The Civil War 1x4

1. Original production of "the civil war"

2. was made possible by generous contributions

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6. thank you.

7. Corporate funding for this special 25th anniversary

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9. Before thousands fell on the battlefield,

10. before millions were freed and before a country

11. forged its identity... A nation declared a new

12. birth of freedom, rededicating itself to the

13. proposition that all men are created equal.

14. Bank of America is proud to sponsor "the civil war,"

15. a film by Ken burns,

16. newly restored for it's 25th anniversary.

17. "In this army,

18. "one hole in the seat of the britches

19. "indicates a captain,

20. "two holes—a lieutenant,

21. "and the seat of the pants all out

22. indicates that the individual is a private."

23. They both had a particular way of yelling.

24. The northern troops made a sort of hurrah.

25. It was called by one soldier,

26. "the deep, generous, manly shout" of the northern soldier.

27. The confederates, of course, had what was called the rebel yell.

28. We don't really know what that sounded like.

29. One northerner described it, he said—

30. he described it by describing the peculiar corkscrew sensation

31. that goes up your backbone when you hear it,

32. and he said, "if you claim you've heard it

33. "and weren't scared,

34. that means you never heard it."

35. It was...

36. It was basically, I think, a sort of fox hunt yip

37. mixed up with a sort of banshee squall.

38. And it was used on the attack.

39. And an old confederate veteran after the war

40. was asked at a UDC meeting in Tennessee somewhere

41. to give the rebel yell.

42. The ladies had never heard it.

43. And he said, "it can't be done, except at a run,

44. "and I couldn't do it anyhow

45. "with a mouth full of false teeth

46. and a stomach full of food."

47. So they never got to hear what it sounded like.

48. The civil war was fought in 10,000 places.

49. Murfreesboro, Chambersburg, Dranesville, and Opelousas,

50. Apache canyon, St. Augustine,

51. Paducah, and Brandy station,

52. on the red river, the Rappahannock,

53. and the Rapidan,

54. across the Susquehanna and the Monongahela,

55. from mount Ida and mount olive

56. to mount Zion,

57. from Ninevah and Nickajack gap

58. to new Berne, New Carthage,

59. new Iberia, new Lisbon,

60. and new hope,

61. from the Yazoo delta

62. to the Chickasaw bluffs.

63. By 1863, the Taiping rebellion in China

64. had entered its 13th year.

65. Civil war broke out in Afghanistan.

66. In America, Eddie Cuthbert of the Philadelphia keystones

67. stole the first base in professional baseball.

68. The national academy of science

69. was founded in Washington.

70. The roller skate was patented,

71. and Henry Ford and William Randolph Hearst

72. were born.

73. In 1863, confederate general stonewall Jackson

74. would become a terror to the union army

75. and a legend north and south.

76. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,

77. a college professor from Maine,

78. would lead his regiment to glory

79. on hillsides in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

80. In the wilderness west of Fredericksburg,

81. Robert E. Lee would devise

82. one of the most daring and brilliant battle plans

83. of the war...

84. While 1,000 miles to the west,

85. Ulysses S. Grant continued to hammer away

86. at the rebel stronghold at Vicksburg.

87. Confederate private Sam Watkins

88. would fight at murfreesboro, Shelbyville,

89. Chickamauga, lookout mountain, and missionary Ridge,

90. and somehow survive,

91. while Elisha hunt Rhodes

92. would have the best fourth of July of his life.

93. In 1863, despite a northern victory Atantietam,

94. despite emancipation,

95. despite a clear superiority in men and materiel,

96. the union seemed close to fumbling all it had.

97. Meanwhile, from Vicksburg to Charleston,

98. the fragile confederate coalition

99. was coming apart,

100. and yet somehow the confederacy stayed alive

101. by the daring and luck and genius

102. of its high command.

103. But the biggest tests were coming that summer

104. where the Mississippi took a sharp turn at Vicksburg

105. and at a sleepy corner of Pennsylvania.

106. "Murfreesboro, Tennessee, January 1, 1863.

107. "Martha, I can inform you

108. "that I have seen the monkey show at last,

109. "and I don't want to see it no more.

110. "I never want to go on another fight anymore, sister.

111. "I want to come home worse than I ever did before.

112. Thomas Warwick."

113. "Charles coffin, Boston journal.

114. "All the surrounding forests had disappeared,

115. "built into huts with chimneys of sticks and mud

116. "or cut for burning in the stone fireplaces.

117. "The soldiers were discouraged.

118. "They knew that they had fought bravely

119. "but that there had been mismanagement

120. and inefficient generalship."

121. "Falmouth, Virginia.

122. "This morning, we found ourselves covered

123. "with snow that had fallen during the night.

124. "It is too cold to write.

125. "How I would like to have

126. "some of those on to Richmond fellows out here with us.

127. Elisha hunt Rhodes."

128. The men of the army of the Potomac

129. had not been paid for 6 months,

130. and while army warehouses at Washington bulged with food,

131. little of it got to the winter camp.

132. "I do not believe

133. "I have ever seen greater misery from sickness

134. "than now exists in our army of the Potomac.

135. Thomas F. Perly, inspector general."

136. One Wisconsin officer

137. called the winter camp at falmouth, Virginia,

138. the union's valley forge.

139. Hundreds died from scurvy, dysentery,

140. typhoid, diphtheria, pneumonia.

