we've got a great speech for our second session this morning. dr. timothy smith is a veteran of the national parks service and currently teaches history at the university of tennessee. in addition to numerous articles and essays, he is the coeditor of 18 books, including champion hill, decisive battle of vicksburg, which won the nonfiction book award from the mississippi -- arts and letters. you can buy a copy in our bookstore. i am pleased to introduce dr. timothy smith. [applause] >> thank you. appreciate that. appreciate the opportunity to be here. this is my first time to be here. i am a believer now. you have got a great place here. we are going to talk about the western theater here. vicksburg, champion hill. how many of you have been to vicksburg? i figured that. a good number of you. champion hill is one of those great battlefields, if you have been watching the news, listening to the american battlefield trust, they are doing a lot of work there. the state of mississippi has just turned over several hundred acres to the national park service. a lot going on at champion hill. we are going to talk about that battle in particular. the larger vicksburg campaign just a little bit. i do not have powerpoint either. i am a little old-fashioned. we do have a map, which we will talk about a little bit. i tend to go overboard when i do powerpoint and completely confuse everybody, so i don't do powerpoint's when i can help it. although i am beginning to realize that powerpoint can be useful. you see some of them that are good and i can help you. i just had a good lesson in this. i've got two daughters, 12-year-old has been after us to give her a puppy. we already got a dog, she wanted a puppy. it's all we heard. we don't need another dog. well she made her a powerpoint presentation -- [laughter] to convince us why we need a puppy. now, we are the proud owners of bingo the border collie. powerpoint presentations do work and i do use those on occasion. but not today. let's talk about vicksburg. little battles, big results. this depends on your your definition of little battle. obviously compared to some other battles, it doesn't reach that realm. we are talking 25, 30, 000. casualties in the thousands. it is on the high-end of a little battle, if you want to call it a little battle but it does have tremendous, huge results. i am not going to stand here and argue to you -- some historians get into their topic so much -- and argue that this is where the battle was one and lost. i'm not going to argue that champion hill is where the north won the war or the south lost the war. it will depend on that case of what you think of vicksburg. i am guessing here in the army of northern virginia land that we would get a lot of eastern centric ideals. the war was won and lost in the east and all that kind of stuff. i hail from the west and i am thoroughly convinced that the civil war was won and lost in the west. the confederacy was gutted while there was just a stalemate up here. that is arguable. [laughter] we are not here to argue where the war was won and lost. i am not going to argue to you that champion hill was the deciding battle of the war. i will simply leave it that wherever you place vicksburg in the full scheme of the civil war, how much emphasis you put on the importance of vicksburg, whether that was the turning point of the civil war or not, that will weigh in on how important you think champion hill is. i will argue that champion hill is the decisive point in the vicksburg campaign. if you think vicksburg is the turning point, where the confederacy is ripped open fatally, opening the mississippi river, then you will probably hundred -- probably put champion hill in a higher category than some of the larger battles that we know more about. champion hill is the decisive battle of vicksburg, the largest battle in the vicksburg campaign itself, and it had tremendous results, as our theme talks about. in terms of narrowing down to champion hill -- we will not go into major tactical action, because 30, 000 troops on each side, we could get lost in the weeds. there is a good book about it if you are interested in those things. we are going to keep it simple today and talk about champion hill and why it turned out the way it did but i want to start at the top and give some background and lead to champion hill. just a quick overview, looking at the three levels of war in terms of the u.s. army today. any veterans of the u.s. military? first of all, thank you for your service. we are a grateful nation. the army is made up of enlisted men. that is the backbone of the army. i mentioned in terms of officer education, and all that, one of my duties was to see to the military groups. 