Programmers. ,. A historian he has worked as a historian for the National Park service and Fredericksburg NationalMilitary Park. My eyes decided to water at an awkward moment. [laughter] sorry, chris. [laughter] he is also a historian for at National Park service Fredericksburg NationalMilitary Park where he gives stores at major battlefield. Major battlefields. Chris has authored or coauthored a dozen books on the civil war and his articles have appeared in all the major civil war magazines. He serves on the board of directors for the virginia trust. Welcomingn me in Chris Mackowski. [applause] im going to move through here. Thank you, sarah. [laughter] in november of 1879, mark twain was asked to give a speech at the reunion of the army in honor of ulysses as grant. A was the 15th speaker on long list of people offering accolades. He called it the perilous distinction. He said he was the last speaker on the list, and honor no person has ever sought. [laughter] you are going to see something rare, a Chris Mackowski powerpoint presentation. I know. The reason i am doing it is so i have an excuse to show edwards map. Map. Com, the battle of mine run has been understudied. Nothing happened. I will make up a bunch of stop stuff. When edward made this map that doubled the amount of cartography done on this battle. For a long time, the only thing available was in the official atlas of the armies. You can see sketchy bits. This is why i dont do powerpoint. You can see the lines. In the margin, i have written, echoes of fredericksburg. Mentorgo, my friend and had given a tour of mine run. He is the first person to introduce mine run to me. I got to go around on the battlefield and learn about it. As we talked, this notion of echoes of fredericksburg came up. I will use that for our lens for talking about mine run. The battle takes place in the end of november, 1863, echoes a lot of what happened at fredericksburg almost a year earlier. Strong, at oneso point in 1863, George Gordon meade wants to shift his axis of advance to the east to fredericksburg because of the logistics available to the army in that area. Lincoln said no. Because of the loss at fredericksburg in 1962, that loss was so devastating and so lopsided, lincoln said the country could not stand on other loss at fredericksburg. To let so, he refuted his army to go near the place. That is going to limit insignificant ways what meade is a allowed to do. 1863,look at the fall of we will be looking back to 1861. Try a gordon meade will flanking maneuver. Throughout the fall of 1960 1863, he has been combating on the alexandria railroad. Starting up at the station, they moved down this direction. Armys expecting the union to continue on that access. Lee will set up his defense on the river. He is looking to intercept meades movement. What meade wants to do its break away from this. To go to the east of fredericksburg. But lincoln says no. Instead, he is going to try to find a way around the army here. If you recall, in fredericksburg, Ambrose Burnside is faced with a decision. Should he go after Robert E Lees army, which retreated down to the Shenandoah Valley . Instead, he does a flanking move , to the east of fredericksburg, where is that he is hoping to get around the confederates. Meade is going to try the same thing at mine run. He wants to get around the confederates. Burnside hadse problems, sodas meade. Burnside doesll, get around robert e me and get you fredericksburg. Something no one else has been able to do up to this point. He gets to the banks of the river and he knew he did it to get across the river and he called ahead for pontoons and nobody at headquarters thought that was important. It takes a wild for the pontoons to arrive and burnside has to wait before he is able to get across. Similar problems. He is trying to get across the river. He knows he has to get across, he has a barge army that has to get across. He splits them into three wings. Before the start of the campaign, there is a downpour delays the start of the campaign. It turns the roads to mud. Its mostly rivers. Delays the start of the it swells the rivers. Thanksgiving day, and to instead of settling into dinners , the sorters are told to get up and start marching. They headed to the banks of the river. They have the pontoons ready to go. They get them into place. Those swollen rivers from the storms had widened and deepened, leading the army one pontoons short at two of its three crossings. Engineers would have to try to shuffle together a makeshift trust to allow that to happen. If we take a look at the map, they will cross over here. And over here. Map, lose our room as a culpepper is out of the wooden doors. As the army crosses into the chapel and comes forward, they will come on the orange turnpike, which will head into the city of orange. They will come along orange park road, which lines to the tables and comes out here. He will send a portion of his army through the back hallway into the restrooms to come this way. [laughter] chris if you think the restrooms have been busy up to now, just wait until you have a portion of the army there. , that