Transcripts For CSPAN3 The 20240703

Generals and i am glenn panelists took ill go ahead and introduce our panelists for you and you have longer biographies of these people in your packets. But i thought id go ahead and introduce people anyway. And to my immediate right is. Ken. No. He is the drawn of southern history at auburn here received his doctorate. Doctorate from, the university of illinois. American civil war. He is currently writing about the idea and the realities of Abraham Lincoln as a commander in chief to his right Harold Holzer who all of you im sure know already and he has authored or all this and more last night, so only add that he serves today as the Jonathan Fenton director of the roosevelt how Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute and new Yorks Hunter College and next we have craig already been intrd to you, but for those who may have missed the program he was on. Hes a professor history emeritus. Weve got a lot of old guys. Except for except for andy down at the. Who is the future of history. But let me let me ahead anyway. Craig is professor of history at emeritus at the United States Naval Academy. A lot of emeritus high. Thats what we got where he taught for 30 years and served as Department Chair from. 2017 to 2020. He was the ernest king professor of maritime history at the u. S. Naval war college in newport, rhode island, rhode island being where i born and raised. He is the author of 17 books, the most recent of which is nimitz at war. He has been awarded the lincoln prize the roosevelt prize, the morrison prize, and brandeis prize, as well as the dudley knox medal for Lifetime Achievement and the Pritzker Military museum and library for Lifetime Achievement in military writing. And last but not least, the youngster andy lang is associate professor of history at, Mississippi State university, which, of course, as you all know, is the home of the Ulysses Grant president ial library and museum. He is the author of a contest of civilizations expose in the crisis of american exceptional wisdom in the civil war era, which was named finalist for the Gilder Lehrman lincoln prize. His book, in the wake of war military occupation. Emancipate nation and civil war america received the society of civil war historians Tom Watson Brown book award. He is now writing an intellectual cultural biography of nationalism and a study of Ulysses Grant as lincolns protege. Andy, i assume youre not going to have any problems finding grant documents on on campus. So were gathered here to discuss lincoln, his generals and i thought id just open things up with a with few remarks and try to get this debate going when. It comes to lincoln. Theres plenty argue about and historians have been doing so ever since april. It comes to lincoln, theres plenty to argue about, and historians have been doing so ever since april well, even before april 1865 because historians were arguing during the civil war itself over lincoln and his presidency. There are plenty of topics to discuss. Taking a look at lincolns relationships with his generals has been a perennial favorite among scholars and other writers because theres so much to say and so much to argue about. One question seems to loom above all others, and that is lincolns relationship with Major General george b. Mcclellan in the early part of the civil war. Historians never tire about talking about mcclellan and deriding him for his poor generalship of both the army of the potomac and for the time that he was general and chief of all the union armies. Poor mcclellan has been bashed around a lot. I dont know if any of us up here will take his side as we go along in this debate. I certainly wont, so [ laughter ] mcclellan was a superior general who simply could not find a way to feel prepared enough to meet the enemy. He consistently and constantly complained that he was outnumbered by Confederate Forces under Joseph Johnston and later robert e. Lee, and all of this was delusional, or as we say today based on bad intelligence. So mcclellan certainly is at the center, at the core, really, of lincoln, especially in the way that lincoln dealt with him up until the autumn of 1862 when he finally lincoln finally fired mcclellan. But, gosh, it took a long time to reach that point. But during that time, i think lincoln was learning quite a bit about being a commander in chief and about his armies and also about war which despite having served briefly in the black hawk war in illinois and wisconsin in the early 1830s, lincoln didnt really have a firsthand knowledge of war, and he was very much like most americans, north and south, who otherwise may have known about or experienced the Mexican American war. But in lincolns case, he was like everybody else, that this war suddenly came along and produced casualties in numbers that were staggering for the American Public and for lincoln who lamented how many soldiers were falling on battlefields. Well, thats probably enough of me, and otherwise i will moderate this panel or this debate and look forward to hearing what other folks have to say. I think well start with harold holtzer, and im going to pose to him the question of whether