0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.160
<v Speaker 2>and Mary went out to Fort Stephens, the focal point

0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.919
<v Speaker 2>of the attack. At one moment, the Confederate advance came

0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.720
<v Speaker 2>to within one hundred and ten yards of the fort. Foolishly, Lincoln,

0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.640
<v Speaker 2>wearing a stovepipe hat that made him a target seven

0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.720
<v Speaker 2>feet high, climbed right up on the parapet in the open.

0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.800
<v Speaker 2>Some Confederate snipers positioned a few hundred yards away started

0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:36.200
<v Speaker 2>firing at him, missing him but wounding with a ricochet

0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.200
<v Speaker 2>an officer who was standing just below the parapet. It's

0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:41.680
<v Speaker 2>worth mentioning that this is the only time that an

0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:46.000
<v Speaker 2>American president has been under enemy fire while serving in office.

0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:47.000
<v Speaker 1>All of this.

0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:52.639
<v Speaker 2>News frightful Union casualties throughout northern Virginia and Confederate striking

0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.440
<v Speaker 2>at the Capitol, was coupled with bad news from Georgia.

0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.880
<v Speaker 2>As William To comes to Sherman slowly struggled towards Atlanta

0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.800
<v Speaker 2>on the Southern Front. That coincided with half true rumors

0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:07.239
<v Speaker 2>of peace feelers going back and forth between North and South.

0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:11.960
<v Speaker 2>The Northern public was increasingly confused and disappointed in Lincoln

0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.000
<v Speaker 2>and his administration. Much of the press was coming out

0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:18.480
<v Speaker 2>against Lincoln. Even his own advisers were warning him that

0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.240
<v Speaker 2>the tide is turning against us. The Union's economy was

0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.519
<v Speaker 2>intertwined with all this speculation and gold in New York

0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:29.760
<v Speaker 2>City indicated fears that the North financial structure might collapse.

0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.480
<v Speaker 2>The national debt was at its highest, the public credit

0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.000
<v Speaker 2>was at its lowest, and the Treasury was running out

0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.240
<v Speaker 2>of money paying for a war that appeared to be

0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.160
<v Speaker 2>at a stalemate. In foreign business dealings involving valuations of

0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.040
<v Speaker 2>the dollar, it dropped to a new wartime low of

0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.120
<v Speaker 2>thirty seven cents. Prosperous Republicans who wanted Lincoln to be

0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.240
<v Speaker 2>reelected were nonetheless getting rid of Greenback's by buying land.

0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.640
<v Speaker 2>They were doing that on the theory that land would

0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.680
<v Speaker 2>still have value even if the Democrats were elected, and

0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.920
<v Speaker 2>to repudiate federal government securities right down to leaving the

0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:08.160
<v Speaker 2>dollar worthless. On August twenty third, Lincoln involved himself in

0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.760
<v Speaker 2>an extraordinary act that demonstrated his belief that he would

0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:15.640
<v Speaker 2>lose the election. When the members of his cabinet assembled

0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.919
<v Speaker 2>for one of their Tuesday afternoon meetings, they found Lincoln

0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.599
<v Speaker 2>asking each of them to sign without knowing what it

0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.200
<v Speaker 2>said the back of a folded over and sealed document,

0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.760
<v Speaker 2>what Lincoln had written that morning, what they could not see,

0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.200
<v Speaker 2>and what he was asking him to endorse sight unseen

0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.000
<v Speaker 2>by placing their signatures on It was this statement this morning,

0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.599
<v Speaker 2>as for some days past, it seems exceedingly unlikely that

0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.120
<v Speaker 2>this administration will be re elected, then it will be

0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.640
<v Speaker 2>my duty to so cooperate with the President elect as

0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.880
<v Speaker 2>to save the Union between the election and the inauguration.

0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.760
<v Speaker 2>And though he was pledging himself and his cabinet to

0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.360
<v Speaker 2>make an orderly transition to what he thought was going

0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:01.520
<v Speaker 2>to be McClellan and a democratic administration. So if anybody

0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.960
<v Speaker 2>tells you that by eighteen sixty four Union victory or

0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.480
<v Speaker 2>Lincoln's reelection was in the bag, I would respectfully refer

0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.000
<v Speaker 2>them to Lincoln's own estimate of the situation. He remained

0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.039
<v Speaker 2>determined to do everything he could. He backed Grant and

0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.640
<v Speaker 2>his other generals to the hilt, but speaking to a

0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.000
<v Speaker 2>radical Republican, he told the man, you think I don't know,

0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.159
<v Speaker 2>I am going to be beaten what I do, and

0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:29.680
<v Speaker 2>unless some great change takes place, badly beaten. A week

0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:34.159
<v Speaker 2>after Lincoln said that, Sherman sent a telegram North that read,

0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:39.400
<v Speaker 2>Atlanta is ours and fairly won. Everything changed there. It

0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.960
<v Speaker 2>was the news bringing the hope that so many in

0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.520
<v Speaker 2>the North had lost Even the most ardent Confederates saw

0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.880
<v Speaker 2>this as the enormous strategic victory that the Union had won. Atlanta,

