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How the Civil War Started: Lincoln, Early Battles, and America’s Deadliest Turning Point | The American Story | Ep 16
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Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.
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Now. I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy. See terms. Baltimore, Maryland. February 18, 1861. A young man from New Orleans named Harry Davis sits across the table from Otis Hillard at a restaurant. The two men became fast friends just a few weeks earlier, bonding quickly over their shared passion for Southern white supremacy and their hatred of Abraham Lincoln. Over dinner, Hillard shares thrilling news with Davis. A secretive group of pro Southern revolutionaries that he belongs to plans to kill the President Elect Lincoln. Hillard looks Davis in the eye and admits that if he is granted the task of pulling the trigger, I would do it willingly. There'd be a meeting soon at which the assassination plans would be finalized. Davis insists he he must be there. Hillard promises to see what he can do. Two days later, Hillard has more good news for Davis. If he swears a loyalty oath to join the Southern Patriots, he'll be able to join the meeting. Inside the drawing room of a secret house that night, a Corsican barber named Cipriano Ferradini holds court. He is fiery, he's theatrical. As he addresses the group of 20 or so men, the candlelight dancing in the frames of his round spectacles, Ferradini has Davis step forward, raise his right hand and swear allegiance to the Southern cause. Then Farradini goes over the details of their plan. Lincoln's travel schedule had been released to the press. His train would pull into Baltimore's Calvert street station at 12:30pm Feb. 23. Lincoln would have to exit the station for a one mile carriage ride to the Camden station, where he would catch his final train to Washington. A large crowd would surge toward the President as he walked through the station. Police officers, many of them Southern sympathizers, would be conveniently distracted by a staged fight. In the chaos, an assassin would slip through the crowd, fire on Lincoln and vanish into the fleeing mob. With a flourish. Ferrandini, his eyes blazing, holds a long knife over his head and says, gentlemen,
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this hireling Lincoln shall never, never be president.
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The room erupts in lusty cheers. Ferrandini continues.
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Who should do the deed? Who should assume the task of liberating the nation of the foul presence of the abolitionist leader?
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The room grows quiet again. Then Ferrandini answers his own question. They will each draw a ballot from a box that he's already prepared. Whoever draws the one marked in red is the assassin. But the ballots will remain secret, so no one knows who the assassin is until the final moment. The men take turns stepping forward and pulling a folded slip of paper from the box. Once everyone has a ballot, Ferrandini reaches in and takes the last one. The evening is over. The plan is set in motion. On their way to the saloon, Davis and Hilliard open their pallets. Davis ballot is blank. His face fails to hide the disappointment, but Hilliard tells him not to worry. He explains that Ferradini put eight ballots marked in red to ensure that no matter what, at least one man would pull the trigger. Later, Davis bids Hillard good night and they go their separate ways. And Hillard goes to his home and Davis to a large office building on South Street. It was a strange destination for such a late hour, but Davis was desperate to speak with a man he knew would be there. His boss, a detective named Alan Pinkerton. You see, Harry Davis was not a Southern revolutionary. He was an undercover agent with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. This is the American the Beginnings. Adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton Episode 16 how the Civil War Started. Election day, November 6, 1860. A lanky lawyer from Illinois sat on a sofa in a Springfield Telegraph office, arms folded, legs crossed, yawning. Abraham Lincoln had been waiting all night. The telegraph wires hummed with the numbers that felt more like a verdict on the nation's future. At the center of it all was a man who, on paper at least, seemed like he had no business holding the fate of the nation in his hands. He had run for Senate twice and lost. He had served a single two year term in the US House of Representatives. Well, when the wires finally spelled it out, 180 electoral votes, Lincoln stood up calmly, made his way through the throng of people cheering in the streets outside, and walked