Thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed :) You may well hope never to be troubled by me again, in which case I entirely understand and sympathise. However if, for some strange reason, you want more of me in your life, here are my social media accounts: INSTAGRAM instagram.com/jbickertonuk/ TWITTER twitter.com/JBickertonUK Cheers!

@kennethslayor8177

2 жыл бұрын

Correct on the flags. The first Confederate flag was the Stars and Bars which contained two red stripes and one white, with a blue corner filled with one star per Confederate state. The flags were so similar that the armies frequently attacked their own side by accident. The mainly white flag you noticed is the Stainless Banner which the Union troops often mistook for a flag of truce, and then believed the South was attacking under a flag of truce to gain advantage; So the Union officers began raising the black flag - meaning no surrender, no retreat, no mercy granted, none to be expected. The slaughter of every Confederate soldier with no prisoners taken resulted in a third flag, a red bar was run down the end of the Confederate flag and the Stainless Banner became the Bloodstained Banner. No longer appearing to be attacking under a flag of truce, the North stopped raising the black flag during battle. Of note, the flag which is today called a Confederate flag is not a flag at all, it was the battle standard of the Army of Northern Virginia. During Jim Crow, the Southern states made it illegal to use any Confederate flag in merchandising. So, this standard was adopted by merchants in lieu of any Confederate flag to be a symbol of Southern pride. Hence its appearance on coffee mugs, bikinis, towels, etc. while the actual Confederate flags are virtually unknown to anyone outside of real historians.

Not-so-fun fact: Grant and his wife were supposed to go to the theater with Lincoln and his wife, but he ultimately turned it down, saying he wanted to be with his children (though, in reality, it was more likely due to the fact that Mrs. Grant couldn't stand Mrs. Lincoln). Grant would regret that decision for the rest of his life, believing that, had he been there, he could have stopped Booth and saved Lincoln.

@Fordo007

2 жыл бұрын

Officer who was there never lived down guilt if I recall.

@jgray2718

2 жыл бұрын

To be fair to Mrs. Grant, Mary Todd Lincoln was pretty insane. I'm guessing lots of people didn't like her.

@johnalden5821

2 жыл бұрын

@@jgray2718 True, and her often-erratic behavior sometimes complicated Lincoln's life. But it's a testament to both of them that they took their "better or worse" vows seriously. He was there for her in her bad times, and she was there for him as well.

@jgray2718

2 жыл бұрын

@@johnalden5821 100% agree. A good marriage in bad circumstances.

@anthonynocera3846

2 жыл бұрын

More specifically, Grant’s security team (which was far better and larger then Lincoln’s) might have been able to stop it.

Here is a fun fact about that photo of Lincoln's funeral. In the second story of the building on the left you can see two small child like figures. One of them in Teddy Roosevelt. He watched the funeral procession as a child and this photo caught him in it.

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

Wow! Teddy Roosevelt sounds like a super interesting guy - will see if I can find good video on him some time!

@talisredstar1543

2 жыл бұрын

i'm not entirely sure, but I believe that the 2nd lil boy in that window seal was another president as a child as well. ugh i'm going to go look this up now.

@kathyastrom1315

2 жыл бұрын

@@talisredstar1543 It was Teddy’s brother, who later became the father of Eleanor Roosevelt.

@kathyastrom1315

2 жыл бұрын

@@britishguyreacts Extra Credits history did a series of videos on his presidency and how he busted trusts that I really recommend.

@TheGreatSims

2 жыл бұрын

@@britishguyreacts It wouldn't work for youtube, but if you are interested in learning more I would suggest watching "The Roosevelts", a documentary by Ken Burns. He also has a very famous documentary for The Civil War.

The most ironic thing is that Booth's brother would save Lincoln's son from getting run over by a train.

@cheeseninja1115

2 жыл бұрын

I always found that part of history interesting

@maximaldinotrap

2 жыл бұрын

Booth's brother didn't even want to be associated with him Booth.

@superdude899

2 жыл бұрын

Another weird fact: Of the three presidential assassinations he lived to see, Robert Todd Lincoln was in close vicinity of all of them. Lincoln: Few blocks away in White House/at deathbed Garfield: 40 feet away when he was shot McKinley: Outside of the building where the shooting occurred

@maximaldinotrap

2 жыл бұрын

@@superdude899 Robert Todd Lincoln vowed never to be around a president after McKinley. I honestly can't blame the poor guy.

Fun Fact: The term 'sideburns' originates from Gen. Burnside's facial hairstyle.

@official_commanderhale965

2 жыл бұрын

and the term "Hookers" was coined by those who had witnessed or been a part of General Hooker's entertainment.... strange how history forms things.

@IONATVS

2 жыл бұрын

Yup, and General Hooker was infamous for attempting to keep his troops morale high by encouraging people of...the oldest profession...to hang around the camp for easy access. Thence the slang term “Hooker Girls,” later shortened to just “Hookers”.

@joshuabeavin7659

2 жыл бұрын

Hooker and Burnside sound like the name of a comedy duo

@MMMHOTCHEEZE

2 жыл бұрын

@@official_commanderhale965 That isn't true btw.

Fun facts: Both Union Generals Burnside and Hooker made significant contributions to the English language in the form of their names. Burnside contributed the word "sideburns" because of his awesome mustache. And prostitute camp followers of General "Fighting Joe" Hooker's army began to be referred to collectively as "Hookers."

@Isolder74

2 жыл бұрын

Hooker's 'Battalion' specifically.

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

That's amazing and explains why I found their names so amusing! Though I think the world would be a better and more beautiful place if it had been the other way around and prostitutes were called sideburns, and sideburns hookers. Missed a trick there history!

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

Fun fact: I'm up to the taking of Atlanta in W. T. Sherman's memoirs, and while both Grant (you _must_ read him also) and Sherman (all I can say is, "wow," in that you also learn about the history and founding of the State of California first-hand, among a great many other things) hailed the bravery of the African-American troops in battle, they both noted two problems: one was lack of training, which could be remedied, but, second and more importantly, were the horrible atrocities perpetrated against those who were captured. No Union soldier could stand for it. It turned out their true value lay in the rear, side-by-side with regular soldiers, for which they were reasonably well-paid (I think $10 a month [about $175 today, where a Union private was paid $13] plus ample rations and clothing). In Sherman's campaign of 1864, both sides by then had become very adept at digging ditches and fortifying them overnight before the next morning. The freed slaves picked up continually along the way, called "Pioneers," were employed for this task, doing excellent work, allowing the Union soldiers to sleep, after which the Pioneer Brigade could stay back in safety and sleep during the day. They also excelled in both the destruction and building of roads, bridges, and railways, as needed. In this, Blacks and Whites worked equally hard and in harmony until the abject destruction of the "so-called Confederacy" (Sherman's term) was achieved.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

Fun fact: Winston Churchill said, "The drums of Champion Hill sounded the doom of Richmond." He considered it the most important battle in the war. Champion Hill was fought on the was back from Jackson, Mississippi to the siege of Vicksburg (7:19 in the video).

@ACommonHero2

2 жыл бұрын

@@johnjamesbaldridge867 While he was almost certainly merely mocking them as beneath the status of being a nation, it is interesting to note that calling the south a "so-called confederacy" is also just... literally accurate. A confederacy is a national government controlled by a series of regional governments, such as under the articles of confederation (one of the few true confederacies to exist in history). The Confederacy, that is the South, was a national government working above the constraints of their state governments, just like the union. So the Confederacy literally wasn't a cofederacy. Granted I'm not 100% sure the terms were used this way at the time, but given the naming of the Articles of COnfederation I'm leaning towards, "Probably." Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

For a number of reasons, Reconstruction ended up being a huge failure, and a large part of the culture war we're seeing in America today can be traced back to that failure. We're still fighting the Civil War in some ways.

@Drforrester31

2 жыл бұрын

Unfortunately Andrew Johnson was as awful a President as you could get during such a crucial time

@johnalden5821

2 жыл бұрын

Trying to avoid the politics hear, but suffice it to say that there was armed resistance in many areas of the South after the War. The original version of the Ku Klux Klan was started just after the War, in an effort to try to undercut African-American political enfranchisement and to oppose Republican Party dominance. It was suppressed by Federal troops under the Grant Administration. Even after that there were Red Shirt and White League groups that acted to intimidate African-American voters and to "encourage" white voters to support Democratic candidates. These were sort of the shock troops for Jim Crow well into the late 19th century.

