Transcripts For CSPAN3 Civil Wars Peninsula Campaign And Seven Days Battles 20170716

Battle was shiloh, april 6 and 7, 1862. We talked about how grant thought the war was going to be over, one more battle and this thing will end and then after shiloh grant learns the war is going to last a lot longer and nothing short of absolute conquest of the south will end it. Today well talk about a Campaign Going on at the exact same moment over in the eastern theatre or virginia in this case. We will talk about the peninsula and the seven Days Campaign today. It starts in late march, early april, 1862 and is going to go until july of 1862. And it was the campaign that could have ended the war in the summer of 1862. The Union Strategy this time was if you can knock the confederate capitol out of the war, richmond, only 90 miles from washington, d. C. , if the Union General George Mcclellan can capture the confederate capital at richmond by the summer of 1862 the confederacy may throw in the towel. We cant know for sure. It is speculation. It could very well be that the confederacy decides, ok they , took our capital but well keep on fighting. The war has been going on about a year. If the confederacy loses their National Capital within a year it very well could be the southern nationalism sentiment wasnt Strong Enough to survive that. So a lot was writing on this riding on this campaign if he can take richmond in the summer of 62 the war may end. If the war ends what hasnt happened by the summer of 1862 . Right. Emancipation has not happened yet. If the war ends in the summer of 1862 we dont have the emancipation proclamation. We may have a very different outcome of the postwar years. So today well talk about that campaign and how mcclellan ill give away the ending how he fails to capture richmond and it ends up bolting robert e. Lee onto the national stage. Hell take over and make a name for himself at this campaign. Everything isnt smooth for lee either. Today, the failure of conciliation. The peninsula and the seven Days Campaign. Just to refresh, what is the policy of conciliation . [inaudible] be nice to the south until the war is over. Professor browning right. You know, as youre trying to subdue the south, be kind, benevolent, gentle. Dont take over their property, dont confiscate their slaves. Dont even take a wagon or a horse or food without paying for it. The idea is the southerners would realize this, the north isnt the bad guy and the south who has been duped by these radical secessionists who are really loyal unionists at heart, that the south would come back into the union. So the policy of conciliation is one that the union is practicing for the first year of the war. And mcclellan of course is a huge supporter of the policy. His failure to capture richmond will lead to the death of conciliation and usher in a new, harsher form of war. So again, this is a watershed moment in the civil war and really changes the nature of the war. The first thing the confederacy is facing. The spring of 1862, things havent been going well. Fort henry fell in tennessee. Fort donaldson fell in tennessee. The confederacy was defeated at shiloh. We havent talked about this yet. We will later. The north has captured port cities along the eastern seaboard, the outer banks of North Carolina, roanoke island, new bern, beaufort in North Carolina. By april of 1862 they also captured new orleans. So the confederacy sees sort of the snake constricting them if you will and they need more man power, volunteering by itself isnt getting it done. So the confederate government takes the fairly strong measure of passing a conscription act, which passes formally on april 14, 1862. What the conscription act was, was basically a recognition that volunteering isnt enough. Were going to have to compel other southern men into joining the army if were going to have a chance at victory. Its difficult to say how many were actually drafted. It is a little bit difficult. Scholars say 12 to 15 of all southern soldiers were drafted. What the draft also does, there is a twofold purpose. First, i can come get you and force you into the army or just the fact of knowing that im going to come get you and force you into the army might make you do what . Join. Professor browning yeah. Conscription spurs a lot of guys to volunteer in order to avoid the stigma of having been drafted. Conscription actually does generate quite a lot of guys for the Confederate Army even if they werent all formally conscripted. What does the act say . It says all men between the ages of 18 and 35 basically must serve for three years. Unless you have a medical condition that prevents you from being able to serve. In other words, if you cant pass the physical exam. Or there are certain exemptions that would get you out of this. One exception is if you lived on a plantation that had 20 or more slaves, for every farm that had 20 or more slaves, you could exempt one male between the ages of 18 and 35. There were other exemptions, too, for particular occupations, occupations that were considered important to the war effort, so if you worked in a factory or if you had a professional occupation, the government deemed important to the war effort, you could be exempted as well. You could also pay somebody to serve in your stead. What was known as the substitutionist policy. What it means is you had to pay somebody who wasnt eligible to be drafted. So in other words you had to pay somebody either younger than 18 or more likely somebody older than 35. Somebody who doesnt already fall within the draft requirement. Of course, the substitution policy is a class based exemption. The only guys who can possibly do this are the guys who can afford to pay somebody else to serve for them. This is what it looks like in the spring of 1862 as the confederate government is desperate to get more men into the army. Doesnt play well at home. There is a lot of animosity about this. We broke away from the federal government, the confederacy, because we were afraid theyre going to infringe on our rights. I. E. The right to own slaves. Nonetheless, our rights. And now our own federal government, the confederacy, is