home. There he found his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, fast asleep. He touched her shoulder and when she started to stir, with a half smile cracking his weary face, he said, mary, we are elected. Abraham Lincoln, the very first ever Republican president, elected on a promise to stop slavery's spread. Four men had run in 1860. Stephen Douglas, a Northern Democrat, also from Illinois, clung to his pet policy of popular sovereignty in which voters in new states would determine for themselves whether or not to allow slavery. Then there was John Breckenridge. He was a Southern Democrat. He was the slavery everywhere Democrat. Then there was John Bell of the very short lived Constitutional Union party. He waved the US Flag and hoped for the best. And Lincoln, he carried the hope that reason and rule of law could still bridge the divided country. He won just under 40% of the popular vote nationwide and he won every northern state except for New Jersey. But his name wasn't even on the ballot in 10 Southern states. In Virginia he won just 1.2% of the vote. South Carolina, which by that point had been on a hair trigger of secession for nearly 30 years, didn't hesitate. On Dec. 20, just six weeks after Lincoln's election, South Carolina stormed out of the Union, the first domino in a chain that by February included Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. The Governor of Texas, Sam Houston, opposed secession, and when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, he was promptly removed from office. Underneath these states, justification for leaving the Union was a simple factor. It was fear. Fear that because Lincoln had been elected, the Southern way of life, economic, social and political, all tied to slavery, was under existential threat. All of that, and Lincoln hadn't even taken office yet. For four long months, from November to March, the country existed in kind of a suspended animation. The sitting president, James Buchanan, believed secession was illegal, but also believed he had no authority to stop it. So he didn't do anything. By February 1861, with Lincoln's inauguration set for the following month, the death threats poured into his Springfield office. Lincoln's newly hired private secretary, a 29 year old John Nicolay, said his mail
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was infested with brutal and vulgar menace and warnings of all sorts came to him from zealous or nervous friends. But he had himself so sane, a mind and a heart so kindly even to his enemies that it was hard for him to believe in political hatred so deadly as to lead to murder.
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Lincoln shrugged off the threats at first, telling his aide that he wasn't afraid and trusted the people. But amid the swirl of rumors and threats of violence surrounding the inauguration, Samuel Felton, president of Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, felt the urgent need to secure his rail lines. There were threats of sabotage to his lines to try to keep Lincoln from reaching Washington, so Felton hired Allen Pinkerton to investigate. Pinkerton was a Scottish immigrant with a detective, sharp eye and zero tolerance for nonsense. As soon as he was hired, Pinkerton smelled something worse than railroad sabotage. He slipped into Baltimore undercover as John H. Hutchinson. He was a stockbroker with a Southern sympathy. His agents also fanned out, including Kate Warren, America's first female private detective posing as a society lady, and Harry Davis, who ended up in that secret meeting where the ballots were drawn to determine who would assassinate Lincoln. Pinkerton and his agents infiltrated Baltimore saloons and hotels, uncovering in just a few weeks a very well organized assassination plot. By the time Harry Davis rushed to Pinkerton's office late at night with concrete details of that plot, Lincoln had already started his train tour from Illinois to Washington with speeches and celebration stops in multiple cities. Pinkerton raced to Philadelphia on February 21st and and got an urgent message through to Lincoln. At the Continental Hotel. Ward Hill Lemon, Lincoln's burly friend, traveled with the President Elect and appointed himself Lincoln's bodyguard. At the hotel, Pinkerton found Lemon already armed with two revolvers, a large knife and brass knuckles. Lincoln met with Pinkerton, who laid out the plot and the danger lurking in Baltimore. Pinkerton was so struck by Lincoln's calm
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during the entire interview he had not evinced the slightest evidence of agitation or fear. Calm and self possessed, his only sentiments appeared to be those of profound regret that the Southern sympathizers could be so far led away by the excitement of the hour as to consider his death a necessity for the furtherance of their cause.
