last civil war and a contributor to essential civil war curriculum. his last work as a trilogy covering the civil war in virginia from the final stage of the gettysburg campaign through 1960 -- 1863 and includes meade and lee, which is due for publication next year. let's give him a welcome. [applause] prof. hunt: thank you. it is a real pleasure to be here. i appreciate jerry's invitation. fun to stand in a group of people that have the same passion you do. you don't get looked at as strangely when you talk to other people. i am going to break precedent today and have a powerpoint demonstration. [laughter] i am doing that for several reasons. jerry did it last night. i don't want him to feel we are. and pamplin spent a lot of money to put this system in. what i will guarantee you is he will not have to get a new puppy at the end of my presentation. so, i came to become interested in the story of what happens in the virginia theater after the battle of gettysburg following a conversation i had with one of my favorite professors and my mentor at the university of texas at austin. dr. george 40. he taught a war on the american civil war and reconstruction. i became his teaching assistant and graduate assistant. we were always having conversations about the war and various issues. one day we were talking about the battles of getting -- the battle of gettysburg and what lee was trying to do by going into pennsylvania. he suggested to me that maybe gettysburg was not the end all and be all of the war, the great turning point that historiography up to the early 1980's, when i was an undergraduate, indicated that it was. it intrigued me because that was completely opposite of everything i had ever read. so i became curious. if i wanted to answer that question one way or another, where do i look for evidence? if gettysburg is this great momentous turning point, concurrent with vicksburg which occurs at the same time, then the war in virginia ought to look very differently after gettysburg than it looked before gettysburg. so, let me go find out what was going on in virginia following the battle of gettysburg. when i went to find secondary literature on it, i drew a blank, because there isn't any secondary literature to speak of on what happens in virginia between gettysburg and the overland campaign. you can find a paragraph here or a page here and there, and it will get mentioned in a biography for a few pages or a regimental history now and again. there really wasn't anything there. since there wasn't anything in the secondary literature, i was forced to go to the official record. i started reading regimental histories, newspapers, archives to find the answer i wanted. what i discovered was, contrary to the way history is treated, the second half of 1863 in virginia, which is to say nothing of important happened. meade and lee maneuvered around each other but it was essentially a stalemate after -- as the armies lick their wounds following gettysburg. nothing happens until grant shows up and you get the overland campaign. it is as though historiography hit the fast-forward button from middle july until early may of 1864. if you pay attention to anything going on during that time, you have to pay attention to chattanooga and chickamauga. military historians like to follow the big battles. that is where the smoke and the drama are. the easiest way to sell books is to write about big battles. but, when i examined that. period, thethat letters that they wrote, the regimental histories, low and behold there is a lot that happens in those six months. this is not a quiet. -- not a quiet period. there is a great deal of maneuvering and fighting. as well as the strategic decisions that are made during this. have enormous consequences for what is going to happen in the 1864. this period, for both the eastern and western theater really sets the stage for the 1864 campaigns. it is also a very important bridge because if you read about those first few days in july and the great victories at gettysburg and vicksburg. there are a lot of northerners at the time, president lincoln among them, who feel like this is it. it is almost over. all we have to do is push a little harder and victory is at hand. on the federal side of the line you hear phrases like the confederacy is a tottering cause. this is almost over. you fast-forward a year and you get to the end of the summer of 1864. the north seems to be facing its darkest the federal failure hour. in the red river campaign. vicksburg, early on the outskirts of washington. the confederates having reasonable hope that if they can out for a handful of additional weeks, lincoln will go down in defeat in the election. ann mclellan will when on a platform that will make it impossible for the north to continue the war. whether that is right or not, that is what southerners believed. how do you get from early july when it seems like the great turning point had happened in the north was inevitably going to win to a year later, they -- the north is on the verge of going down to defeat and the south is on the verge of establishing its independence? there has to be something that bridges that period. it is the six months between lee's crossing of the potomac and the end of active campaigning in the summer -- in december of 1863. it also marks the only interval in which george made -- meade is in solitary command of the army of the potomac. he commands that army until the end of the war. we know that when grant shows up his shoulder,er increasingly dictating what meade is doing. if you want to get a handle on how good a general meade was, this is the place to look. as an are evaluating him army commander. the story begins where most -- end the gettysburg story, and that is lee's retreat across the potomac. that is where most folks about -- most books about the gettysburg campaign come to an end. lee gets away, meade missed his chance. the northern press is furious. and the great chance to turn gettysburg into the winning victory has been lost. but, in fact, if you go to the volumes on the official records that talk about the gettysburg campaign, you will notice something very interesting. they do not conclude the story until the first day of august of 1863. they and the gettysburg story two weeks later. that is because the gettysburg story does not end on the banks of the potomac. it doesn't end in the middle of july, it ends in the beginning of august 1863. there was a continuous flow of operations following lee's retreat across the potomac. although that is not the focus of the talk today, it is important to understand how we get from here ultimately to the end of november. so, from me today you are not going to get one small battle -- you were going to get a fistful of small battles that have a cumulative effect that is incredibly important on the way the war will unfold in 1864. so, lee crosses the potomac, he hovers in the shenandoah valley for a wild to see what meade is -- for a wild to see what meade is going to do. he would really like to follow the example of george mcclellan and sit down for a month or so and recover from the battle of gettysburg. he writes to his wife that the president ought to