infringing on our rights by forcing me against my will to go and serve in the army. It is sort of an Interesting Development that takes place. War time requires certain measures that are often unpail unpalatable. Go, also happens, there we is you see this poster here that says, free men avoid conscription. Not urging them to dodge the draft. Instead what he is saying is i desire to raise a company for the confederate service. For that purpose i call on the people of the counties of jefferson and hawkins, tennessee to meet me promptly at this place. He is encouraging guys to volunteer. Avoid conscription. Avoid the stigma that comes with that. Volunteer and join my company. Another good thing about conscription is what it tended to do was if you were a conscript, they were going to send you wherever they needed you. Maybe you were a north carolinian and youre from Western North carolina. They may send you into a regiment from a bunch of guys from eastern northern whom you dont know because those guys have suffered a lot of casualties. If you volunteer, you have the advantage of being able to join with a lot of guys from your local community. You can all join the same company and you can serve with men that you know. Another reason to avoid conscription by volunteering. There is another way of getting conscripted. This cartoon shows basically the rope around a fellows neck and somebody else behind him prodding him, forcing him into the army. There are two ways you can go you can go voluntarily or you , can go by being compelled. So the easy way or the hard way. To show you how desperate the situation becomes for the confederacy, by 1864 they have expanded the conscription age. By 1864 all men between the ages of 17 and 50 years of age are eligible for conscription. And let me just tell you. 50 in 1864 was different than 50 today. The Life Expectancy wasnt nearly as long. A 50yearold man in 1864 was a much older man generally than we would consider a 50yearold man today. At least i hope so. Since its staring me in the face soon. Now, moving beyond this, lets talk about the campaign of the spring of 1862. The confederacy passes the conscription act and one reason they pass it is because this guy George Mcclellan is leading the largest army in American History up the virginia peninsula to try to capture richmond. The confederate government realizes we need more men to stop juggernauts like mcclellans army. This becomes known as the Peninsula Campaign and it starts because of a serious disagreement between mcclellan and his commanderinchief, president lincoln. What lincoln wants is the more sort of direct approach to richmond. He wants mcclellan to march over land from d. C. To richmond. You go through manassas, go through fredericksburg, approach richmond from the north. Go by land the whole way. This is the direct route. This is the direct route. Lincoln sees that as the most logical route. Mcclellan doesnt want to do it. Maybe one of the reasons mcclellan doesnt want to do it, one argument he makes is it is too easy for the confederates to defend that route. There are a lot of rivers the union army would have to cross and the confederacy could defend those rivers. Mcclellan makes the military argument. But another thing going on here is we talked about last time whats been his relationship like with lincoln . Awesome or not great . Ok. Not great. Thanks very much. Mcclellan and lincoln had basically started falling out since about november or december of 1861. Resents the fact that lincoln seems to keep offering him military advice. He graduated second in his class from west point. Thank you very much. What did you do, you read a book, maybe two on military affairs . Please stop. So mcclellan sort of resented the fact of lincoln interfering and he comes up with an alternative plan. Instead of the direct route to richmond, mcclellan is going to try to out flank the Confederate Army hanging out at manassas and approach richmond from the east. An important point here. The original intent was to land on theban a Rappahannock River at urbana and then march directly overland across this area right here and pick it up at white house and then move to richmond that way. Hell pick up the Railroad Line at west point here. From urbana to west point pick up the Railroad Line to help him attack richmond. The problem is before he can even engage in that plan the con federal army retreats from manassas. It falls back. In march of 1862 the Confederate Army realizing it is foolish to stay up at manassas. Were out numbered by the union army. If they ever decide to attack were in a bad spot. The confederate general Joseph Johnston falls back from manassas to fredericksburg. While its not on the map right here, just a little bit north, fredericksburg means that mcclellans landing at urbana the confederates can react too quickly to that. He either has to abandon the plan and do what lincoln wants which is attack directly over land or hell have to modify his plan and go further south and land on a different peninsula. Of course we know which he chooses. He is not going to concede anything to lincoln. Mcclellan goes and moves further south and lands at what we call the virginia peninsula. He lands his army down at fort monroe at the tip of the peninsula near Hampton Roads which is the area right here. He is going to now march over this peninsula up toward richmond. Mcclellans argument is we can still out flank the union army, the Confederate Army. Well get to richmond perhaps before johnston even does. He sees a lot of advantages for this. The problem with this is that mcclellan hadnt exactly researched the peninsula very well. He knew what he was getting into when he was going to land at urbana. Just walk across a small neck of land, pick up the railroad, and it will serve as our supply line all the way into richmond. To get to the same railroad, by landing here, you got a much further distance to cross before you can get there. And mcclellan is not terribly familiar with the land. He thinks the roads will be just fine. He thinks rivers flow in directions they dont so mcclellan and his army havent done an awful lot of research about what this