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Lincoln listened patiently, but he was reluctant to cancel his event in Harrisburg the next day. And he hated the thought of sneaking into Washington. It felt undignified, almost cowardly. But after confirmation of the plot came from the additional trusted sources, Lincoln finally relented to Pinkerton's plan to get him to Washington. On the night of February 22, the plan was set into motion. Up until then, Lincoln's travel across the country had been very public speeches, flag raisings, shaking thousands of hands. But in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he quietly altered his schedule, cutting short a planned appearance. And then, under the COVID of darkness, he slipped away. He removed his recognizable stovepipe hat and put on a soft wool cap that he had received as a gift in New York. He put a shawl around his shoulders and got into a carriage with Lemon, who was still heavily armed. The carriage took them to a special train which whisked them back toward Philadelphia. Once back in Philadelphia, Lincoln, still wearing his disguise, climbed aboard the 11pm sleeper car. Kate Warren had booked them berths at the very back of the train, posing as Lincoln's sister, escorting her invalid brother the telegraph lines between Harrisburg and Baltimore were cut by Pinkerton's men. No messages will get through. At the time, Baltimore was the fourth largest city in the nation. So to get to Washington D.C. by train, there was no practical way to avoid connecting through Baltimore. Pinkerton's plan was to get Lincoln through Baltimore in the middle of the night, hours ahead of his published arrival time in Baltimore and ahead of when Lincoln's assassins planned to spring their trap. The train hurled south through the first half of the night. Lincoln and his protectors didn't sleep much. Lincoln was too tall to lay down in the berth anyway. Instead he quietly cracked jokes in his dry manner. Pinkerton and Lamond took turns stepping out onto the back platform, watching for anything suspicious. At 3:30am they crept into Baltimore with the city still asleep and totally unaware. There was no cheering mob that was greeting them at the Camp Calvert street station. Instead it was a quiet transfer. Lincoln's car was uncoupled and pulled by horses to Camden Station in the pre dawn chill. Then they faced a long, anxious wait for the connecting train to arrive. With the clock ticking, Pinkerton and Le Mans worried. Every moment that they remained in Baltimore increased the risk that their secret cargo would be discovered. Finally, 4:30am the welcome sounds of rail workers coupling their car to the train for the final leg of their undercover journey to Washington DC. At dawn on February 23, the train pulled into Washington. Lincoln stepped off, unrecognized at first, his shawl still draped over his shoulders. Pinkerton exhausted but triumphant.
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He later wrote, I had informed Mr. Lincoln in Philadelphia that I would answer with my life for his safe arrival in Washington. And I had redeemed my pledge.
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Back in Baltimore, the plotters woke to rumors and rage. Lincoln was already in the Capitol. Ferrandini and his men were left clutching their red ballots in despair. On March 4, Lincoln stood in the Capitol steps and took the oath of office. He was sworn into a complex crisis that no president had ever faced. There was no precedent to serve as a guide. He concluded his address with an appeal for peace.
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In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature.
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But in the south, that olive branch extended by Lincoln was quickly swatted away.
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not in the meantime open my fire upon your forces unless compelled to do so by some hostile act against this fort or. Or the flag of my government.
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At 4:30am the next morning, the first mortar shell arced high from Fort Johnson and burst above Sumter like a signal flare from hell. The first shot of the Civil War fired by Confederate forces under Beauregard at his former West Point inspector. Then the sky over Charleston harbor lit up. Within minutes, every Confederate battery around the harbor unleashed a barrage. Fort Moultrie, Cummings Point, Morris Island. Dozens of guns raining fire. Anderson's men returned fire, but they had to conserve ammunition from the start. No reinforcements were coming, no real hope of relief. For 34 straight hours. The bombardment hammered Fort Sumter. Fires gutted the wooden quarters. The main gates collapsed in flames. Fort Sumter's flagpole snapped in two by a shell. Anderson's men scrambled to raise the flag again on a makeshift pole. They were exhausted and almost out of ammunition to return fire. With the fort a smoking ruin, Anderson finally accepted the same evacuation terms Beauregard had offered before the first shot. So on April 14, Anderson marched his garrison out with colors flying and drums beating, firing a 50 gun salute to the tattered US flag. During that ceremony, the cannon misfired and killed two Union soldiers. Incredibly, they were the only two fatalities of the Fort Sumter battle, one safely aboard a US steamship. Anderson Telegraph Secretary of War Simon Cameron.
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Having defended Fort Sumter for 34 hours until the quarters were entirely burned, four barrels and three cartridges of powder only being available and no provisions remaining but pork. I accepted terms of evacuation offered by General Beauregard.
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Major Anderson's stubborn defense at Fort Sumter had given Lincoln the moral high ground. Lincoln's reaction was immediate and strategic. Two days after Anderson's surrender, Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 militia volunteers.
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He appealed to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity and the existence of our national Union.
