Do you recall anything he said?

I mean...we are talking about the later 1800s. It wasn't THAT long ago. I was in rehab last year and got a book from their library called The Bride of Texas. It was a romance novel about Slavs serving the Union (under Sherman during his March up the coast and thru the Carolinas) in the Civil War after they left their home due to their war. Reading all this about guys like Sherman and Burnside...I became fascinated, and alot of the reason is that upon reading the dates, it became clear that this was relatively recent in regards to history. I know the country is divided right now, but it was amazing how both side were at each other's throats only about 150 years ago...things have changed drastically.

My father did as well

And we act like racism, bigotry and hate somehow went away after the war. And now we refuse to acknowledge the damage done. I wonder if the conscious is loud or absent in their minds.

@@braxtonmoore9246 sound like you are the racist! Just let it go and let us live like Americans! Not cxyyzz-Americans! Study hard, don’t break the law, and live life the best you can! Don’t show up in police blotters!

Incorrect. He actually was a genius up to this point. It was in summer of 1863 that he started getting cocky, arrogant, and believing in his own invincibility.

When compared to his contemporaries, he definitely passes muster. The difference is his side didn't have the population or industrial capacity to replace any losses, and his opponents possessed both, giving them the ability to learn from their mistakes rather than succumbing to them.

I haven't been there since a school trip back in the 90's

Same here! It's an amazing experience.

I only have an idea of what Gettysburg was because of the movie, "Gettysburg" which featured Jeff Daniels as Joshua Chamberlain.

Ll

Gettysburg is a bigger battle field than most people think. I've been there a few times. Very nice town and land.

Yes, please Simon, let’s promote all the failures of the Confederate state!

The History Guy did a great episode on the Confederate attempts to take Colorado and New Mexico. And the utter failure that it was. Including the thoughts by the Confederate general in charge that the New Mexicans would rise up in revolt and back the Confederacy... spoiler... they didn't. As a matter of fact. The residents of New Mexico all but slammed doors in the faces of the Confederate soldiers.

@@ag7898 I've seen that one and always love the History Guy's content. There's a great book called "The Three Cornered War" that goes into the New Mexico campaign and my favorite fact from it is that when Sibley got permission to invade New Mexico the Confederate government was like "go for it, but we don't have money or weapons to give you" so Sibley had to buy most of the firearms in Texas and a bunch of the men went off to fight with shotguns and high end sporting rifles.

The Channel "Civil War: Wild West Edition" has some GREAT stuff on that for you!

There are much more interesting war stories than that.

This battle demonstrates the importance of Cavalry and Field Artillery in modern war. COL (CSA) Alexander's inability to meet Lee's commander's intent for fire support determined the outcome. Porter Alexander knew he did not have the ammunition to both win the counterfire battle against the Union Artillery and to shape the battle. It was a shame Alexander was not able to convince Lee he could not meet his intent. If (Union Cavalry BG) J.N.O. Buford had shaped the battlefield by his economy of force operation on the first day, Alexander's inability to meet his commander's intent for fire support.

@@johnminehan1148 Cannon were far less effective in an offensive role during the Civil War than they were in the Napoleonic Wars. Even the exploding shells (when they worked) of the former had less effect than grapeshot in the latter- which was often used to batter infantry formations from 300 yards, which was outside smoothbore musket range but inside rifled musket range. By 3 July, Lee had to attack or abandon the campaign in failure. The AoNV was foraging and couldn't remain in any one area for more than 3-5 days. They couldn't forage in the immediate presence of enemy forces and they hadn't foraged since Lee's concentration order of 29 June. The clock was ticking at Vicksburg (lifting the siege of which was the strategic objective of the campaign), and Lee lacked the time to carry out Longstreet's suggestion of an envelopment- which was unlikely to draw the AotP into attacking anyway, since the Confederates had already been saddled with the tactical initiative by attacking on 1 July. Lee's idea of attacking the Union center was in line with the Napoleonic concept of the "strategic battle"- in this case, of attacking one flank of the opposing army and then the other in an effort to draw forces from the center. Meade however, understood this as well. He told Gibbon that if the Confederates attacked on 3 July, it would be on Gibbon's front (in the Union center). The attack didn't fail for lack of artillery support. It failed because: 1) the Confederates had to cross approximately a mile of open ground and took heavy casualties, so that only a few hundred men reached the Union line, and; 2) Meade saw the attack coming, so that approximately 20,000 Union reinforcements began to converge on the Confederates. Lee's decision to attack on both 2 and 3 July was sound. It was his decisions prior to the battle which ruined the campaign. Cheers...

