Worship. Clearly he sometimes felt sensitive about the way in which he was viewed even then. Ways even someer scores with other generals who wore blue in such an artful way that a lot of people take his memoirs at face value instead of thatrative presentation emphasizes some things and things,discuss other such as the rumors of grants drinking. Even if he bought a farm next to where budweiser clydesdales are now housed in st. Louis. He entertained visits from confederate officers including buckner who surrendered to him in 1862. Now he welcomed buckner and messages from other confederates. Foralked about the need harmony and peace even as he reminded people because of the war had been slavery and justice had to be done to the black man. Several of those confederates acted as pallbearers after his death in 1885. Understoodgrant could not define the american civil wars ending at appomattox. That was one stage in a longer struggle. Although there had been achievements and successes there had been shortcomings and failures. Mind as to keep that in we visit battlefields such as this one or as you go to the site of lincolns gettysburg address where it talks about the unfinished work for us. Nt would say the rework the work remain unfinished and his time and it remains unfinished in hours. Ours. Thank you very much. [applause] i believe we have time for some questions. Now you can pepper me to your Hearts Desire and i will try to deflect with my trusty stanley cup. Yes . Murderedral camby was allen west. West andhreat to the on enforcement on reconstruction in the south drawing troops . No. , these are twon major blows coming within 48 hours to his policies. Theres not a major distraction. Heard the, we have military would rather seek service out west. That is where the glory was. It was also where custard went. It didnt have much of an effect, much more significant was the effect of the panic of 1873 and the economic depression which made many people think about their own interests rather than the interests of others. In his memoirsd he didnt mention general lee to a certain degree. Positive praise some others had. I was curious if they did have a history before the war in the mexicanamerican war. Why would he not give due respect to him like he did it appomattox . You can respectfully without the notion that there was a fourth member of the trinity and that was robert e lee. Exaltedought people had lees abilities beyond measure. Someone comes in and says we are being attacked on the flanks. I know what lee is going to do. Grant says this is bad news. Think he is going to do a double somersault and turn on our flanks and our e at the same time. Go back and think about what you are going to do, not what lee is going to do. He solve this veneration of lee. Lee wasnt even sure he remembered it very well. Grant is a lieutenant. He walks into headquarters and there is lee. They were buddies of any sort. Lee was not a man of great humor. The last time they meet, rants president grant is president. Lee comes lobbying for a railroad firm. I know lee, lobbyist. Grant looks at him and says you have more to do with destroying railroads then building them. Lee doesnt last. Doesnt laugh. To you think grants memorial day picks his vision of how he wanted to be remembered after his death or he would make changes to how his memorial was developed . I think rand understood he was crafting how people would remember him. I think grant was also able to admit mistakes. His memoirs admit the final and in at the harbor vicksburg were mistakes. He may not admit the mistakes others want him to admit but i think it is a human grant that comes out in those memoirs. To evenman who wants old scores and wounds that still hurt. I was just wondering. Grant is one of the first president s to expand suffrage. How do you think you change the roles of the presidency . Grant understood before one thing, the president had to work congress. A skilled johnson was lacking. Perhaps his cabinet should be people who support the administration. Not reluctant to use the executive detail detail vet. Veto. Assertiveness. Grant himself was the first United States president to advocate the lineitem veto. There are things grant does that try to rebuild residential power. Would you comment on how grants relationship with the Jewish Community ended up . It did not start off well. It is an order in 1862 during a series of setbacks. Recognizing the smuggling that is going on behind his line, he decides to strike at the people he thinks to be most responsible , jewish folk. By the way. People said if he had just said jewish paddlers were traders that would have been ok. Jewish to exile all people from his command, which to be hisnterpreted own soldiers. Word of this got to washington. Lincoln said you were going to resend it. Is the only charge grant response to during the 1868 campaign. He said that was a mistake in order, a dumb idea. There was a recent book to talk about grant actually did things that jews supported him on. This was a damaging thing and he knew it. He had blown it. He disavowed it was wrong. Grant had the ability to say he was wrong. There are president s who can say they are wrong. There are candidates who say they cant. Orderwas no defending the. Some biographers have tried to explain it gently but grant himself denounced his own act. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, brooks. Have a wonderful evening. We will see you tomorrow morning. On thest session is return of union ventures. [inaudible chatter] that concludes our live coverage from Gettysburg College civil war institutes summer conference on reconstruction and the legacy of the civil war. Onwill air all of the events saturday, june 25 at 8 00 eastern on cspan 3. Every saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern time we feature the civil war and reconstruction. Youre watching American History tv on cspan 3. , on lectures in history andrew wiest and john young teach a class about the vietnam war, focusing on the mekong delta. Professor andrew wiest talks about the area and john young talks about what it was Like Fighting there. Guys know thatu we are talking about the vietnam war. Specifically, we will talk about the war in 1967. Andrew and even more specific, we will be talking about the mekong delta. 