@1krani

2 жыл бұрын

@@Drforrester31 It wasn't Johnson, it was the election of Rutherford B. Hayes. Had there not been such ludicrous amounts of voter fraud in that election, Hayes likely would've won (because who's going to fairly elect a Democrat to office while the KKK are running around trumpeting racism and violence?) and thus wouldn't have needed to cut a deal where he, upon taking office, removed all troops from the south, ended Reconstruction, and thereby allowed the terrorism of the KKK to conjure the Jim Crow laws.

@ITSecurityNerd

2 жыл бұрын

@@1krani amazing how those sorts of things ruin nations. It's not just important that everyone who is eligible be fully able to vote, but that the vote be known to be them and only them and trustworthy. Even the perception of fraud is enough to damage the government... the denial of any fraud at all is as suspect as the insistance of truly massive fraud, and neither assertion well serves a nation based in majority rule and minority rights. Unfortunately, there are limited ways to increase access without impacting accountability, integrity, or confidentiality, so a balance must be struck. I fear that balance needs to be revisited, lest we tear ourselves apart over a handful of scraps of paper.

@1krani

2 жыл бұрын

@@ITSecurityNerd Simple: mandatory signature match during the ballot-counting process. No need for voter ID, no need to worry about the absolute incompetence with regards to mail-in ballots, you simply sign your name on the slip and the state compares your signature and handwriting to the one on record. If they don't match, the ballot gets set aside for a chain of custody inspection after the legit votes are counted.

In working on my family tree, I’ve found several Civil War soldiers. The saddest story I’ve found was my 3rd great grandmother’s youngest brother, Julius Crispell. He was just 15 years old when he lied about his age and enlisted in October 1864. He was sent to the trenches at Petersburg, where I can just picture this kid, filled with thoughts of battle heroics, stuck twiddling his thumbs and dodging the occasional mortar round. But, when the siege broke on April 2, 1865 and the rest of his company helped chase Lee to Appomattox, he was left behind at the hospital, where he died of typhoid fever on the 18th. His sister named her first son (my great great grandfather) after him three years later.

@corvus1374

2 жыл бұрын

My great great grandfather fought for the Confederacy, and died of "camp fever". Another ancestor, who fought for the North, was badly injured when the wagon he was riding in tipped over outside Atlanta and badly damaged his back. Several ancestors who lived in Tennessee crossed the border to fight for the Union in a Kentucky unit While they were gone, their father left back at home was killed by Confederate troops in retaliation.

@paooul_dixon

2 жыл бұрын

I have a few ancestors who fought on both sides of the war. I think the funniest story about one I’ve found is one who was part of the 7th WV Inf. According to family history he was either a coward or a conscientious objector to the war and faked being sick to get out of it as much as possible. I’ve been able to find hospital records of his to at least back up the part that he was in the hospital a few times. Though it doesn’t say why he was in the hospital unfortunately.

The flags changed many times because the “confederate” as we know it wasn’t in use until around the end of the war. (The Vinson with the white flag was unpopular, because it had a white flag that could be seen as a surrender.)

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

Ah yes that threw me - I knew the thing about the 'standard' confederate flag actually being their battle flag, but had never seen the white one before!

@TheMyrmo

2 жыл бұрын

@@britishguyreacts Every year in the Civil War saw a different confederate flag. The one we call "the confederate flag" now was only ever a battle standard, and never actually flew over the CSA.

@benn454

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheMyrmo Exactly. You want to claim "heritage, not hate"? Then unless you're from Northern Virginia, you're flying the wrong flag.

@mikhailiagacesa3406

2 жыл бұрын

@@benn454 ?

@cathyvickers9063

2 жыл бұрын

@@mikhailiagacesa3406 The Confederacy was an alliance of sovereign, slave owning States. Each State had its own army and battle flag.

Regarding the native tribes: It was complicated as it always is. The last Confederate General to surrender was Cherokee Stand Watie. Many native tribes who supported the north held slaves and many who supported the south did not. The dividing line was over what they felt was best for the tribe and who they trusted. For example the Cherokee distrusted the Federal Government due to the trail of tears, other's wanted to fight with the Union as they had more favorable treaties. One of my favorite books as a early teen was "Rifles for Watie", a fictionalized account of events in the Civil War in the west. Follows the life of a young volunteer from Kansas who mainly fights in the Missouri and Oklahoma campaigns. Very exciting book for ages 11-14 who might be interested in history (or for adults who like a good story). Author (Harold Keith, historian at Oklahoma University) put the story together based on oral histories from veterans of the war on both sides.

General Sherman's unusually modern concept was the idea that you can demoralize the enemy army into defeat by attacking the homes and families of the army rather than defeating the enemy army themselves in combat. It wasn't a new idea, but he made the concept more of a standard strategy if war.

@joelinbrown9792

2 жыл бұрын

I believe there’s a quote of his that even says that they’re fighting the women (and other civilians,) as they were the ones who were keeping the war going.

I know this channel didn’t start too long ago but I do appreciate the content

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Appreciate the comment :)

@hovis62

2 жыл бұрын

I concur!

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863

@TWKPixelHero

2 жыл бұрын

In my opinion, quite possibly the greatest speech ever recorded. That's not to demean other speeches, or to say that there aren't other people to whom another speech might mean more, but I do mean that in those TWO MINUTES, while suffering from smallpox, Lincoln utterly addressed how much was at stake that the dead had fought for, and how much more those that survived had left to do in a way that still carries power today.

@xGoodOldSmurfehx

2 жыл бұрын

they dont make speech like that no more nowadays its more like "im the best to be in charge cuz i have a bigger dick" and "this guy is retarded, okay? AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT!"

@jacob4920

2 жыл бұрын

The real irony is that nobody recalls the two-hour speech given by the idiot who spoke before Lincoln. Clearly, that dude spent a lot of time saying some very forgettable crap. There's a lesson to be learned there.

@kirchunetwork1986

2 жыл бұрын

Brings tears to my eyes every time I read this.

@ExUSSailor

2 жыл бұрын

@@jacob4920 That's why I chuckle inwardly, every time I read, "The world will little note, nor, long remeber what we say here..." For all his wisdom, not even Lincoln could see the historical impact of his comments.

There were some tribes that were major slave holders, notably the Cherokee. The last slaves to be freed were owned by native Americans, and their support of the confederacy was used as a pretext to annul treaties they had signed with the US

After the battle of The Wilderness, Grant's army was marching East on a road and the men assumed they would turn north, as they always had under previous generals. When Grant turned South the army broke into a cheer. They finally had a general that wouldn't retreat after every battle.

You are getting WWI vibes for good reason. Although this was 50 years prior, some of the same imbalances between offensive and defensive tactics were already evident. With the advent of rifled muskets and the use of canister and grapeshot, dug-in defenders could annihilate massed infantry advancing on them. Cavalry became ineffective except for scouting and raiding, or facing other cavalry. As a result, by the end of the war, you started seeing trench warfare (around Petersburg for sure and arguably even around Vicksburg). This all foreshadowed the First World War.

@ilikehardplay

2 жыл бұрын

Also, frankly because so few of the commanders that actually fought WWI had bothered to learn any of the lessons that the Americans paid in blood to learn about the changes in technology and tactics. .

@johnalden5821

2 жыл бұрын

@@ilikehardplay Good point. They might also have looked back to the Crimean War (which they had themselves fought in) to see how offensive tactics could lead quickly to siege warfare in an era where artillery had become king.

You are actually correct at 19:45 -- if it were not for Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, the Union probably would have yielded. What was different and entirely unique at the time was 1) pursuing enemy retreats, 2) attacking the second day after a loss (Sherman at Shiloh: "We've had the Devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant: "Yes, lick 'em tomorrow though" -- the first time Grant recognized that if he was hurting, so must the enemy), 3) unifying and coordinating the command of both Army and Navy to prevent the enemy from reinforcing one another, and 4) most importantly, relieving and reassigning self-aggrandizing (or simply wrongly placed) generals, many of whom politicians, who constantly decided to do things their own way and made false claims to "achieve their rising star" (I'm talking to you, John McClernand) with professional West Point graduates. Many of massive losses in the East during the drive to Petersburg were the result of incompetence and direct failure to follow orders (e.g. Spotsylvania). I reckon that due to the intense study of this war at West Point, the US did the same thing in World War II in both theaters, greatly shortening the war if not downright winning it by keeping the US involved.

