Jocko Podcast - Jocko Podcast Civil War Excursion With JD Baker Pt.1: Picking Sides

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

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This is the Jocko podcast, Civil War Excursion, number one, with J.D. Baker and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, J.D. Good evening, J.D. January 21st, 1861. I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the state of Mississippi by a solemn ordinance of her people in convention assembled has declared her separation from the United States. States under these circumstances of course my functions are terminated here it has seemed to me proper however that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to my associates and I will say but very little more the occasion does not invite me to go into argument and my physical condition would not permit me to do so if it were otherwise and yet it seems to become me to say something on the part of the state I here represent on an occasion so solemn as this. It is known to senators who have served with me here that I have for many years advocated

as an essential attribute of state sovereignty, the right of a state to secede from the union. Therefore, if I had not believed there was a justifiable cause, if I had thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation or without existing necessity, I should, should still under my theory of the government because of my allegiance to the state of which I am a citizen have been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I do think she has a justifiable cause and I approve of her act. I conferred with her people before the act was taken, counseled them that if the state of things which they apprehended should exist when the convention met, they should take the action which they have now adopted.

Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement, which the occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains to me to bid you a final adieu. And that right there is a speech from Jefferson Davis to United States Senate announcing the secession of Mississippi from the United States a few weeks later February 10th Jefferson Davis was unanimously elected president of the provincial government of the the Confederate States of America and this would lead to civil war this would lead to the downfall of the economy this would lead to the destruction of people's lives of families and it would lead to the wounding and death of millions and it would rip asunder the United States of America

But it would in time Free the slaves and allow America to live up to our ideal That all men are created equal But it was a wretched road and it's a road that we should not forget we walked down And let's talk about how we got there Let's talk about the two men leading these two nations, the opponents, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. J.D., let's talk about Jefferson Davis. Yeah, if you look at Jefferson Davis, he was born in Kentucky, and then again, he was raised down in Mississippi.

Jefferson Davis, he was a West Point guy, you know, went to West Point, graduated up there. he fought. And at the time, if you went to West Point, you were an aristocrat, basically. Is that a safe assumption or is that too strong? No, no, no. That's pretty good. Yeah, he, Jefferson Davis was like the youngest of 10 kids. Okay, so that's no aristocrat.

Yeah. Well, no, no, no. But like his oldest brother was a very prominent lawyer. Okay. So he had connections, you know, because you got to get an appointment. you know, to be able to get in. So, yeah, it's to achieve an appointment at a West Point. That's a pretty fair feat.

I would say it's probably still difficult today to get into, you know, West Point or any of the, the academy schools of achieving, you know, a congressional appointment to get in. So, you know, they're plantation folks, you know what I mean? It was born up in Kentucky, but they moved down to Mississippi. They're running plantations farming kind of thing. It's a big family. You know, back then, you know, having large families, you needed to have a whole bunch of kids because you got a whole bunch of work to do.

You know what I mean? That's, you know, see, you got those folks coming in. So it gets an appointment up to West Point, you know, goes up to New York. You know, he fights in the, in the Mexican-American War. And he actually fights underneath his father-in-law, his first wife. his first wife, he married into the Zachary Taylor family, which, you know, so in Zachary Taylor, very prominent Virginian, you know, marrying into that kind of family. That's a pretty big deal, you know, marrying in. If you want to look at it of like who you marry into, like Robert E. Lee

married into the Washington family. So it's kind of like NASCAR, you know what I mean? Like J.D.'s not getting in because my last name's not petty or Earnhardt or Gordon. You know what I mean? So there's certain pedigree that that does come with that. But he fights with distinction and underneath with him. He then goes, runs in office. He's Secretary of War at one point in time. Again, he's down every other appointment after the initial election that he wins in the congressional seat. He's appointed. after that. So he wins one time. But, you know, Jefferson Davis growing up in Mississippi, plantation owner, he is very much pro-slavery and voices his opinion for slavery, for state's rights. He voices his opinion for, you know, you've got the territories that are pushing out

Western expansion of the manifest destiny kind of, which was. was the whole aspect of, you know, pushing everything west, the United States, sea, the shining sea kind of thing. He was huge with manifest destiny. And he was also huge with the expansion of slavery into the territories. And that's a critical kind of political debate at the time. We got these new territories that are coming online. And the people in the north primarily are saying,

look, we can't have slavery in these new areas. And the people in the south are saying, no, we need to have slavery. That's a bunch of farmland that we're taking over. So this is a real key kind of political debate at the time is, is slavery going to be allowed in these new territories? Right. Yeah, it's a, it's a huge debate. And, you know, who controls the House is important. So, you know, who is a free state? Who's a slave state? You know what I mean? Because when you go in for voting to sway with inside the Senate, that's going to be huge. But, you know, I mean, the, The debate, you know, if you look at it in the time frame of like, you know, of right now when, you know, you just read from Davis, you look at it in 1860. I mean, we're a pretty young country. I would venture to say that we're still a pretty young country. You know, when you're talking about four score, you know what I mean, of the Gettysburg Address. I mean, you're kind of dating four, you know, a score for the folks that don't know, it's 20 years.

So, you know, it's four scores. So it was 80 years ago, you know what I mean? We just had, you know, like England over here, you know, running around and we got fed up with that shit. So we were like, hey, let's, you know, let's have a war of independence. And then we get, we get done with a war of independence. So we're going to get, like, rid of this, you know, this hierarchy of the king and queen. We're going to be the United States of America. You know, the home of the free, you know, and next thing you know, like we find gold in North Georgia.

and so let's come up with an Indian removal act. Because the Indians had that land at the time. Yeah. You know, if you went to North Georgia, you know what I mean? You got the Choctaw, Chickasaw,

Cherokee. They're all running down there. Well, hey, man, they got gold. So what do we do is we, the people of the United States? Let's have an Indian removal act.

Why not? You know what I mean? Put them on a flat boat, take them up to Chattanooga, Tennessee, dump them off and then hike them out to the Oklahoma territory. It's going to be the new Indian territory. And we're going to take the land

that they're there. So even, you know, prior to the slavery issue of really being a thing of like what we're kind of talking about, you had like the liberal north of like, you know, Henry David Thoreau of civil disobedience, you know what I mean, of like calling for, you know, all machines have their friction. But when friction has its own machine, you need that machine no longer. Meaning we need to overthrow the federal government. Like, who are we? Like, we're not. Like, we're not. literally creating this machine that we just overthrew like just a few years back. And now we're removing people. We're enslaving people.

