1
00:00:10,184 --> 00:00:14,184
We have shared 
the incommunicable experience of war.

2
00:00:15,465 --> 00:00:18,265
"We have felt, we still feel,

3
00:00:18,339 --> 00:00:21,100
"the passion of life to its top.

4
00:00:22,660 --> 00:00:25,850
"In our youth, our hearts
were touched with fire."

5
00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:29,555
— Oliver Wendell Holmes.

6
00:00:36,679 --> 00:00:40,600
By the summer 1861
Wilmer McLean had had enough.

7
00:00:42,552 --> 00:00:45,257
Two great armies
were converging on his farm

8
00:00:45,727 --> 00:00:48,825
and what would be 
the first major battle of the Civil War,

9
00:00:48,916 --> 00:00:52,202
Bull Run, or Manassas, 
as the Confederates called it,

10
00:00:52,350 --> 00:00:55,845
would soon rage
across the aging Virginian's farm,

11
00:00:55,883 --> 00:00:59,654
a Union shell going so far as to explode
in the summer kitchen.

12
00:01:02,521 --> 00:01:05,588
Now McLean moved his family 
away from Manassas

13
00:01:05,588 --> 00:01:07,667
far south and west of Richmond.

14
00:01:07,667 --> 00:01:10,215
Out of harm's way, he prayed,

15
00:01:10,215 --> 00:01:13,678
to a dusty little crossroads
called Appomattox Courthouse.

16
00:01:15,233 --> 00:01:18,984
And it was there, in his living room, 
three and a half years later,

17
00:01:18,984 --> 00:01:20,774
that Lee surrendered to Grant.

18
00:01:22,217 --> 00:01:24,922
And Wilmer McLean could rightfully say,

19
00:01:25,186 --> 00:01:29,367
"The war began in my front yard
and ended in my front parlor".

20
00:01:35,276 --> 00:01:38,752
[The Civil War]

21
00:03:10,972 --> 00:03:14,114
The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places,

22
00:03:14,202 --> 00:03:17,638
from Valverde, New Mexico
and Tullahoma, Tennessee,

23
00:03:17,789 --> 00:03:21,789
to St. Albans, Vermont, 
and Fernandina, on the Florida coast.

24
00:03:24,961 --> 00:03:27,609
More than three million Americans 
fought in it

25
00:03:27,951 --> 00:03:33,266
and over 600,000 men, 
2% of the population, died in it.

26
00:03:36,247 --> 00:03:38,685
American homes became headquarters.

27
00:03:39,850 --> 00:03:43,850
American churches and schoolhouses
sheltered the dying.

28
00:03:45,610 --> 00:03:49,877
And huge foraging armies 
swept across American farms

29
00:03:49,975 --> 00:03:52,224
and burned American towns.

30
00:03:54,732 --> 00:03:59,013
Americans slaughtered one another
wholesale, here, in America,

31
00:03:59,067 --> 00:04:01,944
in their own corn fields, 
and peach orchards,

32
00:04:02,257 --> 00:04:06,629
along familiar roads and by waters 
with old American names.

33
00:04:09,231 --> 00:04:12,840
In two days, at Shiloh, 
on the banks of the Tennessee,

34
00:04:13,230 --> 00:04:17,412
more American men fell than 
on all previous American wars combined.

35
00:04:20,691 --> 00:04:25,624
At Cold Harbor, 7,000 Americans 
fell in 20 minutes.

36
00:04:34,170 --> 00:04:37,912
Men who had never strayed 20 miles
from their own front doors,

37
00:04:37,912 --> 00:04:40,941
now found themselves 
soldiers in great armies,

38
00:04:40,941 --> 00:04:43,817
fighting epic battles 
hundreds of miles from home.

39
00:04:46,887 --> 00:04:49,038
They knew they were making history

40
00:04:49,105 --> 00:04:51,610
and it was the greatest adventure
of their lives.

41
00:04:56,529 --> 00:04:59,931
The war made some rich, ruined others

42
00:04:59,931 --> 00:05:03,244
and change forever the lives 
of all who lived through it.

43
00:05:04,750 --> 00:05:07,788
A lackluster clerk from Galena, Illinois,

44
00:05:07,788 --> 00:05:10,178
a failure at everything
except marriage and war,

45
00:05:10,285 --> 00:05:13,313
who in three years would be 
head of the Union army

46
00:05:13,450 --> 00:05:16,221
and in seven 
President the United States.

47
00:05:17,088 --> 00:05:20,381
An eccentric student of theology 
and military tactics,

48
00:05:20,510 --> 00:05:24,847
a hypochondriac who rode in the battle
with one hand raised

49
00:05:24,865 --> 00:05:27,875
"to keep", he said, "the blood balanced".

50
00:05:28,797 --> 00:05:32,797
A college professor from Maine,
who on a little hill in Pennsylvania,

51
00:05:32,940 --> 00:05:35,901
ordered an unlikely textbook maneuver,

52
00:05:35,901 --> 00:05:39,246
that saved the Union army
and possibly the Union itself.

53
00:05:40,888 --> 00:05:44,890
Two ordinary soldiers, 
one from Providence, Rhode Island,

54
00:05:46,163 --> 00:05:48,280
the other from Columbia, Tennessee,

55
00:05:48,527 --> 00:05:50,870
who each serve four years

56
00:05:50,870 --> 00:05:54,079
and together seemed to have been
everywhere during the war

57
00:05:54,079 --> 00:05:55,691
and live to tell the tale.

58
00:05:57,491 --> 00:06:00,282
The courtly unknowable aristocrat

59
00:06:00,282 --> 00:06:03,120
who disapproved of secession and slavery.

60
00:06:03,192 --> 00:06:05,105
yet went on to defend them both

61
00:06:05,105 --> 00:06:07,814

at the head of one 
of the greatest armies of all time.

62
00:06:08,996 --> 00:06:12,582
The runaway boy 
who "stole himself" from slavery,

63
00:06:12,582 --> 00:06:15,220
recruited two regiments of black soldiers

64
00:06:15,220 --> 00:06:17,577
and helped transform the Civil War

65
00:06:17,577 --> 00:06:20,595
into a struggle for the freedom
of all Americans.

66
00:06:22,450 --> 00:06:25,386
And then there was 
the rough man from Illinois,

67
00:06:25,697 --> 00:06:29,424
who would rise to be the greatest President
the country has ever seen.

68
00:06:33,258 --> 00:06:38,740
Between 1861 and 1865, 
Americans made war on each other

69
00:06:38,740 --> 00:06:41,340
and killed each other in great numbers

70
00:06:41,457 --> 00:06:44,164
if only to become the kind of country

71
00:06:44,164 --> 00:06:46,973
that could no longer conceive
how that was possible.

72
00:06:49,246 --> 00:06:53,587
What began as a bitter dispute
over Union and states' rights,

73
00:06:53,587 --> 00:06:57,454
ended as a struggle over 
the meaning of freedom in America.

74
00:06:58,956 --> 00:07:04,240
At Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln 
can said perhaps more than he knew.

75
00:07:05,610 --> 00:07:09,305
The war was about "a new birth of freedom".

76
00:07:17,609 --> 00:07:21,599
1938 — 75th anniversary 
of the Battle of Gettysburg.

77
00:07:21,599 --> 00:07:24,828
President Roosevelt spoke 
to the remaining few Civil War veterans.

78
00:07:24,967 --> 00:07:28,852
"Veterans of the Blue and the Gray.

79
00:07:30,253 --> 00:07:33,662
"On behalf of the people 
of the United States,

80
00:07:34,569 --> 00:07:37,322
"I accept this monument

81
00:07:37,674 --> 00:07:41,348
"in the spirit of brotherhood and peace".

82
00:07:42,860 --> 00:07:45,460
Year after year, the nation remembered.

83
00:07:45,460 --> 00:07:49,301
In 1930, veterans of the Union army
marched in Cincinnati, Ohio.

84
00:07:49,437 --> 00:07:51,794
Four years later in New York City.

85
00:07:51,845 --> 00:07:54,730
They and the surviving veterans 
of the Confederacy

86
00:07:54,730 --> 00:07:57,445
were the last link 
with the terrible conflict

87
00:07:57,445 --> 00:07:59,154
that tore America apart,

88
00:07:59,154 --> 00:08:01,324
from 1861 to 1865.

89
00:08:01,721 --> 00:08:04,978
The last Civil War veteran 
would die in 1959

90
00:08:05,274 --> 00:08:08,939
and no longer were there been 
living memories of long ago battles.

91
00:08:09,184 --> 00:08:11,244
Only History and legends.

92
00:08:24,994 --> 00:08:28,757
Any understanding of this nation
has to be based,

93
00:08:28,757 --> 00:08:31,946
and I mean, really based 
on an understanding of the Civil War.

94
00:08:31,946 --> 00:08:34,336
I believe that firmly. It defined us.

95
00:08:34,336 --> 00:08:36,320
The Revolution did what it did.

96
00:08:36,519 --> 00:08:39,947
Our involvement in European wars, 
beginning with the I World War,

97
00:08:39,947 --> 00:08:41,547
did what it did.

98
00:08:41,547 --> 00:08:44,918
But the Civil War defines us 
as what we are

99
00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:49,133
and it opened us to being what we became,

100
00:08:49,561 --> 00:08:51,714
good and bad things.

101
00:08:53,265 --> 00:08:56,145
It is very necessary 
if you are going to understand

102
00:08:56,145 --> 00:08:59,295
the American character,
in the 20th century,

103
00:08:59,295 --> 00:09:03,762
to learn about this enormous catastrophe 
of the mid-19th century.

104
00:09:03,937 --> 00:09:08,841
It was the crossroads of our being
and it was a hell of a crossroads.

105
00:09:10,135 --> 00:09:13,681
For me, the picture of the Civil War,

106
00:09:13,681 --> 00:09:16,622
as a historic phenomenon,

107
00:09:17,814 --> 00:09:19,692
is not on the battlefield.

108
00:09:19,692 --> 00:09:21,305
It's not about weapons.

109
00:09:21,305 --> 00:09:22,981
It's not about soldiers,

110
00:09:23,271 --> 00:09:28,671
except to the extent that weapons
and soldiers at that crucial moment,

111
00:09:29,175 --> 00:09:32,232
joined a discussion 
about something higher,

112
00:09:32,235 --> 00:09:35,292
about humanity, about human dignity,

113
00:09:35,292 --> 00:09:37,172
about human freedom.

114
00:09:40,668 --> 00:09:44,406
"From whence shall we expect 
the approach of danger?

115
00:09:45,534 --> 00:09:50,200
"Shall some trans-Atlantic giant
step the earth and crush us at a blow?

116
00:09:51,538 --> 00:09:53,410
"Never.

117
00:09:53,700 --> 00:09:56,557
"All the armies of Europe and Asia

118
00:09:56,557 --> 00:10:00,357
"could not by force take a drink 
from the Ohio River

119
00:10:00,357 --> 00:10:04,357
"or make a track on the Blue Ridge 
in the trial of a thousand years.

120
00:10:05,736 --> 00:10:11,145
"No, if destruction be our lot we must 
ourselves be its author and finisher.

121
00:10:12,176 --> 00:10:16,176
"As a nation of free men,
we will live forever

122
00:10:17,318 --> 00:10:19,347
"or die by suicide".

123
00:10:21,123 --> 00:10:24,409
— Abraham Lincoln, 1837.

124
00:10:27,933 --> 00:10:31,361
[1861— the Cause]

125
00:10:35,371 --> 00:10:39,568
In 1861 most of the nation's 
31 million people

126
00:10:39,568 --> 00:10:42,550
live peaceably on farms 
and in small towns.

127
00:10:44,050 --> 00:10:48,321
At Sharpsburg, Maryland,
a German pacifist sect, the Dunkards,

128
00:10:48,321 --> 00:10:51,384
made their home
in a sea of wheat and corn.

129
00:10:52,565 --> 00:10:56,456
In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 
population 2,400,

130
00:10:56,456 --> 00:11:00,294
young men studied Latin and Mathematics
at the small college there.

131
00:11:01,804 --> 00:11:03,958
Steamboats filled with cotton,

132
00:11:03,958 --> 00:11:06,348
came and went at Vicksburg 
on the Mississippi.

133
00:11:07,658 --> 00:11:11,120
In Washington D.C., 
Senator Jefferson Davis

134
00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:13,942
reviewed plans for remodeling the Capitol.

135
00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:19,981
In Richmond, the 900 employees
of the Tredegar Iron Works

136
00:11:19,981 --> 00:11:23,981
turned out gun carriages and cannon
for the US government.

137
00:11:26,378 --> 00:11:29,622
At West Point, on the Hudson, 
officers trained

138
00:11:29,897 --> 00:11:33,726
and friendships were formed, 
they thought, would last a lifetime.

139
00:11:38,456 --> 00:11:40,863
"In thinking of America,

140
00:11:41,237 --> 00:11:45,586
"I sometimes find myself 
admiring her bright blue sky

141
00:11:45,586 --> 00:11:48,850
"her grand old woods, her fertile fields,

142
00:11:48,850 --> 00:11:50,815
"her beautiful rivers,

143
00:11:50,896 --> 00:11:53,962
"her mighty lakes 
and star-crowned mountains.

144
00:11:55,856 --> 00:11:58,552
"But my rapture is soon checked

145
00:11:58,969 --> 00:12:01,457
"when I remember that all is cursed

146
00:12:01,457 --> 00:12:05,912
"with the infernal spirit 
of slaveholding and wrong,

147
00:12:05,912 --> 00:12:10,061
"when I remember that 
with the waters of her noblest rivers

148
00:12:10,061 --> 00:12:13,556
"the tears of my brethren
are borne to the ocean,

149
00:12:14,277 --> 00:12:16,248
"disregarded and forgotten,

150
00:12:17,499 --> 00:12:23,411
"that her most fertile fields drink daily 
of the warm blood of my outraged sisters,

151
00:12:25,163 --> 00:12:28,674
"I am filled with an unutterable loathing".

152
00:12:29,734 --> 00:12:31,494
— Frederick Douglass.

153
00:12:34,158 --> 00:12:36,948
[All Night Forever]

154
00:13:56,154 --> 00:14:00,468
"No day ever dawns for the slave", 
a freed black man wrote.

155
00:14:01,292 --> 00:14:03,219
"nor is it looked for.

156
00:14:03,705 --> 00:14:05,867
"For the slave, it is all night,

157
00:14:06,193 --> 00:14:08,053
"all night forever."

158
00:14:12,510 --> 00:14:15,676
One white Mississippian was more blunt.

159
00:14:15,923 --> 00:14:18,161
"I'd rather be dead", he said,

160
00:14:18,161 --> 00:14:21,218
"than be a nigger on one 
of these big plantations".

161
00:14:26,371 --> 00:14:30,371
A slave entered the world in a one-room,
dirt-floored shack.

162
00:14:30,397 --> 00:14:33,331
Drafty in winter, reeking in summer,

163
00:14:33,331 --> 00:14:36,293
slave cabins bred pneumonia, typhus,

164
00:14:36,293 --> 00:14:39,240
cholera, lockjaw, tuberculosis.

165
00:14:40,228 --> 00:14:43,619
The child who survived
to be sent to the fields at 12,

166
00:14:43,689 --> 00:14:48,298
was likely to have rotten teeth,
worms, dysentery, malaria.

167
00:14:49,173 --> 00:14:52,526
Fewer than four out of a hundred 
lived to be 60.

168
00:14:58,543 --> 00:15:02,324
Work began at sunrise and continued
as long as there was light.

169
00:15:02,645 --> 00:15:04,904
Fourteen hours sometimes,

170
00:15:04,904 --> 00:15:08,179
unless there was a full moon
when it went on still longer.

