 Think tech away, civil engagement lives here. Lens of history, history lens. Here on a given Tuesday with Professor John David Ann of HPU, a history professor. You know, they're all like special gifts to us. Thanks, Jay. History professors are special people. Jay, keep going. We have to prize them to take care of them. I love it. Have you hugged your history professors today? That's a great slogan. I'll take that to my class. How do we understand where we are if we don't know where we've been, really? It's a navigational issue. And for that matter, how do we understand where we're going if we don't know where we've been? Right, right, yeah. So today's a special show job because today we're going to parse out forward and backward the Gettysburg Address, which is a pivotal document in so many ways. That's right. Tell us about it. Well, so, you know, we were talking last time about American exceptionalism. And I thought, you know, one of the things we didn't discuss was whether or not American exceptionalism is actually true. You know, I described it as this kind of mythology. And what I would say is that American exceptionalism is true once in a while. That there are moments in American history and in American life where the United States has been exceptional. And I think that's probably the best way to think about it. And one of those moments was the Gettysburg Address. Because of course the Gettysburg Address was Lincoln's reframing of the purpose of the war. War that to that point had been about saving the Union. And now the war became about freeing the slaves. So in that moment, in the moment of the address itself, he was beginning to convince the American people that there was this new birth of freedom. And so if we can bring up the Gettysburg Address and we can look a little closer at it, it's really a great document. It's a brilliant document. So there it is in Fourscore and Seven Years ago. Of course, this is 87 years ago, which was, you know, seven years. Score is 20. That's right. Everybody knows that. 1776. So a new nation conceived in liberty. So Lincoln is talking about the Civil War, the testing of the Civil War. Now he's talking about the field, the battle of Gettysburg. And so the battle of Gettysburg, of course, the reason why Lincoln is there is because he has to consecrate this new memorial. There's so many battle dead from the battle of Gettysburg that the town and the people, they have to get these bodies underground. Otherwise, they will fester and they'll cause disease and the rest of it. And so Lincoln is there. It was a national cemetery. It becomes a national cemetery. That's correct. He becomes a national cemetery. And some of the other language, if you could bring that address back up, some of the language of the Gettysburg Addresses. So if you see the first line of the third paragraph, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hollow this ground. Those are religious words. And Lincoln is dipping into American exceptionalism with those words. What we sometimes refer to as American civil religion. This idea that the United States has a sacred mission. And so the address is a kind of classic statement of that. And Lincoln refers to the mission so nobly advanced, the honor dead, which is of course the war dead. And he's arguing that actually the reason to free the slaves, or the justification, the atonement for the sin of slavery, is the war dead. It's the sacrifice of the soldiers on the field. Which really resonates with the Civil War anyhow, because the Civil War really was about the battles. It was about the sacrifice of the men that really made the difference. It wasn't about the politics so much, but it was really the Civil War and the changes that the Civil War brought that was done on the battlefield. And so Lincoln recognized that in the Gettysburg Address. It's part of what makes it such an important address. So Lincoln, so the other thing about the address that's interesting, right? It says Lincoln scribbled this address in his hotel room. Well, he had been working on it. He worked on it on the train in Gettysburg. On the train, I recall that. Yes, the night before. And then he worked on it the next morning. But it is remarkable for its concision. It's unbelievable really. I mean, it's a two-minute speech. And the person before him, Everett Edwards, had gotten up and spoken for two hours. And that was much more typical of oratory of the 19th century, was to get up and talk and talk and make allusions to the classical battles and wars and everything. And so Lincoln just got up and said, look, here it is. This is what our forefathers sacrificed for. This is what the men on the battlefield sacrificed for. And it's a new birth of freedom. And that's how he ends the address. It's brilliant. It is. It's a brilliant address. Because he knew that they would read it far and wide. He knew that it would be a pivotal point. It would be an expression of the United States as it was emerging from this war. And he wrote it with the experience and the sensibilities of somebody who knew about public relations. And he knew about the English language. And he knew about speechmaking. And Gary Wills wrote a book on the Gettysburg address. And yeah, Wills talks about the classical structure of the speech where Lincoln took some from Greek and Roman oratory and actually used some of that structure in the speech. It's a fascinating book. But