All language subtitles for The.Ultimate.Civil.War.Series.S01E06.The.Killing.Fields.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

The armies were now
all ready to move for the

accomplishment of a single
object.

They were acting as a unit so
far as such a thing was

possible over such a vast
field.

Lee, with the capital of the
Confederacy,

was the main end to which all
were working.

Johnston, with Atlanta, was an
important obstacle in the way

of our accomplishing the
result aimed at,

and was therefore almost an
independent objective.

It was of less importance only
because the capture of

Johnston and his army would
not produce so immediate and

decisive a result in closing
the rebellion as would the

possession of Richmond, Lee
and his army.

All other troops were employed
exclusively in support of

these two movements.

In the first years
of the Civil War,

both sides engaged in a
limited war,

with armies focused primarily
on fighting each other.

Though there had been
exceptions,

neither side had made a
practice of destroying

property belonging to
non-combatants.

But by 1864, General Ulysses
S. Grant, along with his General

William Tecumseh Sherman,

and President Abraham Lincoln,
had come to realize that this

strategy was simply prolonging
the war.

To defeat the Confederacy,
they must also target the

Southern economy - private
farms,

factories, and the cities of
the South.

Total war.

So in the late Spring of 1864,
Grant and the Army of the

Potomac lay siege to
Petersburg, Virginia.

Over the next ten months, the
armies there constructed a

series of forts and trenches,
the likes of which would not

be seen again until World War I.

Grant's goal was both the
actual assault on Petersburg -

and then on to Richmond - and
to capture or destroy General

Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia.

At the same time, Grant sent
General William Tecumseh

Sherman to strike out towards
Atlanta,

and towards General Joseph E.
Johnston's Army of Tennessee.

He wrote to Sherman:

You I propose to
move against Johnston's army,

to break it up and to get into
the interior of the enemy's

country as far as you can,
inflicting all the damage you

can against their war
resources.

The capture of
either major Confederate city,

or the destruction or
surrender of either great

Confederate Army, would be a
major turning point in the war.

As Grant said, all other actions
would be in

support of those two major
drives.

One of those supporting
actions was the Valley

Campaign led by Major General
David Hunter.

To deal with Hunter's advance
into the Valley,

Robert E. Lee sent General Jubal
Early.

Early was to drive Hunter out
of the Shenandoah Valley,

and then to move North, in the
Confederacy's third and final

invasion into Union territory.

Lee hoped Early could threaten
Washington, D.C.,

forcing Grant to send troops to
support the capital.

This would weaken Grant's
force in Petersburg,

and give Lee some breathing
room.

Early was campaigning under
the shadow of the late

Stonewall Jackson, whose own
Valley Campaign in 1862

was already legend.

In June, Early defeated Hunter
at the Battle of Lynchburg.

Hunter's force, now low on
supplies,

was forced to withdraw to the
west.

Early pushed through the
Valley,

crossed the Potomac River into
Maryland.

Grant sent two
brigades of the Sixth Corps

north, under Brigadier General
James Ricketts,

to help put the capital into
that "state of preparation."

Wallace's six thousand men
needed to delay Early's

fourteen thousand long enough

for those reinforcements
to arrive.

To achieve that delay, they
would guard the bridges and

fords crossing the Monocacy
River.

Most of Wallace's soldiers
were Hundred Days Men,

who had just enlisted for one
hundred days for the specific

purpose of repelling this
invasion.

They had not yet been in
combat,

and they faced veteran troops.

But at the last minute, the
first contingent of Rickett's

brigades from the Sixth Corps
reached Baltimore.

These veteran units jumped on
trains and rushed to join

Wallace at the Monocacy.

Lieutenant George Davis and
seventy-five of his men from

the 10th Vermont Regiment, of
the Sixth Corps,

were placed with a portion of
a Maryland regiment,

commanded by a Captain Charles
Brown.

Brown and his two hundred men
were inexperienced,

having just recently entered
service.

Davis later described his
experiences on July 9, 1864.

Our orders were
to hold the two bridges across

the river at all hazard, and
prevent

the enemy from crossing...

Other union forces were on the
south bank of the river...

We were the only Union troops
on the north side...

confronted with General
Ramseur's division of

Confederate troops.

When the enemy advanced, about
3:30 A.M.,

along the pike from Frederick
City,

Captain Brown allowed them to
come within fifteen or twenty

rods of our position, thinking
they were Union troops because

dressed in blue clothing which
they had recently

captured at Martinsburg.

I stoutly protested, telling him
our friends were behind us.

He was convinced when one of
his men was killed and several

wounded; then he turned to me
in disgust and insisted upon

my taking command.

