Transcripts For CSPAN3 Human Side Of Civil War Leadership 20170816

Writing that series, he also under a pen name owen perry previously wrote six awardwinning civil war mysteries covering the first two years of the war. Colonel peters is a retired u. S. Army enlisted man and officer. He has written numerous works on strategy and security. The more recent military topics. Hes a highly regarded journalist and currently the fox news strategic analyst, and a member of the Hoover Institutions working group at Stanford University and he currently lives in warrenton and his title today is the human side of civil war leadership. Please welcome colonel peters. [ applause ] good morning, ladies and gentlemen. You know, you really all should be outside on this beautiful day. This is amazing weather, but im glad youre here. First, i have to get a commercial in not for my books although my publisher would be delighted if youd buy them, but for one of the most important institutions in the United States of america, the National Park service, and in these Turbulent Times when people in government are looking for what to cut, the National Park service already does more with less than any Government Institution ive ever known, but at some point less is just less. Our National Parks have an enormous backlog of maintenance that has to be done and worthwhile new initiatives and their budget and washington is basically a lobbyist tip. So when you speak to your representatives, local or national, stick up for the National Park service. They do great work and they give us the opportunity to be here today. The human side of leadership with the civil war and im also starting with a bait and switch because theres Something Else i want to talk about to lead into that and thats context. There are so many marvelous civil war histories and seminars and experts who are very generous with their time that have been wonderfully generous with me personally, but what i often find lacking is the greater human dimension, what times were like. We concentrate so intensely on the campaigns and specific battles that we sometimes lose the feel or have the feel of the complexity of their age. First of all, they didnt think of themselves as living in old bygone times. These people who fought the civil war as leaders and led, have experienced perhaps the greatest technological revolution in all of human history. Whats more person than the revolution we all are focused on in our own lives today, and let me explain that a bit. These generations that fight the civil war have seen incredible revolutionary developments. They seem quaint to us now, but let me talk about just a few of them that have pushed them to the cussch of the modern era, and really, i like to say that for the United States the United States begins the war in 1861 as thep of the modern era, really, i like to say that for the United States the United States begins the war in 1861 as the old country and it ends as a brandnew country in momentum respects and first of all, throughout human history, how fast can we travel. We can travel with the speed of a human foot and later on by coach. If we had to go to sea, to travel from europe to america, the americas, you depended on wind power to take six weeks and to take eight weeks and youre amazingly lucky if you got it in four or five weeks and that was astonishingly good and suddenly in 1838 two ships raced from england to manhattan harbor, the serious and the Great Western and under steam power they have made it in about a week and a half. It opens a new age. The world does get smaller and are by the civil war, of course, steampowered vessels are going back and forth all of the time and theres a world of commerce exploding. In the mid1850s steampowered u. S. Naval ships have opened japan under commandeer perry and its an age of globalization, but perhaps even more important than the increased mobility that well see at sea, and of course, with the railroads, you all understand the vital importance of railroads in the civil war and how that collapses the distance instead of moving with the stage coach. He was crude, dusty, and hot and nasty and were also very, very cold in the wintertime and the roads are bad and suddenly you can travel across entire states in the day and relatively smoothly, and of course, the north has far more developed road lines and by the end of the civil war, if youre in Union Occupation forces in northern alabama and you need a ship iment of horses from western new york state, you can get them in a matter of days if everything is running smoothly. Its astonishing. The revolution at the time. We were the second nation on this earthed to have universal or aspire to universal childhood education the first was frederick the greats russia and we were lagging a bit, but this leads to the age of the explosion of newspapers, an information explosion thats a really extraordinary and impressive and today we hear very much a great deal about fake news. Brothers and sister, fake news has always been with us. If you read some of the papers and some of the battle reports and campaign reports, pardon me. That were published during our civil war, its just phenomenal. Really . Really . Honestly . The south did win that war . Its just, human beings are human beings. The internet has certainly led to a degradation in manners and were not able to make a change to make our Civil Society civil again, it would be no one could ever post anything on the internet without their real name, but let me go back to the 19th century, the telegraph. Suddenly with the telegraph, i can communicate over thousands of miles in near real time as fast as it takes to type in the message and then write it down by hand at the other end and maybe run it across town to a Lawyers Office to a hotel. Its phenomenal. Before the civil war, there is a transatlantic cable laid. London and new york can communicate by telegraph except the cable breaks as many of you know so its not active during the war itself. The crimean war. Suddenly when men go to war, not just officers, but privates can leave images behind. Before, how did you record how your relatives looked . Loved ones looked . Maybe you had a country painter come by and do something crude, but suddenly its a democratization of memory. So we have cheap means