How did the draft riots and enlistment of black soldiers in the summer of 1863 affect union strength . What actions did general grant take ? That led him to overall command of union forces . What battles was General Sherman fighting in the west to hurt the enemy ? Deep in the confederacy for answers to these questions and more civil war insights . Stay tuned . Welcome to the U . S . Army history and Heritage podcast . The official podcast of the United States Army . Center of Military History . The center of Military History writes and publishes the army's official history , manages the US Army Museum enterprise and provides historical support throughout the U . S . Army . Hello everyone and welcome back to the United States Army history and Heritage podcast . I'm lee Reynolds , the strategic communications officer for the Center of Military History . In this episode , part four of a seven part series on the Civil war . I'm speaking with CMH historian . Dr matt marge's welcome mat and thanks for joining me . Thanks for having me so a little background on dr dr marge's uh he works with the U . S . Army Center of Military History as the historian for the office of the Chief of staff of the Army . He has been with CMH since 2017 . Prior to taking his current position , he worked as a researcher in the histories division at CMH . His area of expertise is late 19th century and early 20th century military professionalization . He graduated with a PhD from Iowa State University in 2016 . His dissertation America's Progressive Army ? How the National Guard grew out of progressive era reforms . Won the Caress Award for outstanding dissertation in 2017 . That's awesome . Congratulations . He's currently converting his dissertation into a manuscript for publication . Dr marge's has written articles on african american service during World War One and numerous book reviews . He recently published a chapter on consolidating gains during Operation Market Garden in World War Two in an Army University Press volume on large scale combat operations . That's , that's pretty impressive . A lot a lot of great history work there . Thank you . So what am I missing ? Tell me , tell me a little bit more about yourself . Yeah , I think you hit most of it . Um , but working in FPs , I also am working for the Chief of Staff . I also do publications work , work on the annual Department of the army historical summary that we release every year every fiscal year . And that just kind of covers the general activities of the headquarters department of the army for that year . Um , and it's , it's a really good CMH publication that kind of covers what's been going on at the headquarters level that a lot of people don't really get to see . Um and so I've , so you can see there's a fy 20 20 that just came out of the fiscal year 2021 is currently in review and production . So we hope to have that out there about a year after . They usually based on the timeline of writing it and getting it through review . It takes about a year to get it . So by the time that the Fy 21 comes out , we'll be writing writing the 22 . Right , okay , great . And as usually with all our publications , they're available through our website at history dot army dot mil , including all the Civil War pamphlets . And we'll be talking about that now . So um Alright , so at this point in , we've we've been going through all the different years and the battles in the civil war . So let's start with an overview of the strategic situation at the moment . So the Union just won victories here in july of 18 63 at Gettysburg and out west at Vicksburg . So how are things looking for the Union ? What's going on ? Looking at just that things look really good , right , They've just accomplished two great feats Vicksburg . The collapse of that fortification , they're allowed the U . S . Control of Mississippi River , which was which was key for not only supply , but also just for logistical . Um And of course Gettysburg is , it stops the confederate army of northern Virginia's invasion of the north . It's a major turning point in the sense of the army of the potomac has finally achieved a complete kind of stunning victory , but it wasn't really a complete victory in the sense that lee's army was still out there , lee's army was able to retreat back into Virginia in some and kind of lick its wounds . Um and in other places , the problems of the early war are still there in the sense that the U . S . Army still needs to defeat a confederacy that spread out across a wide swath of land and it still has strongholds throughout the south and it really needs to defeat the south militarily and begin capturing some of these major points . And so even though things are looking good in the summer of 18 63 and some have argued that by that point the war was over in the sense that the confederacy couldn't really stand up militarily for much longer . We know that it does go on another two years and it was far from over at the moment . We know that meat is still in overall command of the Union Army of the army of the potomac army potomac . And then where's Grant at this time ? So Grant right now , General Major General Grant is West . He's with his his armies in the western theater , he's basically in command of of his forces that have