Be sure to check out the other parts about the American Civil War: PART 1: ruclips.net/video/bYaYCltLsdk/видео.html& PART 2: ruclips.net/video/GiW_supSSOk/видео.html& PART 3: ruclips.net/video/t56cwRxBtG8/видео.html&
1860, he wrote, “All the Congresses on earth can’t make the n word anything else than what he is; he must be subject to the white man, or he must amalgamate or be destroyed. Two such races cannot live in harmony save as master and slave.” - Union General Sherman
At the onset of the war, the overall Union commander, Gen. Winfield Scott laid out the Anaconda Plan. That plan was to impose a naval blockade hold fast in northern Virginia and put the emphasis on the west, taking the Mississippi River (including New Orleans), then advancing through Georgia and back up to Virginia, in effect squeezing the Confederates like a giant anaconda. Basically this plan worked very well, the Confederate victories in northern Virginia were meaningless. The two most important Union victories of the war may well have been the capture of New Orleans and Shiloh.
Will disagree on New Orleans but agree to a point on Shiloh. Vicksburg likely would not have happened if Grant was defeated at Shiloh because the victory at Shiloh opened the taking of Cornth and then later movement of the Union Army south along the Mississippi River.
Yep. People too often ignore how closely the result followed Scott's ideas. If it had not been for McClellan the war would have been considerably shorter
@@andrewfournier8817 - McLellan trained he Army of he Potomac into a fighting force with competent Administrative support. Without McLellan the Union would have struggled to defend itself in the early years. As a battlefield commander McLellan left a lot to be desired, but his logistical support was invaluable. It took a Meade, Grant, Sheridan, Sherman etc to know how to use the Army effectively.
Agree that the capture of NO was the most damning. Shiloh was meaningless as Halleck squandered the advantage in Northern Mississippi. He was "promoted" out of harm's way😉 My favorite line of all time, "I was worse scared than I was at Shiloh."
I think Vicksburg, and then Sherman's 1864 campaigns to Atlanta, capturing Atlanta, and marching to the sea had much more to do with a Union victory than Gettysburg. All Gettysburg did was end Lee's second advance into Union territory. Vicksburg and Atlanta were vital for destroying supply lines and causing shortages in the Confederate armies which prevented them from being as effective.
Gettysburg ended any hopes of the South ending the war on their own terms. It made it a war of attrition instead of a war of winning large, pompous battlefield victories. And it ultimately shattered the myth of Lee...
@@monorail4252 he burned it on his way out... after capturing it. And it wasn't malicious... just military necessity. Atlanta was a major railroad hub. Destroying the rail lines and infrastructure around those lines was the key to preventing supplies from going north to the Army of Northern Virginia. Marching to Savannah (and destroying/claiming crops along the way) achieved a similar goal... along with encouraging Confederate soldiers to desert and go home to take care of their families.
Vicksburg is one of the most amazing Civil War battle sites I've ever been too. Standing on the bluffs that overlook the Mississippi, one can understand just how massive a fortress it was. I took a man with a massive degree of patience to take this and Grant was truly the man for the task. He didn't know how to back off.
@@antman6707 the thing was, it wasn’t that simple for his predecessors. They’d take a hit and retreat and eventually get replaced. Had McClennan pushed the offensive on the peninsula or at Antietam, Lee would have been done. Had Hooker subordinates not been so inept or if he had opted to attack more atChancellorsville would have been very different. Even Burnside had defeated himself before Fredericksburg. Grant took a hit and kept going - after the battle of the wilderness, which was a defeat his men cheered as he turned them south to pursue Lee. Even after cold harbor, where he lost more men than Lee at Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, he kept going.
You failed to mention that Abaraham Lincoln’s threat in outrage to execute a Confederate soldier for every Union prisoner who had been executed, black or white, was never carried out, though the Confederate generals executed hundreds of black prisoners. Thousands of Union prisoners died in prison camps through neglect and maltreatment. Most notably, Andersonville where 13,000, more than one quarter of those imprisoned there died. No such loss of life occured in Union prisons. The massacre of Lawence, KS men and boys was an act of desperation, not retaliation for Lincoln’s unenforced edict while many civilians were murdered in border states mostly by irregular Confederate sympathizers especially in Missouri and Kansas.
Camp Douglas, near Chicago, was known for its brutal conditions and had a high mortality rate, particularly in winter months. The POW camp at Elmira, NY had a mortality rate of 25%, slightly less than Andersonville's 29%. Nobody on either side had ever dealt with incarcerating men by the thousands, nor did they have a good understanding of proper sanitation in such circustances. Overcrowding, bad food, filthy conditions were common to all POW facilities during the war. What made Andersonville different was that the horrors were there for the public to see because there were photographers following in the wake of the Union armies.
@@joeandreatti1976 Exactly ... that is a very narrow list of selective memory that ignores a thousand other things happening during the war . The Total War doctrine against civilians was carried out by the same people in regular Union forces that would later turn their swords against native Americans and wipe out the buffalo in the process ...😏
@@user-to9ge8ii9n Take your pick of what you consider worse ... the list is endless . The most pertinent point is irregular raiders forces from the South didn't hold a candle to what the regular Union forces would do to civilians on a far larger scale . If what happened after the War bugs you ... take it up with Grant , Sheridan and Sherman 🙄
@@drmasroberts propaganda, your presentation is inadequate, suiting youself. Lincoln pardoned many deserters, saying it was a poor use of a Soldier. Not rapists, if you committed rape, you were hanged. He had private reasons for doing so. How many Black Soldiers were hanged for rape?
The Rich who cause problems are hard to get at while the powerless are easy prey. Same reason immigrants and minorities are targeted by Trump supporters and Republicans today.
@@anthonyrowland9072 “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson
Just to add one small element of human scale to the narrative: I'm 72, and one of my great-grandfathers marched into Vicksburg under U.S. Grant in the 17th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He survived and 20 years later named his firstborn son, my maternal grandfather, Grant.
I am related to Julia's family. I am her great great nephew. The poems Grant wrote Julia are wonderful. My father was obsessed with Grant. Grant knew total war. He was an amazing general.
@@BoogerBear1982 Indeed he was. One might say Lincoln is on the $5 bill and Grant is on the $50, making him an order of magnitude more valuable even than Honest Abe. The beautiful irony for me is that I'm also a native-born Virginian and currently live about a mile distant from the grave sites of both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. I don't generally reveal my familial connection to General Grant to my current neighbors, however. 🙃
@@marshallmkerr so you are related to Grants side? That’s funny because I am related to Julia. I hope you have a great day someone who are related through in laws!
@@BoogerBear1982 Thanks and back at you. I am related not by blood, but only because that great-great-grandfather served in the whole Western Campaign and marched into Vicksburg with USG on 4 July 1863. In that sense the relationship is perhaps indeed of blood - but not genetic by blood.
Sherman's March and the taking of Atlanta was very pivotal too, especially from a psychological perspective. The capture of Atlanta went a long way toward convincing the North that the war was being won. If the North had elected McClellan instead of LIncoln in 1864, he would have sued for peace with the South. In short, Mac would have snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory.
@@brucewelty7684 hmmmmm, i see what you did there... let's try that again. Slavers and those who fought for them were traitors. Once Democrats, their modern spiritual successors infiltrated and destroyed the Republican party from within. Now Republicans are traitors today. How interesting reality is!
He was good at that. And brucewelty7684 you need to actually read a history book now and then. At that time Democrats were the conservative party. So you're half right. Conservatives are still traitors.
Yeah, it's hard for a country to continue fighting when all of the infrastructure has been burned and civilians are getting their land stolen, and worse. Gotta wonder what the world would look like.
Logistics wins wars. Lee was primarily an engineer in the Old Army, while Grant served as an infantry captain, a quartermaster, and even organized a military hospital during a cholera outbreak.
Right, logistics wins wars. Gen Robert Lee was an engineering officer in the War With Mexico. Organization also wins wars. Gen George McClellan was the best Union general. He reorganized the broken Union armies after the Peninsula battles. McClellan foresaw Lee moving north, and stopped his army at the Battle of Antietam. Lee planned to move north around Washington to Baltimore. Baltimore was the main port for Washington, its own docks to small to supply itself. Lack of logistical support would eventually cause Washington to surrender a siege.
@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN McClellan was the best union general... as long as you kept him far away from field command. The Union effectively WON the Seven Days at Malvern Hill... and McClellan decided to withdraw in the face of Lee's broken army. Then he won again at Antietam... and did absolutely nothing, letting Lee's beaten army spend two days crossing the river to escape completely unmolested. And a siege of Washington is pure wishful thinking. In the time it'd require to achieve anything, the North could use the rail network to gather an entire fresh army right in the rear of the besiegers, trap them between said army and the defenses and then decisively annihilate them. Lees entire expedition north was a complete and utter misplay, with no relaistic chance of achieving anything of note, let alone anything worth risking his army like that.
@@magni5648 Lee thought McClellan was the most challenging adversary he faced in the War. McClellan was very popular with his men and they thought he could run the War better than Lincoln. There was even talk of McClellan marching on Washington and removing Lincoln, but McClellan was very against it. Lincoln started rumors that McClellan was too slow and over cautious to prevent him replacing him as leader of the country. Lincoln said McClellan should have not let Lee withdraw after Antietam even though is was the bloodiest day of all the War and McClellan's senior officers were new to their positions and to each other. Many people still believe this political propaganda now. Yet Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation in the wake of the Union victory at Antietam knowing the Confederates were blocked from coming to the North. Many historians believe McClellan saved the Union. Taking Washington was a real fear, that's why it was then the most fortified city in the world. Virginia is a short walk and Washington is surrounded by the slave state of Maryland. Maybe the Federals could have broken the siege, but they would need to take Arlington Virginia, too.
@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN “McClellan was the best Union general” “Many historians believe he saved the Union” Bro. No. Stop it. Get help. I’m an actual historian of the Civil War and literally no one has ever said either of those things.
The CSA was like the Japanese military of WW2 in that they could not make up losses in man or material, where if the Union lost a battle, they could come back and fight another day. For example, Gettysburg was the Confederate version of the Battle of Midway in terms of irreplaceable losses.
@@blockmasterscott Japanese were not good strategists, failed to take Hawaii. Japan took the Pacific outnumbered 6 to 1. I don't need half-baked analogies to understand American history. Your family farm was not burned to the ground by Sheridan.
@@kennethtyree4770 I wonder who you are mad at. Is it Sheridan? Lincoln? Lee? The guy who burned down your ancestral home? The poor dead soldiers on both sides? etc........
@@kennethtyree4770the Japanese are still good strategist but being them not prioritizing Logistics hurts their troops more than battle casualties and why you are angry and whining like a kid
@@jadeorbigoso5212 no, they were not. All Japanese plans were extremely overcomplicated that if one part failed the whole strategy collapsed. They really only brute forced their way to initial victories, either through technology (against other Asian countries) or by overwhelming numbers...
I’d compare the situation more to Germany than Japan. The south having limited resources needed a fast war, and when the war became long and drawn out, it was only a matter of time.
Free Black men were already allowed to join the Navy for some reason, but not the Army, before the war. This is how Frederick Douglass escaped slavery. He got ahold of a Navy uniform and then simply bought a ticket to Philadelphia from Baltimore. Presumably, the railroad ticket sellers and conductors had seen black sailors before and didn't question him.
Frederick Bailey chose the name Douglas because he liked the character Douglas from Sir Walter Scott´ s Lady of the Lake. When the slave catchers came looking for Frederick Bailey, he declared that he was Frederick Douglas. Years later, he returned to Maryland and had to financially compensate the man who had called him Frederick's slave owner.
My history teacher in 1998 told us about this. He said it was because naturally they struggle to swim successfully unlike white sailors so the racist systematic institutions dismissed black sailors as doomed to drown & not a threat to upsetting proper society.
In the film "Chatos Land" Jack Palance as a former TX Brigade Capt says it best "They had more... more men, more guns, more food, more luck. You know, when I look back at it, I know now that it was there for the seeing in '63... except we didn't see it."
The south advantage was they fight on their land, meaning they knew the battlefield better and their men were more motivated than the invading northerners, and defense posture needed fewer men and resources. The south disadvantage was they fight on their land, meaning that the war destructions were suffered by southern people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@gorilladisco9108 Knowing the land better didn't help much as Sherman was marching thru the south, nor did it help while Grant was attacking Jackson, then Vicksburg
@@scotttracy9333 It a matter of human resources. The north had as much as three (or four?) times more population than the south. The south advantage of fighting at home can be seen by the northerners higher total casualties of 1.5 times that of southerners. However, as one southerner population is a third that of northerner, only able to inflict 1.5 northerner casualties for each southerner casualties wouldn't cut it. It became a war of attrition by the north, where the south exhausted their available bodies first. And of course, Sherman march through the south was an example of the disadvantage of fighting at home. Southerner's home front was devastated by the war while the northerner's home was intact.
@@gorilladisco9108 the Rebel advantage was not fighting at home, but fighting mostly on the defense. Attacking a fortified defensive position requires, generally, a 3 to 1 advantage in troops.
@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN Have Lee stay in the south of the line, the war would be a quagmire to the northerner and Lincoln would lose 1864 election. But Lee time and time again left the terrain his men knew well and crossing the Potomac in the hope of brought the war to an early conclusion. That drained the southerner's man power faster than the northerner's.
For the record, anybody who claims, with an attempt of sounding romantic, that the South only lost because they were THAT outnumbered, outgunned and relatively behind in industry is not only wrong. It makes the whole civil war come off not as a noble ideological resistance on part of the confederacy, but rather, if we take that statement as fact, as a stupid rebellion that never had a chance of succeeding, fought for a truly despicable cause that had nothing noble about it, that dragged literally hundreds of thousands of people to their death with negative repercussions still felt to this day, and thus overall has NOTHING worthy of admiring or respecting. It is only worthy of learning about as a dark point in history that must not be forgotten, so that we may never make the same mistake again, nor ever give them the benefit of the doubt. Sadly, too many people have failed to get the message.
I love how A lot of these comments are saying it’s not about slavery but their way of life. I’m from Vicksburg and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that it was. Their way of life and economic development and growth depended on slavery the moment that was taken away it collapsed and just like the federal government did and still does came to there rescue by pumping in US tax dollars. Hell people in Vicksburg still drive around with cotton tags on the front of their cars along with confederate flags let’s not forget the giant Cotten stickers that say Old South on their rear windows. As yourself this if the confederate would have would where would America be where would Black Americans be today. America would not exist as we know it. I’m an Army Veteran and so many people say thank you for your service but fly confederate flags on their vehicles and homes. How can you be patriotic to the United States but be a traitor by flying the confederate flag? Beats me with that being said never let anyone tell you it wasn’t about slavery my ancestors were slaves right here in the same city I live in, my grandparents work on a share cropper farm picking cotton, they were also forced to walk on different side walks from white Americans and had to go to different schools and drink from different water fountains never forget. If you don’t believe me visit Vicksburg it’s a great place, it also has the historic National Military Park that goes over the campaign and battles of Vicksburg. One final thing white Americans in Vicksburg did not celebrate the 4th of July for 81 years! But yet a lot of people claim to be proud Americans citizens who just so happen to despise and hate black americans, and also fly the confederate flag. Don’t forget to do your research. 😊
It's pretty rich, isn't it? It's like they don't understand that slavery WAS their way of life. They seem to think Lincoln invaded the south to shut down all the Waffle Houses or ban sweet tea and NASCAR or something.
"Why didn't the CSA just win key battles?" To quote General George Pickett, a Confed General, "I believe the Yankees had something to do with it." 😂 ((Yes, he really said that, according to historians.)) 😂
And any two major battles at roughly the flipping point from confederate attack to purely defense would now be seen as pivotal... as it's a convenient marker, regardless where or when.
@@RBAILEY57 True...but the two parts were barely in communication with one another anyway. The trickle of materiel crossing the river was paltry; the more important aspect was reestablishing Union commerce on the river and the economic boon for states like Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Back then Virginia was more developed than most of the South. And you don't get a quick end to the war fighting along the Mississippi river, you get it defeating the Union Army in front of DC.
You know what was also a colossal blunder? Trying to defend the institution of slavery in the first place. Without southern politicians staking their political careers on this issue, there wouldn't have been any war at all. They tried to market it as a "states rights" issue to trick moderate voters and citizens into supporting them, which worked to some extent, and many people still believe this bullshit today.
What beyond stupid is how people thought the south was really ever winning the war after 1861. Once the Union army got organized and started pushing southward, all of the armies either struggled or outright lost over and over again. Save one - Lee’s army. The South was really losing that war before Vicksburg and Gettysburg.
And yet all they had to do was make the war expensive enough that the north would vote Lincoln out of office. Despite the losses of '61 and '62, that was still very possible. Lee won some battles, but he also made some very foolish mistakes that cost his army tens of thousands of needless casualties. Just 10,000 of those men would have made a war-winning difference at Chickamauga.
@@greenkoopa And how do you propose they would have crossed the Potomac River? And while they were reordering, what would the Federal army have been doing? Reordering, perhaps? They had lots of other chances, but they blew all of those too.