peninsula looks like and what marching along the peninsula would be like. But he is so dead set on making sure he doesnt concede anything to lincoln that he basically puts his army on the virginia peninsula in the spring of 1862. Its going to turn out to be perhaps the worst possible place to launch his campaign. Lets cut to the chase here and make a long story short then get into the long story. Long story short is, a, mng fails. Cclellan it doesnt work. He moves very slowly up the peninsula. He gets to the outskirts of richmond. Robert e. Lee takes over the army. Lee starts attacking mcclellan gives up the campaign. He abandons the campaign. Spooked, if you will, thinking that lee wouldnt attack him unless lee had overwhelming numbers, which lee didnt. Lee was just being audacious. When mcclellan gives up the campaign and abandons it in july of 1862, then that pretty much ends the campaign and lee becomes the hero because he saves the confederate capital. So that is the end result. We know what is up happening. Lets now talk about how we get there. Mcclellan lands on the peninsula and early april, 1862, and immediately puts his army in motion. He starts marching his army up the peninsula. How large is his army . I guess i should point that out. The army eventually will be about 110,000 soldiers. Hell have nearly 300 artillery pieces with him. Hell have about 4,000 wagons with his army. And to pull those wagons and carry artillery pieces and the cavalry about 40,000 horses. This is a huge metropolis that descended on the eastern part of virginia. This is a huge army. 110,000 men, 40,000 horses in this tiny little neck of land. In the spring 1862. What happens if it rains . Things get messy. Guess what it does . It rains. And it rains a lot. Far more than mcclellan ever anticipated. Lets look at what happened. First thing he does is he lands. Immediately he starts putting his army in motion. By april 4, he disembarked about 60,000 soldiers from the transport ships bringing them down to fort monroe and starts marching up the peninsula heading toward richmond. He anticipates the confederates will have defenses at yorktown, virginia, the same yorktown George Washington forced the british to surrender at back in 1781. Mcclellan expects a Small Confederate force at yorktown. Figures hell brush it aside and keep pushing on up the peninsula. The problem is he gets to yorktown and finds a hiccup if you will. The confederate general in the region, fellow by the name of john magruder, his nickname was prince john. And it was a prewar old army nickname. He was called prince john for a couple reasons. He had a theatrical personality. Liked to have a lot of flair with what he did. He was called prince john because he had the tendency to live well beyond his means. Therefore, prince john was the affectionate nickname he gets during the old u. S. Army before the civil war. Hes in charge of a Small Confederate force guarding against any union approach. I mean small. He had about 13,000 guys in his army. Thats it. Mcclellan outnumbers magruder almost 51. What magruder does is uses the local environment to his advantage. There is a small, couple small creeks and small river that by sect the peninsula in this region. What magruder does is he dams up the river to flood a lot of terrain, leaving very few crossings the union army can get across the river on. Magruder basically lines up his soldiers and artillery behind those very few crossings and if mcclellan is going to push aside he will have to launch a frontal assault that is probably going to suffer quite a few casualties but, nonetheless, if its done right would probably be successful. Mcclellan instead becomes spooked and decides to not attack. Instead, he conducts a siege. He embarks on a siege of magruder. What a siege means is hell dig in some defensive lines, bring up his heavy artillery. Remember he has almost 300 pieces of artillery. He is going to try to bombard magruder out of the way. Pound his defensive positions into shambles. One of the reasons mcclellan does this is because he becomes convinced magruder has far more troops than he really does. Even though some of his earliest intelligence estimates get the force about right mcclellan refuses to believe it. So the intelligence chiefs start giving mcclellan inflated numbers. And he is perfectly willing to believe those. One thing he does is he always overestimates the size of his enemy. Scholars have debated, did he really believe these numbers and really think lee at one time he thinks lee has 200,000 men. Lee is lucky if he has half that. The question is did mcclellan really believe the numbers or is he sort of saying this to give himself cover in case things go badly . Well probably never know entirely, though i suspect it is more of the latter. Magruder also uses advantage of the terrain to try to convince the union army that he has more troops. One of the things magruder does is he marches a bunch of guys in open view so everybody can see them. He has a bunch of troops walking along carrying regimental flags carrying guns and shouting back and forth. Union officers with their binoculars watching what is going on. As men come along they duck down behind trees, run back this way. Grab another set of flags and walk out in the open again. Magruder keeps guys walking all day long and gullible Union Officers start counting the men going by. Theres a lot of them. So its going to make them be cautious. That and what they thought was the impressive defensive position magruder has set up. So it confuses mcclellan. The other thing he is not getting much assistance from is his intelligence. He has a fellow by the name of pinkerton, he is his chief of intelligence. He had been the chairman of a Detective Agency in chicago before the war. Mcclellan knew pinkerton from his prewar days as, you know, a president of the Railroad Line. And so he brings pinkerton on to be his essentially his chief of military intelligence during the civil war. Pinkerton plays into mcclellans fears and once pinkerton realizes mcclellan wants high numbers, inflated numbers, pinkerton figures, ok. Ill give the boss what he wants so he gives him