All language subtitles for Civil War, The, 07 (1990)

"I require able-bodied men
with good horse and gun.

"I wish none but those who
desire to be actively engaged.

"Come on, boys,
if you want a heap of fun

"and to kill
some Yankees."

Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Bedford Forrest’s granddaughter
lived here in Memphis.

She recently died,
and I got to know her,

and she even let me swing the
general's saber around my head once,

which was a
great treat.

And I had thought a long time,
and I called her and said,

I think the war produced
two authentic geniuses.

One of them was your grandfather,
and the other was Abraham Lincoln.

And there was a silence at
the other end of the phone,

and she said, "Well, you know, in our family,
we never thought much of Mr. Lincoln."

She didn't like my coupling her
grandfather with Abraham Lincoln

all these years later.

Southerners--was very
strange about that war.

There was fighting all
across the country--

at the Sabine Crossroads near
the Texas-Louisiana border

and down the
Red River,

on the Little Blue
in Missouri,

at Poison Spring and
Jenkins Ferry, Arkansas,

and far out in
Indian territory.

By the summer
of 1864,

the union initiative
had ground to a halt.

Despite its powerful
industrial machine,

despite increasing
hardships for the South,

the North was losing
control of the war.

As the casualty
lists grew longer,

opposition to the
war increased.

With the presidential
campaign looming,

Abraham Lincoln now knew he
would have to do something

that had never
been done before--

submit to a popular
election during civil war

and win it.

"The struggle within
and without,"

an advisor told Lincoln,

"is for our
national existence."

At Petersburg, Robert E.
Lee's entrenched army

continued to resist Ulysses S.
Grant's two-month-old siege.

To end the stalemate,
Union troops were digging

deep beneath the
Confederate lines.

North of Atlanta, William
Tecumseh Sherman

would have to blast through
an impenetrable system

of trenches, breastworks,
and parapets

to take the city,
if he ever got there.

That summer, in the
sweltering Mississippi heat,

Confederate General
Nathan Bedford Forrest

would cement his
reputation as the most

terrifying cavalry
commander of the war.

Meanwhile, in the
Shenandoah Valley,

a diminutive union
general, Phil Sheridan,

would gleefully wreck every farm and
village he could lay his hands on,

while in Richmond, Jefferson
Davis struggled desperately

to keep the idea of the
confederacy alive.

At the end
of the year,

Union quartermaster General
Montgomery Meigs would lose a son,

and bring his grief to the
doorstep of Robert E. Lee.

By the summer of 1864,
people could hardly remember

that there had ever
been a time without war,

and many did not believe
it would ever end.

"Dear Mr. President,

"The tide is setting
strongly against us.

"Two special causes
are assigned

to this great reaction
in public sentiment--

"the want of military success
at Petersburg and Atlanta

"and the impression
that we are fighting,

"not for union, but for
the abolition of slavery."

Henry Raymond, Chairman,
Republican National Committee.

The siege of
Petersburg went on.

Morale had never
been lower.

"We should never have wars like
this again," one Union soldier said.

In less than
six months,

from the Wilderness
to Spotsylvania,

Cold Harbor
to Petersburg,

Grant had nearly
destroyed his army.

"The people are wild for peace,"
a newspaper reported.

"Lincoln's re-election
is an impossibility."

Nevertheless,
140,000 soldiers

re-enlisted in
the Union Army.

Pride and patriotism
had much to do with it

and a desire to see
the thing through,

but so did the promise
of a month's furlough.

"Three more years of hell,"
wrote one soldier,

"in exchange for thirty
days of heaven--home."

Harper's Weekly.

"The political
campaign which ends

"in the election of the
8th of November

"decides the most important
question in history.

"It has always been
the fate of republics

"to be destroyed
by faction.

"That fear is now
about to be confirmed

“or dissipated forever."

The key, everyone
knew, was Atlanta.

If Sherman could reach the
railroad hub of the south,

the war might
end at last.

But it was the stalemate in Virginia
that concerned Lincoln now.

"July 4th, 1864,

"The glorious Fourth
has come again,

"and we have had
quite a celebration

"with guns firing shot and
shell into Petersburg

"to remind them
of the day.

"This day makes 4 Fourth of Julys
that I have passed in the army:

"the first at
Camp Clark,

"the second at
Harrison's Landing,

"the third at Gettysburg,
and today at Petersburg.

"I had a party of
officers to dine with me.

"This was our
bill of fare--

"stewed oysters, canned;

"roast turkey, canned;

"bread pudding,
tapioca pudding,

"apple pie made
in camp,

"lemonade, cigars.

"Tomorrow, if
we march,

“hardtack and salt pork
will be our fare."

Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

"The enemy throw a number
of shells daily into Petersburg,

"but they do
little damage.

"The women and children
seem not to mind them at all.

"On one street yesterday where
such a number of shells burst

"that I would have considered it
a warm place in the field,

"women were passing
about with little concern,

"dodging around a corner
when they heard a shell coming

"or putting their heads out of their windows
to see what damage they'd done.

"A lady yesterday sent Wardlaw and
myself some ice cream and cakes."