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The nation responded with enthusiasm. Young men from northern farms and shops and colleges flooded enlistment stations, convinced this would be a 90 day adventure. But Lincoln's call also pushed four more states into the Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee. The war was no longer theoretical and with the Confederacy now strengthened, Washington D.C. suddenly felt dangerously exposed. Lincoln understood something critical. Symbolism mattered. Fort Sumter was more than a military outpost. It represented a test of federal authority. Now the Union had to respond with authority. But the question is how? The answer came three months later, July 21, 1861, in Manassas, Virginia. That's 25 miles southwest of Washington. At the beginning of the civil war, people thought it would be quick. One battle, a decisive Union victory and a return to normalcy. The overconfidence in Washington was almost comical. Politicians and society ladies packed picnic baskets and hired carriages and rode out to watch the battle unfold from nearby hills. Everyone assumed it would be an easy Union triumphant. To these spectators, it was a show. They'd never seen war up close. And then the carnage began. Near Bull Run creek, Union BRIGadier General Irvin McDowell commanded 35,000 mostly green recruits. McDowell had planned a flanking march around the Confederate left to seize the vital Manassas railroad junction. Opposing him were roughly 32,000 confederates, led by General P.G.T. beauregard, the same man who had ordered the bombardment of fort Sumter. His troops included the last minute reinforcement of 10,000 men under General Joseph Johnson from the Shenandoah valley. They arrived by rail, the first major use of trains for rapid troop movement in U.S. history. At first, the Union had the advantage. McDowell's forces pushed Confederate troops back across Bull Run. But then, early that afternoon, the Union force met stubborn resistance at Henry house hill. One Confederate brigade stood firm. At its center was an eccentric, relatively unknown general Thomas Jackson. In the midst of the heavy fighting, Jackson remained upright, right on his horse, commanding his men. One Confederate general reportedly pointed to Jackson and yelled to his own fleeing troops,
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look, there stands Jackson, like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians.
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Stonewall Jackson. That name stuck. Jackson's brigade more than held their line. Reinforcements arrived, and suddenly momentum shifted. The Confederates surged forward. Union lines began to break. Confusion spread with units mistaking friend for foe. And Stonewall Jackson ordered a counter charge on the Union. And the Union assault crumbled. A soldier from Virginia described this fierce stage in the fighting.
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The shouts of the combatants, the groans of the wounded and dying, and the explosion of shells made a complete pandemonium. The atmosphere was black with the smoke of the battle.
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By mid afternoon, the northern army broke in panic. Picnickers who had come for a show now found themselves fleeing alongside terrified soldiers on the road back to Washington. The Union lost about 2,900 men, the Confederates just under 2,000. The first battle of Bull Run shattered the illusion that this war would end quickly. It was the first brutal lesson that this national struggle would be long, bloody, and anything but a picnic. When was the last time you heard about Lahaina? Three years ago, right? The deadliest American wildfire in the century turned that beautiful Hawaiian town into Ash. 102 people died last 4th of July. A river rose 26ft in 45 minutes ripped through Camp mystic in Texas Hill Country. 135 killed, including 25 little girls asleep in their cabins in western North Carolina. Helene wiped whole towns off the map across the region. 250 dead. The cameras broadcast the horror, but eventually they left. Mercury One never did. We are still there today, rebuilding communities and ensuring our fellow Americans are not forgotten. But it's storm season again. While rebuilding continues, we have to be ready to respond anew at a moment's notice and we want to invite you to be part of this amazing project. Help us have the biggest possible impact. On the 15th anniversary of Mercury One, join our loyal society of committed monthly partners with a gift of $15 or more. Text loyalty to 852017 or visit mercury1.org remember text loyalty to 852017 or mercury1.org join the Mercury family. We'd love to have you. Standard data and message rates do apply in the US there's a break in every 26 seconds, but when intruders step near Simplisafe, home security steps up. Stop. This is Simplisafe. Police are on the way. Using AI alerts, US based live agents help deter break ins. SimpliSafe no long term contracts. Save 50% on your new system with professional monitoring@simplisafe.com Spotify or with promo code Spotify Outdoor Deterrence requires a simply safe active guard outdoor protection plan starting at 49.99amonth. Visit simplisafe.com licenses for alarm license information.
