Transcripts For CSPAN3 How Important Was Gettysburg 20240708

Card image cap



the society of civil war historians and received the tom watson brown book prize from the society in 2012 for his the union war. prior to that honor his the confederate war was a finalist for the 1998 lincoln prize copies of his books including this one causes one lost and forgotten how hollywood and popular art shape what we know about the civil war. this one is there and i got this one because i hadn't read it yet, but there are several others that are available in the symposium bookstore. please help me to welcome our professor gallagher who's topic this morning? is going to be how should americans understand gettysburg in 2021 professor gallagher. thank you very much. good morning everybody. seems like we were just here. not all that long ago. i know some of you are disappointed that joan law isn't here with me this morning. joan was the police she and i were supposed to do a joint thing on gettysburg as a turning point this morning, but she's president of the society of civil war historians. and they changed the date of the dinner for the winner of their big book prize. so joan is on her way right now to durham, north carolina to preside over the handing out of that award tonight. so i am going to talk this morning about gettysburg for 30 or 35 minutes, and then maybe we'll have time for some give and take afterward. i've enjoyed in nearly lifelong engagement. with gettysburg. i was fascinated with the civil war as a boy as i said last night. i never lost my interest and have had the really good fortune to make my living doing something that i love and would have probably been doing anyway teaching and writing about our great national crisis my explanation explorations whether as a young man or an academic scholar often have led me to consider gettysburg in the larger framework of the war and for many years. i held the commonly embrace notion that gettysburg marked the turning point. of the civil war but now as will become evident as i go along this morning. i've changed my mind. yet i realized that for most people the thought of discussing the conflicts great turning points without reference to gettysburg would be similar to having a film noir film festival and leaving out double indemnity. or assessing the 10 sure signs that the apocalypse is upon us without talking about the evil influence of twitter. i'm going to divide my comments into three parts this morning the first explores why gettysburg loom so large in popular culture the second suggesting that the battle should not be held up as the great turning point of the war and the third explaining why i believe visits to gettysburg remain not only rewarding but important for americans interested in our history as a nation, but i'll start with gettysburg in memory as the great moment of truth. all of you i suspect. know the popular narrative of how the fearsome blood-letting here in adams county pennsylvania during the first three days of july 1863 changed the trajectory of the civil war before the army of northern virginia the army the potomac collided here at gettysburg goes that narrative victory still seemed possible for the confederacy, but after lee's retreated was only a matter of time before the united states armies would vanquish their opponents and restore the republic you get a sense that everybody in the confederacy. just got out their calendar circled april 9th, 1865 and started crossing days off counting. how many were left that formulation sounds very compelling. it sounds so reasonable because we know things about gettysburg didn't make it seem sound reasonable. there are things about gettysburg that set it apart from all of their battles during the civil war was the biggest and bloodiest battle of our biggest and bloodiest war. marked the deepest penetration in the united states territory of any major confederate army. and no other principle rebel field army ever came into the united states again jubal early as little army the valley wandered northward in the summer of 64, but no major confederate army crossed into us territory again abraham lincoln also set gettysburg apart from all over all other civil war engagements when he chose it as the place. to deliver his eloquent benediction over the union dead almost exactly 158 years ago. all these things help to explain why gettysburg has been far more studied than any other military event in united states history. bibliography published gosh, 20 years ago now listed more than 6,000 titles. that deal with the battle of gettysburg and that number has grown steadily since then that's 20 years ago the cesquicentennial brought another round of new books and they continue to come out. i looked at the most recent issue of civil war times which all of you received in your packet. there are several new books on gettysburg that are featured in there. i readily admit and you probably all know as well that very few places in american history resonate more evocatively. then gettysburg, it's home to about 2400 people in july 1863 this southern pennsylvania witness fighting that raged for three days. in the nearby woods and fields and a long gently sloping ridges and on modest hills whose green summits rose above the surrounding countryside. we can still look at all those places the names of those fields and woods and of those ridges and hills have come down to us in memory. charged with violent images of more than 150,000 men struggling for supremacy in a seismic war the wheat field the peach orchard. little round top seminary ridge culpes hill devils den where else in the united states have so many mundane pieces of terrain. been invested with so much meaning by so many americans i hope you won't mind if i inject a little bit of my own relationship with gettysburg into my comments here my experience may help i think underscore why so many people identify the battle. as the wars key turning point. i was born in los angeles grew up in. southern colorado san luis valley two places far from the great battlefields of the civil war glorietta was the nearest battlefield of any kind to me and it alas was not much of a battlefield during the civil war centennial years in 1961 to 1965. i read accounts that left me overwhelmed with images of the scale of carnage at gettysburg the san luis valleys really big as our grade school teachers used to tell us it's bigger than connecticut, which means frank i hate to say it's way bigger than rhode island. even the county i grew up was bigger than rhode island, but that's another topic had a population of about 50,000 people gettysburg had made casualties of more people