of communicating over thousands of miles. The cost of a transatlantic journey goes down, the speed increases. Newspapers are everywhere and societies are suddenly literate and by the way, in 1861 at least four states in new england have male Adult Literacy rates above 99 . The south doesnt. North carolina at around 72 and the lower standard and its pretty typical. Why does that matter . Because the modern age is very much about education. You can be a brilliant, wonderful infantry soldier in the army of Northern Virginia or in the union armies, take your pick, and be illiterate, but you cant be a supply sargence and be illiterate. You cant be a First Sergeant and fill out the roles and be illiterate. You cant be an adjective. There are so many things you need it for, and one of the many ways that they won the civil war was with forms filled out in tr triplicate. Theyre mass notifications and the Petersburg Campaign and the petersburg an Appomattox Campaign really misses a fundamental reason why the north won and the north, theres no city in the entire south that can compete with boston, philadelphia and new york. Manhattan already has a population of 810,000 people in 1860. And many of the farsighted southern leaders and men you are bane men of wade hampton knew that war was a losing proposition, but im getting ahead of myself because before i go to the human side of leadership, im stressing these revolutions and information travel distances collapsing and its an entirely new mindset, and oh, by the way, other thicks happen that we would regard as such a big deal, but were. In the mid1850s, mrs. Demerist in new york she and her husband ran clothing businesses and hats and everything else, she invents the paper pattern for dress making and its a revolution to american women because suddenly you can buy these precut paper patterns and a woman in minnesota and rural minnesota can order a pattern and shes dressing the latest styles from paris or london. That revolution, and those paper patterns are with us today. You still buy them. My motherinlaw is brilliant at it. Shes a great seamstress any you have a revolution in clothing. Brooks brothers in lower manhattan. Brooks brothers is there, lord taylor and other Department Stores are coming up and on a side note on Brooks Brothers. Anyone know where the word shoddy comes from . Shoddy, the word shoddy was a new form of saving money by instead of wasting time sewing, you gluede clothing together. The union ordered 30,000 overcoats from Brooks Brothers and Brooks Brothers delivered them and when it rained they fell apart. And thats why shoddy is such a pejorative term today. The coast didnt survive, but Brooks Brothers did, but its not just our country that is going through a revolution and the north is going through this industrial revolution, economics and the confederacy to me is really its a counter revolution and its an effort, a desperate effort to make time stand still, but time doesnt stand still. The economic structures of the south just dont work anymore in the modern age. In the south, the farsighted men and even men who have become bitter, southern partisans and wade hampton, robert e. Lee, and they know the institution of slavery is doomed. They dont know how to get out of it. Wade hamptons family has 2,000 slaves and wade hampton doesnt like slavery. He knows its over, but the bank holds his paper. Hes actually broke except for the slaves and his father was considered the richest man in the south. He was on paper, but not really. So there are all these turbulent dilemmas. Meanwhile, the entire world is changing. London, the center of civilization at that point. London begins the 1860s as the grimy, dirty, grubby, choleraridden city of charles dickens. By the end of the decade, anthony trollup of the modern world and a sewage systems, and urban renovation, people figure out that oh, yeah, cholera is caused by infected water and as another quick aside, you had this ridiculously unfair picture of civil war doctors as brutal butchers. When you had these mass, quick expansions of the army in the beginning of the war, of course, you hired some doctors that werent very good and they get fired, but the germ theory of disease is already being discussed among the bettereducated doctors and its come up in budapest. A decade and a half before the war made an elementary discovery. He realized during an epidemic, that after dissecting a corpse to find out what killed her, he washed his hands with lye soap before he went upstairs to deliver the baby, the mother and child were more likely to survive. So civil war doctors do their best, and there are still some that pooh pooh the idea of germ theory, but especially the younger ones accepted. Why are they amputating all those limbs . Because we dont have antibiotics. Its not just the speed required on a battlefield, but the mini ball, it shatters bones, and you cant put shattered bones back together. Youre going to have terrible infections and the patient is probably going to die. Cutting off limbs is about saving lives and the pain, we do have some anesthetics coming in. Aspirin hasnt yet been invented. In the frontier, you see those old john ford movies about the cavalry and the west and theres always the drunken irish sergeant played by Victor Mclaughlin and drunkenness was a severe problem in the old frontier army, but it wasnt just because of the boredom and there was plenty of boredom out there. Because their teeth hurt. These guys have two bad teeth and if you have a mouthful of rotting teeth. Whiskey is helpful in those days before aspirin. So europe is going under these literal revolutions in some case and a rebellion against russia and russian occasion in 1863 and a russian czar, free and gariba and leads to sicily and lands and in weeks defeats 28,000 wellarmed regular of the kingdom of two sicilys and accelerates the road to nationalism and italian unification. Germany is beginning its march toward unification. The world is again, these men perceive their world as modern, just as we perceive ours as modern and its important to reach out and understand when i write these books that are technically fiction and theyre historically accurate and i prefer to call them dramatized history. Theyre accurate, but im trying to get in the heads of the men and