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Tennessee 2012.
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You know, people don't even realize that they're getting half the story online. If you only read one version of events, even from people you generally agree with, you're still missing part of the picture. You're not finding the truth, the whole truth, you're finding their version of it. And that's why I love Free Spoke. Free Spoke will let you compare how the left, right and independent sources are all covering the same story so you can draw your own conclusion. The truth gets buried under bias and agenda, and Free Spoke helps us dig it out. Even the searches. All of the searches. Independent podcasts so you can hear from people who are having conversations instead of reading from just the mainstream media. Free Spoke doesn't track your searches or build a profile on you. Everything remains private and no algorithm is deciding the truth. You're allowed to see with Free Spoke premium. You get a completely ad free experience that keeps you focused on what matters. Download it for free freespoke.com Beck use the promo code Beck get 20% off. Think for yourself with free Spoke. Early April 1862 the Tennessee woods around Pittsburgh Landing were just waking up. Mist is lifting off the river, birds cutting through the damp morning air. 40,000 Union soldiers lounged in camp, cooking breakfast, writing letters, complaining about the mud. They weren't expecting a battle that day. Neither was Ulysses S. Grant. He was waiting to be joined by troops from Nashville, and once the combined force was ready, they would head to Corinth, Mississippi, to capture a key railroad crossing. That is where they expected major resistance. In the meantime, Grant positioned his force alongside the Tennessee river near a small Methodist church made of logs called Shiloh, a name from the Old Testament, which meant place of peace. It was an ironic name, considering what was about to happen. At dawn Sunday, April 6, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston launched a surprise attack. His troops slammed into Union lines before many soldiers had even formed ranks. Men scrambled for rifles. Others ran barefoot into the trees. Grant was caught off guard and wasn't even at the front when it began. He was downriver, recovering from a severely sprained ankle. Two days earlier, his horse had slipped and fell in a heavy downpour, trapping Grant's leg underneath. But when the news reached him, he hobbled onto a steamship, which rushed him upriver towards the sound of cannon fire. When Grant arrived, it was chaos, units breaking, commanders struggling to hold their buckling lines together. Grant's second in command, William T. Sherman, was shot in his hand and shoulder. By the end of the day, three horses were shot out from under Sherman. The sound of fighting was continuous. It's just a roar. One patch of brown became legendary. The survivors called it the hornet's nest. Union soldiers held their ground there for hours, absorbing wave after wave of Confederate assaults. Eight different attacks in all. The air constantly buzzed with bullets. Soldiers later said it was like a swarm of angry hornets. Albert Sidney Johnston, who was Jefferson Davis favorite general, was shot in the right knee. The bullet severed an artery, and he died in the middle of the battlefield. Command then passed to General P.G.T. beauregard. By dusk, the Confederates pushed the bluecoats back to the Tennessee river, but Beauregard then halted his attack. It was a pause, and that pause would prove fatal to the Confederate hopes. That night, Grant set up headquarters under a large tree, his ankles swollen and throbbing as rain started to pour. His pain and the downpour made sleep impossible, so he ventured to a nearby log Cabin serving as a makeshift hospital. Inside, army surgeons were busy amputating limbs. With only whiskey as any kind of anesthetic, the soldier's screams cut through the downpour. Piles of arms and legs littered the floor. Grant wasn't usually queasy around horrors of war, but he just couldn't take the sight of all of the suffering amputees. He later wrote, the sight was more
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unendurable than encountering the enemy's fire. And I returned to my tree in the rain.
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Confederate victory seemed within reach. But overnight, reinforcements arrived for the union under General Don Buell, and Grant prepared a counter attack. At 6am the next morning, momentum flipped. The Union army surged forward. This time, it was confederates who were driven back. By the end of the second day, the field belonged to Grant, but it came at a staggering combined cost. Over 23,000 casualties in two days, more than all previous American wars combined up to that point. Grant described the horrific aftermath.
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I saw an open field so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction, stepping on dead bodies without a foot touching the ground.