Harry Hammond.

To relieve the pressure
on Petersburg,

Lee sent 10,000 men north to push
Union troops out of the Shenandoah

and harass
Washington itself.

In charge of the southern forces was
a ruthless Confederate general

named Jubal Early.

Early attacked Fort Stevens,
on the outskirts of Washington,

terrifying the city,

despite the
seventy-four forts

that now made it the most
heavily fortified city on earth.

Federal troops, including
Elisha Hunt Rhodes,

were hastily brought
up from Petersburg

to protect the capital.

"July 12th, 1864.

"We marched in line of battle into a
peach orchard in front of Fort Stevens,

"and here the
fight began.

"For a short time
it was warm work,

"but as the president and many
ladies were looking at us,

"every man tried
to do his best.

"Without our help, the small force in the
forts would have been overpowered.

"Jubal Early should have
attacked early in the morning,

”but Early was late!"

Meanwhile, to stop William Tecumseh
Sherman’s advance on Atlanta,

Nathan Bedford Forrest
was also on the move.

You're asking about, the most "man"
in the world, in some ways.

Forrest was a
natural genius.

Someone said that he
was born to be a soldier

the way John Keats
was born to be a poet.

He had some basic
principles that,

when you
translate them

they fit right into
the army manual.

When he said, "get there
first with the most men,"

he's saying,
"take the interior lines

"and bring superior
force to bear."

He had some very Simple things.
He used to say, "Hit them on the end,"

and he used to say,
"Keep up the skeer."

And these are all good military principles
expressed in Forrest’s own way.

And he was able to look at a piece
of ground and see how to use it.

He had a marvelous
sense of topography.

He could
see the... the...

the key to a position
and know where to hit.

"Forrest," William Tecumseh
Sherman later said,

"was the most remarkable man our
civil war produced in either side."

He was the son of an
illiterate blacksmith.

He made himself a millionaire
selling land, cotton, and slaves.

In 1861, he enlisted
as a private,

then quit to raise and equip
an entire cavalry battalion

out of his
own pocket.

By the end of the war, he had
become lieutenant general,

the only man on either
side to rise so far.

He was the most feared
cavalry commander of the war,

the "wizard of
the saddle,"

wounded four
times in battle

and famous for having horses
shot out from under him.

Old Bedford Forrest, he's

the most colorful
man in the war.

He killed more men than any
other general officer ever has,

had more horses shot out from under
him than any other officer ever had.

He had thirty horses shot from
under him in the course of the war,

and he killed 31 men
in hand-to-hand combat,

and he said, "I was
a horse ahead at the end."

He was a master
of the lightning raid

and an expert at winning
against long odds.

He fought his battles,
he said, "by ear,"

and he could anticipate
an enemy's movements

with uncanny precision.

He was only surprised
in battle once.

It was a place called Parker's
Crossroads up in Tennessee.

He was on a raid,

and he was closing in on an
opponent and fixing to finish him off

when he was attacked in the rear
by a force that he did not suspect

was within many miles, and
everybody was terribly upset.

And they said, "General, what
shall we do," and he said,

"Split in two and
charge both ways,"

and did and
got out.

In June 1864,

in an attempt to cut off
Sherman's supplies

at Brice's Crossroads
near Tupelo, Mississippi,

Forrest outdid
even himself.

The union army coming to stop him was
nearly three times as strong as his,

but Forrest was
unimpressed.

Factoring in the mud-clogged roads
and the blazing mid-June sun,

he predicted the Union
cavalry would arrive

well ahead of the
Union infantry,

giving him time to whip
it on his own terms.

It all happened
exactly as he said.

No army, it seemed,
could stop him.

Forrest was free to slash
at Sherman’s forces,

slowing his
approach to Atlanta.

"Forrest must be
hunted down and killed

"if it costs
10,000 lives

"and bankrupts that
Federal Treasury."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

"Who shall revive the
withered hopes that

"bloomed at the opening
of Grant's campaign?

"All are tired of this
damnable tragedy.

"Each hour is but
sinking us deeper

"into bankruptcy

"and desolation."

New York World.

The summer of 1864 was
the North's darkest hour.

Grant's losses had
been appalling.

His army was stalled
in front of Petersburg,

his grand strategy
apparently come to nothing.

Franz Sigel’s army had been
routed in the Shenandoah.

Ben Butler was bottled up
in a loop of the James River

called the Bermuda Hundred.

Even William Tecumseh Sherman
was stalled outside Atlanta.

"Mr. Lincoln is
already beaten.

"He cannot
be re-elected,

"and we must have
another ticket."

Horace Greeley.

No nation had ever
held an election

in the midst
of a civil war.

No president since
Andrew Jackson

had won a
second term.

Long after Lincoln
was nominated,

politicians in his own party
still hoped to reconvene

and pick another
nominee.

Even Lincoln believed
his re-election unlikely.

"We cannot have free
government without elections,

"and if the rebellion
could force us to forego

"or postpone a
national election,

"it might fairly be
claimed to have already

"conquered
and ruined us."