@Fordo007

2 жыл бұрын

I’d also add Thomas along with Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. Destroyed the Army of Tennessee for good.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fordo007 And McClellan too. I should not have included Sheridan to make my point; it really was Grant that deserves all of the credit, as asserted by Sherman himself, who, like all the others, wanted to regroup after not being able to find a way into Vicksburg. Grant alone realized the strategic peril of not only moving backwards, but extending the War another year, which due to the season he thought it might, and the imminent threat of the Union giving up. In addition, it was Grant who figured out how to live off the land without supplies at that time, making Atlanta possible, making Richmond possible. But I think it fair to say that without he (him? himself? hisself? Anybody know English?) and Sherman (and let's not forget Admiral D.D. Porter with regard to point 3) bouncing off of each other, Grant would not have succeeded. Grant might disagree, of course. Sheridan's influence was more profound during Reconstruction, being the first to enforce the racial integration of streetcars in New Orleans in 1867, under Johnson no less, declaring they could either integrate or stop operating -- a Hobson's choice. Sheridan was a true American hero, but I am going to have to learn more about the Indian Wars. Thomas was awesome, tho! PS: Sheridan said in 1866, "If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell." Thanks Wikipedia! PPS: This channel has caused me to do more original research than any other so far. Reading Grant's and Sherman's Memoirs, for one. It's so interesting to see things through the eyes of a neophyte, and an honor as well.

@johnalden5821

2 жыл бұрын

There was an anecdote in a Grant biography I read long ago that told of Grant's experience in his first command early in the war. Concerned about where his enemy would strike him, he advanced only slowly and haltingly, to the point that, by the time he reached his objective, the enemy had long since escaped. The lesson he took from it was that his enemy would always be at least as apprehensive about him as he was about them -- so it was better to concentrate on executing your own offensive plan rather than worry about defending against the enemy's plan. Just the opposite of McClellan.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

​@@johnalden5821 That's an excellent point, to which I might add the "second-day" lesson of Shiloh, that if you just got beat, the enemy got just as beat if not worse. (Sherman: "We've had the Devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant: "Yes, lick 'em tomorrow, though.") I think I mistook McClellan for someone else. McClellan was a perfectly horrible, racist person, it turned out. I don't think he ever stood a chance of beating Lincoln even if Sherman got stuck at Atlanta instead of taking it, but who knows ;-) I heartily recommend reading Grant's memoirs, if you haven't already. If you have, I'd like to see if you share my opinion that they could have been written yesterday, they are so darned good. But, just when you thought it couldn't get any better, I'm now just finishing Sherman's. Wow. I'm actually listening to it (it's free on Audible with a free PDF download of maps and illustrations). Narrated by the actor Bronson Pinchot, his ability to read emotion and pluck into the narrative may be one reason I like it even more. (A gentle criticism is that he doesn't distinguish character voices very much and sometimes you forget who's speaking.)

@TheMhalpern

2 жыл бұрын

also the first turret ships, in the world...

"That don't matter a hill 'o beans!" Reconstruction lasted until 1877. Southerners began to install their Jim Crow system in the later 1880s. The violence of the "Old West" was often spillover of the War. A few Southerners took their culture to Brazil which abolished it's slavery in the 1880s. Some of that vibe survives there today, among European cultures also extant in Brazil.

@corvus1374

2 жыл бұрын

There's a town in Brazil called Americana founded by Confederates. They still have Civil War celebrations every year.

@brucegreenberg7573

2 жыл бұрын

@@corvus1374 😳

I’ve actually been to Gettysburg and walked the path of General Pickets charge. And let me tell you, it’s surreal. It’s not a super steep hill, but it was long and narrow. Only about 4 people could go at a time without falling in the marsh to the right and left. That whole battle area is a national park now, and it’s mostly been kept the same as it was 150 years ago with a few more memorials and signs marking significant areas.

@YSongCloud

2 жыл бұрын

I went there as a young boy and, while I was not super into history at the time, even I felt the impact and solemnness of that place. It is a visit I'll never forget and one I hope to share with my own kids one day.

@hughsonj

2 жыл бұрын

I walked from the treeline to the farmhouse on the battlefield, and I couldn't imagine trying to do that while being fired upon. There is absolutely no cover once you leave the safety of the woods. It gave me a new respect for the men who did it, even if I disagree with their cause.

@AidanS99

2 жыл бұрын

@@hughsonj most of those men didn’t do it to keep slavery. Most of them probably couldn’t afford slaves. They did it to protect their families and homes from the federal government that they feared was becoming to power hungry. A lot of this fear was just propaganda but still.

Recommended: Glory, about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Stars Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew Broderick. Washington won supporting actor Oscar.

@liammcfarlin3923

2 жыл бұрын

Watched that movie back in high school. It's one of my favorites.

@jacob4920

2 жыл бұрын

It's a movie I refuse to watch. Not because I hate it, but because the tragic conclusion to that film is more than I can handle. It haunts me to this day, watching that entire regiment get slaughtered, after all they had been through. That it ended the way that it did seemed so unfair to me (I was only a kid when I watched this film). I believe that movie was the start of Denzel Washington's acting career, wasn't it? He really only did stage acting before then. He did so phenomenal in "Glory", that it kind of perpetuated his career. At least that's how I remember it.

@rabemolon

2 жыл бұрын

@@jacob4920 Denzel was acting for over a decade before Glory. I remember him in a movie he did with George Segal, Carbon Copy. You have to remember his prominent roles in A Soldier's Story, Cry Freedom, and St. Elsewhere.

@jacob4920

2 жыл бұрын

@@rabemolon Never saw any of those films. They weren't even mentioned to me as possibilities.

Fun Fact: Ely Parker, who was serving as Grant's military secretary at the Appomattox house surrender thought it a great honor and privilege to be the one to secure the documents for the saving of "his America". Parker - a Seneca Indian - thought it great that he, a Native American, was a part of overseeing his fellow Americans bring peace to the nation.

My ancestor Johann Griess fled Bavaria to avoid the draft. Years later he was one of the people in the North that paid for someone else to go fight for him in the Civil War. Guess he was bound and determined not to see military service.

@ghironsingh

2 жыл бұрын

Smart man

The civil war was the first major war where defensive guns were good enough to inflict massive losses on offensives. By the end of the war trench warfare was breaking out especially on the Eastern front. It wasn’t as famous as WW1 because with fewer machine guns and less complex trench structures massive breakthroughs did still occur.

@ryanhampson673

2 жыл бұрын

Every war starts using the previous wars tactics and invents the next..At first they used napoleonic tactics and near the end trench warfare and smaller groups were used.

@JPMadden

2 жыл бұрын

I've often thought the generals of WW1 were the greatest concentration of educated imbeciles in world history.

@xGoodOldSmurfehx

2 жыл бұрын

@@JPMadden that would be quite accurate

@kevinneutzling8267

2 жыл бұрын

More like disconnected. They subscribed to the school of thought that the bolder side won the battle with great charges and couldn’t accept the mountains of corpses they were seeing. Technology had outpaced tactics.

Fun Fact Gettysburg was an accidental battle that happened because the Confederates in one division were trying to take a local shoe factory to get shoes when they ran into the leading units of the Army of the Potomac's 1st Corps just outside the town.

@johngetz8585

2 күн бұрын

That's the rumor, but no shoe factory existed. It was the confederate excuse for skirmishing before Lee had all his army there. Having lived in Gettysburg, this rumor has been debunked. The town had many crossroads, making it militarily important.

20:37 Notice he said electorial college landslide. The popular vote was 55-45 but since Lincoln swept the large states by narrow margins, McClellan only won three states. NJ, DE and KY.

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

Ah I see - much closer than I realised then!

@rscottdjr

2 жыл бұрын

@@britishguyreacts 10 point lead for popular vote is very significant. Look at recent US popular votes versus electoral votes to compare. In 1984 Reagan got 58.8 % of the popular vote but 525 out of 538 electoral votes. This is considered by many to be the most lopsided vote in US history.

@David-fm6go

2 жыл бұрын

A more recent example was Reagan in 1980. Reagan won 40 plus states with only just over 50% thanks to vote splitting and winning most states by narrow margins.

@justinbarnard8749

2 жыл бұрын

Wait, did the southern states not send electors? The north never stopped recognizing them as part of the union -- they could have voted

@David-fm6go

2 жыл бұрын

@@justinbarnard8749 the states controlled by the confederates wouldnt bc they had left in their interpretation, the Lincoln administration legally refusing to recognize them isn't going to change the south's view so no electors to a US election. West Virginia did and voted for Lincoln. The Northern controlled parts of LA, TN and VA I think tried to send electors but Congress rejected them.