innated numbers. Inflated numbers. Also, the very earliest forms of aerial reconnaissance are at his disposal during this campaign. Thaddaeus lowe, with hot air balloons, actually hydrogen , theons, go airborne balloon tied by rope to the ground, goes aloft to get an aerial view of the confederate positions and he is not doing much to help mcclellan either. There is a heavily wooded region here. It is hard to see much other than trees. Lowe while he is up in his balloon often makes erroneous calculations and gives information to mcclellan, leading him to believe the confederates had more troops than they really did. In one famous case during the seven days battle on june 27, which we will get to in a little bit, lowe actually convinces Mcclellan Lee is about to attack him on both sides of the river which lee is most certainly not. So pinkerton and lowe do their keep mcclellan bamboozled. Not intentionally but it is how it works out. Another thing that goes on as i mentioned, it is raining a heck of a lot. How much does it rain . Well, 16 out of 30 days in april. Not just a light shower that lasts a few minutes and goes away but significant deluges that occur during this time period. Then it goes on to rain 10 Straight Days in early may. The irony here is this is all happening at a time scholars realize now was something we referred to as the civil war drought. The country was undergoing a significant drought between roughly 1856 and 1865. Weve already talked about one aberration to that drought. That was in california in the winter of 1861 and 1862. California gets flooded, seriously flooded, and that spring it rains a lot in eastern virginia as well. The irony is it rains as soon as mcclellan starts his campaign. It is going to rain almost all the way through his campaign, and then as soon as mcclellan decides to give it up and retreat after the battle of mail vern hill the rain stops and the drought comes back and it doesnt rain again for the next several months. So it literally seemed as if it was only raining on the days that mcclellan was trying to campaign. I guess if youre a confederate you look back in hindsight and divine intervention may have some evidence to support that. I dont believe that malarky. Lets move on. What does the rain do to the roads . Ill quote a Union Chaplain here on april 20, 1862. He writes home, the roads are beyond description. Just imagine the worst roads possible and then believe that they are 99 times worse than your imagination and you may then come near the truth. So these roads were bad. Part of it was just the nature of the geology of this part of virginia. The water table is really low. You basically dig a shovels depth into the ground and you start getting water. So the water table is really low. There is nowhere for the rain to go. Soil consistency isnt very firm. If it rains a little bit you have sandy soil on top of the mortar like stuff and then finally hard clay underneath. Well, once it starts raining it goes right through the sand. It turns that into the consistency of mortar and then wagons and horses and men just sink through that stuff until you get to the hard clay down below. This is literally the type of mud that can swallow mules as soldiers were happy to talk about. Wagons, cannons sinking down up to their axle trees, mules disappearing in the mud. This actually can happen in this part of virginia because of the nature of the geology. Of course mcclellan cant know any of that but the rain isnt doing him any favors. Something else the rain does is it wears the soldiers out. They are trying to march through this mud. Soldiers burn, Civil War Soldiers, the average weight of a Civil War Soldier versus his metabolic equivalency table, were not going to get into all that, but burn roughly 550 calories an hour trying to march in mud. As the union army is trying to pursue the Confederate Army toward richmond, Union Soldiers are covering, trying to cover 10 miles a day. Sometimes it takes as many hours just to march 10 miles. So lets say for the sake of argument burning roughly 5,000 calories a day some days. Thats a heavy days work. It wouldnt be so bad if the daily ration that theyre eating is replacing all those calories and the army ration was supposed to replace the calories. If you ate only your army ration it would provide you somewhere between 35004000 calories a day. It has not changed that much. The type of food has changed but the number of calories hasnt changed that much. The modern u. S. Army is also provided about 4,000 calories a day when on active duty in a deployment zone. So if you ate your ration between 35004000 calories a day. But the problem is all that rain makes it hard to move supplies through the mud so the rations are all back in the rear. All the Food Supplies are back on the wagons having a hard time making it up to the soldiers in the front line. The confederate soldiers are retreating back to richmond and the wagons get stuck behind them , so they are not eating either. No one is getting regular rations during the early part of the Peninsula Campaign. Theyre burning 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 calories a day and lucky if theyre eating a fraction of that. Example, a texas soldier writes on may 8 his sole meal consisted of four ears of corn. Four ears of corn were dealt out to each man as the only food of the day. Four ears of corn no matter how you cook it, no matter how large the ears are only works out to roughly 300 calories. So the soldier probably burned 4,000 or 5,000 calories and had a grand total of 300 calories to take in. This is one of the reasons why the armies are beaten down by the early part of the campaigning. The terrain is nothing like mcclellan expected and the confederacy is dealing with the same problems. With weak soldiers, malnourished, a water table that is incredibly low, you have guys more susceptible to illness. Both armies, particularly the union army, become plagued with lots of sickness during the campaign. Typhoid fever attacks both armies. Its a bacterial illness. You pick it up by drinking contaminated water which was in easy supply. The water table is really low. Anytime somebody goes and uses the bathroom its going to get washed into the drinking supply fairly quickly. You almost cant help but drink contaminated water. Sometimes the outbreak is extreme. In the fall of 1861 at one point of the 1150 men in the fifth North Carolina regiment 920 were seek a m with typhoid fever at one time. I mean, thats impressive. 