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to some extent how historians argue Reconstruction depends on their job security / tenure and the politics/ racism. Frankly to learn about Reconstruction the best place to go is probably a black college. The War and Reconstruction was about slavery and racism. Lincoln failed to say that.
For reconstruction to work, you needed at least a decent number of Southern white elites to buy into it. They NEVER NEVER did and were willing to. Also the Federal government never had the motivation to keep troops in the South deployed in the long term. So I guess Reconstruction was always doomed
plase make leacture about inquistion and heresty and and why in the Middle Ages it was used that the death penalty burning at the stake pusnisment of heresty and werewolves
The professor/speaker really trivializes Meade’s performance at Gettysburg and afterwards. His arguments seemingly derive from the same views as Dan Sickles and the rest of the Hooker group that remained during the Battle of Gettysburg. Reynold’s plan on the morning of the 1st initially wasn’t to hold the Rebels off until the rest of the army could be brought up, but to fight a running retreat southward until they were back on the Pipe Creek line as seen by the original positioning of the XI Corps closer to the Emmitsburg road as well as those of the III and XII Corps further south on the flanks of the XI. However, after Reynold’s death and the subsequent plan revisions by Howard and later Hancock, the decision was made to make a fight just south of town on the Cemetery Hill line. Otherwise with the time of day at the time I Corps made contact with Heth’s division, III Corps was just north of the Emmitsburg and XII Corps slightly closer, both close enough that had they been ordered to march to the battle would have had plenty of time to reach Cemetery Hill in time to receive Lee’s assault on the retreating I and XI Corps. We see this in the reports of Extra Billy Smith’s who saw the arrival of the XII Corps despite getting the direction slightly off. His quotes’ attributed to Reynolds can’t be corroborated because they were only remembered by enemies of Meade (Sickles, Doubleday, Pleasonton, Butterfield) after the battle so that they could use them to bash Meade to Lincoln and Congress because their egos were bruised. Meade’s councils of war were more to determine whether the army was still strong enough to hold that position after the damage the first day. Following the battle and Meade’s slow response to Lee’s retreat, there was little more that he could feasibly do. VI Corps and possibly V Corps were the only ones which could have made a serious pursuit of Lee. And attacking the entrenched positions at Williamsport probably would have been more costly than the Battle of Gettysburg itself. I really wonder if he still holds these views today, or if he has changed his beliefs.
It is instructive and in confirmation of his thesis that the inventors of the telegraph, telephone and the airplane were individuals of very limited means but natural genius. That Bell was also interested in the new aviation, much like Musk is interested in space travel.
I think Americans wanted more individual liberty and a system of more checks and balances, as such the executive was bound to be at odds with the congress aka America's version of a parliament. It wasn't a step backwards, it was just different. The funny thing is today, there's actually factions on the right saying a move back to connotational monarchy would be a good thing because democratic parliaments and even republics have been shown to be a net negative for society. I of course take no position one way or another, but it's just food for thought.
No, in the ACW as in the Napoleonic wars, cavalry did reconnaissance. Rather famously Stuart's ride around McClellan and discovery of the open flank of XI Corps at Chancellorsville provided intelligence. Guelzo can say that didn't happen, but it did. And there was much more. Where cavalry beat infantry at recce is in being faster, so able to range ahead of an army and and being able to skedaddle if they ran into something tough while infantry couldn't withdraw from anything much stronger than themselves without routing and outright running for it. Where ACW cavalry really was weaker than Napoleonic cavalry was that there was no trained 'heavy cavarly', at least until near the end of the war when the much delayed Union cavalry was finally trained up enough for charging troops not al ready in disarray. Sheridan in the Valley gave a good example of this. Even then, that cavalry was simply not as well trained and officered as Napoleonic cavalry that included men who'd been training and operating for a decade or more. Classically, heavy cavalry had always been the hardest arm to equip and train into usefulness.
@mikehjt - It is not surprising that reconnaissance which is essential for any army is totally ignored by the Confederates when they are in enemy territory. The wild goose chase of Stuart should have never happened. We can argue who failed most if it was Lee, Stuart, or both equally. There was no common standard how an army worked so a lot relied on individual leadership. There was no common culture of how to operate and a huge lack of trained officers.
An excellent, factual presentation on the Reconstruction Period. There shoulld have been a permanent peacekeeping military force whose members would have,enforced a major land reformation program, in which white farmers and newly emancipated African Americans would be given 20 acres of land that would transform them into middle class people. Major fundamental changes should havee been enacted in the Constitution, such as outlawing the two party system and allowing multiple socialist and communist parties to have seats in the Congress. The Democrat Party should have been declared illegal because of their long involvement in the brutality, expansion, and continuation of slavery and gross violations of humsn rights.
If you have never met a great American educator then you have never received an education. Everyone who has been educated will always explain that it was because they had great educators. Gallagher makes learning the history of the Civil War a wonderful experience. He opens the students mind to think about what was going on at the time.