141. There were epidemics of measles, mumps,

142. and other childhood diseases.

143. And farm boys, crowded with other men

144. for the first time in their lives,

145. were especially susceptible.

146. Disease was the chief killer of the war,

147. taking two for every one who died of battle wounds.

148. "One of the wonders of these times

149. "was the army cough.

150. "It is almost a literal fact

151. "that when 100,000 men began to stir at reveille,

152. "the sound of their coughing

153. would drown out that of the beating drums."

154. "The newspapers say the army

155. "is eager for another fight.

156. "It is false.

157. "They are heartily sick of battles

158. that produce no results."

159. "I don't think I have received half of my letters.

160. "It cannot be possible that one is my quota

161. "in over 3 weeks from home.

162. "I've written constantly from every place

163. "where we have stopped long enough to write

164. "and could mail a letter.

165. Edward Hastings Ripley."

166. 200 men deserted every day.

167. By late January, 1/4 of the union army

168. was absent without leave.

169. Added to the men's misery

170. were memories of the battle they had fought

171. across the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg in December.

172. At Fredericksburg, there was a... An exchange

173. across the Rappahannock.

174. One of them hollered, "hey, reb,"

175. and they said, "yeah?"

176. "When are you fellas going to come over?"

177. They said, "when we get good and ready.

178. What do you want?"

179. And they said, "want Fredericksburg."

180. "Don't you wish, you may get it!"

181. And things like that.

182. There were a lot of those exchanges.

183. A line of hills overlooked Fredericksburg, Virginia,

184. a key confederate transportation link

185. midway between Richmond and Washington.

186. Union general Ambrose E. Burnside's plan

187. had been to cross the Rappahannock by pontoon,

188. occupy the town,

189. then take the thinly defended heights.

190. Bold action did not come naturally to Ambrose Burnside,

191. though he had led his men to Fredericksburg

192. determined to display

193. the fighting spirit his predecessor George McClellan

194. had so conspicuously lacked.

195. But now the war department failed him,

196. and 17 days passed

197. waiting for pontoon Bridges to arrive.

198. By the time the bridge was in place,

199. Lee had 75,000 men waiting in the hills.

200. Stonewall Jackson was on the right,

201. James Longstreet on the left

202. along a bluff called Marye's heights.

203. From the top of the heights,

204. Lee could just see Chatham mansion

205. across the river on the union side,

206. where 30 years before

207. he had courted his wife Mary Custis.

208. It was now Burnside's headquarters.

209. On December 11,

210. union guns began shelling Fredericksburg,

211. setting much of the town on fire.

212. Then the troops started across the river.

213. Some wondered why the confederates

214. did not make it harder for them to cross.

215. "They want to get us in," one private said.

216. "Getting out won't be quite so smart and easy."

217. While waiting to attack the heights,

218. union men looted what was left of the town.

219. The great assault came two days later on December 13.

220. Federal forces advanced toward Marye's heights.

221. Lee could not believe the enemy would be so foolish.

222. His artillery covered all the approaches.

223. 4 lines of riflemen waited behind a stone wall

224. that ran along the base of the hill.

225. "General," an officer assured James Longstreet,

226. "a chicken could not live in that field

227. when we open on it."

228. "how beautifully they came on.

229. "Their bright bayonets glistening in the sunlight

230. "made the line look like a huge serpent of blue and steel.

231. "We could see our shells bursting in their ranks,

232. "making great gaps, but on they came,

233. "as though they would go straight through us and over us.

234. "Now we gave them canister, and that staggered them.

235. "A few more paces onward,

236. "and the Georgians in the road below us Rose up

237. "and let loose a storm of lead

238. into the faces of the advancing brigade."

239. "The brilliant assault of their Irish brigade

240. "was beyond description.

241. "We forgot they were fighting us,

242. "and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up

243. "along our lines.

244. General George Pickett."

245. It was suicide.

246. "They came forward," one man said,

247. "as though they were breasting a storm of rain and sleet.

248. "Faces and bodies half turned to the storm.

249. Shoulders shrugged."

250. The Irish brigade got within 25 paces of the wall.

251. The men of the 24th Georgia who shot them down

252. were Irish, too.

253. A union officer watching from a church steeple

254. saw brigade after brigade charge the stone wall.

255. "They seemed to melt," he said,

256. "like snow coming down on warm ground."

257. They still believed that to take a position,

258. you massed your men and moved up

259. and gave them the bayonet.

260. There were practically no bayonet wounds

261. in the civil war much more than there were

262. in the first world war or the second.

263. They never came in that kind of contact,

264. or at least very seldom came in that kind of contact,

265. but they still thought that to mass their fire

266. they had to mass their men.

267. So they lined up

268. and marched up toward an entrenched line

269. and got blown away.

270. 14 assaults were beaten back from Marye's heights

271. before Burnside decided it could not be taken.

272. 9,000 men fell before the confederate guns.

273. More credit for valor is given to confederate soldiers.

274. They're supposed to have had more elan and dash.

275. Actually, I know of no braver men in either army

276. than the union troops at Fredericksburg,

277. which is a serious defeat.

278. But to keep charging that wall

279. at the foot of Marye's heights,

280. after all the failures there had been—

281. and they were all failures— is a singular instance of valor.

282. Watching from above, even Robert E. Lee was moved.

283. "It is well," he said, "that war is so terrible.