Abraham Lincoln.

"After four years of failure
to restore the Union

"by the
experiment of war,

"we demand that immediate effort be
made for a cessation of hostilities

"at the earliest
practicable moment."

Democratic National Platform.

The democrats wanted an end to
the war, with or without victory.

Their nominee was
General George McClellan,

whose ambition had not shrunk since
Lincoln removed him from command.

"McClellan was our
first commander,

"and as such, he was almost
worshiped by his soldiers.

"The political friends of General
McClellan well understood that fact,

"and it was a very crafty thing
for them to nominate him

"as their candidate
for the presidency."

The south rejoiced at
McClellan’s nomination.

"The first ray of real light," Vice-
President Alexander Stephens said,

"since the
war began."

Wherever it could, the South
exploited antiwar feeling in the North.

The Confederate government sent money to support the Union peace movement

and painted Lincoln as
the candidate of war.

The campaign was ugly.

Democrats charged that the
real goal of old Abe’s war

was miscegenation,

a new word for the
"blending of white and black."

Republicans charged
democrats with treason.

The 1864
presidential election

had become a referendum
on the war itself.

All the word from all republicans, even on a most local level,

indicated that Lincoln
couldn't possibly win.

The fortunes of war had turned
too badly, too sour for the Union.

At one really
poignant moment,

Lincoln sat in the
privacy of his office

contemplating the fact that he
probably wasn't going to be re-elected

and that McClellan, of all people,
would replace him as president.

"This morning, as
for some days past,

"it seems exceedingly probable
that this administration

"will not be re-elected.

"Then it will be my duty to so
cooperate with the president-elect

"as to save the Union
between the election

"and the inauguration,

"as he will have secured
his election on such ground

"that he cannot possibly
save it afterward."

Pressured to drop emancipation as
a condition of peace with the South,

Lincoln refused.

"The proclamation had promised
freedom," Lincoln said,

"and the promise being
made, must be kept."

"I should be damned
in time and in eternity

"if I were to
return to slavery

"the black warriors who
have fought for the union."

And turn about!

Fire!

"Spy Johnson,
shot near coffin."

Even before Bull Run, stolen
secrets and intricate codes

streamed between
Washington and Richmond.

Allan Pinkerton ran the
northern Secret Service,

while Confederate
Major William Norris

had a spy network that extended
as far north as Montreal.

In 1864, several
southern agents

even invaded Vermont.

Spies were everywhere.

"Women who come before the
public are in a bad box now.

"All manner of things, they
say, come over the border

"under the huge
hoops now worn,

"so they are
ruthlessly torn off;

"not legs but arms are
looked for under hoops

"and, sad to
say, found."

Mary Chesnut.

Rose O’Neal Greenhow,
a Washington widow,

ran a Confederate spy ring just a
few blocks from the White House.

Much of her information came
from an infatuated suitor,

Senator Henry Wilson,

Chairman of the Military
Affairs Committee.

Imprisonment failed
to stop Belle Boyd

from coaxing secrets out
of Union officers in Washington

and passing them on
in code to Richmond

inside rubber balls that she
tossed from her cell window

to a shadowy agent she
knew only as "C. H."

Her admirers called her
"La Belle Rebelle."

Slaves and former slaves made
especially good Union operatives,

guiding northern troops
through swamps and forests

and reporting
on their masters.

"After all," one
Union officer said,

"they had been
spies all their lives."

One northern agent, a black servant
named Mary Elizabeth Bowser,

even worked inside the
Confederate White House.

In November of 1863, a
southern courier, Sam Davis,

was sentenced to death at
Pulaski, Tennessee, for spying.

On the scaffold, Davis' bravery proved
so moving that the commanding general

was unable to give
the order of execution.

Davis finally
gave it himself.

"July 21st, Thursday,

"in front of Petersburg.

"The mine which General Burnside is
making causes a good deal of talk

"and is generally
much laughed at.

"It is an affair of
his own entirely

"and has nothing to do
with the regular siege."

For a month, a regiment of
Pennsylvania coal miners

worked to dig a 500-foot tunnel
beneath the Confederate lines

and pack it with four
tons of gunpowder.

Burnside's idea was to blow a
hole in the Petersburg defenses,

then rush through
to take the town.

Above ground, not far from the tunnel, the
unsuspecting Confederate commander

was General
William Mahone,

a veteran of almost
every major battle

fought by the Army
of Northern Virginia.

At dawn on
July 30th,

Union sappers
lit the fuse.

A great crater was
torn in the earth

thirty feet deep,
seventy feet wide,

250 feet long.

The stunned
Confederates fell back.

Then the plan
began to fall apart.

A precious hour went by before
the Union assault force got started,

and when it did, three divisions
stormed down into the great hole,

rather than around it.

Their commander,
General James H. Ledlie,

did not even
watch the battle,

huddling instead in a bombproof
shelter with a bottle of rum.

Once inside the crater,
the Union soldiers found

there was no way up the
sheer thirty-foot wall of the pit,

and no one had thought
to provide ladders.

General Mahone ordered
his men back to the rim

to pour fire down
upon them.

