1 00:00:10,470 --> 00:00:14,960 "I require able-bodied men with good horse and gun." 2 00:00:15,430 --> 00:00:19,630 "I wish none but those who desire to be actively engaged." 3 00:00:20,600 --> 00:00:23,840 "Come on, boys, if you want a heap of fun" 4 00:00:23,890 --> 00:00:25,950 "and to kill some Yankees." 5 00:00:26,810 --> 00:00:29,060 Nathan Bedford Forrest. 6 00:00:30,650 --> 00:00:34,610 Bedford Forrest's granddaughter lived here in Memphis. 7 00:00:34,660 --> 00:00:37,170 She recently died, and I got to know her, 8 00:00:37,270 --> 00:00:40,420 and she even let me swing the general's saber around my head once, 9 00:00:40,470 --> 00:00:42,020 which was a great treat. 10 00:00:42,070 --> 00:00:45,310 And I had thought a long time, and I called her and said, 11 00:00:46,580 --> 00:00:50,350 I think the war produced two authentic geniuses. 12 00:00:50,660 --> 00:00:54,680 One of them was your grandfather, and the other was Abraham Lincoln. 13 00:00:55,050 --> 00:00:58,020 And there was a silence at the other end of the phone, 14 00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:02,440 and she said, "Well, you know, in our family, we never thought much of Mr. Lincoln." 15 00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:07,110 She didn't like my coupling her grandfather with Abraham Lincoln 16 00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:08,800 all these years later. 17 00:01:09,270 --> 00:01:12,030 Southerners... was very strange about that war. 18 00:01:25,810 --> 00:01:28,670 There was fighting all across the country... 19 00:01:28,830 --> 00:01:32,620 at the Sabine Crossroads near the Texas-Louisiana border 20 00:01:32,670 --> 00:01:34,340 and down the Red River, 21 00:01:34,620 --> 00:01:36,930 on the Little Blue in Missouri, 22 00:01:37,090 --> 00:01:40,680 at Poison Spring and Jenkins Ferry, Arkansas, 23 00:01:40,730 --> 00:01:43,350 and far out in Indian territory. 24 00:01:50,940 --> 00:01:53,440 By the summer of 1864, 25 00:01:53,490 --> 00:01:56,390 the union initiative had ground to a halt. 26 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:00,300 Despite its powerful industrial machine, 27 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:03,690 despite increasing hardships for the South, 28 00:02:03,850 --> 00:02:06,980 the North was losing control of the war. 29 00:02:07,750 --> 00:02:10,110 As the casualty lists grew longer, 30 00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:12,760 opposition to the war increased. 31 00:02:16,970 --> 00:02:19,550 With the presidential campaign looming, 32 00:02:19,670 --> 00:02:22,610 Abraham Lincoln now knew he would have to do something 33 00:02:22,660 --> 00:02:24,710 that had never been done before... 34 00:02:25,470 --> 00:02:28,640 submit to a popular election during civil war 35 00:02:28,810 --> 00:02:30,230 and win it. 36 00:02:32,150 --> 00:02:34,390 "The struggle within and without," 37 00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:36,110 an advisor told Lincoln, 38 00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:38,740 "is for our national existence." 39 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:46,620 At Petersburg, Robert E. Lee's entrenched army 40 00:02:46,670 --> 00:02:50,930 continued to resist Ulysses S. Grant's two-month-old siege. 41 00:02:52,090 --> 00:02:54,620 To end the stalemate, Union troops were digging 42 00:02:54,670 --> 00:02:57,010 deep beneath the Confederate lines. 43 00:02:58,570 --> 00:03:01,270 North of Atlanta, William Tecumseh Sherman 44 00:03:01,320 --> 00:03:03,830 would have to blast through an impenetrable system 45 00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:06,360 of trenches, breastworks, and parapets 46 00:03:06,410 --> 00:03:09,790 to take the city, if he ever got there. 47 00:03:13,100 --> 00:03:16,050 That summer, in the sweltering Mississippi heat, 48 00:03:16,100 --> 00:03:18,930 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest 49 00:03:18,980 --> 00:03:21,100 would cement his reputation as the most 50 00:03:21,150 --> 00:03:24,040 terrifying cavalry commander of the war. 51 00:03:24,860 --> 00:03:26,960 Meanwhile, in the Shenandoah Valley, 52 00:03:27,010 --> 00:03:29,820 a diminutive union general, Phil Sheridan, 53 00:03:29,870 --> 00:03:33,880 would gleefully wreck every farm and village he could lay his hands on, 54 00:03:35,010 --> 00:03:38,270 while in Richmond, Jefferson Davis struggled desperately 55 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:41,650 to keep the idea of the confederacy alive. 56 00:03:42,950 --> 00:03:44,500 At the end of the year, 57 00:03:44,550 --> 00:03:48,260 Union quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs would lose a son, 58 00:03:48,410 --> 00:03:51,900 and bring his grief to the doorstep of Robert E. Lee. 59 00:03:55,630 --> 00:03:59,470 By the summer of 1864, people could hardly remember 60 00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:02,320 that there had ever been a time without war, 61 00:04:03,690 --> 00:04:06,940 and many did not believe it would ever end. 62 00:04:49,290 --> 00:04:51,120 "Dear Mr. President, 63 00:04:51,220 --> 00:04:54,230 "The tide is setting strongly against us. 64 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:57,030 "Two special causes are assigned 65 00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,830 to this great reaction in public sentiment... 66 00:05:00,300 --> 00:05:04,180 "the want of military success at Petersburg and Atlanta" 67 00:05:04,400 --> 00:05:07,090 "and the impression that we are fighting," 68 00:05:07,140 --> 00:05:10,940 "not for union, but for the abolition of slavery." 69 00:05:11,310 --> 00:05:15,040 Henry Raymond, Chairman, Republican National Committee. 70 00:05:24,840 --> 00:05:27,570 The siege of Petersburg went on. 71 00:05:27,650 --> 00:05:30,270 Morale had never been lower. 72 00:05:31,280 --> 00:05:35,670 "We should never have wars like this again," one Union soldier said. 73 00:05:36,630 --> 00:05:38,670 In less than six months, 74 00:05:38,870 --> 00:05:41,320 from the Wilderness to Spotsylvania, 75 00:05:41,370 --> 00:05:43,420 Cold Harbor to Petersburg, 76 00:05:43,570 --> 00:05:46,240 Grant had nearly destroyed his army. 77 00:05:46,860 --> 00:05:50,550 "The people are wild for peace," a newspaper reported. 78 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:54,580 "Lincoln's re-election is an impossibility." 79 00:06:02,780 --> 00:06:05,510 Nevertheless, 140,000 soldiers 80 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:07,910 re-enlisted in the Union Army. 81 00:06:08,500 --> 00:06:11,400 Pride and patriotism had much to do with it 82 00:06:11,450 --> 00:06:13,990 and a desire to see the thing through, 83 00:06:14,110 --> 00:06:16,810 but so did the promise of a month's furlough. 84 00:06:17,720 --> 00:06:20,230 "Three more years of hell," wrote one soldier, 85 00:06:20,280 --> 00:06:24,060 "in exchange for thirty days of heaven... home." 86 00:06:28,280 --> 00:06:30,140 Harper's Weekly. 87 00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:32,740 "The political campaign which ends 88 00:06:32,790 --> 00:06:35,630 "in the election of the 8th of November 89 00:06:35,950 --> 00:06:39,960 "decides the most important question in history. 90 00:06:40,330 --> 00:06:42,630 "It has always been the fate of republics 91 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:45,330 "to be destroyed by faction. 92 00:06:45,750 --> 00:06:49,660 "That fear is now about to be confirmed 93 00:06:49,820 --> 00:06:52,330 “or dissipated forever." 94 00:06:54,030 --> 00:06:57,080 The key, everyone knew, was Atlanta. 95 00:06:57,610 --> 00:07:00,710 If Sherman could reach the railroad hub of the south, 96 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:03,240 the war might end at last. 97 00:07:04,550 --> 00:07:08,630 But it was the stalemate in Virginia that concerned Lincoln now. 98 00:07:20,740 --> 00:07:23,490 "July 4th, 1864, 99 00:07:23,860 --> 00:07:26,380 "The glorious Fourth has come again, 100 00:07:26,540 --> 00:07:28,680 "and we have had quite a celebration 101 00:07:28,830 --> 00:07:31,580 "with guns firing shot and shell into Petersburg 102 00:07:31,630 --> 00:07:33,530 "to remind them of the day. 103 00:07:34,110 --> 00:07:38,170 "This day makes 4 Fourth of Julys that I have passed in the army: 104 00:07:38,270 --> 00:07:40,030 "the first at Camp Clark, 105 00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:41,940 "the second at Harrison's Landing, 106 00:07:41,990 --> 00:07:45,420 "the third at Gettysburg, and today at Petersburg. 107 00:07:46,390 --> 00:07:49,280 "I had a party of officers to dine with me. 108 00:07:49,330 --> 00:07:51,070 "This was our bill of fare... 109 00:07:51,270 --> 00:07:53,600 "stewed oysters, canned; 110 00:07:53,700 --> 00:07:55,900 "roast turkey, canned; 111 00:07:55,950 --> 00:07:58,610 "bread pudding, tapioca pudding," 112 00:07:58,660 --> 00:08:00,810 "apple pie made in camp," 113 00:08:00,860 --> 00:08:03,380 "lemonade, cigars." 114 00:08:05,110 --> 00:08:06,990 "Tomorrow, if we march, 115 00:08:07,110 --> 00:08:10,320 “hardtack and salt pork will be our fare." 116 00:08:10,790 --> 00:08:12,960 Elisha Hunt Rhodes. 117 00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:22,750 "The enemy throw a number of shells daily into Petersburg, 118 00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:24,450 "but they do little damage. 119 00:08:24,500 --> 00:08:27,660 "The women and children seem not to mind them at all. 120 00:08:28,430 --> 00:08:31,130 "On one street yesterday where such a number of shells burst 121 00:08:31,150 --> 00:08:34,140 "that I would have considered it a warm place in the field, 122 00:08:34,510 --> 00:08:36,960 "women were passing about with little concern," 123 00:08:37,010 --> 00:08:39,310 "dodging around a corner when they heard a shell coming" 124 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:42,930 "or putting their heads out of their windows to see what damage they'd done." 125 00:08:43,230 --> 00:08:46,810 "A lady yesterday sent Wardlaw and myself some ice cream and cakes." 126 00:08:46,910 --> 00:08:48,410 Harry Hammond. 