I assumed command instantly;
brought up my Tenth Vermonters

to this point, and after a
severe fight of about one hour,

the enemy retired...

The third and last attack
began about 3.30 P.M.

The situation was critical;
the enemy came upon us with

such overwhelming numbers and
desperation that it seemed we

should be swept into the
river...

Nevertheless we fought for
over an hour and kept back a

much larger force than ours...

Lieutenant Davis
received the Medal of Honor

for his defense of the two
bridges,

against repeated assaults of
superior numbers,

which materially delayed
Early's advance on Washington.

Early had won the battle, but
it cost him a day's march.

A delay so crucial that the
Battle of Monocacy is called

the battle that saved
Washington.

Early's force reached the
outskirts of the capital,

near Silver Spring, Maryland,
around noon on July 11.

He sent out his skirmishers to
feel out the fortifications.

Those fortifications were
strong.

But on the 11th, they were
undermanned,

held by Home Guards, clerks,
and wounded soldiers who were

in the capital convalescing.

Despite the insufficient lines
and the threatening

Confederate army, Fort Stevens
received a notable

visitor that day.

President Abraham Lincoln and
his wife Mary Todd Lincoln

visited the wounded in the
fort's hospital.

Jubal Early determined that
his men were too weary from

their recent battle and march.

Add on to that the sweltering
heat of that July day,

and the trenches they faced,
and Early decided to wait a

day before attacking.

That night, the additional
reinforcements sent by Grant

arrived, and added their
considerable strength

to the city's fortifications.

The next day, Early saw that
his chance at capturing

Washington was gone, though he
had been successful in drawing

some of Grant's troops away
from Petersburg and Richmond.

Union and Confederate troops
skirmished during the day,

as Early prepared to leave.

Though the actual battle was
small,

it almost cost the Union
dearly.

President Lincoln, still at
the fort to observe the

attack, came under fire from
sharpshooters.

A surgeon near Lincoln was
shot by a marksman.

The president himself was
ordered to take cover,

reportedly with a brusque,
"Get down, you fool!"

The Union commanders sent a
few veteran brigades out of

the fort, to push the
Confederates back

beyond the fortifications.

That night, under cover of
darkness, Early slipped away.

In March 1864, General Sherman
had been made

commander of Military Division
of the Mississippi,

more commonly called the Army
of the West because it

controlled all Union military
operations

in the Western Theater.

He replaced Grant, when Grant
was promoted to command all of

the Union armies.

Grant trusted Sherman, and the
two worked well together.

Sherman and Grant worked out
an ambitious,

aggressive plan to bring the
war to an end.

Grant would focus on General
Robert E. Lee's army,

centered around
Richmond, Virginia.

For Grant to succeed, Sherman
would need to keep the

Confederate General Joseph E.
Johnston's army tied up,

unable to reinforce Lee.

Sherman's plan to achieve that
was breathtaking in its

simplicity, and its promise of
destruction.

He would march his armies
across Georgia,

and eventually to the Atlantic
Ocean,

laying waste to all
Confederate assets along the

way, including the city of
Atlanta,

the Heart of the South.

The clock was ticking.

In August of 1864, the former
Union commander,

George McClellan, who had been
fired by Lincoln,

was nominated as the
Democratic Party's

candidate for president.

His platform called for peace
negotiations based on the

recognition of the Confederacy's
independence.

It looked bad for Lincoln.

The war had dragged on, there
had been too many Union

losses, and many in the North
just wanted it over.

Grant and Sherman needed to
give Lincoln a clear and

convincing victory, to
convince the people -

the voters - that they would win
the war if they held firm.

War is politics and politics
is war.

Lincoln had made clear that he
would accept no peace with the

Confederacy that did not both
return them to the Union and

require their acceptance of
emancipation.

Much was riding on Sherman's
march on Atlanta.

Sherman's forces set out in late
April of that year,

moving South out of Tennessee
into Georgia.

They stuck with the Western
and Atlantic Railroad as much

as possible, their supply line
back north.

At places like Rocky Face
Ridge and Resaca,

Sherman would repeatedly flank
the Rebel Army,

sending a portion of his
forces around the enemy's

extreme left or right, getting
behind them,

and forcing them to pull back
to their next set of defenses.

For two months, the march
toward Atlanta was hard,

but progress was steady.

Then Sherman reached Kennesaw
Mountain.

Kennesaw Mountain - and the
smaller Little Kennesaw,

and other rocky hills - is about
fifteen miles north of Atlanta.

The battle began at 8 a.m. on
June 27th.

General McPherson's artillery
opened up on Kennesaw,

and the Confederates fired
right back.

Three brigades of the 15th
Corps attacked at Pigeon Hill,

a small bump on Little
Kennesaw Mountain.

