WEBVTT - Ep. 484: Civil War - Part 6: Unconditional Surrender 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:08.039 As difficult as it is for someone today in the 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:10.760 South to look back and to call them the t 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:15.320 word traders. I mean that's what they were. They were rebellious, 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.000 they were traders, and to be able to have the 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.520 magnanimity to realize that the most important thing is we 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.840 need to get this country back in order, and the 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:30.080 quickest way to do that is to treat these people 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.840 who yesterday we were shooting at and trying to kill 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.440 as fellow humans and as fellow Americans. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:43.000 The elusive final episode of our Civil War series is here. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.159 We'll be speaking with all of our experts, J. D. 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.640 Hewitt of the History Underground YouTube channel, doctor Brooks Blevins 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.280 of Missouri State University, and doctor Louis Gallo of the 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:59.480 Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library. The deck is stacked where 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.280 we left off off with us Grant rising the power 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:06.000 with this total war philosophy that will march this war 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:12.240 right to Appomato's Courthouse, Virginia. A really doubt that you're 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:22.440 going to want to miss this final episode. My name 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.280 is Klay Nucomb and this is the Bear Grease Podcast 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.800 where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.160 and unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.960 Americans who lived their lives close to the land. Brought 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.320 to you by to Covi's Boots. I'm a cowboy boot 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.240 man and I've been wearing to Covis for years. They're 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.200 the most comfortable boot I've ever put on. Good boots 0:01:46.240 --> 0:02:01.240 for good times. I'm in Starkville at mississip State University, 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:05.360 at the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, and I'm looking 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.600 at one of Grant's pistols. My conspiracy theories on why 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.880 this Union General's library is deep in the South have 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:15.079 been proven untrue. 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.120 But that's besides the point. But they do have his 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:19.600 gun a regiment. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.079 I believe it's an Illinois Regiment. Yeah, the ninety first 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.200 Illinois Regiment gives him this pistol. 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.080 This is doctor Louis Gallo. He's the managing editor at 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:29.760 the library. 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.160 So this is actually his pistol that he would have had. 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:32.959 And this is it. 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:34.400 This is it, And on the you can see you 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:36.480 can't see it, but on the bottom you can see 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:37.840 his name was great. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:38.720 Wow. 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.639 Oh yeah, there's an ivory handled looks like six shot 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:49.880 musket style pistol with a really intricate engraving on it. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.200 That's real elephant ivory. This gun is in great shape. 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.000 What's really interesting about this? So when we got this 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.919 is he the little powder? It had gunpowder in it. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:03.679 So Grant's original gunpowder was in this wall. 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:04.080 Wow. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:05.880 No, we didn't know really what to do with it 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:07.720 because there was a lot, you know, and so we 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.240 looked up the guidelines, you know, the National Park Service guidelines, 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:13.480 and it's said to dispose of it. You can either 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.120 just like throw it in the ard essentially, or you 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.040 can burn it. Or and we were like, let's burn 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:20.120 Grant's gunpowder. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.000 Does one hundred and sixty year old gunpowder burn? 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:23.359 You? 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:23.680 Ask? 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:26.560 Well, the answer is the same as this one. Does 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.800 wild donkey bray when it yearns for green grass? 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.919 Still don't know the answer? Louis has a video. 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.240 All right, we are here at the Civil War Arsenal 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:39.960 Museum where Duffy is the curator, and we are going 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.320 to answer the question. Does Ulysses ask Grant's gunpowder still. 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.720 Light after one hundred and sixty tlus a year. 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.440 Louis lights a fuse leading to a pile of gunpowder 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.400 about the size of a small ant hill. 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:52.760 They scuffle back. 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:59.640 After it lights, it explodes in a four foot tall 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:00.840 hoof of flame. 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.720 Good powder will still ignite one hundred and sixty years later. 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.240 That you did a wonderful job. That was a lot 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:09.280 bigger than I expecting it. 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.320 The explosion reminds me of the time I tried to 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.159 light a fire with gunpowder on a cold backwoods deer hunt. 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.440 That sends the hair off my face. But that's beside 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.200 the point. Some might be thankful that that powder wasn't 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:28.040 used to kill someone's ancestor in battle, but what we've 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:30.720 learned is that a lot of folks died in this war, 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:36.400 more than all American wars combined. To get this finale 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.720 started off right, We're going back to our og expert J. D. 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.719 Hewitt of the History Underground YouTube channel, introducing us to 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:49.120 a critical battle that began to tip the scales of victory. 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.680 This is essential to understand as we bring the Civil 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:57.640 War plane to a landing. But remember Grant wasn't yet 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.160 leading the main Union military. But at the time of 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.880 this battle that JD's about to tell us about, Grant 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.279 was finishing up in Vicksburg, which would put him on 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:11.919 Lincoln's map. But Grant wasn't even at this battle in 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:12.800 the Eastern Theater. 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:18.279 I would imagine that it's about impossible to talk about 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:23.280 the Civil War without talking about Gettysburg. Even for people 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.520 who know nothing about the Civil War, they. 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:28.880 Know, you know that battle here, you know of the battle, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:30.680 you at least know the name. 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.239 Yes, you know, there's movie that was made in nineteen 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.960 ninety three about it. It's one of the most visited 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:41.559 historic sites in the United States. So Gettysburg is kind 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.880 of what I call the Rosetta Stone of the Civil War. 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:50.840 That if people are getting into the Civil War, if 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.080 you study the Battle of Gettysburg, it helps you to 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:59.760 start understanding other points of the Civil War. So, in short, 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.520 it's one of the major turning points of the Civil War. 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.760 Sometimes it's called the high water mark of the Confederacy. 