Scores of black
troops were killed

when they tried to
surrender at the crater,

bayoneted or clubbed
by Confederates shouting,

"Take the white man!
Kill the nigger!"

"It was the saddest affair I have
ever witnessed in the war.

"Such opportunity for
carrying fortifications

"I have never seen and do
not expect again to have."

Ulysses S. Grant.

General Ledlie was
dismissed from the service.

Burnside was granted
extended leave

and never
recalled to duty.

"July 30th, 1864.

"The work and expectations of almost
two months have been blasted.

"The first temporary success had
elated everyone so much that we

"already had imagined
ourselves in Petersburg,

"but fifteen minutes
changed it all

"and plunged everyone
into a feeling of despair

"almost of ever
accomplishing anything.

"Few officers can be
found this evening

"who have not drowned their
sorrows in the flowing bowl."

Washington Roebling.

"The day has been
so excessively hot

"that I am
almost melted.

"The thermometer in the
wardroom stands at 90 degrees,

"while on deck the
weather is very pleasant,

"a fair breeze blowing
from the east.

"Everything is dirty,
everything smells bad,

"everybody is
demoralized.

" 'How are you,
ironclad?'

"A man who would stay in
an ironclad from choice

"is a candidate for
the insane asylum,

"and he who stays from
compulsion is an object of pity.

"Fresh leaks are
breaking out every day."

Robert B. Ely.

For two full years now, Union
troops had occupied Fort Pulaski

at the entrance to
Savannah Harbor,

blocking confederate
supplies and waiting patiently

for a union army to come
and seize the city itself.

To fill the time, the
men played baseball,

fast becoming the
national pastime,

south as well
as north.

But 300 miles away,

Sherman was stuck in
the hills of north Georgia.

"The enemy must have at least fifty
miles of connected trenches," he wrote.

"The whole country
is one vast fort."

"Well, I think the damned old cuss
of a preacher lied like Dixie,

"for he said that God has fought all
our battles and won our victories.

"Now, if he had done all that,
why is it not in the papers

"and why has he not
been promoted?"

Sergeant Albinus Fell.

"Is it possible that God will bless a
people as wicked as our soldier?

"I fear not.

"One unceasing tide of
blasphemy and wickedness,

"coarseness and
obscenity."

Orville C. Bumpass.

Men bet on anything--

boxing matches,
horse races,

baseball games,
and cockfights.

In Union camps, victorious birds
named "Grant" and "Bill Sherman"

fought losers
called "Beauregard,"

"Jeff Davis,"
and "Bob Lee."

"The boys would frequently
have a louse race.

"The lice were placed in plates. and the
first that crawled off was the winner.

"There was one fellow named Dornin,
who was winning all the money.

"We could not
understand it.

"If a fellow happened to
catch a fierce-looking louse,

"he would call on
Dornin for a race.

"Dornin would come and
always win the stake.

"At last we found out
Dornin's trick--

"he always
heated the plate."

Sam Watkins.

"Rutland, Vermont.
Dear Edward,

"It will be hard to
have all my sons go,

"but if it is right,
I've nothing to say.

"As you value
your good name,

"your peace of mind, and
happiness here and hereafter,

"do keep aloof
from card playing,

"for imperceptibly you will
be led, I fear, to gambling.

"Your devoted mother."

There were, in all, 450 brothels
in Washington, D. C.,

known to steady customers
as "Fort Sumter,"

"Madame Russell’s
Bake Oven,"

and "Headquarters, USA."

Men called a trip there
"goin' down the line."

"I had a good time
in Washington--

"lager beer and a
horse and buggy,

"and in the evening,
horizontal refreshments,

"or in plainer words,
riding a Dutch gal.

"Had a good time
generally, I tell you."

Private Eli Veazie.

"In the city
of New Orleans,

"we could see signs of smothered
hate and prejudice to both our color

"and present character
as Union soldiers,

"but for once
in his life,

"your humble correspondent
walked fearlessly and boldly

"through the streets
of a southern city,

"and he did this
without being required

"take off his cap
at every step,

"or to give all the
sidewalks to those

"lordly princes of
the sunny south:

"the planters' sons.

"O, chivalry!

"How hast
thou lost thy

"potent power
and charms.

"By what means, pray tell me,
hast thou so degenerated

"as to lose the respect
and admiration

"even of the sable
sons of Africa?"

That summer, Congress
finally passed legislation

giving black soldiers
equal pay with whites.

On August 5th, 1864,

Union Admiral
David Farragut

led eighteen ships
storming past three forts

to engage the Confederate
fleet guarding Mobile Bay.

Farragut suffered from
vertigo so intense

he ordered himself lashed to
the rigging of his flagship.

When a mine sank
the lead vessel

and the captains of the
other ships hesitated,

Farragut shouted, "Damn the
torpedoes, full speed ahead,"

and rammed and shelled the
rebel fleet into submission.

It was the first good news for
the Union, and Lincoln, all year.

"In camp. near Atlanta.

"Dear Companion,

"I seat myself one time more
in life to drop you a few lines.