They faced Confederate General
Loring's Corps.

The three Union brigades had
about fifty-five hundred men,

attacking about five thousand
Rebels.

But the Confederates were
deeply entrenched,

and the federals were
climbing,

cutting, and crawling through
dense brush and steep,

rocky slopes.

One brigade managed to overrun
the Rebels' rifle pits

but were stopped there.

Caught between Confederate
General Walker's rifles on

their south and Rebel cannons
based on Little Kennesaw,

they were being cut to pieces
and had to fall back.

The other brigades had similar
trouble,

eventually hiding behind trees
and rocks and taking shots at

the Confederate works, which
seemed all but invulnerable.

Finally General Logan himself
rode up to survey the scene,

saw his men were being
butchered for no benefit,

and ordered them to withdraw
and entrench.

General Thomas, charged with
carrying the main attack,

had to delay an hour to give
his infantry time to arrange.

His cannons opened up at 8
a.m.,

but it was another hour before
his infantry could move forward.

Unfortunately for the Union
troops,

the Confederate units holding
the center were the two least

likely to fold under pressure.

Generals Patrick Cleburne and
Benjamin Cheatham were

blooded, veteran commanders
who had seen tough fighting in

prior battles, and emerged
victorious.

They were well-entrenched, and
supported by cannons.

Colonel's McCook and Mitchell
attacked the hill,

but they were cut down.

McCook himself took a fatal
wound.

His replacement ordered a
retreat,

but many of their men were
either unable to retreat,

or unwilling to leave cover to
flee.

Two thousand union troops
surrendered,

while others feigned death to
escape in the night.

At around 10 a.m., the hot
shells and wadding started a

fire in the woods, and wounded
Union soldiers were trapped,

facing a fiery death.

Then Confederate Lt. Colonel
Will Martin made a makeshift

white flag of truce and waved
it, shouting to Union troops to,

"Come and get your wounded,
they are burning to death!

We won't fire till you get
them away!"

And both sides ceased fighting
long enough for Union - and

some Confederate soldiers - to
rescue wounded Union troops.

Once done, fighting resumed.

The only success of the day
was General Schofield's.

While carrying out his orders
to demonstrate on his extreme

right, he found a place where
Sherman's army could move

around the Confederates.

Late that night, Sherman
finally agreed that this was

the best strategy.

Once again, he flanked
Johnston's army,

and once again Johnston felt
forced to withdraw

to a new line of defense.

Johnston continued to fall back
as Union forces

continued to move forward, and
Sherman gathered willing Rebel

prisoners - deserters - by the
hundreds.

Eventually, Jefferson Davis
relieved Johnston of his

command, replacing him with
the more aggressive

General John Hood.

The Confederate force was
unhappy with the change,

not liking to see politicians
pulling down a commander who

had recognized the importance
of keeping his army in the

field and alive.

Johnston's policy of strategic
withdrawal had delayed

Sherman's army at minimal cost
to his own.

Hood's strategy, while more
aggressive,

would be no more successful
and considerably more

hazardous to his troops.

General Hood had lost the use
of his left arm during the

Battle of Gettysburg, and lost
his right leg

in the battle of Chickamagua.

He had lost none of his fight, however.

As Sherman's armies approached
Atlanta,

Hood ordered an assault on
Thomas's forces,

at Peach Tree Creek.

He lost badly, taking around
five thousand casualties to

fifteen hundred on the Union
side.

On that day, July 20, the
first artillery shells

fell on Atlanta.

Hood prepared another attack for
July 22,

this time against McPherson's
Army of the Tennessee.

That morning, Sherman heard
reports of the Confederates

abandoning Atlanta.

But this wasn't a withdrawal.

General Hardee - who was angry
over being passed over for

promotion when Hood was placed
in command - made a wide swing

around McPherson's flank, so
that he could attack

from the south.

But he mis-timed his march,
turning too early and hitting

the sixteenth Corps head on.

The sixteenth held Hardee off,
but not without a cost.

General McPherson, riding
almost alone,

came upon a group of
Confederate soldiers.

They ordered him to surrender,
but he just doffed his hat

and galloped off.

A Confederate sharpshooter
shot him off his horse.

He made it back to Union
lines,

but he was mortally wounded.

In all, the Confederates took
heavier losses,

with almost 2,500 killed and
4,000 wounded to the Union's

500 killed and just over 2,000
wounded.

But the loss of McPherson was
a personal blow

to General Sherman.

When the battle was ended,
Sherman settled himself in

for a siege of Atlanta.

As part of the siege,

Sherman needed to cut off all
railroad lines into the city.

Just as rail lines had served
to keep him supplied on his

march to Atlanta, they now
provided supplies to the city

and more importantly, to
Hood's army.

