his book on the raid comes out, it is now out and you can buy a copy of it at our bookstore. i'm pleased to introduce dr. timothy smith. >> thank you, i appreciate the chance to be here. i have always heard about pamplin park, and it is great here. we're going to talk about the western theater today. vicksburg, how many of you have been to vicksburg. she o he is one of the great battlefields, listening to the civil war american trust now, you know they're doing a lot of work down there. they turned over nearly several hundred acres. so there is a lot going down at champion hill. so we're going to talk about that battle in particular, the larger vicksburg campaign. and i do not have a power point either. i'm a little old fashioned. we have a map of champion hill which we will talk about in just a little bit. i tend to go overboard when i go into power points and i confuse everybody, so to keep from doing that, i don't do powerpoints when i can help it. and i'm beginning to realize that powerpoints can be useful. you see some that are very good and they can help you along a little bit. i had a good lesson in this recently. my 12-year-old has been after us to get her a puppy. she wanted a puppy, a border collie. no no, we don't need another dog. she made a powerpoint p presentation to convince us why we need a puppy. of course now we're the proud new owners of bingo the border collie. so power point presentations do work and i use them on occasion. but not today. let's talk about vicksburg though. little battles and big results. obviously compared to gettysburg. we're talking 25 or 35,000 troops on this side. on the high end of a little battle if you want to call it a little battle, but it is huge results. i'm not going to stay here and argue to you, some historians get into their topics too much. and they argue that the battle was won and lost. i'm not going to argue where the north won the war or the south won the war, but it will defend in that case on what you think of vicksburg. i'm guessing up here in the army of northern virginia. and the war was won and lost. and i'm thoroughly convinced that the civil war was lost in the west. gutted, they were absolutely gutted while you're just a stalemate up here. getting some feed back on that. we're not here to argue where the war was won and lost. i'm not going to argue to you that champion hill was the and important is how much emphasis you put on the importance of vicksburg. what i will argue is that champion hill is the desightive point in the vicksburg campaign. if you think that they are the turning point, or where the confederacy is ripped open. you will probably put champion hill in a higher level or a category than gettgettysburg. it is the largest battle in the campai campaign. and in terms of narrowing down to champion hill itself. i'm not going into major tactical -- >> they could get lost in the weeds and there is a good book about it if you're interested in it. we're going to keep it simple today. i want to give background and lead to champion hill. just a quick overview and looking at basically the three levels of war in terms of the u.s. army today. anyone veterans of the u.s. military? the army is made up of enlisted men. i mentioned officers, though, in terms of officer education and staff rides and all of that, we, one of my duties were to see to the staff rides and the military groups and so on, and i would have all kinds back 20 years ago. and i would have all kinds of groups come in, the 121st airborne would parachute in. this was right in the iraq war, and most of these guys coming in were on the way or just getting in, they're trained in the different levels of war. in civil wartimes you had two levels. today the modern military force is in the operational level of war, which they -- they don't know much about any level of war. but they don't know about that operation, but i want to start at the strategic level, and looking at the campaign, moving down the mississippi river, the final, if you will, tag along, and the final this is a two progressed campaign. and i'm becoming more and more convinced of this. the first essential effort is to get to vicksburg. then the second major strategic large scale effort, the plan that was the anaconda plan and all of that, the second major effort in that larger strategic area is to take vicksburg. first you have to get to vicksburg which is extremely difficult due to the delta. due to the logistic kal chablgs and distance to the south. the only good way to get to vicksburg and approach vicksburg is from the east. and that is from confederate held territory and that is what grant took as we moved down to the operational level of it takes grant six or seven months to get to vicksburg, then you have to take vicksburg. of course, there are two assaults involved in that and then the famous siege that we all know about. just getting to vicksburg is one major component of the strategic level of the campaign. and then taking vicksburg. 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. for instance, 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, this is like mid may, may 17th, 18th. sherman tells them, this has been a successful campaign. almost to say this part of the campaign is over. this has been an successful campaign. you are entitled to all the glory. i didn't want to do it. 