"I am wore
out marching.

"We have been running from one place to another for five days.

"I must close, for it is a
very bad place to write."

Benjamin Franklin
Jackson.

Back in Alabama,
Benjamin Franklin Jackson's

wife, Martha,
awoke with a start.

A mourning dove was
sitting on her windowsill.

She took it as a sign her
husband had been killed

and began to
weep silently

so that her family would
not hear her grief

and think her
superstitious.

Her husband had been fatally
wounded that morning

in battle with
Sherman’s men.

"Mine eyes have beheld
the promised land:

"the domes and
spires of Atlanta

"are glittering in the
sunlight before us

"and only eight
miles distant."

Finally, Sherman
was at Atlanta.

For more than two months,
Confederate General Joseph Johnston

had kept his
army intact,

dodging Sherman’s
superior force

and looking for the
right moment to attack.

The opportunity
never came.

An increasingly frustrated
Jefferson Davis

now removed the
popular Johnston.

His troops
were stunned.

"The news came like
a flash of lightning,

"staggering and
blinding everyone.

"Farewell, old fellow!

"We privates loved you because
you made us love ourselves."

Sam Watkins.

Joseph Johnston's
replacement

was thirty-three-year-old
John Bell Hood of Texas.

His arm had been mangled at Gettysburg,
and he'd lost a leg at Chickamauga,

but his recklessness
remained intact.

His men called him
"Old Wooden Head."

"Hood is a
bold fighter.

"I am doubtful as to other
qualities necessary."

Robert E. Lee.

Sherman was delighted with Hood,
sure he would be attacked at last.

Many of his units were now
armed with Henry repeating rifles,

capable of firing fifteen shots
without being reloaded.

Outgunned rebels complained the
Yankees could now load on a Sunday

and keep
shooting all week.

To cut off Atlanta's rail
links with Richmond,

Sherman sent
thirty-five-year-old

General James McPherson’s
army east of the city.

McPherson was a special
favorite of Sherman’s--

handsome, warm-
hearted, intelligent.

"If he lives,"
Sherman predicted,

"he'll outdistance
Grant and myself."

Northern papers cheered
the Union advance

and daily predicted
Atlanta's fall.

But on July 22nd, Hood rushed
to counter the new Union threat.

The battle of
Atlanta had begun.

It raged all afternoon,
the lines forming,

falling back, reforming,
attacking again.

At 2:00, General
McPherson himself

went to inspect the
imperiled Union position

and rode right into a band
of rebel skirmishers.

Ordered to surrender,
McPherson raised his hat politely,

turned his horse about,
and raced for the union lines.

The rebels shot
him in the back.

Sherman covered the body of his
young friend with an American flag

and wept.

"Sherman had the rare
faculty of remaining calm

"under great responsibilities and
scenes of great excitement.

"At such times, his
eccentricities disappeared.

"His mind seemed
never so clear,

"his confidence
never so strong.

"his spirit never
so inspiring

"in the crisis of
some fierce struggle,

"like that of the day
when McPherson fell

“in front of Atlanta."

General Jacob
D. Cox.

Crying "McPherson and revenge,
boys, McPherson and revenge,"

the Union Army smashed
down on the rebels.

In less than thirty minutes,
Hood was forced to withdraw.

At Ezra Church, west of the city, Hood
again tried to rout Sherman’s army.

Again he failed.

A third of his army was
gone-- 20,000 men,

and Hood fell
back into Atlanta.

"I cannot describe it.

"I remember I went in
the rear of the building,

"and there I saw a pile
of arms and legs

"rotting and decomposing.

"I have no recollection in my
whole life of ever seeing anything

"that I remember
with more horror."

Sam Watkins.

Behind their ramparts, the Confederates
waited for Sherman to attack.

"The Yankee gents can't get their men
to charge our works," a Texan said,

but Sherman saw no
need to be so rash.

He sealed off the city's
supplies and waited.

Federal guns began
shelling the heavily fortified

Confederate trenches
and the city beyond.

"Saturday, August 21st.

"Another week of anxiety
and suspense has passed,

"and the fate of Atlanta
is still undecided.

"It is said

"that about twenty lives have been
destroyed by these terrible missiles

"since the enemy began
to throw them into the city.

"It is like living in the
midst of a pestilence:

“no one can tell, but he
may be the next victim."

Outside Atlanta,
things were no better.

"The enemy hold us
by an inferior force,"

Sherman admitted as
the siege dragged on.

"We are more
besieged than they."

"Both Grant and Sherman," George
Templeton Strong predicted from New York,

"are on the eve
of disaster."

Every evening for a
month during the siege,

a Georgia sharpshooter
played his cornet so beautifully

that men on both
sides stopped to listen.

Finally, on August 31st,

the same day that George McClellan
was nominated for president,

Sherman hurled
most of his army

against the Macon and Western
Railroad south of the city

in one more attempt
to break Hood's grip.

It worked.

On September 1st, 1864,

Hood abandoned Atlanta.

Sherman's troops
marched in the next day.

"Atlanta is ours,
and fairly won."

