D he gives grant basically a twopart requirement, first to Bring Organization to the union war effort. And secondly to defeat the army of Northern Virginia. And grant goes about making it possible to carry out that charge with a vengeance. First he put together a Program Unlike any the war has yet seen. He realized up to this point battles would last a couple of days and armies would pull apart for months. Grant would not let that happen anymore. They would fight them until they were destroyed. He also realized the old goal of capturing territory didnt make sense anymore. Hence the goal would be to destroy them and only by doing that could the rebellion be brought to a close. And finally he realized they had to move together so the confederates couldnt shift from one theater to the other. We are going to see opening campaigns in the east grant riding with the army and in the west under the direction of grants close friend and subordinate general sherman and these will be bat thals will
I appreciate it. As i told you folks i talked with his morning, it is an honor for me to be here. There is Something Special about the battlefield here at cold harbor. I came about my interest in the american civil war, im sure like most of you did. I got it from my father. My dad was born in 1901 and a little town on the tennesseealabama border that was only 35 years after the end of the american civil war. As you might imagine, most of those old men sitting around the Grocery Store were confederate veterans. He grew up listening to their tall tales and talking with them about their battles. I was born in 1945. When i grow up, what all of my friends were hearing fairy tales and stories from their parents, my dad was reading the books with names like lees lieutenants, stuff like that. We visited the battlefield. We did not make any trips to cold harbor, though, because there really was not that much here. The overland campaign, which is the campaign that brings grant and lead to where
One very fascinating character. Very complex individual. A different person with different people. Something of a chameleon, intelligent, but at the same time remarkably stupid. I mean, to make some of the mistakes he made shows the level of incompetence. Dont you think he thought he had immunity . Well, he does. Legally he was living in a bubble. The president. No one is going to challenge him. And so its starts in a sense with the tapes, the arrogance of the tapes. You think you can do this. This was not just done to you and his aide. All of the four leaders. Anyone who went into the oval office. He was just kind of saying, the confidence that people expect when they come see the president. We are not going to care about that. It is in my interest to do this taping. When it was disposed the idea that no one is ever going he is troubled by that very fact himself in a couple of those conversations. He tells some, i dont feel comfortable doing this. He does not pull the plug. And you kn
Ok, good evening. I and peter carmichael, professor of history at Gettysburg College and also director of the civil war institute. My guest is noted historian gordon ray. He 20 years ago published the battle of the wilderness with lsu press. This would be the first of 4 volumes to cover the 1864 Overland Campaign. Gordon was the first historian to ever attempt to write a comprehensive history of those operations. Those operations, as you know, covered Central Virginia and ended on june 1 at cold harbor. It really is hard to imagine that anyone will ever again attempt to write such a comprehensive history because what gordon did is truly phenomenal. It is model tactical history, well researched, beautifully written, and above all else, contextualized. As a microstudy of who did what and where. What is really remarkable is that gordon dived into the archives, and so much of tactical history, much about gettysburg, never draws from original manuscript material, which in my estimation, is
I am professor of history at gettysburg college. My guess is gordon ray. This would be the first of 4 volumes to cover the 1864 Overland Campaign. Gordon was the first historian to ever attempt to write a comprehensive history of those operations. Those operations, as you know, covered Central Virginia and ended on june 1 at cold harbor. It really is hard to imagine that anyone will ever again attempt to write such a comprehensive history because what gordon did is truly phenomenal. It is model tactical history, well researched, beautifully written, and above all else, contextualized. As a microstudy of who did what and where. What is really remarkable is that gordon dived into the archives, and so much of tactical history, much about gettysburg, never draws from original manuscript material, which in my estimation, is almost criminal. Gordon he dove into the archives. Just to give you one example, the third volume of his series, an impressive amount of research that included 150 manus