The Rest Is History - 202. American Civil War: Gettysburg

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

Tom, Dominic and historian Adam Smith look at the most famous battle of the war and Abraham Lincoln’s 272 word address that became one of the best known speeches of all time. They also discuss the conditions of the black population during the conflict. The release date of the last episode, 'Aftermath & Legacy', is Monday 4th July. However, members of The Rest Is History Club get all episodes RIGHT NOW, so head to restishistorypod.com to sign up. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. For every southern boy 14 years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it is still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863. The brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods, and the furled flags were already loosened to break out. And Pickett himself, with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand, probably, and his sword in the other, looking up the hill, waiting for Longstreet to give the word.

And it's all in the balance. It hasn't happened yet. It hasn't even begun yet. It not only hasn't begun yet, but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than garnet and kemper and armistead and wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin we all know that we've come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a 14 year old boy to think this time maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to lose, then all this much to gain, Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the Golden Dome of Washington itself, to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory, the desperate gamble the cast made two years ago. That was William Faulkner, one of the great American novelists. William Faulkner? I thought it was a British author, Dominic. Well, it's too good. It's too good. The prose is too good for me to butcher

it with my American accent. So that's William Fultner, Intruders in the Dust, 1948. Not one of his best books, but probably his single most famous passage. And he's talking about the moment that generations of Southern boys looked back at and said, this was the high watermark of the Confederacy. The third day of the battle of Gettysburg, when it all went wrong for us. And Adam Smith, who's our guest professor, Adam Smith from the university of Oxford,

Adam, there's one moment that we'll get onto just in a second. Cause Tom is feeling bitter that his hero has not been, you know, the departure that he deserved but adam 1862 1863 in the midst of the american civil war can the confederacy still win do they think they're still going to win yes they definitely think they're still going to win and they can still win for the same reason that they could have won a year earlier which is by making the cost too high for the north to be prepared to pay yeah okay so if they've lost though one of their commanders um at the battle of chancellorsville

so they lose him in april when is it april 3rd, 1863. So this is Stonewall Jackson, and slightly embarrassingly for himself, he's shot by his own side, isn't he? By centuries. But not dead, but they take him away and then they saw off his arm and they bury his arm.

They bury his arm separately? Yeah. I think it then got dug up years later and they found it in a box. And reunited with the rest of him i think so yeah but but i mean even after that i mean just losing one commander doesn't lose you the war right but he's that good he's that good dominic that's what is it what's stonewall jackson's descendants got on you um robert e lee thinks yet again adam does he that he can launch an invasion of the north and basically break northern public opinion is that is that what he's thinking in this summer yeah and loads of other advantages too if he invades pennsylvania then he allows gives a bit of respite to virginia farmers

maybe lets them get the harvest in he can do a bit of plundering it all kinds of advantages taking the war onto northern soil and And what's his ultimate target? His ultimate geographical target? Yeah. Well, he's a bit cagey about that, right? And actually, there's something that military historians have debated for generations, whether or not this invasion of Pennsylvania was a good idea. And those who criticize General Lee say that it was all a bit half-baked.

He really didn't get beyond the idea of wanting to go into Pennsylvania and win some big victory and he never really thought he threw much beyond that but yeah I mean it could have been Philadelphia maybe it could have even been as Falkner was kind of imagining in his sort of glittering nostalgic what it might have been imagination maybe it even could have been Washington, although the golden dome of the Capitol didn't actually exist at that time. It was still being constructed. That's disappointing. But Gettysburg in a way, I guess for people, it's the battle in the American civil war.

Yeah. And it's full of kind of romance and heroism and slaughter and horror and war is hell and war is glory, all kind of mixed up. Do you think it deserves that reputation? I do, actually. I mean, I should, you might not want to use this on the recording, but I have a kind of vested interest in it because I'm just finishing a book on Gettysburg and why Gettysburg is Gettysburg and why it's the battle of the war. Oh, no no we'll definitely keep that in i people really want to read that i really want to read that um but yes i do think gettysburg deserves that reputation because um it was it was three days of extraordinarily

bloody conflict by far the biggest battle on northern soil and it really was on northern soil it was on free soil it wasn't like antiet okay, in a state that hadn't seceded, but still a slave state, still a state that everyone regarded as southern. This was in the north. And if Lee's army had prevailed at Gettysburg, and they could have done, the political ramifications in the north would have been extraordinarily catastrophic for the Lincoln administration to lose a big battle after having lost all the previous battles, seemingly, that they'd fought against generally. But to lose a big battle after having lost all the previous battles, seemingly, that they'd fought against generally. But to lose this one on home soil would have been disastrous, disastrous for Lincoln. So I think the stakes were very high. People at the time thought they were, and I think they were right to think that.

