Associates hosted this 90minute event. Good evening, everyone. Can everyone hear me well . Good. I am mary maclachlan, you the Program Coordinator with the Smithsonian Associates and i would like to welcome all of you tonight to what promises to be a stimulating program on the Union General, William T Shermans marched to the city. March to the sea. Before we begin and i announce our speaker, would like to remind everyone to check their cell phones and make sure they are turned off. And also remind everyone that photos are prohibited during these programs. Lastly, we are delighted to have cspan History Channel filming tonights program. Jeff shaara will take questions at the end of the program and we have microphones so we can capture your questions. When you raise your hand, we will have event reps in the aisles of the auditorium and in the balcony and we will wait until you have a microphone in your hands. It is a pleasure to welcome our speaker, jeff shaara, back to the smithsonian. He was last here in 2013 when he presented an Outstanding Program on the battle of vicksburg. Prior to that, he was here in 2012 and presented a program on the battle of shiloh. His trajectory as one of the primary writers on the civil war and war the less world war i and world war ii is a remarkable story. He grew up in tallahassee, florida, and holds a degree in criminology from Florida State university. From age 16, he operated a rare coin business, first out of his home and then in a retail store. In 1974, he moved to tampa florida, and eventually became one of the most widely known coin and precious metal dealers in florida. But in 1988, things changed. His father who was also a writer died. Jeff made the decision to sell his business and take over management of his fathers estate. After the critical and commercial success of the film gettysburg, he was approached about the possibility of continuing the story and finding someone to write a prequel and sequel to the killer angels. Jeff, though he had no experience as a writer, decided to take on the challenge of the project himself. In 1996, his first novel, gods and generals, the prequel to his fathers great work was published to critical acclaim. In 1998, the sequel the last full measure, was published and received universal praise from critics and fans alike. Since that time, jeff has gone on to write 15 additional books, only one of which is the work of nonfiction and all of which have been national bestsellers. In 2003, the major motion picture, gods and generals, based on his first book was released by warner bros. In 2007, jeff was named to serve on the board of trustees for the Civil War Preservation trust. Tonight, we have his newest book , the fateful lightning, on which tonights program is based available through the Smithsonian Museum shop out why by the entrance to this auditorium. It is the final installment in his 4book civil war series and he will be happy to sign copies at the end of the program. With that said, please join in giving a very warm welcome to jeff shaara. [applause] jeff shaara what people watching in a few weeks with no is the weather outside is as bad as it can get. The fact that many of you came here tonight is an extra ordinary complement and i take that very seriously, thank you. You could be home where it is dry. This is an interesting time for me. This book just came out two days ago. It is a farewell to me. Its the end of an era i hate to say that its the end of a series and is the end of my relationship with some characters who i have really come to love. That is not too strong a word. Its the ingredient that allows me to do this, to get into the heads of these people and feel as though i love them. At the end, you have to say farewell and sometimes you safe the bash say at the end, you have to say farewell. And sometimes you have to say farewell during the story if something happens to somebody. That can be tough as well but the characters i want to talk about make it to the end. That has been quite a ride. It has been quite a ride for them and is in quite a ride for me. Every time i have a book come out, i start a tour stop through the month of june. You got me while i am still perky. [laughter] that will change, i promise you by the 20th of june. Whenever i start a tour of a brandnew book, there is a challenge because i have absolutely no idea what i will talk about. One thing i have done in the past and my wife has said not to do that is i will go here and stand up here on the stage i will tell you what the book is about , which some of you are here to hear that what if i tell you too much of what the book is about, there is no reason for you to buy the book. [laughter] my publisher also sort of chimes in, dont do that. I cannot help it because i need to talk about these characters. If you know what i do, you know that what i do not write our are history books. I dont write the stuff you read in high school. Its not names and dates and facts and figures. I am a storyteller. I am not an historian. Thats an important distinction. A lot of historians say you dont have the phd. They are right. I never pretend to. My job is to tell you a good story. Thats the lesson i learned from my father sitting around the dinner table with the kids hearing michael talk about Joshua Chamberlain and little round top. The little 10yearold at the table was listening to the old man tell his stories. Boy, that made an impression on me and i realized if im going to do this, its not about facts and figures. Its about getting you involved in the story with me, taking you with me back to the time. I had done the civil war and said goodbye to robert e. Lee and stonewall. I went and did a bunch of other things like the American Revolution and the mexican war. And then world war i and world war ii. Im getting off track but one thing