1 00:00:14,980 --> 00:00:17,920 "I have just this moment heard from the front. 2 00:00:18,020 --> 00:00:20,130 "There is nothing yet of a movement, 3 00:00:20,180 --> 00:00:22,920 "but each side is continually on the alert, 4 00:00:22,970 --> 00:00:25,170 "expecting something to happen. 5 00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:26,920 "To think 6 00:00:26,970 --> 00:00:30,320 "we are to have here soon what I have seen so many times," 7 00:00:30,370 --> 00:00:34,850 "the awful loads and trains and boatloads of bloody and pale," 8 00:00:34,950 --> 00:00:36,900 "and wounded young men again." 9 00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:41,030 "For that is what we certainly will have. I see all the signs here." 10 00:00:41,500 --> 00:00:43,070 Walt Whitman. 11 00:00:47,610 --> 00:00:49,420 Men's beliefs... 12 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:53,210 has startling simplicity to it. 13 00:00:53,810 --> 00:00:57,220 For example, a soldier in line at Gettysburg told, 14 00:00:57,270 --> 00:01:00,870 "You will advance a mile across that open valley and take that hill." 15 00:01:01,630 --> 00:01:03,640 I, for one, would say, 16 00:01:03,740 --> 00:01:06,240 "General, I... I don't think we should do this." 17 00:01:06,290 --> 00:01:08,290 "I don't believe we can get there." 18 00:01:08,340 --> 00:01:11,660 But they, they... they took it in the matter of course. 19 00:01:11,710 --> 00:01:14,760 And you must remember they fought for four years, which is a... 20 00:01:14,810 --> 00:01:18,270 a long time, and this simplicity was severely tested, 21 00:01:18,320 --> 00:01:19,800 but they never lost it. 22 00:01:20,420 --> 00:01:23,350 They... they... duty, 23 00:01:24,630 --> 00:01:28,430 bravery under adversity, very simple virtues, 24 00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:29,830 and they had them. 25 00:01:54,880 --> 00:01:57,770 In 1864, a rebellion in China 26 00:01:57,820 --> 00:02:01,560 that cost twenty-million lives finally came to an end. 27 00:02:02,990 --> 00:02:06,820 In 1864, the Czar's armies conquered Turkistan, 28 00:02:06,870 --> 00:02:09,420 and Tolstoy finished War and Peace. 29 00:02:11,990 --> 00:02:16,270 In 1864, Louis Pasteur pasteurized wine, 30 00:02:16,540 --> 00:02:20,940 the Geneva Convention established the neutrality of battlefield hospitals, 31 00:02:21,350 --> 00:02:22,890 and Karl Marx 32 00:02:22,940 --> 00:02:25,740 founded the International Workingmen's Association 33 00:02:25,790 --> 00:02:27,600 in London and New York. 34 00:02:29,630 --> 00:02:31,680 Nevada became a state, 35 00:02:33,060 --> 00:02:35,730 and for the first time, the words, "In God We Trust" 36 00:02:35,780 --> 00:02:37,640 appeared on a US coin. 37 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,640 In 1864, the Civil War was in its fourth year. 38 00:02:46,700 --> 00:02:49,100 Union ships controlled the Mississippi. 39 00:02:49,150 --> 00:02:51,200 The Union blockade was tightening. 40 00:02:51,250 --> 00:02:53,200 Lee had been beaten at Gettysburg. 41 00:02:53,250 --> 00:02:55,600 Vicksburg and Chattanooga had fallen. 42 00:02:56,410 --> 00:02:58,670 As Confederate hopes began to dim, 43 00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:01,160 Union objectives became clear: 44 00:03:01,260 --> 00:03:04,010 Attack the heart of the Confederacy at Atlanta 45 00:03:04,210 --> 00:03:07,540 and destroy Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. 46 00:03:08,860 --> 00:03:11,720 But there was still no real end in sight. 47 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:14,530 As Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant 48 00:03:14,590 --> 00:03:17,160 prepared to confront each other for the first time, 49 00:03:17,590 --> 00:03:19,830 neither knew what awaited their armies 50 00:03:19,880 --> 00:03:22,880 along a 100-mile crescent east of Richmond. 51 00:03:23,900 --> 00:03:26,330 To win, one would have to out think 52 00:03:26,390 --> 00:03:28,250 as well as outfight the other. 53 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:35,980 In 1864, for the first time in history, 54 00:03:36,030 --> 00:03:39,860 a nation would try to hold an election in the midst of civil war. 55 00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:42,750 After three-and-a-half years of war, 56 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:45,460 Abraham Lincoln's prospects for reelection 57 00:03:45,630 --> 00:03:47,340 did not seem bright. 58 00:03:49,830 --> 00:03:54,110 For Elisha Hunt Rhodes, stuck in the Union trenches outside Petersburg, 59 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,180 the war stretched on interminably. 60 00:03:58,930 --> 00:04:02,440 To Confederate Sam Watkins at Franklin, Tennessee, 61 00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:06,680 it seemed "the death angel was there to gather its last harvest." 62 00:04:08,040 --> 00:04:10,800 That same year, William Tecumseh Sherman, 63 00:04:10,850 --> 00:04:13,610 now in command of the Union's western armies, 64 00:04:13,660 --> 00:04:17,530 would set out through the mountains of Georgia for Atlanta. 65 00:04:21,190 --> 00:04:23,030 Lieutenant Washington Roebling, 66 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:25,370 who thought he'd seen the worst at Gettysburg, 67 00:04:25,420 --> 00:04:28,820 came close to losing his faith in the Union cause. 68 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:34,540 In Washington, a sometime poet, Walt Whitman, 69 00:04:34,590 --> 00:04:37,630 worked as a nurse in the crowded Union hospitals 70 00:04:37,750 --> 00:04:39,850 until they overwhelmed him. 71 00:04:45,400 --> 00:04:49,470 In 1864, the pictures that would come back from the war 72 00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:52,960 would be too horrible to look at for years to come. 73 00:04:58,490 --> 00:05:01,470 "It is enough to make the whole world start 74 00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:05,590 "at the awful amount of death and destruction that now stalks abroad. 75 00:05:05,740 --> 00:05:07,980 "I begin to regard the death and mangling 76 00:05:08,030 --> 00:05:10,960 "of a couple of thousand men as a small affair," 77 00:05:11,010 --> 00:05:13,010 "a kind of morning dash," 78 00:05:13,060 --> 00:05:16,850 "and it may be well that we become hardened." 79 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:22,060 "The worst of the war is not yet begun." 80 00:05:22,730 --> 00:05:24,830 William Tecumseh Sherman. 81 00:05:40,940 --> 00:05:44,080 In early 1864, Spotswood Rice, 82 00:05:44,130 --> 00:05:46,330 a slave on a tobacco plantation, 83 00:05:46,380 --> 00:05:49,120 escaped and made his way to Glasgow, Missouri, 84 00:05:49,170 --> 00:05:51,490 where he enlisted in the Union army. 85 00:05:52,260 --> 00:05:56,120 "Benton Barracks Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri. 86 00:05:57,100 --> 00:05:58,580 "My children, 87 00:05:58,890 --> 00:06:02,280 "A few lines to let you know that I have not forgot you 88 00:06:02,330 --> 00:06:05,090 "and that I want to see you as bad as ever. 89 00:06:05,350 --> 00:06:08,100 "I feel confident that I will get you. 90 00:06:09,060 --> 00:06:12,090 "Your Miss Kitty said that I tried to steal you, 91 00:06:12,360 --> 00:06:15,180 "but I let her know that God never intended for man 92 00:06:15,230 --> 00:06:17,520 "to steal his own flesh and blood." 93 00:06:18,230 --> 00:06:20,940 "I once thought that I had some respect for them," 94 00:06:20,990 --> 00:06:23,630 "but now my respect is worn out." 95 00:06:23,730 --> 00:06:27,190 "And I have no sympathy for slave-holders." 96 00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:29,810 Spotswood Rice. 97 00:06:34,840 --> 00:06:37,670 "The Willard Hotel may be much more justly called" 98 00:06:37,720 --> 00:06:39,920 "the center of Washington and the Union" 99 00:06:39,970 --> 00:06:43,220 "than either the Capitol, the White House, or the State Department." 100 00:06:43,390 --> 00:06:45,600 "Everybody may be seen there." 101 00:06:45,770 --> 00:06:47,690 Nathaniel Hawthorne. 102 00:06:48,460 --> 00:06:51,830 On the afternoon of March 8th, 1864, 103 00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:54,290 a stubby, rumpled man made his way across 104 00:06:54,340 --> 00:06:56,950 the crowded lobby of Willard's Hotel. 105 00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,700 A fourteen-year-old boy carrying a satchel 106 00:06:59,870 --> 00:07:01,610 followed in his wake. 107 00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:04,280 He didn't have his three stars on yet because 108 00:07:04,330 --> 00:07:07,040 he wasn't going to get his commission until the next day, 109 00:07:07,090 --> 00:07:10,870 but he just walked up to the desk and asked for a room, and 110 00:07:11,120 --> 00:07:13,720 there had been a great many generals in and out of Willard's. 111 00:07:13,770 --> 00:07:16,090 Practically all of them had been in and out of Willard's. 112 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:18,770 And the desk clerk said he... 113 00:07:18,820 --> 00:07:21,970 "Well, I've got something up on the top floor, if that will do," 114 00:07:22,020 --> 00:07:23,670 and Grant said, "That would do fine." 115 00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:26,420 And he gave him the register to sign, and Grant signed it, 116 00:07:26,470 --> 00:07:28,860 and when the clerk looked down and saw "U. S. Grant" 117 00:07:28,910 --> 00:07:32,960 "and son, Galena, Illinois," his eyes bugged out of his head. 118 00:07:34,220 --> 00:07:37,360 Word spread quickly that the man Lincoln had recently placed 119 00:07:37,410 --> 00:07:40,940 at the head of all the Union armies was in the hotel, 120 00:07:40,990 --> 00:07:43,690 and when he and his son entered the crowded dining room, 121 00:07:43,740 --> 00:07:46,170 everyone stood and cheered. 122 00:07:48,700 --> 00:07:53,010 Afterwards, he strolled two blocks up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, 123 00:07:53,060 --> 00:07:56,110 where President and Mrs. Lincoln were giving a reception. 124 00:07:57,830 --> 00:08:00,610 "I wish to express my entire satisfaction 125 00:08:00,660 --> 00:08:02,570 "with what you have done up to this time," 126 00:08:02,620 --> 00:08:04,870 "so far as I can understand it." 127 00:08:05,220 --> 00:08:07,950 "The particulars of your plans I neither know" 128 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:09,650 "nor seek to know." 129 00:08:09,830 --> 00:08:11,440 Abraham Lincoln. 130 00:08:12,900 --> 00:08:17,000 Three years earlier, Grant had been notable only for his failures. 