is wheress they find things to be significantly problematic. Ironically, that wink of the army crossing at culpepper is led by george seitz. He got his nickname in west point because he was known to be late for everything. He happens to be the one guy on time for this whole movement. He gets across the river and nobody else can get across. Up, youlls sykes, hold are isolated on the south bank of the river. It confederates attacked, we cant support you. So sykes has to cool his heels. He has the first Court Following him. It are able to advance a couple miles away from the river, enough for the army to get across and camp out. Coming down the middle road is the second core, under command of gouverneur k boren. Hancocks court. He is recovering from his wound. Is rewarded with temporary command. He is a rising star in the army. There are rumors going about it that it meade needs to be replaced, warren is the guy. Get his mento across after building the fossil trussle. The next column is henry prince. He does not having a good time. He gets to the bank so late because he is late getting out of camp. He decides he will do a reconnaissance, it takes him an hour. I guess this is the board after all. He gets his men across. He is starting down the hallway, he decides to take a turn and discovers he is deep within the bowels of the enemy. Sounds like a proctologists nightmare. He will have to double back three miles to get himself back on a road. This will lead into the next echo of fredericksburg. Subordinates not understanding their orders. Prince is late starting. He gets bungled at the river. He get lost at the side of the river. Then, things only get worse. The commander of the third corps is a guy named french. Men said the his more he drank, the more he liked. Blanked. The more he this date, he was well pickled. Rather than have someone other than prince taken the lead, he will leave prince and the lead. Lets see what other problems we can get into. If we think about fredericksburg, at the south end of the field of the slaughter pen farm, William Franklin is supposed to launch an attack across those fields using his orp. E c prince misunderstands his order and will only send a single division. That will make the entire plan unraveled. Meade will find himself in this again because prince is going to misunderstand his orders just as franklin had the year before. If we take a look at what prince is supposed to do, he is supposed to come down here and get to this intersection. Who is supposed to take this road that takes them to a place called locust grove. They are supposed to meet at a tavern. You never hear history people beating at a tavern. The army is supposed to concentrate at locust grove. If we are looking at our room, locust grove is right here. Sykes is supposed to wind up here. Warren is supposed to come straight up. Concentrating at locust grove, pushing forward to orange to get in Robert E Lees way. But, when you get to the intersection, henry prince stops. Which is remarkable. He was under explicit orders to take the left road when he gets to the intersection. Instead, he stops and says, i better scout out these roads to see which one i should take. [laughter] chris it takes two hours. He is going to send calvary detachments down both roads. Ironically, the cavalry detachment that goes down the road he is supposed to take get captured. If he marched down with his infantry, he would have swept away the confederate cavalry. Instead, he waits for a couple hours. French, showing exceptional leadership, rights forward and makes his cap 300 yards behind prince. Instead of writing up to prince, they sent couriers back and forth over a 300 yard distance. [laughter] chris that is why this will last for two hours. Goingfrench decides, i am to let prince figure this out. Prince is like, i dont know which road i have been told to take. Instead of continuing, he will be there. Finally, he will decide, why dont i take the road i am not supposed to take. The reason he does is because the scout descent down in this direction one into what he thinks are confederate cavalry scouts. Skirmishersy are from atwood allegheny johnsons division marching down a road towards locust grove. Meade said, dont take that road because you might run into confederates, which is what happened. Prince, being on beta this happened, decides to develop the situation. We can see, prince is up here. He start sending men down here, bumping into the confederates. The confederates think the federals are dismounted federal cavalry. We have confederate thinking the federals are dismounted cavalry, the federals think the confederates are dismounted cavalry. Had prince just followed his orders, none of this would have happened. Startd, hes going to sending two brigades forward to continue to develop the situation. On, the sounding of guns can be heard off to the left. 27th,ust grove, on the warren has made his way to thest grove, waiting for first and fifth core and waiting for the third and sixth, concentrating here. As he gets to the spot, confederate again to upload from the opposite direction. Men ate lee has