 think tech away civil engagement lives here lens of history history lens here on think tech John David and history professor at Hawaii Pacific University following on the track of our discussions in the over the last few weeks on in the 19th century involving the Civil War what led up to it and now we're in it aren't we right we're gonna see what kind of man Lincoln was right you know I don't think people you know they see him through the distant lens of history yeah they don't see him up close but we can see him up close we can we can investigate this man pretty closely and we can learn amazing things about him absolutely amazing man I mean what's interesting is Lincoln's presidency is marked by this war I mean he takes power and the war starts he dies you know a couple days before the war ends yeah so it's the war and and his presidency are really synonymous unlike and and Lincoln was a hands-on commander-in-chief so president as war maker Lincoln was the guy unlike really any other president after that the Spanish-American War I mean McKinley was not hands-on neither was Roosevelt the commanders in the field ran that war and the generals at home and then the wars after that of course the president became more and more distant from actual the war making capacity of the commander-in-chief the president could say drop that bomb or the president could say send those troops in but the president never said let's do an offensive here let's do simultaneous offensives so that we catch the Confederates off guard or so we we reap the advantage of having more troops why did he do that why did he feel was necessary for him to get so closely involved well I think part of it is actually a response to his lack of knowledge about war making so Lincoln takes the presidency and the Civil War starts with the you know the bombing of Sumter Fort Sumter and then Lincoln calls for these volunteers 75,000 volunteers on a three-month enlistment and he gets them he gets all of them and he could take as many as he wanted actually he could have gotten way more than 75 why why was the community so up in arms that's the wrong term is it well they were everyone responded to the volunteer call well they were there was tremendous passion about secession northerners believe that secession what could lead to the destruction of the Union period they feared for their political system and in turn they feared for their their livelihoods and they feared for their lives I mean if the Union falls apart then what's going to happen so I think the the act of secession really put the tremendous fear into the northern public but it didn't stay that way through the whole war and I remember and not personally but I do remember in 1863 there was a dress sure it's not person that's not personal you're not personal for you we know no you were not there neither was I was a draft in the spring of 18 or the summer of 1863 that's right all that so that that by that vitality that enthusiasm changed it did change and it changed quite quickly but if we could bring up a picture of Lincoln it's worth looking at the old man himself Lincoln of course there he is and this is Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War you can see if you see earlier pictures of him his face has gotten so craggy and lined by this point from the stresses of running the war but you can see the determination in his eyes and in his visage this is not a man to trifle with not a man to be denied so he actually that that determination made Lincoln a very good war leader so you know that some people have compared me to Lincoln I don't know just a hair I'm not sure I'm not sure it works but I haven't actually that's that's right that's right country lawyer politician so long away from war yes but he became commander-in-chief and therefore he had to take on this responsible he felt you know obliged by the Constitution and and so what Lincoln does is Lincoln educates himself about warfare Lincoln spends a lot of hours in the library of the War Department really yeah yeah he actually has a cot over in the War Department where he sleeps some nights because he's waiting for telegraph communications from his commanders out in the field but so Lincoln studies warfare he and he he develops a grasp of what we would call Napoleonic type of warfare techniques essentially the turning movement which is if you can get your army on the flank of another army then you can turn that army and in the process you have a very good chance of winning that battle and then the issue of simultaneous advances which is or what is called concentration in time when you move all of your forces all of the armies out in the field you move them at the same time therefore the Confederacy cannot move troops back and forth between the different theaters of the war so you're essentially pinning them down Lincoln understood both of those concepts better than some of his commanders oh wow yeah what a guy right but it also tells you it tells you that he had whatever the it takes to identify the problem learn the specialty and then exercise the expertise yes which is truly remarkable and I would I would assume and see if you can confirm this yeah I would assume this he didn't only do this with respect to battlefield strategies