131 00:08:17,050 --> 00:08:20,900 Now he was the conqueror of Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga 132 00:08:20,950 --> 00:08:24,400 come to Washington to receive the rank of lieutenant general, 133 00:08:24,420 --> 00:08:26,870 last held by George Washington. 134 00:08:31,210 --> 00:08:35,200 He had command, now, of 533,000 men, 135 00:08:35,250 --> 00:08:37,550 the largest army in the world. 136 00:08:52,310 --> 00:08:56,210 "I want to push on as rapidly as possible to save hard fighting. 137 00:08:56,450 --> 00:08:59,590 "These terrible battles are very good things to read about 138 00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:02,040 "for persons who lose no friends, 139 00:09:02,390 --> 00:09:04,920 "but I am decidedly in favor of having 140 00:09:04,970 --> 00:09:06,920 :As little of it as possible. 141 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:09,870 "The way to avoid it is to push forward." 142 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:11,830 Ulysses S. Grant. 143 00:09:15,620 --> 00:09:18,830 Hiram Ulysses Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, 144 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:21,700 on April 27th, 1822. 145 00:09:22,470 --> 00:09:24,920 His father, Jesse, ran a tannery, 146 00:09:24,970 --> 00:09:27,820 and its stench was one of his first memories. 147 00:09:28,560 --> 00:09:31,270 He was sensitive and withdrawn with people, 148 00:09:31,310 --> 00:09:33,240 but wonderful with horses. 149 00:09:33,510 --> 00:09:36,260 His father thought him hopelessly impractical 150 00:09:36,310 --> 00:09:38,670 and got him an appointment to West Point. 151 00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:42,620 A clerk mistakenly registered the boy as Ulysses S. Grant 152 00:09:42,670 --> 00:09:45,380 and rather than complain, he lived with it. 153 00:09:46,270 --> 00:09:48,200 His friends called him Sam. 154 00:09:54,710 --> 00:09:57,580 He was graduated in the middle of his class. 155 00:09:57,740 --> 00:10:00,520 The next year he was engaged to Julia Dent, 156 00:10:00,570 --> 00:10:02,860 the daughter of a Missouri slave owner. 157 00:10:03,170 --> 00:10:06,550 He adored her, and she bore him four children. 158 00:10:09,010 --> 00:10:12,760 Grant thought the Mexican War wicked but went anyway. 159 00:10:12,820 --> 00:10:16,260 "I considered my supreme duty was to my flag," he wrote, 160 00:10:16,310 --> 00:10:20,020 and served bravely in battle, riding alone through a hail of enemy fire 161 00:10:20,070 --> 00:10:22,400 to bring ammunition to his men. 162 00:10:25,750 --> 00:10:29,580 After the war, the army sent him to a remote California outpost, 163 00:10:29,630 --> 00:10:32,180 where, lonely and miserable without his family, 164 00:10:32,230 --> 00:10:34,070 he began to drink. 165 00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:36,060 "Dear Julia, 166 00:10:36,210 --> 00:10:40,360 "I sometimes get so anxious to see you and our children 167 00:10:40,410 --> 00:10:42,720 "that I am almost tempted to resign 168 00:10:42,770 --> 00:10:46,480 "and trust to Providence and my own exertions for a living." 169 00:10:47,050 --> 00:10:50,200 "Whenever I get to thinking up the subject, however," 170 00:10:50,450 --> 00:10:53,040 "poverty, poverty" 171 00:10:53,090 --> 00:10:55,640 "begins to stare me in the face." 172 00:10:57,700 --> 00:11:01,910 In 1854, he left the army and returned east to rejoin Julia 173 00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:04,900 and work a piece of land his father-in-law had gave him. 174 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:09,370 He called it "hardscrabble farm" and could not make a go of it. 175 00:11:10,330 --> 00:11:13,660 He tried bill-collecting, real estate, raising potatoes, 176 00:11:13,710 --> 00:11:16,110 even peddling firewood in the street. 177 00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:17,640 Nothing worked. 178 00:11:17,990 --> 00:11:20,200 One year, in St. Louis, he pawned his watch 179 00:11:20,250 --> 00:11:22,750 to buy Christmas presents for his family. 180 00:11:23,950 --> 00:11:26,150 He had been reduced to working as a clerk 181 00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:28,960 in his father's harness shop in Galena, Illinois, 182 00:11:29,010 --> 00:11:30,620 when the war began. 183 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:35,240 As a West Point graduate, Grant was a scarce commodity. 184 00:11:35,710 --> 00:11:38,950 He reentered the army and never looked back. 185 00:11:39,670 --> 00:11:42,910 "In this season, I saw energies in Grant." 186 00:11:42,960 --> 00:11:45,700 "He dropped a stooped-shouldered way of walking" 187 00:11:45,750 --> 00:11:47,940 "and set his hat forward on his head" 188 00:11:47,990 --> 00:11:49,810 "in a careless fashion." 189 00:11:50,530 --> 00:11:52,440 John A. Rawlins. 190 00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:57,040 He was promoted to brigadier general, 191 00:11:57,090 --> 00:12:01,140 won a small battle at Belmont, Missouri, then a big one at Fort Donelson 192 00:12:01,190 --> 00:12:04,880 at a time when other northern generals were going down to defeat. 193 00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:10,880 "His soldiers do not salute him. 194 00:12:10,930 --> 00:12:14,600 "They only watch him with a certain sort of familiar reverence. 195 00:12:14,970 --> 00:12:18,300 "They observe him coming and, rising to their feet," 196 00:12:18,350 --> 00:12:21,250 "gather on each side of the way to see him pass;" 197 00:12:21,560 --> 00:12:25,690 "no Napoleonic displays, no ostentation, no speech," 198 00:12:25,860 --> 00:12:28,330 "no superfluous flummery." 199 00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:32,660 He was distinctly unglamorous 200 00:12:32,710 --> 00:12:34,740 and had only one personal attendant, 201 00:12:34,790 --> 00:12:37,340 a runaway Missouri slave named Bill. 202 00:12:37,390 --> 00:12:41,510 He didn't like marching bands and could recognize only two tunes: 203 00:12:41,580 --> 00:12:43,650 "one was Yankee Doodle," he said, 204 00:12:43,670 --> 00:12:45,330 "and the other wasn't." 205 00:12:46,290 --> 00:12:48,810 He insisted that his meat be cooked dry 206 00:12:48,860 --> 00:12:52,870 because even a suggestion of blood on his plate made him sick. 207 00:12:53,580 --> 00:12:57,080 Once, on the eve of a battle in which thousands of men would die, 208 00:12:57,130 --> 00:13:00,130 he had a teamster tied to a tree for six hours 209 00:13:00,180 --> 00:13:02,050 for mistreating a horse. 210 00:13:04,420 --> 00:13:06,790 He was methodical, dogged, 211 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:09,830 and uncommonly clearheaded under fire. 212 00:13:10,590 --> 00:13:14,330 Grant, the general, has many qualities, but 213 00:13:14,380 --> 00:13:16,280 he had a... 214 00:13:16,330 --> 00:13:18,990 a thing that's very necessary for a great general. 215 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:20,540 He had what they call 216 00:13:20,590 --> 00:13:22,970 "four o'clock-in-the-morning courage." 218 00:13:23,020 --> 00:13:25,780 You could wake him up at four o'clock in the morning and tell him that 219 00:13:25,820 --> 00:13:29,550 they had just turned his right flank and he would be as cool as a cucumber. 220 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:32,760 He had an ability to concentrate. A good example of that is, 221 00:13:32,810 --> 00:13:36,130 he would be working at his desk, bent over writing, 222 00:13:36,180 --> 00:13:39,800 and he would need something across the room, a document or something. 223 00:13:39,850 --> 00:13:42,690 He would get up and never get out of that crouched position, 224 00:13:42,740 --> 00:13:44,700 go over there and pick up the document he'd need, 225 00:13:44,740 --> 00:13:48,310 come back to his desk and sit down again without ever having straightened up. 226 00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:50,890 It's an example of how he could concentrate. 227 00:13:51,560 --> 00:13:54,960 He drank bourbon, and he got drunk easily. 228 00:13:55,480 --> 00:13:58,820 A Galena neighbor, John Rawlins, was made his Chief of Staff 229 00:13:58,870 --> 00:14:01,670 and took it upon himself to keep Grant sober. 230 00:14:04,250 --> 00:14:06,850 Grant never got drunk when his wife was around. 231 00:14:06,900 --> 00:14:10,120 It was only two conditions Grant would drink under: 232 00:14:10,170 --> 00:14:13,820 one was, his wife wasn't there, and the other was there wasn't anything going on. 233 00:14:13,870 --> 00:14:17,710 He went on a true bender during the Vicksburg campaign, 234 00:14:17,760 --> 00:14:19,670 but it was when nothing was happening. 235 00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:21,450 It was as if he... 236 00:14:21,500 --> 00:14:24,490 whether it was anything sexual about his wife being out of touch, 237 00:14:24,540 --> 00:14:27,340 I'm not too sure about, but I do know 238 00:14:27,390 --> 00:14:29,360 that it was boredom that would... 239 00:14:29,410 --> 00:14:31,210 that would make him drink. 240 00:14:32,530 --> 00:14:36,060 Now he traveled south to Meade's headquarters at Brandy Station 241 00:14:36,110 --> 00:14:37,750 near Culpeper, Virginia, 242 00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:40,550 the largest Union encampment of the war. 243 00:14:42,820 --> 00:14:44,460 "April 19. 244 00:14:44,510 --> 00:14:49,030 "Yesterday, the 6th Corps was reviewed by Lieutenant General U. S. Grant. 245 00:14:49,790 --> 00:14:51,720 "He is a short, thickset man" 246 00:14:51,770 --> 00:14:54,400 "and rode his horse like a bag of meal." 247 00:14:54,860 --> 00:14:57,360 "I was a little disappointed in the appearance," 248 00:14:57,640 --> 00:14:59,700 "but I liked the look of his eye." 249 00:15:00,530 --> 00:15:02,490 Elisha Hunt Rhodes. 250 00:15:04,580 --> 00:15:08,300 "We all felt at last that the boss had arrived." 251 00:15:09,010 --> 00:15:10,940 While Grant conferred with Meade, 252 00:15:10,990 --> 00:15:14,850 members of his staff described Grant's triumphs in the west. 253 00:15:15,370 --> 00:15:18,680 Veterans of the Army of the Potomac were not impressed. 254 00:15:19,250 --> 00:15:21,020 "That may be," one said, 255 00:15:21,070 --> 00:15:23,330 "but Grant never met Bobby Lee." 256 00:15:35,910 --> 00:15:39,200 "Can anybody say they know the general?" 257 00:15:40,220 --> 00:15:41,680 "I doubt it." 258 00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:44,810 "He looks so cold, quiet," 259 00:15:45,290 --> 00:15:47,090 "and grand." 260 00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:51,200 "I think that Lee should have been hanged. 