I appreciate how serious Bill takes the subject of his lecture. The next generation could watch this and learn a wealth of information for years to come. Very useful video. Thanks for the education.

Great job bringing the rail lines in context and just how integral they were to the war

A whole aspect of the Civil War that I had not considered. Extremely interesting! 🤓 Thank you for uploading.

That was well done! Presentation was awesome and he really kept my attention through the entire lecture. Wish there were more questions I didn't want it to end!!!

Man, I like this guy! Thanks for uploading this video!

Ranger Bill Hewitt,as always, delivers an fascinating number of facts and does so with a real zeal for his subject, every time. Thanks NPS! Love, David

A couple things: 1) Sherman actually pursued Hood into North Georgia once Hood began his Tennessee Campaign. Hood then turned into Alabama after capturing Dalton but Sherman halted near there and stated, "If Hood will go to the Ohio River I will give him rations!" Sherman had sent Thomas and two corps back to Middle Tennessee to deal with Hood and he headed back to Atlanta, burned the city (the fire got out of control) and then set off for Savannah. The railroads he tore up the Confederate repaired after he had moved on. Thus Lee was not out of food supply nor the powder from Augusta, GA for long. 2) Sherman should have taken down the massive powder works at Augusta before going to Savannah. Had he done so the war would have been over by January 1865 as the Confederates would have been out of powder by then. Augusta provided 90 per cent of the powder made in the CSA.

ports, rivers, railroads - the importance of supplying an army. hence the old saying - Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics. the north was able to starve the south to death.

@madmatx12thunderdome33

3 жыл бұрын

! Are

Bill is an outstanding guide and lecturer. We first met Bill on July 1, 2013 at McPherson Ridge and reenacted Armistead's July 3rd attack across that mile wide field under Bill's leadership.

What prevented Longstreet from coming west through Virginia to Tennessee was Burnside capturing Knoxville in early September 1863 cutting this direct route. That forced Longstreet to take the far longer route through the Carolinas and into Georgia. In North Carolina, thanks to the lack of through tracks in towns and the different gauges, his men had to change trains a few times.

Daniel McCallum's report is simply amazing! Over the winter of 1863-1864, the Union replaced every railroad line from Louisville to Chattanooga with new rails and ties. These included the Louisville & Nashville; Nashville & Chattanooga; Nashville & Decatur and the portion of the Memphis & Charleston between Decatur, AL and Stevenson, AL. where it joined the Nashville & Chattanooga. Dozens of new bridges were built. Sherman demanded 130 cars per day minimum going into Chattanooga. Ranger Hewitt is correct - men coming back from their 30 day veteran's furloughs could take the trains to Nashville but from there it was a march to Chattanooga over the Cumberland Mountains with many units driving cattle with them.

The audience member asking the question about Lee's supplies in 1864 - Lee drew almost all of his food from Georgia and had been doing so since Spring of 1863. In early 1864 Lee stated, "without Georgia Virginia cannot hold." The food from Georgia was denied to the Confederate Army of Tennessee that was protecting it; they had to draw food from Alabama and Mississippi.

They should review the conditions of the Union army prior to the engagement at Gettysburg. Meade was only appointed 3 days before the battle and the Union army was at best, shabby. Meade ordered 50, 000 pairs of shoes for an army of 90,000, says alot for the conditions of the Union army.The Union horses hadn't been properly feed or rested for 3 days and these animals were expected to cart supplies 21 miles from the rail head to Gettysburg. Unfortunately the resupply wagon train was captured by Jeb Stuart along with herds of cattle and sheep. Sickle was a real proble as well, he simply couldn't or wouldn't follow orders, some have called him Salient Sickles because he had a habit of doing his own thing (a political appointed, not military trained). Meade had to work with what Sickle had caused, Meade went off his head at Sickle and if Sickle hadn't losted a leg he may will have been court-martialed. To pursue the Confederates was difficult, the Union army was in a bad condition, but they did pursue and only just missed Lee's army. The Confederate engineers did the possible, having constructed bridges to make their escape. I feel Meade preformed brilliantly, under the inherented circumstances and should have been treated appropriately, shame on Lincoln for his attitude towards Meade, Lincoln was not a military minded man and typical of politicians they think they are and can cause more harm than good, he should have thanked him for his Gettysburg victory.

In every town along the Western & Atlantic RR that Sherman captured he stockpiled 30 days of supplies. In case Confederate cavalry cut the railroads above that town he could draw from there until William Wright's Railroad Brigade could repair the broken lines. Sherman did miscalculate his supplies when he moved away from the railroad by turning the Allatoona Mountains aiming for the road junction at Dallas, GA. By the time he got back to Acworth and the railroad his men were in dire straits. He had fought three battles in this turning movement as well which he did not expect to do but the Confederates picked up his movement and reacted accordingly.

