Tension And Desperation In The Confederate South | The American Civil War | Battlefields Of History

[Music] [Music] go [Music] January 1864 the American Civil War was now nearly 3 years old those who had believed that the fight between the North and the South would be settled in one setpiece battle at Bull Ren in 1861 had been proved cruy wrong for the north there was frustration for the tide of the war had turned yet no decisive Victory or breakthrough could be achieved but for the South there was desperation A muster showed that only 278,000 of its 465,000 enlisted soldiers were actually available to fight the rest were sick or wounded in an attempt to Shore up its dwindling Manpower the South extended the draft to include 17 to 50 year olds a move that increased the opposition to the already unpopular government of Jefferson Davis hyperinflation and shortages bit deep as the South grew ever more dependent on the blockade Runners at sea for all this the war seemed to be at a stalemate and still it dragged on [Music] all [Music] the South could no longer go on the offensive on the Strategic offensive the fora into Pennsylvania that culminated with the Battle of Gettysburg is the last time that any Confederate Army is going to be able to strike into Northern territory it had lost too many men uh during 1863 the strategy now is to defend as much Confederate territory as possible and hopefully break the will of the northern people to continue the war the best thing for the Confederacy would have been a Brisk defeat in the summer of of 1864 they could not have done any better than they already had they were a lost cause why fight a total war why allow the South to be ravaged by two armies when it would have been so much simpler to just to just uh give it up the early weeks of 1864 did little to convince anyone that there were quick military Solutions or that any General Confederate or federal was about to put forward a new strategy to speed the end of the [Music] war ever since the exhausting campaign had begun Abraham Lincoln had struggled to find the right man to command the premier Eastern Army mlen Burnside hooker all had come and gone George me still commanded the army of the pomac but his failure to aggressively pursue the army of Northern Virginia after the Battle of Gettysburg had left a bad impression on the president but now Lincoln believed he had at last found the man he was looking for politically 1864 would be an election year and Lincoln was fighting a rear guard action against some members of his own party uh the radical Wing had had issued a uh private circular which actually made it into the newspapers it was called the pomoy circular and in this published argument they said their belief was that Lincoln could not be reelected he was unelectable again that they'd have to search for another candidate Lincoln had been saddled with uh uh overconfident commanders incompetent commanders uh officers who were not willing to fight people who were too cautious and he was uh promoting generals to general-in-chief or Generals in charge of the army of the bomac who are facing a very crafty adversary uh General Robert E Lee what he needed was someone who is just as much of a gambler a risk-taker as Roberty Lee someone who was just as determined and crafty as Roberty Lee and he found this in the victor of Vicksburg ysus S Grant to this point in the war had been the most successful field commander that North [Music] had his victories early on at forts Henry and Donaldson his victory at Shiloh his magnificent victory at Vicksburg his ability to come into Chattanooga and to Counterattack and break the siege of Chattanooga and send the Confederate Army of Tennessee away in defeat all of these things were feathers in uh ysus Grant's cap uh Lincoln liked him because he said that this man fights General ulyses S Grant was promoted Lieutenant General and given overall command of federal forces in March [Music] 1864 me retained his possession as commander of the army of the pomac while Philip H Sheridan went East with Grant and took over command of its Cavalry Grant's plan for victory when he becomes General and chief in 1863 is to uh pin down the army of Northern Virginia and destroy it he believed that uh the one way to win the war what was to seek out and Destroy his enemy and that enemy's will to fight so he was willing to fight an allout War a total war in his strategy he vows that if Lee decides to split his army and attempt any flanking movements uh then he'll follow that Army he's going to seek out and destroy him the main attack on the army of Northern Virginia came in May at a place that had already won a gruesome reputation during the fighting that had occurred only one year earlier this was the dense forest known as the Wilderness near the old battlefield of Chancellor's Ville the chaotic nightmare of the battle in the thick Woods where the choking smoke made it almost impossible to see can hardly Be Imagined men sometimes entire units got lost some fired upon their own troops in the confusion the soldiers of the North and South fired at each other from Point Blank Range and some men were literally cut in two by the hail of bullets if this hell on Earth were not enough the dry Tinder of the forest was set a light and many wounded men unable to move in the brush were burnt alive by the flames