1967 was the year when the hisral had his chance for awardwinning plans. We know this war was complicated, going back to the book, no sure victory, it revolves around everything from counterinsurgency, but probably the two biggest words in case you forgot how pretty he looked, and in the commander and chief advisor to the military, as well. The chief aspect of the strategy that most americans know about was surge and destroy, it is sending out u. S. Forces into the lands of vietnam to pin down and destroy the enemy forces, being the North Vietnamese or the viet cong. The first main battle of the vietnam war was in the last lecture, about the battles fought in november of 1965. And it was indicated that we had technological advances that would enable us to achieve some startling victories. First off, the helicopter which is one of these images of the vietnam war, it provided us with a maneuverability. Anywhere the viet cong were found, we could hunt them down. Once we lost them in the battle, we had the technological advances to destroy them, airpower and artillery, usually used around the countryside. And it had worked so well in 1965, you remember we were talking about that, that battle involved at the most one u. S. Battalion and often times just little bits and pieces. They would go into battle and an entire enemy regiment, maybe two of them, this little force though they were vastly outnumbered, the artillery would come in and the helicopters, they had landings hopefully you remember that this is from joeell in galloway, the news correspondent, in the movie. But that Little American force fought that big North Vietnamese force. The numbers are always iffy in vietnam. It depends on how you look at the battles, how much you believe the body count, things like that. It is ok to estimate. 2000 iny lost about that battle, we lost about 250. It was indicated to west moreland that is tactics, once fully implemented, would cost the bad guys, the viet cong, so much that if he replicated the valley a couple of times, they would give up. The butchers bill would be so high, that the North Vietnamese would give up. In 1967, that was the year to test it. 1966, they were bringing in American Forces and by 1967, the efforts after was built. The infrastructure was built. It was time to search and destroy and make this a oneyear war. Up causingd wind them to in the war. End the war. The war in 1967, had been broken down into four separate wars. Up here, the northern part of south vietnam, along here we have the dmz. In that area, the Third Marine Division will be located. Down here in the southern provinces, the first marine division. And also there are two main divisions, first and second, and during the year as the war ramps up, we will see more american troops devoted to this area. This is a war in of itself, unlike the other wars in south vietnam. You are facing across the border, you are facing three divisions of the North Vietnamese. 35,000 regular troops. And there are troops based in areas along the trail the ho chi minh trail, that could threaten from the west. One of the troops one of the things troops refacing, a threat from the court. And what are they have, right across the border . Right across here . That is when you answer the question with something profound and correct. I will give you a hint. Artillery tubes. Hundreds and hundreds of their is artillery, so here conventional war where we do not always have the edge with firepower. Oftentimes, they have andwhelming firepower, most of these will be the seized by enemy artillery fire the siege by enemy artillery fire. So the numbers can get high in the battles fought near the dmz. And we are facing an enemy with almost equal fire support, but they do not have equal air support. Theyhe second war, what are looking at, this is the central highlands. This is a war of the jungle, the rain forest, and uninhabited parts of the country. The enemy here we face is a mixed enemy, there are these areas base areas, the north Vietnamese Forces coming across the border. Sometimes, there is artillery support, but most times not. And in the mountains, often they have special forces camps with troops helping them. So what we have is often a situation in which troops come across the border and take the camps, resulting in a battle. And also viet cong troops that are living in the area, providing more of a guerrilla war. Most troops are on the coastal areas and they react to whatever threat they face coming across the border. But in many ways it was a reactive war, it was a mixed war, that involves both conventional and unconventional warfare. And this is a war entirely his own its own. Here is saigon. And as you can probably figure out, this one was going to be really important. Saigon is the headquarters of the u. S. Forces, a governmental area for the south vietnamese, and it must be kept safe. Cannot be friends they cannot be threatened. Withhis area is abounding threat. And this is what we talked about last time, an enemy based area. You see right there, this is the command structure for the viet cong. It is located in or right outside war zone c. And here is the Enemy Division. Sometimes they were two of them, that could slip across the border, or go back to cambodia for a safe haven. It was a direct route to saigon. It is notrea, d, connected to the trail or a supply network from North Vietnam. So look out close that is to saigon, and it is a viet cong base, it has battalions from time to time. We definitely the last time talked about this, the triangle. Also, a base area. We talked about the war that was father, this was an area that was shot through with tunnels, the area in which a lot of the planning took place, and essentially this is in the suburbs of saigon. Where in 1967, corps isones, the 3 an important part and it will become the focus of the war for at least the beginning of the year. Three operations are run around the iron trying to, in an effort to pacify the area. In many ways, they would see those tunnels remain until we decided to plow them under. Discussedou know, we that they had to pause and she had to present this again, it was a free fire zone. Americans can assume anything moving in that area is an enemy force, and everything in that area is deserving of american firepower. This is a very fought over area. But it remains in many ways under enemy control, at least until 1969. The biggest area for 1967, in the saigon region, is war zone c. We run one of the biggest operations of the entire war, from the operation junction, that is worth looking at, maybe underlining it for your test. It was an 82 day operation beginning in february come in 1967. February, 19 67. 