15 years ago, i would have all kinds of military groups going in. the hundred first parachuting in. i always think this was right in the heyday of the iraq war, 2004. most of these guys coming in were on the way to iraq or just getting back. it was amazing to hear their stories. what officers are trained in are the different levels of war. in civil war, you had the strategic level and the tactical level. the modern military force is in the middle there, on the operational level, which grant and -- harrison doesn't know much about any level of war, but the civil war commanders don't know about that operational level. we start at the strategic level. looking at the vicksburg campaign, moving down the mississippi river toward vicksburg, the final bastion has to be taken to open the mississippi river. the vicksburg campaign is essentially a two-pronged campaign. i am becoming more and more convinced as i do more work on vicksburg, the first essential effort in the vicksburg campaign is to actually get to vicksburg. the second major strategic effort in this larger plan, we talked about the strategic plan that was the anaconda plan and all that, the second major effort is to take vicksburg. first, you've got to get to vicksburg, which is extremely difficult due to the mississippi delta, due to the 300 foot bluffs on the river to the west. due to the logistical challenges to the south. the only good way to approach vicksburg is from the east, and that is better held territory. that is what grant took as we moved to the operational level of the war. it takes grant six or seven months to get to vicksburg, then you have to take vicksburg. there are two assaults involved in that, then the famous siege that we all know about. just getting to vicksburg is one major component of the strategic level of the campaign. this is why if you look at the rhetoric in some of the writings of the vicksburg campaign, you will see they divide this into two different operations. when grant and sherman finally reach the high ground east of vicksburg and sherman looks across the river valley there where he had attacked in december, sherman tells them, this has been a successful campaign. almost to say this part of the campaign is over. you are entitled to all the glory. i wanted to do it a different way, but you are entitled to the glory for this and you should make a report to washington because even if we don't take vicksburg, this has been a successful campaign. the first part is getting vicksburg, then you have got to take vicksburg. i'm going to check my time here. i fully realize i'm the only thing standing between you and lunch. [laughter] champion hill will be the larger process of getting to vicksburg, adding to a place where you can take the city. as we move down the operational level of the war, within the process of the first effort, getting to vicksburg, that's when we get into these major efforts in this operational campaign level. grant starts southward from tennessee down to mississippi, oxford, down close to the river. water valley mississippi. he has turned back by those confederate cavalry raids. one famous raid that tears up grants forward supply base, probably the more important raid is by forest in tennessee, where he breaks the railroad. that shuts down grants ability to bring new supplies in. you tear up his forward supply base and any possibility of getting new supplies in, and grant gets stalled and he turned back. he later says i should have learned that i can live off the land and i will file that and use it later on. he will withdrawal at that point. that doesn't work. then grant will send sherman as part of a two-pronged movement in november and december, down to chickasaw where sherman says i landed, i was defeated and i got back on the boat and took off. those first two efforts to even get to vicksburg did not work. by that time, around 1863, everything is wet and muddy. all of the creeks have risen. they are full of water. grant doesn't have much of a choice of what to do next, so he starts waterborne operations. he tries to dig a canal, a third attempt to get away -- get around vicksburg. that doesn't work. he tries to go around lake providence. the yazoo pass expedition, moving through moon lake and the coldwater river, into the river that forms that river. that operation doesn't work. six major attempts over the course of the first six months of the vicksburg campaign all fail. the operational level of war. what does succeed is grant's seventh attempt, but this time he is out of options. it is late march, april, into may. you can't turn around and go back. sherman is saying let's go back to memphis, go down the railroad like we should have to begin with, like we tried to in mississippi. let's try that again and move forward. that is the way you should do it by the book. that is the way that henry halleck is saying do it. of course, hallock wrote the book. the elements of military art and science. halleck is saying do it by the book. you have got a secure line of operations supplies. the theory that all these guys are immersed in. the two major napoleonic theories, it has been translated into english and these guys are studying that at west point. that is supply lines, maneuver, pure halleck, sherman. grant doesn't know anything about it, but as i like to say, you know barbara mandrel, she was country when country wasn't cool. grant is going to go after the enemy, fight the battles. we are going to move forward, fight the enemy and get there. of course, we will see evidence of that moving forward. he is on pretty thin ice in terms of newspaper editors talking about how drunk he is. politicians calling on lincoln to get rid of grant. we know the statement i can't spare this man. they are calling for his removal. he said i think i will try a little while longer, but the leash is getting short. he can't go back, as far forward toward vicksburg as he can get and none of these approaches are working. to the west, to the north, to any other direction. this operational level attempt, he will move down the west side of the mississippi river, cross south of vicksburg and come up in the rear on the east. there are plenty of problems with that, obviously. lengthening