"September 3rd,1864.

"Glorious news this morning--
Atlanta taken at last.

"It is, coming at this political crisis,
the greatest event of the war."

George Templeton
Strong.

"Dear General Sherman,

"I feel you have accomplished
the most gigantic undertaking

"given to any
general in this war

"and with a
skill and ability

"that will be acknowledged
in history as unsurpassed,

"if not unequaled."

U. S. Grant.

In Sherman’s honor, Grant
ordered a 100-gun salute

fired into the Confederate
works at Petersburg.

"Atlanta is gone.

"that agony is over.

“There is no hope, but we
will try to have no fear."

Mary Chesnut.

To avenge Sherman’s victories in
Georgia, six Confederate agents

slipped into New York City
armed with phosphorous,

intent upon burning down the
city's most fashionable hotels.

They managed
to light ten fires,

and set P. T.\ Barnum's
museum ablaze.

Firemen put
everything out.

All but one of the
Confederates got away.

"The people of the north can't be
rolling in wealth and comfort,"

the captured man said
before he was hanged,

"while we at
the south

“are bearing all the
hardship and privations."

From the front, on his
wedding anniversary,

Robert E. Lee wrote home
to his wife in Richmond.

"Dear Mary,

"Do you recollect
what a happy day

"thirty-three years
ago this was?

"How many hopes and
pleasures it gave birth to?

"God has been very
merciful and kind to us,

"and how thankless
and sinful I have been.

"I pray that he may continue his
mercies and blessings to us

"and give us a little peace and
rest together in this world."

"That man Haupt has built a
bridge across the Potomac Creek

"about 400 feet long
and nearly 100 feet tall

"over which loaded trains
are running every hour,

"and there is
nothing in it

"but bean poles
and corn stalks."

Abraham Lincoln.

Near Petersburg, the Union camp at City Point on the James River

suddenly found itself one of
the world's busiest seaports,

with bakeries,
barracks, warehouses,

a 200-acre
tent hospital,

more than a
mile of wharves,

and a new seventy-mile railroad built
by Herman Haupt in record time

to bring supplies
and fresh troops

right up to the
Union trenches.

"Not merely profusion but
extravagance," a visitor wrote,

"soldiers provided
with everything."

An industrial machine
of unparalleled power

now kept the war supplies
streaming to the front.

In Cleveland, Ohio,
when the war began,

there was not a
single forge or foundry.

When the war ended,
there were twenty-one,

employing 3,000
men and turning out

60,000 tons of
steel a year.

By then, the Cold Spring foundry
opposite West Point on the Hudson

was producing 7,000
artillery projectiles a week

and the military
telegraph system

was carrying over
3,300 messages a day

along 15,000
miles of wire.

"The world has
seen its iron age,

"its silver age,

"its golden age,
and its bronze age.

"This is the age
of shoddy."

For shrewd northern
businessmen,

there were quick profits
in army contracts.

Philip Armour gave
up gold mining

to strike it rich packing
pork for the army.

Samuel Colt of
Hartford told his men

to "run the armory night and day
with double sets of hands."

Jay Cooke
sold war bonds,

raised more than $400
million for the Union,

and got rich on
the commissions.

Unscrupulous contractors sold
the War Department rusty rifles,

boats that leaked, caps
that melted in the rain.

When one manufacturer was asked
why the soles of the shoes he supplied

fell off after a few
minutes' marching,

he explained they had been
meant for the cavalry.

"You can sell almost
anything to the government

"at almost any price you've
got the guts to ask."

I think that the North fought that
war with one hand behind its back.

At the same time the war was going on,
the Homestead Act was being passed.

All these marvelous
inventions were going on.

In the spring of '64, the Harvard-
Yale boat races were going on,

and not a man in either crew ever
volunteered for the Army or the Navy.

They didn't need them.

I think that
if it had been

more southern successes,

and a lot more, the North simply would have
brought that other arm out from behind its back.

I don't think the South ever
had a chance to win that war.

Out west, Bloody Bill Anderson,
a Confederate guerrilla

who rode with Union
scalps tied to his bridle,

led thirty men into
Centralia, Missouri,

killed twenty-four
unarmed federal soldiers,

then ambushed
116 more.

On October 26th,

Anderson himself was
ambushed and killed,

but one of his close lieutenants,
Jesse James, got away.

In Tennessee, Nathan Bedford
Forrest’s men surrounded Fort Pillow,

held by a unit of Tennessee
Unionists and black troops,

and demanded
its surrender.

When the Union commander
refused, the fort was overrun.

As many as 300 soldiers,
most of them black, were killed,

many after they
surrendered.

"It is hoped that these facts will
demonstrate to the northern people

"that negro soldiers cannot
cope with southerners."

Nathan Bedford Forrest.

"I said, don't
shoot me,

“and one of them said,
'Go out and hold my horse.'

"I made a step or
two, and he said,

" 'turn around.

" 'I will hold my horse
and shoot you too.'

"I no...no sooner turned around
than he shot me in the face.

"I fell down as
if I was dead.

“And he shot me again and
hit my arm, not my head.

