With General Grant now in command of Union Forces in March 1864 . What was his strategy to win the war ? What happened at the Battle of fort pillow and how did the wilderness campaign support Grant strategy 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 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 five of the seven part series on the Civil war . I'm speaking with CMH historian Dr Matt Marge's Welcome mat and thanks for joining me again . Thanks for being here again . So a little bit of background on Dr Marge's . 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 C . M . H . 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 . And he's currently converting that dissertation into a manuscript for publication . Dr Marcus 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 an Army University Press volume on large scale combat operations and uh matt , what am I missing ? Yeah , I think he had a lot of it again . Uh I'll just do another shameless plug for the annual Department of the Army historical summary that we over an FPs put together every year . That covers as I mentioned last time it covers the headquarters Department of the Army activities for one fiscal year . And so we just released fy 20 hoping to get fy 2021 out by the end of this year and then we will start working on 22 . Great . And that those publications that assam's as we call them . What Department of the army summary , department , historical historical summary and those and all of our publications are available from our website for free downloads at history dot army dot mil . Alright , matt . So let's let's let's get into this . So , um let's start off with an overview of the strategic situation we are now um in March of 18 64 . General Grant is the Union Commander . So describe how the Union Army is , is a raid and what Grant strategy is . So yeah . General Grant . Lieutenant General now Lieutenant General ulysses ? S Grant first Lieutenant General in the army , is it first since George Washington Washington Winfield scott held that rank as a brevity but was never officially confirmed as it . So first since George Washington and he is in overall command of the entire U . S . Army . Um He is going to leave General Henry Halleck in Washington D . C . To kind of oversee the administrative elements of managing the force um kind of similar to a chief of staff but not a direct parallel . Um And what he has basically done is he is looking at the final strategy to win that he thinks will win the war . Um And General Grant had this ability that a lot of his contemporaries didn't necessarily have that we would today consider strategic thinking or um but if you'd have asked somebody in 1864 about strategy , they would really define operations . They would be defining a campaign , they would be defining a theater . Most of most of them couldn't think or didn't think they weren't trained that way to see things from very umbrella kind of strategic mindset . Um General Grant did , I think it was just through , he learned it as time went on . It's not something that he was innately born with but he could sort of see a big picture on how to finally defeat the confederacy and his goal here was to basically run multiple operations aimed at different objectives with the ultimate goal of convergence . So that meaning that he was going to accompany the army , the potomac as it moved south towards Richmond . Then he would have his kind of next , his , his first subordinate Major General William Sherman lead his armies in the Western theater towards Atlanta , eventually capturing Atlanta . And then with the goal of then moving up from Atlanta to converge and meet his army somewhere around Richmond unless he could capture Richmond first . Uh , and there were also subsequent operations that don't get as much kind of publicity , uh , naval operations up along along the coast operations in the , in the week , in sort of the transmitter city theater . So sort of Louisiana , texas . Um , and then some other , you know , middle , you know , continued operations in Tennessee , things like that . But he sort of saw this as a way of having multiple large formations running simultaneous operations towards a common goal . Yeah . And , and that makes sense . I think , you know , um , from the beginning of the war with Operation anaconda , I think that's the last time we saw a major strategy to win the war . And what's really interesting is looking at , yeah , General Winfield scott's , uh , and a kind of plan as it was so called . It's very similar to what Grant came up with . But of course scott people at the time , especially General George McClellan . Major General McClellan saw him as an old man as an impediment to his own advancement . And it was kind of pooh poohed . It's like , no , this isn't gonna take that . You're talking about a naval blockade and you're talking about all these different things . This is , this is the war will be over in a few months . All we need to do is defeat this army and capture Richmond and it's over . Um , and it was a very european style of it was , it was a very 19th century mindset . And so in an interesting way , what Grant kind of devices is very similar to what general scott had sort of envisioned four years earlier . Um , but was somewhat dismissed . Alright , so good . So we understand what the strategy is moving forward . So how does he start implementing that ? Yeah . So he's gonna , and we'll talk more in detail about these . But basically in spring of 1860 for once the campaign , you know , at the campaign