had clarks mountain. He has seen all of this happening. The delay getting across the river has given the chance he needs to respond. Meade has lost his element of surprise. Because warren gets to the spot first, he is able to command the topography, a rage on the front row, and deploys his men and repulse the confederates. He is not confident enough to take the fight to the confederates. He is waiting for sykes and waiting for french. We find out what happens to sites. Advancing,vising confederate cavalry delays him. He pushes forward. As he does, more confederate info tree starts to come up to stop him. Here is a forecast of the war. Along this road is a b hills third corps, leading the way is henry. Henry steve led the way in the third corps into a small town and gettysburg a few months earlier. To bring a not general engagement. How did that work out . Here, lee says dont bring a general engagement. This partmself was on of the battlefield and he will see what is going on. He will tell keith, pitch in. Infantry comes up at lee says, hold on. Lets let this develop. He pulls back and sykes comes to an area called new hope church. They settle in. , under johnps and steve is back there in morning. Lets take a moment of silence. John newton is in charge of the first. He will slide into the area between sykes and warren, feeling this area. Becomes, whereon is french . Here, getting into trouble. He was not supposed to get into, he was ordered to avoid. He could have gone around. What makes this worse, because of those roads, french has corpsnecked the sixth behind him. We have a third of the army out of commission because of what is taking place. The confederates, moving down this road, start to get embroiled in this fight that has been happening at this intersection. Johnson is ready to swing in on whartons flank. Prince, bumping into johnson, causes johnson to stop, and johnson turns around and heads back to pitch in to the threat at his rear. This becomes important because johnson, commanding a single division, has 5300 men. Between the third and sixth corps, that are 32,000 federals. Johnson decides, i will pitch in. Lets take it to them. Happens overwhat the course of these next few hours ties down a significant portion of the army, which tied meades hands because he does not want to advance on either front without having his right flank protected. Back andn pulls decides he is going to do a double and eloping maneuver. He is going to attack with a portion of his division this way and apportion it this way. A portion this way. He will protect your flank. We have some federals coming in here. As the double envelope in inpens, the confederates, disorganized attacks. The guys are attacking in front of steve have less distance to cover them the guys out on the and on the end. The confederates pitch in in uncoordinated fashion. Findsonewall brigade himself in the middle of a field with no support and they shoot up and fall back and the commander stonewall grabs the tog and flies out, trying rally his troops, realized nobody has followed him, turns around. There is brutal fighting that happens. Buckets flying through the air. Some of the veterans involved had been at gettysburg and they say this battle was every bit as intense as the battle in gettysburg. Vicious stop across the field. Yetuse there is not support , stafford shows up and he does not have support on his right. Up and around, he will get shot in the head, he will survive, he will get killed in the following spring. All these discombobulated attacks prevent the confederates from getting out there and taking it to the federals. It doesnt really matter. Upt johnson has done is tied 32,000 men. Odds. Are six to one johnson is swinging. As a result, that prevents warren from assaulting, it prevents sykes from assaulting, and meade find his entire element of surprise gone. Imagine meade, who has a calm, cool demeanor, one of the month temper and men temperate men, the exasperated he felt. He has a great plan. He had the jump on robert e lee. Through no fault of his own, his subordinates have not been able to execute. We have mentioned division versus the corps. Jones division versus tauren wells corporate we have some of those same confederate men in johnsons division taking on not one but two federal corps. Every time i talk about echoes, im sure my friend who writes this series on our blog, im sure he goes, i am teaching him something. After nightfall comes across, johnson is able to extricate himself and get across mine run. Mine run is a mile to the layer of the intersection we have been talking about. The guy in charge of this section of the Confederate Forces decides he will fall back. All they confederates pullback. Meade morning of the 28, feels ready to advance. He has his line connected, finally connected. He pushes forward to find no confederates. He pushes forward a little more. He finally gets within sight of the stream and they see on the defensives formidable position the confederates have taken. They have fallen back and started digging in. We think about the formidable confederate position at fredericksburg. The