"I laid there until I could
hear him no more,

"and then I
started back.

"I got back
about sunup

"and wandered about until
a gunboat came along,

"and I came up on that
with about ten others."

Private George Shaw, Company B,
6th U. S. Heavy Artillery.

In retaliation for Fort Pillow,
Grant ended the system

under which prisoners had
always been exchanged

until the South
agreed to recognize

"no distinction whatever between
white and colored prisoners."

Davis and
Lee refused.

North and south,
prisons soon bulged

with unexchanged
prisoners.

Already inadequate prison
camps became nightmares.

The worst was the Confederate
prison near Andersonville, Georgia.

Meant to hold a maximum
of 10,000 northern prisoners,

by August 1864,
it had 33,000--

the fifth-largest city
in the Confederacy.

Its commandant, a German-Swiss
immigrant named Henry Wirz,

forbade prisoners
to build shelters.

Most lived in holes
scratched in the ground

covered by
a blanket.

The daily ration was
a teaspoon of salt,

three tablespoons
of beans,

and a half-pint
of cornmeal.

A foul creek called
"Sweet Water Branch"

served as both drinking
water and sewer.

"One-third of the original
enclosure was swampy,

"a mud of liquid filth,
from the thousands,

"seething with
maggots in full activity.

"Death at the hands of the guards,
though murder in cold blood,

"was merciful beside the systematic,
studied, absolute murder

“inside by
slow death."

In one year, 13,000 men
died at Andersonville

and were buried
in mass graves.

"Can those be men?

"Are they not
really corpses?

"They lay there, most
of them, quite still,

"but with a horrible
look in their eyes.

"The dead there are not to be pitied
as much as some of the living

"that have come
from there--

"if they can be
called 'living.' "

Walt Whitman.

"When I was
taken prisoner,

"I weighed 165 pounds.

"and when I came out, I
weighed ninety-six pounds

"and was considered stout
compared with some I saw."

"My heart aches for
these poor wretches,

"Yankees though
they are,

"and I am afraid God
will suffer some

"terrible retribution
to fall upon us

"for letting such
things happen.

"If the Yankees should ever
come to southwest Georgia

"and go to Anderson
and see the graves there,

“God have mercy
on the land!"

With Sherman’s
victory at Atlanta,

Lincoln's chances of re-
election were improving.

And now came more bad
news for the Confederacy:

Phil Sheridan
and 45,000 men

were on the loose in
the Shenandoah.

"The whole country from the Blue
Ridge to the North Mountains

"has been made untenable
for a rebel army.

"I have destroyed
over 2,000 barns

"filled with wheat, hay,
and farming implements

"and over
seventy mills.

"Tomorrow, I will
continue the destruction.

"When this is
completed, the valley,

"will have but little in
it for man or beast."

General Phil
Sheridan.

He was sent there to clear
it out once and for all.

His instructions were
to strip it so clean that a

crow flying across it would have
to carry his own provender,

and he came
close to doing it.

No union officer was fonder
of fighting than Sheridan.

None, save Sherman,
was so relentless.

His orders were to follow
Jubal Early "to the death."

Before dawn on October 18th,
Jubal Early tried one last time

to destroy Sheridan’s army
by attacking at Cedar Creek,

while Sheridan himself was asleep
at Winchester, twenty miles away.

At first it seemed
Early had succeeded.

Union forces were
driven from their camps.

Sheridan mounted his
great black horse Rienzi

and galloped through his retreating
men, urging them to turn back.

They stopped and began
to chant his name.

"God damn you!" Sheridan shouted.
"Don't cheer me. Fight!"

The Union lines re-formed
and won back the field.

Early fled,

and the Shenandoah was closed
forever to the Confederacy.

"General Sheridan, when
this particular war began,

"I thought a cavalryman
should be at least 6'4" high,

"but I have
changed my mind.

"Five-foot-four will
do in a pinch."

Abraham Lincoln.

At Petersburg, Grant fired
a second 100-gun volley

into the
enemy works.

"Dear Nat, I think well
of the president.

"He has a face like a
Hoosier Michelangelo,

"so awful ugly it becomes
beautiful, with its strange mouth,

"its deep-cut, crisscross lines, and its doughnut complexion.

"I do not dwell on the supposed
failures of his government.

"He has shown

"an almost supernatural tact in
keeping the ship afloat at all.

“I more and more

"rely upon his idiomatic
Western genius.

Walt Whitman.

Harper's Weekly.

"Abraham Lincoln and Andrew
Johnson have been elected

"by enormous and
universal majorities

"in almost
all the states.

"This result is the proclamation
of the American people

"that they are
not conquered.

"This is what they confirm by
the re-election of Mr. Lincoln.

"In himself, he
is unimportant,

"but as the
representative

"of the feeling and purpose
of the American people,

"he is the most important
fact in the world."

"I give thanks
to the almighty

"for this evidence of the
people's resolution.

"This contest has
demonstrated to the world

"that a people's
government can sustain

"a national election

"in the midst of
a great civil war."

Sherman's and Sheridan’s
victories had changed the odds.