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The northern press raked Grant over the coles for falling victim to the confederate surprise attack and for the appalling casualties. Northern critics demanded that Lincoln fire Grant. But Lincoln, already exhausted one year into the war, recognized the stubborn grit in Grant that he knew the union needed.
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He defended Grant, saying, I can't spare this man. He fights.
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Shiloh inflicted a slaughter on both sides. A reality check about what it would take and how long it would take for either side to win this war. In the summer of 1862, Union General George McClellan's grand effort to capture Richmond, known as the peninsula campaign, fizzled. His massive army of the Potomac sat stalled outside the confederate capital, and Lincoln, completely frustrated, decided to shake things up. He pulled troops north and created the army of Virginia under the brash new commander, major general John Pope. Pope talked a big game. He promised to be aggressive, have his troops live off the land and crush the backward rebels. But he made a crucial mistake. He underestimated general Robert e. Lee. Four months after Shiloh, the war returned to a place already stained with blood. Bull run, the creek in manassas, Virginia. The armies were back at the exact same ground because the railroad junction there was a choke point for supplies on the road to Washington. Lee knew it, Pope knew it, and the stage was set for round two. Lee, who was methodical and aggressive, had reorganized his army after earlier campaigns. He sent stonewall Jackson's corps racing north to hit Pope before McClellan's reinforcements could link up. Jackson's men pulled off one of the war's greatest raids, swooping in, torching Pope's supply depot in Manassas Junction, and then vanishing in the woods. Pope, convinced that Jackson was isolated, had marched his entire army back to the old Bull run battlefield. On August 28, the two sides slammed together at Brawner Farm. Jackson's outnumbered troops, just as they had a year earlier, stubbornly held their ground. The next day, Pope hurled continuous waves at Jackson and was repulsed with horrific losses. James Longstreet, Lee's other key general, arrived with reinforcements. Longstreet's 28,000 man wing slammed in from the right, the largest simultaneous assault of the entire war. And the Union's left flank just disintegrated. It was another rout, with more than 21,000 casualties, over 7,000 for the Confederates and 14,000 for the Union. Pope's army retreated. They went towards Washington, once again shaken and demoralized. Pope was finished. He was relieved of command and shipped west. And once again, all eyes turned to Lincoln. Lincoln was under immense pressure. The war wasn't going according to plan, and victories like Shiloh came at a terrible cost. Losses like the second Bull Run raised deeper doubts, and Lincoln was exasperated by the performance of his general, saying, we
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had the enemy in our hands on Friday. All of our present difficulties and reverses have been brought upon us by these quarrels of the generals.
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In desperation, Lincoln swallowed his pride and put McClellan back in charge of the army of the Potomac. It was a gamble, but Lincoln needed someone, anyone, who could stop Lee's momentum. Meanwhile, General Lee, smelling blood, decided on a gamble of his own. He felt it was time to invade the North. Lee's army crossed into Maryland. Their goal was to shift the war onto Union soil, influence foreign powers to support the south, perhaps even force a political settlement with the U.S. but on September 13, 1862, something extraordinary happened outside Frederick, Maryland. Soldiers from the 27th Indiana infantry, part of the Union advance, flopped down in a grassy meadow to rest after an early march. Private Barton Mitchell spotted a small envelope in the tall grass near where they had stacked their rifles. Inside, three cigars wrapped in two sheets of paper were covered in writing. He walked it over to the first sergeant, John Bloss, who took one look and ran it up the chain of command. The pages contained Robert E. Lee's orders, his entire battle plan addressed to General D.H. hill, detailing exactly how the Confederate army was divided and where every piece was headed, an entire strategy laid out in writing. Dropped in a field and accidentally handed to the enemy. The mystery of how Lee's orders landed in that field has never been solved. But when the pages reached general mcclellan, he said, here is a paper with
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which if I cannot whip bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home.