@@manilajohn0182 No his decision to attack on the 3rd wasn't sound. He should have just called the whole thing off and taken the minor loss. A minor loss didn't devastate the Confederacy at Antietam, and it wouldn't have done so at Gettysburg, certainly not in comparison to what crushing defeat he suffered did. The idea that throwing away more than 6,000 lives is a better alternative to just conceding defeat is kind of baffling, especially in an army where every man was irreplacable.

@@TheStapleGunKid Lee's decision to attack was sound because his only other alternative was to abandon the campaign in failure. The primary reason for Lee's movement north was to achieve a great enough success to lift the siege of Vicksburg. Abandoning the campaign in failure would have been a strategic disaster, and not a minor loss. Without a doubt, the assault had a poor chance of success- and the reason why Lee was in such a position on 3 July was because of multiple errors made by him prior to the onset of the campaign and during the march north to Gettysburg. Having said that, he couldn't simply about face, march back to Virginia, give up the campaign because two wing attacks had failed, and write off Vicksburg.

@@manilajohn0182 Abandoning the campaign would have been the more sound choice than ordering an attack with virtually no chance of success. Vicksburg fell the following day, so nothing that happened at Gettysburg would have made any difference. Even if Lee had been able to magically delete the army of the Potomac from existence, that would not have saved Vicksburg. The only thing Lee had control over on July 3 was the ability to save his army, which he could have done realizing it was time to call off the campaign and get back to Virginia with his army mostly intact, as he had done at Antietam.

I went once in 8th grade and REALLY want to go back.

Arguably, the American Civil War was THE prequel to World War I. Because while Americans were brutally killing each other with brand new weaponry, and updated tactics, Europe was quietly sitting on the sidelines, and taking notes. Notes that would finally see implementation in 1914, and would result in the deaths of millions of Europeans!

@@jacob4920 They didn't take very good notes then because they still believed that massed men and charges at the enemy were the way to win a battle and a war. They were very wrong.

@@michaelb1761 In the end, you have to win the counterfire fight and then suppress the enemy defenses.

If the bean counters hadn't resisted adoption of the Spencer rifle so adamantly, there's no telling how it may have turned out.

​@@jacob4920There was a gap of almost 50 years between the end of the American Civil War and the start of WWI. During that period machine-guns, rifles with magazines holding a dozen rounds or more, vastly improved artillery and mortars, aerial reconnaissance and attack were all developed. The nature of warfare was totally changed and cavalry became irrelevant. There was nothing for the European combatants to learn from the American Civil War.

It probably doesn't get as much attention as the French occupation because of how short it was, and the fact that American occupation came with as much good as it did bad. American occupation of Haiti may have brought unrest within the elite and a pair of revolts, but it also came with massive improvements in infrastructure and a revamping of the educational system. It also came with the added effect of shattering the hold Germany had on Haiti at the time. While the American occupation did come with its fair share of horrors, it is also directly responsible for helping establish Haitian independence.

