Distinguished professor of Mississippi State university. He is the gentleman on your right. We are thrilled to welcome him back to the historical society. He is the management director of the ulysses s. Grant foundation. As well as the Mississippi Historical society presented him with the whale award for the National Distinction in history. We are also pleased to welcome the man in the center who has his sunglasses on the Professor Emeritus at the Naval Academy where he taught for more than 30 years and served in the History Department chair. He is the author and editor of many books. He went on to get the Lifetime Achievement award from the naval historian foundation. James mcpherson was supposed to be here, he is not here. Craig, thank you so much for coming in his place. Welcome you and are thrilled to have you with us. We have the director of the rose feldhaus. Director of the roosevelt house. The author and editor of many books, he is part of the glamorous rise and the goldsmith book prize at Harvards Kennedy school of government. Awarded the National Humanities medal. I would like to ask that before we begin if you would turn off your cell phones or any beeping devices. And join me in welcoming our guests. [applause] i dont know about all of you i am exhausted from the introduction. I apologize for the titles and awards. We love doing our Civil War Program here, thank you for keeping these going. We hope you will keep coming, we have another series of the Civil War Programs examining the lesserknown battles and incidences. Tonight, chattanooga, it may seem like a Johnny Mercer song or a place in tennessee, it has a real impact on real importance. For those of us who have spent our lifetime in the east, we know how eastern centric life can be. Coverage of the civil war was much the same way, the west is deserves a great deal more attention, we cannot have two better people to talk about it. We have craig and john who will are great guest. March theould tennessee, john could take it into mississippi. That is one whole other story. That is setting the table, along with our title slide. Which shows chattanooga around the time of the battle we are going to discuss. We start in 1863, a lot of this focused on gettysburg. And vicksburg which was important. I want to ask both of you why is this particular city strategically important. Or is it just one of those accidental places of conflict. It is not accidental. This can be answered in a single word. The single word is transportation. Chattanooga was a relatively new city at the time of the civil war. It was small still. 2500 population, 2000 white population. What made it important was if location, its that on the bank of the tennessee river. There is river transportation available. For the army in the 19th century, the two most important ways but not just for men, as well as supplies. It keeps that in the field. By the river or railroad. There were critical railroads at chattanooga. In 1850, atlanta which was then called terminus of all things, that Railroad First reached chattanooga. Then the eastwest went to the atlantic in charleston, the only trunk line went right through chattanooga. That crossroads and across and the railroad is what made it such an important military prize. What is amazing is how small, i would not call it a count. Call it a city. A town it was. At the time when these came together. I think that is very true. It is not a big place when you consider when craig mentions the size. You look at nashville at the same time that is about 40,000 people. That is a much larger place. I think the location is crucial. There are a couple of other things we can mention as well. Number one by the time the civil war came chattanooga was the third highest producing region in the country. Only new york and pennsylvania produced more iron. I think as well that vicksburg is argued that they cut the confederacy and a very substantial way almost in half with the mississippi river. The interesting thing is that chattanooga, the capture of it also sliced because of the railroads and river another part of the confederacy in half. Basically, more importantly as a future, we will not get into this now, looking into the future, the capture of chattanooga was made possible by shermans Atlantic Campaign. Where he fought against some guy named joseph johnson. You are giving away the ending. It did open the way for the atlanta campaign. And the march to the sea. Lets stick chronological if we can. Actually we are not going to stay in chronological order. We have a james walker painting. Tell us about this and about why the army moved on. If you go to chattanooga today, in the civil war you will want to go to a place that is not that far away. It was a very particular place because what happened was that a Union General outmaneuvered the confederate commander to the point that he was in a good situation close to chattanooga. Also ready to do whatever else needed to be done. The strange thing, one of the acts of war happen. Union troops were lined up as they should have been. By mistake, the Union General ordered one unit to move over thinking there was ample that thinking there was a hole that had to be filled. When it moved over, it created an opening. Just by luck the confederates were starting their attack, what does he find but this enormous gap. His troops poured through it, the next thing you know they union troops are broken. They are running back towards chattanooga. What happens then is we will talk about it. That gives you an overview of what was going on. Here is some trivia you