Jocko Podcast - Jocko Podcast Civil War Excursion With JD Baker Pt.3: No Progress. Only Carnage.

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

Battles in Virginia and Maryland. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko podcast Civil War Excursion number three with J.D. Baker and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, J.D. Good evening, J.D. On November 8th, 1861, a week after replacing Scott as General In-Chief, McClellan spelled out his war aims to his confidant Barlow. He wrote, I am fighting to preserve the integrity of the union. the power of the government on no other issue to gain that end we cannot afford to mix up the Negro question it must be incidental and subsidiary during his Western Virginia campaign he had assured slaveholders that their peculiar institution would

be religiously respected that he would crush with an iron hand any attempted slave uprising later he would repeat that pledge to the Virginia landowner Hill Carter quote I have not come here to wage war on the defenseless upon non-combatants upon private property nor upon the domestic institutions of the land end quote so that right there some some quotes from McClellan from a book called landscape Turn Red by Stephen W. Sears and you know we've been talking J.D. about Kind of an attitude a political attitude that was not unfamiliar in the north and that was the idea of just kind of a status quo. Hey, we'll just keep just kind of keep things the way we are.

Keep things the way they are. And and and and this is McClellan, right? And and that probably fuels when we talk about McClellan, the fact that he's not exactly a go-getter, he's not exactly a proactive leader, he's not going out there to make things happen, he's not default aggressive. He's more a slow roller. He's going to let things kind of play out a little bit and hope that there's not much activity, hoping kind of like let the status quo continue. But when you have that kind of attitude. You have a non we have a passive attitude, especially on the battlefield, you can lose battles because of it. And right now union troops, his union troops are, are demoralized in the east. The first battle of Manassas, right? The union troops got kind of crushed. The peninsula

campaign, union troops didn't, didn't do what they needed to do. Manassas too. Once again, it's it's hurt locker for the union troops. And, you know, meanwhile, Shiloh had taken place, which was a victory for the union. But center of gravity is the east. I mean, from a political standpoint. Is that a safe assessment? Yeah, you know, everybody focuses on that eastern theater. Even though, you know, when we talked about like yesterday with the Anaconda plan and the

of the snake is coming from the west. That would, you know, just automatically, we would assume that that's going to be kind of the focus of main effort to get everything in. But just because of the location, you know, we talked about, you know, you got Richmond and you got D.C. that is a hop, skip and a jump, you know, right up the telegraph road from each other. And everybody's eyes, newspapers, all that kind of stuff is focused in on that, on that eastern theater of campaign.

and you know when you talk about you know McClellan you know of what he did to Pope you know what I mean when they put Pope in for the second battle of Manassas you know what I mean and and his relationship so let's talk through that real quick because I don't know how much we covered it before you had Pope that kind of had been given command and given the task they start coming they start kind of losing the battle and McClellan is in a position where he could provide troops to support Pope and maybe turn the tide of that was Manassas too. And McClellan doesn't do anything. Yeah.

And, you know, so as Pope's going to come over, Pope's coming over from the West. So it's even, you know, of today, if I was going to use it, whether it's in the military, you know, with Navy and Marines, you're either East Coast or West Coast. And regardless of anybody likes to kind of look, there's a, uh, there's a, uh, There's a difference being East Coast and West Coast. A lot of times in the military, they're like, hey, are you an East Coast guy or you a West Coast guy? There's a different. I'm just a guy. You know what I mean?

It's the same organization, but it's just, it's different, you know what I mean, of folks of where they're stationed. So it's no different there. You've got a guys that are out there on the Western Theater side. And then you've got a lot of these folks that, you know, if you look at the general officers in just of a whole, and you look at the western side versus the eastern theater side of McClellan and Burnside and Franklin and a lot of these guys. A lot of them are political kind of guy. Like, you know, like McClellan is definitely playing.

And these are the Union East. Yeah, Union East guys, you know, with the Army of the Potomac. Yeah, these guys are playing politics. They're supposed to be like a general. You know what I mean? Like they're supposed to be like, you know, crushing this insurgents. and a lot of them are trying to play politics at the same time, which McClellan is no different. And of course, you know, he gets put in command.

McClellan runs for president, right? Oh. In 64? Yep. 64. He's going to run as a Democrat. Yeah. So even when you hear him talking about his strategy and how he's like, hey, I'm kind of a status quo guy.

You could see that. That's almost like a predictive unification idea that he has. Hey, look, if I can win the presidency, we can kind of. roll this thing back and we can just let slavery keep going in the South. And it's almost like he's on campaign right now. Yeah, because I mean, you got to look at it just like they get the preliminaries. So, you know, each one of these parties got to kind of pick their guy of who they're going to run. And the Democrats, not the Southern Democrats, the Northern Democrats, they're going with McClellan. And they're going to pick McClellan. And, you know, that's, so you've got a commander in

chief. You've got this civil war going on. He's basically giving you everything you're asking for. You know what I mean? So the Army of the Potomac is very well equipped. They're manned, you know what I mean? Like, and he's going to give a flotillas. They're going to go down. They're going to buy off on your peninsula campaign. You're going to go down there and monkey around on the peninsula. You know, your best chances are going against Johnson, you know what I mean, who's the original commander for the Confederacy at the time. But then when he goes down, Robert E. Lee enters the field and you get the seven pines what we kind of talk about.

Well, that was a little bit of a game changer bringing Bobby into the mix. So now he's into the mix. Lincoln visits you down there. He's not happy with how your conduct of war because you're not moving fast enough. I mean, you know, everybody's on a timetable. You know, I could imagine the president of the United States. You know, we talked about at the beginning of the war. hey, it's going to be 90 days and it's out.

And now we're over 90 days. I mean, we're entering into, you know, of what you read with from Stephen Sears. I mean, we're in 62 now. That's not 90 days anymore. This is getting a little bit drawn out. He's going to pull you back out. He's not happy with you. You know, he brings Pope in from the West.

And then, you know, you've got resources that are on the East Coast and you're not, you know what I mean? Kind of acting like, oh, I didn't get the memo. Like, oh, I was supposed to send folks over there to support. You know what I mean? So you're like, really, dude? Like, come on, man. And then you get put back in command.

And it's basically Lincoln really doesn't have anybody else. Like, who else do I have? I mean, you spoke of Shiloh. And the first day, like we talked about, you know, with Grant, I mean, runs a yard sale down there. The Confederists definitely, you know what I mean, had the opportunity to crush that entire army. I mean, even when you read out of Company H of the privates, they're like,

why are we stopping, man? Like, you know what I mean? Let's roll these dudes. When the privates are thinking that, you know you screwed up, man. Yeah. And then you got Buell comes in with the Army of Ohio and then the next day. And look at the difference of commanders. So Beauregard takes command, launches a letter prematurely claiming victory.

And then here comes Buell and Grant. And you got two of them. And both of them are like, the only thing we know what we're going to do tomorrow morning is attack. And they're going to push them all the way back. And then they're going to lose current Mississippi, you know, along the way. So there is that Western is showing good progress for this overarching Anaconda plan. But we're here on the East Coast and you're having a little bit of problems with your most well-equipped army of the Potomac. And like we had stated before, I mean, for some odd reason, you know, he's a lot of the troops like Little Mac.

They like the Little Napoleon. I mean, they're all happy. So when he gets put back in charge of the Army of the Potomac, boom, everybody's excited again. And maybe it's just because they're getting three hots in a cot. He's taking really good care of them. I mean, I don't know. But now the relationship between an army commander and the president of the United States of Abraham Lincoln, I mean, it's not a good relationship to have. I mean, I couldn't imagine. So when McClellan gets put in command, he's actually taking over. Is it correct to say he's taking over, well, his army, but then absorbing the Pope's army as well?