he did this with other things too absolutely no Lincoln was very adept at at managing the politics of the time of course there's great support in the early stages of the war and then of course so Lincoln calls for the volunteers he appoints a commander called McDowell McDowell's in charge of the army of Potomac in the first three months of the war the Confederates gather at a point called Bull Run which is near Manassas, Virginia not very about 25 miles south of Washington DC and Lincoln says to McDowell you need to send your troops out to confront these boys and McDowell says sir we're green and Lincoln says I don't care we'll all be green together because he understands that the Confederates are green as well so so so McDowell takes his troops out it's assumed that the war this will be one battle and then the confederate the Johnny Rebs will be badly defeated they'll run back with their tail between their legs and the Confederates will sue for peace that was how they thought it would go the battle itself actually turns and and one of the thing is that the the public in Washington DC also thinks that this is going to be a wipeout you know a great great victory for the ladies in the finery in their carriages so if we can bring up I have a picture of this oh is that right yeah that is a picture from the Battle of First Bull Run it's a picnic it's sometimes referred to as the picnic battle because the elites of Washington DC rode their carriages out to the battle site they sat on a hill to the side and they thought they would see a grand victory by the Union well for a couple of hours the Union got the better of the Confederacy and then the Confederacy did just what I was talking about they concentrated in space they took troops from the western part of Virginia they brought them in by railroad and by about 10 30 11 o'clock in the morning then they were unloading this troops right into battle and so these this edition of other troops turned the tide of the battle the Confederacy routed the Union by about two o'clock in the afternoon and unions the greenness actually showed because the Union soldiers fled they didn't regroup they just fled Palmel back to Washington DC which left the picnickers in some trouble because there they were at the battle site and you have you know ferocious armed Confederate soldiers but the Confederacy also stood pat the the the roads to Washington DC from Manassas were clogged for the rest of the evening as as picnickers tried to get back to the nation's capital 25 miles you can see it now yeah right so is this this is after Fort Sumter this is yes this is July 1861 so this is the first kind of stub knows that the Union gets from this new war and it turns out that it's not going to be a three month war it's not going to be a battle of one war and so now Lincoln has to think through okay what am I going to do next how am I going to respond to this and so there's another call for volunteers and it's a much bigger call and and it's going to be a three-year term instead of a three month term Lincoln appoints a new general general McClellan is appointed in in in July 1861 and and so the army of Potomac really take shape it's a massive army up to up to 200,000 men camped in Washington DC and so that's how the war is going to go forward but the Union also had to develop a strategy now that it looks like okay this this could be a more serious affair than the Union had to develop a strategy for the war and and the general in charge of of kind of the war department was general Winfield Scott hero of the of the Mexican war and Scott developed something called the anaconda plan so we've actually got this in our background here but if you can bring up the this is so it was so this is not a compliment this is actually a cartoon making fun of general Winfield Scott's plan it's called the anaconda plan so you can see there's a there's a snake but the anaconda plan was supposed to strangle the south by cutting the south into two running up the Mississippi River this snake is going a little wild actually it's way too wide it should be going up the Mississippi River but so so many people made fun of Scott's anaconda plan and many people made fun of Scott himself we can bring up a picture of general Winfield Scott then there's there's the general and by this time general Winfield Scott was he was 72 I believe and he could no longer ride a horse suffered from dropsy he was not much of a commander by this time and he fades pretty quickly actually so so the anaconda plan is designed to economically strangle the the south the south what yeah first cut it off from the north they're kind of like a boycott well blockade they blockade the ports the seaports of the confederacy and then they then the idea is to go down half go down the Mississippi River and cut the confederacy in half yeah okay and then so the economic effect of that would be to make them surrender that was the idea yeah plan in you know it led to good things actually it was not a plan that worked very quickly let's say it like that overall I think actually it was probably a pretty good strategy but you needed time to let you had you had to have time to take control of the Mississippi River and the meanwhile you know there's all kinds of other