Sherman tried several raids on
the rail.

The first two were unsuccessful,

one resulting in the capture
of Union cavalry

General George Stoneman.

In mid-August, Sherman tried
again,

sending the cavalry Brigadier
General Hugh Kilpatrick to

tear up the Confederate supply
lines.

After this and the other
failures of the cavalry to

seriously disrupt the rail
into Atlanta,

Sherman decided that cavalry
simply could not

manage this mission.

He planned now to send his
infantry to do the job.

On August 25th, Sherman had held
Atlanta under

siege for over a month.

He ordered six of his seven
divisions,

over sixty thousand men, to
begin moving toward the

Macon and Western Railroad, the
last of the

supply lines into Atlanta.

The Battle of Jonesboro
smashed Hood's men once again

to a terrible effect.

After the battle, General
Hood,

who was still in Atlanta,
feared that Sherman was about

to attack the city.

He suspected that the move on
Jonesboro was a ruse,

designed to draw Confederate
troops out of Atlanta.

The Union forces attacked at
about 4 p.m.

The 14th Corps delivered the
brunt of the attack,

striking the Confederate line
and capturing Brigadier Daniel

Govan and some 600 others.

By night fall, the Confederate
line was pierced in multiple

places, completely overrun.

General Hardee sent a message
to Hood that Jonesboro was

lost, and the railroad cut.

He moved his corps down the
railroad to Lovejoy's Station,

where he entrenched.

That night, Hood ordered the
evacuation of Atlanta.

The next day, September 2nd,
the city belonged to General

William Tecumseh Sherman.

Once taking the city,

Sherman ordered the evacuation
of all remaining citizens.

He corresponded with Hood for
help in arranging the details

of their removal so this
withdrawal,

"may be made with as little
discomfort as possible..."

In late September, General
Hood took his army away from

Atlanta, toward Chattanooga,
Tennessee.

Sherman sent General George
Thomas with a part of his army

to follow, harass, and
ultimately destroy Hood's force.

Meanwhile, the remainder of
Sherman's army rested in what

was left of the prized city.

Sherman kept his army in
Atlanta for almost two and a

half months, while they rested
and healed.

Then he continued his march to
the sea.

He finally cut loose from the
railroad,

and his men were forced to
live off the land.

They cut a path sixty miles
wide and three hundred miles

long, destroying everything of
possible military value

as they passed.

Sherman wrote to Grant, after
they reached Savannah

in mid-December:

We started with about
five thousand head of cattle,

and arrived with over
ten thousand;

of course, consuming mostly
turkeys,

chickens, sheep, hogs, and the
cattle of the country...

The custom was for each
brigade to send out daily a

foraging party of about fifty
men,

on foot, who invariably
returned mounted,

with several wagons loaded
with poultry,

potatoes, etc., and as the
army is composed of about

forty brigades, you can
estimate approximately the

number of horses collected.

Great numbers of these were
shot by my order,

because of the disorganizing
effect on our infantry of

having too many idlers
mounted...

although the result aimed at
was attained...

to deprive our enemy of
them...

Not surprisingly,
there were many complaints

about the seizures of food,
livestock,

and other property by the
invading Union army,

and the people of Georgia
would never forget or forgive

Sherman for the destruction
wrought in the Union's name.

One of those people was Mrs.
Dolly Lunt Burge,

a widow who had inherited
about a hundred slaves

from her husband.

Her plantation was about
thirty miles east of Atlanta

during Sherman's march to the
sea.

She wrote of the experience of
Yankee soldiers seizing food,

supplies, and slaves from her
and her neighbors.

...like
demons they rush in...

To my smoke-house, my dairy,
pantry,

kitchen and cellar, like
famished wolves they come,

breaking locks and whatever is
in their way.

The thousand pounds of meat in
the smokehouse is gone in a

twinkling, my flour, my meat,
my lard,

butter, eggs, pickles...

wine, jars, and jugs are all
gone.

My eighteen fat turkeys, my
hens,

chickens, and fowls, my young
pigs are shot down in my yard

and hunted as if they were
rebels themselves.

Utterly powerless I ran out
and appealed to the guard.

"I cannot help you, Madam;" he
said, "it is orders."

...my dear old buggy-horse... old
Mary, my brood mare...

my two-year old mule, and her
last little baby colt.

There they go!

There go my mules, my sheep,
and, worse than all, my boys!

Sherman's army
stripped everything it could

find as it moved and continued
its March to the Sea.

It finally reached the
Atlantic Ocean at Savannah,

Georgia in December 1864.

He then turned north, marching
through South Carolina and

North Carolina, adding pressure
to Lee's army in Virginia.