can use at a bar in the single Bloodiest Day of the war was at antietam. The single bloodiest two days was at this place. In september of 1863, the union and confederate armies fought in forest it to rain. Forested terrain. Visibility was horrible, the left hand can see with the right hand is doing. There are only a few roads, they are narrow and they wind around. Two days for 48 hours, they slug it out in this environment. And produced 38,000 casualties, it is the bloodiest two days of war. The bloodiest three days of the war was gettysburg. What is interesting is that people remember gettysburg and antietam but they do not remember this battle. It was a horrendous confrontation. One of the reason for the confusion that he mentioned his this whole. This hole. It is very difficult to figure out what is going on. In fact, there were two young men, they were both 21 years old, they were responsible for this. They were not generals or commanders, one was a private area was recently became the reason they became important is because they were the guys who created and gave messages to commanders. Because there is no communication on the battlefield there is no radio or telegraph. You cannot see the talk. They made a decision and rode it out, they gave it to a kid who went galloping off to the woods to deliver it. The recipient had to respond to that notice, that is what happened when he was holding a in happened when he was holding a position on the union line and he got this message that said you need to move immediately to your left. He did. That created the opportunity for the break of the union line. This sounds like an organized confrontation, keep in mind that much of it to ways with people took place with people fighting and not knowing what was happening on the left right or the rear. There is ground smoke, flawed, fog, trees, there is a lot of casualties. We have been looking at this here. They are going to move on. Over to chattanooga, here is another wonderful picture of chattanooga. Braxton bragg has 50,000 men. He is here and what you see in the background. Missionary ridge. It is an interesting place topic topographically. I got to visit it. As we approached, there is a hurricane. The trays were down and we were not able to visit it. We blame that on you. We are forgiven you now. You can see the mountain which is visible, here he is. Who is in the defensive position, who is laying siege to what is happening at the beginning of this . Braxton bragg is probably or the single most competent general. Most incompetent general of the civil war. He famously is unpopular. He does not look too bad here. Everybody said he was ugly. Repulsive is it worth it is often used. His demeanor was much the same. You asked how does this man become a commander. What answer is because he got along well with Jefferson Davis. He was a beleaguered commander. And commander, his subordinates did not like him. He had a plan that was sure to work. He issued those messages through the careers and nothing worked out the way it was supposed to. He was furious, he landed on the cheap blamed it not on the careers. One of whom got lost and never found the guy to whom they were supposed to give the order. He blamed hill. You didnt move. You are under arrest. He cashiered and placed under arrest. That is not good for an army win when all of your subordinate generals are in jail. Word of this gets to Jefferson Davis, he tries to calm him down. He said general you cannot do this, maybe they did not do it they were supposed to and cant we let by god the bygones. He said they is going to prosecute and make them pay. While he is doing this, the federal army which he just a fetid is going back towards that he had just to feed it just defeated is fleeing back towards chattanooga. If he had concentrated on pursuit rather than revenge against his former officers he would have accomplished more. By the time he got to chattanooga, which he expected to be evacuated, he beat them after all. They were not evacuated. They were digging in, they were fortifying. Now he is going to have to fight his way in. They are not Strong Enough to fight their way out, it becomes in effect a siege, a siege with an asterisk. It does not go all the way around. No it does not. I just wanted to Say Something about him. Some of you have heard the story. The first time it has been discovered was in ulysses s. Grants memoirs, we have not been able to find anything before that time. The story goes this way that he was a Company Commander in a precivil war regiment. He was also the supply officer for that regiment. So as Company Commander, he sensed a note to himself as a cash he sends a note to himself he sends a note to himself saying he needs such and such. , he is supply officer writes fact that you cannot have that. He then writes back to himself, this goes back and forth. He becomes so frustrated that he goes to the Regimental Commander and tells him this. The Regimental Commander says by god you have argued with everybody in his regiment and i and now you are arguing with yourself. So you do have that problem, to get back to more important things. It is a siege but it is not a siege. The confederates do not really encircle the union troops, they do not have enough people. I think as greg pointed out he as craig pointed out he was so busy arguing with people, but he was also arguing for force. With forest and james longstreet. Who he did not want to send. He sent him to the west anyway. I think greg put it right on perfectly, you have a situation where instead of worrying about his enemy he is