women who fought or supported those who fought, and its important not just to see them in uniform, but what else were they like . What did they read . We have this picture of Stonewall Jackson as this fierce presbyterian. He was that, but he also loved shakespeare and milton and other poetry, and he always had trouble with his eyes. Hed study his bible at lunch when he was on lunch break from vmi, but then in the evenings, his wives then his second wife would read shakespeare to him. He was an astonishingly sensitive man, before the war, when he went on his tour of europe, he went to one single battlefield. Stonewall jackson went to look at churches and art, and thats not how we think of him. One of the greatest staff officers, henry kidd douglas. Kid douglas was a tough, somewhat arrogant, brave, talented young man, handsome as could be, really studly lady killer. His secret vice was reading what we today call bodice rippers, romantic novels written for women and when kid douglas would have a chance to raid a library in a knplantation house. He wouldnt go for shakespeare and he would go for the equivalent of danielle steel. There are very rich people. On the subject spike of leadership it is so easy for us to look at those icecold symbols on the white page and the arrows advance and retreat and say why on earth did the colonel do something that stupid . Well, the short answer is he didnt know it was going to be stupid. He may not have slept for three days before the battle of gettysburg and barely gets an hour of sleep a night during the battle of gettysburg. These men are tired and worn and theyre often sick. Robert e. Lee has been suffering from rheumatism, angina, severe dysentery, and he just collapses for a time and cant make key decisions. An example i want to use, and by the way, its not just illness, too, but also they dont have good maps. When george meade arrives at gettysburg at Cemetery Hill on the night of july 1st, it might have been slightly after midnight july 2nd. Theres some debate about it, thats the first time he sees a map of the area. The army of the potomac didnt expect to fight there. Hes giving the command of a defeated team and told to win the super bowl three days later and fights a nearly flawless battle for which he doesnt get fair credit and he suddenly sees a map and oliver has scared up one map of adams county, pennsylvania. Even in the Appomattox Campaign, even the confederates dont have fully accurate maps that are relying on guides and military operations run on knowledge of terrain. The enemy, the weather, the terrain and they dont have it. One of the great advantages he has in the valley is hodge kiss, a brilliant midcap maker and jackson realizes the famous quote, make me a map of the valley. They are works of art and theyre absolutely brilliant. So they dont always have complete information. In the heat of battle when you literally cannot see because of the smoke and youre relying on the reports and youre trying to judge by the sound and echo of canons and all you see are the men streaming back toward the rear and it gives you a panic and youve got to make decisions right now on incomplete information. Well, sometimes you make the right one and sometimes you make the bad ones, but nobody in the civil war. No commander north or south sfr in the morning has said, boy, ill do everything i can to lose today but when you have tired, sick, exhausted men that have been wounded several times bearing grave responsibilities, sometimes they hesitate and sometimes they freeze and panic or they rush headlong forward. They are human beings and oh, by the way, they and their soldiers are constantly getting letters from home especially in the south saying i cant do this. I cant work the fields anymore. Theres nothing to eat. The kids are sick and theyre dying and then there are the human tragedies. James longstreet, always a bit of a surly man, three of his children die in the scarlet fever epidemic early in the war. He is so distraught that he cant each go to their funerals. He sits in a darken parlor while the funerals are going on. Hampton suffers all his life and is plagued by grave personal losses, but these men rise above the losses. Whats astonishing isnt that they make some bad decisions. Whats astonishing is how tenacious and how persistent, how morally courageous they were and going even beyond it and i want to talk about a few case studies. First of all, a name familiar to some of you locally around here, Francis Channing barlow who sees his high bridge for the union forces pardon me, and enables meads army to get across with superintendent, and frannis Channing Barlow is fascinating. There is one monument to barlowe thats at gettysburg and its a monument for the first day of the war, the date he really screwed up. Overall, hes a brutal, tough fighter and makes mistakes as all generals have made some, but on the whole, his value is really tough, but hes a case stud n study in leadership and i want to give you a back side of Channing Barlow and theyre all new england families. His father is a unitarian minister who marries a stunning beauty of a wife, except his father goes a little bit wacky and at one point, he his sermons get crazy and he disappears and his wife is left with three boys and what do i do now and by hook or crook with all of the new england kecks they survive for a few years and Francis Channing barlow lives on the first great famous commune, want the famous commune, but the famous one in massachusetts, brook farm which is back by people by Nathaniel Hawthorne although hawthorne doesnt live at any point and he grows up in this wild, artsy era and it fails because somebody has to do the dishes. The idea is they work in the morning and the afternoons will dance and enact plays and write poetry. Well, barlows gorgeous mother comes steaming into the granolafed, environment and guys being drawn, and before you know it, the other women band together and shes given walking papers and she still madges by hook and crook, and there are all these mav kwas and the philadelphia mafia, and George Mclellan and many others and hancock just outside of philly and George Gordon meade and many others and you have the ohio political mafia and the virginia mafia which really dominates not just the army of virginia, but