he thinks lincoln interfered enough with his generals because im not going to argue that lincoln did not interfere with his generals. But harold can correct me if he thinks im wrong. So im going to turn over some first remarks from harold holtzer. Thank you, glenn. Thank you for setting the stage and the scene. So i like this question because its kind of the three bears analysis, was lincoln too hot, too cold or just right . And im going to argue, and im going to try to confine myself to the first year and a half of the war. But we have plenty of time to talk about the entire war. Im going to argue that he was more than just right, that he was actually pretty remarkable. And i say this in acknowledgment of all the limited experience he had but also in recognition of the fact that there really wasnt much of a precedent for him to follow when you think about it. I mean, George Washington marched off to confront a rebellion and potentially to lead an army and was condemned for it by the democrats in washington, criminally, actually, because he left washington during a congressional session. James madison ran off and abandoned washington when the british neared. Lincoln didnt do either. I mean, he said that he wanted to go into the fields at one foolish moment of bravado, but he didnt, nor did he abandon nor did he abandon washington. So in a way, lincoln was all about symbolism as a commander in chief. Again, a totally unprecedented situation with secession and rebellion. And i would look to something he said very early in the war before bull run. He said that the federal government should be committed to teaching the followy of being the beginners of a war. That was a pretty tough stand to take. He left no doubt at the beginning that the rebellion would be suppressed and the union would be preserved. And he really never abandoned that position in the wake of disastrous battlefield defeats, the rotation of commanders that glenn alluded to. But i think at the beginning he did pretty well. He read what he could. Craig simons talked a bit about his early reading, what he Department Read and what he did read. He read henry halick who later became his general in chief. He didnt always follow halick, but neither did halick, so i think he did fairly well. He listened to Winfield Scott and his last great strategic recommendation which was the anaconda plan which is brilliant when you think of it, as much as mcclellan disparaged scott as an old fossil who had seen better days. Scotts initiative which lincoln embraced, as unlikely as it sounds im going to leave naval stuff to craig i think is a pretty remarkable commander in chief decision. But first of all and i would add that lincoln is the first well, not counting the revolution, hes a commander in chief who is pursuing public backing and military success in an atmosphere in which the press is active in nearly every seat of battle. Thats intense scrutiny. Think of the coverage of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, the media access was completely controlled. Lincoln did what a commander in chief is supposed to do. He set policy, and he communicated policy. And as a master communicator, i think he communicated it effectively to the public. Maybe not to his subordinates. I would add im going to push back at our host, peter carmichael, for something he said yesterday evening. And i know i have to reframe it for the cspan audience, he pushed back a little bit on my defense of lincolns press censorship. And most of the the most familiar press censorship story is 1864 when two newspapers published a proclamation that alluded to lincolns desire to raise hundreds of thousands of troops. Lincoln ordered, personally ordered the closing of both newspapers. But i want to point to july 1861, a leadership decision that he asked generals and the state department and the post Office Department and the interior department to follow, and that is with bull run lost and 90 and 100day volunteers going home, what lincoln needed to do as commander in chief was raise troops really quickly, ideally for three years. And newspapers that pushed back and urged troops not to reenlist were the ones that lincoln closed down in new york city, in boston, in providence. I threw that in for you, glenn, rhode island. Thank you. In new england. And i think it was an interesting command decision and a justifiable one. But let me go back to i said i was going to limit to the beginning of the war. And, again, craig simons alluded to this yesterday evening. How do you draw from what we heard was the deep bench of the Union Military command or potential command . Lincoln made what many have condemned as a foolhardy and highly political decision to enlist both democratic officers and immigrant officers. My feeling is that both of those moves were not only very wise but perhaps union saving in many ways. He had to make sure that the fight against rebellion and se session was not perceived exclusively as a republican war. And so recruiting people like Benjamin Butler and john mcclernon and George Mcclellan, i whisper the name, was crucial to unite the north against the south. As for the ethics side of things, lincoln