284. We should grow too fond of it."

285. Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

286. and his 20th Maine

287. were among the thousands of union men

288. pinned down at the foot of the heights.

289. That night, the temperature fell below freezing,

290. and a stiff wind blew.

291. Men now froze as well as bled to death.

292. Night brought quiet.

293. "But out of that silence Rose new sounds,

294. "more appalling still— a strange ventriloquism,

295. "of which you could not locate the source.

296. "A smothered moan,

297. "as if a thousand discords were flowing together

298. "into a keynote—

299. "weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear,

300. "yet startling with its nearness.

301. "The writhing Concord broken by cries for help.

302. "Some begging for a drop of water,

303. "some calling on god for pity,

304. "and some on friendly hands to finish

305. "what the enemy had so horribly begun.

306. "Some with delirious, dreamy voices

307. "murmuring loved names

308. as if the dearest were bending over them."

309. "And underneath, all the time,

310. "the deep bass note from closed lips

311. too hopeless or too heroic to articulate their agony."

312. "At last, outwearied and depressed,

313. "I moved two dead men a little

314. "and lay down between them,

315. "making a pillow of the breast of a third,

316. "drew the flap of his overcoat over my face

317. "and tried to sleep.

318. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain."

319. They were stuck there all night

320. and all the next day,

321. crouching behind a wall of their own dead,

322. trying not to hear the confederate bullets

323. thudding into the corpses of their friends.

324. Burnside, openly weeping,

325. declared that he himself would lead the new attack.

326. Subordinates talked him out of it.

327. That night, Chamberlain and his men

328. scraped out shallow graves for the dead.

329. As they worked,

330. the northern lights began to dance

331. in the winter sky.

332. "Who would not pass on as they did?

333. "Dead for their country's life

334. "and lighted to burial by the meteor splendors

335. of their native sky."

336. It was very unusual to see the northern lights

337. that far south,

338. but the whole heavens were lit up with streamers of fire,

339. and whatever the northern lights are.

340. And the confederates took it as a sign

341. that god almighty himself

342. was celebrating a confederate victory.

343. "The slaughter is terrible,

344. "the result, disastrous.

345. "Until we have good generals,

346. it is useless to fight battles."

347. The union had lost 12,600 men.

348. The south had lost 5,300 men,

349. but many of them were only missing—

350. gone home for Christmas.

351. The battered union army limped back across the river.

352. Icy rain began to fall.

353. From the ruins of Fredericksburg,

354. confederate soldiers openly taunted the union troops

355. huddled miserably on the far side of the Rappahannock.

356. After the battle of Fredericksburg,

357. the confederates went back into the town,

358. and they saw all the damage that had been done

359. during the union occupation of the town—

360. it was a great deal of damage, real vandalism—

361. and they were shocked.

362. And someone on Jackson's staff said,

363. "how are we going to put an end

364. to all this kind of thing?"

365. And Jackson said, "kill them. Kill them all."

366. "Clarksville.

367. "Those hateful gunboats.

368. "They looked like they were from the lower regions.

369. "Now this is the second night

370. "that 4 of them have been anchored in the river

371. "opposite our house.

372. "I see the men crawling about on the boats

373. "like so many black snakes.

374. Nannie Haskins."

375. 1,500 union men were now stationed

376. at Clarksville, Tennessee.

377. No one could enter or leave the town

378. without a military pass.

379. "Every day," Mrs. D.N. Kennedy wrote her husband in Georgia,

380. "the reins are tightened."

381. On deer isle, Maine,

382. the parents of private Harlton Powers

383. learned that he was among the missing at Fredericksburg.

384. In fact, his fellow soldiers were certain he was dead,

385. but had been unable to recognize his body

386. among the swollen, blackened union corpses.

387. His father placed a stone to his memory anyway

388. in the little cemetery at southwest harbor.

389. Private Alfred Robbins, age 20,

390. collapsed and died while on his way to mail a letter

391. in camp near port Hudson, Louisiana.

392. The cause was never discovered.

393. In march, corporal Farnum Haskell's coffin

394. came home from Louisiana

395. and was buried at mount Adams cemetery,

396. despite the great difficulty of digging a grave

397. in the frozen ground.

398. During the long, cold, rainy winter of 1863,

399. confederate forces huddled in defensive positions

400. south of the duck river near Tullahoma, Tennessee.

401. Confederate officers liked to explain

402. that Tullahoma came from the Greek word tulla,

403. meaning mud,

404. and homa, meaning more mud.

405. The confederacy was on the move.

406. Confederate general John C. Pemberton

407. beat back union forces

408. trying to take the Chickasaw bluffs

409. north of Vicksburg.

410. John Morgan's confederate cavalry

411. raided Kentucky, burning Bridges,

412. twisting train tracks,

413. and taking 2,000 union prisoners.

414. And Nathan Bedford Forrest

415. was driving the union army mad everywhere he went—

416. stealing horses, harrying supply lines,

417. attacking armies 4 times the strength of his,

418. then disappearing without a trace.

419. In two weeks, Forrest stole 10,000 rifles,

420. wrecked $3 million worth of equipment,

421. cut U.S. Grant's life lines,

422. and forced him to retreat.

423. In Texas, general John B. Magruder

424. captured a union flotilla at Galveston.

425. After the bombardment was over,

426. confederate major A.M. Lea

427. went aboard the badly hit U.S.S. Harriet Lane.

428. There he found his son, a federal lieutenant,

429. dying on the deck.