80 of the regiment is seek a m with typhoid fever because theyre all drinking the water. The settlers at jamestown back in the winter of 1607 that basically died as fast as they possibly could as soon as they got off the boat, many of them, scholars believe, died of typhoid fever from the same region. Literally everybody had diarrhea. At the time of the war, not today, but then, at the time everybody has diarrhea because it can be caused by a number of different things. Its, you know, bacteria is one of the things that is going to cause diarrhea as well. Eating contaminated food, water, why would guys have diarrhea. Put one thing in perspective. Horses and mules of mcclellans army, there were 40,000 of them. Those 40,000 horses and mules produced an average of about 500 tons of manure a day and about 100,000 gallons of urine a day. If they were all just going off in the field and taking care of business that would be one thing but horses dont work that way. They just drop wherever they are and horses tend to defecate in the middle of the road, urinate in the middle of the road. At least the soldiers wont get infected by any of that, right . Except Union Soldier accounts indicate we were glad to drink the rain water which settled in the ruts made by the passing artillery. What does that mean . Theyre dipping their canteens into the place the horses and fecal material are at. No wonder they have diarrhea. Everybody has it. It is rampant in the army. Something else affecting the army during this time, particularly Union Soldiers. Confederate soldiers being from the south developed immunities and had been exposed to malaria much more frequently. But malaria breaks out during the Peninsula Campaign in the spring and summer of 1862. Scurvy is afflicting the union army as well. It is not that they do not know to provide vegetables with daily rations, but it is cheaper to provide vegetables in a dry form. They are supposed to add water to, maybe cook them with soup, supposedly you get nutrients that way. The union army discovers that the army hates these vegetables. And so they all check them. And when scurvy starts appearing, union doctors are sort of stunned. They start checking the head of the, the head medical director starts checking and asking why arent you feeding them the dried vegetables . The commissary says, we have cartons of them but the guys hate them. The officers cannot make the soldiers eat the dry vegetables and as a result, if all you are eating is salted meat and biscuits, you are not getting nutrients you need to fight off scurvy. The medical director of the union army actually starts putting in place a drastic measure, ordering fresh fruit, telling officers to force the men to eat it. But by the time he orders the measures, it is right before the attack launched from lee and in the union army does not tend to put them into practice. Typhoid fever, diarrhea, malaria, scurvy it is all an accumulation of ills for the armies in the region, particularly for the union army. By the time mcclellan retreats on july 1, 40,000 of the 100,000 Union Soldiers are sick with something. Two out of every five of the soldiers are sick, they have reported themselves to the hospital or to a doctor as sick. They are not just fighting it out in their tent. Imagine how many other guys are kind of sick but do not want to report it, so they are just hanging out thinking that will fight it off. Much of the union army is sick. Nearly 2000 guys have been diagnosed with typhoid fever, which could prove to be fatal. More than 5000 diagnosed with malaria, which does not necessarily prove to be fatal, but it does weaken you. And the most telling statistic, over 20,000 men in the union army are incapacitated by diarrhea. And so the Peninsula Campaign that brings the northern soldiers to the eastern peninsula of virginia to try to capture richmond, like i said it is probably the unhealthiest spot in the confederacy to try to attack. Maybe not, maybe the mississippi delta can challenge that or maybe in louisiana, but the peninsula of eastern virginia is not a very healthy place, especially when it rains. That is what happened to mcclellan and his army in 62. But he is able to march his way toward richmond with all these handicaps, get to the outskirts of the city by late may of 1862. And then something happens to completely sort of, not change the fortunes of the confederacy necessarily, but give the confederacy in fighting chance to hold out against mcclellan. It is something that happens in the Shenandoah Valley and becomes known as Stonewall Jacksons Shenandoah Valley campaign. We will put it in context. Why does the Shenandoah Valley campaign affect what is happening at richmond . We will backtrack. Mcclellan had 110,000 men in his army. He actually intended to have more. He intended to have about 150,000 men in his army, but at the last second, literally as he arrives, president lincoln has withheld one entire union corps. Remember, that is at least three divisions. He withheld one entire union corps of about 30,000 troops. The reason was because he was afraid not enough had been left behind to protect washington dc from attack. Lincolns purpose is to make sure the National Capital does not risk capture by the confederacy, so mcclellan launches his crusade and lincoln things he has not left enough leftinks mcclellan has not enough troops behind and he withholds 30,000 troops. Mcclellan has enough troops to get the job done, although he does not think so, nonetheless those 30,000 are held back. But then they are released and they head toward richmond. They get the fredericksburg, and those troops are going to richmond. They are under the command of a guy, general irvin mcdowell. What we know about him . [indiscernible] he was formally a general. Professor browning formally. At what battle . The first