knew that two great populations existed in the north that could be recruited to fight in the ranks, the germanamericans and the irishamericans. And so he went after them and encouraged their participation. Harold, im going to interrupt you here and turn to craig im sorry, ken noe whos writing a book on lincoln as commander in chief and just get some of his opinions as theyve been expressed already up here. Okay. Thanks, glenn. First of all, being on a panel with my fellow panelists is one of the most frightening things ive ever participated in. People know a lot more about lincoln than i do. Ive been working on this project fairly steadily but only in the last couple of years. But it grows out of work that ive done previously on the Perryville Campaign and certainly my book on civil war weather. And im going to disagree a little bit with harold which is probably the scariest thing ive ever done in my career. Feel free. Because i think he did interfere sometimes, perhaps when he shouldnt have. And i think that he probably did not interfere at times when a firmer hand might have been welcome. T. Harry williams wrote before i was born that the First Manassas Campaign was essentially theorized and planned by Abraham Lincoln. It did not go particularly well. After first bull run, lincoln developed what i think was a fairly consistent military vision that he hued to until the end of the war, protect washington, fight the Confederate Army in virginia, somewhere between washington and richmond because he didnt want to deal with the richmond entrenchments. By the end of 1861, he certainly talking about what we come to think of as concentration in time, using the greater resources and numbers of the federal army in the west and on the seas. Hes also developing his own operational plans, notably the aca quan plan of 1861 when hes developing his own theoretical idea of how to defeat the confederates at manassas. And hes often trying to talk to his generals about not just winning the war but winning the war in that manner. So was George Mcclellan difficult to deal with . Absolutely. But in some ways i think it becomes a bad marriage on both sides. Certainly if we look at what the president did in 1862 during the gun boat crisis, during that period when he essentially restructures the army of the potomac over mcclellans head, creating corps, giving command to corps of those people who opposed the Peninsula Campaign, yeah, i think there is a certain degree of interference there. Now, we can ask ourselves whether that was positive or negative, but i think lincoln comes to see himself pretty early as having a good grasp behalf is necessary to win the war. And when his generals disagree with him, he pushes back somewhat, not to the point where he gives positive orders, do what i want, but theres always that tension, and we see that tension not just with mcclellan, but we see it with burnside, we see it with hooker, and although we tend to gloss over it, i think we see it with grant as well. So, there. Well, youve conveniently provided a segueway by mentioning grant. And, andy, i wonder about some of your thoughts because youre working on a book project that involves lincoln and grant. Yeah. Thank you, glenn. And most important, i should say that this is a distinct privilege to be sitting on a panel with historians who ive long had the great esteem for, and their books have been really formative in shaping my own thinking. So this is a lot of fun for me. Ill start by saying the question was about grant, so im going to immediately pivot to mcclellan. [ laughter ] but ill get back to grant because i have a lot to say about grant, all of it good. It seems to me that when we understand grant and lincolns relationship, we also have to understand lincoln and mcclellans relationship insofar as lincoln understood that this particular kind of war, a political war, a peoples contest, as he called it, had to have core responding military means to achieve the political end. Those military means, mek clelon, i would argue, simply did not understand. Grant understood the particular military means by which to secure the particular political ends of this war. What do i mean . In his memoirs, grant said most famously, up until the battle of shiloh, as well as thousands of other citizens believed that the rebellion against the government would collapse suddenly and soon if a decisive victory could be gained over any of its armies. Lets put a pin in that. Thats mcclellans philosophy right there. But he continued, grant did. I gave up all idea of saving the union except by complete conquest. Thats in my mind what lincoln understood from the earliest moments of this war, some kind of complete conquest. Now, does that mean devastation, destruction, violation of the laws of war . Absolutely not. Quite the opposite. What it means is ripping out the heart of the confederacy, its very claim to its existence, the foundation on which it is built, and that foundation ultimately, however you get there, that foundation ultimately is some form of emancipation. Yes, the United States did not go to war to free enslaved people initially. That becomes a formal policy