be satisfied with getting lee out of maryland. and you ought to leave this army alone until we can replace our losses. i can appoint new generals, get ourselves reorganized, and we have a reasonable chance of going out and fighting another battle and winning the victory. of course, general meade knows that is not in the cards. after his failure to attack lee at williamsport, whether that was the good decision or wrong decision, he is in trouble with the administration. lincoln has expressed his dissatisfaction. that really stuck in meade's craw. he got the army three days before the battle, he did not want the army, he tried to decline the command. he was told he could not. now he fights and wins this great big battle. he has conducted this difficult pursuit. he has done everything anybody could be asked to do. now the president is dissatisfied. as far as meade is concerned, that is a censure. that is saying i did not do anything -- everything i could have done. and, since i never wanted this command, i want out of this command. i want you to replace me. of course, you cannot replace the victor of the battle of gettysburg two weeks after the great triumph. with whom would you replace him? so he says no censure was intended. we are not believing you. your job is to follow the confederate army and cut it up. meade knows he cannot linger north of the potomac. crosses a few days after lee does. that is actually a good strategic move. it puts him on the strategic flank of lee. if meade plays his cards right, he might trap lee in the shenandoah valley. cut him off from reinforcements and resupply. and perhaps create the opportunity to do on the south bank of the potomac river what he just missed a chance to do on the north bank of the potomac. as a consequence of meade's move, we get a week and a half long chess match, a game of cat and mouse between lee in the shenandoah, meade in the loudoun, and a flooded shenandoah river. the whole thing hinges on control of the mountain passes. cloudis moving down the and, slowly taking control of the passes. lee finally figures out what meade is doing. he says he has to get himself back into culpeper county. into a blocking position. defending richmond. lee begins to move. just at the moment when if meade pushed things, there might be a great opportunity, meade halts his infantry for 35 hours . the reason he halts is because he has read in southern newspapers that lee has been massively reinforced. which, after the losses of gettysburg which -- gettysburg would make perfect sense. if it had anyone to reinforce with, which of course it does not. meade has been perplexed by the fact that lee hung around in the lower valley. meade is trying to understand why has lee stayed where he is? now it all makes sense. he is waiting for these reinforcements and he is going to go back over to the offensive. this is the moral dominance that robert e lee has over the army of the potomac's general. -- generals. that after gettysburg, he might resume the offensive. he would cut the army of the potomac off from washington dc. and then disaster will ensue. meade is not 100% that this will happen. when part of lee's army crossed the potomac, the western end of the shenandoah valley, that seems to indicate that yes, a rebel offensive is a real opportunity. meade stalls until he can really figure out what is going on. when he figures that out 35 hours later, it is too late. meade has missed his chance. you don't give lee 35 hours. he knows what to do with 35 hours. he started to cross the river and the mountains at manassas cap. gap. lee is sending most of his army through chester's gap. at the same time, meade belatedly is trying to shove his gap withrough manassas the idea of taking this area and cutting off the confederate retreat. lee believes that other cores are still in the valley. if he can grab front royal, fight his way through manassas gap, he could potentially destroy 2/3rds of the army of northern virginia. at this point meade's intelligence is all messed up. it is actually hill and long law -- long street that are already going through chester's gap. meade tries to cut it off by sending the third corps backed up by the fifth corps and the second corps through manassas gap. this leads to the first of our important small battles, and that is the fight at wapping heights. when right's georgia brigade holds off the entire third corps for most of a day. it had 600 guys, holding back a federal corps. they are helped by the rugged terrain. by the fact that general french is very cautious. he does not like coming into this mountain pass with these mountains boning up on his flank. he has seen too many of those old 1950's westerns where the indians show up on the horizon. when you go into the box canyon, i guess. he is really afraid of a confederate ambush. he is detaching regiments and batteries, every little trail has to be defended. he does not want to move until the fifth corps gets behind him. so, he takes most of the day at the end of the action, the excelsior brigade launches a very dramatic attack on right wright that -- on becomes known as the battle of wapping heights. it has taken them so long that the rest of the other corps has shown up to block the exit of analysis gap. -- manassas gap. meade, still believing he has this great opportunity, masses 35,000 troops in manassas gap. he says he will punch his way through manassas gap, a good portion of the army of northern virginia and destroy it. here is how to be a decisive victory. during the night, doing what they need to do, fades away. as meade advances, the rebels are gone. they are gone and he is not going to catch them. what is worse is, his army is almost out of supplies. he has to pivot to the east and hurried toward warrenton where he can reconnect with a railroad and the supplies around -- supply dumps around washington dc. at the same time lee has headed to the southeast and reoccupied a position in the culpeper v. made by the rivers . the two converge before it goes down to fredericksburg and chesapeake bay. lee is resting his army here but he is not certain this is where he is going to stay. this v of the rivers is a problematic military riddle for both sides. it is a good place to attack into but a horrible place to defend. the reasons for that are fairly straightforward. first, there is no real good defensive terrain in the culpeper. it is beautiful countryside. and beautiful countryside is militarily worthless. it is pretty an open and slightly rolling. there is no real anchor for a defensive position. narrowr, this is a county. if you follow the line of the railroad from rappahannock station and you take it to culpeper courthouse where the river turned south, that is only 23 miles. of course, the distance as you go east is much more narrow. if an army fights a battle in the culpeper v and it gets shoved back across or against the rapidan river. it is not wide. it is not altogether deep. there are lots of fords. that can change in the blink of an eye. the name comes from the tactic and rapidly expand. and those fords can disappear. even in good weather, a ford is a funnel that slows down the movements of an army. it is a recipe for