way down to a high point of the field at prospect hill. We all know the story of fredericksburg and the union army trying to throw itself against the sunken road at stonewall. Still a strong memory in the minds as they see the confederate works. Nobody is excited about what is going to happen next. Making things even worse, at one spot along the road, the road passes the stream, there is a rose mill. Confederates dam up the stream and it backs up a huge flooded plane. A red sea. Says, streamels dammed the and we damned it too. They talked about seeing miles of cleared high ground facing them. Every artillery piece pointed right at them. Oh boy. So meade has got to figure out what to do next. He comes to an interlude that has nothing to do with leverage. Should i assault that . I dont think so. But he calls to his corps commanders and asks them, are there favorable conditions for an assault anywhere on the line . Nobody has anything positive to , until governor warren comes to him. The wunderkind of the army. Rather than assaulting straight across, why dont i take a portion of the army, we will backtrack, and cut across country and swing back over here toward new hope church, and we will get even further beyond the confederate right flank and we will put ourselves into position to assault their flank . Options. Has no other and so he tells warren to go ahead and make preparations for this maneuver. And he trusts warren pretty implicitly. Well atl, warren did gettysburg. I am a writing teacher, i should know that. [laughter] chris he did well at gettysburg. He has done well so far. He has meades ear and trust. Other corps commanders, including blinky frenc are a littleh apoplectic. What do you got for me . Oh, nothing. [laughter] chris so boren is going to warren is going to take more than half the army on this march. As he pulls out of his line, they fill in the spot. He will head out in that direction. He will take elements of the third corps with him. It will take him so long to get into position that nightfall is going to come. Nobody really wants to attack at night. This is the evening of the 29th. As he gets into position after making his march, he is going to camp out in this area over here. One of the popular stories around a forgotten at all that has no popular stories, but there is one, this is one of them. Warren told his men to build as many campfires as possible. Make us look like we are a huge host knocking at the door of the Confederate Army. Lets try to intimidate them overnight. Warren does not do that. That becomes one of the most popular i misconceptions. Those men probably wished they had fires. As happened at fredericksburg a year before, there will be bitter cold. At fredericksburg when the men are making that assault, temperatures rise into the 40s, but drops below freezing as the men are trapped on the battlefield. Here at mine run, temperatures drop below zero. Men have water in their canteens freeze solid. Picketticket duty on duty freeze to death because they are out there isolated and not allowed to move around and they do not have these fires. It becomes bitter cold. Calls for an attack starting at 8 00. Guns are going to open up. Sedgwick is going to the end of the line, try to keep lee distracted, and warren is going to come swinging in. After that, sedgwick is the poster go in. Is supposed to go in. Has the opportunity to see the confederate line. He suddenly has grave misgivings. Overnight weres not intimidated by the federal force that had appeared on their right flank. In everylee sends single reserve he can to extend and fortify his position another mile to the right. And they spent all night going in and they spent all night digging in. To this point in the war come up they had not seen to this seen the war, they had not extensive field fortifications. As far as Stationary Army digging in, the federals really had not had to face that too much. These materialize overnight. So he is an engineer, looking at these confederate ssitions with an engineereds eye. I dont think i want to charge across that field. He estimates it will take his men eight minutes to cross the distance, during which time they will be in the open under the exposed fire of artillery, and if they get closer, under the exposed fire of infantry. And not only that, but anyone who is injured will be lying on this field in the freezing cold. The chances of men surviving injuries because of that whether ours because of that weathera are slim. He does not want to send his men across the field. 