Is that what he gets control of? Yep. He's going to absorb pretty much. He's always asking for more numbers. Even they've got the defenses of D.C. So they've got troops that are back there in D.C. And he's even like trying to pull folks from anywhere that he's. can that you know because he's he's he's exaggerating the size of the army of northern virginia like

you know what i mean like this is becoming like kind of like his his go-to of like hey why aren't you moving well hey i just got a report to came in that you know there's there's there's 90 000 of them out there well you know when you look at the roles of the confederacy there's you know if we're looking at it now i mean i think they're just a little over 40,000 and he's setting it right around like 85,000 And then if you look at the equipment, like if you were going to do like a like a junk on the bunk between like a private soldier with the Army of Northern Virginia and then like a private from the Army of the Potomac, like, you know, the guy from the Confederacy is going to show up and he's got like a gun. And he doesn't even have shoes on. You know what I mean?

Like the guy's got nothing. You know what I mean? They're just kind of showing up with what they got. You look at the Army of the Potomac, but they've got everything. what I mean? They get the kitchen sink with what these guys. I mean, it's the industrial north. So, you know what I mean? You could only imagine of the two. And that's kind of, you know, Lincoln's kind of looking at this of like, man, the Confederacy seems to be doing pretty well. And like, it's not, they've got the industrial north backing them with, you know, contractors and just, you know, everything that

they want they get. They're doing more with less. And you can kind of see. that Lincoln's like it's leadership. Now, when it comes to leadership, you got McClellan. And, you know, first of all, I'll say this. It seems like, you know, I'm always talking about the fact that you need to think strategic at all times. You need to think long term. It seems like McClellan is thinking so long term that he's thinking about his

presidential run. You know what I mean? Like, hey, you need to worry about winning this, right? What's going on right now? Which, so that's a problem. The other thing is, when you, when you, got a bad leader, it's very hard to overcome, unless the bad leader kind of knows maybe he's not the best leader and he's got some subordinate leadership.

That's good. I saw that many times in the SEAL teams. You get maybe a platoon commander is not the best platoon commander, but he's got a great platoon chief. And as long as he says, you know what, I'm not the best at this job, but my platoon chief's really good. Hey, chief, how do you want to do this? Hey, chief, why don't you run this?

Hey, chief, I'm all ears. Then that platoon's going to do great. It's going to do great. But if you have the arrogant leader, that doesn't know what he's doing. And he's got an experienced platoon chief, but the arrogant platoon leader isn't listening to his subordinate leadership. It's going to be a disaster. So for McClellan, it's not like McClellan doesn't have some competent and capable leaders in subordered positions, right? I mean, he's got some kind of studs underneath him.

Yeah. And when you look at, I mean, you know, he's got, you know, McClellan, he's a West Point grad. He was, you know, he's a Philly guy. So he was born in Philly. You know, goes to West Point. I mean, he goes to fights in the Mexican-American War. He's down there with the guys. You know, he comes back out, gets into railroad.

I mean, the guy's an intelligent part. I mean, he's white-collar America. I mean, the guy, he's doing well for himself. And, but, yeah, when you look at the, at the different. of a of a leader like he doesn't like have like a council of war you know what I mean like probably the only other subordinate that he even like has any kind of conversations with is like Franklin you know what I mean some of the other ones but if you look at the roster of who he's got on the team now of course like we know more now about like who's on his roster than the rest

but they were all West Point guys I mean you know we had talked earlier you know I mean he's got hooker that's in there. He's got Mead that's in there. He's got Reynolds in there. I mean, he's got Hancock. I mean, these are some capable guys. And he's not even like bringing them in to even ask them what they think. Yeah, the old council of war. All that means is listen to the people that are on your team. Like listen to what they have to say because they might have some ideas. They might see some things that you don't see. Doesn't seem like too much to ask there, McClellan. Yeah, and we kind of talked about a little bit about, you know, in the last one we talked about Jackson. You know what I mean?

In Stonewall and how he, you know, if he, he didn't, like, he did a lot of the same thing. Like, he kept, he was very close hold with a lot of his plans because, you know, he had trust issues. But the difference is, is like, if you were going to put, like, McClellan, McClellan is like one of these guys that, you know, you got to run around with a flame thrower, man, setting his ass on fire to get him to do stuff. You know, when you look at a guy like Stonewall Jackson, you got to run around with a bucket of water, man, because that dude's on fire. You know what I mean?

He's just, and he's going to win. You know what I mean? So when you're looking at the difference of the two folks, you know, Lincoln is trying to take a flamethrower, you know what I mean, and put some fire under McClellan's ass. And he's going to, he's slow rolling because, yeah, he's got a long-term plan.

I want to get on a Democratic ticket. I mean, I want to run for president of the United States, and we'll just play status quo. We'll just keep the union. We'll all be here, and you guys just keep doing what you're doing. And, you know, so that excerpt that you read out of the book, Landscape Turn Red about McClellan, I mean, that gives you a really good insight of what this guy's mindset's like. So, you know, when you talk about like aligning with the boss to make sure, you know, you got the boss, you got all these folks that are up there that, you know what I mean?

They're going to deal with this issue of slavery in the South. And then you've got an army commander that's, he's not on board with the plan. Yeah, that's, that really goes back to like an extreme ownership. If you don't believe in what you're doing, then you're not going to make the effort. You're not going to be able to overcome the obstacles that you face. It's just not going to happen. And here you got this guy that like literally doesn't care. You know, he's just, hey, we just want to keep the union together.

You know what guys want to keep having slaves. Cool. I'm fine with that. We just want to keep the union together, and that way I can be president. So on the line. So September 1862, up until this point, the battles are taking place in Virginia. Lee wants to get the fight out of Virginia. Proximity-wise, Maryland looking pretty good.

Let's get this thing up into Maryland. and Lee comes up with a plan, a plan on how they're going to make this move to take the fight out of Virginia, up into Maryland. And he writes out a pretty detailed order. Kind of a famous order. It's become a very famous order.

It's order 191 from General Lee. And I'm actually going to read through this thing. Because I think it's a good example of how the, how these individuals, how these leaders are communicating to their subordinate leadership, the kind of thought process they're going through. So this is what generally says in order 191. One, the citizens of Frederickstown being unwilling while overrun by members of this army to open their stores in order to give them confidence and to secure to officers and men purchasing

supplies for benefit of command, all officers and men of this army are strictly prohibited from visiting Fredericks Town except on business, in which case they will bear evidence of this in writing from division commanders. The Provost Marshall and Frederictown will see that his guard rigidly enforces this order. So generally, he's thinking hearts and minds, right? This is a good call. Hey, don't freaking go in there like Marines on Liberty in Subic Bay in 1984, right? Yeah.

That's not what we're looking to do. Hearts and minds. Yes, hearts and minds. Don't go in there. So that's a good, that's a good process or a good thought process. Two, Major Taylor will proceed to Leesburg, Virginia and arrange for transportation of the sick and those unable to walk to Winchester securing the transportation of the country for this purpose. The route between this and Culpepper Courthouse east of the mountains being unsafe will no longer be traveled. Those on the way to this army already across the river will move up promptly and others will proceed to Winchester collectively and under command of officers, at which point, being the general depot of this army, its movements will be known and instructions given by commanding officer regulating further movements. So those are some pretty specific orders. He's pretty clear about what he wants done as far as what major Taylor's got going on. Yeah, and the logistical aspect, you know, when you look at it of the locations, like Winchester, Virginia, and that kind of area, that's over towards the Shenandoah Valley.