@@aaronfleming9426 McClellan foresaw Lee moving north, and stopped his army at the Battle of Antietam. Lee planned to move north around Washington to Baltimore. Baltimore was the main port for Washington, its own docks to small to supply itself. Lack of logistical support would eventually cause Washington to surrender a siege. Not a sure thing, but if McClellan had not reorganized the Union Peninsula army and blocked Lee in 1862 from moving through Maryland, Washington could have fallen.
A teacher of mine had an iconic photograph of Vicksburg taken by Matthew Brady after the city fell, displayed on his wall. It showed ruins with craters everywhere and many dead and dying civilians. The Photograph made my stomach turn when I first looked at it. I can only imagine how people during the Civil War felt.
The war was lost when the British got the news that Lee had retreated after the Battle of Sharpsburg. The South needed a victory to confirm the British belief that Southern independence was inevitable. When they saw it wasn't, they decided to sit it out.
The brits couldn't have joined or supplied the confederacy. Mainly because of Lincoln. In many of Lincoln writings he threatens to cut grains supply to britan
@@jaybee9269again I guess I think the war was fought for slavery. Not so. The northern man would never have fought to free the slaves. They where just as racist as anyone in the south an the north had already hanged John brown
Gonna have to disagree with you, guys, and for the following reasons: 1. Scott's Anaconda Plan was the absolute Federal Basic Plan for victory. It was the equivalent of War Two's 'Germany First' strategy. 2. Vicksburg would have been nothing had not New Orleans been neutralized. Yes, it was the 'Gibraltar of the Mississippi' but the Federals had to have BOTH Vickburg AND New Orleans. Either one was useless by themselves. 3. Gettyburg did see the best of the infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia wasted, that's very true. But Bobby Lee still had a Hell of a lot of fight left in him, as the Wilderness Campaign proved. 4. The inherent weakness of the Confederacy's constitution was a key defining element of their eventual defeat. The petty backbiting of each Confederate State and the idea that the Governors of each state somehow ought to have any part of the military decisions of the nation as a whole led to an excessive waste of effort. An example: As Confederate troops evacuated Richmond, they burned entire warehouses of uniforms while the troops doing the burning were wearing rags they'd spent the previous winter in. Why? Because the uniforms they burned were North Carolina uniforms and the Governor of that state demanded that only North Carolina troops would wear them and the men from Virginia or Georgia could freeze to death for all NC governor cared.
Ok so, was it a country or an alliance of small countries with an allied war government? That's something that didn't make sense then and still doesn't. Your last point helps illustrate mine
@@greenkoopa The Confederacy was a little bit of both, to be completely honest. Each Confederate State viewed itself as 'sovereign' within its own boundaries and it literally took a year [1861-62] for the various governors to agree to cede authority of command of 'their' troops to the Confederate War Department. This does not mean that the Confederates' opinion about the reach and control of the Federal government didn't have its merits, as we see in current American politics. The issue of the reach of powers wasn't solved in the Civil War and it's still being finagled to this day.
New Orleans fell very quickly, so it basically didn't matter. It didn't matter how much fight Lee had; every single fight brought him closer to destruction even when he "won." Lincoln understood that from the beginning, which is why he loved Grant so much.
@@jdotoz My point about New Orleans and Vicksburg was that these to ports controlled the South's access to Texas and the 'far' West. Cutting that source of supply was vital. And here's the thing... If Cornfed forces in Texas could have gotten their act together, there was a fair chance they could have retaken New Orleans in 61 and 62. Grant's siege of Vicksburg diverted those troops. Like I say, the South had to have both ports for either of them to be effective. As for Lee after Gettysburg, had Sherman not been so successful in his March on Georgia [and he was **damned** lucky three or four times in that campaign], the Eastern campaigns could have held on a year or more longer. The whole point of Sherman's March wasn't to defeat armies, it was to deny Lee three entire states worth of supplies.
"Part of the Battlefield would shortly be turned into a national cemetary for fallen Union soldiers. Slain Confederates were not so lucky" "Such is the fate of ALL traitors!" -Primarch of the Dark Angels, First Legion of the Imperium, Lion El'Johnson
Those Union soldiers who fought the Rebels didn't think of them as traitors after the war. They looked at them as fellow countrymen. You are a delusional lefty who judges the past based on how people think today rather than how they thought back then.
Were they traitors? Is the UK a traitor for leaving the European Union (if it actually happens)? Not too long BEFORE the Civil War, several Northern states thought that THEY had a right to secede... and considered it.
Gettysburg is not as consequential as people think it is. If the confederates won they would’ve had such depleted forces that they would have been defeated at DC. Antietam is much more pivotal
Agree, major because of casualties but it really accomplished nothing. Id actually even argue the Seven Days was more decisive than Gettysburg. (For the South) combined with 2nd Manassas this to me was the high point of the South. Then I'd put Donelson, New Orleans, Vicksburg and Atlanta at the top (for the North.)
@@Jbird1988 I would add Shiloh to the list. That is where the partnership of US Grant and William Sherman really came together. It is also where Grant's Union Army of the Tennessee really came into being since that army was the core of the Western Union that would march all the way to North Carolina before the war ended. Finally, Shiloh taught Grant that the war would be long and hard.
@@Jbird1988 A pretty knowledgable comment. I notice that your last 4 Union victories were all in the West. Indeed, one could argue the war was won by the Western Union armies. Grant eventually defeated Lee, but almost lost the election for Lincoln because of the horrific casualties resulting in stalemate in front of Petersburg in 1864, for which the election of Democratic McClellan would have won the war for the South.
@@johnfleet235 The partnership of Grant and Sherman was an albatross around Grant's neck. If he'd formed a similar partnership with a competent general like George Thomas, the war would have been over a year earlier with tens of thousand less casualties.
Just a quick note that Henry Heth's surname is an alternative spelling of Heath so it is pronounced with a long E sound. He was born in Black Heath Virginia and was descended from the Heaths of England who established the first coal mines in North America around Midlothian, VA (named for the coal towns of East and West Lothian in Scotland). He claimed his troops marched into Gettysburg because of a shoe factory they were hoping to requisition after a long march...hence the most significant battle in American history took place due to poor footwear.
In no way did I want the South to prevail, but it was sickening how Robert E. Lee threw away his forces once he finally had numerical superiority. He simply threw all cleverness out the window, probably exhausted with having to work so damn hard with his previous battles where he was outnumbered and had to play it so clever. And as many point out, the South didn't have the resources to prevail, and it's pretty much that the North could afford to lose battle after battle but the South couldn't afford to lose any battles.
Well I'd imagine you'd get the effect of "am I trying too much? Man I just have more troops, I pull off basic manuevers and don't need to try this time"
A similar thing happened to Napoleon. During the Revolutionary Wars and first half of the Napoleonic War he excelled in commanding smaller armies and making every encounter count. In the later half though, when his armies were numbering over half a million, even his Marshalls starting noticing that Napoleon was getting lazy with his tactics because he had larger armies that were harder to control in an age before radios. It basically boiled down to, “I have more men, so charge that position and try not to die.”
Not only is this great content but the map work is incredible if you look closely you will see the town I grew up in around 6:32 Warrenton VA that is some crazy detail work good job Knowledgia!
A brain dead statement if i ever seen it What does it even mean other then "they lost"? Tactics are used in the field by people who are uninvolved in the strategy part and vice versa
@@TheGahtabasically the confederate generals where stuck in the napoleonic era and most of the battles they won accomplished very little in the greater war and wasted manpower while the union where adapting to changing times
@@TheGahta Correct and they did not pay attention to the strategic part, thus they lost. Tactics are what you use to complete a strategy, with out a solid strategy their tactical victories meant nothing. The south would win in an empty field and lose all of their ports while doing so.
It looks like someone dropped DC right on top of Annapolis, MD. And where DC should be, it looks like it was part of the Confederacy in Virginia but just barely.
No mention was made to the raid by Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson, the Grierson raid, during Grants Vicksburg campaign. A bold raid that caused a lot of confusion to the confederates.
@@paulrasmussen8953 Yes, actually. There was no way he could fully commit to the war without congressional or popular support - that's how it works here in America. Congress coulda told him to make peace, push it through to law, and he would've been powerless to stop it if the Supreme Court backed it. Protests were common, but so was support. The Union army didn't explode in numbers due to the draft alone.
Wow, it’s amazing all the history in my hometown of Fredericksburg. I went to Chancellor High School, and the road Chancellor High is on intersects with Salem Church Rd. The whole area has so much Civil War history
So many criticisms of Lee's decision to "take the war to the North" in spring, 1863, but he was taking a gamble (as he often did) because he HAD to. He (and Jefferson Davis, et. al.) were thinking that, just as the U.S. needed (not wanted, needed) French help to win the Revolutionary War, the Confederacy needed a major European power to help it if they hoped to win. The most likely candidate was Britain because of the trade ties involving cotton and other crops. Lee's gamble was that, like the victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, a victory that threatened Washington D.C. would encourage the British to give them the aid (naval, esp., but financial and military) they needed to force the Union into negotiations. This time the risk failed -- but it was a huge gamble because the Union had better resources and had finally begun to develop better military leadership than they'd had at the start of the war.
they could had just as easily wear the North down with war fatigue, but instead Lee just had to go North to look for that elusive decisive battle....... and got himself whopped handily. Also the Confederates pretty much shot themsleves in the foot with King Cotton diplomacy, turns out trying to blackmail others into helping you does not make for a lot of friends.
@@vehx9316 I agree with the second point: Confederate diplomatic efforts were maladroit at best, ham-handed at worst. As to Lee's decision, I think it was forced on him, i.e., he HAD to make that gamble, as I noted earlier. After two full years of defeats on southern soil Lincoln had (amazingly) maintained his and the Union's resolve to keep fighting, so staying in Virginia to wear out the Union was not a real option, esp. as Union draftees, money, and production were really dwarfing the Confederacy's. The South NEEDED Britain's help, and a big victory on northern soil was the only way they could get it. Again, the analogy is to Saratoga and France in the Revolutionary War. I think Lee much preferred staying in Virginia, but circumstances forced his hand. Btw, he made critical mistakes in the northern campaign (aided by Jeb Stuart's bone-headed mistakes), so my argument is not meant to lionize Lee.
@@richardcanedo1614 It was not a matter of how determined Lincoln was to stay in the war, but whether the North had the stomach to continue it. 1864 Lincoln was pretty close to defeat, but the lost of Atlanta changed that, and the Confederacy would not had lost Atlanta had they still had the manpower that they didn't squander at Gettysburg.
@@paulrasmussen8953 Agreed, esp. once the naval blockade really took hold. (Which is why, once again, the South desperately needed Britain, and its navy, to enter the war as their ally.)
Lee's refusal to contribute troops to aid Vicksburg as well as the delusional focus on risky offensives into Union territory without any realistic chance of strategic gains led to the fall of Vicksburg and later, Lee's myopic obsession with his home state would lead to the collapse of other fronts. Lee's ridiculous attempts to utilize his army in sweeping Napoleonic maneuver battles bled the Army of Northern Virginia white while Joseph E. Johnston's much more viable concept of strategic retreat, opportunistic battle and trading space for time were ignored to the detriment of the entire Confederacy.
The South never had an overall commander-in-chief or even an overall strategy. It was a confederacy, and quarreling between the southern states hampered the war effort throughout its existence.
@@scotttracy9333 with Sherman's lines of supply, communication and reinforcement being badly overstretched. Sherman's own scorched earth policy would have worked against him even more here as he had to leave large contingents all along his route to secure it, weakening his main army. Had Johnston been allowed to continue his strategic retreat he and Sherman would have reached Atlanta with roughly equivalent force granting a sizeable advantage to Johnston with the defensive works, interior lines, shorter lines of communication and logistics. In short, Sherman would not have been able to encircle or besiege Atlanta successfully and then would have had to fight and retreat along the scorched earth path he'd made all on Johnston's terms. Johnston's strategy would have at minimum resulted in Sherman being defeated and retreating in disgrace and at maximum resulted in the complete annihilation of Sherman's army as a fighting force with no significant risk to either Atlanta or Johnston's army. Instead Davis subscribed to your view and replaced Johnston with Hood for aggressive attack, which destroyed half of Hood's Army and lost Atlanta.
When Lee finally did release Longstreet to help Bragg at Chickamauga, Bragg nearly destroyed the Army of the Cumberland. I shudder to ponder the possibilities if Lee hadn't squandered so many tens of thousands of troops at Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg...if he'd had another 10,000 to send to Bragg, it would have been game over.
Lee couldn't get troops to relieve Vicksburg. Rosencran had Middle Tennessee locked up and Lee would have had to send troops to face at least two other armies to relieve Pemberton at Vicksburg. As for Gettysburg, while it wouldn't gain military necessary gains, it would have won a major PR victory for the South and against the North that was growing weary of war. Johnston's strategy was unrealistic because it focused on fighting the way Washington did against his British counterparts. The problem with that logic is Johnston's enemy wasn't thousands of miles away and resupply wouldn't take months to arrive. His enemy was literally on his front porch and could resupply within days.
He has a great quote about the Mexican-American War. Saying (sum and substance) that he was greatly ashamed of his Nation that what we did to the Mexicans and the unjust war we caused was disgusting in his view that the Civil War was their punishment for fighting such a needless war and stealing their land and killing their innocent. He said we had no claim past the Colorado river I believe it was yet we took 1/3 their land.
They lost Fort Henry and Donaldson which led to the fall of Nashville and loss of control to the Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. Then Vicksburg falls and the South loses full control of the Mississippi and split in half!
They lost the war when they lost western Tennessee in 1862. Eastern Tennessee was pro-Union. Tennessee was a big food source and transportation hub. The South could never recover from that lost.
Being from Rochester NY the rushed reinforcement of Little Round Top is big in local history. The 140th New York, Col. Patrick O'Rorke KIA, was part of the 2nd wave of Union troops to hold it (20th Maine, Joshua Chamberlain, is best known from the 1st wave)
The South lost because the north had many more people, and their industrialized economy allowed them more modern weapons and ships. It was just a matter of time and numbers. Slavery was already illegal and unpopular in almost all of Europe. There was no chance the South was ever going to win. Even if the North had lost every battle, eventually the South would have run out of men and resources. But people in the South like to believe that they almost won. That's why it seems like they lost the war in two battles.
As a matter of fact, the war was becoming extremely unpopular in the north as casualties mounted and the national debt exploded while the dollar sank in value and taxes went up. By July of 1864, Lincoln was certain he was going to lose the election unless Sherman finally captured Atlanta. You've correctly identified the North's advantages, but you've failed to note the south's advantages; and you're forgetting the human and economic and political cost of every Union defeat. It's not hard to imagine the rebels doing some things differently and coming up with a different outcome.
@@aaronfleming9426 Ngl south should prepared some industry before the war since debate over secession was becoming popular YEARS before so CSA had a long deadline. Either way as an Australian it is sad that the south lost idk why but I like them.
I live in N.C and nobody talks about the battle of Fort Fisher. I grew up in the Charleston area of S.C. and still didn't hear about this battle until I moved here in 09. This was an amphibious landing that preceded D-Day. Some people around my neck of the woods feel this was the battle that ended it for the south.
50,000 soldiers died in Gettysburg in 2 days. It took 10 years of fighting in Vietnam to reach a similar count. D-Day and the entire western campaign against Hitler was a joke compared to the carnage at Gettysburg. Damn!! If anybody wants a second civil war I’d advise against it!!
Nobody wants it, but everybody, for some strange reason, EXPECTS it. Which is funny, because if you look at the big picture, the United States is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the conditions expected to trigger a Civil War in the first place! Literally nothing is going on that's fundamentally dividing this country, like Slavery was the first time around. It's all just hyperbole and hysteria, that's being relentlessly driven by the politics-addicted media.
Gettysburg was lost due to poor intelligence, bad decision making, and lack of communication. The Union had the high ground and had time to fortify it. Lee would have been wise to listen to Longstreet and skirt the enemy, thereby threatening Washington DC. This would have forced the Union off the high ground and given the Confederates a level playing field for the battle.
Meade would simply have moved to the position he initially envisioned at Pipe Creek. Still blocking the way to Washington and in advantageous terrain comparable to what he had at Gettysburg.
You can't threaten Washington with the Army of the Potomac at your back. That just ends with you being pinned in place between the fortificaitons and garrisson of the cpaital and said Army of the Potomac, and your army subsequently getting wiped out. Lee's whole expedition was a fool's errand from the moment he crossed the border into the North.
It didn't help that, if I remember reading correctly a long time ago. The artillery barrage on day 3 completely missed a lot of it's targets. The massive barrage that took place before the battle at Cemetery Ridge was aimed too high and overshot The Union defenses. The wind was blowing back towards the Union lines so all of the smoke from the explosions blew back over the Union lines making it impossible for the gunners to correctly recalculate their cannons,so they basically had to wing it. When the Confederates started their march towards the ridge, they were basically marching into a line of men that had suffered zero damage and as the wind blew away the smoke, had clear lines of sight on the approaching enemy who still had a long way to go to reach them. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. But at one point the Confederates ALMOST broke through the lines. What might have been, if those cannons had hit home and the Union line had been weakened before the charge? As I said it's been a long time since I read up on all of this so I may be misremembering.