261 00:15:51,250 --> 00:15:53,760 "It was all the worse that he was a good man" 262 00:15:53,810 --> 00:15:57,310 "and a fine character and acted conscientiously." 263 00:15:57,380 --> 00:15:59,310 "It's always the good men" 264 00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:02,020 "who do the most harm in the world." 265 00:16:02,430 --> 00:16:04,050 Henry Adams. 266 00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:09,090 Lee is, one of the most difficult people to talk about 267 00:16:09,130 --> 00:16:11,180 because he's been immortalized, 268 00:16:11,230 --> 00:16:13,760 or as they call him now, some people, "the marble man." 269 00:16:13,810 --> 00:16:18,120 He's been dehumanized by the glory and the worship. 270 00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:23,250 He was a warm, outgoing man, 271 00:16:23,300 --> 00:16:26,760 always had time for any private soldier's complaint. 272 00:16:27,820 --> 00:16:32,240 Once a northern soldier being marched to the rear as a prisoner 273 00:16:32,290 --> 00:16:35,060 complained to Lee in person that someone had taken his hat, 274 00:16:35,110 --> 00:16:36,830 and he said, "that man got it," and 275 00:16:36,880 --> 00:16:39,230 Lee made the man give him his hat back. 276 00:16:40,820 --> 00:16:43,980 The man Grant faced across the Rapidan River in Virginia 277 00:16:44,030 --> 00:16:47,840 came from a family as celebrated as Grant's was obscure. 278 00:16:48,910 --> 00:16:51,640 Robert E. Lee was born in 1807 279 00:16:51,740 --> 00:16:54,580 at Stratford in Westmore land County, Virginia, 280 00:16:54,630 --> 00:16:56,450 and was raised by his mother. 281 00:16:56,920 --> 00:17:00,340 She taught him to revere General Washington, a neighbor remembered, 282 00:17:00,390 --> 00:17:04,180 "to practice self-denial and self-control" in all things. 283 00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:07,009 His father, "Light Horse Harry" Lee, 284 00:17:07,010 --> 00:17:10,340 had been a friend and favorite lieutenant of George Washington. 285 00:17:10,980 --> 00:17:14,540 But Light Horse Harry also squandered two wives' fortunes 286 00:17:14,590 --> 00:17:17,440 before deserting his family for the West Indies. 287 00:17:19,460 --> 00:17:23,400 At West Point, Robert E. Lee did not earn a single demerit. 288 00:17:23,570 --> 00:17:26,520 Classmates called him "the marble model," 289 00:17:26,570 --> 00:17:29,350 but liked him in spite of his perfection. 290 00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,910 He was graduated second in his class in 1829. 291 00:17:35,580 --> 00:17:39,450 In 1831, he married Martha Washington's granddaughter, 292 00:17:39,500 --> 00:17:41,110 Mary Custis. 293 00:17:41,210 --> 00:17:43,120 She bore him seven children 294 00:17:43,170 --> 00:17:47,010 and endured his long absences as best she could. 295 00:17:48,230 --> 00:17:51,370 The mansion at Arlington with its 250 slaves 296 00:17:51,420 --> 00:17:54,010 was her home before it was his. 297 00:17:55,730 --> 00:17:58,680 Appointed to the prestigious Corps of Engineers, 298 00:17:58,730 --> 00:18:02,200 he was three times promoted for bravery during the Mexican war, 299 00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:05,420 where he once met a young Ulysses S. Grant. 300 00:18:06,390 --> 00:18:09,720 Superintendent of West Point, captor of John brown, 301 00:18:09,780 --> 00:18:13,730 he was at the start of the war the nation's most promising soldier. 302 00:18:15,300 --> 00:18:19,300 In 1861, Lee refused command of the Union army 303 00:18:19,350 --> 00:18:21,660 and followed his state out of the Union, 304 00:18:21,710 --> 00:18:24,740 not because he approved of slavery or secession, 305 00:18:24,790 --> 00:18:28,590 but because he believed his first duty was to Virginia. 306 00:18:31,100 --> 00:18:34,000 "I did only what my duty demanded." 307 00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:39,220 "I could have taken no other course without dishonor." 308 00:18:40,470 --> 00:18:42,810 "The man who stood before us 309 00:18:42,910 --> 00:18:45,460 "was the realized King Arthur. 310 00:18:45,560 --> 00:18:48,660 "The soul that looked out of his eyes was as honest 311 00:18:48,710 --> 00:18:51,710 "and fearless as when it first looked out on life. 312 00:18:52,150 --> 00:18:55,200 "One saw the character as clear as crystal," 313 00:18:55,250 --> 00:18:57,040 "without complication," 314 00:18:57,140 --> 00:18:58,700 "and the heart" 315 00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:02,500 "as tender as that of ideal womanhood." 316 00:19:04,590 --> 00:19:09,070 A Union girl watching Lee ride past her Pennsylvania home said, 317 00:19:09,220 --> 00:19:11,470 "I wish he were ours." 318 00:19:13,460 --> 00:19:16,770 Early in the war, he was ridiculed as "the king of spades" 319 00:19:16,820 --> 00:19:19,000 because of his fondness for entrenching 320 00:19:19,100 --> 00:19:22,900 and "granny Lee" because of his gray hair and strict ways. 321 00:19:24,450 --> 00:19:26,840 But after he drove McClellan off the peninsula, 322 00:19:26,890 --> 00:19:28,810 stopped Pope at second Manassas, 323 00:19:28,860 --> 00:19:30,900 demolished Burnside at Fredericksburg, 324 00:19:30,950 --> 00:19:33,080 and destroyed Hooker at Chancellorsville, 325 00:19:33,180 --> 00:19:35,460 all despite overwhelming odds, 326 00:19:35,580 --> 00:19:38,580 he won the unshakable confidence of Jefferson Davis 327 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:42,090 and the unqualified love of his officers and men. 328 00:19:42,460 --> 00:19:44,700 He is a very great general, 329 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:49,590 and, he's superb on both the offensive and the defensive. 330 00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:54,660 He took long chances, but he took them because he had to. 331 00:19:54,810 --> 00:19:57,170 If Grant had not had superior numbers, 332 00:19:57,220 --> 00:20:00,100 he might have taken chances as long as Lee took. 333 00:20:00,270 --> 00:20:04,130 The only way to win was with long chances, and it made him brilliant. 334 00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:09,160 No one ever called him "Bobby Lee" to his face. 335 00:20:09,210 --> 00:20:12,470 His men called him "Marse Robert" or "Uncle Robert." 336 00:20:12,740 --> 00:20:16,640 He had a terrible temper, which he worked all his life to control. 337 00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:20,520 When angered, his icy stare was unforgettable. 338 00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:25,270 There was a young man brought before him for some infraction of the rules, 339 00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:28,460 and can you imagine being brought before General Lee for 340 00:20:28,660 --> 00:20:30,300 having broken the rules? 341 00:20:30,350 --> 00:20:32,800 And the young man was trembling, and Lee said, 342 00:20:32,850 --> 00:20:35,400 "You need not be afraid. You'll get justice here," 343 00:20:35,450 --> 00:20:38,720 and the young man said, "I know it, General. That's what I'm scared of." 344 00:20:42,300 --> 00:20:45,610 He referred to the Union Army as "those people" 345 00:20:45,660 --> 00:20:47,310 rather than as "the enemy." 346 00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:50,500 Now "those people" had a new commander 347 00:20:50,660 --> 00:20:52,710 whom Lee had not tested. 348 00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:09,460 When Grant began his spring campaign of '64, 349 00:21:09,670 --> 00:21:12,630 he took what they called "the heavies", 350 00:21:12,780 --> 00:21:16,670 the heavy artillerymen out of the forts in Washington and put them in the field. 351 00:21:16,890 --> 00:21:19,090 And many had been in the army two or three years 352 00:21:19,140 --> 00:21:21,650 and never had heard a shot fired in anger, 353 00:21:21,700 --> 00:21:24,850 and as these units marched into camp, 354 00:21:25,020 --> 00:21:28,700 they were so much larger than the combat regiments that 355 00:21:28,750 --> 00:21:31,020 soldiers alongside the road used to say, 356 00:21:31,070 --> 00:21:33,820 "What division is that?" There were so many of them, 357 00:21:33,990 --> 00:21:37,370 But they had some fierce things. The first time they'd go into combat, 358 00:21:37,530 --> 00:21:39,810 they'd have a mangled corpse, 359 00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:42,080 artillery casualty, 360 00:21:42,130 --> 00:21:44,460 by the side of the road with a blanket over him, 361 00:21:44,620 --> 00:21:47,310 and as the new green regiments came abreast 362 00:21:47,360 --> 00:21:49,650 of him, they'd whisk the blanket off and say, 363 00:21:49,710 --> 00:21:52,240 "this is what's waiting for you up ahead." 364 00:21:52,510 --> 00:21:55,260 Not a... not a... not a very pleasant story. 365 00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:02,090 "To get possession of Lee's army was the first object." 366 00:22:02,140 --> 00:22:06,030 "With the capture of his army, Richmond would necessarily follow." 367 00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:09,780 "It was better to fight him outside his stronghold than in it." 368 00:22:10,150 --> 00:22:11,780 Ulysses S. Grant. 369 00:22:23,660 --> 00:22:27,550 "This advance by General Grant inaugurated the seventh act" 370 00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:29,560 "in the 'on-to-Richmond' drama" 371 00:22:29,610 --> 00:22:31,900 "played by the armies of the Union." 372 00:22:32,460 --> 00:22:34,300 General John B. Gordon. 373 00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,670 "That man Grant will fight us every day and every hour" 374 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:42,760 "till the end of the war." 375 00:22:43,220 --> 00:22:45,310 General James Longstreet. 376 00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:50,730 Grant's plan called for four simultaneous blows. 377 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,050 William Tecumseh Sherman had orders to strike out 378 00:22:54,100 --> 00:22:56,150 from Chattanooga for Atlanta. 379 00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:00,630 Franz Sigel would advance up the Shenandoah Valley. 