so yeah, Lincoln is really reframing the purpose of the nation at this point. And I think it's maybe the greatest speech in the history of the nation. Yes. And if you look at the text, you know, the copy of it, it's poetry. The best speeches are, in my view, they're poetry. There isn't a single word there that doesn't have some charge to it. And there are no wasted words, no extra words. It's boiled right down to the essential poetry of what he wanted to say. Exactly. What a guy. Yeah. This must have been distributed all over the country in the speech. Yeah, yeah. It was published in all of the newspapers. And so the speech and the ideas of the speech got out pretty quickly. And I think, you know, it, as I said, I think it ranks as maybe the best speech in American history. I would say Martin Luther King's, I have a dream speeches right up there. And another, I think, maybe another exceptional moment in the history of the country because, of course, after that, you get civil rights legislation and real movement on the issue of, you know, racial equality. So Lincoln makes the speech. He has done the Emancipation Proclamation earlier, you know, January 1st, 1863. And so Lincoln's intent with this new birth of freedom is moving towards freeing the slaves and making the war about freedom. And so this is, you know, Lincoln's ability to envision a future for the country is so important. His ability to kind of project forward what the country will look like. Big question. I mean, did the war make him more involved in that issue? Did it create a greater passion for him? Or was he like that before the war? And this, you know, was just a view that he held, but it was enhanced by the war. How did that continuum go? Well, Lincoln, of course, he's very concerned about the contradiction that slavery represents. And he expresses this as early as 1838 when he gives a speech at the Springfield Lyceum. He gives a speech there. He talks about the tensions that are ongoing over the issue of slavery, you know, conflicts between abolitionists and pro-slavery people, even then. So, yeah, I mean, this is something he's been thinking about for a long time. But for Lincoln, the real genius of Lincoln is that he has moved. He moves from a position of not touching slavery in the South at the beginning of the war to, by 1864, believing that slavery must be abolished as part of the purpose of the war. Yeah, and as I wanted to ask you about the connection, if there is a connection, and he must have been aware of it, of the race riots in New York in July of 1863, just a few months before. And, I mean, that was a very clear expression that the Union was not without racial prejudice and bigotry and hatred. What happened is, as I recall, it was a draft. They announced a draft in July of 1863. That's correct, yes. And you could get out of the draft for $300 American, which is a lot of time. Yes. A lot of money at that time. And people resented that. So, you know, the poor Irish in New York and whoever else was poor in New York at the time rose up and had a riot about the draft. That's right. The streets were dissembling. And everybody was, you know, on the streets. And then there was noise and commotion and riot. And all of a sudden, this became a race riot. It transmuted itself into a race riot. And it was bloody lethal. And it was against the blacks who lived in New York at the time. And the rioters were hanging them. All I remember was the Saturday night. Remember this march? It was a Saturday night. Everybody was in a bar drinking. They used to do that pretty heavily in New York. And they all got wired up in the bar. And they came out of the bar. And they looked for somebody to hang. And they started hanging blacks from the lampposts all up and down Manhattan. And this was really a problem. And it took the military, Lincoln brought the military back to New York to quell it. It took him several days to quell it. So, you know, so he knew about it, obviously. So the question is, you know, did this have an effect on his thinking about race and about, you know, emancipation of the slaves? And did it affect his thinking as he expressed it in Gettysburg? Yeah, I suppose, honestly, we don't have good information on that, actually. So it's really kind of an open question. Lincoln didn't write down in his diary anything about this, you know, the uprising in New York City, the race riot that took place in July 1863. So we don't really know. But one could assume, since he clearly knew about it, I mean, he was the one who sent in troops to quell the riot, since he knew about it, then we can assume that it confirmed his understanding of some parts of America that were still very racist, very, you know, anti-black. And so, and it's, you know, maybe no surprise, because most Americans were still quite racist in this time period. Including in the Union. That's correct. Abolitionism was still a minority game. And that's why the speech is so important, because Lincoln actually is changing people's minds. He's pulling the electorate along with him towards a position of abolishing slavery, an anti-slavery and a less, I'd say a less racist position. I'd say less racist, because, of course, racism doesn't go away. It's very much a part of the fabric of the United States in the post-Civil War period. So... Well, I mean, it's very interesting to think that maybe, as I'm speculating, I don't know if you'll agree