Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20140822

Put on the mantle piece so i was glad to get it. I thanked him for it and i was going to waco to do some research at baylor, wrapped it up in old dirty tshirts and put it carefully in my suitcase and went down to waco in the rental car the next day, spoke well and came back and went to the airport at dfw, checked the bag to go to washington because i was going up there to a smithsonian program. I spent a few days at my brothers doing research in the archives. Did that, the jar still wrapped up in its tshirt. Went back after i finished to the airport, checked the bag to go back to my home in americas where i was living then and changed planes in atlanta and they changed the bag to the little world war i plane that they used between atlanta and albany, georgia. Got down to albany, picked up my suitcase, put it in the car and drove back. I was convinced that bell jar was broken and there would be a million pieces of glass and i would have to throw out everything in the suitcase, but i got home, opened the suitcase and very carefully unwrapped the bell jar. The glass bell jar was fine, but somewhere in the jarring around the little figure of joe johnston had gone that seems very symbolic. Thank you, people. I hope ive geffen you something to think about. [ applause ] tonight on American History tv a focus on slavery and cinema beginning at 8 00 eastern with a look at the depiction of slavery in film since the 1930s and then the movie lincoln and its portrayal of the debate of the amendment abolishing slavery and the 1939 movie gone with the wind and its depiction of Southern Society and thats all tonight starting at 8 00 eastern starting on cspan3. Here are some of the highlights for this weekend. Tonight on cspan in prime time. Well visit important sites of the history of the civil rights movement. Highlights of the new York Ideas Forum including cancer by ol jest Andrew Hessel and on sunday, q a with new york congressman Charlie Rangel at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight at 8 00 on cspan2, indepth with writer and religious scholar ressa aslam. Retired neurosurgeon on, ben carson and sunday night at 11 00 p. M. Eastern Lawrence Goldstone on the competition between the Wright Brothers and glen curtis to be the predominant name in manned flight. American history tv on cspan3 tonight at 8 00 eastern. A look at hollywoods portrayal of slavery. Saturday night, the 200th anniversary of the burning of washington. And sunday night at 8 00 p. M. , former white house chiefs of staff discuss how president s make decisions. Find our Television Schedule one week in advance at cspan. Org and let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Call us at 2026263400 and comments at cspan. Org and join the cspan conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Next, how general sherman brought the war to the south and the impact of the union armys capture of atlanta. As shermans troops set towns on fire, he established a code of conduct. Sarah ruben discusses shermans march hosted by the u. S. Capitol historical society. This is an hour. Thank you very much, paul and thank you all very much for comi coming. Mergeant of terror, attila. If you type, was sherman a into doingel. The autocomplete includes war criminal, hero oroville an and if you add a couple more letters you get terrorist. The urban dictionary, a popular website, describes general william t. Sherman as having employed the vicious tactic of targeting civilians continuing, such tactics had previously been deemed morally unacceptable. The deliberate targeting of civilians for attack was taken up in world war ii ending in the deaths of millions. The bombing of european cities by both sides of the war and japanese cities by the u. S. As well as attacks on civilians in china the philippines and korea by japan were consistent with n and encouraged by shermans precedent. The logic of these tactics seems to have been refuted by history. Finally, if you scroll through this entry, the words related to general william t. Sherman tags at the bottom include collateral damage, modern warfare, murder, terrorist and war criminal. Now let me be a little bit honest and fair here. This is not the best source out there on sherman. It was written by somebody named tex in tex, and it misquotes sherman at one point and ill also concede that if you look at the Word Association tag line it does also include war hero, but what this does represent a really popularlyheld view that william t. Sherman and the march through georgia and the carolinas during the final months of the civil war have something to do with the creation of total war, and the millions of civilian deaths in the wars of the 20th and 21st century can somehow be laid at his feet nor does this view reside entirely on the internet, noted repository of crack pot theories. A history of henry county georgia explained simply that, quote, shermans march to the sea was the first hint of the concept of total war which was to come to full fruition during the Second World War in which civilian infrastructure is considered a legitimate military target. Later writers photoably james reston, junior, reston made the argument and said that when a rash confederate venture to shot on his trains from a courthouse, the courthouse was burned. When a lady burned her corn crib, she lost her house. The proportionality, this is against reston of the retaliation is roughly the same if geometrically less as hostile fire from a jungle rifle being greeted by a b52 strike. One of the issues that comes into play when we talk about sherman and the questions of total war and the lawses of war is that people seem to use pretty slippery definitions. Often sherman seems to be judged by the standards of today rather than of his own time and often when not as much historian, but when people use total war they seem to be referring to the degree of mobilization rather than the range of targets, so what i want to do today is take a closer look at shermans march in the context of changing Union Policies over the course of the car and see if that doesnt paint a more nuanced picture of what sherman was doing and whether that fell within the bounds of kind of civilized warfare. So in 1864 there were no hague or geneva conventions, and that was not to say there were no guides for military behavior and conduct, but these wars were very fluid and evolving and changing as the very nature of the civil war changed. So initially, union policy towards the confederacy and its civilians would be one known as of conciliation. The idea behind it was lincoln believed that there was this silent majority of unionists in the Confederate States and that all he needed to do was animate them and they would rise up and the states would rejoin the union. This conciliation policy meant a narrow focus on targeting the confederate armies rather than antagonizing southern civilians and in effect southern civilians were still being treated as though they were american citizens rather than the citizens of a belligerent nation, but as early as 1862 that had begun to change and during that summer Union General john pope had issued a series of orders that allowed the army of virginia to sub cyst on the produce of the local countryside and lincoln actually, he was frustrated by the progress of the war at that point and he approved these orders. Popes soldiers went on a tear of destruction and violence reminiscent, actually, of the stories that would come out of georgia and the carolinas two years later and so great were the abuses perpetrated on on civilians that pope had to backtrack and condemn his men for being so out of control. So thats happened. At the same time in the summer of 1862, lincoln has come to the realization that he needs to use emancipation as a war measure and once he issued the preliminary emancipation proclamation in september 1862, the opportunity for this policy of conciliation to work was pretty much over and the war would be common, historian mark brimslys phrase hard handed. At the same time, all of this is happening simultaneously in different levels, the Union War Department had begun consuling with oppressionborn professor named Francis Lieber about devising a military code. Lieber then in turn called his 1863 work a code for the government of armies, but the War Department issued it as general orders 100, and its more comfortably known as the lieber code. So, the lieber code was designed to codify the laws of war and particularly as they pertain to the interactions between civilians and soldiers. One of the most significant sections of the code are articles 14 through 16 which very carefully delineate military necessity. Lieber has a pretty broad definition of that that deplores cruelty and deplores acts of vengeance as he would put it, but did allow for the making of war on civilians in specific situations, and in fact, theres a sort of tension internal to the lieber code over whats military necessity and whats going too far. So he does explain further in article 17, wars not carried on by arms alone. It is lawful to starve the hospital belligerent armed or unarmed so it leads to the speedier subjection of the enemy. He talks about also in a later article, he said the citizen or native of a hostile country is, thus, an enemy as one of the constituents of the hostile state of nation and as such is subjected to the hardships of war. So its clear from liebers code that there are ways that civilians can be targeted because of the fact that civilians are presumed to be inherently helping their military. That being said, among the codes prohibitions were the death and destruction of art works and the like and under punishment of death, this again is liebers language all wanton violence committed against persons in the invaded country, all destruction of property not sxha commanded by theboq[z jju q officer and all robbery and pillager sacking and taking place by main force, a rape, wounding or maiming and killing of such inhabit apartments. There is a line and that is physical violence against civilians. You can destroy their property, some of them, not their art, which is nice. Theres limits. Confederates when they read the lieber code complain that its so broad that as to license mischief under the grounds of military necessity. Also by 1864 when sherman is preparing for the march, lincoln and the union in general have become comfortable with a high degree of destruction of private property. Cotton could be burned easily, if not the contents of homes if not the homes themselves in areases like missouri and the shenandoah valley. So one can argue that the lieber code, at least as it it pertains to the treatments of civilians and their property was honored