Lincoln carried 55%
of the popular vote.

Only three states--Kentucky,
Delaware, and New Jersey--

went to George McClellan.

Virtually all of the general's
old command,

the Union Army
of the Potomac,

voted for Abraham Lincoln.

“That grand old army
performed many heroic acts,

"but never in its history
did it do a more devoted service

than vote
for Abraham Lincoln."

"Not the fall of Richmond,
nor Wilmington,

"nor Charleston,
Nor Savannah, nor Mobile,

"nor all combined
can save the enemy

"from the constant
and exhaustive drain

"of blood and treasure
which must continue

"until he shall discover
that no peace is attainable

“unless based on the recognition
of our indefeasible rights."

President Jefferson Davis.

If it hadn't begun before,

the lost cause was born
with his words.

As Davis spoke
at Richmond,

his audience could hear
Grant's guns at Petersburg,

just twenty
miles away.

More and more,

it was becoming a
Confederacy of the mind.

It was a
realization that

defeat was
foreordained.

Miss Chesnut, for instance, said,
"It's like in a Greek tragedy,

"where you know what the
outcome is bound to be,

“and we're living
a Greek tragedy."

And things began to close
in on them more and more.

There was scarcely a family
that hadn't lost someone.

There were--

a disruption of society.
The blockade was working.

They couldn't get very
simple things like

needles to sew with--
very simple things.

And the discouragement began
to settle in more and more

with the realization that they
were not gonna win that war.

Their political leaders did everything
they could, especially Jefferson Davis,

to assure them that this was the second
American Revolution, and if they would

stand fast, the way
their forefathers had,

victory was unquestionably
going to come.

But the realization came more and
more that it was not going to come,

especially that they were not
gonna get foreign recognition,

without which, we wouldn't
have won the first revolution.

And all those things
closed in on them.

In the north, the reservoir of
men seemed bottomless.

Whole units, like the 3rd
Massachusetts Volunteers,

had still never heard
a shot fired in anger.

Lincoln now issued
a proclamation making the last Thursday
in November

a national day
of thanksgiving.

In the trenches
at Petersburg,

120,000 turkey and
chicken dinners

were served to
Grant's huge army.

Only yards away, the
Confederates had no feast,

but held their fire all day out of
respect for the Union holiday.

Lincoln called for more
men to finish the war.

The South had no
more men to spare.

And William
Tecumseh Sherman

had begun his
march to the sea.

"We lay in
grim repose

"and expected the renewal
of the mortal conflict.

"The conviction everywhere
prevailed that we could sustain

"but one more
campaign."

Captain James
F. J. Caldwell.

On the night of
November 25th

at the Winter Garden
theater on Broadway,

Shakespeare's
"Julius Caesar" opened.

Three brothers had
the starring roles--

Edwin, Junius, and
John Wilkes Booth.

At one point in
Shakespeare's play,

Cassius speaks of the
assassination of Caesar.

"How many
ages hence

"shall this, our lofty
scene, be acted over,

"in states unborn

"and accents
yet unknown?"

"Captain Clapp,

"77th New York,
wounded at Petersburg.

"Captain Smith,
77th New York,

"wounded at
Wilderness.

"Captain Taylor,
61st Pennsylvania,

"wounded at
Spotsylvania.

"Captain Orr,
77th New York,

"lost arm at
Cedar Creek.

"Captain Defoe.

"eye shot out at
Spotsylvania.

"Major Ellis,
49th New York,

"died of wound
at Spotsylvania.

"Captain Hickmott,
49th New York,

"killed at
Wilderness.

"Lieutenant Lyon,
77th New York,

"killed at
Spotsylvania.

"Lieutenant Belding,
77th New York,

“killed at
Cedar Creek.

"Union officers,

"all killed
in battle."

"It really looks as if
it would never end.

"The most inspiring sight
is the flock of buzzards

"constantly hovering over us
and waiting for their feast.

"Those birds are
at least impartial

“because they eat
both sides alike."

"The same, I suppose,
is true of worms."

Washington Roebling.

By the spring of
1864, Union dead

completely filled the
military cemeteries

of Washington
and Alexandria.

Secretary of War Stanton ordered the
Quartermaster General, Montgomery Meigs,

to choose
a new site.

Meigs was a Georgian who had served
under Lee in the peacetime army,

but he had developed an intense
hatred for all his fellow Southerners

who fought against the
Union he still served.

Without hesitation, he picked the grounds
of Robert E. Lee's home at Arlington

for the new
army cemetery.

and ordered that the Union
dead be laid to rest

within a few feet of the front door of
the man he blamed for their deaths

so that no one could ever
again live in the house.

In October, Meigs' own son, John,
was killed by Confederate guerrillas

in the Shenandoah

and buried in
Mrs. Lee's rose garden.

At one point that year,
the Union Army

was sending back
2,000 wounded,

maimed, and dying men
a week to Washington.

Now, the men Grant was
sending to fight Robert E. Lee

were being buried in
Lee's own front yard,

and that yard became
Arlington National Cemetery,

the Union's most
hallowed ground.