I think there are a lot of reasons why Gettysburg is the battle that people remember, the battle of the Civil War. It sometimes feels like it's the whole war in microcosm. I think part of it, a lot of it, is this sense, and you captured this, that Faulkner quote that you've begun with, Dominic, captures this perfectly. That sense that Gettysburg was the moment when things could have gone differently. And after Gettysburg, time was running out for the Confederacy. So can we just give a very brief synopsis of what actually happens? Gettysburg, small town, supposedly famous for its shoes. Is that right? For its shoe shops?

That's one of the many myths about Gettysburg is the notion that the Confederates went there to pick up some shoes. So that's not true, is it? This is not true. So the Northampton of the United States. South Central Pennsylvania. Yeah, is that right? The cobblers.

It's the Northampton town. No, that is total cobblers, actually, that theory. Yeah. No, the thing about Gettysburg is that it is at the centre of a spoke of roads. It's an important communication point. But it wasn't a place where either side intended to have a battle. It was what military historians call a meeting encounter. They just kind of basically bumped into each.

The armies bumped into each other there. All the descriptions say they collided. But, I mean, they must have known where they were going. Well, they sort of, I mean, they knew where they were going and they knew where they were, but what they didn't know was where the enemy was. Jeb Stuart, who is the kind of the great cavalry commander, now that Stonewall Jackson's dead, isn't he kind of, he's off rounding up wagons or something? Well, he's, your man Stonewall was not the cavalry commander commander so his big loss the big loss for lee is that he doesn't have his right hand man helping him sort of intuitively understanding what lee's

wanted wanting to do on the field by the time they come to gettysburg instead he's got general longstreet who lee is not let's just say not quite as in tune with as he was with uh stonewall um but jeb stewart um what what jeb stewart is doing is going off on a massive raid, which Lee had kind of told him to do. But Lee has this way of giving orders, which gives a great deal of discretion to all his officers. Because that's very Prince Rupert, isn't it? Dashing off and not sticking around to help with the battle. Very cavalier. And so the fact that Jeb Stuart wasn't maintaining regular, the function of the cavalry is mainly an intelligence operation. Their function is to tell the commander where the enemy troops are.

And Jeb Stuart was out of contact with General Lee for a crucial period of days. And that was a massive problem for Lee. So Lee, you know, to answer Dominic's question, Lee didn't know where the Union Army was. And the Union Army had better intelligence about Lee, but not brilliant intelligence either. And so the commander of the Union is a new general, George Meade. And the only thing I really know about him is that he had a horse called Baldy, which is a great name for a horse. And he turns up with his guys. And one of the things that makes Gettysburg interesting for military historians, and I think for visitors, is that Gettysburg is surrounded by a large number of hills, isn't it?

And the problem with battlefields is if you don't have distinctive terrain, so you can't work out what's going on. But with Gettysburg, it's who controls the heights that becomes the key. Is that right? Yes. So do you want me to give you a kind of capsule description of the battle of gettysburg three days we'd love that adam then i'll give it a go so it's very conveniently it's fought over the first second and third of july so when the union to spoiler alert

the union wins this battle and so they're able to celebrate it on the fourth of july which is great for them three day battle first three days of the month. The first day is essentially a Confederate victory that follows the pattern of lots of previous battles. So the Union Army make a lot of stupid errors. And by the end of the day, the Confederate Army is in control of the town of Gettysburg but but the union army have retreated onto high ground on cemetery hill which is just i mean if you go there today it's like a 20 minute walk out of the town center and apparently there was a sign saying you weren't allowed to bear firearms in the cemetery so that was that was the first day um The second day, what happens is that the Confederates then spread out along a line running kind of parallel to the Union line. So the Union lines begin anchored in Cemetery Hill, just outside of the town of Gettysburg, just to the south of the town, and then running for about a mile in a kind of southerly to southeasterly