more in the breach than it was followed to the letter. Just after the war something called Field Service at war by francis j. Lipity was val published specifically on military logistics and he also leans on this doctrine of military necessity to justify foraging and he argues that foraging was a, quote, wellestablished right of war. Now he does concede, though that there need to be restraints placed on foraging because, as he put it, to do otherwise would be to bring dishonor upon the the country. And lipitys work, i know it was published after the work, but it will all make sense. Lipitys work demonstrates the complexity of the issue that surrounds foraging. By its very nature, when you see supplies from civilians you are inflicting hardship on that civilian population and so in order to inflict sort of the magical right amount of hardship enough, and to operate within the moral boundaries of civilized warfare, officers need to maintain tight control and lipity explains defined foraging parties and centralized systems, chaos could ensue and the army could really descend into a sort of armed mob engaging in pillage and so forth. So whats interesting is that you would have expected lipity to use shermans march as his examples as hes making this complicated case. He doesnt and it goes back to napoleons russian campaign. In fact, though, he doesnt ignore the march when hes talking about how an army can descend into chaos. Thats where he uses napoleon. He actually defends shermans march and he claims at first that when seizing Household Goods the men carefully discriminated between and this is actually the language from shermans orders, discriminated between the rich who were generally hostile to us meaning the union and the poor and industrious who were usually friendly or at least neutral and he also describes sherman as having a very organized system and with rules and receipts and he explains that any deviations from this nice, orderly, foraging system on the march, were the and stragglers and the like and not the main force of marchers. Well kind of talk about that in a minute. White southerners during the march and immediately afterwards frequently drew comparisons between shermans march and robert e. Lees invagus in 1862 and pennsylvania in 1863 and theyve often quoted lees general orders, 72 in the Gettysburg Campaign in which he reminded them, this is lees language that the duties expected of us by civilization and christianity are more obligatory than in our own and now aen go, lees language. We make war only upon armed men and we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemies. So lees often praised for these orders, right . That hes restraining his men and relying on their sort of inherent gentility thats a pretty selective reading of what actually happened and many of these defenders of lee ignore the many wrongs perpetrated by lees men specifically when they kidnapped africanamericans to sell into slavery and virginia. So well set that aside. Okay. Ive gotten ahead of myself and a little off track. So lets talk now specifically about sherman and his march. Despite many allegations to the contrary, sherman himself was very well aware that war was governed by rules. These charges against sherman. Is sherman a war criminal generally focused on two events. They focus on the march, obviously, which ill talk about, but they also focus on his expulsions of citizens, of civilians, rather, from atlanta. So, shermans army took control of the city of atlanta on september 2, 1864. They werent planning to stay for very long but he did want his men to use their time in the city for sort of recharging to rest after the rigors of the campaign to take atlanta and he didnt want his men distracted by confederate operatives or women and children. He didnt want to have to feed women and children, and he didnt want to have to leave any men behind to hold on to the city of atlanta when he pulled out of the city. So he famously ordered civilians, unionists and confederates out of the city and gave them ten days in which to comply. It was with about 1200 people who were affected by this. Many people have used his september 12th 1864 letter to the mayor of atlanta in which sherman famously wrote, war is cruelty and you cannot refine it to make the argument that he was willing to do whatever worked to wreak all kinds of havoc on civilians in order to end the war. Sherman is quite explicit about following the rules and laws of war. In fact, he was quite angry when confederate general John Bell Hood challenged the eviction of confederates from atlanta and he wrote to hood, i think i understand the laws of civilized nations and the customs of war and then he suggested, in fact, that maybe the confederates ought to be taking better care of Union Prisoners at andersonville. In his final letter to hood, in fact, sherman proclaimed that, quote, he was not bound by the the laws of war to give notice of the shelling of atlanta because, he said, the city had been fortified and was being used for military purposes. See the books, he testily concluded. So what of the march itself . Before sherman left atlanta in november 1864, he set ground rules for his 62,000 men and he did them in the form of his special field orders number 120. There were nine article s altogether ask there are marching orders and then there are Center Sections that, in fact, deal explicitly with what the army could and could not do along the march. So the men were instructed to, quote, forage liberally on the country and to destroy mills, houses, cotton gins, et cetera, but within limits. The foraging parties were supposed to be regularized and under the control of discreet officers. Soldiers were not supposeded to enter homes as long as the the and if the army was left unmolested, southern property was also supposed to be left alone. Essentially what sherman is saying is a group of union foragers came up it a farm or plantation and they were allowed on and nobody was shooting at them or smarting off to them, then they were supposed to leave all the property. And again, sherman also ordered that when seizing livestock in particular his men, as i said earlier, ought to discriminate between the rich who are usually hostile and the poor and industrious, usually neutral or friendly and if the army was well treated during their foraging, they were invukte ed o strucked to quote, leave a portion for their maintenance. So he is setting parameters. Most of these rules were really more more honored in the breach than in reality. Theyre pretty elastic, but i think that their very existence of these rules gave sherman and to a lesser extent his men a degree of, i think, moral cover or at least thats what sherman is trying to achieve. They also allow for a certain elasticity. So you could treat some people more harshly and other people leniently and theres evidence that, in fact, the march does have an ebb and flow into it. Certainly, its pretty harsh in georgia and its extremely harsh in South Carolina and then the men are ordered to really pull back and be less destructive in North Carolina because North Carolina was perceived to have a lot of unionists. So, i dont really want to come away from today thinking im an apologist for shermans march or that i in any way am trying to minimize the very real damage and devastation that the Soldiers Left in their wake, but what i am trying to say is that the men were bound by rules and they knew they were bound by rules. Sherman certainly believed that he was operating within the laws of war and the parameters of civilized behavior. Hes also willing to push exact leigh up to those boundaries of those rules. Frightening people, stealing their supplies and burning their barns, burning their houses even was one thing for sheryl man. I do think the the wholesale kill, Sexual Violence as happened in areas by guerilla violence, like missouri, for example, was really beyond the pale for shermans men by and large. Sherman biographer Michael Feldman has argued that while the march quote stopped well short of a total war in the 20th century nazi sense, shermans rhetoric of destruction implied that he could make war on whomever he chose ask that southern whites would be powerless to stop him and sherman is certainly well aware of the psychological impact of what he allowed his men to do and encouraged his men to do. Does that make sherman a terrorist . He used his calculated brutality to terrorize the southern population, feldman, i think, really tries to split hairs as much as possible and describe sherman as having, quote, terrorist capacities. I also think theres some responsibility, clearly, for both destroying and reining themselves in to the soldiers themselves on the march and part of the reason that the march was not total in the 20th century sense was because the veterans limited themselves, held back by their own internal and cultural sense of morality. Ive done a lot of reading on shermans march because i have this book coming out this summer, and i will tell you that there are very few instances of theres not murdering. Theres not killing and theres not lining people up and shooting them. Theres definitely some violence, but not the kind of violence thats associated with wars in the 20th and 21st centuries. So sherman himself may have overstepped the bowns unds of legality a few times and these charges again are regarding his use of prisoners of war. So in the first instance, sherman wrote that torpedos or mines had been buried along the roads outside of savannah and he called for prisoners of war to be brought up to clear the mines, not wanting to risk his own men and then in the second, a group of union foragers had been captured and killed by some of wade hampton bes men in South Carolina, and sherman ordered a group to dry lots and had men executed to set an example or a retaliatory example, but, i would argue, what keeps sherman from being a terrorist in the modern sense of the word is that he was operating during wartime with the full sanction and full support of his government and when the war ended, so, too, did his hostilities and his destruction. I mean, in many ways, i think that a better analogy to terrorism in the wake of the civil war would be the waves of violence that confrontedihe r africanamericans during reconstruction as they saw to exercise their new economic and social and political freedoms. So this notion that sherman brought forth some new kind of war with the march really only makes sense in retrospect. At the time people didnt perceive it as such. As the 19th century became the 20th and as wars of increasing deadliness and destructive power break out around the globe, the march seemed to reappear again and again and often the analogy surrounding the march are strained, what