So when he's looking at that, a lot of folks, like the North really doesn't figure out until later on in the war that when you look at the Shannon, that is what we consider the bread basket of the Confederacy. Meaning that's where logistical trains are going to come out. And even still to this day, you know, when you head out of Winchester and you go down through the Shenandoah, towards like, you know, Charlottesville, Virginia kind of area. That area is just Virginia farmland. So it becomes the breadbasket of the Confederacy. And he's basically telling them what route. So, you know, there's nothing that says in there about like the Telegraph Road.

So if you're looking at it today to kind of visualize where you're at is like Shepardstown, West Virginia. And you can, there's a way for the Potomac River. There's certain ways. Potomac is a, that's a huge obstacle, you know what I mean, to be able to cross over. And so, yeah, he's being very specific, you know, with Major Taylor and how folks are going to move in and around through Leesburg, Virginia that's still there. And, you know, we have to imagine of these folks moving in around that area in Virginia, people have been operating in that area prior to us even being a country. You know what I mean?

Like these roads have been established. And just to add in when you talk about like he's going to go into Maryland, remember we talked earlier, Maryland's a slave state. So you know, you win hearts and minds and you sway the state of Maryland. There's a possibility you could get some southern thempicizers and you could beef up your numbers and start recruiting out of Maryland, which there are folks from Maryland that stand up and fight for the Confederacy. So it's a split state. Yeah, yeah.

So that makes the hearts and minds even more important. Because it's a semi permissive environment you might actually end up turning. Yep Three the army will resume its march tomorrow taking the Hagerstown Road General Jackson's command will form the advance and after passing Middletown with such portion as he may select take the route towards Sharpsburg cross the Potomac at the most convenient point and by Friday morning take possession of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad capture such of them as may be at Martinsburg and intercept such as may attempt to

escape from Harper's ferry so again what I like about that order is he's given a lot of leeway to Jackson right hey however you see fit whatever portion you select he's given a lot of leeway that broad commander's intent is pretty clear but he doesn't really care specifically how Jackson gets this part of it done yeah He's going to give, you know, Robert E. Lee is, you know, he's got two core. You know, second core is Stonewall Jackson. You know, first core, we're talking about Longstreet. So he's going to be one of the players that's going to be introduced, you know, coming in today.

So he's got, he fights two core. And he, you know, there is not a leash on Jackson. And he's just going to broad, brought, yeah, I'm the same as you, the one. It's like, you know, just select. He may select, you know what I mean, and take the. route towards Sharpsburg and cross the Potomac at the most convenient point. Yeah. And you compare that with the previous one where he's talking about Major Taylor and he's like, hey, the route between this and Cole Pepper courthouse. He's talking about a specific building. Yes. And meanwhile,

he's telling Jackson just, hey, you know, wherever you think it's cool, go ahead and get some. You know, wherever you want to cross it sounds good. So that that massive amount of trust that they have built up allows for some real decentralized command. And you can see Lee modulating the amount of direction he's giving based on the trust that he has and the people that he's working for. Again, this is another interesting thing about this order. Number four, General Longstreet's command will pursue the same road as far as Boonesboro where it will halt with reserve, supply, and baggage trains of the Army. So there's Longstreet.

We're talking about Longstreet right now. Do you want to talk about Longstreet? We're talking about him. Should we talk about him? Yeah. You know, James Longstreet. Again, he's a West Point grad, went to West Point. He was born.

He's born in Georgia, but raised in South Carolina. Hey, just spoiler alert for people. Like this guy that we're talking about now, you've probably heard of Jackson, Stonewall Jackson. You definitely heard a General Lee. Longstreet, you, if you're familiar with the Civil War, you heard of him. But if you're not that familiar with the Civil War,

you might not have heard about him. But he's going to play all kinds of pivot, roles in all kinds of situations and he's gonna he's got some he's a massive part of this civil war story so just that's why jd's given a little more detail on long street he's a very uh prominent character in this story yeah and uh you know and long street is he's a he's a competent commander uh you know i mean for for working with uh with robert lee but if you if you're looking at you know of the two core commander of however robert lee came into to this uh that fell into his his lap. It's almost like a ying and yang, you know what I mean, of Jackson and Longstreet.

They have, you know, they have different views on things. And not anyone is right or wrong or indifferent. They just, they go about things differently. And Lee knows this and uses it to the advantage. You know what I mean? Of like, okay, well, why is he sending Jackson over towards Harper's Ferry and giving that leeway? Why is he keeping, you know, Longstreet? You know, close hold. The one thing about when you look at, you know, we talked a little bit about the army of Northern Virginia. When you've got two corps, Robert E. Lee does give like a lot of latitude to both commanders because he can't keep his army together. They're like two huge sharks that are literally eating the landscape as they move. They're not like the union that'll just go into camp and just

have all the provisions just come into camp. The Confederacy can't operate that. We're way. So he's got to keep them separate, but then close enough to where if he wants a decisive move, these guys are going to giddy up and they're going to get there quickly. Just to expand on what you just said, because this is a huge point. So we know that the union is industrialized and they're producing things and they can do things like run trains and logistics. So what you're saying is when the union army sets up camp somewhere, they can just sit there because they're going to have food and and material sent to them through organized logistics trains based on really the logistics trains that are preexisting just from the nature of life in the

north the Confederates they don't have those pre-existing logistics trains they don't have that focus either so what the Confederate Army does is it forages off the land and they go in with I I mean, these are 20, 30,000 people with how many horses? How many, if you got a core, how many people are in Jackson's core? I mean, just off the top. I mean, just a rough estimate. He's got 15,000, 20,000 folks. So 15 to 20,000 people, how many horses do you think he has?

Well, I mean, just to kind of to give a visual of it, because everybody's seen a cannon. You know what I mean, a piece of artillery. So if you look at one piece of artillery, there is. six horses pulling one piece. Then behind that, you know what I mean? So each artillery piece, you've got the case on and then you've got an ammo chest. So there's another six horses and six horses. So if we do our, you know, quick math there, you know, I'm at 18 horses. Well, of course the lieutenant gets a horse. You know what I mean? So now we're at 19 horses. You know, the army moves off of, you know what I mean, a horse and a mule. And when you look at the difference, just to elaborate

a little bit more to kind of, you know, in the industrial north, if you're just talking about like hooves of animal, you know, it's going to move these armies. In the industrial north, they're like, how do you make a horse? You know, you got to get a mommy horse and a daddy horse. They got to really, really like each other. You know what I mean? And then, you know, a few months later, you know what I mean? You're going to get this foal. and it's going to run around for a couple of years. The first couple of years is life just running around trying to kill itself. You know what I mean?

And then you've got to train this thing. You know what I mean? So basically at the onset of the beginning of the Civil War, if you look at it from 61, by the time they've got like horses, if you're going to try to make horses, because that's just what the North does. They just make stuff.

Well, you can't make a horse. What they have on the ground at the start of the war is what they're going to finish with. So what do they do in the United States government? They contract. They send contractors and they just scour the landscape and they're going to buy anything on four legs. And, you know what I mean? And mules, they're going to pay any amount for a mule, you know, because it's better than a horse. You know, the difference between a horse and a mule, a mule asks you for his resume.

You know what I mean? It's not just going to just blindly follow you around. Like a mule is just smarter than a horse. In the agrarian south, if you want to be like, if you want a horse, you got to bring your horse. and then when you get there, the quartermaster's like, okay, yeah, hey, Jocko, there's you and your horse. And he gives you $50 bucks. Here's $50 for your horse. You know what I mean?