Great Lecture! Excellent subject! If you want to understand the war It's most important to be aware of the things behind the scenes that really determine the outcomes. I love his comment on the pyramids and the space aliens. LOL! Arrogance is right!

Fantastic excellent!

The Union indeed went after Southern salt sources from the start of the war. This was the economic impetus for the 1861 Kanawha River Campaign in Western Virginia and the saline wells in that region. The Union Navy went after the coastal salt sites in Florida that boiled sea water for its salt. Lastly, the rock salt mines near Saltville, VA came under attack in 1864. Salt was vital for a lot back them from curing hides for leather to food preservation.

Overall a fine program and one that folks do need to see and learn how military operations are rally handled - logistics first, everything else falls in after that.

As the chairman of the joint chiefs, ADM Mike Mullen, once said of US Transportation Command: Logistics is like oxygen. You don't think about it until you don't have it.

Logistics may seem boring but this ranger explained succinctly how the North used railroads and steamboats to defeat the Confederacy. Lee had no such logistics and his army was ragged and starving. Excellent presentation.

when I was younger, tearing up the roads, meant you was traveling down the roads as fast as you could. lots of different meanings, for the same phrases, depending on where you are from.

@johnhyde8817

4 жыл бұрын

or when

The issue of getting beef sent from Richmond in 1861-1862, which involved Gen. Joseph Johnston actually, was more complex that depicted here. The problem was Commissary General Lucius Northrop.

fascinating

My main focus on the Confederate supply system is on the military side. Thus I never studied any of the food riots but had heard of the Richmond one as it was quite large. I read about the Atlanta one and it was a handful of women it seems...30 or less..and the catalyst for that one was a lady being upset over the price of bacon at one store. Hyper inflation was a huge issue in the Confederacy. This was caused by paying for the war by keeping the government money presses running 24/7 which, as today shows, causes inflation. Richard Goff's book talked about this causing not only massive price increases but also hoarding. Withholding on the private sector due to the government not wanting to pay their demanded price to even the various supply depots hoarding within the system. This led to more inflation. It wad not so much that the Confederates did not have enough food to eat....they did. The issues were inflation, crappy financial management and a poor system for paying civilians who worked for the government. Atlanta had about 5000 people in 1860 and by 1864 it was about 25,000, many coming there for jobs in the huge government depots there including 4000 women. That overwhelms the local distribution system for pretty much everything. The state of Georgia, in response to the Atlanta "riot" was to create a system to help families of Georgia soldiers. Included in this was giving free food to them, including corn. If there was a real shortage of food this could not have happened. Confederate railroad policy was idiotic...they needed to do what the North did which was go to the rail companies and tell them one of two things. 1) We are using your railroad to move things for the Army and this is what we will pay. 2) If you do not agree to this we take you over and let the US Military Railroad run your line. The Confederates were far too libertarian to do this and it cost them dearly. So the real culprit here was not lack of food; it was poor financial policy, poor railroad management and inflation which begat hoarding.

Interesting how the person doing the closed captioning corrects his grammar.

The first use of a railroad to move a large army was in eastern Europe in 1848 when the Russians moved 250, 000 troops on the newly opened Warsaw-Krakow-Vienna railroad into Hungary to crush the democratic revolution.

@brucewindsor5257

6 күн бұрын

Excellent point. However, Hungary was part of the Austrian Hungarian Empire, wasn’t it?

@michaelmazowiecki9195

6 күн бұрын

@@brucewindsor5257 prior to the 1848 revolt Hungary was not a co-ruler of the Habsburg Austrian Empire, just one of the subject entities. It subsequently achieved a degree of political equality, thus the name change to the Austrio-Hungarian Empire. Hungarian rule of non-Hungarian ethnic peoples was harsher and more ruthless than that of the Austrians right upto 1918.

The South actually had facilities to make locomotives before the Civil War. Both Nashville and Richmond, for example, did so. The problem was that Northern built locomotives were cheaper as they were built by larger firms who could make more of them. So the South pretty much stopped making them by the Civil War. However, I did find examples of a few made in the South during the war including at Macon, GA.

These Southern states did not have lines that required getting off and then getting on across the towns- South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Also, all had 5 foot gauge tracks. Virginia and North Carolina had multiple gauges and required getting off one line, crossing the town and getting back on another line. Alabama also had some of that. The North had multiple gauges as well.

Hermann Haupt hired mostly african american to rebuild railroad bridges lines ... after the war many african american work in the railroad industry because of it.

OK--- But good lecture but for missing half the screens.

Fire were most armies 30,000 men back, then was that a cut off or something

As a R.R. Inspector Thank you civilken.