just achieved victory at Vicksburg . General Rosecrans who will talk about a little bit later , he's in command of the army of the Cumberland which is moving towards Chickamauga and Chattanooga . Um So Grant right now is is effectively a a division commander in the sense that he owns division meaning division of the West , not an individual division . Yeah . So he can , he controls some armies but he's not an overall command of the U . S . Forces yet . So here we are 18 63 july um , Union has some , some victories . There's there's some hope , I think , and but it's been two years of hard fighting , a lot of casualties . And um , the Union Army is having trouble getting people to enlist . Uh , there's a lot of pushback with the draft . So can you describe what was happening in the summer of 18 63 and how , How did the army respond to it ? I think we can even look at the current army today and see some of the problems with the volunteer force , right ? It's it's difficult to maintain volunteerism throughout an entire conflict , especially when casualties are high . And at some point , the kind of public enthusiasm starts to wane . And that's happening by 1862 . Um , and In early 1863 , 2 key developments happen that are going to influence enlistment and the Army . One of them is the , is the official passage of the emancipation proclamation that that President Lincoln announced in late 1862 that takes effect in 1863 . So that's going to open the door for black enlistment amongst many other things . Um , in terms of bolstering the size of the US army itself . Uh , the U . S . Government passes the enrollment act in 18 63 . Now that's um , about a year later in the confederacy . The confederacy actually had a conscription act much earlier in the war . Um , but there was , there was definitely some push back to the enrollment act . Uh , due to , to kind of key reasons , the one being that Wealther citizens could buy their way out of the draft . If they provided $300 , they could basically get out of it or they could pay someone else to take their spot . Uh , and there were also some bounties offered , but you could basically pay a substitute . It was often a half and half where you'd get half 100 $50 up front , join serve in my place . And then If you survive the war , when the war is over , you get the other 150 . Uh , and so those are , that's a lot of money in the day . It was , it was , it was a pretty substantial sum . And so there were definitely a lot of takers and there was also the kind of the bounty jumpers , people who would take , they would enlist one place , get a bounty for enlisting . And then dessert maybe change their name something , go somewhere else and list again , get the bounty dessert and do this all over . But the enrollment act really starts to feed into this concept . So you say enrollment act was that considered the draft . That's the , that's the draft law . That was the draft law . Yeah . And so it really starts to kind of feed into this idea that anyone who even knows , you know , history of american military history late in the 20th century . This idea of the rich man's war , Poor man's fight , right ? And that was really the Stokes of the flames of that were really stoked in new york city , especially by the Tammany Hall political machine . This was , it's run by new york city democrats . There's of course , opposition to the Lincoln administration . Uh , they , we're kind of known for going after immigrants , especially irish immigrants and getting them to vote for them , promising them some , some kind of perks or some kind of , you know , some things , but getting them to vote for them , getting into to kind of stand by their position and they start to become sort of an anti war faction in new york city , sort of , they're the ones that are kind of poking and saying , you know , look at who's look at who's really benefiting from this , not you , not the , not the irish immigrant . Um , and they also start to kind of inflame racial tensions , saying , oh , look , not only did the Lincoln administration just push through this emancipation act , that's now going to bring all these freed slaves into new york and they're gonna be competing for your jobs and they're gonna be competing for your livelihoods , but now they're forcing you to serve in the military and someone else can just buy their way out of it . And so that really creates a lot of tension in and around the city , especially among these in the , um , in the irish community in new york city . Um , and so the draft riots , the fame , the infamous draft riots of mid july 18 63 only a couple weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg really start with from that , That , that kind of tension that boils over . And on July 13 , a group of basically 500 men led by uh engine company 33 , it was a volunteer fire company . I was Irish or predominantly . Yeah . And they attack on July 13 , the draft station , basically the place where the draft was being committed or was being carried out the lottery and it was a lottery draft . It wasn't everyone , but um and there's no militia presence in the city because the new york militia had been pulled away and moved to pennsylvania to do kind of rear guard duty for the army of the potomac in Gettysburg . So it's really only the Police department , the municipal Police Department and over time throughout the day , the riot just gets out of hand . The police can't handle it . Um , the one of the big atrocities that first day is the rioters attack the colored orphan asylum , eventually burning it . Um , and by the end of the , by the end of the riot , it really became more of a race riot . 