disaster. moreover the curious thing about , culpeper county is the land lower thancounty is the land to the south and to the north behind the rappahannock. you gett means is if control of the fords, you could mass attacking columns out of sight and then struck across it -- strike across it with very little warning. if lee loses control of the fords, he will be blind to what the army of the potomac can do. -- is going to do. he has been in this position before. this is where he was when the fredericksburg campaign started. the fords, used the high grounds to shield his army and rapidly filled to the southeast. if the pontoon boats had showed up on time, then he is across the river before flea -- lee can react. lee remembers all of that. he says culpeper provides no field for battle. he is lingering here for a while but he is probably going to go back across the rapidan. meade has every intention of forcing lee to do that. he has taken his army to warrenton. he takes a couple of days to resupply. then he informs the lincoln administration, i am about to try and push across the rappahannock river. i'm going to seize the fords and hopefully lee will retreat. hopefully he will not just retreat out of culpeper, he will retreat from the rapidan as well. meade understands that lee's army is very beaten up. he is unlikely to make a stand. if you push against him, you riverlead to two -- leap two barriers without much of a fight. the one thing meade does not know is if lee is backing up because his army is weak or if it is strategy. he will get to that any moment. -- that in a moment. for meade, one of the most important things he has to do is get control that said, the draft is the only way you are going to strengthen the union army. you cannot leave the draft suspended and the administration is certain the only way we can resume the draft is to do it at and at point. ultimately, they are going to take 6000 troops from meade's army. at the same time they are going to take the first division of the core and send it to reinforce the effort against charleston. not just because the effort needs to be reinforced, but because the 11th corps is in very ill repute after its debacles in gettysburg. its first division is seen to be a problem child. they actually talk about breaking the core up and being done with it. they take a chunk of it and send it as far away from virginia as they can conveniently get it. meade, -- for meade, that means he has manpower problems. they will be first in his mind for the rest of the year. he also has an interesting order from halleck, no advance, no battle, do not do anything rash. but, keep up a threatening attitude. [laughter] looks scary, but do not do anything. meade says, all right, seizing bridge heads is the best way to -- is as good a way to look scary as i know. he crosses the rappahannock and that leads to a battle. as we are going to see. that battle is buford's calvary division crosses the potomac and drives all the way toward culpepper courthouse. pushing hamptons brigade almost back to the railroad. then the confederate send an cavalry and they throw the federals into reverse. this is your second battle of brandy station. on august 1, 1863. it is a nasty little flight. very dramatic. it is fought in 90 degrees temperatures with he then -- heat indexes in the a lot of the hundreds. horses are so weak that they collapse when their riders get on them. dozens of men have to be sent to the rear because their horses are not up to the fight. nonetheless, it is a fight that the confederates technically win. the federals maintain control of the south bank of the rappahannock river. that allows them, after a week's pause to rebuild the railroad bridge. if meade wants to advance once washington unshackles him, he has this critical link. here's the thing about the o&a. meade does not want to advance down the o&a. it goes down the southwest, the opposite direction of richmond. the only thing it ultimately points to is gordonsville, which is an important link that connects the virginia central railroad to richmond. that is 60, 70 miles away. aboutrst problem operating on the orange and alexandria is that from the rappahannock to washington is about 30 miles. and all of that single track railroad goes through confederate territory. the only way to ensure the railroad line stays in constant operation is to guard every single foot of it. he has to detach 5000 infantry to do that job. 5000 infantry out of an army that has already been shot up at gettysburg. meade is looking at the recent past and has noted that every battle the casualties get worse. potomacy battle the gets weaker. look at the 120,000 that were taken into chancellorsville. i take 80,000 into gettysburg. i lost more than 23,000 of them. if i go and have another battle with lee, the rebels will -- rebels are probably going to dig in. i have to assume the tactical offensive. i'm going to suffer casualties commensurate with that. going tose, my army is be vastly weaker afterwards. if lee is forced into retreat or he retreats of his own volition and i follow him down the o and longer.pply line gets i detach more troops. my combat power gets weaker. is apt to keep playing that game until he can turn around and hit me with superior numbers. -- couldd act absolutely lead to disaster. meade would rather abandon the on day completely. he wants to take the potomac back. and cross the rappahannock at fredericksburg. that would give him and all c line -- that would give him a new supply. he won't lose any troops defending it. he will have to abandon the rapidan. i will get across the river before lee gets there. then i can go down the richmond and vertex berg railroad and lee will have to fall back to the north or south in order to fight me. i will gain this enormous advantage without spending a drop of blood. meade thinks this is common sense. and he is right. this is a civil war. they are inherently political. lincoln and halleck veto this proposal. you cannot take the army of the potomac back to fredericksburg after that disaster. this seems to indicate that richmond is his objective. lincoln and halleck have been saying for almost a year, richmond is not the objective. it does not matter where you fight lee's army, start to grind it up. that is wonderful theoretically but if you are a general you have to plan a campaign. it is not as simple as that. this thoroughly irritates him. the relationship between meade halleck and and lincoln is incredibly dysfunctional. they do not trust each other. lincoln and halleck will forgive meade for failing to strike at williamsport, but they will never forget. when they hear meade talk intelligently and logically about the difficulties of supply and fighting my way across rivers and virginias geography, the administration will see that that is all true, but what they are really hearing is george mcclellan in their ear and all the excuses he had for not getting anything done. he can make whatever operational moves he wants. there will not be any great shift. he believes if they are not going to sanction him, they need to tell him what they want done. they won't tell him beyond vagueness. force lee back. meade's letters