worrying about his enemies inside his own army the result is a mess and the result is Jefferson Davis shows up. We have to figure something out, nothing is then figured out. You have a Confederate Army that is battling a union army which gets rid of dont jump ahead. We have mentioned long street a couple of times here. I want to mention the curious circumstances his presence created. He was associated with the army of northern virginia. Lees old war horse. He had been with the army in virginia from all run. He was a critical player at the battle of gettysburg. He knew he would never ever get army command as robert e lee lived area he lobbies that he to be sent to the western theater, where he calculates he will be more likely to get command. He shows up the night before the battle began. His army came by train, he rides his horse right onto the battlefield, it is his force that bursts through that whole hole and wins the battle. In his mind he is the hero. He has come to save the day, he is Robert E Lees left arm. Surely he should be the one to command the army. People say he is not healthy, perhaps he should be put in place. Long streets very presence is a destabilizing factor. Not only are they unable to surround the city, but there are not enough forces to fight their way in arguing with themselves, and there is this tension between bragg and long street. Lincoln then gets into the fray with an interesting letter. Here is a picture of the terrain. Lincoln writes to burnside of all people. He said you should save him from being crushed out. Describe what begins to happen with this movement. This gentleman arrives. When you start with the arrival of your hero . Burnside is an incredibly intriguing individual. The term of sideburns comes from his facial hair. One of the things that is going on that lincoln is worried about is that burnside is now in knoxville where the university of tennessee is. He has knoxville. It looks like and sounds like everything points to the fact that he is being surrounded sendse our friend bragg long straightaway. That is one of the big mistakes of the battle. Lincoln is worried that somebody is going to take knoxville away from burnside. The reason lincoln is worried is because tennessee as a state is divided between union and confederate. East tennessee, the area around it is a union area. Lincoln is dying to get some union troops in to rescue those unionists. It does not look like it is going to happen. He is worried that he is going to knoxville. At the same time, the fact that he sends along the street longstreet to knoxville there is. A lot of confusion here. Just like on the terrain. There is a lot of confusion between these various people. Then grant comes forward. I am going to let john talk about grant. I want to mention the terrain. As small as chattanooga was, it was down the bank of the river. There is this spectacular scenery. You can see the lookout mountain. There is a railroad you can take, you can see seven states from there. The mountain is to the west, Missionary Ridge is there. On this high ground, are all these confederate troops looking down on the union. North of the river they do not have coverage so supplies art sneaking in. One of the problems is they were having a hard time supplying the men in the city because they could only bring men along the mule trails. Once you hear the word evacuate, lincoln and others get very nervous and decide rosecrans is not going to cut. The famous line from lincoln at this was he is Walking Around like a duck hit on the head. The general is relieved and Ulysses S Grant comes in. Tell us where he was before he was assigned to this point. Grant is actually just take has just taken vicksburg. What we are talking about is happening in september october and november. So grant is ordered to come through chattanooga. Sherman is also order to come to chattanooga. Sherman is ordered as he moves to repair the railroad. This really slows him down. What happens is grant shows up at chattanooga, as one of the soldiers said. When grant shows up, things begin to happen. We have a situation where grant comes, grant has had a minor problem. He has been down to new orleans, a horse fell on his leg. Horse, right . What did i say . [laughter] whatever it is lands on his leg. He is not able to walk, he is in a hotel room for a week. Just in terrible pain. He has to get back to vicksburg. The point is for grant to get into chattanooga he has to ride this terrible road that we talked about. He is suffering, his leg is absolutely killing him. It was so bad he had to be lifted up and put on his horse. When he shows up in chattanooga, people realized that something is happening that was not happening before. One of the first things that is happening is that the supply route we will go right to that. We should talk a little bit about the other replacement. George h thomas. We talk about him because he is the rock of this battle. He is an interesting guy. The rock of chickamauga. He is interesting in a couple of ways. He is a virginian by earth, he stays loyal to the union. That also creates a certain amount of suspicion to those who are willing to be suspicious that his heart is made up fully in it. Atsaves the union army chickamauga. When everybody else was fleeing, he holds firm, it is his stand that allows the rest of the army to get away and fortify themselves in chattanooga. If it was not for that stand, they would have fled to chicago. Thats was very much to his credit. He was loyal to rosecrans. He dubbed the way rosecrans was cast aside and grant coming in was