380 00:23:01,700 --> 00:23:05,140 Benjamin Butler was to lead an army up from the James River, 381 00:23:06,460 --> 00:23:09,880 and George Gordon Meade was to lead the army of the Potomac, 382 00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:14,260 110,000 strong, south against Lee. 383 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:19,790 "Wherever Lee goes, you will go also," 384 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:21,400 Grant told Meade, 385 00:23:21,450 --> 00:23:23,660 and Grant would come along, too. 386 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,300 Lee's strategy was unchanged: 387 00:23:27,370 --> 00:23:30,850 destroy the Union resolve to wage war. 388 00:23:31,310 --> 00:23:33,690 He would refuse to fight Grant in the open, 389 00:23:33,740 --> 00:23:36,560 force him to attack fortified Confederate positions, 390 00:23:36,610 --> 00:23:39,520 and thereby offset Grant's superior numbers. 391 00:23:40,540 --> 00:23:44,490 The bloody cost of trying to force the South back into the Union at gunpoint 392 00:23:44,540 --> 00:23:47,200 would bolster antiwar sentiment in the North. 393 00:23:49,570 --> 00:23:53,950 "If we can break up the enemy's arrangements early and throw him back," 394 00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,210 "he will not be able to recover his position or his morale" 395 00:23:57,260 --> 00:23:59,740 "until the presidential election is over," 396 00:24:00,660 --> 00:24:03,860 "and then we shall have a new president to treat with." 397 00:24:04,380 --> 00:24:06,320 General James Longstreet. 398 00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:15,240 "April 1st, 1864. 399 00:24:15,860 --> 00:24:18,950 "The president came down to Culpeper to review the army. 400 00:24:19,050 --> 00:24:21,980 "The president was mounted on a fractious horse. 401 00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:25,730 "Soon after the march began, his tall hat fell off, 402 00:24:25,990 --> 00:24:30,130 "his pantaloons slipped up to the knees, showing his white homemade drawers, 403 00:24:30,180 --> 00:24:32,310 "which presently slipped up also, 404 00:24:32,410 --> 00:24:35,200 "revealing a long, hairy leg." 405 00:24:35,420 --> 00:24:38,300 "While we were inclined to smile, we were" 406 00:24:38,700 --> 00:24:41,350 "very much chagrined to see our poor president" 407 00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:44,620 "compelled to endure such... torture." 408 00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:46,510 Washington Roebling. 409 00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:51,610 "On the morning of May 4th, 1864, 410 00:24:51,710 --> 00:24:55,070 "we, with the entire grand Army of the Potomac, 411 00:24:55,120 --> 00:24:57,530 "were in motion toward the Rapidan. 412 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:01,680 "The dawn was clear, warm, and beautiful. 413 00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,860 "As the almost countless encampments were broken up, 414 00:25:05,910 --> 00:25:10,880 "with bands in all directions playing lively airs, banners waving, 415 00:25:10,980 --> 00:25:14,830 "regiments, brigades, and divisions falling into line." 416 00:25:15,290 --> 00:25:18,290 "The scene, even to eyes long familiar" 417 00:25:18,340 --> 00:25:20,390 "with military displays," 418 00:25:20,630 --> 00:25:23,380 "was one of unusual grandeur." 419 00:25:24,340 --> 00:25:26,700 Chaplain A. M. Stewart. 420 00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:31,290 Lee's 60,000 men were waiting for Grant 421 00:25:31,340 --> 00:25:33,910 in the tangled thicket known as "the Wilderness," 422 00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:36,660 in which they had trapped the same army under Joseph Hooker 423 00:25:36,710 --> 00:25:38,320 only a year before. 424 00:25:39,980 --> 00:25:42,140 "Covered by a dense forest 425 00:25:42,190 --> 00:25:45,450 "almost impenetrable by troops in line of battle, 426 00:25:45,610 --> 00:25:48,920 "the undergrowth was so heavy that it was scarcely possible to see" 427 00:25:48,970 --> 00:25:51,470 "more than 100 yards in any direction." 428 00:25:51,690 --> 00:25:53,910 "The movements of the enemy could not be observed" 429 00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,500 "until the lines were almost in collision." 430 00:25:58,170 --> 00:26:00,000 Advance units of the Union army 431 00:26:00,050 --> 00:26:03,440 camped for the night on the old Chancellorsville battlefield, 432 00:26:03,490 --> 00:26:07,200 where winter rains had washed open the shallow graves. 433 00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,780 "In glades they meet skull after skull 434 00:26:12,830 --> 00:26:14,640 "where pine cones lay; 435 00:26:15,060 --> 00:26:18,300 "the rusted gun; Green shoes full of bones; 436 00:26:18,350 --> 00:26:21,180 "the moldering coat and cuddled-up skeleton, 437 00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:23,660 "and scores of such. 438 00:26:24,430 --> 00:26:26,740 "Some start as in dreams," 439 00:26:26,950 --> 00:26:29,280 "and comrades lost bemoan." 440 00:26:29,790 --> 00:26:33,750 "By the edge of these wilds, Stonewall had charged," 441 00:26:33,850 --> 00:26:37,290 "but the year and the man were gone." 442 00:26:42,910 --> 00:26:45,720 "It grew dark, and we built a fire." 443 00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:48,160 "The dead were all around us." 444 00:26:48,210 --> 00:26:52,570 "Their eyeless skulls seemed to stare steadily at us." 445 00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:57,350 "The trees swayed and sighed gently in the soft wind." 446 00:26:57,520 --> 00:26:59,680 Private Frank Wilkeson. 447 00:27:04,700 --> 00:27:07,930 The Battle of the Wilderness began in chaos. 448 00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:11,630 Units got lost, fired on their own comrades. 449 00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,890 Officers tried to navigate by compass. 450 00:27:27,830 --> 00:27:32,050 But on the second day, Union forces drove through the Confederate center. 451 00:27:32,950 --> 00:27:34,660 As a worried Lee watched, 452 00:27:34,710 --> 00:27:38,750 General John Gregg's Texans hurried to plug up the hole. 453 00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:44,330 "Scarce had we moved a step when General Lee, in front of the whole command," 454 00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,130 "raised himself in his stirrups, uncovered his gray hairs," 455 00:27:48,180 --> 00:27:50,370 "and with an earnest voice exclaimed." 456 00:27:50,420 --> 00:27:52,950 "Texans always move them!" 457 00:28:00,620 --> 00:28:04,040 "Never before in my lifetime did I ever see such a scene 458 00:28:04,090 --> 00:28:07,210 "as was enacted when Lee pronounced these words. 459 00:28:07,610 --> 00:28:11,490 "A yell rent the air that must have been heard for miles around." 460 00:28:11,660 --> 00:28:14,100 "A courier riding by my side with tears" 461 00:28:14,150 --> 00:28:16,430 "coursing down his cheeks, exclaimed," 462 00:28:16,530 --> 00:28:19,880 "I would charge Hell itself for that old man." 463 00:28:21,100 --> 00:28:24,750 The Texans held the position until reinforcements came. 464 00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,720 By the end of the day, the Confederates had smashed Grant's right, 465 00:28:29,770 --> 00:28:32,360 seized two generals and 600 prisoners, 466 00:28:32,410 --> 00:28:35,160 and come close to cutting the Union supply line. 467 00:28:45,210 --> 00:28:48,670 Grant received these reports without comment. 468 00:28:49,830 --> 00:28:52,880 Right in the middle of the Battle of the Wilderness, all the staff men 469 00:28:52,930 --> 00:28:56,420 who had been fighting in the east all this time... and he had just come from the west... 470 00:28:56,470 --> 00:29:00,280 kept talking about "Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee. He will do this and do that other," 471 00:29:00,330 --> 00:29:03,090 and Grant finally told them, "I'm tired of hearing about Bobby Lee." 472 00:29:03,140 --> 00:29:06,260 "You'd think he was going to do a double-somersault and land in our rear." 473 00:29:06,310 --> 00:29:08,116 "Quit thinking about what he's going to do to you" 474 00:29:08,140 --> 00:29:11,110 "and think about what you're going to do to him. Bring some guns up here." 475 00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,390 Things like that. Grant's... he's wonderful. 476 00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:19,620 The Wilderness is probably not the bloodiest battle in the war, 477 00:29:19,790 --> 00:29:24,280 but the most terrible battle in the war in many ways. 478 00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:28,370 Grant in two days loses more men 479 00:29:28,420 --> 00:29:31,160 than hooker did... did at Chancellorsville. 480 00:29:31,810 --> 00:29:33,540 But in the Wilderness, 481 00:29:34,510 --> 00:29:39,120 the leaves from the previous year cover the ground, 482 00:29:39,170 --> 00:29:41,780 and using the type of weapon they used in the Civil War, 483 00:29:41,830 --> 00:29:45,680 you have lots of lint and linen 484 00:29:45,780 --> 00:29:49,030 smoldering, falling into the leaves, 485 00:29:49,130 --> 00:29:52,040 and it will set these leaves afire, 486 00:29:52,900 --> 00:29:55,120 and men who have 487 00:29:55,370 --> 00:29:58,020 been shot badly through the bowels, 488 00:29:58,530 --> 00:30:00,440 with broken legs, 489 00:30:00,950 --> 00:30:04,890 will not be able to move as the fire starts burning toward them, 490 00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:08,110 and large numbers of wounded men will perish 491 00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:09,860 in the flames. 492 00:30:12,310 --> 00:30:15,000 Grant's first move had been a disaster. 493 00:30:15,050 --> 00:30:18,080 The Wilderness had cost 17,000 men. 494 00:30:18,690 --> 00:30:22,260 That night, brush fires raged through the woods. 495 00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,040 Two-hundred wounded federal soldiers 496 00:30:25,140 --> 00:30:27,750 burned alive, while the entrenched armies 497 00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,050 listened to their screams. 498 00:30:31,220 --> 00:30:33,740 "I am holding my breath in awe" 499 00:30:33,790 --> 00:30:38,160 "at the vastness of the shadow that floats like a pall over our heads." 500 00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:43,560 "It is come that man has no longer an individual existence," 501 00:30:43,830 --> 00:30:48,330 "but is counted in thousands and measured in miles." 502 00:30:48,950 --> 00:30:50,800 Clara Barton. 