later. But we also see lincoln quietly, privately experimenting with these thoughts as early as the late spring of 1861, Benjamin Butlers contraband policy on the virginia peninsula, lincoln signing the first confi scaition act into law in december of 1861, these are gestures toward what grant would later recognize as complete conquest. And the two, the two minds, grant and lincoln, become entirely linked on this basis. I think that grant and lincoln also worked well together because they are not drawn from the elite arift crattic lineages that lincoln came from. Lincoln and grant understood each other as rough home midwesterners whose rise in the world was due only to their strength, their character, their virtue, their honesty, their integrity and having the entire deck stacked against them. I think they both saw in each other that hard work and tenacity is what allows a free citizen to rise in a free republic. And so think about how grant rose through the ranks, simply by shear will, determination and ultimately success. This is what allows for promotion, again, in a free society. And ill conclude with this. When we read grants farewell address to the United States soldiers in june of 1865, we can hear grant channeling, whether we could hear it or not, we can hear him channeling a new birth of freedom about which lincoln spoke on november 19th, 1863 just down the street. Grant said to the soldiers in the United States army, you have maintained the supremacy of the union and the constitution, overthrown all opposition to the enforcement of the law and the proclamations forever abolishing slavery, the cause and the pretext of the rebellion. The very fact that grant linked union, emancipation and most importantly peace, thats rooted in what Abraham Lincoln meant by a new birth of freedom. And, craig, your bringing up the rear yeah, thats my role. I notice im the only one up here without a microphone, so i stole andys. I hope thats okay. I want to go back and pick up on something harold started with which i think we need to keep in mind all along and that is the lack of any precedent for the circumstances that lincoln confronted in 1861. I mean, the United States had been engaged in previous wars, 1812, the war against mexico and so on. You can count the seminole war in florida, but nothing of this character. And there was an attitude then, and, quite frankly, i still encounter now that the responsibilities of the head of government and the head of the military, that theres a bright sharp line between the two, that the government somehow makes a decision that that is the enemy and must defeat them, turns to the military and says, you go do that, as if there were no interconnection between the two. And that is simply not the way conflicts work. Wed like to think that. The course that i taught at the Naval War College that i actually initiated back in the 1970s and then taught again fairly recently is called strategy and policy. And they have to go together. I like the way andy pointed to the fact that grant picked up on the idea that theres a connection, an absolute interlocking between the goals of the war and the way the war is fought. So the fact theres no precedent for this conflict, lincoln would have preferred, i believe and harold will correct me on this if im wrong beuse he knows more about lincoln than anybody living. But i think lincoln wanted to say heres the objective, general scott. Can you go do this for us . Well, no, general scott couldnt really do that . Whos the best guy you got . George mcclellan, hes the best guy we got. Okay, mcclellan, can you do this for me . Mcclellan cant do anything until its clever. Ive got more men, and here i come. No, no. Thats not clever enough for the likes of me. Mcclellan couldnt do it either. How about burnside, how about hooker . Of course we get to grant. Grant figures this out. So one of the things to keep in mind is that lincoln, whether he became too involved or less involved or got the bowl of porridge that was just right, lincoln merged toward that position over a course of time. I think in a perfect world, lincoln would have said we need to hold the union together, im going to make a hard policy to have that happen, general, execute. And he learned in the very early, in 1861 and then continuously throughout the war that these things are inextricably linked and so its policy working together. And the fact theres no precedent for that meant that lincoln had to figure it out as he went along. And he did. He absolutely did, better than as t. Harry williams famously said, better than any of his generals. I have written a book about lincoln and his relationship with his navy leaders, lincoln and the admirals. And you see it there really clearly. Lincoln would have liked to say, look, i know little about ships. I dont know, you know, pointy end front, is this the way this works . Im not really sure. You guys do this for me. But he learned that, well, no, the army for example in the western theater, when the army said we dont have were not taking responsibility for the ships. And the navy said, well, thats in the western theater. Our rent stops at the high tide mark. So who is going