disgraceful. When grant arrived, leg wounded, cold, he comes into the headquarters and because he is temporarily in command and he is and thomas is kind of abrupt. He does not say general you need a blanket. None of that. Right away there was a tension that emerged between the two of them. Instead of a cooperation emerging between grant and thomas, grant relies on sherman, whom he trusted. Who was repairing the railroad and nevertheless on his way. Thomas is still there to grapple put his faith in german to break out of this sherman to break out of this trap. They are still inside the city. Confederates are still on the high ground. Grant is determined we will break out of this and i will use sherman to do it. Both of you are describing two generals at odds. It is an interesting thing to think through as run through this long and very complicated story. It is not an easy one. Thats one of the reasons we have the visuals to walk through it. I want to show one more personality, my favorite, general william smith, old baldy. I have know why. I think he has a very nice combover. You ought to know it. I should know it. He got his nickname, baldy, at west point. He had a full head of hair. We wont call him any names. But there were so many smiths at west point they had to come up with a nickname. He was losing hair. He was a great engineer. Which is important in this. We began to talk about the cracker line, building the supply line is one of the early things that grant initiates. Lets talk about that for a moment. You, greg. The cracker line. The soldiers given that name. Every army travels on its stomach. That is an old cliche but absolutely true. If you can supply your army with food and ammunition, you cannot stay there. Grant knew his first job was to open the supply line. To get rosecrans credit he made steps in this direction. He had had some lumber mill. To get the food into chattanooga you cannot do it on the north. The roads were too bad. They had to come by river, but then you cannot go past Point Lookout because the confederates. They had to come by the river. Then build a bridge across the river to the other side to get the food. It is a complicated engineering feat. Baldy smith gets this done. Supposedly a grants direction. Rosecrans was aware of this was necessary. Grant puts a new sense of urgency to it and it gets done early on. He gets most of the credit for doing it, so this works to help enhance the reputation he has already built at vicksburg and elsewhere. Open up the supply lines so the confederates that is job one. Job two is to break out and dry the confederates off the high ground. That is a harder job. Thats an excellent point. Sometimes we dont think about this because logistics is boring. How are we going to feed this and how are we going to do this . What about hay for the horses . One of the things about grant and sherman is the understood the importance of logistics. You consider what grant and sherman with shermans cooperation at vicksburg accomplished on the logistics side, what he accomplished here is he understands this cracker line is essential. The thing about an army goes on its stomach, there was also an old adage that an officer never eats until his enlisted men have eaten. That is for good reason because that is such an important thing to soldiers. During the Virginia Campaign when the union army was not being fed the weather got it should be fed, they started yelling hard tak every time grant showed up. If you have ever eaten it, it is pretty rough. But it was better than nothing. They at least knew he could do that. Thats an important thing. Thats one of the things grant gets going. They see something is going on here. And harold pointed out the difference between the union army and the Confederate Army is that grant has sherman to talk to and to bank on, where bragg has nobody. He can always argue with himself. Let me for the sake of the one or two people who might not know, hardtack was a staple of soldiers because they can last forever. It is essentially an unleavened piece of bread about half an inch to three quarters of an inch thick. Four inches by four inches square. It is unleavened flour. It will last forever. These things are easy to ship. They come in big bags. The older they are, the harder they are. You can break your teeth on this things. They lined the fireplaces of their winter quarters. That is what they meant by cracker. It was a piece of hardtack. The cracker line is the means by which hardtack is brought into the city. And other things, fatback, bacon. We have to move on because we will not be able to get through the battle. I am showing you an interesting print of Missionary Ridge which they Title Mission ridge. This is from mccormick. At one point the battle was considered enough of a triumph to be an advertising symbol. Grant orders thomas to attack Missionary Ridge. Tell us about thomas reaction. I gather he is not too eager to do it. The more complicated than that. This is one of the great controversies of the civil war. What did grant really say and what did he really want to see of his other generals . It is clear if you read what grant is saying that he wants sherman on the right flank to capture tunnel hill and get up, which means he will be on top of Seminary Ridge. Then turn and move right down the line. You notice hooker who shows up because of lincoln sending him by train very quickly this is the secretary of war. The idea is that hooker will take the hill and then he is going to turn and come this way. What happens is, of course, sherman, when he attacks the confederates and some guy named clay burn that is there that craigs written a good book about. I think it is his best book. Who knows. The book is better than the general. 