You know what I mean? For work. So a lot of the liberal North are actually as well calling for the overthrow of the government. They're not happy with the United States government. And then, you know, coming into the expansion of after the Mexican-American War, you know, I mean, there's a lot of contention when you kind of look at the Mexican-American War. We go down, we pick a fight with them. And it's like, okay, we'll take, you know, part of Texas and then kind of hang a right.

Let's just snag New Mexico, Arizona, you know, let's take California while we're at it. You know what I mean? And those folks in Mexico, I mean, they had just got their independence from Spain. You know what I mean? And they're like, okay, now we got these dudes coming in. So there's a lot of turmoil in the United States as a very young country of what direction are we going to, are we going to, Are we going to go? Yeah.

You can see it's like a startup almost, like a startup company that's just growing so fast. There's no, there's no particular course that we all know we're on and this is where we're going. It's like a startup's like there's opportunity is going to pop up. We're going to move in this direction, moving that direction. There's, it's, it's the, the future is not clear. None. And, and who are we going to base it off of? Like if you look at historically, you know what I mean?

Because you got to look at like, okay, so how do we run this with the, the we, the people kind of thing. You know, I mean, even at the very beginning, you know what I mean? After the war of independence, you know, some of the officers hadn't gotten paid for their time. And up in Newburgh, New York, you know, all the officers get together and they're like, hey, we're going to have this like secret meeting up there in New York. And we're going to overthrow the government that we literally just created. And we're going to make King George the first.

You know what I mean? Because, of course, George Washington, he is the. the most popular guy, obviously. And so they're going to have, well, you know, so George gets wind of this little, you know, meeting that's going to take place amongst the officers and how they're going to come in and make him like King George at the first. And, you know, and he comes up and he, you know, he mounts the stage. And, of course, everybody quells.

He's a very, he's got a very prominent, dominant command presence. And he pulls out his, his spectacles. And they called them spectacles back then because you look like a spectacle with them on your face. You know, and it's a sign of weakness, you know, showing weakness in front of your subordinates kind of thing. And he's like, my eyes have grown blind to the service of my country.

You know what I mean? So he's showing that, you know what I mean? Yes, in the service of my country. You know what I mean? We're going to have to have some sacrifices here. Look, I get it, man. We haven't gotten paid. We're going to get that.

We're a new country. I mean, we're literally trying to figure stuff out. Well, I mean, you get in through the Indian removal act. It's still just this project that we're kind of throwing together. Like you said, with a new startup company. I mean, so we're going to start up a new country. We've got to figure out what kind of rules we're going to play by. So, you know, Jefferson Davis, with this expansion that's kind of coming in, of course, he's an advocate for slavery.

You look at the Confederacy of the Confederacy. of the Confederate States. I mean, they're solely based on agrarian culture. It's an ingrate, and they need people to work. And why did Jefferson Davis rise to prominence? Why did he get this powerful position of getting elected as the president of Confederate states? Just, I mean, is it just the culmination of everything you just said?

This guy's got money. He's been in government before. He's been in the military. and he was just the most prominent guy suitable for this job. Yeah, and as you read, I mean, he's very well spoken. He's very well listened to. And again, you know, back in the day, even still to this day, you know what I mean? You serve the military with distinction.

I mean, you're what's in the newspapers. You're, you know, there's no, there's no Twitter, Instagram and stuff like that for people to be able to follow. So everybody's reading newspapers. And these guys are the ones that are front. page in the news. So he, he's the voice. So he's got this following of individuals. And, you know, when he's at the Democratic convention, because, you know, we had kind of chit-chatted before, you know, like back then in like 1860, I'm pretty sure there was, there was four different tickets that you could kind of run on for a, for the president of the United States.

So four different political parties to say? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And two were Democrat because the Democrats, they split. So you had Northern Democrats and you had the Southern Democrats. And then you got this Republican Party that's going to come in. Because, you know, like in history, you probably read about like the wigs, the copperheads. I mean, they have all these different names and stuff. Like, you know, in 2022, we know Republicans, Democrat, and dependent.

Well, they had, you know, they had four more of them back then. And of course, with the Southern Democrats, you know, they were, you know, Western expansion, pro-slavery, you know, C to Shining Sea, they're all for that. And the folks that are, when they're looking at the secession from the union, not along with Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, you know, there's other states that are kind of teetering of, are we going to secede from the union? and Jefferson Davis is the most outspoken. So it's like unanimous down in Montgomery, Alabama. They're going to pronounce him as the president of the Confederate States and the first White House of the Confederacy. He is in Montgomery, Alabama still stands this day.

It's about a block and a half from the actual capital of Alabama. And you know what I find interesting is the street that is, It's on is Washington Street. First president of United States. Yeah, so there's a little bit of thought process behind there. Now, on the other side, for the union, we kind of, I don't want to paint this to be too much of a, I don't want to exaggerate this, but you have a little bit of the antithesis of Jefferson Davis in Lincoln, who, you know, he's not, uh, professionally educated, right? So, you know, Davis went to West Point.

Lincoln is just self-taught for the most part. He seems like he's more of a working class guy than Davis. Is that an accurate assessment? Yeah. I mean, they even had like back then, like, you know, we kind of chat a little bit, you know, when they called him like the rail splitter. You know what I mean? He was like a blue collar, you know what I mean?

Raised, you know, born in Kentucky. he's got a PhD. It's called a plain high school diploma. You know what I mean? I got one too. But he read a lot, you know what I mean? So, you know, I look at it, education's been free since the establishment of the first library. Get a library card, read.

You know what I mean? And that's what Lincoln does. And he moves out with the family out into Illinois. And, you know what I mean? It's just, you know, and he starts to read. He's not formally educated. But he starts working. He gets jobs.

he starts making his way up and then he's going to run and run for office. And he's going to walk and go. And he's a big guy, you know, for back then. He might even still be today one of the tallest presidents at the time. He was over six foot. But, you know, and he lost his first election trying to run, you know, in the state of Illinois. But he was persistent. And he was always trying to continually continue his education, continually be smarter,

meet with more people, study law. You know, that was kind of a big thing back then, working in inside law. And then, you know, so he's definitely an opposite of Davis. You know what I mean? He's not getting that formal education. He doesn't have the military background. Basically, like Lincoln, you know what I mean?