than lived in my valley. i thought as a boy and that really struck me i would have known that nearly as many men were killed or maimed or became casualties at gettysburg in three days. as were killed in the decade long war in southeast asia if there had been a vietnam memorial when i was a boy black and white images of the battlefield taken shortly after the army's marched away from gettysburg. also impressed me deeply i poured over them some of these photographs depicted the landscape you all know them the rocky slope of little round top the gun pits that scarred the earth in front of the brick gatehouse at evergreen cemetery on cemetery hill. the woods on mcpherson's ridge in which part of the famous iron brigade waged its last great fight. the remarkable study of three captured confederates imposes that combine combined nonchalance and defiance as they face the camera near the chambersburg pike on seminary ridge supplied what was and remains for me the best portrayal of rebel veterans in the fields. you want to know what a rebel veteran looked like during the civil war. look at that shot. of the three men taken a couple of days after the battle studies of the battles human and equine wreckage impressed me most of all time and again, i contemplated the rows of confederate bodies laid out for burial on the rose farm. the corpse is strewn among the rocks and trees along plum run at the foot of roundtop the slaughtered battery horses near the trostle farmhouse in most memory memorably the study of a dead confederate soldier in devil's den seemingly asleep with his musket propped up against one of the boulders. i didn't know at the time brass and needles books hadn't come out yet. did alexander gardner stage that shot that he dragged the corpse from farther up the hill and placed it just right had no idea that had happened that that picture really captured my attention. i first visited here as a 14 year old in june of 1965 my mother and grandmother and i drove from colorado to gettysburg and back in 12 days. before interstate highways where everywhere crossing west virginia. there was a real adventure in the middle of 65. but my visit to gettysburg increased my sense of its unique importance. among civil war advance. i insisted on being photographed in the peach orchard at the spot in devil's den where gardner had taken that picture. i photographed the ground over which the picket pettigrew assault swept. i photographed it from the union perspective and from the confederate perspective. i climbed up the southwestern slope of little round top and i lingered at a number of the famous monuments on the battlefield including those erected by the states of virginia. and pennsylvania, i was impressed with their scale but innocent of the political and commemorative circumstances within which they went up. well gettysburg looms as large today for many of those interested in the civil war is it did to me in that summer of 1865 among americans who know anything about the war the clash between lee's army and george gordon mead's army the potomac typically represents a moment of profound reckoning. tourist visit gettysburg in huge numbers each year more by far than go to any other military site in the continental united states coverage of the war sesquicentennial in 2011 to 2015 revealed the battle seeming the unshakable hold. on common understanding of the war and i'll mention just a few examples of this phenomenon the washington post issued a civil war 150 special edition, which hit the news on april 28th, 2013. it described gettysburg as quote a massive smash-up. there was arguably the pivotal moment of the great conflict that that sits at the heart. of american history, it's not only the sort of focal point of the war. it's that great tipping point for all of american history. usa today offered a 47 paid special edition in july 2013 titled gettysburg turning point of the civil war. the principal article in that issue described. the battle is quote the epic battle that would decide the fate of a nation national geographic gave readers a special issue in may 2012 on the civil war that included a fold-out map of the eastern theater titled 1863 turning point of the civil war. i know you're picking up on a light motif here in this coverage the text accompanying that map observed quote the union began to gain the upper hand only in july 1863. with its victory at gettysburg the largest battle ever fought in north america time magazine published 122 page 150th anniversary tribute titled gettysburg a day by day account of the greatest battle of the civil war very straightforward and even bbc climbed on board with a 98-page booklet titled the american civil war story that pronounced gettysburg quoted a disastrous mistake by the south that marked the beginning of the end for the confederacy. okay, that's enough of that gettysburg's dominant place in popular culture owes a great deal to novels films and television those those mediums reach far more people than all the historians put together and cubed or whatever number you want to come up with gone with the wind has influenced more people's thoughts about the civil war than anything as i said last night historians have done gone with the wind, i think in fact has done more to influence popular perceptions about the civil war than any other single factor. i'm talking about the 1939 film not the 1936 novel although said in georgia and featuring sherman's campaign in 1864 the film three years after the novel appeared treats gettysburg as the great turning point ashley wilkes addresses the issue when home on furlough from lee's army at christmas in 1863. we shall need all our prayers now. the end is coming. he tells scarlett with his usual hang-dog look and she asks the end of the war. he intones in the end of our world scarlett more. hang dog expressions. well, it's gettysburg that his persuaded ashley that the confederacy can't win something underscored by an earlier scene that shows people in atlanta eagerly reading casualty lists from the battle expository text instructs viewers who might fail to grasp the portent of the scene quote huston grimm atlanta turned painful eyes toward the faraway little town of gettysburg and a page of history waited for three days while two nations came to death grips on the farmlands of pennsylvania. well news about gettysburg and reckonings of its dead and wounded certainly would not have reached atlantis so quickly, but the device works very well in reminding audiences about gettysburg's role in foreclosing chances for confederate independence. and i have to mention william faulkner. some of you can just close your eyes and think