430. "January 24, near falmouth.

431. "Daylight showed a strange scene.

432. "Men, horses, artillery, pontoons, and wagons

433. "were stuck in the mud.

434. "Rebels put up a sign marked

435. "'Burnside stuck in the mud.'

436. "we can fight rebels, but not in the mud.

437. Elisha hunt Rhodes."

438. "I wish you could hear Joshua give off a command

439. "and see him ride along the battalion

440. "on his white horse.

441. "He looked so splendidly.

442. "He told me last night

443. "that he never felt so well in his life.

444. Tom Chamberlain."

445. "What makes it strange

446. "is that I should have gained 12 pounds

447. living on worms."

448. "We live so mean here that hard bread is all worm,

449. "and the meat stinks like hell.

450. "And rice two or 3 times a week,

451. "and worms as long as your finger.

452. I liked rice once, but goddamn the stuff now."

453. "It was no uncommon occurrence

454. "for a man to find the surface of his pot of coffee

455. "swimming with weevils

456. "after breaking up hardtack in it,

457. "but they were easily skimmed off

458. and left no distinctive flavor behind."

459. "Tell ma that I think of her beans and collards often

460. "and wish for some, but wishing does no good.

461. Benjamin Franklin Jackson."

462. Union troops were issued beans; Bacon;

463. Pickled beef— called salt horse by the men—

464. desiccated, compressed mixed vegetables;

465. And hardtack—square flour and water biscuits

466. hard enough, some said, they could stop bullets.

467. In the Southern army, you ate something called sloosh.

468. You got issued cornmeal and bacon,

469. and you fried the bacon,

470. which left a great deal of grease in the pan.

471. Then you took the cornmeal

472. and swirled it around in the grease

473. to make the dough.

474. Then you might take the dough and make a snake of it

475. and put it around your ramrod

476. and cook it over the campfire.

477. That was called sloosh.

478. They ate a lot of that.

479. Coffee was the preferred drink of both armies.

480. Union troops crushed the beans with their rifle butts,

481. drank 4 pints of it a day—

482. strong enough, one man said, to float an iron wedge—

483. and when they could not build a fire,

484. were content to chew the grounds.

485. Southerners made do with substitutes

486. brewed from peanuts, potatoes, and chicory.

487. "We have been living on the contents

488. "of those boxes you sent to us.

489. "Nothing was spoiled except that card of biscuits.

490. "Those were molded some,

491. "but we used over half of them in a soup.

492. "Thank Mr. Berdicts a thousand times for me,

493. "also Mrs. Maxson for those pies,

494. "and those fried cakes and gingersnaps

495. "are first-rate.

496. "And the dried berries, they're nice,

497. "and the dried beef and applesauce—

498. that was first-rate."

499. "No one agent so much obstructs this army

500. "as the degrading vice of drunkenness.

501. "Total abstinence would be worth 50,000 men

502. "to the armies of the United States.

503. General George McClellan."

504. If a soldier couldn't buy it, he made it.

505. One union recipe called for bark juice,

506. tar water, turpentine, brown sugar,

507. lamp oil, and alcohol.

508. Southerners sometimes dropped in raw meat

509. and let the mixture ferment for a month or so

510. to add what one veteran remembered

511. as "an old and mellow taste."

512. The men called their home brew "nockum stiff,"

513. "pop skull," and "oh! Be joyful."

514. "I invited my comrades to assist me

515. "in emptying 3 canteens of oh! Be joyful,

516. "then spent the balance of the evening singing.

517. Then we parted in good spirits."

518. In march 1863,

519. John Mosby's confederate rangers

520. raided Fairfax court house, Virginia,

521. capturing two captains, 30 privates,

522. 58 horses, and brigadier general Edwin Stoughton.

523. "For that, I am sorry," Lincoln said

524. when told of the capture,

525. "for I can make brigadier generals,

526. but I can't make horses."

527. General Mosby had made life miserable

528. for northern commanders throughout the war.

529. No other confederate officer

530. was mentioned favorably

531. as many times in Robert E. Lee's dispatches.

532. As John singleton Mosby.

533. There were no medals in the confederate army,

534. not one in the whole course of the war.

535. The confederate reason for that given was

536. that they were all heroes and it would not do

537. to single anyone out.

538. They were not all heroes.

539. But there was a suggestion made to Lee

540. that there be a roll of honor

541. for the army of northern Virginia,

542. and Lee disallowed it.

543. The highest honor you could get in the confederate army

544. was to be mentioned in dispatches,

545. and that was considered absolutely enough.

546. "March 5, 1863.

547. "The arm of the slaves

548. "is the best defense

549. "against the arm of the slave holder.

550. "Who would be free themselves

551. "must strike the blow.

552. "I urge you to fly to arms

553. "and smite with death

554. "the power that would bury the government

555. "and your Liberty

556. "in the same hopeless grave.

557. This is our golden opportunity."

558. Frederick Douglass."

559. "The colored population

560. "is the great available, and yet unavailed of, force

561. "for restoring the union.

562. "The bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers

563. "upon the banks of the Mississippi

564. "would end the rebellion at once,

565. "and who doubts that we can present that sight

566. "if we but take hold in earnest?