171
00:15:13,954 --> 00:15:17,061
On the auction block, 
blacks be made to jump and dance

172
00:15:17,061 --> 00:15:19,124
to demonstrate their sprightliness

173
00:15:19,124 --> 00:15:21,967
and stripped to show 
how little whipping they needed.

174
00:15:23,086 --> 00:15:25,199
Buyers poked and prodded them,

175
00:15:25,231 --> 00:15:27,897
examined their feet, eyes and teeth,

176
00:15:27,937 --> 00:15:32,210
"precisely", one ex-slave recalled, 
"as a jockey examines a horse".

177
00:15:34,492 --> 00:15:38,252
"A slave could expect to be sold 
at least once in his lifetime.

178
00:15:38,252 --> 00:15:40,611
"maybe two times, maybe more.

179
00:15:42,238 --> 00:15:45,447
"Since slave marriages had no legal status,

180
00:15:45,643 --> 00:15:48,866
"preachers changed 
the wedding vows to read

181
00:15:48,866 --> 00:15:51,759
"until death or distance do you part".

182
00:15:54,444 --> 00:15:56,496
"You know what I'd rather do,

183
00:15:57,555 --> 00:16:03,036
"if I thought that I'd ever be 
a slave again?

184
00:16:04,639 --> 00:16:08,753
"I'd take a gun and just end it 
all right away.

185
00:16:10,207 --> 00:16:12,596
"Because you're nothing but a dog.

186
00:16:13,259 --> 00:16:15,559
"You're not a thing but a dog.

187
00:16:25,995 --> 00:16:27,939
"Some slaves refused to work.

188
00:16:28,690 --> 00:16:30,474
"Some ran away.

189
00:16:35,207 --> 00:16:38,502
"Still, blacks struggled 
to hold their families together,

190
00:16:38,837 --> 00:16:42,151
"created their own culture 
under the worst of conditions

191
00:16:44,622 --> 00:16:46,908
"and yearned to be free.

192
00:17:03,335 --> 00:17:08,026
If there was a single event 
that caused the war,

193
00:17:08,519 --> 00:17:11,357
it was the establishment 
of the United States

194
00:17:11,357 --> 00:17:14,357
in independence from Great Britain,

195
00:17:14,357 --> 00:17:17,734
with slavery still a part of its heritage.

196
00:17:18,946 --> 00:17:21,899
It was because we failed to do the thing.

197
00:17:21,899 --> 00:17:25,117
We really have a genius for,
which is compromise.

198
00:17:25,117 --> 00:17:27,784
Americans like to think of themselves
as uncompromising.

199
00:17:27,784 --> 00:17:31,450
Our true genius is for compromise, 
our whole governments founded on it,

200
00:17:31,484 --> 00:17:32,751
and it failed.

201
00:17:33,996 --> 00:17:36,197
"There was never a moment in our History

202
00:17:36,213 --> 00:17:39,130
"when slavery was not a sleeping serpent.

203
00:17:39,711 --> 00:17:41,934
"It laid coiled up under the table

204
00:17:41,934 --> 00:17:45,144
"during the deliberations
of the Constitutional Convention.

205
00:17:45,144 --> 00:17:49,472
"Owing to the Cotton Gin, 
it was more than half awake.

206
00:17:49,472 --> 00:17:52,799
"Thereafter, slavery was on everyone's mind,

207
00:17:53,079 --> 00:17:55,214
"though not always on his tongue".

208
00:17:56,561 --> 00:17:58,660
— John G. Chapman.

209
00:18:00,461 --> 00:18:04,594
By the time the nation was founded, 
slavery was dying in the North.

210
00:18:06,244 --> 00:18:08,397
There were doubts in the South too.

211
00:18:08,397 --> 00:18:11,330
But few could conceive of any alternative.

212
00:18:11,903 --> 00:18:14,350
Thomas Jefferson in Virginia said

213
00:18:14,350 --> 00:18:18,170
maintaining slavery 
was like holding a wolf by the ears.

214
00:18:18,531 --> 00:18:21,812
"You didn't like it 
but you didn't dare let it go".

215
00:18:23,724 --> 00:18:27,581
Then, in 1793, a Northerner, Eli Whitney,

216
00:18:27,581 --> 00:18:30,143
taught the South how to make slavery pay.

217
00:18:31,777 --> 00:18:37,215
Whitney's engine, or "gin", made it easier
to separate cotton from its seed.

218
00:18:40,682 --> 00:18:42,872
Where before it had taken one slave

219
00:18:42,872 --> 00:18:45,872
ten hours to produce
a single pound of lint,

220
00:18:45,872 --> 00:18:49,291
the Cotton Gin could crank out
a thousand pounds a day.

221
00:18:53,282 --> 00:18:54,867
Production soared

222
00:18:54,867 --> 00:18:56,996
and with it, the demand for slaves.

223
00:18:58,169 --> 00:19:00,721
By 1860, the last year of peace,

224
00:19:00,736 --> 00:19:04,736
one out of every seven Americans 
belonged to another American.

225
00:19:05,950 --> 00:19:09,360
Four million men, women 
and children were slaves.

226
00:19:16,468 --> 00:19:19,735
[Are We Free?]

227
00:19:24,515 --> 00:19:29,248
In Boston, in 1831, claiming
that "which is not just, is not law",

228
00:19:29,248 --> 00:19:32,336
William Lloyd Garrison began publishing

229
00:19:32,336 --> 00:19:35,458
a militant, anti-slavery 
newspaper, "The Liberator".

230
00:19:36,252 --> 00:19:39,357
He called for complete 
and immediate abolition.

231
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:44,480
"I am in earnest. I will not equivocate.

232
00:19:44,933 --> 00:19:46,844
"I will not excuse,

233
00:19:47,991 --> 00:19:51,706
"I will not retreat a single inch

234
00:19:51,965 --> 00:19:54,879
"and I will be heard!"

235
00:19:56,537 --> 00:19:58,356
He was heard

236
00:19:58,373 --> 00:20:00,173
and his message was clear.

237
00:20:00,228 --> 00:20:01,932
Slavery was sin

238
00:20:03,245 --> 00:20:05,959
and those who maintained it, criminals.

239
00:20:12,243 --> 00:20:16,083
The abolition movement grew
inspired by passionate leaders.

240
00:20:16,458 --> 00:20:20,743
Harriet Tubman, called Moses by the slaves
who followed her north to freedom.

241
00:20:21,374 --> 00:20:25,478
Wendell Phillips, named 
the Golden Trumpet of Abolitionism,

242
00:20:25,478 --> 00:20:27,136
for his oratory

243
00:20:27,657 --> 00:20:29,343
and Frederick Douglass,

244
00:20:29,343 --> 00:20:31,752
the son of a slave and a white man.

245
00:20:32,406 --> 00:20:35,720
"I appear this evening 
as a thief and robber

246
00:20:36,487 --> 00:20:39,306
"I stole this head, these limbs

247
00:20:39,306 --> 00:20:41,630
"this body from my master

248
00:20:41,630 --> 00:20:43,420
"and ran off with them.

249
00:20:44,541 --> 00:20:49,111
Douglass was so eloquent that skeptics 
charged he could never have been a slave.

250
00:20:49,669 --> 00:20:53,126
In part to prove them wrong, 
he wrote an autobiography,

251
00:20:53,206 --> 00:20:57,206
purchased his freedom with 600 dollars 
obtained from English admirers

252
00:20:57,354 --> 00:20:59,146
and returned to the struggle.

253
00:21:00,413 --> 00:21:02,579
[Southern men!
Down with the abolition press]

254
00:21:02,579 --> 00:21:04,642
"The abolitionists would raise the negroes

255
00:21:04,642 --> 00:21:07,379
"to a social and political equality
with the whites

256
00:21:07,379 --> 00:21:10,133
"and, that being effected, would soon see

257
00:21:10,133 --> 00:21:13,196
"the present condition 
of the two races reversed.

258
00:21:13,424 --> 00:21:17,968
"They and their Northern allies
would be the masters and we the slaves".

259
00:21:19,779 --> 00:21:21,474
— John C. Calhoun.

260
00:21:22,138 --> 00:21:24,886
More and more Southerners worried

261
00:21:24,886 --> 00:21:28,705
about the growing political as well 
as economic power of the North.

262
00:21:28,705 --> 00:21:31,684
Northerners were increasingly 
hostile to slavery.

263
00:21:33,642 --> 00:21:37,642
Still most Southerners refused 
to acknowledge even the possibility

264
00:21:37,829 --> 00:21:39,696
of changing their way of life.

265
00:21:42,230 --> 00:21:45,944
"On the North Bank of the Ohio 
everything is activity, industry.

266
00:21:46,165 --> 00:21:48,993
"Labor is honored. There are no slaves.

267
00:21:49,439 --> 00:21:52,610
"Pass to the South Bank 
and the scene changes so suddenly

268
00:21:52,630 --> 00:21:55,268
"that you think yourself 
on the other side of the world.

269
00:21:55,507 --> 00:21:57,993
"The enterprising spirit is gone."

270
00:21:58,637 --> 00:22:00,399
— Alexis de Tocqueville.

271
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:06,160
"We are separated because 
of incompatibility of temper.

272
00:22:06,321 --> 00:22:09,432
"We are divorced North from South

273
00:22:09,432 --> 00:22:12,167
"because we hated each other so."

274
00:22:12,613 --> 00:22:14,159
— Mary Chesnut.

275
00:22:17,699 --> 00:22:21,699
On the clear moonlit night 
of November 7th, 1837,

276
00:22:21,699 --> 00:22:25,100
a mob surrounded a warehouse 
at Alton, Illinois,

277
00:22:25,100 --> 00:22:28,369
intent on destroying 
an antislavery newspaper,

278
00:22:28,404 --> 00:22:31,185
run by the Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy.

279
00:22:31,762 --> 00:22:35,100
When one of the mob moved 
to set the building on fire,

280
00:22:35,100 --> 00:22:37,924
Lovejoy armed with a pistol 
came out to stop him.

281
00:22:38,425 --> 00:22:39,612
(Gunfire)

282
00:22:39,641 --> 00:22:41,947
The slavery men shot him dead

283
00:22:42,065 --> 00:22:44,711
and dumped his printing press 
into the Mississippi.

284
00:22:47,929 --> 00:22:49,691
The news stunned the nation.

285
00:22:49,744 --> 00:22:52,440
A white man had been killed 
over black slavery.

286
00:22:53,293 --> 00:22:55,919
Protest meetings were held
throughout the North.

287
00:22:57,272 --> 00:22:59,356
One abolitionist wrote that,

288
00:22:59,356 --> 00:23:01,651
"Thousands of our citizens
who lately believed

289
00:23:01,651 --> 00:23:04,370
"that they had nothing to do with slavery,

290
00:23:04,370 --> 00:23:06,666
"now begin to discover their error".

291
00:23:08,811 --> 00:23:12,420
In Hudson, Ohio, a clergyman
told a church gathering,

292
00:23:12,677 --> 00:23:17,239
"The question now before us is no longer 
'can slaves be made free?'

293
00:23:17,239 --> 00:23:21,535
"but 'are we free 
or are we slaves under mob law?'"

294
00:23:23,120 --> 00:23:26,399
In the back of the church
a strange gaunt man

295
00:23:26,399 --> 00:23:29,426
rose to his feet 
and raised his right hand.

296
00:23:30,581 --> 00:23:34,200
"Here, before God, 
in the presence of these witnesses,

297
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,905
"I consecrate my life 
to the destruction of slavery".

298
00:23:39,232 --> 00:23:40,756
— John Brown.

299
00:23:45,627 --> 00:23:49,180
[A House Divided]

300
00:23:53,270 --> 00:23:56,546
In 1846 a lawyer 
from Springfield, Illinois,

301
00:23:56,546 --> 00:23:58,394
was elected to Congress.

302
00:23:59,272 --> 00:24:02,298
He was born in Kentucky, 
the son of a farmer,

303
00:24:02,298 --> 00:24:04,403
who could barely sign his name.

304
00:24:04,546 --> 00:24:08,499
He became a legislator at 24,
a prosperous attorney

305
00:24:08,569 --> 00:24:12,759
and, after a turbulent courtship, 
the husband of Miss Mary Todd,

306
00:24:13,171 --> 00:24:16,390
the daughter of a slave-holding 
Kentucky banker.

307
00:24:17,979 --> 00:24:21,151
For Abraham Lincoln, 
the Declaration of Independence

308
00:24:21,151 --> 00:24:22,951
was to be taken literally.

309
00:24:23,263 --> 00:24:27,049
All men had the right to rise 
as far as talent would take them,

310
00:24:27,049 --> 00:24:28,463
just as he had.

311
00:24:29,655 --> 00:24:31,885
He detested slavery,

312
00:24:31,885 --> 00:24:36,114
but he called for its restriction, 
not immediate abolition.

313
00:24:38,745 --> 00:24:41,488
By mid-century the country 
was deeply divided.

314
00:24:41,767 --> 00:24:44,853
Southerners feared the North
might forbid slavery.

315
00:24:45,247 --> 00:24:48,457
Northerners feared 
slavery might move west.

316
00:24:49,443 --> 00:24:52,559
As each new state was added to the Union,

317
00:24:52,559 --> 00:24:56,259
it threatened to upset 
the delicate equilibrium of power.

318
00:25:00,356 --> 00:25:03,747
"There are grave doubts
at the hugeness of the land

319
00:25:04,499 --> 00:25:08,581
"and whether one government 
can comprehend the whole.

320
00:25:09,769 --> 00:25:11,249
— Henry Adams.

321
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,455
Now events accelerated.

322
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:22,360
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe 
published "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

323
00:25:23,192 --> 00:25:27,583
Its portrayal of slavery's cruelty 
moved readers as nothing else had.

324
00:25:28,166 --> 00:25:30,214
Queen Victoria wept over.

325
00:25:30,300 --> 00:25:34,852
Within a year more than 1.5 million copies
were in print worldwide.

326
00:25:36,686 --> 00:25:41,829
In 1854, Congress allowed settlers
in the Kansas and Nebraska territories

327
00:25:41,829 --> 00:25:44,962
to decide for themselves 
whether or not to permit slavery.

328
00:25:45,656 --> 00:25:47,399
Kansas exploded.

329
00:25:48,779 --> 00:25:52,151
Five thousand pro-slavery men 
invaded the territory.

330
00:25:52,532 --> 00:25:56,227
In the next three months 
200 men died in bleeding Kansas.

331
00:25:56,529 --> 00:25:59,520
The killing would not stop for 10 years.

332
00:26:00,990 --> 00:26:05,809
In 1857, the Supreme Court 
refused to free a slave, Dred Scott,

333
00:26:05,888 --> 00:26:09,193
even though he had lived 
for many years on free soil.

334
00:26:10,312 --> 00:26:12,992
Chief justice Roger B. Taney said

335
00:26:12,992 --> 00:26:17,010
a black man had no rights 
a white man was bound to respect.

336
00:26:19,238 --> 00:26:23,733
"As a nation we began by declaring
that 'all men are created equal'.

337
00:26:24,449 --> 00:26:29,372
"We now practically read it 
'all men are created equal, except negroes'.

338
00:26:30,538 --> 00:26:32,341
"Soon it will read

339
00:26:32,341 --> 00:26:36,796
" 'all men are created equal, except negroes
and foreigners and Catholics'.

340
00:26:37,360 --> 00:26:40,681
"When it comes to this, I should prefer
emigrating to some country

341
00:26:40,681 --> 00:26:43,718
"where they make no pretense
of loving liberty.

342
00:26:43,809 --> 00:26:45,538
"to Russia, for instance,

343
00:26:45,615 --> 00:26:48,177
"where despotism can be taken pure

344
00:26:48,272 --> 00:26:51,301
"and without the base alloy of hypocrisy".

345
00:26:52,328 --> 00:26:53,930
— Abraham Lincoln.