11 blacks were lynched in the course of it . Um , there were about 100 and 20 people killed as kind of the more believable estimates . Um , and then at least , you know , thousands injured . Um It's going to kind of ease when general Major general john Wolf , who is the oldest commander , the oldest officer in the U . S . Army at the time . He was 79 years old by the time , by the time of the uh the riots . Um And older than Scott . Winfield scott . Yes , because because scott was already out , he had already retired . So he's the oldest one left , um 79 years old . And he's in command of the Department of the East . Not not a combatant command , but a , you know , kind of administrative command . Um and he orders the militia to return from Gettysburg to New York . And then he's also going to bring 800 soldiers from around the area into the city and they begin arriving on the 14th and 15th . And so by the 16th with the federal troops in place and the Alicia back , the riot kind of subsides . So in july and all this is okay . And and so the riots were really just centralized in new york . Did it spread to any other cities or towns ? There were , there was opposition to the draft across the the U . S . But really it was the new york city ones that are the the major riots . Right ? And but with general will bring in all these these troops back to new york . That's um how did that affect the um the Union Army in in Gettysburg or in general , to be honest . Not that , not , not much the militia that he pulls back from Gettysburg . Um They wouldn't have a company of the army of the potomac on any of its operations anyway , they would have probably come back by the end of the month , maybe a little later . Um and the 800 that he pulls from the Department of the East . Again , they weren't actively involved in combat operations . Um and once the situation subsides , they were able to kind of go back . So it didn't have any like manpower impacts on , on the army of the potomac , at least Now let's go back a little bit . You were talking about the emancipation proclamation that blacks are now for uh forming units or are able to enlist . So let's talk a little bit about that . So with these , with black soldiers now um describe what those units were , where were they created , Who led them and what missions were they assigned ? So the first ones are formed in the south . Uh there they're known as the , like for example , the one that we consider kind of quote unquote first is the first north Carolina colored volunteers . Um and those were formed mostly by freed slaves , um or escaped slaves more more likely at the time . Um because the emancipation proclamation of course only freed slaves in rebellious territory , but since those states didn't acknowledge anymore , the federal government's authority . Uh It was really up to the military in a sense to actually pass the word . Um And so a lot of the first the first few that were formed were in the south north Carolina especially . Um And they're formed mostly by escaped slaves . Um And they're they're not really given many um I would say combat roles right there , they're doing a lot of support stuff early . Um there's another unit formed in Louisiana . Um but by a spring of 1863 , um there's the US Army is starting to form Volunteer regiments throughout the the US territories , famously the , you know , the 54th Massachusetts for example is a very famous one . Um they're recruited locally again , most of the people who serve in them , depending on where it is the are either escaped slaves , former slaves living in northern territory or people who are who are born free . The 54th Massachusetts actually um was raised mostly in and around Boston . So a lot of those people who served in that were actually freed men , a lot of them from birth . Um and the and there was various ways they were they were raised Frederick Douglass was a very famous um kind of recruiter in in the Massachusetts area . His son actually served in the 54th . Um and they're commanded by during the civil war , white officers . Uh they are and they eventually allowed N . C . O . S . To come from the ranks , but the officers who led these units were were white . Um And by the end of the war there were about 100 and 75 all black regiments in the what was what was then known as the U . S . Colored troops . Um They're about 100 75 regiments by the war's end , which is almost close to 180,000 soldiers . And when you look at the , when the war ends in 18 65 if you look at that 180 that's about 1/10 of the entire uh manpower in the U . S . Army at the time . So they will have a significant impact and they and they will serve in a variety of roles early on . They're kind of unfortunately mitigated to labor intensive roles . The idea that a lot of people had was they would serve doing building fortifications , doing the manual labor to free up White units to go and fight