supply lines, confederates who come out of the fortress and fight you without supplies. that can be very problematic. there are a lot of problems. certainly not doing it by the book. this is breaking every rule in the book and i love what grant said later on, talking to newspaper editors. he knows that this will not be received very fondly in washington but once he crosses the river, gets into mississippi and starts toward vicksburg, he is counting the days. you can see him counting on his fingers. he goes back across the river, up to memphis and by telegraph to washington. it will take how many days to get it then come back, he says i have got about a week. he says you can do a lot in eight days. he takes off for vicksburg, in the seventh attempt will succeed. grant reaches vicksburg. still got to take it, he reaches vicksburg and that's where we get to the tactical level. talk about the strategic and operational, this is where you get into the battles themselves. first creating a bridgehead, or a landing point. we mentioned normandy earlier. the battle of fort gibson on may 1 will be where he secures a holding inland. then he will move northward, fighting with raymond on the 12th. jackson, mississippi on the 14th, then he will turn westward and fight the battle of champion hill, the climactic battle, on may 16 and a follow-up battle the next day. moving to the tactical level, we start talking about champion hill. what has the confederate commander been doing all this time? john pemberton has moved out of vicksburg and made some big blunders already. it is like baseball, you've got a nationals fan here. i was in washington in september and wore my brave shirts and i have never been harassed like i was in washington in early september by the nats fans. it was interesting. i loudly proclaimed how it is tough being in first place in the division and all that. but they are getting the last laugh now. i am not loudly proclaiming anything anymore. at any rate, where was i going? why are we talking about baseball? i had the thought, it just zoomed right out of there. there was a good point to this. [laughter] >> pemberton. timothy: yeah, pemberton. pemberton makes some pretty big blunders here. that's what it is. you never want to give the opponent in extra strike or whatever. pemberton gives grant several extra outs. arrows and all that kind of stuff. he comes out of vicksburg and gets out, then he crosses the black river moving east toward grant, toward jackson. he should have used big black river as the shield. then he moves across the creek, baker's creek. that is champion hill battlefield. either one of those he could have used to defend on the western side, moving across creeks and rivers, but each time, grant will meet pemberton on the east side of these rivers and creeks, which is completely opposite pemberton. it is not working out for pemberton. we talk about champion hill and the tactical action and so on. i am becoming more convinced, i just finished a book on the vicksburg assault and now i am working on the siege, but working on those letters and diaries, they brought into the thousands of letters and diaries. i am becoming more convinced that even more than the tactical action, in the days of may the 16th, 17th, 18th, grant's army is reaching a critical stage here in terms of supplies. we all know about grants supply line. he writes in his memoirs two times that i cut my supply line, how do you cut your supply line? he gets mixed up there. supplies landing there moving forward by wagon trips. he has got wagon trains moving forward basically by brigade or division elements of his army. his reinforcements are coming and crossing the river. he will move forward with a division, send a wagon train. these are reaching the army, they are living off the land as much as they can. they are getting the geese and chicken and hogs off these farms. what is one critical component to an army that does not grow on a plantation? many balls. you can't pick those off the line. you have to have ammunition going forward. what i have found in these letters and diaries is that by the time the army moves northward, fight these battles, by the time you start to move westward toward vicksburg from jackson on the 14th, 15th and into the 16th, 17th and 18th, you are slowing down when an army that large is in one area and start consuming everything. these guys are starting to run out of food. what happens -- i am the last thing between now and lunch. if i get to 1205, you're going to say, where is our lunch? these guys are going to were three days without much to eat. that starts affecting your body and it could start affecting their fighting ability and potentially, if pemberton could have failed on the west side, maybe even baker's creek, forced grant to slow down, take a day or two to fight a battle, could have been a game changer? we don't know, obviously, but pemberton will meet grant on the east side. we get into that critical moment. here we are getting into the battle of champion hill on the 16th, 17th and 18th. champion hill occurs on the 16th. moving from jackson westward toward vicksburg. when i first wrote the book 20 years ago -- a came out i guess 15 years ago. when i did the book, i thought i will start getting invitations to talk so i have got to come up with a good talk for champion hill. i do know of powerpoint even existed. who knows. i certainly didn't do a powerpoint presentation, but i didn't want to do