567. Abraham Lincoln."

568. The people most affected by the emancipation proclamation

569. obviously did not receive it as news

570. because they knew before Lincoln knew

571. that the war was about emancipation,

572. and moreover, they knew,

573. as perhaps Lincoln did without fully realizing it,

574. and certainly as many people today do not realize,

575. that the emancipation proclamation did nothing

576. to get them their freedom.

577. It said that they had a right

578. to go and put their bodies on the line

579. if they had the nerve to believe in it,

580. and many of them had the nerve to believe in it,

581. and many suffered for that.

582. To Lincoln, it was now clear

583. that harsher measures were needed

584. to destroy the confederacy.

585. He called for more troops,

586. and in February,

587. pushed a conscription act through congress.

588. The emancipation proclamation had already authorized

589. the arming of freed slaves.

590. "As to the politics of Washington,

591. "the most striking thing

592. "is the absence of personal loyalty to the president.

593. "It does not exist.

594. "He has no admirers, no enthusiastic supporters,

595. no one to bet on his head."

596. The fall elections had not gone well.

597. Fredericksburg only made matters worse.

598. And in Washington, talk of the disaster was everywhere.

599. "If there is a worse place than hell,"

600. Lincoln told a visitor, "I am in it."

601. The single most unpopular act of Lincoln's administration

602. was the emancipation proclamation.

603. It not only was horribly unpopular in the confederacy,

604. where Jefferson Davis called it

605. "the most wicked thing

606. that the dark side of humankind had ever come up with,"

607. but millions of northerners responded to it as well.

608. They did not really want the—

609. a great many northerners did not want the war

610. to be changed to a war over slave liberation.

611. Opposition to the war was spreading,

612. especially among democrats in the heartland—

613. Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana,

614. and the Southern half of Lincoln's own Illinois.

615. The proclamation ignited an antiwar movement

616. in the north.

617. All but 35 men of the 138th Illinois

618. deserted over emancipation,

619. declaring they would lie in the woods

620. until moss grew on their backs

621. rather than help free the slaves.

622. Groups with names like the knights of the golden circle

623. and sons of Liberty met in secret

624. and muttered of forcing an end to the war.

625. Their enemies called them copperheads,

626. and they wore on their lapels the head of Liberty,

627. snipped from a copper penny.

628. Their leader was congressman clement Vallandigham of Ohio.

629. Lincoln had him thrown in jail

630. and later banished to the confederacy.

631. "You have not conquered the south. You never will.

632. "War for the union was abandoned,

633. "war for the negro openly begun

634. "and with stronger battalions than before.

635. "With what success?

636. Let the dead at fredericksburg answer."

637. All of these things bore in on him,

638. plus the fact that the south had a strong army

639. and a good leadership and was—

640. but then he would pick up a Richmond newspaper,

641. and he'd say, "here's what they're saying

642. "about Jeff Davis... Down here.

643. You know, I don't look so bad."

644. Because the south had a free press, too.

645. And he realized, you know,

646. that Jeff was not doing any better than he was

647. as far as they were concerned.

648. Davis was walking down the street in Richmond one day,

649. and a confederate soldier,

650. who was in Richmond on furlough, passed him

651. and stopped him and said,

652. "sir, mister, be you Jefferson Davis?"

653. Davis said that he was.

654. The soldier said, "well, I thought so.

655. You look so much like a confederate postage stamp."

656. Jefferson Davis was trying to win a war

657. while forging a nation out of 11 states

658. suspicious of even the most trivial move

659. toward centralized government.

660. When Davis called for a day of national fasting,

661. the governor of Georgia ignored it,

662. then named a different fast day of his own.

663. "I entered into this revolution

664. "to contribute my might

665. "to sustain the rights of states

666. "and to prevent the consolidation of the government.

667. "And I am still a rebel, no matter who may be in power.

668. Governor Joseph brown of Georgia."

669. "the confederacy has been

670. "done to death by politicians.

671. Mary Chesnut."

672. "pardon me," a south carolinian

673. wrote his congressman,

674. "is the majority always drunk?"

675. Vice president Alexander Stephens

676. believed Davis weak and vacillating,

677. timid, petulant, peevish, obstinate.

678. Stephens left Richmond in 1862, rarely to return.

679. "I make no terms," Davis once said.

680. "I accept no compromise."

681. He refused to unbend in public

682. or to curry favor with the press.

683. Privately, he commuted nearly every death sentence

684. for desertion that reached his desk,

685. explaining that the poorest use of a soldier

686. was to shoot him.

687. He's often described as a bloodless pedant,

688. a man who filled all his time

689. with small-time paperwork and never anything else,

690. an icy-cold man who had no friendliness in him.

691. I found the opposite to be true

692. in all those respects.

693. Davis was an outgoing, friendly man,

694. a great family man—

695. loved his wife and children—

696. an infinite store of compassion.

697. Lee said it best—

698. he said, "I don't think anyone could name anyone

699. "who could have done a better job than Davis did.

700. "And I personally don't know of anyone

701. who could have done as good a job."

702. That's from Robert E. Lee,

703. which is pretty good authority.

704. Davis may well have been the only southerner

705. who understood Southern nationality,

706. who understood what sacrifices had to be made

707. if the confederacy was ever going to jell as a nation.

708. He kept saying, "I need the kind of powers that Lincoln got.

709. "I need the kind of resources that he got in the draft laws.

710. "I need to be able to suspend

711. the writ of habeas corpus like he did."

712. He would have said,

713. "we can't live by the dogmas of the quiet past any longer."