346
00:26:57,948 --> 00:27:00,976
Violence reached the floor 
the United States Senate

347
00:27:00,976 --> 00:27:04,319
where congressman Preston Brooks
of South Carolina

348
00:27:04,338 --> 00:27:08,338
savagely beat abolitionist 
Senator Charles Sumner with his cane.

349
00:27:09,448 --> 00:27:12,770
Southern sympathizers 
sent Brooks new canes.

350
00:27:13,603 --> 00:27:17,120
Members began carrying knives and pistols
into the Chamber.

351
00:27:18,497 --> 00:27:23,316
Meanwhile, the nation's chief executive, 
James Buchanan, did nothing.

352
00:27:26,855 --> 00:27:29,703
"A House divided against itself 
cannot stand.

353
00:27:31,133 --> 00:27:33,828
"I believe this government cannot endure,

354
00:27:33,835 --> 00:27:36,740
"permanently half slave and half free.

355
00:27:37,722 --> 00:27:40,303
"I do not expect the Union to be dissolved,

356
00:27:41,106 --> 00:27:43,687
"I do not expect the House to fall,

357
00:27:44,441 --> 00:27:46,774
"but I do expect
it will cease to be divided.

358
00:27:47,763 --> 00:27:49,678
"It will become all one thing

359
00:27:50,309 --> 00:27:52,166
"or all the other.

360
00:27:52,450 --> 00:27:53,766
— A. Lincoln.

361
00:27:55,385 --> 00:27:57,613
[The Meteor]

362
00:28:01,916 --> 00:28:05,963
On Sunday evening, October 16, 1859,

363
00:28:05,963 --> 00:28:09,010
the radical abolitionist John Brown

364
00:28:09,010 --> 00:28:13,156
led 5 blacks and 13 whites 
into Harper's Ferry, Virginia.

365
00:28:14,120 --> 00:28:16,457
He brought along a wagon loaded of guns

366
00:28:16,457 --> 00:28:19,329
to arm the slaves 
he was sure would rally to him.

367
00:28:19,857 --> 00:28:22,909
Once they had, he planned 
to lead them southward

368
00:28:22,909 --> 00:28:25,100
along the crest of the Appalachians

369
00:28:25,114 --> 00:28:26,852
and destroy slavery.

370
00:28:28,271 --> 00:28:32,785
Brown was an inept businessman 
who had failed 20 times in six states

371
00:28:32,785 --> 00:28:34,421
and defaulted on his debts.

372
00:28:34,786 --> 00:28:38,430
Yet he believed himself 
God's agent on Earth.

373
00:28:40,349 --> 00:28:43,921
In 1856, at Pottawatomie Creek, in Kansas,

374
00:28:44,068 --> 00:28:49,804
he and his sons had hacked five proslavery
men to death with broadswords.

375
00:28:50,218 --> 00:28:54,294
All in the name of defeating Satan
and his legions.

376
00:28:56,915 --> 00:29:01,134
Brown and his men quietly seized
the armory, arsenal and engine house

377
00:29:01,134 --> 00:29:05,439
and took up hostages, including 
George Washington's great-grandnephew.

378
00:29:06,278 --> 00:29:08,621
After that, nothing went right.

379
00:29:09,417 --> 00:29:13,360
The first person killed was 
the town baggage master, a free black.

380
00:29:14,123 --> 00:29:16,180
The slaves did not rise up.

381
00:29:16,207 --> 00:29:17,960
Angry town's people did.

382
00:29:19,471 --> 00:29:23,518
The first of Brown's followers to fall 
was Dangerfield Newby,

383
00:29:23,518 --> 00:29:24,975
a former slave.

384
00:29:25,430 --> 00:29:28,934
Someone in the crowd 
cut off his ears as souvenirs.

385
00:29:32,551 --> 00:29:35,277
On Tuesday morning, Federal troops
arrive from Washington

386
00:29:35,607 --> 00:29:38,740
led by a U.S. army colonel, Robert E. Lee.

387
00:29:40,219 --> 00:29:42,438
Lee's men stormed the engine house

388
00:29:42,438 --> 00:29:45,098
and nine more of Brown's men were killed,

389
00:29:45,098 --> 00:29:46,786
including two of his sons.

390
00:29:47,214 --> 00:29:50,395
Brown, severely wounded, 
was turned over to Virginia

391
00:29:50,621 --> 00:29:52,365
to be tried for treason.

392
00:29:56,222 --> 00:29:58,355
"In firing his gun

393
00:29:58,409 --> 00:30:01,818
"John Brown has merely told
what time of day it is.

394
00:30:02,061 --> 00:30:05,280
"It is high noon, thank God!"

395
00:30:06,189 --> 00:30:07,932
— William Lloyd Garrison.

396
00:30:09,683 --> 00:30:13,260
"An undivided South says, 
'Let him hang'."

397
00:30:13,473 --> 00:30:15,578
— Albany Georgia patriot.

398
00:30:16,633 --> 00:30:19,995
Virginia found Brown guilty 
and sentenced him to death.

399
00:30:21,965 --> 00:30:24,193
Among the troops 
at the scene of his hanging

400
00:30:24,193 --> 00:30:27,120
were cadets from 
the Virginia military Institute,

401
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:30,872
led by an eccentric professor,
Thomas J. Jackson.

402
00:30:32,504 --> 00:30:36,340
Also there was a private 
in the Richmond Grays,

403
00:30:36,340 --> 00:30:38,606
a young actor named John Wilkes Booth.

404
00:30:41,823 --> 00:30:44,195
December 2nd, 1859.

405
00:30:45,770 --> 00:30:49,770
"Old John Brown has been executed 
for treason against the state.

406
00:30:50,731 --> 00:30:55,646
"We cannot object even though he agreed
with us in thinking slavery wrong.

407
00:30:56,366 --> 00:31:00,128
"That cannot excuse violence, 
bloodshed and treason.

408
00:31:00,658 --> 00:31:04,218
"It could avail him nothing 
that he might think himself right."

409
00:31:05,224 --> 00:31:06,786
— Abraham Lincoln.

410
00:31:08,942 --> 00:31:12,660
Ralph Waldo Emerson 
likened Brown to Christ.

411
00:31:13,347 --> 00:31:17,795
Nathaniel Hawthorne declared, 
"No man ever more justly hanged".

412
00:31:18,912 --> 00:31:22,912
And Herman Melville called him 
"the meteor of the war".

413
00:31:26,525 --> 00:31:29,173
Brown had said nothing from the gallows,

414
00:31:29,289 --> 00:31:31,925
but he did hand one of his guards a note.

415
00:31:33,642 --> 00:31:37,422
"I, John Brown, am now quite certain

416
00:31:37,431 --> 00:31:42,384
"that the crimes of this guilty land 
will never be purged away but with blood".

417
00:31:47,464 --> 00:31:51,759
"His zeal in the cause of freedom
was infinitely superior to mine.

418
00:31:52,354 --> 00:31:54,354
"Mine was as the taper light.

419
00:31:55,107 --> 00:31:57,802
"His was as the burning sun.

420
00:31:58,486 --> 00:32:00,295
"I could live for the slave.

421
00:32:01,312 --> 00:32:04,922
John Brown could die for him".

422
00:32:11,247 --> 00:32:16,871
John Brown... John Brown... 
very important person in History.

423
00:32:16,871 --> 00:32:19,324
Important, though, for only one episode.

424
00:32:19,425 --> 00:32:21,514
Failure of everything in life,

425
00:32:21,514 --> 00:32:25,939
except he becomes
the single most important factor,

426
00:32:25,988 --> 00:32:28,236
in my opinion, in bringing on the war.

427
00:32:28,812 --> 00:32:31,124
The militia system in the South

428
00:32:31,124 --> 00:32:33,234
which had been a joke 
before this, before them,

429
00:32:33,234 --> 00:32:34,910
becomes a viable instrument

430
00:32:34,910 --> 00:32:38,815
as the Southern militias 
begin to take a true form

431
00:32:39,249 --> 00:32:42,602
and the South begins to worry 
about Northerners

432
00:32:42,602 --> 00:32:46,516
agitating the blacks 
to murder them in their beds.

433
00:32:48,779 --> 00:32:51,840
It was the beginning 
of the Confederate army.

434
00:32:55,158 --> 00:32:58,434
[Secessionists]

435
00:33:06,297 --> 00:33:08,490
"The feeling among the Southern members

436
00:33:08,490 --> 00:33:11,462
"for dissolution of the Union 
is becoming more general.

437
00:33:11,790 --> 00:33:14,366
"Men are now beginning 
to talk of it seriously

438
00:33:14,366 --> 00:33:17,556
"who twelve months ago hardly 
permitted themselves to think of it.

439
00:33:18,590 --> 00:33:20,704
"The crisis is not far ahead.

440
00:33:21,113 --> 00:33:22,856
— Alexander Stephens.

441
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:26,305
The country was coming apart.

442
00:33:26,642 --> 00:33:31,392
In the presidential election of 1860, 
Buchanan happily stepped aside

443
00:33:31,392 --> 00:33:34,365
but not before his ruling Democratic Party

444
00:33:34,365 --> 00:33:37,510
was fatally split 
over the issue of slavery.

445
00:33:40,996 --> 00:33:44,129
The Republicans, a new party, 
saw their chance

446
00:33:44,129 --> 00:33:46,739
and nominated Abraham Lincoln, a moderate.

447
00:33:47,228 --> 00:33:51,095
His platform pledged only 
to halt slavery's further spread.

448
00:33:53,433 --> 00:33:57,347
"On that point, hold firm
as with a chain of steel.

449
00:33:58,923 --> 00:34:02,894
"Those who denied freedom to others 
deserve it not for themselves.

450
00:34:03,431 --> 00:34:06,859
"and under a just, 
God cannot long retain it".

451
00:34:11,981 --> 00:34:14,659
Radical abolitionists 
in the North complained

452
00:34:14,659 --> 00:34:17,978
that Lincoln's opposition to slavery
did not go far enough.

453
00:34:18,385 --> 00:34:20,365
But to most people in the South

454
00:34:20,365 --> 00:34:23,556
the prospect of Lincoln's election
posed a lethal threat.

455
00:34:26,221 --> 00:34:29,402
The 1860 campaign had become a referendum

456
00:34:29,402 --> 00:34:31,583
on the southern way of life.

457
00:34:35,419 --> 00:34:38,848
On November 6th, 1860, Abraham Lincoln

458
00:34:38,848 --> 00:34:41,981
won the presidency 
with only 40% of the votes.

459
00:34:43,558 --> 00:34:47,367
He did not even appear on the ballot 
in 10 Southern states.

460
00:34:49,779 --> 00:34:52,833
"The election of Mr. Lincoln 
is undoubtedly the greatest evil

461
00:34:52,833 --> 00:34:55,452
"that has ever befallen this country

462
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:58,262
"but the mischief is done,

463
00:34:58,262 --> 00:35:00,995
"and the only relief 
for the American people

464
00:35:00,995 --> 00:35:06,410
"is to shorten sail, send down the top masts,
and prepare for a hurricane".

465
00:35:07,063 --> 00:35:08,853
— Richmond Whig.

466
00:35:09,757 --> 00:35:12,519
In the South, Lincoln was burned in effigy.

467
00:35:12,938 --> 00:35:16,605
Now the South Carolina legislature
called for a convention

468
00:35:16,605 --> 00:35:19,148
to consider seceding from the Union.

469
00:35:22,628 --> 00:35:25,666
Southerners would have told you
they were fighting for self-government.

470
00:35:25,993 --> 00:35:31,347
They believed the gathering of power 
in Washington was against them.

471
00:35:31,824 --> 00:35:34,903
When they entered into that Federation,

472
00:35:35,043 --> 00:35:37,388
they certainly would never 
have entered into it,

473
00:35:37,388 --> 00:35:40,038
if they hadn't believe 
it would be possible to get out.

474
00:35:40,065 --> 00:35:42,847
And when the time came 
that they wanted to get out,

475
00:35:42,847 --> 00:35:44,758
they thought they had every right.

476
00:35:46,815 --> 00:35:51,182
The Southerners saw 
the election of Lincoln as a sign

477
00:35:51,182 --> 00:35:54,413
that the Union was about to be radicalized

478
00:35:54,508 --> 00:35:58,508
and that they were about to be taken 
in directions they did not care to go.

479
00:35:59,715 --> 00:36:06,532
They figured they were about to lose
what they call their property

480
00:36:06,762 --> 00:36:08,343
and face ruin.

481
00:36:12,487 --> 00:36:15,820
Yet many Southerners thought 
secession was madness.

482
00:36:17,229 --> 00:36:20,273
"South Carolina", 
one Southern politician wrote,

483
00:36:20,273 --> 00:36:22,537
"Is too small for a republic

484
00:36:22,608 --> 00:36:25,113
"and too large for an insane asylum".

485
00:36:28,915 --> 00:36:31,324
"November 18th, 1860.

486
00:36:31,822 --> 00:36:34,299
"A most gloomy day in Wall Street.

487
00:36:34,299 --> 00:36:35,873
"Everything at a deadlock.

488
00:36:35,873 --> 00:36:37,920
"First class paper not negotiable.

489
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,463
"Stocks falling".

490
00:36:39,909 --> 00:36:42,233
— George Templeton Strong.

491
00:36:42,612 --> 00:36:45,596
In New York emotions 
were no less explosive.

492
00:36:45,795 --> 00:36:48,593
And George Templeton Strong, 
a conservative lawyer,

493
00:36:48,593 --> 00:36:50,165
who distrusted Lincoln,

494
00:36:50,165 --> 00:36:52,898
began to keep track of events in his diary.

495
00:36:53,512 --> 00:36:56,693
"The bird of our country 
is a debilitated chicken

496
00:36:56,693 --> 00:36:58,236
"disguised in eagle feathers.

497
00:36:58,619 --> 00:37:00,457
"We have never been a nation.

498
00:37:00,468 --> 00:37:02,621
"We are only an aggregate of communities

499
00:37:02,621 --> 00:37:05,145
"ready to fall apart 
at the first serious shock".

500
00:37:09,118 --> 00:37:11,385
When Abraham Lincoln was elected President,

501
00:37:11,385 --> 00:37:13,708
there were 33 states in the Union

502
00:37:13,766 --> 00:37:16,814
and a 34th, free Kansas, 
was about to join.

503
00:37:17,676 --> 00:37:20,809
By the time of his inauguration, 
five months later,

504
00:37:20,816 --> 00:37:23,321
just 27 states would remain.

505
00:37:24,190 --> 00:37:28,104
The suddenness of secession
took everyone by surprise.

506
00:37:33,759 --> 00:37:37,018
South Carolina led the way 
on December, 20th.

507
00:37:37,391 --> 00:37:41,228
A bell in Charleston tolled
the succession of departing states.

508
00:37:42,234 --> 00:37:44,720
Mississippi, on January, 9th.

509
00:37:47,335 --> 00:37:49,106
Florida, on the 10th.

510
00:37:50,733 --> 00:37:54,466
Then Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana.

511
00:37:59,341 --> 00:38:02,274
In Texas, Governor Sam Houston
was deposed,

512
00:38:02,274 --> 00:38:05,827
when he tried to stop his state 
from joining the Confederacy.

513
00:38:06,553 --> 00:38:08,420
"Let me tell you what is coming.

514
00:38:09,170 --> 00:38:11,904
"After the sacrifice 
of countless millions of treasure

515
00:38:11,904 --> 00:38:14,404
"and hundreds of thousands of lives

516
00:38:14,404 --> 00:38:16,870
"you may win Southern independence

517
00:38:17,032 --> 00:38:18,620
"but I doubt it.

518
00:38:18,945 --> 00:38:21,600
"The North is determined 
to preserve this Union.

519
00:38:22,143 --> 00:38:24,886
"They are not a fiery, 
impulsive people as you are

520
00:38:24,886 --> 00:38:26,857
"for they live in colder climates.