to coordinate the navies in the western theater . Abraham lincoln did it, not because he wanted to do it, but because the unprecedented circumstances he faced compelled him to do it, and thank god we had Abraham Lincoln in a position to do that. Im going to add my own thoughts to this. And while i would generally praise lincoln for his role as commander in chief and certainly his awareness of the importance of rivers in the west which should have made him like Winfield Scotts anaconda plan for whatever faults it had, it ended up being exactly the strategy that won the war. And thats Something Else that grant realized, that these rivers in the west were important and had to be secured and had to be opened so that there was no confederate interference. So while i give lincoln a great deal of credit, i fall into the school of thought that he probably interfered too much with his generals and against the grain of thought among most historians i think he actually interfered with grant, though grant in his memoirs claimed that upon their first meeting, lincoln and grant, lincoln gave him Carte Blanche to do whatever he wanted. I do not believe that lincoln gave grant Carte Blanche. I think thats something that was sort of an elaboratation made by grant as he wrote his memoirs. But in any event, i do agree with most of the panelists here which is making this a very sorry debate. [ laughter ] and that makes things a little hard. One thing ill emphasize, and i cant remember who said this from my notes, but grant learning craig, i guess you said this. Grants learning that complete conquest was necessary to win the war is a key in all of this, and lincolns acceptance of grant, particularly after vicksburg, when lincoln writes a letter to his general, ulysses s. Grant and says you know what . You were right about vicksburg, and i was wrong, when do we ever hear of a president saying that to one of his generals . I just think thats an exqisity moment in the relationship between lincoln and grant. Other thoughts, gentlemen . May i respond to a few . Sure. A few comments that have been made . Im not sure i agree 100 that lincoln should be credited or blamed as the author of the bull run campaign. I think he well, he certainly bought into the one battle and wipe it out theory. One of the people he was compelled to listen to on that was who ace greeley of the tribune. I must have god on my side, but i must have kentucky, but he also needed to have horace greeley. And greeley led the newspaper for days and weeks, on to richmond, on to richmond. And so i think lincoln faced a great deal of political pressure and press pressure which we sometimes overlook to march on richmond. Or toward richmond. Military means to secure political ends, i absolutely agree, and i hate to be a person who defends George Mcclellan about anything, but the political ends were a little bit different in mcclellan one than they were in mcclellan two. In mcclellan one, he still felt, rightly because he wasnt privy to all the private hints and confiscation act, maybe, but the goal at that moment as far as mcclellan could rationally infer was to restore the country to the status quo antebellum before the proclamation was released. I take lincoln at his word, by the way, in terms of the hugeness of the war. I take him at his word what he said in the second inaugural that all knew that a war would come, no one knew of the duration or the consequence. And i dont think he could foresee casualties, devastation and duration as we can looking back at the events we know took place from 61 to 65. By the way, grant, of course, is one of his great recruits, he was kind of a democrat. I mean, grant says in his memoirs, i didnt vote in 1860, but if i had voted, i would have voted for stephen douglas. So there you go, hes embracing this wide array of staff people. Can i say a brief remark about mcclellan that harold made me think of . Im not sympathetic to George Mcclellan, and im not about to start defending him. But i think thats why we also have the word empathy, right . Im emthettic toward mcclellan and becoming increasingly so recently. When we think of mcclellan, we immediately think of the mcclellan of 1861 and 1862. Well, he wasnt born in 1861 and 62. He lived a life prior to that, right . And in 1855, he was part of a u. S. Military delegation that traveled to the crimea where he i think was very deeply profoundly shaped by the war that he witnessed. He had witnessed the siege of sebastapol and writes these heart wrenching letters to his wife talking about the deslation, the death, the destruction on both sides. And when you compare his letters from 1855 to his letters in the immediate wake of the Peninsula Campaign, they sound almost identical. And i think what mcclellan is trying to do is figure out what modern mid19th century wars of nationals that were all about. These are very bloody, destructive, perhaps even revolutionary affairs, and as a west pointtrained general, he can only know based on what his educational experience was, maybe this a war that is new, that i was not taught about. And hes not unique in that regard, right . Lincoln has to teach his generals about wars