Been going on for some three years. Massive casualties and losses. Tremendous disaffection in the north with the war. It looked like it would go on forever. Abraham lincoln, of course, is up for reelection. Its important to have battlefield victories for the north and its important to win battles in virginia. Virginia is still the preserve of robert e. Lee and the storied army of Northern Virginia. So lincoln brings east his best general, thats going to be ulysses s. Grant, the general who won all the battles in the west. And he gives grant a basically a twopart requirement. First, to bring organization, to bring continuity to the union war effort. And secondly, to defeat the army of Northern Virginia. And grant goes about making it possible to carry out that charge with a vengeance. First he puts together a program, unlike any that the war has yet seen. He realized that up to this point, battles would last a couple of days, and then the armies would pull apart for months. Grant would
To a pleasant day agenda. Its called political correctness. Its nonsense. You cannot alter the past. You can only learn from it. And believe me, history is the best teacher any of you will ever have. So we have to look back to see where were going, and there is no other guide. So today we look back at the wilderness. We look back with all with reverence and installation. What those men in the north and south gave we all share. We must treasure those sacrifices always as being among our richest possessions. May god continue to bless this land we all call our home. Thank you. [ applause ] [ applause ] the incredible violence of 1864 reflected the immense stakes, and the men in both armies recognized that connection. Before 1864, soldiers might have been under fire for eight hours during an entire year. During the overland campaign, they were sometimes under fire for eight hours or more in a single day. On may 12th, 1864, walter battle of the fourth North Carolina fought just a few hundre
Another. Lee basically takes a waiting game. What is grant going to do. Grant is going to move one way or the other. Lee is uncertain. So he for fits the initiative to his opponent. This is unlike the lee that we usually see. But in this instance he has no choice. He sends his cavalry out past each ends of his lines sort of to act as a trip wire to let him know where the federals are coming from and then waits. The army was commanded by general George Gordon lee, the hero of gettysburg, mead at this point was in a hot seat. He failed to destroy lees army at gettysburg. He was being investigated by congress. We all know how bad that can be. And so mead was in a bad situation. Grant visited him and was impressed by mead, because what mead told grant was that he would step down willingly and let grant bring some of his own people from the west to run the army of the potomac. Grant decided to keep mead on. He needed somebody with meads knowledge of that army in order to run it in detail. A
Nevertheless, while other Union Commanders were failing, grant had climbed steadily up the military ladder with resounding victories, stretching from fort henry in 1862, through vicksburg to Missionary Ridge in 1863. He was clearly the norths man of the hour. When lincoln ordered an east early in 1864 to take command of all federal forces. The somewhere near 500,000 combat ready soldiers grant would have authority over the largest post any american officer had ever led. The new Lieutenant General wasted little time in making his strategic intentions known. In the past, grant asserted, union armies had quote, acted independently and without concept like a bulky team of mules, no two pulling to the. And this allowed confederates to shift men from one sector to the other to meet the most pressing danger. Union generals seemed content to maneuver. But that was not the road to victory, grant announced. The north had far superior numbers, and materiel. It was time to switch games. To stop pl
Although it wasnt quite three times the size of stewarts division, the north or it is a numerical superiority in terms the north always had a numerical superiority in terms of numbers. The north had the advantage of regiment. Gular they squandered by making a decision not to break those regiments up and use them as a trainee nuclear us and the said they kept them together. Therefore, the northern regiments were starting from scratch to spite a pool of professional cavalry men that they may have been able to tap into. The training increased over the course of the war. By 1863, it had two years into the war, it had reached the level where the cavalry was about as trained as it was going to get. Periodlry trooper of any basic recruity secret to competence takes about two years. Some said that they could train an infantry man in the basic skills he needed to be competent as an infantry soldier in about six weeks. Because of the riding and horse related skills come it could take up to two y