@@macmcgee5116 Interesting details. But I think even if the artillery had been effective, it was still Lee's turn to make Burnside's Fredericksburg mistake.
@@CookieMendoza it may or may not have changed things. No way to know for sure. Either way it was an uphill battle for the Confederacy. Litterally and figuratively. It's just one of those WHAT IF scenarios that is interesting to explore sometimes.
13:43 is there something wrong with the map? You said Buford was the first to engage Confederate forces, but on your map Buford is holding the Eastern side or the Union formation, and is unengaged
Don't insult Pompey Magnus. He had 3 triumphs (2 of which were deserved to be fair) he took back Spain against Quintus Sertorius, crushed Mithridates winning the 3rd Mithridatic War which would see the end of Pontus and what was left of the Seleucid Empire along with the subjugation of Armenia. To say he was as overrated as trash ass Lee is insane.
Yeah it's his fault a one of the generals under him charged the union Line when he was told to hold his position also his fault when he wasn't even at Vicksburg. Boy just stfu you're not intelligent enough to critically think
It was the war in the West that lost the Confederates the war,and the two battles that did it were at Forts Henry and Donaldson. These opened the highway rivers that geographically ran south, deep into the Confederacy. It made possible the battles of Shiloh, Nashville, and yes Vicksburg.
We only fought in the south after we was invaded. The act of succession was not a declaration of war we was still trying to compromise without blood shed. Abe didn't want to free the slaves this act was because he needs soldiers
Well the fact that The United States was created by “traitors” less than a century before. I imagine that they compared the two situations before making final judgement. That’s why is best not to judge people of the past through the lens of today.
The Emancipation Proclaimation was the best Lincoln could do under the existing Constitution. If slaves were property, then they could be "liberated" from their rebellious owners. It was a genious move and it certainly made clear why the Confederacy existed for all those foreign nations who were considering recognizing same. As for the timing of the Proclamation, politics dictated that it must be announced immediately after a major Union victory; anything else would make it seem like desperation rather than a heartfelt moral stance.
correct, Seward advised Lincoln that it would be like a "last shriek on the retreat" if the EP was issued without a victory to back it up. Lincoln also have to balance keeping the loyal slave states on the union side with emancipating the slaves. A blanket abolition would had send the loyal slave states rebelling. Now THIS IS NOT, I repeat, NOT Lincoln accepting slavery as a fact of life in the US. His position during the 1863 was still in line with the one in 1861, that slavery was not to EXPAND to new states, but he has no issue with it existing where it has been establish.
@@vehx9316 Even better, it meant that the US would assure the freedom of ex-slaves from liberated lands held by the Confederacy as of the date of the Proclamation. All that was needed to free those in the Union was a Constitutional Amendment. As for Lincoln's personal position on slavery, he'd stated that on the stump -- that our Nation cannot exist both half free and half slave -- it must become all of one or all of the other. It had (correctly) become all slave as a result of Dred Scott, but the South snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by going to war against the United States of America. Now Lincoln turned that position on its ear with the Proclamation, for he had found a way to subvert the pro-slavery rulings of the Taney Court within the lands held by the Confederacy, if nowhere else. To me, there is no doubt that Lincoln would have signed the legislation for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
The key battle in the east was arguably Antetiam. While being an incredible tactical draw on behalf of the ANV, it was a strategic defeat that shifted the geopolitical landscape
If Lee had retreated without fighting a battle, he would have had a wildly successful raid into Maryland to cap a summer of dominance. He captured a garrison of 12,000 Union soldiers, with the loss of less than 200 of his own...then stayed to fight a battle in which he could accomplish nothing of strategic value.
Vicksburg was a key engagement, a siege where the South lost control of the Mississippi. What Northern city was placed under a lengthy siege killing and starving civilians? Gettysburg was an immoral, flawed and poorly planned invasion of the North. Lee's idea or did Davis authorize it? Both sides were naive with poor leadership. As Shelby Foote remarked, the North fought that war with one arm tied behind it's back. The South never had a chance at independence. Slavery would have ended with or without war. The cost in terms of humanity and prosperity were enormous. Greed and fear rules.
"The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time... That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity." - Georgia Declaration of Secession, January 19, 1861
What I find strange about all this is only about 10% of the people in the south actually owned slaves, yet the other 90% of the population were willing to risk their lives for that principal. Strange
@@samkohen4589 Because in their subconsious those White (old) Supermacists used to regard the Black falks as sub---human, if any!... They couldn't withstand seeing them treated as them, as equal human beings... That's why, even after the horrible war, they remained persecuting the newly freed Afro-Americans and treating them EXTREMELY badly!... Don't you remember the Jim Crow laws? The bloody massacres of Blacks on voting days? The KKK? The poor Afro-American needed to wait more than a whole century until, at last, they gained the recognition that they were, really, equal HUMAN BEINGS! 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
@@samkohen4589 30% of southerner *households* owned slaves; many others rented slaves occasionally, or benefitted economically from the slave trade in some other way. Besides that, there was a nearly universal paranoia about race war and/or miscegenation, so even people who didn't own slaves saw the slave system as a defense against those horrors.
@samkohen4589 Racial supremacy and racial politics played a huge part. The poorest white farmer, will always know that he's better than all but the most well cared for slave. Then the idea of freeing them is even worse because not only are these former slaves now see as equals in the eyes of the law but they can potentially get to an equal or better station in life. Then, of course, the belief that once the slaves were free it would spark a race war of vengence from the freed slave population against their former Slavers and other white people.
@@samkohen4589 The wealthy drive the media, and hence the narrative. You can be convinced to fight for that which is antithetical to you. Why do Black people support a Party which is happy that a Black child is 3x more likely to be aborted than a white child? It doesn't amaze me, but does sadden me. Why are the Irish also massively in that Party? The answer is in the New York media of the time, which portrayed freed Blacks as competitors for the low rung jobs the Irish of that time occupied.
The Industrial Revolution and the emerging "New world" needed to get rid of the old system (slavery) and needed to build a new empire. It is fascinating how, in less than 100 years happened so many major events. - the French revolution - the American Revolution - the Industrial Revolution - the Napoleonic wars - the Louisiana purchase - the American Civil War - the Crimean war - the Alaska purchase All the events are interconnected ;)
The reason is material and people supremacy North over South. Second, south controlrd too much territory which couldn't cover. Third, big empires didn't want to help South. Even it was blocked, they could do through Mexico.
(I might be misunderstanding what you meant) Nah, they couldn't go through Mexico. France took the opportunity while the US was distracted with the Civil War to invade Mexico.
@@keziahdelaney8174 because they wanted to intervene on the southerners side to weaken the United States. When Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation it made the war about freeing the slaves. Britain had a massive anti slavery movement so that stopped them.
@@keziahdelaney8174It likely wouldn't have been a good look in the international stage. If a European country, especially if industrialized was still supporting slavery. Automated systems vs. Forced hand-working objects. One obviously beats the other greatly.
@@keziahdelaney8174 European populations did not support slavery, although the aristocratic European governments were no friend to the North. But basically, the Europeans did not want to firmly take sides unless it was obvious the South would win. While the South could win 2 big battles in a row, they could not win 3 - those third battles being Antietam and Gettysburg. After Gettysburg it just was not obvious the South would win. The South could have still won by Lincoln not winning reelection in November 1864, but the Fall of Atlanta, Mobile, and clearing out the Shennadoah Valley in 1864 got Lincoln reelected and sealed the South's fate.
Winning Battles != Winning a War. Something the US has sadly forgotten. The problem was the Confederacy was *never* going to win a military war, despite Lee's dreams of marching through Baltimore or Washington. Both northern invasions wasted troops the Confederacy simply could not afford to lose. They also stretched themselves too thin trying to hold *everything*, leading to numerically superior Union armies eventually just wearing down the Confederates, especially once they passive Union generals (finally) got replaced. But at the end of the day, the Confederates simply ran out of manpower to replenish their armies.
I would add the Battle Puebla between the Mexican army and France during the American Civil War. If the French won the battle, Napoleon III could have circumvented the union blockade, and give the confederates supplies and funds in exchange for cotton and tobacco.
I never fact checked this. In my history class in college the professor told us that once the civil war ended the US sent aid and weapons to Mexico to help kick the French out. I never looked it up bc I want it to be true
The whole purpose of the French in Mexico was to attack the Union along with the British to open up 2 New Fronts. This was very well know to the Union and Mexico at the time
Not true, the battle of Puebla, a battle the Mexicans won in a war they lost(and became the reason for Cinco de Mayo). Napoleon was in favor of Napoleon 's interest, not the CSA's interests.
Very well done. Hopefully you will take this as the compliment it was meant as. I have been a CW buff since I was 7 or 8. I am now 76. I am not an expert but know a great deal as I estimate that I have read 600 or more books on the subject. Only 2 minor quibbles. The Union nVicksburg cavalry man was Ben Grierson not Gierson. Also Stonewall hit Hooker's tright flank not his left.
I would argue the war was over in the first 6 months because it stopped the Confederacy from expanding. I would argue that general Lyons won it in the very first battle in MO. The taking on New Orleans stopped the Miss from being an open river.
Looking at the comments and seeing people bashing Lee for his generalship is weird to me you can argue about his character and if he is a traitor to your country or not but this man is damn good. I’m not American so I don’t have a dice to throws in this game, but the man is outnumbered at least 2 to 1 in most of his battle and still come out victorious in most of them, it’s pretty amazing, he is not perfect of course like his failure at Gettysburg and his grasp of strategy can be all over the place sometime, but overall he is a good general, just like Grant he is human, both made mistakes both have strength and weaknesses.
As an American, the problem here is that, for many, there is a ‘St. Robert of Lee’ problem with the narrative of the Civil War. It can lead to parroting some of the ‘lost cause’ story that the Southerners and their political supporters used to justify their behavior after the war. It obscures the reasons why the war was fought and allows for the losing side of the war to believe itself morally, culturally, and generally superior to those who won. Lee’s loss at Gettysburg was damning to his reputation as it showed a lack of strategic vision and how reliant he was on luck and poor Northern generalship. Part of the Southern ‘lost cause’ myth requires that Lee had to be superior, so looking at his career critically is important.
Lee was good on defense. On offense, he failed hard. He also refused to support any other force besides his own, resulting in the loss of Vicksburg most notably. Instead of breaking the siege there, he decided to invade Pennsylvania. Only in his wildest dreams would his army have been capable of defeating the larger Union army and still have enough men and materiel to assault Washington, the single most heavily defended city on the continent, yet that was his plan.
Hi, just wanted to correct one thing: Lee LOST most of his battles. His first command was in West Virginia, where he divided his army in 7(!) pieces, got half of them lost and the rest sank in the mud; his second command was defending the coast, under his watch Burnside crushed Confederate privateering, seized New Bern, wiped out the Confederate defense fleet, etc.; at his first 'victory' at the Seven Days Lee lost 20000 men to the Union's 10,000. A large part of the vitriol you see him receive is a reaction to the literal generations of Lee-woeshipping propaganda we have been subjected to.
@@jochannon Is that so? Well, it’s good that his reputation is being scrutinized again, just like other generals throughout history. However, it’s important not to shift from analyzing his actual shortcomings as a general into blind partisanship, where his achievements are dismissed. I’ve recently started reading about the American Civil War, and from what I’ve seen especially when comparing it to Vietnamese history, General Lee was often outnumbered in many of his battles. Honestly, even generals from the Tran dynasty of Vietnam didn’t face such odds in literally every battle. I’m not even counting the supplies and logistics problem that he have to face. From my understanding, the Seven Days Battles drove McClellan off the Peninsula, right? That’s a victory. But your point still stands, he’s not perfect. In my opinion, Lee did well considering the odds he faced. I just have a problem when a general like Lee is not consider a good general when obviously he is, and that goes for the south too, some of the book I read about how Sherman March to the sea is cruel and evil confuse me.
@@phantomkelvink4225 Lee actually lost the Seven Days. It's a pretty hollow victory when the only claim to it is that your enemy didn't realize he beat you and left.
The funny thing is those two battles didn't actually lose the war for the Confederacy. In mid 1864 with Grant besieging Lee in Petersburg/Richmond, and Sherman making slow progress towards Atlanta; Lincoln actually said he was going to lose reelection if something didn't change. Thankfully Sherman captured Atlanta in September. If Lincoln losses, the new government almost certainly makes peace with the Confederacy, and they win their independence.
In my maturity I’ve come to the conclusion that the Democrat McClellan would not have made peace; he would have reluctantly continued to prosecute the war. He wasn’t a bad dude at heart despite his airs. The man repudiated his own party’s platform, after all!
@@jaybee9269 Possible, but from what I read unlikely. I feel like he would to anything to spite Lincoln, and on top of that I think that was what he "wanted".
The best chance the South had was to fight a guerrilla campaign right from the start. Much like the colonists did during the Revolutionary War. The South never had the manpower or resources to defeat the North using traditional tactics and strategies.
The South's political objectives prevented them from going all in on guerrilla war (although pockets of it did occur). The whole reason they were fighting was to hold on to the institution of slavery and the planter class' economic benefits -- neither of which existed in the same form between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Cotton wasn't as big during the Revolutionary War because the cotton gin wasn't invented until the 1790s, and the founders who supported slavery by and large found it to be a necessary evil that they expected to go away eventually. But by the lead up to the Civil War, that sentiment for a variety of reasons had changed to an outright pro-slavery movement that viewed slavery as an unalloyed good. Because there's no way to maintain a large population of slaves when you're running away into the woods whenever enemy troops who want to free them come near, a guerrilla war strategy would've severely undercut the very reasons they were fighting. Meanwhile the political theory of the antebellum South held that "King Cotton" was the best defense against the North under the idea that European countries would be compelled to aid the South once cotton supply chains dried up. Even setting this aside, the southern war effort depended on a plantation economy because that's basically all the South had. So the South was both economically and philosophically discouraged from fighting a guerrilla war. The other thing to remember about guerrilla war is that we don't find wars just for the sake of winning; we fight wars to secure some political objective. This is important because guerrilla war is uniquely hard to secure the desired post-war end state even if you defeat your enemy and "win" the war. It is extremely common for factions to split and fight amongst themselves afterward (or even during!). The leaders who hold power pre-war also won't necessarily be the leaders who hold power post-war, which would've been a particularly hard pill to swallow for a planter class that viewed itself as an aristocracy with a God-given right to rule. History is chock full of revolutions that succeeded in toppling a government but were ultimately led by some group other than the party that kicked off the revolution. A Union admiral upon being invited to join the South said "I could see a number of dirty little republics, tearing each other's vitals out, and following in the footsteps of our republican sister, Mexico" -- which was convulsed in civil war throughout the 19th Century. In sum, even if guerrilla warfare would've exhausted the Union, it's far from certain that it would've allowed the South to maintain its slavery-dependent way of life -- which was the whole point of the war in the first place. Wars aren't football games. Winning isn't the whole point. Winning is a means to an end. If the way you win prevents you from achieving that end, then you might as well not have fought.
you might wanna look up how washington and his rich slaver friends were given independence(and kept the stolen lands). it wasnt "guerrilla war". it was quite literally france, spain, india(yes india) and netherlands fighting england simultaneously. washington et al were symbolic figures, at best.
@@sabin97 Sure, allied help was integral to victory in the revolution; yes, guerrilla warfare was only part of the picture; but calling the Americans' role "symbolic" is overstating it by a long shot. After all, the French didn't commit until after the battle of Saratoga, where the Americans demonstrated they had the staying power to inflict serious damage on the British land forces on the continent...not to mention that the French were three years late to the party. Sort of like the U.S. was three years late to WWI. The U.S. was vital to the ultimate result, but the French weren't "symbolic".
Answer: The Confederacy did not lose the Civil War in just two battles. They lost because five million white Southerners were not going to defeat the North which had a population four times greater, plus nearly all the nation's heavy industry, shipping, and foodstuffs at its disposal. Actually, it was surprising that the South put up such a fight for so long and at such cost.
The only advantage the south had were better generals. Everything else, population, industry, ships, was on the northern side. Thank god for Sherman and Grant.
Not to take away from horror that is war and the reasons of which this war was fought, but as a fan of military strategy, I look at the civil war almost as the all star game for generals and commanders. There were so many clever and talented minds commanding each side during battle. It’s very impressive.
The first Soldier killed at Gettysburg was a scout in the 26th Pennsylvania Calvary. My Great great grandfather was an unmarried 20 year old volunteer in the 26 th Pennsylvania Calvary at the time having just joined in June. He went on to have 8 sons. This is the fickle hand of fate.
You can't have a lot of sympathy for the south ; these massacres were not the first atrocity . Sherman's scourging of Georgia was justified and helped end the war .