they do is they reveal this evolving notion of the march that somehow the march becomes increasingly destructive as its repeatedly compared to more modern or more current wars and im just going to suggest a few things to give you a few examples of this. Shermans march was when germany marched into belgium in 1914. Often to actually remind americans of the costs of involvement of war even when justifiable. Once the United States became involved in world war i, this past ceased to be a significant point of discussion although it did reappear abovely after the war and im excited to talk about this in this room which is that during testimony before the Senate Committee on propaganda in 1919, grant squires, a new york lawyer who had visited belgium testified to the cruelties that he saw perpetrated by the germans, men and women beaten with rifle butts, children and babies murdered and families starting without shelter. He was then asked to counter testimony that had been given earlier by a german sympathizer, to the effect that shermans march had also been a very cruel expedition. And this enraged senator newt fellson who was a Civil War Veteran who angrily proclaimed that american soldiers had, quote, never killed women and children. Whatever they did they did not do that and nelson specifically asked squires to it address the charges that germans were no worse than shermans men and the squires confirmed that the germans were different from shermans march. So what im what i see coming out of this is this sense that theres a new standard set for violations of civilians that were once shermans thefts and fires were the worst that people could imagine, the great war issued horrors of an entirely different order of magnitude. There were very few mentions of shermans march that i was able to come across, but in the vietnam era, perhaps because it coincided with the centennial of the civil war raised all sorts of analogies to shermans march. A variety of cultural critics and opponents of the war in vietnam compared shermans actions in georgia to the actions of american soldiers in vietnam. The most detailed and culturally significant exploration of this relationship somehow between sherman and vietnam came in james reston, jr. s shermans march on vietnam where reston retraces the march through georgia and hes looking at the past to explain the turbulent present and this post vietnam war that he lives in and he seems to draw this Straight Line and this connection between the violence and here is a passage from this. General William Sherman is considered to be the author of total war. The first general of modern, Human History to carry the logic of war to the ultimate extreme. The first to scorch the earth. The first to wreck an economy in order to starve its soldiers and he was our first merchant of terror and our spiritual father and the spiritual father, some contend of the vietnam concept of search and destroy, pacification and free fire zones. As such, he remains a cardboard figure of our history, a monstrous arch villain to unreconstructed southerners. An embarrassment to northerners who wonder if civilized war died with him, whether without sherman the atom bomb might not have been dropped or vietnam entered. Reston concedes after this passage that maybe hes hes more metaphor cal than real, but hes trying to argue that there is once you lose the bounds, the bounds are constantly loosed upon. Hes trying to make an argument, too, that shermans veteran, that shermans soldiers and west moreland soldiers had more things in common, being animated by a desire for vengeance and a desire for reprisal and where they differed were in matters of scale which he says is more a function of of technology than of desire, that it seems worse in the 20th century because men had weapons of mass destruction and in the 19th they didnt. Not i dont buy it completely. In order, let me just conclude by invoking something, what of today . Where does sherman fit today . Hes sometimes invoked in discussions of the iraq war, often in support of a more terrible and total sort of war. Again, this would be the dark reaches of the internet where people are saying things like, if only sherman had been in, you know, iraq or afghanistan. Okay. Just the other day, though, my on tuesday, actually, my trusty google alert for shermans march pointed me to a column by thomas ricks and Foreign Policy entitled sherman as a counter insurgent. Ricks argued that sherman, hes arguing that sherman was embarking on a Counter Insurgency and not a soft hearts and Minds Campaign which rick sort of poohpoohs and a tough minded youre either with us or against us approach with a clear psychological dimensions. I read recs column over a bunch of times and im not convinced by his argument, but where i think ricks work is useful and what i am convinced of is that shermans march and its relationship to what americans think about war is still very much alive and very much relevant today. Thank you very much. [ applause ] im happy to answer any questions. Oh, here we go. Oh. Can you address a little you talked a lot about the topic of the standpoint of what sherman ordered. Did you address kind of what actually was happening on the ground for the union troops, in particular as they march through the swath of the south, they obviously disrupted the society that was going on, but in particular how did his men handle africanamerican slaves . That is a great question and actually, my book, i have a whole chapter on the march between africanamericans. As shermans men marched through, the first thing i would say is theres this misconception that people say, oh, shermans men kit a swath 50 miles wide or 60 miles wide. Thats i always tell my students, you dont want to think of it like a lawn mower strip, right . Its not 50 miles wide of lawn mower. Its 50 miles from the edge of one column through four columns to the furthest edge of the other. So in many ways, its very, um, whats the word im looking for. Not sporadic and episodic, but sometimes the house is targeted and a house a mile away is not targeted. That being said, where sherman shermans men and sherman himself and africanamericans is a really interesting question. I love pauls formulation that shermans army was one of the great armies of liberation. They are not really very willing liberators. Sherman was not certainly not a fan of racial equality or after the war of according civil rights to africanamericans. He did not he was perfectly content as they went on to plantations to have his men liberate the slaves and announce they were free and he was always telling them to stay put because he doesnt want them following after his army and of course, hes unable to prevent africanamericans to follow his army and by the time he gets to atlanta to georgia there are probably 25,000 on africanamericans who have followed his army and he doesnt want them. Hes perfectly willing and there is a section in his orders to take ablebodied africanamerican men and put them in his pioneer core and have them work as teamsters and things like that. He does not want to have to feed women and children and elderly people and he tries to leave them behind. There is a horrific episode outside of savannah in a place called Ebenezer Creek where shermans men you have shermans army or a section of shermans army under the command of one of his subordinate generals, jefferson davis, no relation and then you have the africanamericans who were following them and then you have wheelers confederate cavalry behind that and what happens is they use pon toon bridges to get through this river and swampy area and its a swamp and davis orders the pontoon bridges pulled up so africanamericans cant cross on the bridges and theyre being chased by wheelers cavalry. Hundreds of them wind up drowning in the swamp. Hundreds of them wound up being recaptured by wheelers cavalry. When the news gets out, sherman is condemned for not condemning davis. So its tangled, i guess is the short answer. One consequence of the march is the rising dissertion rates in the army of Northern Virginia from those soldiers whose homes were in the areas that shermans army went through. Was this a fortuitous circumstance or was this one of shermans goals this. I dont think sherman was directly hoping to influence the army of Northern Virginia and whatty hoo was doing was trying to target the army of virginia was not through dissertion, but through supplies. First of all, by break the rail line from atlanta which had been a major supply line up to petersburg and then by rating through this relatively untouched area to deprive them of supplies, and i think also there was a sense he definitely was cognizant of the psychological impact that he wanted people to know that he could not be stopped and that, in fact, any kind of rumors that might have come out about how vicious they were or how violent, he was comfortable with that because he felt there would be this deeper, psychological impact. It doesnt matter. 50 years before the event youre talking about we had an episode similar right here or next door when the british came to washington after the battle of bradensberg and at the belmont house, literally next door to this building someone took a potshot at general ross as he arrived in the Capital Plaza and gener general ross ordered that house burned and he made a point to not limit civilian properties. So he contrasted that to the uncivilized behavior to the americans and the canadian talents that they burned and looted and they were far more civilized and general ross was aye he unique in his time or what was going on with him . Im far from an expert on the war of 1812 and i dont think ross was ahead of his time. I think ross was ahead of his time in burning the civilian house and not burning Everything Else . There is an argument to be made for only limiting your destruction for private buildings. I would also say that with sherman, the vast majority of building or structures that shermans men burned were not private homes and there was this sort of the places that gave Material Support to the confederacy. Barns, gin houses, cotton, big bales of cotton. They burned remarkably few houses and its fascinating to me, one of the areas that i explore in my book because my book is about the the cultural memory of shermans march is, in fact, all of the Different Reasons that houses along shermans route were saved because you cant have it both ways, right . You cant have sherman cutting this 50mile swath and yet have dozens and dozens of antebellum there are lots of reasons why psychological of an effect do you think that had in making him . Some say it made him manic and mean. What do you think . I think it was tragic for him as losing a child would be for anybody. I think that