the eastern war, and these guys were the Old School Tie harvard case, they stick together and to give you an idea of how tightly meshed these families are, Francis Channing barlow goes to harvard. He becomes, and hes brilliant. Hes the valedictorian of the class of 1855. He tutors someone who is not so bright, a younger guy who is getting with their school and thats Robert Gould Shaw of the 54th massachusetts. What the movie glory doesnt bring out. He doesnt want the job of leading that regimen. His mother, hes a mamas boy, she basically forces her son to take that command, but barlows tutored him, gets him through harvard, and later on, barlow when hes really sick, suddenly mrs. Barlow im sorry, barlow has married a woman ten years his senior. Its a very cerebral match, although they love each other very much. A arabella dies because shes following her husband as a volunteer nurse and she has typhoid and dies while her husband is on the battlefield. Hes sick as a dog and later on mom decides in the tradition of good moms everywhere that shes going to fix him up with a better wife than Arabella Barlow was, and she fixes him up with who . Ellen shaw, nelly shaw, the sister of Robert Gould Shaw. All these guys with the lowells and barlows and channing and theyre not unlike the mass armies of today, but getting to the leadership study. Leadership is not as easy as it sounds and its not about drawing a sword and leading a bayonet charge or making one wise decision. There are questions of loyalty. Any soldier will tell you, the first loyalty is to the mission, but what if the mission youve given makes no sense to you and its hopeless and you know your soldiers are going to die. Is there a gray area . Is there a next loyalty to your superior or is it to your soldiers, or is it divided . Is there a loyalty to a cause or is it to your family back home . Its just not as clear cut as we want it to be, and men make different decisions at different times under different circumstances, but Francis Channing barlow. Hes at gettysburg, he makes the mistake for the simple reason that hes been promoted too fast and less than a year that he was a Regimental Commander and he comes back and chancellorsville, hes not fully engaged and hes detached from the 11th corps and he gets to gettysburg and hes never really fought a fuel division at battle and hes north of town that first day and sees that little noll out there and hes with the commander and thats a great position from artillery, ive got to have that, but a Division Commander would have recognized that moving forward unhinged the entire 11th core defense and leads to the firstplace debacle. Hes respected. Hes known and brilliant and fights on, but here, we have a belief if youre a leader you tough it out until the end and barlow did and there are consequences. At first, hes east of richmond and by the bottom, hes had aggravated diarrhea and deadly diarrhea and a big killer in our civil war and he wont quit. Hes just not a quitter and he comes back and he has eight days off for his wifes funeral and hes crushed because he and his first wife really did have a deep love. Hes trying to deal with this. Hes got a toothache, too, but thats neither here nor there. Hes really sick and winfield is grooming barlow to take the second corps and the mighty second corps because hancock is badly wounded and he cant ride many days and has trouble betting around and barlow is so ill, he cant make good decisions. He starts doing things at that battlefield that he would have fired one of his subordinates for doing and nelly miles, nelson miles and the great indian fighter and nelson barlow who started the war in a boston, as a sales clerk at a boston crockery shop, and he will rise to be a general officer. Ultimately, chief of staff during the spanishamerican war and nelson miles can see that barlow is falling apart, and he doesnt know what to do and barlow physically collapses after he squandered mens lives by trying to tough it out and be hard. So hes evacuated back to the hospital and the huge hospital at city point and by the way, another revolution, medical evacuation, and medevac, as we call it today at the time with railroads running right to the rear at petersburg, if youre wounded around the battles around petersburg and everything is clicking for you, you can be back within 36 to 48 hours and what we today call a rear area base hospital at annapolis, maryland. European armies wont reach that speed of medical evacuation until mid world war i. The russian army doesnt achieve that speed of medevac until afghanistan in the 1980s, and oh, by the way, i wish i had more time to talk about it and the first modern staff is not the prussian general staff which virtually fell apart in 1866 once they crossed the border and they cant feed their troops and the first truly modern staff was put together by Andrew Atkinson humphries and they were checking that everyone was towing the party line, but theyre the people that crossed the james and the magnificent crossing which the u. S. Army will not be able to repeat until we crossed the rhine in 1945. Barlow is back at the base hospital and nelson miles is taking advantage of the division and things move on toward the station, and miles knows what hes doing. Hes healthy and putting everything together, and the day before the station, barlow releases himself from the hospital. Hes sick as a dog still and he shows back up and starts changing when nelson miles is done and he doesnt understand the mission and by the next morning he collapses again and this time hes out until virtually the end of the war. Hes so sick, to me, as i read it as a lay fan of medical history, he has a severe parasite and hes the only officer given leave to go to europe for medical treatment and he is cured in europe and gets back in time to take a division in the closing days of the war and be present at appomattox. Barlow is a case study in a talented officer who doesnt know when to quit. Never say die, well, if you never say die, maybe your men die in your place. So again, its not clear and its not easy. Lets go to another guy. John brown gordon. Classic, southern gentleman, self made. Barlow, nelson miles and these are men without westpoint educations and that liberates them. The westpointers do a marvelous job of