direction along a ridge known as Cemetery Ridge. The Confederates are kind of parallel to them, about a mile away along another ridge of land called Seminary Ridge. So they're sort of facing each other. And Adam, to give people a sense of the numbers, these are now absolutely enormous armies. So the Union have what about 100 000 men yeah the confederates about 75 000 or something yeah yeah so these are these much much bigger armies than they were at the beginning of the war now yes so it's rather like the first world war they've just swelled and swelled and swelled as time has gone on yes yes and then with all of the horses and all of the wagons that go behind it and the African-Americans who are impressed by the Confederate Army to

dig ditches and latrines and put up tents and things behind the line. So there's a big operation as well as the enlisted men. Yeah. So these are two big cities moving around with horses and wagons clanking across the South Central Pennsylvania landscape. You can stand on the top of Cemetery Ridge today where the Union lines were and look towards the west and you see a line of blue hills in the distance and the fields sloping away from you and then up again towards a line of trees

about a mile away in the distance. And that's where the Confederate line was formed. So the second day of the battle essentially consisted of attempts by the Confederates to break through the Union line. Confederate line was formed. So the second day of the battle essentially consisted of attempts by the Confederates to break through the Union line. If they could have done that, if they could have encircled, or if they could have flanked the Union army, then they could have got between the Union army and Washington, or between the Union army and Philadelphia. And that would have obviously been a very dangerous situation for the Union. And so the second day consisted of a series of essentially failed efforts by the Confederacy to break through. But they had significant successes and the Union army made some more errors. And so going into the third day, General Lee, who wants to win, and all his instincts are that he always wins. That's what his army does. And so going into the third day, General Lee thinks one last push.

If we focus, if he focuses all his forces on one point and he can identify a point, a little clump of trees that's become known as a copse, a copse of trees, which is not really a word that's generally used in American English, but a copse of trees that's a visible marker on Cemetery Ridge. He focuses all of his forces on that one point, and then he can blast through. That's his idea. Doesn't work, but it could have done. And why does it not work? Tell us what happens. So what happens on July the 3rd is that they, at around about lunchtime, I mean, the times of all this are hotly debated.

It's amazing. You read military historians and they often write with a kind of air of extraordinary confidence about what's happening down to the minute. In fact, all of the timings of this and the numbers of people involved are all under dispute. But round about lunchtime, let's say, an hour and a half to two hour long artillery bombardment begins with the aim of knocking out the Union artillery. So that's very First World War. It's very First World War. It's very First World War. And the Union artillery falls silent, doesn't it? The Union artillery does fall silent for a while.

And in part, that's deliberate to lull the Confeder a into a false sense that they've overachieved in fact a lot of the the confederate shells are overshooting their mark um but nevertheless the noise uh and the devastation caused by this artillery bombardment is massive. And the smoke, of course, that fills then the space in between the lines. And then we get to that moment that Faulkner fantasized about, or that Faulkner imagined every 14-year-old Southern boy, and as late as the 1940s, fantasizing about, when the decision has to be made. But the decision really has already been taken, right? You've done this artillery bombardment, then the troops have to step off and becomes known as pickett's charge because general pickett who really does fit into the mold of a cavalier more so with the ringlets and everything yes he's very he's very much got

the ringlets hasn't he pickett is the guy who's most associated with this assault in fact it's not just pickett's division. But I mean, for the sake of this discussion, we can still carry on calling it Pickett's Charge because it's too confusing not to. So the Confederates advance across this mile of land. There's a lot of smoke. There are picket fences in the way. There's a road that they have to maneuver across.

At various points, they become invisible to Union troops because of the undulations of the land or because smoke obscures them. But as they come closer, as they start walking up the hill in close formation up Cemetery Ridge towards the Union lines, the Union defenders open fire. They first of all open fire with shrapnel, artillery pieces blast out at the advancing Confederate lines, and then with rifles. And in the end, as small bunches of Confederates come close up to the stone wall, where at the angle of the union line,

just in front of this copse of trees at the center of all of this action, small bunches of Confederates do in fact break through and this fierce bayonet fighting. But they don't have anything like the numbers to be able to hold that position. in the end they're forced they're forced back um and in a bedraggled um bloodied ness um limp the survivors limp back up the hill to seminary ridge where reportedly uh robert e lee is standing and telling them all that it's it's his fault it's his fault doesn't he he says that and then pick it years later kind of says you destroyed my men but that moment adam when they get to the angle because the angle is like a sort of stone wall a stone fence or something isn't it yeah that moment that's historically been seen as the high watermark of the confederacy so i mean i mean is it is that fair i mean is that the closest they ever came to victory when those few men broke through to that