with me, that part of the reason for the pivot in the Gettysburg address, the expression of what he was saying, the high, noble idea he was expressing, is, you know, I just saw what happened in New York. That wasn't so good. I'd better say something and do something to, you know, make people realize that they shouldn't do that. Yeah. No, I don't think so, because the thing about Lincoln is, he did issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He's thought long and hard about the issue of slaves in the context of the war. I mean, before the Emancipation Proclamation, he's having to think about the slaves, because what do you do with the slaves once you conquer territory? Should those slaves be freed? Should they be taken by the Union? Should they be handed back to their masters? So, Lincoln has thought long and hard about this before July 1863. So, this is really part of a larger hole for Lincoln. Yes. He's really, but he makes an explicit decision to extend the Emancipation Proclamation into an effort to free all slaves, this new birth of freedom that he talks about in the Gettysburg address. It shows you that one piece of paper, which we were looking at a minute ago, can have such huge historical moments. Exactly, exactly. And one person's ideas, with the talent, the skill base, the vision to see what a new America could look like, Abraham Lincoln did this. He reshaped our country, and he pulled the American people along. And he was pushed to, it should be said, he was pushed by abolitionists into this position. So, it's profound. It is profound, and I think we're going to take exactly one minute. Ah, okay. And let it sink in. Okay. And let it sink in right now. Hello, I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair. I have a show called Finding Respect in the Chaos. It's all about women's rights and gender equality. It's a place for survivors of abuse to come on and tell their stories. And a place for advocates to come on and share important resources so that people can get past the abuse and into the hope and healing that's on the other side. I hope you'll join me every other Friday at 3 o'clock for Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair on thinktecaboy.com. Hey, hey, baby. That's you. I want to know will you watch my show? I hope you do. It's on Tuesdays at 1 o'clock. And it's out of the comfort zone. And I'll be your host, R.E.B. Kelly. See you there. Okay, we've been discussing the Gettysburg Address with John David Anne of HPU, our favorite history professor for whom we put a little bumper sticker on since have you hugged your history professor today. Anyway, so we've been sinking it in. Yes, right. And here we are. It's been said, it's been distributed, it's been in the newspapers. Did the whole country rally around? Well, this is actually the problem of 1864, the year after the Gettysburg Address, is that not everybody agreed with this. In fact, there was entrenched opposition, especially among Democrats, to Lincoln's vision of a new birth of freedom. And Democrats wanted to end the war. Now, what happens is in early 1864, Ulysses S. Grant takes over the Army of the Potomac in the east, and he decides he's going to fight. And it doesn't matter how many casualties he takes, he's going to fight and fight. And he does, and he takes enormous casualties, so many that the public begins to turn against the war, the public in the north. And this is also a reelection year. So Lincoln is up for reelection. Big problem for him. That's right. And General McClellan is running against him. The guy who was a do-nothing general early on. That's right. That's right. And so Lincoln is concerned. He gets quite nervous, actually, and is quite open about his misgivings. He writes at one point, I think I need to plan for maybe losing this election. And so it's interesting that commentators respond to Lincoln's misgivings. And one guy named Louis Maurer, he actually creates a political cartoon about Lincoln's misgivings about this election. If we can bring up that cartoon, it's a bizarre and almost frightening cartoon. So Lincoln was very open about his belief that his dreams were prophetic, that when he dreams something, it's possible that it would become reality in the future. And so Maurer took this idea and then he extended it into a political cartoon. And so you see Lincoln is sleeping. He's dreaming. And this is Lincoln's nightmare going into the election of 1864, is that first of all, General McClellan is climbing the steps into the White House. You can see him there. And then next to McClellan is Lady Liberty who is holding the severed head of an African-American, presumably an African-American slave. Lincoln is off to the, our left, or your right, running away from the White House. And he's saying, this ain't no joke to me, paraphrased. And so what does this all mean? Well, this is Lincoln's nightmare scenario. And I think Maurer is probably trying to motivate people to go to the polls and vote because this is truly a nightmare to have McClellan walking into the White House to have the African-American attacked and maybe even beheaded of his rights taken away, his maybe future freedom taken away. So reversing what Lincoln had gained. Exactly, reversing the Gettysburg Address in many ways. So anyway, it's a fascinating political cartoon and we'll come back to this issue of Lincoln's dreams because it's quite important. Yes, yes, he