He, like, did some paperwork for a couple of weeks during like the Black Hawk Wars or something. And, hey, check the box, got the military kind of thing going. But he doesn't have like, he didn't fight in the Mexico. American War. You know what I mean? Of like, uh, folks are going to take that distinction against him. Um, so then he's, you know, going to decide on the Republican, you know, he's going to become a Republican and then he's going to try to run on the Republican ticket. Um, and there's a lot of other folks that are, that are inside of there. But again, you've got to kind of, uh, you know, if you're

looking at the, at the four different factions of the, of the political parties that are in there, there's actually a great book, uh, written by Doris Kearns Goodwin called, uh, Team of rivals. And it's how, like, Lincoln, you know what I mean, plans out how he's going to run for president on with each one of those parties there. So he's literally going to try to go into it as to be number two in each one of those four parties. Don't go for number one.

You know what I mean? So if he can be number two in each one, his total scores eight. But if you're like number one with the Republican Party, but then like you're number one. number three and number four and number two with the other ones. What night? You got a 12. You lost. You know what I mean?

So the strategy behind Lincoln. And then, you know, you kind of got to look at it as obviously, you know, coming into it is the expansion of slavery into the territories. Everybody's got to run on kind of a party line of like what they're going to, you know, what they're going to do inside their presidency kind of thing. And, you know, Jefferson Davis marries into a very prominent Taylor family. Abraham Lincoln marries a woman and her whole side of the family is pro-slavery. So, I mean, that's going to make Thanksgiving a little awkward.

You know what I mean? Of discussions. I mean, you kind of look at, you know, in today's society, I mean, of what side of the fence you ride on or, you know, you know, your political and true. I mean, did you imagine, you know, back then? I mean, you know, you're looking at some of the folks of what side of the line you stand on, you know, pro-slavery, anti-slavery, the expansion. I mean, there's going to be America in the 1860s is just, I mean, it's coming to a boiling point.

But it's not, you know, I think the misconception is everybody thinks that, okay, Abraham Lincoln gets voted in and half the country leaves. Well, okay, yeah, that's true. but there was a lot of years of buildup to get to the Civil War. And it is the greatest catastrophe that has ever happened in this country of what took place coming in in 1860. And when you look at the party systems, you know, Jefferson Davis was a single soul. I mean, it's one party. Well, that's kind of odd. You know what I mean?

I mean, we have one-party countries that exist today. They're called tyrannies. You know, but for Jefferson Davis, you know, and he's going to become the president, and he's going to stay the president of the Confederate States throughout the entire Civil War. You know, like we always talk like, you know, when you and I chit-chatting, we're talking about, you know, Abraham Lincoln and, you know, you read in the Gettysburg Address while we're up at Gettysburg and all that kind of stuff. I mean, he's got a re-election coming in in 64.

I mean, you never hear about re-election taking place. You know, like Davis has got to worry about a reelection coming in. It's just he got elected. It's in. Yeah, which is kind of odd. So, you know, when you look at the differences of the two, you know, it's very interesting. in those aspects of one is self-educated, one's formally educated, one's got the military background,

and how they're going to run their administration's kind of completely different. And one of them's kind of blue-collar and the other one's kind of an aristocrat. Yeah. Is that an accurate assessment? Because it seems that way to me looking at it. Yeah, I mean, like Lincoln doesn't own anybody. It's like Davis owns people. Yeah. He's got a plantation.

You know what I mean? So, yeah, I mean, they're on different levels. Like, Abraham Lincoln's not banging it at the country club. Davis is. You know what I mean? He's got like box seats to football games at the running revels down there. Abraham Lincoln, he's not even invited to the football game. Check. As we look at the north and the south and kind of set them up,

There's a great, great, great bit of writing from Sherman, who was General Sherman, who's a West Pointer from Ohio. He ends up becoming the first superintendent of what became LSU, originally called the Louisiana Seminary of Learning. And so 1861, southern states are starting to leave the union. Sherman resigns as the superintendent of this school and and that's before Louisiana secedes. But he ends up writing this letter to another professor that he works with, a young professor at the university. And this is just such a, it's almost scary how well he understood things and how well he understood what was about to happen. And it's just, it's amazing to read. So here we go.

This is the letter from Sherman. He says, you people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood and God only knows how it will end. It is all a fall. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization. You people speak so lightly of war. You don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing.

You mistake to the people of the North. They are a peaceable people, but an earnest people, and they will fight too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it. Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car. Hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth right at your doors. You are bound to fail.

Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else, you are totally unprepared with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but your limited resources will begin to fail. shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be your cause will begin to wane if your people will but stop and think they must see in the end that you will surely fail that's that's that's that's prophecy of what's going to happen yeah and the and the funny thing is is he's the one that's going to lead the army that's going to do it uh you know what i mean right across there so yeah his his foresight of vision into the future.

And that's a pretty good pulse for a guy to have on a nation as a whole of, you know, I mean, we're building steam engines in the north. You got to take your cotton and ship it over to Europe to make cloth and they send you it back. You know, you might have the will, but you don't have the means kind of an aspect. So yeah, for Sherman, yeah, he's an interesting guy. You know what I mean? If you kind of pull the thread on Sherman. Yeah, I was listening to Thomas Sowell book.

And he was pointing out, like, you know, cheese is from Wisconsin. You know, primarily you think, oh, cheese, Wisconsin. Why is that? Well, it's because they, because cheese is really hard to manufacture. They got cows down south, but they weren't making cheese down there. It's the same thing you're saying. Like they're taking, they have the cotton there in the south coming out of the ground. but they got to ship it over to Europe or up north to make textiles out of it.

It doesn't, it's crazy to think that. And meanwhile, in the north, they're building freaking local motives, which is like the equivalent of building a freaking jumbo jet, right? Yeah. And they're not able to make cloth down in the south. So it doesn't take much to look at this from the outside. You know, of course, me sitting here in hindsight 2020. It's like, hey, no kidding.