We just bought your horse. Now go ride it around. Well, then you go into the first battle and your horse gets shot and it's dead. Next thing, you know, the quartermaster shows back up. Hey, Jocko, man, where's my $50? What do you mean? Well, I paid you $50. Where'd you do with my horse?

Well, it got shot and killed. Well, you better get another horse to give me my $50 back. So, you know what I mean? So in the agrarian South, at the beginning, you know what I mean? They're on the cavalry side, of course, they're better capable. You know, because you're looking at the industrial north. You're looking a lot of immigrants that are coming in that just don't ride.

So when you're looking at the difference of these two armies, it's just, it's leadership-wise of how you're going to, how you're going to have the ability to operate is going to be very different between the two. when you look at going back in with Longstreet, Longstreet prior to the war, again, he was a West Point grad. He ended up, he's one of, you know, a lot of folks don't know, but James Longstreet was in Ulysses S. Grant wedding. You know what I mean? They went to school together. I mean, they're friends. It doesn't matter. You know, when they went to school together, there wasn't like a north and a south.

They were just West Point grads. And Longstreet was like, he was like one of those guys that like everybody wanted to be around. You know what I mean? He was a really likable guy. And he ended up becoming really good. I mean, if you're in somebody's wedding, like, do you're tight. Yeah. You know, so you got Grant that's in there. So that's another thing with Longstreet that a lot of folks don't know.

But he was a very likable guy. He's a very likable commander. He was very competent at what he does. But this is the Army of Northern Virginia. And he's not a Virginia. You know, so, you know, but still, you know, right? Robert Lee, you got Stonewall Jackson, and Robert Lee called him Longstreet, his nickname, he was his old warhorse. Like, he was just like, you know, he was very consistent, you know, and consistency's accuracy and leadership.

You know what I mean? With as far as like with James Longstreet. So, you know, when you're looking at those two commanders, so Longstreet and Lee, when you're talking about this command with four, so basically, Lee is going to, you know, he is going to be in trace with Longstreet. Street. Jackson is going to run independent operations towards Harper's Ferry, and that's where you come in with four. But when you look at it of the two commanders, yeah, they're ying and yang, but the end result, they both get the job done. They're both competent commanders. Yeah, and then you as a leader, or Lee as a leader, he's got to look at, and like you said, he utilizes them, kind of plays them to their strengths, right? I'm going to take Longstreet, who's, you know,

the more, for lack of a better word, the more squared away, hey, I got this. Oh, you want me to set up camp? You want me to run the, what does he have? The reserve, the supply, the baggage trains. Like, that's, that's Longstreet's personality. Meanwhile, Stonewall Jackson's like, hey, you're going to go. Go get it. And so we understands their personalities.

And just to wrap the thought on the logistics. So since the South doesn't have great logistics, they're they've got all these horses and all these men they're eat they're forging off the land so and if you've ever been like a hunting a hunting elk I go hunting elk and sometimes a herd of elk you you'll stumble upon upon a place where a herd of elk has gone through and there's nothing there like every piece of grass every leaf up until you know however tall they can reach is just gone barren and I mean a herd of elk is maybe you know 100 and 100 elk maybe maybe not even that and everything's gone on a path so that's what I always

think of when we when you and I talk about like this this this this army is like a locust swarm oh that moves through the land and eats everything so there's there's nothing left and that so so two things are going on you got to keep that army moving like you can't just they can't just sit there like Like the North can rest, basically. Hey, well, they're sending us water. They're sending us food. They're sending us, you know, firewood. The South, they're burning everything to make fires.

Furniture, houses, whatever. It's just a different setup for each one of these two armies. So always keep that in mind. Now look, there's advantages to where you can just forge and don't need a big supply chain. But this isn't one of those situations, right? There's an advantage when you can say, oh, we can just live off the land.

On an expedition, that's positive. Once you're in this type of situation, though it can turn into a negative very quickly going back to this order 191 number five general mclaws with his own division and that of general r h anderson will follow general long street on reaching middle town will take the route to harper's ferry and by friday morning possess himself of the maryland heights and endeavor to capture the enemy at harper's ferry and vicinity Pretty straightforward. Number six, General Walker with his division after accomplishing the object in which he is now engaged,

will cross the Potomac at Cheeks Ford, ascend its right bank to Lovitzville, take possession of the Loudoun Heights, if practicable, by Friday morning, Keyes Ford on his left, and the road between the end of the mountain and the Potomac on his right. He will, as far as practicable, cooperate with General McLaugh and Jackson, and intercept the retreat of the army. Pretty specific orders once again. He likes that word practicable. Yeah, that's a pretty popular.

I see you smile at me across the table because everybody's always like, if practicable, like what does that mean? Well, I mean, it's a, it is a, you know, it's a pretty common term, but, you know, it's like if you tell me that, you're letting me make my own decisions of whether or not I think I can.

There's a wide, wide, wide range of practicable. Yes. There's a wide range of what's practical. If I ask you to do something for me if it's practicable, does that mean, you know, if I say, hey, pick me up a steak from the store if it's practicable. You're like, okay, well, you go in there and there's, the stake is four bucks. And you're like, hey, cool, get jocco two stakes. You go in there and the stakes 30 bucks. You're like, that's not practicable. I didn't tell you what was practical or not. So it's kind of your decision. Yeah, I'm making the call. It's up to you. Yeah.

So there's some vagueness to that word. But then, you know, everybody always kind of like, if I know that like, okay, well, Jocko really wants that state, and if I bring him like a piece of fish, like he's going to be pissed. You know what I mean? So it's like, maybe I better crack out that 40 bucks. I might go ahead and get the steak because I know that's what the boss wants. Yeah.

And so I guess what we end up with here is if I ask Jackson for a steak, I'm getting steak. He doesn't care if he has to slap around the, cashier like we're getting steak right maybe if you ask someone else perhaps a general walker and i don't i don't know too much about general walker maybe he's the kind of guy that you know he's yeah he's gonna make the call maybe maybe not i mean if you ask mcclellan for a steak you better you better get the white wine ready for for fish right because you're not getting steak most likely he's not going to bring you it doesn't seem practical to him right so it's a big word yeah uh going to cause some

issues. Seven, General D.H. Hill's division will form the rearguard of the army, pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve, artillery, ordinance, and supply trains, etc., will proceed General Hill. And number eight, General Stewart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the commands of General Longstreet, Jackson, and McClough's, and with the main body of the cavalry, will cover the root of the army bringing up all stragglers that may be left behind number nine the generals the commands of generals jackson mcclaas and walker after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached will join the main body of the army at boonsborough or haggers town number 10 each regiment on the march will habitually carry its axes in the regimental ordinance wagons for use of the men at

their encampments to procure wood etc by command general R-E-E-E-E. Okay. So we can see that's a thorough plan. I mean, we know what's happening. I mean, you could draw this out. If you got out your little sand table, you threw out a map on the ground, you could, you could plot out what's about to happen. Yeah. With this here, just like we kind of did earlier when I was showing you like the Harper's Ferry, the Loudoun Heights, you know, the Maryland heights, where Jackson's going to be. And then when you look at like Hagerstown is in Maryland, so this is kind of like, you know, he's going to make his way north. And as, as, you know, we're moving up north, we might as well

just swing by, man, and do a quick little raid on Harpers Ferry and pick up a little bit of extra, you know, logistical stuff for the trip north. Because it's not just about, you know, the foraging for food. You've got these guys that are infantry guys. So, okay, let's say they're carrying 40 rounds

on them. Well, that's going to go pretty quick in a gunfight, so they're going to need more ammo. So with that, Harper's Ferry, it's an arsenal. You know what I mean? A lot of ammo. A lot of weapons, that kind of thing. And it's also, if you're looking at it of where Harper's Ferry is, if you can control that, you got the Shenandoah River and you got the Potomac River, the confluences. I mean, if you command the Maryland Heights, like we were looking over top of there, like, wow.

