Speaker 1: As difficult as it is for someone today in the
Speaker 1: South to look back and to call them the t
Speaker 1: word traders. I mean that's what they were. They were rebellious,
Speaker 1: they were traders, and to be able to have the
Speaker 1: magnanimity to realize that the most important thing is we
Speaker 1: need to get this country back in order, and the
Speaker 1: quickest way to do that is to treat these people
Speaker 1: who yesterday we were shooting at and trying to kill
Speaker 1: as fellow humans and as fellow Americans.
Speaker 2: The elusive final episode of our Civil War series is here.
Speaker 2: We'll be speaking with all of our experts, J. D.
Speaker 2: Hewitt of the History Underground YouTube channel, doctor Brooks Blevins
Speaker 2: of Missouri State University, and doctor Louis Gallo of the
Speaker 2: Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library. The deck is stacked where
Speaker 2: we left off off with us Grant rising the power
Speaker 2: with this total war philosophy that will march this war
Speaker 2: right to Appomato's Courthouse, Virginia. A really doubt that you're
Speaker 2: going to want to miss this final episode. My name
Speaker 2: is Klay Nucomb and this is the Bear Grease Podcast
Speaker 2: where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight
Speaker 2: and unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of
Speaker 2: Americans who lived their lives close to the land. Brought
Speaker 2: to you by to Covi's Boots. I'm a cowboy boot
Speaker 2: man and I've been wearing to Covis for years. They're
Speaker 2: the most comfortable boot I've ever put on. Good boots
Speaker 2: for good times. I'm in Starkville at mississip State University,
Speaker 2: at the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, and I'm looking
Speaker 2: at one of Grant's pistols. My conspiracy theories on why
Speaker 2: this Union General's library is deep in the South have
Speaker 2: been proven untrue.
Speaker 3: But that's besides the point. But they do have his
Speaker 3: gun a regiment.
Speaker 4: I believe it's an Illinois Regiment. Yeah, the ninety first
Speaker 4: Illinois Regiment gives him this pistol.
Speaker 2: This is doctor Louis Gallo. He's the managing editor at
Speaker 2: the library.
Speaker 4: So this is actually his pistol that he would have had.
Speaker 3: And this is it.
Speaker 4: This is it, And on the you can see you
Speaker 4: can't see it, but on the bottom you can see
Speaker 4: his name was great.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's an ivory handled looks like six shot
Speaker 2: musket style pistol with a really intricate engraving on it.
Speaker 2: That's real elephant ivory. This gun is in great shape.
Speaker 4: What's really interesting about this? So when we got this
Speaker 4: is he the little powder? It had gunpowder in it.
Speaker 4: So Grant's original gunpowder was in this wall.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: No, we didn't know really what to do with it
Speaker 4: because there was a lot, you know, and so we
Speaker 4: looked up the guidelines, you know, the National Park Service guidelines,
Speaker 4: and it's said to dispose of it. You can either
Speaker 4: just like throw it in the ard essentially, or you
Speaker 4: can burn it. Or and we were like, let's burn
Speaker 4: Grant's gunpowder.
Speaker 3: Does one hundred and sixty year old gunpowder burn?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 3: Ask?
Speaker 2: Well, the answer is the same as this one. Does
Speaker 2: wild donkey bray when it yearns for green grass?
Speaker 3: Still don't know the answer? Louis has a video.
Speaker 4: All right, we are here at the Civil War Arsenal
Speaker 4: Museum where Duffy is the curator, and we are going
Speaker 4: to answer the question. Does Ulysses ask Grant's gunpowder still.
Speaker 1: Light after one hundred and sixty tlus a year.
Speaker 2: Louis lights a fuse leading to a pile of gunpowder
Speaker 2: about the size of a small ant hill.
Speaker 3: They scuffle back.
Speaker 2: After it lights, it explodes in a four foot tall
Speaker 2: hoof of flame.
Speaker 1: Good powder will still ignite one hundred and sixty years later.
Speaker 3: That you did a wonderful job. That was a lot
Speaker 3: bigger than I expecting it.
Speaker 2: The explosion reminds me of the time I tried to
Speaker 2: light a fire with gunpowder on a cold backwoods deer hunt.
Speaker 2: That sends the hair off my face. But that's beside
Speaker 2: the point. Some might be thankful that that powder wasn't
Speaker 2: used to kill someone's ancestor in battle, but what we've
Speaker 2: learned is that a lot of folks died in this war,
Speaker 2: more than all American wars combined. To get this finale
Speaker 2: started off right, We're going back to our og expert J. D.
Speaker 2: Hewitt of the History Underground YouTube channel, introducing us to
Speaker 2: a critical battle that began to tip the scales of victory.
Speaker 2: This is essential to understand as we bring the Civil
Speaker 2: War plane to a landing. But remember Grant wasn't yet
Speaker 2: leading the main Union military. But at the time of
Speaker 2: this battle that JD's about to tell us about, Grant
Speaker 2: was finishing up in Vicksburg, which would put him on
Speaker 2: Lincoln's map. But Grant wasn't even at this battle in
Speaker 2: the Eastern Theater.
Speaker 5: I would imagine that it's about impossible to talk about
Speaker 5: the Civil War without talking about Gettysburg. Even for people
Speaker 5: who know nothing about the Civil War, they.
Speaker 2: Know, you know that battle here, you know of the battle,
Speaker 2: you at least know the name.
Speaker 5: Yes, you know, there's movie that was made in nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety three about it. It's one of the most visited
Speaker 5: historic sites in the United States. So Gettysburg is kind
Speaker 5: of what I call the Rosetta Stone of the Civil War.
Speaker 5: That if people are getting into the Civil War, if
Speaker 5: you study the Battle of Gettysburg, it helps you to
Speaker 5: start understanding other points of the Civil War. So, in short,
Speaker 5: it's one of the major turning points of the Civil War.
Speaker 5: Sometimes it's called the high water mark of the Confederacy.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say it's the most important battle of the
Speaker 5: Civil War, but it's definitely one of the turning points. Essentially,
Speaker 5: what you have is in the summer of eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 5: Robert E. Lee, who is just coming off of his
Speaker 5: one of his most remarkable victories at the Battle of Chancellorsville,
Speaker 5: is going to take the army of Northern Virginia through
Speaker 5: Maryland up into Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 5: He's moving the war kind of out of the Southern States.
Speaker 5: Battle of Chancellorsville. He has lost kind of his right
Speaker 5: hand guy Stonewall Jackson, has been mortally wounded in that battle.
Speaker 5: And then there's a reorganization of the Army of Northern
Speaker 5: Virginia and he takes his three corps up there and
Speaker 5: they're spread out. You're looking at this massive army that
Speaker 5: is moving through Pennsylvania. Following him is going to be
Speaker 5: the Army of the Potomac under the leadership of a
Speaker 5: guy by the name of George Gordon Mead. George Gordon
Speaker 5: Mead has just taken over as the commander of the
Speaker 5: Army of the Potomac and his job is to follow
Speaker 5: Robert E. Lee up into Pennsylvania and basically stay in
Speaker 5: between the Army of Northern Virginia and Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: And Baltimore.