despite the desperate ferocity of the fighting neither side was able to gain [Music] victory [Music] Lee was not beaten nor was he outflanked and after a two-day struggle 28,000 dead or wounded men lay on the battlefield this was almost 20% of those who had taken part this time the union Commander was not prepared to sit back and lick his wounds I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer Grant had told Lincoln and he was as good as his [Music] word he marched with his army towards Spotsylvania Courthouse some 12 Mi Southwest of Fredericksburg where Lee who had anticipated the move was waiting for him by 1864 after years of enduring aimed rifle fire from the rifled mini musket and and by 1864 you're starting to see magazine fed rifles as well first thing everybody does is start digging and at Spotsylvania Courthouse we see the emergence of trench warfare to to make incremental gains rather than breaching the enemy's defense in a single mad rush at Spotsylvania the Confederates had constructed an impressive set of earthwork defenses that must have looked impenetrable to the union troops from May 10th to the 19th these Earthworks were to be the scene of particularly vicious combat the names given to parts of them the mule shoe and bloody angle have endured as reminders of the new depths of savagery reached on one Grim Day May 12th 1864 the Battle of Spotsylvania actually lasted uh almost a month but that day the 12th of May was certainly one of the bloodiest days of the war and that was when the army of the pomac I mean all 20,000 men stormed the Confederate defenses and charged into you the belly of Lee's army and from the southern Viewpoint it was like this huge wall of blue bearing down on them it was 20 hours of close fighting really ugly hand-to-hand combat there was an oak tree there 2 feet thick which was actually cut down by a hail of bullets coming from two different directions much the same way as Lee's army was cut into two for for a while before they were able to uh get some reinforcements and push the federals back but the stump of that oak tree was put on display later at the World's Fair and sent to the Smithsonian institution in in Washington and it's still on display now it's a symbol of the ferocity of the Civil War and that battle in particular the casualty figures from spot Sylvania defy belief 14,000 men had been killed 16,000 more were wounded in just a few hours of grim Slaughter the entire area had been turned into an enormous graveyard where the bodies of the Dead lay together with the wounded and dying in the torrential rain that came to drench the batt Battlefield they said that the rain seemed to be trying on Nature's behalf to wash away the blood stains that that the so-called civilized human beings were spilling on the surface of the Earth in that horrible rain at the bloody angle the union was able to just keep on pouring people against the rebel fortifications and uh and and Lee was still able by Dent of being properly dug in to hold out for a very long time while this Carnage at Spotsylvania was taking place Sheridan was making progress to the rear of Lee's position where he began to pose a serious threat to Richmond Sheridan orchestrated a campaign of Destruction that saw railroads ripped up supplies destroyed supply lines cut and Telegraph lines torn down on top of all this Sheridan claimed a famous scalp at the Battle of yellow Tavern where the legendary Confederate Cavalry man Jeb Stewart a southern icon and hero was killed Jeb Stewart was the last of the Cavaliers and he was nothing if not conspicuous he he'd ride around with this huge billowing silk lined cape and he had this sort of lush plumed slouch hat and and you know he made a very inviting Target his his uniform was always getting snipped by bullets and I think at one point he actually had his mustache shot off his face or half of it you know I mean you know straight out of a bug's Bunny cartoon really so that day at um yellow Tavern one of his AIDS warned him that he was too exposed um and and uh steuart said you know nonsense there's no danger here and he rode to the front of his lines and was firing his pistol into the air to encourage his men and he caught a bullet in the belly from one of George kuster's Sharpshooters James y Brown Stewart would die in his home state of Virginia at the Battle of yellow Tavern attempting as he always does to disrupt the federal lines and to cause Havoc amongst federal troops this time however his his forces are overwhelmed and Union Calvary using quick firing carbines uh as well as Union infantry uh catch his Troopers in the open he dies as he lived fighting with pistol in hand meanwhile in the Battle of witz between Grant and Lee the scene had moved to a small Crossroads near the Chickahominy River called Cold Harbor this was to be yet another small insignificant point on the map that would achieve bloody infamy for despite the Maze of defensive Earthworks that confronted Grant and his troops when they arrived on the 31st of May the union Commander was determined to mount an allout attack Grant was in Hot Pursuit of General Lee carrying out his strategy of trying to pin down and destroy those Southern [Music] forces however when he catch matches up with Lee at Cold Harbor he finds that Lee has uh his troops entrenched behind strong fortifications uh