127 00:08:53,030 --> 00:08:55,290 To relieve the pressure on Petersburg, 128 00:08:55,340 --> 00:08:59,780 Lee sent 10,000 men north to push Union troops out of the Shenandoah 129 00:08:59,830 --> 00:09:02,200 and harass Washington itself. 130 00:09:03,100 --> 00:09:06,580 In charge of the southern forces was a ruthless Confederate general 131 00:09:06,630 --> 00:09:08,570 named Jubal Early. 132 00:09:09,490 --> 00:09:12,780 Early attacked Fort Stevens, on the outskirts of Washington, 133 00:09:12,830 --> 00:09:14,470 terrifying the city, 134 00:09:15,130 --> 00:09:17,280 despite the seventy-four forts 135 00:09:17,330 --> 00:09:20,820 that now made it the most heavily fortified city on earth. 136 00:09:28,500 --> 00:09:31,320 Federal troops, including Elisha Hunt Rhodes, 137 00:09:31,370 --> 00:09:33,550 were hastily brought up from Petersburg 138 00:09:33,600 --> 00:09:35,280 to protect the capital. 139 00:09:36,450 --> 00:09:39,240 "July 12th, 1864. 140 00:09:39,410 --> 00:09:43,190 "We marched in line of battle into a peach orchard in front of Fort Stevens, 141 00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:45,120 "and here the fight began. 142 00:09:45,290 --> 00:09:47,740 "For a short time it was warm work, 143 00:09:47,890 --> 00:09:50,840 "but as the president and many ladies were looking at us, 144 00:09:50,890 --> 00:09:53,540 "every man tried to do his best. 145 00:09:53,590 --> 00:09:57,740 "Without our help, the small force in the forts would have been overpowered. 146 00:09:58,230 --> 00:10:01,320 "Jubal Early should have attacked early in the morning, 147 00:10:01,420 --> 00:10:04,470 ”but Early was late!" 148 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:16,700 Meanwhile, to stop William Tecumseh Sherman's advance on Atlanta, 149 00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:20,280 Nathan Bedford Forrest was also on the move. 150 00:10:23,980 --> 00:10:28,150 You're asking about, the most "man" in the world, in some ways. 151 00:10:28,570 --> 00:10:31,240 Forrest was a natural genius. 152 00:10:31,290 --> 00:10:33,370 Someone said that he was born to be a soldier 153 00:10:33,420 --> 00:10:36,040 the way John Keats was born to be a poet. 154 00:10:36,710 --> 00:10:40,040 He had some basic principles that, 155 00:10:40,340 --> 00:10:42,150 when you translate them 156 00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:44,750 they fit right into the army manual. 157 00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:47,220 When he said, "get there first with the most men," 158 00:10:47,730 --> 00:10:50,370 he's saying, "take the interior lines" 159 00:10:50,420 --> 00:10:53,030 "and bring superior force to bear." 160 00:10:53,550 --> 00:10:58,000 He had some very Simple things. He used to say, "Hit them on the end," 161 00:10:58,100 --> 00:11:00,520 and he used to say, "Keep up the skeer." 162 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:05,340 And these are all good military principles expressed in Forrest's own way. 163 00:11:05,390 --> 00:11:09,830 And he was able to look at a piece of ground and see how to use it. 164 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:12,700 He had a marvelous sense of topography. 165 00:11:12,950 --> 00:11:15,100 He could see the... the... 166 00:11:15,150 --> 00:11:18,150 the key to a position and know where to hit. 167 00:11:19,390 --> 00:11:22,210 "Forrest," William Tecumseh Sherman later said, 168 00:11:22,260 --> 00:11:26,720 "was the most remarkable man our civil war produced in either side." 169 00:11:27,280 --> 00:11:29,930 He was the son of an illiterate blacksmith. 170 00:11:29,980 --> 00:11:34,130 He made himself a millionaire selling land, cotton, and slaves. 171 00:11:34,650 --> 00:11:37,580 In 1861, he enlisted as a private, 172 00:11:37,630 --> 00:11:40,830 then quit to raise and equip an entire cavalry battalion 173 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:42,580 out of his own pocket. 174 00:11:44,100 --> 00:11:46,840 By the end of the war, he had become lieutenant general, 175 00:11:46,890 --> 00:11:50,000 the only man on either side to rise so far. 176 00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:53,620 He was the most feared cavalry commander of the war, 177 00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:55,620 the "wizard of the saddle," 178 00:11:55,670 --> 00:11:57,790 wounded four times in battle 179 00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:01,270 and famous for having horses shot out from under him. 180 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:03,700 Old Bedford Forrest, he's 181 00:12:03,950 --> 00:12:06,320 the most colorful man in the war. 182 00:12:06,740 --> 00:12:10,890 He killed more men than any other general officer ever has, 183 00:12:10,940 --> 00:12:14,550 had more horses shot out from under him than any other officer ever had. 184 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:18,320 He had thirty horses shot from under him in the course of the war, 185 00:12:18,370 --> 00:12:20,850 and he killed 31 men in hand-to-hand combat, 186 00:12:20,900 --> 00:12:23,400 and he said, "I was a horse ahead at the end." 187 00:12:25,110 --> 00:12:27,800 He was a master of the lightning raid 188 00:12:28,370 --> 00:12:31,620 and an expert at winning against long odds. 189 00:12:32,140 --> 00:12:34,890 He fought his battles, he said, "by ear," 190 00:12:34,940 --> 00:12:37,220 and he could anticipate an enemy's movements 191 00:12:37,270 --> 00:12:39,210 with uncanny precision. 192 00:12:40,570 --> 00:12:42,670 He was only surprised in battle once. 193 00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:45,870 It was a place called Parker's Crossroads up in Tennessee. 194 00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:47,370 He was on a raid, 195 00:12:47,710 --> 00:12:52,130 and he was closing in on an opponent and fixing to finish him off 196 00:12:52,180 --> 00:12:55,700 when he was attacked in the rear by a force that he did not suspect 197 00:12:55,750 --> 00:12:59,110 was within many miles, and everybody was terribly upset. 198 00:12:59,160 --> 00:13:01,530 And they said, "General, what shall we do," and he said, 199 00:13:01,580 --> 00:13:04,110 "Split in two and charge both ways," 200 00:13:04,280 --> 00:13:06,510 and did and got out. 201 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:09,890 In June 1864, 202 00:13:09,940 --> 00:13:12,240 in an attempt to cut off Sherman's supplies 203 00:13:12,290 --> 00:13:15,490 at Brice's Crossroads near Tupelo, Mississippi, 204 00:13:15,540 --> 00:13:18,080 Forrest outdid even himself. 205 00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:23,360 The union army coming to stop him was nearly three times as strong as his, 206 00:13:23,410 --> 00:13:25,570 but Forrest was unimpressed. 207 00:13:25,830 --> 00:13:30,090 Factoring in the mud-clogged roads and the blazing mid-June sun, 208 00:13:30,190 --> 00:13:32,570 he predicted the Union cavalry would arrive 209 00:13:32,620 --> 00:13:34,740 well ahead of the Union infantry, 210 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:38,050 giving him time to whip it on his own terms. 211 00:13:38,810 --> 00:13:41,770 It all happened exactly as he said. 212 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:47,210 No army, it seemed, could stop him. 213 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:51,220 Forrest was free to slash at Sherman's forces, 214 00:13:51,470 --> 00:13:54,120 slowing his approach to Atlanta. 215 00:13:59,820 --> 00:14:02,380 "Forrest must be hunted down and killed" 216 00:14:02,430 --> 00:14:04,430 "if it costs 10,000 lives" 217 00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:07,270 "and bankrupts that Federal Treasury." 218 00:14:07,630 --> 00:14:09,540 William Tecumseh Sherman. 219 00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:20,860 "Who shall revive the withered hopes that 220 00:14:20,910 --> 00:14:23,720 "bloomed at the opening of Grant's campaign? 221 00:14:23,770 --> 00:14:27,070 "All are tired of this damnable tragedy." 222 00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:30,000 "Each hour is but sinking us deeper" 223 00:14:30,050 --> 00:14:31,610 "into bankruptcy" 224 00:14:31,660 --> 00:14:33,380 "and desolation." 225 00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:35,400 New York World. 226 00:14:36,660 --> 00:14:40,940 The summer of 1864 was the North's darkest hour. 227 00:14:41,140 --> 00:14:43,460 Grant's losses had been appalling. 228 00:14:44,130 --> 00:14:46,920 His army was stalled in front of Petersburg, 229 00:14:46,970 --> 00:14:50,460 his grand strategy apparently come to nothing. 230 00:14:51,360 --> 00:14:54,890 Franz Sigel's army had been routed in the Shenandoah. 231 00:14:55,910 --> 00:14:59,250 Ben Butler was bottled up in a loop of the James River 232 00:14:59,300 --> 00:15:01,250 called the Bermuda Hundred. 233 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:06,340 Even William Tecumseh Sherman was stalled outside Atlanta. 234 00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:10,040 "Mr. Lincoln is already beaten." 235 00:15:10,140 --> 00:15:12,190 "He cannot be re-elected," 236 00:15:12,290 --> 00:15:14,980 "and we must have another ticket." 237 00:15:15,180 --> 00:15:16,600 Horace Greeley. 238 00:15:18,560 --> 00:15:20,950 No nation had ever held an election 239 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:23,080 in the midst of a civil war. 240 00:15:23,130 --> 00:15:25,130 No president since Andrew Jackson 241 00:15:25,180 --> 00:15:26,910 had won a second term. 242 00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:29,340 Long after Lincoln was nominated, 243 00:15:29,390 --> 00:15:32,500 politicians in his own party still hoped to reconvene 244 00:15:32,550 --> 00:15:34,560 and pick another nominee. 245 00:15:34,980 --> 00:15:38,660 Even Lincoln believed his re-election unlikely. 246 00:15:40,730 --> 00:15:44,780 "We cannot have free government without elections, 247 00:15:45,250 --> 00:15:48,270 "and if the rebellion could force us to forego" 248 00:15:48,320 --> 00:15:51,280 "or postpone a national election," 249 00:15:51,830 --> 00:15:54,400 "it might fairly be claimed to have already" 250 00:15:54,450 --> 00:15:56,960 "conquered and ruined us." 251 00:15:57,980 --> 00:15:59,700 Abraham Lincoln. 