Transcripts For CSPAN3 The 20240703

Welcome to this session, which is a debate we think on the topic of lincoln and his generals and i am Glenn Lafantasie from Professor Emeritus from Western Kentucky University wrti and Bowling Green and we have with us this morning a distinguished panel i, i regret to say that one of our we have pa with us this morning a distinguished panel. I regret to say that one of our panelists took ill. Lori and foot will not be joining us this morning, but she is at home recuperating with many regrets that she cannot be here. But let me go ahead and introduce our panelists. And you have longer biographies of these people in your packets. But i thought i would go ahead and introduce people anyway. To my immediate right is cadan no. He is the professor of southern history at or burn university. He received his doctorate from the university of illinois. His most recent book is the howling storm weather, climate, and the american civil war. He is currently writing about the reality of Abraham Lincoln as a commander in chief. To his right is harold holzer. All of you, i am sure, no already that he has offered or coauthored and edited 55 books on lincoln and the civil war. He has advised or appeared on half a dozen tv documentaries, as well as advising first steel bergs lincoln. You earned all of this and more. I will only add that he serves today as the jonathan phantom director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at new york college. And, next, we have craig simons, who has already been introduced to you. But for those who maybe missed the program that he was on, he is a professor of history emeritus. Except for andy down at the end. He is the future of history. Let me go ahead, anyway. Craig is professor of history emeritus at the United States academy. That is what we have got. He taught for 30 years and served as the Department Chair from 2017 to 2020. He was the ernest j. King professor of history at the u. S. Naval war college. Newport, rhode island. Rhode island, being where i was born and raised. He was the author of 17 books, the most recent of which was emmett at war. He has been issued at the lincoln prize, the roosevelt prize, the morrison prize, and the baroness price, as well as the deadly knox medal for Lifetime Achievement and the Pritzker Military museum and Library Award for Lifetime Achievement in military writing. And last but not least, the youngster, and dealing presided museum. He is the author of a andy lang is the chief professor of history at the ulysses s. Grants president ial library museum. He has written exposing the crisis of american exceptionalism in the civil war era, which was named a finalist for the lincoln prize. His first book, in the wake of war, the military occupation, and civil war america received the society of civil war historians Tom Watson Brown book award. He is now writing an intellectual and cultural biography of lincolns nationalism, and a study of Ulysses S Grant as lincolns protigi. And i assume you will not have any problems finding grant documents on campus. So we are gathered here to discuss lincoln and his generals, and i thought i would just open things up with a few remarks. And try to get this debate going. When it comes to lincoln, there is plenty to argue about. And historians have been doing so ever since 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 amongst scholars and other writers because there is 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 Mcclellan in the early part of the civil war. Historians never tire about talking about mcclellan and the writing him for his poor generalship of both the army of the potomac and from the time that he was general and chief of all the union armies. Poor mcclellan has been bashed around a lot. I do not know if any of us up here will take his side as we go along in this debate. I certainly wont. Mcclellan was a superior general who simply could not find a way to feel prepared enough to beat 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 and chief and about his armies, and also about war. Which despite having served briefly in the black hawk war in illinois and wisconsin, again, in the early 1830s, lincoln did not really have a firsthand knowledge of war. And he was very much like north americans in the north and south. Otherwise, they may have known about or experienced the mexicanamerican 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. He lamented how many soldiers were falling on battlefields. Well, that is probably enough of me. And, otherwise, i will moderate this panel over this debate. I look forward to hearing what other folks have to say. I think we will start with harold holzer. And i am going to post to him the question of whether he thinks lincoln interfered enough with his generals, because i am not going to argue that lincoln did not interfere with his generals, but harold can correct me if he thinks i am wrong. So i am going to turn over some first remarks from harold. Thank you, glenn. Thank you for setting the stage and the scene. I like this question because it is kind of the three bears analysis. Too hot, too cold, or just right. And i am going to argue i will try to confine myself to the first year and a half of the war because we have plenty of time to talk about the entire war. I am 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 was not 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 by it for the democrats in washington, criminally, actually, because he left washington