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.760 I wouldn't say it's the most important battle of the 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:15.080 Civil War, but it's definitely one of the turning points. Essentially, 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:20.120 what you have is in the summer of eighteen sixty three, 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.560 Robert E. Lee, who is just coming off of his 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.240 one of his most remarkable victories at the Battle of Chancellorsville, 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.800 is going to take the army of Northern Virginia through 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.120 Maryland up into Pennsylvania. 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:34.360 Again. 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:38.520 He's moving the war kind of out of the Southern States. 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.720 Battle of Chancellorsville. He has lost kind of his right 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.719 hand guy Stonewall Jackson, has been mortally wounded in that battle. 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.119 And then there's a reorganization of the Army of Northern 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.520 Virginia and he takes his three corps up there and 0:06:55.600 --> 0:07:00.280 they're spread out. You're looking at this massive army that 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:06.359 is moving through Pennsylvania. Following him is going to be 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:10.320 the Army of the Potomac under the leadership of a 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.400 guy by the name of George Gordon Mead. George Gordon 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.560 Mead has just taken over as the commander of the 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.680 Army of the Potomac and his job is to follow 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.720 Robert E. Lee up into Pennsylvania and basically stay in 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.360 between the Army of Northern Virginia and Washington, d C. 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:29.760 And Baltimore. 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.600 There's a well known line in ken Burn's Civil War 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:37.800 series where it says that the Battle of Gettysburg was 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:42.360 fought over It's a battle that starts over a fight 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:43.000 for shoes. 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:45.640 Yeah, that's not true. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.640 In Burn's documentary The Colorful historian Shelby Foot noted an 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:55.160 anecdote that was true some Confederates had been sent to 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.120 Gettysburg to get shoes for the army when they ran 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.440 into Union troops by but this would be an oversimplification 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.240 for why the battle started there. The South was hurting 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.560 for boots because they didn't have the factories that the 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.280 North had, and supplies were a constant struggle, and they 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.120 were there to find anything food, clothing, general provisions. 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.480 So it wasn't just about shoes. 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.480 The reason that Gettysburg is fought at Gettysburg and the 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.520 reasons it is what it is is it's a hub 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:31.360 where ten roads come in. And on July first, second, 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:36.000 and third of eighteen sixty three, we have a fight 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:41.800 that will result in what is the bloodiest battle of 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.719 the Civil War. So Antietam is the bloodiest day. This 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.120 is a three day battle, bloodiest battle of the Civil War. 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:48.199 I see. Yeah. 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.679 So this is going to result in a Union victory. 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:56.840 And in the East this is going to be a 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:01.080 big turning point. In the West you have Grant who 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:05.400 has had Vicksburg under siege. Battle of Gettysburg finishes up 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.280 on July the third, and on July the fourth, the 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.640 city of Vicksburg, what Jefferson Davis called the nail head 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.680 of the that holds the Confederacy together. Vicksburg is going 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:21.080 to fall. In my opinion, from this point, the Civil 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.480 War is basically over for the Confederacy. 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.000 July eighteen sixty three. 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:27.480 July eighteen sixty three. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.000 It's going downhill for the. 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:33.960 It's going downhill now. They are still going to win 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:38.000 some battles, but this is where they peak and it's 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:39.640 just going to be a decline after this. 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:42.680 Yeah. How many people died at Gettysburg? 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.920 So Battle of Gettysburg bloodiest battle of the Civil War. 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.160 When you're looking at what is considered a bloody battle, 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.640 you're looking at as the casualty number. So this is killed, missing, 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:54.800 and wounded. This is these are people who've been removed 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:59.520 from the battle. Total casualties for the Battle of Gettysburg 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.319 looking at just over fifty one thousand, wow. 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.480 Men, that's both Union and Confederate. 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.720 Union and Confederates. So Union just over twenty three thousand, 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:14.400 Confederates about twenty eight thousand, wow. Yeah, which is proportionally 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:20.560 more devastating for the Confederates because they're entering the battle 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.520 with seventy one thousand men. The Union has about ninety 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.360 three thousand, so they take a higher proportion loss in 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:28.240 the battle. 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.920 Gettysburg was important for many reasons, but three stand out. 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:38.880 It halted Lee's northern invasion, putting the Confederates on the defensive. 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:39.440 The rest of the war. 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.319 The battle made it clear that total war was the 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.000 only way to really end this thing. And Thirdly, it 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:52.600 catalyzed the Gettysburg Address, where Lincoln articulated the idea of 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:57.240 this new birth of freedom, and the fifty one thousand 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:02.320 casualties were a gut check for a nation in crisis. Surprisingly, 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.960 only one civilian was killed in this battle, a twenty 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.960 year old seamstress named Mary Wade. She died when a 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.200 stray Confederate bullet struck her while she was in her house, 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:19.559 supposedly kneading bread. It was said the Confederate wagon train 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.360 hauling the dead and wounded from the battlefield that Gettysburg 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:25.000 was seventeen miles long. 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:27.239 It would have taken a full. 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.840 Day for them to pass by your house if you 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.720 lived on the road. Gettysburg happened eight months before Grant 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.040 became the general of the Union Army, and going back 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:42.360 to the original explosion of Grant's gunpowder. In this episode, 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:46.760 Grant's life was like a delayed explosion. He was thirty 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.520 nine years old when the Civil War started, and his 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.400 adult life had been one failed experiment after another. Basically, 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.839 as the war rolled on, it was clear that there 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.719 was going to be no political negotias, the South. 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.960 Wasn't going to give up easily, and the traditional. 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.920 Rules of war had to be overruled in this late 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:13.800 bloomer Grant, which surprised the world. But we ended the 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.680 last episode on this idea of total war. We said 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.160 that over and over Grant brought this thing called total war. Well, 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:26.559 here's Brooks Blevins on Grant's ascension to power in the 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:27.880 context of Gettysburg. 