about something else now if you want to but i have to quote from his 1948 novel intruder in the dust one passage is quoted endlessly from this book for every southern boy, and he meant every white southern boy 14 years old not once but whenever he wants it wrote faulkner of the time just before the confederates launched the picket pettigrew assault there. is that instant when it's not yet two o'clock on that july afternoon in 1863. the brigades are in position behind the rail fence. the guns are laid and ready in the woods in the world flags are already loosened. to break out and pick at himself with his long oiled ringlets, and he's had in one hand probably in his sword in the other. looking up the hill and waiting for longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance hasn't happened yet. it hasn't even begun yet. that moment doesn't need even a 14 year old boy continued faulkner as he set up the battle as a decisive moment of the war to think this time, maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain, pennsylvania. maryland the world the golden dome of washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory. a desperate gamble the cast made two years ago. well killer angels micah michael shaw's 1974 pulitzer prize winning novel translated to film by director and ron maxwell in 1993 as gettysburg also has been immensely influential. in both novel and film colonel joshua lawrence chamberlain of the 20th main infantry states that the outcome of the war hangs in the balance is the army's prepare to come to grips here at gettysburg. i think if we lose this fight observes the determined chamberlain we lose the war. it's hard to overestimate the impact of this book and film for example, and ty can talk more about this than i cadets at the united states military academy read killer angels is there but that's how they got their view of gettysburg at the academy for a good long while documentary filmmaker. ken burns also expressed profound respect for killer angels something obvious in how he handled gettysburg in his overwhelmingly successful 1990 pbs series the civil war he devoted 45 minutes to gettysburg. far more than to any other battle or campaign vicksburg in contrast gets 11 minutes from ken burns stones river or murfreesboro, which of all the battles in the war of the major battles witnessed the highest percentage of casualties in the two contending armies got less than a minute. from ken burns gettysburg gets 45 burns reached more than 40 million viewers the first time around as we've all read many times and it remains influential because it is replayed endlessly during pbs fundraising. we can we can hear it and see it. it's always there and apparently still popular or they wouldn't be using it. at least that's my suspicion. and lord joshua lawrence chamberlain's ascendancy in the popular imagination over the past 30 years also speaks to the impact of shar and burns when i came here in 1965. there wasn't even a path to the 20th main monuments. there was no signage that point you to the 20 that's main monument the booklet that the park service put out for the battle of gettysburg didn't even mention the 20th main didn't mention joshua chamberlain the hero of little round top was governor kemble warren. as we might suspect by who has a statue on little round top. oh guberner warren does and so does strong vincent and strong vincent has an ancillary marker as well. so fascinating example of how memory often deviates from what actually happened joshua lawrence chamberlain says sentencing, i admire chamberlain my god. he's an academic who could function in the real world. just think about that for a minute. what should a large chamberlain joshua lawrence chamberlain has benefited from? michael schara and ken burns and the other ways in which americans learn about their history that have nothing to do about books that historians, right steven spielberg's 2012 epic lincoln uses the gettysburg address to remind viewers about the battles powerful wartime impact. it opens. you all notes it open scene. it opens with scene of common soldiers. one black two white who recite the gettysburg address to lincoln as he watches troops prepare to embark for the wilmington campaign in the last winter of the war. well, the scene is comically preposterous the speech received almost no attention in 1863 as all of you know, and the notion that it had entered the national consciousness to the point that random soldiers could quote passages speaks volumes about our perceptions of gettysburg as the definitive learning the attorney point. i'll bet lincoln couldn't have quoted to gettysburg address to himself in january of 1865. i in fact would bet a good bit of money on that. he'd get the gist but he but they get it exactly in the movie exactly a second in perishable film about lincoln also debuted in 2012 abraham lincoln vampire hunter. it carried gettysburg supremacy to apogee by treating the battle is not only the largest of the war but also the last a bloodletting that brought union victory and killed slavery in one grand silver bullet-laden crescendo vampires and rebel soldiers falling equal profusion as the republic emerges. thanks to gettysburg from its greatest moment of trial. two final pieces of evidence to test to gettysburg's cultural importance. i work with groups of middle and high school teachers every summer they come from all over the country. i've worked with 2,000 of them over the years and from them. i've learned that many state history tests for high school students include a specific question. what was the turning point of the civil war? it has one answer gettysburg. so they say what should we do about this and i say you can use this to tell students that the world's complicated. tell them to write down gettysburg because they need to get the right answer, but then tell them it's not really the right answer and just you know, think about that many of you doubtless. remember the set of us postage stamps the issued to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the war the one feature in gettysburg issued in 2013 as part of a sheet that had a second stamp devoted to vicksburg includes a text that notes gettysburg has often been called the high water mark of the rebellion. okay, that's enough of that. what about gettysburg in wartime context? it's supremacy in the popular imagination prompts an obvious question. is it accurate if you gettysburg is the great turning point of the civil war i suspect i've already tipped my hand here, but i'm going to plow forward my research in reading over the past 30 years persuade me that the answer to that question must be