during the congressional session. James madison ran off and abandoned washington when the british neared. Lincoln did not do either. He said that he wanted to go into the field at one foolish moment of provider but he did not. Nor did he abandon nor did he abandon washington. So in a way, lincoln was all about symbolism as a commander in chief. Again, totally unprecedented situation with secession and rebellion. And i would love to something he said very early in the war, before bull run. He said that the federal government should be committed to teaching the folly 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. I think at the beginning, he did pretty well. He read what he could. Craig simons talked about his early readings. What he did read and what he did not read. He read henry hallock who later became his general and chief. He did not always follow hallock, but neither did hallock. So i think it came out fairly well. He listened to Winfield Scott and his last, great strategic recommendation with the anaconda plan which was pretty brilliant, 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, i think is a pretty remarkable commander in chief decision. But, first of all, i would add that lincoln is the first well, not counting the revolution, he is a commander in chief in the atmosphere in which the press is active in nearly every feat of battle. That is 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 the policy. And as a master communicator, i think he communicated it effectively to the public. Maybe not to his subordinates. I would add, i am going to push back at our host Peter Carmichael for something he said last evening. I know i have to reframe it for the cspan audience. Heap pushed back on my defense of lincolns press censorship. The most familiars from 1864 12 newspapers published a proclamation that alluded to lincolns desire to raise hundreds of thousands of troops. Lincoln ordered personally ordered the closing of both. But i want to point to july of 1861. A leadership decision that he asked generals and the departments and the interior department to follow. And that is, with bull run lost and 90 and 100 day 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 re enlist were the ones that lincoln closed down in new york city. In boston. In providence. I threw that in for you, glenn. Thank you. In new england. And i think it was an interesting command decision and a justifiable one. But let me go back. Lets go back to the beginning of the war. Again, craig simons alluded to this yesterday evening. How many of you draw from what we heard of that deep bench of the Union Military 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 unionsaving in many ways. He had to make sure that the fight against rebellion and secession was not received exclusively as a republican war. So recruiting people like Benjamin Butler and George Mcclellan was crucial to unite the north against the south. As for the ethnic side of things, lincoln knew that two great populations in the north. Be recruited to fight in the ranks. The germanamericans and the irish americans. So he went after them and encouraged their participation. Harold, i am going to interrupt you here and turn to ken no who is writing a book on lincoln as commander and chief. I just want to get some of his opinions as they have 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 i have ever participated in. You guys know a lot more about lincoln than i do. I have been working on this project fairly steadily but only in the last couple of years. But in terms of work i have done recently, like my book on the civil war rather, i will disagree with harold holzer, which is perhaps the scariest thing i have done in my career. I think he did interfere sometimes when he should not have and did not it sometimes when a firmer hand might have been welcomed. Terry williams wrote before i was born that the First Manassas Campaign was basically theorized and planned by Abraham Lincoln. He did not do it clearly well. After the first bull run, lincoln developed what i think was a fairly consistent military vision that he held to until the end of the war. Protect washington. Fight the Confederate Army in virginia. Somewhere between washington and richmond, because he did not want to deal with the richmond entrenchments. By the end of 1861, he was certainly talking about what we have come to think of as concentration in time, using the greater resources and numbers of the federal army west. He is also developing his own operational plans. Notably the plan of 1861, when he is developing his own theoretical ideas on how to defeat the confederates at manassas. And he is 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, we look at what the president did in 1862 during the gunboat process. Then during that period, when he essentially restructures the army of the potomac, creating core, giving court to those who opposed the campaign, yeah. I think that 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 craft of what is necessary to win the war, and when his generals disagree with him he pushes back somewhat. Not to the point where he gives orders to do what i want, but there is always that tension. And we see that tension not just with mcclellan , but we see it with burnside and hawker. We tend to see it around. So, there. Well, you have conveniently added a segway by mentioning grant and, andy, i wonder about some of your thoughts, because you are working on a book project that involves lincoln and grant. Yeah, thank