have been published. they are heavily edited. not all of his letters are in that book. there was one letter i found that he rode around this time to his wife, who is a very close confidant. he says the administration would love for me to go fight and win a battle. but they are keeping their fingerprints off of any defeat. they set me up to be a scapegoat if there is a disaster. that is what they did to burnside and hooker and pope and mcclelland. and they are not going to do it to me. it is a very dysfunctional relationship. august 1, they lunged toward culpepper but then they are pushed back. culpepper is no place to leave and infantry. he will take it back behind the rappahannock river if meade wants culpepper county, he can come get it. lee is behind the rapidan. meade is above the rappahannock. under orders from washington to not do anything. for about six weeks, you will get a lull. they both deal with desertion problems. lee offers to resign because of gettysburg. jefferson davis politely says, no way. they fully recover their strength from gettysburg. the army of northern virginia is up to 73,000 men. the army of the potomac is up to 88,000. the wound of gettysburg heals numerically. it is mostly due to convalescents returning. as lee's army regains its strength, lee regains his combativeness. he wishes to strike meade. gettysburg has invoked no tactical epiphany. he still believes aggressive action in defeating the enemy as rapidly as possible is the only way the south will keep superior numbers and hopefully wreck union morale. there is no way you can win, you might as well give up the effort. this six weeks is very important to both armies. it is not the only thing that is going on. out in tennessee, rosecrans is on the move. burnside is advancing toward knoxville. the confederates defending those two points are grossly outnumbered. it is clear that a crisis is looming. as early september dawns, the confederate high command finds itself in the same spot that it was in may 1863. there is a crisis out west. how do we respond? the options in september were the same they were in may. we take troops fromlee's army and send them west to try to redeem the situation. or lee wants an offensive in virginia. we know what happened in may of >> 1863. lee said, we cannot get men to the west in time. so the smart thing to do is an offensive in virginia. he wants exactly the same thing. just as soon as lee issues the orders, chattanooga and knoxville fall. davis changes his mind. he orders longstreet's corps be sent to georgia. the rest of his corps will go west. rumors of this began to arrive in the federal capital very quickly. that makes the yankees very nervous. meade cannot tell if lee has sent troops west. halleck says, you need to find out. on september 13, the federal cavalry corps launches a full strength drive into culpepper county. you get the very dramatic battle of culpepper courthouse. the federals reach the rapidan on september 14. longstreet is gone. where he has gone, nobody is saying. but he is not here. meade has to decide what to do. he asks washington, do you want me to advance to the rapidan? they say it is up to you. he finally enters the culpepper v, which makes them very nervous. he now confronts the rebel army behind the rapidan. this will be his problem for the rest of the year. how do i get at the rebels at the other side of the river? every ford is heavily defended. the ground on the others of the river is higher than the ground on my side. i either have to go east or west. the union army has operated to the east before during chancellorsville campaign. it has never operated toward the west. despite being at war in virginia for two years, there are still huge swaths of the old dominion that the federals have only the biggest idea of the roads, fords, topography. on september 22, two divisions are assented to madison county immediately to the west of culpepper with orders to scout the roads, the fords. that leads to, on the 23rd, the dramatic cavalry action. this is really cavalry time in virginia. the two rival cavalry forces fight three major actions against each other in a seven-week period of time. the yankees are chased back out of culpepper. the reconnaissance gives general meade only the information he needs, which as you do not want to go west. that is not the way to get at the rebels. at the same time this is happening in madison county, the battle of chickamauga and longstreet's divisions have arrived at the nick of time. now the crisis is on the other foot. in early september, it was the rebels desperately figuring out how to stay in chattanooga. now it is the federals. they order all reinforcements in the west to go to the threat point. grant is plucked out of cooling his heels and doing virtually nothing after his vicksburg victory and told to go to chattanooga. he really wants to fire rosecrans and is happy to do it. it seems like more needs to be done. the federals have to make the same kind of decision that davis and lee were making a few weeks ago. do we do what secretary of war stanton and chase and wells are suggesting and take troops to the area of the potomac and send them west to reinforce chattanooga? or do what lincoln and halleck prefer and launch an offensive in virginia? lee is weaker than he has ever been. here is a great opportunity. we should take advantage of it. stanton, chase, and well say, you know you have to be kidding. they are not going to take advantage of this. lincoln is not going to be rushed. he has halleck send a message down to meade about plans for an immediate offensive. meade says you've heard buford is just getting back from his reconnaissance. lincoln says, not good enough. the 11th and 12th corps are detached from the army of the potomac to go to save the situation in chattanooga. this changes the strength of the army of the potomac not at all. all of the guys who had been sent north to enforce the draft come bath -- back. lee is down to 55,000 men. longstreet is outnumbered by 35,000. the odds have shifted badly against him. all meade can see is he is lost two of his seven corps and he still has to send 5000 men to guard the railroad. and i do not go down this railroad line anyway. i know we are capable of offensive action. meade was not going to take advantage of the circumstances. he still thinks lee's army is as biggest his own. he is not going to go over to the offensive. lee is of a different mindset. he goes over to the offensive. on october 9, he swings his troops out of orange county, trying to get around the flank of the union army. the federals pick up hints but the information is not specific enough. there is a possibility that the rebels might be retreating. that would make sense. backing up closer to richmond would be logical. meade does not really know, is lee retreating or advancing? he decides to prepare for both possibilities. he throws both of his armies into a defensive position to the west. he sensed the larger part down to the rapidan to cross the river for an offensive. they have orders to go up the south bank of the river and uncover the ford so they can cross the river and pursue the rebels if they are retreating. meade