252 00:16:01,110 --> 00:16:04,280 "After four years of failure to restore the Union" 253 00:16:04,330 --> 00:16:06,230 "by the experiment of war," 254 00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:10,530 "we demand that immediate effort be made for a cessation of hostilities" 255 00:16:10,580 --> 00:16:13,000 "at the earliest practicable moment." 256 00:16:13,050 --> 00:16:15,100 Democratic National Platform. 257 00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:20,310 The democrats wanted an end to the war, with or without victory. 258 00:16:20,630 --> 00:16:23,429 Their nominee was General George McClellan, 259 00:16:23,430 --> 00:16:27,760 whose ambition had not shrunk since Lincoln removed him from command. 260 00:16:31,710 --> 00:16:33,590 "McClellan was our first commander, 261 00:16:33,640 --> 00:16:36,460 "and as such, he was almost worshiped by his soldiers." 262 00:16:36,510 --> 00:16:40,130 "The political friends of General McClellan well understood that fact," 263 00:16:40,180 --> 00:16:42,670 "and it was a very crafty thing for them to nominate him" 264 00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:44,970 "as their candidate for the presidency." 265 00:16:46,620 --> 00:16:49,580 The south rejoiced at McClellan's nomination. 266 00:16:49,630 --> 00:16:53,470 "The first ray of real light," Vice- President Alexander Stephens said, 267 00:16:53,630 --> 00:16:55,460 "since the war began." 268 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:02,370 Wherever it could, the South exploited antiwar feeling in the North. 269 00:17:02,830 --> 00:17:06,670 The Confederate government sent money to support the Union peace movement 270 00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:09,530 and painted Lincoln as the candidate of war. 271 00:17:12,650 --> 00:17:14,650 The campaign was ugly. 272 00:17:14,700 --> 00:17:17,870 Democrats charged that the real goal of old Abe's war 273 00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:19,550 was miscegenation, 274 00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:22,830 a new word for the "blending of white and black." 275 00:17:23,750 --> 00:17:27,130 Republicans charged democrats with treason. 276 00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:32,080 The 1864 presidential election 277 00:17:32,330 --> 00:17:35,430 had become a referendum on the war itself. 278 00:17:41,320 --> 00:17:45,040 All the word from all republicans, even on a most local level, 279 00:17:45,090 --> 00:17:47,010 indicated that Lincoln couldn't possibly win. 280 00:17:47,060 --> 00:17:50,480 The fortunes of war had turned too badly, too sour for the Union. 281 00:17:50,780 --> 00:17:54,210 At one really poignant moment, 282 00:17:54,260 --> 00:17:57,360 Lincoln sat in the privacy of his office 283 00:17:57,410 --> 00:18:00,590 contemplating the fact that he probably wasn't going to be re-elected 284 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:04,250 and that McClellan, of all people, would replace him as president. 285 00:18:06,110 --> 00:18:08,740 "This morning, as for some days past, 286 00:18:08,790 --> 00:18:11,670 "it seems exceedingly probable that this administration 287 00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:13,720 "will not be re-elected. 288 00:18:14,540 --> 00:18:18,550 "Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the president-elect 289 00:18:18,720 --> 00:18:21,720 "as to save the Union between the election" 290 00:18:21,770 --> 00:18:23,640 "and the inauguration," 291 00:18:24,310 --> 00:18:27,160 "as he will have secured his election on such ground" 292 00:18:27,210 --> 00:18:29,980 "that he cannot possibly save it afterward." 293 00:18:32,770 --> 00:18:36,980 Pressured to drop emancipation as a condition of peace with the South, 294 00:18:37,030 --> 00:18:38,970 Lincoln refused. 295 00:18:39,520 --> 00:18:42,650 "The proclamation had promised freedom," Lincoln said, 296 00:18:42,700 --> 00:18:45,650 "and the promise being made, must be kept." 297 00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:51,800 "I should be damned in time and in eternity" 298 00:18:51,900 --> 00:18:54,140 "if I were to return to slavery" 299 00:18:54,190 --> 00:18:57,510 "the black warriors who have fought for the union." 300 00:19:19,150 --> 00:19:21,180 And turn about! 301 00:19:21,330 --> 00:19:22,790 Fire! 302 00:19:26,360 --> 00:19:29,660 "Spy Johnson, shot near coffin." 303 00:19:34,570 --> 00:19:38,310 Even before Bull Run, stolen secrets and intricate codes 304 00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:41,090 streamed between Washington and Richmond. 305 00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:51,780 Allan Pinkerton ran the northern Secret Service, 306 00:19:51,830 --> 00:19:54,140 while Confederate Major William Norris 307 00:19:54,190 --> 00:19:58,450 had a spy network that extended as far north as Montreal. 308 00:19:59,380 --> 00:20:02,330 In 1864, several southern agents 309 00:20:02,380 --> 00:20:04,410 even invaded Vermont. 310 00:20:06,300 --> 00:20:08,600 Spies were everywhere. 311 00:20:10,180 --> 00:20:13,810 "Women who come before the public are in a bad box now. 312 00:20:13,860 --> 00:20:16,430 "All manner of things, they say, come over the border 313 00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:18,770 "under the huge hoops now worn," 314 00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:21,180 "so they are ruthlessly torn off;" 315 00:20:21,230 --> 00:20:24,550 "not legs but arms are looked for under hoops" 316 00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:27,860 "and, sad to say, found." 317 00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:29,640 Mary Chesnut. 318 00:20:30,810 --> 00:20:33,910 Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a Washington widow, 319 00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:38,070 ran a Confederate spy ring just a few blocks from the White House. 320 00:20:38,230 --> 00:20:41,670 Much of her information came from an infatuated suitor, 321 00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:43,510 Senator Henry Wilson, 322 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:46,490 Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee. 323 00:20:50,910 --> 00:20:53,500 Imprisonment failed to stop Belle Boyd 324 00:20:53,550 --> 00:20:56,900 from coaxing secrets out of Union officers in Washington 325 00:20:56,950 --> 00:20:59,390 and passing them on in code to Richmond 326 00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:03,260 inside rubber balls that she tossed from her cell window 327 00:21:03,310 --> 00:21:06,720 to a shadowy agent she knew only as "C. H." 328 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:11,750 Her admirers called her "La Belle Rebelle." 329 00:21:14,780 --> 00:21:19,310 Slaves and former slaves made especially good Union operatives, 330 00:21:19,360 --> 00:21:22,510 guiding northern troops through swamps and forests 331 00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:24,870 and reporting on their masters. 332 00:21:25,540 --> 00:21:28,040 "After all," one Union officer said, 333 00:21:28,090 --> 00:21:30,740 "they had been spies all their lives." 334 00:21:32,010 --> 00:21:36,040 One northern agent, a black servant named Mary Elizabeth Bowser, 335 00:21:36,090 --> 00:21:39,300 even worked inside the Confederate White House. 336 00:21:45,950 --> 00:21:49,810 In November of 1863, a southern courier, Sam Davis, 337 00:21:49,860 --> 00:21:53,380 was sentenced to death at Pulaski, Tennessee, for spying. 338 00:21:55,810 --> 00:22:00,160 On the scaffold, Davis' bravery proved so moving that the commanding general 339 00:22:00,210 --> 00:22:03,110 was unable to give the order of execution. 340 00:22:04,180 --> 00:22:06,760 Davis finally gave it himself. 341 00:22:19,780 --> 00:22:22,010 "July 21st, Thursday, 342 00:22:22,110 --> 00:22:23,910 "in front of Petersburg. 343 00:22:24,210 --> 00:22:27,780 "The mine which General Burnside is making causes a good deal of talk" 344 00:22:27,830 --> 00:22:30,220 "and is generally much laughed at." 345 00:22:30,420 --> 00:22:32,900 "It is an affair of his own entirely" 346 00:22:32,950 --> 00:22:35,800 "and has nothing to do with the regular siege." 347 00:22:37,970 --> 00:22:41,040 For a month, a regiment of Pennsylvania coal miners 348 00:22:41,090 --> 00:22:45,010 worked to dig a 500-foot tunnel beneath the Confederate lines 349 00:22:45,060 --> 00:22:48,260 and pack it with four tons of gunpowder. 350 00:22:48,730 --> 00:22:52,630 Burnside's idea was to blow a hole in the Petersburg defenses, 351 00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:55,160 then rush through to take the town. 352 00:22:55,530 --> 00:22:59,530 Above ground, not far from the tunnel, the unsuspecting Confederate commander 353 00:22:59,580 --> 00:23:01,680 was General William Mahone, 354 00:23:01,730 --> 00:23:03,790 a veteran of almost every major battle 355 00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:06,360 fought by the Army of Northern Virginia. 356 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:11,200 At dawn on July 30th, 357 00:23:11,300 --> 00:23:14,150 Union sappers lit the fuse. 358 00:23:21,010 --> 00:23:23,580 A great crater was torn in the earth 359 00:23:23,630 --> 00:23:26,520 thirty feet deep, seventy feet wide, 360 00:23:26,570 --> 00:23:28,870 250 feet long. 361 00:23:30,030 --> 00:23:32,660 The stunned Confederates fell back. 362 00:23:33,020 --> 00:23:35,360 Then the plan began to fall apart. 363 00:23:35,410 --> 00:23:39,660 A precious hour went by before the Union assault force got started, 364 00:23:39,710 --> 00:23:43,500 and when it did, three divisions stormed down into the great hole, 365 00:23:43,530 --> 00:23:45,180 rather than around it. 366 00:23:45,380 --> 00:23:48,310 Their commander, General James H. Ledlie, 367 00:23:48,360 --> 00:23:50,220 did not even watch the battle, 368 00:23:50,270 --> 00:23:54,210 huddling instead in a bombproof shelter with a bottle of rum. 369 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,300 Once inside the crater, the Union soldiers found 370 00:24:00,350 --> 00:24:03,640 there was no way up the sheer thirty-foot wall of the pit, 371 00:24:03,790 --> 00:24:06,820 and no one had thought to provide ladders. 