you, glenn. Most importantly i should say this is a distinct privilege to be sitting on a panel with historians who i have long had the greatest team for, and their books have been very formative in shaping my own thinking so this is a lot of fun for me. I will start by saying, the questions about grant, so i will immediately pivot to mcclellan. But i will 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 an lincolns relationship, we also have to understand lincoln and mcclellans relationship. Lincoln understood that this kind of war, a political war and peoples contest, as he called it, had to have corresponding military means to achieve the political end. Those military means for mcclellan, he did not understand. Grant simply under store the means by which to secure it for political ends. What do i mean . In his memoirs, grants that most famously up until the battle of shiloh, thousands of other citizens believe that the rebellion against the government would collapse decisively and soon if a victory could be gained over any of its armies. That is mcclellans philosophy right there. But he continues, granted. I gave up all ideas of saving the union except by complete conquest. Some kind of complete conquest. Now, does that mean devastation, destruction, violation of the laws of war . Absolutely not. It is absolutely the opposite. What it means is ripping out the heart of the confederacy. The foundation in which it is built. And that foundation, ultimately, however you get there, is some form of emancipation. Yes. The United States did not go to war to free and enslaved people initially. That becomes a policy later. But we did see lincoln privately experimenting with these thoughts in the late spring of 1861. Benjamin butlers contraband policy on the peninsula. Lincoln signing the first confiscation act into law of december of 1861. These are gestures towards what grant would later recognize as complete conquest. And the two mines, grant and linking, become entirely linked on this basis. I think that grant and lincoln also worked well together because they are not drawn from the elite, aristocratic lineages that mcclellan come from. Grant and lincoln understood each other as midwesterners whose ride in the world was due only to their strength, their character, their virtue, their honesty, their integrity, and having the entire decks stacked against them, i think they both sought 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 sheer will, determination, and ultimately success. This is what allows for promotion, again, and a free society. And i will conclude with us. When we read grants farewell address to the United States soldiers in june of 1865, we can hear grant. Whether he knew it or not, we could hear him channeling the meaning of a new birth of freedom about which lincoln spoke in 1863 just down the street. Grant said to the soldiers in the United States army, you have maintained supremacy of the union and 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 a meditation and most importantly peace, that is rooted in what Abraham Lincoln met by no the birth ticeof freedom. And, craig, you are bringing up the rear hair. Yeah. That is my role. I notice i am the only one up here without a microphone so i stole andys. I need to go back to something that harold started 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. The revolution. Were 1812. But nothing of this character. There was an attitude then and that quite frankly i still encounter now that the responsibilities of the head of government and the head of the military, that there is a bright sharp line between the two. That the government somehow makes the decision that is the enemy and must defeat them and 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 that conflicts work. We would like to think that. The course i taught at the Naval War College that i actually initiated back in the 1970s and taught again fairly recently is called strategy and policy. And they have to go together. I like the way that andy pointed to the fact that grant picked up on the idea that there is a connection. And absolute interlocking between the goals of the war and the way that the war is fought. The fact that there is no precedent for this conflict, lincoln would have preferred, i believe, harold, correct me on this if i am wrong because he knows more about lincoln than everybody living but i think lincoln wanted to say, here is the objective. General scott, can you go do this for us. No. General scott cannot really go do that. Who is the best guy you have got . This young fellow, general George Mcclellan. Mcclellan, can you do this for me . No. Mcclellan cannot do anything unless it was clever. It cannot be i have got more men. That is not clever enough for me. How about burnside . How about hocker . Of course we get to grant. Grant figures this out. Lincoln, whether he became too involved are less involved or got a bowl of porridge that was just right, lincoln merged towards that position over a course of time. I think in a perfect world, he would have said we need to hold a union together. I am going to make a hard policy. General, execute. And he learned in the process very early in 1861 that these things are inextricably linked. And so it is strategy and policy working together. And the fact that there is no precedent for that meant that lincoln had to figure it out as he went along. And he did. He absolutely did 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 very clearly. Lincoln would have liked to say, i