had other dreams too. That's correct. So 1864 is this, it's a year in which it looks like the war could be lost and all of the gains therein lost. Lincoln is having, maybe having nightmares. Certainly political cartoonists are putting nightmares in Lincoln's heads in his head. But what happens then is that his generals bail him out. So if we can put up the battle map and this is the battle of William T. Sherman's army which is in Tennessee in, you can see in May 1864 Sherman's army is in Chattanooga and wins the battle there and then begins to march south towards Atlanta in the summer of 1864 and reaches Atlanta in September 1864. Now this is a huge army, it's over 60,000 men whether it's do not have an army that can touch this army. You can see they have armies that follow, Johnston is following Sherman's army but cannot attack Sherman's army because it's just too large. Johnson has less than half of that number of troops. So he can do nothing but harass Sherman. Sherman then lays siege to Atlanta and the commander in Atlanta could withdraws from Atlanta and so Sherman captures Atlanta I think on about September 8 and then burns Atlanta to the ground but the capture of Atlanta in the deep south, in the heart of the south Atlanta was a kind of a railroad capital there were I think eight different railroad lines that came into Atlanta so a major distribution center for the south. It was very important to the south and so now that Sherman's got it and actually the south actually burns down starts the fire that burns down Atlanta and then Sherman just continues it. Sherman takes his crew, his army pulls up railroad ties because you do this to prevent southern trains from running because the Confederates had gotten good at putting the ties back when they came back in then he takes these railroad ties his troops do, they heat them up in a fire and they twist them around they're called Sherman neck ties so that they cannot be used again if we can bring that slide back up Devastation trail so then Sherman decides what do I do next and he decides upon a march to the sea and so from Atlanta to Savannah in the month of December it's called Sherman's march to the sea he marches his army about 60 miles wide they cut a swath they destroy everything in sight they do not kill civilians so generally speaking there are no atrocities but there's lots of burning lots of destruction of property including private residences exactly big estates, plantations the message is clear that northern armies can march through the center of the south unimpeded and they can destroy at will demoralizing the south it was the greatest hit to southern morale of the war and then you can see later on Sherman in the next year in early 1865 he marches through South Carolina does the same thing trying to punish those who first started secession the South Carolinians and then of course marches through North Carolina same devastation that's right, wreaking devastation there's no choice now so the capture of Atlanta wins Lincoln his reelection interesting, but at the same time though, I recall right in that period there were signs by you mentioned this, there were signs by various groups in the north where they were really tired of war tired of losing their sons tired of the money the taxes, whatever and they wanted to stop, put a lot of pressure that's correct, one of the things interesting, one of the things Lincoln did was he released soldiers in his army his armies to go vote he released them from duty because they were quite supportive of Lincoln they understood the cost of war and the prize of war and had bought in fairly early to this idea that the war should be a war to end slavery and so at least a good majority of his soldiers and they voted unfortunately for Lincoln, helped Lincoln to win reelection and of course then Lincoln is re-elected the south is under great duress the south loses its army almost completely in early 1865 you have desertion rates that are up over 50% and so the north is going to win this war, it's very clear by early 1865 that the north is going to win and then in April April is the month in 1865 that we have to talk about because on April 5th 1865 the union enters Richmond Jefferson Davis and his government flee Richmond they essentially are giving up Richmond to the Union army and Lincoln tours tours Richmond with his son and so to see Lincoln walking through Richmond with his troops I mean of course it's inspiring to residents supportive of the African Americans in Richmond come out in droves and they celebrate what they see as the liberation of Richmond and then of course then were there any negotiations here I recall in the Spielberg movie Lincoln at some point there were attempts and Lincoln had a wrestle with this to negotiate a settlement rather than a surrender when was that happening this is happening between February and April 1865 so Lincoln has agreed to meet there are peace commissioners from the south who want to settle the conflict they made the gesture and Lincoln has agreed to meet Lincoln wants to show himself as being magnanimous so he agrees to meet with them but then they have to set a date and Lincoln keeps putting off the date and putting off the date he's playing both ends the peace commissioners sit and wait aboard this steamer Hampton Roads, Virginia they sit and wait and they wait and the Union Army racks up victory after victory and