Trailing behind his army on
the way to Savannah were

thousands of freed slaves.

Sherman had been exasperated
by these slaves,

who needed to remain near the
army to stay free,

but they were a drag on
resources.

His men traded food with the
freed slaves,

in exchange for their work in
camp.

At the same time, Sherman
discouraged them from

following his army.

Sherman and some of his
generals were accused of

treating the freedmen poorly.

Sherman later explained that
certain hard decisions

had to be made in war.

Whatever the reason or excuse
with regard to individual

incidents, these accusations,
combined with Sherman's own

derisive comments about black
soldiers in the Union army,

served to make Sherman look
more like the plundering

invader described by Georgians
like Dolly Burge,

and less like the liberator of
Georgia's slaves.

But as Sherman himself would
later say, "War is Hell."

Sherman's record with regard to
treatment of

freed slaves and black
soldiers shows that racist

attitudes were not limited to
the south.

But it does not compare with
the official policy

of the Confederacy.

On January 12, 1863, less than
two weeks after the

Emancipation Proclamation, the
Confederate Congress gave its

response: All white officers
leading black troops would be

"deemed as inciting servile
insurrection,

and sentenced to death.

Slaves captured in arms
against the Confederacy would

be turned over to the civil
authorities of the state,

to be handled as slaves in
rebellion.

The Confederacy's policy did
not change.

Former slaves captured in war
would be returned to their

masters, where they would face
horrific punishment.

Their white officers faced
execution.

No black soldiers suspected of
being fugitive slaves would be

exchanged for other prisoners.

Lincoln's administration was
outraged at the Confederacy's

refusal to include black troops
in its prisoner exchanges.

In response, Lincoln halted
all prisoner exchanges.

The population of the POW
camps on both sides grew far

beyond the governments'
capacities to manage them

safely and humanely.

But Lincoln's administration
refused to,

as General Butler put it,
"barter away the honor and

faith of the Government of the
United States,

which has so solemnly been
pledged to the colored

soldiers in its ranks."

Many black soldiers, even
after surrendering to

Confederate troops, would
neither suffer in rebel

prisoner camps nor be
re-enslaved.

Instead they faced summary
execution

on the field of battle.

The most notorious such
incident was at Fort Pillow,

where, on April 12, 1864,
rebel forces under the command

of Major General Nathan
Bedford Forrest killed dozens

of black soldiers - and their
white officer -

after their surrender.

An African-American cook at
Fort Pillow described the scene.

They just
called them out like dogs,

and shot them down.

I reckon they shot about
fifty,

white and black, right there.

They nailed some black
sergeants to the logs,

and set the logs on fire.

A Confederate
soldier,

Achilles Clark, offered a
similar description

in a letter to his sister:

The slaughter
was awful.

Words cannot describe the
scene.

The poor, deluded, negroes
would run up to our men,

fall down upon their knees,
and with uplifted hands scream

for mercy but they were
ordered to their feet

and then shot down.

I, with several others, tried
to stop the butchery,

and at one time had partially
succeeded,

but General Forrest ordered
them shot down like dogs

and the carnage continued.

Finally our men became sick of
blood and the firing ceased.

The war's slaughter
grew in the west,

and in the eatern theater of
the war...

By June, Grant and his
generals were in the

Richmond-Petersburg area, and
were digging trenches.

Throughout June and July 1864,

the Union and Confederate
armies battled each other in

the trenches around
Petersburg.

Grant didn't want a siege, after
his experience at Vicksburg.

It sapped the sieging army's
morale, and cost it dearly.

At the end of July, the Union
Army undertook an ambitious

operation that they hoped
would lead to the fall of

Petersburg and a quicker end
to the war.

Coal miners in a Pennsylvania
regiment had dug a long

mineshaft under Confederate
lines,

ending under a Confederate
battery.

The plan was to pack gunpowder
under the battery,

and then blow it open.

In the resulting confusion,
Union troops would rush into

the gap that the explosion
would create

in the Confederate lines.

Major General Burnside's plan
was to send in two brigades of

the United States Colored
Troops,

under Brigadier General
Ferrero,

to lead the assault.

Those brigades trained
specifically for this task,

to be ready to handle the
confusion that would surely

result from the explosion.

One would go around the crater
on the right, one on the left.

They would seize key strategic
positions,

while Burnside followed behind
with troops

to head to Petersburg.

But at the last moment, Major
General Mead ordered that the

black brigades not be used to
lead the assault,

claiming that if the assault
failed and the black troops

were killed, there would be
too much political fallout.

The white troops who were
given the task were weary from

manning the front lines for
weeks.

Their commander was
undistinguished,

and there were rumors that he
was a drunk.