Speaker 5: There's a well known line in ken Burn's Civil War
Speaker 5: series where it says that the Battle of Gettysburg was
Speaker 5: fought over It's a battle that starts over a fight
Speaker 5: for shoes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not true.
Speaker 2: In Burn's documentary The Colorful historian Shelby Foot noted an
Speaker 2: anecdote that was true some Confederates had been sent to
Speaker 2: Gettysburg to get shoes for the army when they ran
Speaker 2: into Union troops by but this would be an oversimplification
Speaker 2: for why the battle started there. The South was hurting
Speaker 2: for boots because they didn't have the factories that the
Speaker 2: North had, and supplies were a constant struggle, and they
Speaker 2: were there to find anything food, clothing, general provisions.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't just about shoes.
Speaker 5: The reason that Gettysburg is fought at Gettysburg and the
Speaker 5: reasons it is what it is is it's a hub
Speaker 5: where ten roads come in. And on July first, second,
Speaker 5: and third of eighteen sixty three, we have a fight
Speaker 5: that will result in what is the bloodiest battle of
Speaker 5: the Civil War. So Antietam is the bloodiest day. This
Speaker 5: is a three day battle, bloodiest battle of the Civil War.
Speaker 3: I see. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So this is going to result in a Union victory.
Speaker 5: And in the East this is going to be a
Speaker 5: big turning point. In the West you have Grant who
Speaker 5: has had Vicksburg under siege. Battle of Gettysburg finishes up
Speaker 5: on July the third, and on July the fourth, the
Speaker 5: city of Vicksburg, what Jefferson Davis called the nail head
Speaker 5: of the that holds the Confederacy together. Vicksburg is going
Speaker 5: to fall. In my opinion, from this point, the Civil
Speaker 5: War is basically over for the Confederacy.
Speaker 3: July eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 5: July eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 3: It's going downhill for the.
Speaker 5: It's going downhill now. They are still going to win
Speaker 5: some battles, but this is where they peak and it's
Speaker 5: just going to be a decline after this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. How many people died at Gettysburg?
Speaker 5: So Battle of Gettysburg bloodiest battle of the Civil War.
Speaker 5: When you're looking at what is considered a bloody battle,
Speaker 5: you're looking at as the casualty number. So this is killed, missing,
Speaker 5: and wounded. This is these are people who've been removed
Speaker 5: from the battle. Total casualties for the Battle of Gettysburg
Speaker 5: looking at just over fifty one thousand, wow.
Speaker 3: Men, that's both Union and Confederate.
Speaker 5: Union and Confederates. So Union just over twenty three thousand,
Speaker 5: Confederates about twenty eight thousand, wow. Yeah, which is proportionally
Speaker 5: more devastating for the Confederates because they're entering the battle
Speaker 5: with seventy one thousand men. The Union has about ninety
Speaker 5: three thousand, so they take a higher proportion loss in
Speaker 5: the battle.
Speaker 2: Gettysburg was important for many reasons, but three stand out.
Speaker 2: It halted Lee's northern invasion, putting the Confederates on the defensive.
Speaker 3: The rest of the war.
Speaker 2: The battle made it clear that total war was the
Speaker 2: only way to really end this thing. And Thirdly, it
Speaker 2: catalyzed the Gettysburg Address, where Lincoln articulated the idea of
Speaker 2: this new birth of freedom, and the fifty one thousand
Speaker 2: casualties were a gut check for a nation in crisis. Surprisingly,
Speaker 2: only one civilian was killed in this battle, a twenty
Speaker 2: year old seamstress named Mary Wade. She died when a
Speaker 2: stray Confederate bullet struck her while she was in her house,
Speaker 2: supposedly kneading bread. It was said the Confederate wagon train
Speaker 2: hauling the dead and wounded from the battlefield that Gettysburg
Speaker 2: was seventeen miles long.
Speaker 3: It would have taken a full.
Speaker 2: Day for them to pass by your house if you
Speaker 2: lived on the road. Gettysburg happened eight months before Grant
Speaker 2: became the general of the Union Army, and going back
Speaker 2: to the original explosion of Grant's gunpowder. In this episode,
Speaker 2: Grant's life was like a delayed explosion. He was thirty
Speaker 2: nine years old when the Civil War started, and his
Speaker 2: adult life had been one failed experiment after another. Basically,
Speaker 2: as the war rolled on, it was clear that there
Speaker 2: was going to be no political negotias, the South.
Speaker 3: Wasn't going to give up easily, and the traditional.
Speaker 2: Rules of war had to be overruled in this late
Speaker 2: bloomer Grant, which surprised the world. But we ended the
Speaker 2: last episode on this idea of total war. We said
Speaker 2: that over and over Grant brought this thing called total war. Well,
Speaker 2: here's Brooks Blevins on Grant's ascension to power in the
Speaker 2: context of Gettysburg.
Speaker 1: You know, I think probably the leader who best exemplified
Speaker 1: that total war concept that starts to take effect in
Speaker 1: the latter half of the Civil War is us Grand.
Speaker 1: He's been around from the beginning of the war, but
Speaker 1: he's mainly been out west. He's been in Missouri and
Speaker 1: Kentucky and Tennessee and different places like that. And eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty three becomes the pivotal year militarily, and Grant's right
Speaker 1: in the middle of that, he's not back east, he's
Speaker 1: not running Lincoln's personal army at that time. But Grant
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty three goes down the Mississippi River. Part
Speaker 1: of that Anaconda plan that I believe you guys talked
Speaker 1: about earlier. Part of that Anaconda plan was to take
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River. And by the spring of eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: there's two strongholds left on the Mississippi. There's Port Hudson
Speaker 1: in Louisiana and then more famously Vicksburg in Mississippi. And
Speaker 1: Grant's army is tasked with doing that. And in many
Speaker 1: ways it's Grant at Vicksburg who This is where he
Speaker 1: kind of first puts into play his total warfare idea,
Speaker 1: and he realizes that it would be folly and suicide
Speaker 1: to just try to attack Vicksburg over and over in
Speaker 1: a traditional way. So he uses his army to lay
Speaker 1: siege to the town and they basically just cut off
Speaker 1: all the supply routes and there are lots of civilians
Speaker 1: in Vicksburg. There Confederate military in Vicksburg, their civilians in Vicksburg.
Speaker 1: And Grant realizes that if we're going to take this
Speaker 1: town we just got we got to starve them out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so Lincoln starts to get the idea that.
Speaker 3: Hey, this might this is going to have to get serious.
Speaker 1: This is getting serious, and this might be my guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. Part of this idea of total war would
Speaker 3: be that.