on the line . That's going to change a little bit later . By the end of 1863 , uh these units are finding themselves doing a wide variety of things , including some including combat support a little bit everything . Alright . And then you mentioned the 54th Massachusetts and uh so for them , they did get involved in some some combat . Um and uh it was July of 63 , Union forces are attacking fort Wagner again in south Carolina . Um And it's significant because this this attack was led by the 54th massachusetts . So , can you describe that battle ? Um and uh the role the 54th played and the overall significance of that ? Sure . So so Fort Wagner was located in uh just south of charleston harbor . Uh And it and it defended Morris Island and this was part of the at the time , the U . S . Army strategy of of not only you know , defeating armies , but of course capturing , as I kind of mentioned , these coastal positions and then having coast harvest move inland . So charleston harbor was a was a key kind of strategic point that the U . S army is trying to capture . And Fort Wagner is the major impediment to that . Fort Wagner is fairly formidable . It's it's mostly sand based uh walls and parapets um making bombardment much less successful . If you know , these projectiles are landing in in dense sand , they're not doing a lot of damage . So it's a very affordable position . Um They there's an attempt to capture it earlier in july of 18 63 that fails . So the kind of famous Battle of Fort Wagner , the one that a lot of people think about um on 18 july 18 63 is actually the second attempt that month . Um So this is again , you think timing , this is two days after the end of the draft riots . Right . Um It's only a couple of weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg . And yes , as you mentioned , the 54th massachusetts commanded by Colonel robert Gould Shaw . Uh , that is the unit that is going to lead the assault . Um , it's kind of immortalized in the movie glory . I think a lot of people probably in the film . Yeah . And it's , there's some issues with the way the battle is portrayed in the film , particularly that it kind of makes it look like the 54th was on its own . Um , and while it's spearheaded the attack , it was supported by , there were nine regiments in total . Um , effectively there were two brigades that were involved . The first brigade was commanded by General George , Crockett strong and that's the brigade that included the 54th . Um , The other brigade was commanded by Colonel Heldman Putnam . Um , and that that includes the seventh , new Hampshire and uh six second Ohio 16th Ohio . So there's , and and a few others . Um , so these are , It's , it's a massive attack . It's two brigades , as I said , about nine regiments that are going in , but the 54th is kind of in the center there leading their leading the assault and in order to , to capture the forts , there's , it's sort of a joint operation as well . There's a naval component to this . Um , there are monitor class naval ships that are , that are attempting to bombard the fort from the sea . Uh , and that is largely ineffective . I kind of mentioned before that , that the design of the four makes kind of the sea bombardment kind of we and , and , and part of the another problem was it was very difficult to get land based artillery into a good position to attack the ford because of the approach , the sandy beaches , everything else . So it's really the Navy is providing the artillery support here . Um , in order for the attack to work the 54th actually needs to advance beyond a defensive position and then kind of pivot and work its way in . And so there's again , there's , there's nine regiments , they're all moving in different directions . They're all trying to to kind of converge from different points . Um , and what's gonna end up happening is the they attack at dusk and as they get within a few 100 yards , the they come under heavy fire . So there's a kind of a period where they basically say , okay , we're gonna have to cross over a moat and then we're gonna take and we're going to wait until darkness sets in and make and make our final assault then , um , which didn't have to wait too long . But when they finally do make the assaults , they get within a few 100 yards , they actually get across onto one of the parapets . And that's just when they're , they're basically the attack is repulsed . The 54th is going to suffer out of 600 men in the regiment . They're going to suffer about 270 casualties . So that's a that's of course killed , wounded and missing . Um Including Colonel Shaw who was killed in the attack . Uh Frederick Douglass's son , who I mentioned he survives . Um And there's it's it's kind of portrayed again in the film as though they were completely wiped out . They weren't but they did suffer heavy casualties and they weren't the only ones uh in the total attack that day , there were over 1500 combined U . S . Army casualties and as I mentioned , 270 from that regiment alone of the regiments that were involved though the 54th suffered percentage wise , the worst of it . Um And that's basically kind of how it ends , how the battle of Fort Wagner ended after the next couple of days , the U . S . Army realizes they're not going to capture the