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.679 You know, I think probably the leader who best exemplified 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.600 that total war concept that starts to take effect in 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.520 the latter half of the Civil War is us Grand. 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.760 He's been around from the beginning of the war, but 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:48.240 he's mainly been out west. He's been in Missouri and 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.319 Kentucky and Tennessee and different places like that. And eighteen 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:58.520 sixty three becomes the pivotal year militarily, and Grant's right 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:00.520 in the middle of that, he's not back east, he's 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:05.800 not running Lincoln's personal army at that time. But Grant 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.280 in eighteen sixty three goes down the Mississippi River. Part 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.720 of that Anaconda plan that I believe you guys talked 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.880 about earlier. Part of that Anaconda plan was to take 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.600 the Mississippi River. And by the spring of eighteen sixty three, 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:25.760 there's two strongholds left on the Mississippi. There's Port Hudson 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:31.040 in Louisiana and then more famously Vicksburg in Mississippi. And 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.360 Grant's army is tasked with doing that. And in many 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:39.280 ways it's Grant at Vicksburg who This is where he 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:45.080 kind of first puts into play his total warfare idea, 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.880 and he realizes that it would be folly and suicide 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:54.720 to just try to attack Vicksburg over and over in 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.080 a traditional way. So he uses his army to lay 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.120 siege to the town and they basically just cut off 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.880 all the supply routes and there are lots of civilians 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:10.680 in Vicksburg. There Confederate military in Vicksburg, their civilians in Vicksburg. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.400 And Grant realizes that if we're going to take this 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.280 town we just got we got to starve them out. Yeah, 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.680 and so Lincoln starts to get the idea that. 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.760 Hey, this might this is going to have to get serious. 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.360 This is getting serious, and this might be my guy. 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.320 Yeah yeah. Part of this idea of total war would 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:28.000 be that. 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.840 There would be sieges on communities and armies starving them out. 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.760 So the biggest difference in this kind of war was 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.600 that it could involve civilians. It was that Vicksburg that 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:43.720 Grant would become known as unconditional surrender Grant, where he 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.560 spoke the famous words quote no terms accept an unconditional 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.640 and immediate surrender can be accepted. In the past, losing 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.880 armies might have been able to negotiate specific arrangements on timing, 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.080 specifics about troops, livestocks, guns, and the like, but the 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:06.440 harsh treatment struck the Union and Confederate generals as ungentlemanly. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.320 In the book Battlecry of Freedom, the author states as 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:15.160 a modern general, Grant retired outmoded forms of chivalry, showing 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.040 that gentility had given way to a stark, new brand 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.920 of modern warfare. Grant believed the South had conducted an 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.800 illegal rebellion and wasn't entitled to enjoy the niceties of 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.240 military etiquette. End of quote. Lincoln would see it like 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.400 this too, and he would like what Grant did, knowing 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.200 that it was the only way to victory. It was 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.640 the only way to save the Union and to save 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.640 human lives was to implement this total war. And later 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:45.640 we'd see Sherman, this commander underneath Grant inflict total war 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.280 by burning Atlanta and the Shenandoah Valley. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:51.760 Here's doctor Louis Gallo. 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.920 It's well known his success with Vicksburg. But after he 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.880 captures Vicksburg. Pretty soon after he is the sent to Chattanooga, 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.760 Tennessee to capture Chattanooga, which he does ultimately with the 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:08.360 Battle of Chattanooga, very famous battle, Battle Above the Clouds 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.520 is what they called it. He takes Missionary Ridge and 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.360 look Out Mountain at Chattanooga. And because of the capture 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.560 of Chattanooga, this is when Lincoln is like, Okay, this 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.520 this is my guy, right, and so I think say 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.120 it's in March of sixty four, he gets sent to Washington, 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.880 d c. And he's now promoted by Lincoln to take 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:27.160 charge of the army. 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.280 On March ninth, eighteen sixty four, Grant becomes the big 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.880 general of the Union Army. Grant got there by becoming 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:42.120 a master at the psychology of war. I've got two 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:47.000 simple quotes that sum up Grant's success in battle. He said, 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.640 in every battle there comes a time when both sides 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:57.240 consider themselves beaten. Then he who continues the attack wins. 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.920 That's a simple message of an endurance and courage. The 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.560 second one is like it. He said, the art of 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.560 war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is, 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.919 get at him as soon as you can strike him 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.479 as hard as you can, and keep moving on. His 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:20.600 philosophy wasn't rocket science. Sometimes success is really simple, and 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:25.040 when the principles of that success become ingrained into a person, 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.399 success can almost be guaranteed. I think we can learn 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.320 a lot about life here. Grant would also say after 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.400 the war that often the South would win the battle 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.000 on the first day, but if they could last through that, 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.720 he would beat them on the second. It's a hard 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.879 thing to get beat and still somehow think that you 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.720 could win the next day. You'd have to be in 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.720 total control of your emotions. But Grant was an adamant 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.920 that that happened over and over and over. The South 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:01.720 would start strong but couldn't hold on. This basically sums 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:07.680 up the Civil War. Grant's success wasn't flashy, bombastic, or egocentric. 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:13.080 His strategy in some ways even reflected his personality. Humility 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:17.639 is the ultimate display of strength, but it's also easier 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.480 to be strong when you've got superior numbers and provisions. 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:26.040 But we'll talk more about that later. Here's Louis with 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:27.240 more on Grant. 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.479 This is a good moment to talk about Lincoln's perception 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.320 of Grant. I think this is really funny. Lincoln told 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.199 the story about Grant. He would say that, you know, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.200 if Grant walked into a room, it would take about 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.920 five or ten minutes before you even knew he was there. Hm. Right, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:43.879 So again it's kind of telling you about who he 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.000 was as a person, his demeanor and how he is 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.679 in large groups at the time, and the fact that 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.920 he's okay, yeah, now he's a national figure at this point, right, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.960 and he's had experience in the public eye, so to speak. 