Speaker 2: There would be sieges on communities and armies starving them out.
Speaker 2: So the biggest difference in this kind of war was
Speaker 2: that it could involve civilians. It was that Vicksburg that
Speaker 2: Grant would become known as unconditional surrender Grant, where he
Speaker 2: spoke the famous words quote no terms accept an unconditional
Speaker 2: and immediate surrender can be accepted. In the past, losing
Speaker 2: armies might have been able to negotiate specific arrangements on timing,
Speaker 2: specifics about troops, livestocks, guns, and the like, but the
Speaker 2: harsh treatment struck the Union and Confederate generals as ungentlemanly.
Speaker 2: In the book Battlecry of Freedom, the author states as
Speaker 2: a modern general, Grant retired outmoded forms of chivalry, showing
Speaker 2: that gentility had given way to a stark, new brand
Speaker 2: of modern warfare. Grant believed the South had conducted an
Speaker 2: illegal rebellion and wasn't entitled to enjoy the niceties of
Speaker 2: military etiquette. End of quote. Lincoln would see it like
Speaker 2: this too, and he would like what Grant did, knowing
Speaker 2: that it was the only way to victory. It was
Speaker 2: the only way to save the Union and to save
Speaker 2: human lives was to implement this total war. And later
Speaker 2: we'd see Sherman, this commander underneath Grant inflict total war
Speaker 2: by burning Atlanta and the Shenandoah Valley.
Speaker 3: Here's doctor Louis Gallo.
Speaker 4: It's well known his success with Vicksburg. But after he
Speaker 4: captures Vicksburg. Pretty soon after he is the sent to Chattanooga,
Speaker 4: Tennessee to capture Chattanooga, which he does ultimately with the
Speaker 4: Battle of Chattanooga, very famous battle, Battle Above the Clouds
Speaker 4: is what they called it. He takes Missionary Ridge and
Speaker 4: look Out Mountain at Chattanooga. And because of the capture
Speaker 4: of Chattanooga, this is when Lincoln is like, Okay, this
Speaker 4: this is my guy, right, and so I think say
Speaker 4: it's in March of sixty four, he gets sent to Washington,
Speaker 4: d c. And he's now promoted by Lincoln to take
Speaker 4: charge of the army.
Speaker 2: On March ninth, eighteen sixty four, Grant becomes the big
Speaker 2: general of the Union Army. Grant got there by becoming
Speaker 2: a master at the psychology of war. I've got two
Speaker 2: simple quotes that sum up Grant's success in battle. He said,
Speaker 2: in every battle there comes a time when both sides
Speaker 2: consider themselves beaten. Then he who continues the attack wins.
Speaker 2: That's a simple message of an endurance and courage. The
Speaker 2: second one is like it. He said, the art of
Speaker 2: war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is,
Speaker 2: get at him as soon as you can strike him
Speaker 2: as hard as you can, and keep moving on. His
Speaker 2: philosophy wasn't rocket science. Sometimes success is really simple, and
Speaker 2: when the principles of that success become ingrained into a person,
Speaker 2: success can almost be guaranteed. I think we can learn
Speaker 2: a lot about life here. Grant would also say after
Speaker 2: the war that often the South would win the battle
Speaker 2: on the first day, but if they could last through that,
Speaker 2: he would beat them on the second. It's a hard
Speaker 2: thing to get beat and still somehow think that you
Speaker 2: could win the next day. You'd have to be in
Speaker 2: total control of your emotions. But Grant was an adamant
Speaker 2: that that happened over and over and over. The South
Speaker 2: would start strong but couldn't hold on. This basically sums
Speaker 2: up the Civil War. Grant's success wasn't flashy, bombastic, or egocentric.
Speaker 2: His strategy in some ways even reflected his personality. Humility
Speaker 2: is the ultimate display of strength, but it's also easier
Speaker 2: to be strong when you've got superior numbers and provisions.
Speaker 2: But we'll talk more about that later. Here's Louis with
Speaker 2: more on Grant.
Speaker 4: This is a good moment to talk about Lincoln's perception
Speaker 4: of Grant. I think this is really funny. Lincoln told
Speaker 4: the story about Grant. He would say that, you know,
Speaker 4: if Grant walked into a room, it would take about
Speaker 4: five or ten minutes before you even knew he was there. Hm. Right,
Speaker 4: So again it's kind of telling you about who he
Speaker 4: was as a person, his demeanor and how he is
Speaker 4: in large groups at the time, and the fact that
Speaker 4: he's okay, yeah, now he's a national figure at this point, right,
Speaker 4: and he's had experience in the public eye, so to speak.
Speaker 4: But this is the first time where he is in
Speaker 4: the public eye. Like everybody is clamoring to get a
Speaker 4: look at Grant at DC. You know, so this is
Speaker 4: he he's he definitely understood the task that was in
Speaker 4: front of him, but he accepted it despite those kind
Speaker 4: of reservations about, you know, being as public as he was.
Speaker 4: He was not pompous at least, I don't think it was.
Speaker 4: He seemed very especially again in his writings, you see
Speaker 4: his humility in his right. His style not just what
Speaker 4: he spoke about, but the style was very plain. And
Speaker 4: I don't mean that in like a negative way either.
Speaker 4: I just mean that in like a you know, it's
Speaker 4: a it's a way I think the way people can
Speaker 4: relate to him, right, And it's to me it's why
Speaker 4: his memoirs are still relevant because if you if you
Speaker 4: picked up his memoirs and you read them, you it's
Speaker 4: such an easy read, like it's not a.
Speaker 3: Good communicator, ar concise, yes, right.
Speaker 2: To me, as I learned about him, it's clear that
Speaker 2: he was like an instinctual tactical just a warrior, like
Speaker 2: he just knew how to win. And that was woven
Speaker 2: into his personality too, with this like persistence to just
Speaker 2: never stop. Yes, but then and then it was also
Speaker 2: trained at West Point, so I'm sure he learned a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff about tactical war that was important but
Speaker 2: he just had this killer instinct that felt like that
Speaker 2: other people just didn't seem to have.
Speaker 3: I believe this.
Speaker 2: Battle instinct in Grant wasn't taught, but was foundationally instinctual. Honestly,
Speaker 2: most really great generals probably had this.
Speaker 3: I see it in hunting.
Speaker 2: There are some people that just have an unbelievable instinct
Speaker 2: when it comes to taking game. They can anticipate animal movement,
Speaker 2: they have unique insight in topography and nowhere to set
Speaker 2: up an ambush. They know when to move on a stalk,
Speaker 2: they have an uncanny sense of timing when on the hunt.
Speaker 3: They're very good with their weapon.
Speaker 2: Yes, some of this has learned, but some people are
Speaker 2: just born naturally better predators than others. I've never been
Speaker 2: in the military, but if you've watched Rambo, you know
Speaker 2: that this is true in military stuff too. That was
Speaker 2: a joke, but it seems that Grant and Robert E.