I've been to Vicksburg and you can really get a picture of the terrain, and how such was used to first outmaneuver, and then trap and destroy the Confederate's. Forcing surrender on the 4th of July no less. Haven't been to Gettysburg...yet. Wow that's hallowed ground. Maybe no more important ground in American history.
It's wrong to say that the Confederates lost the war just because of Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Rather it's a symptom of poor strategic planning and vision by the Confederates. The Confederacy has absolutely no plan to prepare for a wartime economy to support it. They thought that the war would end quickly (to be fair the North thought so too initially). But when the war dragged on they failed to adapt, the North did. For one the South failed to organized any form of systemic smuggling operation to run the Union blockade at any point of time to support it's war economy. Most smugglers brought in luxury items and contrabands like wine and silk in the last few years, not the guns food and machinery that the South needed. Nor was the South any more competent in securing foreign aid, before the Emancipation Proclaimation. The South had the window of opportunity to buy huge stocks of supplies and weapons from Europe using the 1861 cotton as leverage and when the Union blockade was at it's weakest. However the South was guided by the doomed King Cotton diplomacy and basically tried to blackmail Europe into supporting it by witholding their cotton. Needless to say that did not work out too well. The South also failed to defend territories that were strategic for it's war effort, it failed to relegate enough forces to defend New Orleans , the biggest port in the South and retake it to open back up smuggling and blockade running. Even when the North opened 4 southern ports to European trade to ease Europe's concern of a cotton famine, the South did nothing to capitalize on that, well more likely they can't because they burned most of their cotton to create an artificial famine (idiots). Finally the South was equally incompetent in it's strategy of prosecuting the war. Robert E Lee and by extension the entire Confed government due to his influence was myopically focused on bringing the war to the North and defeating them in a single decisive blow regardless of whether it was in the capacity of the South to do so. So even in victory, the South paid for it in soldiers that they cannot afford to lose. Even before Gettysburg there were already signs that the Confed's manpower was draining fast because of it's costly tactics. So Vicksburg and Gettysburg were merely the nail in the coffin for what was a complete failure rivaling that of Hitler's mad rantings.
Well said! By July of 1864, Lincoln was genuinely worried he'd lose the election. That shows how close the rebels actually came to success, despite their bungling. It wouldn't have taken much for them to win...Lee's bungling at Antietam and Gettysburg cost nearly 40,000 casualties...imagine if those men had been available to reinforce Bragg at Chickamauga/Chattanooga...
@@aaronfleming9426 Yeah, what I can't stand is Lost Causers saying that they had nary a chance in hell to win when they actually have. Like are you seriously expecting a participation trophy for fighting to preserve an evil institution that is slavery ? It doesn't matter if the Confederate Army was actually an elite fighting force and all of it's generals were godlike military genius. The fact that it fought for slavery makes it unworthy of any admiration whatsoever and it certainly does not justify spreading lost cause bullshit and confederate paraphernalia.
Brilliant comment! There’s a book, “Lincoln’s Loyalists” about Southerners who stayed in the Union Army (the author escapes me). Major Robert Anderson of Fort Sumpter was one. They might have looked at the situation similarly but their fellow Southerners didn’t.
@@vehx9316 >> I wouldn’t say the Southern soldier was unworthy of admiration, myself. When asked by Union troops what they were fighting for, they said, “Because you’re down here.” Putting one’s frail body between an invading army and one’s hearth and home and people is actually ENTIRELY noble.
Winston Churchill wrote in A History of the English Speaking Peoples that Grant's victory at Champion's Hill was the battle that decided the Civil war .
R. E. Lee cannot be called an incompetent general just because of the events at Gettysburg. He had to play his hand as it was dealt to him . many of the cannon used at Gettysburg was captured artillery from the Chancel0rsville victory. Lee knew his manpower and material were finite he had to attack in the north and once committed he had no choice, he had to follow through . Even a victory in Pennsylvania , we wonder what would he have attacked Washington DC with. But he had no choice what other option did he have. Lee also was not a fanatic as some others clearly were. At Appomatix he made a careful calculation. Though his men would have continued . He made the logical decision.
I would argue the Battle of Glorieta Pass was more crucial, as it ended the Confederacy efforts capturing territory in other parts of the western united states. Robert E. Lee and Confederates focused on tactical victories, the union focused on strategic and logistic victories.
What aid would empty land with barely any infrastructure have been? More acres to run away, over? If there was no hidden recruitment source or factories they could use to feed the military effort there it was definitely not worth the lives lost trying to take it...
Fun Fact about The Civil War: It was Russia who saved The Union during the American Civil War as they sent their Navy to San Francisco and New York when England and France were just about to enter the war on the side of the Confederates since London created the Confederates. France was already in Mexico making a spear head movement to resupply the Confederates and to open up a Pacific Theatre and to create a port in California. England already amassed 11,000 troops and growing stationed at their Northern Confederacies border now called Canada ready to open a Northern Theatre to divert Union troops away from their Southern Confederacy then to attack The Unions naval blockade. The Union would have been completely destroyed and annexed by those two great powers leaving the Confederates to exist as either a puppet state of London or to be fully brought back into the fold of the British Empire. London was already courting (threatening/bribing) other countries to get involved like Spain while Russia was in talks with Prussia to ally with incase London was to intervene. Seeing all of this Tsar Alexander II wrote a letter to Queen Victoria saying “If you enter in this war it will be a casus belli for all out war with the Russian Empire”. The stage was set for the 1st World War and Russia stopped it. There is also a memorial in San Francisco for the hundreds of Russian sailors who came off their Asiatic fleet ships that died while helping the city put out a fire that threatened to lay waste to it during the War.
The Russian fleet also threatened to Shell Australian ports along with other British Pacific Colonies if Britain aided the Confederates. A confederate war ship spent a lot of time in Australian waters and was supported by the Australian public, some even signing on as crew members. This Confederate war ship laid waist to the US Pacific whaling fleet and is reported to have fired the last shot in the war. The name of the ship was called the CSS Shenandoah. Its surrender was at Liverpool England where Confederate Commander Bulloch was stationed. Bulloch was the head spy Chief for the Confederates and main go between for London, Montreal, and Richmond. He was heavily involved in the finance of the South with British banking and supplied the south with its warships as most of them were made by the British. He was good friends with those who drafted the Very discriminatory Confederate Constitution and those that would later create the 'Clan'. He was also heavily involved in the assassinations of Lincoln and his cabinet members. He was Also the Uncle to President Theodore Roosevelt (on his mothers side of course) and Teddy greatly looked up to him and learned much from him from a very early age. Teddy called him 'Uncle Jimmy'. This is where Teddy Roosevelt got the idea for the 'Eff Bee Eye' he modeled it almost exactly from Londons 'Em Eye Five'. Russia also helped Thailand (Kingdom of Siam) maintain its sovereignty from being completely Partitioned/Annexed from the British and French around the same time. The very word Thai (ไทย) means 'free man' in the Thai language which is partially to thank to the Russians as they might have ended up being a colony or part of another country/colony if not for their intervention.
This era was when russian leadership or much more the russian Tsarship was a benevolent superpower and an ally of the U.S.A. Tsar Alexander II on 1861 effected The Emancipation Reform which abolished all surfdom/slavery in all of russia's lands. The American Civil War started on April 12, 1861. Before this, the Crimean War from 1854-1856 where the Ottoman Empire, U.K., France, and the Kingdom of Sardinia was against Imperial Russia. Although the U.S. was officially neutral, the U.S. during the Crimean War 1854-1856 supported Tsar's Imperial Russia and lent volunteer surgeons, military observers, and American trade sold firearms, ammunition, and gunpowder to Russia's army. On March 30, 1867 the Russian minister Edouard de Stoeckl sold Alaska to the U.S. for $7.2mil in the Purchase of Alaska (1868) for three main purposes. First, was so russia would secure quick treasuries to recover russian military losses from its failure of the Crimean War to the alliance. Second, to offset the balance of global powers in favor of the U.S. Third, to cede the neglect of russia's Alaskan land, prosecution of the refugees of the Old Believers of the Orthodox Faith, cede the monopoly of RAC (Russia-American Fur Company) fishing-hunting-fur-charter company's exploitation, and end its wars and interests of 'uncivilized groups' of the Alaskan tribes of Tlingit, Haida, Unangan, over to the Union of the U.S. offtopic but there is nuance to russian-U.S. relations before the last Tsar, Tsar Nicholas II was executed by his own people
@@loafoffloof3420 I think you will enjoy this quote from the Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov writing to Lincoln in the Autumn of 1862 a year and a half into the war- "You know that the government of United States has few friends among the Powers. England rejoices over what is happening to you; she longs and prays for your overthrow. France is less actively hostile; her interests would be less affected by the result; but she is not unwilling to see it. She is not your friend. Your situation is getting worse and worse. The chances of preserving the Union are growing more desperate. Can nothing be done to stop this dreadful war? The hope of reunion is growing less and less, and I wish to impress upon your government that the separation, which I fear must come, will be considered by Russia as one of the greatest misfortunes. Russia alone, has stood by you from the first, and will continue to stand by you. We are very, very anxious that some means should be adopted-that any course should be pursued-which will prevent the division which now seems inevitable. One separation will be followed by another; you will break into fragments."
Britain and France were NEVER going to send military aid to the Confederacy. They may have helped financially, but Britain and France wanted to maintain economic relations with the U.S. The Confederacy also had little ability to attack west so there isnt much logic to mentioning a Russian fleet on the coast some 2k-3k miles from any meaningful fighting.
@@spookyboi8446 Here is another quote I think you will like but from Tsar Alexander II in an Interview after the war: "In the Autumn of 1862, the governments of France and Great Britain proposed to Russia, in a formal but not in an official way, the joint recognition by European powers of the independence of the Confederate States of America. My immediate answer was: "I will not cooperate in such action; and I will not acquiesce. On the contrary, I shall accept the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States by France and Great Britain as a casus belli for Russia. And in order that the governments of France and Great Britain may understand that this is no idle threat; I will send a Pacific fleet to San Francisco and an Atlantic fleet to New York."
They also used them better. The South had more casualties despite fighting a defensive war. This wasn't an American version of the Winter War where the Soviets won despite having 5+x KIA
@@12jswilson Yes they could afford all losses and still continue. Lee's leadership at Chancellorsville was example of his genious. North had to change generals until Grant came along.
@@kohtalainenalias Lee was a terrible general. He was a decent tactician even though that's exaggerated but he was downright horrendous as a military strategist. Absolutely zero long-term strategic capability. Just go out and win some glorious battles and waste your resources. Sure, he was a good field commander, but that's not the only job of a general
When it comes to important battles of 1863: What about Stones River which was totally necessary victory to put the emancipation proclamations into action after the devastating defeat of Fredericksburg? The Tullahooma campaign in the summer of ‘63, taking the “bread basket” of the South? Or the battle for Chattanooga in November that secured the strategic vital railroad hub and the door to Georgia was opened, later leading to the extremely important victory at Atlanta before the presidential elections in 1864 and then the “March to the Sea” under Sherman.? Sometimes I feel that it is the time to re-evaluate what were the really important battles of the Civil War, now that we have the historic distance and not just the results of journalists reporting closely to Washington or the generals and politicians of the time trying the best to get their attention and glory?
Or the Battle of Fort Sanders in Knoxville Tennessee ❓️ Longstreet lost 800 + men in only 20 minutes against Burnside, just 10 days after President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address ! 🎩🎉 📜 ⛓️ 🗽 I guess SOMEONE didn't get the memo ......... 😂
@@spinecat yeah. In 1944 men charged Normandy to fight for freedom. In 2024 men are proud of going to the women’s bathroom and literally beating women in women’s sports.
Part of the CSA’s militias was that their armies stayed in their state. The Carolinas did not send troops to Virginia, or the reverse. Mind you they didn’t have appropriate transport, which would help. Had they tried ten years earlier? Slavery was getting hard to maintain, mentally and physically it was ending quickly.
The reason the south lost the war, is that the English royalty sent their poor Irish, Scottish and poor English to America. When they arrived here, they slapped a blue coat on them. The kill ratio of the war shows an almost two to one rate in favor of the south.
What's your point here? Did they loose because they were poor, not royalty, irish or got slapped a blue coat on them? Usually after the "the reason for x" one follows up with reasons that are more concise At best you say they lost the war because they lost more soldiers Which is a rather pedestrian level of insight
Be sure to check out the other parts about the American Civil War:
PART 1: ruclips.net/video/bYaYCltLsdk/видео.html&
PART 2: ruclips.net/video/GiW_supSSOk/видео.html&
PART 3: ruclips.net/video/t56cwRxBtG8/видео.html&
1860, he wrote, “All the Congresses on earth can’t make the n word anything else than what he is; he must be subject to the white man, or he must amalgamate or be destroyed. Two such races cannot live in harmony save as master and slave.” - Union General Sherman
Is there a part 5 to this.......1864 and then maybe a part 6 , 1865 ?
can't find it ??
@@deanaugust1 Coming soon!
@@Knowledgia Great - Thank You
At the onset of the war, the overall Union commander, Gen. Winfield Scott laid out the Anaconda Plan. That plan was to impose a naval blockade hold fast in northern Virginia and put the emphasis on the west, taking the Mississippi River (including New Orleans), then advancing through Georgia and back up to Virginia, in effect squeezing the Confederates like a giant anaconda. Basically this plan worked very well, the Confederate victories in northern Virginia were meaningless. The two most important Union victories of the war may well have been the capture of New Orleans and Shiloh.
Gettysburg and Vicksburg imo
Will disagree on New Orleans but agree to a point on Shiloh. Vicksburg likely would not have happened if Grant was defeated at Shiloh because the victory at Shiloh opened the taking of Cornth and then later movement of the Union Army south along the Mississippi River.
Yep. People too often ignore how closely the result followed Scott's ideas. If it had not been for McClellan the war would have been considerably shorter
@@andrewfournier8817 - McLellan trained he Army of he Potomac into a fighting force with competent Administrative support. Without McLellan the Union would have struggled to defend itself in the early years. As a battlefield commander McLellan left a lot to be desired, but his logistical support was invaluable. It took a Meade, Grant, Sheridan, Sherman etc to know how to use the Army effectively.
Agree that the capture of NO was the most damning. Shiloh was meaningless as Halleck squandered the advantage in Northern Mississippi. He was "promoted" out of harm's way😉
My favorite line of all time, "I was worse scared than I was at Shiloh."
Crazy that arguably the two most important battles of the entire war were going on at literally the exact same time.
I think Vicksburg, and then Sherman's 1864 campaigns to Atlanta, capturing Atlanta, and marching to the sea had much more to do with a Union victory than Gettysburg.
All Gettysburg did was end Lee's second advance into Union territory. Vicksburg and Atlanta were vital for destroying supply lines and causing shortages in the Confederate armies which prevented them from being as effective.
Gettysburg ended any hopes of the South ending the war on their own terms. It made it a war of attrition instead of a war of winning large, pompous battlefield victories.
And it ultimately shattered the myth of Lee...
@bludfyre Sherman burner Atlanta and captured Savahanna as a "present" to Lincoln on Christmas.
@@monorail4252 he burned it on his way out... after capturing it. And it wasn't malicious... just military necessity. Atlanta was a major railroad hub. Destroying the rail lines and infrastructure around those lines was the key to preventing supplies from going north to the Army of Northern Virginia. Marching to Savannah (and destroying/claiming crops along the way) achieved a similar goal... along with encouraging Confederate soldiers to desert and go home to take care of their families.
@@bludfyre soarched earth isn't malicious? Sherman destroyed what he could while he could.
Vicksburg is one of the most amazing Civil War battle sites I've ever been too. Standing on the bluffs that overlook the Mississippi, one can understand just how massive a fortress it was. I took a man with a massive degree of patience to take this and Grant was truly the man for the task. He didn't know how to back off.
It was simple, move forward to attack
If that fails, try again, and again until you succeed, that's all he did
@@antman6707 the thing was, it wasn’t that simple for his predecessors. They’d take a hit and retreat and eventually get replaced. Had McClennan pushed the offensive on the peninsula or at Antietam, Lee would have been done. Had Hooker subordinates not been so inept or if he had opted to attack more atChancellorsville would have been very different. Even Burnside had defeated himself before Fredericksburg. Grant took a hit and kept going - after the battle of the wilderness, which was a defeat his men cheered as he turned them south to pursue Lee. Even after cold harbor, where he lost more men than Lee at Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, he kept going.
@FlashPointHx He had more men, and he was willing to sacrifice them for the cause of preserving the Union, that about sums him up
@@antman6707 Agree
@@FlashPointHxThe Northern newspapers called Grant a butcher and wanted Lincoln to sue for peace.
You failed to mention that Abaraham Lincoln’s threat in outrage to execute a Confederate soldier for every Union prisoner who had been executed, black or white, was never carried out, though the Confederate generals executed hundreds of black prisoners. Thousands of Union prisoners died in prison camps through neglect and maltreatment. Most notably, Andersonville where 13,000, more than one quarter of those imprisoned there died. No such loss of life occured in Union prisons. The massacre of Lawence, KS men and boys was an act of desperation, not retaliation for Lincoln’s unenforced edict while many civilians were murdered in border states mostly by irregular Confederate sympathizers especially in Missouri and Kansas.