is very conscious of how he lit lee getaway. it will look really bad if lee is retreating and the union army is not in hot pursuit. meade, who is extremely confident, a smart guy, does not go with his gut. washington is looking over his shoulder. all of the back and the administration and halleck have basically put him on edge. we have all been there. we are really good at something until someone says, i want to watch you be good at it. you are going to mess it up. this is what meade is doing. he finally figures out what the rebels are up to. he orders a general retreat and begins to pull his army out of the culpepper v. it is a cautious but prudent move. that is a bad place to fight. his troops are ready to tangle with the rebels again. but it makes sense. don't be in the vulnerable position. get yourself north of the river. meade is worried that the rebels are trying to get at him with a wider march to cut him off from washington. if you are north of the rappahannock, you are prepared for either possibility. when meade gets north, he loses sight of the confederate infantry. the yankee cavalry cannot tell meade anything about where lee's cavalry is. lee could be doing one of two things. he has gone to culpepper or he is outflanking me and trying to cut me off from washington. meade deploys a cavalry division along the north of the rappahannock. if lee is going this way, he will run into that cavalry. nothing comes from it from half a day. bad luck for the federals. they don't see lee moving in their direction. about noon, meade gets nervous. lee is not trying to cut me off. that will look bad in the papers. in the administration. maybe i should go fight him. he sends two corps with buford's cavalry in front. all that is there is a cavalry brigade. it has a bad half a day trying to hold back a union avalanche. lee is not here. by dusk, lee is not in culpepper. some of meade's officers say, we know what they are doing. they are pulling back closer to richmond. at night, he leaves his army where it is, half of it north of the rappahannock and half of itself. bad news for meade, lee starts slamming its way across the upper rappahannock. by nightfall, lee is suddenly squarely on meade's flank and closer to the orange and alexandria than the army of the potomac is itself. meade does not find that out until 10:00 that night when a messenger finally arrives in the upper rappahannock with the horrible news. meade has to order his troops out of culpepper county and put his troops in rapid retreat toward centerville. as he retreats, that railroad bridge goes up in flames. job security for railroad builders, they will always have bridges to be rebuilt. the armies are moving parallel to each other. there will be some interesting action around auburn. no time to talk about that. i have 100 pages on it in my second book. there is a scare for the federal second corps at auburn but it manages to get away. most of the federal army is going to get out of their way. when hill comes down, he sees the tail end of the federal debt corps and thinks it is the union rearguard. the second corps comes up from the south. it is a very fluid situation. the leading brigade commanders say there is something dangerous to our right. we ought to pay attention to it. hill says stop everything. let's try to figure out what is going on. he pauses for 10 minutes. he sees anderson's division coming up. he says go ahead. those 10 minutes allow the federals to get behind the railroad. the confederates make an impromptu attack. just a response to the tactical situation. they get shot to pieces. lee tries to concentrate his army before dark to attack the isolated second corps, but it doesn't happen. the federals managed to get away. meade has escaped. lee knows that his campaign has done what it can do. it is late in the year. his troops are going to quit for the winter campaign. if he outflanked meade again, he will just call back into the defenses of washington, d.c. northern virginia is a wasteland. lee orders a retreat. as he retreats, he destroys the orange and alexandria railroad. he does a sherman job on it. burns the ties, melts the rails, chops down the telephone poles. he literally obliterates the railroad all the way back to the rappahannock. without it, meade cannot follow him. any pursuit happens at the pace of railroad construction. that might take the rest of the campaigning season. meade slows down. he has fear that lee will outflank him and try to get to washington. meade does not resume his pursuit. the federal cavalry eventually pursues. that leads to the fight at buckland mills. custer saves the day because he had lingered in the rear. the confederates managed to miss a chance to destroy the third cavalry division of the union army. they routed all the way back. this becomes known as the buckland races. this is the counterbalance to the debacle at bristoe station. kilpatrick has been embarrassed. he has to explain what happens. he will not explain it in a way that makes him look bad. they both say, they got beat at buckland because they were supported by a line of infantry two miles long. meade says thank god, at last, i know where the rebel infantry is. i can go and fight them. he goes storming down to new baltimore. there is no one there. meade has landed a mighty punch into the clouds. the railroad is destroyed. he figures that is it. the campaign is over. i cannot do anything else. even lincoln agrees with them. this hurts his reputation. he things he has done the right thing. the smart thing. but the papers are lambasting it. meade is a modest fellow. he has no vanity. but he cared deeply about his reputation. to see that reputation trashed by people who did not understand what happens, that wounds deeply. so, as his men rebuild the railroad he creeps south. by the end of october he is around basically on this line. the confederates are behind rappahannock. and at the end of the first week of november, you're right where you were at the end of july. the confederates in culpepper. meade to the north. this time lee has decided to defend the culpepper v. he learned something about meade. he's not daring. lee comes up with a daring strategist. he's going to stay in the culpepper v. how do you counteract the problem with the higher ground above the rappahannock? he is going to seize a bridgehead at rappahannock station, which is a springboard for a potential offensive. as meade comes down and sees that bridgehead, he realized that lee could attack and potentially sever the o&a railroad. if meade wants to push south, he will have to send the rest of his army where high ground makes. it very easy for the federals to get across and lee's willing to let him do that. lee would love for him to do that. if he keeps half of his army in rappahannock station, i can throw my entire army against that portion of the aop and shove it against the river and destroy it. this is a very clever trap. when meade gets to the river he recognizes a very clever trap. he tells lincoln, i should not walk into that trap. we should take the army and ross the river at fredericksburg. i am issuing orders. i am going to do it. he very quickly says, no, you're not. i thought we