now being fought as a peoples contest. Thats not taught at west point, right . So i think that a degree of understanding from where mcclellan is coming is warranted to understand both he and lincoln. Glenn, may i ask some points . Sure. I really want to bounce off your comments about grant, but ill respond to andy first. I never thought i would say this, especially in public, but i think i have become a bit sympathetic to mcclellan, at least at times. Last night on the stage, i talked about how viewing the civil war environmentally, through a weather standpoint had changed my view of the war. And one of the things i think i learned in my research was how physically difficult it was to move a massive army up the virginia peninsula in all of that rain and that red mud in 1862. It was not a question of will, it was a question of logistics and reality. It was a hard thing to do. And im not sure that president lincoln or many others understood the difficulty that was involved in that operation. I think for the president , it absolutely was a question of will. The wonderful environmental historian mark has written what lincoln embodied called a whig mentality. Its a mid19thcentury mentality of progress. Its a mentality that says man can conquer nature. And i think the president consistently expected mcclellan, later grant, to conquer nature, as well as the confederates. I think it was a difficult task. So, yeah, i am a bit sympathetic to mcclellan now which is something that gets me in trouble every time i give a talk on howling storm because folks want to challenge me on that which is great. I just want to say excuse me, glenn. The shadow of t. Harry williams just hangs like an incubus over this whole conversation. T. Harry williams in 1954 set up the parameters of the Lincoln Mcclellan conversation, and mcclellan is just absolutely horrifying in that book. I assigned it to my students at the Naval Academy. They loved to hate mcclellan. [ laughter ] its easy to do. I mean, west point education. Need i say more . [ laughter ] but its important to get beyond that a little bit. Remember, this is the decade in which the rifle, muss ket and the mini ball come to the first battlefield use. Mcclellan is smart enough to figure that out. He knows, yes, i have more guys, yes, i could go straight ahead like the full back going through the line, but thats not the clever way to do things. But there are two clever ways. One is to use a tactical end run which is the kind of thing Stonewall Jackson did to chancellorsville. The other is to do the strategic end run which is going all out into the chesapeake bay, landing on the virginia peninsula and coming up between new york and the james rivers. Its the same idea, avoiding the frontal charge of the light brigade kind of confrontation, and its not dumb. Its not wrong. But it is logistically difficult, move 100,000 men by sea down the chesapeake bay. Amphibious operations are the sing the most difficult thing to undertake in war still. And he was undertaking this on a scale never before attempted. The 10,000 men that went down to mexico to vera cruz in 1846 to begin the Mexico Campaign was unprecedented. This is 10 times larger than that. So its a difficult thing. And what mcclellan wanted to do was use his brains, use his cleverness to avoid the casualties that would inevitably result from a formal frontal assault, and for his wanting to do that, we should admire him. But there are other problems with mcclellan. Craig, youre absolutely right about t. Harry williams. I was in baton rouge last week going through the t. Harry williams papers because im really interested in this idea of lincoln as our greatest commander in chief and mcclellan as a complete idiot. And i think its sort of it finally gels with harry williams. I think he gets it from previous historians. A couple other points ill just throw in really quickly. Glenn was talking about grants assertion in the memoirs that he received Carte Blanche from lincoln. He does say that. And then he says almost immediately in the next paragraph the president pulled out a map and showed me an operation, and he said you can take it or leave it, but i think this would be very useful to you. And grant sort of pohpoos it in the memoirs and says the president didnt see all the problems, he would have gotten his army destroyed had we actually done that. So immediately after that, i trust you, its your army, go do what you want, oh, by the way, have you considered this . So and i think there are moments like that throughout the grant lincoln relationship, although most certainly becomes a close friendship, a very good relationship, they worked together. The other point i would raise about grant and i think it keys wonderfully into something that craig just said, when grant becomes or is about to become general in chief, the writing is on the wall early in 1864. Theres an interesting correspondence that takes place between henry halick and grant. Halick had, of course, dismissed grant early in the war, but now its apparent that mcclellan is about to become halicks boss. So he was writing him about strategy, lets talk about operational strategy. What would you