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.080 But this is the first time where he is in 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.119 the public eye. Like everybody is clamoring to get a 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.200 look at Grant at DC. You know, so this is 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.000 he he's he definitely understood the task that was in 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.720 front of him, but he accepted it despite those kind 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.720 of reservations about, you know, being as public as he was. 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.800 He was not pompous at least, I don't think it was. 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.480 He seemed very especially again in his writings, you see 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.320 his humility in his right. His style not just what 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.680 he spoke about, but the style was very plain. And 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:27.840 I don't mean that in like a negative way either. 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:30.320 I just mean that in like a you know, it's 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.479 a it's a way I think the way people can 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.840 relate to him, right, And it's to me it's why 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.439 his memoirs are still relevant because if you if you 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.560 picked up his memoirs and you read them, you it's 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.120 such an easy read, like it's not a. 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:47.920 Good communicator, ar concise, yes, right. 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.879 To me, as I learned about him, it's clear that 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:56.760 he was like an instinctual tactical just a warrior, like 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:01.199 he just knew how to win. And that was woven 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.760 into his personality too, with this like persistence to just 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.640 never stop. Yes, but then and then it was also 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:09.560 trained at West Point, so I'm sure he learned a 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.159 lot of stuff about tactical war that was important but 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.480 he just had this killer instinct that felt like that 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.440 other people just didn't seem to have. 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:20.240 I believe this. 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:26.600 Battle instinct in Grant wasn't taught, but was foundationally instinctual. Honestly, 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.800 most really great generals probably had this. 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:31.560 I see it in hunting. 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.520 There are some people that just have an unbelievable instinct 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.760 when it comes to taking game. They can anticipate animal movement, 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.840 they have unique insight in topography and nowhere to set 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.280 up an ambush. They know when to move on a stalk, 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.879 they have an uncanny sense of timing when on the hunt. 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:52.840 They're very good with their weapon. 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.280 Yes, some of this has learned, but some people are 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.720 just born naturally better predators than others. I've never been 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.239 in the military, but if you've watched Rambo, you know 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.920 that this is true in military stuff too. That was 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:12.520 a joke, but it seems that Grant and Robert E. 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:17.280 Lee had this instinct in spades. All these like little 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.800 things like and so many people that are successful we 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:23.760 want to see like the one thing that made them great. 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:26.760 But with him, it was like it was like all 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:28.800 these different components. I don't I think if he had 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:31.960 if he had had political aspirations. It probably would have 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.840 crippled him in some way, Like it would have changed 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.719 him if he had had a big ego, just a 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.040 personal ego, just like I want people around me to 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.040 think I'm really important. I think it would have changed 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.760 his ability to be effective if he hadn't been this 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.919 like massively, like crossing the river on that horse to 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.440 go see his wife, if he hadn't had that dogged 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:57.399 determination which is just like born in you, almost like 0:21:57.480 --> 0:21:58.960 it would have been slightly different. 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.439 I mean you see, like the little things that made 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:03.159 him who he was. 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.760 Yeah, and he stands out in contrast so much to 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:09.200 all these other civil war generals. 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:09.680 He does. 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:12.680 And that's honestly, and just to be honest with you, 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.960 it's a question that I still have, right, I still 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.240 am trying to understand it myself, Like why what makes 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.640 him different than everybody? Like think of the countless people, 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:26.040 I think the well trained people experienced men in that 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.560 in those ranks, but somehow he was able to come 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.040 out on top. It is interesting and his ego, that 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.199 part of it is really interesting to me too. Sherman, 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:37.639 on the other hand, because you know, we annoitated Sherman's 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:42.439 memoirs as well, and his writing in that character not 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.159 to compare contrast to too, but couldn't be any more 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:47.959 different than Grant. Right. He is full of himself. He 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:50.360 is worried about his legacy, He is worried about who 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:52.959 he knows and who knows him and all that stuff. 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:56.480 You know, he wasn't. He showed no humility in his memoirs, 0:22:56.520 --> 0:23:00.520 really really as opposed to Grant. Yeah, who just throughout 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:04.119 the whole thing, he's admitting faults. He talked about the 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:07.919 Mexican American War, called it unjust. He talked about Cold Harbor. 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:10.160 Are you're familiar with Cold Harbors? The Battle of Cold 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:12.920 Harbor during the overland campaign when he's trying to capture 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:16.359 Lee's Army, Battle of Cold Harbor happens. It's one of 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.679 the bloodiest battles of the whole war. And it's because 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:22.560 it's because Grant just keeps sending men to the just 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:25.040 try to get him, trying to and it didn't work, 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:28.080 and it was terrible, and he caught bad press for 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.920 it too, because thousands of men died. Care for first downmate. 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:35.400 For at the end of the day, he not much 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:36.040 gained nothing. 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:36.720 He ain't nothing. 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:37.040 Yeah. 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:39.720 Yeah, yeah, And he says in his memoirs, he goes, 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:43.240 that's I regret that more than anything else in my life. Wow, 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:46.600 Like the humility to admit that. 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:50.439 That really would take some humility to regret the human 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:53.119 life being lost because of decisions that A made. 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:53.480 Yeah. 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:54.879 I mean it's one thing to be like, Man, I 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:58.359 regret this financial decision I made twenty years ago, or yeah, 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:01.120 regret this thing I said twenty years ago that hurt 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:05.159 someone's feelings. But yeah, when you say I regret being 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:07.359 the reason all these guys were killed, that's a pretty 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:07.760 big one. 