fourth this way they retreat um In the next few months they lay siege and by by september of 18 63 the confederate defenders of the ford just decide to evacuate . Okay , so eventually it it goes into union hands , it does , it it falls and kind of literally falls . I mean it's no longer the actually original forts kind of just eventually impediment to the Union and and by that point by september of 18 63 The U . S . Has made some other inroads to so defend kind of holding out on Morris island , holding out in a position no longer was tenable for the confederacy . So it just kind of falls away and um the the success um or I should say the actions of 54th did that help change people's view of the black soldiers in that time ? It certainly did for the army . Um It showcased to the two army commanders that yes , these soldiers could fight that . There was of course racism at the time made a lot of people think that they that you know black people were just inherently incapable . Um This show that that was not the case and that they were just as capable as as white soldiers and there will be some , you know , some heroics that come out of it . Uh William Carney is one of the I don't want to say first because he will receive his medal of honor later in life , but it's the earliest action of in the United States military of a black man receiving the medal of honor . Um And so there's a lot of heroics that take place and of course the the unit will gain fame and then as I mentioned earlier as the war goes on , uh the kind of hesitancy to use black soldiers in combat . It's still there but it wayne's a bit but it's certainly still there . Alright well let's shift focus now out west . So talk about the battle of Chickamauga . My pronouncing that right Chickamauga and that took place in september of 63 . So uh talk about the two sides who was in charge and what happened . Yeah , so at that time uh Chickamauga Braxton Bragg , General Braxton Bragg is in charge of the confederate uh army of Tennessee and the U . S . Army of the Cumberland is under command of Major General uh William S Rosecrans , Rosecrans and he manages to capture Chattanooga with without much of a fight and then proceeds to move into Georgia . And his goal is to push from Chattanooga Tennessee into Georgia and eventually make inroads there . Uh His army is arrayed in a way that his it's almost a long line . He Rosenkranz himself is in the I guess you call the front of that line which in effect is the left flank of if you were to look at a map and you sort of see the army stretched out , he's in the front , but if you were to look at it from the side , that would be the left flank in a sense . And General Bragg wants to basically catch them as they move and he wants to attack them in piecemeal . So what he does is he is going to in september uh is attack the left flank of this moving column and it's initially kind of repulsed brags . Initial attack it catches the U . S . Troops a little bit off guard but they're able to to retreat a bit reform a good a good line and if you were to look at it in the military situation , it would look pretty pretty straightforward . There are two lines . Um Rosecrans though is convinced that there's a gap in the line . So he's at this point again , he's on what would be the left flame in his own line ? In his own line . Yeah , so he believes there's a , that there's a gap sort of to the right . So he is going to rearrange his force and move soldiers to fill that gap . Well there wasn't a gap . What he actually does is creates a gap . So he basically gave brag brag needed Bragg then attacks and he exploits The now created gap forcing kind of 2/3 of the of Rosecrans Army to begin to retreat . Um it's the one holdout is the center . Um And this is under , this is where general Major General George thomas , his core is holding out in the center and they're going to basically basically withstand the assault . The problem with that is it creates a salient um effectively a bubble as the two left and right keep falling back . Rosa thomas kind of stays firm . This is where he'll earn the nickname the rock of Chickamauga . Um but it allows him to be attacked then from from all sides and he eventually has to fall back as well . What that does though is is thomas's stand gives the US army forces enough time to basically fall back into sort of a more um sort of a more , what's the word I'm thinking of not uh like a standard formation . Yeah more yeah just not , you know kind of fall back kind of organized um and they will fall back into Chattanooga . And of course again the stand also helps too wear down the confederate soldiers . So they're not able to kind of give the final assault that Bragg was hoping for and instead they're going to resort to a siege . So now the , so now Rosecrans and his army is held up in Chattanooga and there and the confederates are surrounding them on three sides from heights , particularly Missionary Ridge lookout Mountain . Um So very formidable and they are able to cut off Rosecrans from the outside . Uh He kind of falls apart there . Um President Lincoln will will basically say that he was acting like a duck hit on the head . Um basically the idea that some have put forward is that he was suffering from some sort of ptsd or shell shock or