battle of bull run. Remember, lincoln was putting pressure on him to move the Confederate Army away. He launched the attack and the battle turned out badly. Mcdowell is relieved of command after bull run and mcclellan replaces him. Then he is put in charge of one of the corps and mcdowell is supposed to join mcclellan. And lincoln holds mcdowell back, but then gives him permission to go to richmond. If mcdowell joins mcclellans army, if he joins his army, with an extra 30,000 troops does mcclellan capture richmond . Or does he figure out new reasons not to attack . We will never know. The fact of the matter is mcdowell and his troops do not make it to richmond and they do not make it because of what Stonewall Jackson is doing in the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson has been embarking on his campaign because robert e. Lee has essentially requested jackson to do something to try to tie down union troops in the valley, to prevent the troops from coming to richmond. Robert e. Lee is serving as Jefferson Daviss military advisor, he does not have a command. We think of him as this general that was successful in everything he did, but in the year of the war, he was not. He did not have a lot of success. Inwas in charge of an army 1861. Things did not go well and he was relieved of command. He was sent further to the south to basically check on the forts guarding the atlantic coastline. Not a noble job. Brings himson davis to richmond and has him serve as a military advisor. Jefferson davis is the president and he thinks he knows what he is doing. He was a graduate of west point, a veteran of the mexican war, so he is a handson commander in chief. Lee does not have a lot to do but have conversations about what would be a good ideas. One of his ideas is to send the jackson some reinforcements in the Shenandoah Valley and have him basically try to create chaos, to try to scare lincoln into holding more troops away guardcclellan in order to washington. While lincoln was not scared, he was not necessarily afraid they would capture washington, but what he did want to do with was to capture jackson. So he held mcdowell back and instead of sending troops to richmond, he sent the majority of them west into the Shenandoah Valley to try to capture jackson. Now we are not going to go through the Shenandoah Campaign through great detail right now, we will talk about it next time. Argument, weof will talk a little bit about it. What jackson does, he earns his legendary reputation as an aggressive and dynamic general in this campaign. Jackson had earned his nickname at the battle of bull run. He earns his reputation as being the confederacys best general here because of what he does in the Shenandoah Campaign. What jackson does is he takes 17,000 troops, not a large army, and he manages to tie down about 50,000 union troops. There are three separate union forces in the Shenandoah Valley, one under john c fremont, one under james shields, and another army under nathaniel banks. And jackson is able to basically outmaneuver the union army. And to attack the lightly defended Union Positions and win several minor victories, and cause them to constantly retreat back down the valley. We say down the valley because going this way is down and in elevation. Down the valley. So he is pursuing the union troops who are retreating. Jackson gets to harpers ferry. There is the potomac. Notice where it is in relation to washington dc. Jackson is above it. So by the time jackson gets to harpers ferry, lincoln decides he is way far north. If i send mcdowell behind him, then he could cut him off before he gets out of this. So lincoln orders mcdowell to go west and prevent them from going and joining mcclellan. So to make a long story short, jackson realizes i am in a tight spot and he moves his army rapidly back up the valley, going south and eventually winning two more battles to defeat small union forces. Then they escape from the valley without being bagged. Jackson has gone up and down the valley for a month and a half, bamboozled union troops, winning most of the battles he fights and he manages to get out of the valley without being captured. So he had a lot of success. And his success opened up an opportunity for the confederates outside of richmond. It kept the odds even and to give the confederates the chance to try to do something to turn the tide at richmond. Jackson himself was a fairly hard guy. We think of jackson and his famous foot calvary, the infantry, they cover so much distance. But one of his generals gave a fairly antipathetic portrait of him. Lee says, he has no sympathy with human infirmity and he refuses to accept that men are not machines. He classes all who have painted by the wayside as men wanting in patriotism. If a mans face was as white as cotton and his pulse so low you could not feel it, jackson looked at him as an insufficient soldier. This is a hard guy. His troops took great pride in having served with him because he was so successful. But his troops did not love him during the Valley Campaign. They loved jackson after the Valley Campaign when he earned a reputation as a legendary leader and hero. Then there is a pride, i served with jackson. Again, while they are in the middle of it, that is not what they are thinking. What is his campaign doing . It gives the confederate General Johnson the opportunity to launch an attack against mcclellan. He realizes i have two options, i can just hunker down in the trenches, guarding richmond, and just wait for mcclellan to attack. But if i do that it will not work out well. If i way, he will, remember he has the heavy artillery and mcclellan will be able to destroy the defensive position and maybe bombard the city itself and we would be forced to give it up. He realizes that and he knows mcclellan outnumbers him. Mcclellan thinks johnston outnumbers him. Johnston thinks, if i just wait it is inevitable mcclellan will win. I have to attack. So what is about to happen is something that almost never happens during the war. On may 30 1, 1862, johnston does something that he just about never does again. He launches an attack. He is the quintessential cautious