know a little about ships. Pointing at the front. Is that the way this works . Im not sure. You guys do this for me. But he learned about the army in the western theater when the army said, we do not have the ship. We are not taking responsibility for the ships. The navy said, that is in the western theater. Our rent stops and the high tide mark. Who was going to coordinate the navys and the western theater . Abraham lincoln did it. Not because he wanted to do it, but because the circumstances compelled him to do it, and thank god we had a man like lincoln in a position to do that. Well, i am going to add some of 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 Scott anaconda plan for whatever faults it had. It ended up being exactly the strategy that won the war. And that is Something Else that grant realized. These rivers in the west, they were important. And they had to be secured. And they had to be opened so that there was no confederate interference. So while i give lincoln a great deal of credit, i have fallen into the school of thought that he probably interfere too much with his generals. And against the grain of thought among most historians, i think he actually interfered with grant, although grant in his memoirs claimed upon their first meeting , lincoln and grant, lincoln gave him a launch to do whatever he wanted. To not think that he gave him a launch to do whatever he wanted. That was an elaboration by grant as he made his memoirs. But, in any event, i do agree with most of the panelists here, which is making this a very sorry debate. And that makes things a little hard. One thing i will emphasize, and i cannot remember who said this from my notes, but grants learning craig, i think 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 that is an exquisite moment in the relationship between lincoln and grant. Other thoughts, gentlemen . May i respond to a few comments that have been made . Sure. I am not sure i agree 100 that lincoln should be credited or blamed as the author of the bull run campaign. I think while he certainly bought into the one battle and let it out in theory, one of the people he was compelled to listen to on that was the editor of the new york tribune. I know lincoln more famously said i would like to have god on my side, but i must have kentucky, but he also needed to have horace gielly. He led the newspaper for days and weeks. Onto richmond. So i think lincoln takes a great deal of political pressure and press pressure, which sometimes we overlook, to march on richmond, or towards richmond. Military means to secure political ends. I absolutely agree. I hate to be a person who defends George Mcclellan about anything, but that political ends were a little different in mcclellan 1 then they were in mcclellan 2. He thought he was not attributable to all the hints and the confiscation, maybe. But the goal of that moment as far as mcclellan could congressionally affirm was to guard the status quo 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 with what he said. We all knew that a war would come. No one knew the duration or the consequence. And i do not think he could foresee casualties, devastation, and duration as we can booking back at the events we know took place from 61 65. By the way, grant is one of his great recruits. He is kind of a democrat. He says in his memoirs i did not vote in 1860, but if i did vote i would have voted for douglas. Can i state a brief remark about how mcclellan harold made me think of it. I am not sympathetic to mcclellan or about to start defending him but that is why we have the word empathy. I am empathetic of mcclellan. When we think of mcclellan, we immediately think of the mcclellan of 1861 and 1862. He was not born in 1861 and 62. He lived a life before that. He was part of a military delegation that traveled to crimea where he was very deeply profoundly shaped by the war that he witnessed. He had witnessed a siege and writes these heartwrenching letters to his wife talking about the desolation, 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. I think what mcclellan is trying to do is figure out what modern mid 19th century wars of nationalism were all about. They were destructive, bloody, and perhaps even revolutionary affairs. He only knew what his experience was. This is a war that was new and i was not taught about. And he is not unique in that regard. Lincoln had to teach his generals about wars now being fought in a peoples contest. That is not taught at west point. Right . So i think a degree of understanding from where mcclellan is coming is warranted to understand both he and lincoln. Glenn, may i add some points . Sure. I really want to bounce off your comments about grant, but i will 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. I talked about how viewing the civil war environmentally to another 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 of the virginia peninsula in all of that rain and that red moon 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 i am 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 well. The wonderful environmental history and has written that lincoln embodied what he called a wig mentality. It was a mid19th century mentality of congress that says that man can conquer nature. And i think the president consistently expected mcclellan, and later grant, to conquer nature, as well as the confederates. I think it was a difficult task. Yeah. I was sympathetic to mcclellan, which is something that gets me in trouble because folks want