just completely complete loss of confidence . Um luckily for the U . S . Forces , their help was on the way . Um General Grant had already dispatched one of his chief and most trusted subordinates , William Sherman , who had his army of the Tennessee . Uh He had already dispatched him to Chattanooga to attempt to reinforce Rosencrantz and Secretary of war . Edwin Stanton had detached General , Major General joseph Hooker's corps from the army of potomac earlier too Move uh move out that way and he has about 20,000 soldiers with him and he's also moving in the direction of Chattanooga . So there is help on the way . But if you looked at the situation in late September 1862 , it doesn't really look good . Um 63 63 . Excuse me , 63 yeah . Uh on on september 29th , that is when Edwin Stanton sends Grant , he's created this new department of the Mississippi and he sends Grant . He says you are now in command of this entire department , which of course is going to include Rosecrans army of the Cumberland . Uh So Grant is going to go to Chattanooga ? He takes overall command . He replaces Rosecrans with George thomas . The old rock of Chickamauga is now in command of the army of the Cumberland . And so he has effectively under his command now at Chattanooga . Um you could call it three armies . He has Sherman's army of the Tennessee which had come in . He has now thomas's army of the Cumberland . And he has joseph Hooker's uh 20,000 soldiers who are also in route who are also there . So now in command . Um what's Grant's strategy , What's his next plan ? So his first , his first kind of , the point is to get supplies in there being starved out . He needs food . Um he needs food for his soldiers and for their animals . So he looks to the to Brigadier general William f known as baldi smith . Um smith was a West Point graduate . He kind of career soldier graduated fourth of his fourth in his class in 18 41 . Um Engineer by trade at least by military trade . And he's the chief engineer of what was the army of the Cumberland or what of the army ? The Cumberland but now under Grant's command and he proposes this concept of we can open supplies from a different angle . And what's gonna need is if we can basically move some soldiers out of Chattanooga and get on one side of the river cross over the other because hooker soldiers are coming from that direction . Hookers to core coming from that direction , we can link up with them and kind of create and then kind of rather than trying to get supplies in the more conventional way which is coming under attack by the confederates who have cut rail lines and everything else , we can bring them in from effectively south in this sense because it's coming from from joseph Hooker's line . So and this is a great uh complete success . They there's um they open this line up , there's a few kind of short small battles , some skirmishes but they're able to open the line . And so basically by october while the confederates still have the high ground and they still have these imposing positions , they're no longer starving the U . S . Troops out . And so they're able to resupply . Um And Grant has this intention of breaking out and not only and he doesn't want to retreat from Chattanooga , he wants to break out and push the confederates back into Georgia . Um The confederate army is reinforced as well . Uh The confederate government had dispatched from the army of northern Virginia . James Longstreet score to support Braxton , Bragg , Bragg and Longstreet hate each other is sort of , is putting it mildly . I guess they really did not get along . Um And there's this debate about about who's really in command and so do not get into all the detail . Longstreet leaves Longstreet with his army , but he goes towards Nashville where um General U . S . Army , General Ambrose Burnside has his army there . Um And the idea is that if the thinking goes that if he dispatches Longstreet , if Bragg sends Longstreet to attack Nashville , that might force Grant to abandon Chattanooga , or it would or could if they capture Nashville , then that would completely change the situation . Um That of course just does not work . Um It completely fails . But excuse me , Knoxville , not Nashville um Knoxville Tennessee . And in any event it doesn't work . It fails , but Bragg is not too upset about that because he's now rid himself of what he sees as an impediment in James Longstreet . Uh The end of november november 24th and 25th is when Grant makes his move . Uh and he envisions sort of a dual flanking attack with Sherman's army attacking on what would be the confederate left at Missionary Ridge and Hooker's corps attacking on Lookout Mountain and there's some logistical problems effectively , Sherman's soldiers attack the wrong hill . Uh Their maps weren't very accurate and they end up attacking a hill that's undefended and realize and realize that's not the right ridge . Um and so that kind of delays things a little bit , at least on Sherman side . But Hooker actually achieves some great success in moving his soldiers up and and what was supposed to be kind of a diversionary tactic on Lookout Mountain actually becomes a great um success story for the army at the time , they forced the confederate defenders off and and now they control the highest