a bunch of maps, get into the nitty-gritty of brigades and divisions and all that. i thought, i will organize the talk -- i will come up with three reasons the battle of champion hill turned out the way it did. my dad is a minister. we talked about southern baptist ministers last night. the joke about southern baptist ministers in mississippi as you can always tell a baptist sermon because it has got three points and a point. you ever heard about that? three points to the sermon and a point at the end. i thought, i will come up with three points. why did the battle of campion hill turn out the way you did, but that got blown out of the water exec and come up with three reasons why it turned out the way it did. i thought, surely it has to do with terrain. i am convinced one battle hinges on terrain. other battles. missionary ridge is maybe a little bit of a proving the negative. you would think the confederates have the advantage but the federals come over the hill. it turns out terrain is not the deciding factor. then i thought it was superior numbers. like nashville or some of these other battles. but when you break it down really, the numbers were pretty even, around 30, 000 on each side. actually engaged around 20, 000 on each side. maybe it was the superiority of the individual soldiers but i don't think anyone barking that the confederate soldier was better than the average union soldier or the union soldier was better than the average confederate soldier. well, i don't have three points to my sermon. i have one point and that is that champion hill turned out the way it did because of leadership. i want to examine that with the time we have left today. we are not going to get into the nitty-gritty but we did put up a battlefield map and we will refer to that a little bit. leadership is always critical, whether it is politics or little league baseball or battles or whatever. leadership is obviously critical. it is attributed to napoleon, and who knows who else said it, he said he would rather have an army of rabbits commanded by a lion the end and army of lions commanded by a rabbit. leadership is critical. i think we will see who the lion is as we go through this. we will compare and contrast quickly leadership in the battle of champion hill. we will start with federal and what is important is to look both ways, up and down the chain of command. stories talk about leadership and so on. you have got to be able to get along with the guys below you where there is going to be tension, you also have to get along with the people above you. there are problems they are and you're going to be in trouble. starting with the federal side, grant was a central figure in champion hill and he basically got along with everybody up the chain of command. we know the problems that grant did have earlier in the war. a lot of historians argue it was jealousy, in terms of victories grant had been winning. the biographer of halleck, he takes a different view and says halleck and grant were so completely opposite and they just completely talked past each other. when they talked, -- you ever had someone like that where you talk to them and is not registering? that was something similar here. halleck wanted things done by the book. grant was not a book kind of guy. a classic example, when grant had got into this great debacle and halleck says, i got to get out of it, i've got to take care of this. he immediately lights into grant, your army is not prepared. if they attacked, you're going to be in trouble. get things in order. get doing it by regulation. there is a letter that he sends to grant that says, when we get letters at from your officers, they are not addressed properly, going up the chain of command properly, they are not even folded properly. how are you going to win a war if you are not folding your letters properly? do things by the book. grant of course, who cares how letters are folded. that is the back-and-forth. a lot of that has calmed down since halite has moved to washington. washington -- lincoln calls halleck to washington in 1862. he envisions him being a great commander-in-chief. it turns out, the quote he becomes the best first rate clerk i ever had. it eases the pressure on grant. i talked about grant counting the days, he has eight days and he can ask forgiveness later rather than asking permission. grant has got it under control up the chain of command. down the chain of command, we know he has three core in the army, two are commanded by grant proteges. sherman, his best buddy is not afraid to tell grant you don't know what you're doing. when grant starts the seventh operation south of vicksburg, sherman says go back to memphis, start down the railroad like we are supposed to do. don't do it. the key is sherman didn't sit back and fight and work against grant during the midst of this. he is supporting grant. he will tell his officers, i don't like anything about it, but we have got to do what he says. sherman was 100% behind grant. the 17th corps commander -- he also is a protege of grant. a lot of people, he is young and attractive and all that. grant likes him. grant is going to get in good situations and so forth. meteoric rise. one day he is lt. col. and the next he is a general. you see grant's hand in that. and he has promoted, mcpherson says what am i promoted for? i have done anything. that is mcpherson, his relationship with grant. some historians take a different view of this. my favorite is ed