Holding Things together and building armies in the beginning of the war, but they do not understand how warfare is changing. A few to grant does and sherman figures it out, but very few others do. Theyre still locked into this idea of the nah pnapoleonic battle, and they stand near the commanders hill and see most, if not all of the battlefield with direct things or try to. By the time, and by the close of the siege of petersburg when it all collapses, the lines have stretched from richmond to petersburg and theyre almost 40 miles long and its a preview of world war i. Youre controlling things with the telegraph and that has its own pitfalls if grant thinks he can stay in the rear, he never sees it until the second attack, so technology does have its pitfalls, but John Brown Gordon is a curious guy, charming, born with charisma. His father tries being a preacher and runs the 19th century equivalent of a health spa and doesnt work out so well and he gets into the mining business in northwest george a and that doesnt work out so well at a bad time. John brown gordon is at college, later to be university and hes a brilliant scholar and loves the classics and a master of rhetoric. Rhetoric matters and command a crowd, how rare that is today, but if i command the language, i command the situation. And civil war commanders especially in the confederate armies and the army of Northern Virginia, there is a time when there is no food left and no bullets left and the men are in rags and they are running on a commanders rhetoric on the ability to inspire men and John Brown Gordon makes his way up and hes got a great, intensely physical love affair with his wife, fannie gordon. People were as sexual then in their impulses and biology as we are now, and if you dont believe me, check out the venereal disease roles on both sides. Entire hospitals dedicated to venereal disease which was a terrible problem for the soldiers north and south, and theres so much more to that, but i dont want to sidetrack myself again. Boys will be boys and oh, thank you, no penicillin available today. So theyre complex and theyre human. One of the criticisms ive gotten from these dramatized histories where im trying to do the Eastern Theater. They say people didnt curse back then. You know, so many lives could have been saved during the civil war if the opposing commander could have marched out in front of the audience and had a cursing contest. Men were famous for their profanity. Win hancock, so many others and lee doesnt want to hear the word damn in his presence, but others and the troops have always loved it. They just eat it up, but these guys have been frontier soldiers out there in those dusty outposts with the primary problems are alcohol, gonorrhea and an occasional indian fight. A very rare indian fight that stirs the dust and make things interesting for a week or two or a month if youre chasing comanches. These are tough, rough, men and the men in the ranks are tough men. In pack, if you go back and check out and read closely not the letters from sweethearts and wives, but the letters to brothers and male friends, it is astonishing how many different ways you can misspell a fourletter word. But anyway, theyre human beings and John Brown Gordon. Hes a charismatic man. Hes born to be a soldier and they take the cliche, hes charming and handsome and badly wounded in antietam and he comes back and just fights well. He rises up the ranks and in the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1864, you have a pairing of two terrific leaders who dont get along and this is where the human side of leadership also comes in. Hes a big, ugly man and got rheumatism way back in the mexican war and hes bent over like a hunchback and hes always chewing tobacco and his beard looks like somebody emptied a babys diaper into it. Hes not an appealing guy. He doesnt have the common touch with the troops. Hes grumpy, but lee knows what hes doing. Lee knows that early is the best guy hes got left for that independent command. John brown gordon is a brilliant tackle fighter and an operator, and hes thinking as an operator. He has to think strategically. Hes got the last army thats going to fight in the Shenandoah Valley, there are no more troops and so we get to questions and early, its easy to write him off as i often did in my earlier years because sheridan beat him every time. Phil sheridan beats him because phil outnumbers him and veteran forces and great sub ord ma nats and how well early does fight and how close he comes to winning and the ultimate battle at cedar creek, and those of you that know cedar creek John Brown Gordon devisees the attack strategy. It is a brilliantly successful and this outnumbered Confederate Army overrunning Union Division after Union Division. Theyve almost collapsed the sixth corps and it gets to a point in middletown where early, he loses his nerve. Theyre on the verge of destroying Phil Sheridan. Phil sheridan is on his way back from washington and he makes that famous ride that day from winchester to the battlefield and gordon is saying, no, youve got to push on. We almost destroyed them. Youve got to finish the job and gordon is right. Youve got to finish the job and finish it now, but early is right, too because he has overextended and his men havent slept at all. Theyre out of ammunition and theyre exhausted. Theyre outnumbered, and the lines are already stabilizing in front of them, and if he loses that day he knows hes lost lees last detached army. Unfortunately, he loseses that detached army anyway, and Phil Sheridan who is obscene, jealous, magnificent soldier is on the battlefield and sheridans he is a short, little irishman with a funnyshaped head, sheridan is so fun they Abraham Lincoln made fun of him. Seriously, but he has this gift. By the way, ive met many people, you could be a strapping, 66 and not have a gift and they have the new secretary of defense who has incredible charisma and hes playing as a fence post, but hes got the gift. They just rally around. Gordon is this gorgeous cavalier who is also a brilliant soldier and the soldiers love him and of course, theres tension between them and of course, he clearly feels jealous of his subordinate gordon and that kind of thing plays and Stonewall Jackson, if there was a subordinate he didnt