i say to the audiences when people ask me what will you do next . The answer was korea. I wanted to do korea. All those veterans keep writing me and saying we are getting older, too. [laughter] i get excited area ive got a tremendous Research Library already on korea and im ready to go. Then this thing happened in 2011. The sesquicentennial of the civil war. I realized there is an opportunity to look at some things that nobody looks at very often, not even a lot of real civil war buffs. Part of this came from those letters i got from people in tennessee and mississippi who said we are awfully tired of hearing about robert e. Lee and virginia. [laughter] there is a whole lot of stuff that happened west of the Appalachian Mountains that nobody ever talks about. And they are right i started looking at this and i may have said to this audience before, publishers like trilogies. Vampires and all kinds of trilogies. [laughter] i guess you can put them in a box. We decided to do a trilogy on the war in the west. We started to look at the topics and it played out really well because we wanted to do one per year around an event and the first one was very clear to me. It was certainly the bloodiest battle of the war up to its time which was shiloh. You say shiloh and you have heard of it. Most people really dont know that what happened at shiloh changed history, changed the rest of the war, certainly. One reason was the death of one man, Albert Sidney johnston. He is the confederate commander and many people have never heard of him and thats a shame. He is an interesting guy but he dies on april 6, 1862. He is in the middle of his own attack. At the time of his death, he is winning the day, the south is winning the battle of shiloh. M the union army is aess and the union army is in a mess. There are people running like crazy and hiding along the riverbank. They are under the bluffs, hundreds of soldiers have given up the fight and they are done. The south is trying to cut off the union army from the Tennessee River and if they can succeed in doing that, the army has nowhere to go, its over. It will be a crushing defeat for the federal forces. This is whats happening when johnston goes down. The reason that changes history first of all, he was extremely Close Friends with Jefferson Davis, president of the confederacy. In the confederacy, if you are friends with Jefferson Davis you were going to do big things. If you were not friends with him, it did not matter how good a general you were, he would find a way to get rid of you. Thats not a good way to run a war. More about Jefferson Davis later. Johnston also in the hierarchy of the confederacy, he outranked robert e. Lee. In the summer of 1862, robert e. Loo is appointed command of the army of Northern Virginia and the rest, as they say, is history. I suggest that had johnston not been killed at shiloh, there is a good chance he would have gotten that appointment because he was so close to Jefferson Davis. He would have taken command and we never wouldve heard of robert e. Lee and all those people i have met who claim heritage to robert e. Lee. Im sure some of them are. Im sure some of them are not but they might now claim to be descendents of Albert Sidney johnston. The other part of that equation is that the federal commander at shiloh is ulysses grant. He is losing when johnston is killed. He turns it around the next day. He wins the battle. Had grant lost that battle, that was the end of his career. Likely would have never have heard of ulysses s. Grant, 18th president of the united states. That so history change that shiloh. Also, the first battle in the east that drew attention in the newspapers and with the politicians, manassas, bull run, the summer of 1851. That is the first battle where there is actual fighting. There are 5000 casualties. That is a horrible number. People were upset by that. The newspapers were upset and people were shocked that this little rebellion is killing people. 5000 casualties at shiloh and eight months later, there are 24,000 casualties. Because of where shiloh is southcentral tennessee, in the middle of nowhere, very few people were aware how horrible that fight is. It was obvious that would be the first book of the series. The second book, if you look at what my father did with the killer angels, he focuses just on the battle of gettysburg. Gettysburg is not the final, penultimate battle that decides the war. Its in the middle. That works out well for me writing the prequel and the sequel. I actually have something to write about. At the same time that gettysburg is happening in pennsylvania Something Else is happening along the Mississippi River and that is vicksburg. It made perfect sense to me that vicksburg would be the centerpiece of my trilogy. Gotten in arguments with the number of historians. I live in gettysburg now and the people there dont care to hear me say that i think what happened at vicksburg is more important than what happened in gettysburg. When the union army and ulysses s. Grant received the surrender of 30,000 confederate troops the confederacy has just lost the entire Mississippi River. It is now in the hands of the federals all the way up north to wisconsin and minnesota and so forth all the way down to the gulf of mexico. It is in union control. They can move people and arms and food up and down all the way from the gulf with impunity. The confederacy loses texas, arkansas, most of louisiana and thats important because men, food, supplies, all of that is cut off. Those people were on their own now. It divided the confederacy and thats a big deal. That was an easy second choice. The third choice was always going to be this book, fateful lightning. It was always going to be sherman marching from atlanta to the end of the war. I realized if i jumped from vicksburg to atlanta, i