darst. basically doing chores in vicksburg and so on, his take on it, he says if grant turned a corner, mcpherson would break his nose. [laughter] so he is a little bit of a brown nose or. but they are both firmly in grant's camp. the third corps commander, the ranking commander, is not a grant fan and there are some troubles. you can read about this. we don't have time to go into it. he does call grant some major problems. he thinks i can do a lot better than grant. i one time he blurts out, i am tired of providing the brains for the army of tennessee. of course grant does not appreciate that. however, in this movement across the river, fort gibson, he does not have a lot of time to be a nuisance and a problem. the relationship kind of settles down in this blitzkrieg movement, as it has been called in the middle of the vicksburg campaign. grant has got a handle up and down the chain of command. there is no major no major argument at this point. that will reignite later on. grant will remove him during the siege. up and down the chain of command, grant is doing fine. grant also has a major handle on the situation. all these different components, we are going to compare and contrast in just a second. things looked kinda of bad for grant. in one way of looking at it, grant is caught between two forces moving north with an unknown force in jackson. you don't put your force between two larger combined forces. that is breaking another rule, but grant doesn't care. he doesn't have a secure sense -- a major secure line of communication. things may not be perfect for grant moving toward vicksburg, trying to get to the point where he might attack vicksburg. you have to remember, this is not joseph hooker, george mcclellan or someone like that. when things go sideways, he doesn't give up, he takes over and takes care of the situation. when things went sideways, he counterattacks, wins the victory. counterattacks, he is not easily ruffled. by the time you reach the battle of champion hill here, there are three roads coming in to the east. three roads coming in from the east, two roads leading the battlefield on the west. coming across famous crossroads south of champion hill. grant has a handle on the situation. his men are at all three of those major roads entering the battlefield. he has all three major avenues covered. well rested, they had gone into camp early. they had had short marches the day before. they cover every approach. grant has nearly his entire army ready to go on the morning of may the 16th. they will filter in throughout the day. he has two divisions under sherman, jackson becomes known as chimney vail. that tells you anything of what sherman is doing. he is burning anything dealing with the confederate war effort. there is a great story about sherman in jackson. he is going pass this hotel and the homeowner -- the hotel owner comes in and flags him out. sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut, he says general, you are not going to burn my hotel, are you? he says no, i wasn't, but now that you brought my attention to it, maybe i should. [laughter] i got stopped by a mississippi state trooper one day and handed him my license. he said ok and gave my license back. you can go. i said, you are not going to give me a ticket? he grabbed the license back and said i can if you want me to. i grabbed my license back in said no thank you, that's fine. sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut but this guy runs out and says you are not going to burn my hotel, are you? he says i am a loyal unionist. he looks at the shingle hanging in front of his hotel and he says i can see that because you painted over the word confederate with united states hotel and it had formally been confederate hotel. the confederate was painted over united states hotel under that. it had originally been the united states hotel. when mississippi seceded it became the confederate hotel, then when union forces took over, it became the united states hotel again. sherman of course is not very impressed with that but he is back in jackson, destroying jackson. it is a military center that will affect our -- what is the word i am looking for? it will threaten grant's rear if he is moving west. the point is, grant has his entire army up and ready to go on the 16th at champion hill. grant has a good handle on the situation. let's compare that with the confederates. john c pemberton, let's do the same analysis up and down the chain of command. up the chain of command, pemberton is having problems. grant, out in the middle of nowhere in mississippi can't even get in contact with his superiors. pemberton has ready access to his department commander as well as his ultimate commander, the commander-in-chief, -- jefferson davis. the problem is, both are telling him what to do. pemberton is in a situation, must have been like having two mothers in law. i never been in that situation. i got one, i dearly love her, but one is enough. [laughter] i can't imagine having to mothers-in-law. pemberton has got to superiors telling him what to do. the problem is, they are telling him opposite things. johnson is saying get out of vicksburg, is a trap. you're going to lose vicksburg. don't lose the army losing vicksburg. which is kind of a problem for the confederates, if you think about it. there is a pattern here. what did the three stooges do? i used to joke about the three stooges but i am convinced buckner is not one of the stooges. at