But that's a crazy it's a crazy Delta between the two between a part of the country that can make locomotives, which means they can make guns, which means they can make cannons, which means they can make anything that they need for war. And the other part can't really actually even make shoes to put on the feet of their soldiers. You talked about the Indian Removal Act. What about, what about like the John Brown raid? And how's that, how's that viewed? Yeah, well, you know, the whole, that's the bleeding Kansas kind of thing. So talk to tell me, explain to me more bleeding Kansas. Yeah, bleeding Kansas out. It's the Western expansion. It's slavery. John Brown is an advocate, you know what I mean? He is not pro-slavery. He's anti-slavery. He's going to, you know, demonstrations. If you could imagine, you know, having the, what's the moral courage, you know, in that time in America, to stand up, you know what I mean,

and go against this thing that the country, you know what I mean, and for thousands of years, I mean, slavery has been a huge part of the world. You know, you conquer, you enslave. You know, I mean, it's happened, you know, through thousands of years. And then to be one of the folks that's out there that says, yeah, we're just not going to do this anymore. Like, this just isn't right. You know what I mean? Owning another human being is just not right. So there's going to be a lot of events that are going to take place, you know, throughout

Kansas where, you know, Missouri, they're going to try to this expansion coming in. Because, of course, you've got some people that are for it and you've got some that are against it. So, you know, John Brown starts making trips into what is now like Harper's Ferry, Virginia. It's now West Virginia, but back then it was Virginia. And right there on the confluence of the of the Shannon Doa and the Potomac River, it sets out on a peninsula. There's an armory there. Man, weapons and that kind of thing that sits there.

And it's got a rail crosses right over into Maryland. And he's going to stage a raid on Harper's Ferry. He wants to take over this arsenal of Harper's Ferry and, you know, kind of get the word out to some of the slaves and stuff in and around the area. like he's going to and then arm them and then we're going to have like this uprising. And he's going to try it there. You know, the problem is it's hard to get the word out. Plus then you've got to look at the fear factor of like being a slave. And then you're going to want me to do what?

You're going to want me to like stand up and you're going to give me a pole maybe with a little pointy stick of a spear and a gun. And we're going to go against, you know what I mean, of this? you know, the slavery of a demonstration. I mean, so there's a lot of courage that has to come in. Just to even stand up to take part in something like that. And of course, when you look at it back in the day of the actual United States military, you know, we don't really have the military of what we would look at of today, of what they actually had back then.

Yeah, cool. In 1860 in the United States timeframe, the Army exceeding small and scattered, they were unprepared to meet a secessional crisis. Army appropriations for that year were the smallest they had been since 1855. So if you're looking at by the numbers, the end of the year, return showed that there was 16,367 officers and men on the rolls. just over 14,000 of them were present for duty. Of that number, 372 were line officers.

Just five of them were general officers. And one of them was Winfield Scott. When you look at the compromise of the companies, 179 were posted west of the Mississippi of the 197 total. So there was only 18 companies on this side of the Mississippi. So when John Brown does the raid, there's an individual that everybody knows, more of General Robert E. Lee, but he was Captain Robert E. Lee of the United States Army living over in Arlington, Virginia, and he gets called in and he takes a company Marines from the Navy Yard. So you got Marines

because everybody else is out west. Hold on. Just slow down. So you got this, this rebellion is taking a place. And this is going to be a basically a rebellion against the United States government because the United States government at this time has slavery. And John Brown is anti-slavery, so he's going to put together this raid. They're going to go and get these weapons, hand him out to the slaves, and it's going to start a rebellion. Now, in order to quell this, there's a young army captain out of West Point named Robert E. Lee. And, And he doesn't have any army troops. Is that what's going on?

Yeah, they don't. There's no army troops around because there's only freaking 13,000 active army troops in all of America, north and south. And there's some Marines in the Navy yard. Yeah. You know, back then the Marine Corps job was basically hanging out on the Navy ships to make sure that there wasn't mutiny. They were there to protect the captain of the ship and certain things. So the only, you know, ground combatant arms available. was a bunch of Marines.

So they snag up a bunch of Marines, and they send them over, and they ride the train coming out of D.C. And when the Marines come in, there's also another young lieutenant at the time that, you know, is from the area. His name's Jeb Stewart. He kind of comes up a little later on in the Civil War of like,

I wonder why Robert E. Lee likes Jeb Stewart so much. Well, they got time together. And the Marines come in, and they end up in Harper's Ferry, John Brown, they end up taking over, they get into one of the, engine houses that's up there. So they're basically, it's in my opinion, the Marines come in and they're going to do the

first direct action assault like on this firehouse, this engine house in Harper's Ferry. You know, because John Brown, his plan isn't working out as well as he thought it was going to. And then you got Robert E. Lee coming in with a bunch of Marines. So he's going to try to hole up in this engine house. and the Marines are going to come in. They're going to stack. They got ladders and stuff, man.

They're going to create entry. They didn't have a breach at the time. But they're going to breach. They're going to, you know, hooligan. They're going to hooligan. They're going to make a hole. They're going to make entry into it. And then they're going to go to work on John Brown on them.

And they end up quelling the events taking place of the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry. And then they're going to take John Brown. And they're going to hang him in Charlestown, Virginia, which is now Charlestown, Westfield. Virginia. And some of those northerner, you know, Henry David Thoreau and some of those guys are actually present at the hanging. I mean, they're, the north is getting really upset with this whole slavery thing that's going on in the south. So it's starting to get a lot of support. You know, I didn't talk to it earlier, but one of the other guys that was running was Governor Seward

out of the state of New York. He's going to end up being the Secretary of State, basically. for Lincoln and the administration. And I can remember reading about Seward and his wife took a tour in the South before the Civil War. When she came back, she was like, I will never again go back to the southern states. I mean, she was just shocked at what she had seen that was going on in some of the southern states with slavery in America. So, you know, there was a lot of folks up in the northeast of America to include Midwest, because you've got, you know, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan. You know, you've got a lot of these folks that are like, this is time.