Interesting. It seems if the South really wanted to keep slavery they would just stay in the union where it was already protected under law rather than risk losing it by possible failure of secession, which is what happened. "Ive led a soldiers life, Devin, but i never seen anything as clear as this ... odd. Very odd."
I believe slave power became arrogant and too greedy from Mexican War to Dred Scott, Everything went right for slave power. Dumb move on its end. Greed or pigs get slaughtered which was planter class. Dumb ass greed ended slavery.
This lecture was an education about what really happened after the Civil War. I had never heard this information before and only had a vague idea of the “Gone With the Wind” version of Reconstruction. (I am not a fan of either the book or the movie.) I am really glad to have learned what really happened. It makes sense of the history behind the civil rights movement.
Gallagher is pedantic and hard to understand. Is he saying Lincoln is one of our poorest examples of a president because he sacrificed about 600,000 souls for nothing? Or does he honestly expect southern folks who just lost everything to federal overreach to welcome former slaves with open arms? Maybe everybody links arms and sing Kumbaya? He should just boil down his opinion and deliver it straight up.
No one at the time, including Lincoln, would have envisioned the scale of the slaughter that the war would bring about, but it proved to be the price of preserving the Union. It also put emancipation on the table and Union victory ultimately saved the Union and destroyed slavery. Most people who are/were pro-Union or anti-slavery would probably see it as a worthwhile sacrifice. I don't think Gary Gallagher expects anything or says anything about what the South SHOULD have been done. The KKK, Jim Crowe, fervent resistance to extending liberties to African-Americans after the war are just a a fact of history. From a modern point of view, we may have liked the South to be different from what it was and for the North's enthusiasm and efforts to be more honorable as it pertains to securing rights for freed slaves, but as is often the case, the characters of history serve to dissapoint us. The bottom line is simply that Reconstruction wasn't a lost moment, because the vast majority of the loyal citizenry felt that the war had served its purpose. The Union was restored and the abolishment of slavery had both rid the nation of a source of future conflict and had punished the secessionists.
Guelzo is wrong when he claims that civil war cavalry did not perform intelligence functions for their respective armies.. Proof? John Buford Brigadier general of Northern Cavalry, again and again sent messages to John Reynolds telling him that he had discovered which confederate forces were moving toward Gettysburg. He was able to do this because in his role as intelligence gatherer i.e. a scout he had ridden his horses up to the close proximity of said confederate forces and found out who they were and where they most likely going. He also told Reynolds of the nature of the terrain near Gettysburg making it a fine place for the Army of the Potomac to make a stand. No charge Allen for providing you with information you have chosen to ignore, in order to grind your stone of extolling infantry at the cost of reporting the truth. best Bruce Peek
If reconstruction wasn't a missed opportunity than why did the former Confederate states fight so hard to get it removed? If SCOTUS hadn't betrayed everyone that in itself would've helped immensely.
The trouble is the battle of Gettysburg didn't matter. Hooker and Meade were not great fighters but they knew how to move an army and once the Army of the Potomac was between Lee and Washington the campaign was over. If Lee had unhinged the union line and driven the union army off in a rout Meade would have simply withdrawn into the lines around Washington (which at that time were impregnable) and Lee could have done nothing about it. The Army of Northern Virginia couldn't have laid siege to a corn crib. Lee could not then have moved on north because that would have left Meade in his rear, between himself and Richmond, on his communications and on his line of retreat. He could not have gone anywhere, as it were, because any line of advance would have exposed his marching flank to the federals. Longstreet saw all this and tried to talk Lee out of the campaign but the old man wouldn't listen. He wanted to play Napoleon (they all did). Gettysburg was an irrelevant battle despite the hype that surrounds it. Meanwhile, out in the west, one of the most important battles in history was going on at a place you never heard of. Champions' Hill. Look it up.
Of course Gallagher is right. But in fact Reconstruction was still a lost moment. Meaning that the nation did not make any adjustment to that mistreatment of former slaves. And when Congress did make an effort with civil rights legislation, the Supreme Court ultimately nixed these efforts - and also let the segregationists win re separate but equal. So while Gallagher is right mostly, he does not account for the virtual slavery that was re-established.
Dr. Gallagher is delusional in some things and in others, he has selective memory. He fails to point out very important facts that do not support his arguments. He says nothing about the Radical Republican propaganda machine, the Union League that controlled the Federal troops in the South long with the Freeman's Bureau. (He failed to mention that the courts eventually opined the Freeman's Bureau was unconstitutional. He also failed to express the most important fact of Reconstruction that kept Confederate veterans from holding high office or important business positions and how Congress failed to meet the expectations that Lee at Appomattox was promised. The Southern States were not permitted by Congressmen to be seated unless the Southern States ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Also, he says nothing about the scapegoating of Col. Wertz for conditions he could not control and was not responsible for but said nothing about the real unusable conditions that Confederate prisoners were kept under with malicious intent. He also states the approximate 1% of blacks in the Northern States but mentions nothing of Northerners selling their slaves downriver into the South and prohibiting blacks in the North. The issue fn the North was not so much about slavery but about slavery in the South and keeping blacks out of the North and the new States and territories. Most importantly, the Radical Republicans need black southern voters to maintain Republican majorities in Congress and in the Executive, and they were successful in keeping the Presidency in control by the Republican Party for 80 years because of Reconstruction. Also very importantly the 14th Amendment and Lincoln's "nationalism" transformed our United States into a nation-state and one focused on individual rights, (an idea of Rousseau), rather than one based on "property (an idea of Locke). Our founding fathers and our original states would never have accepted the government we now live under. It is contrary to the revolutionary ideals that brought about these United States.