Nathan Bedford Forrest (the guy with the funny-looking statue) was a brilliant cavalry commander, but he was also one of the worst people the war produced. His cavalry was responsible for the atrocities at the Battle of Fort Pillow, in which they killed the mostly black Union troops rather than accept their surrender. After the war, Forrest became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The presidential election of 1864, in which Lincoln won over 90% of the electoral college vote, wasn't as much of a landslide as that number makes it appear. Lincoln had 55% of the popular vote. The electoral college vote (which actually determines the winner of the election) is often quite different in proportion from the popular vote. But if as little as 6% of the voters had selected McClellan instead of Lincoln, the election could have gone the other way. Lincoln's second inaugural address is at least as stirring and eloquent as the Gettysburg Address. I encourage anyone who's interested in history or rhetoric to read it (you can find it easily on line). The part about Wilmer McLean was true. In the First Battle of Bull Run (the first major battle of the war), a Union shell hit his home and exploded in the summer kitchen. He moved his family to Appomattox Court House to ensure their safety. Years later, a member of General Grant's forces came to his house, looking for a place to negotiate General Lee's surrender. After the war, McLean said, "The war started in my front yard and ended in my front parlor." Contrary to what some people claim, the word "hooker" did not derive from General Hooker's name. That usage of the word goes back to at least 1845 (16 years before the start of the war), and may even go back further than that (see the On-Line Etymology Dictionary for details). However, the word "sideburns" actually did come from General Burnside's name.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

Excellent points.

Fun fact about facial hair for the period: Getting a shave then was actually fairly dangerous. While barbers were being associated with shaving, they also acted as dentists and surgeons - the red and white spiral stripes synonymous with barbers were the clean and bloodied cloths that they hung out, and these would get spun up by the wind. So few men were willing to risk their lives over a shave, even if they did it themselves. That all changed after the safety razor was patented in 1904. With it, the dangers of shaving plummeted. In fact, if you look at the various portraits of US presidents, you notice that there is a point when they all started going clean-shaven - and the point when it started coincides with the patent.

@accreditedbythenicemaninth6495

2 жыл бұрын

Why was the style during the revolution to be clean-shaven? That was an earlier period.

@DavidRichardson153

2 жыл бұрын

@@accreditedbythenicemaninth6495 A lot of it was due to chance. A lot of them simply did not grow facial hair. We all know at least one man who just cannot grow any. That is not to say that there was no president with facial hair then (John Quincy Adams was the first, at least to show in his portrait), but shaving was a lot like maintaining a lawn - it was a sign of wealth and privilege. Especially then, the leaders were what only could be described as aristocrats, but even today, that description holds. However, the trend of presidents having facial hair did not start until around the time of Lincoln (some argue that it was more around Andrew Jackson, even though he was clean-shaven, or Martin van Buren, who was not). It became a part of political theater, sometimes considered to be the first "man of the people" pitch. After Lincoln was assassinated, there was a significant amount of fear that the next assassin could be whoever shaves the President - whether or not it was a main reason for presidents having facial hair after Lincoln is up to debate (some even claim that it might have been a tribute to Lincoln, but that is more of a fringe one). When the safety razor was patented, which is comparatively much safer than the classic straight razor (hence the name), that fear was more-or-less struck down, and presidents went back to being clean shaven ever since.

@accreditedbythenicemaninth6495

2 жыл бұрын

@@DavidRichardson153 Thanks for replying.

Lincoln’s wife would never recover from the loss of her husband and later on her youngest son would too pass away. Only her eldest son would live on. She spent the rest of her days overwhelmed with depression and grief and would die with a broken heart. A few weeks after her husband’s assassination. She received a letter from Queen Victoria expressing her sincere condolences and relating the same pain since Queen Victoria lost her husband four years prior to Lincoln’s death. She was very much touched by the letter, but it did little to ease her grief.

05:25 Yes, the movie Gangs of New York indeed ends depicting the infamous draft riots, heres the thing about that... The Union soldiers you see putting down the riots? Those weren't just any Union troops. Those were New York regiments who had literally *just* finished the battle of Gettysburg only to be forcibly marched over what I think was like *TWO DAYS* at most in order to reach the city on time. You must imagine how they felt, you just spent THREE DAYS in the sweltering summer heat, getting shot at and watching your friends die, only to be told you have to get back to New York *NOW* because your own people are essentially launching a pro southern uprising behind your very back. Now you see why those soldiers looked so pissed and ready to kill in that scene, they were tired, sore, hungry, and in NO mood to put up with this bs

One of Grant's Brigadier Generals was Ely Parker (AKA Hasanoanda), who was an American Indian. At the surrender, Lee remarked "I am glad to see one real American here" to which Parker replied "We are all Americans". There were several Indians on both sides in the armies, and others out west fighting with their tribes, and more tribes further out west who took advantage of the Americans being occupied with the war to grow in power - leading to the Indian Wars for decades afterwards.

@JPMadden

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for this info. I just read his Wikipedia page. I had never heard of him.

The Booths were a family of Actors, mostly descended from Edwin Booth. Kinda like the Barrymores or the Baldwins, there were a LOT of them. John Wilkes was of medium fame, but was the heartthrob of the family. In theory, Lincoln's "guest" at the theater was his escort (and got slashed up by Booth's knife in the aftermath). There was a guy who was supposed to watch the hall, but he left his post. The secret service was only chasing counterfeiters at this time. Sherman's men mostly stuck to taking whatever food was available (usually leaving a little for the locals). They also would tear up railroads, make a fire of the sleepers to heat the rails then corkscrew or wrap them around trees ("Sherman's hatpins", or "Sherman's Neckties") Sherman himself bragged that he had a regiment that could butcher a pig without breaking ranks. When they moved into South Carolina they were MUCH more destructive (as is, it was rare to find 2 bricks stacked in their wake). Lincoln won Illinois in both elections, but did not carry Sangamon County (where he lived) in either one. The Shenandoah Valley (just west of Washington) was an important secondary theater. It supplied a lot of the CSA's food, provided a shielded route north (mountains in between) and is where Jackson really made his name, and a lot of Union Generals wrecked their careers (including former German Revolutionary Franz Siegel, who got beat there a couple times). Eventually, Grant sent Phil Sheridan to deal with it and he drove out Early and Devastated the Valley, then went on to take charge of the Cavalry. European observers were not impressed by army organization (on said it was fought by "armed mobs") but were impressed by the vast distances covered often in barely developed lands. Many Historians feel the fighting in the East was Over-rated (it WAS where the big newspapers were) and that the decisive fighting was in the West. Losing Gettysburg cost Lee a third of his army. Losing Vicksburg meant that Texas was cut off, AND western grain could be shipped through New Orleans. In addition to the various Native Americans on either side (Grant's Staff included Ely Parker a full-blood Seneca, who'd been a lawyer he knew back home in Galena IL, you can catch glimpses of him in the movie "Lincoln"), the South had 2 sons of Chang and Eng (the original "Siamese" twins) serve. Their father's had bought a plantation to retire to.

@junxianwu1874

2 жыл бұрын

The US Secret Service wasn't established at the time of Lincoln's assassination. Iirc he signed the Secret Service into law on the day of his death.

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

Great comment thanks - I hadn't appreciate how much fighting took place out west before these videos!

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

Sherman knew exactly what he was doing and why it had to be done, bad as it was. It was calculated. Headquarters military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Savannah, Ga., December 24, 1864 Maj. Gen. H.W. Halleck, Chief of Staff, Washington City, D.C.: General: I had the pleasure to receive your two letters of the 16th and 18th instant today, and I feel more than usually flattered by the high encomiums that you have passed on our recent campaign, which is now complete by the occupation of Savannah . . . I attach more importance to these deep incisions into the enemy's country, because this war differs from European wars in this particular: we are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had a wonderful effect in this respect. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying newspapers to believe that we were being whipped all the time now realize the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience. To be sure, Jeff. Davis has his people under pretty good discipline, but I think faith in him is much shaken in Georgia, and before we have done with her South Carolina will not be quite so tempestuous. I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and do not think "salt" will be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth Corps will be on the right of the right wing, and their position will naturally bring them into Charleston first; and, if you have watched the history of that corps, you will have remarked that they generally do their work pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems in store for her. Many and many a person in Georgia asked me why we did not go to South Carolina; and, when I answered that we were en route for that State, the invariable reply was, "Well, if you will make those people feel the utmost severities of war, we will pardon you for your desolation of Georgia." I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston, and I doubt if we will spare the public buildings there as we did at Milledgeville . . . Assuring you of my high personal respect, I remain, as ever, your friend, W.T. Sherman, Major-General

Note that the Confederate flag changes from the “white one” to one with the red vertical stripe at the end. They figured out that their flag looked like a white flag of surrender/truce, so changed it.

@SampoPaalanen

2 жыл бұрын

Also (IIRC) there was never an official CSA flag just several unofficial and the one most commonly used was the flag of the army of Virginia (Lee's army), as CSA had way more problems the deciding what flag to use.