i dont think sherman was mean. I think that sherman was cleareyed which is to say that i think sherman recognized that the way you stop a war is you make the war too costly and in so doing he also really did believe that he was saving his men because, look, his men, they thought the march was great. They loved it. They had more to eat than they normally did. They marched less each day than they normally did and with very knew exceptions nobody ever shot at them. So from shermans perspective, this is saving his mens lives while bringing the war to a more rapid close. So i dont i dont think hes mean. I think he he has a job and hes willing to do what it takes. Could you speak to how in 1864 northern papers were covering the march and how were there lincoln opponents who singled out the march as anything different than had been happening . Thats a great question. Theres very little coverage of the march itself because from november 15th until really when hes right outside of savannah, theres almost no news coming out of the march. The northern paper that ive looked at the most in terms of its coverage of the march has been harpers weekly mostly because i was looking for images and it does have great images of the march, but its largely celebratory. Ill be perfectly honest with you and i dont look at specifically democratic newspapers where you might have found opponents of lincoln, but theres not a sense at the time that sherman is doing anything beyond the pale or anything radically, you know, no one thinks shermans created this new kind of warfare. What sherman is doing is really the same as what, say, sheridan had done earlier in the valley of 1864. Grant famously instructs sheridan and you should destroy the valley such that a crow flying over would have to carry his own provander with him. Its largely celebratory because they see in the progress of sherman that his progress is helping to win the war. The reason he turns to savannah and turns to carolina is hes trying to get to petersburg, ultimately to help out grant and not to steal any of matt pinscan kers thunder, and that was my frustration with the movie lincoln is there was no sherman in it, so one of my favorite cities in america is savannah, georgia. Can can you talk about his decision to save that beautiful city and give it to president lincoln as a Christmas Gift . Wow that is the nicest, most genteel description ive ever heard of that, because normally sherman didnt decide to save savannah, sherman said look, you can surrender into submission and theyll surrender and they earned the most other places in the south because they were weak and they gave up. So thats just the nicest way ive ever heard that played. Quick question. Of course, natchez does the same thing. In 1863 confederates arrived at gettysburg because theyre busy burning downed thatius stephens house, and chasing free blacks all over pennsylvania and rounding them up. Is there anything equivalent in shermans march . That is, does his army target politicians house and do they march out of his way just to seek revenge against particular politicians and are they rounding up any white confederates and enslaving them . They are not rounding up white confederates and enslaving them. I wouldnt say they go out of their way and sherman takes a particular delight and he has a long passage about it in his memoirs about camping on the night on plantation in georgia and freeing how cob slaves and then the other place that comes in for a lot of destruction is the poet, the South Carolina poet, William Gilmore simms who they really destroy his house and i read one diary where soldiers were dismayed because its one thing if they sort of trash the house, but they burn a lot of the books in simmses library and he feels that is beyond the pale. So i think those are the two. The other thing is when they take millageville and shermans men go into the Georgia Statehouse and they have a Mock Convention where they bring georgia back into the union. Its really interesting. What they dont do, though, is they dont talk about emancipation at all in this Mock Convention. They just bring georgia back in, so there were women and children from the south who were shipped via rail train to the north who never made it back home again. Has any research been done to follow up on what happened to them after the war . Not that im aware of. And by shipped, i mean, they go willingly. Its not as if sherman is refugeeing women and children out to the north. No, ive not seen much on that. The only thing i can recall, a long time ago when i was working on my dissertation, i read a diary of a woman who had been from georgia and had gone and spent part of the war with family in brak lynn and then came back to georgia and was constantly was very upset that like the ministers wife wouldnt talk to her, that she was seen as having been sort of a traitor. But, no, im not familiar with that. Theres a professor, i believe its mississippi state, who recently came out with a book on sherman. It advances that one of his motives since he had taught school in louisiana to a military school, knew many of the confederate officers and had many friendships and personal relationships. That part of his motivation in the south certainly was to protect his own troops, certainly to break the will of the south, because it was obvious the war going on for four years, what we had been doing wasnt completely working. And then i think back to after the overland campaign, grant still hung on for almost a year, and all the loss and destruction and loss of life that went on there, to take the approach to break the will of the south to continue to fight and all that that entailed. But also he did not want and to protect his own troops, but he did not want to take on many of his friends and do battle on the field of battle. Ive not heard that theory, that he didnt want to take on his friends. I mean, those friendships, of course, are legendary. Not so much because sherman had taught at lsu, but because almost all of these officers had been at west point together over the years. I dont think that sherman that doesnt sort of ring true to me, personally. But im not familiar with the is it the the demon of the lost cause, is that the one . Thats the most recent one that i know of that came out. No, id love to see it. Thank you. When the question arose about press coverage, did walt whitman cover anything having to do with sherman . Did he comment on it . And the other question i have is, can you address the mythologizing of sherman, when it began . I think maybe reston i think theres a big mythology in america surrounding sherman. So when did that begin . Okay. As to the poetry question, walt whitman has one poem that obliquely references sherman, its ethiopia saluting the colors. From the perspective of an africanamerican woman watching shermans men marching through North Carolina. Actually, melville, Herman Melville in battle pieces has two poems about shermans mamp. I think theres two, that are pretty powerful. In terms of the mythologizing of sherman, i think it begins as the war concludes. I mean, hes seen as just such a hero of the war, and they march in the grand review. At the very end of the war, they march, and then they have all these, like, captured cows and sheep and stuff marching behind them. Certainly when sherman dies in 1819 or 92 now, i cant remember, but when sherman dies, theres the outpouring of sort of national outpouring of grief is really tremendous. The other thing i had say about sherman is that during the 1870s, 1860s and 1870s, hes not reviled in the south. He makes a tour of the south in 1879, he goes back to atlanta, actually. Hes welcomed with open arms. Theres balls in his honor. The papers are funny because theres people like ha, ha, ha, hide the matches. Shermans coming. But hes really hes welcomed by white southerners because of the fact that he did not support equality for africanamericans. And he wanted, in fact, a very soft peace for the south. So going back to his time at lsu and his time earlier when he had been in the army in the south, he loved the south. He loved southerners, southern whites. Let me be more clear. Thank you all very much. [ applause ] tonight on American History tv a focus on slavery and cinema, beginning at 8 00 eastern with a look at the depiction of sheriff ri and films since the 1930s. Then the 2012 movie lincoln and its portrayal of the debate and passage of the 13th amendment. And a discussion about the 1939 movie gone with the wind and its depiction of Southern Society. Thats tonight starting at 8 00 eastern here on cspan3. This weekend on American History tv, we take a look back 200 years ago this week, when British Military forces set the white house and the capitol on fire. Well also hear about british admiral George Coburn used washingtons waterways to burn and invade the city. Coburns idea is to make use of several different waterways in an attack on washington. If the British Force simply sailed up the potomac, everybody would know that washington was the ultimate target. Coburn decides that or recommends that the force be split up. That one squadron sail up the Potomac River and threaten the capitol and the city of alexandria. The main force is going to go up the river into southern maryland, and the advantage was that it would kind of shield the ultimate british intention because a move up the river could mean many things. It could mean an attack on washington, but it could also mean an overland attack on baltimore or an attack on annapolis, or it could mean that the british were simply chasing after commodore joshua barney, who was the american commander of the chesapeake flotilla who had a flotilla of shallow draft barges that were perfectly suited for and a half gatesinaf shallow waters of the chesapeake and the Rivers Feeding into it. Barney, by the summer of 1814, had been trapped in the river. He was further up river than the british. The british could use barneys presence in the river to more or less shield their Movement Toward the capital. And thats exactly what coburn recommended. And its what the british commanders, general ross and admiral alexander cochran, who was in charge of the entire fleet here in north america, agreed to do. You can watch more from author steve vogel on how the british utilized washingtons waterways during the invasion this sunday at 6 00 and 10 00 p. M. Eastern. Also saturday live coverage of a Panel Discussion with authors and historians about the 1814 battle of bladensburg and how the victory left the capital exposed to British Forces. Thats Live Saturday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern right here on cspan3. Next, historian jim ogden talks about confederate weapons manufacturing in Central Georgia. In