You know what I mean? We need to, you know, over in Europe, they had already abolished slavery. Like, wasn't a thing. I mean, we were like one of the last ones holding on. And so it was, you know, coming in in the civil disobedience in America. This was coming to a boiling point, and John Brown's going to kind of chip that boiling point, but you still got to get the American population's got to get in on it. And when Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States,

you know, I mean, just like you had read, I mean, you got, like, we're out. It's on. So you got, you know, prior to this, you've got the liberal North is calling for the overthrow of the United States. And it's the agrarian south that ends up pulling a trigger. It gets us into what will be the next, you know, probably the five worst years of American history is going to take place within side of the Civil War. As the secession takes place, there's like people that have to, it's almost like a draft pick, like an NFL draft pick. And then on top of that, you got states that, some states that have to kind of pick sides. What does that draft pick looks like?

You got because the military officers come from West Point. A lot of them come from West Point. Not all of them, but a lot of them are coming from West Point. So these guys know each other. You know, you and I did a podcast talking about the camaraderie at the Naval Academy. You worked at the Naval Academy for a few years. These people, they go through tough training together. They get educated together.

They drink together. They eat together. They play sports together. They get educated together. So a lot of these prominent officers all were educated in the same place in West Point. So now they're all trying to figure out who's going where and who's going to what sides. How does that wash out? Yeah.

I mean, it's just sometimes it's mind boggling. I couldn't imagine like serving. It would be like, you know, I mean, the guys you served with in Ramadi and then you come back and then the country splits. and next thing you know, like some of them are on different sides than you. And you're like, wait a minute, man. Like we shared in the suffering together. And now you're going to be on the other side. So, yeah, all these guys are West Pointes.

They're all ring knockers. And, you know, the first guy, the military, basically the military advisor to Abraham Lincoln is going to be Winfield Scott. Well, Winfield Scott's a Virginia. So that makes it kind of awkward. You know what I mean? Virginia is a slave state. He's a Virginia and he controls all of the armies and he's the advisor to Abraham Lincoln. Winfield Scott at this time.

What's his position? He's basically like he's the. Like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or something? He's the senior military guy. Senior military guy. He's old at this point. Pretty old guy. Oh, yeah.

He's an old guy. Like 65, 70 years old. Yeah. Winfield Scott. Yep. Yep. And he's a Virginia. He's a Virginia.

But he's going to stick it out with the union. He's going to stick it out with the union. And he had always, you know, I mean, when you look at a guy like Winfield Scott, you know what I mean? And with anybody else, like he's getting long in the tooth. And, you know what I mean? He's not firing on all eight cylinders anymore. You know what I mean? It's not like he's out getting after it in the morning at five.

So he's kind of earmarked an individual that, you know, if something goes down in the United States. Like, I got a guy who I'm going to call, and it's Robert E. Lee. And he's right there in Arlington. You know, lives right. Stone's strove from the White House. You know what I mean? It's what modern day today is Arlington National Cemetery. So Winfield Scott's looking at all the guys that he knows. He's the senior military leader. And he's got his guy in his mind. when the time comes, I'm going to, my first draft pick to save the union, lead the armies actually into combat, because I'm freaking too old for that. So my first draft pick is this guy, Robert E. Lee.

Yep. Yeah, he's going to call Bobby. You know, and Robert, so he's going to call him up. And, yeah, it's like one of those points in time in history of like, you know, I could imagine, you know, he gets a note, memo, come over. Hey, you need to come see the chief staff of the army. of whatever. And he goes in and he's like, hey, yeah, you know,

this whole secession thing that's kind of going on. Like, I'm going to need you to kind of stand up an army man and go down and look where you're going to crush it. And he's like, yeah, I'm going with Virginia. And turns and turns it down. When you read about Robert E Lee, how hard was that for him to make that decision? Was there inner turmoil like, oh, I'm going, what can I do to preserve the unioners? He just like, hey, no, we're going?

I'm Virginia, I'm out. I'm sure that he struggled, you know, with the issue. Because you also have to kind of look at it. I mean, of course, you know, all history is remembered history. You know, I mean, of what some guy remembered, of another guy remembered, and then whatever Echo told him, then somebody wrote it down, and now it's in a book, so we believe, of what time. You know, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't there.

But of us, I could speculate to be like if something happened in the United States, like right now, you know what I mean? You know, I'd probably shoot you a text, be like, hey, dude, what side are you going to go with? And, you know what I mean? And you should have text over to echo, hey, dude, who are you going to roll with? You know what I mean? Because like we're all friends, you know what I mean? I want to make sure that like I'm not. And then you're like, yeah, hey, dude, I'm rolling with these guys.

I mean, there's a lot of these folks, man, that are from southern descent. you know, their fan, I mean, you know, Robert E. Lee was, I mean, he courted his wife in Fredericksburg, Virginia, right across the Rappahannock River of George Washington, where he grew up as a child. If you look at mentorship of Robert E. Lee, he's a Virginia. He's a Washington. You know what I mean? He's, he's going to stick with the Commonwealth of Virginia. But he's also kind of looking out of the aspects of who else is going? with the Confederacy. And if you're looking at it, of kind of who's staying with the North. So Robert E. Lee, he's going to come in, and I'm sure he had to have struggled because he served with a lot of these guys in Mexico. But I'm sure when he came back afterwards, as you can see, like, a lot of other people, like, went and, you know, they resigned their commissions and they went to do other things. That's why the downsizing of the military after the Mexican-American War, they're like,

hey, yeah, this is great. But, you know, as a country, we're not going to stand up and we're not going to have like this large armies of what we have today or even Navy on that token. So, you know, but Winfield Scott, I'm sure it had a lot to play in that he's a Virginian. Robert E. Lee's a Virginia. But Robert E. Lee served with distinction. I mean, it could probably, it's debatable, but Robert E. Lee is probably the best. number one graduate of West Point, like ever? I mean, he's a pretty prominent guy,

and he's married well into a family. He's living in Arlington, Virginia, got a nice piece of property, and he's going to leave. And it could be underneath, I'm sure it had nothing to do with Winfield Scott. It probably had more to do with who's the United States. when you look at it of who's the president of the Confederacy. Well, it's Jefferson Davis. Where to go to school? He's a West Pointer. Did he fight in a Mexican-American war?