things that are developing that are not good for the war so so Lincoln confronts these tremendous challenges in the first years of the war you know he's he's the kind of commander chief who is hands-on he is he's he's actually directing his troops at times he's saying you know so there's two armies there's the army of the Potomac in the east this is the army at the battle of bull run in there and McClellan is commander of that army and McClellan has a plan okay so battle of bull run doesn't go well McClellan trains up this massive army of over 200,000 men and his idea is that you you ship these men down to Norfolk of Virginia and this is actually behind Richmond then you you unload them they march to the backside of Richmond catch them from behind that's that's the idea to catch them from behind to essentially outflank them you know this is a massive what we would call a strategic turning movement but the idea was to take Richmond because that was the head of the serpent that was a McClellan's idea yeah Lincoln didn't think this was the best strategy it's so interesting that you've named three or four generals already it sounded like it sounds like the apprentice you know you're firing this guy this is so true so here's the list it's McDowell McClellan Burnside Hooker and Meade don't forget Scott and well right Scott is the commander of the all of the armies right so uh so yeah so it's a very it's a motley bunch they're not necessarily good leaders at all I guess he saw that well saw that and he felt he needed to coordinate it yeah well Lincoln Lincoln believed in McClellan at first McClellan had a very good reputation he graduated first in his class from West Point that's right he was he was known as a strategic genius he he was loved by his troops very good at training but so so McClellan takes his troops down to the peninsula to the you know this is the the Chesapeake essentially out the Chesapeake and then to this peninsula it's called the peninsula campaign and but he moves so slowly it takes him months and of course by the time he's down there then the Confederates have built up fortifications and he can hardly move at all it's a it's a it's a great strategy but so poorly implemented and Lincoln constantly was harping on McClellan don't hold your troops back attack the Confederate army and so he was he did not like McClellan the other thing about McClellan and McClellan was very arrogant so one time early in the in the war when I think this is when Lincoln was going to appoint McClellan Lincoln and his driver in the carriage they go out to McClellan's home outside of Washington DC and and they knock on the door and McClellan servant lets them in and said sir I will tell General McClellan that you are in and and this is the president of the United States and they sit there and they sit there and they sit there until evening and McClellan never meets with them finally Lincoln gets back in the carriage and he goes home oh that's really offensive yeah but McClellan was a very arrogant guy so so let's take a moment to reflect on that during during the break during the break I'd like everybody to reflect on just how arrogant it was to make the president wait so long you had to go home we'll be right back with John David and about history in the civil war how to make a better day aloha I'm Kili Akina and I'm here every other week on Mondays at two o'clock p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii together in Hawaii together we talk with some of the most fascinating people in the islands about working together working together for a better economy government and society so I invite you into our conversation every other Monday at 2 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network join us for Hawaii together I'm Kili Akina aloha history lens here on Think Tech we're talking with John David and about the 19th century and American history and history in the civil war especially about the the development of the war and Lincoln the development of Lincoln in the war to find him right he defined it yeah so what can we take a moment to just talk about Lincoln and his personality his character yeah sure make him be able to do these things so and and his relationship with McClellan is a is really a point in fact he did not like McClellan he believed that McClellan was more than competent but the arrogance bothered him and the fact that McClellan seemed to never want to attack the enemy but Lincoln was very patient he let McClellan go and let him fail and let him fail so his patience is a part of his Lincoln's success Lincoln becomes a good military strategist but he also exercises what I would call strategic patience and this is in the midst of all the pressures that he's under I mean you've got a public which is by 1862 becoming restless oh we haven't made we haven't won many battles the war seems to be going badly for us and the thing about that is just an added thought is that this war is not happening in Iraq not happening in Europe it's happening right here at home exactly affecting people where they live across the street up down the block and their friends and neighbors and relatives and so you know it's it lives with you every day talk about losing patience no absolutely I mean there were