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:10.520 Yeah. 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:14.280 Now Louis is gonna fast forward us through the war 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:17.920 after Grant becomes the lead general of the Union Army 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:22.040 and Lincoln is gonna sick Grant on Lee's Army of 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:25.720 Northern Virginia. This is where Lee and Grant go head 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:26.120 to head. 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:30.000 Lincoln calling on Grant was really obviously the real turning 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:33.080 point of the war because now he had a general 0:24:33.080 --> 0:24:35.919 who was willing to keep going and not just stop 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:39.439 if things weren't going well. And so that he starts 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:43.080 the overland campaign by crossing the Rapidan River. Famous moment, 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:43.920 you know, he crosses the. 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:46.200 Rapidan to start his attack on len Ginia. 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:50.680 Yeah, and so he just spends a couple months getting, 0:24:50.720 --> 0:24:52.600 you know, making the same maneuver. It's kind of like 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:54.360 half crescent shaping. 0:24:54.440 --> 0:24:55.760 Yeah, ever, to. 0:24:55.800 --> 0:24:59.119 Kind of keep flanking Lee in order to cross the 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:03.720 James River to go after Petersburg. Because Petersburg is basically 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:08.320 like the hub for Lee in his resources and his 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:12.320 supplies and everything. And so even though people think Richmond 0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:15.720 might be the you know, the goal, Petersburg was the 0:25:15.720 --> 0:25:19.360 bigger goal, okay. And so for him to do that, 0:25:19.480 --> 0:25:23.440 to pull that off, despite Cold Harbor, despite the failures 0:25:23.440 --> 0:25:27.320 at the Wilderness, despite all these stalemates, he just kept going, 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.679 just kept flanking, kept flanking until he got south of 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:33.200 the James. And it's really incredible because you know, people 0:25:33.240 --> 0:25:37.119 talk about how Lee was a better tactician than Grant was. 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:39.960 Grant was a better strategist, but Lee is a better tactician, 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:41.280 and I think that that is true. 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:41.600 Right. 0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:44.840 Lee was an incredible What does that mean on the field, 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:48.160 Right on the field, Lee would have been better, that's 0:25:48.160 --> 0:25:48.680 what they say. 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:52.720 So he he had this this amazing ability to split 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:56.520 up his army and to fend off the opposition, right, 0:25:56.560 --> 0:25:59.600 So like, yeah, so like the in the moment tactical 0:25:59.680 --> 0:26:03.880 decision making that's happening in the field. Lee widely regarded 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:07.480 by most historians as being way better than Grant. I agree, 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:09.879 but I think that takes away from Grant's skills as 0:26:09.880 --> 0:26:12.840 a tactician, because I think he was pretty clever and 0:26:12.880 --> 0:26:18.560 incredible in himself and tactical tactically, but strategically he definitely 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:20.520 was better. Now, it might it may have been because 0:26:20.560 --> 0:26:22.760 he had more resources than Lee did at the time, 0:26:22.880 --> 0:26:29.120 but nonetheless, Grant's strategy of go after them NonStop from 0:26:29.160 --> 0:26:32.320 every angle, hit them at all points, at all times, 0:26:32.359 --> 0:26:35.680 no matter what, like that was the difference, and that's 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:39.200 what made him successful in this campaign because while He's 0:26:39.240 --> 0:26:42.640 trying to capture Lee's army, he sending Sherman through Georgia 0:26:43.280 --> 0:26:48.120 and he, you know, again historically really famous. He burns 0:26:48.160 --> 0:26:51.640 his way through Georgia essentially and then takes the Carolinas, 0:26:51.720 --> 0:26:54.879 you know. So it's just a full on assault at 0:26:54.920 --> 0:26:57.680 the end, because that was the only way to put them, 0:26:57.840 --> 0:26:59.040 put them out of their misery. 0:26:58.840 --> 0:27:02.200 Essentially, And at this point the war, Lincoln knew that 0:27:02.240 --> 0:27:04.600 he it had to become total. 0:27:04.280 --> 0:27:07.240 War total phrase that they used to describe it. 0:27:07.200 --> 0:27:12.040 Like, we're not trying to be chivalrous and save the 0:27:12.080 --> 0:27:13.080 civilian population. 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:15.639 They're burning houses and supplies. 0:27:15.800 --> 0:27:18.159 Yeah, I mean they're going after the Lee's army for 0:27:18.200 --> 0:27:20.320 the most part, but there is collateral damage for sure. 0:27:20.440 --> 0:27:21.040 Yeah, for sure. 0:27:21.080 --> 0:27:21.880 It's a war of attrition. 0:27:22.600 --> 0:27:26.120 Here's doctor Blevins on how the war had changed by 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:27.200 eighteen sixty four. 0:27:27.800 --> 0:27:31.280 All of the kind of the really interesting battles that 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:37.240 there are multiple books written about, like Gettysburg and Antietam 0:27:37.400 --> 0:27:41.199 and Shiloh and all these battles, they're all before eighteen 0:27:41.280 --> 0:27:45.560 sixty four, because in a large part, by eighteen sixty four, 0:27:45.600 --> 0:27:50.040 it's become total warfare, and it's become siege warfare in 0:27:50.080 --> 0:27:51.800 a lot of cases, like we saw. 0:27:51.680 --> 0:27:54.119 It victa uge, meaning you surround a place and just 0:27:54.160 --> 0:27:54.679 cut off. 0:27:54.520 --> 0:27:57.200 The how you surround it, you build trenches. You know, 0:27:57.200 --> 0:27:59.679 the Civil War was one of the first first times 0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:03.159 in in world history when you saw trench warfare, and 0:28:03.160 --> 0:28:05.720 of course that would explode in World War One, that's 0:28:05.760 --> 0:28:08.080 the war that's famous for trench warfare. But the Civil 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:12.080 War had lots of trench warfare, digging ditches and hunkering 0:28:12.119 --> 0:28:15.840 down in these ditches, people in ditches looking at each 0:28:15.880 --> 0:28:20.359 other across this long expanse, and so that's really what 0:28:20.400 --> 0:28:24.480 the war devolves into in eighteen sixty four, because what 0:28:24.600 --> 0:28:28.080 Lincoln and what Grant both realize is from the beginning 0:28:28.119 --> 0:28:31.960 of this war, the Union has had a great advantage 0:28:32.480 --> 0:28:35.760 in terms of manpower. By eighteen sixty four, that manpower 0:28:35.800 --> 0:28:38.480 advantage is greater than they had expected because now they 0:28:38.560 --> 0:28:43.800 have Black troops, and they've had the advantage in material 0:28:44.400 --> 0:28:47.560 The North is where ninety percent of all this stuff 0:28:47.640 --> 0:28:50.240 was manufactured in the United States before the Civil War, 0:28:51.360 --> 0:28:55.440 and so they have the capacity of the South played 0:28:55.520 --> 0:28:58.960 ketchup the whole war trying to found factories and stuff 0:28:59.000 --> 0:29:02.239 like that. So the North had way more people and 0:29:02.360 --> 0:29:06.840 way more supplies to give them. And Grant and his 0:29:06.960 --> 0:29:10.920 former subordinate, William T. Sherman both realize that, and so 0:29:11.040 --> 0:29:14.120 Grant and Sherman become the big Union generals at the 0:29:14.200 --> 0:29:18.520 end of the war. In eighteen sixty four, Sherman lays 0:29:18.520 --> 0:29:24.040 siege to Atlanta and eventually captures Atlanta and famously marches 0:29:24.080 --> 0:29:27.720 to the sea up in Virginia. You've got Grant taking 0:29:27.760 --> 0:29:30.520 the army of the Potomac and fighting with Robert E. Lee. 0:29:30.560 --> 0:29:34.480 And these are battles. They're big, bloody, terrible, bloody battles, 0:29:35.040 --> 0:29:40.600 but they're not the romantic sweeping battles like Gettysburg and Antietam. 0:29:40.640 --> 0:29:45.600 These are just slog total warfare kind of battles. 0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:48.680 When Sherman was in Atlanta, he told the mayor of 0:29:48.720 --> 0:29:52.600 the city, war is cruelty and you cannot refine it. 0:29:53.120 --> 0:29:56.280 But when peace does come, you may call on me 0:29:56.360 --> 0:30:00.000 for anything. Then I will share with you my last 0:30:01.480 --> 0:30:04.800 He went on to say, quote, We're not only fighting 0:30:04.880 --> 0:30:08.200 hostile armies, but a hostile people, and we must make 0:30:08.320 --> 0:30:12.040 old and young, rich and poor feel the hard hand 0:30:12.120 --> 0:30:12.600 of war. 0:30:13.280 --> 0:30:14.600 We cannot change. 0:30:14.320 --> 0:30:16.920 The hearts of the people of the South, but we 0:30:16.960 --> 0:30:20.040 can make war so terrible and make them so sick 0:30:20.080 --> 0:30:23.960 of war that generations would pass away before they would 0:30:24.000 --> 0:30:25.440 again appeal to it. 0:30:26.640 --> 0:30:27.320 End of quote. 0:30:28.520 --> 0:30:31.800 To this day, many people in the South are still 0:30:31.920 --> 0:30:36.040 sour about Sherman's campaign and grands. I actually got an 0:30:36.080 --> 0:30:40.040 Instagram message from a listener from South Carolina who claims 0:30:40.040 --> 0:30:44.000 that his family has detailed records of Sherman's men burning 0:30:44.200 --> 0:30:49.160 both sides of his three times great grandparents' farms, and 0:30:49.240 --> 0:30:52.960 I believe he probably does. He said that both of 0:30:53.000 --> 0:30:57.320 his grandfathers were killed trying to protect their farms, and 0:30:57.360 --> 0:31:02.160 they believe that Union soldiers raise and murdered one of 0:31:02.200 --> 0:31:08.560 the grandmothers. Abuse and atrocities, no doubt happened. But we 0:31:08.680 --> 0:31:11.760 also know that the Confederates burned up a lot of 0:31:11.800 --> 0:31:15.160 stuff as they fled Sherman, trying to hurt him when. 0:31:14.960 --> 0:31:16.120 It came to supplies. 