372 00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:11,050 General Mahone ordered his men back to the rim 373 00:24:11,110 --> 00:24:13,440 to pour fire down upon them. 374 00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,400 Scores of black troops were killed 375 00:24:16,450 --> 00:24:18,670 when they tried to surrender at the crater, 376 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,340 bayoneted or clubbed by Confederates shouting, 377 00:24:21,390 --> 00:24:24,070 "Take the white man! Kill the nigger!" 378 00:24:40,270 --> 00:24:44,280 "It was the saddest affair I have ever witnessed in the war." 379 00:24:45,500 --> 00:24:48,470 "Such opportunity for carrying fortifications" 380 00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:52,620 "I have never seen and do not expect again to have." 381 00:24:52,750 --> 00:24:54,760 Ulysses S. Grant. 382 00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,260 General Ledlie was dismissed from the service. 383 00:24:59,310 --> 00:25:01,610 Burnside was granted extended leave 384 00:25:01,660 --> 00:25:03,750 and never recalled to duty. 385 00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:08,050 "July 30th, 1864. 386 00:25:08,250 --> 00:25:12,570 "The work and expectations of almost two months have been blasted. 387 00:25:13,270 --> 00:25:16,980 "The first temporary success had elated everyone so much that we 388 00:25:17,030 --> 00:25:19,860 "already had imagined ourselves in Petersburg, 389 00:25:19,930 --> 00:25:21,800 "but fifteen minutes changed it all 390 00:25:21,850 --> 00:25:24,850 "and plunged everyone into a feeling of despair" 391 00:25:24,900 --> 00:25:27,690 "almost of ever accomplishing anything." 392 00:25:27,810 --> 00:25:30,120 "Few officers can be found this evening" 393 00:25:30,170 --> 00:25:33,870 "who have not drowned their sorrows in the flowing bowl." 394 00:25:34,090 --> 00:25:35,960 Washington Roebling. 395 00:26:46,890 --> 00:26:49,350 "The day has been so excessively hot 396 00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:51,500 "that I am almost melted. 397 00:26:52,100 --> 00:26:55,840 "The thermometer in the wardroom stands at 90 degrees, 398 00:26:55,890 --> 00:26:58,430 "while on deck the weather is very pleasant, 399 00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:01,480 "a fair breeze blowing from the east. 400 00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,540 "Everything is dirty, everything smells bad, 401 00:27:05,590 --> 00:27:07,590 "everybody is demoralized. 402 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:10,050 "'How are you, ironclad?' 403 00:27:10,170 --> 00:27:12,860 "A man who would stay in an ironclad from choice" 404 00:27:12,910 --> 00:27:15,480 "is a candidate for the insane asylum," 405 00:27:15,530 --> 00:27:19,140 "and he who stays from compulsion is an object of pity." 406 00:27:19,260 --> 00:27:22,530 "Fresh leaks are breaking out every day." 407 00:27:22,630 --> 00:27:24,510 Robert B. Ely. 408 00:27:28,300 --> 00:27:32,500 For two full years now, Union troops had occupied Fort Pulaski 409 00:27:32,550 --> 00:27:34,700 at the entrance to Savannah Harbor, 410 00:27:34,750 --> 00:27:37,860 blocking confederate supplies and waiting patiently 411 00:27:37,910 --> 00:27:41,710 for a union army to come and seize the city itself. 412 00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,060 To fill the time, the men played baseball, 413 00:27:47,110 --> 00:27:49,800 fast becoming the national pastime, 414 00:27:49,850 --> 00:27:52,010 south as well as north. 415 00:27:53,820 --> 00:27:55,590 But 300 miles away, 416 00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,490 Sherman was stuck in the hills of north Georgia. 417 00:27:59,610 --> 00:28:03,810 "The enemy must have at least fifty miles of connected trenches," he wrote. 418 00:28:03,860 --> 00:28:07,160 "The whole country is one vast fort." 419 00:28:20,140 --> 00:28:24,230 "Well, I think the damned old cuss of a preacher lied like Dixie," 420 00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:28,570 "for he said that God has fought all our battles and won our victories." 421 00:28:28,620 --> 00:28:32,620 "Now, if he had done all that, why is it not in the papers" 422 00:28:32,830 --> 00:28:35,670 "and why has he not been promoted?" 423 00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,040 Sergeant Albinus Fell. 424 00:28:39,850 --> 00:28:44,280 "Is it possible that God will bless a people as wicked as our soldier?" 425 00:28:44,330 --> 00:28:45,770 "I fear not." 426 00:28:45,820 --> 00:28:49,100 "One unceasing tide of blasphemy and wickedness," 427 00:28:49,150 --> 00:28:51,010 "coarseness and obscenity." 428 00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:53,270 Orville C. Bumpass. 429 00:28:54,790 --> 00:28:56,990 Men bet on anything... 430 00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,480 boxing matches, horse races, 431 00:28:59,530 --> 00:29:01,960 baseball games, and cockfights. 432 00:29:02,330 --> 00:29:06,280 In Union camps, victorious birds named "Grant" and "Bill Sherman" 433 00:29:06,330 --> 00:29:08,460 fought losers called "Beauregard,". 434 00:29:08,510 --> 00:29:10,710 "Jeff Davis," and "Bob Lee." 435 00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,230 "The boys would frequently have a louse race. 436 00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:20,430 "The lice were placed in plates. And the first that crawled off was the winner. 437 00:29:21,050 --> 00:29:24,520 "There was one fellow named Dornin, who was winning all the money. 438 00:29:24,570 --> 00:29:26,520 "We could not understand it. 439 00:29:26,570 --> 00:29:29,150 "If a fellow happened to catch a fierce-looking louse, 440 00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,470 "he would call on Dornin for a race." 441 00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:34,150 "Dornin would come and always win the stake." 442 00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:36,810 "At last we found out Dornin's trick..." 443 00:29:36,860 --> 00:29:39,060 "He always heated the plate." 444 00:29:39,110 --> 00:29:40,760 Sam Watkins. 445 00:29:42,030 --> 00:29:45,780 "Rutland, Vermont. Dear Edward, 446 00:29:46,100 --> 00:29:49,060 "It will be hard to have all my sons go, 447 00:29:49,110 --> 00:29:51,870 "but if it is right, I've nothing to say. 448 00:29:52,590 --> 00:29:54,490 "As you value your good name, 449 00:29:54,540 --> 00:29:57,890 "your peace of mind, and happiness here and hereafter," 450 00:29:57,940 --> 00:30:01,180 "do keep aloof from card playing," 451 00:30:01,330 --> 00:30:05,780 "for imperceptibly you will be led, I fear, to gambling." 452 00:30:06,210 --> 00:30:08,080 "Your devoted mother." 453 00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,960 There were, in all, 450 brothels in Washington, D. C., 454 00:30:15,010 --> 00:30:17,710 known to steady customers as "Fort Sumter,". 455 00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:19,700 "Madame Russell's Bake Oven," 456 00:30:19,750 --> 00:30:22,080 and "Headquarters, USA." 457 00:30:22,850 --> 00:30:26,390 Men called a trip there "goin' down the line." 458 00:30:28,850 --> 00:30:31,170 "I had a good time in Washington... 459 00:30:31,220 --> 00:30:33,410 "lager beer and a horse and buggy," 460 00:30:33,460 --> 00:30:36,610 "and in the evening, horizontal refreshments," 461 00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:40,180 "or in plainer words, riding a Dutch gal." 462 00:30:40,230 --> 00:30:42,960 "Had a good time generally, I tell you." 463 00:30:43,010 --> 00:30:45,210 Private Eli Veazie. 464 00:30:55,300 --> 00:30:57,330 "In the city of New Orleans, 465 00:30:57,380 --> 00:31:01,340 "we could see signs of smothered hate and prejudice to both our color 466 00:31:01,390 --> 00:31:04,620 "and present character as Union soldiers, 467 00:31:05,580 --> 00:31:07,750 "but for once in his life, 468 00:31:08,110 --> 00:31:11,920 "your humble correspondent walked fearlessly and boldly 469 00:31:11,970 --> 00:31:14,530 "through the streets of a southern city, 470 00:31:15,230 --> 00:31:17,500 "and he did this without being required 471 00:31:17,550 --> 00:31:20,000 "take off his cap at every step, 472 00:31:20,050 --> 00:31:22,250 "or to give all the sidewalks to those 473 00:31:22,350 --> 00:31:24,860 "lordly princes of the sunny south: 474 00:31:24,910 --> 00:31:26,820 "the planters' sons. 475 00:31:26,970 --> 00:31:29,420 "O, chivalry! 476 00:31:29,630 --> 00:31:31,530 "How hast thou lost thy 477 00:31:31,580 --> 00:31:34,220 "potent power and charms." 478 00:31:34,690 --> 00:31:39,130 "By what means, pray tell me, hast thou so degenerated" 479 00:31:39,300 --> 00:31:42,400 "as to lose the respect and admiration" 480 00:31:42,620 --> 00:31:45,800 "even of the sable sons of Africa?" 481 00:31:47,490 --> 00:31:50,760 That summer, Congress finally passed legislation 482 00:31:50,810 --> 00:31:54,510 giving black soldiers equal pay with whites. 483 00:31:57,270 --> 00:31:59,870 On August 5th, 1864, 484 00:31:59,920 --> 00:32:01,760 Union Admiral David Farragut 485 00:32:01,810 --> 00:32:04,530 led eighteen ships storming past three forts 486 00:32:04,580 --> 00:32:08,000 to engage the Confederate fleet guarding Mobile Bay. 487 00:32:10,610 --> 00:32:13,170 Farragut suffered from vertigo so intense 488 00:32:13,220 --> 00:32:16,620 he ordered himself lashed to the rigging of his flagship. 489 00:32:16,670 --> 00:32:18,610 When a mine sank the lead vessel 490 00:32:18,660 --> 00:32:21,110 and the captains of the other ships hesitated, 491 00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:25,110 Farragut shouted, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," 492 00:32:25,770 --> 00:32:29,180 and rammed and shelled the rebel fleet into submission. 493 00:32:35,250 --> 00:32:39,530 It was the first good news for the Union, and Lincoln, all year. 494 00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:53,450 "In camp. Near Atlanta. 