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. this has been a successful effort. so the first part is getting vicksburg, then you have got to take vicsburg. then champion hill -- have to watch my time here. i fully realize i'm the only thing standing between you and lunch. 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 six efforts in this operational campaign level movement. grant first starts southward from tennessee down to mississippi, central railroad, through polysprings, oxford, down close to the river, water valley mississippi. he is turned back, of course, by those confederate cavalry raids. one famous raid that tears up grant's forward supply base. probably the more important raid is by nathan bedford forest in tennessee, where he breaks the railroad. that shuts down grant's 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 in file 13 and use that later on. but he will withdraw at that point. so that doesn't work. that's the first effort. then grant will send sherman as part of a two-pronged movement in november and december of 1862 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 sloppy 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 bypass vicksburg, or get around vicksburg. canal around. that doesn't work. he tries to go around lake providence. that doesn't work. the yazoo pass expedition, moving through moon lake and the coldwater river, into the tal a talahatchie river, that operation six major attempts over the course of the doesn't work. 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 1863. 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 the mississippi central campaign. sure, we got turned back, but let's try that again and actually move forward this time. that's the way you should do it, by the book. that's the way that henry halleck is saying to do it, by the book. of course, halleck wrote the book in 1830, 1849, something like that. halleck is saying do it by the book. you have got a secure line of everybody has the two major napoleonic theories, it's 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. right? grant is going to go after the enemy, fight the battles. who cares about the supply lines? we are going to move forward, fight the enemy and get there. the evidence of that we'll see as we move forward. he is on pretty thin ice in terms of newspaper editors talking about how drunk he is all the time. politicians, even lincoln, they're calling on lincoln to get rid of grant. we know his statement, of course, i can't spare this man. he fights. still, they're calling for his removal. lincoln says, i think i'll try him just a little while longer, but the rope is getting pretty short. the leash is getting pretty short for grant. he has got to do something. he can't go back, as far forward toward vicksburg as he can get and none of these different approaches are working, to the west, to the north, to any other direction. what is grant going to do? this seventh attempt this operational level attempt, will he 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 vicksburg and fight you, without supplies and so on, that could be very problematic, distance involved. there are a lot of problems with this. certainly not doing it by the book. this is breaking every rule in the book. and i love what grant said later on. he's talking to newspaper editors, talking about the vicksburg campaign. he knows that this will not be received very fondly in washington by halleck, stanton and others. once he crosses the river, gets into mississippi and he starts towarding the days -- i can see him counting on his fingers. he goes back across the river, up to young's point, headquarters by boat up to memphis and cairo 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. and so he breaks every rule in the book and he takes off toward vicksburg. and lo and behold, 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, we talked about the strategic and operational. we get down to the tactical. that's where you get into the battles themselves. he first fights, creating a bridgehead if, you will, or a landing point. we mentioned normandy earlier. the battle of ft. gibson on may 1st will be where he really secures a holding inland. then he'll move northward, fighting the battle of raymond on the 12th, jackson, mississippi, on the 14th. then he will turn westward toward vicksburg and fight the battle of champion hill, the climactic battle, on may 16th. 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? between twidling his thumbs and chasing. 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, i don't know, a month or so ago in september and wore my braves shirt and all of that. i have never been harassed like i was in washington in early september by all the nats fans. you get harassed? well, it was interesting. i very loudly proclaimed how yeah, it's really tough being in first place in the division and all that. but the nats 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. at any rate -- there was a good point to this. i don't know why we're doing -- >> pemberton. >> pemberton, yeah. pemberton. at any rate, pemberton makes some pretty big blunders here. that's what it is. you never want to give the opponent an extra out or extra strike or whatever. pemberton gives grant several extra outs. by errors and walks and all that kind of stuff. he comes