503 00:30:52,470 --> 00:30:55,910 In the Wilderness, surgeons amputated limbs without letup 504 00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:57,960 for more than 100 hours 505 00:30:58,010 --> 00:31:02,510 and sent back behind the lines 2,000 wounded men each day. 506 00:31:03,870 --> 00:31:06,340 "As a wounded man was lifted on the table, 507 00:31:06,390 --> 00:31:10,120 "often shrieking with pain as the attendants handled him, 508 00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,100 "the surgeon quickly examined the wound and resolved 509 00:31:13,150 --> 00:31:15,380 "upon cutting off the wounded limb. 510 00:31:15,940 --> 00:31:18,040 "Some ether was administered, 511 00:31:18,090 --> 00:31:22,560 "the surgeon snatched his knife from between his teeth, wiped it rapidly once or twice 512 00:31:22,610 --> 00:31:24,970 "across his bloodstained apron, 513 00:31:25,020 --> 00:31:26,970 "and the cutting began." 514 00:31:27,870 --> 00:31:30,030 "The operation accomplished," 515 00:31:30,130 --> 00:31:33,980 "the surgeon would look around with a deep sigh, and then..." 516 00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:35,750 "'Next.'" 517 00:31:35,950 --> 00:31:37,610 Carl Schurz. 518 00:31:40,050 --> 00:31:43,890 "The Wilderness was a useless battle" 519 00:31:44,060 --> 00:31:46,400 "fought with great loss" 520 00:31:46,450 --> 00:31:48,500 "and no result." 521 00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:51,290 Washington Roebling. 522 00:31:53,850 --> 00:31:55,770 Grant, in the Wilderness... 523 00:31:55,820 --> 00:31:58,879 after that first night in the Wilderness... went to his tent, 524 00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,930 broke down, and cried very hard. 525 00:32:02,330 --> 00:32:06,090 Some of the staff members said they'd never seen a man so unstrung, 526 00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,360 but he didn't cry until the battle was over, 527 00:32:08,410 --> 00:32:11,510 and he wasn't crying when it began again next day. 528 00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,880 What was different about Grant became clear the next morning 529 00:32:17,050 --> 00:32:19,280 when he gave the order to march. 530 00:32:19,550 --> 00:32:21,760 For the first time after a defeat, 531 00:32:21,810 --> 00:32:24,920 the army of the Potomac was moving forward. 532 00:32:26,490 --> 00:32:27,850 "May 7." 533 00:32:28,020 --> 00:32:31,150 "If we were under any other general except Grant," 534 00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:33,070 "I should expect a retreat," 535 00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,800 "but Grant is not that kind of soldier." 536 00:32:36,070 --> 00:32:38,150 Elisha Hunt Rhodes. 537 00:32:41,610 --> 00:32:44,540 "Our spirits rose," one Union man remembered. 538 00:32:44,590 --> 00:32:47,630 "We marched free. The men began to sing." 539 00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,180 "Ulysses," another soldier said, 540 00:32:50,230 --> 00:32:52,180 "don't scare worth a damn." 541 00:33:05,470 --> 00:33:08,800 "General Grant is not going to retreat." 542 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,640 "He will move his army to Spotsylvania." 543 00:33:11,810 --> 00:33:16,220 "I am so sure of his next move that I have already made arrangements." 544 00:33:17,690 --> 00:33:21,350 He knew what Grant was going to do because he could make himself Grant 545 00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,520 for long enough to figure out what Grant would do in a situation. 546 00:33:25,780 --> 00:33:28,520 When, they fired, let's see, 547 00:33:28,570 --> 00:33:31,760 five or six generals before they got to Grant... 548 00:33:31,830 --> 00:33:34,820 and by the time they let McClellan go, Lee said, 549 00:33:34,870 --> 00:33:37,330 "I'm afraid they're gonna keep making these changes" 550 00:33:37,380 --> 00:33:39,910 "until they get someone I don't understand." 551 00:33:42,170 --> 00:33:45,510 They never got anyone he didn't understand, but 552 00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,000 they finally got Grant, who knew how to whip him and did. 553 00:33:52,770 --> 00:33:56,860 In the first years of the war, battle was bloody but sporadic; 554 00:33:56,910 --> 00:34:00,060 from now on, it would be waged without a break. 555 00:34:00,530 --> 00:34:04,900 From the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, it would not stop for thirty days. 556 00:34:05,860 --> 00:34:07,820 It was, one soldier wrote, 557 00:34:07,870 --> 00:34:11,970 "living night and day within the valley of the shadow of death." 558 00:34:16,860 --> 00:34:18,420 "May 8. 559 00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,460 "The dreadful work is beginning again. 560 00:34:21,610 --> 00:34:23,920 "John L. Miller, my cousin," 561 00:34:23,970 --> 00:34:26,140 "killed at the head of his regiment." 562 00:34:26,850 --> 00:34:29,620 "The blows now fall so fast on our heads," 563 00:34:29,670 --> 00:34:31,620 "it is bewildering." 564 00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:33,940 Mary Chesnut. 565 00:34:44,490 --> 00:34:48,140 At Spotsylvania, the two armies mauled each other for days 566 00:34:48,190 --> 00:34:49,940 without gaining ground. 567 00:34:52,250 --> 00:34:56,150 It was the most relentless exchange of fire in the history of warfare 568 00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:57,690 up to that time. 569 00:35:01,170 --> 00:35:05,450 Some men were hit by so many bullets that their bodies fell apart. 570 00:35:07,930 --> 00:35:11,340 A Union veteran remembered it simply as "the most terrible day" 571 00:35:11,390 --> 00:35:12,940 "I have ever lived." 572 00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:20,950 "The enemy's dead were piled upon each other" 573 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:23,210 "in front of the captured breastworks," 574 00:35:23,260 --> 00:35:25,910 "in some places four layers deep." 575 00:35:27,580 --> 00:35:31,280 "Below the mass of fast-decaying corpses," 576 00:35:31,450 --> 00:35:33,830 "the convulsive twitching of limbs showed" 577 00:35:33,990 --> 00:35:37,230 "that there were wounded men still alive." 578 00:35:38,300 --> 00:35:41,970 "The place was well named the 'Bloody Angle.'" 579 00:35:48,300 --> 00:35:52,100 The two armies lost another 20,000 men. 580 00:36:00,250 --> 00:36:03,420 "May 12th, Yellow Tavern, Virginia." 581 00:36:03,940 --> 00:36:07,530 "General Jeb Stuart, killed." 582 00:36:13,050 --> 00:36:16,600 When Lee got the news, he said, "I can scarcely think of him" 583 00:36:16,650 --> 00:36:18,100 "without weeping." 584 00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:32,160 Again and again, Lee anticipated Grant, 585 00:36:32,210 --> 00:36:36,670 and again and again, the Union commander skirted south and east in a semicircle, 586 00:36:36,720 --> 00:36:40,180 the two armies locked in a brutal, clumsy stranglehold 587 00:36:40,230 --> 00:36:43,230 as the battle lines lurched toward Richmond. 588 00:36:44,850 --> 00:36:47,430 "We must destroy this army of Grant's" 589 00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:49,980 "before he gets to the James." 590 00:36:50,330 --> 00:36:53,100 "If he gets there, it will become a siege," 591 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,870 "and then it will be a mere question of time." 592 00:36:57,740 --> 00:36:59,310 "May 11th. 593 00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:03,130 "We have now ended the sixth day of very heavy fighting," 594 00:37:03,230 --> 00:37:06,800 "and the result up to this time is much in our favor." 595 00:37:07,170 --> 00:37:10,000 "I propose to fight it out on this line," 596 00:37:10,050 --> 00:37:12,080 "if it takes all summer." 597 00:37:13,890 --> 00:37:16,550 Grant continued his stubborn flanking maneuvers 598 00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:20,220 in an attempt to get around Lee's right and move on Richmond. 599 00:37:26,220 --> 00:37:30,120 He did it with superior numbers and doggedness... kept going. 600 00:37:30,270 --> 00:37:33,990 Move by the left flank. Move by the left flank. Move by the left flank. 601 00:37:34,090 --> 00:37:38,070 And Lee's backing up the whole time, losing men that he couldn't replace. 602 00:37:38,370 --> 00:37:40,770 May 15th, 1864. 603 00:37:40,820 --> 00:37:42,270 "Dear Emily, 604 00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,370 "The papers must have told you that we have been fighting a little. 605 00:37:45,420 --> 00:37:49,750 "Our corps has only 12,000 left out of 27,000. 606 00:37:50,650 --> 00:37:54,170 "Uncle Robert E. Lee isn't licked yet by a long shot, 607 00:37:54,220 --> 00:37:57,530 "and if we are not mighty careful, he'll beat us." 608 00:37:58,100 --> 00:38:01,740 "I think we have done very well to avoid that fate so far." 609 00:38:02,910 --> 00:38:05,300 "Tomorrow we have another battle." 610 00:38:05,750 --> 00:38:08,390 "I don't think it will amount to much." 611 00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,270 Washington Roebling. 612 00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,910 Grant and Lee now raced for a crossroads called Cold Harbor 613 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,010 near the Chickahominy river. 614 00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:23,120 Again, Lee got there first and ordered his men to dig in 615 00:38:23,170 --> 00:38:26,580 and prepare for the all-out assault he knew would follow. 616 00:38:30,050 --> 00:38:32,750 As they settled down for the night on June 2nd, 617 00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:36,330 veterans on the Union side sensed what was coming. 618 00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,200 "The men were calmly writing their names 619 00:38:39,250 --> 00:38:41,970 "and home addresses on slips of paper" 620 00:38:42,020 --> 00:38:44,430 "and pinning them to the backs of their coats" 621 00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,390 "so that their bodies might be recognized" 622 00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,430 "and their fate made known to their families at home." 623 00:38:51,690 --> 00:38:53,920 General Horace Porter. 624 00:38:59,030 --> 00:39:02,680 When the bugles blew for the attack at 4:30 A.M., 625 00:39:02,730 --> 00:39:07,040 60,000 Union men started toward the unseen enemy. 626 00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:09,860 The battle of Cold Harbor had begun. 627 00:39:11,110 --> 00:39:15,570 "I had seen the dreadful carnage in front of Marye's Hill at Fredericksburg," 628 00:39:15,620 --> 00:39:18,540 "but I had seen nothing to exceed this." 629 00:39:20,550 --> 00:39:23,360 "It was not war. It was murder." 