Sure he did. With distinction. So do you know that those two guys probably know each other like really well? And who does he know this rail splitter from Kentucky that's some prairie lawyer from Illinois? And you want me to like hang out with that guy? So I'm sure there had to be some struggles. I mean, I imagine everybody's struggle. I mean, you're going to see this country of the United States with just, you know, just, you know, not even a generation of folks.

You know what I mean? And we're already split. But, you know, to be able to quell these forces, so Winfield Scott's going to call him in as the number one draft pick. And he's not going to get, he's not going to get that draft pick. And then he's also, you know, you've got to look at the Navy side of it. You know, because you've got to run a naval blockade. So where do you go find Navy people? Well, you know, you just go right down the road to Annapolis

and you got this place they call the United States Naval Academy. And you got the first superintendent of the Naval Academy, Buchanan. You know, we kind of chit-chat about that guy. And, you know, when you go down there, of course he's the choice to be the chief of naval operations for this new force that we're going to stand up. And it's not like we got a whole bunch of boats, but it's not big Navy at the time. So you got the Naval Academy.

You got Mid Shipman, and he's going to be offered the number one draft pick of the Navy. And he turns down. And joins the Confederacy. Joins the Confederacy. So the North is 0 for 2 on primary draft picks out of the gate. Right out of the gate. Right out of the gate.

That's got to be because you know again, you know, you're talking about the I'm going to text you and you're going to text that. And we're kind of like, oh, see where we're going and you just get a mob mentality going. That's got to be nerve wracking up north when the first few people you're asking, hey, you know, are you in? And they're like, nope. And then you got some states, right, that have to make a decision. You got Maryland and Delaware. These are, these are slave states. Yep.

But they don't succeed. What's up with that? Well, I mean, they're under the, you know, and it's, it's all political. You know what I mean? If you're looking at the aspects of, let's take Maryland. And then you look at the aspects of, okay, so you look at Washington, D.C. And like literally, okay, Virginia is going to pop smoke and they're going to go south. Well, if Maryland goes, we're going to have to displace this cool place we're building called Washington, DC because we're going to be surrounded. So, you know, with these folks are are not going to secede to go with the Confederacy. They're going to stay with the union, but they're still slave

states. They have slavery in the states. And, you know, there's a lot of look of where you're bringing folks in. If you look at it economically, I mean, Baltimore, Maryland is a huge port. Still is to this day. You know what I mean? I mean? That's where everybody around there that's in Baltimore, they make their money by working something that has to do with the port. It's been that way forever. But the rail line's going to come from all your northeastern states that are going to run down, you know, through Philly. It's going to come down in and through Baltimore to where now the folks in Baltimore, they're like, hey, man, you know, we don't want these forces coming from the north to quell the south because it's going to take away our livelihood.

So before the vote kind of thing, you know, you got Abraham Lincoln and he's got his advisors and stuff. And I can imagine they're all sitting around the table kind of like us. And they're like, hey, so they're voting over in Maryland tomorrow of whether or not they're going to succeed. And everybody's like, yeah, that could be bad if they decide to succeed with go with the Confederacy. And they're like, yeah. So, you know, of course, Abraham Lincoln, you know what I mean?

He's a new guy. He's got to kind of look at it. Like, what do you think we should do there? He's talking like his advisors, you know, Winfield Scott and those guys. Because, you know, Abe really doesn't know. I mean, hell, I wouldn't know. He's only been in the job a couple of weeks. And here, half the country is leaving.

And now I got Maryland might have to displace. I like my house. I just got my TMO move, just got in. You know what I mean? Wife's kind of happy. Got the kids checked into school. And so he's like, well, why don't we just bombard the city of Annapolis? Like, how about we just bombard it?

Then they can't vote. And like, Winfield Scott and him are like, Yeah, but when they do vote, they're definitely going to go into Confederacy. He didn't quite think of the hearts and minds play. Yeah. So Lincoln says, hey, we should just bomb Annapolis. Yeah, let's just bomb. And then they just won't be able to vote.

Won't be able to vote. Okay, so they were able to remove that idea from. But let's be prepared. So he's like, okay, hey, boss, like, you know, like, hey, jaco, we can't bomb them. And then you're like, okay, well, I want you to be prepared. so that if they come out with that vote, you know what I mean? And they succeed, man, we got we got people in place to enact like immediately because we got to keep Maryland in.

I mean, if you're looking at Washington, D.C. and stuff like that, that's fine. I mean, it's almost as if like, yeah, keep your slaves and stuff. Just don't go with the Confederacy. Like, and it's a, Maryland is a split state. You know what I mean? Like if you've ever gone, like, you know, Baltimore is very different than the, the, western side over towards like Sharpsburg, Maryland, over towards that western side of Maryland. It's very, it's farm country, you know, agrarian, and then you go east. And then that's where

you get like, you know, Baltimore, Annapolis, the boat school, the eastern shore. I mean, it's a very different state. So it's a split state. I mean, there's some of the folks that are like, yeah, hey, dude, we need to roll and go with the Confederacy. So I always always. I always imagined that, you know what I mean? So if I'm, you know, with the state and I'm coming in and J.D.'s going to come in and cast his vote that day. And I come, you know, skipping in and wearing my dock siders, got my little, you know, my little boat shorts on. And, you know, I come in and I see, you know, Echo's coming to vote that day too.

And I'm like, hey, dude, did you see those ships like out there in the harbor and they're like pointing guns at us, man? Like, what's up with that? It's like, I don't know, dude. But did you see the, like, they got an army that's like, like, they're prepared to do. something. I think it's going to sway my vote because I live in Annapolis. Like, you know what I mean? Like that's going to have an effect, you know, on me with inside of Annapolis. And then, of course, you know, you got the Naval Academy that's like right there. And you got this guy. Yeah, I was going to say, of which the superintendent's bailing.

He's bailing. You know what I mean? He's going south. And you know how it is with anybody else? this is like in any sports. If you get like this prominent figure that moves to a team, everybody wants to go to that team. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I'm sure that's going to have like a huge effect on a lot of the other junior officers of where they're going to want to go play.

You know what I mean? With which state. And I mean, where are you from is huge. It even is still to this day of like where you're born and raised. You know what I mean? I mean, that's usually a big thing. People are always proud. to be like, you know, Texas. Lord, they're happy is, they're really proud, you know, be a Texan.