Ken Burns is a national treasure

The problem with that series is that Ken Burns relies too much on Shelby Foote, a journalist whose works have been dismissed as Lost Cause propaganda, and largely ignored actual historians

Also, in a similar vein of "how can it possibly get worse?" 73 Easting would be a fun one to hear Simon talk about, if only for the couple of instances where a lightly-armoured scout vehicle happened to cross between a tank and its target and nobody noticed the holes through both sides of it until afterward.

I don’t get the big deal about the Light Brigade; literally MOST of the brigade survived. It’s made to sound like a massacre to the man; there have been COUNTLESS battles where a brigade took far higher casualties. 🤷🏼‍♂️

@@CorePathway That so many of them made it back when the intent was to cut down a retreating enemy and were instead sent into 50 active artillery pieces and their supporting infantry is the impressive thing. Less than a third of the horses made it back, though.

I believe he did already

In other words, a victory would have been absolutely Pyrrhic, and, that's, seriously, putting it mildly.

Lee knew Vicksburg was under siege, but instead of reinforcing it he decided to invade Pennsylvania. Overall, not the smartest choice.

@nobody special Absolutely, an, indescribable, error.

@@nobodyspecial4702 Because Lee was too focused on his precious Virginia, instead of realizing the type of war that he was fighting. The Confederacy needed to pick their battles VERY carefully, and needed to give up on the knockout punch they kept going for.

​@Domesthenes Precisely, it's absolutely horrendous-devastating.

Shiloh tends to overshadow everything else that happened in Tennessee.

Poor Cleburne

@@als3022 He once said that if the cause for which he had fought, so, hard, was lost, he'd prefer to die, he got his wish, were he in charge, rather, than, John Bell Hood, things would have, possibly, been less of a massacre.

@@unbroken7189 Nathan Bedford Forrest, was, probably, the most hated general in the entire Civil War, he was, "A, Sadist, With, A, Rank," caused, The, Fort Pillow Massacre, and, later, helped found the KKK.

Cold Harbor!

I had a Patton cousin in my squad as a Corporal at VMI in 1981 . . . . He wound up a Commander in the Navy . . . .

Especially if you walked it.

It is such a big battlefield , its a walk

It's mindblowing how could Lee even consider such a thing after seeing what happened at Fredericksburg earlier..

@@michalpavlat3943 From the *Confederate* side of the battlefield, the terrain looks do-able for a charge with even minimal covering fire. From the Union side, however, the terrain is *clearly* suicide ground, where a charge from the Southern positions could *only* succeed if the Union defenders were completely shattered and disorganized.

Lee was not thinking right about that charge!

I think Meade is a severely under appreciated general. In addition to everything you said, Meade was also under orders to keep his army between Washington and Lee. He also had to rebuild the army because the majority of his officers had been killed at Gettysburg. By the time Meade was ready to move on Lee, Lee was waiting for him and wanted Meade to attack him. Meade saw this and didn’t take the bait.

@@xTheGamingGhostx he was the best they had till grant came in. but as exhuasted his men were the confederaes were so a pursuit could have still worked.

Hear-hear! "Gettysburg" is one of only FIVE war movies ever made that I actually personally own! The other four all have something to do with World War II. But "Gettysburg" was so well done that I actually deviated from my obsession for the sake of it. I've never had occasion to regret it.

Longstreet not being able to talk but just motion to order the attack is heartbreaking

It is tragic only if you support the racist Confederacy. It is a bit like saying that it was tragic that the 6th Army was lost when it attacked Stalingrad. Well, only if you supported the racist Nazis.

@@minsapint8007 Hate to break it to you but the USA was just as racist as the Confederacy ay least by todays standards

@@minsapint8007 many abolitionists fought for the racist Confederacy and plenty of racists fought for the Union who thought Lincoln would deport black people to Liberia.

"Find me a tourniquet, before I bleed to death!!" lol

thats really interesting ^_^

Not an unreasonable assumption.

Get to the battlefield if you can. Walk the route of Pickett’s Charge. See Little Round Top, Devil’s Den, Culp’s Hill, etc. Walk around the historic town itself. It’s truly moving. I live exactly 4 hours away and go at least twice a year. Once you go, you’ll never be the same.