Speaker 2: Lee had this instinct in spades. All these like little
Speaker 2: things like and so many people that are successful we
Speaker 2: want to see like the one thing that made them great.
Speaker 2: But with him, it was like it was like all
Speaker 2: these different components. I don't I think if he had
Speaker 2: if he had had political aspirations. It probably would have
Speaker 2: crippled him in some way, Like it would have changed
Speaker 2: him if he had had a big ego, just a
Speaker 2: personal ego, just like I want people around me to
Speaker 2: think I'm really important. I think it would have changed
Speaker 2: his ability to be effective if he hadn't been this
Speaker 2: like massively, like crossing the river on that horse to
Speaker 2: go see his wife, if he hadn't had that dogged
Speaker 2: determination which is just like born in you, almost like
Speaker 2: it would have been slightly different.
Speaker 3: I mean you see, like the little things that made
Speaker 3: him who he was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he stands out in contrast so much to
Speaker 2: all these other civil war generals.
Speaker 3: He does.
Speaker 4: And that's honestly, and just to be honest with you,
Speaker 4: it's a question that I still have, right, I still
Speaker 4: am trying to understand it myself, Like why what makes
Speaker 4: him different than everybody? Like think of the countless people,
Speaker 4: I think the well trained people experienced men in that
Speaker 4: in those ranks, but somehow he was able to come
Speaker 4: out on top. It is interesting and his ego, that
Speaker 4: part of it is really interesting to me too. Sherman,
Speaker 4: on the other hand, because you know, we annoitated Sherman's
Speaker 4: memoirs as well, and his writing in that character not
Speaker 4: to compare contrast to too, but couldn't be any more
Speaker 4: different than Grant. Right. He is full of himself. He
Speaker 4: is worried about his legacy, He is worried about who
Speaker 4: he knows and who knows him and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: You know, he wasn't. He showed no humility in his memoirs,
Speaker 4: really really as opposed to Grant. Yeah, who just throughout
Speaker 4: the whole thing, he's admitting faults. He talked about the
Speaker 4: Mexican American War, called it unjust. He talked about Cold Harbor.
Speaker 4: Are you're familiar with Cold Harbors? The Battle of Cold
Speaker 4: Harbor during the overland campaign when he's trying to capture
Speaker 4: Lee's Army, Battle of Cold Harbor happens. It's one of
Speaker 4: the bloodiest battles of the whole war. And it's because
Speaker 4: it's because Grant just keeps sending men to the just
Speaker 4: try to get him, trying to and it didn't work,
Speaker 4: and it was terrible, and he caught bad press for
Speaker 4: it too, because thousands of men died. Care for first downmate.
Speaker 3: For at the end of the day, he not much
Speaker 3: gained nothing.
Speaker 4: He ain't nothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And he says in his memoirs, he goes,
Speaker 4: that's I regret that more than anything else in my life. Wow,
Speaker 4: Like the humility to admit that.
Speaker 2: That really would take some humility to regret the human
Speaker 2: life being lost because of decisions that A made.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it's one thing to be like, Man, I
Speaker 2: regret this financial decision I made twenty years ago, or yeah,
Speaker 2: regret this thing I said twenty years ago that hurt
Speaker 2: someone's feelings. But yeah, when you say I regret being
Speaker 2: the reason all these guys were killed, that's a pretty
Speaker 2: big one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now Louis is gonna fast forward us through the war
Speaker 2: after Grant becomes the lead general of the Union Army
Speaker 2: and Lincoln is gonna sick Grant on Lee's Army of
Speaker 2: Northern Virginia. This is where Lee and Grant go head
Speaker 2: to head.
Speaker 4: Lincoln calling on Grant was really obviously the real turning
Speaker 4: point of the war because now he had a general
Speaker 4: who was willing to keep going and not just stop
Speaker 4: if things weren't going well. And so that he starts
Speaker 4: the overland campaign by crossing the Rapidan River. Famous moment,
Speaker 4: you know, he crosses the.
Speaker 3: Rapidan to start his attack on len Ginia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so he just spends a couple months getting,
Speaker 4: you know, making the same maneuver. It's kind of like
Speaker 4: half crescent shaping.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ever, to.
Speaker 4: Kind of keep flanking Lee in order to cross the
Speaker 4: James River to go after Petersburg. Because Petersburg is basically
Speaker 4: like the hub for Lee in his resources and his
Speaker 4: supplies and everything. And so even though people think Richmond
Speaker 4: might be the you know, the goal, Petersburg was the
Speaker 4: bigger goal, okay. And so for him to do that,
Speaker 4: to pull that off, despite Cold Harbor, despite the failures
Speaker 4: at the Wilderness, despite all these stalemates, he just kept going,
Speaker 4: just kept flanking, kept flanking until he got south of
Speaker 4: the James. And it's really incredible because you know, people
Speaker 4: talk about how Lee was a better tactician than Grant was.
Speaker 4: Grant was a better strategist, but Lee is a better tactician,
Speaker 4: and I think that that is true.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Lee was an incredible What does that mean on the field,
Speaker 3: Right on the field, Lee would have been better, that's
Speaker 3: what they say.
Speaker 4: So he he had this this amazing ability to split
Speaker 4: up his army and to fend off the opposition, right,
Speaker 4: So like, yeah, so like the in the moment tactical
Speaker 4: decision making that's happening in the field. Lee widely regarded
Speaker 4: by most historians as being way better than Grant. I agree,
Speaker 4: but I think that takes away from Grant's skills as
Speaker 4: a tactician, because I think he was pretty clever and
Speaker 4: incredible in himself and tactical tactically, but strategically he definitely
Speaker 4: was better. Now, it might it may have been because
Speaker 4: he had more resources than Lee did at the time,
Speaker 4: but nonetheless, Grant's strategy of go after them NonStop from
Speaker 4: every angle, hit them at all points, at all times,
Speaker 4: no matter what, like that was the difference, and that's
Speaker 4: what made him successful in this campaign because while He's
Speaker 4: trying to capture Lee's army, he sending Sherman through Georgia
Speaker 4: and he, you know, again historically really famous. He burns
Speaker 4: his way through Georgia essentially and then takes the Carolinas,
Speaker 4: you know. So it's just a full on assault at
Speaker 4: the end, because that was the only way to put them,
Speaker 4: put them out of their misery.
Speaker 2: Essentially, And at this point the war, Lincoln knew that
Speaker 2: he it had to become total.
Speaker 3: War total phrase that they used to describe it.
Speaker 2: Like, we're not trying to be chivalrous and save the
Speaker 2: civilian population.
Speaker 3: They're burning houses and supplies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean they're going after the Lee's army for
Speaker 4: the most part, but there is collateral damage for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: It's a war of attrition.