- [41:24]
B
Mcclellan still moved much slower than lincoln wanted, but he finally attacked Lee's divided army near sharpsburg, maryland, along Antietam Creek. September 17, 1862. The Battle of antietam unfolded in vicious phases. First, the cornfield. Union and confederate troops fought back and forth through rows of corns, Visibly limited confusion everywhere. Control of the field changed hands multiple times. Then the sunken road, later called bloody lane. Confederate soldiers there held a natural trench, Mowing down advancing union troops. But eventually the line broke and the road filled with bodies four and five deep. And finally, the stone bridge at antietam creek. Union general Ambrose burnside's troops struggled for hours across a narrow stone bridge with ferocious fire. When his men finally made it across, it looked like the union might break through. But confederate reinforcements arrived just in time. The battle ended in kind of a stalemate. Lee, heavily outnumbered and battered, pulled back across the potomac. Mcclellan failed to pursue him aggressively, which irritated lincoln even further. But lee's initial invasion of the north was over. Antietam was the bloodiest single day in American history. Almost 23,000 casualties in one day. It was a brutal, costly victory, and it was a win that Lincoln desperately craved because he had a plan to capitalize on it and to recalibrate the nexus of the entire war. Let me ask you a question, and I want you to really think about it. When a decision gets made about your health care, who's in the room? Because it's not just you and your doctor. It's your insurance company. They have files on you, pages of it, and here's the part it should bother you. It's not always accurate. Somebody from this audience found this out. He called chapter the only medicare advisor that I trust, because his cost kept climbing and nobody would tell him why. His chapter advisor dug in and found the record that they were using on him, and it was flat out wrong. So she corrected it and went back to work finding him better options. Nobody else is going to do that. That's the difference. That's chapter. Their advisors aren't paid to push one plan over another. They're on your side of the table. They compare every medicare plan nationwide. They have found people an average of $1,100 a year in healthcare savings, and the call is completely free. It'll take you about 20 minutes. Dial £250. Say the keyword chapter. That's £250 keyword chapter. For more of the history that inspired this podcast series, be sure to read the American the Beginnings by David Barton and Tim Barton, available now@wallbuilders.com. Weeks before the battle of Antietam, President Lincoln wrote words that would change the direction of the Civil War. But he kept them folded inside his desk because timing for Lincoln was everything. Lincoln was a careful lawyer who saw slavery as the Confederacy's lifeblood, a target that had to be struck if the Union was ever gonna win. July 1862, he showed his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. Secretary of state William H. Seward advised him, plainly wait for a clear Union victory to issue the proclamation. Otherwise it's going to look like the desperate move of a weak government. Lincoln agreed. He waited. And then Antietam happened, still the deadliest single day in US Military history across all wars. But despite the shocking casualties, the Union eked out a win, keeping general Lee at bay, temporarily at least. So Lincoln saw his opening and took it. Five days after Antietam, on September 22, 1862, he announced the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a warning to the Confederate states and a deadline. If they did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863, all persons
- [45:51]
A
held as slaves within any state in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward and forever free. And the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
- [46:15]
B
With this calculated gamble, Lincoln redefined the war. Now the fight would be about preserving the Union and and destroying slavery. In the weeks after announcing the emancipation policy, Lincoln craved another military victory to help back it up. But McClellan's sluggish, cautious approach in confronting the Confederates annoyed Lincoln. In November, he replaced McClellan with Ambrose Burnside, who had one of those wraparound mutton chop beards which became known as sideburns. Burnside's first test came in December at the sleepy river town of Fredericksburg, Virginia. General Burnside had a bold plan to cross the Rappahannock river quickly, seize the high ground, and move straight towards Richmond. But building the pontoon bridges to get his army across the river took far too long, handing Lee time to dig in on the high ground by behind Fredericksburg. On December 11th, union engineers tried to finish the pontoon bridges across the river. But heavy confederate sniper fire stopped them. Burnside shelled the town with heavy cannon fire. Then units crossed the river in boats and engaged in the first major urban combat of the war, with troops clearing houses door to door. Only then were the snipers silenced and the union was able to finish their bridges. Two days into the battle, the nightmare peaked. Burnside ordered wave after wave of frontal assaults across open fields towards Mary's heights, straight into a sunken road protected by a stone wall and confederate artillery. The Union lost 12,500 men, the Confederates about 6,000. It was another slaughter. When Lincoln learned about the latest defeat,
- [48:12]
A
he said, if there is a worse place than hell, I am in it.