The Civil War in a way was a preview to WW1. Trench warfare originated in the former.

@markhamstra1083

2 жыл бұрын

Not true. Trench warfare had existed for hundreds of years before the American Civil War. Notably, the Romans used trenches, and there were extensive trench works employed in the siege of Vienna in 1529. Trench warfare was also employed in the Crimean War, the decade before the Civil War.

@404Dannyboy

2 жыл бұрын

@@markhamstra1083 Trench works were old, yes, but modern trench warfare has its debut in the Civil War and its real appearance in ww1. Comparing the trench warfare of Caesar, the Siege of Vienna, and the American Civil War is like comparing the flanking tactics of Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler's generals. They are each so different and require such different tactics, logistics, strategies, and technologies that they are best not compared.

@markhamstra1083

2 жыл бұрын

@@404Dannyboy Civil War tactics were not so radically different from those of the Crimea War just a decade before to declare the Civil War as the origin of trench warfare.

@404Dannyboy

2 жыл бұрын

@@markhamstra1083 That is true. there is kind of a line of evolution in the origin of modern trench warfare which fully culminates in WW1. The Crimean war is not as often regarded as a possible original trench warfare because it was fundamentally still a siege. What changed with the American Civil War was that field armies would settle into trenches a considerable distance from objectives and hunker down for decent periods of time.

@markhamstra1083

2 жыл бұрын

@@404Dannyboy The siege of Sevastopol lasted for eleven months. The rest is just the evolution of trench warfare as the accuracy, range and lethality of weapons improved. There is no revolutionary “this is clearly modern trench warfare, while everything that came before this is indisputably pre-modern” that occurs in the American Civil War.

4:20 Regarding this point, it’s somewhat poorly known that, in fact, most soldiers throughout history (and many even today) refused to shoot to kill. Often it was only the presence of an officer that could even compel them to fire in the first place, and even then many deliberately missed their shots. Today I Found Out has a video on this topic that you may find interesting.

One of my favorite stories from the Civil War is the battle of Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga, where the Union army was trapped after a humiliating defeat at Chickamauga. Grant ordered an attack on the ridge as part of the breakout strategy, but orders quickly got jumbled and confused, leading thousands of northern troops to become sitting ducks at the base of the ridge while they awaited orders. Eventually, junior officers as well as individual men, desperate for reprieve and thirsty for revenge, spontaneously charged up Missionary Ridge without orders, shouting "Chickamauga! Chickamauga!" all the way. The Confederate lines shattered, their troops too psychologically broken to continue.

General Ambrose Burnside is actually where we get the word "sideburns" from! Awesome videos btw, really enjoying them!

Your question about the flags is a good one. Since flags designated where a unit's position was to be in battle, they had to be easy to distinguish. Therefore the mostly white confederate banner looked very different from the Stars and Stripe. That was important considering the amount of smoke made visibility difficult.

4:20 No sources on this, but I've heard that the majority of soldiers actually actively avoid harming others. But something worth remembering is that both sides of this war were American, so a lot of those soldiers may have known or been related to soldiers on the opposing sides. Edit: Also, a fun fact, the secret service was founded the day Lincoln was assassinated, but they weren't the president's bodyguards at the time, they were treasury agents.

Abraham's elections opponent was supposed to be General Rosecrans but Stanton who was the president's chief of staff got rid of his letter that was supposed to be given to Lincoln.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

Rosecrans had embarrassed himself at Chattanooga. I did not know about this before, so thank you, but Secretary of War Stanton may have done it to help _defeat_ Lincoln, not support him. Stanton was a perplexing guy, at least on one occasion changing orders from Grant to Sherman that had to be routed through Washington, with Grant's signature attached. I don't think he did it of malice, but he sure did have an awfully high opinion of himself and thought Lincoln to too feeble. Cf. Grant's Memoirs and the great movie "Lincoln."

@Fordo007

2 жыл бұрын

Rosecrans fell apart due to one bad call that cost Chickamagua and didn’t recover from that mistake… a history where the Army of the Cumberland won at Chickamagua might have gotten a VP Rosecrans and then a president Rosecrans.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

@@Fordo007 Good point. He definitely had the skills. On the other hand, if Rosecrans _had_ won that battle (of Chickamauga, correction noted, but he did wind up stuck in Chattanooga in my defense ;-), he, as a successful West Point graduate, would have continued as a corps commander and therefore would not have been able to run for election. (I think Grant didn't like his attitude much, but Sherman may have been able to straighten him out as he did with Logan, who gallantly won back the universal respect of his troops and generals even after having been replaced by Howard.) I'm reading now (Wikipedia!) that he clashed harshly with Stanton in Washington before his deployment in May 1862. No surprise. So did Grant and Sherman. So it sounds like this is a simple case of Stanton being the typical unadulterated ass of which I think he prided himself, and not some grand conspiracy. Cheers! EDIT: Stanton was Secretary of War. Halleck was Chief of Staff. Pesky nits!

@Fordo007

2 жыл бұрын

@@johnjamesbaldridge867 No you were actually right. Rosecrans was removed from command mostly because of Chattanooga. He made one mistake at Chickamauga which caused the rout of the Union Right flank and only Thomas holding the Left flank stopped the total destruction of the Army of the Cumberland. Roscrans rode back to Chattanooga with the routing men and didn't return to the battle at Chickamauga. Rosecrans said he needed to start organizing the defense of Chattanooga but he did that very badly. He gave up Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge essentially without a fight and let Bragg besiege Chattanooga. He didn't defend the needed supply caravan and really put the Army of the Cumberland in danger at the siege. He really fell apart after Chickamauga for the next week or so and didn't get back on his feet until it was too late. He did plan for a counter attack that was used by Grant ultimately at the Battle of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge... but by then Grand made the call to remove him from command.

Correction to the date, the start of Gettysburg was July 1st not June 1st.

Hes back! This gentleman is knocking it outta the park! 👍

Interesting to see an outside perspective on these events that hit so close to home. I watched these videos and also the ones on the Revolution as well. Entertaining. If you want to know more, I’d suggest following a channel called Vlogging through history. He does reaction videos like yours, but also does history on location videos. So if you would want to see some of the battlefields from the Civil War, he has gone to many of them. Nice content, you have a new sub!

The stars and bars in the corner with the white flag is the actual Confederate flag. The one you see everywhere today was only the battle flag of General Lee

It's always nice to see people from other countries take an interest in American history. If you like to learn more about the Civil War and don't mind a comical breakdown of Civil War myths, the channel Atun-Shei Films is great. He has a series called "Checkmate Lincolnites" which he breaks down and corrects Civil War Myths and misrepresentions that people in his comment section bring up. It's really well done. Even if you just watch it in your free time, it's a good watch.

As someone else mentioned, about a year before Lincoln was assasinated, Booth's brother Edwin saved the life of Lincoln's oldest son, Robert, when he was unexpectedly knocked of a train platform and Booth pulled him up to safety. Sadly, Robert Lincoln would be haunted by a specter of presidential assassination. He rushed to his father's deathbed after JW Booth shot him, but Robert Lincoln would also be present at the assassinations of Presidents Garfield (1881) and McKinley (1901). After McKinley's death, Robert Lincoln refused to ever be in the presence of the sitting President of the United States again. He did have a notable life in public service, having served as both Secretary of War (Functional Secretary of Defense by modern standards) and later as Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Robert Lincoln's name was frequently mentioned as a possibility for Presidential elections, but he never attempted it.

Another great video! I love your commentary. Well done on your recent success on KZread! Subscribed.

The funny thing about the beans in Gettysburg is that the reason the Confederates were actually in that small town was just as funny. It was a small detachment looking to loot some shoes because they had none. They ran into some Union soldiers and both sides sent in reinforcements until it turned into the battle we know today.

I love hearing your perspective on Oversimplified History videos! I wholeheartedly encourage you to react to more of them. Also, a wonderful side note about Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse: there was a Seneca Native American man there named Ely S. Parker who had been serving as General Grant’s secretary. After the two military leaders shook hands upon signing the terms of surrender, Lee turned to Parker, and this scene played out, as written in a blog post by the reference librarian of the New York Historical Society: ‘Robert E. Lee wore a puzzled look as he examined the officer’s dark features, then recovered enough to extend his hand and remark, “I am glad to see one real American here.”…Parker replied with dignity, “We are all Americans.”’

Love your videos so far man, keep it up BGR

This channel, while definitely still new, has a lot of potential. I’m looking forward to seeing what content will be uploaded here, subscribed.

I really love your reactions!

Really love your history video. Keep up the good work

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks dude - appreciate it!