Speaker 2: Here's doctor Blevins on how the war had changed by
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: All of the kind of the really interesting battles that
Speaker 1: there are multiple books written about, like Gettysburg and Antietam
Speaker 1: and Shiloh and all these battles, they're all before eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, because in a large part, by eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: it's become total warfare, and it's become siege warfare in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, like we saw.
Speaker 3: It victa uge, meaning you surround a place and just
Speaker 3: cut off.
Speaker 1: The how you surround it, you build trenches. You know,
Speaker 1: the Civil War was one of the first first times
Speaker 1: in in world history when you saw trench warfare, and
Speaker 1: of course that would explode in World War One, that's
Speaker 1: the war that's famous for trench warfare. But the Civil
Speaker 1: War had lots of trench warfare, digging ditches and hunkering
Speaker 1: down in these ditches, people in ditches looking at each
Speaker 1: other across this long expanse, and so that's really what
Speaker 1: the war devolves into in eighteen sixty four, because what
Speaker 1: Lincoln and what Grant both realize is from the beginning
Speaker 1: of this war, the Union has had a great advantage
Speaker 1: in terms of manpower. By eighteen sixty four, that manpower
Speaker 1: advantage is greater than they had expected because now they
Speaker 1: have Black troops, and they've had the advantage in material
Speaker 1: The North is where ninety percent of all this stuff
Speaker 1: was manufactured in the United States before the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and so they have the capacity of the South played
Speaker 1: ketchup the whole war trying to found factories and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So the North had way more people and
Speaker 1: way more supplies to give them. And Grant and his
Speaker 1: former subordinate, William T. Sherman both realize that, and so
Speaker 1: Grant and Sherman become the big Union generals at the
Speaker 1: end of the war. In eighteen sixty four, Sherman lays
Speaker 1: siege to Atlanta and eventually captures Atlanta and famously marches
Speaker 1: to the sea up in Virginia. You've got Grant taking
Speaker 1: the army of the Potomac and fighting with Robert E. Lee.
Speaker 1: And these are battles. They're big, bloody, terrible, bloody battles,
Speaker 1: but they're not the romantic sweeping battles like Gettysburg and Antietam.
Speaker 1: These are just slog total warfare kind of battles.
Speaker 2: When Sherman was in Atlanta, he told the mayor of
Speaker 2: the city, war is cruelty and you cannot refine it.
Speaker 2: But when peace does come, you may call on me
Speaker 2: for anything. Then I will share with you my last
Speaker 2: He went on to say, quote, We're not only fighting
Speaker 2: hostile armies, but a hostile people, and we must make
Speaker 2: old and young, rich and poor feel the hard hand
Speaker 2: of war.
Speaker 3: We cannot change.
Speaker 2: The hearts of the people of the South, but we
Speaker 2: can make war so terrible and make them so sick
Speaker 2: of war that generations would pass away before they would
Speaker 2: again appeal to it.
Speaker 3: End of quote.
Speaker 2: To this day, many people in the South are still
Speaker 2: sour about Sherman's campaign and grands. I actually got an
Speaker 2: Instagram message from a listener from South Carolina who claims
Speaker 2: that his family has detailed records of Sherman's men burning
Speaker 2: both sides of his three times great grandparents' farms, and
Speaker 2: I believe he probably does. He said that both of
Speaker 2: his grandfathers were killed trying to protect their farms, and
Speaker 2: they believe that Union soldiers raise and murdered one of
Speaker 2: the grandmothers. Abuse and atrocities, no doubt happened. But we
Speaker 2: also know that the Confederates burned up a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff as they fled Sherman, trying to hurt him when.
Speaker 3: It came to supplies.
Speaker 2: War is cruelty and it cannot be refined about this time,
Speaker 2: the Confederates had also made a unique turn in their
Speaker 2: stance on blacks in the military. In eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 2: Jefferson Davis would try to get the Confederate Congress to
Speaker 2: buy forty thousand slaves to put them into their rapidly
Speaker 2: depleting armies, but it never happened.
Speaker 3: Though few black soldiers actually fought.
Speaker 2: For the Confederacy, between twenty and sixty thousand blacks were
Speaker 2: in Confederate camps working but weren't really fighting.
Speaker 3: The records showed that less than three.
Speaker 2: Thousand blacks received Confederate pensions, meaning they actually fought, but
Speaker 2: those are the ones that survived, so presumably many more
Speaker 2: than that fought and died. However, you probably remember Hulk
Speaker 2: Collier did fight for the Confederate Army and received a
Speaker 2: Confederate pension. But now it's late eighteen sixty four. The
Speaker 2: war has almost no end in sight. They don't know
Speaker 2: how it's going to end. And Abe Lincoln is back
Speaker 2: up for a very contested re election in November.
Speaker 3: Here's doctor blevins.
Speaker 1: One of the things that really helps him is when
Speaker 1: Sherman takes Atlanta in September of eighteen sixty four, and
Speaker 1: that that's a big that's a big plus for him.
Speaker 1: And then as you know, as you get closer to November, it,
Speaker 1: you know, it becomes clearer and clearer that the Confederacy
Speaker 1: seems to be kind of on their on their last
Speaker 1: legs there. But still, you know, if you look at
Speaker 1: the election of eighteen sixty four, forty five percent of
Speaker 1: the people in the North voted against Lincoln. Wow, he
Speaker 1: got got about fifty five percent of the vote.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And again you know, we think it's Lincoln.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's not going to vote for Lincoln.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: If he were around today, everybody would rush out and
Speaker 1: try to vote for Abe Lincoln. But but forty five
Speaker 1: percent of the people voted against him, so it wasn't again,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a done deal in the minds of a
Speaker 1: lot of people at that time. But he gets, you know,
Speaker 1: his so called Christmas present from William T. Sherman, which
Speaker 1: is the city of Savannah, Georgia, and really those last
Speaker 1: few months of the war into eighteen sixty five, it
Speaker 1: does become just a case where the Confederacy is they're
Speaker 1: running out of supplies, they're running out of food, they're
Speaker 1: just they're just dying on the vine pretty much. And
Speaker 1: eventually Lee just runs out of runs out of stuff,
Speaker 1: I mean, runs out of supplies in Virginia, and he
Speaker 1: tries to take his army and escape the trenches and
Speaker 1: find a way out, and he thinks, well, if I
Speaker 1: can get out, get away from Grant, and reconnect with
Speaker 1: the Confederate army that's hanging out down in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: then maybe we can do something together. But Philip Sheridan's cavalry,
Speaker 1: one of Grant's subordinates.
Speaker 3: Cuts him off.
Speaker 1: And at that point, this is in April of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, and Robert Eale realizes, hey, that's it. There's
Speaker 1: no use in any more of my men dying for
Speaker 1: what is pretty obviously a lost cause at this point,
Speaker 1: and so on April ninth, eighteen sixty five, he formally
Speaker 1: surrenders to Grant at Appomatics Courthouse, Virginia.