general that believes in trading territory to conserve manpower. Johnston is not an aggressive general, but he sees a flaw in the setup. Mcclellan has his army divided on both sides of a river that flows northeast of richmond. It is known as the Chickahominy River. Chickahominy river. Normally, it is a sluggish little stream that flows slowly, not very wide, you can walk across it. But it has rained a lot in april and may, so the river is way out of its banks. It is above flood level. So the rains have basically separated mcclellans army with one part of the army north of the river and a smaller part of the army south of the river. And johnston, wisely, decides i will attack the army south of the river. It is weaker, it is not going to be easy to be reinforced during any battle because the river is so swollen and flooded it will be difficult to get across the river. Johnston comes up with a plan to launch an attack against mcclellan south of the river. His greatest mistake is he trusts general long street, who will go on to have a great career as one of lees commanders, but he does not have a good day on may 31. Johnston tells him what he wants to happen and he gives him basically the authority to put in place. Then long street starts putting in place and he misheard everything johnston says, or maybe he decides he wants to do it a different way, and he launches the attack plan. Without going into detail, the battle is a hopelessly mismanaged battle that really a comp pushes nothing other than significant casualties for both armies. The confederacy loses around 6000 during the course of their launch of the attack, and the union army loses about 5000 men during the defense. Any time you see a map like this, jespersen is a civil war historian who is a great photographer and did a lot of good civil war maps, so i use his maps. You see them on wikipedia. Credit to jespersen for these. You can see the botched attack, you see the circles where the guys are supposed to go and then the dotted lines where they actually go. It is all messed up. Of the 6000 confederate casualties that happened, one is really significant. Which one do you think . Right. The casualty, the bullet that wounds johnston, and it wounds him so badly they were not sure he was going to live. It takes him six months to recover. Now Jefferson Davis must replace him. And the man that replaces him is of course, robert e. Lee. But it is not robert e. Lee the legend, it is the failed general of the western virginia in 1861. It is robert e lee who is not fit carry Stonewall Jacksons riding boots. It is the personal lackey for Jefferson Davis in richmond, who has not shown success on the battlefield. So there is no guarantee robert e. Lee will be successful. The richmond newspapers are not very excited about lee. They actually complain, why cant we get jackson . We need an officer as daring as jackson. At the moment jackson is doing his thing and impressing everybody. Lee has other nicknames, evacuating lee is one of them. Granny lee is another one i guess because he is cautious. And the king of spades was given to him because the first thing he does when he takes over is he orders his troops to start digging trenches. And they resent it. Manual labor, it is slave work, not work fit for independent southern soldiers. I have a rifle for a reason, i want to fight. What is digging trenches going to do . But robert e lee was a smart guy. He went to west point. He realizes we are outnumbered. We are going to increase our chances of being successful if we fortify. If we dig trenches and create fortifications to allow us to hold defensive lines with a fewer number of men than we would have to use otherwise. The reason he does it is because he has ambitions to attack. And what he realizes is what johnston realized, you cannot just hang out. You cannot sit on your thumbs and wait to see what mcclellan does, because if i do he will capture richmond. So lee decides the only chance he has is if they find a weakness and exploit it. So the only way to do that is to attack. Lee orders troops to dig trenches so that they can hold the defense of richmond with a handful of troops, and use a greater number of his, the majority of his army, to launch what he hopes would be a powerful counterattack against mcclellan. The trick is, where to attack. We know what johnston did. The Chickahominy River was flooded and he attacked south of the river, but mcclellan has rectified that problem. He has moved the bulk of the army south of the river. So lee realizes, i cannot attack there. So he asked, where is the best spot . He sends his calvary commander, an officer by the name of jeb stuart. His name is actually james brown stuart, and he goes by jeb. And lee gives stuart an assignment that any calvary commander would crave. He says, i want you to ride out flanks of the union army and tell me what the right flank looks like. What does it look like north of the river. And do i have an approach to attack from that direction. So he gives him discussion, approach it how you want, but be careful. Do not lose your force. Do not go crazy. Awesome. T thanks, this gives me an opportunity to make a name for myself. And he will do that by going entirely around the union army. Robert e. Lee says go to the north and see what it looks like over there. But once stuart got the information, he couldve turned around in a couple days and have gone back. That is not cool enough. That will not make me a legend. So stuart goes all the way around mcclellans army. And while they are doing that, the Union Calvary discovers them and they start pursuing jeb stuart. And the Union Calvary commander, a fellow by the name of philip st. George cooke, was instrumental in sort of helping develop the United States calvary. He was a very skilled officer, a career officer that did a lot to advance calvary tactics in his career and he actually served nobly and with great credit throughout the civil war. But i would wager most people who have ever heard of cooke have ever only heard of him in this context. What is interesting about cooke chasing stuart, jeb had married his daughter. So philip saint george cook is the father in