0:31:17.680 --> 0:31:24.040 War is cruelty and it cannot be refined about this time, 0:31:24.200 --> 0:31:27.440 the Confederates had also made a unique turn in their 0:31:27.520 --> 0:31:31.520 stance on blacks in the military. In eighteen sixty four, 0:31:31.640 --> 0:31:35.320 Jefferson Davis would try to get the Confederate Congress to 0:31:35.440 --> 0:31:39.800 buy forty thousand slaves to put them into their rapidly 0:31:39.880 --> 0:31:42.640 depleting armies, but it never happened. 0:31:43.360 --> 0:31:46.280 Though few black soldiers actually fought. 0:31:45.960 --> 0:31:50.240 For the Confederacy, between twenty and sixty thousand blacks were 0:31:50.240 --> 0:31:54.320 in Confederate camps working but weren't really fighting. 0:31:54.800 --> 0:31:57.080 The records showed that less than three. 0:31:56.880 --> 0:32:02.080 Thousand blacks received Confederate pensions, meaning they actually fought, but 0:32:02.640 --> 0:32:06.560 those are the ones that survived, so presumably many more 0:32:06.600 --> 0:32:10.280 than that fought and died. However, you probably remember Hulk 0:32:10.440 --> 0:32:14.160 Collier did fight for the Confederate Army and received a 0:32:14.200 --> 0:32:20.440 Confederate pension. But now it's late eighteen sixty four. The 0:32:20.480 --> 0:32:22.960 war has almost no end in sight. They don't know 0:32:23.000 --> 0:32:25.840 how it's going to end. And Abe Lincoln is back 0:32:25.920 --> 0:32:29.280 up for a very contested re election in November. 0:32:29.960 --> 0:32:31.160 Here's doctor blevins. 0:32:31.560 --> 0:32:33.560 One of the things that really helps him is when 0:32:33.720 --> 0:32:38.920 Sherman takes Atlanta in September of eighteen sixty four, and 0:32:38.960 --> 0:32:41.720 that that's a big that's a big plus for him. 0:32:42.400 --> 0:32:44.840 And then as you know, as you get closer to November, it, 0:32:45.200 --> 0:32:47.920 you know, it becomes clearer and clearer that the Confederacy 0:32:48.120 --> 0:32:50.600 seems to be kind of on their on their last 0:32:50.680 --> 0:32:53.520 legs there. But still, you know, if you look at 0:32:53.520 --> 0:32:56.440 the election of eighteen sixty four, forty five percent of 0:32:56.440 --> 0:32:59.520 the people in the North voted against Lincoln. Wow, he 0:32:59.640 --> 0:33:01.800 got got about fifty five percent of the vote. 0:33:02.040 --> 0:33:02.280 Wow. 0:33:02.280 --> 0:33:04.200 And again you know, we think it's Lincoln. 0:33:04.280 --> 0:33:06.320 I mean, he's not going to vote for Lincoln. 0:33:06.440 --> 0:33:06.600 Right. 0:33:06.760 --> 0:33:09.200 If he were around today, everybody would rush out and 0:33:09.240 --> 0:33:12.360 try to vote for Abe Lincoln. But but forty five 0:33:12.400 --> 0:33:16.800 percent of the people voted against him, so it wasn't again, 0:33:16.840 --> 0:33:20.600 it wasn't a done deal in the minds of a 0:33:20.600 --> 0:33:24.080 lot of people at that time. But he gets, you know, 0:33:24.120 --> 0:33:26.920 his so called Christmas present from William T. Sherman, which 0:33:26.920 --> 0:33:31.240 is the city of Savannah, Georgia, and really those last 0:33:31.240 --> 0:33:36.280 few months of the war into eighteen sixty five, it 0:33:36.320 --> 0:33:39.680 does become just a case where the Confederacy is they're 0:33:39.760 --> 0:33:43.240 running out of supplies, they're running out of food, they're 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:47.959 just they're just dying on the vine pretty much. And 0:33:48.040 --> 0:33:52.400 eventually Lee just runs out of runs out of stuff, 0:33:52.440 --> 0:33:56.120 I mean, runs out of supplies in Virginia, and he 0:33:56.160 --> 0:33:59.479 tries to take his army and escape the trenches and 0:33:59.560 --> 0:34:01.920 find a way out, and he thinks, well, if I 0:34:01.920 --> 0:34:05.880 can get out, get away from Grant, and reconnect with 0:34:06.040 --> 0:34:09.120 the Confederate army that's hanging out down in North Carolina, 0:34:09.200 --> 0:34:14.920 then maybe we can do something together. But Philip Sheridan's cavalry, 0:34:15.000 --> 0:34:17.440 one of Grant's subordinates. 0:34:16.920 --> 0:34:17.680 Cuts him off. 0:34:17.760 --> 0:34:21.120 And at that point, this is in April of eighteen 0:34:21.200 --> 0:34:26.120 sixty five, and Robert Eale realizes, hey, that's it. There's 0:34:26.160 --> 0:34:31.080 no use in any more of my men dying for 0:34:31.320 --> 0:34:35.800 what is pretty obviously a lost cause at this point, 0:34:36.800 --> 0:34:40.200 and so on April ninth, eighteen sixty five, he formally 0:34:40.239 --> 0:34:45.040 surrenders to Grant at Appomatics Courthouse, Virginia. 0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:49.480 Appomattox Courthouse was a rural community of about one hundred 0:34:49.480 --> 0:34:53.880 and fifty people, including several slaves. It's an obscure place 0:34:53.960 --> 0:34:58.600 for such a significant moment. An Appomattox Courthouse is the 0:34:58.640 --> 0:35:01.839 full name of the town. It's actually not a courthouse 0:35:02.040 --> 0:35:03.160 in Appomattics. 0:35:03.239 --> 0:35:03.799 It's a town. 0:35:04.239 --> 0:35:07.560 But it's also the location of one of the most 0:35:07.600 --> 0:35:12.840 bizarre coincidences of the Civil War. After the surrender, Grant 0:35:12.880 --> 0:35:16.600 would invite Robert E. Lee to the home of Wilmer 0:35:16.880 --> 0:35:22.400 McLean in Appomattox Courthouse for the official negotiations. Grant didn't 0:35:22.400 --> 0:35:26.040 know MacLean, but they simply found it a suitable house 0:35:26.600 --> 0:35:30.320 and the family had reluctantly agreed to host the event. 0:35:30.680 --> 0:35:33.760 Can you imagine tidying up the house and making snacks 0:35:33.800 --> 0:35:39.360 for Grant and Lee. Ironically, the McLean's owned nine slaves, 0:35:39.360 --> 0:35:42.080 so they probably did most of the work, but their 0:35:42.120 --> 0:35:47.480 servitude wouldn't last much longer. But here's the coincidence. Wilmer 0:35:47.760 --> 0:35:52.399 McLean had lived near Manassas in eighteen sixty one, where 0:35:52.440 --> 0:35:56.160 his home had become one of the first Confederate headquarters. 0:35:56.560 --> 0:35:59.640 In the first major battle of the Civil War. 0:36:00.000 --> 0:36:03.640 Assis or bull Run, and his house took a heavy 0:36:03.760 --> 0:36:07.960 shelling that got pretty much blown up. Afterwards, he moved 0:36:08.000 --> 0:36:11.959 his family one hundred and forty miles south to Appomattox 0:36:12.000 --> 0:36:16.320 Courthouse to get away from the war, which basically would 0:36:16.400 --> 0:36:21.480 start and end at his home in two different places 0:36:21.680 --> 0:36:22.440 one hundred. 0:36:22.160 --> 0:36:23.160 And forty miles apart. 0:36:24.600 --> 0:36:28.560 On that April afternoon, when Grant requested to use their parlor, 0:36:28.960 --> 0:36:32.120 I can imagine McLean's wife saying, they can do this 0:36:32.239 --> 0:36:34.719 surrender here as long as they don't blow. 0:36:34.600 --> 0:36:35.520 Up the house again. 0:36:36.640 --> 0:36:40.680 But what actually happens in miss McLean's living room between 0:36:40.719 --> 0:36:44.920 Grant and Lee is even more interesting. Grant had had 0:36:44.960 --> 0:36:49.160 a severe headache that day that immediately evaporated when he 0:36:49.239 --> 0:36:54.399 got word of Lee's desire to surrender. Mick Pheerson, our 0:36:54.440 --> 0:36:59.359 Civil War author, he describes the meeting of Grant in Lee. 0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:01.440 I wanted to read what he wrote. 0:37:01.840 --> 0:37:06.360 He said, the vanquished commander six feet tall and erecting 0:37:06.480 --> 0:37:11.840 bearing arrived in full dress uniform with sash and jeweled sword. 0:37:12.600 --> 0:37:17.160 The victor, five feet eight with stooped shoulders, appeared in 0:37:17.200 --> 0:37:21.880 his usual private's blouse with mud spattered trousers tucked in 0:37:21.920 --> 0:37:25.920 the muddy boots because his headquarters wagon had fallen behind 0:37:26.000 --> 0:37:29.360 him in the race to cut off the enemy. So 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:33.120 Grant is just in his common battle clothes and Lee 0:37:33.160 --> 0:37:37.600 is in full military dress. Grant expressed some embarrassment about 0:37:37.600 --> 0:37:41.200 his dress, not wanting to offend Lee by his informality, 0:37:41.480 --> 0:37:43.359 but he just didn't have his nice clothes with him. 0:37:43.360 --> 0:37:45.680 They didn't know when this was going to happen. One 0:37:45.719 --> 0:37:48.759 officer would later say that Grant looked like a fly 0:37:49.040 --> 0:37:53.160 on a shoulder of beef. Grant was forty two years old, 0:37:53.320 --> 0:37:55.240 with no gray and his beard. 0:37:56.000 --> 0:37:59.880 Robert E. Lee was fifty eight. Here's Louis. 0:38:00.760 --> 0:38:05.480 There's so many myths about Appomattics, about the meat under 0:38:05.520 --> 0:38:09.960 the apple tree, and but you know, he gets in there, 0:38:10.600 --> 0:38:13.839 he sees Lee and Lee. Lee's all business. He's he's 0:38:14.120 --> 0:38:16.719 been defeated, so he's not trying to chum it up 0:38:16.719 --> 0:38:20.000 with Grant. But Grant is kind of starstruck because he 0:38:20.600 --> 0:38:23.080 admires Lee, and he even says, hey, do you remember 0:38:23.160 --> 0:38:25.840 we met during the Mexican American War, And he's like, 0:38:26.640 --> 0:38:27.000 we're not. 0:38:26.960 --> 0:38:28.960 Here for that. We need to didn't he say, I 0:38:29.320 --> 0:38:31.799 don't really remember that. He didn't remember he had at all. 0:38:32.520 --> 0:38:34.600 Lee didn't want Even if he had, he probably wouldn't 0:38:34.600 --> 0:38:35.120 have said he did. 0:38:35.239 --> 0:38:37.560 Yeah, he probably not want to again. 0:38:38.239 --> 0:38:40.360 Have a laugh for like the low point of Robert E. 0:38:40.480 --> 0:38:43.080 Lee's life whole life, yeah, and the high point probably 0:38:43.120 --> 0:38:43.799 of Grant's life. 0:38:43.800 --> 0:38:44.360 I would say, so. 0:38:44.440 --> 0:38:47.040 Yeah, So it's a little bit different situation for both 0:38:47.040 --> 0:38:50.080 of them. And so that's that's such an interesting moment. 0:38:50.120 --> 0:38:52.560 He's like, hey we met before. I've done that before 0:38:52.600 --> 0:38:54.960 with people like hey I've met you before and they're 0:38:54.960 --> 0:38:58.600 like yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I don't really remember that, 0:38:58.680 --> 0:39:01.399 but yeah right right, kind of like this brush off, 0:39:01.520 --> 0:39:03.080 like you know, like I don't remember you. 0:39:03.160 --> 0:39:05.959 But it is interesting that Grant remembers but Robertie Lee doesn't. 0:39:05.960 --> 0:39:08.719 It shows you the even at the time in the 0:39:08.719 --> 0:39:11.200 Mexican American Ward, ROBERTIY Lee is such a high figure 0:39:11.360 --> 0:39:12.239 in military ranks. 0:39:12.239 --> 0:39:16.160 Even no photographs of that moment, No, there's paintings, no 0:39:16.320 --> 0:39:17.120 cell phone video. 