The massive explosion in the
mine killed hundreds of

Confederate troops, and so
stunned the others that they

did not direct concentrated
fire on the enemy

for fifteen minutes.

Unfortunately, the Union
troops newly assigned to lead

attack were unprepared for the
explosion,

and waited ten minutes before
leaving their own trenches.

And when they reached the site
of the explosion,

rather than go around it, they
went into the crater

and used it as a rifle pit.

By this time, the Confederates
had regrouped and began firing

down into the pit.

It was, to quote Confederate
Brigadier General William

Mahone, a "turkey shoot."

Although the plan had failed,
Burnside did not recall

the white troops.

Instead he sent in the USCT
brigades to help.

But now, it was impossible to
go around the crater,

as the flanking fire from the
enemy was too great.

The black troops were driven
into the pit as well. Trapped.

For the next few hours, the
men in the pit,

black and white, were
slaughtered by Confederate

rifle and artillery fire.

Panicked soldiers trampled
their own men in a desperate

effort to escape.

Eventually Union troops were
able to draw Confederate

forces away so that survivors
could escape the pit.

But the Union lost fifty-three
hundred men in that battle,

about half from the USCT.

Grant would later testify:

General Burnside wanted
to put his colored division

in front, and I believe if he
had done so

it would have been a success.

Still I agreed with General
Meade as to his objections

to that plan.

General Meade said that if we
put the colored troops in

front [we had only one
division] and it should prove

a failure, it would then be
said and very properly,

that we were shoving these
people ahead to get killed

because we did not care
anything about them.

While Grant, Meade,
and Butler maneuvered against

Lee in Central Virginia, and
Sherman marched against

Johnston on his way to
Atlanta,

Grant still needed someone to
deal with Jubal Early in the

Shenandoah Valley.

After turning from Washington
in mid-July,

Early defeated a Union force
outside of Winchester, Virginia.

He pushed Brigadier General
George Crook out of the

Valley, and back across the
Potomac.

He sent a cavalry raid up into
Pennsylvania,

burning Chambersburg.

Grant needed a new commander
in the Valley,

who could take on Early and
fight.

He selected General Phillip
Sheridan.

Sheridan and Early maneuvered
around each other for a month,

before Sheridan struck, on
September 19,

near Winchester, Virginia.

Early's forces were dispersed,
but Sheridan brought his full

forty-thousand man force.

The yankees pushed the rebels
back,

marking a turning point in the
war in the Valley.

Sheridan, still commanding a
force three times the size of

Early's, defeated the
Confederates again

at Fisher's Hill a few days
later.

Early withdrew his troops to
Waynesboro.

With Early's forces withdrawn,
Sheridan's began a march down

the Valley that seemed a
prelude to Sherman's March

to the Sea, that would take
place two months later.

His army burned crops, mills,
barns,

and factories which locals
would long after call

"the burning":

It was important for the Union
to make sure Early's forces

were not reinforced.

Not only did Grant seek to pin
Lee's forces to Richmond,

he was also hoping Lee would
move some of the troops

defending Petersburg up to
defend

the Confederate capital.

The Tenth and Eighteenth Corps
were both part of the Army of

the James, commanded by
Benjamin Butler.

Butler recommended that
Brigadier General Charles

Paine's USCTs lead the
attacks,

wanting to give the troops a
chance to show their worth.

On September 29, 1864, three
brigades of USCTs crossed the

James River at Deep Bottom,
and soon took heavy fire

from Confederate defenders.

The rifle and artillery fire
was intense,

and the Confederates were
protected by marshy land

and thick breastworks.

The brigades made multiple
attempts to break through the

lines, only to be repulsed or
pinned down.

But they kept hammering, and
eventually

the defenders fell back.

In a little over an hour of
fighting,

Paine's USCTs took eight
hundred casualties.

As their white officers fell,
black sergeants and corporals

took command and led their
companies forward.

Their determination and valor
earned the Medal of Honor for

fourteen of the
African-American soldiers.

Meanwhile, west of New Market
Heights,

the Eighteenth Corps was
assaulting Fort Harrison.

They were able to take the
fort, but go no further.

Lee shifted his forces,
reinforcing his lines

north of the James.

A Confederate counter-attack
on September 30th failed,

and the armies settled into
the trench warfare on this

new line, closer to Richmond.

But as Grant had hoped, Lee
shifted troops from Petersburg

to defend this threat to the
Confederate capital.

But Grant's hope that the
actions would keep Early from

being reinforced in the valley
proved false.

The valley was so
very important,

however, to the Confederate
army that,

contrary to our expectations,
they determined to make one

more strike, and save it if
possible before the supplies

should be all destroyed.

Reinforcements were sent
therefore to Early...