try to courtmartial, you have to remind me who that was. Human jealousies and vanity. How can i be here in southern virginia and not talk briefly about robert e. Lee. A man so incredibly misunderstood because when we myth ol jiez these men and when we make them perfect heroes, when we take away their humanity we do a great disservice to them. Its that they have overcome their human limitations that robert e. Lee we picture him as this perfect gentleman his father died in shame trying to return from his exile. He grows up in not so genteel poverty with his mother and the rest of the family in a small house in virginia. Hes the poor cousin thats not really tolerated in the summer gettogethers. And he feels it. Hes taking care of his mother, too. Robert e. Lee goes to west point because its a free education. And lee, we talk about the american selfmade man, there is no better example in the truest sense, a selfmade man than robert e. Lee. In a sense that he literally makes himself over. He makes himself into the person he wants to be. And it really starts at westpoint where he works out his diction. His speech is not rapid. He doesnt gush. Its called controlled speech. His posture is perfect. His manners will always be the end of his life those of a perfect regency era gentleman. Hes not a particularly religious man early in life, and his wife disparages about that until his later years where he undergoes conversion. But robert e. Lee works diligently to be the best at everything he does. When he falls in love with mary custis, he still hasnt gotten there. Old man custis, the proprietor of arlington, he doesnt want his daughter to mary robert e. Lee. Because hes from the bad side. Theyre just about white trash. His father should have been a jailbird. But mary custis, she sticks to her guns. They get married and when old man custis dies, lee leaves a couple of years in the army to straighten it out. Lee builds himself up to be the perfect officer, the perfect gentleman. Never remotely faithless to his wife, but he loves to flirt. Hes a handsome man, he loves to flirt. He loves to dance. P but at the end of the day he goes home with mary. Then the war comes. And robert e. Lee whos made himself this man he is, and hes idolized because he starts winning. He gives the southeast great victories. By the time hes marching on the road to lead to gettysburg, hes drugged his old koolaid. Whenever you start believing your army cant be defeated, youre on the road to defeat. But by the end of the war, hes being pressed. Because of his personal pride, he cannot quit. And hes a brilliant tactician and operator but his misfortune is to face not as a good a tactician but a brilliant strategist ullesyes s. Grant. If youre a soldier, youve done staff work, studied campaigns, you know the inherent genius. Union rights, if were locked in petersburg in a siege, its a matter of time. But because of his pride, he cannot quit. Lee knows the war is lost and he will not give up. And he hinds behind the idea that only president Jefferson Davis can decide that. He cant be the one to make a decision. And by the time the break through comes, he still doesnt want to be the guy who surrenders the south. And he keeps killing his own soldiers because of his pride. I know thats not a popular view. And i said i admire this man incredibly. But the war was lost and lee knew it and couldnt give up. And so the bloody road from petersburg to appomattox was paved with corpses that didnt have to fall. But anyway, its done now. You cant change it. Lee, well never know what he felt, if he felt any guilt about it. He was certainly a lion and hero of the south. The only thing i fault him for, i only fault him for that sin of pride. I know thats not a popular view. I admire this man but the war was lost and lee knew it. So he rode was paved. You cant change it. Well never know because lee is not communicative in that way. It was sort of a lion and a hero of the south. The only thing i fought him for and when you come down to the issue of leadership, of military leadership throughout history, theres one quality in the greek that knew it already. Theres one quality that will undo a field marshal and tribal chief and world leader is pride. That said, i am proud to have had the privilege to speak. Thank you very much. [ applause ] i think we have time for a couple questions. You are welcome to tell me im wrong about robert e. Lee. Any questions or is everybody hungry . Please come down to the microphone. You talked a little bit about the cognitive mention in the beginning and how it increased much during this war. In your mind, who is the greatest leader at utilizing that to their advantage. You just heard that terrific presentation about mosby. The problem with the older generals is they dont always know what they know. Know inherently that the rifle has more killing power. Why trade for a rifle musket. They cant operationalize it. Its the young officers who out of prejudice, werent polluted by mentally deformed by the old way of doing things. Who has used the information the best. Id say to go apart from just using information, Emotional Intelligence is important. And one guy who really gets Emotional Intelligence is billy sherman. He understands how tough the south is. He understands what it will take to break the south. And early in the war when he says its going to be a long war with hundreds of thousands of men under arms, hes called a lunatic. But he saw it early on. I think i really to give you a better answer, i would need to ponder it. The question was who made the best use of information. Early in the war, the confederates do the scouts, he gets in trouble because he believes the crazy estimates of confederate strength. But by later in the war, the union has a preponderance of information. For far better scouting to mass desertions. When you have the winner of 65, contrary to myths, it wasnt a snowy winter. There wasnt a lot of snow, but it was cold. There was a lot of sleet. And the army of Northern Virginia never starved in petersburg, but they went hungry. Theres a difference between being hungry and starving. And the officers most of them eat a decent diet, if not a lavish one, to the end. But this hunger and despair and the letters from home and the letters from home are incredibly important