out to vicksburg and gets out. he then crosses the big black river moving east toward grant, toward jackson. he should have used big black river as the shield. to defend vicksburg. then he moves across the creek, baker's creek. that is champion hill battlefield, of course. either one of those, he could have used to defend on the western side and force grant to move across creeks and rivers, but each time, grant will meet pemberton on the east side of these watersheds, on the east side of these rivers and creeks, which is completely opposite. pemberton, of course, is breaking every rule in the book as well. it's not working out there 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 reading all those letters and diaries, tons of them i would say probably way over the hundreds, probably into the thousands of letters and diaries. i am becoming more convinced that even more than the tactical action at champion hill nrkts d hill, in the days of may 16th, 17th, 18th, grant's army is reaching a critical stage here in terms of supplies. we all know that grant's supply line, he writes in his memoirs two times 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. as his reinforcements are coming and crossing the river, he will move forward with division anyway, so send a wagon train with them. these are reaching the army. they are living off the land a good bit, as much as they can. they're getting, you know, the geese, chicken, hogs off these farmers' plantations. what is one critical component to an army that does not grow on a plantation? mini balls. you can't pick those off the vine. 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, yeah, ammunition is coming and some food. by the time you start to move westward toward vicksburg from jackson on the 14th, 15th and into the 16th, 17th and surely the 18th, you are slowing down when an army that is large in one area is starting to consume everything. these guys are starting to run out of food. what happens -- i'm the last thing between you and lunch. if i get to 12:05, you're going to say, where's 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, force grant to slow down even more, take a day or two and fight another battle, could that have potentially been a game changer? we don't know, obviously, but pemberton will meet grant on the east side of each of these water courses. 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. may 16th, moving from jackson westward toward vicksburg. when i first wrote the book 20 years ago -- well, it came out, i guess, 15 years ago. when i did the book, published it, i thought i'll start getting invitations to talk, so i've got to come up with a good talk for champion hill. how am i going to do this? i don't know if powerpoint even existed in those days, 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 regiments and divisions and all that. i thought, i will organize the talk around -- you know, i'll 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. my dad is a minister. 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 of that joke? three points to the sermon and a poem at the end. that's a baptist preacher's sermon. i thought i'll come up with three points. why did the battle of champion hill turn out the way it did? that got blown out of the water because i couldn't come up with three reasons why the battle of champion hill 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 swoop right over champion hill and the adjoining ridges. it turns out terrain is not the deciding factor. then i thought it was superior numbers, you know, like nashville or some of these other battles. but when you break it down really, the numbers were pretty even, around 25,000, 30,000 on each side. actually engaged around 20,000 on each side. so it wasn't actual numbers. maybe it was the superiority of the individual soldiers but i don't think anyone would argue that the average confederate soldier was better than the average union soldier or the union soldier was better than the average better 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 just a little bit in the time we've got left tod today, i want to examine the leadership at the battle of champion hill. the nitty-gritty but we did put up a battlefield map and we will refer to that a little bit. but i think it's critical in terms of leadership -- leadership is always critical, whether it's politics, little league baseball, or battles, or whatever it is. 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 than an army of lions commanded by a rabbit. did you ever hear that saying? 