do . And theres a point where halick says i really invite your ideas. What would you do to win the war in virginia . Grants response essentially is mcclellans Peninsula Campaign on steroids. Because what grant proposed was taking the army to the potomac and landing it not at fort monroe but at suffolk, virginia, and then marching it inland through north carolina, cutting off railroads and supplies into richmond. Thats what grant really wanted to do. And halick wrote him back and said that will not fly. It flies in the face of military doctrine, it uncovers washington, and the president will never allow it. And that by that time grant becomes general in chief. And only then after that notion has been rejected does grant develop the overland campaign, that straight ahead washington to richmond plan which fit perfectly into the president s view of warfare. Joe harsh said years ago that part of r. E. Lees brilliance was learning how to manage jefferson davis. I think part of grants genius is learning how to manage the expectations and the needs of Abraham Lincoln. So i think we make a i think we make somewhat of a mistake to limit the discussion to mcclellan and grant when we assess lincoln as commander in chief, not that i disagree with what you just said. But since were kind of running out of time already, i do want to throw in a bit about lincoln, the communicator and lincoln the policy maker. And were all dancing around the transformation in the war that takes place on january 1, 1863. But lincolns greatest act as a commander in chief, his boldest act for all of the modern complaints that it was delayed and limited and inelegant and pro sayic is the emancipation proclamation issued not out of the bosom of philanthropy as the New York Times put it, but as commander in chief of the army and navy as a war measure. And i dont think lincoln wrote that only because he didnt have the civil powers to issue an executive order because he was always nervous about the legality of the order and the possibility that it might be challenged in the federal courts later. I think it was his greatest move as commander in chief, to not only go at the souths greatest human asset but also to bring a new body of warriors into the war. And i always point out when i talk about the proclamation that in a way theres one part of it thats the most schizophrenic thing that lincoln ever wrote because he says i urge and i dont know who advised him to write this or whether it came out of his own head, he advises the enslaved population not to be violent, and then the very next sentence, he says i urge the former enslaved to enlist in the army and kill everyone they can find. But i just need to i needed to throw emancipation into this story. Its bigger almost well, he probably is bigger than the relationship with any individual commanders. Can i jump in here for a second . Sure. I think there are a couple of things that lincoln does have as overarching views of the way the war needs to be fought. One of them you mentioned quite clearly which is keep the army in between the enemy army and washington d. C. Weve got to cover the capital. We lose the capital internationally, catastrophic. But also he appreciated that the enemy army was hat the heart of rebellion. Capturing richmond wont end the rebowlion, capturing the army will end the rebellion. And he emphasizes with all of his generals that that is the objective. The famous one, of course, is with hooker where hooker says, hey, lee is going north, i can go get richmond. No, no, no. Thats not the objective. Heres army, not richmond is your true objective. I think thats a direct quote. But the other thing is this concentration in time that jim fearson really developed and is useful to keep in mind, dont attack the enemy army, just that army. Attack several places at the same time which will compel the enemy either to concentrate at one and let the others go or spread out his army and lose piecemeal all the way down. Lincoln sees this early on. And his generals dont until grant comes up with the plan after the suffolk plan is deep sixed by saying that, you know, were going to have sherman go this way, im going to go this way, and the Red River Campaign and butler, all lose at the same time. And lincoln writes him and says i begin to see it, those not skinning kind of hold the leg. Well, thats generous of lincoln to give grant credit for that because hed been saying that since 1862. So one of the characteristics of the relationship between lincoln and his generals is his letting them think, oh, how clever you are to come up with that, general. [ laughter [ applause ] thank you. I want to disagree. I disagree. But if lincoln is so clever, but you just said that he had the power to orchestrate his armies, then why didnt he use it . I mean, on the one hand, you say, oh, wait, he found it at grant, but he had that authority before. If that was his vision, then he had a responsibility to bring that kind of coordination amongst his own commanders. Well talk, peter. Whats that . Well talk. Well talk, okay. I couldnt help myself. Well, one of lincolns problems was he couldnt give a direct order, and that was a lesson that