there were a couple of delays in transportation that allowed this to happen therefore Grant has two options one he could sit and wait and even possibly attempt to flank two he could attack Grant being the risk taker that he is decides that he would use a large charge one momentous charge to try to crack the Confederate lines he should have learned by Lee's mistake at Gettysburg that this would be disastrous at 4:30 a.m. on June 2nd 6,000 men began their fateful March towards the Confederate positions they get up out of the trenches they go over the top in the phrase of a later war and they attack the rebel trench system and the rebels just cut them to Pieces it's a good thing that Sam Grant can outspend Bobby Lee in human material because at Cold Harbor Grant does exactly that men were cut to Pieces by the hail of Southern shot and shell and they fell in Tangled heaps as they tried to storm the Confederate defenses hardened veterans later claimed to have seen nothing like it even on The Killing Grounds of antium Fredericksburg Gettysburg and [Music] Spotsylvania it was not war wrote One confederate soldier it was murder nothing was gained by the union assaults although Grant wrote after the war how much he regretted ordering the attack he seems to have had no doubts at the time for he certainly entertained the idea of a second assault Cold Harbor did a great deal of damage to Grant's reputation and further fueled the northern Public's sense of War weariness and anger at the way the war was being prosecuted but the union Commander was nothing if not determined he redeemed himself within days of the Cold Harbor debacle with a brilliant tactical maneuver across the James River that convinced Lee that the federal forces were in tending to attack Richmond in fact Grant's real objective was Petersburg a town and vital rail Junction that lay to the south of Richmond and the place from where the Confederate Capital received many of its supplies Grant's plan was obvious capture Petersburg cut off supplies to Richmond and starve it into surrender Petersburg was almost completely undefended I think there were like 5,000 of uh bo Bard's men holding out against a federal assault you know three times as large and board had actually sent a messenger to Lee pleading for reinforcements and Lee refused he said no you must be mistaken Grant hasn't moved any of his forces south of the James River so Petersburg really was there for the taking and the north blew it perhaps because the recent memory of the failed assaults at Cold Harbor was was still in the minds of the commander the union commanders they failed to use their overwhelming numerical superiority to punch through the Confederate defenses and what happened is Lee is able to get his soldiers in to the Petersburg defenses which were already well constructed trench lines strong points abati other sorts of obstacles he was able to get his troops behind those defenses while the rest of the army bomic comes up and by the time Lee gets his army in there the army of Northern Virginia combined with board's forces will prove to be a formidable force uh Grant will realize that I'm going to have to settle down to a Siege once again Petersburg poorly defended and ripe for the taking trembled in anticipation of a huge northern attack but it never came and a glaring opportunity to shorten the war was lost [Music] could got if the beleaguered President Lincoln thought that matters could get no worse for the north he was wrong within weeks Confederate forces under General jubil a early who was detached from the army of Northern Virginia had crossed the pomac to stand on Washington's very doorstep early had come from the shanoa valley where all attempts to defeat the southern forces had failed but early's Confederate Army was small perhaps some 15,000 men and it had no hope of overwhelming Washington let alone holding it so early took his troops back into Virginia but not before part of his raiding Force burnt down the p Pennsylvania town of Chambersburg an act of Retribution for similar acts in many parts of the south at the siege of Petersburg there came a new development the brainchild of one of Ambrose burnside's [Music] officers a long tunnel was dug under the Confederate positions it was packed with nearly four tons of gunpowder and intended to blow everything and everyone above it to Smither then northern troops would storm what remained of the Southern [Music] lines on July 30th the enormous explosion tore the Confederate lines apart spewing Earth debris and human bodies into the air there was panic and confusion among the surviving Southern troops as they surveyed the huge crater left by the blast tragically phase two of the operation did not proceed so smoothly in fact it was to provide the war with another of its great costly disasters it took a month to dig 500 yards across no man's land and put four tons of dynamite into the mine that went on under the Rebel line an entire regiment disappeared into the Earth when the union blew that mine and the union charges into that breach and they get to the rim of the crater they are as stupified and as in awe as the Confederates uh about 300 Confederate soldiers have been blown to Smither there's body parts lying all around there's a 30 foot deep hole in the ground these soldiers basically just Mill around some of them were