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'll start with federals. and i think what's important to do, of course, is to look both ways, up and down, the chain of command. historians talk about it in leadership and so on. generals, you have to be able to get along with the guys below you, or there will be constant tension, but you also have to get along with the people above you. if there are problems there, you're going to be in trouble. grant, starting with the federal side, he was the central figure in the champion hill and vicksburg campaign. he basically got along with everybody up the chain of command. we know the problems that grant had earlier in the war with halleck. a lot of historians argue it was jealousy, that halleck was jealous of grant, in terms of the 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 passed each other. you ever have someone like that? you talked to them and it wasn't registering and you're absolutely talking pass ee eed other? that's what was happening here. halleck wanted things done by the book and grant was not a book kind of guy. a classic example, when grant had gotten into the great debacle, halleck says i've got to get out of it. i've got to take care of this. he immediately lights into grant, your army is not prepared. get things in order. do it by regulation. i kid you not, 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 our letters are folded? but that's just the back and forth. a lot of that has calmed down since halleck has moved to washington. lincoln calls halleck to washington in 1862. doesn't really work out the way lincoln wanted it. lincoln envisions halleck of being the great commander in chief, george mclelen and all of that. what's the quote? he becomes the best first-rate clerk i ever had, or something like that, but it eases the pressure on grant. i as i talk about grant, he counts the days and he has eight days that he can, you know, 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 that he has three corps in the army of tennessee. two of those are commanded by grant's proteges. sherman, his best buddy, is not afraid to tell grant you don't know what you're doing, at times. when grant starts this 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. but the key is here, sherman didn't sit back and backbite and work against grant during the midst of this. he completely supported grant. in fact, he will tell his officers, i don't like this roundabout movement. i don't like anything about it, but we've got to support grant and do what he says. sherman was 100% behind grant. the 17th corps commander, mcpherson, he is also a protege of grant. a lot of people, you know, he's young and attractive and all of that. protege. grant likes him. grant is going to get him in good situations and so on. medioc mediocric rise. next thing you know, he's a general kind of thing and you see grant's hand in that, when he's promoted, in fact. mcpherson said what for? i don't know what i'm promoted for i haven't done anything. mcpherson, whose relationship with grant. some stories take a little bit of a different view of this. and my favorite one of these, of course, is ed barse. you all know ed. doing tours and so on with ed at vicksburg and so on. his take on it, he says if grant turned the corner, mcpherson would break his nose. so he's a little bit of a brown noser. but they're both firmly in grant's camp. now the third corps commander, ranking corps commander mcclellan, is not a grant fan or protege. there are troubles, obviously. you can read about all of this. we don't have time to go into it. mcpherson -- or mcclen een caus grant some problems. at one point he blurts out i'm tired of providing the brains for the army of the tennessee. gra grant, of course, doesn't really appreciate that. however, in this movement across the river, ft. gibson, raymond, jackson, champion hill, he doesn't have a whole lot of time to be a nuisance and be a problem. the grant/mcclernan relationship sort of settles down in this blitz creek movement it's been called in the middle of the vicksburg campaign. grant pretty much has a handle on up the chain of command, down the chain of command. mcclernan is not causing major problems here. there's no backbiting at this point. that will reignite and grant will remove mcclernan during the siege itself. up the chain of command, down the chain of command, grant is doing fine n terms of the situation itself, grant has a major handle on the situation. again, all of these kind of different components we're hitting, we're going to compare and contrast this with a confederate commander in a second. keep these in mind. things look kind of bad for grant. in one way of looking at it, if you look, grant is basically caught between two forces, as he's moving north, pemberton in vicksburg, unknown force in jackson. you don't put your force in between two larger confederate forces, or at least larger combined confederate force. that's breaking another rule in the book. grant doesn't care. he doesn't have a secure sense, as we get the sense of a major secure line of communication and supply. so, you know, things may be not perfect for grant as he's breaking the rules and moving toward vicksburg, trying to get to the point where he can attack vicksburg. you have to remember, this is not joseph hooker, george mcclenen or something like that. this is ulysses s. grant. what does he do? he takes over. he doesn't give up. and he takes care of the situation. when things went side ways, what does he do? counteracts. this is the grant of shilom. things go sideways, what does he do? counteracts. wins the victory. grant is not easily ruffled. of course, he is going to take care of the situation as well. in fact, by the time you reach the battle of champion hill here -- again, we won't go in all the details and so on but the battle is essentially fought. three roads from the east. maps pointed north. two roads leaving the battlefield on the west. grant has a handle on the situation. his men are on all three of those major roads, entering the battlefield. he has all three of the major avenues covered. men