30 years ago. [laughter] in any case, sherman attacks and he thinks he has gotten tunnel hill. What he does not realize is this is amazing because sherman is good with geography, he does not realize he has not captured, tunnel hill. He has captured an Intermediate Hill called billy goat hill. Imagine going through life saying i captured billy goat hill. Then when he attacks the next morning, cleburne does a wonderful job of keeping him off. It is at that time that grant says to thomas, you have got to attack. The orders were the way the thing was set up, the defense was set up that there were people on Seminary Ridge mission. Im talking about another battle. Missionary ridge. Then about halfway or so down there is another line of confederates. Then there are trenches down below. The idea is that thomas troops will attack in capture the first line of trenches. But they find when they get there they are sitting ducks literally for the fire coming off the ridge. They charge up the hill. They take the second line and then they are on top of the hill and they have driven the confederates off. This is significant high ground you start going from hill to hill. Its a real mountain. It is sometimes called the miracle at Missionary Ridge. No question about this. But the point is to the day he died, grant insisted that it was sherman who did what was necessary. Shermans fight on the flank withdrew people from the middle who went over to help sherman, and that opened the way for thomas, which brings us back to the point about the ridge. So, here is another image. Let me look at this. Oh, thats exactly how it happened. [laughter] this is what you call telescoping. Popular prints of the day, telescope press. You show blue and gray, confederate flags in union flags. Get some approximation of terrain. This is by a chicago print anchor that manufactured printmaker that manufactured 30 prints for the survivors. That is exactly how it happened. Just like that. This long ridgeline in the middle, this is Missionary Ridge. 70 to 150 feet. It undulates across the top. There is a high piece of ground in each hand and you. Mentioned hooker on lookout mountain. He does his thing. Grants idea is sherman will really do that by capturing the high ground and then he will roll up along the top of that ridgeline. Rolling it up like a hallway carpet. Not head on, which would be very dangerous and expensive in terms of blood treasure, but end to end. Sherman has 30,000 men. Four divisions eventually. Pat clayburgh my guy, who is , entrusted to defend tunnel hill. The railroad runs underneath it. The one of from the south and one from the east both converge there and run through this tunnel. He is on top of this. Sherman is approaching this. We talk about the uncertainty that was obvious at chickamauga. There is uncertainty here because the undulating hills, where do they stop, where the end . Let me just mention a veteran of the u. S. Naval academy, billy goats are pretty important. [laughter] no one should important the embarrassed no one should be embarrassed about billy goat hill. The last 14 years, we can talk about that. Sherman takes this hill. Clayburns men on tunnel hill, the actual end of Missionary Ridge here all this cheering. They think they have got it. Uh oh. They are going down. There is another hill and that is where clayburn is the other most famous one is Little Round Top at gettysburg, which is where Joshua Lawrence chamberlain with really a reinforced regiment, a regiment and a half, defend that position against superior forces for most of the afternoon. The reason it gets so much play is it is at gettysburg and he lived until 1914 and talked about it every single night of his life. But tunnel hill was at least as impressive as that. With 4000 men, pack labor and successfully defends the 30,000 men that sherman threw at him and they never did breakthrough. He successfully defended tunnel hill when word comes that, you know what, in the middle of the line these guys thomas sent as a diversion actually broke through and the whole army is in retreat except for cleburne. Still on tunnel hill. Now we get the message. Courier rides up. General bragg says defend the rear of the army while we get away. And he does, and the army successfully gets away. If the federals successfully escaped to get back to chickamauga, now the confederates escape from Missionary Ridge to get back to georgia before grant and sherman can sweep up the winnings of their victory. This is what breaks the siege and since the confederates fleeing south of the georgia. Let me see what we have. We have to talk a little bit about lookout mountain. John, do a little bit on that before we see if anyone here has digested this incredible complexity and ask questions for clarification. Here is one view of lookout mountain. This is a painting by james walker of the battle above the clouds. Tell us what it was called that, and romanticized. Just to back into it, this battle is interesting because there are several names it gets. For example the battle above the clouds, and the miracle at Missionary Ridge. It is cloudy in the morning. You cant even see the mountain. It is very cloudy. Foggy. Literally in some places you cant see the top. Union troops are coming up and really it is not much of a battle. The confederates dont give much of a defense. It happens a lot easier. I was going to point out there is another name we dont often