law chasing his son in law around the union army. I can imagine jeb stuart taking some delight in that, as anybody in here who has ever been married, may have in law stories they want to share, and i could say some, but we only have so much time so stuart is being chased by his father in law and i imagine him laughing or maybe giving the middle finger to his fatherinlaw as he runs away from him. And cooke does not catch him. He goes around the entire army, and more importantly brings back the information that was needed to know about whether he can attack north of the river. And he did. Philip st. George cooke is a virginian, born in virginia and withof his family decided the confederacy. But cooke remained with the union and he was cut off from his family. And stuart and cooke never spoke again. He said, he will only regret it once and it will be continually. Only once, but forever. Anyway, jeb stuart discovers what lee needs to know, so they decide to launch the attack against the right flank. In other words, the part of the army north of the Chickahominy River. And lee will do that by bringing Stonewall Jackson back from the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson had finished his campaign to great credit to himself. He becomes a legend in the confederate press. Everybody loves jackson and they want jackson, so lee says, bring your army here to richmond and you can be the one to initiate the attack on the right flank. So this sets up what we are going to know as the seven days battles, because the Campaign Takes place over the course of a week. And while there is not a battle on every single day, there are battles for five days. So we refer to it as as the seven days battle. So, how it works is, you can see from the map that lee leaves a small portion of his army south of the river. He divides the army and he leaves 20,000 troops under john mcgruder, old prince john, and another division commander. He is fancy. 27,000 troops south of the river. Then he takes the last of his army, every single guy he can scramble together, probably around 60,000 troops total when you add jackson joining him. He takes 60,000 troops north of the river entity to attack mcclellan. Mcclellan for his part, you can see why he does this, mcclellan has 80,000 men south of the river. So the vast majority, 4 corps of the union army is south of the river. And only one remains north of the river. The Union Fifth Corps under porter that will serve very well during the campaign. He will really earn his pay during the weeklong campaign. 80,000 men south of the river and only 30,000 men north of the river. And i know we are not mathematicians, what is the advantage for lee . Let me help you. Lee has 60,000, mcclellan 30,000, so he outnumbers mcclellan by what . Two to one. So lee thinks mcclellan is going to protect the Railroad Line. You see it, it goes from east to west, from richmond to West Point Landing . He needs the railroad. If he is going to set the richmond by artillery, he needs the railroad because only the railroad can transport heavy guns. We already know what the soil is like, you cannot strap the horses to heavy cannons to bring them into position. So what lee thinks, if he attacks mcclellan, he will retreat east to guard the railroad. Because he needs the railroad for supplies, but also to continue the offensive against richmond. Lee cannot anticipate what mcclellan will actually do. He thinks he will save the front against richmond, but instead when lee attacks, mcclellan will go south and go to the james river. And he will do this because Union Gunboats can provide protection from the army. Basically serving as an artillery umbrella to provide protection of the union army. Lee does not anticipate that. So it will play a factor in how the campaign goes. June 26, 1862, lee launches his attack. And what he intends is for jackson to arrive on the right flank. You can see porter making his position right here along a watercourse known as beaverdam creek, but the nearest village is mechanicsville. Porter takes a strong position, so strong lee does not want to attack headon. He intends jackson to show up on the right flank and when his troops realize jackson is there, they will retreat. He will have to, because you can have jackson behind you or threatening to cut you off, or get behind, supporter will have to retreat so porter will have to retreat. And we will give away part of the ending. Jackson will have a bad week during the campaign. For all the good jackson does in the Shenandoah Valley and all the legend he has become in the campaign, jackson will be the exact opposite during the seven days battles. He will perform poorly. He will be constantly late, he will misunderstand orders, he will not be aggressive, and instead jackson is going to be he will just perform poorly. A lot of the historians have discussed why he performs badly and many say he was just really tired, exhausted, the Shenandoah Campaign wore him out. He had not slept the two nights before. Also, much of his army had not slept and we want to give them a pass and we will not give them a pass. My favorite is a legendary biographer of robert e. Lee. He wrote his books in the 1930s and 1940s. He wrote about jackson, he simply needed more sleep than most men. Were you college roomies . How did you know that . Anyway, a lot of lost cause historians and prosouthern boys, like those that wrote a worshipful biography of robert e. Lee, they give jackson a pass. It must have been Something Else that made him not so jackson like. You know, i think it is more complicated. Jackson had not worked with robert e. Lee, he did not understand his orders. They had not developed the strong working relationship they would develop later. But this is the first time they have worked together and jackson is still learning the ropes, so is lee. Nevertheless, jackson would have a bad week. The first battle jackson essentially never shows up. He does not send much warning, he does not send messages saying i am running behind. He just leaves everybody hanging. At one point, the confederate commander facing the union troops, hill, he is expecting jackson to come in the morning