Speaker 2: Appomattox Courthouse was a rural community of about one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty people, including several slaves. It's an obscure place
Speaker 2: for such a significant moment. An Appomattox Courthouse is the
Speaker 2: full name of the town. It's actually not a courthouse
Speaker 2: in Appomattics.
Speaker 3: It's a town.
Speaker 2: But it's also the location of one of the most
Speaker 2: bizarre coincidences of the Civil War. After the surrender, Grant
Speaker 2: would invite Robert E. Lee to the home of Wilmer
Speaker 2: McLean in Appomattox Courthouse for the official negotiations. Grant didn't
Speaker 2: know MacLean, but they simply found it a suitable house
Speaker 2: and the family had reluctantly agreed to host the event.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine tidying up the house and making snacks
Speaker 2: for Grant and Lee. Ironically, the McLean's owned nine slaves,
Speaker 2: so they probably did most of the work, but their
Speaker 2: servitude wouldn't last much longer. But here's the coincidence. Wilmer
Speaker 2: McLean had lived near Manassas in eighteen sixty one, where
Speaker 2: his home had become one of the first Confederate headquarters.
Speaker 3: In the first major battle of the Civil War.
Speaker 2: Assis or bull Run, and his house took a heavy
Speaker 2: shelling that got pretty much blown up. Afterwards, he moved
Speaker 2: his family one hundred and forty miles south to Appomattox
Speaker 2: Courthouse to get away from the war, which basically would
Speaker 2: start and end at his home in two different places
Speaker 2: one hundred.
Speaker 3: And forty miles apart.
Speaker 2: On that April afternoon, when Grant requested to use their parlor,
Speaker 2: I can imagine McLean's wife saying, they can do this
Speaker 2: surrender here as long as they don't blow.
Speaker 3: Up the house again.
Speaker 2: But what actually happens in miss McLean's living room between
Speaker 2: Grant and Lee is even more interesting. Grant had had
Speaker 2: a severe headache that day that immediately evaporated when he
Speaker 2: got word of Lee's desire to surrender. Mick Pheerson, our
Speaker 2: Civil War author, he describes the meeting of Grant in Lee.
Speaker 3: I wanted to read what he wrote.
Speaker 2: He said, the vanquished commander six feet tall and erecting
Speaker 2: bearing arrived in full dress uniform with sash and jeweled sword.
Speaker 2: The victor, five feet eight with stooped shoulders, appeared in
Speaker 2: his usual private's blouse with mud spattered trousers tucked in
Speaker 2: the muddy boots because his headquarters wagon had fallen behind
Speaker 2: him in the race to cut off the enemy. So
Speaker 2: Grant is just in his common battle clothes and Lee
Speaker 2: is in full military dress. Grant expressed some embarrassment about
Speaker 2: his dress, not wanting to offend Lee by his informality,
Speaker 2: but he just didn't have his nice clothes with him.
Speaker 2: They didn't know when this was going to happen. One
Speaker 2: officer would later say that Grant looked like a fly
Speaker 2: on a shoulder of beef. Grant was forty two years old,
Speaker 2: with no gray and his beard.
Speaker 3: Robert E. Lee was fifty eight. Here's Louis.
Speaker 4: There's so many myths about Appomattics, about the meat under
Speaker 4: the apple tree, and but you know, he gets in there,
Speaker 4: he sees Lee and Lee. Lee's all business. He's he's
Speaker 4: been defeated, so he's not trying to chum it up
Speaker 4: with Grant. But Grant is kind of starstruck because he
Speaker 4: admires Lee, and he even says, hey, do you remember
Speaker 4: we met during the Mexican American War, And he's like,
Speaker 4: we're not.
Speaker 3: Here for that. We need to didn't he say, I
Speaker 3: don't really remember that. He didn't remember he had at all.
Speaker 3: Lee didn't want Even if he had, he probably wouldn't
Speaker 3: have said he did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he probably not want to again.
Speaker 3: Have a laugh for like the low point of Robert E.
Speaker 2: Lee's life whole life, yeah, and the high point probably
Speaker 2: of Grant's life.
Speaker 4: I would say, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's a little bit different situation for both
Speaker 2: of them. And so that's that's such an interesting moment.
Speaker 2: He's like, hey we met before. I've done that before
Speaker 2: with people like hey I've met you before and they're
Speaker 2: like yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I don't really remember that,
Speaker 2: but yeah right right, kind of like this brush off,
Speaker 2: like you know, like I don't remember you.
Speaker 4: But it is interesting that Grant remembers but Robertie Lee doesn't.
Speaker 4: It shows you the even at the time in the
Speaker 4: Mexican American Ward, ROBERTIY Lee is such a high figure
Speaker 4: in military ranks.
Speaker 2: Even no photographs of that moment, No, there's paintings, no
Speaker 2: cell phone video.
Speaker 3: I didn't have.
Speaker 4: Any cell phones. Been nice, wasn't it. Yeah, And that's
Speaker 4: probably that's part of the reason why there's so many myths.
Speaker 4: It's hard to record that stuff, you know, and so
Speaker 4: all we have is, you know, the terms of surrender
Speaker 4: and the stories.
Speaker 3: Lee actually said to Grant.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know I met you on that occasion, and
Speaker 2: I've often thought of it and tried to recollect how
Speaker 2: you looked, but I have never been able to recall
Speaker 2: a single feature. Lee didn't remember him, but Grant was
Speaker 2: living rent free and Lee's head. So Lee's surrender at
Speaker 2: Appomatox Courthouse is such an interesting moment in US history.
Speaker 2: I want to read from McPherson's book. Here, he says,
Speaker 2: with a heavy heart, Lee decided, quote, there is nothing
Speaker 2: left for me to do but go and see General Grant,
Speaker 2: and I would rather die a thousand deaths, he says.
Speaker 2: I mean, you just get the sense this guy is
Speaker 2: just as wits end, and I mean he's been fighting
Speaker 2: for all these years. But he says the terms were generous.
Speaker 2: Officers and men could go home quote not to be
Speaker 2: disturbed by US authorities, so long as they observed their
Speaker 2: paroles and the laws in force. Where they may reside.
Speaker 2: So this is Grant offering terms to these Confederate men
Speaker 2: and generals. This clause had great significance, serving as a
Speaker 2: model for the subsequent surrender of the Confederate armies. It
Speaker 2: guaranteed Southern soldier's immunity from prosecution for treason. Lee asked
Speaker 2: another favor in the Confederate army. He explained, enlisted men
Speaker 2: in the cavalry and artillery owned their horses. Could they
Speaker 2: keep them? Yes, Grant said, privates as well as officers
Speaker 2: who claimed to own horses could take them home quote
Speaker 2: to put in a crop to carry themselves and their
Speaker 2: families through the next winter. This will have the best
Speaker 2: possible effect upon the men, said Lee, and quote will
Speaker 2: do much towards conciliating our people. After signing the papers,
Speaker 2: Grant introduced Lee to his staff as he shook hands
Speaker 2: with Grant's military secretary, Eli Parker, a Seneca Indian. Lee
Speaker 2: stared a moment at Parker's dark features and said, I'm
Speaker 2: glad to see one real American here. Parker responded, We're
Speaker 2: all Americans. I heard someone tell the story and I
Speaker 2: didn't believe it was true. Yeah, it just sounded too
Speaker 2: Hollywood for Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse to see
Speaker 2: an American Indian there and say, oh, this is a
Speaker 2: real American. I didn't think that happened. And then as
Speaker 2: I read it here, I mean, I've got this. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is such a well respected book and author and historian.