Dr. Guelzo is overstating the battle of Gettysburg's importance. Tactically Gettysburg was almost a draw; the AOP never would have collapsed and deserted if defeated (that didn't happen in the Civil War, for a number of reasons; if the Confederate Army of Tennessee didn't desert en masse after Nashville I can't see the AOP doing it). Lee had limited food and only enough ammo for 4 days heavy fighting, even if Pickett's charge had been successful but the Union army retreats intact then Lee still has to retreat due to ammo and food shortages.
You are not seeing big picture. Lee needed a victory so the North will quit. The South can't win militarily but they can win if the North quit. So a big defeat at Gettysburg and defeat of the Army of the Potomac could tip the balance in favour of a peace treaty and recognition of the confederacy. It's the best the South can hope for.
@@johnlander4635 We're not sure of Lee's plans; he never described them and the second- and third-hand accounts of Lee imagining a crushing victory in a meeting engagement battle don't square with the orders given on July 1st of telling everyone not to bring up a general engagement. Winning a battle on Northern soil brings what exactly? Anything less than an Austerlitz or Jena where the Army of the Potomac is destroyed as a fighting force will just exhaust Lee's ammunition and also his food supply. Napoleonic-style victories like that just didn't happen in the Civil War, usually the beaten army was able to retreat as an intact army, like Second Bull Run. If Lee wins battle like Second Bull Run, he has to retreat back to Virginia for resupply despite his victory, as his army will be depleted of ammunition and can't risk another battle (as it was, after Pickett's Charge Lee was left with just enough ammo for one more day's fighting). Lee's logistical realities never seem to get mentioned in the Gettysburg campaign. It's something that no good commander can ignore. If you army runs out of food, just take a look at the Appomattox Campaign for the result---1000s of men a day dropping out from the ranks due to hunger and exhaustion, and horses not able to pull guns and wagons anymore. If you want to see the result of running out of ammo, look no further than John Hunt Morgan's disastrous end to his raid in Cynthiana, KY, when in the midst of battle his command ran out of ammo and his force overrun and destroyed (losing 80 %). So while it's true an Austerltiz-style victory, as unlikely as that might be, might turn the war in the South's favor, it's also very true that a catastrophic defeat on northern soil would end the South's hopes for independence. And the latter result is more likely a result than the former, and even the former doesn't militarily guarantee the Confederacy victory (like the Russians in 1812, even the loss of Washington doesn't stop the Lincoln administration from raising more armies). It could have been that to seek that 'political victory' results you speak of, Lee needed to do nothing more than stay on Union soil as long as he could, avoiding pitched battle and living off the heretofore-untouched Pennsylvania countryside, threatening Harrisburg or Philadelphia or Baltimore in turn, but not trying to seek pitched battle, as anything but the most decisive of victories imaginable forces him back to Virginia.
Then why invade in the first place? Lee was under the clock which meant he had to do stuff and couldn't wait for ideal circumstances. So if he could 'defeat' the North and make them quit then that's a win. He doesn't have to win militarily just win politically. Whether it was a good idea or could work is up for debate. But at least it was an idea. The South was going to run out of men and guns well before the North so maybe push the issue before the issue pushes you?
@@stewartmillen7708 Nevertheless, much of his reasoning can be for the most part ascribed if not perfectly ascertained, while the political ramifications held a major importance in the risky move, Lee was surely considering the fresh resources of the northern regions as he was so depleted. His inherent desperation in this regard is fairy obvious even if he overestimated the resulting gains in the process.
I'm confused by Guelzo on the matter of intelligence gathering. I understand the overall battle of Gettysburg not being a failure of intelligence, since Lee was aware where the Army of The Potomac was, but his actions on July 2nd were based on an absence of intelligence as to the specific locations of the forces on the US left. Guelzo, if memory serves, in 'The Last Invasion' (a book which I LOVE) goes to great length talking about Samuel Johnston's rather poor job of scouting. Is his contention that Stuart possessed no scouts in his division that could have done a better job?
Lincoln's Gettysburg address was insufficient to explain the carnage. Democracies ARE inherently unstable. The south had a right to self-govern if it felt overreach by fed regulatory power. Imprisoning the south to arbitrary northern rule was in and of itself a form of slavery. Resolving the issue with force proved nothing more than "might makes right". State's rights must counterbalance federal power or bad things will happen.