714. He didn't say that, but he acted that out.

715. He said, "I have to be given the kinds—

716. "this confederate government

717. "needs the kind of national authority—national power

718. that the union had in order to win."

719. And they didn't get it because the states' rights

720. helped kill the confederacy.

721. A single cake of soap now cost $1.10—

722. 1/10 of a soldier's monthly pay.

723. At the beginning of 1863,

724. a barrel of flour cost $70 in the south.

725. By year's end, it cost $250.

726. The confederate treasury cranked out millions of dollars

727. in notes unbacked by gold.

728. Southern printing was so primitive

729. that counterfeiters were sometimes caught

730. because their work was too good.

731. By 1862 and 1863, the south suffered

732. from terrible inflationary currency.

733. What was really at a premium was a union gold dollar.

734. So that the confederate people

735. could never get away from the union,

736. not even economically.

737. "If the confederacy is defeated,

738. "it will be by the people at home.

739. Atlanta Southern confederacy."

740. Thousands of women, infuriated by soaring prices,

741. stormed through downtown Richmond shops,

742. smashing windows and gathering up

743. armfuls of food and clothing.

744. Troops tried to stop them,

745. and Jefferson Davis himself came out,

746. throwing what money he had in his pockets to the crowd

747. and begging them to blame the Yankees,

748. not the government.

749. Then he warned the troops would open fire

750. if they did not disperse.

751. The women straggled home.

752. "Patriotic planters would willingly put

753. "their own flesh and blood into the army,

754. "but when they were asked for a negro,

755. "it was like drawing an eyetooth.

756. Senator Louis T. Wigfall, Texas."

757. Farmers were called upon

758. to contribute 1/10 of their produce,

759. and the confederate army was empowered

760. to impress male slaves as laborers,

761. provided a monthly fee was paid to their masters.

762. Planters moved their slaves inland,

763. away from the government and the fighting.

764. 150,000 slaves were marched all the way to Texas.

765. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, died along the way.

766. Man as Benjamin Franklin "Wartrace, Tennessee, June 10, 1863.

767. "I have just heard from Hilliard's legion.

768. "They're deserting every day.

769. "They say they don't get enough to eat.

770. "I have just bought me a testament.

771. "I gave $2.00 for it.

772. "Everything's high here.

773. Benjamin Franklin Jackson."

774. "I saw a sight today that made me feel mighty bad.

775. "I saw a man shot for deserting.

776. "There was 24 guns at him,

777. "and they shot him all to pieces.

778. "He went home, and they brought him back,

779. "and then he went home again, so they shot him for that.

780. Martha, it was one sight that I did hate to see."

781. By the end of the year,

782. 2/5 of the Southern army would be absent,

783. with or without leave.

784. Deserters sometimes banded together,

785. often fed and clothed by union sympathizers.

786. In north Carolina, the pro-union heroes of America

787. had over 10,000 members.

788. By the end of the war,

789. unionists from every confederate state except south Carolina

790. had sent regiments to the north.

791. In Jones county, Mississippi,

792. a guerrilla band ran off tax collectors, burned Bridges,

793. and ambushed confederate columns for 3 years.

794. Reporters called the region

795. the kingdom of Jones.

796. "How I wish you could hear the music

797. "of this encampment tonight.

798. "Just stand out in the open air a little while and listen.

799. "All seems happy, and all seems gay,

800. "but still, could you look into their hearts,

801. "you would see thoughts of the loved ones

802. "that they have left at home

803. "rise above their mirth and gaiety.

804. "Yet, they are contented, though not happy,

805. "contented to do their duty,

806. "contented to bear their part in this war,

807. and sing sad thoughts away."

808. "Dear Fanny,

809. "I don't know what we should have done

810. "without our band.

811. "It's acknowledged by everyone

812. "to be the best in the division.

813. "Every night about sundown,

814. "Gilmore gives us a splendid concert,

815. "playing selections from the operas

816. "and some very pretty marches,

817. quicksteps, waltzes, and the like."

818. Troops sang in camp

819. and on the way to battle.

820. Confederates favored "Dixie"

821. and "the Bonnie blue flag."

822. Union soldiers still preferred an old methodist tune.

823. Mostly, they liked sentimental songs.

824. "Just before the battle, mother,"

825. "the vacant chair,"all quiet along the Potomac,"

826. and "home sweet home."

827. In many camps, the men were forbidden to play a song called

828. "weeping, sad and lonely,"

829. officers considering it destructive of morale.

830. Both sides loved "lorena."

831. "April 14, 1863,

832. "Rappahannock river, Virginia, near Franklin's crossing.

833. "General Thomas J. Jackson came down to the riverbank today

834. "with a party of ladies and officers.

835. "We raised our hats to the party, and strange to say,

836. "the ladies waved their handkerchiefs in reply.

837. "General Jackson took his field glasses

838. "and coolly surveyed our party.

839. "We could have shot him with a revolver,

840. "but we have an agreement

841. "that neither side will fire,

842. "as it does no good and in fact, is simply murder.

843. Elisha hunt Rhodes."

844. "General, I have placed you

845. "at the head of the army of the Potomac.

846. "I have heard in such a way as to believe it

847. "of your recently saying that both the army and the government

848. "needed a dictator.

849. "Of course, it was not for this

850. "but in spite of this that I have given you the command.

851. "Only those generals who gain successes

852. "can set up as dictators.