are well rested. they had gone into camp early, the night before. they had short marches the day before. they went into camp early and cover every approach. grant has nearly his entire army up and ready to go on the morning of may 16th. some will filter in throughout the day. he has two divisions under sherman back at jackson, tearing up jackson. jackson comes on at chimneyville if that tells you anything in what sherman is doing. he's burning anything dealing with the confederate war effort and some probably that's not. there's a great story about she sherman there in jackson. he's going past this hotel and the hotel owner comes out and flags him down. you know, sometimes it's better just to keep your mouth shut. he comes out, flags sherman down and says sherman, you're not going to burn my hotel, are you? sherman is probably thinking, well, i wasn't, but now that you've brought my attention to it, maybe i should. i got stopped by a mississippi state trooper one day and handed him my license and all that. he said, okay, handed me my license back. and he said, you know, you can go. i said you're not going to give me a ticket? he grabbed my license back and he said i can if you want me to. i grabbed my license back and i said no, thank you. that's fine. so, sometimes it's better just to keep your mouth shut. but this guy runs out of his hotel and says sherman, you're not going to burn my hotel are you? he said i'm a good and loyal unionist. sherman looks at the shingle hanging in front of the hotel and says i can see that, because painted over the word "confederate" was united states hotel. and it had formerly been confederate hotel. the confederate was painted over united states hotel over that. when the confederates and when they took back over jackson it became the united states hotel again and sherman, of course, is not very impressed with that. sherman is back at jackson, destroying jackson as a military center that will affect -- what's the word i'm looking for? it will threaten grant's rear as he is moving westward toward vicksburg. grant has pretty much his army up and ready to go the morning of the 16th at champion hill. grant has a pretty good handle on the situation. let's compare that with the confederate commander, john c. pemberton. let's do the same analysis up and down the chain of command and all of that. up the chain of command, pemberton is having problems, whereas grant is out in the middle of nowhere in mississippi and can't even get any contact with his superiors, pemberton has ready access to both his department commander, joseph e. johnston as well as his ultimate commander, commander in chief, jefferson davis. now the problem is, both are telling him what to do and i've often thought pemberton is in a situation, must have been like having two mothers-in-law. i've never been in that situation. i've got one. i dearly love her, but one's enough. i can't imagine having two mothers-in-law. but pemberton has got two superiors telling him what to do. the problem is, they're telling him completely opposite things. joseph e. johnston is saying get out of vicksburg. it's a trap. you're not going to hold it. you're going to lose vicksburg. don't lose the army losing vicksburg, which is a problem for the confederates if you think about it. there's a problem here. what did the three stooges at ft. donaldson do? floyd, pilla and buckner -- i used to joke about the three stooges but i'm convinced buckner is not one of the three stooges. he was the only one who had any sense. they were going to lose ft. donaldson anyway, but they lost the army losing ft. donaldson. arkansas post and, of course, vicksburg is a classic example. don't lose the army losing the place you're going to lose anyway. don't lose the army and he's smart enough to get the army out. johnston is telling pemberton, don't lose the army losing vicksburg. what's jefferson davis telling pemberton? hold vicksburg. probably doesn't hurt that jeffers jefferson davis' plantation is a few miles south on the mississippi river. i don't know whether that's part of it or not. union forces are already around briarfield and so on. jefferson davis says the nail that holds the two halves of the south together is vicksburg. hold vicksburg. you've got conflicting orders coming here. who do you choose? you have to pick. you can't see in the future. you don't know who is going to come out ahead. you have to go one or the other. it comes right down to it, davis outranks johnston and pemberton will remain in vicksburg. while grant has his situation pretty much under control with his subordinates, pemberton will not. pemberton has five divisions. he crosses the big black river and bakers creek with two of those divisions, leaving three in vicksburg. none of those division commanders have any confidence in pemberton, probably good reason why. they don't have confidence in him. william lowery, who gotten into it with stonewall jackson, started west. if you get started east and get sent west it's like getting sent down to the minor leagues. if you do bad there, you get sent down to single a. go fight the indians in minnesota or something. lowery is sent west. causes problems for pemberton. carter stevenson, largest division in the army, two of the three generals will ignore command at the battle of champion hill from pemberton to move