521
00:38:26,969 --> 00:38:29,417
"But when they begin to move 
in a given direction,

522
00:38:29,417 --> 00:38:33,744
"they move with the steady momentum 
and perseverance of a mighty avalanche".

523
00:38:35,891 --> 00:38:37,867
Texas left anyway.

524
00:38:39,192 --> 00:38:41,992
Even Virginia, the most popular
Southern state,

525
00:38:42,081 --> 00:38:45,301
birthplace of seven Presidents,
seem sure to follow.

526
00:38:47,179 --> 00:38:50,788
"All the indications are that 
this treasonable inflammation,

527
00:38:50,931 --> 00:38:55,103
"secessionists, keeps on making
steady progress, week by week.

528
00:38:56,511 --> 00:38:59,397
"If disunion becomes an established fact,

529
00:38:59,960 --> 00:39:01,798
"we have one consolation.

530
00:39:02,628 --> 00:39:07,152
"The self-amputated members were diseased
beyond immediate cure

531
00:39:07,698 --> 00:39:10,726
"and their virus 
will infect our system no longer.

532
00:39:11,663 --> 00:39:13,263
— George Templeton Strong.

533
00:39:15,479 --> 00:39:17,446
The Charleston Mercury:

534
00:39:17,446 --> 00:39:19,531
"The tea has been thrown overboard.

535
00:39:19,566 --> 00:39:22,518
"The revolution of 1860 has been initiated".

536
00:39:27,468 --> 00:39:30,868
After South Carolina seceded, 
the handful of federal troops,

537
00:39:30,868 --> 00:39:34,192
still stationed in Charleston,
withdrew to Fort Sumter,

538
00:39:34,192 --> 00:39:35,887
far out in the harbor.

539
00:39:36,266 --> 00:39:39,171
Their commander, Major Robert Anderson,

540
00:39:39,171 --> 00:39:43,171
said he has moved his men in order 
to prevent the effusion of blood.

541
00:39:43,788 --> 00:39:46,940
They were quickly surrounded 
by rebel batteries.

542
00:39:51,189 --> 00:39:53,933
[Gen. Jefferson Davis,
President of the Southern Republic]

543
00:39:53,933 --> 00:39:55,550
[On his way to Montgomery]

544
00:39:55,603 --> 00:39:57,607
"Thank God, we have a country at last

545
00:39:57,607 --> 00:40:01,736
"to live for, to pray for
and, if need be, to die for".

546
00:40:01,958 --> 00:40:03,720
— Lucius Quintus Lamar.

547
00:40:05,498 --> 00:40:08,478
On February, 18th, 
a few minutes after noon,

548
00:40:08,528 --> 00:40:12,766
Jefferson Davis stood on the steps
of the Alabama Statehouse at Montgomery.

549
00:40:13,139 --> 00:40:15,479
He took the oath of office as President

550
00:40:15,479 --> 00:40:18,106
of the provisional 
Confederate States of America.

551
00:40:20,133 --> 00:40:26,124
The crowds cheered, wept, sang farewell
to the star-spangled banner and Dixie,

552
00:40:26,345 --> 00:40:29,253
a minstrel tune written by a Northerner.

553
00:40:31,396 --> 00:40:35,101
He was brittle, nervous, 
often unable to sleep,

554
00:40:35,101 --> 00:40:36,843
and partly blind in one eye.

555
00:40:37,449 --> 00:40:40,680
Accustomed to being obeyed,
he scorned the bargaining

556
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,416
that made Democratic government work.

557
00:40:43,570 --> 00:40:48,328
Sam Houston said he was cold as a lizard 
and ambitious as Lucifer.

558
00:40:51,159 --> 00:40:53,521
Like Lincoln he was a Kentuckian,

559
00:40:53,521 --> 00:40:55,378
the son of an itinerant farmer,

560
00:40:55,378 --> 00:40:57,883
but he had been educated at West Point,

561
00:40:57,883 --> 00:41:01,601
fought in Mexico 
and served as Secretary of War.

562
00:41:02,373 --> 00:41:06,592
As Senator from Mississippi, he resisted
secession as long as he could.

563
00:41:07,189 --> 00:41:09,155
But when his state 
withdrew from the Union,

564
00:41:09,155 --> 00:41:13,446
he headed home to his plantation,
Brierfield, South of Vicksburg.

565
00:41:14,865 --> 00:41:17,255
He and his wife Varina, were there,

566
00:41:17,255 --> 00:41:19,341
clipping roses in the garden,

567
00:41:19,341 --> 00:41:22,227
when word came that 
he had been elected President.

568
00:41:23,936 --> 00:41:27,062
"Reading that telegram
he looked so grieved

569
00:41:27,062 --> 00:41:31,372
"that I feared some evil 
had fallen in our family.

570
00:41:31,372 --> 00:41:33,992
"After a few minutes he told me

571
00:41:34,221 --> 00:41:37,383
"as a man might speak 
of a sentence of death".

572
00:41:39,328 --> 00:41:43,575
"Upon my head were showered 
smiles, plaudits and flowers

573
00:41:44,635 --> 00:41:48,384
"but beyond them, 
I saw troubles innumerable".

574
00:41:48,654 --> 00:41:50,426
— Jefferson Davis.

575
00:41:51,953 --> 00:41:56,153
The Confederate Constitution was almost
identical to the U.S. Constitution.

576
00:41:56,744 --> 00:42:01,708
But it gave the President a line-item veto,
a six-year term

577
00:42:01,829 --> 00:42:04,848
and it outlawed international 
slave trading.

578
00:42:11,985 --> 00:42:15,462
The Confederate cabinet met 
for the first time in a hotel room.

579
00:42:15,462 --> 00:42:18,881
A sheet of stationery pinned to the door,
marked the President's office.

580
00:42:20,134 --> 00:42:22,210
"Where will I find the State Department?"

581
00:42:22,210 --> 00:42:24,792
a visitor asked Robert Toombs, 
Secretary of State.

582
00:42:25,516 --> 00:42:29,165
"In my hat, sir, and the archives
in my coat pocket".

583
00:42:32,699 --> 00:42:35,794
"Our new government is founded
upon the great truth

584
00:42:36,020 --> 00:42:39,266
"that the negro is not equal 
to the white man".

585
00:42:39,713 --> 00:42:42,621
— Vice President Alexander Stephens.

586
00:42:43,979 --> 00:42:48,434
"God forgive us! 
But ours is a monstrous system.

587
00:42:49,101 --> 00:42:52,727
"Like the patriarchs of old, 
our men live all in one house

588
00:42:52,727 --> 00:42:55,392
"with their wives and their concubines

589
00:42:55,392 --> 00:42:58,383
"and the mulattoes one sees in every family

590
00:42:58,383 --> 00:43:01,152
"exactly resemble the white children.

591
00:43:01,267 --> 00:43:07,705
"All the time they seem to think themselves 
patterns, models of husbands and fathers".

592
00:43:08,767 --> 00:43:10,472
— Mary Chestnut.

593
00:43:12,889 --> 00:43:15,280
Mary Chestnut and her husband James,

594
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,108
a former United States Senator 
from South Carolina,

595
00:43:18,409 --> 00:43:21,447
moved among the highest circles 
of the Confederacy

596
00:43:21,563 --> 00:43:24,382
and were close 
to Jefferson Davis and his wife.

597
00:43:25,524 --> 00:43:28,457
Mary was subject 
to depressions and nightmares

598
00:43:28,529 --> 00:43:31,440
for which she sometimes took opium.

599
00:43:32,693 --> 00:43:35,293
Now she, too, began to keep a diary.

600
00:43:36,535 --> 00:43:40,306
"This journal is intended 
to be entirely objective.

601
00:43:40,748 --> 00:43:43,281
"My subjective days are over".

602
00:43:50,765 --> 00:43:54,003
"The impression produced 
by the size of his extremities

603
00:43:54,003 --> 00:43:57,006
"and by his flapping 
and wide-projecting ears,

604
00:43:57,006 --> 00:44:00,988
"may be removed by the appearance
of kindliness, sagacity.

605
00:44:01,033 --> 00:44:03,775
"The nose itself, a prominent organ,

606
00:44:03,791 --> 00:44:07,043
"stands out from the face, 
with an inquiring, anxious air,

607
00:44:07,043 --> 00:44:09,978
"as though it were sniffing
for some good thing in the wind.

608
00:44:10,087 --> 00:44:13,604
"The eyes dark, full, and deeply set,

609
00:44:13,627 --> 00:44:16,835
"are penetrating, but full of an expression

610
00:44:16,835 --> 00:44:20,138
"which almost amounts to tenderness".

611
00:44:20,740 --> 00:44:23,441
— William Russel, The London Times

612
00:44:26,567 --> 00:44:29,384
Two days after Jefferson Davis left home,

613
00:44:29,492 --> 00:44:33,625
Abraham Lincoln set out from Springfield,
Illinois, for his capital.

614
00:44:36,032 --> 00:44:38,956
"Here I have lived a quarter of a century

615
00:44:39,094 --> 00:44:41,855
"and passed from a young to an old man.

616
00:44:42,785 --> 00:44:46,242
"Here my children have been born
and one is buried.

617
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:52,601
"I now leave not knowing 
when or whether ever I may return,

618
00:44:52,950 --> 00:44:57,519
"with the task before me greater 
than that which rested upon Washington.

619
00:44:58,608 --> 00:45:02,552
"Without the assistance of that divine Being
who ever attended him,

620
00:45:02,794 --> 00:45:04,508
"I cannot succeed.

621
00:45:05,155 --> 00:45:08,793
"With that assistance, I cannot fail.

622
00:45:09,916 --> 00:45:15,430
"To His care commending you, as I hope 
in your prayers you will commend me,

623
00:45:16,229 --> 00:45:18,720
"I bid you an affectionate farewell".

624
00:45:22,150 --> 00:45:24,819
En route to Washington, 
the President's train stopped

625
00:45:24,819 --> 00:45:27,495
at Cleveland, Buffalo, 
Albany and New York.

626
00:45:28,291 --> 00:45:31,110
In Philadelphia, warned 
of plots to kill him,

627
00:45:31,110 --> 00:45:33,977
Lincoln declared he would rather 
be assassinated

628
00:45:33,977 --> 00:45:37,186
than see a single star removed 
from the American flag.

629
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:43,043
Two days later he reluctantly canceled plans
for a grand arrival in Washington

630
00:45:43,043 --> 00:45:46,338
and slipped into the capital 
by train at dawn,

631
00:45:46,338 --> 00:45:49,586
wrapped in a shawl and protected 
by two armed guards.

632
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:58,947
Inauguration day, in Washington, 
was cloudy and cold.

633
00:45:59,203 --> 00:46:03,203
A large, tense crowd gathered 
beneath the unfinished dome.

634
00:46:03,318 --> 00:46:05,556
Cannon guarded the Capitol grounds.

635
00:46:05,649 --> 00:46:07,783
Sharp shooters lined the roof.

636
00:46:09,660 --> 00:46:12,203
Lincoln promised 
not to interfere with slavery,

637
00:46:12,203 --> 00:46:15,165
but he denied the right 
of any state to secede,

638
00:46:15,262 --> 00:46:17,700
vowed to defend Federal installations,

639
00:46:17,700 --> 00:46:20,430
and spoke directly to the South.

640
00:46:22,921 --> 00:46:27,683
"In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen,
and not in mine,

641
00:46:27,683 --> 00:46:31,168
"is the momentous issue of civil war.

642
00:46:31,988 --> 00:46:34,207
"The government will not assail you.

643
00:46:34,706 --> 00:46:38,678
"You can have no conflict without being 
yourselves the aggressors.

644
00:46:39,909 --> 00:46:42,566
"We are not enemies but friends.

645
00:46:43,155 --> 00:46:45,260
"We must not be enemies".

646
00:46:46,259 --> 00:46:50,583
"Though passion may have strained, 
it must not break our bounds of affection.

647
00:46:52,138 --> 00:46:56,566
"The mystic chords of memory 
stretching from every battlefield

648
00:46:56,566 --> 00:47:02,604
"and patriotic grave to every living heart
and hearthstone all over this broad land,

649
00:47:02,620 --> 00:47:05,611
"will yet swell the chorus of the Union,

650
00:47:06,073 --> 00:47:08,909
"when again touched,
as surely they will be,

651
00:47:09,791 --> 00:47:12,429
"by the better angels of our nature".

652
00:47:14,947 --> 00:47:16,681
[Revival of rumors of war]

653
00:47:16,684 --> 00:47:18,798
[An attack on Fort Sumter Expected]

654
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:26,943
[4:30 a.m. April 12, 1861]

655
00:47:32,481 --> 00:47:35,890
"I do not pretend to go to sleep, 
how can I?

656
00:47:36,066 --> 00:47:39,518
"If Anderson does not accept terms, 
at four,

657
00:47:39,721 --> 00:47:42,140
"the orders are he shall be fired upon.

658
00:47:42,843 --> 00:47:47,185
"I count... four St. Michael chimes.

659
00:47:48,722 --> 00:47:50,367
"I begin to hope.

660
00:47:51,476 --> 00:47:52,976
(Cannon fire)

661
00:47:53,367 --> 00:47:55,616
"The heavy booming of a cannon.

662
00:47:55,616 --> 00:47:58,198
"I sprang out of the bed 
and on my knees prostrated,

663
00:47:58,198 --> 00:48:00,951
"I prayed as I have never prayed before".

664
00:48:01,649 --> 00:48:02,906
(Cannon fire)

665
00:48:03,335 --> 00:48:08,811
The Civil War began at 4:38 a.m. 
on the 12th of April, 1861.

666
00:48:09,538 --> 00:48:14,010
General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
ordered his Confederate gunners

667
00:48:14,010 --> 00:48:16,213
to open fire on Fort Sumter,

668
00:48:16,213 --> 00:48:20,151
at that hour, only a dark shape out
in Charleston Harbor.

669
00:48:21,150 --> 00:48:23,834
Confederate commander
Beauregard was a gunner,

670
00:48:23,859 --> 00:48:26,916
so skilled as an artillery student 
at West Point

671
00:48:26,916 --> 00:48:30,517
that his instructor kept him on 
as his assistance for another year.

672
00:48:31,250 --> 00:48:33,993
That instructor was Major Robert Anderson,

673
00:48:33,993 --> 00:48:36,736
Union commander inside Fort Sumter.

674
00:48:46,510 --> 00:48:49,314
All the pent-up hatred
of the past months and years

675
00:48:49,314 --> 00:48:52,314
is voiced in the thunder of this cannon.

676
00:48:52,314 --> 00:48:55,095
And the people seem almost
beside themselves

677
00:48:55,095 --> 00:48:58,404
in the exultation of a freedom 
they deemed already won.

678
00:49:01,141 --> 00:49:05,141
The signal to fire the first shot 
was given by a civilian, Edmund Ruffin,

679
00:49:05,241 --> 00:49:09,575
a Virginia farmer, and editor,
who had preached secession for 20 years.

680
00:49:10,756 --> 00:49:14,756
"Of course", he said, 
"I was delighted to perform the service".

681
00:49:35,587 --> 00:49:39,825
34 hours later, a white flag over the Fort
ended the bombardment.

682
00:49:40,923 --> 00:49:43,891
The only casualty had been 
a Confederate horse.

683
00:49:45,135 --> 00:49:49,516
It was a bloodless opening 
to the bloodiest war in American history.

684
00:50:17,323 --> 00:50:22,142
"The first gun that was fired in Fort Sumter
sounded the dead knell of slavery.

685
00:50:23,288 --> 00:50:26,936
"They who fired it were 
the greatest practical abolitionists

686
00:50:26,936 --> 00:50:28,718
this nation has produced.

687
00:50:31,159 --> 00:50:35,388
"April 13, so Civil War 
is inaugurated at last.

688
00:50:35,846 --> 00:50:37,465
"God defend the right".