foolish enough to actually go down inside the crater the hole blasted by the union miners is just wide enough to pack a whole lot of Union guys into and uh and pack them into a killing ground and they were massacred by the rebel forces to either flank they were massacred by Rebel artillery in depth and the result was that they'd blown physically a big hole in the Rebel line but it was a matter of uh of of minutes really for Rebel soldiers to dig a new line of trenches around the edge of that mine at Petersburg and there was physical hole in the Rebel line but the rebel defense was not disrupted the unremitting bad news for the Union in the first half of 1864 had hardly helped President Lincoln's chances of [Music] reelection Lincoln himself expected to lose and the election campaign was given an edge when the Democrats announced their nominee he was none other than George B mlen the man who had once commanded the army of the pomac and who had been dismissed by Lincoln mlen it seemed was back to have his revenge with the odds stacked against him only final victory in the field would help Lincoln's campaign renewed hope for this came in the formidable shape of William T Sherman Who was appointed and ordered by Grant to take the prize of Atlanta Georgia the rebel Army and do the the math as well as anybody else they look at a map and they see that Chattanooga to Atlant which was the the industrial Heartland if there was one of the Confederacy was uh 100 miles about the same distance as Washington to Richmond and they'd spent the whole War bashing their heads against the problem of getting to Richmond because that was the political heart of the Confederacy oh why not just go from chat NOA to Richmond the industrial heart of the Confederacy when the war that way so while Grant as general-in-chief is personally commanding the Army in the politically sensitive East Sherman is going for Atlanta from the West Sherman in his uh total war strategy did something that many soldiers or many generals at this time were afraid to do he would cut away from his Supply base so that he wouldn't have soldiers stretched out for long distances so he wouldn't be relying on supplies or so far away that could be possi cut off by Confederate Cavalry allow his army to live on the land and move as needed it gave him a lot of freedom the rebels strategy for dealing with Sherman's Advance towards Atlanta is essentially to give him enough rope to hang himself let him come let him come let him come he'll make a mistake and we'll destroy him but he never makes the big mistake and by the time they realize that there is William Tumi Sherman and he's standing outside Atlanta in the city of Atlanta itself there was utter panic and its citizens desperate to escape from the oncoming Union Army soon crowded the roads that led out of the [Music] city in a last throw of the dice Jefferson Davis decided on a new Commander for the defending Southern Army replacing General Joe Johnson with the 31-year-old one-legged John Bell Hood despite having lost the use of an arm at Gettysburg Hood was patently unsuited to high command his attempts to Halt Sherman's Advance ended in bloody and very costly defeats Union shells soon began to fall on Atlanta a bombardment that was maintained with ruthless efficiency by Sherman despite Hood's protests that innocent civilian Were In Harm's Way on September 1st 1864 Atlanta fell Sherman recognizes that in modern industrial War the idea that a citizen is non-combatant even though he works in a factory making artillery rounds or making wagons to haul the artillery rounds or dealing in horses to pull the wagons to carry the artillery rounds the citizens of Atlanta could not be viewed as non-combatants in a modern industrial war and therefore Sherman had to destroy Atlanta and when mayor Calhoun of Atlanta pleaded with with Sherman don't destroy our city as Sherman replied in the famous phrase war is cruelty and you cannot refine it and often often translated just as as war is Atlanta is ours and fairly one wrote Sherman to a relieved Lincoln while the north rejoiced the federal army put the city to the torch only churches and some private residences were spared Abraham Lincoln's presidential prospects ROSE Phoenix likee from the ashes of [Music] Atlanta the tide was turning now it was the South receiving all the bad news hard on the heels of the fall of Mobile Bay and Atlanta came word of events in the shanoa valley where Grant had entrusted to Philip Sheridan the task of finally clearing the valley of Confederates the pugnacious ruthless cavalryman had once again gone about his task with gusto the whole country from the Blue Ridge to the north mountains has been made untenable for a rebel Army I have destroyed over 2,000 barns filled with wheat and hay and 70 Ms driven 4,000 head of stock before the Army and killed 3,000 sheep when I am through the valley will have but little in it for man or beast at Cedar Creek on October 19th General early attacked Sheridan's Army as it slept achieving a significant Advantage but the diminutive Union Commander somehow rallied his troops and drove the Confederates from the field 3,000 Southern troops were lost in this final attempt to keep the Shan andoa Valley open to the [Music] Confederacy when you think about it it's quite remarkable that the presidential election of 1864 ever