I mean, that's a commanding. Loudon Heights in Virginia. So Harper's Ferry is sort of sitting on a peninsula in between the Shenandoah and the Potomac River. and it's where those two rivers converge and then turn into just the Potomac, which takes you to the ocean. Yep, straight past D.C., straight out to the chest. So this is a very prominent point and would be great, like you said, to grab a hold of. We hear a lot about Harper's Ferry.

Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, like we said, I mean, the activity that's there coming off the Potomac, you know what I mean? There's a C and O, there's a tow path, you know what I mean, where they have, basically, you know, when you look at a lot of the old towns and a lot of the old rivers and that kind of thing of like, well, how do we move, you know, produce like upstream? So they're going to canal, you know what I mean? A lot of these riverways and they're going to use lock. So if you're like a little mini Panama Canal, you know what I mean, are all along these rivers

the way they can flood them and then flatboats. And then they've got like, you know, harnesses with, with mules or horses or kids. And they're going to pull these up the tow path. And that's kind of like the way how they're kind of making their living there. So, yeah, this here of where Harper's Ferry, Virginia is at that time, has been in existence forever. And if you control the Loudoun Heights and the Maryland Heights, you control those two rivers. And it also, if Robert Lee controls that and looking at anybody coming up from the Loudoun Heights, or up through Maryland, it's also securing his logistical lines of crossing over the Potomac

and now into that western part of Maryland. So, you know, he's going to send the folks down there and just kind of pick that up along the way. And then he's going to, you know, they're just going to hang out in Hagerstown, Maryland. And then once Jackson's done, then they'll just make their way right back up there, link up in Hagerstown, and then we're going to start pushing north. So that's the whole plan. I'm with you.

I mean, I think it's very, very well thought out plan of where, yeah, we could get a map out. We could look at this on here and we could explain of what everybody's part is in this special order 191. So you got,

when you think about the part and what each person's part is, well, we got to explain each person what, you know, the Jackson, McLaugh, Walker, all these various people got to get their orders.

So how are they getting their orders? Well, uh, generally writes these orders down. in a clear manner, and then they, you know, probably some private that knows how to write, copies them. And then they, they bundle them up and send them with couriers out to deliver everyone, hey, here's the orders. This is what we're doing. That's how they're distributing. There's no, there's no email. There's not sending a PowerPoint brief. That's how you're doing. It's a written

copy of these orders. And so these couriers go out and lo and behold, one of these couriers drops his plan. What happens with that? Yeah, to kind of give the visual to the folks, listen, when you look at a tent where the commander is going to be, so you got the commander and then they got the flag, you know what I mean for that commander. So that's how people can identify.

Like, you know, Jocko would have a flag and I'm riding around. I'm looking for Jocko. There's Jocco's flag. I can go there. Now, that doesn't mean Jocco is in there. Like, he might be out doing like, Jocko stuff. They're not just sitting in the tent waiting. Some are. They don't leave what we call commanders in tents, not commander intent. So you got these, you got these, an old man, not really,

an older guy that's not really, you know, he can't hike and stuff like it. But he's sitting there at a table, kind of like what we're at. And he's got a stopwatch. You know what I mean? He's got a timepiece that's there. And he's logging in these messages of when they're received and if there's messages going out. So he's recording all of this for the commander so that when Jocko comes back to his command post, you can go there straight to the table and put up, yep, this came in, this went out, and go through your messages in what time they were received so that you can prioritize which ones need to go out. You know what I mean? How long has this been sitting there?

And then you've got like a bunch of teenagers with ponies sitting right outside. And these guys are the couriers. So if you could imagine, you know what I mean? like, and we know how teenage boys are. We both have one. And you got these teenage boys on a pony. And they're like, hey, take this one. You're going to Jocko.

Hey, I need you to take this one to Echo. This one's going over here. And they just give it. And these teenagers on ponies, they're out and they're off looking for that commander. And like, as you said, this one commander, you know what I mean? they take the special order 191 and it's actually rolled up with three cigars in the middle of special order 191. And the teenager just gets it. He's not old enough to smoke yet.

He gets it, puts it in his little satchel and off and away he goes. Well, as he's going, you know, it's the typical teenager. He left his satchel bag is not secure. And as they're riding along, outfalls, special order, 191 with three cigars wrapped around it. So a union guy picks it up. What's he excited about? Well, one, it's an enlisted union guy. You know what I mean?

Because it's just like, you know, they're out there walking along. If you're hiking, you're kind of looking at stuff and you're like, oh, shit, man, look at that. You know what I mean? They see this thing wrapped laying on the ground. He picks it up. And he's like, dude, three cigars. You know what I mean? And like takes the whatever the paper is,

rap throws it off to the side. Dude, I got three cigars. I mean, it's pretty bad. Like tobacco is like a big deal. Especially for northern folks, because where's all the tobacco? It's in Virginia. You know what I mean?

So for these guys up north, they're not getting tobacco anymore. So this dude's stoked. Well, and one of the other guys is like, yeah, what's on that paper there? Huh. Well, this is interesting.

I think we need to, like, we better push this up the chain. So let's just act like there was like one cigar. And we keep the two. Send up. And so that special order, 194, it makes its way to the commander, General McClellan. So McClellan gets the entire battle plan from General Lee, line by line. He knows what's going to happen.

And he, speaking of stoked, he gets pretty stoked at this. I'm going to pull a little excerpt here from the book, Lincoln's lieutenants. Here's what this book says about it. The Lost Order, that's Order 199, as it came to be known, was an intelligence coup unrivaled in the war. That McClellan fully realized what fortune had awarded him is evident in the exuberant telegram he sent at noon that day to the president. Quote, I think Lee has made a gross mistake if the plans of the rebels remain unchanged. I have all the plans of the rebels and will catch them up in their own trap if my men are equal to the emergency He closed with a pledge will send you trophies

So McClellan thinks he's got this he's he's he thinks he's good to go But McClellan's a weird guy man Yeah, he's a weird guy and it seems am I interested? Am I in? Interpreting this right from what I understand to the story. It sounds like he's a guy that he doesn't tell his Subordinates that he knows what the enemy is gonna do almost as if He wants everyone to think that he's just a brilliant command it's like if you you know had the opposing teams You know in football you had their playbook and so you started set you didn't tell your team you didn't say Hey, I have their playbook. That's why we're gonna do this instead you just say hey over here you

know, set up on this side. And when they call this, do this. And now you look, I mean, you look like a brilliant tactician and strategist. Because they just think you're smart. Was he trying to pull that off? And was that what happened? Yeah. I mean, from the, from the readings that I get, that's exactly, you know, he gets this order and he's reading it over. And it's, it's almost like, you know, like I think in the book he talks about like he, he alludes to like Franklin like a little bit. It doesn't tell him he's got the order, but it's just kind of like giving him a little, you know, a little, you know what I mean, teasing him a bit about like, you know what I mean, hey, this is going to be good, man. Like I've got a plan for this. And it's all going to be me. I mean, it's like, like you said, like we're strolling through the locker room and we find the other team's playbook. And I'm the head coach. And, you know, like the water boy brings me this book of like, hey, coach, like, look what I found. You know what I mean? And it's Bobby Bouchette. and he gives me the book and he's not really, you know, smart of a guy.