Camp Douglas, near Chicago, was known for its brutal conditions and had a high mortality rate, particularly in winter months. The POW camp at Elmira, NY had a mortality rate of 25%, slightly less than Andersonville's 29%. Nobody on either side had ever dealt with incarcerating men by the thousands, nor did they have a good understanding of proper sanitation in such circustances. Overcrowding, bad food, filthy conditions were common to all POW facilities during the war. What made Andersonville different was that the horrors were there for the public to see because there were photographers following in the wake of the Union armies.
@@joeandreatti1976 Exactly ... that is a very narrow list of selective memory that ignores a thousand other things happening during the war . The Total War doctrine against civilians was carried out by the same people in regular Union forces that would later turn their swords against native Americans and wipe out the buffalo in the process ...😏
@@Freedom_Half_Offlmao, don't smirk like you're smug for comparing killing buffalo to the purposeful extermination of people.
@@user-to9ge8ii9n Take your pick of what you consider worse ... the list is endless . The most pertinent point is irregular raiders forces from the South didn't hold a candle to what the regular Union forces would do to civilians on a far larger scale . If what happened after the War bugs you ... take it up with Grant , Sheridan and Sherman 🙄
@@drmasroberts propaganda, your presentation is inadequate, suiting youself. Lincoln pardoned many deserters, saying it was a poor use of a Soldier. Not rapists, if you committed rape, you were hanged. He had private reasons for doing so. How many Black Soldiers were hanged for rape?
Loved the draft riot logic " The draft favors the rich, so let's take it out on the people that have absolutely no power."
A 19th century robber-baron once said, "I can always hire half the poor to kill the other half." They're still doing it because it still works.
The Rich who cause problems are hard to get at while the powerless are easy prey. Same reason immigrants and minorities are targeted by Trump supporters and Republicans today.
@@ostrich67 LBJ had a much more colorful way of putting the same thing when talking about civil rights legislation.
@@anthonyrowland9072 “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson
It still goes that way. Blm burned down their own communities in democrat led cities and blamed white people and Republicans for their issues.
Just to add one small element of human scale to the narrative: I'm 72, and one of my great-grandfathers marched into Vicksburg under U.S. Grant in the 17th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He survived and 20 years later named his firstborn son, my maternal grandfather, Grant.
I am related to Julia's family. I am her great great nephew. The poems Grant wrote Julia are wonderful. My father was obsessed with Grant. Grant knew total war. He was an amazing general.
@@BoogerBear1982 Indeed he was. One might say Lincoln is on the $5 bill and Grant is on the $50, making him an order of magnitude more valuable even than Honest Abe. The beautiful irony for me is that I'm also a native-born Virginian and currently live about a mile distant from the grave sites of both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. I don't generally reveal my familial connection to General Grant to my current neighbors, however. 🙃
@@marshallmkerr so you are related to Grants side? That’s funny because I am related to Julia. I hope you have a great day someone who are related through in laws!
@@marshallmkerr I am related to Julia from her moms side this is so awesome! Small world.
@@BoogerBear1982 Thanks and back at you. I am related not by blood, but only because that great-great-grandfather served in the whole Western Campaign and marched into Vicksburg with USG on 4 July 1863. In that sense the relationship is perhaps indeed of blood - but not genetic by blood.
Sherman's March and the taking of Atlanta was very pivotal too, especially from a psychological perspective. The capture of Atlanta went a long way toward convincing the North that the war was being won. If the North had elected McClellan instead of LIncoln in 1864, he would have sued for peace with the South. In short, Mac would have snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory.
Little Mac, like so many Democrats was a traitor
@@brucewelty7684 hmmmmm, i see what you did there... let's try that again.
Slavers and those who fought for them were traitors. Once Democrats, their modern spiritual successors infiltrated and destroyed the Republican party from within. Now Republicans are traitors today. How interesting reality is!
He was good at that. And brucewelty7684 you need to actually read a history book now and then. At that time Democrats were the conservative party. So you're half right. Conservatives are still traitors.
Yeah, it's hard for a country to continue fighting when all of the infrastructure has been burned and civilians are getting their land stolen, and worse. Gotta wonder what the world would look like.
Those "democrats" are now Republicans @@brucewelty7684
Logistics wins wars. Lee was primarily an engineer in the Old Army, while Grant served as an infantry captain, a quartermaster, and even organized a military hospital during a cholera outbreak.
Well Lee was good he was on a time limit the entire time and he ran out
Right, logistics wins wars. Gen Robert Lee was an engineering officer in the War With Mexico.
Organization also wins wars. Gen George McClellan was the best Union general. He reorganized the broken Union armies after the Peninsula battles. McClellan foresaw Lee moving north, and stopped his army at the Battle of Antietam. Lee planned to move north around Washington to Baltimore. Baltimore was the main port for Washington, its own docks to small to supply itself. Lack of logistical support would eventually cause Washington to surrender a siege.
@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN McClellan was the best union general... as long as you kept him far away from field command. The Union effectively WON the Seven Days at Malvern Hill... and McClellan decided to withdraw in the face of Lee's broken army. Then he won again at Antietam... and did absolutely nothing, letting Lee's beaten army spend two days crossing the river to escape completely unmolested.
And a siege of Washington is pure wishful thinking. In the time it'd require to achieve anything, the North could use the rail network to gather an entire fresh army right in the rear of the besiegers, trap them between said army and the defenses and then decisively annihilate them. Lees entire expedition north was a complete and utter misplay, with no relaistic chance of achieving anything of note, let alone anything worth risking his army like that.
@@magni5648 Lee thought McClellan was the most challenging adversary he faced in the War. McClellan was very popular with his men and they thought he could run the War better than Lincoln. There was even talk of McClellan marching on Washington and removing Lincoln, but McClellan was very against it. Lincoln started rumors that McClellan was too slow and over cautious to prevent him replacing him as leader of the country. Lincoln said McClellan should have not let Lee withdraw after Antietam even though is was the bloodiest day of all the War and McClellan's senior officers were new to their positions and to each other. Many people still believe this political propaganda now. Yet Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation in the wake of the Union victory at Antietam knowing the Confederates were blocked from coming to the North. Many historians believe McClellan saved the Union.
Taking Washington was a real fear, that's why it was then the most fortified city in the world. Virginia is a short walk and Washington is surrounded by the slave state of Maryland. Maybe the Federals could have broken the siege, but they would need to take Arlington Virginia, too.
@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN
“McClellan was the best Union general”
“Many historians believe he saved the Union”
Bro. No. Stop it. Get help. I’m an actual historian of the Civil War and literally no one has ever said either of those things.
The CSA was like the Japanese military of WW2 in that they could not make up losses in man or material, where if the Union lost a battle, they could come back and fight another day.
For example, Gettysburg was the Confederate version of the Battle of Midway in terms of irreplaceable losses.
@@blockmasterscott Japanese were not good strategists, failed to take Hawaii. Japan took the Pacific outnumbered 6 to 1. I don't need half-baked analogies to understand American history. Your family farm was not burned to the ground by Sheridan.
@@kennethtyree4770 I wonder who you are mad at. Is it Sheridan? Lincoln? Lee? The guy who burned down your ancestral home? The poor dead soldiers on both sides? etc........
@@kennethtyree4770the Japanese are still good strategist but being them not prioritizing Logistics hurts their troops more than battle casualties and why you are angry and whining like a kid
@@jadeorbigoso5212 no, they were not. All Japanese plans were extremely overcomplicated that if one part failed the whole strategy collapsed. They really only brute forced their way to initial victories, either through technology (against other Asian countries) or by overwhelming numbers...
I’d compare the situation more to Germany than Japan. The south having limited resources needed a fast war, and when the war became long and drawn out, it was only a matter of time.
Free Black men were already allowed to join the Navy for some reason, but not the Army, before the war. This is how Frederick Douglass escaped slavery. He got ahold of a Navy uniform and then simply bought a ticket to Philadelphia from Baltimore. Presumably, the railroad ticket sellers and conductors had seen black sailors before and didn't question him.
Frederick Bailey chose the name Douglas because he liked the character Douglas from Sir Walter Scott´ s Lady of the Lake. When the slave catchers came looking for Frederick Bailey, he declared that he was Frederick Douglas. Years later, he returned to Maryland and had to financially compensate the man who had called him Frederick's slave owner.
His free wife bought the ticket.
@@paulleckner9148Thanks for sharing! Didn't know he had to pay his own slave debt
My history teacher in 1998 told us about this. He said it was because naturally they struggle to swim successfully unlike white sailors so the racist systematic institutions dismissed black sailors as doomed to drown & not a threat to upsetting proper society.
In the film "Chatos Land" Jack Palance as a former TX Brigade Capt says it best
"They had more... more men, more guns, more food, more luck. You know, when I look back at it, I know now that it was there for the seeing in '63... except we didn't see it."
The south advantage was they fight on their land, meaning they knew the battlefield better and their men were more motivated than the invading northerners, and defense posture needed fewer men and resources.
The south disadvantage was they fight on their land, meaning that the war destructions were suffered by southern people.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@gorilladisco9108
Knowing the land better didn't help much as Sherman was marching thru the south, nor did it help while Grant was attacking Jackson, then Vicksburg
@@scotttracy9333 It a matter of human resources. The north had as much as three (or four?) times more population than the south.
The south advantage of fighting at home can be seen by the northerners higher total casualties of 1.5 times that of southerners.
However, as one southerner population is a third that of northerner, only able to inflict 1.5 northerner casualties for each southerner casualties wouldn't cut it. It became a war of attrition by the north, where the south exhausted their available bodies first.
And of course, Sherman march through the south was an example of the disadvantage of fighting at home. Southerner's home front was devastated by the war while the northerner's home was intact.
@@gorilladisco9108 the Rebel advantage was not fighting at home, but fighting mostly on the defense. Attacking a fortified defensive position requires, generally, a 3 to 1 advantage in troops.
@@ZER0ZER0SE7EN Have Lee stay in the south of the line, the war would be a quagmire to the northerner and Lincoln would lose 1864 election.
But Lee time and time again left the terrain his men knew well and crossing the Potomac in the hope of brought the war to an early conclusion. That drained the southerner's man power faster than the northerner's.
Its a good example of good tactics not being enough to overcome a strategic disadvantage.
Like ukraine against Russia.
Grant>lee
Or winning battles but losing war
@@IronWarrior86 Lol Ukraine are very mindful of strategy
next you're going to tell me that devoted belief won't overcome or influence outcome.
For the record, anybody who claims, with an attempt of sounding romantic, that the South only lost because they were THAT outnumbered, outgunned and relatively behind in industry is not only wrong. It makes the whole civil war come off not as a noble ideological resistance on part of the confederacy, but rather, if we take that statement as fact, as a stupid rebellion that never had a chance of succeeding, fought for a truly despicable cause that had nothing noble about it, that dragged literally hundreds of thousands of people to their death with negative repercussions still felt to this day, and thus overall has NOTHING worthy of admiring or respecting.
It is only worthy of learning about as a dark point in history that must not be forgotten, so that we may never make the same mistake again, nor ever give them the benefit of the doubt.
Sadly, too many people have failed to get the message.
Ok bro
The stories win the peace, slavery persisted for a while (one RUclips video claimed 1940s).
@@pasques I guess you don't even understand the message.
My guess is that they hoped for European intervention.
Brother vs brother father against son. Many southerners fought for the United States not the CSA. Those were the true patriots.
People forget the battle at Shiloh showed how bloody this war was about to get. That loss hit the confederacy hard.
Who has forgotten that? I mean, what person with even a moderate interest in the Civil War has forgotten the importance of Shiloh?
Dude bled out into his super tall boot, I thought that was wild. AS Johnston came all the way from Cali for that 😂😂
I love how
A lot of these comments are saying it’s not about slavery but their way of life. I’m from Vicksburg and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that it was. Their way of life and economic development and growth depended on slavery the moment that was taken away it collapsed and just like the federal government did and still does came to there rescue by pumping in US tax dollars. Hell people in Vicksburg still drive around with cotton tags on the front of their cars along with confederate flags let’s not forget the giant Cotten stickers that say Old South on their rear windows. As yourself this if the confederate would have would where would America be where would Black Americans be today. America would not exist as we know it. I’m an Army Veteran and so many people say thank you for your service but fly confederate flags on their vehicles and homes. How can you be patriotic to the United States but be a traitor by flying the confederate flag? Beats me with that being said never let anyone tell you it wasn’t about slavery my ancestors were slaves right here in the same city I live in, my grandparents work on a share cropper farm picking cotton, they were also forced to walk on different side walks from white Americans and had to go to different schools and drink from different water fountains never forget. If you don’t believe me visit Vicksburg it’s a great place, it also has the historic National Military Park that goes over the campaign and battles of Vicksburg. One final thing white Americans in Vicksburg did not celebrate the 4th of July for 81 years! But yet a lot of people claim to be proud Americans citizens who just so happen to despise and hate black americans, and also fly the confederate flag. Don’t forget to do your research. 😊
"but it was about states rights!!"
states rights to what?
Opinions are like a holes,everyone has one
Can't we all just get along? I guess the answer is no. But we have made progress in civil rights but it will continue to be a struggle.
@SlickNamedPimpback “To secede from the Union.” Why were they seceding?
It's pretty rich, isn't it? It's like they don't understand that slavery WAS their way of life. They seem to think Lincoln invaded the south to shut down all the Waffle Houses or ban sweet tea and NASCAR or something.
"Why didn't the CSA just win key battles?" To quote General George Pickett, a Confed General, "I believe the Yankees had something to do with it." 😂 ((Yes, he really said that, according to historians.)) 😂
And any two major battles at roughly the flipping point from confederate attack to purely defense would now be seen as pivotal... as it's a convenient marker, regardless where or when.
Losing control of the Mississippi was the key. The insistence of making Virginia the center of the CSA world was a colossal blunder among others.
Yes. Should have left the capital in Montgomery, or perhaps moved it to Atlanta.
The defeat at Vicksburg cut the Confederacy in two.
@@RBAILEY57 True...but the two parts were barely in communication with one another anyway. The trickle of materiel crossing the river was paltry; the more important aspect was reestablishing Union commerce on the river and the economic boon for states like Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Back then Virginia was more developed than most of the South. And you don't get a quick end to the war fighting along the Mississippi river, you get it defeating the Union Army in front of DC.
You know what was also a colossal blunder? Trying to defend the institution of slavery in the first place. Without southern politicians staking their political careers on this issue, there wouldn't have been any war at all.
They tried to market it as a "states rights" issue to trick moderate voters and citizens into supporting them, which worked to some extent, and many people still believe this bullshit today.
What beyond stupid is how people thought the south was really ever winning the war after 1861. Once the Union army got organized and started pushing southward, all of the armies either struggled or outright lost over and over again. Save one - Lee’s army. The South was really losing that war before Vicksburg and Gettysburg.
And yet all they had to do was make the war expensive enough that the north would vote Lincoln out of office. Despite the losses of '61 and '62, that was still very possible. Lee won some battles, but he also made some very foolish mistakes that cost his army tens of thousands of needless casualties. Just 10,000 of those men would have made a war-winning difference at Chickamauga.
Yeah, after Bull Run 1 they could've reordered and marched on Washington but they didn't do that.
It was their single chance and they blew it 😂😂😂
@@greenkoopa And how do you propose they would have crossed the Potomac River? And while they were reordering, what would the Federal army have been doing? Reordering, perhaps?
They had lots of other chances, but they blew all of those too.
@@aaronfleming9426 McClellan foresaw Lee moving north, and stopped his army at the Battle of Antietam. Lee planned to move north around Washington to Baltimore. Baltimore was the main port for Washington, its own docks to small to supply itself. Lack of logistical support would eventually cause Washington to surrender a siege.
Not a sure thing, but if McClellan had not reorganized the Union Peninsula army and blocked Lee in 1862 from moving through Maryland, Washington could have fallen.
Lol the north didn't have a general that had the guts to fight till grant. An he got lucky at gettys burg
This is a great presentation and I really appreciate it.
A teacher of mine had an iconic photograph of Vicksburg taken by Matthew Brady after the city fell, displayed on his wall.
It showed ruins with craters everywhere and many dead and dying civilians.
The Photograph made my stomach turn when I first looked at it. I can only imagine how people during the Civil War felt.
There is both a comfort in hearing stories you already know, but also a joy in the presentation, writing, and voice work by this glorious channel.
The war was lost when the British got the news that Lee had retreated after the Battle of Sharpsburg. The South needed a victory to confirm the British belief that Southern independence was inevitable. When they saw it wasn't, they decided to sit it out.
The British hated slavery and needed Northern grain. They were never going to recognize the Confederacy.
The brits couldn't have joined or supplied the confederacy. Mainly because of Lincoln. In many of Lincoln writings he threatens to cut grains supply to britan
I think they would have sat it out anyway. Slavery was not popular in Britain.