495 00:32:53,550 --> 00:32:55,250 "Dear Companion, 496 00:32:55,300 --> 00:32:59,680 "I seat myself one time more in life to drop you a few lines." 497 00:33:00,050 --> 00:33:02,210 "I am wore out marching." 498 00:33:02,260 --> 00:33:05,760 "We have been running from one place to another for five days." 499 00:33:06,330 --> 00:33:09,750 "I must close, for it is a very bad place to write." 500 00:33:09,850 --> 00:33:12,180 Benjamin Franklin Jackson. 501 00:33:13,810 --> 00:33:16,670 Back in Alabama, Benjamin Franklin Jackson's 502 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,480 wife, Martha, awoke with a start. 503 00:33:20,390 --> 00:33:23,530 A mourning dove was sitting on her windowsill. 504 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,290 She took it as a sign her husband had been killed 505 00:33:27,340 --> 00:33:29,490 and began to weep silently 506 00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:31,840 so that her family would not hear her grief 507 00:33:31,890 --> 00:33:33,990 and think her superstitious. 508 00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,190 Her husband had been fatally wounded that morning 509 00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:39,460 in battle with Sherman's men. 510 00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,360 "Mine eyes have beheld the promised land:" 511 00:33:48,410 --> 00:33:51,030 "the domes and spires of Atlanta" 512 00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:53,630 "are glittering in the sunlight before us" 513 00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,510 "and only eight miles distant." 514 00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,160 Finally, Sherman was at Atlanta. 515 00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,130 For more than two months, Confederate General Joseph Johnston 516 00:34:07,180 --> 00:34:09,280 had kept his army intact, 517 00:34:09,330 --> 00:34:11,590 dodging Sherman's superior force 518 00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:14,080 and looking for the right moment to attack. 519 00:34:14,650 --> 00:34:16,980 The opportunity never came. 520 00:34:18,700 --> 00:34:21,600 An increasingly frustrated Jefferson Davis 521 00:34:21,700 --> 00:34:24,200 now removed the popular Johnston. 522 00:34:24,350 --> 00:34:26,580 His troops were stunned. 523 00:34:27,890 --> 00:34:30,290 "The news came like a flash of lightning," 524 00:34:30,340 --> 00:34:32,660 "staggering and blinding everyone." 525 00:34:33,020 --> 00:34:34,900 "Farewell, old fellow!" 526 00:34:34,950 --> 00:34:38,560 "We privates loved you because you made us love ourselves." 527 00:34:38,660 --> 00:34:40,330 Sam Watkins. 528 00:34:43,630 --> 00:34:45,510 Joseph Johnston's replacement 529 00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:49,000 was thirty-three-year-old John Bell Hood of Texas. 530 00:34:49,050 --> 00:34:53,180 His arm had been mangled at Gettysburg, and he'd lost a leg at Chickamauga, 531 00:34:53,230 --> 00:34:55,960 but his recklessness remained intact. 532 00:34:56,730 --> 00:34:59,490 His men called him "Old Wooden Head." 533 00:35:00,250 --> 00:35:02,360 "Hood is a bold fighter." 534 00:35:02,460 --> 00:35:06,210 "I am doubtful as to other qualities necessary." 535 00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:08,410 Robert E. Lee. 536 00:35:09,580 --> 00:35:13,880 Sherman was delighted with Hood, sure he would be attacked at last. 537 00:35:14,900 --> 00:35:18,170 Many of his units were now armed with Henry repeating rifles, 538 00:35:18,220 --> 00:35:21,810 capable of firing fifteen shots without being reloaded. 539 00:35:22,570 --> 00:35:26,210 Outgunned rebels complained the Yankees could now load on a Sunday 540 00:35:26,260 --> 00:35:28,380 and keep shooting all week. 541 00:35:32,950 --> 00:35:35,500 To cut off Atlanta's rail links with Richmond, 542 00:35:35,550 --> 00:35:37,369 Sherman sent thirty-five-year-old. 543 00:35:37,370 --> 00:35:40,770 General James McPherson's army east of the city. 544 00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,500 McPherson was a special favorite of Sherman's... 545 00:35:45,550 --> 00:35:48,990 handsome, warm-hearted, intelligent. 546 00:35:49,190 --> 00:35:51,190 "If he lives," Sherman predicted, 547 00:35:51,240 --> 00:35:54,050 "he'll outdistance Grant and myself." 548 00:35:54,510 --> 00:35:57,240 Northern papers cheered the Union advance 549 00:35:57,290 --> 00:36:00,050 and daily predicted Atlanta's fall. 550 00:36:04,770 --> 00:36:09,150 But on July 22nd, Hood rushed to counter the new Union threat. 551 00:36:09,620 --> 00:36:12,300 The battle of Atlanta had begun. 552 00:36:28,100 --> 00:36:31,110 It raged all afternoon, the lines forming, 553 00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,160 falling back, reforming, attacking again. 554 00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:37,850 At 2:00, General McPherson himself 555 00:36:37,900 --> 00:36:40,530 went to inspect the imperiled Union position 556 00:36:40,790 --> 00:36:43,920 and rode right into a band of rebel skirmishers. 557 00:36:44,690 --> 00:36:48,070 Ordered to surrender, McPherson raised his hat politely, 558 00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,490 turned his horse about, and raced for the union lines. 559 00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:55,640 The rebels shot him in the back. 560 00:36:57,900 --> 00:37:01,800 Sherman covered the body of his young friend with an American flag 561 00:37:01,850 --> 00:37:03,340 and wept. 562 00:37:05,420 --> 00:37:09,090 "Sherman had the rare faculty of remaining calm" 563 00:37:09,140 --> 00:37:13,210 "under great responsibilities and scenes of great excitement." 564 00:37:14,730 --> 00:37:18,080 "At such times, his eccentricities disappeared. 565 00:37:18,900 --> 00:37:21,420 "His mind seemed never so clear, 566 00:37:21,470 --> 00:37:24,080 "his confidence never so strong. 567 00:37:24,130 --> 00:37:26,330 "His spirit never so inspiring 568 00:37:26,380 --> 00:37:29,110 "in the crisis of some fierce struggle, 569 00:37:29,430 --> 00:37:32,150 "like that of the day when McPherson fell 570 00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:34,110 “in front of Atlanta." 571 00:37:34,470 --> 00:37:36,860 General Jacob D. Cox. 572 00:37:40,620 --> 00:37:44,930 Crying "McPherson and revenge, boys, McPherson and revenge," 573 00:37:44,980 --> 00:37:48,000 the Union Army smashed down on the rebels. 574 00:37:59,130 --> 00:38:02,810 In less than thirty minutes, Hood was forced to withdraw. 575 00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:13,770 At Ezra Church, west of the city, Hood again tried to rout Sherman's army. 576 00:38:13,820 --> 00:38:15,270 Again he failed. 577 00:38:16,330 --> 00:38:20,280 A third of his army was gone... 20,000 men, 578 00:38:20,330 --> 00:38:22,840 and Hood fell back into Atlanta. 579 00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:27,250 "I cannot describe it. 580 00:38:27,470 --> 00:38:30,070 "I remember I went in the rear of the building, 581 00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:32,630 "and there I saw a pile of arms and legs" 582 00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:34,600 "rotting and decomposing." 583 00:38:34,770 --> 00:38:37,990 "I have no recollection in my whole life of ever seeing anything" 584 00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:40,420 "that I remember with more horror." 585 00:38:40,570 --> 00:38:42,260 Sam Watkins. 586 00:39:06,970 --> 00:39:11,430 Behind their ramparts, the Confederates waited for Sherman to attack. 587 00:39:11,830 --> 00:39:16,110 "The Yankee gents can't get their men to charge our works," a Texan said, 588 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,250 but Sherman saw no need to be so rash. 589 00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:22,860 He sealed off the city's supplies and waited. 590 00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:29,700 Federal guns began shelling the heavily fortified. 591 00:39:29,750 --> 00:39:32,560 Confederate trenches and the city beyond. 592 00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,090 "Saturday, August 21st." 593 00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,450 "Another week of anxiety and suspense has passed, 594 00:39:51,550 --> 00:39:54,500 "and the fate of Atlanta is still undecided. 595 00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:56,830 "It is said 596 00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,390 "that about twenty lives have been destroyed by these terrible missiles 597 00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,680 "since the enemy began to throw them into the city. 598 00:40:04,330 --> 00:40:07,180 "It is like living in the midst of a pestilence: 599 00:40:07,230 --> 00:40:10,880 “no one can tell, but he may be the next victim." 600 00:40:13,330 --> 00:40:16,430 Outside Atlanta, things were no better. 601 00:40:17,290 --> 00:40:20,090 "The enemy hold us by an inferior force." 602 00:40:20,140 --> 00:40:23,030 Sherman admitted as the siege dragged on. 603 00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:26,370 "We are more besieged than they." 604 00:40:26,890 --> 00:40:31,160 "Both Grant and Sherman," George Templeton Strong predicted from New York, 605 00:40:31,210 --> 00:40:33,870 "are on the eve of disaster." 606 00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:54,630 Every evening for a month during the siege, 607 00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:58,220 a Georgia sharpshooter played his cornet so beautifully 608 00:40:58,270 --> 00:41:01,540 that men on both sides stopped to listen. 609 00:41:37,770 --> 00:41:40,180 Finally, on August 31st, 610 00:41:40,230 --> 00:41:43,550 the same day that George McClellan was nominated for president, 611 00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:45,370 Sherman hurled most of his army 612 00:41:45,420 --> 00:41:48,610 against the Macon and Western Railroad south of the city 613 00:41:48,980 --> 00:41:51,930 in one more attempt to break Hood's grip. 614 00:41:52,190 --> 00:41:53,690 It worked. 