tremendous pressures on Lincoln but Lincoln handled the pressure very well now his family didn't handle it as well his wife Mary was depressed and she had a terrible time handling being in the White House they lost a child of course and and she went deeper into depression but Lincoln somehow was able to rise above it all Lincoln develops this idea that the war has a transcendent purpose and I think this is part of Lincoln's success is understanding the war within the within the great kind of historical train of the birth and the development of the nation understanding that the war's purpose was not just victories but it was the restoration of the union and then it became freedom of freedom from slavery the the elimination of slavery and so Lincoln has for a guy who is not terribly religious he didn't really go to church much at all he had this kind of transcendent idea of of reality which I think really helped him and maybe that's another part of his kind of his makeup his his personality this was it a dynamic or was it always thus no it was from the time that he began to write and make speeches he had this transcendent idea of the union there wasn't always slavery that that comes later on and it wasn't just political either he really believed that he really meant it no he he meant that it was far above politics he believed that the union had a sacred purpose that is something that is yeah that is a cornerstone piece of the development of the country no that's right that's right and and this he used to call the this experiment in freedom and and you know was an experiment in democracy you know the the european nations were all monarchies they were you know it was kind of a singular experiment at that point in time so so Lincoln had this he had this transcendence about him the other thing about Lincoln is he is very adept politically so back to McClellan McClellan is busy on the peninsula campaign not fighting trying to avoid battle and Lincoln is very unhappy with him because Lincoln keeps saying to him don't worry about Richmond go fight the confederate army because Lincoln believed that if you defeated the army Richmond didn't really matter you had you had to win this war on the battlefield not by capturing a capital because you can move a capital anywhere so so Lincoln gets fed up and there's a committee in the senate called committee on the conduct of the war uh and Lincoln finally says look uh McClellan uh i'm getting all this all of these complaints from this committee why don't you go meet with them and you can settle it Lincoln forces McClellan to go before the committee on the conduct of the war where they eviscerate him i mean they're they're just tearing him to bits verbally uh Lincoln understood it he knew that he didn't have to put pressure on McClellan so much as if he put McClellan in a situation where others were putting pressure on McClellan then boom brilliant he yeah he could he could meet his goal it's a master politician so he was he was a master of political you know strategy and the art of politics as well so give him much credit for that so uh McClellan's peninsula campaign fails uh Lincoln is very unhappy with him but he doesn't see a way in which he can fire him at this point Lincoln needs a victory and McClellan finally gives Lincoln a victory in the battle of Antietam in September 1862 isn't that in Maryland it is in Maryland right near Sharpsburg that'd be north of Washington yeah yeah a little bit uh yeah i mean this is the first Confederate foray into union territory because Maryland Maryland was a slave state but still a part of the union and it is a it's west and a little bit north of of Washington DC it's close quite close actually to Harper's Ferry Virginia uh uh the Confederates uh under Lee actually uh conquered uh Harper's Ferry in order to get to uh to uh Sharps Sharpsville and uh Sharpsburg pardon me and and the battle of Antietam the idea of Lee was he was going into union territory to demonstrate to the foreign powers that it could be done right that the union that the Confederacy was not just a fiction but the Confederacy had a very successful army and an army that could penetrate into northern territory fundraising no not for fundraising for recognition he wanted the European powers to recognize the Confederacy as an independent state if that happened it's quite possible that England might have gotten involved and forced a negotiation between the north and the south England had more than a little interest in seeing the Confederacy becoming independent would split the nation into two weakened the nation immeasurably uh so uh so uh this this was one goal and the other goal was to get his troops into the rich farmland of Virginia and so they could they could essentially live off the land for a few weeks so he goes into Virginia it goes into Maryland the problem is that Maryland has macadamized roads they have roads that are made of gravel uh so it doesn't turn to mud in the spring that's right and in the fall in any time this gravel is very sharp and most uh Confederate troops do not have boots oh they march barefoot oh yeah yeah so they couldn't actually march on the macadamized roads or the gravel roads so he has a smaller he leaves a lot of his troops behind uh but