689
00:50:39,184 --> 00:50:41,980
[Fort Sumter surrender!]

690
00:50:41,980 --> 00:50:44,263
[Maj. Anderson, a prisoner of war]

691
00:50:44,493 --> 00:50:46,578
[The white flag displayed on the walls!]

692
00:50:46,578 --> 00:50:48,284
["Nobody hurt!"]

693
00:50:49,396 --> 00:50:51,377
[Major Anderson taken!]

694
00:50:51,425 --> 00:50:53,511
[Entrance obtained under a flag of truce]

695
00:50:53,511 --> 00:50:55,250
[New Yorkers implicated!]

696
00:50:56,638 --> 00:51:00,105
14 April, Montgomery daily advertiser:

697
00:51:00,791 --> 00:51:03,648
"The intelligence that Fort Sumter 
has surrendered

698
00:51:03,648 --> 00:51:05,839
"to the Confederate forces yesterday

699
00:51:05,839 --> 00:51:09,962
"sent a thrill of joy to the heart
of every true friend of the South.

700
00:51:10,757 --> 00:51:14,530
"The face of every Southern man 
was brighter, his step lighter

701
00:51:14,530 --> 00:51:17,358
"and his bearing prouder
than had been before".

702
00:51:19,507 --> 00:51:23,279
In Boston, jubilant volunteers 
marched past Faneuil Hall,

703
00:51:23,279 --> 00:51:25,260
eager to avenge Fort Sumter.

704
00:51:26,610 --> 00:51:30,295
In Baltimore, anti-Lincoln men 
rampaged through the streets.

705
00:51:32,741 --> 00:51:35,331
In Richmond a mob 
marched on the Statehouse,

706
00:51:35,382 --> 00:51:37,477
tore down the stars and stripes

707
00:51:37,477 --> 00:51:39,668
and raised the stars and bars.

708
00:51:39,668 --> 00:51:43,430
There was no longer any doubt
that Virginia would secede.

709
00:51:46,891 --> 00:51:50,815
In New York a hundred thousand people
crowded Union Square

710
00:51:50,882 --> 00:51:53,350
where the Sumter flag now flew.

711
00:51:56,145 --> 00:52:00,230
Walt Whitman, sometime poet 
and journalist for the Brooklyn Standard

712
00:52:00,230 --> 00:52:02,078
was stunned by the news.

713
00:52:03,300 --> 00:52:07,230
"All the past we leave behind 
with the Sumter", he said.

714
00:52:12,418 --> 00:52:16,495
"Woe to those who began this war 
if they were not in bitter earnest."

715
00:52:17,797 --> 00:52:19,454
— Mary Chestnut.

716
00:52:22,887 --> 00:52:26,192
[Traitors and Patriots]

717
00:52:29,380 --> 00:52:33,513
"Father and I were husking out corn 
when William Corry came across the field.

718
00:52:33,513 --> 00:52:35,271
"He was excited and said,

719
00:52:35,271 --> 00:52:38,189
"'Jonathan, the rebels 
have fire upon Fort Sumter'.

720
00:52:38,926 --> 00:52:41,869
"Father got white and couldn't say a word".

721
00:52:42,995 --> 00:52:44,867
— Theodore F. Upson.

722
00:52:45,173 --> 00:52:46,622
[Lincoln declares war]

723
00:52:46,737 --> 00:52:49,795
April, 15. Events multiply.

724
00:52:49,988 --> 00:52:54,159
The President is out with a proclamation
calling to 75,000 volunteers.

725
00:52:55,743 --> 00:52:59,838
It is said 200,000 more 
will be called within a few days.

726
00:53:02,177 --> 00:53:05,974
On the day Sumter fell, 
the regular army of the United States

727
00:53:05,974 --> 00:53:08,583
consisted of fewer than 17,000 men,

728
00:53:08,926 --> 00:53:11,450
most of whom were stationed
in the Far West.

729
00:53:12,156 --> 00:53:15,737
Only two of his generals had ever 
commanded an army in the field

730
00:53:15,912 --> 00:53:18,340
and both were long past their prime.

731
00:53:19,265 --> 00:53:22,151
Winfield Scott, 
the hero of the Mexican war,

732
00:53:22,151 --> 00:53:23,817
"Old Fuss and Feathers",

733
00:53:23,817 --> 00:53:26,124
was too fat even to mount a horse.

734
00:53:26,764 --> 00:53:28,500
[To arms! To arms!]

735
00:53:28,500 --> 00:53:30,250
[The capital of our country in danger!]

736
00:53:34,694 --> 00:53:36,294
[A few good men wanted]

737
00:53:36,394 --> 00:53:38,375
[Young men join this company!]

738
00:53:42,614 --> 00:53:44,690
[Sharp shooters for the war]

739
00:53:46,498 --> 00:53:48,410
[The best regiment yet!]

740
00:53:48,690 --> 00:53:50,590
[Recruits wanted immediately]

741
00:53:54,257 --> 00:53:55,533
[Ho! For the war!]

742
00:53:55,533 --> 00:53:57,809
[Soldiers for the U.S. army wanted!]

743
00:54:00,655 --> 00:54:03,997
"We were treated as good as a company
could be at every station.

744
00:54:04,410 --> 00:54:07,231
"We got kisses from the girls 
at a good many places

745
00:54:07,231 --> 00:54:09,171
"and we returned the same to them".

746
00:54:09,257 --> 00:54:11,380
— Hercules Stanard.

747
00:54:12,347 --> 00:54:15,653
"I've got the best suit of clothes
I ever had in my life".

748
00:54:17,450 --> 00:54:20,755
In the North they came 
by hundreds and by thousands,

749
00:54:21,369 --> 00:54:23,750
from Boston, Massachusetts,

750
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:26,423
from Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan,

751
00:54:27,688 --> 00:54:30,600
and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the rain.

752
00:54:32,264 --> 00:54:34,207
Whole towns signed up.

753
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:38,570
The 10th Michigan Volunteer Infantry
was made up of Flint boys.

754
00:54:38,846 --> 00:54:40,798
Their commander was the Mayor.


755
00:54:40,866 --> 00:54:43,917
Their regimental doctor, the man 
who had been taking care of them

756
00:54:43,917 --> 00:54:45,981
since they were young.

757
00:54:46,163 --> 00:54:49,821
The 6th New York contained so many boweries

758
00:54:49,821 --> 00:54:53,821
it was said a man had to have done time
in prison just to get into the regiment.

759
00:54:54,690 --> 00:54:56,913
The elite 7th, on the other hand,

760
00:54:56,913 --> 00:55:00,284
set out for Washington 
with sandwiches from Delmonico's,

761
00:55:00,284 --> 00:55:02,636
and 1,000 velvet covered campstools

762
00:55:02,636 --> 00:55:04,379
on which to sit and eat them.

763
00:55:06,102 --> 00:55:10,655
On his way to war, Lieutenant
George Armstrong Custer, just 22,

764
00:55:10,655 --> 00:55:12,796
and less than a month out of West Point,

765
00:55:12,796 --> 00:55:15,106
where he graduated
at the bottom of his class,

766
00:55:15,106 --> 00:55:17,653
stopped in New York 
to have himself fitted out


767
00:55:17,653 --> 00:55:20,199
with a splendid new uniform,

768
00:55:20,199 --> 00:55:22,180
then went to a photographer.

769
00:55:26,881 --> 00:55:31,348
In Pawtuxet, Rhode Island, 19 year old, 
Elisha Hunt Rhodes left his job

770
00:55:31,348 --> 00:55:33,567
as a harness maker's clerk

771
00:55:33,567 --> 00:55:37,348
and signed on as a private 
in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers.

772
00:55:38,761 --> 00:55:42,880
He would have joined earlier but his 
widowed mother begged him to stay home.

773
00:55:44,881 --> 00:55:47,053
"We drilled all day and night.

774
00:55:47,053 --> 00:55:49,002
"Standing before a long mirror,

775
00:55:49,002 --> 00:55:52,954
"I put many hours of weary work 
and soon thought myself quite a soldier.

776
00:55:53,487 --> 00:55:56,383
"I was elected first Sergeant, 
much to my surprise.

777
00:55:56,917 --> 00:56:01,470
"Just what a first sergeant's duties 
might be, I had no idea".

778
00:56:03,512 --> 00:56:07,360
After two weeks of drilling, 
the 2nd Rhode Island moved out.

779
00:56:08,792 --> 00:56:13,487
"Today, we have orders to pack up 
and be ready to leave for Washington.

780
00:56:14,351 --> 00:56:18,351
"My knapsack was so heavy that I could 
scarcely stagger under the load.

781
00:56:18,572 --> 00:56:23,225
"At the wharf an immense crowd had gathered
and we went on board our steamer

782
00:56:23,225 --> 00:56:25,714
"with mingled feelings of joy and sorrow.

783
00:56:28,951 --> 00:56:31,623
"In Baton Rouge William Tecumseh Sherman

784
00:56:31,623 --> 00:56:34,942
"resigned as superintendent
of the Louisiana Military Academy

785
00:56:34,942 --> 00:56:36,864
"and headed North".

786
00:56:37,349 --> 00:56:41,349
"You politicians", he told his brother
Senator John Sherman of Ohio,

787
00:56:41,522 --> 00:56:43,674
"have got things in a hell of a fix

788
00:56:43,746 --> 00:56:46,256
"and you may get them out 
as best as you can.

789
00:56:46,256 --> 00:56:48,349
"I will have no more to do with it".

790
00:56:49,785 --> 00:56:53,420
But when Sumter fell, 
he put his uniform back on

791
00:56:53,429 --> 00:56:55,565
and reluctantly he went to war.

792
00:56:55,773 --> 00:56:58,104
"You might as well attempt 
to put out the flames

793
00:56:58,104 --> 00:57:00,159
"of a burning house with a squirt gun".

794
00:57:00,159 --> 00:57:03,559
"I think this is to be 
a long war, very long,

795
00:57:03,559 --> 00:57:06,572
"much longer than any politician thinks.

796
00:57:09,306 --> 00:57:11,353
"There were but two parties now,

797
00:57:11,562 --> 00:57:13,648
"Traitors and Patriots.

798
00:57:13,857 --> 00:57:16,981
"And I want hereafter
to be ranked with the latter".

799
00:57:18,037 --> 00:57:19,513
— Ulysses S. Grant.

800
00:57:21,449 --> 00:57:24,579
In Galena, Illinois,
39 year old, Ulysses S. Grant

801
00:57:24,579 --> 00:57:27,125
was working
in his father's harness shop.

802
00:57:27,125 --> 00:57:31,868
Having failed as a peace time soldier 
and considered by some a drunk,

803
00:57:33,898 --> 00:57:36,408
now he signed on as mustering officer

804
00:57:36,429 --> 00:57:38,901
handling the flood of volunteers

805
00:57:39,094 --> 00:57:41,493
at 4.20 dollars a day.

806
00:57:59,233 --> 00:58:01,125
New Orleans, 1861.

807
00:58:01,306 --> 00:58:04,010
"I feel if I would like to shoot a Yankee

808
00:58:04,119 --> 00:58:08,506
"and yet I know that this would not be 
in harmony with the spirit of Christianity".

809
00:58:08,762 --> 00:58:10,343
— William Nugent.

810
00:58:12,140 --> 00:58:14,340
"So impatient did I become for starting

811
00:58:14,340 --> 00:58:18,340
"that I felt like a thousand pins 
were pricking me in every part of my body

812
00:58:18,340 --> 00:58:21,693
"and I started off 
a week in advance of my brothers."

813
00:58:24,411 --> 00:58:27,463
"I found Mobile boiling over 
with enthusiasm.

814
00:58:27,980 --> 00:58:29,999
The young merchants 
had dropped their ledgers

815
00:58:29,999 --> 00:58:32,999
and were forming and drilling 
companies by night and day.

816
00:58:34,699 --> 00:58:37,489
"Everyday regiments marched by.

817
00:58:37,574 --> 00:58:40,242
"Charleston is crowded with soldiers.

818
00:58:40,242 --> 00:58:42,731
"These new ones are running in fairly.

819
00:58:42,731 --> 00:58:46,293
"They fear the war will be over 
before they get sight of the fun.

820
00:58:46,819 --> 00:58:49,595
"Every man from every 
little county precinct

821
00:58:49,595 --> 00:58:51,886
"wants a place in the picture".

822
00:58:54,250 --> 00:58:57,644
The Confederate government, 
its capital now in Richmond,

823
00:58:57,644 --> 00:59:00,407
called for 100,000 volunteers.

824
00:59:01,444 --> 00:59:05,587
So many Southerners volunteered
that a third of them had to be sent home.

825
00:59:07,797 --> 00:59:11,397
They came from Catahoula, 
and Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

826
00:59:12,919 --> 00:59:16,527
Greenville, Mississippi, 
Mooresvile, Alabama,

827
00:59:16,527 --> 00:59:18,833
and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

828
00:59:22,456 --> 00:59:24,538
Tennessee joined the Confederacy.

829
00:59:24,942 --> 00:59:27,699
So did Arkansas and North Carolina.

830
00:59:29,547 --> 00:59:33,227
In Memphis, Nathan Bedford Forrest,
a blacksmith's son

831
00:59:33,227 --> 00:59:36,928
who had made himself a millionaire
selling land, cotton and slaves,

832
00:59:36,928 --> 00:59:41,337
put up posters calling on anyone
who wanted to kill Yankees

833
00:59:41,337 --> 00:59:43,237
to come and ride with him.

834
00:59:44,519 --> 00:59:49,548
The Clinch Rifles from Augusta, Georgia 
started out in May, 1861.

835
00:59:50,689 --> 00:59:53,203
Only the drummer boy would survive.

836
00:59:56,990 --> 01:00:00,275
The odds against 
a Southern victory were long.

837
01:00:00,815 --> 01:00:03,787
There were nearly 21 million 
people in the North,

838
01:00:04,238 --> 01:00:06,715
just 9 million in the Confederacy,

839
01:00:06,987 --> 01:00:09,257
and 4 million of them were slaves,

840
01:00:09,374 --> 01:00:11,883
whom their masters did not dare arm.

841
01:00:15,418 --> 01:00:19,951
The value of all the manufactured goods
produced in all the Confederate states

842
01:00:20,130 --> 01:00:24,130
added up to less than one fourth 
of those produced in New York state alone.

843
01:00:26,505 --> 01:00:30,828
But none of this matter to the men 
who joined the Tallapoosa Thrashers

844
01:00:30,828 --> 01:00:34,822
and Chickasaw Desperados 
and Cherokee Lincoln Killers.

845
01:00:42,233 --> 01:00:46,233
"The histories of the lost cause 
are all written out by big bugs,

846
01:00:46,274 --> 01:00:48,960
"generals and renowned historians.

847
01:00:48,964 --> 01:00:52,307
"Well, I have as much right as any man
to write a history".


848
01:00:52,841 --> 01:00:54,213
— Sam Watkins.

849
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:57,135
One of the first to answer 
the Southern call

850
01:00:57,135 --> 01:01:01,183
was 21-year-old Sam Watkins
of Columbia, Tennessee.

851
01:01:01,319 --> 01:01:04,838
He joined Company "H" 
of the 1st Tennessee at Nashville.

852
01:01:05,409 --> 01:01:08,491
Like most rebel soldiers, 
he owned no slaves,

853
01:01:09,844 --> 01:01:13,908
The bugle sound...
and place everything aboard the cars.

854
01:01:14,410 --> 01:01:17,229
"We went bowling along
at 30 miles an hour,

855
01:01:17,229 --> 01:01:19,447
"as fast as steam can carry us.

856
01:01:20,696 --> 01:01:22,533
"At every town and station,

857
01:01:22,533 --> 01:01:24,987
"citizens and ladies
were waving their handkerchiefs

858
01:01:24,987 --> 01:01:28,251
"and hurrahing for Jeff Davis
and the Southern Confederacy".