had this conversation, mister. so, against his better judgment and with great anxiety, meade walks into lee's trap. and so, on the morning of november 7, 1863 he has the third and second corps storm across the river at kelly's ford. there is the ford down there. the advantage they have. they get across the river. what happens at rappahannock station is one of the greatest feats of the arms in the entire war, courtesy of david russell who organizes a daring dusk attack on the confederate entrenchment. and this is sort of where the third book starts. we don't have time to talk about it here is but it is one of those stunning small battle. when the confederate loses that bridge head. the louisiana tigers are lost here. lee's plan of defense in culpepper county is shattered. he is asked to order a rapid retreat into orange county. so we get to the middle of november, and we are where we were at the middle of september. meade rebuilds the railroad bridge. brings the railroad into culpepper. but now he's under enormous pressure. he knows time is running out. winter's coming on. elections have already happened. doesn't have to worry about that anymore. and so, there's an expectation of offensive. and meade, having studied this problem two months ago in september, is ready to make a decision. he can't go around reaves' left. he is going to go right. he's going to cross the river at jacobs ford through culpepper mine ford. he's going to swing around to the west. he's going to bring his columns and tried to destroy yule's corps before ap hills' corps which is 20 miles away can come over to reinforce. a chance to destroy the rebel army in detail. you have to move fast. speed here is of the essence. unfortunately for meade, he tries to launch the offensive but there's rain. and the roads becomes muddy. and he has to call the whole thing off. enough of his troops had gotten close enough that stewart calvary had seen them. and lee has been anticipating that meade's going to go around. he's going to cross the river here. not anticipating he will turn west to attack the army of northern virginia. he anticipates a march south into spotsylvania county in an attempt to get between lee and richmond. lee's answer to that is the same answer he will have in may -- march down the orange plank road and hit the federal columns and stop them in their tracks. for the federal's when they finally get their advance going, things are not going to go well. so, the movement finally is launched on the 26th of november, thanksgiving take. the federals begin to move. and the rappadan is still up. but the real problem comes on the federal right flank, which is the third and the sixth corps. the two strongest corps are on that side of the advance, and leading advances major general william f. french, who has commanded the third corps since the aftermath of gettysburg. he brought the division in to reinforce it after gettysburg and he gets the job by seniority. french, west point 1837. good mexican war record. helped write an artillery manual way to general henry hunt in charge of the aop's artillery. at the beginning of the war, he was commanding troops in texas. he refused to surrender his garrison. marched it all the way down the rio grande. put it on boats and took it to key west. impressive stuff. he gets a brigade. he gets a division. he gets to attack the sunken road at antietam and the stonewall at fredericksburg. and chancellorsville. none of this goes well, as you can imagine. and it has an impact on the man. and this is something we always forget when we are examining civil war history. we tend to look at most of its characters as static. what they are at the end and the beginning of the war. we fail to take into account how what they are experiencing is affecting them. a lot of generals are drunks. there is no aspirin. any pain is a bottle. and ptsd was a real thing in the civil war, too. if you have ordered your troops to attack the stone wall at fredericksburg, isn't that going to have an effect on you? some differently than others. it's injected caution into french's character, led him too heavily to the bottle. nonetheless, he is in charge of the right wing of the union army. his corps moves late that f morning and when he gets to jacobs ford, that is on private land. as most of you are seeing it for the first time. this is to the north. over that ridge. you come down to the river. this was taken last december. there's the ford itself. this is a horse ford. you can wade horses but not wagons. two army corps have a lot of wagons and artillery pieces. the real problem is even once you build the trestle to complete the bridge, you have to get up the opposite bank, and federal troops said that was the worst possible place they had ever seen. this river. and pictures never do elevation any justice, but this gives you some idea. this is almost a shear cliff down to the bottom. it's muddy, because it has been raining and the more troops that go over it, the muddier it gets. you probably have to cross to the right. we went up and down that in an atv. it's so bad that the federal artillery is trying to double and triple its teams to get up. it's barely managing to do it. so, this is taking a long time. french has fallen behind schedule. when he hears that, he is serious. but, because he's behind schedule, he not only sends were to french demanding to know, why are you behind schedule, which seems unhelpful at the moment. he orders the other two columns to suspend crossing the river. for me, this is meade's great blunder in the campaign. in a campaign were speed matters more than anything. the two columns crossing furthest from the rebels are told to stop crossing the river till french can get across the river. meade was a guy who once he made his plan wanted to execute his plan. and, moreover, he is absolutely convinced if he's got to suffer the casualties of a big battle, the battle has to pay off. the only way the battle pays off is if i land one massive blow with the entire army. and the goal is to get across the river, swing west, get the army centered on robinson tavern and move the force against lee and hit hard. and so, there is a pause. and that pause lasts till night. at the end of november 26, only the third corps has cross the river. although warren has got across not all of the first corps has gotten across. your half a day behind schedule. of course, lee knows what's going on and he is shifting yules ford down to block the federal advance. he still believes they are going to try to go towards richmond. and hill is coming up from the south, but he is going to be almost a day behind what yule c an do. now, for the federals, the real problem is truly just beginning, because they are in the wilderness. and this area is virtually in penetrable. there aren't any roads between the plank and the turnpike and french is moving along the trail and his orders are at every intersection, they are to go left. when a guide is sent to french. henry prince is talking to a southerner. the southern union's. ebenezer mcgee, who is one of the spies for george sharp, in charge of the federal intelligence service for the army of the potomac. mcgee knows that route. but