point . Um On the 25th , Grant pushes the battle more . He tells Sherman to continue the attack . Sherman gets bogged down . Um It's very difficult taking Missionary Ridge , he's getting , it's he's not moving as quickly as or as he's not advancing as quickly as he'd hoped . Um So Grant orders , General thomas and his army in the center of the Cumberland in the center to begin attacking the confederate center at the base of the ridge and there's effectively confederate entrenchment there and then artillery on the top of the ridge . What ends up happening is thomas's troops advanced pretty successfully and they capture these trenches and force the confederates up and then they realize of their own sort of accord were in a really bad position now because the confederate artillery can just shoot down on us . So kind of without orders from thomas , they continue their advance because they realize there's two things we can do , we can stay here and get get bombarded by this artillery pummeled or we can retreat back and that's not gonna , that's why would we have fought for this ground if we're just gonna retreat back ? So they continue to fight up and Grant immediately is sort of like , what are they doing ? I didn't order that and thomas like I didn't order it either , but it they advance with with yeah , and they and they managed to get up and they divide the confederate Uh defenders in two , they capture the center . Um that's gonna of course shift things which is gonna allow Sherman's army to kind of come through . And then uh the next on November 26 , Bragg retreats from from Chattanooga . And it's it's a resounding victory for for grant and Sherman and Thomas . Um it's not without its Costs though , the us is going to suffer about 50,800 casualties , um about 750 killed , 40 700 or so wounded . That's out of about 56,000 engaged . The confederate casualties are are higher . There about 60 600 um with about 36 360 killed and about 2100 or so wounded . Um And that's out of about 44,000 engaged . So it's a it's a costly defeat for Braxton Bragg's army and it's a it's a great victory for Grant's army . Um The issue is going to be similar to what what meat faced in Gettysburg is the follow up and it's after a battle like that after this long slog and as the enemy is retreating , how vigorously do you pursue them ? And just for the sake of reality , it's like you can't , you need time to regroup and Grant finds that out , there's a pursuit but it's not really , it's , they chase basically brag deeper into Georgia , but there's not that great follow up where they destroy the , so so Bragg will be replaced . Um command . He will lose his command after this . But uh if you look at the strategic situation , Chattanooga great victory for the U . S . Army . But again by the , by november of 18 63 by december of 18 63 . Uh there are still some , there's still a lot of work to be done because Chattanooga is a major transportation hub . It is and it was known as , Yeah , the basically the gateway to the south , it's a major transportation hub , rivers , rail lines . Um and so it's going to become a major base of operations that the U . S . Army is going to use to launch its subsequent invasions of the south because that's a a place where they can stockpile prepare , move people , people , material , food , everything in there and then launch operations from there . What happened to Longstreet , So so long streets going to eventually find his way back to the army of Northern Virginia , his he will return , um , which is kind of the intention the entire time . It was never that he was going to stay with with the army of Tennessee . He was going to return to the army northern Virginia . He was just kind of sent his way to , to help brag of course takes us a slight against him . Um , but yeah , by the time 18 64 rolls around , Longstreet is back with the army of northern Virginia as general lee's kind of right hand man . So now after the success at Chattanooga Lincoln um , as he has this revolving door of , of commanders of the union , uh , he makes another overall change in Union command . So who does he put in ? And how does it work out ? So yeah , it's up to this point , Lincoln's major frustration has been with army commanders . Uh , going from McClellan through um , you know , there was Mcclelland , then there was burnside and there was a hooker McClellan , I mean , just kept going around until finally meet , but that these were , these were army commanders , right ? These are commanders of the army , the potomac . Um , and then there was , there were some similar reshuffling with armies in the west . Uh , General Henry Halleck was in charge for a while . They're replaced by Grant that halak , um , and part of the stem from the actual army organization at the time , what was allowed congressional e and and and there wasn't an authorization for a general officer position above Major General . And if you kind of think about what that means is that a lot of these commanders , whether they're army commanders , division commanders , corps commanders , they all carry the same rank and sometimes we're talking days or two where there that separates one from the other . And so there's there's a natural inclination there for some some combativeness . Earlier in the