fence well if that puncturing of the union line on July 3rd had been successful, and somehow they'd been able to turn and the Union army had panicked and run, which is what General Lee hoped for. And therefore, if the Battle of Gettysburg had turned the other way, then that would have been a massive strategic success for the Confederacyacy um as it was that defeat on the july the third and the fact that lee's army was then forced to retreat a day later back into virginia broke the myth of invincibility of the army of northern virginia of lee's army Lee's Army was never again in a position to be able to invade the North. It was never again as strong as it was. It never again had this sense of destiny on its side as it had done in that moment. It very nearly got wiped out, didn't it? It very

nearly got wiped out. I mean, Lincoln gets furious with Meade for not chasing him. Following up afterwards and not stopping General Lee's Army, recrossing the army of the Potomac and getting back into Virginia, especially since it started raining the next day. And so the river was in flood. And so it was really touch and go whether the army of Northern Virginia would be able to get back across the river. So again, I mean, it's another what if, you know, on July the 3rd, maybe the Union could have lost. And on July 4th, maybe the Confederacy could have been wrapped up in a single day but maybe all these what-ifs they they slightly miss the point that it's that classic example of the underdog and the overdog in a war where the underdog can win 20 battles but as soon as the overdog wins one the underdog is up against

it because of lack of resources lack of manpower andpower. And that's the importance of Gettysburg, isn't it? That the Confederacy basically can't afford to lose one massive battle like this. But Dominic, isn't it also, I mean, so the romance of Pickett's Charge, and it's been framed in the Faulkner passage that you opened with, that this is the moment where perhaps it could all have changed and been different and the Confederacy could have held out. But what it also reminds me of, and I don't know whether this is the moment where perhaps it could all have changed and been different and the Confederacy could have held out. But what it also reminds me of, and I don't know whether this is a conventional comparison, is with something that had happened

eight years previously, which is the Charge of the Light Brigade. And the whole point of the Charge of the Light Brigade is precisely that it is doomed. You know, it's an insane thing to do, to kind of charge across an open field artillery that are going to play you out is that a far-fetched comparison or is it the fact that it is precisely such an insane thing to do that has made it kind of live on so enduringly it's it's the kind of lunatic courage of it that has given it this kind of aura of romance that is what's given it an aura of romance but i don't think it's actually true i don't think it's comparable to the charge of the light brigade in terms of it as a kind of lunatic um tactic i

think it could have worked i mean the odds were against it but i think given given where lee was on the morning of july the third i can understand why he thought this was a viable option. I can also understand, and obviously as events proved, he was proved to be correct, but I can also understand why General Longstreet, who'd stepped into Stonewall Jackson's place as Lee's number two, warned Lee against it and said that he couldn't imagine any group of men, even Lee's men, being able to take a position so well defended. But the thing was, Lee had taken a major.

He had done daring things in the past. As recently as just two months earlier, he'd won this extraordinary battle in Chancellorsville in Virginia where he'd been outnumbered two to one and he'd divided his army twice in the face of overwhelming numbers. And yet he got away with it. So he was lucky. He was a lucky general. And that's what his men thought about him.

Until Nemesis came calling. And Adam, the other thing that happens on the 4th of July, as well as the retreat from Gettysburg, is on the Mississippi, where the great fortress of Vicksburg that has been besieged by another Union General, Ulysses S. Grant, falls. How key is that? Well, that's really key. And it's the two of them together, the repulse of Lear Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg that together seem to set the seal on the Confederacy. So then the interesting question is, why did the war go on for another two years? Because of the fall of Vicksburg, Confederacy is cut in two. The Mississippi River is completely in Union hands. Texas is now this kind of far-flclement of Virginia, which takes place as General Sherman then marches his men through to Atlanta and eventually to the sea and the scorched earth policy and all this after the break. But a last note about Gettysburg, because obviously this isn't the last of Gettysburg in the story, because months later, on the 19th of November 1863, Abraham Lincoln returns. Well, he comes to Gettysburg. I think people often think that the two things are kind of simultaneous, don't they?