no. it did not mark a watershed determining the outcome of the war moreover people at the time in the midst of massive war efforts on the part of the united states and the confederacy did not consider it a watershed. in trying to understand gettysburg's importance at the time. we must remember not to read into the battle everything. we know now. you should never do that. trying to understand history. never don't ever start at the end of the story and then read back trying to figure out how do you how do we get to the end which seems inevitable because that's the end we know happen call it the appomattox syndrome. don't do that resist that by july 1863. they're already had been many bloody clashes in the conflict and nobody knew whether another one even more horrific than gettysburg lay ahead. similarly. no one knew whether the army in northern virginia. would mount another invasion of the united states. neither. could they know that abraham lincoln would go to gettysburg and deliver. what would eventually become the most famous political speech in our history did not at the time but it did in time the vast outpouring of writings on the battle remain to be written as did the battlefields development as a major attraction for people interested in american history. i think a fair assessment of gettysburg's impact in the summer and early autumn of 1863. is that both sides sought as a bloody but not ultimately decisive battle that represented largely good news for the united states and bad news for the confederacy. it's not nearly as important at the time as vicksburg vicksburg far overshadowed gettysburg in terms of its impact both in the united states and the confederacy now admittedly many people in the loyal states rejoiced upon first hearing about lee's retreat, of course, they did it seemed as the noted new york dire as george templeton strong observed. on july 63 that quote the rebels are hunted out of the north and their best army is routed in the charm of robert e. lee's invincibility broken. just as important in strong's opinion means performance had shown quote the army the potomac is at last found a general that can handle it. and he has stood nobly up to its terrible work in spite of its long disheartening list of hard-fought failures and in spite of the mcclellan influence on its officers ty i think that strong would have agreed that we should rename mcclellan's installation now put it on the list yet strong soon lamented the fact that meat allowed lee's army to escape intact across the potomac river newspapers bragged far too loudly about our having broken the backbone of the rebellion. he wrote on august 8th 1863 the vertebrae of southern trees and still cohered as we may yet learn to our terrible cost especially if lee reinforces himself with the debris of rebellion from the southwest lee got away. that's the bottom line in the end for george templeton strong as it was. for abraham lincoln on july 14th in a letter written but never sent to mead although he knew that mead got the message via hallock the president affirmed. i am very very grateful to you for the magnificent success. you gave the cause of the country at gettysburg. the aftermath of the battle however, left lincoln oppressed. that's his word not mine at the seeming lack of aggressiveness on the part of mead. and of his fellow union commanders the mcconnell mcclellan created a culture of command in the army the potomac and of course it was still there when mead took over. i did not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in lee's escape stated lincoln in a passage emphasizing his opinion. did gettysburg signaled. no grand turning point. he was within your easy grasp and to have closed upon him would in connection with our late successes vicksburg and elsewhere have ended the war. as it is. concluded a bitterly disappointed lincoln. the war will be prolonged indefinitely. your golden opportunity has gone and i am distressed immeasurably because of it many other northerners came to share this sense of lost opportunity it soon became all too clear that the conflict would drag on with no end in sight and no certainty as to the outcome. confederate testimony from 1863 as opposed to post-war writings by ex rebels that elevated gettysburg to a position of special importance. suggests a pervasive view that the battle had not delivered a catastrophic blow to southern hopes for independence many in the confederacy lamented the high casualties in some criticized lee's generalship, but most concluded that lease foray into pennsylvania and his subsequent retreat represented only a temporary setback with few long-term consequences for either the army in northern virginia or the confederacy confederates typically drew a sharp distinction between gettysburg with its high casualties, but striking southern success on july 1st and vicksburg and unequivocal disaster that cost the confederacy an entire army and control of the last little piece of the mississippi river that they still controlled in. mid-1863 robert e. lee recognized gettysburg as a defeat in the short term. he pouted at the thought that some newspapers criticized him. he even very theatrically tendered his resignation to jefferson davis who did what lee wanted he lavish is only and said he could not accept the resignation and then there's okay. i feel better said lee and they and they went forward. on further reflection lee pronounced the logistical dimension of the campaign which was crucial in his whole formulation of the campaign a success of some importance as for the longer term impact. he argued that the heavy loss it gettysburg did not exceed quote what it would have been from the series of battles. i would have been compelled to fight had i remained in virginia. adding we did whip them at gettysburg and it will be seen for the next six months that that army the army the potomac will be as quiet as a sucking dove. in fact, it would be 10 months. before the next big battle in the eastern theater at the wilderness saunders field on may 5th 1864 is the next real collision in the eastern theater. this is the longest period between major battles in the eastern theater after 1862. two other witnesses conveyed a tenor of innumerable confederate accounts one is from eastern, north carolina. my favorite confederate woman diarist catherine and devereaux edmundstone who expressed elation at initial news that highlighted confederate success on july first confederate newspapers were filled with accounts of the victory on july 1st, which very soon were overwhelmed by news of vicksburg and of lee's retreat. she is very happy to get that early information, but her mood