the fall of 1964 sherman destroyed much of this infrastructure, crippling the Confederate Armys ability to wage war. This hourlong talk was hosted by the Civil War Center at Kennesaw State university in georgia. [ applause ]know, as many of you all know from coming to some of my programs over the years, i have a tendency to use a few props of one sort or another. Hat so i couldnt resist that opportunity today as well. As to help illustrate a few pointss mike and some of the staff are oh, my goodness. We even recruited craig into distributing handouts. I should get a picture of this. I have a historian friend who once had trace adkins as a sound man at an event. I have a Naval Academy professoy as a map handerouter. So thats kind of like bob crick as an easel in the western theater. Brian, i do thank you for the introduction. As brian noted, my day job is staff historian at chickamauga o and Chattanooga National military park. S a even though im here today just. As a selfinterested historian and citizen and learner, because ive enjoyed making a few notes about things already yet again from richard and now craig few and look forward to hearing steves talk in a few minutes. And im not here today as a National Military park employee, but because i think the place that i work is an important the Historic Site in the shaping of our nation, i couldnt miss an opportunity of hawking my day job. Chickamauga and Chattanooga National military park. And ive already seen that some of you all have discovered that out on the table in the lobby there are piles of brochures foe chickamauga and chattanooga the National Military park. The old one is currently in usen and the new one which some day b will be in use. And so you can pick these up at some point, and i hope to see you on the ground studying thosg battlefields frequently and often. Also coming around is that hand handout, which hopefully ou everybody will get a copy of pretty soon. And i also have a power point. Po and lets see, mike okay. Lets see here. Lets try this. Aha there we go. Try thats the one that works. Oh, no. Ive already already there we go. Okay. Well, ill only use the advance button. For the events that were andd be would be unfolding in the year we are considering today in this symposium, the year now a century and a half ago, this past week of march, 1864, would prove to be a momentous one. Bea not only did on march 17 the newly appointed Lieutenant General ewe lis cities s. Grant assume command of the armies of the United States and the next a day, the 18th, his most trusted subordinate, Major General trut William Tecumseh injury shan, acouped command of his new area of responsibility, grants just vacated seat of the commander o the vast military division of the mississippi, that western tt theater that richard so well described a few minutes ago, that area between the Appalachian Mountains on the east and the Mississippi River on the west, but two days ago on the 20th of march, 1864, in a series of what one of the participants called full conversations, those conversations dre to a close with some important conclusions. That in the end would turn out, indeed, to do much towards determining the course of events over the coming year. Those full conversations, as bn William Tecumseh sherman would characterize them, had begun two days earlier in nashville. And ironically in the recently f abandoned and recently constructed renaissance revival home of one of the very men, ry confederate quartermaster george w. Cunningham who would soon feel as if he personally had a target painted on his chest. Because at that time, cunningham was working for the new e confederate government in atlanta. Concluding on march 20, two days ago, in the Burnett House hotel in cincinnati where the Co Conversations had moved, including being continued on thn rail line between nashville andn louisville, and then on to cincinnati, these full conversations set the strategy for the coming campaign season. W two weeks later, grant, the principal in those full ng conversations, having relocatedi to the east, would reiterate the substance of those discussions as a general directive. In a letter to sherman dated washington, april 4, 1864, and marked private and confidential. Grant would write, it is my design if the enemy keep quiet and allow me to take the offensive in the Spring Campaign to work all parts of the army together and somewhat towards ao common center. I for your information, i now write you my program as to present or as at present or determined upon. Hat he then briefly outlines what richard had briefly outlined about the many prongs of grants planned spring offensive. But then he gets in the end of the second paragraph to the important part of it. And he tells William Tecumseh sherman what you see on the screen. Propos you i pose to prove againste, and get into the interior of the enemys country as far as you cn can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources. Six days later, sherman, wanting to make sure that he understood this and doing something that would not be really codified in military art and science until , much later, although some of usa who work with groups of militarn personnel today can tell you wel have to continually teach this, but sherman essentially will dor a brief back in a letter to grant on april the 10th from his then headquarters at the Cunningham House in nashville. Sl sherman having occupied the samg residence after grant had vacated it. Sherm and sherman, too, marking the Letter Private and confidentialn sherman will say, your letter of april 4th is now before me and affords me an infinite nfin satisfaction, that we are now n all to act in common plan, converging on a common center. Looks like enlightened war. Most specifically he will say, k like yourself, you take the biggest road or biggest loade and from you shall have thorough hearty or from me you shall have thoreau and hearty cooperation. I will not let side issues draw me off from your main plan in which i am to knock joe johnston and do as much damage to the muh resources of the enemy as possible. I think William Tecumseh shermae understands what is expected of him in the coming campaign. And joseph johnstons army of tennessee is indeed to be the o first target for shermans rs combined army group of the military division of the y mississippi. And hell later summarize this strategy by saying he was to goe for lee, and i was to go for joo johnston. That was the plan. The confederate armies would b the first target. Been but there had by 1864 to be a second target, and that was the war resources that are mentionet in this order. Because by 1864, the confederata states of america had created a capacity, principally in Central Georgia and Central Alabama and now you can turn to the handout that ive provided you, and in particular the side that is in the lower righthand corner labeled number one. The side with the map of the southeast of the United States on it principally. Youll notice there in Central Georgia and Central Alabama, at places like augusta, athens, macon, atlanta, columbus, montgomery, and selma, i have u drawn another symbol by those cities, a solid square with a Straight Line off one of the h a Upper Corners of that square and a squiggly line off the top of l that Straight Line, a symbol to represent what . Y factories, manufacturing, processing, transportation, ansa warehousing, and distribution. By by 1864, the new confederate government had created in Central Georgia and central o alabama what we in our day woulr think of and call a military Industrial Complex. A military Industrial Complex that was keeping southern armies in the field. A capacity that had allowed the Confederate States of america, just three months after the ntha surrender of the garrison of ft vicksburg, to return most of those men surrendered there on the mississippi to the field. For grant and sherman at chattanooga, it was some of these same surrendered, paroled, exchanged, reorganized and reequipped vicksburg troops who had helped, as weve heard from craig just a few minutes ago, kn they had helped patrick clayburw stop what was supposed to be grants main effort. Much of carter stevensons division that was on the tunnel hill portion of the Missionary Ridge battlefield just south ofe where clayburns primary dg brigades were located. E were l in particular, the georgia brigade, and the alabama brigade of edmund pettus, they had helped stop shermans men. N firing into the flank of l shermans assaulting columns on tunnel hill, was rome, georgias cherokee light artillery, rearmed with products of the Confederate Military Industrial Complex. And less than five months after their surrender to the very troops who were assaulting them on that november 25, 1863, were now firing to stop those very assaults. This military Industrial Complex was the capacity that caused one or someone walking the line of confederate canon captured on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and displayedt as trophies in front of the army of the cumberlands headquarters on walnut street in chattanooga, to observe that over onehalf of the three dozen artillery pieces just captured in that fighting around chattanooga were products of confederate manufacturing. In fact, all of the standard d or all of the standard canon of the day, the 12pound napoleon e were southern manufacturers. 