8 00 comes in the signal comes. Do not. Everyone gets tense. Soldiers in the ranks write their names on pieces of paper and pin them to their uniforms in one of the first recorded instances of that happening. They know the grim prospects they face across that field. Sends word back to meade that he is not going to attack. Calm, verygain, very coolly, has his head explode. [laughter] chris he says, what . That man has half my army and he gets on his horse and rides with his staff out here to resume the attack. As soon he gets there, he and warren have a conference, and meade looks at that confederate position and realizes that warren is right. The confederate position looks impregnable. And so he as commander of the to hold off to hold off. They pass william blinking french, who says, where is your wonder kid now . [laughter] chris and meade says, i dont want to hear it. He calls off the attack. Cedric was supposed to go forward. His men had started to go forward. A courier comes writing in comes riding in. It is meades own son. Key sends his own son to call off the attack and they are fame and they are finally able to stop it. The men at recognizing the fact they are about to march into the teeth of death. There is a huge sigh of relief, and they hunkered down. The two armies will stare at each other for the rest of the day, taking pop shots and artillery shots across the open distance between them. Meade will try to find some other opportunity that might allow him to still salvage this campaign. I want you to think about this for a moment. Put yourself in meades shoes. Gettysburgctory at that was secondguessed almost from the minute it was over. Enemies,litical including dan fickles, abner doubleday, all in washington talking smack on him. They are investigating him. Thanked him and joe hooker for the victory. He has got all of that going on. He has not been able to score the knockout punch everybody wants him to score. Butas done ok at bristow, not the knockout blow. So he has not done anything wrong, but he hasnt really done anything right. Does that make sense . Army leavesore the its camps for this campaign, word comes from chattanooga that grant has driven the Confederate Army away. At last, things are happening. Need something to happen out here, too, dont wait . And they havent, have they . If you consider all that on meades shoulders as he looked across this field ready to launch that assault and he calls that off, knowing the great personal and political peril it will put him in. But he does not want to sacrifice his army, and he has got to somehow try to salvage this. And he cant. And so he will cut the orders to begin to withdraw. Hethe evening of the 30th, will tell his men, build bonfires, make it look like you are there, so they can slip away under disguise. Robert ely has been hunkered down behind his robert e lee has been hunkered behind his forces waiting for the army to attack, and they dont. And lee finally loses his patients. He will send an attack against the federal left, but the federals are gone. He realizes he has lost an opportunity, and will send his entire army flooding across the river trying to catch up to the federals, who quickly slip away back toward culpeper. And the mine run campaign is over. Not a lot happened there, did it . About as meade gets back to his headquarters, he writes a letter to his wife. I want to read just a portion of this to you. He is not trying to show off to the press, he is not trying to impress anyone in washington. He is telling his wife, his partner, the person he trusts the most. He says, i expect your wishes will now soon be gratified and i shall be relieved from the army of the potomac. He basically tells her what happened. He says, the plan was a good one, but due to the failures of others, it failed. And the the next paragraph made me respect meade. Listen to what he says here. I am fully aware it will be said i did wrong in deciding this question by reasoning, and that i ought to have tried, and then a failure would have been evidence of my good judgment. But i trust i have too much reputation as a general to be obliged to encounter certain defeat in order to prove that victory was not possible. Political considerations will enter largely into the decision, and the failure of the army of the potomac to do anything at this moment will be considered of vital consequence. And if i can be held responsible for this failure, i will be removed to prove that i am. I therefore consider my fate as settled. It i have told you before, would rather be dismissed and suffer anything than to ofwingly have thousands brave men slaughtered for nothing. Meade puts the lives of his men ahead of himself. In commander puts his army front of himself. In march of 1864, Ulysses S Grant look up to the army of the potomac as the commander of all union forces. Meets george meade for the first time, meade will immediately offer his resignation, saying, i am sure you will want to put one of your own men in charge of this army rather than me. And grant decided on the spot that he would keep meade in command. Grant said that meades offer to resign impressed him more even than meades victory at gettysburg. That is the kind of man meade was. I look at this decision on the banks of mine run as being meade s greatest moments. The moral courage it took to say saidtack, when everything save the lives of his men over his own reputation and career. And this is something that will earn meade the undying affection and loyalty of the army of the potomac. And he will have his critics back in d. C. Dismiss him and say he is a failure and he should have done this and that and his men to a man say, we all would have been slaughtered had we been sent