was much chastened, of course by later information that lead left, pennsylvania, but by july 25th. aware of grumbling in the united states over meades slow movements after july 4th. edmonston panned a final and largely optimistic comment about gettysburg. generally's army said to be in fine condition in virginia meade crossing the potomac in pursuit. she put pursuit in quotation marks and underlined it. the north much exasperated against him for quote allowingly to escape. she also put put that in quotes and underlined it. but josiah gorgas is a really important witness here because he is he is also quoted endlessly to prove what a shattering bit of news. gettysburg was he's the perceptive. confederate chief of ordinance and he wrote in his diary on july 28th, 1863 events have succeeded one another with disastrous rapidity. one brief month ago. we were apparently at the point of success lee was in pennsylvania threatening, harrisburg and even philadelphia vicksburg seemed to laugh all grants efforts to scorn in the northern newspapers had reports of his raising the siege. 30 days later. however, lee had retreated from pennsylvania vicksburg and port hudson had fallen and irreplaceable men and material had been lost. yesterday we rode the pinnacle of success. today absolute ruin seems to be our portion stated and apparently shaken gorgas the confederacy totters to its destruction. that's pretty compelling and if you don't read anything after that in gorgas's diary you can have a pretty good sense that he thought gettysburg was a complete disaster read a little deeper into the diary. however into august and early september and you find much greater optimism than those off quoted passages of late july all seem quiet on lee's front recorded gorgas on august 24th, and his army appears to be nearly and it's an original good condition by september 6th gorgas alluded to the army's excellent condition and he even speculated that lee was considering taking the offensive. and perhaps marching back into pennsylvania gorgas's diary, and it's dealing with gettysburg underscores how misleading it can be to pull one quotation out of a document and ignore the rest of it when you lose the sense of context. whatever the price break precise breakdown of union and confederate opinion in 1863. one thing is undeniable as the armies of grant and lee engaged in the bloody overland campaign of band june 1864 and then settled into the siege at petersburg virtually. no one. in the united states or the confederacy would have insisted that gettysburg had been a great watershed it by then amount of disc scarcely more than a distant memory as northern civilian. morale dropped to its lowest point of the war in july and august 64 and confederates maintained high hopes that a democratic triumph in the north autumn elections would boost chances for southern independence. i've led more than 125 tours of gettysburg over the years with groups of students and adults and marine and and us army officers and others. i always deal with the battle and its memory in one of my framing themes has been that gettysburg was not a turning point. of course lee's army was damaged 25,000 casualties. perhaps more a third of all his generals became casualties 17 out of 52. the army's potomac was also badly damaged more than 20,000 casualties and it would be reorganized drastically before the next major campaign is, you know, seven corps reduced to just three lincoln did decide that mean was not an officer who could win the war mead was competent in some ways mead could do some things mead was not the man who was going to win the war. there was a short-term downturn in confederate morale and a longer-term downturn in, north carolina. because north carolinians had suffered disproportionately at gettysburg and that really encouraged the anti-war movement in north carolina after gettysburg, but lee's reputation emerged unscathed. i find this remarkable and really hard to explain much later in the war confederates still described him as unbeaten on the battlefield over and over you read that and in the united states he remained a great bugaboo. and that fact is underscored by grants taking the field against lee in the overland can pain of 1864 northern public opinion demanded. that their guy go against the confederate guy who had been the deviling the union war effort for more than two years at that point, but the strategic situation in the eastern theater after gettysburg simply returned to the rappahannock rapidan riverline where it had been before lee went north in june 1863 and where it remained for almost another year. alright, so what so how should we treat gettysburg now? well, you may not agree with me that gettysburg was less momentous in 1863 than as often assumed it was but that raises another question. just hit merit the attention lavished on it by today's civil war writers readers and battlefield visitors? and i think that it does because more than 150 years after the fact it offers much to instruct us about our history. no place better serves the purpose of explaining the deepest meanings. of the civil war no one has captured those meanings better than abraham lincoln in the brief text. of his gettysburg address lincoln possessed a genius for getting at the heart of an issue in the fewest possible words as you know and his speech here it gettysburg illustrates his gift for explaining in simple yet eloquent language the import of profound events the war tested. he said whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal can long endure and here he spoke to the widely held belief in the united states. that the country was a beacon in a world where small d democracy had yet to take firmud. it wasn't only the work of the founders that was on the table during the civil war according to this view. it's the fate of small d democracy in the western world. it's going the wrong direction in europe since the failed revolutions of the late 1840s only and a confederate victory could be the death blow to small d democracy believed many who fought for the union if the confederacy won. thought lincoln and untold thousands of other northerners reared on the rhetoric of daniel webster. the noble american experiment in government by the citizenry would have failed lincoln added in his address. that was to be a democracy free the taint of slavery us soldiers at gettysburg had given the last full measure of devotion that the nation under god. shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people. by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth, and he wouldn't have emphasized the prepositions there which people who often quote the