that is all he knows. he scouted it. prince says, where does this road go? mcgee can't tell him. i know how to get to my house. i never go there. prince says, you're no guide at all. get out of here. he goes blundering into the wilderness. great. uncertainty every intersection becomes a quandary. and, as a result, he is going to eventually blunder into confederates. and you're going to get a better in a place where there was never a battle intended. the rest of the federals are going to run into rebels around robinson's tavern. sykes is going to run into gordon's calvary. then the lead element of hill's corps which is hess's division and far earlier than meade intended, his columns are in action. that slows everything down. the chance to hit the rebel army while divided has been lost. the biggest spite -- fight is going to be the battle of payne's farm. five between the third corps and allegany johnson's division. and this is an. accidental battle so, this is prince coming down on the wrong road. he should be going this way. he is coming down toward the road that links robinson tavern and raccoon ford. the is got calgary in front of him who blunder into johnson and open fire. that leads johnson to halt his troops and form a line of battle along the road. and the federals begin to deploy to counter that. it takes a long time to do this in these dense woods. lines of battle. so, this is going to burn up even more daylight. and, eventually, the federals who are deploying in an l shape are attacked by johnson. the terrain was more open than it is now. and the federals are going to spend the day reconnoitering. they are going to come to the conclusion that this is worse than fredericksburg. we can't attack here. but meade's determined we are going to attack somewhere. we are not turning around and going home. so, gentlemen, you need to figure out some options. and the guide comes up with the option -- warren, hero of little round top. it was warren who administered that sharp rap to lee's knuckles at bristow station. they are very close friends and warren says, let me pull my corps out of line, and i'll go down and i will threaten lee's flank. i'll threaten lee's flank. he'll pull out. we won't have to attack this position. warren's not suggesting outflanking lee. he, in fact, as he makes his march, makes it ostentatiously. let's let he rebels know we are coming. and if we get down there and maybe there is a chance to launch the attack, then we launch it. lee is very aware of what is going on. stewarts calvary does a great job of giving lee intelligence. warrens has been reinforced with the sixth corps. as he comes down on the rebel flank, although this is taken them a long time, there is an opportunity. we've got troops, but he does not have a lot and they are not heavily entrenched. as warren approaches the road that would allow them to turn into the confederate flank, there is a railroad -- and old railroad that had never been built. can see it there through the woods. their confederate cavalry skirmishers in front of it and warren sees that. my god, entrenchments. those are rebel entrenchments. they knew i was coming. i don't know how many rebels are behind it, but i bet a lot. he used railroad embankments to hurt lee. now the railroad embankment at mine run is going to hurt meade, because there are not any rebels there. warren takes 2.5 hours deploying the division to attack the railroad embankment. the calvary scampers away, fires a few shots, and then warren's men are on top of the embankment. there's nobody here. that's. awkward. warren gets above mine run. they are entrenched but nothing like further north. and so, warren sends back word to meade, i'm beyond the confederate flanks. reinforce me. and tomorrow morning, i will land a blow. that will perhaps destroy the army of northern virginia. meade had already decided that on the morning of november 30, he was going to send the entire army forward in a frontal attack. now he's got a better option. daring for meade. he denudes his centers. he settles the fifth corps and one sixth corps division off to his right. he gives two divisions to warren. 26,000 men. warren has 2/3 of the army of the potomac's infantry to launch this massive attack at dawn on november 30 of 1863. an hour after warren hit, -- if this attack had been launched, it would be the single largest attack against the army of the potomac. grant will never come close to pulling off something like this. overnight, the confederates have shifted in front of warren and lee has settled the troops off and once again the confederates pull off their magic and they dig in like beavers. the next morning when the federal troops wake up and they are cold and hungry, meade had left his supply wakens north of the river to speed it up. carried 8 days rations. no campfires because that will give away our position. so, even though the temperatures are freezing, nobody has got coffee, or hot food. everybody is getting hungry. and they wake up. they look across the valley of mine run, and the rebels are there. they are there. you've got almost a half a mile to a quarter-mile of open ground. you're going to have to come over the hill, cross the creek, climb the next hill. the rebel position is such that they can take you under fire every single step of the way. in a a lot of places there are felled trees in front. even the skirmishers are entrenched. the confederates were so confident, there were sitting on top of their earthworks daring them. come on, yank. come on over. all the federal troops to sneak forwarding get a look at this say this is going to be worse than fredericksburg. in fact, the only thing we can hope for is the first waves will be enough of a moving earthwork that us getting shot down will allow the follow-up to get close. and now the men begin to write their names on their pieces of paper and pin them to their uniforms so their bodies can be identified. everybody is certain this is a disaster, but the disaster does not happen because warren, looking at this understanding his reputation is at stake, does an incredible thing. said, i can't do it. i can't waste these men. this is suicide. so, he sends word back to meade. i'm not going to attack. just as the courier heads towards headquarters, the bombardment has begun.everybody along the union line is tense. here it comes and then nothing. nothing. and when meade gets warren's message, he cries, my god he has got 2/3 of my army. races down to warren furious but when he looks where warren has looked he's forced to concede, you're right. we cannot do this. for my money, this is perhaps after gettysburg, the greatest contribution that george meade makes to the union cause. he could have launched that attack. even though he would have been being, he would've gotten credit for two for being brave enough to launch the attack. his standing in the administration would've gone up and in the press, too. but he would have killed or wounded 10,000 federal troops for no gain.after another fredericksburg and, debacle, when april and may show up in those three-year enlistment are running out, the men who have just been through a repeat of fredericksburg reenlist. and i