While Sheridan was
in Washington meeting with the

War Department in mid-October,
Early positioned himself to

attack Sheridan's forces at
Cedar Creek,

about twenty miles south of
Winchester. Grant writes:

Sheridan having left
Washington on the 18th,

reached Winchester that night.

The following morning he
started to join his command.

He had scarcely gotten out of
town,

when he met his men returning
in a panic from the front.

Jubal Early's Army
of the Valley had launched a

brilliantly successful surprise
attack before dawn

on October 19th.

Seven Union infantry divisions
had been pushed back,

as the Confederate forces
swept up prisoners

and seized artillery.

Sheridan was now running into
the panic-stricken,

routed troops who were now in
full retreat.

The Battle of Cedar Creek was
an overwhelming

Confederate victory.... Or so it
seemed.

the road... was
thickly lined with unhurt men,

who, having got far enough to
the rear to be out of danger,

had halted, without any
organization,

and began cooking coffee, but
when they saw me they

abandoned their coffee, threw
up their hats,

shouldered their muskets, and
as I passed along turned to

follow with enthusiasm and
cheers.

Early, having
seemingly won the day by ten

a.m., had called a halt to the
advance.

His men plundered the Union
camp, and moved no further.

By four p.m., Sheridan had
whipped his own army back into

shape, and smashed into
Early's line.

As Early's left flank
faltered,

Union General George Armstrong
Custer - yes,

that Custer - drove his
cavalry around and into the

rear of the Confederate
forces,

threatening their escape route
across Cedar Creek.

As they withdrew, a bridge
collapsed,

preventing the rebels from
carrying either the captured

Union guns or even most of
their own.

Early blamed the defeat on his
men,

but his officers blamed the
decision to call a halt after

their initial success in the
morning.

Regardless, the battle had
turned from a humiliating rout

of the Union forces, into a
crushing blow to the

Confederate war effort.

They would never again command
the Shenandoah Valley in the

same way, nor threaten the
north with invasion.

Sheridan's success in the
Valley, and the capture

of Atlanta, turned the tide in
the election of 1864.

He had faced both the
Democratic candidate -

the former commander of the Army
of the Potomac,

General George McClellan - and
a challenger within his own

party, General John Fremont.

Fremont was supported by
Radical Republicans who were

impatient with his actions so
far against slavery.

Fremont eventually saw that
the Democratic Party's

willingness to pursue peace at
almost any cost meant that

dividing the anti-slavery vote
could mean disaster

for the abolitionist cause.

He withdrew his nomination and
endorsed Lincoln in September

as part of a back-room
political deal,

and, not coincidentally, after
Sherman had captured Atlanta.

Dolly Lunt Burge, the widow
who wrote of Sherman's

soldiers plundering her
plantation on their march to

the sea, wrote on the day of
the election:

Today will
probably decide

the fate of the Confederacy.

If Lincoln is re-elected I
think our fate will be a hard

one, but we are in the hands
of a merciful God,

and if He sees that we are in
the wrong,

I trust that He will show it
unto us.

Lincoln - and his
running-mate,

Andrew Johnson - won
fifty-five percent of the

popular vote, and ninety-one
percent of the electoral vote.

With Lincoln's re-election -
the trajectory of the war

would not abate.

The vice would continue to
close,

and an end was fast approaching
for the Confederacy.

Actions around Petersburg and
Richmond continued through the

fall, and even into winter.

A series of skirmishes and
smaller battles were

occasionally producing
victories for the Confederacy,

but were wearing away at Lee's
resources.

September through December
1864,

brought the campaign and
battles of Franklin and

Nashville, also known as
Hood's Tennessee Campaign.

Hood hoped to be able to
finally defeat and turn back

north the two Union Armies
under the command of Major

Generals John Schofield and
George H. Thomas

before they could converge and
join forces.

At the Battle of Spring Hill
on November 29th,

confusingly coordinated
Confederate attacks did little

to slow the Union advance and
the next day,

Hood's Confederates mimicked
Longstreet's Assault at the

Battle of Gettysburg more than
a year earlier with a series

of futile frontal assaults
against entrenched Union

troops in the sad, destructive
Battle of Franklin.

Hood's men, bled and battered
and suffered,

but General Schofield still
advanced and successfully

linked with General Thomas' Army
in Nashville, Tennessee.

December 15th and 16th brought
another bloody conflict -

the Battle of Nashville where
this combined Union Army

attacked Hood's depleted ranks
and routed and drove these

Confederates into a retreat
into Mississippi and

effectively out of the war.

Winter in the Virginia, Grant
and Lee locking horns

in a siege of Richmond and
Petersburg, passed slowly.

By March of 1865, the Army of
Northern Virginia had been

seriously weakened.