859
01:01:30,514 --> 01:01:33,578
"It's worth soldiering 
to receive such a welcome as this".

860
01:01:37,953 --> 01:01:41,153
"If the President of the United States 
would tell me

861
01:01:41,165 --> 01:01:45,260
"that a great battle was to be fought
for the liberty or slavery of the country

862
01:01:45,260 --> 01:01:48,833
"and asked my judgement 
as to the ability of a commander,

863
01:01:48,833 --> 01:01:54,724
"I would say with my dying breath, 
let it be Robert E. Lee".

864
01:01:55,678 --> 01:01:57,551
— General Winfield Scott.

865
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:03,913
"I can anticipate no greater calamity 
for the country

866
01:02:03,921 --> 01:02:06,239
"than a dissolution of the Union.

867
01:02:07,141 --> 01:02:10,723
"It would be an accumulation 
of all the evils we complain of.

868
01:02:11,767 --> 01:02:15,822
"And I am willing to sacrifice everything 
but honor for its preservation".

869
01:02:16,993 --> 01:02:18,866
— Robert E. Lee.

870
01:02:24,795 --> 01:02:27,604
The most promising officer 
in the regular army

871
01:02:27,604 --> 01:02:29,859
was Robert E. Lee of Virginia.

872
01:02:30,566 --> 01:02:33,530
On April 18, four days after Sumter,

873
01:02:33,530 --> 01:02:36,530
Lee was summoned
to Blair House at Lincoln's behest

874
01:02:36,530 --> 01:02:40,175
and offered field command
of the entire Union army.

875
01:02:40,748 --> 01:02:42,903
Lee said he would think about it.

876
01:02:42,977 --> 01:02:45,969
Virginia had voted to secede
the day before.

877
01:02:48,343 --> 01:02:51,361
That night, he paced anxiously 
in the gardens,

878
01:02:51,361 --> 01:02:54,334
around his Arlington mansion,
across the Potomac.

879
01:02:55,494 --> 01:02:57,912
At midnight, Saturday the 20th,

880
01:02:57,912 --> 01:03:01,760
Lee wrote his letter of resignation
from the United States army.

881
01:03:02,843 --> 01:03:05,789
On the 21st, the Governor of Virginia

882
01:03:05,828 --> 01:03:08,282
asked Lee to take command
of the state militia.

883
01:03:10,532 --> 01:03:14,321
When Lee had to choose 
between the nation and Virginia,

884
01:03:14,321 --> 01:03:17,402
there was never any doubt 
about what his choice would be.

885
01:03:17,402 --> 01:03:19,366
He went with his state, and he said,

886
01:03:19,373 --> 01:03:21,982
"I can't draw my sword 
against my native state",

887
01:03:21,982 --> 01:03:24,504
or, as he often said, "my country".

888
01:03:24,731 --> 01:03:27,310
Lincoln had lost his best soldier.

889
01:03:30,433 --> 01:03:34,137
"Not by one word or look, 
can we detect any change

890
01:03:34,137 --> 01:03:36,443
"in the demeanor of the negro servants.

891
01:03:38,215 --> 01:03:39,906
"They make no sign.

892
01:03:40,535 --> 01:03:43,707
"Are they stupid or wiser than we are?

893
01:03:44,117 --> 01:03:46,871
"Silent and strong, biding their time?"

894
01:03:47,522 --> 01:03:49,104
— Mary Chestnut.

895
01:03:50,595 --> 01:03:53,550
Both sides thought 
it would be a 90-day war.

896
01:03:54,350 --> 01:03:57,548
And both sides agreed 
it was to be a white man's fight.

897
01:03:58,727 --> 01:04:02,026
Blacks who tried to sign up
were turned away.

898
01:04:04,153 --> 01:04:06,952
[... Regiment attacked in Baltimore!
Two soldiers killed!]

899
01:04:07,052 --> 01:04:08,507
April, 19.

900
01:04:08,507 --> 01:04:11,479
"There has been a serious disturbance 
in Baltimore.

901
01:04:11,703 --> 01:04:14,378
"Regiments from Massachusetts
assailed by a mob

902
01:04:14,378 --> 01:04:16,787
"that was repulsed by shot and steel.

903
01:04:18,735 --> 01:04:21,744
"It's a notable coincidence 
that the first blood in this great struggle

904
01:04:21,744 --> 01:04:25,463
"is drawn by Massachusetts men 
on the anniversary of Lexington."

905
01:04:28,303 --> 01:04:32,076
[Gun Men]

906
01:04:36,616 --> 01:04:39,408
"We are in Washington, and what a city!

907
01:04:39,785 --> 01:04:43,967
"Mud, pigs, negroes, palaces, 
shanties everywhere.

908
01:04:45,087 --> 01:04:48,512
"As we passed the White House,
I had my first view of Abraham Lincoln.

909
01:04:49,128 --> 01:04:51,422
"He looks like a good, honest man.

910
01:04:51,422 --> 01:04:53,395
"And I trust that, with God's help,

911
01:04:53,395 --> 01:04:55,813
"he can bring our country safely
out of its peril.

912
01:04:55,935 --> 01:04:57,998
— Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

913
01:04:59,401 --> 01:05:02,346
The Rhode islanders set up their bunks
at the patent office.

914
01:05:02,346 --> 01:05:05,799
New Yorkers slept on the carpeted floor
of the House Chamber.

915
01:05:06,353 --> 01:05:09,170
Massachusetts men camped in the rotunda

916
01:05:09,200 --> 01:05:11,802
and cooked their bacon 
on furnaces in the basement.

917
01:05:12,460 --> 01:05:15,569
Overhead, the Capitol dome 
remained incomplete.

918
01:05:16,299 --> 01:05:19,597
Despite the war, 
Lincoln insisted that the work go on.

919
01:05:20,561 --> 01:05:24,561
"I take it as a sign", he said,
"that the Union will continue".

920
01:05:27,258 --> 01:05:30,145
"The first thing in the morning is drill.

921
01:05:30,145 --> 01:05:32,749
"Then drill, then drill again.

922
01:05:33,301 --> 01:05:36,683
"Then drill, drill, 
a little more drill, then drill.

923
01:05:37,411 --> 01:05:39,384
"Then, lastly, drill.

924
01:05:39,905 --> 01:05:44,569
"Between drills, we drill and sometimes 
stop to eat a little and have a roll call."

925
01:05:48,198 --> 01:05:50,005
"Outskirts of Baltimore,

926
01:05:50,005 --> 01:05:54,397
"My dear William, I can now march
20 and 25 miles a day,

927
01:05:54,402 --> 01:05:58,402
"live on short rations 
of hardtack, raw, rancid bacon,

928
01:05:58,402 --> 01:06:00,666
"green roasting and use cold water,

929
01:06:00,666 --> 01:06:04,257
"sleep out in the rain and heavy dew 
with nothing but an army coat over me

930
01:06:04,279 --> 01:06:06,724
"and enjoy myself capitally."

931
01:06:07,290 --> 01:06:09,663
— Edward Hastings Ripley.


932
01:07:01,383 --> 01:07:05,435
Early in the war, 
there was a Confederate veteran,

933
01:07:05,435 --> 01:07:08,435
a young country boy, on guard duty.

934
01:07:08,435 --> 01:07:10,853
He's walking his post in the woods.

935
01:07:10,853 --> 01:07:15,762
And there was an owl, unknown to him,
in a tree nearby

936
01:07:16,433 --> 01:07:19,640
and the owl said, "Who-o-o-o!"

937
01:07:19,956 --> 01:07:23,066
And the boy, trembling with fear, said,

938
01:07:23,456 --> 01:07:27,101
"It's me, sir, John Albert, 
a friend of yours".

939
01:07:38,781 --> 01:07:42,126
In May, Union troops crossed 
the Potomac by torchlight

940
01:07:42,126 --> 01:07:44,417
and took the heights of Arlington.

941
01:07:46,166 --> 01:07:50,312
Robert E. Lee's house would be occupied
by Union troops for the rest of the war.

942
01:07:53,569 --> 01:07:57,569
In late June, the new general in charge 
of the Union army, Irvin McDowell,

943
01:07:57,569 --> 01:08:00,769
outlined plans for attacking 
the Confederates in Virginia,

944
01:08:01,842 --> 01:08:04,133
but he did not yet want to fight.

945
01:08:04,718 --> 01:08:07,299
"This is not an army", 
he warned the President.

946
01:08:08,297 --> 01:08:10,952
"You are green, it is true", 
Lincoln answered,

947
01:08:10,972 --> 01:08:13,450
"but they are green also.

948
01:08:13,450 --> 01:08:15,363
"You are all green alike".

949
01:08:18,021 --> 01:08:19,800
To preserve the Constitution,

950
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:22,800
Lincoln had for three months 
gone beyond it,

951
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:25,636
waging war without congressional consent,

952
01:08:25,649 --> 01:08:30,449
seizing northern telegraph offices, 
suspending habeas corpus.

953
01:08:32,268 --> 01:08:37,231
To keep the border states from seceding, 
Lincoln sent troops to occupy Baltimore

954
01:08:37,320 --> 01:08:42,538
and clapped the Mayor and 19 secessionist 
legislators in jail without trial.

955
01:08:43,304 --> 01:08:47,290
Chief Justice Taney ruled that the President
had exceeded his power.

956
01:08:47,290 --> 01:08:49,418
Lincoln simply ignored him.

957
01:08:49,529 --> 01:08:54,200
"More rogues than honest men 
find shelter under habeas corpus", he said,

958
01:08:55,240 --> 01:08:58,880
and even contemplated 
arresting the chief justice.

959
01:09:00,886 --> 01:09:05,223
A very mysterious man, 
he's got so many sides to him.

960
01:09:06,485 --> 01:09:09,531
The curious thing about Lincoln to me

961
01:09:09,531 --> 01:09:12,806
is that he could remove himself 
from himself,

962
01:09:12,806 --> 01:09:15,206
as if he were looking at himself.

963
01:09:15,206 --> 01:09:20,670
It's a very strange, very eerie thing 
and highly intelligent,

964
01:09:20,805 --> 01:09:22,787
it's such a simple thing to say,

965
01:09:22,787 --> 01:09:27,405
but Lincoln's been so smothered
with stories of his compassion,

966
01:09:27,405 --> 01:09:30,614
that people forget 
what a highly intelligent man he was.

967
01:09:30,823 --> 01:09:35,595
And almost everything he did,
was calculated for effect.

968
01:09:48,251 --> 01:09:52,251
"Teach the rebels and traitors 
that the price they are to pay

969
01:09:52,251 --> 01:09:55,424
"for the attempt to abolish this government

970
01:09:55,424 --> 01:09:58,296
"must be the abolition of slavery".

971
01:10:00,372 --> 01:10:02,200
— Frederick Douglass.

972
01:10:13,184 --> 01:10:17,184
From the start of the war, slaves fled 
their plantations for the Union lines,

973
01:10:17,894 --> 01:10:20,303
but Lincoln's policy was clear.

974
01:10:20,383 --> 01:10:25,837
Despite pressure from the abolitionists,
he insisted he was making war on secession,

975
01:10:25,837 --> 01:10:27,466
not slavery,

976
01:10:27,477 --> 01:10:30,868
and ordered the army 
to return fugitives to their owners.

977
01:10:32,511 --> 01:10:36,511
But now, an unlikely figure 
helped to change men's minds.

978
01:10:36,734 --> 01:10:40,334
General Benjamin Butler 
was a Massachusetts politician,

979
01:10:40,334 --> 01:10:42,715
with crossed eyes and mixed motives

980
01:10:42,715 --> 01:10:46,715
who had once backed Jefferson Davis 
for President of the United States.

981
01:10:47,838 --> 01:10:51,838
"Returning slaves 
only aided the enemy", Butler argued,

982
01:10:51,861 --> 01:10:55,861
And he got permission to hold 
fugitive slaves as contraband of war

983
01:10:56,569 --> 01:10:59,405
and employ them as laborers
in the Union army.

984
01:11:01,635 --> 01:11:05,509
"Major Cary of Virginia asked
if I did not feel myself

985
01:11:05,514 --> 01:11:09,105
"bound by my constitutional obligations

986
01:11:09,105 --> 01:11:13,105
"to deliver up fugitives 
under the Fugitive Slave Act.

987
01:11:13,802 --> 01:11:17,256
"To this, I replied 
that the Fugitive Slave Act

988
01:11:17,304 --> 01:11:19,395
"did not affect a foreign country,

989
01:11:19,395 --> 01:11:21,750
"which Virginia claimed to be.

990
01:11:21,750 --> 01:11:26,141
"And she must reckon it 
one of the infelicities of her position

991
01:11:26,189 --> 01:11:30,189
"that insofar, at least, 
she was taken at her word".

992
01:11:31,321 --> 01:11:33,539
— General Benjamin Butler.

993
01:11:36,201 --> 01:11:40,783
The trickle of runaways coming 
into Northern lines now swelled to a flood.

994
01:11:41,956 --> 01:11:46,402
One ex-slave who had recently 
bought his freedom told a Union soldier,

995
01:11:46,566 --> 01:11:50,857
"If I had known you gun men were coming,
I'd have saved my money".

996
01:11:54,876 --> 01:11:56,540
[Explosions)

997
01:11:58,445 --> 01:12:01,554
War was breaking out 
all across the country.

998
01:12:02,173 --> 01:12:06,173
There were engagements at Big Bethel, 
Virginia and Booneville, Missouri.

999
01:12:06,843 --> 01:12:10,188
Skirmishes from Maryland
to New Mexico territory.

1000
01:12:13,562 --> 01:12:18,599
At Philippi, in Western Virginia, 
a young Union general, George McClellan

1001
01:12:18,670 --> 01:12:23,452
won a small, highly publicized victory 
over a tiny Confederate force.

1002
01:12:25,140 --> 01:12:28,158
But still, there had been 
no decisive battle.

1003
01:12:38,440 --> 01:12:41,949
"July 9, our battle Summer.

1004
01:12:42,467 --> 01:12:46,467
"May it be our first 
and our last so-called.

1005
01:12:47,701 --> 01:12:50,910
"After all, we've not had 
any of the horrors of war".

1006
01:12:51,944 --> 01:12:53,571
— Mary Chestnut.

1007
01:12:58,196 --> 01:13:01,414
"July 16, it begins to look warlike

1008
01:13:01,414 --> 01:13:03,568
"and we shall probably have a chance

1009
01:13:03,568 --> 01:13:08,104
"to pay our Southern brethren a visit 
upon the sacred soil of Virginia very soon.

1010
01:13:08,542 --> 01:13:12,424
"I hope we shall be successful and give
the rebels a good pounding".

1011
01:13:12,790 --> 01:13:14,554
— Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

1012
01:13:16,222 --> 01:13:21,877
On July 16th, the Volunteer Union Army
of 37,000 men marched into Virginia.

1013
01:13:22,209 --> 01:13:25,300
Their aim, to cut the railroad at Manassas,

1014
01:13:25,300 --> 01:13:27,663
then move on at last to Richmond.

1015
01:13:31,703 --> 01:13:33,348
Washington Star:

1016
01:13:33,348 --> 01:13:36,121
"The scene to the hills was grand.

1017
01:13:36,121 --> 01:13:40,430
"Regiment after regiment was seen coming
along the road and across the long bridge,

1018
01:13:40,430 --> 01:13:42,583
"their arms gleaming in the sun.

1019
01:13:44,773 --> 01:13:47,973
"Cheer after cheer was heard 
as regiment greeted regiment.

1020
01:13:47,973 --> 01:13:51,545
"With the martial music and sharp, 
clear orders of commanding officers,

1021
01:13:51,545 --> 01:13:55,236
"it made a combination of sounds 
very pleasant to the ear of a Union man".