Speaker 3: I mean, I assume it's true.
Speaker 1: You think, yeah, if McPherson's got it in there, you
Speaker 1: think it happened.
Speaker 2: But here you just see Lee's concerns, which are so practical.
Speaker 3: Can my men keep their horses?
Speaker 2: And then you see, you know, Grant, just how generous
Speaker 2: they were, like we're not going to prosecute you for treason.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a very unusual surrender scene.
Speaker 2: And then Grant feels bad. He later talks about how
Speaker 2: he felt bad for Robert E.
Speaker 4: Lee.
Speaker 2: This is a quote from the book that combines McPherson's
Speaker 2: words and Grants, but I'll separate it with a quote.
Speaker 2: Having given birth to a reunited nation, he grantperience to
Speaker 2: postpartum melancholy, and he said, quote, I felt sad and
Speaker 2: depressed at the downfall of a foe who had fought
Speaker 2: so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for
Speaker 2: a cause, though that that cause was I believe one
Speaker 2: of the worst for which a people ever fought. That's
Speaker 2: the end of the quote for Grant, and then McPherson
Speaker 2: goes on. As news of the surrenders spread through the
Speaker 2: Union camps, batteries began firing joyful salutes until Grant ordered
Speaker 2: them to stop. Quote he said, the war is over,
Speaker 2: the rebels are our countrymen again, and the best sign
Speaker 2: of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from
Speaker 2: all demonstrations. I mean, after this bloodbath, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of people die, this country is reshaped. It's just this
Speaker 2: nightmare that no one had seen coming. And Grant, this
Speaker 2: man who had brought total war to the Union, this
Speaker 2: ideology of total war, just you see such compassion that
Speaker 2: he has, and you see this humility and strength, and
Speaker 2: he tells his guys not to celebrate. I mean, I
Speaker 2: just think what astounding character that is. And then it
Speaker 2: goes on to say that to help bring those former
Speaker 2: rebels back into the Union, Grant sent three days rations
Speaker 2: for twenty five thousand men across the lines. This perhaps
Speaker 2: did something to ease the psychological as well as the
Speaker 2: physical pain of Lee's soldiers. And you just see the
Speaker 2: at mapthematics, Courthouse and the things that followed. You see
Speaker 2: that these guys kind of become humanized, and Grant just
Speaker 2: stands like head and shoulders above the crowd. I also
Speaker 2: thought it was interesting Robert E.
Speaker 1: Lee.
Speaker 2: One of the things that he asks, as he says,
Speaker 2: can my soldiers keep their horses? You just think about
Speaker 2: what was top of mind on his list. I don't
Speaker 2: think would have thought that that would have been as concern,
Speaker 2: but you know, at this he said, these men need
Speaker 2: to go home to their families and be able to plow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah horses and mules.
Speaker 2: And Grant was just like, yes, let your let your
Speaker 2: guys keep their horses.
Speaker 3: That's fine. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's in that that you see this unique thing like
Speaker 2: if this had been an invading country from Europe, I
Speaker 2: don't think we would have been so sympathetic. But there's
Speaker 2: this real sense of these are our countrymen, they've just
Speaker 2: gone astray. I mean, they were pretty empathetic.
Speaker 1: And I think Grant and Lincoln were more empathetic than
Speaker 1: a lot of their own countrymen.
Speaker 3: Wanted them to be.
Speaker 1: I mean, we know they were, but we know that
Speaker 1: the the radical wing of the Republican Party, you know,
Speaker 1: was not happy with the sort of moderation that Lincoln
Speaker 1: and Grant approached the end of the war. Of course,
Speaker 1: Lincoln wouldn't be around, unfortunately long enough to have any
Speaker 1: bearing on the end of the war. But but he believed,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's really tough to put yourself
Speaker 1: in that situation, to spend four years fighting a foe
Speaker 1: and to have you know, tens of thousands of your
Speaker 1: countrymen killed by these by these rebels. And that's that's
Speaker 1: what they were. They were. They were rebels, and they
Speaker 1: were officially traders, uh to the to the United States,
Speaker 1: you know, as as difficult as it is for someone
Speaker 1: today in in the South to look back and you know,
Speaker 1: to call them the t word traders, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's what they were. That they were. They were rebellious,
Speaker 1: they were traders. And to be able to have the
Speaker 1: magnanimity to realize that the most important thing is we
Speaker 1: need to get this country back in order, and the
Speaker 1: quickest way to do that is to treat these people
Speaker 1: who yesterday we were shooting at and trying to kill
Speaker 1: as fellow humans and as fellow Americans.
Speaker 2: The thing that made the Civil War most unique among
Speaker 2: wars on the battlefield was that it was brothers fighting
Speaker 2: against brothers, and that was also the thing that made
Speaker 2: it unique after the surrender. Brothers were surrendering to brothers.
Speaker 2: I found this interesting. After the surrender, Grant talked about
Speaker 2: his perceptions of Lee at Appomatics. He said, what General
Speaker 2: Lee's feelings were, I do not know. He was a
Speaker 2: man of such dignity with an impassable face. It was
Speaker 2: impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the
Speaker 2: end had finally come, or felt sad over the result.
Speaker 2: It was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings,
Speaker 2: they were entirely concealed. From my observation. That's interesting as
Speaker 2: we come to the end of our Civil War series.
Speaker 2: As with anything I research, I'm always looking for whole
Speaker 2: or biases in the way that I think about these things,
Speaker 2: and there is one glaring hole.
Speaker 3: In our Beargree series on the Civil War.
Speaker 2: We've given ample coverage of the Union and Confederate militaries,
Speaker 2: including multiple personalities on both sides in their politics. We've
Speaker 2: talked about what I've learned about my family's involvement in
Speaker 2: the Civil War. I've tried to understand how all these
Speaker 2: people felt, what they thought, what motivated them.
Speaker 3: However, a group that has been left.
Speaker 2: Out, or the actual four million American slaves that were
Speaker 2: emancipated after the war, these people knew what was going
Speaker 2: on this whole time. Words spread through the plantations, They
Speaker 2: overheard conversations. They were active players in this war whose
Speaker 2: lives were most impacted by the results. Hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of them fought.