1 of the 19 12pound napoleons captured had been produced in georgia. In fact, on a clear copy of thi photograph, you can read stenciled on the trail, macon arsenal, macon, georgia. This military Industrial Complex was a capacity which in april oi 1864, was one of its principal l architects, if not the principa act, general summarized in a report to the confederate government, it is three years today since i took charge of the Ordnance Department of the rtmet Confederate States of montgomery. C three years of constant work and application. I have succeeded beyond my utmost expectations, from being the worst supplied bureau of th War Department, it is now the best. En large arsenals have been argued at fayetteville, augusta, richmond, charleston, macon, atlanta, and selma, and smaller ones at danville, lynchburg, montgomery besides other establishments. A superb powder mill has been built at augusta, the credit ofe which is due colonel George Washington raines. Smelting works were established by me at petersburg. A cannon foundry established at macon for heavy guns and bronze found ris at macon, columbus, and augusta. And salisbury, North Carolina. And corksville, virginia. In fayetteville, a manufacturing of carbines has been built up ik richmond and a rifle factory aty asheville, North Carolina. And a new very large armory at macon, including a pistol factory built up under contractr here and sent to atlanta, and thence transferred under geor purchase to macon. A second pistol factory at columbus, georgia. All of these have required incessant toil and attention, but have borne such fruit as relieves the country from fear of want in these respects. Three where three years ago, we were not making a gun, pistol nor saber, nor shot, nor shell, except at the works, a pound of powder. Now we make all of these in the quantities to meet the demands of our large airplane armies. M in looking over all of this, i feel that my three years of labor have not passed in vain. A i want to spend a few minutes, e or the rest of my time oratin principally elaborating on what this confederate achievement, principally in Central Georgia and Central Alabama was because in the end it can be kjargued,d who fought at altoona and dalton and decatur, and franklin and nashville, probably would agreeh engagements that occurred after the atlanta campaign. It is in the end that shermans greateher success was probably with the second part of grants directive rather than the first. The army of tennessee was stillt a potentially dangerous force even after sherman was he is ee sconced in atlanta. Nny of you can, of course, locate manyo of these places, i know lots of you all are georgians, and y al hopefully all of you georgians can locate these principal places in what was then n considered by many the empire state of the south. But in general, ill be working from east to west. Im going to start off with augusta. Augusta turns out to be, in thed end, one of the most important t of the military industrial impot centers for the new confederate government. It was when georgia seceded andt declared independence. It was already the home of a very important facility. A United States arsenal had been established there early in the 1800s. Its first location right on the banks of the savannah river. Of but because of disease, it had been moved up from the valley, and perhaps a little ironicallyy and also reflective of what we d heard just a few minutes ago from craig, it wound up on the a land of thme or land that tht father of henry shot pouch walker sold to the United States government. Its on walkers plantation. And some of you all may know walker, after his death in the r atlanta campaign, in the battlei of atlanta, will wind up being interred on the Family Cemetery that is still on this piece of ground. But augusta was already the location of a principal united i states arsenal in the south in e the antebellum period. And with georgias secession, the state of georgia sees that arsenal in january of 1861. Uaryt and in so doing, brought 22,000 arms to the state of georgia and then the new confederate o government. Noti it is worth noting that 12 in months before, in early 1860, y there were only 2,000 arms in u the augusta arsenal. Jump why the jump between january of 1860 and january of 1861 from a 2,000 to 22,000 . Was it was in response to pleas by l governor joseph e. Brown to theh United States War Department, ia particular, to the virginian who was the sget of war, john floyd, to ship more arms south in the o aftermath of john browns insurrectiinsu aborted ser vivile insurrectioat Harpers Ferry. The there was the fear that there lg would be more john browns and more harpers ferries. So the state of georgia, and then the confederate governmentt will get this already existing facility, but will almost egin immediately begin to expand its capability. First by making contracts with other Industrial Facilities, ot including two foundries in augusta, but soon those foundries will be purchased by the confederate authorities andb theny incorporated ated administratively into this evergrowing Confederate Statess augusta arsenal thats located there, and the slide here on the screen shows the plan of the arsenal as it developed during the course of the war. Suj one of the reasons that this of subject doesnt get a great deal of attention today is that so many of these facilities were destroyed in the last year of t the war. But believe it or not, this one in augusta is one that you can actually still walk and visit and get some idea about its size and scale. And some of you all may havelrey already visited this site t without knowing that you have. N this is now the main campus of Georgia Regents University in augusta. And, in fact, the old complex towards the, as you view it, img left edge of the image is still there. E, most of those buildings are still present. The walls enclosing it are still there. The and you can walk that ground. During the course of the war, the confederate government willt expand the facility and build across one end of it, a very large structure that appears here in a postwar photograph. But for this facility but incorporated additional workshops and capabilities as b well, another postwar image of that structure. This structure is long gone. But because the street pattern around the campus is still stil pretty much still the same, you can see and sense where this structure was located. T as all arsenals, it had both inhouse ability to produce o materiel, but also served as an Administrative Center for the contracting of production of war materiel. And the augusta arsenal will become one of the most gust productivear. 1864 just in 1863 and 1864, to give you a couple of ideas about its capability, it will produce 174u artillery carriages, 115 kasons, 343 limbers, 10,500 wooden shipping boxes for gun powder, 11,800 wooden shipping boxes for small arms ammunition, 73,500 horseshoes, arsenals also are where the ammunition is prepared. 85,800 rounds of Artillery Ammunition will be prepared. 200,000 timed fuses. 15 million small arms fuses, cartridges. And in addition to some male laborers working in the rs, they cartridge factory, they employed dozens, hundreds of women, gi girls, and young boys as well. And eventually, particularly inv 1864 as the threat to the empiro state increased, they expanded e thexp ammunition production aspn of the arsenal by opening a cartridge rolling facility right in downtown augusta. So that it would be closer to t where much of the labor was, the where people could come in and e work. And when youve seen at a National Battlefield park or ivl civil war site an individual dor a firing demonstration, as you know, civil war soldiers to loar and fire their singleshot rifle muskets would reach in their h cartridge box, pull out that x, paper tube containing the lead projectile and the powder charge. Char they tear the end of that paper tube open and then to pour the e powder down the bore. Tly well, it was mostly women, boysi and girls in factories north ann south who took those trapezoidshaped pieces of paper, rolled one up around the wooden form, twist at the end, tied it off, picked up that lead bullet which had been cast or stamped an then trimmed and lubricated by a man, and then place that lead bullet on the hn end of that now paperwrapped w former, rolled that up around a second trapezoid piece of paperi twisted it, tied it off, removed the former and stuck that completed tube in the box to bet sent to another part of the factory where men would put the powder in and then fold them upo how long do you think it would take you to roll up those two pieces of trapezoid paper around that former and that lead ball . Well, if youre going to get paid to do it, youre going to have to do 90 an hour, or one every 45 seconds. Ju and when you think about just i0 augusta, 15,000 or excuse me, 15 million rounds of ammunition being produced, how many man, women, girl and boy days and hours were expended doing that. The augusta arsenal will also develop the important capabilitp of producing those the principal and main and most important artillery piece of civil war armies north and south from the beginning of the war to the end of the war. And that is the 12pound napoleon. War now, as the confederate government, a little bit poleona belatedly, adopted the 12pound napoleon as its principal artillery piece, they will maket a few refinements to their design of the 12pound napoleon, primarily to reduce the amount of machining necessary and also the amount of material necessary. The back side of your paper handout, youll notice the profile on the left, the model w 1857, 12pound napoleon, as developed in europe, and the t concept brought back to the oand United States and refined somewhat and adopted by the United States army in 1857. On youll notice most specifically that on the model 1857 12poundd napoleon, there at the muzzle, the muzzle is flared. That is purely decorative, to make it rather attractive. But if you look at the profile of the confederate manufactured 12pound napoleon, youll notice that the muzzle is sans that he flair. To not have that flair on the m muzzle redeuced the amount of machining that was necessary, ey and if, you are short material, how many pounds of bronze is ine that flair, and if you safe thau amount of bronze for each tube, how soon might you have enough bronze to cast another 12pound napoleon . So theres a little bit of l savings in material there as well. In this Central Georgia military Industrial Complex, the production of these weapons will begin in the spring of 1863. And at augusta, which produces as many as 115 of these 12pounw napoleons by the end of the ward they had produced at least 57 bf the end of 1863. At and at least 77 were in the field by may of 1864. Of and almost all of them are in the army of tennessee and the other western armies. Although, today, if youre looking for the best collection of these products of the Confederate Military industrialu complex, you have to go to the eastern theater, and you have to go to the grounds of that of the scene of that small engagement outside that South Central Pennsylvania College syn town. G but that gets to a whole other e story which we can talk about b another time. These guns begin to be fielded in the late spring and summer og 1863, and as i noted, by the as time of the confederate dee feet on Missionary Ridge in novembern of 1863, many are in the Confederate Army of tennessees artillery complement because 13e of the 3 1 dozen guns lost at chattanooga are these confederate manufactured 12pound napoleons. Thereof was also in augusta a clothing facility that employedd women producing confederate uniforms for soldiers. F but perhaps the most important of all of the industrial in facilities indu augusta was the Confederate States powder worksa that was developed there. They said at the beginning of the war no powder was produced in the southern states. There were reallyso only some vy small powder mills like the one to the northwest of nashville, f but one of the most critical mo resources that the new nation ch would need,at even if, as they n thought in 1861 it would be a short war, would be gun