gettysburg of the people. by the people for by the what of the what it's the people --. have you read the preamble to the constitution? that is what lincoln is pulling into his treatment here. it is all about the people the people and self-governance. i believe we've heard or read these words so many times that they don't really register. but if we think about them carefully we have vividly before us the essence. of what was at stake? in the war modern day americans have ample reason to visit gettysburg these journeys yield rich dividends to most pleasant and rewarding exercise on several levels. walk around the field and figure out how the action unfolded. no text. no map can really convey what happens on a battlefield if you really want to understand a battlefield you have to go to the battlefield and look at the ground and little nuances of terrain that you look and say oh now i understand. oh, i guess dan sickles. well, yes, he was on lower grand on stem. he probably should have told me what he was doing. but the idea that the peach orchard is important is not in silly idea on dan sickles's. part few places offer so many opportunities to really understand the terrain or as many opportunities to explore questions of leadership. and questions of leadership that can be applied in non-military as well as military situations. what does it mean to be a good subordinate? what kind of is collective leadership superior to individual leadership there? there's just a plethora of ways to come at questions of leadership, but gettysburg the hundreds of monuments here provide insights into how americans have chosen to remember the battle and the war here. we see the memory of the war in stone and bronze unlike any other place. related to the american civil war or any other event in our history most of these monuments. if you look at them closely ignore emancipation is an issue that the time the army's collided at gettysburg and they remind us that first to last for most of the loyal white citizenry. this was a war for union northern regimentals. state excuse me, regimental and state monuments which dominate the field typically celebrate the gallantry of us soldiers in the glory of the preserved union southern state monuments most of which went up in either the 1920s and 30s or 60s and 70s echo the lost cause interpretive tradition fashioned by former confederates in the late 19th century the north carolina monument executed by goosen borghum dedicated in 1929 mentioned quote the eternal glory of the north carolina soldiers who on this battlefield displayed heroism unsurpassed sacrificing all in support of their cause while the south carolina monument dedicated in 1963 with george wallace in attendance as we mentioned last night proclaims of south carolinians at gettysburg the quote ab faith in the sacredness of states' rights provided their creed here. many monuments confirmed the power of the era of reconciliation when americans north and south sought to find common ground in casting the war as an epical event that prepared the united states to become a world power this strain of memory, which took most dramatic form in the eternal light. peace memorial dedicated on oak hill by president franklin d roosevelt on the 75th anniversary of the battle in july 1938 removed the device of issues of slavery and emancipation from the national narrative of the battle and of the war if you want absolutely crystal clear examples of reconciliationist rhetoric that airbrushed slavery and emancipation out of the war read what woodrow wilson said here in 1913 and what fdr said here in 1938. joshua chamberlain colonel of the 20th main infantry we all know and now probably the most famous union officer at the battle return to gettysburg in october 1889 to help dedicate the monuments to soldiers from maine who had fought here in 1863. his remarks what that ground. ground the national park service now protects and interprets meant to the generation that waged the war. and he of course deployed vintage 19th century rhetoric in doing it often tending toward the color purple on no chemistry of frost and rain no overlaying mold of the season's recurrent life and death can ever separate from the soil of these consecrated fields the lifeblood so deeply commingled and incorporate here in great deeds something abides on great fields something stays forms change in past bodies disappear, but spirits linger. to consecrate ground for the vision place of souls looking to the future chamberlain predicted that quote reverend men and women from afar and generations. that know us not and we know not of heart drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them. shall come to this deathless field to ponder. and dream i believe something does still abide at gettysburg on the tours. i've led we summon the characters of the past talk about what happened and why it happened and what it meant for the nation then and what it means for us now. people on these tours usually make a connection to the past it gettysburg that cannot be duplicated in a classroom. in fact the ground at gettysburg is perhaps the best classroom i've discovered. i'm rejuvenated every time i gather people on mcpherson's ridge to begin our discussion of the battles opening scenes. i readily admit as during my first visit in 1965. i feel energized as i walk up little round top. or chamberlain's men from maine held off william c oates is 15th, alabama infantry or when i retrace the advance of pickett's brigades against the lone stone wall or winfield scott. hancock's second core troops awaited them. i'm always pleased when questions about the war's larger meanings arise as we lock a walk along less famous parts of the field. those are some of the best walks from banners hill down across rock creek and then upcopes hill or from hers ridge to the bender farm and then on to the railroad cut so you walk along you can talk about why the armies came here what the soldiers thought was at stake. you can get far beyond the details of the immediate. place and cast this battle in a much broader framework. i know that many people have an exaggerated sense of gettysburg's importance during the war. and i'll just be i'll just say one last time. it was not the legendary turning point it became in the writings of lost cause advocates and many of their union counterparts the lost cause focused on gettysburg because they had two reasons why the confederates lost reason one. we never could have won because the yankees had too much of everything reason two is longstreeton did lee at gettysburg. well if number one is the real reason number twos irrelevant, but nonetheless they had reason