615 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,380 On September 1st, 1864, 616 00:41:57,430 --> 00:41:59,750 Hood abandoned Atlanta. 617 00:42:04,930 --> 00:42:07,930 Sherman's troops marched in the next day. 618 00:42:09,720 --> 00:42:13,840 "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won." 619 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:19,020 "September 3rd, 1864." 620 00:42:19,070 --> 00:42:23,170 "Glorious news this morning... Atlanta taken at last." 621 00:42:23,220 --> 00:42:27,340 "It is, coming at this political crisis, the greatest event of the war." 622 00:42:27,660 --> 00:42:30,200 George Templeton Strong. 623 00:42:32,650 --> 00:42:34,390 "Dear General Sherman, 624 00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:38,120 "I feel you have accomplished the most gigantic undertaking 625 00:42:38,170 --> 00:42:40,990 "given to any general in this war" 626 00:42:41,350 --> 00:42:43,160 "and with a skill and ability" 627 00:42:43,210 --> 00:42:46,280 "that will be acknowledged in history as unsurpassed," 628 00:42:46,330 --> 00:42:48,110 "if not unequaled." 629 00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:49,770 U. S. Grant. 630 00:42:51,810 --> 00:42:55,390 In Sherman's honor, Grant ordered a 100-gun salute 631 00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,650 fired into the Confederate works at Petersburg. 632 00:43:02,450 --> 00:43:04,510 "Atlanta is gone. 633 00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:06,750 "That agony is over. 634 00:43:07,410 --> 00:43:11,030 “There is no hope, but we will try to have no fear." 635 00:43:11,890 --> 00:43:13,610 Mary Chesnut. 636 00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:22,730 To avenge Sherman's victories in Georgia, six Confederate agents 637 00:43:22,780 --> 00:43:25,810 slipped into New York City armed with phosphorous, 638 00:43:25,930 --> 00:43:30,260 intent upon burning down the city's most fashionable hotels. 639 00:43:32,030 --> 00:43:34,180 They managed to light ten fires, 640 00:43:34,230 --> 00:43:37,180 and set P. T.\ Barnum's museum ablaze. 641 00:43:37,230 --> 00:43:39,450 Firemen put everything out. 642 00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,430 All but one of the Confederates got away. 643 00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:46,200 "The people of the north can't be rolling in wealth and comfort," 644 00:43:46,250 --> 00:43:48,930 the captured man said before he was hanged, 645 00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:51,470 "while we at the south 646 00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:54,800 “are bearing all the hardship and privations." 647 00:43:59,920 --> 00:44:02,350 From the front, on his wedding anniversary, 648 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,720 Robert E. Lee wrote home to his wife in Richmond. 649 00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:08,360 "Dear Mary, 650 00:44:09,180 --> 00:44:11,210 "Do you recollect what a happy day 651 00:44:11,260 --> 00:44:13,750 "thirty-three years ago this was? 652 00:44:14,410 --> 00:44:17,670 "How many hopes and pleasures it gave birth to? 653 00:44:18,230 --> 00:44:21,810 "God has been very merciful and kind to us," 654 00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:25,350 "and how thankless and sinful I have been." 655 00:44:26,250 --> 00:44:30,030 "I pray that he may continue his mercies and blessings to us" 656 00:44:30,250 --> 00:44:34,080 "and give us a little peace and rest together in this world." 657 00:44:47,460 --> 00:44:51,260 "That man Haupt has built a bridge across the Potomac Creek 658 00:44:51,310 --> 00:44:55,410 "about 400 feet long and nearly 100 feet tall" 659 00:44:55,460 --> 00:44:58,580 "over which loaded trains are running every hour," 660 00:44:59,290 --> 00:45:01,260 "and there is nothing in it" 661 00:45:01,310 --> 00:45:03,910 "but bean poles and corn stalks." 662 00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:05,990 Abraham Lincoln. 663 00:45:10,420 --> 00:45:14,280 Near Petersburg, the Union camp at City Point on the James River 664 00:45:14,330 --> 00:45:18,150 suddenly found itself one of the world's busiest seaports, 665 00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,359 with bakeries, barracks, warehouses, 666 00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:23,580 a 200-acre tent hospital, 667 00:45:23,630 --> 00:45:25,680 more than a mile of wharves, 668 00:45:27,290 --> 00:45:31,470 and a new seventy-mile railroad built by Herman Haupt in record time 669 00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:33,550 to bring supplies and fresh troops 670 00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:35,660 right up to the Union trenches. 671 00:45:35,860 --> 00:45:39,470 "Not merely profusion but extravagance," a visitor wrote, 672 00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:41,890 "soldiers provided with everything." 673 00:45:48,290 --> 00:45:51,300 An industrial machine of unparalleled power 674 00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:54,670 now kept the war supplies streaming to the front. 675 00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,260 In Cleveland, Ohio, when the war began, 676 00:45:57,310 --> 00:45:59,790 there was not a single forge or foundry. 677 00:46:01,450 --> 00:46:03,850 When the war ended, there were twenty-one, 678 00:46:03,900 --> 00:46:05,959 employing 3,000 men and turning out 679 00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,810 60,000 tons of steel a year. 680 00:46:09,780 --> 00:46:13,610 By then, the Cold Spring foundry opposite West Point on the Hudson 681 00:46:13,660 --> 00:46:17,660 was producing 7,000 artillery projectiles a week 682 00:46:17,860 --> 00:46:19,810 and the military telegraph system 683 00:46:19,860 --> 00:46:23,350 was carrying over 3,300 messages a day 684 00:46:23,550 --> 00:46:26,600 along 15,000 miles of wire. 685 00:46:28,740 --> 00:46:31,260 "The world has seen its iron age," 686 00:46:31,310 --> 00:46:32,850 "its silver age," 687 00:46:32,900 --> 00:46:35,560 "its golden age, and its bronze age." 688 00:46:35,610 --> 00:46:39,060 "This is the age of shoddy." 689 00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:42,380 For shrewd northern businessmen, 690 00:46:42,430 --> 00:46:45,320 there were quick profits in army contracts. 691 00:46:45,370 --> 00:46:47,380 Philip Armour gave up gold mining 692 00:46:47,430 --> 00:46:50,230 to strike it rich packing pork for the army. 693 00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:52,800 Samuel Colt of Hartford told his men 694 00:46:52,850 --> 00:46:56,730 to "run the armory night and day with double sets of hands." 695 00:46:56,950 --> 00:46:59,200 Jay Cooke sold war bonds, 696 00:46:59,250 --> 00:47:02,240 raised more than $400 million for the Union, 697 00:47:02,290 --> 00:47:04,830 and got rich on the commissions. 698 00:47:05,590 --> 00:47:10,000 Unscrupulous contractors sold the War Department rusty rifles, 699 00:47:10,050 --> 00:47:13,860 boats that leaked, caps that melted in the rain. 700 00:47:14,630 --> 00:47:18,880 When one manufacturer was asked why the soles of the shoes he supplied 701 00:47:18,930 --> 00:47:21,160 fell off after a few minutes' marching, 702 00:47:21,210 --> 00:47:24,210 he explained they had been meant for the cavalry. 703 00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:28,120 "You can sell almost anything to the government" 704 00:47:28,170 --> 00:47:31,340 "at almost any price you've got the guts to ask." 705 00:47:37,350 --> 00:47:41,630 I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back. 706 00:47:41,950 --> 00:47:46,190 At the same time the war was going on, the Homestead Act was being passed. 707 00:47:46,240 --> 00:47:48,900 All these marvelous inventions were going on. 708 00:47:49,150 --> 00:47:52,990 In the spring of '64, the Harvard- Yale boat races were going on, 709 00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:56,490 and not a man in either crew ever volunteered for the Army or the Navy. 710 00:47:56,540 --> 00:47:57,990 They didn't need them. 711 00:47:58,450 --> 00:48:00,550 I think that if it had been 712 00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:02,630 more southern successes, 713 00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:07,530 and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other arm out from behind its back. 714 00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,950 I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that war. 715 00:48:21,700 --> 00:48:25,140 Out west, Bloody Bill Anderson, a Confederate guerrilla 716 00:48:25,190 --> 00:48:28,070 who rode with Union scalps tied to his bridle, 717 00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:30,900 led thirty men into Centralia, Missouri, 718 00:48:30,950 --> 00:48:33,770 killed twenty-four unarmed federal soldiers, 719 00:48:33,820 --> 00:48:36,700 then ambushed 116 more. 720 00:48:39,070 --> 00:48:40,850 On October 26th, 721 00:48:40,900 --> 00:48:43,650 Anderson himself was ambushed and killed, 722 00:48:43,970 --> 00:48:48,150 but one of his close lieutenants, Jesse James, got away. 723 00:48:53,330 --> 00:48:57,500 In Tennessee, Nathan Bedford Forrest's men surrounded Fort Pillow, 724 00:48:57,550 --> 00:49:01,050 held by a unit of Tennessee Unionists and black troops, 725 00:49:01,100 --> 00:49:02,880 and demanded its surrender. 726 00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:06,470 When the Union commander refused, the fort was overrun. 727 00:49:07,230 --> 00:49:11,110 As many as 300 soldiers, most of them black, were killed, 728 00:49:11,380 --> 00:49:13,570 many after they surrendered. 729 00:49:14,940 --> 00:49:18,620 "It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the northern people" 730 00:49:18,670 --> 00:49:21,630 "that negro soldiers cannot cope with southerners." 731 00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:23,930 Nathan Bedford Forrest. 732 00:49:27,530 --> 00:49:31,430 "I said, don't shoot me, 733 00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:35,410 “and one of them said, 'Go out and hold my horse.' 