And then I'm the head coach, and I don't tell my offensive defensive coordinator that, dude, I got the whole game plan. But, and then you're looking at me because I'm like, I start to call play. You're like, hey, Jocko, I'm going to call the plays on this one. You know what I mean? You call it? I'm the offensive coordinator. You always look, you know what?

Man, I've got a good feeling about this. You know what I mean? Let's do the old number four. You know what I mean? And you're like, and then it like, the old number four just like back. Oh, it's just crushing them. And you're all looking at me like, JD, man, is like on his game today.

But, you know what I mean? But like, why wouldn't I sit down and check? Who cares if the team doesn't know? But my offensive, my subordinate commanders, like my offensive coordinator, my defensive coordinator, special teams, like, why am I not calling in all my assistant coaches and be like, dude, look what I got? You know, because they can then read it and interpret it as well.

But so yeah, I mean, that's, McClellan wants to make it look like he's just a freaking genius. And it's just going to elevate his ego even more. So he starts doing what you said. He's like, okay, we're going to do the old number four. And by the way, McClellan up to this point, as we know, is like a habitual slow roller. He's, he's default passive, right? And now all of a sudden he starts moving troops aggressively. He starts making, making movements.

And Lee starts to execute the plan, but McClellan noted, but sorry, Lee notices that McClellan is doing things making moves that are out of character. I think Lee uses the words like these are out of, McClellan's doing things that are out of character, which is really absolutely incredible to have that much perception of what's happening on the battlefield that you're opposing general. you realize that he's doing things that are out of character. That's pretty, that's pretty impressive to be able to sense that. Yeah, I would, and I think that's what makes the Civil War so much more intriguing is because like all these guys, you know, they fought together. I mean, so it would almost be as if like, you know what I mean, if we took like you and Laif, you know what I mean?

You would be like, man, Leif's a little bit out of character. You know his character like so well that you're like he knows something. Yeah. Oh, like Leif is staying in position. Something's weird. Yeah. Because normally Leif is trying to go, right? So I'm like, oh, there's something going on.

He's got some kind of a trap set. Yeah. So these guys know each other to the point where they're, where they're suspect when you're doing something that's not expected. And so Lee senses that and changes up his plan. Yeah. So, you know, because you got to get up and over. over like the prominent terrain feature for folks that have ever been in that region of

western Maryland. You got to get over what's called South Mountain. I mean, it's a large mountain range running in of South Mountain. Not if you're like a West Coast guy. Of course, you know, it's like a hill of there. But South Mountain in Maryland, it's pretty prominent. And there's only a couple of places, you know, roads back then where you can kind of cross over. So you've got to get up and over South Mountain. And again, his execution, he's not like, I mean, it amazes me that he's got this plan. But because he keeps it close hold, so as he's sitting there and, you know, study long, study wrong, you know what I mean, kind of an attitude. So he's get this plan.

And at first he gets like super excited. But then, you know what I mean? He starts thinking about it. like, this is kind of odd. Why would cigars rolled up, dropped conveniently in the road, picked up by a union guy? I think they might have planted this. You know what I mean?

So now he's second guessing himself of the, you know, initially I'm stoked. Then it starts coming into, I think they planted this here. So, you know what I mean? Now, so that's causing him again. So instead of like being like, bam, I'm on it, now he starts second guessing his own, this own order, 191. Is it legit?

Like, is this legitimate? Did they put this down here to lure me in? And so he second guesses up. So now he's going to slow roll. And because of his actions, it's giving time for Robert E. Lee to be able to start sending messages. Because, you know, I mean, we read the one order, 191, like Jackson and these guys are gone. They're over at the Loudoun Heights. They're up the Maryland Heights.

They're hitting Harper's Ferry. You know, if you look at Hagerstown, I mean, even of Sharpsburg, Maryland, it's over 14 miles away. Now, I know like a lot is like, you know, in today, 2022, 14 miles is not a lot. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? And moving 14 miles. And you're going to try to get like 15,000 people to move, you know, 50,000 people to move, you know, 15 miles. That's a lot, especially as you're already moving down and you're taking control,

because there's the beginning of the order, Jackson and them are taking Harper's Ferry. You know what I mean? They're becoming successful. You know what I mean? So they're, you know, they surrender Harper's Ferry. Jackson's got it. And then the next thing you know, like Robert Lee is sensing of like, dude, little Mac is like, he's out of character. Something's up. And he immediately sends a note to Jackson. Like, hey, dude, you know what I mean? Finish up what you got going on down there, man. I need you to, you need to make your way up here to Shepardstown. Because now Robert E. Lee is, he's got Longstreet. He's got one of his core, but just like we kind of talked a little bit earlier, you know what I mean? He needs to get his armies together. I mean,

I think what were the numbers on here? It's like $85,000 versus $40,000. So if you, you know, split the $40,000 and half, you're kind of sitting up there with $20,000. Those aren't good odds. You know what I mean? And you're doing an away game. You know what I mean? You're in Maryland. You know what I mean? This is an away game. You know what I mean? You don't have the support that you would be, and you've got the Potomac River and your backs up against it. And that's not an easy river to be able to get across if you're going to try to move 20,000 people, you know what I mean? And you're just going to forward the river with all that stuff. You know what I mean? Because you don't want to just leave your stuff. So there's a lot of decision making. So Robert Lee is going to sense this, which I think is just incredible. But, you know, but. And then he's going to send the note down to Jackson. And so they do secure Harper's Ferry. But because of McClellan's lack of sense of urgency to get stuff done, he's going to squander like any hopes of getting,

I mean, if he could have got Longstreet without Jackson being there, you know, like if you look at that order, Jackson isn't at the Maryland Heights. He's in Virginia. You know what I mean? So for him to be able, now you've got him. segregated to where you can hit Longstreet all by himself with your entire army. So it's 80 against 20.

Yeah. I mean, you're going to roll him like a wet napkin. And you're going to push him and you could destroy that core. You know what I mean? And then you got. Then you got Jackson. Also a single core against your entire army. Yeah.

And then you could cross over into Virginia and you could get Jackson is on a peninsula. He's got some of his guys are over on the Maryland Heights. You know what I mean? So now you could pursue one core of Jackson. I mean, just, you know, but again, McClellan, you know, the exaggeration of the numbers, how many people are actually out there, false reporting to Lincoln and the Stanton Secretary of War and these guys. I mean, like, he just literally just doesn't take action. So he's got this great piece of intelligence that's given to him and he doesn't use it. It's just crazy. Yeah, no, it is crazy. So what you end up with for the battle scene here is you end up with Longstreet and Jacks, because Jackson does make it up. Now they sort of form their whole line, the whole army is a raid at an angle, online northeast of Sharpsburg.

So you got 45,000 of them. And then McClellan, because he didn't take action, because he kind of stayed put. They end up aligned with their 85,000 troops. McClellan is east of the Antietam River in the Pry House, whereas the troops are west of the Antietam River for the most part. Is that correct? The Confederates, yep, Confederates are on the west side with Long Street.

But aren't a lot of the Union troops on the west side of the creek of Antietam Creek? Not yet. They're going to make the approach. boat coming from east to west. So first they got to get up and over South Mountain and then they're going to come down into the valley of where like you're coming into Sharpsburg. So if you could imagine that you got Antietam Creek, which then spills into the Potomac River. And it's a, I mean, I don't know, like Antietam Creek. I mean, it's probably 20 feet wide, maybe, you know, three feet deep. You know what I mean? Some spots deeper than others. I mean,

it's not, but it's still a, it's a natural obstacle. to kind of get through. And so first, you know, they got to get up and over South Mountain. And, of course, Robert E. Lee, there's going to be the battle up there of try to get through these passes to get over. And Robert E. Lee is just, he just needs to slow him down. He needs to give time for Jackson. He needs to get his army back up there.