@jayjack6618

2 жыл бұрын

Canyon do the history of japan

Loving your videos 💜💜

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

Cheers!

Its funny you should mention that the Pres should hv more security - b/c literally that day Lincoln had founded the secret service, whose job was the fight counterfeitters. Would be a while b4 they got to actually protect people.

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

That's some timing!

This is great stuff! Glad to see you sticking with it! If you're at all interested in the finer points of the Civil War and the absolute lunacy discussion on the topic has devolved to, I strongly recommend the Checkmate Lincolnites series by Atun Shei Films. It covers a number of topics in greater detail including Sherman's campaign in Georgia and South Carolina.

The Cherokee owned slaves, and therfore supported the Confederacy. Chief Stand Waitie The word sideburns comes from Burnside. The word Hooker comes from all of the women who followed Hooker's army. The Gettysburg battlefield is fascinating. There are lots of statues and monuments on the site. Well worth a visit.

Dude solid video. Keep it up

Looking forward to watching you reacting to other Oversimplified videos. The Prohibition one is great if you wanna stick to US-focused videos, but all of OS's content is top-tier. Good job!

Great reaction. I enjoyed your genuine stream of conscious commentary. Not too much. Not too little. Just right.

You mention about it seeming like the first world war, the US Civil War was pretty much the first "Modern" war. Trench warfare, railway guns, machine guns (gatling guns), lever actions and revolvers, hot air balloons if I recall correctly, and ironclads which were essentially the precursor to battleships. It's pretty crazy when you see how it evolves.

It is really enjoyable watching someone that does not know as much about this subject watch this. Thanks for the enjoyment :)

I’m glad to say I was subscribed since his first video. It is a pleasure! 🤝

Great videos!!!

Gettysburg is a beautiful town and probably the best preserved Civil War Battlefield. I attended college there and the college actually existed at the time of the battle as well. Awesome experience all around and I'd definitely recommend visiting if possible. Great videos too, by the way! 😀

Lincoln did have soldiers as body guards during the war but let them go when the war was ending. Also Lincoln was the first president to be assainated. That and other presidential asassainations, especially Willaim Mckinley's in 1900 or 1901, led to the Secret Service guarding the president and stricter measures.

Lincoln has been my favorite president since I was in the 3rd or fourth grade. I grew up in Illinois and it was incredible visiting the Lincoln's historical home in Springfield on a school trip.

The Massachusetts state house has a “general hooker entrance” and I always thought that was so hilarious. It seemed like the politicians are so shameless that they don’t even bother to hide it!

great video dude, you seem like cool peeps!

Thanks for reacting to this 2 part presentation! Being a details freak, I would like to correct one thing in part 2 here: when they start talking about the battle of Gettysburg, it sounds like they're saying it started on June 1st. Just for the record, it started on July 1st, 1863, and lasted for 3 nightmare days. The poor town's folk had to endure the stench of decomposing corpses for months as it would take that long to bury the 5 to 7 thousand of them scattered about the surrounding countryside, mostly south of town. You might find this interesting. Not quite as jovial as Oversimplified but certainly more thorough on the topic of Gettysburg: kzread.info/dash/bejne/ZKuLzdWunM3RXag.html

A fact about Lincoln- his 12 day funeral procession around the country by rail was what really kickstarted the practice of embalming our dead for viewing. People saw how good Lincoln looked, and it caught on. Lincoln’s assassination helped kickstart the embalming industry in the US.

Lincoln did have a body guard, but he went to the nearby bar, and when booth saw him, he knew the president was unprotected

In Part 1 you asked about the Naval side of the war, and if the Confederate States had a Navy? Well, the Confederate States did indeed have a Navy. There are many interesting stories from this side of the war, from the Confederate Submarine Program, to the Battle of Hampton Roads (first battle between two Iron ships), to Robert Smalls, a slave and ship’s pilot commandeering the CSS Planter and handing it over to the USN, gaining his freedom along with it, to the “Cotton Clads” (Think Ironclad, but with thick wool armor).

Wilmer McLean: “The war started in my back yard, and ended in my front parlor” It’s little coincidences and quirks like that, that make me love history.

It was the first modern war. It saw the first use of aerial surveillance (balloons), the first use of armored naval vessels, the first use of submarines. Trench warfare, mass, rapid communications, in the form of telegraph networks, were set up, and, it was the first time railroads were used to rapidly transport troops. And, there were European military observers there for it all, taking notes.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

Good points.

Fun fact: The American Civil War was the first major instance of steamships dominating the battlefield and officially marked the end of the age of sail for military vessels (sailing merchant ships carried on well past WWI), and it was also the first instance of submarine warfare (the confederate submarine H.L. Hunley). The American Civil War also was one of the first instances of "modern"(-ish) brass cartridge rounds in repeating firearms (lever actions at the time, mostly), it was also when the gattling gun was first used which was the precursor to the machine gun. It was also one of the first conflicts where scopes were put on rifles for use by sharpshooters and snipers. The American Civil War not only was a major pivotal point for American History and the politics of the western hemisphere, it was also a huge turning point in military technology, a lot of what we view as "modern" when it comes to warfare has it's roots in the Civil War. World War One was just the first major war where all this sort of tech was more mainstream and more refined (and to devastating effect). Also fun fact, one of the reasons America didn't come into World War One until so late was because during World War One the Civil War was still in living memory for a huge chunk of the American population and all those people having witnessed the horrors of the Civil War were not so keen on sending a similar number of young men to go fight. The relationship between the American Civil War and World War One is a distant but interesting one, the Civil War was where a lot of the tech that made World War One so horrifically devastating had it's roots yet if it was not for the memory of the Civil War America probably would have joined World War One a lot sooner.

What is generally considered the last battle of the Civil War was just outside my hometown of Brownsville, TX about a month after Lee surrendered (The battle of Palmito Ranch). The irony is that it ended with a Confederate victory and only a few dozen wounded Confederates while the Union had 111 soldiers captured, 4 officers captured, and 30 dead or wounded.

Out west the Cherokee, Choctaw and Creek Indians fought on the Confederate side along side some Texans in a unit called "Pikes brigade". I had relatives at the battle of Pea Ridge in the 3rd Iowa cavalry who fought against them. Some of the guys in the 3rd Iowa actually were scalped and mutilated in that battle by them. Most of the Indians fought for the south because they figured they would get better terms if the rebels won. Some of those tribes also owned slaves.

@britishguyreacts

2 жыл бұрын

Interesting! Would have been fascinating to know what the confederacy surviving would have meant for native Americans. Could they play the two Americas off against each other or just get attacked by both? I kinda love alternative history!

@MichaelCorryFilms

2 жыл бұрын

@@britishguyreacts Those tribes were part of what was called the 5 "civilized" tribes. The Cherokee for example had long lived an agrarian lifestyle, adopted some european habits and even invented their own written language. Stand Watie was a Cherokee Brigadier in the Confederate army and the last to surrender. Southerners are definitely different culturally. They are more rural, laid back and nature loving. Most of the time they want to live on some spot of land hunt, fish hike, etc. Its almost a joke because practically all southerners claim a little Cherokee blood in their family because it means they have more "backwoods" prowess. If I were to guess about alternative history I'd say the indians would likely have integrated a little better into southern society. Likely they would have had more politcal participation, but I doubt independence was feasible.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

@@MichaelCorryFilms This is good-quality information.