734 00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:38,590 "I made a step or two, and he said, 735 00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:40,290 "'turn around." 736 00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,490 "'I will hold my horse and shoot you too.'" 737 00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:48,910 "I no... no sooner turned around than he shot me in the face." 738 00:49:50,810 --> 00:49:53,430 "I fell down as if I was dead." 739 00:49:53,550 --> 00:49:56,870 “And he shot me again and hit my arm, not my head. 740 00:49:58,570 --> 00:50:01,350 "I laid there until I could hear him no more, 741 00:50:01,620 --> 00:50:03,830 "and then I started back." 742 00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:06,750 "I got back about sunup" 743 00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:10,050 "and wandered about until a gunboat came along," 744 00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,810 "and I came up on that with about ten others." 745 00:50:14,670 --> 00:50:19,110 Private George Shaw, Company B, 6th U. S. Heavy Artillery. 746 00:50:23,420 --> 00:50:26,790 In retaliation for Fort Pillow, Grant ended the system 747 00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,520 under which prisoners had always been exchanged 748 00:50:29,570 --> 00:50:31,620 until the South agreed to recognize 749 00:50:31,670 --> 00:50:35,540 "no distinction whatever between white and colored prisoners." 750 00:50:35,850 --> 00:50:38,280 Davis and Lee refused. 751 00:50:39,950 --> 00:50:42,330 North and south, prisons soon bulged 752 00:50:42,380 --> 00:50:44,630 with unexchanged prisoners. 753 00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:49,540 Already inadequate prison camps became nightmares. 754 00:50:55,970 --> 00:51:00,090 The worst was the Confederate prison near Andersonville, Georgia. 755 00:51:00,950 --> 00:51:04,650 Meant to hold a maximum of 10,000 northern prisoners, 756 00:51:04,700 --> 00:51:08,870 by August 1864, it had 33,000... 757 00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,200 the fifth-largest city in the Confederacy. 758 00:51:13,570 --> 00:51:17,390 Its commandant, a German-Swiss immigrant named Henry Wirz, 759 00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:20,060 forbade prisoners to build shelters. 760 00:51:20,660 --> 00:51:23,440 Most lived in holes scratched in the ground 761 00:51:23,490 --> 00:51:25,240 covered by a blanket. 762 00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,460 The daily ration was a teaspoon of salt, 763 00:51:29,510 --> 00:51:31,650 three tablespoons of beans, 764 00:51:31,750 --> 00:51:34,100 and a half-pint of cornmeal. 765 00:51:35,860 --> 00:51:38,620 A foul creek called "Sweet Water Branch" 766 00:51:38,670 --> 00:51:41,880 served as both drinking water and sewer. 767 00:51:43,500 --> 00:51:46,230 "One-third of the original enclosure was swampy, 768 00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:49,340 "a mud of liquid filth, from the thousands, 769 00:51:49,390 --> 00:51:51,940 "seething with maggots in full activity. 770 00:51:52,010 --> 00:51:55,010 "Death at the hands of the guards, though murder in cold blood, 771 00:51:55,060 --> 00:51:58,480 "was merciful beside the systematic, studied, absolute murder 772 00:51:58,530 --> 00:52:00,870 “inside by slow death." 773 00:52:16,430 --> 00:52:20,540 In one year, 13,000 men died at Andersonville 774 00:52:20,590 --> 00:52:23,300 and were buried in mass graves. 775 00:53:13,510 --> 00:53:15,570 "Can those be men? 776 00:53:15,940 --> 00:53:18,460 "Are they not really corpses? 777 00:53:18,510 --> 00:53:21,390 "They lay there, most of them, quite still, 778 00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:24,270 "but with a horrible look in their eyes." 779 00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:28,170 "The dead there are not to be pitied as much as some of the living" 780 00:53:28,220 --> 00:53:30,230 "that have come from there..." 781 00:53:30,750 --> 00:53:33,440 "If they can be called 'living.'" 782 00:53:33,890 --> 00:53:35,530 Walt Whitman. 783 00:53:38,300 --> 00:53:40,090 "When I was taken prisoner," 784 00:53:40,140 --> 00:53:42,940 "I weighed 165 pounds." 785 00:53:43,010 --> 00:53:46,640 "And when I came out, I weighed ninety-six pounds" 786 00:53:46,810 --> 00:53:50,850 "and was considered stout compared with some I saw." 787 00:53:53,730 --> 00:53:56,950 "My heart aches for these poor wretches, 788 00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:59,060 "Yankees though they are, 789 00:53:59,110 --> 00:54:01,780 "and I am afraid God will suffer some 790 00:54:01,830 --> 00:54:04,680 "terrible retribution to fall upon us 791 00:54:04,730 --> 00:54:07,620 "for letting such things happen. 792 00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:12,280 "If the Yankees should ever come to southwest Georgia 793 00:54:12,330 --> 00:54:15,810 "and go to Anderson and see the graves there, 794 00:54:16,070 --> 00:54:18,870 “God have mercy on the land!" 795 00:54:32,470 --> 00:54:34,340 With Sherman's victory at Atlanta, 796 00:54:34,390 --> 00:54:37,250 Lincoln's chances of re-election were improving. 797 00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:42,720 And now came more bad news for the Confederacy: 798 00:54:42,770 --> 00:54:45,590 Phil Sheridan and 45,000 men 799 00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:48,160 were on the loose in the Shenandoah. 800 00:54:50,180 --> 00:54:53,600 "The whole country from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountains 801 00:54:53,650 --> 00:54:56,950 "has been made untenable for a rebel army. 802 00:54:57,300 --> 00:54:59,820 "I have destroyed over 2,000 barns 803 00:54:59,870 --> 00:55:02,530 "filled with wheat, hay, and farming implements 804 00:55:02,580 --> 00:55:04,639 "and over seventy mills." 805 00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,470 "Tomorrow, I will continue the destruction." 806 00:55:07,780 --> 00:55:10,040 "When this is completed, the valley," 807 00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:13,340 "will have but little in it for man or beast." 808 00:55:13,710 --> 00:55:15,810 General Phil Sheridan. 809 00:55:17,340 --> 00:55:20,370 He was sent there to clear it out once and for all. 810 00:55:20,420 --> 00:55:23,160 His instructions were to strip it so clean that a 811 00:55:23,210 --> 00:55:27,020 crow flying across it would have to carry his own provender, 812 00:55:27,070 --> 00:55:29,210 and he came close to doing it. 813 00:55:30,230 --> 00:55:33,660 No union officer was fonder of fighting than Sheridan. 814 00:55:33,710 --> 00:55:36,170 None, save Sherman, was so relentless. 815 00:55:36,220 --> 00:55:39,690 His orders were to follow Jubal Early "to the death." 816 00:55:42,060 --> 00:55:46,380 Before dawn on October 18th, Jubal Early tried one last time 817 00:55:46,430 --> 00:55:50,080 to destroy Sheridan's army by attacking at Cedar Creek, 818 00:55:50,230 --> 00:55:54,150 while Sheridan himself was asleep at Winchester, twenty miles away. 819 00:55:54,860 --> 00:55:57,630 At first it seemed Early had succeeded. 820 00:55:57,680 --> 00:56:00,320 Union forces were driven from their camps. 821 00:56:00,770 --> 00:56:03,940 Sheridan mounted his great black horse Rienzi 822 00:56:03,990 --> 00:56:07,480 and galloped through his retreating men, urging them to turn back. 823 00:56:07,530 --> 00:56:10,110 They stopped and began to chant his name. 824 00:56:10,930 --> 00:56:14,960 "God damn you!" Sheridan shouted. "Don't cheer me. Fight!" 825 00:56:16,230 --> 00:56:19,860 The Union lines re-formed and won back the field. 826 00:56:24,550 --> 00:56:26,130 Early fled, 827 00:56:26,180 --> 00:56:30,030 and the Shenandoah was closed forever to the Confederacy. 828 00:56:31,500 --> 00:56:34,890 "General Sheridan, when this particular war began, 829 00:56:34,940 --> 00:56:39,290 "I thought a cavalryman should be at least 6'4" high, 830 00:56:39,810 --> 00:56:41,930 "but I have changed my mind." 831 00:56:41,980 --> 00:56:44,720 "Five-foot-four will do in a pinch." 832 00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:46,780 Abraham Lincoln. 833 00:56:47,950 --> 00:56:51,670 At Petersburg, Grant fired a second 100-gun volley 834 00:56:51,720 --> 00:56:53,570 into the enemy works. 835 00:57:00,940 --> 00:57:04,620 "Dear Nat, I think well of the president. 836 00:57:04,670 --> 00:57:07,870 "He has a face like a Hoosier Michelangelo, 837 00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:12,040 "so awful ugly it becomes beautiful, with its strange mouth, 838 00:57:12,090 --> 00:57:16,830 "its deep-cut, crisscross lines, and its doughnut complexion. 839 00:57:18,100 --> 00:57:22,230 "I do not dwell on the supposed failures of his government." 840 00:57:22,350 --> 00:57:23,910 "He has shown" 841 00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:28,519 "an almost supernatural tact in keeping the ship afloat at all." 842 00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:29,970 “I more and more 843 00:57:30,020 --> 00:57:33,820 "rely upon his idiomatic Western genius." 844 00:57:35,090 --> 00:57:36,970 Walt Whitman. 845 00:57:42,250 --> 00:57:44,020 Harper's Weekly. 846 00:57:44,540 --> 00:57:48,050 "Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson have been elected 847 00:57:48,100 --> 00:57:50,650 "by enormous and universal majorities 848 00:57:50,700 --> 00:57:52,980 "in almost all the states. 849 00:57:53,130 --> 00:57:56,790 "This result is the proclamation of the American people 850 00:57:56,840 --> 00:57:59,260 "that they are not conquered. 851 00:57:59,580 --> 00:58:04,290 "This is what they confirm by the re-election of Mr. Lincoln. 852 00:58:05,350 --> 00:58:07,910 "In himself, he is unimportant," 853 00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:09,470 "but as the representative" 854 00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:12,770 "of the feeling and purpose of the American people," 855 00:58:12,820 --> 00:58:16,780 "he is the most important fact in the world." 856 00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:20,190 "I give thanks to the almighty 857 00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:23,320 "for this evidence of the people's resolution. 