So Jackson, just like you had said, just a little bit northeast of Sharpsburg, there's a little church that the church still stands this day. It's up there at Sharpsburg at Antietam at the battlefield that's there. It's the Dunkard Church. It's a little one-story white church that sets off the road. I mean, Antietam Battlefield is a beautiful, beautiful setting. Farmland, cornfields, just a beautiful part of America. And the Pry House, which you're talking about ends up becoming McClellan's headquarters,

is on the east side of Antietam Creek. And it's like one of the nicest houses in the area. You know what I mean? Like when you roll up to the pry house, you're kind of like, well, no shit McClellan came here. You know what I mean? Like he's not going to go to the double wide down the road. He's taking the pry house.

And that's where he's going to set up shop. And at this time, you know, you got Longstreet and Lee are over there, you know, over by the Dunker Church. and if you could imagine these, you know, Maryland rolling hills of farmland with little pockets of wooded area. You know, so you'll hear through the books of like the East Woods, the North Woods, the cornfield, the sunken road. It's just like little pockets of farms that are out there right outside of Sharpsburg. And so he sends the note, and Jackson, you know, being Jackson, as soon as he gets that note from Lee, like, hey dude, hey diddle-diddle, get your ass up here.

So Jackson immediately turns over command to a subordinate to finish up operations going on there at Harper's Ferry. And Jackson gets on Little Sorrel. It's his horse. It's his favorite horse. He's got a couple of horses, but Little Sorrel is like his favorite one. Little Sorrel used to be fully stuffed in the basement of VMI. Like, you could go there and pet Little Sorrel. Where is it now?

I don't know if they got rid of Little Sorrel. Like when I was a kid, you could pet the horse. but now the last time I saw Little Sorrel, he was behind Plexiglass, because you could imagine all the kids petting it. It kind of looked like one of those bald cats, but it was like a big bald cat. So he gets on Little Sorrel and makes his way up to Sharpsburg. And just to kind of give the idea of Stonewall Jackson and the Army of Northern Virginia. So you got all these privates that are with, you know, First Corps and they were. work for Longstreet.

Great guy. But these privates that are out there on this, you know, this formidable line, a defensive posture that you were kind of talking about, some of the privates like look down and over and they see this dude coming up on a horse. And one of the privates, they're like, dude, it's Jackson. And they're, hey, and so they turn and they yell down the line, hey, man, everything's good. Jackson's here.

Well, it's just Jackson. He doesn't have any infantry with him. But just the morale of not even his own core is lifted just because Jackson's there. I mean, that's the kind of, if you're looking at like a leader in an organization, you know, you probably, you know, through your time, you know, just like with me in the Marine Corps, there's always like that one dude that shows up and like everybody just kind of gets excited because, you know, he's here. Yeah. That's what Jackson brings to the, and of course, as soon as they get there, you know, it's Lee and Longstreet and they're going to have a discussion. How's this going to roll? Because if you look at Antietam Creek, you know what I mean? Antietam Creek, there's three bridges. You know what I mean? Because like I said, I mean, it's not a big creek, but you're going to have to use bridging. You're going to have to find a Ford. Like, again, we're talking about moving artillery, logistics, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, infantry weighed right across it. But when they run out of ammo, you know what I mean? They're going to need a logistical train. So, you know, so you've got the lower bridge, a middle bridge, and an upper bridge. And it's going from, you know, the lower bridge is down closer towards the Potomac River, you know, towards the south. The middle bridge is just right down from the pry house. It's the easy straight across. It's the shortest distance between the two armies is the middle bridge.

and then you've got an upper bridge that's going to have to take you up and around. It's a little bit farther of a movement to get around, but you're going to end up coming out on the north end of the battlefield. You're going to be at the north moving south. So that's kind of what McClellan is the predicament that he's in is, okay, well, which bridge am I going to use? And then what's my battle? How am I going to fight this battle? And again, it's all McClellan. And once he makes camp at the Pry House, he stays at the Pry House.

And if the Pry House was in some, you know, dominant terrain feature on top of a hill or something with a great view of the battlefield, that might be a good thing. But that's not the scenario, right? Pryhouse is like limited visibility. Yeah, because, you know, if you look at the battlefield as a whole, and it's not a large battlefield. I mean, like a lot of people are thinking like this battlefield is just. is huge. You know, like when we go to Gettysburg, I mean, you know, in the morning when I, I mean, I take folks around, we can almost run the whole battlefield.

It's seven miles around the whole thing. Antietam is a little bit smaller than even at Gettysburg if you're putting it into perspective. And he can maybe see one third of the battlefield from the Pry House. Jackson's troops, do Jackson, when do Jackson's troops? Get up there. Do they get up there? Oh, yeah. So they get up there.

Yeah, they get up there. And now they're aligned. And now you got these two armies on opposite sides of the creek, three bridges, and we're about to go to battle. I'm going to go to Elijah Hunt Road's book, All for the Union once again, what he says about this. We passed through the town and formed in line just beyond. here I was placed in charge of a plantation with a guard. One of the ladies became insane from fear and excitement. We remained here two days, then went on to Brownsville,

where our regiment was sent into the mountains after some rebel cavalry, but we did not find them. The mountainside was steep, and we found the climbing hard work. The next morning, the 17th, we saw the Battle of Antenum fought almost at our feet. We could see the long lines of battle, both union and rebel and hear the roar as it came from the field the battle the rebel trains of wagons were moving all day toward the river at dark we marched down the mountain and started for the battlefield where we arrived and went into camp the next morning we were put in the front lines i have never in my soldier life seen such a sight the dead and wounded covered the ground in one spot a rebel officer and 20 men lay near a wreck of a battery. It is said Battery A, First Rhode Island Artillery, did this work.

The rebel sharpshooters and skirmishers were still at work, and the bullets whizzed by merrily. At noon, the rebels asked and received permission to bury their dead, and the firing ceased for a while, but commenced again in the afternoon. The second Rhode Island was ordered forward, and we charged up a hill, and driving the enemy away took possession. Here we lay all night with the bullets flying over us most of the time. The next morning the enemy shelled our regiment, but it was their last shots. For as we move forward, they retired and we entered Sharpsburg.

The town is all battered to pieces and is not worth much. So, is that the first time we've read from All for the Union? I think it is. Elijah Hunt Rhodes. This guy started off as a private in his regiment and ended up the commander of his regiment. And just the incredible book, you got to get it. It's so great to have first person accounts of these things. So all for the union by Elijah Hunt Rhodes,

the Civil War diary and letters of Elijah Hunt Rhodes. You can see that this type of combat, you know, when you get entire groups just wiped out by cannon fire, this is a nightmare. the middle bridge. So what is what is what is what is it that he decides to do? What is it that McClellan decides to do? He's got he ends up not using the middle bridge.

Yeah, he's going to yeah, to give it, you know, a broad brush for folks when you know, if you're looking at the battle, we explain that the three bridges, he got the Antietam Creek. So, and you know,

when you look back at even with McClellan of how he fought at the peninsula, you know, we talk piecemeal, you know what I mean, not, you know, congregation. So you're going up against it. And, you know, we already talked about the numbers. You know, he definitely has a superior advantage of numbers over the Army of Northern Virginia.