took place at all the country is in the midst of a civil war a bloody Civil War and now you're going to hold a free election in one section of the country but that was what the made the Republic great at that time the election of 1864 was basically a referendum on two things the continuation of the war to the final surrender of the Confederacy and it was a referendum on emancipation the War lasted longer than a lot of people had expected you had peace Democrats calling for peace there was war weariness with throughout the north however it sets a precedence because Americans though they may have disagreed with Lincoln were not ready to change horses in the middle of the Stream especially if this horse was Victorious and when Sherman was able to capture the capture Atlanta which is the gym of the South it was just one more Victory one more star on uh Lincoln's shoulder and so American people thought if we are going to win the war and if this President is winning the war well maybe we should stay with [Applause] him on November 8th 1864 Abraham Lincoln was reelected as president president it was a remarkable personal Triumph for Lincoln and another humiliation for mclelan who had carried only three states Kentucky Delaware and New Jersey with 54% of the popular vote Lincoln had his mandate from the country and mlen who was particularly graceless in defeat hurried off to Europe cursing his opponent and the result most gratifying for Lincoln must have been the results of the vote from the Army 78% of serving soldiers had voted Republican had Lincoln lost and mlen won the South may have gained its independence and the north may have had to go to war again with the southern Confederacy in an attempt to reunify slavery would have lasted a lot longer or the United States may have just remained split in half one the US other the CSA but with the reelection of Lincoln the north pursued reunification and was successful in bringing the southern states back into the fold with the political uncertainty behind him Lincoln was once again able to turn his full attention to military matters he now had formidable commanders to steer the north to Victory Grant Sherman and Sheridan had all proved themselves ready willing and able to bring the South to its knees all had made costly mistakes but had also won vital victories and Lincoln knew that these were the men upon whom he must rely to finally defeat the Confederacy Sherman like Sheridan a most ruthless advocate of Total War begged to be allowed to take his army through Georgia toward Savannah before turning North through to the Carolinas and into Virginia I intend to make Georgia how promised Sherman not noted for going back on his [Music] word and so in mid November 1864 Sherman's Army of 62,000 men in two vast columns set off on its 300M March toward Savannah and the Sea they burned destroyed plundered and pillaged as they went we destroyed all we could not eat burned their cotton and Gins spilled their sorghum burned and twisted their railroads and raised hell generally wrote One Union [Music] soldier One Plantation owner who was left with nothing after Sherman's Army had moved on remembered they came on like demons the end result of uh Sherman's uh destructive war that he's waging on the southern people is it it it demonstrates to these people that their governments their state government and their the confederate government Richmond is not upholding one of its its important missions which is to protect them women who live in those areas and whose husbands uh are off fighting the war with the Confederate armies are writing letters saying you know the union union vandals have come through and destroyed the farm have taken our our food you know we have nothing to eat and what will happen is that men will begin to desert in large numbers to go home and to defend their families it makes Jefferson Davis look particularly impotent uh he's having a difficult time controlling uh the governors of some of the Southern States in particular Georgia and North Carolina uh he's going to have a much tougher time after Sherman's March but by this time the end of the Confederacy is in sight anyway meanwhile John Bell Hood did his best to distract Sherman by invading Tennessee the union Commander ignored him and in any case only had to wait until November 30th when Hood came to grief at Franklin at the hands of George Thomas' Union force here more than a quarter of Hood's once proud Army of Tennessee was killed or wounded and the remainder was scattered in confused defeat six Confederate generals were killed including Patrick R Clayburn known in the southern Army as the ston wall of the West although there was no doubting Hood's Devotion to the cause better to die a thousand deaths than to submit to live under you he had told the north the gamble to place him in command had failed at the Battle of Nashville on December 15th the army of Tennessee was virtually destroyed and within weeks Hood tendered his resignation Sherman estimated that he'd caused about100 Million worth of damage on that March so when the shortages really began to hit the Confederacy that's when uh Southern morale went into its final uh decline certainly the uh the Confederate um officer of ordinance the Secretary of of U the chief of ordinance was saying that there was no money in the treasury there there was