@@jaybee9269again I guess I think the war was fought for slavery. Not so. The northern man would never have fought to free the slaves. They where just as racist as anyone in the south an the north had already hanged John brown
@@michaelburdette2770 it is for slavery, regardless what citizen of the north think, it is higher up order anyway.
At 4:40, it was Col. Benjamin Grierson, not Garrison that led the raid. For Civil War buffs, Grierson's raid is legendary. You need to get that right.
For me getting that name wrong casts a small portion of doubt on the premise of the opening statement. Good to see someone was paying attention.
I thought that was John Wayne.
Gonna have to disagree with you, guys, and for the following reasons:
1. Scott's Anaconda Plan was the absolute Federal Basic Plan for victory. It was the equivalent of War Two's 'Germany First' strategy.
2. Vicksburg would have been nothing had not New Orleans been neutralized. Yes, it was the 'Gibraltar of the Mississippi' but the Federals had to have BOTH Vickburg AND New Orleans. Either one was useless by themselves.
3. Gettyburg did see the best of the infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia wasted, that's very true. But Bobby Lee still had a Hell of a lot of fight left in him, as the Wilderness Campaign proved.
4. The inherent weakness of the Confederacy's constitution was a key defining element of their eventual defeat. The petty backbiting of each Confederate State and the idea that the Governors of each state somehow ought to have any part of the military decisions of the nation as a whole led to an excessive waste of effort. An example: As Confederate troops evacuated Richmond, they burned entire warehouses of uniforms while the troops doing the burning were wearing rags they'd spent the previous winter in. Why? Because the uniforms they burned were North Carolina uniforms and the Governor of that state demanded that only North Carolina troops would wear them and the men from Virginia or Georgia could freeze to death for all NC governor cared.
Ok so, was it a country or an alliance of small countries with an allied war government? That's something that didn't make sense then and still doesn't. Your last point helps illustrate mine
@@greenkoopa The Confederacy was a little bit of both, to be completely honest. Each Confederate State viewed itself as 'sovereign' within its own boundaries and it literally took a year [1861-62] for the various governors to agree to cede authority of command of 'their' troops to the Confederate War Department.
This does not mean that the Confederates' opinion about the reach and control of the Federal government didn't have its merits, as we see in current American politics. The issue of the reach of powers wasn't solved in the Civil War and it's still being finagled to this day.
@carlhicksjr8401 yeah you just said what I said. Silly nonsense
New Orleans fell very quickly, so it basically didn't matter.
It didn't matter how much fight Lee had; every single fight brought him closer to destruction even when he "won." Lincoln understood that from the beginning, which is why he loved Grant so much.
@@jdotoz My point about New Orleans and Vicksburg was that these to ports controlled the South's access to Texas and the 'far' West. Cutting that source of supply was vital. And here's the thing... If Cornfed forces in Texas could have gotten their act together, there was a fair chance they could have retaken New Orleans in 61 and 62. Grant's siege of Vicksburg diverted those troops. Like I say, the South had to have both ports for either of them to be effective.
As for Lee after Gettysburg, had Sherman not been so successful in his March on Georgia [and he was **damned** lucky three or four times in that campaign], the Eastern campaigns could have held on a year or more longer. The whole point of Sherman's March wasn't to defeat armies, it was to deny Lee three entire states worth of supplies.
"Part of the Battlefield would shortly be turned into a national cemetary for fallen Union soldiers. Slain Confederates were not so lucky"
"Such is the fate of ALL traitors!" -Primarch of the Dark Angels, First Legion of the Imperium, Lion El'Johnson
Chaos only leads to destruction hail emperor Lincoln 🙏🏽😂
@@chupacabra304 Lincoln wouldve made a great Primarch
Those Union soldiers who fought the Rebels didn't think of them as traitors after the war. They looked at them as fellow countrymen. You are a delusional lefty who judges the past based on how people think today rather than how they thought back then.
Yes the Lee plantation
Were they traitors?
Is the UK a traitor for leaving the European Union (if it actually happens)?
Not too long BEFORE the Civil War, several Northern states thought that THEY had a right to secede... and considered it.
Gettysburg is not as consequential as people think it is. If the confederates won they would’ve had such depleted forces that they would have been defeated at DC. Antietam is much more pivotal
Agree, major because of casualties but it really accomplished nothing.
Id actually even argue the Seven Days was more decisive than Gettysburg. (For the South) combined with 2nd Manassas this to me was the high point of the South.
Then I'd put Donelson, New Orleans, Vicksburg and Atlanta at the top (for the North.)
@@Jbird1988 I would add Shiloh to the list. That is where the partnership of US Grant and William Sherman really came together. It is also where Grant's Union Army of the Tennessee really came into being since that army was the core of the Western Union that would march all the way to North Carolina before the war ended. Finally, Shiloh taught Grant that the war would be long and hard.
@@Jbird1988 A pretty knowledgable comment. I notice that your last 4 Union victories were all in the West. Indeed, one could argue the war was won by the Western Union armies. Grant eventually defeated Lee, but almost lost the election for Lincoln because of the horrific casualties resulting in stalemate in front of Petersburg in 1864, for which the election of Democratic McClellan would have won the war for the South.
The Union could replace their losses; Lee couldn't.
@@johnfleet235 The partnership of Grant and Sherman was an albatross around Grant's neck. If he'd formed a similar partnership with a competent general like George Thomas, the war would have been over a year earlier with tens of thousand less casualties.
Just a quick note that Henry Heth's surname is an alternative spelling of Heath so it is pronounced with a long E sound. He was born in Black Heath Virginia and was descended from the Heaths of England who established the first coal mines in North America around Midlothian, VA (named for the coal towns of East and West Lothian in Scotland). He claimed his troops marched into Gettysburg because of a shoe factory they were hoping to requisition after a long march...hence the most significant battle in American history took place due to poor footwear.
In no way did I want the South to prevail, but it was sickening how Robert E. Lee threw away his forces once he finally had numerical superiority. He simply threw all cleverness out the window, probably exhausted with having to work so damn hard with his previous battles where he was outnumbered and had to play it so clever. And as many point out, the South didn't have the resources to prevail, and it's pretty much that the North could afford to lose battle after battle but the South couldn't afford to lose any battles.
Lee was a crappy general.
Well I'd imagine you'd get the effect of "am I trying too much? Man I just have more troops, I pull off basic manuevers and don't need to try this time"
@@SaraphDarklawnotice how nobody agreed with you? That's because what you said is not even remotely true and you're only talking out of your ass.
A similar thing happened to Napoleon. During the Revolutionary Wars and first half of the Napoleonic War he excelled in commanding smaller armies and making every encounter count. In the later half though, when his armies were numbering over half a million, even his Marshalls starting noticing that Napoleon was getting lazy with his tactics because he had larger armies that were harder to control in an age before radios. It basically boiled down to, “I have more men, so charge that position and try not to die.”
Lee actually lost huge proportional swaths of his forces.
Not only is this great content but the map work is incredible if you look closely you will see the town I grew up in around 6:32 Warrenton VA that is some crazy detail work good job Knowledgia!
They focused on tactics instead of strategy
A brain dead statement if i ever seen it
What does it even mean other then "they lost"?
Tactics are used in the field by people who are uninvolved in the strategy part and vice versa
@@TheGahtasounds like you don't know the difference😅
@@mathiasmueller9693 if you disagree why not correct me then? 🤣
@@TheGahtabasically the confederate generals where stuck in the napoleonic era and most of the battles they won accomplished very little in the greater war and wasted manpower while the union where adapting to changing times
@@TheGahta Correct and they did not pay attention to the strategic part, thus they lost. Tactics are what you use to complete a strategy, with out a solid strategy their tactical victories meant nothing. The south would win in an empty field and lose all of their ports while doing so.
Things went south pretty quickly…
i see what you did there.
Anyone else notice the placement for Washington DC was in the wrong spot?
It looks like someone dropped DC right on top of Annapolis, MD. And where DC should be, it looks like it was part of the Confederacy in Virginia but just barely.
No mention was made to the raid by Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson, the Grierson raid, during Grants Vicksburg campaign.
A bold raid that caused a lot of confusion to the confederates.
His coverage of Vicksburg was pretty bad.
He mentioned it, but called him "Benjamin Garrison"
With Lincoln fully commited to the war, the South never had a chance.
Lincoln yes but was congress or the people.
@@paulrasmussen8953 Yes, actually. There was no way he could fully commit to the war without congressional or popular support - that's how it works here in America. Congress coulda told him to make peace, push it through to law, and he would've been powerless to stop it if the Supreme Court backed it.
Protests were common, but so was support. The Union army didn't explode in numbers due to the draft alone.
@theinquisitor8112 and congress can change its mind. There was a mid term in there
@@paulrasmussen8953hmmmm....we won, so I'd say the people were somewhat committed as well. 😂
@@Buconoir not really. Even near the end
Wow, it’s amazing all the history in my hometown of Fredericksburg. I went to Chancellor High School, and the road Chancellor High is on intersects with Salem Church Rd. The whole area has so much Civil War history
So many criticisms of Lee's decision to "take the war to the North" in spring, 1863, but he was taking a gamble (as he often did) because he HAD to. He (and Jefferson Davis, et. al.) were thinking that, just as the U.S. needed (not wanted, needed) French help to win the Revolutionary War, the Confederacy needed a major European power to help it if they hoped to win. The most likely candidate was Britain because of the trade ties involving cotton and other crops. Lee's gamble was that, like the victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, a victory that threatened Washington D.C. would encourage the British to give them the aid (naval, esp., but financial and military) they needed to force the Union into negotiations. This time the risk failed -- but it was a huge gamble because the Union had better resources and had finally begun to develop better military leadership than they'd had at the start of the war.
they could had just as easily wear the North down with war fatigue, but instead Lee just had to go North to look for that elusive decisive battle....... and got himself whopped handily.
Also the Confederates pretty much shot themsleves in the foot with King Cotton diplomacy, turns out trying to blackmail others into helping you does not make for a lot of friends.
@@vehx9316 I agree with the second point: Confederate diplomatic efforts were maladroit at best, ham-handed at worst. As to Lee's decision, I think it was forced on him, i.e., he HAD to make that gamble, as I noted earlier. After two full years of defeats on southern soil Lincoln had (amazingly) maintained his and the Union's resolve to keep fighting, so staying in Virginia to wear out the Union was not a real option, esp. as Union draftees, money, and production were really dwarfing the Confederacy's. The South NEEDED Britain's help, and a big victory on northern soil was the only way they could get it. Again, the analogy is to Saratoga and France in the Revolutionary War. I think Lee much preferred staying in Virginia, but circumstances forced his hand.
Btw, he made critical mistakes in the northern campaign (aided by Jeb Stuart's bone-headed mistakes), so my argument is not meant to lionize Lee.
@@richardcanedo1614 It was not a matter of how determined Lincoln was to stay in the war, but whether the North had the stomach to continue it.
1864 Lincoln was pretty close to defeat, but the lost of Atlanta changed that, and the Confederacy would not had lost Atlanta had they still had the manpower that they didn't squander at Gettysburg.
@vehx9316 the south could not sustain a long conflict.
@@paulrasmussen8953 Agreed, esp. once the naval blockade really took hold. (Which is why, once again, the South desperately needed Britain, and its navy, to enter the war as their ally.)
Lee's refusal to contribute troops to aid Vicksburg as well as the delusional focus on risky offensives into Union territory without any realistic chance of strategic gains led to the fall of Vicksburg and later, Lee's myopic obsession with his home state would lead to the collapse of other fronts. Lee's ridiculous attempts to utilize his army in sweeping Napoleonic maneuver battles bled the Army of Northern Virginia white while Joseph E. Johnston's much more viable concept of strategic retreat, opportunistic battle and trading space for time were ignored to the detriment of the entire Confederacy.
@@grandadmiralzaarin4962
Johnson trading space for time let Sherman get to the gates of Atlanta
The South never had an overall commander-in-chief or even an overall strategy. It was a confederacy, and quarreling between the southern states hampered the war effort throughout its existence.
@@scotttracy9333 with Sherman's lines of supply, communication and reinforcement being badly overstretched. Sherman's own scorched earth policy would have worked against him even more here as he had to leave large contingents all along his route to secure it, weakening his main army. Had Johnston been allowed to continue his strategic retreat he and Sherman would have reached Atlanta with roughly equivalent force granting a sizeable advantage to Johnston with the defensive works, interior lines, shorter lines of communication and logistics. In short, Sherman would not have been able to encircle or besiege Atlanta successfully and then would have had to fight and retreat along the scorched earth path he'd made all on Johnston's terms.
Johnston's strategy would have at minimum resulted in Sherman being defeated and retreating in disgrace and at maximum resulted in the complete annihilation of Sherman's army as a fighting force with no significant risk to either Atlanta or Johnston's army.
Instead Davis subscribed to your view and replaced Johnston with Hood for aggressive attack, which destroyed half of Hood's Army and lost Atlanta.
When Lee finally did release Longstreet to help Bragg at Chickamauga, Bragg nearly destroyed the Army of the Cumberland. I shudder to ponder the possibilities if Lee hadn't squandered so many tens of thousands of troops at Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg...if he'd had another 10,000 to send to Bragg, it would have been game over.
Lee couldn't get troops to relieve Vicksburg. Rosencran had Middle Tennessee locked up and Lee would have had to send troops to face at least two other armies to relieve Pemberton at Vicksburg.
As for Gettysburg, while it wouldn't gain military necessary gains, it would have won a major PR victory for the South and against the North that was growing weary of war.
Johnston's strategy was unrealistic because it focused on fighting the way Washington did against his British counterparts. The problem with that logic is Johnston's enemy wasn't thousands of miles away and resupply wouldn't take months to arrive. His enemy was literally on his front porch and could resupply within days.
What a tragic time in our history. Thank you for sharing this video.
I just watched the History Network documentary about your President Grant and his actions during your civil war. He was a great man
He has a great quote about the Mexican-American War. Saying (sum and substance) that he was greatly ashamed of his Nation that what we did to the Mexicans and the unjust war we caused was disgusting in his view that the Civil War was their punishment for fighting such a needless war and stealing their land and killing their innocent. He said we had no claim past the Colorado river I believe it was yet we took 1/3 their land.
Grant went on a world tour after he left the Presidency. At one point he was in Germany and met with Otto von Bismarck, they discussed the Civil War.
@@LordKalte correction: Grant said no claim pass the 'Nueces River' not the Colorado River (Texas).
It WAS marvelous!
Hi, You should do a video on Battle of Chickamauga
They lost Fort Henry and Donaldson which led to the fall of Nashville and loss of control to the Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. Then Vicksburg falls and the South loses full control of the Mississippi and split in half!
They lost the war when they lost western Tennessee in 1862. Eastern Tennessee was pro-Union.
Tennessee was a big food source and transportation hub.
The South could never recover from that lost.
Rhett Butler was right when he pointed out the south didn't have any cannon factories
That’s cool and all but don’t make us wait 3 months for 1864
Hope you are joking 😂😂 after all, 600,000 Americans killed each by 1864.
@@mr.s2005 how does that have anything to do with the. Release date for the next episode?
Being from Rochester NY the rushed reinforcement of Little Round Top is big in local history. The 140th New York, Col. Patrick O'Rorke KIA, was part of the 2nd wave of Union troops to hold it (20th Maine, Joshua Chamberlain, is best known from the 1st wave)
The South lost because the north had many more people, and their industrialized economy allowed them more modern weapons and ships. It was just a matter of time and numbers. Slavery was already illegal and unpopular in almost all of Europe. There was no chance the South was ever going to win. Even if the North had lost every battle, eventually the South would have run out of men and resources. But people in the South like to believe that they almost won. That's why it seems like they lost the war in two battles.
As a matter of fact, the war was becoming extremely unpopular in the north as casualties mounted and the national debt exploded while the dollar sank in value and taxes went up. By July of 1864, Lincoln was certain he was going to lose the election unless Sherman finally captured Atlanta.
You've correctly identified the North's advantages, but you've failed to note the south's advantages; and you're forgetting the human and economic and political cost of every Union defeat. It's not hard to imagine the rebels doing some things differently and coming up with a different outcome.
@@aaronfleming9426 Ngl south should prepared some industry before the war since debate over secession was becoming popular YEARS before so CSA had a long deadline. Either way as an Australian it is sad that the south lost idk why but I like them.
The way you explain I really loved it❤
I'm here for the copers 🥰🐢
The South lost bad all over
I live in N.C and nobody talks about the battle of Fort Fisher. I grew up in the Charleston area of S.C. and still didn't hear about this battle until I moved here in 09. This was an amphibious landing that preceded D-Day. Some people around my neck of the woods feel this was the battle that ended it for the south.
50,000 soldiers died in Gettysburg in 2 days. It took 10 years of fighting in Vietnam to reach a similar count. D-Day and the entire western campaign against Hitler was a joke compared to the carnage at Gettysburg. Damn!!
If anybody wants a second civil war I’d advise against it!!