think the answer is most of them probably say to hell with it. no way. and they go home. you have a very different army going into 1864, than you got going into 1863. so, meade hopes to find some way to redeem this but try as he might there is no answer. he shifts his troops back around. lee, however, his actions to attack. here are the yankees. i so badly want to hit them. his officers say, no, no. another fredericksburg. think about it. wouldn't that be nice? let the enemy come to us. after meade's army digs in, throughout december 1, lee says, ok, they are not going to do another fredericksburg. i'm going to do another chancellorsville. and so, he shifts two divisions, anderson and will cox, down below the federal flank. although cary's division has refused, they are still beyond the federal line. lee's plan on the morning of december 2 with all of the daylight available he is going to replicate what jackson did at chancellorsville in may. it doesn't happen, because during the night, while lee is shifting into position, meade is going backwards. there is a very stiff wind. the federals aren't heard. lee's own movements help to obscure what they are doing. when the confederates go forward on the morning of december 2, the enemy is gone. be in the sae place when the campaigns of 1864 start. for the confederates this is a huge strategic victory even though technically they are the ones who twice come out on the other end of it, strategically this is a success. lee hasshows us that not changed because of gettysburg. he still believes in the same strategy. it shows us that george meade is not ulysses s grant. he is also not joe hooker or ambrose burnside. he's clearly up to this point the best point -- the best general of the union has had. he will not make a mistake. make a few, hes doesn't make a catastrophic mistake whatsoever. bigger picture. in september and october of 1863. set the stage. in the tactical operational sense literally because when rise --mes into super grant has to get over the rapidan. and meade tells grant if we ,ross the rapid into -- rapidan there's only one place and lee -- if we turn up and attack him. grant says that's our plan. so grants plan of campaign at the beginning of the operation better.fight his plan of campaign is to do exactly in the spring what he did in the winter. we're going straight up those roads to hit them as hard as we can and that's what gives you the battle of the winter netlist -- the wilderness. such asttles are fought they are because grant is there. why is grant their? because the confederates made a huge mistake in september and that was sending long street to georgia. at the time it made perfect sense. shifting troops east to west is something a lot of confederate leaders and newspaper editors and generals have been saying we should have done a long time ago instead of going into pennsylvania and fighting at gettysburg. so that decision was bold. it was daring. but what kind of fruit does it bear? not the kind the confederates wanted. before long street left to go to georgia, he met with lee. it was a very emotional parting between those men. horseg street got on his to go, lee said you must beat those people out west and long street said, if i live. a singleld not give man in my command for a fruitless victory. it was.hat perhaps it would not have been if he had done things differently afterwards, but he didn't. let's take at facelet's take att face value what actually happened. who was sent to rescue the siege of chattanooga, grant who was basically unemployed until that moment. one of the things i found in alecrching this is that writes a letter to rosecrans in september and says the reason the rebels are concentrated against rosecrans's because they know that if meade and rosecrans can hold their ground in virginia and tennessee while thanks and grant cleanout the trans-mississippi, the rebel cause is doomed. like grant'sy much next job was in the trans-mississippi and if it wasn't that it was probably going to be an advance on mobile. nobody is talking about making grandpa general in chief until after chattanooga. chattanooga elevates grant to supreme command and gives you the overland campaign. it gets rosecrans fired, shaw in charge of the armies towards atlanta. if there is no confederate victory at chickamauga which there would not have and if long street had not gone west. siege of chattanooga for grant to redeem. in 1864 william rosecrans takes on the drive toward atlanta and meade is left alone to assume the offensive in inginia and grant is either arkansas and louisiana or moving against mobile and ultimately what does that mean? we don't know. because it doesn't happen. counterfactual history is fun and the first step you take into it is on solid ground but after that everything is quicksand. we do know things would have been different. at the end of the day counterintuitively, and it's easy to understand why the south did what they did. back, it probably would have been far better to leave long street in the hands of lee and let lee assume an offensive with equal odds against meade in virginia and where that takes you nobody knows but it certainly wouldn't have wound up with ulysses s grant and william sherman running the union war effort in 1864 and we do know how that turned out. boring six months and a lot happens that's really important and it doesn't deserve the dark hole of history that's been shoved into which is why i was happy to write the books to shed light on this important passage. so thank you for your attention. [applause] tvthis is american history featuring events, interviews, archival films and visits to college classrooms, museums and historic places. exploring our nation's past every weekend on c-span three. >> american history tv looks back to the 1992 and 2000 presidential campaigns that feature bill clinton visiting students, teachers and staff at franklin high school in franklin, new hampshire in october 1991. and texas governor george bush on his first trip to new hampshire after announcing his candidacy in june of 1999. here's a preview. >> are we playing a game? who's on what side? senior citizens against the kids? i missed. let them have it. i'll cover him. >> watch out. >> i'd like to introduce myself. i'm george bush. bush andy wife laura i'm looking for some lone star lemonade. any? y'all have >> that's for my wife. we are buying some lone star lemonade. senator, would you like some lone star lemonade? >> very good lemonade. ?> who made it how much do you charge for your lone star lemonade. >> are you going to tell us? a dollar?take >> journey back to previous new hampshire primaries this sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. next, a postdoctoral research associate at princeton university explores the history of medicaid and medicare in the united states explaining how discussions on universal health care have evolved since the 1960's. this interview was recorded at the american historical association meeting. >> george aumoithe is joining us from our studios in new york. thanks for being with us on american history tv. >> thanks for having me. >> you have
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