skipped a whole bunch of history. I had to go back to new york and convince random house to allow me to do a fourbook trilogy. [laughter] they said yes. I cannot just skip over a bunch of really important stuff and important people. One of those people all the way through this, the string ties this together is sherman. The other string that there for most of it is ulysses grant. I love the character grant but grant goes east. In early 18 city four, abraham in early 1864, Abraham Lincoln figures it out that we need the right guy and he find s the right guy in grant and put him in charge of the entire union army. When grant leaves, he puts in charge behind him, sherman. Sherman is now in command of the army of the west. That is a huge piece of history right there. I skipped over the battle of chickamauga and chattanooga. There are reasons they are important and i will not go into the history of it. Chickamauga happens in late 1853. It is a tremendous victory for the confederates. William rosenkranz was the Union General who fell flat on his face and it was a disaster. There is no town of chickamauga, its in northern georgia. The union army is in chaos and i they run scrambling retreating from the field and went back to their stronghold of chattanooga, tennessee across the border. , it is bad. All of the confederate generals realized that this is an opportunity. Think about what has just happened that summer gettysburg, vicksburg, the morale in the north is sky high and morale in the south is in the pits. All of a sudden at chickamauga it turns around. We have defeated a major union army. All the confederate generals go to their commander, Braxton Bragg, a real piece of work, and they say weve got them lets go. Lets follow this up. Bragg does not believe it. Bragg does not believe his army has been that successful so he is cautious and delays. He has people underneath him who are going crazy that he has delayed. Instead, he sees the union army in chattanooga. Youve got high mountains on two sides and the Tennessee River is there, missionary ridge, and chattanooga is down there. Bragg looks down and says this is perfect, we will make a siege. They sieged us in vicksburg. We will get them right back. He puts together a siege but the problem is, there are not enough confederates to close the circle. The union folks in chattanooga were in dire straits for a while with starvation going on but grant arrives and rides over the mountains and comes in and breaks the siege and supplies begin to come into chattanooga. All the generals looking at bragg realized that we lost an opportunity here. In fact, bragg is so despised by his own generals that they sign a petition to have him removed from command. That never happens in the army. That petition is sent to richmond to Jefferson Davis. Jefferson davis likes Braxton Bragg so he goes there. He goes to the headquarters to calm everyone down and soothe everyones feelings and convince them that everything will be fine. Then he goes back to richmond. What davis has just done is handed bragg Carte Blanche to do whatever he wants. What do you think bragg does with all the people who signed the petition . He purges quite a few of them from his army. These are good commanders and he finds a way to get rid of them because they are his enemies. Not a good way to run a war. As the union army get stronger in chattanooga, they finally break out. Youve got grant and sherman and George Thomas you got joe hooker who lost the battle of chancellorsville and he is there fighting under grant. They succeed in blowing braggs troops off of lookout mountain. It is a catastrophe for the confederates and one shining light for the Confederate Army during the entire campaign is a man who is a principal character in that story. The mans name is patrick cleburne. There is a book written by craig simon, the stone wall of the west. Thats the kind of reputation he had but for the confederates hes only one man and he is only a Division Commander and he cannot control what is happening over the rest of the field. I love this character. The defeat for the confederates at chattanooga is absolute. The result is even Jefferson Davis cannot hide from the fact that Braxton Bragg has got to go. Davis brings him to richmond as an advisor. Nobody would serve under bragg but now he is Jefferson Davis advisor. By the defeat of the confederates at chattanooga, the door is wide open to atlanta. As sherman takes command of the army there, he knows what his job is. It is to go to atlanta. Atlanta is enormously important as a rail hub and supply hub and the grant armies in virginia fighting robert e lee. They are getting their supplies through atlanta. The rail lines were critically important so sherman figures thats where we have to go next. Assuming command after bryant is gone assuming command after bragg is gone is joe johnston. He was one of the highest ranking generals and the confederacy. Here is another guy who hates Jefferson Davis and the feeling is mutual. A few they feareeud all the time but davis realizes that we need somebody to take up this defeated army and put them back together again and try to stop sherman from taking atlanta. It does not really work because johnston is first of all a master of retreat. [laughter] sometimes that is important. You can retreat when you need to when you can preserve your army and fight another day but johnston is good at. That it really makes people feel going army but it does not do anything for the people in richmond and it does not do anything for the newspapers in richmond who begin to pass a joke around that johnston is so good at retreating that eventually, his army will end up in bermuda. [laughter] after a while, as the fight pushes closer to atlanta, there are some minor victories for the confederates and a couple of major but for the most