psychologically in gutting the army of Northern Virginia. And other confederate armies. People are getting letters about losing the farm and by the way, friends writing about unfaithful wives and things like that. At that point, on a typical night, there might be 200 deserters coming across the union lines. Whats really strange. At that point Union Deserters are still going to confederate lines. The union has balloons on a peninsula and other places where they are trying to spy. I think the key just to seek slightly from that, the key problem in civil war battles is an information problem. Once you launch the attack, once the forces are engaged. In close combat within a few hundred yards of each other, you lose control. For all the drums, bugles and flags, you cant see the flags in the smoke. You cant tell whos blowing the bugle. Youre not even sure whos drumming anymore. Its absolute chaos. The one tool they needed was a tactical radio, which of course will not come into play for three quarters of a century. But you lose information once the battle starts. Its hard literally hard to see into the smoke and for commanders to tell whats going on, but for regimenal and Brigade Commanders in the fight, its very hard to communicate only by courier or shouts. And you cant see the flags, but one of the reasons you always shoot the flag bearer is to break morale, its because as long as you can see the flags are where you rally, thats where your regiment is. So information comes in a lot of flavors. Id say the south had better spies. The north had considerably better organized military intelligence. Sir . Play devils advocate for a moment. Sure. Prideful as he was, when lee left richmond after the breakthrough at petersburg, he came through farmville here. He came over the high bridge. And of course although the retreating confederates were successful in burning four of the spans of the high bridge, they were unsuccessful in burning the lower wooden wagon bridge apparently because it was made of a greener lumber that didnt burn. And barlow moved fast. And barlow moved fast. So lee felt at the time he was unwilling to throw in the towel and he was attempting to get to the Railroad Depots further west and go south and join up with joseph johnstons army in north carolina. Do you really think that that was a pipe dream, it was impossible . Or if that lower wooden bridge had been destroyed properly, could he have done it . He still couldnt have if you look at where southern most union corps were, he couldnt have made it to joe johnston, i dont think. My problem is the soldiers in the army of Northern Virginia on that retreat they were no longer fighting for the confederacy. They hadnt fought for jeff davis in a long time. They were fighting for robert e. Lee. They loved him. They loved him. And lee knew by the time, you know, same thing as high bridge, he has subordinate officers generally coming to him saying, sir, its not fair, weve lost. You got to surrender. He threatened some with courtmartials right here in farmville. And im sorry im blanking out on the name of the Brigade Commander who goes to lee and while lee is washing up in the morning, he reads lee the riot act. And lees response is, gently, he says, you know, you realize what youve just said is a courtmartial offense. And, you know, basically go and lee turns his back and walks away. Lee is thinking in napoleonic terms he has studied. Napoleon used an operational tool, not a strategy, but thats when faced with converging enemy forces instead of moving off or retreating, napoleon would thrust himself between them, use a Small Holding force to hold off one side while he destroyed the other force and turned. And lee is thinking in terms of that, several position, thats what napoleon did, i unite with Joe Johnstons force in north carolina, we defeat sherman, then we turn around and defeat grant. The math doesnt work. United with the army of Northern Virginia the most they could have done is held grant at bay until sherman got there. Lee is a really smart guy. Hes an engineer. He knows the math. And he knows hes lost. Again, we can differ, and again, i admire robert e. Lee up until that point. Im not trying to trash a southern icon. The north had far greater failures than the south did as far as generals go. My only point e point is that human beings are inherently flawed, only god is perfect. So you can admire robert e. Lee up until the end, i think he made a mistake. But i think he was a prisoner of psychological need. Having grown up as a poor relation, the young officer whos fiancees father didnt want him her to marry that degenerate spawn of the lee family, i think he was imprisoned by that need to fight to the bare end. And god knows, god knows, we are all incredibly flawed, complex human beings. I think on the whole obviously robert e. Lee is incredibly admirable. One more question. One more question. Jim, lovettsville, virginia. Please just call me ralph. As soon as i retired i learned one thing right away, the neighbors dont care if youre a private or general. They want you to cut the grass. [ laughter ] okay. Well, then, ralph. Related to the question of pride, not just with lee, i always felt tlfrs one point in the war after which there was no possibility of the confederacy winning brve which there was a possibility and that was the election of 1864 with lincoln being reelected. Its always been my belief that the confederates at that point, military and civilian leadership would have been perfectly justified in getting together and saying, guys, we gave it our best shot but all we can do now is drag it out. That something has to do with pride, i suppose. Could you address that . I think youre absolutely right. With the election reelection of Abraham Lincoln in 1864, thats it. That means the north is going to fight to the end. No question about it. But lee himself said even earlier he had written once if he was trapped in petersburg, essentially, it was a matter of time. I agree with you fully with what you said, by that point its done. But i think there are signals earlier and there was one signal thats sort of in quotes, terrorist attack, in the summer of 1864 this huge logistics space, this phenomenal Logistics Base of vast Field Hospital complex is building up. And, you know, about eight