Lee had two regiments of cavalry at his command while Stuart was off playing games. He chose to not use them, which isn't doing anything to support that claim that he was a brilliant general. He allowed the Union to take the best defensive position, with the shortest lines of communication and reinforcement and had no clue that he was outnumbered. Little Round Top made for a great movie moment, but the 12000 Union soldiers within a mile of it who were never put into combat guaranteed that even if it was taken, the South would never be able to keep it. Same for Culp's Hill. There were plenty of Union soldiers which could have been sent to reinforce or retake any position if it was deemed necessary, but part of the issue was that communication had to be done face to face, so situations that were dire weren't known until afterwards and unit commanders had some leeway to act on their own without always waiting for the overall commanders to find out what was happening. That Stuart was allowed to go glory hunting while deep in enemy territory was irresponsible on his part, and also on Lee for giving him that freedom of command.

@@nobodyspecial4702 you are right about the calvary, it always seemed odd to me that in the absence of Stuart, Lee did not utilise his other mounted regiments to provide the screen and the situational reports which he so badly needed. I can only think that he trusted Stuart so much and put so much faith in him, he was prepared to keep waiting and waiting until he returned, By the time he did, it was too late to significantly impact the battle. Also, in keeping with my assertion that the whole battle should never have happened, there is also the matter that if Henry Heth`s boys had followed Lees order and not brought on a general engagement by going after Bufords dismounted calvary, then there was a very good chance the battle itself would not have taken place at Gettysburg. Meade himself favoured an engagement further south but when battle was brought on he was prepared to take Hancocks on the spot advice and committ his forces. Lee was clearly always up for a fight, but after failing finish off the Unioin forces on the first day, his chances of a Rebel victory decreased expidentially in each of the subsequent days for the reasons you give.

@@lefin3730 Lee had no faith in the militia cavalry to perform even basic scouting, so he never bothered to have them do any. He chose to march deep into enemy territory blind.

@Griffin Anderson I have a story about my great great grandfather that was told to me. He was a farmer in Tennessee and joined the confederate army. He, like most confederate soldiers, was no slave owner, he joined because the Yankees were coming. So the story goes he fought at Antietam. The carnage and death was so bad, that after the battle he packed his gear and went back to his farm. He figured if the Yankees wanted come down, he’d find room for them. Must of been horrific.

Grant at Cold Harbor?

I have been there as well quite memorable.

I have too and yes they they had no chance

the terrain have unfotunally changed a lot, thanks to it being used for military training, ink with tanks in the early 20th century. It is simply more level today than back then. The csa infantry line where only visible for about half the march across. Going down into depression where they would be in cover, then up over a raise taking missive artillery fire, and then down again.

Bingo. There were several occasions, far earlier than Gettysburg, where the North stood a good chance of ending the war, but various generals (most notably McClellan) were overly cautious and squandered opportunities that were practically gift-wrapped for them.

Meade was demoted by Lincoln after the battle. No follow up?

@marknewton6984 Meade was never demoted, he remained Commander of Potomic for the rest of war. His role simply deminished in importance when Grant became Commander of all US forces. Lincoln was very upset at Meade at the time for not pursuing Lee, which was actually pretty unfair when Meade was under strict orders to defend DC and Baltimore. He expected Meade to break orders to gamble on an attack that could have ended the war but also could have easily ended in disaster and fall of DC.

Lee didn't lead the charge, Pickett did.

Heard it's typical of virginians to name offensives after the most senior Virginian officer present...

considering Picket's division was practically detoryed I think it's to honor them

I live in Harrisburg, about 30 miles from there and have been many times. You're right: it is a solemn place.

I've only been there once, and while it is a solemn place, the town is absolutely lovely.