853. "What I now ask of you is military success,

854. "and I will risk the dictatorship.

855. Abraham Lincoln."

856. Again Lincoln turned to a new general.

857. He replaced Burnside with Joseph hooker,

858. a tenacious west pointer called fighting Joe,

859. who drank and talked too much for his own good.

860. It was absolutely necessary, Lincoln told him,

861. to destroy Lee's army.

862. "My plans are perfect.

863. "May god have mercy on general Lee,

864. for I will have none."

865. Hooker's plans called for

866. one part of his enormous army

867. to feign an assault on Lee's front,

868. still at fredericksburg,

869. while the rest marched up the Rappahannock,

870. crossed the river,

871. and attacked Lee from the rear.

872. On April 30, hooker's main force—70,000 strong—

873. reached Chancellorsville—

874. a lone house in a clearing

875. surrounded by a thick forest called the wilderness.

876. Hooker and his officers moved in downstairs

877. and continued to map out the assault

878. they were sure would trap Lee.

879. "The enemy must either ingloriously fly

880. "or come out from behind his defenses

881. "and give us battle upon our own ground,

882. where certain destruction awaits him."

883. "The hen is the wisest of all the animal creation

884. "because she never cackles

885. until after the egg is laid."

886. But Robert E. Lee, outnumbered nearly two to one,

887. was not fooled by hooker's plan.

888. Defying all military convention,

889. he divided his own much smaller force,

890. leaving only 1/4 of his men at fredericksburg

891. before rushing west to shore up his flank.

892. When Lee's confederates reached the edge of the wilderness,

893. union troops moved out to engage them.

894. Fire!

895. But the fighting had hardly begun

896. when fighting Joe hooker inexplicably ordered his forces

897. back to defensive positions around the chancellor house.

898. "To tell the truth," he later tried to explain,

899. "I just lost confidence in Joe hooker."

900. Lee sensed hooker's confusion

901. and the next day divided his army a second time,

902. sending 28,000 men under stonewall Jackson

903. on an extraordinary 14-mile march

904. through the dense wilderness

905. and around the union's right flank.

906. Hooker somehow persuaded himself

907. that Jackson was actually retreating

908. and despite the skeletal rebel force

909. remaining in front of him,

910. chose to stay in camp.

911. All day long came reports from terrified union pickets

912. of a huge rebel force

913. moving just beyond the screen of trees to the west.

914. They were ignored.

915. Late that afternoon,

916. union troops were boiling coffee and playing cards

917. when deer came bounding out of the forest

918. and through their camp.

919. Jackson's army was right behind them.

920. "It was a perfect whirlwind of men," a survivor said.

921. "The enemy seemed to come from every direction."

922. The federals fell back nearly two miles

923. before darkness stopped the confederate sweep.

924. Chancellorsville, in many ways, is Lee's masterpiece.

925. It's where the odds were longest.

926. It's where he took the greatest risk

927. in dividing his army

928. in the presence of a superior enemy

929. and kept the pressure on.

930. The real fault at Chancellorsville

931. was the attack was staged so late in the day

932. that they were notable to push it

933. to the extent that Jackson had intended to.

934. And he was even attempting to make a night attack—

935. Avery rare thing in the civil war—

936. because he knew that he hadn't finished up

937. what he had started to begin.

938. Eager to fight on,

939. Jackson rode out between the lines that evening

940. to scout for a night attack.

941. When he turned back toward his men,

942. nervous confederate pickets opened fire.

943. Two of his aides fell dead.

944. Jackson was hit twice in the left arm.

945. His shattered arm was amputated the next morning.

946. Lee was horrified.

947. "He has lost his left arm," he said,

948. "but I have lost my right."

949. Hooker continued to bumble.

950. As he nervously watched the fighting

951. from the porch of the chancellor house,

952. a shell split the pillar he was leaning against

953. and knocked him senseless.

954. Groggy all day,

955. he refused to relinquish command.

956. Finally, he ordered retreat.

957. The defeat was total.

958. Again the union army withdrew across the Rappahannock.

959. Hooker had lost 17,000 men,

960. even more than at fredericksburg.

961. "My god, my god," said Lincoln when he got the news,

962. "what will the country say?"

963. Chancellorsville was Lee's most brilliant victory

964. and one of the costliest.

965. 13,000 of his men were dead or out of action,

966. but it was the loss of one man that concerned him most.

967. Stonewall Jackson seemed to be recuperating.

968. Then on Sunday, may 10,

969. he took a turn for the worse.

970. The scene is in a bedroom

971. in which he's coming in and out of consciousness.

972. Pneumonia's what he died of, not the loss of his arm.

973. And his wife got there to be with him,

974. and the surgeon, Dr. McGuire,

975. told Mrs. Jackson that her husband would die that day,

976. and she told him, said,

977. "the doctor says that you won't last the day out,"

978. and he said, "oh, no, my child. It's not that serious."

979. And then finally she said,

980. "you'll be with the lord this day,"

981. and he went off into some sort of sleepy delirium.

982. Pneumonia affects people in strange ways.

983. And he called the doctor over

984. and says, "Dr. McGuire, my wife tells me I'm gonna die today.

985. Is that true?"

986. And the doctor said, "yes, it is."

987. He said, "good. Very good.

988. I always wanted to die on a Sunday."

989. And when they offered him Brandy or morphine,

990. he said, "no. I want to keep my mind clear,"

991. and the last thing he said—it sort of—

992. he wandered in his mind.