Nobody wants it, but everybody, for some strange reason, EXPECTS it. Which is funny, because if you look at the big picture, the United States is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the conditions expected to trigger a Civil War in the first place! Literally nothing is going on that's fundamentally dividing this country, like Slavery was the first time around. It's all just hyperbole and hysteria, that's being relentlessly driven by the politics-addicted media.
Only about 7000 died. 50,000 is the total number of casualties which includes wounded, missing, and captured.
Donald begs to differ
Please do a little research before commenting. That was an embarrassing comment for everyone.
No where close to 50,000 died, it was barely more than 15% of that number. RUclips comments are an eye roll.
Good video.
Sherman's March to he sea didnt go far enough!
Sherman is burning in hell.
Vicksburg: the key battle of the Civil War that few ackknowledge.
Gettysburg was lost due to poor intelligence, bad decision making, and lack of communication. The Union had the high ground and had time to fortify it.
Lee would have been wise to listen to Longstreet and skirt the enemy, thereby threatening Washington DC. This would have forced the Union off the high ground and given the Confederates a level playing field for the battle.
Meade would simply have moved to the position he initially envisioned at Pipe Creek. Still blocking the way to Washington and in advantageous terrain comparable to what he had at Gettysburg.
You can't threaten Washington with the Army of the Potomac at your back. That just ends with you being pinned in place between the fortificaitons and garrisson of the cpaital and said Army of the Potomac, and your army subsequently getting wiped out. Lee's whole expedition was a fool's errand from the moment he crossed the border into the North.
It didn't help that, if I remember reading correctly a long time ago. The artillery barrage on day 3 completely missed a lot of it's targets.
The massive barrage that took place before the battle at Cemetery Ridge was aimed too high and overshot The Union defenses. The wind was blowing back towards the Union lines so all of the smoke from the explosions blew back over the Union lines making it impossible for the gunners to correctly recalculate their cannons,so they basically had to wing it.
When the Confederates started their march towards the ridge, they were basically marching into a line of men that had suffered zero damage and as the wind blew away the smoke, had clear lines of sight on the approaching enemy who still had a long way to go to reach them.
Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. But at one point the Confederates ALMOST broke through the lines. What might have been, if those cannons had hit home and the Union line had been weakened before the charge?
As I said it's been a long time since I read up on all of this so I may be misremembering.
@@macmcgee5116 Interesting details. But I think even if the artillery had been effective, it was still Lee's turn to make Burnside's Fredericksburg mistake.
@@CookieMendoza it may or may not have changed things. No way to know for sure. Either way it was an uphill battle for the Confederacy. Litterally and figuratively. It's just one of those WHAT IF scenarios that is interesting to explore sometimes.
13:43 is there something wrong with the map? You said Buford was the first to engage Confederate forces, but on your map Buford is holding the Eastern side or the Union formation, and is unengaged
Lee, much like Pompey Magnus, will go down in history as one of the most overrated generals.
Don't insult Pompey Magnus. He had 3 triumphs (2 of which were deserved to be fair) he took back Spain against Quintus Sertorius, crushed Mithridates winning the 3rd Mithridatic War which would see the end of Pontus and what was left of the Seleucid Empire along with the subjugation of Armenia. To say he was as overrated as trash ass Lee is insane.
Yeah it's his fault a one of the generals under him charged the union Line when he was told to hold his position also his fault when he wasn't even at Vicksburg. Boy just stfu you're not intelligent enough to critically think
Very true
Wow, it’s crazy that people think that Charles Lee is any good
Not hardly. Lee's tactics are still taught in military schools today.
It was the war in the West that lost the Confederates the war,and the two battles that did it were at Forts Henry and Donaldson. These opened the highway rivers that geographically ran south, deep into the Confederacy. It made possible the battles of Shiloh, Nashville, and yes Vicksburg.
The traitors were lucky they could get rid of slavery without facing just punishment for their crimes
Them not punishing and not outlawing the flag was their biggest mistake
We only fought in the south after we was invaded. The act of succession was not a declaration of war we was still trying to compromise without blood shed. Abe didn't want to free the slaves this act was because he needs soldiers
The South did nothing wrong
Well the fact that The United States was created by “traitors” less than a century before. I imagine that they compared the two situations before making final judgement. That’s why is best not to judge people of the past through the lens of today.
The overwhelming majority of southerners did not own slaves. Slaves were expensive.
The Emancipation Proclaimation was the best Lincoln could do under the existing Constitution. If slaves were property, then they could be "liberated" from their rebellious owners. It was a genious move and it certainly made clear why the Confederacy existed for all those foreign nations who were considering recognizing same. As for the timing of the Proclamation, politics dictated that it must be announced immediately after a major Union victory; anything else would make it seem like desperation rather than a heartfelt moral stance.
correct, Seward advised Lincoln that it would be like a "last shriek on the retreat" if the EP was issued without a victory to back it up.
Lincoln also have to balance keeping the loyal slave states on the union side with emancipating the slaves. A blanket abolition would had send the loyal slave states rebelling.
Now THIS IS NOT, I repeat, NOT Lincoln accepting slavery as a fact of life in the US. His position during the 1863 was still in line with the one in 1861, that slavery was not to EXPAND to new states, but he has no issue with it existing where it has been establish.
@@vehx9316 Even better, it meant that the US would assure the freedom of ex-slaves from liberated lands held by the Confederacy as of the date of the Proclamation. All that was needed to free those in the Union was a Constitutional Amendment.
As for Lincoln's personal position on slavery, he'd stated that on the stump -- that our Nation cannot exist both half free and half slave -- it must become all of one or all of the other. It had (correctly) become all slave as a result of Dred Scott, but the South snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by going to war against the United States of America. Now Lincoln turned that position on its ear with the Proclamation, for he had found a way to subvert the pro-slavery rulings of the Taney Court within the lands held by the Confederacy, if nowhere else. To me, there is no doubt that Lincoln would have signed the legislation for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
Us Southerners are a different kind of people... Not made for large scale war
Except when fighting under the Stars and Stripes.
What are you on about? Mid west and southern men are the bulk of marines and army
I learned more on this channel than in high school
Is DC in the wrong place on this map?
The key battle in the east was arguably Antetiam. While being an incredible tactical draw on behalf of the ANV, it was a strategic defeat that shifted the geopolitical landscape
If Lee had retreated without fighting a battle, he would have had a wildly successful raid into Maryland to cap a summer of dominance. He captured a garrison of 12,000 Union soldiers, with the loss of less than 200 of his own...then stayed to fight a battle in which he could accomplish nothing of strategic value.
Vicksburg was a key engagement, a siege where the South lost control of the Mississippi. What Northern city was placed under a lengthy siege killing and starving civilians? Gettysburg was an immoral, flawed and poorly planned invasion of the North. Lee's idea or did Davis authorize it? Both sides were naive with poor leadership. As Shelby Foote remarked, the North fought that war with one arm tied behind it's back. The South never had a chance at independence. Slavery would have ended with or without war. The cost in terms of humanity and prosperity were enormous. Greed and fear rules.
There is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever that Slavery was about to end any time soon.
Lee lost the War twice
Once when he ignored Stonwall on cutting off DC from the North the 1st year
Second with Pickets Charge at Gettysburg
"The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time... That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity." - Georgia Declaration of Secession, January 19, 1861
What I find strange about all this is only about 10% of the people in the south actually owned slaves, yet the other 90% of the population were willing to risk their lives for that principal. Strange
@@samkohen4589
Because in their subconsious those White (old) Supermacists used to regard the Black falks as sub---human, if any!... They couldn't withstand seeing them treated as them, as equal human beings... That's why, even after the horrible war, they remained persecuting the newly freed Afro-Americans and treating them EXTREMELY badly!... Don't you remember the Jim Crow laws? The bloody massacres of Blacks on voting days? The KKK?
The poor Afro-American needed to wait more than a whole century until, at last, they gained the recognition that they were, really, equal HUMAN BEINGS!
😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
@@samkohen4589 30% of southerner *households* owned slaves; many others rented slaves occasionally, or benefitted economically from the slave trade in some other way. Besides that, there was a nearly universal paranoia about race war and/or miscegenation, so even people who didn't own slaves saw the slave system as a defense against those horrors.
@samkohen4589 Racial supremacy and racial politics played a huge part.
The poorest white farmer, will always know that he's better than all but the most well cared for slave.
Then the idea of freeing them is even worse because not only are these former slaves now see as equals in the eyes of the law but they can potentially get to an equal or better station in life.
Then, of course, the belief that once the slaves were free it would spark a race war of vengence from the freed slave population against their former Slavers and other white people.
@@samkohen4589 The wealthy drive the media, and hence the narrative. You can be convinced to fight for that which is antithetical to you. Why do Black people support a Party which is happy that a Black child is 3x more likely to be aborted than a white child? It doesn't amaze me, but does sadden me. Why are the Irish also massively in that Party? The answer is in the New York media of the time, which portrayed freed Blacks as competitors for the low rung jobs the Irish of that time occupied.
The Industrial Revolution and the emerging "New world" needed to get rid of the old system (slavery) and needed to build a new empire.
It is fascinating how, in less than 100 years happened so many major events.
- the French revolution
- the American Revolution
- the Industrial Revolution
- the Napoleonic wars
- the Louisiana purchase
- the American Civil War
- the Crimean war
- the Alaska purchase
All the events are interconnected ;)
The reason is material and people supremacy North over South. Second, south controlrd too much territory which couldn't cover. Third, big empires didn't want to help South. Even it was blocked, they could do through Mexico.
(I might be misunderstanding what you meant)
Nah, they couldn't go through Mexico. France took the opportunity while the US was distracted with the Civil War to invade Mexico.
Why Europeans didn't help?
@@keziahdelaney8174 because they wanted to intervene on the southerners side to weaken the United States. When Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation it made the war about freeing the slaves. Britain had a massive anti slavery movement so that stopped them.
@@keziahdelaney8174It likely wouldn't have been a good look in the international stage. If a European country, especially if industrialized was still supporting slavery. Automated systems vs. Forced hand-working objects. One obviously beats the other greatly.
@@keziahdelaney8174 European populations did not support slavery, although the aristocratic European governments were no friend to the North. But basically, the Europeans did not want to firmly take sides unless it was obvious the South would win. While the South could win 2 big battles in a row, they could not win 3 - those third battles being Antietam and Gettysburg. After Gettysburg it just was not obvious the South would win. The South could have still won by Lincoln not winning reelection in November 1864, but the Fall of Atlanta, Mobile, and clearing out the Shennadoah Valley in 1864 got Lincoln reelected and sealed the South's fate.
Winning Battles != Winning a War. Something the US has sadly forgotten.
The problem was the Confederacy was *never* going to win a military war, despite Lee's dreams of marching through Baltimore or Washington. Both northern invasions wasted troops the Confederacy simply could not afford to lose.
They also stretched themselves too thin trying to hold *everything*, leading to numerically superior Union armies eventually just wearing down the Confederates, especially once they passive Union generals (finally) got replaced.
But at the end of the day, the Confederates simply ran out of manpower to replenish their armies.
Lee fambles were forna quick end before the US got its ass together. Ironically Yamamoto tried the same thing
I would add the Battle Puebla between the Mexican army and France during the American Civil War. If the French won the battle, Napoleon III could have circumvented the union blockade, and give the confederates supplies and funds in exchange for cotton and tobacco.
I never fact checked this. In my history class in college the professor told us that once the civil war ended the US sent aid and weapons to Mexico to help kick the French out. I never looked it up bc I want it to be true
The whole purpose of the French in Mexico was to attack the Union along with the British to open up 2 New Fronts. This was very well know to the Union and Mexico at the time
Not true, the battle of Puebla, a battle the Mexicans won in a war they lost(and became the reason for Cinco de Mayo). Napoleon was in favor of Napoleon 's interest, not the CSA's interests.
Need to add Chattanooga to this list. The rail hub loss prevented the south from moving troops between states quickly.
Very well done. Hopefully you will take this as the compliment it was meant as. I have been a CW buff since I was 7 or 8. I am now 76. I am not an expert but know a great deal as I estimate that I have read 600 or more books on the subject. Only 2 minor quibbles. The Union nVicksburg cavalry man was Ben Grierson not Gierson. Also Stonewall hit Hooker's tright flank not his left.
I would say you ARE an expert, my friend! Don’t sell yourself short.
Thank you
I would argue the war was over in the first 6 months because it stopped the Confederacy from expanding.
I would argue that general Lyons won it in the very first battle in MO.
The taking on New Orleans stopped the Miss from being an open river.
Looking at the comments and seeing people bashing Lee for his generalship is weird to me you can argue about his character and if he is a traitor to your country or not but this man is damn good. I’m not American so I don’t have a dice to throws in this game, but the man is outnumbered at least 2 to 1 in most of his battle and still come out victorious in most of them, it’s pretty amazing, he is not perfect of course like his failure at Gettysburg and his grasp of strategy can be all over the place sometime, but overall he is a good general, just like Grant he is human, both made mistakes both have strength and weaknesses.
As an American, the problem here is that, for many, there is a ‘St. Robert of Lee’ problem with the narrative of the Civil War. It can lead to parroting some of the ‘lost cause’ story that the Southerners and their political supporters used to justify their behavior after the war. It obscures the reasons why the war was fought and allows for the losing side of the war to believe itself morally, culturally, and generally superior to those who won. Lee’s loss at Gettysburg was damning to his reputation as it showed a lack of strategic vision and how reliant he was on luck and poor Northern generalship. Part of the Southern ‘lost cause’ myth requires that Lee had to be superior, so looking at his career critically is important.
Lee was good on defense. On offense, he failed hard. He also refused to support any other force besides his own, resulting in the loss of Vicksburg most notably. Instead of breaking the siege there, he decided to invade Pennsylvania. Only in his wildest dreams would his army have been capable of defeating the larger Union army and still have enough men and materiel to assault Washington, the single most heavily defended city on the continent, yet that was his plan.
Hi, just wanted to correct one thing: Lee LOST most of his battles. His first command was in West Virginia, where he divided his army in 7(!) pieces, got half of them lost and the rest sank in the mud; his second command was defending the coast, under his watch Burnside crushed Confederate privateering, seized New Bern, wiped out the Confederate defense fleet, etc.; at his first 'victory' at the Seven Days Lee lost 20000 men to the Union's 10,000.
A large part of the vitriol you see him receive is a reaction to the literal generations of Lee-woeshipping propaganda we have been subjected to.
@@jochannon Is that so? Well, it’s good that his reputation is being scrutinized again, just like other generals throughout history. However, it’s important not to shift from analyzing his actual shortcomings as a general into blind partisanship, where his achievements are dismissed. I’ve recently started reading about the American Civil War, and from what I’ve seen especially when comparing it to Vietnamese history, General Lee was often outnumbered in many of his battles. Honestly, even generals from the Tran dynasty of Vietnam didn’t face such odds in literally every battle. I’m not even counting the supplies and logistics problem that he have to face. From my understanding, the Seven Days Battles drove McClellan off the Peninsula, right? That’s a victory. But your point still stands, he’s not perfect. In my opinion, Lee did well considering the odds he faced. I just have a problem when a general like Lee is not consider a good general when obviously he is, and that goes for the south too, some of the book I read about how Sherman March to the sea is cruel and evil confuse me.
@@phantomkelvink4225 Lee actually lost the Seven Days. It's a pretty hollow victory when the only claim to it is that your enemy didn't realize he beat you and left.
The funny thing is those two battles didn't actually lose the war for the Confederacy. In mid 1864 with Grant besieging Lee in Petersburg/Richmond, and Sherman making slow progress towards Atlanta; Lincoln actually said he was going to lose reelection if something didn't change. Thankfully Sherman captured Atlanta in September. If Lincoln losses, the new government almost certainly makes peace with the Confederacy, and they win their independence.
In my maturity I’ve come to the conclusion that the Democrat McClellan would not have made peace; he would have reluctantly continued to prosecute the war. He wasn’t a bad dude at heart despite his airs. The man repudiated his own party’s platform, after all!
@@jaybee9269 Possible, but from what I read unlikely. I feel like he would to anything to spite Lincoln, and on top of that I think that was what he "wanted".
@@joshdavis3743 >> There were a lot of War Democrats. Democrats will do the right thing…when all other options are exhausted!
The best chance the South had was to fight a guerrilla campaign right from the start. Much like the colonists did during the Revolutionary War. The South never had the manpower or resources to defeat the North using traditional tactics and strategies.
The best chance for the south to win was to take Washington at the start of the war.