across those fields. This man saved our lives and did not waste them for nothing. We have to think about fredericksburg for a moment, men assaulting stone wall and wave after wave after wave. He was completely impotent to do anything about the lives of his men. We see a much different echo here. We are going to see some previous of this Campaign Take place here. We should look forward to the next campaign. Haveurnpike here, and we hill and heath here on the plank defensive warfare. Lee chooses to be on the defensive at mine run. He will not have that choice at the next campaign as his Army Continues to suffer the effects of attrition. He will be forced to take the defensive rather than just choosing. Warren, he decides to disobey orders. It turns out to be the right decision. But warren always thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. We will see that in the overlying campaign the overland campaign. In those instances, he will not always be right. Again thegrant, relationship and the personal integrity of these men. There is plenty to see at mine run, even though they have forgotten the battlefield. You have to know where to look, but there are extensive earthworks out there. There is a fantastic preservation opportunity waiting to happen. Almost the entire confederate line is still in existence out there, and they are incredible earthworks even today. You can stand in them. If you look at sarah by the bar, that is what it is like standing in the works. The works are still that high. It is incredible stuff to say. This is the map that edward made for me at makemeamap. Com. Llc. [laughter] chris you can see how much the confederate lines are still in existence. Incredible stuff. It looks like a big pile. It is an incredible thing. Even though this campaign tends to be forgotten, it is still written on the landscape out there. We can still learn something important as a result. And by looking backward and forward, we can see just how pivotal this moment in time was. Nothing happens, and yet everything is at stake. The example that this man sets for us in personal leadership. One Union Soldier said of mine perhaps other streams had been reddened with human blood. But the attack never took place. The charge was not made, the battle was not fought, and mine run as a great battle has no place in history. Thank you. [applause] we have time for a few questions. Tell us your name and where you are from. From williamsburg, virginia. Ive got two questions, but they should be easy to answer. Chris yes and purple. [laughter] you gave so much credit to meade and i didnt hear any to warren. The second question is looking at your map, did you really mean that at the end of this aborted effort that he went back to culpeper behind where lee was . Chris lee is back toward orange. Meade goes back to culpeper. The men go back to the camps they had left a few days earlier. I give less credit to warren for two reasons. A habitause warren has of secondguessing everybody, so there is a bit who chicken who cried the sky is falling to warren. And meade is the buck stops here guy. He could have ordered warren forward. Warren even said, i will not go forward unless ordered to do so. Meade could have said go, and he didnt. Jim from frederick. Was adericksburg, there major artillery concentration and preparation on the union side. What kind of artillery moves did meade or warren try to do at mine run . Chris one reason that meade is delayed to come to the confederate right is he is trying to find a path to get Field Artillery out there. It is pretty rough terrain, not a direct road, so that will delay a portion of his advanced. That plays into that delay. Along the original lines that warren set up, he has got the ridge, a place to deploy some artillery. But for the most part, this is still the edge of the wilderness so there are not a lot of places to deploy artillery. Way tolains he has no even deploy his infantry, let alone his artillery. One more question so we can move on to our raffle. Gene, winstonsalem. I am curious if you showed that map of the existing entrenchments, i thought those were on privately held lands. Those of us interested in preservation, you dont want to get the landowners in it. Chris that is why i said preservation opportunity. The works do exist. They are on private land. Many landowners do not realize they have works. As i have been out there mapping these works, i have knocked on peoples doors. Can we look at the earthworks . I dont have any earthworks. You do, let me show you. Ill be darned. They dont even know what they have in their own backyards. That is one of the reasons why a lot of these works have escaped because people dont know what they have. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer learn more about the people and events that shaped the civil war and reconstruction every saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern only on American History tv here on cspan3. U. S. Army air corps veterans recall their experiences as Fighter Pilots in the european theater during world war ii. Speakers include one case fighter pilot, as well as two