any rate, those three lost the army, they are going to lose the fort. others, arkansas post, of course vicksburg here is the classic example. don't lose the army losing the place you're going to lose anyway. some have a better idea of this. johnson knew that. in the siege in may 1862, when the forces are moving toward them, there is no way you're going to keep it. don't lose the army losing corinth. he was smart enough to get them out. johnson is telling pemberton, get out of vicksburg. don't lose the army losing vicksburg. what does jefferson avis tell jefferson? -- jefferson davis tell him? hold vicksburg. it probably doesn't hurt that his plantation is a few miles south. i don't know if that is part of it or not. union forces are already around. jefferson davis says the nail that holds the two halves of the south together is vicksburg. have got conflicting orders coming here. who do you choose? you can't see the future, you don't know who is going to come out ahead. you have got to go one of the other. when it comes down to a, davis outranks johnson. of course pemberton remains in vicksburg. grant has the situation under control with his subordinates. pemberton will not. pemberton has five divisions. he crosses the big black river with three of those, leaving two in vicksburg. none of those division commanders have any confidence in pemberton. might be a good reason why, but they don't have any confidence. they said if you start east and get sent west, it's like getting sent to the minor leagues. if you do really bad there, you might get sent to fight the indians in minnesota. [laughter] he is sent west, causing problems or pemberton. john bowen, he causes problems for john pemberton. the largest division in the army, the two of the three generals will ignore commands at the battle of champion hill from pemberton to move north. if you noticed, the majority of the fighting takes place in the northern part. if you look on raymond road, there is not a major union push. very small numbers will hold there. on the middle road, not a lot of heavy fighting. most of it will occur in the northern portion of the battlefield. through the day, pemberton will trail the southern portion of the battlefield. come up and support. carter stevenson needs help in the northern part. bowen and lori both ignore orders. where do they learn that? what has pemberton been doing all along? ignoring orders to get out of vicksburg. they learn that from johnson himself. even down to brigade level, immediate a before champion hill, pemberton will relieve the brigade commander who had surrendered fort henry, commanding the brigade here. it probably would've been better had tillman said ok, i relieved everyone, i will go everyone else -- i will go somewhere else. the division commander steps in and says you have got to help the division commander. sometimes it is better to just keep your mouth shut. he doesn't survive champion hill. the point is that the confederate command -- the high command is in chaos. right here on the critical battle of champion hill. to further the analysis in terms of pemberton's army, he does not have a handle on the situation. his army is tired, they have marched into the night, well past midnight. they're up very early the morning of may 16, whereas grant's army is well rested. pemberton's army is very tired. he had left two full divisions, 2/5 of his army in vicksburg to defend vicksburg against pretty much nobody. the navy. grant has most of his army up and ready to go. pemberton is lacking nearly half of his army. on top of all that, pemberton is -- this famous quote, indecision indecision indecision. he calls a council of war. never a good thing for an indecisive general. at this point, leaves every 10 east of baker's creek. he leads him east, calls a council of war and lays before his generals the correspondence that johnson says whawill you do? he says i want to go back into vicksburg. johnson says come north and meet him. the majority -- the majority of his generals say let's go attack grants supply line, which doesn't exist at this point. there are three options here. pemberton basically says i did not see fit to put my own judgment and opinions so far into opposition as to prevent movement altogether. my response to that is, you're the commander. he did not see fit to put your judgment and opinions so far as to prevent a movement altogether? there are major problems in the confederate army. that is my opinion. that is my take on it. let me give you a little bit of evidence. don't just take my word for it. let me give you some participants and what they are saying at the time. for instance, common foot soldiers here, 46 illinois, terms the campaign to this point as the daring of napoleon. pretty high there. that is pre-high cotton. i don't know if you know the term. the daring of napoleon. another illinoien describe the situation in champion hill as extremely critical and for any other general, would have been desperate. they have confidence in grant. one confederate is saying everything being considered, we have nothing to look for but victory. although i can find no reasonable ground for my fears, i had them and they weighed heavily. if superstition had something to do with my fears, i am candid to admit, but even as i laid aside my fears, i had a feeling not always going to turn out well in my fears turned out to be anything but groundless. not a lot of confidence in the confederate army. up the chain of