0:39:17.280 --> 0:39:17.719 I didn't have. 0:39:17.680 --> 0:39:21.200 Any cell phones. Been nice, wasn't it. Yeah, And that's 0:39:21.200 --> 0:39:23.080 probably that's part of the reason why there's so many myths. 0:39:23.280 --> 0:39:25.480 It's hard to record that stuff, you know, and so 0:39:25.600 --> 0:39:27.920 all we have is, you know, the terms of surrender 0:39:27.960 --> 0:39:29.480 and the stories. 0:39:29.680 --> 0:39:31.400 Lee actually said to Grant. 0:39:31.960 --> 0:39:34.680 Yes, I know I met you on that occasion, and 0:39:34.760 --> 0:39:37.920 I've often thought of it and tried to recollect how 0:39:37.960 --> 0:39:41.200 you looked, but I have never been able to recall 0:39:41.360 --> 0:39:47.160 a single feature. Lee didn't remember him, but Grant was 0:39:47.239 --> 0:39:54.160 living rent free and Lee's head. So Lee's surrender at 0:39:54.200 --> 0:39:58.880 Appomatox Courthouse is such an interesting moment in US history. 0:39:59.360 --> 0:40:03.080 I want to read from McPherson's book. Here, he says, 0:40:03.160 --> 0:40:07.480 with a heavy heart, Lee decided, quote, there is nothing 0:40:07.600 --> 0:40:10.760 left for me to do but go and see General Grant, 0:40:11.239 --> 0:40:14.480 and I would rather die a thousand deaths, he says. 0:40:15.480 --> 0:40:17.239 I mean, you just get the sense this guy is 0:40:17.400 --> 0:40:20.800 just as wits end, and I mean he's been fighting 0:40:20.880 --> 0:40:25.920 for all these years. But he says the terms were generous. 0:40:26.040 --> 0:40:29.200 Officers and men could go home quote not to be 0:40:29.640 --> 0:40:32.680 disturbed by US authorities, so long as they observed their 0:40:32.719 --> 0:40:36.719 paroles and the laws in force. Where they may reside. 0:40:37.000 --> 0:40:41.160 So this is Grant offering terms to these Confederate men 0:40:40.960 --> 0:40:45.880 and generals. This clause had great significance, serving as a 0:40:45.920 --> 0:40:49.759 model for the subsequent surrender of the Confederate armies. It 0:40:49.800 --> 0:40:55.960 guaranteed Southern soldier's immunity from prosecution for treason. Lee asked 0:40:56.000 --> 0:40:59.759 another favor in the Confederate army. He explained, enlisted men 0:40:59.800 --> 0:41:03.600 in the cavalry and artillery owned their horses. Could they 0:41:03.680 --> 0:41:07.440 keep them? Yes, Grant said, privates as well as officers 0:41:07.440 --> 0:41:10.400 who claimed to own horses could take them home quote 0:41:10.520 --> 0:41:13.040 to put in a crop to carry themselves and their 0:41:13.040 --> 0:41:16.040 families through the next winter. This will have the best 0:41:16.080 --> 0:41:20.040 possible effect upon the men, said Lee, and quote will 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:25.239 do much towards conciliating our people. After signing the papers, 0:41:25.280 --> 0:41:29.800 Grant introduced Lee to his staff as he shook hands 0:41:29.800 --> 0:41:34.799 with Grant's military secretary, Eli Parker, a Seneca Indian. Lee 0:41:34.960 --> 0:41:38.799 stared a moment at Parker's dark features and said, I'm 0:41:38.840 --> 0:41:44.040 glad to see one real American here. Parker responded, We're 0:41:44.120 --> 0:41:50.080 all Americans. I heard someone tell the story and I 0:41:50.120 --> 0:41:53.920 didn't believe it was true. Yeah, it just sounded too 0:41:54.440 --> 0:41:59.760 Hollywood for Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse to see 0:42:00.960 --> 0:42:04.120 an American Indian there and say, oh, this is a 0:42:04.160 --> 0:42:08.040 real American. I didn't think that happened. And then as 0:42:08.040 --> 0:42:10.200 I read it here, I mean, I've got this. I mean, 0:42:10.200 --> 0:42:13.160 this is such a well respected book and author and historian. 0:42:13.840 --> 0:42:15.319 I mean, I assume it's true. 0:42:15.640 --> 0:42:18.200 You think, yeah, if McPherson's got it in there, you 0:42:18.280 --> 0:42:19.000 think it happened. 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:24.600 But here you just see Lee's concerns, which are so practical. 0:42:25.480 --> 0:42:26.960 Can my men keep their horses? 0:42:27.760 --> 0:42:32.680 And then you see, you know, Grant, just how generous 0:42:32.680 --> 0:42:35.360 they were, like we're not going to prosecute you for treason. 0:42:36.000 --> 0:42:37.400 I mean, it's just pretty fascinating. 0:42:37.640 --> 0:42:41.600 Yeah, it is a very unusual surrender scene. 0:42:42.040 --> 0:42:46.879 And then Grant feels bad. He later talks about how 0:42:46.960 --> 0:42:48.680 he felt bad for Robert E. 0:42:48.800 --> 0:42:48.960 Lee. 0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:52.200 This is a quote from the book that combines McPherson's 0:42:52.200 --> 0:42:55.120 words and Grants, but I'll separate it with a quote. 0:42:55.600 --> 0:43:00.400 Having given birth to a reunited nation, he grantperience to 0:43:00.520 --> 0:43:05.680 postpartum melancholy, and he said, quote, I felt sad and 0:43:05.760 --> 0:43:09.440 depressed at the downfall of a foe who had fought 0:43:09.840 --> 0:43:13.200 so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for 0:43:13.280 --> 0:43:17.200 a cause, though that that cause was I believe one 0:43:17.239 --> 0:43:21.560 of the worst for which a people ever fought. That's 0:43:21.600 --> 0:43:23.839 the end of the quote for Grant, and then McPherson 0:43:23.880 --> 0:43:26.680 goes on. As news of the surrenders spread through the 0:43:26.800 --> 0:43:32.200 Union camps, batteries began firing joyful salutes until Grant ordered 0:43:32.239 --> 0:43:35.560 them to stop. Quote he said, the war is over, 0:43:36.160 --> 0:43:39.880 the rebels are our countrymen again, and the best sign 0:43:39.920 --> 0:43:43.479 of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from 0:43:43.560 --> 0:43:49.879 all demonstrations. I mean, after this bloodbath, hundreds of thousands 0:43:49.920 --> 0:43:53.279 of people die, this country is reshaped. It's just this 0:43:53.760 --> 0:43:57.440 nightmare that no one had seen coming. And Grant, this 0:43:57.560 --> 0:44:00.680 man who had brought total war to the Union, this 0:44:00.840 --> 0:44:05.719 ideology of total war, just you see such compassion that 0:44:05.840 --> 0:44:10.640 he has, and you see this humility and strength, and 0:44:11.160 --> 0:44:13.520 he tells his guys not to celebrate. I mean, I 0:44:13.560 --> 0:44:17.480 just think what astounding character that is. And then it 0:44:17.520 --> 0:44:20.960 goes on to say that to help bring those former 0:44:21.080 --> 0:44:24.600 rebels back into the Union, Grant sent three days rations 0:44:24.640 --> 0:44:28.800 for twenty five thousand men across the lines. This perhaps 0:44:28.840 --> 0:44:31.239 did something to ease the psychological as well as the 0:44:31.280 --> 0:44:36.040 physical pain of Lee's soldiers. And you just see the 0:44:36.120 --> 0:44:38.640 at mapthematics, Courthouse and the things that followed. You see 0:44:38.640 --> 0:44:42.920 that these guys kind of become humanized, and Grant just 0:44:43.320 --> 0:44:47.120 stands like head and shoulders above the crowd. I also 0:44:47.160 --> 0:44:48.920 thought it was interesting Robert E. 0:44:49.080 --> 0:44:49.319 Lee. 0:44:49.920 --> 0:44:52.160 One of the things that he asks, as he says, 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:56.280 can my soldiers keep their horses? You just think about 0:44:56.320 --> 0:44:59.680 what was top of mind on his list. I don't 0:44:59.719 --> 0:45:01.960 think would have thought that that would have been as concern, 0:45:02.040 --> 0:45:04.600 but you know, at this he said, these men need 0:45:04.640 --> 0:45:06.640 to go home to their families and be able to plow. 0:45:07.040 --> 0:45:09.960 Yeah, you know, yeah horses and mules. 0:45:10.200 --> 0:45:12.799 And Grant was just like, yes, let your let your 0:45:12.800 --> 0:45:13.800 guys keep their horses. 0:45:13.800 --> 0:45:14.720 That's fine. Yeah. 0:45:14.760 --> 0:45:17.960 It's in that that you see this unique thing like 0:45:18.000 --> 0:45:22.440 if this had been an invading country from Europe, I 0:45:22.440 --> 0:45:25.239 don't think we would have been so sympathetic. But there's 0:45:25.280 --> 0:45:28.480 this real sense of these are our countrymen, they've just 0:45:28.520 --> 0:45:31.800 gone astray. I mean, they were pretty empathetic. 0:45:31.360 --> 0:45:35.399 And I think Grant and Lincoln were more empathetic than 0:45:35.960 --> 0:45:37.400 a lot of their own countrymen. 0:45:37.560 --> 0:45:38.279 Wanted them to be. 0:45:38.840 --> 0:45:41.359 I mean, we know they were, but we know that 0:45:41.440 --> 0:45:45.360 the the radical wing of the Republican Party, you know, 0:45:45.480 --> 0:45:49.320 was not happy with the sort of moderation that Lincoln 0:45:49.360 --> 0:45:52.480 and Grant approached the end of the war. Of course, 0:45:52.600 --> 0:45:58.200 Lincoln wouldn't be around, unfortunately long enough to have any 0:45:58.440 --> 0:46:01.160 bearing on the end of the war. But but he believed, 0:46:01.200 --> 0:46:03.720 and you know, it's it's really tough to put yourself 0:46:03.760 --> 0:46:08.040 in that situation, to spend four years fighting a foe 0:46:08.520 --> 0:46:12.080 and to have you know, tens of thousands of your 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:16.960 countrymen killed by these by these rebels. And that's that's 0:46:17.000 --> 0:46:19.279 what they were. They were. They were rebels, and they 0:46:19.280 --> 0:46:23.360 were officially traders, uh to the to the United States, 0:46:23.440 --> 0:46:27.480 you know, as as difficult as it is for someone 0:46:27.880 --> 0:46:30.799 today in in the South to look back and you know, 0:46:30.880 --> 0:46:33.160 to call them the t word traders, I mean, that's 0:46:33.200 --> 0:46:36.120 that's what they were. That they were. They were rebellious, 0:46:36.160 --> 0:46:39.040 they were traders. And to be able to have the 0:46:39.200 --> 0:46:43.640 magnanimity to realize that the most important thing is we 0:46:43.719 --> 0:46:48.000 need to get this country back in order, and the 0:46:48.200 --> 0:46:51.200 quickest way to do that is to treat these people 0:46:51.239 --> 0:46:54.960 who yesterday we were shooting at and trying to kill 0:46:55.320 --> 0:46:58.759 as fellow humans and as fellow Americans. 0:47:00.080 --> 0:47:03.480 The thing that made the Civil War most unique among 0:47:03.640 --> 0:47:07.240 wars on the battlefield was that it was brothers fighting 0:47:07.280 --> 0:47:10.719 against brothers, and that was also the thing that made 0:47:10.800 --> 0:47:15.600 it unique after the surrender. Brothers were surrendering to brothers. 0:47:16.600 --> 0:47:20.840 I found this interesting. After the surrender, Grant talked about 0:47:20.880 --> 0:47:26.440 his perceptions of Lee at Appomatics. He said, what General 0:47:26.520 --> 0:47:29.880 Lee's feelings were, I do not know. He was a 0:47:29.880 --> 0:47:33.920 man of such dignity with an impassable face. It was 0:47:33.960 --> 0:47:37.759 impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the 0:47:37.920 --> 0:47:41.360 end had finally come, or felt sad over the result. 