They sort of assume he pitched up the day after the battle to give the Gettysburg Address. But this is, he's inaugurating a cemetery and he gives this speech, which is probably the single most famous speech of the entire American Civil War. It's only 272 words. Why is it so well known, Adam? What's so important about it? Because he distills the reasons for which the North is fighting. He answers your question, Dominic, from the last episode, which is why are the North bothering to fight this war? That's what he does in those 272 words. And he does it significantly on the battlefield, which everybody already by then thinks is the most important battlefield of the war. And he does it, as you say, opening a cemetery to the

Union dead. And of course, they can't do this on most Civil War battlefields, because most Civil War battlefields are still in contested ground in Virginia, but he can go to Gettysburg. And so he can turn Gettysburg into this sacred place where even in advance of Union victory, he can explain what this struggle is all about. And can I just ask, I mean, this is something quite new, isn't it? This idea of commemorating the dead, of setting up cemeteries. I mean, because obviously it's something that becomes massive in the First World War and the Second World War and so on in the rest of the world. But this is, I mean, it's, is there an echo here of Pericles in the Peloponnesian war giving a funeral oration over the Athenian dead, which is a kind of, you know, a masterpiece of political oratory? Is that a kind of conscious influence?

It was a conscious influence on the main speaker on that occasion, Edward Everett, who spoke for two hours without any notes and regarded himself as the Pericles of the 1860s. Lincoln was familiar enough as you had to be in the mid-Victorian period with classical references to have heard of Pericles, but I think there was certainly no direct influence on Lincoln's speech. But also the idea of a democracy, because that's what the Gettysburg is addressed, the idea that democracy in and of itself has value, that is obviously something that can be drawn from the Athenian example. And I guess conversely, for the Confederacy, also Athens is quite an important kind of model, it's it's it's a democracy but it's it's a slave-owning democracy yes yes yes yes that's right and that comparison was made at the time um very directly um and and

has been made uh many times since um i mean you're right about the importance of the the manner of commemoration of the dead with the uniform headstones of the kind that we're very familiar with from thinking about first world war cemeteries i mean the the dead at touton or of the dead with the uniform headstones of the kind that we're very familiar with from thinking about First World War cemeteries. I mean, the dead at Towton or even the dead at Waterloo, the bones were ploughed into the ground. And at Gettysburg, they were laid out in serried ranks. And they're not wearing kind of dog tags or anything like that? Are they?

No, and so there's a huge difficulty over the identification of remains. And there's a whole long and pretty grim story about the process of disinterring bodies that had been laid in shallow graves in the days immediately after the battle. And the impossibility in many cases of identifying those remains. But enough of them are identified, or they think they are identified sufficiently to be able to inter them in this new cemetery, where in terms of the form of the gravestones, the officers and the men are equal in death. And it is a very moving speech. I mean, we hear highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and the government of the people, by the people, for the people

shall not perish from the earth. I mean, he doesn't do it in my beautiful Laurence Olivier style. Daniel Day-Lewis. Because doesn't he have quite a reedy voice, Lincoln? Is that right? Yes, he was supposed to have had quite a high-pitched voice, but it was a carrying voice, a voice that people could nevertheless hear. Well, we've just, just very quickly, there's a question from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, which despite his name, seems to be American. And he asked, Tom, how well known is the Gettysburg Address internationally? It's known by most Americans and taught in schools as the pinnacle of both American political thought, as well as writing poetry and rhetoric. It makes me cry every time I hear it. I mean, I would say it is pretty well known outside America. I mean, obviously not as well known as in America, but it's certainly fated as one of

the great speeches of all time, I would say. Oh, unquestionably. Have you, you know, Mrs. Sancho recorded the Gettysburg Address. Did you know that? I did not know that. I should have read it in my excellent listen i think we've dodged a bullet here um dominic is gearing up to read the gettysburg address in the voice of mrs thatcher i i think we should take a break at this point um you hear highly resolved no dominic dominic not have died in vain mr scargill and his confederate we're going to take a break here and when we come back I think we should look at the black experience

in the civil war and the end of the war so we'll be back after the break I'm Marina Hyde and I'm Richard Osman and together we host The Rest Is Entertainment it's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip and on our Q q a we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works we have just launched our members club

if you want ad-free listening bonus episodes and early access to live tickets head to the rest of the entertainment.com that's the rest is entertainment.com Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We're joined by Margaret Thatcher for this cruelly denied you performance of the Gettysburg Address in the previous half. But anyway, so Adam Smith from Oxford University. I'm sure at Oxford they don't do impersonations of Margaret Thatcher reading the Gettysburg Address, do they? Well, I do in my lectures, but I'm not sure anyone else has ever done it

in the history of the university before. No, I imagine not. All right, listen, there's a group of people we haven't really talked about at all, extraordinarily, and they're the people at the centre of the drama, really. They're the people the drama is all about. So they are black Americans. And I suppose there are, I mean there are you know it's a hugely

variegated story but let's talk about two particular groups adam one is black soldiers who fight for the union because anyone who's seen the film glory will know that this is at once a contentious but also a very inspiring story and then the second group i think it's worth us talking about is actually the people who who really who the war is about, who are the slaves, the enslaved people in the Confederacy. So do the Union have black soldiers right from the beginning? No, that's right, isn't it? No, they don't. One of the things the Emancipation Proclamation does is to pave the way for the enlistment of black troops. And in the end, I think 186,000 black men enlist in the Union Army, and another 15,000 or 20,000 in the Union Navy. And so make a hugely important contribution to