Lines of communication.....railroads.

Here is an thought exercise about logistics with the Civil War as a background. The Union should have concentrated on the Anaconda strategy. The Union should have stayed strictly on the defensive in the East in the first two years of the war. Forts and fortifications should have been built in the Manasas_Centerville area south of Washington DC. Eventually these fortifications should have been moved by Union advances to the Rappahannock river and Fredericksburg. These forts and fortification should have been connected by a series of railways for supply. Cavarly, railway cars with infantry and armored trains patrolt between the forts with reinforcements moved to threatened areas by the Confederates. The Shenandoah valley should have had a series of forts built starting at Harpers Ferry in the surrounding high ground with more forts extending down the Shenandoah Valley further to the south. Again, a railway should have been built connecting this serious of fortified towns so reinforcements could be moved to threatened areas. Now the Union goes on the offensive everywhere else while bottling up Lee and Jackson well south of Washington. This Union defense is far from passive with forts holding up Confederates and reinforcements moved along their supply lines. Gunboats and transports also could have moved up and down the Rappahannock River to aid the defense of the Union. 1. The Western campaign sees and endless series of riverine operations. The riverine strategy with gunboats to bombard Confederate forts. River steamboats are used in quantity to transport men. These transports are used to move supplies along the Mississippi and other inland rivers such as the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. The Union wants to move to New Orleand and severe the Mississippi River as soon as possible. Corinth in Mississippi, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Atlanta are all major targets. Railways are used to supplement the riverine supply system working together in the most efficient way possible. 2. Along the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf Coast, the Union builds a huge Navy with the conversion of commercial steam powered vessels for transport of men, equipment and supplies. The Union navy builds wooden ships reinforced with at critical points with iron plate as seagoing gunships for shore bombardment and escort. The Union makes amphibious attack in assembly line fashion closing every single Confederate port by capturing it or blocking it with soldiers occupying the nearby shorelines or islands outside the port. New Orleans gets taken first but all the other ports along the Gulf coast and Atlantic coasts are a prime targets. The Union spares no expense in blood and treasure taking these ports and harbors of the Confederacy but sieges of coastal forts need to be well planned out with rifled artillery bombardments and shipborne bombardments. The preparation for these amphibious coastal attacks are nonstop, seven day per week affairs only interruped by weather. The ability to conduct this strategy would mean no land offensive actions against Richmond would be taken for the first two years or so of the war. But the idea here is complete strangulation of the Confederacy. The riverine strategy in West would divide the Confederacy into several sections. These divided Confederate sections couldn't mutually support each other any longer. Philadelphia would be the main supply center for the US Navy and Army for amphibiouc attacks. Nashville, Tennessee would be the major supply center for the Western area along with Memphis and Chattanooga. The Union Army could go on the offensive in Virginia only after ALL CONFEDERATE SEA PORTS on the Gulf side and Atantic seaboard were captured or closed off with amphibious attacks and sieges.

@pagejackson1207

3 жыл бұрын

This would be a sound military policy but ignores the political side of the Civil War. The risk of European intervention was very real in 1861-62 and a passive policy in the east could have been interpreted as defacto recognition of the right of the southern states to succeed. Also, without the threat of a Union offensive on the eastern front the South would have been able to move men and material to other theaters as needed. In addition, it is problematical whether the Lincoln administration would have been able to discern which generals (Grant and Sherman) were necessary for a successful campaign in the east without the successive failures of higher ranking eastern generals in 1861 through Chancellorsville in 1863.

Thank you President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Thanks also to all who fought to end African American slavery and save the USA.

I have to disagree with you about Granger taking mmobile he did nothing of the sort, canby is the one that took Spanish Fort and Blakely

According to the 1860 Census, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi grew more corn that the Midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Tennessee grew a lot of wheat - still does (I live there). The largest flour mills in the world were in Richmond, VA.

@avenaoat

2 ай бұрын

1. North cultivated more wheat than corn that time. To build many smaller wheat mills were not problem for the industrial North to substitute Richmond's mills. 2. Lot of not slave owner corn producer farmers were taken to soldiers except for the prounionist territories after the conscription was launched before the North. 3. Lot of slaves left their owners so the work power of the Confederacy decreased more. So the food shortage was the reality before Vicksburg. After Vicksburg Texas food source lost.