1022
01:14:03,668 --> 01:14:05,931
To stop the Union invasion,

1023
01:14:05,931 --> 01:14:09,486
22,000 Confederate troops 
had moved north from Richmond

1024
01:14:09,486 --> 01:14:11,913
commanded by General Beauregard,

1025
01:14:11,916 --> 01:14:14,216
who knew in advance 
the Federals were coming.

1026
01:14:14,777 --> 01:14:18,295
Rose Greenhow, 
a prominent socialite in Washington,

1027
01:14:18,295 --> 01:14:21,150
and a Confederate spy, had alerted him.

1028
01:14:22,750 --> 01:14:26,932
Now Beauregard made his headquarters
in Wilmer McLean's farm house.

1029
01:14:32,489 --> 01:14:35,898
The Confederates formed 
a meandering 8-mile line

1030
01:14:35,898 --> 01:14:38,289
along one side of Bull Run Creek.

1031
01:14:38,679 --> 01:14:43,661
They were less than 25 miles 
from Washington, and there they waited.

1032
01:14:46,660 --> 01:14:49,460
Hundreds of Washingtonians in holiday mood

1033
01:14:49,460 --> 01:14:52,533
rode out to Manassas 
hoping to see a real battle.

1034
01:14:52,974 --> 01:14:56,901
Some brought field glasses, 
picnic baskets, bottles of champagne.

1035
01:14:58,471 --> 01:15:01,361
"We saw carriages 
which contained civilians,

1036
01:15:01,426 --> 01:15:04,917
"who'd driven out from Washington 
to witness the operations.

1037
01:15:04,917 --> 01:15:07,399
"A Connecticut boy said, 
'There's our Senator!'

1038
01:15:07,399 --> 01:15:10,480
"and some of our men recognized
other members of Congress.

1039
01:15:11,189 --> 01:15:14,835
"We thought it wasn't a bad idea 
to have the great men from Washington

1040
01:15:14,835 --> 01:15:17,580
"come out to see us thrash the rebs".

1041
01:15:18,420 --> 01:15:20,656
— private James Tinkham.

1042
01:15:25,867 --> 01:15:29,867
On the morning of the 21st, 
McDowell sent his men across Bull Run.

1043
01:15:32,213 --> 01:15:34,695
They smashed into the left side
of the Confederate line,

1044
01:15:34,750 --> 01:15:37,586
driving the rebels 
from one position after another.

1045
01:15:38,305 --> 01:15:41,942
The civilian onlookers waved hats 
and fluttered handkerchiefs.

1046
01:15:42,406 --> 01:15:45,760
It was not yet noon, and all was going
just as they wanted.

1047
01:15:47,872 --> 01:15:51,381
"On reaching a clearing separated
from our left flank by a rail fence,

1048
01:15:51,381 --> 01:15:53,735
"we were saluted by a volley of musketry

1049
01:15:53,735 --> 01:15:57,172
"which was fired so high 
that all the bullets went over our heads.

1050
01:15:57,573 --> 01:16:01,445
"My first sensation was astonishment 
at the peculiar whir of the bullets

1051
01:16:01,445 --> 01:16:05,691
"and that the regiment immediately laid down
without waiting for orders".

1052
01:16:10,527 --> 01:16:13,418
"We fired a volley 
and saw the rebels running.

1053
01:16:14,283 --> 01:16:16,956
"The boys were saying constantly
in great glee,

1054
01:16:16,956 --> 01:16:18,492
" 'We've whipped them'.

1055
01:16:18,492 --> 01:16:21,128
" 'We'll hang Jeff Davis 
to a sour apple tree.

1056
01:16:21,128 --> 01:16:23,410
" 'They're running. The war's over'."

1057
01:16:26,618 --> 01:16:31,265
An onlooker remembered that the advancing 
Union army looked like a bristling monster

1058
01:16:31,285 --> 01:16:35,630
lifting himself by a slow, wavy motion 
up the laborious ascent.

1059
01:16:36,701 --> 01:16:40,456
Union victory seemed so sure 
that on one part of the battlefield

1060
01:16:40,456 --> 01:16:43,183
men stopped to gather souvenirs.

1061
01:16:45,224 --> 01:16:48,115
But holding a hill at the center 
of the Southern line,

1062
01:16:48,115 --> 01:16:51,505
was a Virginia brigade 
led by General Thomas Jackson.

1063
01:16:52,263 --> 01:16:56,263
While other Southern commands wavered, 
Jackson's held firm.

1064
01:16:57,250 --> 01:17:01,125
One Confederate officer, trying to rally 
his own frightened men, shouted,

1065
01:17:01,416 --> 01:17:05,789
"Look! There's Jackson with his Virginians,
standing like a stone wall".

1066
01:17:07,012 --> 01:17:08,903
The name stuck.

1067
01:17:09,930 --> 01:17:12,660
He had the strange combination

1068
01:17:12,660 --> 01:17:16,660
of religious fanaticism 
and a glory in battle.

1069
01:17:16,743 --> 01:17:19,801
He loved battle. His eyes would light up.

1070
01:17:19,801 --> 01:17:21,451
They called him "Old Blue Light"

1071
01:17:21,451 --> 01:17:24,133
because of the way his eyes
would light up in battle.

1072
01:17:24,133 --> 01:17:28,133
He was totally fearless, 
had no thought whatsoever of danger

1073
01:17:28,133 --> 01:17:30,315
at any time the battle was on,

1074
01:17:30,361 --> 01:17:32,661
and he could define what he wanted to do.

1075
01:17:32,661 --> 01:17:35,634
He said, "Once you get them running, 
you stay right on top of them.

1076
01:17:35,634 --> 01:17:38,779
"That way a small force 
can defeat a large one every time".

1077
01:17:39,576 --> 01:17:44,995
He knew perfectly well that a reputation
for victory would roll and build.

1078
01:17:47,337 --> 01:17:49,274
It was the turning point.

1079
01:17:49,378 --> 01:17:52,232
At 4:00, Beauregard ordered 
a counterattack.

1080
01:17:54,244 --> 01:17:57,180
Jackson urged his men to yell like furies.

1081
01:17:59,513 --> 01:18:03,895
The rebel yell first heard that day 
would echo from 1,000 battlefields.

1082
01:18:07,743 --> 01:18:10,580
Confederate reinforcements began to arrive.

1083
01:18:10,580 --> 01:18:12,487
The first came on horseback.

1084
01:18:12,487 --> 01:18:15,409
More arrived by train, 
something new in war.

1085
01:18:15,527 --> 01:18:17,682
The Northern army fell apart.

1086
01:18:19,764 --> 01:18:22,100
The retreat soon became a rout,

1087
01:18:22,100 --> 01:18:26,100
as Union guns became entangled 
with the carriages of fleeing spectators.

1088
01:18:28,250 --> 01:18:30,678
"We tried to tell them 
that there was no danger,

1089
01:18:30,678 --> 01:18:33,360
"called on them to stop, 
implored them to stand.

1090
01:18:33,360 --> 01:18:35,369
"We called them cowards.

1091
01:18:35,720 --> 01:18:39,620
"Put out our heavy revolvers 
and threatened to shoot, but all in vain".

1092
01:18:47,564 --> 01:18:50,692
"Along the shady little valley 
through which our road lay

1093
01:18:50,711 --> 01:18:55,101
"the surgeons had been plying their vocation
all the morning upon the wounded.

1094
01:18:55,644 --> 01:18:58,162
"Tables about breast-high had been erected

1095
01:18:58,202 --> 01:19:01,420
"upon which screaming victims 
were having legs and arms cut off.

1096
01:19:02,410 --> 01:19:05,237
"The surgeons and their assistants,
stripped to the waist

1097
01:19:05,237 --> 01:19:08,174
"and all bespattered with blood, 
stood around.

1098
01:19:08,186 --> 01:19:10,041
"Some holding the poor fellas,

1099
01:19:10,068 --> 01:19:12,659
"while others, armed with long, 
bloody knives and saws,

1100
01:19:12,659 --> 01:19:16,659
"cut and saw away with frightful rapidity,
throwing the mangled limbs

1101
01:19:16,694 --> 01:19:19,957
"on a pile nearby, as soon as removed.

1102
01:19:20,663 --> 01:19:24,208
— Lieutenant colonel W.W. Blackford, 
1st Cavalry, Virginia.

1103
01:19:26,630 --> 01:19:28,964
"What a horrible sight it was!

1104
01:19:29,141 --> 01:19:33,833
"Here a man, grasping his gun firmly 
in his hands, stone dead.

1105
01:19:35,722 --> 01:19:39,131
"Several with distorted features, 
all horribly dirty.

1106
01:19:39,935 --> 01:19:43,281
"Many were terribly wounded, 
some with legs shot off,

1107
01:19:43,281 --> 01:19:45,135
"others with arms gone.

1108
01:19:46,516 --> 01:19:50,152
"Some so badly wounded, 
they could not drag themselves away,

1109
01:19:50,152 --> 01:19:52,507
"slowly bleeding to death.

1110
01:19:53,485 --> 01:19:56,667
"We stopped many times 
to give some a drink

1111
01:19:56,667 --> 01:20:01,220
"and soon saw enough 
to satisfy us with the horrors of war".

1112
01:20:02,348 --> 01:20:04,520
— Lieutenant Josiah Favill.

1113
01:20:10,753 --> 01:20:13,980
"I struggled on, clinging 
to my gun and cartridge box.

1114
01:20:14,136 --> 01:20:17,560
"Many times, I sat down in the mud, 
determined to go no further

1115
01:20:17,560 --> 01:20:19,988
"and willing to die and end my misery.

1116
01:20:21,241 --> 01:20:24,478
"But soon a friend would pass 
and urge me to make another effort,

1117
01:20:24,489 --> 01:20:26,926
"and I would stagger a mile further.

1118
01:20:29,695 --> 01:20:32,204
"At daylight, we could see 
the spires of Washington,

1119
01:20:32,204 --> 01:20:34,212
"and a welcome sight it was.

1120
01:20:34,732 --> 01:20:37,241
"The loss of regiment 
in this disastrous affair

1121
01:20:37,241 --> 01:20:40,795
"was 93 killed, wounded or missing".

1122
01:20:42,770 --> 01:20:48,416
There is a congressman,
I believe from Alabama

1123
01:20:48,416 --> 01:20:50,288
— I've forgotten where from —

1124
01:20:50,288 --> 01:20:52,225
who said there would be no war.

1125
01:20:52,225 --> 01:20:55,170
And he offered to wipe up all blood 
that would be shed

1126
01:20:55,170 --> 01:20:57,234
with a pocket handkerchief.

1127
01:20:57,481 --> 01:20:59,507
That was his prediction.

1128
01:21:00,280 --> 01:21:02,861
I've always said, someone could get a Ph.D.

1129
01:21:02,861 --> 01:21:05,735
by calculating how many 
pocket handkerchiefs it would take

1130
01:21:05,735 --> 01:21:07,880
to wipe up all the blood that was shed.

1131
01:21:07,880 --> 01:21:10,344
It would be a lot of handkerchiefs.

1132
01:21:12,245 --> 01:21:14,545
From the Confederate White House 
in Richmond,

1133
01:21:14,545 --> 01:21:16,627
Jefferson Davis rejoiced.

1134
01:21:17,679 --> 01:21:20,533
"My fellow citizens, your little army,

1135
01:21:20,533 --> 01:21:22,897
"derided for its want of arms,

1136
01:21:22,897 --> 01:21:27,397
"derided for its lack of all 
the essential material of war,

1137
01:21:27,397 --> 01:21:30,115
"has met the grand army of the enemy,

1138
01:21:30,115 --> 01:21:32,697
"routed it at every point,

1139
01:21:32,697 --> 01:21:35,824
"and it now flies inglorious in retreat,

1140
01:21:35,824 --> 01:21:37,897
"before our victorious columns.

1141
01:21:38,883 --> 01:21:40,756
"We have taught them a lesson

1142
01:21:40,756 --> 01:21:43,992
"in their invasion
of the sacred soil of Virginia".

1143
01:21:44,593 --> 01:21:47,593
[Great Southern Victory!]

1144
01:21:48,116 --> 01:21:50,990
"Today will be known as Black Monday.

1145
01:21:51,281 --> 01:21:56,454
"We are utterly and disgracefully routed, 
beaten, whipped by secessionists.

1146
01:21:57,391 --> 01:21:59,572
— George Templeton Strong,

1147
01:22:01,510 --> 01:22:03,255
London Times:

1148
01:22:03,511 --> 01:22:06,793
"The inmates of the White House 
are in a state of utmost trepidation

1149
01:22:06,801 --> 01:22:09,235
"and Mr. Lincoln in despair.

1150
01:22:09,326 --> 01:22:11,518
"Why Beauregard does not attack Washington,

1151
01:22:11,518 --> 01:22:14,122
"I know not, nor can I well guess".

1152
01:22:16,361 --> 01:22:19,430
It was remembered as the "great skedaddle".

1153
01:22:19,572 --> 01:22:23,117
For days, discouraged troops 
straggled back into Washington.

1154
01:22:24,992 --> 01:22:26,992
"I saw a steady stream of men,

1155
01:22:26,992 --> 01:22:29,338
"covered with mud, 
soaked through with rain,

1156
01:22:29,338 --> 01:22:33,338
"who were pouring irregularly
up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol.

1157
01:22:33,989 --> 01:22:36,917
"A dense stream of vapor 
rose from the multitude.

1158
01:22:36,917 --> 01:22:40,226
"I asked a pale young man 
who looked exhausted to death,

1159
01:22:40,226 --> 01:22:42,371
"whether the whole army had been defeated.

1160
01:22:42,652 --> 01:22:44,670
"That's more than I know", he said.

1161
01:22:44,670 --> 01:22:46,561
"I know I'm going home.

1162
01:22:46,561 --> 01:22:49,206
"I've had enough of fighting 
to last my lifetime".

1163
01:22:52,485 --> 01:22:55,594
The North was appalled 
at the 5,000 casualties.

1164
01:22:56,358 --> 01:23:00,210
Both sides now knew 
it would be no 90 days war.

1165
01:23:01,937 --> 01:23:05,110
Two days later, 
Canny real estate speculators

1166
01:23:05,110 --> 01:23:07,901
bought up the battlefield 
to make a second kind of killing.

1167
01:23:07,901 --> 01:23:09,910
— as a tourist attraction.

1168
01:23:14,685 --> 01:23:17,976
"What upon earth is the matter
with the American people?

1169
01:23:18,463 --> 01:23:20,627
"Do they really covet the world's ridicule,

1170
01:23:20,627 --> 01:23:23,300
"as well as their own social 
and political ruin?

1171
01:23:25,440 --> 01:23:27,549
"The national edifice is on fire.

1172
01:23:28,420 --> 01:23:32,420
"Every man who can carry a bucket of water
or remove a brick is wanted.

1173
01:23:33,988 --> 01:23:36,679
"Yet government leaders persistently refuse

1174
01:23:36,679 --> 01:23:39,260
"to receive as soldiers the slaves,

1175
01:23:39,260 --> 01:23:42,150
"the very class of men 
which has a deeper interest

1176
01:23:42,150 --> 01:23:45,460
"in the defeat and humiliation 
of the rebels than all others.

1177
01:23:46,636 --> 01:23:49,880
"Such is the pride, the stupid prejudice

1178
01:23:49,880 --> 01:23:51,917
"and folly that rules the hour".

1179
01:23:52,488 --> 01:23:54,306
— Frederick Douglass.

1180
01:23:59,444 --> 01:24:02,353
"Little did I conceive 
of the greatness of the defeat,

1181
01:24:02,353 --> 01:24:06,244
"the magnitude of the disaster,
which had entailed upon the U.S.

1182
01:24:07,442 --> 01:24:10,160
"So short-lived has been the American Union

1183
01:24:10,160 --> 01:24:14,296
"that men who saw it rise 
may live to see it fall".