it's the battle is really a it's like a tie okay neither side really wins but the the Confederacy has to retreat uh Lee understands that his troops have to get back to into Confederate territory otherwise he might lose his army and so he was he was out there away from from the Confederate geography he was out there away from his out there away from his supply lines most of his troops were back in Virginia so he really needed to get back into Virginia and so he couldn't prolong the battle McClellan had far more troops than Lee McClellan if he had used all of his troops he left 35,000 troops sitting on the sidelines in this battle mind you uh if he had committed all of his troops he might have been able to capture Lee's army and the war would have ended in September 1862 not aggressive not he was he that's right he was not an aggressive commander but nonetheless Lincoln could now proclaim victory and this was important because Lincoln had another card up his sleeve Lincoln wanted to issue the Emancipation Proclamation so what's the Emancipation Proclamation 1862 this is this is 18 yes this is September 1862 Lincoln has been in the works and honestly it's the Republicans in Congress it's it's his own generals who are pressing the issue of freedom for the slaves because in the areas that the Union army had taken by 1862 the Confederate the Union generals in charge of those areas had to decide okay did we free the slaves what do we how do we handle the slaves and there was you know there was one general general hunter who actually freed the slaves Lincoln had to counterman that order but Lincoln was himself so he Lincoln was being pressed towards freeing the slaves so he was thinking about it so after the victory at Antietam then Lincoln issues what's called the Emancipation Proclamation to begin January 1st 1863 in the Emancipation Proclamation emancipates all of the slaves in the rebellious states it does not emancipate the slaves in the Union right because there were there were four states that the slave states that stayed in the Union and those states the slaves in those states are not emancipated political mastermind so it's not so the the proclamation itself is not transcended it's a it's a war measure and a political measure it's is it legal because you know later you need that that's right the amendment to the constitution and now he's just doing this that's why that that's Lincoln had very deep concerns about whether or not it was legal for the president to do this so that's why he issued it as a war measure a proclamation and not as a law that was passed by congress and signed by him do you think congress would have passed it had he presented to him in 1862 I don't think so yeah I don't think so honestly there would have been great resistance among democrats and the slave holding states so where are we because uh we we have to come back and do more of this right right so give us give us a sort of timeline where we are right right so this is this is September 1862 and Lincoln has his victory he issues the Emancipation Proclamation and the the proclamation as we will see in in the next episode it leads to the transcendent uh Gettysburg address okay it's so we can't we shouldn't treat the proclamation itself as kind of okay it's a war measure and that was that was kind of a terrible cynical move on the part of Lincoln and his cabinet because what it does it leads to a refocusing of the war on the issue of slavery and freedom yeah and this is huge for the country uh Lincoln in so doing transforms public opinion which had been moving slowly towards anti-slavery into uh abolitionist and then he transforms the purpose of the war into not just a war to save the union but a war to free the slaves a war in which sacrifice is about uh freeing the slaves and atoning for the sin of slavery okay now that's religious language it's clearly religious language but but appeal to everyone at the time that's right and we'll come back to that when we talk about uh Lincoln's Gettysburg address when we come back when we come back next time i if you don't mind i like to parse through the language of that address oh i think we need to yeah i recall he wrote it on a train no that's right away to Gettysburg that's right well he had words came to him okay that's not quite true actually he had an earlier draft that he was working on but he did work on his draft during the trade trip and then he worked on it that night as well and well anyway i don't want to give it all away no no but give us the first few words okay four score and seven years ago that's how far this is brought forth well let go jay go on this continent a new nation yes right received and dedicated you know through the proposition of liberty or something along those something like that yes i mean what we you know we'll we'll put it up and so we will parse it we'll parse it next time so you better come back next time this will be really good we're going to see the circumstances that um he was up Lincoln was operating under and see him create this fantastic statement of the new nation yeah it was more than just a speech yeah it was a statement of vision of the new nation and it casts a shadow from then till now yes sure yes thank you john you're welcome always wonderful