Speaker 3: Many died.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of a blank spot on the map
Speaker 2: in this series. And some of that is my reporting bias,
Speaker 2: but some of it is an information gap. Most enslaved
Speaker 2: people were illiterate, and history seems to forget the illiterate.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine the conversations among these people when they
Speaker 2: heard about appomatics courthouse. Can you imagine what they did
Speaker 2: after the surrender. These people had been on plantations for generations.
Speaker 3: Where do they go? What did they do the next day?
Speaker 2: Making six hour long episodes is like dipping a bucket
Speaker 2: a half dozen times into the ocean of the Civil War.
Speaker 2: So it's partly just a limitation of time in bandwidth,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to acknowledge that. I hope it
Speaker 2: doesn't come across as some weak virtue signaling, but it's.
Speaker 3: Just something that I've thought about.
Speaker 2: I'd now like to address another question that historians have
Speaker 2: grappled with for one hundred and sixty years.
Speaker 3: Why did the South lose?
Speaker 2: I'd like to read from McPherson's book, Battle Cry of Freedom,
Speaker 2: on page eight hundred and fifty five, he writes, for Southerners,
Speaker 2: this explanation usually took some such form as these words
Speaker 2: of a Virginian. They never whipped to sir unless there
Speaker 2: were four to one. If we had anything like a
Speaker 2: fair chance or less disparity of numbers, we should have
Speaker 2: won our cause and established our independence. The North had
Speaker 2: a potential manpower superiority of more than three to one,
Speaker 2: counting only white men, and Union armed forces had an
Speaker 2: actual superiority of two to one during most of the war.
Speaker 2: In economic resources and logistical capacity, the Northern advantage was
Speaker 2: even greater. Thus, in this explanation, the Confederacy fought against
Speaker 2: overwhelming odds and its defeat was inevitable. But this explanation
Speaker 2: has not satisfied a good many analysts history is replete
Speaker 2: with examples of people who have won or defended their
Speaker 2: independence against greater odds. The Netherlands against the Spain of Philip,
Speaker 2: the Second, Switzerland against the Habsburg Empire, the American Rebels
Speaker 2: of seventeen seventy six against Mighty Britain. North Vietnam against
Speaker 2: the United States of nineteen seventy. Given the advantages of
Speaker 2: fighting on the defensive in its own territory, with interior
Speaker 2: lines in which stellmate would be victory against the foe
Speaker 2: who must invade, conquer, occupy, and destroy, the capacity to
Speaker 2: resist the odds faced by the South were not formidable. Rather,
Speaker 2: as another category of interpretations has it, internal divisions fatally
Speaker 2: weakened the Confederacy. The state rights conflict between certain governors
Speaker 2: and the Richmond government, the disaffection of non slaveholders from
Speaker 2: a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. Libertarian
Speaker 2: opposition to necessary measures such as conscription, the lukewarm commitment
Speaker 2: to the Confederacy by the Quandam Whigs and Unionists.
Speaker 3: The disloyalty of slaves.
Speaker 2: Who defected to the enemy whenever they had a chance,
Speaker 2: growing doubts among slaveholders themselves about the justice of their peculiar.
Speaker 3: Institution and their cause.
Speaker 2: So the Confederacy succumbed to internal rather than external causes.
Speaker 2: According to numerous historians, the South suffered from a weakness
Speaker 2: and morale and a loss of the will to fight.
Speaker 2: The Confederacy did not lack the means to continue to struggle,
Speaker 2: but the will to do so. I've got one final
Speaker 2: question for JD.
Speaker 3: Hewitt.
Speaker 2: At the end of the Civil War, what is the
Speaker 2: net result for the United States of America.
Speaker 5: In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln would say that this nation
Speaker 5: will have undergone a new birth of freedom. So, in
Speaker 5: a sense, in a very painful way, this country is reborn,
Speaker 5: and we finally live up to the claims that we
Speaker 5: make in the Declaration of Independence that all men are
Speaker 5: created equal. That that is going to come at a
Speaker 5: heavy cost, with upwards of seven hundred thousand men who
Speaker 5: are killed or who lose their lives as a result
Speaker 5: of this conflict. It's not the end in any way.
Speaker 5: The end of the Civil War is the beginning of
Speaker 5: a very difficult period in American history that probably doesn't
Speaker 5: get the attention that it deserves. During the Reconstruction era,
Speaker 5: these newly freed slaves are going to enter into a
Speaker 5: very trying time, but are going to be able to
Speaker 5: start building something with this this new promise that is
Speaker 5: now finally being lived up to, and with this new
Speaker 5: birth of freedom that the country experiences.
Speaker 3: What would America be if we hadn't had a civil war?
Speaker 3: Would we be America?
Speaker 2: Would the thing just have eventually split politically? And maybe
Speaker 2: there was a way where they were just like, you
Speaker 2: know what, let's just divide this thing up. Y'all have
Speaker 2: your peculiar institution and we won't. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 2: what do you ever think about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I do.
Speaker 5: I'll have people who will leave comments that, you know,
Speaker 5: we would have been better off, you know, if the
Speaker 5: South would have won. I don't know if you ever
Speaker 5: heard that old Hank Williams Junior song where if the
Speaker 5: South would have won, we'd be okay, and you know.
Speaker 3: It goes yeah, yeah, very familiar, let's catchy song.
Speaker 5: The typical rebuttal that I have to that is it
Speaker 5: never would have lasted because if the Confederacy would have won,
Speaker 5: would have become a separate nation. The thing that is
Speaker 5: baked into the system is going to be secession, and
Speaker 5: that at any point you can leave, and the idea
Speaker 5: that the Confederacy is going to be this utopia now
Speaker 5: that they've separated from the Northern States is just fanciful,
Speaker 5: and I.
Speaker 3: Think it would have continued to fracture.
Speaker 5: Texas would have found some reason to break away and
Speaker 5: then it becomes its own country. The whole thing would
Speaker 5: have just become weaker and weaker and weaker. So even
Speaker 5: though it did come at a heavy cost, I think
Speaker 5: that again, if you look at the trajectory of the
Speaker 5: United States, we've been a better country together what we
Speaker 5: would have been separated.
Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease
Speaker 2: and for following along on our Bear Grease.
Speaker 3: Civil War Summer.
Speaker 2: If you've enjoyed this series, please share it with a
Speaker 2: friend and leave us a review on Spotify or iTunes.
Speaker 2: And again, we just really thank you for following along.
Speaker 2: But don't get down about the Civil War summer coming
Speaker 2: to an end. I don't know exactly how it's going
Speaker 2: to play out, but I have a feeling that we're
Speaker 2: going to be back with the next chapter in America
Speaker 2: because it's not over yet. Thanks for listening to Bear
Speaker 2: Grease and for listening to Brince this country life and
Speaker 2: Lake's backwoods diversity means the world to us. Keep the
Speaker 2: wild places wild because that's where the bears live.