No, you cannot, Gettysburg demoralized, The, South, and, killed many soldiers, Vicksburg turned the victory of, The, North, from, likelihood, to, certainty.

The Union victory at Vicksburg might well have never happened if Bedford Forrest had been properly used. An earlier move against Vicksburg by Grant had failed due to the disruptions caused to Union communications and supplies by Confederate cavalry. This forced the Union forces to retreat. The same thing could have happened again had the South used the same tactics.

@@julianmarsh1378 He was far too busy venting his racist frustrations to be an effective leader, while, most of the generals were honorable men that fought for an evil cause, he was a monster that would later start the KKK following the Civil War.

@@matthewdaley746 Both Lee and Jefferson Davis said after the war that one mistake they made was in not better utilizing Bedford....and at one point in his frustration, a famous Union general said, "I don't care if it cost 10,000 men and bankrupts the Treasury; I want Forest dead!" Not the sort of comment one makes of an ineffective leader, yes? And while he played a significant role in starting the KKK he also later called for its disbandment and later urged Southern whites and blacks to learn to live together....

@@julianmarsh1378 Nathan Bedford Forrest, also, was, responsible, for, The, Fort Pillow Massacre, and, took his hatred of the enemy too far, repentance was commendable, but, it only makes one wonder what he could have done had he stayed out of his own way, alas, unknowable, he was ineffective in the sense that he treated war as a campaign of annihilation, which led to his defeat.

There was a running joke, amongst Union soldiers, that Confederate Artillery "always overshot their targets." The Union Army, especially under US Grant's command, took advantage of this bad habit. Clearly, it was one of the reasons the South ultimately crumbled under Grant's ceaseless assaults on Virginia.

To your points, while True they did have elevation screws to make up for this however. At Fredricksburg 7 monthe earlier the Confederate Artillery was devastating. The fact was artillery at the time was not accurate or heavy enough to support infantry over a mile away. Closer in and 600 meters or so they remained the "King of Battle".

Great book. Wish I'd written it!

Vicksburg turned, The, North's, victory from, "if," to, "when," actually amazing that the war, somehow, lasted nearly two more years.

There was never really an "if" as one source put it "The Union fought the war essentially with one hand behind it's back." Lee knew what Japan would eventually know in WWII, that a protracted war would end in defeat as the Union/Americans held a massive advantage in both industrial capacity and sheer manpower, meaning only a massive blow that turned the soft tempered civilian population again the war could win.

@@Rammstein0963. Vicksburg was the decisive blow, that, The, South, shall, not, recover from, The, North, may, not, have won immediately, but, once, The, North, did this, it became evident that they would win eventually, period.

The, North, probably, was winning it, before Vicksburg, after, it was, simply, a question of when.

@@matthewdaley746 The North was in a superior position from the very beginning, if only from a logistics basis. But, the South *could* have pulled it off in muchbthe same way the United States won the Revolution - by making it too costly (in both blood and treasure) for the people.of the Northern states to be willing to continue. Vicksburg made the situation logistically so much worse for the South as to make Union victory inevitable, and Gettysburg not only was huge victory in terms of the effect on each side's civilian morale, by effectively slamming the door on any possibility of foreign support (even if only pressure to lift the coastal blockades) made that inevitable Union victory much swifter. Had Lee succeeded at Gettysburg, even if only to pull off a tactical, operational, and strategic draw that could be spun to the respective civilian and political populations as a Southern victory, it was entirely possible for the South to feasibly pull off a *political* settlement that left the CSA intact and recognized - which would have been a complete victory for the South (and was, in fact, the entirety of Southern war aims from the very beginning - after all, they wanted to be separated from the Northern states, not conquer them). Even a stalemate at Gettysburg could have been the Confederscy's Tet... a military failure that nonetheless was perceived as major victory that ultimately helped win the war by convincing the more powerful party the war was "unwinnable".