Union victory in numbers terms alone, in addition to the ideological and political importance of their service. But they're fighting in segregated units. They're not allowed to mix. They're earning less pay, aren't they? They are earning less pay throughout almost the whole of the war. They're fighting in segregated units and mostly officered by white men, often abolitionists. And a huge issue, what happens to them if they get captured?

I mean, this is a huge issue because, of course, arming black men is the ultimate nightmare in a slave society. And so the Emancipation Proclamation is incredibly threatening to the Confederacy, but the enlistment of black troops is the ultimate insult. In fact, it's more than just an insult. It threatens to blow apart their whole theory, the whole theory on which slavery is based, which is that black men are incapable. And so the Confederacy refused to treat black soldiers as they would treat white soldiers. And they're treating white soldiers pretty badly, right?

I mean, they're kind of locking them up in concentration camps and starving them and so on. They're putting them in prisoner of war camps in which thousands of them die from malnutrition. That's right. So what are they doing to the black prisoners of war? What they're often doing to the black soldiers, and there are some horrific examples of this, perhaps the most notorious being the Fort Pillow massacre in 1864, when black soldiers surrender, they're just they're being shot and sometimes tortured before they're shot. And the guy who does that Fort Pillow massacre, just to anticipate, he is Nathan

Bedford Forrest, who's the founder of Ku Klux Klan. That's right, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So is there a continuity between the violence towards black soldiers in the civil war and then the paramilitary violence um after the civil war in the south that basically is one of the explanations for why black americans don't have this new birth of freedom that they think they've been promised yes definitely um you know slavery is uh is inherently a violent system of oppressing an entire race of people. As slavery fractures and comes to an end, other systems of violence come into play. This is evident not just in the South, but in the North, right? Because there are, in 1863, terrible riots in New York prompted by the introduction of a draft there. And that sees black people lynched for, what, three or four days, is it, of rioting in New York? Yes, in July 1863. So, yes, as you say, these are riots by people, and many of them are Irish immigrants, who don't want to be conscripted into the Union Army. But their targets include a coloured orphan asylum, as it's called. In other words,

visible African-American properties and places and people in New York City are among the main targets of the rioting mob in New York. So there is a rise in anti-black violence across the North in 1863 and 1864. And there's a sense in which that's being driven, as in that instance in New York, by people who believe that they, white people, are being called upon to make sacrifices on behalf of black people. And that somehow the government is now, the Lincoln administration is somehow now privileging black people and demanding sacrifices from poor whites in order to uplift black people. And is that because Lincoln has changed the terms of the war, because of emancipation, do you think? Is that driving that?

Definitely. Yes. I mean, Lincoln would say he hasn't really changed the terms of the war because of emancipation, do you think? Is that driving that? Definitely. Yes. I mean, Lincoln would say he hasn't really changed the terms of the war. It's still a war to save the Union, but it's a war in which the only way to save the Union is to pull out what he would have called, other people did as well, the taproot of the rebellion. And the taproot of the rebellion is slavery. So you destroy slavery in order to save the Union. And when you destroyed slavery, you then have the question of how to integrate what they call the freedmen, formerly enslaved people, into the Republic. And so the things are all interrelated. But certainly the perception was that he had totally changed the basis of the war and that therefore the contract on which they may have initially been willing to fight and die had been broken by the Lincoln administration. But Adam, also conversely, can I just ask you, on that question of how freed slaves are to be integrated into the fabric of the Republic, presumably Americans have this very Roman idea of the citizen soldier, and that in a way to fight is to become a citizen is that something that is kind of