powder. And George Washington raines was tasked with deciding on a location and also the construction of a powder works. Raines made a quick trip of the industrial cities of the south and decided on augusta as the location. Is not only is augusta well served by railroads, and in fact, the e whole military industrial in complex in Central Georgia is in part located there because of the railroad network, but augusta, being located on the d fall line of the savannah rivere and having developed that lo rivers potential Industrial Power by the construction of tha augusta canal, had the potential power base as well to support this powder works operation. On, although, in the end, most of d the power for the works was going to come from steam power g and not water power. But also, as it turns out, goig augusta is going to be a wellchosen city because it is h going to be well behind what will become the front lines very quickly and for much of the war. The complex stretched along the bank of the savannah river, upstream of downtown, and also along the augusta canal. And on your handout, youve got a black and white copy of this image. Both of the powder works images that i have here come out of a very wonderful and rich volume that the university of South Carolina press published in 2007. The never for the want of powder a history of the augusta powder works. And you can find this in many libraries, and there are lots of things that you can dig out of that volume. But by the spring of 1862, the powder works quickly constructed by incorporating the industrial capacity of much of the south by having the individual parts of o the factory produced in f different places, including some of the incorporating wheels, th big, what you can kind of thinkf of as grinding wheels in nashville, the drive shaft in the incorporating House Building which was in segments, which is almost 300 feet long, was cast o in segments in chattanooga and then shipped by rail to augusta and assembled in the complex. A there was a refinery for refining, removing impurities from the principal component of gunpowder at that time, potassium nitrate or saltpeter. And then large cooling magaz magazines and also storagein magazines. And the complex was laid out ial essentially so that all the materiel progressed from downstream to upstream, and the finished product and also the most dangerous part of the product was also located furthest away from the city of augusta. During the course of the war, this powder mill will produce mo 3. 3 Million Pounds of gunpowder for the confederate government. In may of 1863, it was one of tn the principal places that the english military officer ned freemantle wanted in particular to visit. T he happened to be in augusta on sunday and was disappointed, because at that time all of the needs for gunpowder for the cof Confederate Army nationally had, been met, and there was no need to operate the powder factory on sunday. So they were keeping the sabbath and kept it closed. Now, if you remember kind of thh look of the color image of one of the buildings i showed you, you might wonder where the confederates get some of these ideas. Et i just flashed past it again. P but this is the National Armorya in vienna, austria. And notice the crenulated and square turreted form of this. Of think back to the powder works images that i showed you and also the arsenal images. In the aftermath of the as at result of the crimean war, he jefferson davis, then secretarye of war of the United States, hao september officers to europe to look at advancements in militard arts and science. S th one of the things they saw was some new ways of making gun powder and also producing a lot of other war material. Prode this engraving comes out of thee report of the three officer team, richard delafield, alfred mordecai, and george mcclellan. K one of the first times that many of the observations from these e officers about how to produce war material on the newest practice are going to be implemented is by the new nation, the Confederate States of america. Too w macon, georgia, is another important facility. Macon too will go through the same Development Process where t first existing private firms ms like the d. C. Hodgkins and son and findlay iron works and the Schofield Brothers facility are contracted anwith, but eventually hodgkins and findlay are going to be bought out by thebu confederate government anl along with other facilities dere established be incorporated int what is on paper the macon aper arsenal there. Also to be located in macon is an armory for the production ofo small arms, and after a search r of some time, it was decided to locate the National Armory of the new Confederate States of america at macon, georgia, to build an armory just like that at springfield and what had beej at Harpers Ferry in virginia, e to locate that at macon. And property was acquired for the armory and construction began. These are two buildings that were used by the Confederate States laboratory, part of the arsenal complex producing some of the ordinance items, but they also begin construction of this National Armory because it is the production of small arms of where the confederates will have the greatest challenges. In macon they also will produce the 12pound napoleon, as many s as 80 during the course of the war going into production again in the spring of 1863. Pr by the end of 1863 having t l produced at least 37 and by may of 1864 having at least 44 tubes in the field. Columbus, georgia, will also be another major arsenal and armorr complex. It, too, goes through the same process of first by contract and then by purchase and consolidation of individual works, and much to craigs joy,s im sure, youll be satisfied te know that the Confederate Navy liked columbus also and the Confederate Navy will develop an important Industrial Complex there in that city on the cho chattahoochee river. Columbus arsenal will produce the 12pound napoleon, as many as 60 with at least 23 by the end of 1863 and a couple of dozen in the field by may of 1864. Columbus was also the location n of some very large textile mills like the Eagle Manufacturing company, and that product wasy a then shipped to various places a to be used to produce uniforms, tents, and other cloth items. Columbus also had another very important military industrial manufacturing complex and that y was the rock island paper mill. K why is paper important . Nt . What did the soldier expend every time he went to fire his weapon . A rectangle of paper a little more than four inches by six a inches in size. How much paper was expended by the Confederate Army in many battles. Across other places in Central Georgia and Central Alabama were other facilities as well like the small arms production in athens, a large potash works in terrell county, the Georgia State armory, at gris waldville outside of macon, a cotton gin manufactu manufacturer was convert ed andu became the confederacy largest pistol making factory making wl 3,600 during the course of the war. D in greensburg, georgia, the rigden company would produce pistols as well and this complex extended over into alabama, als, there were facilities located in montgomery and nearby points pt like the textile mills at prattville and another very tvia large complex would be developed both by the Confederate States e army and the navy at selma, alabama. And the factories in selma itsef itself and the activities that , were operated out of selma, such as some of the functions of the confederate neider and mining bureau, by 1865 the operations right at selma itself and in the greater region had as many as 109,000 employees. Not all right in selma, but at facilities in that greater region. The industrial capacity at selma was capable of producing even large rifled and banded sea se coast weapons of the brook pattern which were very o the important to the confederate naval operation. Then, of course, there are all of the facilities in this the gate city of atlanta or the nearby gate city of atlanta. Nta and while atlanta had some key e facilities itself like the rolling mill depicted here as a result of the abandonment of the city of atlanta in early septem september of 1864 in ruins, atlanta was primarily an primarl Administrative Center for the Confederate Military production. Offices here in atlanta contracted with firms large and small throughout the region and then received the product of those operations and then distributed them to the armies in the field as needed. Ne but one of the most important facilities in all of the atlanta complex was the quartermaster clothing depot run by that tennessee now confederate quartermaster, George Washington cunningham whose house had been grant, then shermans headquarters in nashville in rts late 1863 and early 1864. Cunningham operated a facility in atlanta that was capable of producing 130,000 complete suite of uniforms in a 12month time period, and he did this mostly by piecework. He had male tailors and other staff cutting out fabric in warehouses in atlanta, and then all of the pieces of a given garment like a jacket or a paira of trousers would be bundled together along with the necessary thread to sew them together and the buttons and other bits of trim, and then ad women would come in and check a out these bundles of unfinishedd garments, take them home, sew re thems, together, and then bring them back in and receive pay foe them once they were inspected and found to meet standards. By the spring of 1863 this operation in atlanta employed 3,000 women a month sewing uniform items together. Do and if we do not discount the sundays, just crude mathematics means that on a daily basis about 10 women were ar100 women andan departing the atlanta clothing depot delivering de finished products and checking out more bundles and taking them home. E. It was a pretty busy Street Corner scene each day there in 1863 and 1864. Now while this complex that i have described have set in place and while it was so while successful, the product really c of the hard work of not only josi josiah but George Washington raines and james h. Burton, john mallet and f. W. Dillard and jo George Washingtonhn cunningham n fredrick c. Humphries and isaac m. St. John and a host of others, while that capacity to prop deuce war material had reached such a point that between july 1, 1864, and january 21, 1865, it could issue more than 200,000 complete suits of uniforms to its soldiers in t the field just in that time period. I do have to note a few qualifications. It was not always the most mo perfect system. The Southern Railroad network as it deteriorated often meant that Raw Materials and finished ra products would be delayed in either reaching the factories oi reaching the destination points. It also meant that some alternate