630 00:39:33,270 --> 00:39:37,450 Those were men who knew how to take a position where you could do the most killing from. 631 00:39:37,500 --> 00:39:41,660 Their whole army was lined up, they're waiting and hoping and praying something would come at them, 632 00:39:42,430 --> 00:39:44,940 and Grant threw three corps at them, 633 00:39:45,700 --> 00:39:50,620 and in approximately seven minutes, they shot about 7,000 men down. 634 00:39:50,670 --> 00:39:52,940 It was a bloody mess. 635 00:39:53,340 --> 00:39:56,560 It's the only thing Grant ever admitted that he'd done wrong. 636 00:39:58,530 --> 00:40:00,550 "I've always regretted" 637 00:40:00,970 --> 00:40:04,970 "that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made." 638 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:07,420 "No advantage whatever was gained" 639 00:40:07,470 --> 00:40:10,560 "to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." 640 00:40:15,950 --> 00:40:18,110 When another assault was suggested, 641 00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:21,450 Union officers rejected the idea outright. 642 00:40:21,750 --> 00:40:24,790 "I will not take my regiment in another such charge," 643 00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:26,500 said a New Hampshire captain, 644 00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:29,420 "if Jesus Christ himself should order it." 645 00:40:33,830 --> 00:40:37,540 After the battle, the diary of a young Massachusetts volunteer 646 00:40:37,590 --> 00:40:39,930 was found spattered with blood. 647 00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:42,910 Its last entry read, 648 00:40:42,970 --> 00:40:45,820 "June 3rd, 1864,." 649 00:40:45,870 --> 00:40:47,820 "Cold Harbor, Virginia." 650 00:40:48,180 --> 00:40:50,090 "I was killed." 651 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,870 "Our matters here are at a deadlock. 652 00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,010 "Unless the Rebs commit some great error, 653 00:41:04,060 --> 00:41:06,960 "they will hold us in check until kingdom come. 654 00:41:07,310 --> 00:41:09,860 "We are thoroughly tired and disgusted. 655 00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,350 "These two armies remind me very much of two schoolboys" 656 00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,460 "trying to stare each other out of countenance." 657 00:41:17,330 --> 00:41:20,670 "Everyone knows that if Lee were to come out of his trenchments," 658 00:41:20,720 --> 00:41:24,820 "we could whip him, but Bob Lee is a little too smart for us." 659 00:41:25,340 --> 00:41:27,220 Washington Roebling. 660 00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,950 From the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, in a single month, 661 00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:35,040 the Army of the Potomac had lost 50,000 men, 662 00:41:35,090 --> 00:41:38,740 half as many as it had lost in three years of struggle. 663 00:41:40,110 --> 00:41:42,710 "June 5th, 1864. 664 00:41:43,380 --> 00:41:46,330 "Our people lost very severely yesterday. 665 00:41:46,530 --> 00:41:48,660 "In every calculation that we make, 666 00:41:48,710 --> 00:41:52,120 "we make ourselves out to be 20,000 men stronger, 667 00:41:52,270 --> 00:41:55,450 "yet in every fight, they show as many men as we have, 668 00:41:55,500 --> 00:41:58,100 "and they always show as long a line as we do 669 00:41:58,150 --> 00:42:00,430 "no matter how long we make ours." 670 00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:03,870 "June 7th, 1864." 671 00:42:04,630 --> 00:42:08,130 "Another one of my best friends in the army has been killed." 672 00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,270 "One goes after the other with perfect regularity." 673 00:42:16,730 --> 00:42:20,430 "Grant doesn't care a snap if men fall like the leaves fall." 674 00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:22,690 "He fights to win, that chap does." 675 00:42:22,740 --> 00:42:25,620 "He has the disagreeable habit of not retreating" 676 00:42:25,670 --> 00:42:28,330 "before irresistible veterans." 677 00:42:28,950 --> 00:42:30,530 Mary Chesnut. 678 00:42:32,450 --> 00:42:35,780 "He keeps his own counsel, padlocks his mouth, 679 00:42:35,830 --> 00:42:38,240 "while his countenance indicates nothing... 680 00:42:38,290 --> 00:42:41,120 "that is, gives no expression of his feelings and 681 00:42:41,170 --> 00:42:43,570 "no evidence of his intentions. 682 00:42:44,090 --> 00:42:46,010 "He smokes almost constantly" 683 00:42:46,060 --> 00:42:49,150 "and has a habit of whittling with a small knife," 684 00:42:49,250 --> 00:42:52,190 "cutting a small stick into small chips," 685 00:42:52,240 --> 00:42:53,840 "making nothing." 686 00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:59,720 "Grant is a butcher and not fit to be at the head of an army." 687 00:42:59,770 --> 00:43:02,960 "He loses two men to the enemy's one." 688 00:43:03,010 --> 00:43:06,550 "He has no management, no regard for life." 689 00:43:07,150 --> 00:43:10,100 "I could fight an army as well myself." 690 00:43:10,370 --> 00:43:12,010 Mary Lincoln. 691 00:43:16,810 --> 00:43:20,640 When several of Lee's officers denounced Grant as a butcher, 692 00:43:20,690 --> 00:43:22,190 Lee quieted them. 693 00:43:22,420 --> 00:43:25,540 "I think Grant has managed his affairs remarkably well 694 00:43:25,590 --> 00:43:27,780 "up to the present time," he said. 695 00:43:28,950 --> 00:43:30,550 Grant kept moving. 696 00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:33,830 He slipped his army out of his trenches, crossed the Chickahominy, 697 00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:35,600 feinted toward Richmond, 698 00:43:35,770 --> 00:43:38,430 then shifted left again to the James River. 699 00:43:39,450 --> 00:43:43,100 His target now was Petersburg, south of the Confederate capital, 700 00:43:43,150 --> 00:43:45,230 where he hoped to cut off Lee's supplies 701 00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:47,890 and destroy the Army of Northern Virginia. 702 00:43:49,860 --> 00:43:53,480 For the first time, Lee misjudged Grant's intentions, 703 00:43:53,530 --> 00:43:56,610 rushing much of his army to the outskirts of Richmond 704 00:43:56,660 --> 00:44:00,220 to meet an attack Grant did not plan to make. 705 00:44:00,720 --> 00:44:03,890 Instead, Union engineers laid a pontoon bridge 706 00:44:03,940 --> 00:44:06,940 all the way across the James in just eight hours. 707 00:44:10,870 --> 00:44:12,400 On June 12th, 708 00:44:12,450 --> 00:44:15,570 the massive Army of the Potomac began to cross. 709 00:44:16,430 --> 00:44:18,300 It took four days. 710 00:44:26,230 --> 00:44:29,740 "General Grant, I begin to see it." 711 00:44:29,900 --> 00:44:31,790 "You will succeed." 712 00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:33,660 "God bless you." 713 00:44:33,950 --> 00:44:35,450 "A. Lincoln." 714 00:44:40,790 --> 00:44:44,700 Sixteen-thousand Union troops under General William Smith 715 00:44:44,750 --> 00:44:46,760 were the first to reach Petersburg. 716 00:44:46,810 --> 00:44:50,030 The city was defended by fewer than 3,000 Confederates 717 00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:51,930 under General Beauregard. 718 00:45:00,970 --> 00:45:03,260 Smith moved slowly to the attack. 719 00:45:03,310 --> 00:45:07,170 Reinforcements intended to aid him got lost on the way. 720 00:45:08,230 --> 00:45:11,550 Still, his late-afternoon assault made progress. 721 00:45:11,610 --> 00:45:15,760 When night fell, Petersburg seemed within the Union's grasp. 722 00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,380 General Winfield Scott Hancock urged a moonlight assault, 723 00:45:21,430 --> 00:45:24,730 but Smith begged off, remembering Cold Harbor. 724 00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,890 During the night, confederate reinforcements were brought up. 725 00:45:30,010 --> 00:45:32,440 The opportunity was gone. 726 00:45:34,750 --> 00:45:37,880 "The rage of the enlisted men was devilish." 727 00:45:37,930 --> 00:45:42,460 "The most bloodcurdling blasphemy I ever listened to I heard that night." 728 00:45:45,870 --> 00:45:49,980 In just six weeks, Grant and Lee had all but crippled each other, 729 00:45:50,690 --> 00:45:53,980 and now both armies dug in for a siege. 730 00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,700 The burrowing would go on for ten months. 731 00:46:00,870 --> 00:46:04,040 The men lived in a twenty-mile labyrinth of trenches, 732 00:46:04,190 --> 00:46:08,420 plagued by flies, open to rain and the fierce Virginia sun, 733 00:46:08,470 --> 00:46:11,090 and exposed to shell and mortar fire. 734 00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:15,710 "Nothing for excitement" 735 00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,950 "except that a few were picked off by sharpshooters." 736 00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,660 "A feeling prevails that sooner or later," 737 00:46:21,710 --> 00:46:24,270 "this experience will befall us all." 738 00:46:24,690 --> 00:46:26,900 Private John W. Haley. 739 00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:29,330 Fire! 740 00:46:33,700 --> 00:46:36,190 Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 741 00:46:36,240 --> 00:46:38,290 one of the heroes of Gettysburg, 742 00:46:38,340 --> 00:46:41,640 led his regiment in an assault on Petersburg. 743 00:46:42,610 --> 00:46:46,210 As he turned to rally his men, a bullet smashed through his pelvis, 744 00:46:46,260 --> 00:46:48,580 severed arteries, nicked his bladder. 745 00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,210 He stayed on his feet, leaning on his sword with one hand 746 00:46:52,380 --> 00:46:54,380 and waving his men on with the other 747 00:46:54,430 --> 00:46:56,590 until they had all passed him by. 748 00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:58,750 Then he sank to the ground. 749 00:46:59,010 --> 00:47:01,610 Doctors did not expect him to live. 750 00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:08,240 In tribute to his courage, Grant promoted him on the field to brigadier general. 751 00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,480 Chamberlain's obituary appeared in the newspapers the next day. 752 00:47:23,330 --> 00:47:26,580 Petersburg is a magnificent salute 753 00:47:26,750 --> 00:47:29,980 to the durability of men on both sides. 754 00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:31,640 It was just a... 755 00:47:31,740 --> 00:47:34,980 It was a rehearsal for World War I trench warfare, 756 00:47:35,300 --> 00:47:37,600 and they stood up very well to it. 757 00:47:37,650 --> 00:47:40,490 But the soldiers always did in that war. They were... 758 00:47:41,340 --> 00:47:45,900 It's, to us, an almost incredible bravery, considering the casualties. 