The South's political objectives prevented them from going all in on guerrilla war (although pockets of it did occur). The whole reason they were fighting was to hold on to the institution of slavery and the planter class' economic benefits -- neither of which existed in the same form between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Cotton wasn't as big during the Revolutionary War because the cotton gin wasn't invented until the 1790s, and the founders who supported slavery by and large found it to be a necessary evil that they expected to go away eventually. But by the lead up to the Civil War, that sentiment for a variety of reasons had changed to an outright pro-slavery movement that viewed slavery as an unalloyed good. Because there's no way to maintain a large population of slaves when you're running away into the woods whenever enemy troops who want to free them come near, a guerrilla war strategy would've severely undercut the very reasons they were fighting. Meanwhile the political theory of the antebellum South held that "King Cotton" was the best defense against the North under the idea that European countries would be compelled to aid the South once cotton supply chains dried up. Even setting this aside, the southern war effort depended on a plantation economy because that's basically all the South had. So the South was both economically and philosophically discouraged from fighting a guerrilla war. The other thing to remember about guerrilla war is that we don't find wars just for the sake of winning; we fight wars to secure some political objective. This is important because guerrilla war is uniquely hard to secure the desired post-war end state even if you defeat your enemy and "win" the war. It is extremely common for factions to split and fight amongst themselves afterward (or even during!). The leaders who hold power pre-war also won't necessarily be the leaders who hold power post-war, which would've been a particularly hard pill to swallow for a planter class that viewed itself as an aristocracy with a God-given right to rule. History is chock full of revolutions that succeeded in toppling a government but were ultimately led by some group other than the party that kicked off the revolution. A Union admiral upon being invited to join the South said "I could see a number of dirty little republics, tearing each other's vitals out, and following in the footsteps of our republican sister, Mexico" -- which was convulsed in civil war throughout the 19th Century. In sum, even if guerrilla warfare would've exhausted the Union, it's far from certain that it would've allowed the South to maintain its slavery-dependent way of life -- which was the whole point of the war in the first place. Wars aren't football games. Winning isn't the whole point. Winning is a means to an end. If the way you win prevents you from achieving that end, then you might as well not have fought.
@@jameswarden2691 Great comment, thank you!
you might wanna look up how washington and his rich slaver friends were given independence(and kept the stolen lands).
it wasnt "guerrilla war". it was quite literally france, spain, india(yes india) and netherlands fighting england simultaneously.
washington et al were symbolic figures, at best.
@@sabin97 Sure, allied help was integral to victory in the revolution; yes, guerrilla warfare was only part of the picture; but calling the Americans' role "symbolic" is overstating it by a long shot. After all, the French didn't commit until after the battle of Saratoga, where the Americans demonstrated they had the staying power to inflict serious damage on the British land forces on the continent...not to mention that the French were three years late to the party.
Sort of like the U.S. was three years late to WWI. The U.S. was vital to the ultimate result, but the French weren't "symbolic".
Lee shouldn't have been anywhere near Gettysburg.
He took a fool8sh gamble and lost
Answer: The Confederacy did not lose the Civil War in just two battles. They lost because five million white Southerners were not going to defeat the North which had a population four times greater, plus nearly all the nation's heavy industry, shipping, and foodstuffs at its disposal. Actually, it was surprising that the South put up such a fight for so long and at such cost.
All of the Norths basketball teams got 7 or 8 deep on the bench. Good shooters and rebounders.
The only advantage the south had were better generals. Everything else, population, industry, ships, was on the northern side. Thank god for Sherman and Grant.
Not to take away from horror that is war and the reasons of which this war was fought, but as a fan of military strategy, I look at the civil war almost as the all star game for generals and commanders. There were so many clever and talented minds commanding each side during battle. It’s very impressive.
skill issues
Manpower issue
@@JesusOrDestructionand skill issues
Closer to truth than one might think lol
@@JesusOrDestruction copium
slave issues
The first Soldier killed at Gettysburg was a scout in the 26th Pennsylvania Calvary. My Great great grandfather was an unmarried 20 year old volunteer in the 26 th Pennsylvania Calvary at the time having just joined in June. He went on to have 8 sons. This is the fickle hand of fate.
You can't have a lot of sympathy for the south ; these massacres were not the first atrocity . Sherman's scourging of Georgia was justified and helped end the war .
I've been to Vicksburg and you can really get a picture of the terrain, and how such was used to first outmaneuver, and then trap and destroy the Confederate's. Forcing surrender on the 4th of July no less. Haven't been to Gettysburg...yet. Wow that's hallowed ground. Maybe no more important ground in American history.
It's wrong to say that the Confederates lost the war just because of Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Rather it's a symptom of poor strategic planning and vision by the Confederates.
The Confederacy has absolutely no plan to prepare for a wartime economy to support it. They thought that the war would end quickly (to be fair the North thought so too initially).
But when the war dragged on they failed to adapt, the North did. For one the South failed to organized any form of systemic smuggling operation to run the Union blockade at any point of time to support it's war economy. Most smugglers brought in luxury items and contrabands like wine and silk in the last few years, not the guns food and machinery that the South needed.
Nor was the South any more competent in securing foreign aid, before the Emancipation Proclaimation. The South had the window of opportunity to buy huge stocks of supplies and weapons from Europe using the 1861 cotton as leverage and when the Union blockade was at it's weakest. However the South was guided by the doomed King Cotton diplomacy and basically tried to blackmail Europe into supporting it by witholding their cotton. Needless to say that did not work out too well.
The South also failed to defend territories that were strategic for it's war effort, it failed to relegate enough forces to defend New Orleans , the biggest port in the South and retake it to open back up smuggling and blockade running.
Even when the North opened 4 southern ports to European trade to ease Europe's concern of a cotton famine, the South did nothing to capitalize on that, well more likely they can't because they burned most of their cotton to create an artificial famine (idiots).
Finally the South was equally incompetent in it's strategy of prosecuting the war. Robert E Lee and by extension the entire Confed government due to his influence was myopically focused on bringing the war to the North and defeating them in a single decisive blow regardless of whether it was in the capacity of the South to do so.
So even in victory, the South paid for it in soldiers that they cannot afford to lose. Even before Gettysburg there were already signs that the Confed's manpower was draining fast because of it's costly tactics.
So Vicksburg and Gettysburg were merely the nail in the coffin for what was a complete failure rivaling that of Hitler's mad rantings.
Well said! By July of 1864, Lincoln was genuinely worried he'd lose the election. That shows how close the rebels actually came to success, despite their bungling. It wouldn't have taken much for them to win...Lee's bungling at Antietam and Gettysburg cost nearly 40,000 casualties...imagine if those men had been available to reinforce Bragg at Chickamauga/Chattanooga...
@@aaronfleming9426 Yeah, what I can't stand is Lost Causers saying that they had nary a chance in hell to win when they actually have. Like are you seriously expecting a participation trophy for fighting to preserve an evil institution that is slavery ?
It doesn't matter if the Confederate Army was actually an elite fighting force and all of it's generals were godlike military genius. The fact that it fought for slavery makes it unworthy of any admiration whatsoever and it certainly does not justify spreading lost cause bullshit and confederate paraphernalia.
Brilliant comment! There’s a book, “Lincoln’s Loyalists” about Southerners who stayed in the Union Army (the author escapes me). Major Robert Anderson of Fort Sumpter was one. They might have looked at the situation similarly but their fellow Southerners didn’t.
@@vehx9316 >> I wouldn’t say the Southern soldier was unworthy of admiration, myself. When asked by Union troops what they were fighting for, they said, “Because you’re down here.” Putting one’s frail body between an invading army and one’s hearth and home and people is actually ENTIRELY noble.
@@jaybee9269 Not all German soldiers in WW2 fought for Nazism, but you don't see people parading around Nazi stuff or laying them out at WW2 graves.
Winston Churchill wrote in A History of the English Speaking Peoples that Grant's victory at Champion's Hill was the battle that decided the Civil war .
"english speaking peoples"?
i call that the english.
they might control territory in america and oceania, but they are still english.
R. E. Lee cannot be called an incompetent general just because of the events at Gettysburg. He had to play his hand as it was dealt to him . many of the cannon used at Gettysburg was captured artillery from the Chancel0rsville victory. Lee knew his manpower and material were finite he had to attack in the north and once committed he had no choice, he had to follow through . Even a victory in Pennsylvania , we wonder what would he have attacked Washington DC with. But he had no choice what other option did he have. Lee also was not a fanatic as some others clearly were. At Appomatix he made a careful calculation. Though his men would have continued . He made the logical decision.
I hope you will do a content to Filipino - American War (1899-1902)
That's a misleading title. There were thousands of battles and some 600,000 thousand men who died in the civil war.
I would argue the Battle of Glorieta Pass was more crucial, as it ended the Confederacy efforts capturing territory in other parts of the western united states. Robert E. Lee and Confederates focused on tactical victories, the union focused on strategic and logistic victories.
What aid would empty land with barely any infrastructure have been? More acres to run away, over? If there was no hidden recruitment source or factories they could use to feed the military effort there it was definitely not worth the lives lost trying to take it...
Fun Fact about The Civil War: It was Russia who saved The Union during the American Civil War as they sent their Navy to San Francisco and New York when England and France were just about to enter the war on the side of the Confederates since London created the Confederates. France was already in Mexico making a spear head movement to resupply the Confederates and to open up a Pacific Theatre and to create a port in California. England already amassed 11,000 troops and growing stationed at their Northern Confederacies border now called Canada ready to open a Northern Theatre to divert Union troops away from their Southern Confederacy then to attack The Unions naval blockade. The Union would have been completely destroyed and annexed by those two great powers leaving the Confederates to exist as either a puppet state of London or to be fully brought back into the fold of the British Empire.
London was already courting (threatening/bribing) other countries to get involved like Spain while Russia was in talks with Prussia to ally with incase London was to intervene.
Seeing all of this Tsar Alexander II wrote a letter to Queen Victoria saying “If you enter in this war it will be a casus belli for all out war with the Russian Empire”. The stage was set for the 1st World War and Russia stopped it.
There is also a memorial in San Francisco for the hundreds of Russian sailors who came off their Asiatic fleet ships that died while helping the city put out a fire that threatened to lay waste to it during the War.
The Russian fleet also threatened to Shell Australian ports along with other British Pacific Colonies if Britain aided the Confederates. A confederate war ship spent a lot of time in Australian waters and was supported by the Australian public, some even signing on as crew members. This Confederate war ship laid waist to the US Pacific whaling fleet and is reported to have fired the last shot in the war. The name of the ship was called the CSS Shenandoah. Its surrender was at Liverpool England where Confederate Commander Bulloch was stationed.
Bulloch was the head spy Chief for the Confederates and main go between for London, Montreal, and Richmond. He was heavily involved in the finance of the South with British banking and supplied the south with its warships as most of them were made by the British. He was good friends with those who drafted the Very discriminatory Confederate Constitution and those that would later create the 'Clan'. He was also heavily involved in the assassinations of Lincoln and his cabinet members. He was Also the Uncle to President Theodore Roosevelt (on his mothers side of course) and Teddy greatly looked up to him and learned much from him from a very early age. Teddy called him 'Uncle Jimmy'. This is where Teddy Roosevelt got the idea for the 'Eff Bee Eye' he modeled it almost exactly from Londons 'Em Eye Five'.
Russia also helped Thailand (Kingdom of Siam) maintain its sovereignty from being completely Partitioned/Annexed from the British and French around the same time. The very word Thai (ไทย) means 'free man' in the Thai language which is partially to thank to the Russians as they might have ended up being a colony or part of another country/colony if not for their intervention.
This era was when russian leadership or much more the russian Tsarship was a benevolent superpower and an ally of the U.S.A.
Tsar Alexander II on 1861 effected The Emancipation Reform which abolished all surfdom/slavery in all of russia's lands. The American Civil War started on April 12, 1861.
Before this, the Crimean War from 1854-1856 where the Ottoman Empire, U.K., France, and the Kingdom of Sardinia was against Imperial Russia. Although the U.S. was officially neutral, the U.S. during the Crimean War 1854-1856 supported Tsar's Imperial Russia and lent volunteer surgeons, military observers, and American trade sold firearms, ammunition, and gunpowder to Russia's army.
On March 30, 1867 the Russian minister Edouard de Stoeckl sold Alaska to the U.S. for $7.2mil in the Purchase of Alaska (1868) for three main purposes.
First, was so russia would secure quick treasuries to recover russian military losses from its failure of the Crimean War to the alliance.
Second, to offset the balance of global powers in favor of the U.S.
Third, to cede the neglect of russia's Alaskan land, prosecution of the refugees of the Old Believers of the Orthodox Faith, cede the monopoly of RAC (Russia-American Fur Company) fishing-hunting-fur-charter company's exploitation, and end its wars and interests of 'uncivilized groups' of the Alaskan tribes of Tlingit, Haida, Unangan, over to the Union of the U.S.
offtopic but there is nuance to russian-U.S. relations before the last Tsar, Tsar Nicholas II was executed by his own people
@@loafoffloof3420 I think you will enjoy this quote from the Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov writing to Lincoln in the Autumn of 1862 a year and a half into the war-
"You know that the government of United States has few friends among the Powers. England rejoices over what is happening to you; she longs and prays for your overthrow. France is less actively hostile; her interests would be less affected by the result; but she is not unwilling to see it. She is not your friend. Your situation is getting worse and worse. The chances of preserving the Union are growing more desperate. Can nothing be done to stop this dreadful war? The hope of reunion is growing less and less, and I wish to impress upon your government that the separation, which I fear must come, will be considered by Russia as one of the greatest misfortunes. Russia alone, has stood by you from the first, and will continue to stand by you. We are very, very anxious that some means should be adopted-that any course should be pursued-which will prevent the division which now seems inevitable. One separation will be followed by another; you will break into fragments."
Britain and France were NEVER going to send military aid to the Confederacy. They may have helped financially, but Britain and France wanted to maintain economic relations with the U.S. The Confederacy also had little ability to attack west so there isnt much logic to mentioning a Russian fleet on the coast some 2k-3k miles from any meaningful fighting.
@@spookyboi8446 Here is another quote I think you will like but from Tsar Alexander II in an Interview after the war:
"In the Autumn of 1862, the governments of France and Great Britain proposed to Russia, in a formal but not in an official way, the joint recognition by European powers of the independence of the Confederate States of America. My immediate answer was: "I will not cooperate in such action; and I will not acquiesce. On the contrary, I shall accept the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States by France and Great Britain as a casus belli for Russia. And in order that the governments of France and Great Britain may understand that this is no idle threat; I will send a Pacific fleet to San Francisco and an Atlantic fleet to New York."
Thanks!
Thank you so much for your support!
North had unlimited resources like USSR in ww2
They also used them better. The South had more casualties despite fighting a defensive war. This wasn't an American version of the Winter War where the Soviets won despite having 5+x KIA
Where did the ruskki's get all those resources from? Make it sound like they won it all alone. Spare us.
Yeah 😂 that's right, unlimited money and unlimited tanks.
@@12jswilson Yes they could afford all losses and still continue.
Lee's leadership at Chancellorsville was example of his genious. North had to change generals until Grant came along.
@@kohtalainenalias Lee was a terrible general. He was a decent tactician even though that's exaggerated but he was downright horrendous as a military strategist. Absolutely zero long-term strategic capability. Just go out and win some glorious battles and waste your resources. Sure, he was a good field commander, but that's not the only job of a general
When it comes to important battles of 1863:
What about Stones River which was totally necessary victory to put the emancipation proclamations into action after the devastating defeat of Fredericksburg?
The Tullahooma campaign in the summer of ‘63, taking the “bread basket” of the South?
Or the battle for Chattanooga in November that secured the strategic vital railroad hub and the door to Georgia was opened, later leading to the extremely important victory at Atlanta before the presidential elections in 1864 and then the “March to the Sea” under Sherman.?
Sometimes I feel that it is the time to re-evaluate what were the really important battles of the Civil War, now that we have the historic distance and not just the results of journalists reporting closely to Washington or the generals and politicians of the time trying the best to get their attention and glory?
Or the Battle of Fort Sanders in Knoxville Tennessee ❓️
Longstreet lost 800 + men in only 20 minutes against Burnside, just 10 days after President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address !
🎩🎉 📜 ⛓️ 🗽
I guess SOMEONE didn't get the memo ......... 😂
So many brothers fell in the battles so that men can go to women’s bathrooms today 😂
so that's your primary takeaway? wow...
@@spinecat yeah. In 1944 men charged Normandy to fight for freedom. In 2024 men are proud of going to the women’s bathroom and literally beating women in women’s sports.
@@spinecatHe talks about the dead without realizing he already is brain dead.
@@spinecat I guess that at his residence they have separate outhouses for men and "wimmen".
Part of the CSA’s militias was that their armies stayed in their state. The Carolinas did not send troops to Virginia, or the reverse. Mind you they didn’t have appropriate transport, which would help. Had they tried ten years earlier? Slavery was getting hard to maintain, mentally and physically it was ending quickly.
The reason the south lost the war, is that the English royalty sent their poor Irish, Scottish and poor English to America. When they arrived here, they slapped a blue coat on them. The kill ratio of the war shows an almost two to one rate in favor of the south.
Resources ran out as well.
What's your point here?
Did they loose because they were poor, not royalty, irish or got slapped a blue coat on them?
Usually after the "the reason for x" one follows up with reasons that are more concise
At best you say they lost the war because they lost more soldiers
Which is a rather pedestrian level of insight
Closet racist copeium.
@stevenpremmel4116
Lol... right! I forgot facts and history are racist now.
This spoken from someone who knows nothing of the the subject
The south never had the manpower to go toe to toe with the Union.