materials had to be used. Instead of the preferred all ofe woolen outer garments, jackets, coats, and trousers of the military uniform of the time, the confederates had to rely very extensively on what was commonly called jean cloth, a mixture of wool and cotton. An a cotton warp and a wool weft. What was often called negro cloth because in the antebellum period this cloth was used extensively to produce clothing for slaves in the south. In the production of shoes, eve the ingagricultural south had a shortage of leather. The southern style shoe had to be produced a little more simply. And after our presentations today if you want to come and r handle these and look at them aa littleti more closely, you willa able to. At i will have them out in the lob lobby there. But they also had to use some expedient methods. In the south with plenty of wih cotton, why not substitute cotton cloth for some parts of s leather items . And so shoes that are partly leather and partly canvas. C a part leather, part canvas shoe as good as an all leather one . No, but will it put a shoe on a 10e8d soldiers foot for a time . And in the summer heu1863 you wd have seen thousands of army of tennessee soldiers wearing these part leather part canvas shoes. V a cue tr accoutrements were done the same way. Instead of a set of infantry accoutrements made almost entirely out of leather, why not make a combination of leather and painted canvas . Its a part leather, part painted canvas as good as an all leather set . No. But will it work for a while and more than 5,000 sets of these, probably many more, weve got that record, 5,000 at least, bu were in use in the army of tennessee in the fall of 1863. While alternate materials often could offset some of the difficulties, there were still some problems which were very hard to overcome. One of the greatest difficultie. The confederates had in production at least reliably wai in artillery fuses. Confederate artillery fuses were notoriously unreliable. Edward Porter Alexander would say during the siege of chattanooga that he felt lucky e if he could get one projectile in nine to explode on target. One in nine on target is not very good. Unfortunately for us, we do not he did not record how many of the other eight exploded prematurely or not at all or t well beyond the intended target. But we do know one case where many of the projectiles fired had fuses that burned longer than the are a till rist a believed, and that, of course, f is in the artillery bombardmene in preparation for that charge on the 3rd day of july at gettysburg. Bu at despitet these caveats, t, complex by 1864 was what was keeping southern armies in the field. It was that complex which produced the material that confronted grant and sherman att chattanooga and would confront sherman as he drove into georgis beginning on the 7th day of may. It it imas also the complex thatte is mans men encountered as thed advanced south into the empire state of the south that spring. On may 17th, sherman purposely e took the industrially city of c rome, georgia, to knock the Industrial Facilities at that site out of the war. Six days later, troops were sen specifically to the ironworks oe the river run by what had prooet sln been run by mark cooper, then being run by quimby and robinson and knock them out and as sherman pushed ever further r south, of course, hell knock out the textile mills at sweetwater and high falls and h other points around atlanta and then by his mere presence outside of atlanta in Early September caused the destructioe of some important facilities. Ome and as shermans advance south, also, became more threatening, o it caused the labor force at fe many of these facilities in augusta, macon, columbus and other points to be diverted froi their production ductio responsibilities and turned at least into temporary soldiers. A machinist handling a rifle ang standing in the entrenchments at macon guarding against one of s the cavalrhey raids is not a machinist who can be turning out a part for some piece of piec military equipment. In the end, as i noted, it is probably shermans success in disrupting and destroying partsd of the military industrial milt complex that where he had tht greatest success in achieving what grant had outlined for him back in those full conversationf in march and in that directive t of april of 1864. Because how many months is it e between shermans arrival in a atlanta in september of 1864 or savannah in december of 1864 ane the collapse of the souths bid for independence . Thank you. American history tv normally airs on weekends but with congress on recess throughout august were featuring highlights in the week. We continue a look at the civil wars atlanta campaign. In may of 1864, Union General William Sherman marched into georgia after a series of battles. The union army seized and later destroyed much of thereabout. Coming up, well hear about general shermans march to the sea through georgia and general johnston that led the confederates in the spring and summer of 1864 and later weapons manufacturing in Central Georgia during and after the fall of atlanta. Tonight on American History tv, a focus on slavery and cinema beginning at 8 00 eastern with a look at the depiction of slavery in film since the 1930s. And then the movie lincoln and the portrayal of the debate and passage of the 13th amendment abolishing slavery. And a discussion about the 1939 movie gone with the wind an depiction of Southern Society. And thats all tonight starting at 8 00 eastern here on cspan3. Here are some of the highlights for this weekend. Tonight, on cspan in prime time visit important sites in the history of the civil rights movement. Saturday night at 8 00, highlights from this years new York Ideas Forum, including cancer biologist hessel and sunday, new york congressman Charlie Rangel at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight at 8 00 on cspan2, indepth with writer and sko lor reza aslan. Saturday at 10 00, ben carson. And sunday night at 11 00 p. M. Eastern, Lawrence Goldstone on the competition of the Wright Brothers and glen curtis to be the predominant name in manned flight. American history tv on cspan3, a look at hollywoods portrayal of slavery. Saturday night at 8 00, the battle of bladensburg and saturday night at 8 00 p. M. , former white house chiefs of staffs discuss how president s make decisions. Find the schedule one week in advance online and let us know about the programs youre watching. Call us at 2026263400 or email us. Join the cspan conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Next, shermans 1864 atlanta campaign, including the union siege of the city and march to the sea. With university of west georgia professor keith bohannon. This is part of the Gettysburg College Civil War Institute of the summer conference. Its about an hour. Before we get started, the map you see up here is a campaign map on the left side. The inserts there or the smaller maps indicate the main battles. I know its probably difficult for those of you in the back of the room to see the small details and maybe read the print, and so, what we did or actually, what petes staff did is include this in your maps and handouts books. So hopefully most of you have this. If you turn to page 9, youll see this map in there. You might want to refer to this, this is probably a little easier to read. But well be making frequent or ill be making frequent reference to this campaign map, which will help us understand the course of the campaign. As general and chief of all Union Military forces in the spring of 1864, u. S. Grant devised a grand strategy of coordinated offenses by a number of union armies stretching from louisiana all the way to virginia. And as you know already, the two most important of these offensives were those of the army of the potomac in virginia, and that of william t. Sherman who commanded what was called the military division of the mississippi. Grants orders to sherman for the campaign dated april 4th, 1864, were pretty straightforward. Grant told sherman to move against the Confederate Army of tennessee, commanded by general joseph e. Johnston, and to break it up. Then get into the interior of the enemys country as far as you can, inflicting all the damages you can against their war resources. At the same time, sherman was supposed to prevent johnston from detaching elements of his army to reinforce either lees army in virginia or Confederate Forces out in louisiana. That is shermans objective then in the atlanta campaign. If you look at shermans record during the civil war, up until the spring of 1864, in many ways its not that impressive. Particularly if you look at his performance on the battlefield. If you look at chickasaw bluffs during the Vicksburg Campaign in december of 1862 or december 1862, if you look at chattanooga and Missionary Ridge, shermans, the attacks that sherman has launched in those battles have been piecemeal. Theyve been repulsed. He doesnt have a particularly impressive record on the battlefield. Shermans reputation then today rests primarily on what he did in 1864 and 1865 to implement grants grand strategy. Sherman targeted not only the army of tennessee, but also, the ability of the southern confederacy to wage war. Of course, this is part of grants larger strategy, too. During the campaign in the spring and summer of 1864, the city of atlanta symbolizes the way that the confederacy waged war. The city was a vital rail center in the deep south and was filled with important war industries. Djniforms and shells and g out accoutrements for the Confederate Army. Sherman also sought to demoralize the civilians, to prove to the people the government could no longer defend them. Sherman said, war is cruelty and you cannot refine it. Shermans an imminently quotable individual, as many of you know. In his letters, theyre absolutely superb. Sn i would highly, highly recommend sherman civil war, the selected correspondence of william t. Sherman. Its one of the most important edited volumes in many decades. Brook simpson, who is on the faculty here, is one of the coeditors of that. Throughout the atlanta campaign, sherman largely avoided launching frontal attacks against his entrenched opponent. Instead, what he repeatedly did was utilize maneuver, flanking movements, to rest the confederates from strong defensive positions. I think shermans greatness also derives from his mastery of logistics. Keeping an enormous field army supplied day after day after day, very deep in enemy territory. Shermans army numbered over 100,000 men. It had 28,000 horses. 33,000 mules. Imagine trying to supply an army of that size, day after day after day. The only way to do it, of course, was via railroads. Sherman, in the months leading up to the campaign, which began