northward. the vast majority of the fighting takes place up on the jackson road, in the northern part of the battlefield. if you look down on raymond road, there's not a major union push there and very small numbers will hold there. on the middle road, two divisions, not a lot of heavy fighting there. most of it will occur up in the northern portion of the battlefield and throughout the day, pemberton will tell boeing and lorring, come up and support. we need help. stevenson needs help in the northern part and boeing and lorrie both ignore orders. now where do they learn that? what has pemberton been doing all along with johnston? ignoring orders. they could have learned that from johnston himself. immediately before the battle of champion hill, pemberton will relieve brigade commander lloyd tillman, who surrendered ft. henry, come back into the army, commanded a brigade here. it probably would have been better had tillman said okay, i'm relieved. i'm going home. his division manager come steps in and says you need to reinstate him. he catches a canonball in the shoulder and dies there on the field. sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut. the high command is in chaos. right here on the critical battle of champion hill. now, to further the analysis in terms of they're up very early may 16th whereas grant's army is well rested, made short marches the day before. pemberton's army is very tired. he had left two full divisions, two-fifths of his army, in vicksburg to defend it 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, left in vicksburg. on top of all that, pemberton is just -- this quote, famous quote, indecision, indecision, indecision. he calls councils of war. that's never a thing for an indecisive general. and at this point what leads pemberton east of bakers creek, where he should have fought grant at the crossing of bakers creek probably, he calls council of war and lays before his generals the correspondence with johnston that says what should we do? pemberton says i want to go back into vicksburg. johnston says come north and meet him. the majority of his generals say let's don't do any of that. let's go down and attack grant's supply line which, of course, doesn't exist at this point, right? so there are three options here. pemberton basically says, and this is a quote. i did not see fit to put my own judgment and opinions so far in opposition to prevent a movement all together. my response to that is, you're the commander, pemberton. you did not see fit to put your own judgment and opinions so far as to prevent a movement all together? so there are major problems in the confederate high command in the confederate army. now that's my opinion. that's 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're saying at the time. for instance, common soldiers, common foot soldiers here, what are they saying? illinois, grant's campaign is the daring of napoleon. that's pretty high cotton there to -- you all grow cotton up here? you know the term, though. that's pretty high cotton. that's pretty good praise, the daring of napoleon. another illinois will describe the situation as extremely critical and any other general would have been desperate but they have confidence in grant. look what one low-level confederate is saying at the same time. everything being considered we have nothing to look for but victory. and although i could assign no reasonable ground for my fears, yet i had them. and they weighed heavily. the superstition had something to do with my fears, i am candid enough to admit. even when i with would shake off my feeling and leave myself free to reason, i had an innate feeling that it was not going to turn out well and my fears were not groundless. move up the chain a little bit to officers. george boomer, since general grant commenced to move his columns he has displayed great tact and skill together with immense energy and nerve. the passage of this army over the mississippi river and up to this point is one of the most masterly movements known in the history of any warfare and it is a success. contrast that with what a confederate officer william drenen is saying, there's quite a feud existing between lorring and pemberton. as far as lorring is concerned i heard several disrespected comments and it amounted to that degree of hatred on the part of lorring that barksdale and myself would be willing for pemberton to lose a battle provided he would be displaced. not exactly the same confidence that you're getting from the officers in the army of the tennessee. probably the best place to look is grant and pemberton themselves. see what grant is saying. cross the river, took a little time to get together and start the movement northward leading to champion hill, he issues orders to his soldiers, to his army, kind of marching orders. he says soldiers of the army of tennessee, just oozes with confidence. soldiers of army of the tennessee, a few days continuance with the same zeal and expansy will secure to this army a victory. let us endure them. other battles are to be fought. let us fight them bravely. a grateful country will rejoice at our success and history will record it with immortal honor. grant's ready to go. look what pemberton is writing. the men are much fatigued and i fear will straggle very much. in directing this move i do not think -- talking to