You know what I mean? And there's just certain states. Respect life. We respect. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course. You know what I mean? But Virginia, you know what I mean? Being from the Commonwealth or from any state. So there is that kind of time. And that's where your family lives. So you got mom and dad, you got grandma. Yeah, especially back then, like nowadays, people are much more mobile. Back then, like, if you were born in Virginia, you were probably going to die in Virginia. and your whole family is probably going to die and live and die in Virginia. And same thing with Connecticut and Maine and Maryland and everything else. So it's like if you are going to,

going to defend something, it's not just defending your home. It's defending your entire existence, your family, your grandkids, your grandparents, everything. Yeah,

and especially the prominent families. You know, like if you look at like Abraham Lincoln, the difference between them, his family doesn't own plantations. They don't, they're not banging it. They're moving out of Kentucky.

They're just trying to stay out of poverty. You know what I mean? They're just looking for a better way of life. I mean, that whole, you know what I mean? That Western expansion and everybody coming in, the immigrations that's coming into America and then expanding West, you know, these folks are just looking to stay out of poverty. They're looking for a better way of life.

You know, when you're talking about like Robert E. Lee, yeah, he's not leaving Virginia, man. Like they own land in Virginia. You know what I mean? they are land over. And it's not like a single wide trailer on a half acre lot, man. This dude, they're banging it. You know what I mean? Like Jefferson Davis, he's a plantation owner. So yeah, you're spot on. A lot of those folks that are in these states, they're not leaving the state. They might go on a vacation to go take a trip, but they're coming right back. They're not going to, they're not like us today of very fluid of moving. So Maryland has the warships in the heart

they have the troops amassed that they can kind of sense so they decide all right we're going to stay with the union what about what about Delaware Delaware they're going to stay with the union same same sort of intimidation nervousness like hey we got slaves but we don't we're not quite sure we want to break away from from from the United States of America yeah and then you got to see where they're located like you know what I mean on the map you know what I mean if they're they're going to be isolated up there it's not like they're going to get a lot of support right you know what I mean from a lot of other folks coming in and then you got like a state like Kentucky that they're just going to they're just going to ride the fence they're going to say hey man we're neutral

like we're not we're not picking sides there's just going to wait till the end you know what I mean but and of course then if you've got like a neutral state well of course who's where are you going to go to recruit Kentucky you know what I mean because they got folks that are southern sympathizers that are going to want to go fight for the Confederacy they're going to want to fight for that way of life you've got just as many. You've got folks that are even on both sides of the war. You've got folks from Pennsylvania that are southern sympathizers that are going to leave the state of Pennsylvania and they're going to go south. You've got folks from the south that are going to come up and they're going to join the north on both sides.

So the turmoil in America at that time is just crazy when you kind of think about like, you know, leave. I mean, the Rock of Chickamauga, you know what I mean? who he's a Virginian. He goes, you know, you've got guys like that that are fighting for the union. So they're not all union officers are not all northern descent. You do have southern descent officers that stay loyal to the union and to the United States of America, which is huge. And you also have people in the north that were pro-slavery that were fighting for the union. Is that an accurate statement? Yeah, you know, when you're looking at it of some of the general officers that are fighting into North, they basically want like status quo. Like, hey, man, let's just let's just say,

hey, just a false alarm. Hey, we're not really going to get rid of your slavery. You can keep, keep doing what you're doing. You know what I mean? Let's just go back to the way things were. Let's just status quo it and we'll be fine, which is, you know, that's going to be a problem, especially if you're a general officer and you're kind of like in charge of troops and you're in charge of like putting down this insurgency of a rebellion. You know what I mean? Like you're not really on the same page with the boss, which is kind of you flip side to Jefferson Davis. We're pretty much everybody down there. Yeah, they're all on board with the plan. You know what I mean? We're going to create a new country. We all are, I mean, they're establishing a government. So you know what I mean? When,

they make him the president and they secede it's a new country being formed uh now in the american revolutionary war you know us against england america got support from europe oh yeah and where's europe now as they look at what's going on in america they see this what what now is a looming war on the horizon where's europe sitting yeah and if you look at it you know on a business perspective. So if me and you own a textile company and we're over in Europe, where are we getting our cotton from? Well, we don't need steam engines. You know what I mean? Like we already got that. You know what I mean? If you look at like at England, I mean, the British Royal Navy, yeah, they are like top notch. Like these guys are phenomenal. So we're going to lean towards the Confederacy

because that's what we're getting our stuff from. You know, those are, that's what's, supplying us. You know, they don't have, I mean, you know, when you look at the colonies, especially with, with England and stuff like that and the Western expansion of, you know, the amount of land mass that's here in the United States compared to, you know, England and France and stuff like that. Like it's, you know, like, dude, we got like Texas. Like, okay, that's like all of you all.

You know what I mean? And so there's a, and they're getting it cheap. So, you know, because they can't grow their own. You know what I mean? And if they do, it's going to be more expensive. So they're basically outsourcing. So those folks, Europe is going to lean towards, you know, the Confederacy. If they become their own country, you know what I mean? Then they have to be prepared to start setting up trade agreements and those certain things with this new established government that's coming in. So, yeah, so when you look at it on the European theater, they're going to be looking at the Confederacy, because they need those resorts.

I mean, tobacco and cotton is huge. Even still to this day, I mean, you drive down, you know, I'm Spotsylvania, Virginia, man. You just go right down to Richmond. You got Philip Morris, you know what I mean? Huge tobacco. Now, England had gone through great lengths to shut down slavery throughout the world at this point in time. I mean, they had lost thousands of men, mostly naval men, trying to stop slavery. trying to stop slave trade.

They must have been in support of the union, I'm guessing. I think they support the idea when it comes down to the wallet. The wallet. You know what I mean? Like, okay, this is like really cool that we did it. But, you know, it's like, you know, but that's just them. Those are the colonies. I mean, even when you look at the, you know, with the war of independence, I mean,

England still existed. We didn't get rid of them. You know what I mean? They're kind of like, oh, you were fighting the JV team or whatever to justify. Well, like when I called it the American Revolutionary War, I can't just call it. In my, I'm married to a Brit. So she doesn't even know what the Revolutionary War is. That's not a thing to her.