then eventually it becomes irrelevant there was no need to have a settlement when you got it all so then on April 9th Ulysses Grant and the Army of the Potomac catches up with Lee's Army the Army of Northern Virginia and Lee like a gentleman understands that for him the war is over he surrenders and his troops surrender it's an important moment because there could have been a bloodbath the Union Army could have really taken it out on the Confederate troops they could have treated them very badly but they didn't they allowed Confederates to keep their firearms because they knew they needed to go home and hunt that's correct and protect their families so it's an important moment I think in our history that shows after this horrific war where men are killing one another that men could also these same men could come together that was Lincoln they would not have gone down that way if he hadn't approved it well I'm not 100% sure that that's just Lincoln I think it's also those who believe that the war had created this terrible chasm that had to end they were tired of war so I think that's a part of it and then of course Lincoln goes back to Washington DC and he's beginning to prepare for reconstruction he even considers now that the black man black officer should have the right to vote and this is quite something because of course five years earlier they were all slaves in the south and so Lincoln is preparing for this and then he wants a break he wants to take an evening off he's exhausted but he thinks so a play, a musical maybe at Forge Theatre would be a good recreation for him and so Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd go to Forge Theatre and this is when he's assassinated and of course we know the story well Lincoln is he's in his booth with Mary Todd Lincoln and the soldier who's supposed to be guarding him is at a tavern next door with Lincoln's driver and his carriage driver so John Wilkes Booth enters the president's box, shoots him and then jumps down onto the stage and hollers you know death to tyrants and limps off because he is probably we think he broke his leg during this when he jumped yeah that's correct so this is really but what's really interesting about this is ten days earlier Lincoln had another dream Lincoln had all of these dreams and Lincoln had a dream in which he was in the White House and he was confused and so it sounded like there was gnashing of teeth and cries of grief and so he walks downstairs in the White House and he sees a casket laid out before him and there's a soldier next to the casket and he asks the soldier soldier who is this who has died and he said the president sir he's been assassinated wow yeah so in this case unfortunately Lincoln's dream came true and you know very powerful dream yeah it's interesting that you know it reveals I mean aside from the fact it was a dream it reveals that he knew there were people out there that didn't like him that would organize an assassination and he said to his armed guard look I'm gonna probably be killed someday but don't let them get away with it that's kind of a paraphrase but essentially that's funny what's saying punish the buggers if they kill me and we can see in back of us here is Lincoln on his deathbed with his cabinet gathered around his doctors and there he is and the bed's too short that's why he's all propped up like that the bed was too short for his frame and the next morning then he breathed his last breath this is a very positive portrait that was created later in 1865 and of course the nation went into mourning his body was taken from Washington DC and then on a train all around that's right went through in the south too I don't think so went up through New York City and then eventually to Springfield Illinois where his body that's where his body lays in state today and the nation at least the north was in mourning for quite some time over that what's remarkable so many remarkable things here John is that the world had changed Lincoln had been instrumental in changing it between 1861 and 1865 four years one term not even quite one term and what it shows you is that one term as president even in those days things moved a lot slower than they do now one president in one term can change the world as we know it it's even more possible now people think oh we can wait out this administration you know just wait it out and it'll go away no in four years you can do miracles you had to bring that up sorry same political party that's right so this is one of the great heroes of American history one of the great heroes of world history really and going back to your point about exceptionalism I think up until 1861 if you look for exceptionalism it's a mixed bag in this country that's true and as you said all through our history it's a mixed bag and some people will think this is exceptional and that's not but you know in this period of time with the moral positions he was taking the things he was doing the kind of analysis and presence that he put on things it was exceptional in that special period of time no that's right I mean he elevated the nation and was a truly great president well thank you John it's been great to talk to you about your stories and great to learn about this stuff and great to feel that there's some real historic resilience in the country yes there's hope we have to look back a little bit to find it thank you John we'll do this again