no food to feed Lee's army uh he he couldn't find any troops to chase Sherman anywhere the money had run out and meanwhile Lincoln was telling his Congress that his resources were unexhausted and in fact inexhaustible as long as Robert Lee could himself oppose anyone trying to get into the heartland of the Confederacy as long as the Western theater was Far Away far from the day-to-day concerns certainly of of Richmond it was possible for the Confederacy as as a body politic to pretend that they could be defended and they could be preserved by the military genius of Robert E Lee but as Grant came crushing down from the north through Virginia and as Sherman came roaring through the south from the west through through Georgia marching to the Sea uh it was demonstrated quite clearly to the Confederacy that as a state they could not survive against the United States on December 21st Savannah fell to Sherman's Army I beg to present you as a Christmas gift he wrote to a delighted Lincoln the town of Savannah with 100 heavy guns plentiful ammunition and 25,000 bales of cotton the new year of 1865 brought little Prospect of relief let alone victory for the South its Army was a pitiful sight down as it was to less than 200,000 ill-fed and badly Shaw troops the weather was freezing and soldiers many of whom were receiving heart-rending letters telling of the hard ships at home were deserting at a higher and higher rate soon the Confederate Congress had passed a law that earlier in the war would have been considered Unthinkable it provided for the arming of slaves for the defense of the Confederacy although they were promised their freedom in return few slaves took advantage of an offer made by a dying government whose individual states had seceded four years earlier primarily to protect the right of their citizens to own slaves Sherman continued to cut a sthe through southern lands Colombia South Carolina's capital all but disappeared in Flames but the northern General was untroubled by any qualms or doubts about his actions I never shed any tears over it he he said afterwards I believe it hastened what we all fought for the end of the war in South Carolina uh the men take particular Glee in destroying the infrastructure of that state after all in their minds South Carolina was the state that started the Civil War they were the first state to secede from Union uh that is where Fort Sumpter was located and Fort Sumpter was fired upon by Confederate forces consequently when Union forces entered the state capital of Columbia South Carolina uh it's destroyed uh with particular wantedness fires rage for days in that City a lot of uh civilian property is intentionally destroyed and then the Sherman's troops continue their March northward in February Charleston joined the growing list of Southern cities that had fallen before Sherman's Army although retreating Confederates burned some cotton stores and military installations Charleston was spared the widescale destruction that Colombia had suffered and still the politicians in the South most noticeably Jefferson Davis declined to give up the fight peace deals were talked about but Davis insisted that the independence of the South and the preservation of slavery were to be part of any settlement Inauguration Day fell on March 4th 1864 Lincoln's speech was once again eloquent and elegant in equal measure with malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds to care for who shall have borne the battle and cherish a just and Lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations listening intently in the audience was a man who would very soon leave his own indelible mark on the nation's history he was the actor John wils Booth meanwhile grant me and the army of the pomac were still besieging Petersburg Lee had been made overall commanderin-chief of the Confederate forces in February 1865 but his was a hopeless task the ragtag southern Army that defended Petersburg and Richmond numbered less than 30,000 men food and ammunition were running out fast and Grant had the bit between his teeth Sheridan was dispatched to cut off Lee's supply lines to the southwest and the Confederate Leader realized that soon he would be trapped somehow on April 2nd he managed to withdraw his army and head West in Petersburg before the uh Union troops broke through Confederate lines Lee was left with a few DieHard uh uh uh uh soldiers desertion starvation had taken their toll on Lee's army and so he had approximately uh uh 35,000 troops left once the Union Soldiers had broken through captured Petersburg captured Richmond uh the various uh uh groups of of soldiers retreated and Lee hoped that they could reun night at Amelia Courthouse and then attempt to march to Danville where they could cross over to North Carolina and hook up with General Joe Johnson but what happens is he ends up fighting a series of running battles with uh Union troops and his path is blocked at uh near aaao Courthouse by Calvary Troopers under General Phil Sheridan at this point he doesn't run Petersburg was now in Union hands and the following day on April 3rd 1865 Richmond the Confederate Capital also fell the government of Jefferson Davis was not there to witness the historic moment of course they had fled when the news from Petersburg came through [Music] fires intentionally started by fleeing Confederates