underlying the recruitment of of black regiments and so on definitely and so in july 1863 you see this juxtaposition of images so irishmen who are often drawn in cartoons as looking like apes, rioting in order to avoid fighting for their country, for the flag, juxtaposed against African-American troops fighting in South Carolina, Fort Wagner and other places, literally dying for the flag in uniform. And so Republicans, supporters of the Lincoln administration, look at that juxtaposition and say, how are we going to build a stable post-war republic once we suppress this rebellion? Who are going to be loyal citizens of this republic? It's going to be black men, especially those who fought in the Union Army. And that's in terms what Lincoln says

in what turns out to be his last public address before he's assassinated, in which he says those black men who fought in our armies should surely be given the vote. That's the way his mind is thinking at that point. And he doesn't add, but I don't think this is at all what Lincoln would think. And rioting Irishmen should have the franchise taken away from them. But certainly there are other Republicans who come to that conclusion. Right. And so this serves as a reminder that while the war is going on, so also electoral politics are carrying on. And there is an election coming up, isn't there, in which Lincoln's future as president is at stake. And the prospect of Lincoln losing the presidency, is that really the Confederacy's last chance? Yes, it is. And does that in turn determine, because of Gone with the Wind, it's incredibly famous, the blaze of destruction launched by General Sherman through Georgia and into the Carolinas?

Is he trying to kind of demonstrate that the Confederacy is doomed and thereby ensure that Lincoln will win re-election? Or is that too crude an equation? Atlanta falls at the very beginning of September 1864 and the election is in November, I think, and it falls to Sherman. It's a very big strategic gain for the Union. It's a railroad hub and furthermore, it had been under siege. There'd been a kind of standoff at Atlanta for several weeks. It had been unclear whether Sherman would be able to

break through. So the fact that he does is a huge impetus behind Lincoln's re-election bid in 1864. The real destruction wrought by Sherman's army is in the early months of 1865, or it's actually after the election. But the beginning of it, the origins of it, which is the fall of the Atlanta Deafening, as you say, Tom sets the stage for Lincoln's victory and kind of takes some of the pressure off him. Because earlier, just a few weeks earlier, in August 1864, Lincoln's own political sources were telling him he was going to lose. I mean, he was pretty sure he was going to lose. That's how it looked. And he's up against his own former general, right?

George McClellan. Yeah. Who's the Democrat candidate and who basically says, enough of the war. It's time to settle. Democrats are internally divided and McClellan kind of squirms around on this because after all, he's a general. But at the end of the day, the democratic platform on which McClellan stands commits them to an armistice with a view to negotiation with the idea, they say, of reunion. Right. Then they haven't come to the let the erring sisters depart in peace point of view. They're not saying that they're still saying we want reunion. Almost all of them are. But they're somehow imagining that it can be done through negotiation rather than through war. And what's their attitude on the emancipation of slaves?

That it's an appalling betrayal and a distraction, that it's counterproductive. So would they have reversed it? They certainly would have reversed it. If McClellan had won, the one thing we can be sure of is that the emancipation policy would have gone. Just on the issue of slaves i mean the one group you haven't yet talked about are the slaves the people in the confederacy the black men and women almost four million of them um and what has their experience been like adam because they're not being caught up by the confederate armies they're still working on the land but presumably the climate well all, all their lives, they have lived

in this climate of oppressive, horrific violence, by and large. And has that intensified during the war? Are their lives much worse? Or have many of them fled? Or do they support the South, some of them? Or are they all for the Union? What's the story? They don't support the confederacy whatever sort of neo-confederates today might like to imagine what's happening essentially is that there is a low-level slave rebellion going on from the moment the war begins in 1861 hundreds of thousands of black people um self-emancipate, take freedom into their own hands. And the focus is often Union armies.

And this is what forces, one of the main things that forces emancipation onto the political agenda. So immediately, the very beginning of the war in spring 1861, Union commanders have to decide what to do when hundreds or thousands of people whose legal status in Virginia or wherever they are is as property. What do they do when they essentially seek asylum in Union lines? And some Union commanders in the early stages of the war return them to their masters. Many of them say, and this is a kind of famous sleight of hand by a Union General Benjamin Butler, who calls them contraband of war. So he turns the argument of the South that these people are property against them and says, well,

if I got hold of your horses, or if I got hold of your armaments, I would, of course, confiscate them as contraband of war. So if these people are, as you say, your property, then I'm going to seize them as contraband of war at all and in the same way. And so that term contraband then comes into general usage as a general descriptor of essentially self-emancipated and formerly enslaved people. So the famous plantations, presumably it had required a large amount of manpower to keep the apparatus of oppression in place. But these guys are now going off to fight in the Civil War. So who is stopping the slaves from going to going to north or from any fewer people than before hence hence the much uh you know the higher rate of of enslaved people running away and the