0:47:41.880 --> 0:47:45.320 It was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, 0:47:45.600 --> 0:47:53.279 they were entirely concealed. From my observation. That's interesting as 0:47:53.320 --> 0:47:55.800 we come to the end of our Civil War series. 0:47:56.080 --> 0:47:59.920 As with anything I research, I'm always looking for whole 0:48:00.440 --> 0:48:03.880 or biases in the way that I think about these things, 0:48:04.560 --> 0:48:06.879 and there is one glaring hole. 0:48:06.800 --> 0:48:09.080 In our Beargree series on the Civil War. 0:48:10.200 --> 0:48:13.960 We've given ample coverage of the Union and Confederate militaries, 0:48:14.080 --> 0:48:19.000 including multiple personalities on both sides in their politics. We've 0:48:19.040 --> 0:48:22.799 talked about what I've learned about my family's involvement in 0:48:22.840 --> 0:48:25.839 the Civil War. I've tried to understand how all these 0:48:25.880 --> 0:48:29.359 people felt, what they thought, what motivated them. 0:48:30.400 --> 0:48:32.920 However, a group that has been left. 0:48:32.640 --> 0:48:37.719 Out, or the actual four million American slaves that were 0:48:37.760 --> 0:48:41.680 emancipated after the war, these people knew what was going 0:48:41.760 --> 0:48:45.520 on this whole time. Words spread through the plantations, They 0:48:45.560 --> 0:48:49.200 overheard conversations. They were active players in this war whose 0:48:49.239 --> 0:48:53.839 lives were most impacted by the results. Hundreds of thousands 0:48:53.840 --> 0:48:54.879 of them fought. 0:48:55.000 --> 0:48:55.800 Many died. 0:48:56.520 --> 0:48:59.280 But it's kind of a blank spot on the map 0:48:59.360 --> 0:49:03.080 in this series. And some of that is my reporting bias, 0:49:03.640 --> 0:49:07.440 but some of it is an information gap. Most enslaved 0:49:07.440 --> 0:49:12.360 people were illiterate, and history seems to forget the illiterate. 0:49:13.280 --> 0:49:16.480 Can you imagine the conversations among these people when they 0:49:16.640 --> 0:49:21.320 heard about appomatics courthouse. Can you imagine what they did 0:49:21.560 --> 0:49:26.280 after the surrender. These people had been on plantations for generations. 0:49:27.000 --> 0:49:30.000 Where do they go? What did they do the next day? 0:49:31.560 --> 0:49:35.960 Making six hour long episodes is like dipping a bucket 0:49:36.040 --> 0:49:39.319 a half dozen times into the ocean of the Civil War. 0:49:39.920 --> 0:49:44.040 So it's partly just a limitation of time in bandwidth, 0:49:44.360 --> 0:49:46.279 and I just wanted to acknowledge that. I hope it 0:49:46.320 --> 0:49:50.600 doesn't come across as some weak virtue signaling, but it's. 0:49:50.440 --> 0:49:52.080 Just something that I've thought about. 0:49:53.560 --> 0:49:57.600 I'd now like to address another question that historians have 0:49:57.719 --> 0:50:00.240 grappled with for one hundred and sixty years. 0:50:01.000 --> 0:50:02.240 Why did the South lose? 0:50:03.280 --> 0:50:08.280 I'd like to read from McPherson's book, Battle Cry of Freedom, 0:50:08.960 --> 0:50:13.920 on page eight hundred and fifty five, he writes, for Southerners, 0:50:14.040 --> 0:50:18.520 this explanation usually took some such form as these words 0:50:18.600 --> 0:50:22.600 of a Virginian. They never whipped to sir unless there 0:50:22.640 --> 0:50:25.680 were four to one. If we had anything like a 0:50:25.680 --> 0:50:28.840 fair chance or less disparity of numbers, we should have 0:50:28.880 --> 0:50:33.279 won our cause and established our independence. The North had 0:50:33.280 --> 0:50:37.359 a potential manpower superiority of more than three to one, 0:50:37.760 --> 0:50:41.319 counting only white men, and Union armed forces had an 0:50:41.400 --> 0:50:45.040 actual superiority of two to one during most of the war. 0:50:45.760 --> 0:50:49.960 In economic resources and logistical capacity, the Northern advantage was 0:50:50.000 --> 0:50:54.440 even greater. Thus, in this explanation, the Confederacy fought against 0:50:54.520 --> 0:50:59.960 overwhelming odds and its defeat was inevitable. But this explanation 0:51:00.400 --> 0:51:05.120 has not satisfied a good many analysts history is replete 0:51:05.160 --> 0:51:08.319 with examples of people who have won or defended their 0:51:08.360 --> 0:51:13.280 independence against greater odds. The Netherlands against the Spain of Philip, 0:51:13.320 --> 0:51:17.920 the Second, Switzerland against the Habsburg Empire, the American Rebels 0:51:17.960 --> 0:51:22.520 of seventeen seventy six against Mighty Britain. North Vietnam against 0:51:22.560 --> 0:51:26.239 the United States of nineteen seventy. Given the advantages of 0:51:26.320 --> 0:51:30.120 fighting on the defensive in its own territory, with interior 0:51:30.239 --> 0:51:33.600 lines in which stellmate would be victory against the foe 0:51:33.719 --> 0:51:37.920 who must invade, conquer, occupy, and destroy, the capacity to 0:51:37.960 --> 0:51:43.359 resist the odds faced by the South were not formidable. Rather, 0:51:43.600 --> 0:51:49.040 as another category of interpretations has it, internal divisions fatally 0:51:49.120 --> 0:51:54.320 weakened the Confederacy. The state rights conflict between certain governors 0:51:54.640 --> 0:51:58.960 and the Richmond government, the disaffection of non slaveholders from 0:51:58.960 --> 0:52:02.880 a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. Libertarian 0:52:02.960 --> 0:52:08.280 opposition to necessary measures such as conscription, the lukewarm commitment 0:52:08.400 --> 0:52:12.480 to the Confederacy by the Quandam Whigs and Unionists. 0:52:12.840 --> 0:52:14.720 The disloyalty of slaves. 0:52:14.360 --> 0:52:16.920 Who defected to the enemy whenever they had a chance, 0:52:17.400 --> 0:52:23.120 growing doubts among slaveholders themselves about the justice of their peculiar. 0:52:22.800 --> 0:52:24.840 Institution and their cause. 0:52:25.880 --> 0:52:30.759 So the Confederacy succumbed to internal rather than external causes. 0:52:31.080 --> 0:52:35.680 According to numerous historians, the South suffered from a weakness 0:52:35.760 --> 0:52:38.760 and morale and a loss of the will to fight. 0:52:39.280 --> 0:52:42.960 The Confederacy did not lack the means to continue to struggle, 0:52:43.320 --> 0:52:52.320 but the will to do so. I've got one final 0:52:52.400 --> 0:52:53.520 question for JD. 0:52:53.640 --> 0:52:53.879 Hewitt. 0:52:55.360 --> 0:52:59.120 At the end of the Civil War, what is the 0:52:59.200 --> 0:53:03.360 net result for the United States of America. 0:53:04.080 --> 0:53:07.520 In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln would say that this nation 0:53:08.120 --> 0:53:13.880 will have undergone a new birth of freedom. So, in 0:53:13.920 --> 0:53:19.120 a sense, in a very painful way, this country is reborn, 0:53:19.880 --> 0:53:27.239 and we finally live up to the claims that we 0:53:27.239 --> 0:53:30.640 make in the Declaration of Independence that all men are 0:53:30.840 --> 0:53:34.040 created equal. That that is going to come at a 0:53:34.120 --> 0:53:38.239 heavy cost, with upwards of seven hundred thousand men who 0:53:38.280 --> 0:53:42.200 are killed or who lose their lives as a result 0:53:42.600 --> 0:53:47.800 of this conflict. It's not the end in any way. 0:53:47.640 --> 0:53:52.080 The end of the Civil War is the beginning of 0:53:52.160 --> 0:53:57.480 a very difficult period in American history that probably doesn't 0:53:57.520 --> 0:54:01.120 get the attention that it deserves. During the Reconstruction era, 0:54:01.960 --> 0:54:07.520 these newly freed slaves are going to enter into a 0:54:07.800 --> 0:54:12.000 very trying time, but are going to be able to 0:54:12.040 --> 0:54:17.279 start building something with this this new promise that is 0:54:17.320 --> 0:54:20.680 now finally being lived up to, and with this new 0:54:20.719 --> 0:54:22.560 birth of freedom that the country experiences. 0:54:22.880 --> 0:54:25.160 What would America be if we hadn't had a civil war? 0:54:25.680 --> 0:54:26.719 Would we be America? 0:54:27.280 --> 0:54:31.200 Would the thing just have eventually split politically? And maybe 0:54:31.200 --> 0:54:32.880 there was a way where they were just like, you 0:54:32.880 --> 0:54:36.239 know what, let's just divide this thing up. Y'all have 0:54:36.719 --> 0:54:39.480 your peculiar institution and we won't. I mean, I don't know, 0:54:39.520 --> 0:54:40.520 what do you ever think about that? 0:54:41.000 --> 0:54:42.279 Yeah? I do. 0:54:42.880 --> 0:54:46.880 I'll have people who will leave comments that, you know, 0:54:48.040 --> 0:54:50.480 we would have been better off, you know, if the 0:54:50.520 --> 0:54:52.560 South would have won. I don't know if you ever 0:54:52.560 --> 0:54:55.080 heard that old Hank Williams Junior song where if the 0:54:55.080 --> 0:54:57.680 South would have won, we'd be okay, and you know. 0:54:58.000 --> 0:55:01.120 It goes yeah, yeah, very familiar, let's catchy song. 0:55:01.600 --> 0:55:04.399 The typical rebuttal that I have to that is it 0:55:04.440 --> 0:55:09.520 never would have lasted because if the Confederacy would have won, 0:55:09.960 --> 0:55:14.000 would have become a separate nation. The thing that is 0:55:14.280 --> 0:55:19.319 baked into the system is going to be secession, and 0:55:19.360 --> 0:55:23.239 that at any point you can leave, and the idea 0:55:23.760 --> 0:55:29.160 that the Confederacy is going to be this utopia now 0:55:29.200 --> 0:55:33.880 that they've separated from the Northern States is just fanciful, 0:55:34.200 --> 0:55:34.600 and I. 0:55:34.520 --> 0:55:37.160 Think it would have continued to fracture. 0:55:37.760 --> 0:55:40.480 Texas would have found some reason to break away and 0:55:40.480 --> 0:55:43.120 then it becomes its own country. The whole thing would 0:55:43.120 --> 0:55:46.200 have just become weaker and weaker and weaker. So even 0:55:46.239 --> 0:55:49.880 though it did come at a heavy cost, I think 0:55:50.239 --> 0:55:54.040 that again, if you look at the trajectory of the 0:55:54.160 --> 0:56:00.360 United States, we've been a better country together what we 0:56:00.400 --> 0:56:02.440 would have been separated. 0:56:13.160 --> 0:56:16.960 I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease 0:56:17.560 --> 0:56:21.000 and for following along on our Bear Grease. 0:56:20.719 --> 0:56:22.360 Civil War Summer. 0:56:22.840 --> 0:56:25.480 If you've enjoyed this series, please share it with a 0:56:25.560 --> 0:56:29.560 friend and leave us a review on Spotify or iTunes. 0:56:30.280 --> 0:56:33.080 And again, we just really thank you for following along. 0:56:33.880 --> 0:56:38.400 But don't get down about the Civil War summer coming 0:56:38.480 --> 0:56:41.719 to an end. I don't know exactly how it's going 0:56:41.800 --> 0:56:45.359 to play out, but I have a feeling that we're 0:56:45.400 --> 0:56:49.040 going to be back with the next chapter in America 0:56:50.200 --> 0:56:54.719 because it's not over yet. Thanks for listening to Bear 0:56:54.800 --> 0:56:57.800 Grease and for listening to Brince this country life and 0:56:57.960 --> 0:57:04.319 Lake's backwoods diversity means the world to us. Keep the 0:57:04.400 --> 0:57:07.279 wild places wild because that's where the bears live.