- [48:16]
B
Northern morale plummeted. There were calls in washington for cabinet shakeups and even peace talks with the south. Lincoln somehow absorbed the blows and just kept going. He drafted a public message consoling the army of the potomac.
- [48:31]
A
The courage with which you in an open field maintained the great contest against an entrenched foe, and the consummate skill and success with which you crossed and recrossed the river in the face of the enemy show that you possess all the qualities of a great army which will yet give victory to the cause of the country and of popular government.
- [48:51]
B
Yet privately, he was crushed by the human cost and stalled progress. The war felt stuck in a bloody stalemate, and his generals kept failing him at the worst possible moments. On New Year's Day, 1863, after shaking hands at the white house reception until his arm went numb, Lincoln retreated to his office and signed the official emancipation proclamation, just as he promised.
- [49:18]
A
He said, I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper. If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.
- [49:32]
B
The proclamation applied only to areas still in rebellion, not border states or areas already captured by the union. But it recharged the union cause. Every union advance now became a march of liberation. Enslaved people streamed towards federal lines in greater numbers, starving the south of its labor source. Most powerfully, the proclamation opened the door for black men to enlist in the union army or Navy. Over 179,000 of them would serve by war's end fighting for their own freedom. Frederick Douglass understood the significance of the step forward, saying, once let the black
- [50:10]
A
man get upon his person the brass letter us. Let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket. There is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.
- [50:27]
B
Diplomatically, the proclamation made Britain and France, nations that had already outlawed slavery, far less likely to recognize the Confederacy. The war now had a moral core that couldn't be ignored. The president's critics still found plenty to dislike. Northern Democrats warned this would prolong the war. Border states worried it would destabilize their fragile loyalty. Soldiers in the ranks, many of whom had not enlisted to fight for abolition, grumbled, and the Confederacy doubled down because now losing the war would mean the end of their entire way of life. Because of Burnside's failure at Fredericksburg, Lincoln replaced him with Joseph Hooker in January 1863. That spring brought fresh hope with Hooker in command. Boastful and energetic, he reorganized the army of the Potomac, improved rations and promised to crush Lee once and for all. By April, over 130,000 Union troops had crossed the Rappahannock again, aiming to trap the Confederates in the dense wilderness near Chancellorsville, Virginia. Lee, outnumbered 2 to 1 with only about 60,000 men, did again something audacious. He split his army twice. On May 2, General Stonewall Jackson led 30,000 Confederates on a grueling all day flank march through the thick woods, then slammed into the Union's right flank at dusk. The attack shattered the Union line, pushing them back two miles. That night stock Stonewall Jackson rode forward to scout for a follow up strike. In darkness, Confederate pickets mistook his party for Union cavalry and opened fire. Jackson hit three times. His left arm was amputated. A week later, he died of pneumonia. General Lee was crushed. In a letter to his son, he
- [52:29]
A
wrote, it is a terrible loss. I do not know how to replace him.
- [52:36]
B
Chancellorsville was a Confederate victory, but it cost them dearly. About 13,000 casualties to the union's 17,000. And when news of yet another stunning defeat reached Lincoln at the white house, he paced his office, his face ashen,
- [52:51]
A
and said, my God, my God, what will the country say?
- [52:57]
B
Yet somehow or another, Lincoln's resolve endured. He stared down the hellish losses and still chose the harder path. The decision made in the shadow of Antietam through the winter blood at Fredericksburg, the bold stroke of new year's day and the wilderness ambush at Chancellorsville reshaped the civil war and eventually America's soul. For all of the darkness that had already blotted the nation in war, the darkest chapters were still ahead, including the fateful encounter near a tiny little town in Pennsylvania in the countryside called Gettysburg. Coming up on the American story, the beginnings. When Chamberlain saw confederate regiments swinging around even further, further to his left, he knew one more push would break his exhausted unit. So he did something insane. He yelled, fix bayonets. And the command rippled down the line with a wild yell. The 20th main charged downhill in a sweeping move straight into the enemy's face. The shock of the bold bayonet assault, men running, screaming, steel flashing, froze the Confederate momentum. Little Round Top held, and so did the Union line. Chamberlain's desperate gamble saved the army's flank. Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.