johnston -- you fully comprehend the position vicksburg will be left in, but i comply with your order. oozing with nothing but desperation there. later on in his report, i think it due to myself in bringing this portion of my report to a conclusion to state emphatically the advance movement on may 15th was made against my judgment in opposition to my previously expressed intentions and to the subversion of my plans. basically it ain't my fault. you see the differences between the union high command and confederate high command here at champion hill. obviously, there's a tremendous difference in the two sides as far as leadership is concerned. and i'm convinced that's why the battle, no getting in the nitty gritty of the tactics but overall that's why the battle turned out the way it did, while the campaign breaks the backbone of confederate resistance. pemberton will try to get out those two avenues of escape across baker's creek to the west. three had become two. in fact, one of those quickly becomes held by union forces and there's only one way out. in fact, one of grant's three or pemberton's three divisions, lorring, is cut off. pemberton fumbles toward big black river ridge and the army is devastated. grant, of course, secures the ground that he had so much desired. now all he has to do is actually take vicksburg. battle of champion hill, in large part, leadership is the way it turned out the way it did and why the campaign itself turned out the way it did. one historian has written, in fact, comparing the army of northern virginia and the army of tennessee in 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 and the other didn't. big battle, large battle, whatever comparison, big results, huge results. now one more thing before we take questions. we've got time to take questions. i told you i was not a preacher, but my daddy is. i didn't have three points to my sermon. i only had one. but i do have a poem. i'm going to finish with a poem. if you've ever heard of samuel h.m. biery byers, does that rin bell to anybody? wrote about what the soldier experienced, what it felt like to be in battle. he wrote an account -- again, just finished the assaults book. he wrote about going into the battle on may 22nd, and he was tasked to bring ammunition forward on a mule. they put two big boxes of ammunition on this mule and he got to the top of the hill and just stopped. wouldn't go. and they beat him with sticks and everything. and he wouldn't go. his big old ears flopping with the bullets going around, hitting him with boxes of ammunition. one stung him in the rear end or something and took off where they actually wanted him to go. things like that. so he wrote a poem many years later and i think it sums a lot of this up but it kind of puts a good touching exclamation point to all of this. he calls it "where are they all today" written years later. 40 years ago, to me it was yesterday. anchored in the bay. a thousand cheers our bosom stirred my comrades wept when grant would speak a kindly word. where are they all today? there the glorious army stood and shall shine where yesternight now 30,000 blue coats slept where are they all today? different roads our columns led we tracked the foe. they waited for the blow. many a bloody fray and many a grave was left forgot. where are they all today? ft. gibson, raymond, jackson fell. great was the southern ire. at champion hill, a taste of hell they gave us with their fire. two hours i saw my comrades fall but in grime in death they lay. smoke their funeral where are they all today? two hours of fire and temptest then mcpherson and mcclernannd's men they yield for logan's on their flank, who never lost the fray. where's logan's sword today? pounding on their left hurrying by. their line is cleft what can they do but fly? their 5,000 lay hands touching hands, knees touching knees. where are they all today? we struggle for the bridge behind the flying foe. the flags go men may not dream of such a charge again but where are they who held a stream and where are lawler's men? that very day with flags unfurled we circled vicksburg town we hurled death's missiles up and down. it was a sight of blue and gray. the muskets blast. where are they all today? 30,000 men laid down their arms and wept because they ne'er would see again their hills as bravest soldiers make zplvlth they cheered us but now who dared where are they all today? the for thes are ours, 1,000 miles our banners glean. we are where are the victors, where are the foe? where are the blue and gray? the heroes souls of years ago. where are they all today? the marble bust where the great river lays yon hill that holds their honored dust, 20,000 graves. if blue coat or if gray may ask the mounds on yonder hill where are they all today? thank you. time for questions? about five minutes for question. then it's lunchtime! we got one right back here. way in the back. there we go. >> i read your book a couple of weeks ago and it's a great read. i recommend it. and i'm not your agent in case anybody is asking. >> thank you. >> when pemberton was being threatened by grant and being enveloped by him he was flailing around asking for help by other confederate commanders, including kirby smith, who declined. why did smith say no and, number two, why didn't pemberton ask davis to order smith to provide that