0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:54.080
<v Speaker 2>the south second most important city after Richmond, dead center

0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.680
<v Speaker 2>in what had been Confederate territory, had fallen. There were

0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.960
<v Speaker 2>still nine weeks until the election, but everything began to

0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.120
<v Speaker 2>go Lincoln's way. He was re elected in an electoral

0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:08.320
<v Speaker 2>college landslide, not so decisive in the popular vote, which

0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.240
<v Speaker 2>came in with Lincoln winning by four hundred thousand out

0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:15.080
<v Speaker 2>of four million cast. There was yet another exceedingly important

0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.839
<v Speaker 2>factor in play, and I have to say that a

0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.120
<v Speaker 2>number of studies, I think have not given this quite

0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:26.520
<v Speaker 2>enough attention. That was the military vote. Here you had

0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.640
<v Speaker 2>close to a million young men from families of different

0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.200
<v Speaker 2>political persuasions. Many of these soldiers were being shot at

0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.599
<v Speaker 2>every day. No one could be sure that they would

0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.320
<v Speaker 2>vote to continue a war in which so many of

0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.080
<v Speaker 2>their comrades were being killed and maimed. It's worth noting

0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.400
<v Speaker 2>that in the military vote, ballots cast by soldiers who

0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.320
<v Speaker 2>knew they were continuing, they were voting to continue risking

0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.800
<v Speaker 2>their lives. He triumphed by three to one, and on

0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.640
<v Speaker 2>Christmas Day of eighteen sixty four, Lincoln read another telegram

0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.760
<v Speaker 2>from Sherman which said, I beg to present you as

0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.040
<v Speaker 2>a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with one hundred

0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.480
<v Speaker 2>and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also

0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.200
<v Speaker 2>about twenty five thousand bales of cotton. So as eighteen

0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.800
<v Speaker 2>sixty four ended, the war was at last winding down

0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.880
<v Speaker 2>in thirteen more weeks Roberty Lee, which surrendered a grant

0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.600
<v Speaker 2>at Appomatox Courthouse. Seventeen days after that, Lee's West Point

0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.960
<v Speaker 2>classmate Joseph E. Johnston, which surrendered the Confederacy's other sizable

0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.960
<v Speaker 2>forces to Sherman in North Carolina. Between those two surrenders,

0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:35.000
<v Speaker 2>John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln in Washington on April fourteenth,

0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.520
<v Speaker 2>eighteen sixty five. At the end of my book, I

0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.360
<v Speaker 2>look ahead to those events of eighteen sixty five, but

0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.960
<v Speaker 2>my detailed treatment ends where it began, with the White

0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.200
<v Speaker 2>House New Year's Day reception of eighteen sixty five. And

0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.120
<v Speaker 2>here again is the essential Lincoln, the ultimate politician who

0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.840
<v Speaker 2>nevertheless transcended the political strife, the indispensable man who appeared

0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.960
<v Speaker 2>in our nation's convulsive hour, the resolute figure who proved

0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:05.400
<v Speaker 2>that character is destiny. At this reception, a nurse who

0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.520
<v Speaker 2>served with the Union Army, Ada Smith, had come by

0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.040
<v Speaker 2>herself to the White House to pass through the long

0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.880
<v Speaker 2>receiving line and wish the President well. As she came

0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.520
<v Speaker 2>through the door, she recognized a crippled lieutenant named Gosper,

0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.240
<v Speaker 2>who had lost a leg and was hobbling forward on

0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.840
<v Speaker 2>crutches as he made his way to the East Room

0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.280
<v Speaker 2>in the fighting around Petersburg earlier in the year. Ada

0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.040
<v Speaker 2>had been his nurse when he was brought in with

0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.199
<v Speaker 2>his right leg shot off, and they became friends during

0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.320
<v Speaker 2>the time she cared for him. They greeted each other

0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.320
<v Speaker 2>and joined the line of hundreds that wound around the

0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.600
<v Speaker 2>East room, waiting to shake hands with Lincoln, who had

0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.120
<v Speaker 2>married beside him. From where he stood, Lincoln saw Gosper.

0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.400
<v Speaker 2>He broke away from his place and came striding from

0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.480
<v Speaker 2>the other side of the big East room to greet him.

0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.280
<v Speaker 2>He took Gosper's hand, and what Ada remembered as and

0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:59.240
<v Speaker 2>I quote a voice unforgettable, said God bless you, my boy.

0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.760
<v Speaker 2>As they left, Gosper said to her, I'd lose another

0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.160
<v Speaker 2>leg for a man like that, and.

0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.040
<v Speaker 1>A special thanks to Charles Braslin Flood. This audio is

0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.080
<v Speaker 1>from the US National Archives, and we thanked them for it.

0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.200
<v Speaker 1>The story of eighteen sixty four, a consequential time for

0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:18.760
<v Speaker 1>our nation when we were perhaps never more divided, and

0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:23.440
<v Speaker 1>how Abraham Lincoln rose to the occasion. That story here

0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:25.240
<v Speaker 1>on our American Stories