that were meant to deny Union troops The Spoils of War soon spread only the hard work of the advancing Union Soldiers troops of General Godfrey Whit's all African-American 25th Corps saved the city from complete [Music] destruction on April 4th Lincoln himself was able to walk through the ruined streets of the capital of the Confederacy for a while a troop of African-American cavalrymen accompanied him a powerful if unwitting symbol of what Northern victory meant to the southern slave population Lee and his army marched West towards the mountains of Virginia with Grant in Hot Pursuit there was more Bloodshed at Sailor's Creek on the 6th of April where more than 8,000 Confederates were taken prisoner by Palm Sunday April 9th the tiny Southern Army was completely surrounded and Lee realized the end was near here there is nothing for me to do but go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths said Lee to his subordinates the two men met in a now famous scene in the home of Wilmer mlan at aomax courthouse in Virginia many Americans believe to this day that when Robert E Le's Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at the tiny Hamlet of aomax courthouse and aomax County Virginia that the Civil War was over it wasn't it was the surrender of one Confederate Army there were still several Confederate armies still in the field still in active hostilities against United States forces but I think it becomes symbolic this is this was the premier Eastern Confederate Army surrendering to the premier Eastern Union Army and it was only a matter of time after the army of Northern Virginia surrendered that the other armies would follow suit Union soldiers have been instructed not to gloat but to treat their adversaries with the reverence that they uh deserved these soldiers had fought the hard fight fought the hard battle they had starved and bled for years and what was left fighting with Lee was a battle hardened group of men so when they marched into the courthouse there weren't many people there what was left were were the SL slaves who are watching as these Confederate Veterans marched up the road uh preparing to surrender the terms that General Grant gave to General Lee were um very favorable to the Confederates he basically said that uh I'm going to parole you all and you are going to go home to your families and promise not to take arms against United States again and uh as long as you remain lawful citizens that the US government's not going to bother you grant asked Lee if he had any requests and Lee thought about it and said yes he had one most of his men had come to the war with their own farm animals horses and mules and and the like could they return to their Farms with these animals for the spring plowing and Grant said yes and Lee was was very grateful thought that that would do uh a lot to conciliate his men towards the new situation what Grant is doing by giving them their horses back is saying we are not going to treat you as the Romans treat Carthage we will not swow your Fields with salt as part of the nation building that must go along with a union victory you'll be allowed to have your economy back as well so the rebel surrender and the terms which Grant Grant offers are tremendously rich in cultural symbolism Grant offers the rebels their honor and their economy back in return for surrendering and so the American Civil War the Great Rebellion was finally at an end Lee was dignified and courteous in defeat Grant and Sherman magnanimous and reasonable in Victory the South had been decimated more than a quarter of a million of its men folk lay in Graves its economy was ruined its Countryside laid waste and many of its towns and cities r raised to the ground for the entire region a way of life had been ended the South had fought hard for what it believed but eventually it had been dragged Kicking and Screaming into a union it despised and now resented the road to recovery would be long and painful for a once proud [Music] Nation the celebrations in the north were long and loud but they were surely born more of relief than Jubilation Lincoln was determined to begin the process of binding the nation's wounds but there was still one more act in the tragedy of the war to be played [Music] out on April 14th the president visited Ford's Theater in Washington to see a production of the play my American cousin during the performance a shot from a daringer pistol rang out and amid the screams the president of the United States Lay Dying from a wound to the [Music] Head the gun had been fired by John wils Booth a disgruntled actor and self-styled Southern Patriot the man who had only the previous month listened to Lincoln's inauguration speech and who had determined that the architect of the South's defeat Must Die Lincoln's name was the most famous of the 620,000 names of those who died during the American Civil War the nation had seen nothing like it before and has known nothing like it [Music] [Applause] [Music] s [Music] [Music] [Music] many wars against foreign foes have been fought in places all across the globe each has its own place in the pantheon of US history and in the hearts of the American people but none perhaps has left scars like that conflict in the far off 19th century when American fought American in a bitter struggle for the soul of a [Music] Nation [Music]