759 00:47:47,950 --> 00:47:50,740 "June 23rd, 1864. 760 00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:55,420 "The demand down here for killing purposes is far ahead of the supply. 761 00:47:56,020 --> 00:47:58,280 "Thank god, however, for the consolation 762 00:47:58,330 --> 00:48:01,680 "that when the last man is killed, the war will be over. 763 00:48:01,780 --> 00:48:04,930 "This war, you know, differs from all previous wars 764 00:48:04,980 --> 00:48:07,880 "in having no object to fight for. 765 00:48:08,350 --> 00:48:11,680 "It can't be finished until all the men on either the one side 766 00:48:11,730 --> 00:48:13,360 "or the other are killed." 767 00:48:13,410 --> 00:48:16,840 "Both sides are trying to do that as fast as they can, because" 768 00:48:16,890 --> 00:48:19,330 "it would be a pity to spin this affair out" 769 00:48:19,380 --> 00:48:21,720 "for two or three years longer." 770 00:48:22,490 --> 00:48:24,210 Washington Roebling. 771 00:48:38,140 --> 00:48:39,830 "Dear Henry," 772 00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:44,080 "I feel more lonely and sad than I have been in some time." 773 00:48:45,300 --> 00:48:49,760 "Oh, that I knew what the termination of this awful conflict would be." 774 00:48:52,570 --> 00:48:55,840 "Henry, I want to see you, 775 00:48:55,890 --> 00:48:58,190 "but don't you come. 776 00:48:58,240 --> 00:49:01,630 "Join for the war if 'tis forty years. 777 00:49:02,490 --> 00:49:04,390 "If you get killed," 778 00:49:04,900 --> 00:49:07,450 "'tis the most honorable death." 779 00:49:08,810 --> 00:49:11,760 "If you escape, I will rejoice." 780 00:49:11,860 --> 00:49:14,050 "I love thee still." 781 00:49:14,410 --> 00:49:16,640 Mollie Vanderberg. 782 00:49:24,390 --> 00:49:26,730 "Our bleeding, bankrupt," 783 00:49:26,780 --> 00:49:30,410 "almost dying country longs for peace," 784 00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:35,200 "shudders at the prospect of further wholesale devastation," 785 00:49:36,420 --> 00:49:39,290 "of new rivers of human blood." 786 00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:41,300 Horace Greeley. 787 00:49:55,550 --> 00:49:58,110 "At night, my ward became 788 00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:01,430 "like the dim caverns of the catacombs, where, 789 00:50:01,580 --> 00:50:04,500 "instead of the dead in their final rest, 790 00:50:04,660 --> 00:50:07,550 "there were wasted figures burning with fever 791 00:50:07,620 --> 00:50:10,640 "and raving from the agony of splintered bones," 792 00:50:11,660 --> 00:50:14,490 "tossing restlessly from side to side with every ill," 793 00:50:14,540 --> 00:50:17,090 "it seemed, which human flesh was heir to." 794 00:50:18,610 --> 00:50:22,089 "From the rafters, the flickering oil lamp swung mournfully," 795 00:50:22,090 --> 00:50:24,700 "casting a ghastly light." 796 00:50:24,970 --> 00:50:28,920 Private Alexander Hunter, 17th Virginia. 797 00:50:31,220 --> 00:50:35,930 When the war began, there were only a handful of army hospitals in the north. 798 00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:40,720 When it ended, the Union was running more than 350, 799 00:50:40,770 --> 00:50:43,550 the Confederacy, 154. 800 00:50:44,470 --> 00:50:47,670 There were sixteen hospitals in Washington alone. 801 00:50:47,940 --> 00:50:52,090 When these proved insufficient, men were cared for in the patent office, 802 00:50:52,240 --> 00:50:55,270 even in the House and Senate chambers. 803 00:50:56,980 --> 00:51:00,400 Hospitals were giant warehouses for the dying. 804 00:51:00,670 --> 00:51:03,060 The biggest and best, north or south, 805 00:51:03,110 --> 00:51:05,010 was Chimborazo at Richmond, 806 00:51:05,060 --> 00:51:09,670 with 8,000 beds, five soup kitchens, ice houses, dairy cattle, 807 00:51:09,720 --> 00:51:11,300 a herd of goats, 808 00:51:11,350 --> 00:51:14,720 a bakery that turned out 10,000 loaves of bread a day, 809 00:51:14,770 --> 00:51:17,130 and a 400-keg brewery. 810 00:51:23,230 --> 00:51:25,350 "Arous'd and angry, 811 00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:29,830 "I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war. 812 00:51:30,850 --> 00:51:33,320 "But soon my fingers fail'd me," 813 00:51:33,370 --> 00:51:36,580 "my face droop'd and I resign'd myself" 814 00:51:36,750 --> 00:51:40,430 "to sit by the wounded and soothe them," 815 00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:43,940 "or silently watch the dead." 816 00:51:44,310 --> 00:51:46,090 Walt Whitman. 817 00:51:47,230 --> 00:51:49,810 Walt Whitman was too old for the ranks, 818 00:51:49,860 --> 00:51:51,860 not qualified to be an officer, 819 00:51:51,910 --> 00:51:54,220 not enthusiastic about "firing a gun" 820 00:51:54,270 --> 00:51:56,780 "or drawing a sword on another man." 821 00:51:57,590 --> 00:52:00,640 But when his younger brother was wounded at Antietam, 822 00:52:00,690 --> 00:52:02,970 and Whitman went to find him in the hospital, 823 00:52:03,020 --> 00:52:05,520 he was appalled by what he saw. 824 00:52:06,790 --> 00:52:09,440 He moved to Washington to help with the wounded, 825 00:52:09,490 --> 00:52:12,690 giving out small gifts, changing dressings, 826 00:52:12,740 --> 00:52:14,950 and reciting his poetry. 827 00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:18,620 "The doctors tell me 828 00:52:18,670 --> 00:52:22,050 "I supply the patients with a medicine which all their drugs 829 00:52:22,100 --> 00:52:25,450 "and bottles and powders are helpless to yield." 830 00:52:25,500 --> 00:52:27,900 "It has saved more than one life, so," 831 00:52:27,950 --> 00:52:29,460 "I go around." 832 00:52:29,510 --> 00:52:32,880 "Some of my boys die. Some get well." 833 00:52:35,650 --> 00:52:39,970 "No woman under thirty years need apply to serve in government hospitals. 834 00:52:40,020 --> 00:52:43,890 "All nurses are required to be very plain-looking women." 835 00:52:43,990 --> 00:52:46,730 "Their dresses must be brown or black," 836 00:52:46,780 --> 00:52:50,100 "with no bows, no curls, no jewelry," 837 00:52:50,150 --> 00:52:52,420 "and no hoop skirts." 838 00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:54,490 Dorothea Dix. 839 00:52:55,900 --> 00:53:00,510 Early in the war, Dorothea Dix volunteered her services to the Union. 840 00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:03,270 The fifty-nine-year-old crusader for the mentally ill 841 00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:07,320 was put in charge of all women nurses employed by the armies. 842 00:53:07,710 --> 00:53:12,120 Tireless, and so autocratic one woman called her "Dragon Dix," 843 00:53:12,170 --> 00:53:16,520 she barred any applicant she thought interested in romantic adventure. 844 00:53:16,770 --> 00:53:19,770 Even nuns were sometimes turned down. 845 00:53:20,180 --> 00:53:21,750 By the end of the war, though, 846 00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:24,660 the only question she asked potential recruits was. 847 00:53:24,710 --> 00:53:26,460 "When can you start?" 848 00:53:27,670 --> 00:53:30,530 Under her strict guidance, care for the sick and wounded 849 00:53:30,580 --> 00:53:32,520 was vastly improved. 850 00:53:32,570 --> 00:53:36,290 Despite the bitter criticism and petty rivalry of male colleagues, 851 00:53:36,340 --> 00:53:38,990 she stayed at her post for all four years, 852 00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:41,690 the entire war, without pay. 853 00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:48,350 "Army Square Hospital:" 854 00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:51,750 "I am learning not to let myself feel" 855 00:53:51,800 --> 00:53:54,150 "as much as I did at first," 856 00:53:54,940 --> 00:53:57,610 "yet I never can get used to it." 857 00:53:58,180 --> 00:54:00,690 Harriet Foote Hawley. 858 00:54:06,450 --> 00:54:09,040 "They would see that the doctor gave them up 859 00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:11,290 "and they would ask me about it. 860 00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:13,060 "I would tell them the truth. 861 00:54:13,110 --> 00:54:16,310 "I told one man that, and he asked how long. 862 00:54:17,630 --> 00:54:19,840 "I said, not over twenty minutes. 863 00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,100 "He did not show any fear. They never do. 864 00:54:23,750 --> 00:54:27,770 "He put his hand up slow and closed his eyes with his own fingers, 865 00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:31,640 "and stretched himself out and crossed his arms over his breast. 866 00:54:32,370 --> 00:54:34,680 "'Now fix me, ' he said. 867 00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:38,230 "I pinned the toes of his stockings together. 868 00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:40,270 "That was the way we laid corpses out," 869 00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:42,460 "and he died in a few minutes." 870 00:54:43,030 --> 00:54:46,160 "His face looked as pleasant as if he was asleep," 871 00:54:46,610 --> 00:54:51,030 "and many is the time the boys would fix themselves that way before they died." 872 00:55:05,850 --> 00:55:08,320 "Lorenzo Strong, Company A, 873 00:55:08,370 --> 00:55:10,620 "9th United States Cavalry; 874 00:55:10,670 --> 00:55:12,780 "shot by a shell last Sunday; 875 00:55:12,830 --> 00:55:15,370 "right leg amputated on the field; 876 00:55:15,420 --> 00:55:17,560 "took a turn for the worse. 877 00:55:17,610 --> 00:55:20,530 "I stayed and saw all. 878 00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,960 "The doctor comes in and gives him a little chloroform. 879 00:55:25,060 --> 00:55:27,830 "One of the nurses constantly fans him, 880 00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:29,800 "for it is fearfully hot. 881 00:55:29,900 --> 00:55:31,960 "He asks to be raised up, 882 00:55:32,010 --> 00:55:34,540 "and they put him in a half-sitting posture. 883 00:55:34,650 --> 00:55:37,150 "He called for "Mark" repeatedly, 884 00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:39,380 "half deliriously, all day. 885 00:55:39,430 --> 00:55:43,340 "Life ebbs, runs now at the speed of a millrace. 886 00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:45,370 "His eyes turned back. 887 00:55:45,540 --> 00:55:49,520 "A crowd, including two or three doctors, several students, 888 00:55:49,570 --> 00:55:51,180 "and many soldiers, 889 00:55:51,230 --> 00:55:53,060 "has silently gathered. 