war , Lincoln had attempted to make George McClellan overall commander of all U . Of all the U . S . Army . Um He stayed in the east and he didn't really have a lot of care concerns about the Western theater . Um After after the after the seven days battles in in Richmond , he changes that . Um What he does with link with General Grant is he says I'm going to nominate you for a third star and I'm gonna put you in command as general in chief of the army . So in control of the entire U . S . Army . General Halleck earlier had kind of been promoted to like a version of chief of staff but really only had administrative control . This puts General Grant in command of the entire U . S . Army . He chooses to stay in the east and oversee the army . The potomac , but he is now devising strategy . He's now devising plans and he is now overall commander . And you mentioned now with his absence from the west , he puts chairman , right ? He puts Sherman in charge there . He's gonna put Sherman in charge of the Western armies . Uh And so he's sort of his his main subordinates number two . Uh And as I kind of mentioned , Grant is he's going to choose to accompany the army , the potomac , but he leaves the army commanders in command . So George Meade remains in command of the army of potomac . Grant is just along with them , but he's devising the overall strategy um for the entire Union Army , not just the potomac . Right ? And he's gonna have some meetings with with Sherman and and with um President Lincoln . Um and they're going to kind of come up with , here's our approach to to finally ending this thing matt . Is there anything else that that you want to cover that we didn't bring up ? I think that's about about it . I think for all right , well , good then , because now we get to my favorite part we're going to talk about some who trivia . So , um , you know , a little piece of um exciting interesting trivia about this time period . So , do you have anything to share ? You know , I was trying to think of a good one . And uh , I was just for some reason , army medical stuff has been in my head recently . Um So I don't know if it's exciting or fun , but uh , I think it's very interesting , is , is one of the big misconception conceptions about Civil war medicine and civil war medical treatment is . This idea that , you know the soldiers , if you're wounded at all , your these butcher doctors are gonna come cut your , you know , amputate your limb off and there's no uh no anesthesia , everything like that . Um And that's really not not true actually , about 90 , I think 95% of civil war operations were conducted with some sort of an anesthesia um whether it was usually either , but so there , so the kind of um actually actually run was usually rum and whiskey was either given after , but it really wasn't , wasn't uh the main one , it was usually ether or chloroform and um yeah , so the Hollywood image of the , you know , bite the bullet and and the awake amputation just really isn't isn't accurate . And uh and really these doctors had come to a , you know , the reason they did amputations so freely was not because they didn't know any better . It was because that was they understood that these these soft lead bullets could would shatter bone and and lead to a lot of subsequent infections . So the best way to actually save a life and prevent subsequent infection was if someone shot in a limb usually amputation , but so it's so a lot of , so there's a lot of misconceptions out there , I'm glad you clear that up because they're , you know , from what a lot of people know today from movies , uh tv uh you know , those images are out there . Yeah and they make a big deal about that . What's interesting too . So no I think that's that's a great point and I'm glad we were able to clear that up . Um but in a lot of our army museums um one of one of the things I find fascinating are the medical kits uh throughout the years . But to see I know in our new national museum the U . S . Army they have a great display of the medical kits from each era but the Civil War one , it's just scary to look with the bone saw and uh so pretty interesting . Well cool . Well thank you so much matt for your discussion and insights today about the Civil war years of 18 63 and 18 64 . And if anyone wants to learn more about the Civil war and learn more about army history in general that I encourage you to explore our website at history dot army dot mil . We have a great pamphlet series called the U . S . Army campaigns of the civil war . They are available as free pdf download . So check them out and if you want to experience army history every day and visit our social media sites on facebook twitter and instagram and please join us every week on this podcast for more in depth discussions as we cover topics from all eras of the US army history . Thanks for joining us today on the United States Army history and Heritage podcast for the Center of Military History . I'm lee Reynolds and until next time we're history . The views expressed in this podcast reflect those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views , policies or opinions of the US Army or Department of Defense . For more information about the Army's proud history and heritage , go to history dot army dot mil . Mhm .