And he's still going to keep some of his guys back in reserve. So, you know, for the overarching schemes, he's got, he's got Hooker and Mansfield. You know what I mean? Both of them, Hooker actually does really well at this battle of Antietam. Mansfield, you know, spoiler alert, he gets killed. But he's going to send those two folks up to the upper bridge. They're going to leave and they're going to go all the way out and around. And it's not too far.

It might be like maybe, I mean, I've walked it numerous times. It's less than seven miles. You know what I mean? But you're going to go out through the countryside. And the ability of the Confederate to have eyes on you, they're not going to have eyes on you. they're not going to have eyes on you. You are far enough away to where you've got landmass and terrain cover to hide your movement coming around. So he's going to send Hooker and Mansfield out and around.

They're going to end up over in the north woods area of the battle. So they're going to be on the north end of the battlefield coming from north down to south. If you're looking at how they're going to see the Confederacy on the extreme left of the Confederacy lines, is going to be Jackson and then on the right. Because when Jackson gets there, he just ties in to Long Streets left flank. And they're going to run across an expansion of, like I told you, I mean, these are cornfields. These are, it's a farmland.

And when you, I mean, it's from the Dunker Church, you know, just being there is just unimaginable because they're going to come out of the woodline and then you're in like, you're in like cornfields, but it's those rolling hills. to where, you know what I mean? Like nobody's shooting at you, not necessarily yet, but when you're in range, you're behind folks that are again, you know what I mean, at an advantage to where you're moving, they're not stationary, and you got, you're coming in for movers. And they are going to lay the wood to Hooker in Mansfield as they're making their approach

towards Dunker Church. At the lower bridge, McClellan thinks that, okay, I'm going to send these folks around. They're going to hit them from the north, pushing north to south, but I want to be able to not allow the Army of Northern Virginia to escape.

So I'm going to take Burnside. You know what I mean? Another one of his commanders and he's going to send Burnside down to the lower bridge. And from the lower bridge from Dunker Church, like if we were standing there, you can't see where the,

lower bridge is. But the lower bridge down there of what is now named Burnside Bridge, which is probably not a good thing to get that bridge named after you because of what Burnside did at that bridge. The terrain that's there, it's almost as if you come across from the south heading north and you drop down into where you're onto the creek and then the bluffs just go straight up over top. So it's going to be difficult to gain access to that bridge of the lower bridge. And of course, the Confederates have to have eyes on those bridges. So basically, Robert E. Lee, when you're looking at like the lower bridge to keep eyes on, because he can't just not have anybody down there. He's going to use it as more like kind of like an economy of force. He knows that the focus of main effort, we got to deal with

this threat coming from the north. We've got to deal with Hooker. We got to deal with Mansfield. But because of the terrain advantage of the Confederate side, they can use an economy of force that's up there and just with marksmen and rifles. And they're like, are these guys really going to try to come across this bridge? So the Burnside bridge, just to reiterate, you got this bridge coming across. And it basically, as soon as you get across the bridge to the western side where the confederates are, there's a steep incline. Oh, it's steep.

And so now you're going up against the terrain. You've got channelized area coming across the bridge. And then when you get across, you're not safe because now you've got to get uphill. And you've got plunging fire from Confederate marksmen and Confederate riflemen. So that's what Burns side is up against. So how does that play out? Yeah. So to try to visualize.

So there's like a there's a little ridge line that's just over where Bernstein. side kind of sets it and they're in cover. And then when you drop down off of this hill to start heading to the bridge, like it's like a, it's almost like if I was going to, you're running across the football field before you even get to the bridge. Flat open, no trees. There is still, to this day, there's one tree that it's called, it's a witness tree that's right there next to the person.

So it's called a witness tree because it was there during the battle. It was photographed at the. battle and now it was a sapling, now it's a large massive tree. So there's not any cover to get to this bridge. So you got these folks that are just like literally you're coming down from cover and you're completely exposed and it's like running across the football field. It's that flat. A football field just to the, and like you were talking about it, so it's going to channelize them to come to this bridge. So the Confederates are up at the high ground. You know what I mean? And they're watching.

So you're within range as soon as you drop down onto that football field. And then these guys are just going to start laying the wood because they know where you're going. So it's not like they got to worry about you zgging and zagging and are they going to run that way. They're all running for the bridge. So these guys are just focusing. And when you look at like a lot of the folks, like even though the weapon system, they have rifled muskets at this time. And even the guys with some of the smoothboard, when you look at the,

the ability of the marksman, especially in the Army of Northern Virginia back there, like back then, like everybody in the South had a gun. And as soon as you were raised as a kid, you used that gun because they all hunt. Well, you know, so it wasn't like nowadays, your dad didn't give you like, hey, here's a box of 20. You know what I mean? Go out there and, you know, get us a deer. Like, you get one round and are we going to eat tonight? You know what I mean?

And so there's a different. The ability of the marksmen back. then are in my opinion they're better than what we are today just because that's it's a way of life for the for the Confederacy and the Union has some really good shooters as well you know the famed bradann sharpshooters huge you know you got boys from Maine you know what I mean New Hampshire area up there like these guys they can bring the wood everybody thinks oh it's a bunch of New Yorkers from the city you know what I mean no it's not you know what I mean Wisconsin get those are farm boys they know how to shoot

So, you know, but if you've got that kind of advantage of where you're in a stable, prone position, and you got guys running and you know exactly where they're going to come to to that bridge. And the problem of, you know, it's like Burnside is looking through life through a straw. You know what I mean? Like when you talk about detach, like he doesn't detach. because like literally like maybe less than a half of a mile from that bridge, there's another Ford. Like you don't have to use the bridge, brother.

There's a Ford right down from the bridge. But he's looking through life through a straw and he just keeps sending folks to the bridge. And if you could imagine, yeah, after a while, is Burnside going to get folks to the bridge and of course he is. Because it's just a matter of mass of. numbers, but the loss of life that they're going to take to gain that bridge and the amount of time, you know what I mean? And that's all the economy forces, because Robert Lee's got a deal with Hooker and Mansfield at the north. That's the big threat. And then he's going to, you know,

have some, you know, some folks down there at the lower bridge and use him as an economy of force. Once he's dealing with Man's Field and Hooker, then he can detach and send folks down there to support the lower bridge. So that's basically what Robert E. Lee's doing. And he's been able to hold his own. And again, like, this wasn't his plan. Like, he's still a little baffled of like, what are we doing in Scherzberg?

And why are we at battle? Because he didn't know that the other coach found his playbook. You know what I mean? He just knows that this isn't working out well and whatever McClellan is up to, man. I just need to get us out of this predicament. You know what I mean? General Lee always liked to pick where he fought.

Always. And he didn't do that here. No. Eventually, the Confederate forces start to back pedal, right? Yep. Which you would think that would translate to a victory. Okay, we got them to backpedal. That's a victory.

But because of this persistent, effort. I mean, for instance, for Burnside, trying to get across that bridge, the amount of life that they lost, it's like you couldn't even raise your hand and say we won, because it's a disaster.

Yeah. And this ends up the bloodiest single day in American history. From the Union forces, 2,100 killed. 9,550 wounded. 750 missing or captured and from the Confederates 1,550 killed 7,750 wounded, 1,020 capture, missing. Those, I mean, that is shocking.

Those are shocking numbers. And all of that is for what is pretty much considered a draw. No progress was made in the war. No progress, just carnage. And that carnage would continue. And we will continue on the next Civil War excursion. So thanks for listening. If you want to support, go to joccoStore.com, joccofuel.com, origin, usa,.com,

ashlombfront.com, and the omena.com. And until next time, this is J.D. and Jocko. Out.