After four years of war, rebel
soldiers were worn down.

Food shortages and disease had
taken their toll,

and more men were disappearing
in the night,

leaving behind a shrunken
army.

Lee now had about fifty-thousand
men in Petersburg.

Grant had more than twice that
number.

And things were about to get
worse for Lee.

Sheridan's force had just
beaten Early for good,

at the Battle of Waynesboro,
which meant that Sheridan and

fifty-thousand more Union
soldiers were likely on the

march to support Grant.

And while Sheridan was coming
from the Valley,

Sherman was coming up from the
Carolinas.

Should all these Union forces
converge on Petersburg,

Lee would be outnumbered four
to one.

Lee ordered what would be the
last real attempt

to break the siege.

On March 25, Major General
John Gordon led about twelve

thousand men in a surprise
pre-dawn assault against the

Union right flank, at Fort
Stedman.

The initial assault was
successful,

the men capturing the fort.

Many of his hungry soldiers
took the opportunity to eat

Union rations that were left
behind.

But once nearby Union
artillery realized that their

men were clear of Fort
Stedman,

they turned all their fire
upon it.

The Confederates were driven
out, taking heavy casualties.

The fort was retaken.

Despite its initial success,
the assault on Fort Stedman

cost Lee's army another four
thousand casualties,

four times the number on the
Union side.

And Lee simply could not
afford these losses.

More losses were to come.

Sheridan was now less than
twenty miles southwest of

Petersburg, trying to flank
Lee's defensive line.

On a rainy, muddy March 31st,
Confederate Major General

George Pickett's infantry and
Major General Fitzhugh Lee's

cavalry divisions drove
Sheridan's cavalry corps back

off of its advance.

Fighting elsewhere, and muddy
conditions,

prevented infantry support
being sent to Sheridan.

But Pickett didn't follow his
successful assault

with another strike.

He pulled back to the
intersection called

Five Forks, and received a
dispatch from Robert E. Lee

that he was to "Hold Five Forks
at all hazards."

General Grant
directed me to go to Sheridan

and explain what was taking
place...

I found Sheridan a little
north of Dinwiddie Court

House, and gave him an account
of matters on the left of the

Army of the Potomac.

He said he had had one of the
liveliest days in his

experience, fighting infantry
and cavalry with cavalry only,

but that he was concentrating
his command on the high ground

just north of Dinwiddie, and
would hold that position

at all hazards.

He did not stop here, but
becoming more and more

animated in describing the
situation and stating his

views and intentions, he
declared his belief that with

the corps of infantry he
expected to be put under his

command he could take the
initiative the next morning

and cut off the whole of the
force that Lee had detached.

He said:

This force is... cut
off from Lee's army,

and not a man in it should ever
be allowed to get back to Lee.

We at last have drawn the
enemy's infantry out of its

fortifications, and this is
our chance to attack it.

At 4 p.m., the Union
assault began.

But faulty intelligence led to
one infantry division missing

the Confederate line entirely,
and the other,

under Major General Ayres, was
exposed to flanking fire.

Sheridan now
began to exhibit those traits

that always made him such a
tower of strength in the

presence of the enemy.

He put spurs to his horse and
dashed along in front...

from left to right, shouting
words of encouragement...

The battle - soon
known as "The Waterloo of the

Confederacy" - was a tragic
defeat for Lee's men,

and General Pickett's loss in
prisoners was untenable.

The general, as
was expected,

asked his usual question:

"How many prisoners have been
taken?"

This was always his first
inquiry when an

engagement was reported.

No man ever had such a fondness
for taking prisoners...

much better to win in this way

than by the destruction of human
life.

I was happy to report that the
prisoners this time were

estimated at over five
thousand,

and this was the only part of
my recital that seemed to call

forth a responsive expression
from his usually

impassive features.

The jubilant Union
command guessed correctly

that Sheridan's success at Five
Forks was the beginning

of the end.

The next day Union troops
would break through the

Petersburg line, and both
Petersburg and Richmond -

the capital of the Confederacy -
would be abandoned.

In less than ten days' time,
Grant and Lee would face

each other at Appomattox Court
House.

A meeting that would lead to
joyful celebrations

all across the North.

Celebrations that would end
with a bullet.

Joy that would turn to
mournful rage,

and a desire for retribution,
as the nation moved from

Civil War to Reconstruction.

With malice toward
none,

with charity for all, with
firmness in the right as God

gives us to see the right, let
us strive on to finish the

work we are in, to bind up the
nation's wounds,

to care for him who shall have
borne the battle,

and for his widow, and his
orphan to do all which may

achieve and cherish a just,
and lasting peace,

among ourselves, and with all
nations.