he didnt learn for too long a time during the civil war. So thats my answer to you, peter. Yeah. Lets open it up to some questions. I know were running late. But questions nonetheless. Standing here in gettysburg, i have to ask and note that the conversation didnt really include anything about mead, and i think some of what dr. Noe said is relevant as far as lincolns not understanding the challenges with the weather. But why does mead get overlooked so much . Thats my question i dont know if he gets overlooked. Lincoln overlooked criticism when he wrote the famous letter to mead saying that you drive the enemy from our soil, its all our soil, im so dispiented, we could have won this war, but then showing his ability as a commander in chief, as a leader in the long term, he, of course, writes on the bottom, never signed, never sent, something we should all do with email when were angry. Put it in the reserve or whatever you call it, the draft file, dont send it. Wait 24 hours. Thats part of his genius. So thats my favorite command story with mead. I mean, mead, he only knew mead for a few minutes before gettysburg. Ill give full credit to jen murray on this. She wrote a fabulous essay in a book that i coedited which helped me really understand meads command decision in the wake of gettysburg, and the bottom line is lincoln completely misunderstood the limits with which mead had to work. I mean, he had an army that was very battered and very bloodied, and the idea that mead can just gal vant across southern pennsylvania, maryland and virginia and follow up on this kind of bloodletting with such ease, i think really reveals a misunderstanding at that moment and also compliments meads great understanding of the moment. And think about it. I mean, major campaigns are not going to resume in the Virginia Theater for, what, another nine months . 10 months . Yeah. I cant do math. I do history instead. Let me follow up on that briefly, again, regarding mead. Its interesting that the criticism, the most pointed criticism comes with the july the 12th when he didnt prevent lee from getting across the river when it was rain swollen, and he didnt have a pontoon bridge yet, and he let him sit there for 24, 36 hours and then escape. But keep in mind, one of the things mead did whos been in command for five days was called together all of his corps commanders and asked them what should we do . And they voted not to do it. Now, he could have said im overruling you, im going to do this. But thats one of the things that both mead, and for that matter, lincoln had to deal with. You cant just say, you know, i put maps on the screens with my students, theres a little blue box here and a red box here, and they say why didnt he do this . Sometimes there are things that inhibit your ability to just do that. And one of them is having five of your corps commanders say, no, im against doing that. So we should keep that in mind in forgiving mead a little bit. In fact, those corps commanders told mead that the fortifications lee had built on the potomac were worse than fredricksburg. And if im commanding the army of the potomac, the last thing im going to do is launch another fredricksburg. Lets have another question. A comment. Avoid like to thank you for sharing your insight and your thoughtful comments. It was very enlightening. As a west pointer and a pennsylvaniaon, i will say that i regret to share those traits with mcclellan. As it was pointed out, i also regret that the Naval Academy wasnt founded sooner so that mcclellan could have gone there. [ applause ] well, the Naval Academy graduated its first class on this date in history, so but speaking about unprecedented things that lincoln had to deal with as commander in chief, he also had the ability to deal with his commanders all over the map as no president before him had had, like polk might have wanted to interfere with Winfield Scott a lot because he couldnt stand him in mexico. But he didnt have the Communications Technology and all to do that. Could you just comment very briefly about that ability of lincoln to have that instant quote unquote communication with his commanders . Not only using the telegraph to widen the net of his observation and ability to redirect people, but also the proximity of the war. I mean, he goes to the peninsula, he goes to an teet um, he antietum, he sees his troops and generals often in the field. Its very hard to do at vera cruz. Youre absolutely right. Proximity and Technology Make lincolns interference more likely and more consequential. I cant resist telling this story, and that is that in the late 19th century when a telegraph line was finally laid from continental United States to hawaii to asia, the commander of the asian squadron was horrified by this because, of course, prior to that, the commander of a squadron on distant station patrol was virtually sovereign. And now he said its nothing but an errand boy at the end of a telegraph wire. Thats going to have to do it, folks. Thank you very much. [ applause ] American History tv saturdays on cspan 2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. 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