993. He was calling on A.P. Hill, "prepare for action."

994. And then all of a sudden,

995. he was quiet, very quiet for a spell,

996. and he said in a clear, distinct voice,

997. "let us cross over the river

998. and rest under the shade of the trees,"

999. and then died.

1000. "The death of our pious, brave,

1001. "and noble general stonewall Jackson

1002. is a great blow to our cause."

1003. Winfield Scott.

1004. Henry Halleck.

1005. Irvin McDowell.

1006. George McClellan.

1007. John pope.

1008. George McClellan again.

1009. Ambrose Burnside.

1010. Joseph hooker.

1011. Lincoln could not find the general he needed.

1012. He now knew that to win the war,

1013. the Southern armies had to be crushed.

1014. He had the men,

1015. but he needed a general with the will to use them.

1016. "No general yet found can face the arithmetic,

1017. "but the end of the war will be at hand

1018. when he shall be discovered."

1019. "Vicksburg is the key.

1020. "The war can never be brought to a close

1021. until the key is in our pocket."

1022. "a long line of high, rugged, irregular bluffs

1023. "clearly cut against the sky,

1024. "crowned with Cannon, which peered ominously

1025. "from embrasures to the right and left

1026. "as far as the eye could see—

1027. that is Vicksburg."

1028. For 21/2 months, Ulysses S. Grant

1029. doggedly attempted to dig or hack or float his army

1030. through the tangled bayous and seize the town of Vicksburg.

1031. Nothing worked.

1032. The press accused him of sloth and stupidity,

1033. hinted he was drinking again.

1034. Finally, Grant decided on a daring plan.

1035. He would march downriver

1036. through the swamps on the western side,

1037. cross below Vicksburg,

1038. and without hope of resupply or reinforcement,

1039. come up from behind and attack the city.

1040. By early may, Grant had crossed the river.

1041. "When this was effected,

1042. "I felt a degree of relief

1043. "scarcely ever equaled since.

1044. "I was now in the enemy's country

1045. "with a river and the stronghold of Vicksburg

1046. "between me and my base of supply,

1047. "but I was on dry ground

1048. on the same side of the river with the enemy."

1049. The men knew they were cut loose from their base,

1050. knew they were going to be dependent for supplies

1051. on a very tenuous supply line,

1052. but Grant himself gave them confidence.

1053. They believed Grant knew what he was doing.

1054. And one great encouragement for their believing that

1055. was quite often on the march,

1056. whether at night or in the daytime,

1057. they'd be moving along a road or over a bridge

1058. and right beside the road would be Grant on his horse—

1059. a dust-covered man on a dust-covered horse,

1060. saying "move on, close up."

1061. So they felt very much

1062. that he personally was in charge of their movement,

1063. and it gave them an added confidence.

1064. In 3 weeks, Grant's army,

1065. cut off from all communication with the outside world,

1066. marched 180 miles,

1067. fought and won 5 battles

1068. at port Gibson...

1069. Raymond...

1070. Jackson...

1071. Champion's hill...

1072. And big black river...

1073. And finally surrounded Vicksburg itself,

1074. trapping 31,000 confederates.

1075. On may 19,

1076. Grant tried to take the town by direct assault

1077. but was beaten back.

1078. "May 19.

1079. "Thanks be to the great ruler of the universe.

1080. "Vicksburg is still safe.

1081. "The first great assault

1082. "has been most successfully repelled.

1083. "All my fears in reference to taking the place by storm

1084. "now vanished.

1085. "Reverend William Lovelace Foster,

1086. chaplain, 35th Mississippi volunteers."

1087. Grant settled in for a siege,

1088. resolved, he said, to "outcamp the enemy."

1089. "it is such folly for them

1090. "to waste their ammunition like that.

1091. "How can they ever take a town

1092. "that has such advantages for defense and protection as this?

1093. "We'll just burrow into these hills

1094. and let them batter away as hard as they please."

1095. On may 15, Jefferson Davis

1096. summoned general Lee to Richmond.

1097. Something had to be done about Grant.

1098. Davis wanted to send part of Lee's army

1099. to relieve Vicksburg.

1100. Lee was against it.

1101. He had a bolder plan.

1102. The army of northern Virginia

1103. should invade the north again,

1104. striking this time into Pennsylvania.

1105. Lee would attack Harrisburg and Philadelphia

1106. and force Grant north to defend Washington.

1107. With luck, Washington itself might fall.

1108. It might even force Lincoln to sue for peace

1109. and recognize the confederacy.

1110. Davis agreed.

1111. Everything now hung on Vicksburg in the west

1112. and Pennsylvania in the east.

1113. As Grant pressed his siege at Vicksburg,

1114. Lee moved north.

1115. Corporate funding for this special 25th

1116. anniversary presentation of the civil war was provided by.

1117. Before thousands fell on the battlefield,

1118. before millions were freed and before a country

1119. forged its identity... A nation declared a new

1120. birth of freedom, rededicating itself to the

1121. proposition that all men are created equal.

1122. Bank of America is proud to sponsor "the civil war,"

1123. a film by Ken burns,

1124. newly restored for it's 25th anniversary.

1125. Original production of "the civil war"

1126. was made possible by generous contributions

1127. from these funders.

1128. And by the corporation for public broadcasting.

1129. And by contributions to your PBS station from

1130. viewers like you, thank you.