confederacy they're running away but are they are they attacking the plantations are they kind of burning them down or yes they are in some instances they are in some instances there are instances of violence against enslavers um there are um are the Confederacy, when it introduces conscription, introduces a rule that tries to prevent this by saying that if you have a plantation with more than a certain number of enslaved people, then you're allowed an exemption from conscription. But as the war goes on, that, too, comes under pressure. So it's harder and harder to sustain. So it becomes slavery becomes the big sustain so it becomes the slavery becomes the big achilles heel of the confederacy it's really hard to maintain a system of of oppressive slavery in the first place it's even harder to do it when you're trying to fight a war on your own soil

and in the end the situation gets so bad that lee actually suggests to robertson davis that they should arm slaves as the union does in the very dying days of the confederacy when it the writing is is not just on the wall but it's all over their faces and all over the building so this is kind of hitler hitler arming 13 year olds exactly yeah at the very dying days they eventually pass a bill which could have promised emancipation to enslaved people who fight for the confederate army but it never goes into effect what's interesting there adam is that at that point they're actually talking about sacrificing slavery to preserve their sort of sexual identity independence yeah their independence so their national identity is not just a fig leaf for slavery it means something to them and they would give up slavery for it is that

that can't be yeah but but but if it had really been um a fight for national self-determination in this gladstonian romantic way then they surely would have made come to that position a good deal yeah so last yeah so could we come to the to that end so lincoln wins election and that really is the kind of the final nail in the coffin what is the end game the end game is that lee's army has eventually um forced to surrender at appomattox courthouse in southwest virginia and uh that is taken although there are still confederate armies in the field because lee's army has been so associated with the confederacy and the figure of Lee himself is so associated with the Confederacy. He personifies the Confederacy far more than Jefferson Davis, the president, does.

That when Lee surrenders, that is regarded by virtually everybody as the end of the war. And just one quick question about that surrender. Because that surrender moment is very important. Appomattox Courthouse. We talked before about the Roundhead Cavalier thing.ier thing ulysses s grant who we haven't really talked about very much actually yeah so just give us a brief sketch of ulysses s grant dominic i know you're a big fan of his um me yeah you've been going on about him i don't go on about ulysses s grant i know very little about him he's a sort of failure of a man isn't he uh adam he's a drunk

who is sort of transformed by the war. He's Jared Harris in the film. He's transformed by the war, and he becomes Lincoln's indispensable general. And the reason that he lingers in the memory, I mean, he tarnishes his own reputation because he becomes a sort of slightly shop-sored president later on, doesn't he? He's gilded age and corrupt and all that kind of stuff.

I think he gets a bit of a bad rap actually very um dan jackson friend of the show very keen on him because he goes to newcastle and sunderland yeah he does in his in his global tour yes but anyway sorry we're the contrast between him and lee he's a sort of round-headed shabby figure and he takes the surrender of Lee who's got dressed up you know especially for it hasn't he uh but Grant allows Lee and his men to leave with honor and they and they don't they get to keep their horses and they get to go off and he gives them rations now there are two ways of talking about that moment I mean we'll get into the the legacy of the war in the next episode but one is to say oh isn't that lovely they're all friends again and the union

is remade and all that sort of thing but adam could you say and i would say that creates huge problems for the future because what it does is it almost recognize instead of treating the confederates as rebels and as traitors it recognizes them as worthy noble opponents and in that moment at appomattox courthouse you have the creation of this myth that what the thing we've talked about so much the cavalier idea oh the confederates were great noble fellows and it's such a shame they fell out do you not think that's there right at the beginning at appomattox courthouse i think i think we should save this for the next episode because it's so crucial. Shocking. You've set it up and it is

absolutely clearly the key question is how the war is going to be seen. I am going to let Adam answer the question but I'm going to save it for the next episode where we will look at the events that immediately follow Lee's surrender of which

one obviously no spoilers is particularly significant and then we will look at how the civil war has been understood and how it has influenced the actual course of politics and society in america well ever since what what tom has done very beautifully once again is to allow us an opportunity to say that if you can't wait for adam's answer you merely need to go to restishistorypod.com and sign up to the rest is history club and within seconds you will hear adam answering that question the rest of you however will have to wait a little longer and we will see you next time goodbye bye Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community,

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