number one and reason number two and so they focused immense energy on gettysburg the dancing on the heads of of pins about leadership here. but that is irrelevant to what i see is gettysburg's real value to modern americans. i wish every student in every american history course. had a chance to visit gettysburg. to read lincoln's address while standing in the national cemetery amid the graves of thousands of soldiers. who in lincoln were lincoln's words consecrated the ground at gettysburg far above our poor power to add or detract lincoln prophesied the world would never forget. what happened to gettysburg and i hope he was right. thank you. if you have questions, please make your way to the mics on either side of the room. it seems that the explanation of abolition is is in part of a fantasy. i mean, it's partly a cause but also can be exaggerated. similarly. we're to believe that preserve preservation of the union was a satisfactory explanation for four years of chaos and death and on speakable suffering. so where where now can we how do we understand the the cost and why it was born? both by link and and by by the nation well if we had an hour and a half, i could really do justice to that. i mean you're talking you first of all, you're talking about both causation and motivation there you and those are two different things related, but they're different. terms of causation if you take slavery out of the question nothing makes sense there. it's inconceivable to me that there would have been a civil war were it not for issues relating to slavery. it's absolutely there. there's no way to read the documents from the time honestly and reach any other conclusion. and anybody who tells you differently and starts to quote something from after the war say no. i don't want to hear something from after the war. i want you to read something to me written in the midst of events going forward. it says this isn't what's going on. it's all about slavery stupid to paraphrase other things that we've heard lately in terms of what brings on but that is not why most white men from the united states put on blue uniforms they put on blue uniforms to save the union and the fact that we don't appreciate what union meant in the mid-19th century doesn't mean that union didn't loom unbelievably large in the mid-19th century. it's the most powerful word in the political vocabulary of americans in the mid-19th century and union conveyed to them. they had a tremendously exceptionalist view of the united states. as a singular place in the world that gave people and by people we mean white men who could vote very restricted by our standards, but within a mid-19th century context breathtakingly broad franchising in the united states, it gives you a voice in your own governance and the opportunity to rise economically. you're not doomed to be what your father is lincoln as opposed to boy for this bonpour almost no education. he becomes a very successful lawyer and then president of the united states this is worth fighting for that's what the founders fought for. that's what they bled for in the american revolution and if we allow people who simply aren't happy with the outcome of a presidential election to dismember the work of the founders then small d democracy has failed. our republic has failed and the united states is a beacon to the rest of the world for small d democracies failed because we can't even have a presidential election without having people decide that they're going to wreck the republic. during the course of the war most white northerners most loyal white citizens. i believe came to support emancipation but not for the reasons. we would want not as a great moral crusade, but because they considered it essential to defeating the confederacy because it would punish the slaveholders that they believed brought on the war in the first place and it would remove the only internal issue that anyone could imagine undoing the union going forward again that shows the power of slavery and how people viewed it only issues relating to slavery could undo the nation from within you get rid of slavery you get rid of that potential threat to the union going forward to me. but this is a sea change we were talking about attitudes toward race last night the baseline for mid-19th century white americans of course is profound racism from our point of view take that as a given anybody who comes up to you breathlessly binding some mid-19th century white person who had racist views say wow. how exciting maybe when you go to the beach you'll find sand next time. it's it's it's absolutely not surprising. it's stunning when you don't find that so take as a baseline. take it as a baseline. and then i think it's rather miraculous that you do get such a broad degree of support for emancipation in the course of the war and sort of miraculous that you get the 14th and 15th amendments after the one you only get them of course because this shows the transformative events of great military clashes. nobody would have foreseen what happened. in 1861. it wasn't a war. it's not a war to end slavery in 1861 some people. hope it will be a frederick douglass hopes, it will be charles sumner hopes it will be charles sumner's kind of happy that first bull run was a defeat because it meant the war would last longer. and they believed many abolitionists the longer the war goes on the more likely. did emancipation will come to the fore but if mcclellan had captured richmond will come back to our little friend jorge again here if mcclellan had captured richmond in july of 1862 which any competent commander would have. that would have been the end of the war and it would have been the end of the war. without emancipation because emancipation was not on the table. everybody talks about antietam and emancipation antietam's not the key battle with emancipation the seven days is second confiscation act came a few days after mcclellan's defeat and charles sumner tied it directly to lincoln's to mcclellan's defeat lincoln announced to his cabinet on the 22nd of july 1862 that he was going to issue a proclamation of emancipation. that's the key battle antietam gives the moment when he can do it, but the decision comes in the wake of mcclellan's failure where they decide we are not going to be able to win this war. without upping the ante and what does that mean? we're going to put the ante as high as it can be the entire slave holding society. of the confederacies now on the table. can't get higher stakes than that. so it's and most people eventually not all many many millions of democrats never got on board with it. they're willing to dive to save the