@@geodkyt Possibly, but, his disastrous failure, at Gettysburg, combined, with, the crushing victory of, The, North, at Vicksburg, meant that this, simply, could no longer come to pass, things were finished, the final blow would be Abraham Lincoln's reelection in 1864.

@@geodkyt The problem was that Bobby was too aggressive and didn't understand the value of a defensive game. LC folks like to call Grant a butcher, but Bobby suffered more casualties than Grant did, and had less to show for it. The casualties from Gettysburg would have been so damaging that Lee would not have been able to besiege, much less take, Washington. He would have attempted to do so, anyway, I think, and such a move would have led to inevitable failure and retreat, which would have given the Union a HUGE morale boost--in addition to the refreshing news that Grant had taken Vicksburg, thus splitting the Confederacy in two and leaving Bobby and his men isolated and with little to no supplies. Union papers would hail it as a miracle, as proof that God was on their side. I'm sounding too much like I'm summarizing that alternate history trilogy, aren't I?

@@pyromania1018 Worse, The, North, could replace its losses, The, South, could, not, which meant that even a disastrous massacre at Cold Harbor was far more of, A, PR, Disaster, than an actual military turning point.

When Pickett was asked by a reporter why the Confederacy lost at Gettysburg, he replied "I've always believed the Yankees had something to do with it."

Why wouldn't he be though? He had already scored several wins against a larger, better equipped force. His confidence wasn't the problem. It was the fact that he chose to engage in open battle, rather than using the hit-and-run guerrilla tactics that had been so efficient. General Lee was so good that he is still studied at West Point to this day. He wouldn't be used as an example for our modern military officers if he was an inept fool.

@@SkunkApe407 Lee said he was overconfident

@@dangreene3895 sure, but that doesn't mean it was the reason. His confidence was based upon past victories. He had every reason to be that confident. That isn't to say that his confidence didn't lead to bad decisions, but any military leader knows that you have to have absolute confidence in any decision you make. Those decisions involve countless lives and the shaping of nations. They are not the kind of thing to be tossed about, on a whim. Even bad decisions start with the best of intent.

@@SkunkApe407 I said that did you not see Chancellorsville where his army was out number about two to one , and he won , that had happened about three months before , lee was overconfident that cost him , he thought his army could attack and beat a larger entrenched army , ie Overconfident , I am not throwing around anything , I am stating a fact about a battle, I am not talking about the cause and effect of the Civil War

@Dan Beech that's a blatant lie. There were several Confederate units made up of black volunteers. Not every black person in the Antebellum South was a slave, and some of them actually wanted to preserve tgeir way of life. The truth of the American Civil War is far more nuanced than many people realize.

Somehow, I get the feeling its reputation is completely different, were the sides reversed.

No question, the war was, essentially, over, at that point, The, North, had needed to cut, The, South, in two, and, that's exactly what they did, final victory, was, now, indisputably, just a matter of time.

Been a long time since I've seen someone post "Desert Storm" my generation refers to it as the First Gulf War, or the First Iraq War.

Me and my brother and friends would play that level on player vs player. It would be 2 or 3 Zurg vs 1 Terran. It was bliss! Miss those fun and simpler times!

The last stand of the tin can sailor is a fantastic book about taffy 3 during the battle off Samar.

When (among other amazing things) a destroyer escort armed with two 5" guns beat up a heavy cruiser.

The other part is that nearly all of Lee's great victories were as a defending general, where he had the advantages of knowing the ground and his objective effectively just being to repel the attacking force. Its on the Confederate's attacking campaigns that you really see that they had no strategic idea of how to actually win the war, chasing around and engaging Union forces for no real strategic benefit, which is no way to fight a war from the inferior position.

It's no coincidence that it all went South with Lee after Jackson died

For the disaster the charge was, it almost worked. There were a lot of things that had to go right for the Union to win this battle. The best battle plans can lose. The reality is the fierceness of the fighting this battle could have gone either way.