1184
01:24:15,381 --> 01:24:17,972
— William Russell, London Times.

1185
01:24:21,676 --> 01:24:25,385
[A Thousand Mile Front]

1186
01:24:28,142 --> 01:24:30,069
[Disaster to the National Army]

1187
01:24:32,530 --> 01:24:34,348
[90,000 rebels in the field]

1188
01:24:34,515 --> 01:24:37,515
[The retreat of our forces 
on the eve of victory]

1189
01:24:37,679 --> 01:24:39,570
[A panic among the Temmsters and civilians]

1190
01:24:39,779 --> 01:24:42,779
[Exaggerated statements of our losses]

1191
01:24:43,166 --> 01:24:46,166
[Measures of the government
to retrieve the disaster]

1192
01:24:48,617 --> 01:24:51,034
"Washington, August.

1193
01:24:51,489 --> 01:24:53,989
"I found no preparations whatever 
for defense.

1194
01:24:54,845 --> 01:24:57,087
"Not a regiment was properly encamped,

1195
01:24:57,087 --> 01:24:59,381
"not a single avenue or approach guarded.

1196
01:24:59,604 --> 01:25:02,977
"All was chaos, and the streets, 
hotels and bar rooms

1197
01:25:02,977 --> 01:25:04,768
"were filled with drunken officers

1198
01:25:04,768 --> 01:25:07,332
"and men absent from their regiments
without leave.

1199
01:25:07,505 --> 01:25:09,169
"Perfect pandemonium!"

1200
01:25:09,693 --> 01:25:11,375
— George McClellan.

1201
01:25:17,184 --> 01:25:19,693
Five days after the disaster at Bull Run,

1202
01:25:19,693 --> 01:25:23,693
a new general took over what is now
called the "army of the Potomac".

1203
01:25:23,693 --> 01:25:28,311
George Brinton McClellan, only 34,
seemed just what the North needed.

1204
01:25:29,028 --> 01:25:31,483
He brought with him 
to the demoralized capital,

1205
01:25:31,483 --> 01:25:35,755
what one aide called 
an indescribable air of success.

1206
01:25:37,496 --> 01:25:40,469
He replaced inept officers with regulars.

1207
01:25:41,493 --> 01:25:46,248
He laid out tidy camps around Washington
to accommodate the 10,000 new volunteers

1208
01:25:46,332 --> 01:25:50,595
arriving each week, 
drilled them 8 hours a day,

1209
01:25:50,723 --> 01:25:53,723
staged grand reviews to boost morale.

1210
01:25:57,920 --> 01:26:00,492
"All the attention 
was upon the young general

1211
01:26:00,492 --> 01:26:02,929
"with the calm eye, with the satisfied air,

1212
01:26:02,929 --> 01:26:05,911
"who moved around 
followed by an immense staff

1213
01:26:05,911 --> 01:26:09,202
"to the clanking of sabers 
and the acclamation of the spectators".

1214
01:26:09,949 --> 01:26:11,752
— Régis de Trobiand.

1215
01:26:13,848 --> 01:26:16,766
"I find myself in a new 
and strange position here

1216
01:26:16,766 --> 01:26:20,766
"— president, cabinet, general Scott —
and all deferring to me.

1217
01:26:20,999 --> 01:26:24,999
"By some strange piece of magic,
I seem to become the power of the land.

1218
01:26:25,424 --> 01:26:28,579
"I almost think that were I to win
some small success now,

1219
01:26:28,579 --> 01:26:32,424
"I could become dictator 
or anything else that might please me.

1220
01:26:32,592 --> 01:26:34,937
"But nothing of that kind would please me.

1221
01:26:34,982 --> 01:26:37,127
"Therefore, I won't be a dictator".

1222
01:26:37,960 --> 01:26:40,170
Admirable self-denial.

1223
01:26:41,966 --> 01:26:44,657
The newspapers called him "young Napoleon".

1224
01:26:44,857 --> 01:26:47,567
And he could not help
seeing the resemblance himself.

1225
01:26:48,655 --> 01:26:52,101
But 100,000 untrained volunteers
had become an army,

1226
01:26:52,612 --> 01:26:54,604
McClellan's army.

1227
01:26:54,682 --> 01:26:57,836
His men, who loved him 
for having made them proud of themselves,

1228
01:26:57,836 --> 01:26:59,492
called him Little Mac.

1229
01:27:00,471 --> 01:27:04,735
"His specialty is preparing troops to fight

1230
01:27:04,735 --> 01:27:06,772
"and he did that superbly.

1231
01:27:07,853 --> 01:27:09,608
"McClellan trained that army.

1232
01:27:09,608 --> 01:27:13,489
"Whatever the army of the Potomac did 
in the after years

1233
01:27:13,489 --> 01:27:17,262
"is largely due to the training McClellan 
gave them in that first year".

1234
01:27:18,893 --> 01:27:21,394
With Lincoln, McClellan and his staff

1235
01:27:21,394 --> 01:27:23,802
devised a three-pronged attack 
on the Confederacy.

1236
01:27:24,391 --> 01:27:27,455
One army would drive into Virginia
and take Richmond.

1237
01:27:28,917 --> 01:27:31,717
Another would secure 
Kentucky and Tennessee,

1238
01:27:31,720 --> 01:27:34,256
then push into the heartland 
of the Confederacy

1239
01:27:34,264 --> 01:27:37,373
and occupy Mississippi, 
Alabama and Georgia.

1240
01:27:38,226 --> 01:27:40,714
Meanwhile, the navy would 
clear the Mississippi,

1241
01:27:40,714 --> 01:27:44,199
surround the Confederacy by sea, 
and choke off supplies.

1242
01:27:45,647 --> 01:27:49,560
The war would be fought 
along a 1,000-mile front.

1243
01:27:50,924 --> 01:27:54,445
That fall, Lincoln elevated McClellan
to general in chief,

1244
01:27:54,445 --> 01:27:56,991
replacing the aging Winfield Scott.

1245
01:27:57,678 --> 01:27:59,860
"I can do it all", McClellan said,

1246
01:27:59,984 --> 01:28:01,829
but he did nothing.

1247
01:28:03,088 --> 01:28:06,152
As Summer turned to Autumn,
it became increasingly clear

1248
01:28:06,152 --> 01:28:08,534
that having made a magnificent army,

1249
01:28:08,534 --> 01:28:12,861
George McClellan had no immediate plans 
to lead it anywhere.

1250
01:28:18,722 --> 01:28:21,167
"As we approached the brow of the hill,

1251
01:28:21,167 --> 01:28:23,795
"my heart kept getting higher and higher,

1252
01:28:23,795 --> 01:28:26,495
"until it felt to me it was in my throat.

1253
01:28:26,945 --> 01:28:32,832
"I would have given anything then
to be back in Illinois, where I kept ride on.

1254
01:28:33,505 --> 01:28:36,868
"When the valley below 
was in full view, I halted.

1255
01:28:37,792 --> 01:28:40,100
"The enemy's troops were gone.

1256
01:28:41,726 --> 01:28:47,135
"My heart resumed its place
and it occurred to me at once

1257
01:28:47,135 --> 01:28:51,708
"that he had been 
as much afraid of me as I of him.

1258
01:28:52,985 --> 01:28:55,903
"This was a view of the question 
I had never taken before,

1259
01:28:56,496 --> 01:28:59,278
"but it was one I never forgot afterwards".

1260
01:29:00,493 --> 01:29:02,439
— General Ulysses S. Grant.

1261
01:29:06,188 --> 01:29:08,333
In September, Ulysses S. Grant

1262
01:29:08,333 --> 01:29:12,642
took Paducah, Kentucky, a strategic city
at the mouth of the Tennessee.

1263
01:29:13,315 --> 01:29:17,240
But two months later, his undisciplined 
recruits were almost destroyed,

1264
01:29:17,240 --> 01:29:21,240
looting a captured rebel camp 
instead of preparing for a counterattack.

1265
01:29:22,449 --> 01:29:24,958
Grant was returned to desk duty.

1266
01:29:28,516 --> 01:29:31,771
In November, 
William Tecumseh Sherman was relieved

1267
01:29:31,771 --> 01:29:33,735
as Union commander in Kentucky

1268
01:29:33,735 --> 01:29:36,289
when he insisted that at least 200,000 men

1269
01:29:36,289 --> 01:29:38,871
would be needed to suppress 
the rebellion in the West.

1270
01:29:40,180 --> 01:29:42,170
No one believed him.

1271
01:29:43,078 --> 01:29:47,260
He grew melancholic, 
prone to fits of anxiety and rage.

1272
01:29:48,480 --> 01:29:51,635
"Sherman", McClellan said, 
"is gone in the head".

1273
01:29:52,450 --> 01:29:55,348
December found him at home 
in the care of his wife,

1274
01:29:55,348 --> 01:29:57,383
contemplating suicide.

1275
01:29:58,568 --> 01:30:00,632
No. No one thought it would last long.

1276
01:30:00,632 --> 01:30:02,940
No one on the either side 
thought it would last long.

1277
01:30:02,940 --> 01:30:06,113
Those few individuals
who said that it would,

1278
01:30:06,113 --> 01:30:10,506
— Tecumseh Sherman, for instance —
were actually judged to be insane

1279
01:30:10,610 --> 01:30:13,137
for making predictions about casualties,

1280
01:30:13,137 --> 01:30:14,756
which were actually low.

1281
01:30:15,528 --> 01:30:19,773
In November, a Union warship 
stopped a British steamer at gunpoint

1282
01:30:19,813 --> 01:30:24,813
in international waters and arrested 
two Confederate diplomats found on board.

1283
01:30:25,161 --> 01:30:28,734
Britain's Prime Minister, 
Lord Palmerston, was outraged,

1284
01:30:28,734 --> 01:30:30,770
demanded their immediate release

1285
01:30:30,770 --> 01:30:33,761
and dispatched 11,000 troops to Canada.

1286
01:30:34,867 --> 01:30:36,943
"One war at a time", Lincoln said,

1287
01:30:36,943 --> 01:30:39,479
and quietly let the two Confederates go.

1288
01:30:43,978 --> 01:30:47,796
By December, optimists on both sides
were disappointed.

1289
01:30:48,191 --> 01:30:51,336
The Confederacy showed no signs 
of imminent collapse.

1290
01:30:53,260 --> 01:30:57,460
The North would not abandon its efforts
to reunite the nation by force.

1291
01:30:58,419 --> 01:31:02,219
By the end of the year, there were 
700,000 men in the Union army.

1292
01:31:03,465 --> 01:31:06,656
No one knew how many 
Confederates there were.

1293
01:31:10,957 --> 01:31:12,948
"December 31st.

1294
01:31:12,948 --> 01:31:15,884
"Poor old 1861 just going.

1295
01:31:16,212 --> 01:31:19,393
"It has been a gloomy year 
of trouble and disaster.

1296
01:31:20,260 --> 01:31:22,170
"I should be glad of its departure,

1297
01:31:22,170 --> 01:31:25,871
"were it not that 1862 
is likely to be no better".

1298
01:31:26,586 --> 01:31:28,822
— George Templeton Strong.

1299
01:31:31,645 --> 01:31:35,408
[Honorable Manhood]

1300
01:31:39,295 --> 01:31:41,668
A week before the battle of Bull Run,

1301
01:31:41,668 --> 01:31:45,841
Sullivan Ballou, a major in the
2nd Rhode Island Volunteers,

1302
01:31:46,106 --> 01:31:48,615
wrote home to his wife in Smithfield.

1303
01:31:50,264 --> 01:31:53,919
"July 14, 1861, Washington, D.C.

1304
01:31:55,569 --> 01:31:59,223
"Dear Sarah, 
The indications are very strong

1305
01:31:59,223 --> 01:32:02,441
"that we shall move in a few days,
perhaps tomorrow.

1306
01:32:03,140 --> 01:32:06,214
"And lest I should not be able 
to write you again,

1307
01:32:06,214 --> 01:32:08,441
"I feel impelled to write a few lines

1308
01:32:08,441 --> 01:32:11,230
"that may fall under your eye
when I'm no more.

1309
01:32:13,987 --> 01:32:17,169
"I have no misgivings about 
or lack of confidence

1310
01:32:17,169 --> 01:32:19,614
"in the cause in which I am engaged,

1311
01:32:19,792 --> 01:32:22,374
"and my courage does not halt or falter.

1312
01:32:24,234 --> 01:32:29,038
"I know how American civilization now leans
upon the triumph of the government,

1313
01:32:29,038 --> 01:32:32,430
"and how great a debt we owe
to those who went before us

1314
01:32:32,430 --> 01:32:35,390
"through the blood 
and suffering of the Revolution,

1315
01:32:35,570 --> 01:32:37,721
"and I am willing, perfectly willing,

1316
01:32:37,721 --> 01:32:40,503
"to lay down all my joys in this life

1317
01:32:40,524 --> 01:32:44,333
"to help maintain this government 
and to pay that debt.

1318
01:32:46,721 --> 01:32:50,721
"Sarah, my love for you is deathless.

1319
01:32:51,347 --> 01:32:53,774
"It seems to bind me with mighty cables

1320
01:32:53,801 --> 01:32:56,510
"that nothing but Omnipotence can break

1321
01:32:56,686 --> 01:33:00,541
"and yet my love of country 
comes over me like a strong wind

1322
01:33:00,541 --> 01:33:04,568
"and bears me irresistibly 
with all those chains to the battlefield.

1323
01:33:06,971 --> 01:33:10,144
"The memory of all the blissful moments
I have enjoyed with you

1324
01:33:10,185 --> 01:33:12,252
"come crowding over me

1325
01:33:12,252 --> 01:33:18,710
"and I feel most deeply grateful to God
and you that I've enjoyed them for so long,

1326
01:33:19,575 --> 01:33:22,311
"and how hard it is for me to give them up

1327
01:33:22,311 --> 01:33:25,993
"and burn to ashes 
the hopes of future years,

1328
01:33:25,993 --> 01:33:29,820
"when, God willing, we might still 
have lived and loved together

1329
01:33:30,227 --> 01:33:34,227
"and see our boys grown up 
to honorable manhood around us.

1330
01:33:35,532 --> 01:33:38,641
"If I do not return, my dear Sarah,

1331
01:33:39,529 --> 01:33:42,338
"never forget how much I loved you,

1332
01:33:43,660 --> 01:33:47,410
"nor that when my last breath 
escapes me on the battlefield

1333
01:33:47,596 --> 01:33:49,732
"it will whisper your name.

1334
01:33:52,415 --> 01:33:57,360
"Forgive my many faults 
and the many pains I have caused you.

1335
01:33:58,472 --> 01:34:01,927
"How thoughtless, how foolish
I have sometimes been.

1336
01:34:03,863 --> 01:34:08,227
"But, oh, Sarah, if the dead 
can come back to this earth,

1337
01:34:08,328 --> 01:34:11,571
"and flit unseen around those they love,

1338
01:34:11,571 --> 01:34:15,435
"I shall always be with you 
in the brightest day and the darkest night,

1339
01:34:16,147 --> 01:34:18,675
"always, always.

1340
01:34:21,142 --> 01:34:24,442
"And when the soft breeze fans your cheek,

1341
01:34:24,442 --> 01:34:26,377
"it shall be my breath.

1342
01:34:26,377 --> 01:34:28,832
"Or the cool air at your throbbing temple,

1343
01:34:28,832 --> 01:34:31,377
"it shall be my spirit passing by.

1344
01:34:35,563 --> 01:34:37,927
"Sarah, do not mourn me dead.

1345
01:34:39,180 --> 01:34:43,180
"Think I am gone and wait for me, 
for we shall meet again".

1346
01:34:44,518 --> 01:34:47,260
Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later

1347
01:34:47,260 --> 01:34:50,540
at the first battle of Bull Run.