miles west of petersburg on the where the ap mat tox from james flow together, the confluence, at that point confederate agents come in. The blast is incredibly destructive. It blows it throes locomotives into the air and overturns them. At that point it was considered the busiest port, harbor, busiest port in the world. There are acres and acres of caissons and cannons, theres also board los surgeons want to close down. The wealth of the north is fully come into play. The civil war breaks the south as an economic power. It makes the north as industrial power. Even though massive debts to be alleviated. What happened is after this incredible explosion, which is supposed to shock grant and maybe convince him he cant win, within 24 hours the harbor is operating again. Within 48 hours as far as i can read the record its fully operational. The wealth of the north is such in material and manpower that if you can do that and the army and the petersburg lines never experienced a significant shortage because of that. At that point for me the war was over. I can certainly understand others fighting on for longer. When i said at the beginning of the presentation, the confederacy was not a revolution. It was a counterrevolution against dramatically and rapidly changing times. Go to 1828, the wounds have been festering for a long time. Perhaps the greatest advantage the north has ultimately is history is on its side. Again, thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. [ applause ] thanks, ralph. What an enlightening talk. We have many books of ralphs. Valley of the shadow and the most recent one the damned of petersburg, which is in hard cover. Pick up a copy. Visit ralph. My question to you is when ralph came on the ap mat tox campaign two years ago, he confessed he was doing this for insight on campaign for his next book. Can you tell us a little bit about your next book that will come out in august . Well, the reason i went on that battlefield walk, i usually operate independently. Im a lone gun, do my own research, although i do turn to historians to check my work and theyve been wonderfully generous. But i went on that walk because it was a National Park service walk. And these guys are really good. And pat, ive been on military training walks. Ive led walks. Yours was the best ive ever been on. And i hope youll do it again and many others can participate. [ applause ] and your influence, your influence directly will be seen in the next book, judgment at appomattox, which comes out on august 29th. With these five books, its a cycle of five books it tries to get the take the war from the Eastern Theater and obviously grant and lee and immediate are there. But to look at the people like little billy mahone. Fascinating, brilliant. Another natural soldier who comes into his own. Barlow, others. And to be absolutely historically accurate, and ill bore you for just a moment with this. When im writing, these are not made up stories. This is what the people actually did. The only thing thats the dialogue is imagined. But its taken from the notes whenever possible. But im trying to investigate their thoughts. So thats why i call it dramatized history. I took a technique from a wonderful german historian writer who was such a tough old bird and she was already past retirement age. She stood up to Adolph Hitler and hit her was afraid of her. She said i will not leave my country because of this little man. And she just goes off in the country and lives through the deprivations of world war ii. But she was a novelist too, but she borrowed from the german tradition and she wrote this magnificent dramatized history in which she was absolutely scrupulously historically accurate to which crop was in that field and what was the weather like on that day. And the reason you can do that, its wonderful if you do it and bring it off because it humanizes the experience. A really good history book can tell you about the details these soldiers were marching. But if i dramatize it well and honestly and accurately, i can make you feel what it was like to march in that wool uniform with an empty canteen in 90 degree heat. And couriers riding back and forth kicking up dust. And you hear the sounds of battle ahead. And you dont know whats going on. Your officers dont know whats going on. Youre suddenly ordered call them right into a field. Wounded men streaming past you. You still dont know whats going on and you wont until the battle is over. Thats what the dramatization can do. And another thing, the last point, the purpose of writing these we americans dont know our history anymore. Weve taken it out of the schools. Where people do not know their history, theyre prey to demagogues and lies. Right or left, we should be proud of our history and we should teach it honestly. Let the wonderful facts about our brave, bold liberating history speak for themselves. And when i hear [applause] and ill leave you with my impression of too many young people today. Theyre not totally ignorant of history. Theyve heard of the civil war, and they say, well, tell me about it. Oh yeah. Thats when George Washington freed the jews at pearl harbor. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. [ applause ] more about the civil war on American History tv tonight on cspan3. Starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, the annual Gettysburg College Civil War Institute conference. Well hear about the gettysburg address and president lincolns Decision Making in the civil war. Cspans coverage of the Solar Eclipse starts at 7 00 a. M. Eastern with the washington journal live in maryland. Our guests are mr. Goldman, a Research Scientist and the chief scientist at goddard. At noon we join nasa tv as they provide clips. And at 4 00 p. M. Eastern, viewer reaction to this rare Solar Eclipse over the continental United States. Live all day coverage of the Solar Eclipse on monday starting at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan and cspan. Org. Listen live on the free cspan app. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Up next, a civil war historian comparing the upbringings and leadership skills of ulis sees grant and robert e lee. Thank you, patrick. Our last speaker of the morning here. Mr. Davis is from independence, missouri. In the afternoon is william c