remember, but it was one of the little battles at the beginning of the Chattanooga Campaign remember, but it was one of the where the mules charge the confederates and tried the confederates out of the way. You thought this was going to get easier. Just because i mentioned navy goats army mules. I dont know if youre familiar with the term brevet. You raise somebodys rank if they do something heroic. The story went around that when these mules charged by themselves, it drove the confederates away. Somebody suggested that what should happen is that the mules ought to be brevetted as horses. [laughter] we are not ignoring harold. Whatever we want to do. We just talk. The interesting thing is that that is one of the most dramatic episodes that people talk about after the war is over and he gets to be bigger and bigger and more interesting and more exciting. One craig talked briefly. One of the things fascinating by virtue of terrain and personality and improbability and climate weather, its a really interesting event. Its as interesting as gettysburg but it does not get the press. It did for a while. John had a phd student do a study of the founding of Chickamauga National park. It is the first one of all the parks there are, gettysburg in and antietam, the very first one established was chickamauga in recognition of the fact of how important that was. It is the largest of all the National Battlefield parks still to this day. It was at the time i think the soldiers recognized how important it was. It was a gateway to the subsequent Atlantic Campaign which was decisive. I know i am getting ahead now, in getting lincoln a lesson lincoln reelected which was arguably the most important turning point of the war. All that stands in the event that took place here. Sometimes you have heard this of the chickchat campaign. I think in the 100 years since it was founded, then we lost sight little bit of its importance. I would not disagree but its crucial importance at all. I would say eastern newspapers are not only speaking to the largest audience but also creating the news that is picked up in the west. You wouldve thought this was not as extraordinarily important for all the reasons he said. John, we will skip the i want to show this extraordinary photograph. This is Ulysses Grant surveying this area. This is the reality. Cigar in the mouth, looking not very glamorous. This is the way the military painter pretrade him portrayed him on orchard knob. He is watching the action. What do generals do during battles . They dont write charges and they dont storm up the mountains themselves. They look through field glasses and point a lot and send messages. Briefly, because we will be able to take a few audience questions, summarize the importance. Now you can talk about the future all you want. Sherman, anything. Because this picture is on the screen let me point out a lot of people wonder where the terms chickamauga and chattanooga come from. They are indian names. The most commonly referred accepted origin is that chattanooga has something to do with trades making a shoe to sound pretty actually comes from a greek word reading where the rocks come to a point. There it is. Oh. I think i want to mention two things. This question of chattanooga and chickamauga as craig pointed out as one battle under one control. What is interesting about it is there was a big debate and the National Park service at that time in the War Department about how should these battlefields be preserved . Should you preserve everything or just preserve areas that will demonstrate somehow important things about the battle . If you look at chickamauga, that is kind of a traditional battlefield. It has been preserved as a traditional battlefield. Him if you look at Missionary Ridge, what you will find are a lot of houses. Every once in a while there is a small area that has been preserved and now under the control of the National Park service that allegedly tells you a lot about what is happening. Preservationists turned their noses on this idea of what goes on in chattanooga. We have to save everything. Can we are can we not. You dont get much of a feel except the vision the vista is impressive. If any of you have questions, now is the time to take the mics. I want to note, if you do visit Missionary Ridge, there is a road that runs along the crest. Real estate people being real estate people, a lot of houses along that road with disputable vista out from there back porch. But right in front of them is where the confederate positions were. My favorite is the house this is kind of the middle of the line. About the target of thomas attack. About 12 feet from the front door is a canon pointed right at the door. You walk out in the morning to get the paper there it is. Lets start over here, please. I have always been a fan of george thomas, and i know his relationship with grant not improve as the war went on. By your description he was clearly the hero of both of these battles apparently. Certainly at chickamauga, but he took the critical portion of chattanooga too. How would you rate him as a general . I think you could rate him high as a general, and you can rate him low as a general. I think it would depend on what youre talking about. He does some marvelous things, but as craig pointed out, the fact that he still has family in virginia hurts him a great deal. It is also fair to note his two biggest defenders, believe it or not, where grant and sherman. Those were the two got him in the army in the first place. They said we have got to have this guy, he is a good soldier. We