@MichaelCorryFilms

2 жыл бұрын

@@johnjamesbaldridge867 Those are broad strokes of course. There is a fair amount of detail to explore and some indians chose the Union even amongst the Cherokee. A really interesting person was Donehogawa or Ely Parker (christian name). He was a Seneca indian chief, engineer and adujant on Grant's staff. He served as an engineer during Vicksburg and until the end of the war. He even wrote the final surrender draft at Appomattox for Lee to sign. After the war he helped with negotiating with Confederate aligned Indian tribes and in the south during reconstruction. Really interesting person.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

@@MichaelCorryFilms I do remember that now but had completely forgotten. For the benefit of the readers, I can point out that Lee looked at him and said, "It is good to have one real American here," to which Parker (and I am super happy you gave his given name) replied, "Sir, we are all Americans." Nevertheless, before British Guy asked this question, I have to admit total ignorance to the answer. Moreover, I am forced to admit knowing little about Native history at all. Shit, I'm almost 60 and I can tell you that both that and Black history were simply never a thing when I was growing up (in and near Chicago), and for that I'm ashamed. I became interested in the Civil War from that angle, after reading Thomas Sowell on both the history of slavery here around the world in general (Black Rednecks and White Liberals), and the surprising (to most if not all at the time) rapid and splendid success of ex-slaves in their education and character after emancipation, only to be later horrendously suppressed. Turns out they were and are smart cookies indeed. That led me to Reconstruction and Grant under Johnson and later as President. I never cared much about the war itself. To complicate matters much further, Sherman now throws a monkey wrench into this whole thing. He's a monumental observer of and figure in history, not just from the Civil War, but then participated in the Indian Wars thereafter (and also previously just out of West Point in Florida). Thankfully, I'm working through Sherman's Memoirs right now, and the last chapter does discuss some of this. But Sherman was no bigot. While setting up quarters in San Francisco around 1850 along with his commander General Smith after everyone else deserted to the gold mines, Sherman asked Smith why he would tip his hat upon meeting a negro, to which Smith replied they were the "only real gentlemen in California," showing fidelity at a time "when every white man laughed at promises as something made to be broken," and that this "has given me a kindly feeling of respect for the negroes, and makes me hope that they will find an honorable status in the jumble of affairs in which we now live." Later, around 1855 as a partner in a San Francisco bank, he had a Black teller by the name of Henry Sampson, owned by a one Colonel Chambers, who could not read or write, so he could only pay him $100 [$3,150] a month, but after he was taught to read by his partner Reilley, his services became worth $250 a month [$7,850], which enabled to buy his own freedom along with that of his brother and family. Not only that, but the founding legislature and Governor were largely Southern men, and yet voted overwhelmingly (after little debate) to be a Free state, much to the consternation of the South and the spark igniting Bloody Kansas and the War. Finally, I know that both Grant and Sherman had sea-change moments around Vicksburg when they witnessed the atrocities inflicted on captured Black soldiers. Sorry for the long post, as Sherman would say... civilwartalk.com/threads/sherman-on-the-state-of-southerners-and-future-reconstruction.103372/

I was in Gettysburg last week. I walked across the area of Pickett's Charge. I can't imagine trying to cross that distance at a fast march, in the July heat, carrying all their equipment and people shooting rifle and cannon at me. Lee was insane to give that order.

Fun Fact...Sideburns are CALLED Sideburns because of General Burnside's dope ass sideburns.

As the grand son of Italian immigrants, and great grand son of Eastern Polish immigrants to these United States, I want to thank you for putting this video together.

That charge that was mentioned during the first day of the battle of Gettysburg was that of the 1st Minnesota (If I'm not mistaken) and is honestly amazing as it was 262 against ~1,500. There are 2 memorials to the 1st Minnesota in Gettysburg. As someone from Minnesota I find it really interesting to learn about them as they were the first 10,000 soldiers sent to Lincoln "July 2, 1863 is the day the 1st Minnesota is most remembered for. During the second day's fighting at Gettysburg, the regiment stopped the Confederates from splitting the Union line, pushing the Union off of Cemetery Ridge and overrunning the battery there that could have been then turned on the North. The actions of the 1st Minnesota saved the battle. Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, commander of II Corps, could see two brigades of Southerners commanded by Brig. Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox breaching the line in front of one of his batteries. He quickly rode up to the troops guarding the battery and asked Col. William Colvill "what unit is this?" Col. Colvill responded "the 1st Minnesota". Gen. Hancock responded "attack that line". With their bayonets leveled the Minnesotans broke the first lines. The intensity of their charge disrupted the southern advance. With the unit nearly encircled, support arrived in time to allow them to make a fighting withdrawal. Their selfless charge bought the Union the time needed for reinforcements to be brought up. During the charge, 215 of the 262 who made the charge became casualties within five minutes. That included the unit commander, Col. William Colvill, and all but three of his captains. The 1st Minnesota's flag lost five flag bearers, each man dropping his weapon to carry it on. The 47 survivors rallied back to General Hancock under the command of their senior surviving officer, Captain Nathan S. Messick. The 82% casualty rate stands as the largest loss by any surviving U.S military unit in a single day's engagement ever. The unit's colors are displayed in the rotunda of the Minnesota Capitol for public appreciation."

A lot of historical American elections look like landslides when they were actually very close because of the way the electoral college works. No matter how narrow the margin a candidate wins by in any particular state-even if they only get a plurality, not a majority-most states will give ALL of their electoral votes to the winner of their state election. So Lincoln was only moderately more popular than the other candidates overall, but was slightly more popular in *lots* of different Union states.

If you get the chance, I highly recommend visiting the theater Lincoln was shot in as well as the home he died in. It’s well worth a visit

The president did have security at the theater but Boothes was a famous actor nationwide so he knew the theater and play by heart. He slipped through the security and when the laughter rose he shot

Fun fact about the Gettysburg Address. The speaker before Lincoln had just finished a multi hour masterfully told story of the defense of the city by Union forces that had many listeners including Lincoln himself crying. This was such a tough act to follow that when Lincoln had to follow that up with his short words he was thoroughly convinced he bombed and failed to do justice to those that gave their lives.

@chestonunnewehr6954

2 жыл бұрын

That speaker was Edward Everett. The following day, he penned the following in a letter to President Lincoln: "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes." High praise, from the man most would consider one of the finest orators of the day.

About 3 years ago while visiting some family living in Pittsburgh,we drove over to Gettysburg.It was amazing,though what happened there was terrible and sad.

I recall one historian saying the Union was fighting half-heartedly. The boys at Harvard were still rowing. Had things come to a critical level and Union defeat seemed a possibility, the North would wake up and use her full might and crush the rebellion.

At 27:11 in the black and white photograph of Lincoln's funeral, there is a multi story white building with an open second floor window. It's hard to see in this version of the photo, but staring out that window is a young Theodore Roosevelt who would become President himself just three decades later.

A small correction for Sherman's march, they didn't do Terror tactics. His targets were all of military importance, not simply burning things to make people afraid. Like the video said, his targets were railroads, factories, and farms. All things feeding the Confederate war effort, and in the case of the last one now feeding his own army. There WAS certainly other things going, but not done by the main army, but scavengers and some exterior units, called 'bummers'. It was not approved by Grant, and likely most of it was never actually reported to him to do anything about.

In the Hundred Years' War, Sherman's march to the sea would have been called a "chevauchee". The Black Prince used it to good effect, in fact. The only difference, if I recall correctly, is that Sherman didn't intentionally burn down whole towns like Edward did to French villages. He did, however, tear up a lot of their infrastructure.

Booth actually had a small team and the plan was to take out 3 or 4 leaders (one target for each person) of the administration including Vice President and the Secretary of State. Booth was the only one from his group that succeeded in killing his target, although the guy who tried to kill the Secretary of State almost succeeded and greatly injured him.

I've been to two of the most important sites at Gettysburg: Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge. There is a palpable weight in the air, knowing the importance of what happened. The North came frighteningly close to being flanked, if it weren't for Colonel Chamberlain's bold tactical strike. The South came close to breaking the Northern lines during Pickett's Charge, but the North had terrain and numbers on their side.

CSA started with the 'Stars and Bars' flag (very similar to Georgia's flag now). However it looked to similar to the USA flag so they changed it to the 'Stainless Banner', which sounds cool but it was mostly white and could be mistaken for a flag of surrender, so later it got changed to the 'Blood Stained Banner' with the red stripe

"Joseph "Fighting Joe" Wheeler (September 10, 1836 - January 25, 1906) was an American military commander and politician. He is known for having served both as a cavalry general in the Confederate States Army in the 1860s during the American Civil War, and then as a general in the United States Army during both the Spanish-American War and Philippine-American War near the turn of the twentieth century." - wikipedia

7:28 Many people don't know it but the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia does end up featured on the confederate national flag from 1863 to 1865 with the Stainless Banner and Bloodstained Banner.

Something it doesn't bring up is Lincoln's vice president who took over after him. His name was Andrew Johnson and he was a Democrat. Lincoln chose him to sway voters and because the vice president generally doesn't do much so it didn't matter. Then Lincoln died and Johnson became president. Now people talk about Trump or Biden being the worst president ever. They don't even come close to Johnson. Initially, Lincoln wanted the north to be very involved in the rebuilding of the south. Johnson on the other hand wanted the south to rebuild itself. He was also pretty racist and had no qualms about allowing the southern states to create laws that would still discriminate against African Americans. Additionally, it allowed a continued hatred of the north after the war, as the South struggled to pull itself back together after being destroyed. These things would combine to create laws that would push down African Americans for almost a hundred years and created a ripple effect that lasts until this day with the events happening right now in the US. Andrew Johnson is, in my opinion, the worst president in US history.