890 00:55:53,210 --> 00:55:55,790 "The struggle goes on and dwindles 891 00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:58,400 "a little more and a little more," 892 00:55:58,500 --> 00:56:03,040 "and then welcome oblivion, painlessness, death." 893 00:56:03,140 --> 00:56:04,640 "A pause;" 894 00:56:04,930 --> 00:56:07,130 "the crowd drops away." 895 00:56:11,110 --> 00:56:13,970 "June 17, 1864." 896 00:56:14,020 --> 00:56:15,480 "Dearest mother," 897 00:56:15,530 --> 00:56:18,220 "this place seems to have got the better of me." 898 00:56:18,490 --> 00:56:21,560 "I think I shall come home for a short time." 899 00:57:11,540 --> 00:57:14,890 "I think I understand the purpose of the South properly 900 00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:16,810 "and that the best way to deal with them 901 00:57:16,860 --> 00:57:19,760 "is to meet them fair and square on any issue. 902 00:57:20,020 --> 00:57:21,730 "We must fight them," 903 00:57:21,780 --> 00:57:23,750 "cut into them, not talk to them," 904 00:57:23,800 --> 00:57:26,700 "and pursue 'til they cry 'enough.'" 905 00:57:28,710 --> 00:57:32,810 "War is the remedy our enemies have chosen, and I say" 906 00:57:32,860 --> 00:57:35,730 "let us give them all they want." 907 00:57:35,900 --> 00:57:37,780 William Tecumseh Sherman. 908 00:57:40,120 --> 00:57:43,310 On the same day that Grant stepped off into the Wilderness, 909 00:57:43,360 --> 00:57:47,760 Sherman's grand Army of the West moved south from Chattanooga towards Atlanta, 910 00:57:47,810 --> 00:57:49,540 100 miles away. 911 00:57:51,830 --> 00:57:54,660 William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant 912 00:57:54,710 --> 00:57:57,210 had survived hard times together. 913 00:57:57,380 --> 00:57:59,630 Their friendship had been forged in Kentucky 914 00:57:59,680 --> 00:58:02,000 when Sherman had come close to breaking down, 915 00:58:02,050 --> 00:58:04,400 persuaded the war would never end. 916 00:58:04,940 --> 00:58:07,670 "Grant stood by me when I was crazy," 917 00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:10,020 "and I stood by him when he was drunk," 918 00:58:10,070 --> 00:58:12,800 "and now we stand by each other always." 919 00:58:14,620 --> 00:58:18,750 Sherman was an orphan and had graduated sixth in his class at West Point 920 00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:20,380 when he was only twenty. 921 00:58:20,850 --> 00:58:24,310 Tall and red-haired, intelligent and irritable, 922 00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:28,460 he wore shoes rather than military boots, slept little, and talked a lot; 923 00:58:28,510 --> 00:58:31,450 "boiling over with ideas," a friend said. 924 00:58:32,220 --> 00:58:34,460 "He was always too busy to eat much." 925 00:58:34,510 --> 00:58:37,030 "He talked and smoked cigars incessantly," 926 00:58:37,080 --> 00:58:40,860 "giving orders, dictating telegrams, bright and chipper." 927 00:58:41,730 --> 00:58:45,770 He hated politicians, profiteers, sentimentalists. 928 00:58:45,820 --> 00:58:47,950 Above all, he hated reporters, 929 00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:52,000 whom he considered worse than spies because they printed military secrets 930 00:58:52,050 --> 00:58:54,090 just to sell newspapers. 931 00:58:54,310 --> 00:58:57,660 "These dirty newspaper scribblers have the impudence of Satan. 932 00:58:57,700 --> 00:59:00,920 "They come into camp, poke about among the lazy shirks," 933 00:59:00,970 --> 00:59:04,670 "and pick up their camp rumors and publish them as facts." 934 00:59:04,820 --> 00:59:07,760 "They are a pest, and I treat them as spies," 935 00:59:07,810 --> 00:59:09,810 "which, in truth, they are." 936 00:59:10,930 --> 00:59:13,100 He was convinced if he killed them all, 937 00:59:13,150 --> 00:59:15,850 there would be news from Hell before breakfast. 938 00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:20,450 Family and friends called him "Cump." 939 00:59:20,600 --> 00:59:22,880 His men called him "Uncle Billy." 940 00:59:23,150 --> 00:59:25,500 He was ruthless in war. 941 00:59:28,470 --> 00:59:30,260 Now Grant entrusted his friend 942 00:59:30,310 --> 00:59:33,510 with the second-most important part of his grand strategy: 943 00:59:33,560 --> 00:59:37,190 to seize Atlanta, and smash the combined Confederate armies 944 00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:41,100 of Tennessee and Mississippi under Joseph E. Johnston. 945 00:59:49,750 --> 00:59:54,020 In Washington, Lincoln's chances for reelection were slim. 946 00:59:54,290 --> 00:59:57,210 "I'm going to be beaten," Lincoln wrote that summer, 947 00:59:57,670 --> 01:00:00,130 "and unless some great change takes place," 948 01:00:00,180 --> 01:00:01,810 "badly beaten." 949 01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:06,360 With Grant stalled at Petersburg, Sherman had to win. 950 01:00:13,890 --> 01:00:17,720 Sherman had surveyed parts of Georgia as a young lieutenant. 951 01:00:17,770 --> 01:00:20,710 "I knew Georgia better than the rebels did," he wrote. 952 01:00:20,980 --> 01:00:23,820 He knew the fighting there would be scattered and sporadic, 953 01:00:23,870 --> 01:00:26,030 "a big Indian war," he called it. 954 01:00:31,110 --> 01:00:34,900 Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate commander who now faced Sherman, 955 01:00:34,950 --> 01:00:38,510 was heartily disliked by president Jefferson Davis, 956 01:00:39,180 --> 01:00:42,180 but he was very nearly worshiped by his men. 957 01:00:43,090 --> 01:00:45,790 "I do not believe there was a soldier in his army" 958 01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,310 "but would gladly have died for him." 959 01:00:48,610 --> 01:00:51,220 "With him, everything was his soldiers." 960 01:00:51,270 --> 01:00:54,410 "He would feed his soldiers if the country starved." 961 01:00:54,460 --> 01:00:56,060 Sam Watkins. 962 01:00:58,500 --> 01:01:01,850 Outgunned, out-supplied, and outnumbered almost two-to-one, 963 01:01:01,900 --> 01:01:05,520 Joseph Johnston could only hope to slow Sherman's advance 964 01:01:05,570 --> 01:01:09,060 and perhaps lure him into making the kind of doomed frontal attack 965 01:01:09,110 --> 01:01:12,060 that would help swing the election against Lincoln. 966 01:01:15,590 --> 01:01:18,920 But Sherman's advance was a masterpiece of planning. 967 01:01:20,400 --> 01:01:24,120 In a matter of hours, his engineers replaced burned bridges 968 01:01:24,170 --> 01:01:26,840 and repaired ripped up rail lines. 969 01:01:31,950 --> 01:01:36,200 When Nathan Bedford Forrest's raiders collapsed a tunnel in Sherman's rear, 970 01:01:36,250 --> 01:01:39,250 one weary southern private was not impressed. 971 01:01:39,300 --> 01:01:42,640 "Sherman," he said, "probably carried a spare tunnel with him." 972 01:01:49,230 --> 01:01:53,190 Slowly, relentlessly, he forced Johnston out of Dalton, 973 01:01:54,910 --> 01:01:56,340 Resaca, 974 01:01:57,610 --> 01:01:59,010 Cassville, 975 01:02:00,410 --> 01:02:01,900 Allatoona, 976 01:02:03,500 --> 01:02:05,170 New Hope Church. 977 01:02:06,530 --> 01:02:09,310 A surrendering Confederate told his captors, 978 01:02:09,370 --> 01:02:11,220 "Sherman will never go to hell." 979 01:02:11,270 --> 01:02:15,150 "He'll flank the devil and make heaven in spite of the guards." 980 01:02:15,870 --> 01:02:17,970 "June 14th." 981 01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:20,910 "We killed General Polk yesterday" 982 01:02:21,010 --> 01:02:23,650 "and made good progress today." 983 01:02:24,020 --> 01:02:26,220 William Tecumseh Sherman. 984 01:02:28,340 --> 01:02:32,570 At Kennesaw mountain, north of Atlanta, the Confederates dug in. 985 01:02:32,640 --> 01:02:34,400 On June 27th, 986 01:02:34,450 --> 01:02:37,500 13,000 Union men stormed up the mountain 987 01:02:37,550 --> 01:02:39,300 and were hurled back. 988 01:02:39,620 --> 01:02:43,360 The federals "seemed to walk up and take death," a Southerner remembered, 989 01:02:43,410 --> 01:02:47,240 "as coolly as if they were automatic or wooden men." 990 01:02:48,500 --> 01:02:51,950 "I've heard men say that if they ever killed a Yankee during the war 991 01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:53,640 "they were not aware of it." 992 01:02:53,740 --> 01:02:57,330 "I am satisfied that on this memorable day every man in our regiment" 993 01:02:57,380 --> 01:02:59,860 "killed from twenty to 100 each." 994 01:02:59,960 --> 01:03:03,010 "All that was necessary was to load and shoot." 995 01:03:03,980 --> 01:03:06,490 The Union lost 3,000 men, 996 01:03:06,540 --> 01:03:09,150 the Confederates, only 750. 997 01:03:09,310 --> 01:03:12,510 "One or two more such assaults," an aide warned Sherman, 998 01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:14,580 "would use up this army." 999 01:03:15,450 --> 01:03:19,270 Sherman never admitted he had made a mistake at Kennesaw Mountain, 1000 01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:21,810 but he never repeated it either. 1001 01:03:22,930 --> 01:03:26,440 Reluctantly, he returned to his slow flanking maneuvers, 1002 01:03:26,490 --> 01:03:30,270 forcing Johnston back to within sight of Atlanta itself, 1003 01:03:30,490 --> 01:03:33,970 but there, he stalled, just like Grant. 1004 01:03:40,350 --> 01:03:43,100 Two months of relentless fighting had resulted 1005 01:03:43,150 --> 01:03:45,250 in identical stalemates. 1006 01:03:45,450 --> 01:03:48,110 Sherman was stopped north of Atlanta: 1007 01:03:48,210 --> 01:03:51,640 Grant and Lee were deadlocked outside Petersburg. 1008 01:03:53,000 --> 01:03:56,190 Without a decisive victory somewhere, Abraham Lincoln 1009 01:03:56,240 --> 01:03:58,570 was sure to lose the fall election. 1010 01:03:59,240 --> 01:04:01,440 Time was running out. 1011 01:04:12,860 --> 01:04:14,800 "Miss Kitty Diggs, 1012 01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:18,680 "I want you to understand that Mary is my child, 1013 01:04:19,050 --> 01:04:22,360 "and she is a God-given right of my own, 1014 01:04:22,930 --> 01:04:26,420 "and you may hold on to her as long as you can, 1015 01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:29,240 "but I want you to remember this one thing: 1016 01:04:29,290 --> 01:04:32,320 "that the longer you keep my child from me," 1017 01:04:33,130 --> 01:04:35,750 "the longer you will have to burn in hell" 1018 01:04:35,820 --> 01:04:37,960 "and the quicker you will get there." 1019 01:04:39,530 --> 01:04:43,060 "I have no fears about getting Mary out of your hands." 1020 01:04:44,330 --> 01:04:47,750 "This whole government gives cheer to me," 1021 01:04:47,870 --> 01:04:50,470 "and you cannot help yourself." 1022 01:04:51,330 --> 01:04:53,330 Spotswood Rice.