30,000 u. S. Troops, plus at tost another division, go war zone c from both sides. They are trying to pin down the Enemy Division that lives in the area, it is on the ninth viacom 9th viacom division. Viet cong division. Unlike attleboro from the year conge, the had the viet had gotten away, but this time we were not going to let them get away. Paratroopers come in and they tried to seal off the border to cambodia, which is the only escape route. So this operation is going to be what tacticians call a hammer and anvil operation. Airborne troopers will be the and bill, invading anvil, and the 30,000 forces will be the hammer and we will smash the enemy forces. Maybe 23 operations like this could in the war end the war. You tell me though, do we pin down the ninth division, or do they make good on there is good to cambodia . The viet cong will be desperately hard to pin down. They know the area, they lived in this area. They know the ways in and out. The anvil breaks and the viet cong getaway. That is not mean that there is not fighting. And the couple months during this operation, we kill about 3000 enemy forces and we lose about 300. So what is this . A crushing victory that they had hoped for . No, the enemy got away. Still, a good victory. In the number of folks we killed. But it was not a crushing victory, yet. The enemy is elusive and they get away with pretty great regularity. About most concerned today, this area. The mekong delta , the area south of saigon, if you go all the way back to the previous matt. The southernmost map. The southernmost area of the not. Bordered by one of the mightiest rivers. By the time it goes to south vietnam, it is beginning to stagnate and it flows slows, and it becomes nine rivers, and the mekong delta dominates this area. What does it mean for the mekong itself. It was flat. If you are driving around louisiana, same thing. There is waterways everywhere. So the ground and a landscape is flat. This is 40,000 square kilometers of wetlands. Those that have been tamed by the vietnamese population. And you can see it reasonably are on the map, there 600,000 kilometers of rivers, streams, you cannot go anywhere in the area without having to close cross a stream or river. So what does this do for the area . It has highways everywhere. A great transportation network. You have plenty of rivers floating around. And second, it gives me a nontheir most vietnam their most productive soil in the country, the best farming area in the country. Dotted with rice paddies, villages that meander on the banks of the river. And one of these ambiguities of the code is that one of these rice paddies in vietnam. It attracts most of the people, 8 Million People live in this area in 1967, and that is roughly half the population of the country. It produces almost all of their rice, but it is really important to keep them fed. And the fact that the dense population, over 200 inhabitants per square kilometer. That is the same density that massachusetts had at the same time. So what this means, this is the most valuable real estate in the country. It is a population center, whoever has this area will have the edge in the war. And the viet cong certainly knew this. The rivers give them a way to supply themselves with ease. They can move around as quickly as they like, as long as they are floating. And the population gives them a wonderful place to hide. Hide in plain sight among the people, swimming among the population like the fish would in the ocean. This is a perfect set up for a viet cong war, a different war than what they would need in ofer see in other sectors the is not. So viet cong resonate thousands designates thousands of troops in this area. But not all of those 81,000 troops are fighters, some of them are second line fighters, semipolitical operatives, carrying supplies around, some of themlans landmines. Plant landmines. Lived int forget, they this area a long time. Some viet cong lived in the area before that word was invented. Some of them had been men who fought the french and japanese from this area, so they have long connections to this area. They have builtin advantages. The enemy has advantages. The south vietnamese know that this is an important area, so they devote three Infantry Divisions to this area. 40,000. Americansfore the turn up, this will be part of the country where the most runscult, the war once deep. And we cannot really get into this but there is also a kind of different kind of trip troop here, from the army of vietnam. Do not forget, this out of enemies have what we would south vietnamese would happily call the regional guard. They protect provinces, the south the emmys version the enemys version of a state. And those that protect villages and let hamlet. So what are these National Guard guys . We will talk about them later. They are worth noting for a second. And in the hearts and minds of the people, these of the troops that live among the people, they form from the people. It is an important thing. For a war without front lines, and if you have heard anything about vietnam, they did not have front lines. They were all frontlines. They were bobble, they lived vulnerable, they lived in the villages. If you look at who loses the most dead in the war on the allied side, it is the regional forces. It woulde a huge be a huge advantage to build them up. That will be another lecture. But too often they are poorly supplied, poorly fed, poorly trained and motivated. Perhaps this would have been another way that the war could have been one, but perhaps giving them a bit more opportunity. Are forceshave contesting the countryside, and what does it mean . In reality, in 1967 again, the numbers are sw