@johnjamesbaldridge867

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly. I am so happy you brought this up. The only thing is that if you read the Sherman's Memoirs in particular (as well as Grant's), you can see the exact same thing happening today, in the exact same language as that from 1850 onward, instigated by Don. Trump (nee Jeff. Davis). So I'm worried that Trump's vying for the top spot, if he hasn't already achieved it. Hope it doesn't happen.

To your remark about the battle of Fredricksburg reminding you of WWI, the American Civil war was basically the only large-scale both-sides-are-industrialized-and-fighting-on-their-own-soil war between the Napoleonic War and the Great War, and pioneered a lot of the tactics that would come to dominate in WWI-coded telegrams, trench warfare, gatling guns (basically the American equivalent of the Maxim gun, but both sides had ‘em, not just one like in most colonial wars), aerial scouting (albeit with hot air balloons, not zepplins or planes), and the like. A lot of folks in hindsight like to analyze the Civil War as a prophetic foreshadowing of the slaughter that would occur in Europe, especially since so many European military observers went to the US precisely to SEE how an industrialized continental war might turn out, and were shocked by the level of carnage, but dismissed it as something that couldn’t happen in Europe because their militaries were made of well-trained professionals, not the shaking conscripts they saw dying from disease in American trenches. Also common to hear it described as a “20th century war fought with 18th century tactics” but military history buffs see that as unfair to the distinctive transitional nature of the 19th century’s technology.

7:28 it's because the confederacy changed their flag multiple times during the war. That particular flag being the second to last one they adopted. The last one, though, was simply the same flag just with a red stripe on the end called the "Blood Stained Banner".

I live in Springfield Illinois they did a reenactment of his funeral procession it was really cool in fact they have a replica of his funeral casket carriage on display for several years at the Illinois state fair

1) General Burnside was so unqualified to command the Union Army of the Potomac that he said so himself. For political reasons he continued to serve as a general until his last debacle, the Battle of the Crater in 1864. This battle presaged the WW1 use of underground explosives to destroy enemy trenches. 2) At 4:39, regarding the "nasty" food, two items of food comprised much of the soldiers' diet, at least for the Union: hardtack biscuits and bacon (salted pork). The biscuits were sometimes years old, especially early in the war, and were referred to as "worm castles." They were hard enough to break teeth. If they were lucky the meat would arrive before it became infested with maggots. In Ken Burns's Civil War documentary, there is a quote from a soldier who said they would make the biscuits edible by placing them next to a piece of bad meat to attract the worms and then dunk the biscuits to soften them. 3) Both sides passed conscription laws. Ironically the South did so first, since they claimed to be fighting against government tyranny. 4) When the Union Army began accepting black volunteers in 1863 they were paid less than white soldiers and had to pay for their clothes, unlike the white soldiers. Their net pay was $7 per month, compared to $13 for whites. In 1864 Congress granted them equal pay, retroactively. 5) The general jokingly called "Snapping Turtle McGee" by OverSimplified is George Meade. Not the most handsome of men, he was famously described by one soldier as resembling "a damned old goggle-eyed snapping turtle." 6) I found an article about Joseph, the guy who was picking beans in the video: emergingcivilwar.com/2018/11/19/civil-war-cooking-harvesting-a-mess-of-beans-during-battle/ In his defense, the Confederates had requisitioned most of the food in town, "paying" for it with worthless Confederate currency. Ironically his wife Sarah is better known for her diary, which was quoted by Ken Burns in his Civil War documentary: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Broadhead 7) Like many battles the location of Gettysburg was chosen for geographic reasons. About 10 roads converged there, and the Union troops occupied the heights south of the town, enabling them to fight on the defensive and suffer fewer casualties. 8) Here's a clip from the outstanding, extremely long movie "Gettysburg" reenacting the bayonet charge mentioned at 10:20. It was done by a small group of soldiers. They were out of ammunition, and so could not remain where they were. If they retreated, the North might lose the battle and even the war. So they fixed bayonets and charged with unloaded rifles. Jeff Daniels plays the commanding officer Joshua Chamberlain, whose life was so extraordinary that a truthful movie about him would seem like Hollywood melodrama. kzread.info/dash/bejne/hIqb161tf9LOhLg.html 9) At 13:10, OverSimplified says the entire town of Gettysburg was turned into a hospital to care for the "scores" of wounded men. Yes, about 1000 score (20,000)! In the 3-day battle the Union suffered 23,000 casualties: more than 3000 killed, more than 14,000 wounded, and more than 5000 captured or missing. Confederate casualties were 23,000-28,000 (I've heard speculation they were even higher). All of the Union wounded and 8000 of the Confederate wounded and captured were left in Gettysburg, at least for a while. There were only 2400 residents of Gettysburg. Also, there were more than 3000 dead horses from the battle. Their corpses were burned in giant pyres, which made the locals violently ill. 10) The nurse Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross in 1881. 11) The guy who spoke for 2 hours before Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address was Edward Everett. He had a distinguished career as a pastor, an orator, president of Harvard, ambassador to the UK, Governor and Senator of Massachusetts, and U.S. Secretary of State. After their speeches Everett wrote to Lincoln "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes." 12) At 14:08, on the calendar is a photo of the Korean "K-Pop" band BTS. 13) Regarding the changes Grant made when he was put in charge: Most of the Union generals early in the war were fighting it the way they thought Europeans had fought wars in the 1700s. You take plenty of time maneuvering your army into just the right position, have one "glorious" battle where you drive the enemy from the field, capture his battle flags, and the war is over. (The first soldiers who volunteered for the Union did so for only 90 days, which contributed to the Union fighting the First Battle of Bull Run before they were ready.) This was misremembering at least some history, because the Napoleonic Wars lasted about 15 years. But Grant and Sherman understood that the Civil War was a modern, "total" war. You continuously engage the enemy, and the side which runs out of men and supplies first loses the war. 14) About the officers' facial hair: I wonder whether any of them kept clean-shaven for the sole reason of attracting ladies who did not want to kiss all that hair. 15) If you're interested, read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. Like the Gettysburg Address, it's quite short and contains beautiful prose. Remarkably, Lincoln had one year of formal education. www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/lincoln-second-inaugural.htm 16) Regarding General Sherman's "March to the Sea," he once said "War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over." 17) It's a testament to their commitment that any Confederate soldiers remained during the Siege of Petersburg. Nearly 10 months of sweltering or freezing in primitive bunkers, no winter clothes, no shoes, very little food. When the siege ended and mobile war resumed one week before the surrender, the Confederate soldiers were on the verge of starvation. Many just collapsed on the side of the road and died or waited to be captured. 18) Grant wasn't hung over when he learned Lee had agreed to surrender. He claimed he had a severe headache which vanished instantly. 19) At 25:30, General Johnston surrendered to Sherman. From Johnston's Wikipedia page: "Johnston, like Lee, never forgot the magnanimity of the man to whom he surrendered. He would not allow criticism of Sherman in his presence. Sherman and Johnston corresponded frequently, and they met for friendly dinners in Washington whenever Johnston traveled there. When Sherman died, Johnston served as an honorary pallbearer at his funeral. During the procession in New York City on February 19, 1891, he kept his hat off as a sign of respect, although the weather was cold and rainy. Someone concerned for his health asked him to put on his hat, to which Johnston replied, "If I were in his place, and he were standing here in mine, he would not put on his hat." He did catch a cold that day, which developed into pneumonia and Johnston died 10 days later." He was age 84. 20) A few months before John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln, Booth's brother Edwin saved Lincoln's son Robert from serious injury or death at a train station. Edwin Booth was a world-renown Shakespearean actor. 21) Earlier this year the U.S. made "Juneteenth" a federal holiday. Like many older and white Americans I had not known of this holiday until recently. It began in Texas after the Civil War and spread among African-Americans. From Wikipedia: "Juneteenth's commemoration is on the anniversary date of the June 19, 1865, announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger, proclaiming freedom for slaves in Texas, which was the last state of the Confederacy with institutional slavery." 22) The 14th and 15th Constitutional Amendments, ratified in the late 1860s, grant citizenship and voting privileges to African-Americans. Unfortunately, until the 1960s we pretended these amendments did not exist. 23) The period after the Civil War was known as Reconstruction (1865-1877). I do not want to generalize about southerners today, but this period perhaps created more ill feelings than the war itself. As you can imagine the South was desperately poor, and some lost their land to northerners called "carpetbaggers." This engendered understandable ill will. But the biggest problem was that despite losing the war they remained as committed as ever to white supremacy. Of course, white supremacy was believed nationwide, but it was most severe in the South. Even today, it is perceived ti be worst in the South, although migration from elsewhere in the country and the changing attitudes of the young continue to reduce, I hope.