knew him from west point. But thomas tro both of them crazy because he was slow in moving. He was a great defensive general but he did not like to go on the offense of. In many ways he is representing the old military and that he has got everything in order before he makes his move. Whereas grant and sherman are much more willing to say lets go and move forward. I agree with that. Im a big fan of george thomas. I think that only was he very almost and dan take in terms of pedantic, but he had a dour demeanor. He was not a general that soldiers through their hats for. Mcclellan was, but he had something about his personality that led soldiers to cheer for him and thomas did not have that. As much as he was restrained in his emotions or whatever because of virginia and antecedents, he had loyalty coming out of virginia. Thank you again, gentlemen. I have a rather simplistic question about general grant. What was there about him that he could get it done . How could grant get it done . That is an excellent question because when most people met grant who had not met him before, this is the guy that is done all these things . Lincoln certainly never met him before. The thing about grant, i think more than anything else that made him a success was he was not flashy. Soldiers did not throw hats in the air for him either, but he was an incredibly determined individual. One of my favorite stories about him is in his memoirs where he talks about the fact he was going to go visit his future wife, julia, before he goes to the mexican war. He hits this stream that normally is nothing. Dry. Now it is a raging torrent. He jumps in with his horse, swims across, says we will get married when i get back. He says i have always had a superstition. Once i began something, i would always complete it. I think that is really the reason why he is so successful as he is. I want to say this about grant. He has a reputation largely because of the campaign in virginia in 1864. Maybe that is another future conversation. He was something of a fullback. I dont want to talk about football. He put on the helmet and bam. That is what made him great. I want to say one more thing about him. His ability to focus and clarity of mind. He wrote the best memoirs of any general, any survivor of that war. If you look at the original manuscript, there is hardly a cross out. He wrote that from his mind to his pen at a time when he was dying of throat cancer. It is brilliant. I want to mention that a particular because next year a new annotated edition of grants memoirs will be out, edited by john. I did not know that. [applause] worth saying too, that he wrote the clearest battlefield instructions. Yes, he did. Lincoln gay grant the option to leave rosencrantz, and he did. I read online this morning that one of the reasons he believed him was because he disliked him. Is that true . And if so, why . That lincoln disliked rosecrans . No, grant disliked him. He does not think rosecrans did a particularly good job at the battle of iq g iuka in mississippi. That he did not do what he ought to have done. Sherman disliked rosecrans enormously. There it was because rosecrans had been in california with sherman and use it as it sherman. When mrs. Sherman was there. Rosecrans was more catholic than the pope. And so was alan sherman. They did a lot of talking about catholicism, theology, and all the rest. Intro sherman nats. It drove sherman nuts. [laughter] a very fast answer for this one. I have an interesting anecdote. My husband is from chattanooga. He grew up on Missionary Ridge. One of those houses . He lived about 100 yards from the big house with the candidate in front cannon in front. He told me as a boy he thought everybody had civil war cannons in their front yard. Thats good. He has also taken me up to par point, that lovely view. It is really pretty amazing. I thought i would share that with you. Terrific. I will end the way i always do with lincoln. After the battle he was invited to give a speech about the war effort and recruitment. He did not go. He did not want to replicate the cooper union experience. He had a wonderful line that perhaps was directed at his recent experience at gettysburg and speaking a mortally there. Thinking of the chickchat campaign. He said, honor to the soldier and sailors everywhere who bravely bears his countrys costs, the braves the storms of heaven and the storms of battle. I think lincoln knew were these battles are won and lost and that is something he understood and still understands. So, thank you all very much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] you are watching American History tv, all weekend every weekend on cspan 3. To join the conversation like us on facebook at cspan history. On lectures and history, u. S. Professoracademy charles dutch teaches a class on and military situation in the south to the fall of 1864. He describes how the president ial election, military engagements in atlanta, and the emancipation proclamation all contributed to to contemporary opinions about whether the civil war should continue. Minutes. Is about 50 charles thank you very much. Take your seats. Last class before thanksgiving break. Well. Today, the topic is the fall of 1864. Ok . You got to listen to a different version of the and this is a northern version by a country singer, who did civil war songs from the north. Probably 1960s, 1970s timeframe. How is this different from the southern version you heard earlier in the semester . What do you think . Extremely somber. Charles somber
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