to challenge me on that which is great. I just want to say, excuse me, glenn. The shadow just hangs like an incubus over this whole conversation. Williams set up the parameters of the lincolnmccullen conversation. And mcclellan is just absolutely horrifying. I assigned it to my students at the Naval Academy. They love to hate mcclellan. It is easy to do. I mean, west point education, need i say more . But it is important to get beyond that a little bit. Remember, this is the decade in which the rifle musket in the mini ball come into battlefield use. Mcclellan is smart enough to figure that out. He knows he has more guys and go go straight ahead, but that is not the clever way to do things. But there are two clever ways. One is to use a tactical and run, which is the kind of thing Stonewall Jackson did at chancellorsville. The others to do the strategic and run which is going all out into the chesapeake bay, and coming up between new york and james rivers. It is the same idea. Avoiding the frontal charge of the light brigade kind of confrontation. And it is not dumb. It is not wrong. It is logistically difficult. Move 100,000 men by c down the chesapeake bay. Amphibious operations are the single most difficult thing to undertake in wars. Still, and he was undertaking this on a scale never before attempted. The 10,000 men who went down to mexico in 1846 to begin the Mexico Campaign was unprecedented. This is 10 times larger than that. So it is a difficult thing. And what mcclellan wanted to do is use his brains and his cleverness 12 by 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. You are absolutely right about williams. I was in baton rouge last week. I was really interested in this idea of lincoln as our greatest mcandrew and chief. And i think it is sort of, it is finally jelling with me. So i think it gives it something from some breathing room. I will say it really quickly. Glenn was talking about grants assertion in the memoirs that he received a hard lunch from lincoln. Then he says immediately in the next paragraph that the president pulled out a map and showed me an operation and said, you can take it or leave it, but i think it will be useful to you. But grant sort of poohpoohs it. The president did not see a problem. So immediately after that, i trust you. It is your army. Go do what you one. Oh, by the way, have you considered this. I think there are moments like that throughout the grant lincoln relationship, although it becomes a close friendship and relationship were they work together. The other thing about grant, he does wonderfully it something that craig just says. When grant becomes or is about to become generalinchief, the writing is on the walls early in 1864. There is an interesting correspondence that takes place between henry hallock and grant. Now, it is becoming apparent that grant is about to become hallocks boss. Lets talk about operational strategy. What would you do . There is a point where hallock 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 us to the army of the potomac and landing it not at fort monroe, but in southern virginia and then marching in land through north carolina, cutting off railroads and supplies into richmond. That is what grant really wanted to do and hallock 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 by that time, grant becomes generalinchief. At that point does grant develop the overland campaign. It fit perfectly into the president s view there. Joe hart said years ago that part of the brilliance was learning how to manage jefferson davis. I think part of grants genius is how to manage the expectations and the needs of Abraham Lincoln. So i think we make somewhat of a mistake to limit the discussion to mcclellan and grant when we assess lincoln as commander and chief. Not that i disagree with what you said. But since we are kind of running out of time already, i do want to throw in a bit about lincoln, the communicator, and lincoln, the policymaker. We are all dancing around the transformation of the war that takes place on january 1, 1863. But lincolns greatest act as a commander and chief and boldest for all of the modern complaints that it was delayed and limited and inelegant and prosaic 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 victory. And i do not think lincoln wrote that only because he did not have the courage to issue an executive order, because he was always nervous about the legality of the order and the possibility that it may be challenge in the federal courts later. I think it was his greatest move as commander in chief. Not only to go at that greatest human asset but to bring them into the body of war. It there is one part of it that is the most schizophrenic thing that lincoln ever wrote. Because he said i and i do not know who advised this, but he advises the enslaved population not to be violent. In the very next sentence he says, i urge the formerly enslaved to enlist in the army and kill everyone they can find. But i needed to throw emancipation into this story. It probably is bigger than the relationship with any individual commanders. Can i jump in here for a second. Sure. I think there are things that lincoln does that show overarching views. One thing mentioned is keep the army between the enemy army and washington, d. C. You have got to cover the capital. But, also, he appreciated that the enemy army was the heart of the rebellion. Capturing richmond will not end the rebellion. Destroying the army will and the rebellion there he argues. And he emphasizes