help? >> pemberton is asking everybody he can. remember, though, pemberton is a lower level than kirby smith, synonymous with joseph e. johnston. so pemberton is asking johnston to ask kirby smith and asking davis to send just anybody. the problem with kirby smith, of course, is number one, you've got a great big river between you and him. and the gun boats, union gun boats supply up and down. to get anybody across the river is going to be problematic. and very, very dangerous. the other major problem, of course, is that in the concept of confederate departmentalization, kirby smith is in a completely different department. some historians argue that we should make it like it was back in johnston's day, the old confederate department number t two, which encompassed all the territory in the west, straddled the mississippi river. but here pemberton's department simply ends at the mississippi river and joseph e. johnston's authority ends at the mississippi river. so kirby smith on the other side is a completely different department. so, yes, those orders would have had to come from richmond themselves to get anything done and kirby smith is not very interested. there will be some movement on the other side, of course, on june 7th with the attack at militant's men. and then some other advances on the lake providence area and so on, but nothing that would even remotely aid pem bberton in vicksburg. really by the time pemberton is bottled up in vicksburg, there's not much kirby smith could have done anyway. it's a done deal. yes, sir? >> did the fact that pemberton was a pennsylvanian have any affect on the confidence of his leadership, both up and down the chain of command? >> absolutely, it does. another thing, reading all these letters and diaries and so on, everybody talks about -- everybody is convinced that pemberton has sold v. c vicksburg, that he got money and worked out with grant, that they were communicating with a bouquet of flowers and supposedly had a message from grant to pemberton and all kind of stuff. there is no doubt in my mind -- i kid about pemberton and all that, but he was as dedicated to the confederacy and to the defense of vicksburg and he wanted the best for his department than anyone else, being a pennsylvania man or whatever. i think this is illustrated later in the war. 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 resigns his position as a lieutenant general and rejoins the confederate army as a lieutenant colonel, way down -- no offense to any lieutenant colonel but compared to lieutenant general you're way down there, lieutenant colonel of artillery. that being said, what is fact and reality doesn't always translate into what, you know, people think. and so these confederates are just absolutely convinced that pemberton is a traitor. you see this in tons and tons of letters and diaries. one even went so far as to write home and said this should teach jefferson davis not to put yankee generals in command of southern armys. there's no doubt that it does affect the morale and so on. got another question? >> yes. i was wondering, in defense of pemberton, he has been given this command by his commander in chief to hold on to vicksburg that. and port hudson, the last two safety pins holding the coat together, so to speak, and the whole mississippi go. he's commanded by john'sen, who kind of develops an ability to retreat, no matter what. you know, it was said he would retreat all the way to key west if he was given the opportunity. do you think maybe he had lack of confidence in what johnson was telling him? like okay, that's what he would say no matter what? >> i johnson and pemberton aren't the best of friends. this plays out through the course of the siege. and every day johnson, yeah, i'll on the way. i'm coming, and all of that. johnson never shows up, obviously. and we learn more about that in the atlantic campaign and all of that. pemberton, yeah, i probably do kid about him a little too much. he is in an absolutely untenable position, no-win situation, absolutely. and i'm not sure somebody like ulysses s. grant could have done much better in the situation that he's getting orders from both sides. that said, he does make some very terrible blunders throughout the process here. one, the emphasis on benjamin greerson. in the greerson book he talks about how pemberton is fixated on these 900 calvy men moving through mississippi. grant's on the other side of the river, but it takes his attention and pemberton's head is swivelled toward the northeast, toward greerson and what he has got going on. meanwhile, 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 baker's creek or big black river ridge is just incalculable. why on earth would he do that? except 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's no doubt about that. time's up. thank you very much. [ applause ] week nights this week, we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight, the liberation of the auschwitz concentration camp. then the united states holocaust memorial museum in washington, d.c. hosts a commemorative ceremony toy remember those who perished and to mark national holocaust remembrance day, followed by holocaust panel talking about the brutality of the nazi regime. civil war scholar jeffrey hunt details the movements of

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