union. they are not willing to die to free enslaved black people beginning to end but even many democrats came around in the course of the war because they thought it was essential. that's a longer answer than i should have given and you look bored. thank you here at the other. good answer dr. john will in washington dc, you know as much as i love this place and as much time as i spend here, i totally agree with your your premise. so then that begs the question what if anything was the turning point was it vicksburg or was as jim mcpherson? i think it said antietam, but i you don't agree with that. no. no, i think there are lots of turning points and summer military and some are not military. i think balls bluff was attorney point because it really politicized the war it brought the creation of the joint committee on the conduct of the war which had a lot to do with how the united states waged. the war later vicksburg is certainly a turning point in some ways atlanta and the shenandoah valley campaigns have sheridan reelect abraham lincoln. i don't think any battle. however had more impact on the subsequent course of the war. seven days, which i've already mentioned because they bring emancipation to the table on the united states side, and they put in place on the confederate side. lee who without lee in charge of that army and i hate to say this with imminent biographers of joseph johnston in the audience here, but joseph johnson was not going to do he's not going to prolong the war for two years. i have this sense of johnson waking up in the morning in his first thought being what a great day to retreat. because johnson takes a big step back. mcclellan takes a baby step forward and in the end you get to richmond and mcclellan can preside over a siege. i think that the ascendancy of lee. really complicates the united states problem during the war. it's because lee becomes by far the most important confederate he becomes in many ways he and his army. function much the way, washington the continental army did during the revolution. where's the continental congress? who cares? where's the continental army? does it still exist? then this war is still winnable. that is how people in the confederacy i think came to look at lee in the army of northern virginia and late in the war many confederates said that lee should be made dictator or king. and so his ascendancy. the bringing forward of emancipation on the union side. i think the seven days is a is really is a profoundly important moment in the war when the war takes a revolutionary turn that says basically all bets are off from what we lincoln and initially didn't want it to descend into a remorseless revolutionary struggle in july of 62. he's willing to have it head that direction and that's because of mcclellan's failure in the seven days at least significantly. so the wounding of johnson may be the turning point. that's the worst shot any yeah any federal fire and less and less? and of course this is this is why history so much fun. we i had a student once in a class. give me at the end of the semester gave me a head copied. made a $5 bill but imposed mcclellan's picture on it instead of lincoln's and that's probably i mean mcclellan had ambitious. he could have easily been present. i promise you he would not have pushed for emancipation. we know that very well that that wasn't what mcclellan was going to do. so it's it's extremely important. yes. this is it. this is the last question because i'm giving answers that are too low. okay. well, this is maybe this is a simple maybe not i would i was up on the battlefield the other day and we were standing in front of the first minnesota monument, and the guide was telling us about 250 men went forward. which monument i think it was the first minnesota the first minnesota. yeah and how they were asked to buy 15 minutes. so reinforcements could come up and 250 or so men went forward in 40 something came back and it always brings up this question. what made these soldiers do what they were doing. you know what our modern perspective. why would they go forward and you know, are they more afraid to not go than to go. but what's your take on? what makes these guys? i can't answer that. they do lots of factors are in place there of course, and it's including loyalty to your unit and and training that has you do things a certain way so you can control men on a 19th century battlefield. they the way they drill the way they're taught to to fight on a battlefield and it's and there's a penalty for not going forward too. i mean there is a pretty significant downside to that if you're caught not going forward and and they decide to do something about it, but it's there. i mean clearly you couldn't and i would defer to people who actually commanded troops now. i can't imagine that that's the troops even citizen soldiers. he's not regular soldiers. these are citizens soldiers who are not the same as regulars and the smart officers knew that you can't treat them the way you treat regulars there. there is a political dimension in many instances to what they're doing not all of them. they're a lot of poor man over there because it's something to do. but gettysburg is mainly it's still mainly an army the army the potomac and the army northern virginia. they're still mainly army of volunteers actual volunteers by that stage of the work conscription had just come into place in the united states before gettysburg a few months. so they're mainly real volunteers. and they're and they do have a sense of being part of a republic in which a citizenry owes something to the republic that gives them benefits. but that's but on a battlefield. there's lots more nitty-gritty stuff on the ground. this is a woefully inadequate answer because i can't address it in this short term and thank you very much. thank you. i'm carol. do we have 10 minutes or five 10 minutes? okay. we have a ten minute break. please come back promptly at 10:30. right three of their -- problem. there is between my wife analyzs statesmanship. because that's

Related Keywords

Georgia , United States , Cemetery Hill , Pennsylvania , Gettysburg , Alabama , North Carolina , Washington , Minnesota , Rhode Island , Colorado , Hollywood , California , Virginia , Richmond , Americans , America , American , Alexander Gardner , Gary Gallagher , Woodrow Wilson , Los Angeles , Joseph Johnson , George Templeton , George Wallace , Abraham Lincoln , Robert E Lee , Steven Spielberg , Mcpherson Ridge , Joshua Chamberlain , Huston Grimm , Lawrence Chamberlain , Winfield Scott Hancock , Ron Maxwell ,

© 2024 Vimarsana

comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.