Like it didn't. Like, what are you talking about? Like, for us, it's a big deal. For them, it was just like, oh, some colonists are causing problems, whatever. Yeah. So this is where we end up. We end up, we got these, you know, The lines are now drawn at this point.

There's massive tension. Everyone kind of feels what's coming. Take us to Charleston Harbor where this thing's going to kick off. What's that scenario going on? Yeah, so if you could, you know, Charleston, South Carolina, you know, I mean, it's after they secede, you know, it's kind of like, So you've got, it'd be like in today to kind of put it in perspective. It'd be like, you know, California is going to secede from the union.

Well, that means like California is going to get like, you're going to get Coronado, you're getting Camp Pendleton, you're getting San Diego Bay, you're getting all that. Yeah. You know, the United States government's, you're not getting any of that. You know what I mean? Like, and you think it's yours. So it's basically the same thing. You've got these federal forts that, you know what I mean?

that are down in Charleston, and it's not just Charleston. I mean, we've got forts, you know what I mean, that run all the way down to Key West, you know, Fort Zachary Taylor's all the way down there. In Key West, so you've got these forts, but there's this one that's sitting, and it's right there, you know, federal government, it's the federal government, the United States government, and they're occupying a fort in the Charleston Harbor. and they're like, you guys need to, you need to surrender and you need to get, you need to get your shit. You need to get out of here, man.

Like, you know what I mean? This is our stuff now. That surrender note, right? So you got this guy, Major Anderson, who's a guy from Kentucky, but his wife's from Georgia. But he's a union guy. And what I found interesting about this is this note. You can see it's early in the war. This is when people, you know, you know, all the way.

All people are naive when it comes to war. I should say most people, especially people that haven't been in war, are naive when it comes to war. And they think that war is going to be quick and painless. And we can predict what's going to happen. And they're all wrong. But in the beginning of war, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, this is going to be a cordial event. So this guy, Major Anderson gets this note.

It says, all proper facilities will be afforded for the removal of yourself and command together with the company arms and property and all private property to any post in the United States which you may select. The flag which you have upheld so long and with so much fortitude under the most trying circumstances may be saluted by you on taking it down. And by the way, this note is from a guy named Beauregard who was one of Anderson's students when they both went to West Point. But it's like again to me and it's part of it is the age, you know, part of it is the gentlemanly aspect of life back then.

And you had this sort of nice cordial note of saying, hey, look, we'll ship you wherever you want to be shipped. You can keep your weapons. You can salute the flag when you bring it down, but you got to go. So, you know, let's make it happen. Now, Anderson's, and you might have to talk me through this a little bit, but, but, Anderson, he, he kind of agrees a little bit thinking, hey, if I can't get resupplied, and if I can't get any help, then it doesn't really make a ton of sense for me to fight and die. So it's like he's starting to consider surrendering. He doesn't really know that there's

supply ship outside, outside the harbor that tries to make entry. Who is it? The star of the West merchant vessel unarmed? Yeah, and you've got to imagine, so you're all the way down on the Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. I mean, your boss is all the way up off the Potomac in Washington, D.C. You know, you're trying, like, what's the communications

that, you know what I mean, of being able to communicate? You know, there's only a certain, like, over on Sullivan's Island, they've got a fort there, but it's more exposed. So that's why they go over to, over and hop into the middle of the bay. so they're out at Fort Sumter in the middle of the harbor.

So now you're kind of like you're on an island. There's no store. There's no, nobody there wants you there. You know what I mean? So everybody hates you. And you're running out of resupply. So yeah, they're going to try to get the ships. And like Winfield Scott and the guys up north.

I mean, they know that like, dude, we need to get these guys resupplied. You know what I mean? Or we need to get more bodies down there. But, you know, and I don't know if you've ever been there. I have not. Yeah. I mean, it's like, wow, dude. I mean, that fort, you're just sitting out in the middle and you're within range.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's, where can I compare it? It's like you're on Alcatraz right off of San Francisco. I mean, you're just a hop, skipping a jump man, right over there. Well, if you're going to try to bring in naval vessels, you know what I mean, to run resupply. even if it is unmanned, you're within range on both sides. I mean, there's a reason why they had forts there.

You know what I mean? To defend. Well, now, you know what do you mean? You never thought of when you established a fort. Well, what if I got to defend against my own people? Like, we didn't think that one through. So, yeah, they can't get to the communication. So kind of at the beginning, I mean, when you look at Anderson, one, he's struggling

with inside of the turmoil of himself of one, what's his state going to do? He's got his wife. She's from Georgia. I mean, you know, yeah, do I just surrender and, you know, and pop smoke? If I recall, Anderson's even thought was if Kentucky seceded from the union

that he was just going to sit this one out overseas. I mean, isn't that where we kind of? talking about. You know what I mean? So he's going to just pop smoke all together. And he's going to go overseas and just set this one out. Like he wants no part of this. And now he's sitting in the Charleston Harbor.

And he's got one of his former students, Beauregard, that's going to send him a note. You know what I mean? And it's very cordial at the time. But yeah, I mean, it'd be almost like as anybody else is sitting out there like, hey, dude, if nobody shows up tomorrow with some resupplies, we're tapping out. Because what are we going to do here? I mean, it's a suicide sitting in the middle. So, yeah, he's, but then he finally, you know, he's realizing that he can't surrender.

And, you know, he shakes off the aides that come to get him to surrender. I mean, it just, yeah, he's in a bad spot sitting in the middle of that harbor. Yeah, even the fact that the guys are there to offer him surrender, even that's kind of cordial, right? And he ends up shaking their hands and he says if we do not meet again in this world I hope we may meet in the better one and these guys leave and at 4.30 a.m. A. 67 year old staunch secessionist named Edmund Ruffin pulls the lanyard on his cannon and the first shot of the war is fired and that's the beginning and we will continue this horrible journey on the next jaco podcast civil war excursion

and if you want to support this podcast go to jocco store.com go to joccofuel.com go to origin usa.com go to eschelonfront.com and go to the o mn.a.com. That's what we've got for now. Until next time, this is jd and jocco. Out.