command, george boomer says general grant commits -- display great skill along with energy and nerve. the passage of this army up to this point is one of the most masterly movements in the history of warfare and it is a success. contrast that with what a confederate officer is saying. there is quite a feud between loring and pepper 10. so far as loring is concerned, i heard several expressions of disrespect at greenwood and edward. it amounted to that degree of hatred that the captain and myself agreed he would be willing for pembleton to lose a battle provided that he would be displaced. not exactly the same confidence that you're getting from the officers in the army of tennessee. probably the best place to look is grant and pemberton themselves. they get together and start to move northward. he issued orders to his soldiers, to his army, marching orders. he says soldiers of the army of tennessee, a few days of constancy will secure this victory the crowning victory of the rebellion. let us endure manfully. other battles are to be fought. let us fight them bravely. history will record our success with honor. grant is ready to go. pemberton, the men are much fatigued and i fear will struggle. in directing this move, i do not feel you comprehend the position the men of vicksburg will be in but i comply with your order. you see it oozing with anything but desperation there. he writes, i think it to myself to state that the advance movement of the army on may the 15th was made against my judgment in opposition to my previously expressed intention and to the subversion of my plans. basically, it ain't my fault. the differences between the union and confederate high command here at champion hill. obviously the there is a difference when leadership is concerned. i am convinced that is why the battle -- overall, that is why the battle turned out the way it did. the campaign breaks the backbone of confederate resistance. pemberton will try to get out those two avenues of escape across baker street to the west. one of those becomes held by union forces and there is only one way out. one of pemberton's three divisions is cut off. the confederate army is devastated. grant of course secures the ground that he had so much desired now that he has got to take vicksburg. the battle of champion hill in large part, why the campaign turned out the way i did. one historian has written by comparing the army of northern virginia and the army of tennessee, his basic conclusion was that one had robert e. lee and the other didn't. i think the conclusion here is that one side had ulysses s grant in the other didn't. a large battle, whatever comparison. big results. huge results. one more thing before we take questions. i have got time to take questions. i told rob is not a preacher, but my dad is. i did have -- i didn't have three points to my sermon, but i do have a point. i'm going to finish with a point. if you have ever heard of samuel hm byers. ring a bell to anybody? wrote a lot about the soldier experience. what it felt like to be in battle. he wrote an account, just finished the assaults book and wrote about going into battle on may 22. he was tasked to bring ammunition forward on mules. big boxes of ammunition on this mule. he got to the top of the hill and stopped, wouldn't go. they beat him with sticks and everything and he wouldn't go. his big ears were flopping, hitting the ammunition and all that. then i guess one stung him in the rear and and he took off where they wanted him to go. he wrote many years later and i think it kind of sums a lot of us up, a good, touching exclamation point to all of this. he calls it where are they all today? 40 years ago, -- 1000 cheers, our bosoms stirred, my comrades wept, they say. they are in line, the glorious army stood. there the midnight stars shall shine. they kept the bivouac's, by the way. now 30, 000 blue coats slept. where are they all today? different roads where columns lead, listening to midnight treads, they waited for the blow. many a bloody fray. many a grave was left forgotten, where are they all today? for gibson, raymond, it was the southern iron. champion hill, a taste of hell, they gave us with their fire. two hours i saw my comrades fall. through smoke, their funeral paul, where are they all today? two hours of fire and tempest -- the men are dangerous foes to face. the yield for their flank, who never lost the fray. where's logan's sword today? hope he's pounding on their left and crocker is going by. a fierce assault, their line is cleft, what can they do but fly? beneath the soft magnolia tree, their 5000 lay. hands touching hands, knees touching knees, where are they all today? there from the low and wooden ridge, the flags go. men may not dream of such a charge again, but where are they who held the stream and where are the men? that very day with flags unfurled, we circled vicksburg's town and 40 days and 40 nights, we hurled the missiles down. the canons roar, the muskets flash, where are they all today? one morning 30, 000 men lay down their arms and wept because they ne'er would see again the hills their valor kept. they cheered us, but now have dared, where are they all today? the forts are ours, the mighty stream flows to the main. 1000 miles our banners clean, we cut the south in between. where are the victors where are the foes where the blue and gray? the hero soles of years ago, where they all today? the marble bust where the great river lays, the hill