@gregbiggs5674

2 ай бұрын

Actually, the food production of Georgia and two other deep south states increased as the war went on. Governor Joe Brown of Georgia had farmers change from cotton to food by 1862. Loss of slaves on farms, which had very few anyway, and plantations in the deep south was not an issue until Union troops showed up in 1864. And even on Sherman's March to the Sea, few slaves left their plantations and Sherman's men lived very nicely off the land. The main food coming from the Trans-Miss was cattle and even after the fall of Vicksburg some 20,000 head still came over. Florida picked up the cattle slack with the huge ranches in the Ocala area that are still there today. The Confederates defending Georgia in 1864 along with others in the deep south, ate very well actually. The trouble had much more to do with the Confederate railroads starting to fall apart. Read Richard Goff's book "Confederate Supply," and Robert Black's "Railroads of the Confederacy."

@gregbiggs5674

2 ай бұрын

Lastly, Lee's Army in Virginia started getting most of its food from Georgia starting in the spring of 1863. Along with virtually all of its ammunition supply, this is why Lee stated in early 1864, "without Georgia, Virginia cannot stand."

@avenaoat

2 ай бұрын

@@gregbiggs5674 After the women riots (in Spring of 1863) the Confederacy had measures to divide the food. The Army organized to gather the food and the Army diveded the food among the cities and the Army. So the Confederacy avoided the famine in the cities. However food shortage is not equal to famine. This was similar to the European systems in the Second World War. After Lincoln's triumph the Civil War would have been about 750 000 dead (Appomatox, Benett house, etc) or about 1 000 000 dead for example Sherman would have retreated to Tenneessee and the Civil War lasted plus 1 year untill 1866.

@gregbiggs5674

2 ай бұрын

The food riots in Richmond only took place there and in no places in the deep south. I have not found cases of Virginia food heading to Georgia for example. The Confederate rail system had all it could handle bringing food from Georgia along with powder and ammo plus weapons from there to Virginia to have any spare capacity to haul food back. Plus it was not needed. As I said, from 1863 on Lee was getting most of his food from Georgia. Taking the war to Pennsylvania was also done to give a break to VA farmers and the ANV rustled 25,000 head of cattle while there according to Coddington. The Army of Tennessee defending Georgia up in Tennesser could not draw food from Georgia until 1864 and even then most came from the Black Prairie region of Mississippi and some from Central Alabama plus Florida. While still in Middle TN that Army got some good from the Columbia area. I do lectures on Confederate logistics and have studied them for 25 years and own a lot of books on the topic along with numerous academic essays.

Canby takes Mobile actually.

Tennessee grew 50 per cent of the hogs in the Confederacy. See Richard Goff's book, "Confederate Supply." Texas and Florida were tops in the South for beef cattle.

Some ancient armies had way more than 30,000 men. I wonder what else he's talking out of his ads about?

@Luxain

5 жыл бұрын

It struck me as an odd note as well, I think what he means is that Armies of the past had to sort of travel in groups spread over a good distance because they would have to eat off the land, whereas with a good and reliable supply line the army could move in one go.

@jc-wd5bu

5 жыл бұрын

at about 3.00, he mentions how large armies had to be dispersed to forage. I think he was talking about how the larger army had to split in to group of 30K or less to forage and then concentrate at the point of attack. He said like Sherman, had an army of 100K, sent 30k back to Chattanooga and then split the remaining into 2 wings of 30k each. Sherman sent a 1/3 of his army back because they couldn't forage off the line of march. the 30k limit of living off the land.

@matt67524

4 жыл бұрын

That is not what he is saying. He is saying large armies had to break up into large chunks of about 30k mean each since logistics before railroads and steamboats were slow and inefficient. I have heard him speak in person a number of times and he is pretty good. That is my take on it anyway.

@416loren

2 жыл бұрын

I think that is a question deserving some research. Battle of Red Cliffs (Han Dynasty 208 AD) Cao Cao had over 200,000 soldiers. The logistics of that would be an amazing story. I'm no expert, I just got the number from Wikipedia.

@theodoresmith5272

Жыл бұрын

Hard to say. Often we get overblown accounts of ancient battles. Also many of those accounts are written decades latter. Pre napoleonic wars where we do have some at least not as suspect accounts, armies are often at or around that 30,000 range. Ships help if there is a port near bye. Speaking of napoleon, they struggled big time to keep a large army in one place for very long at all without starving. The French had big money rewards every year for anyone that year that came up with better ways to preserve food. If a fight wasn't going to happen, they divided troops up in a large area.

Grant played Lee. The smartest general won.

It was good when we were able to see the screen, but when he's saying "this" and "this over here" and we have no idea what he's pointing at or referencing it detracts from it. Maybe it's just personal preference, but I could stand with not being asked everything. If I knew the answers to all his questions I wouldn't be watching the lecture.

👎Cameraman, you’re doing a lousy job. Show us the power points - not the back of the head’s of visitors!👎

i HAVE A WORD----NO TWO WORDS THAT YOU WERE BORN WITH, WHICH CANNOT POSSIBLY BE SPELLED BACKWARD...................mom and dad.