858 00:58:23,370 --> 00:58:27,140 "This contest has demonstrated to the world" 859 00:58:27,190 --> 00:58:29,960 "that a people's government can sustain" 860 00:58:30,010 --> 00:58:32,010 "a national election" 861 00:58:32,060 --> 00:58:35,530 "in the midst of a great civil war." 862 00:58:38,930 --> 00:58:42,350 Sherman's and Sheridan's victories had changed the odds. 863 00:58:42,520 --> 00:58:46,890 Lincoln carried 55% of the popular vote. 864 00:58:47,060 --> 00:58:50,060 Only three states... Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey... 865 00:58:50,230 --> 00:58:52,900 went to George McClellan. 866 00:58:53,070 --> 00:58:55,360 Virtually all of the general's old command, 867 00:58:55,530 --> 00:58:57,360 the Union Army of the Potomac, 868 00:58:57,530 --> 00:58:59,780 voted for Abraham Lincoln. 869 00:58:59,950 --> 00:59:04,080 “That grand old army performed many heroic acts, 870 00:59:04,250 --> 00:59:07,080 "but never in its history did it do a more devoted service 871 00:59:07,250 --> 00:59:09,250 than vote for Abraham Lincoln." 872 00:59:15,550 --> 00:59:19,090 "Not the fall of Richmond, nor Wilmington, 873 00:59:19,260 --> 00:59:22,260 "nor Charleston, Nor Savannah, nor Mobile, 874 00:59:22,430 --> 00:59:26,100 "nor all combined can save the enemy 875 00:59:26,270 --> 00:59:29,020 "from the constant and exhaustive drain 876 00:59:29,190 --> 00:59:33,020 "of blood and treasure which must continue 877 00:59:33,190 --> 00:59:36,400 "until he shall discover that no peace is attainable 878 00:59:36,570 --> 00:59:41,410 “unless based on the recognition of our indefeasible rights." 879 00:59:41,570 --> 00:59:43,450 President Jefferson Davis. 880 00:59:46,580 --> 00:59:48,330 If it hadn't begun before, 881 00:59:48,500 --> 00:59:51,540 the lost cause was born with his words. 882 00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:55,390 As Davis spoke at Richmond, 883 00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:58,410 his audience could hear Grant's guns at Petersburg, 884 00:59:58,460 --> 01:00:00,410 just twenty miles away. 885 01:00:01,860 --> 01:00:03,360 More and more, 886 01:00:03,410 --> 01:00:06,660 it was becoming a Confederacy of the mind. 887 01:00:09,080 --> 01:00:11,620 It was a realization that 888 01:00:11,670 --> 01:00:14,170 defeat was foreordained. 889 01:00:15,430 --> 01:00:19,480 Miss Chesnut, for instance, said, "It's like in a Greek tragedy, 890 01:00:19,530 --> 01:00:22,230 "where you know what the outcome is bound to be, 891 01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:24,530 “and we're living a Greek tragedy." 892 01:00:25,300 --> 01:00:29,150 And things began to close in on them more and more. 893 01:00:29,550 --> 01:00:32,890 There was scarcely a family that hadn't lost someone. 894 01:00:33,410 --> 01:00:34,870 There were... 895 01:00:35,020 --> 01:00:38,480 a disruption of society. The blockade was working. 896 01:00:38,510 --> 01:00:40,720 They couldn't get very simple things like 897 01:00:40,770 --> 01:00:44,290 needles to sew with... very simple things. 898 01:00:44,340 --> 01:00:48,580 And the discouragement began to settle in more and more 899 01:00:48,630 --> 01:00:51,730 with the realization that they were not gonna win that war. 900 01:00:52,150 --> 01:00:55,960 Their political leaders did everything they could, especially Jefferson Davis, 901 01:00:56,020 --> 01:00:59,960 to assure them that this was the second American Revolution, and if they would 902 01:01:00,010 --> 01:01:02,500 stand fast, the way their forefathers had, 903 01:01:02,550 --> 01:01:05,240 victory was unquestionably going to come. 904 01:01:05,410 --> 01:01:09,370 But the realization came more and more that it was not going to come, 905 01:01:09,420 --> 01:01:11,960 especially that they were not gonna get foreign recognition, 906 01:01:12,010 --> 01:01:14,810 without which, we wouldn't have won the first revolution. 907 01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:17,380 And all those things closed in on them. 908 01:01:28,530 --> 01:01:32,340 In the north, the reservoir of men seemed bottomless. 909 01:01:32,390 --> 01:01:35,550 Whole units, like the 3rd Massachusetts Volunteers, 910 01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:38,600 had still never heard a shot fired in anger. 911 01:01:40,200 --> 01:01:44,340 Lincoln now issued a proclamation making the last Thursday in November 912 01:01:44,390 --> 01:01:46,930 a national day of thanksgiving. 913 01:01:51,290 --> 01:01:53,120 In the trenches at Petersburg, 914 01:01:53,170 --> 01:01:55,900 120,000 turkey and chicken dinners 915 01:01:55,950 --> 01:01:58,650 were served to Grant's huge army. 916 01:02:00,350 --> 01:02:03,980 Only yards away, the Confederates had no feast, 917 01:02:04,030 --> 01:02:08,110 but held their fire all day out of respect for the Union holiday. 918 01:02:12,020 --> 01:02:15,520 Lincoln called for more men to finish the war. 919 01:02:16,290 --> 01:02:19,550 The South had no more men to spare. 920 01:02:20,790 --> 01:02:22,800 And William Tecumseh Sherman 921 01:02:22,850 --> 01:02:25,400 had begun his march to the sea. 922 01:02:31,100 --> 01:02:33,530 "We lay in grim repose" 923 01:02:33,580 --> 01:02:37,020 "and expected the renewal of the mortal conflict." 924 01:02:37,670 --> 01:02:40,640 "The conviction everywhere prevailed that we could sustain" 925 01:02:40,690 --> 01:02:43,090 "but one more campaign." 926 01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:46,360 Captain James F. J. Caldwell. 927 01:02:52,150 --> 01:02:54,140 On the night of November 25th 928 01:02:54,190 --> 01:02:56,740 at the Winter Garden theater on Broadway, 929 01:02:56,790 --> 01:02:59,530 Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" opened. 930 01:03:01,630 --> 01:03:04,070 Three brothers had the starring roles... 931 01:03:04,120 --> 01:03:07,250 Edwin, Junius, and John Wilkes Booth. 932 01:03:08,260 --> 01:03:10,400 At one point in Shakespeare's play, 933 01:03:10,450 --> 01:03:13,680 Cassius speaks of the assassination of Caesar. 934 01:03:14,540 --> 01:03:16,500 "How many ages hence" 935 01:03:16,550 --> 01:03:19,860 "shall this, our lofty scene, be acted over," 936 01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:21,960 "in states unborn" 937 01:03:22,010 --> 01:03:24,860 "and accents yet unknown?" 938 01:03:47,190 --> 01:03:48,880 "Captain Clapp," 939 01:03:48,930 --> 01:03:52,480 "77th New York, wounded at Petersburg." 940 01:03:54,480 --> 01:03:56,940 "Captain Smith, 77th New York," 941 01:03:56,990 --> 01:03:58,990 "wounded at Wilderness." 942 01:04:00,870 --> 01:04:04,230 "Captain Taylor, 61st Pennsylvania," 943 01:04:04,330 --> 01:04:06,890 "wounded at Spotsylvania." 944 01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:11,510 "Captain Orr, 77th New York," 945 01:04:11,560 --> 01:04:14,560 "lost arm at Cedar Creek." 946 01:04:16,220 --> 01:04:18,220 "Captain Defoe." 947 01:04:18,270 --> 01:04:21,370 "Eye shot out at Spotsylvania." 948 01:04:23,100 --> 01:04:26,470 "Major Ellis, 49th New York," 949 01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:29,520 "died of wound at Spotsylvania." 950 01:04:31,280 --> 01:04:34,780 "Captain Hickmott, 49th New York, 951 01:04:34,830 --> 01:04:36,830 "killed at Wilderness." 952 01:04:38,100 --> 01:04:41,760 "Lieutenant Lyon, 77th New York," 953 01:04:41,810 --> 01:04:44,060 "killed at Spotsylvania." 954 01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:49,420 "Lieutenant Belding, 77th New York, 955 01:04:49,570 --> 01:04:51,930 “killed at Cedar Creek. 956 01:04:53,570 --> 01:04:55,500 "Union officers," 957 01:04:55,550 --> 01:04:57,950 "all killed in battle." 958 01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:05,200 "It really looks as if it would never end. 959 01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:09,420 "The most inspiring sight is the flock of buzzards 960 01:05:09,470 --> 01:05:13,020 "constantly hovering over us and waiting for their feast. 961 01:05:13,790 --> 01:05:15,900 "Those birds are at least impartial 962 01:05:15,950 --> 01:05:18,670 “because they eat both sides alike." 963 01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:22,930 "The same, I suppose, is true of worms." 964 01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:25,480 Washington Roebling. 965 01:05:40,340 --> 01:05:43,400 By the spring of 1864, Union dead 966 01:05:43,450 --> 01:05:45,710 completely filled the military cemeteries 967 01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:48,010 of Washington and Alexandria. 968 01:05:50,100 --> 01:05:54,510 Secretary of War Stanton ordered the Quartermaster General, Montgomery Meigs, 969 01:05:54,560 --> 01:05:56,510 to choose a new site. 970 01:05:57,670 --> 01:06:02,090 Meigs was a Georgian who had served under Lee in the peacetime army, 971 01:06:02,240 --> 01:06:06,150 but he had developed an intense hatred for all his fellow Southerners 972 01:06:06,320 --> 01:06:09,550 who fought against the Union he still served. 973 01:06:14,000 --> 01:06:18,000 Without hesitation, he picked the grounds of Robert E. Lee's home at Arlington 974 01:06:18,030 --> 01:06:19,940 for the new army cemetery. 975 01:06:19,990 --> 01:06:22,370 And ordered that the Union dead be laid to rest 976 01:06:22,420 --> 01:06:26,580 within a few feet of the front door of the man he blamed for their deaths 977 01:06:26,830 --> 01:06:30,470 so that no one could ever again live in the house. 978 01:06:35,000 --> 01:06:38,930 In October, Meigs' own son, John, was killed by Confederate guerrillas 979 01:06:38,980 --> 01:06:40,510 in the Shenandoah 980 01:06:40,560 --> 01:06:43,630 and buried in Mrs. Lee's rose garden. 981 01:06:48,180 --> 01:06:50,600 At one point that year, the Union Army 982 01:06:50,650 --> 01:06:52,790 was sending back 2,000 wounded, 983 01:06:52,840 --> 01:06:56,040 maimed, and dying men a week to Washington. 984 01:06:59,390 --> 01:07:02,890 Now, the men Grant was sending to fight Robert E. Lee 985 01:07:03,010 --> 01:07:06,260 were being buried in Lee's own front yard, 986 01:07:09,800 --> 01:07:13,690 and that yard became Arlington National Cemetery, 987 01:07:14,710 --> 01:07:17,810 the Union's most hallowed ground.