that holds their honored dust the 20, 000 graves. the years go by the living still in bluecoat or in gray may ask the mountains on yonder hill where are they all today? thank you. [applause] we have about five minutes for questions. then it is lunch time. one back here? wait for the microphone. >> i read your book a couple weeks ago and it is a terrific read. i'm not your agent, just in case anybody is asking. [laughter] near the beginning of the book, you talk about how when pemberton was being threatened by grant and being enveloped by him, he was asking for help from other commanders, including kirby smith. i am curious, why did smith say no and why did pemberton not asked davis to order smith to fight -- to find that help? timothy: pemberton is asking everybody can. remember that pemberton is a lower-level lien kirby smith. kirby smith would be synonymous with josephine johnson. if they are going to talk together -- pemberton asked johnson to ask smith and asking davis to send anybody. the problem with kirby smith is you've got a great big river between you and him. the union gunboats are flying up and down. to get anybody across the river is going to be problematic and very dangerous. the other major problem is that in the concept of confederate departmentalization, kirby smith is in a completely different department. a lot of historians argue and some of the time argued that we should make it like it was back in johnson's day. the old confederate department number two, which is all the territory on the west, straddled the mississippi river. here, pemberton's department ends at the mississippi river. the department of mississippi and east louisiana. kirby smith is in a different department. those orders would have had to come from richmond to get anything done and kirby smith is not very interested. there will be some movement on the others june 7 with the attack and some other advances on the lake providence area, but nothing that would remotely need pemberton in vicksburg. by the time pendleton is -- pemberton is bottled up in vicksburg, there is not much he could have done anyway. >> did the fact that pemberton was a pennsylvanian have any effect on the confidence of his leadership both up and down the chain of command? timothy: absolutely. another thing reading these letters and diaries, everybody is convinced that pemberton sold expect. he got some monetary gain in that and had a deal worked out with grant. there was even one far-fetched story that they were communicating with a bouquet of flowers. one got a bouquet of flowers and it supposedly had a message from grant to and all kind of stuff. there is no doubt in my mind a kid about pemberton, but he is dedicated to the confederacy and vicksburg and he wanted the best for his department being a pennsylvania man or whatever. this is illustrated later in the wall, they have no billet for a lieutenant general later in the war and especially for a lieutenant general who had surrendered vicksburg, that's the bigger story. they have no position for pemberton. he rejoins the confederate army as a lieutenant colonel, way down, no offense, but compared to a lieutenant general, you're way down there, a lieutenant colonel of artillery. that being said, what is fact and reality doesn't always translate into what people think. and so these confederates are just absolutely convinced that pemberton is a traitor and you see this in just of tons of letters and diaries, pemberton is a traitor. one wrote him, this should teach jefferson davis in not putting yankee generals in charge of confederate armies. it does affect the morale. another question? >> wondering in defense of pemberton, he has been giving this command by his commander in chief to hold on to vicksburg, that is like port hudson, the last two safety pins holding the coat together, so to speak, and the whole mississippi go, he is commanded by johnson who kind of develops an ability to retreat no matter what and it was said he would retreat all the way to key west if given the opportunity, maybe he had lack of confidence in what johnson was telling him, like, ok, that's what he would say no matter what. timothy: i think so. johnson and pemberton aren't the best of friends or anything like that. and really this plays out over the course of the siege, workingen [o] -- working on the siege now. and johnson never shows up. we learn more about that in the atlanta campaign and all of that. pemberton, yeah, i probably do kid about him a little bit too much. he is in an absolutely untenable situation, a no win situation, absolutely. i'm not sure somebody like ulysses s. grant could have done much better in the situation he is getting orders from both sides. that said, he does make some very terrible blunders throughout the process here. one of the emphasis on benjamin grierson, in the book how pemberton is absolutely fixated on these 900 calvary men heading toward mississippi. grant is doing the dirty work back behind him and crossing the river before pemberton ever knows it. then we get into the larger campaign here and pemberton meeting grant each time east of bakers creek or big black river bridge is just encalculatable, why on eligible he would do that. he gets caught in a bad situation, can't rectify it. i feel a little bit for pemberton, but a lot of it was his own making and there is no doubt about that. times up thank you very much. (applause). on anne

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