to all of his generals this. He says, hey, lee is going north. No. No. No. The other thing is this concept of concentration in time. Jim really developed it and it is useful to keep in mind. Do not attack the enemy army. Just that army. Attack several places at that time which will compel the army to concentrate at one or two spread out his army and lose piecemeal all the way down. Lincoln sees this early on. And his generals do not until grant comes up with a plan after the southern plan is deepsixed. He says, i will have sherman go this way and i will go this way and we will take the Red River Campaign and butler. All this at the same time. Lincoln writes to him, i begin to see it. Those not skinning can hold the leg. Well, that is generous of lincoln to give grant credit for that because he had been saying that since 1862. So one of the characteristics between lincoln and his generals is him letting him think how clever you are to come up with that. Thank you. I disagree. If lincoln is so clever and had the power to orchestrate his armies, then why did he do it . On the one hand, he guided grant but he had that authority before and that was his vision than he had the responsibility to bring that among the commanders. We will talk. What is that . We will talk. Well, one of lincolns problems was he could not give a direct order, and that was a lesson that he did not learn for too long a time during the civil war so that is my answer to you, peter. Yeah. Lets open it up to some questions. I know we are running late, but questions, nonetheless. Standing here in gettysburg, i have to ask and note that this conversation did not include anything about need. And i think some of what dr. Noe said is , lincoln not understanding the challenges of the weather. I do not know if he gets overlooked. Lincoln overlooked criticism when he wrote the famous letter saying, you drive the enemy from our soil, it is all our soil. I am so disappointed. We cannot win this war. But then showing his ability as a commanderinchief, he writes on the bottom, never signed, never said. Something we should all do with email when we are angry. Put it in what you call it the draft file. That is part of his genius. That is my favorite command story he made. I think only a few minutes before gettysburg. I will give full credit to jen murray on this with a book i coedited that helped me understand the command decision in the wake of gettysburg. So the bottom line is, lincoln completely misunderstood the limits with which to work. I mean, he had an army that was very battered and very bloodied. And the idea that meed can just follow up with this kind of bloodletting with such ease i think really reveals a misunderstanding at that moment, and also complements meeds great understanding of the moment. Think about it. Major campaigns are not going to resume in the Virginia Theater for what . Another nine months . 10 months . I cant do math. I do history instead. Let me follow up on that briefly. Regarding meed, it is understanding that the most pointed criticism comes from july the 12th when he did not prevent meed from getting across the river and he let him sit there for 2436 hours and then escape. But keep in mind, one of the things that meed did win in command for five days was caught together all his core commanders and ask them what should we do and they voted not to do it. He could have said, we are overruling you. We are going to do this. But that is one of the things that both meed and for that matter lincoln had to deal with. You cannot just say, i put maps on the screens of my students. Why didnt he just do this . Sometimes there are things that inhibit your ability to just do that and one of them is having five of your core commanders say, no, we are against doing that. We should keep that in mind in forgiving meed a little bit. In fact, those core commanders told meed that the core commands that meed had built on the potomac were worse than fredericksburg. If i am commanding the potomac, the last thing i am going to do is launch another fredericksburg. Lets ask another question. A comment. I would like to thank you for sharing your insight and thoughtful comments. As a west pointer and a pennsylvanian, i will say that i regret to share those traits with mcclellan. I also regret that the Naval Academy was not founded sooner so mcclellan could have gone there. Well, the Naval Academy graduated its first class on this date in history. Speaking on 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 had, like polk may have wanted to interfere with Winfield Scott in mexico, but he did not have the Communication Technology and all to do that. Can you comment very deeply about that ability to have the instant, quote, unquote, communication with his commanders . Not only using telegraph to widen the net of his observation and the ability to redirect people, but also the proximity of the war. He goes to antietam. He sees the troops and his generals often in the field. You are absolutely right. Proximity and Technology Make lincolns interference more likely and more consequential. I cannot resist telling this story and that is in the late 19th century when a telegram wire was finally lied from continental United States to hawaii to asia, the commander of the asian squadron was horrified by this because prior to that the commander in distant control is virtually sovereign. Now he says, i have become nothing but an errand boy at the end of a telegraph wire. That is going to have to do it, folks. Thank you, very much