season can begin winter freezes . Have have thought , uh , weather is getting a little more conducive to large scale movements . He's going to launch his sub his simultaneous operations . He's gonna have General Sherman begin his march from Chattanooga towards Atlanta . And he's going to push from uh , the army of potomac fortifications towards Richmond , which will eventually be become his over land campaign and then , which will settle into the siege of Petersburg . Alright . And then while this was going on , there was a battle at fort pillow . So describe what happened there because it's , it's significant in on for different reasons . But um and talk about that and how did it affect the morale in the Union Army especially among black soldiers . So yeah Fort pillow was one of those infamous situations uh Sometimes often referred to this as the massacre at Fort pillow uh april 12th 18 64 . So about a month before uh grants going to launch his his over land campaign . Um Confederate General Nathan Bedford forrest is launching a series of raids in and around Tennessee . Uh And these raids are not necessarily designed to defeat a major army . They're basically designed to disrupt union operate U . S . Army operations . And Fort pillow is one of these locations in Tennessee . It changed hands multiple times throughout the war . The most recent one was in um Late 1863 . The US Army had recaptured Fort Pillow and had held it since then . The garrison there was not very large . Um But about half of the soldiers there were of a U . S . Colored troops regiment . So it was about about half of the defenders at Fort pillow were uh were black soldiers . Um Forests cavalry . Um is very large cavalry force almost effectively an army in a sense um will attack Fort pillow on april 12th 18 64 and they successfully recaptured four . Um The defenders weren't in the best position , they didn't really manage it well they left some barracks as they kinda had to move some things around . They didn't destroy barracks which gave the confederates basically buildings to use as their own defensive posture . But in any event , what's gonna end up happening is there's some confusion or some debate as to what actually happened whether or not the US garrison officially surrenders or they don't , but whatever the case was , there is a slaughter um especially among the black soldiers . And was this after they surrendered ? That's that's where the debate is , whether or not they officially surrendered , but either way , had they not ? Um Most people agree , most historians agree that they had either officially surrendered or were in the act of surrendering , laying down their arms , basically saying this is no longer tenable . Um , when , when they're , they're effectively bayoneted . Uh , no quarter shown um , killed very , very brutally . Uh , and specifically the black soldiers . Yes . And forest later on is going to claim that he gave no such order but knowing his personality , whether or not he explicitly said to do that , it was probably a standing , just sort of standard standing practice in his , in his army . Um , and what wasn't there a an announcement made at some point that any black soldiers found in , would would be summarily executed ? There was , and the confederate government had effectively said that uh , and that they would , they would show , Well actually was mostly that confederate or that black soldiers could be returned to a state of servitude slavery and it was their white officers any white officer who was found would be um could be executed . Um And fort pillow is going to be a rallying cry , There's gonna be a remember Fort pillow among the union , the Union army , the U . S . Army and its there's gonna be some repercussions of this policy going forward . Not only of fort pillow specifically but the overall confederate mentality of not treating black prisoners as prisoners of war . Um And that's going to lead to General Grant now in command of all U . S . Army forces saying the exchange program that we have been operating under for this entire war is suspended until the confederate government starts treating black soldiers like what is that exchange program . So effectively it was a way of you would parole officers and this goes back , this is an old practice that had gone back centuries in in western armies where you could parole officers And you would hold captured prisoners as prisoners until you would exchange them usually for enlisted soldiers . On almost a 1-1 basis for uh other your own prisoners . The idea being they were supposed to swear an oath that they wouldn't return to duty a lot did of course . Um but it was it was a way of not having to care for large swaths of men . Um because these these the infrastructure usually wasn't there . And and of course the downside of this policy that is going to be implemented is the reason places like Andersonville prison Libby prison . Uh and then even even Douglas prison in Chicago for confederate prisoners . Um The reason a lot of those sprung up was from this policy because prior to 18 60 late 18 63 18 64 there was no need for large standing prison structures for huge groups of P . O . W . S . Because they were often exchanged or exchanged relatively quickly . Um That's gonna change after this . And so forth , pillow was not necessarily the cause of that , but it was part of uh I guess you could say a symptom of the different policies that were in place , especially the confederate policy of treating these people as slaves effectively . Alright , so um now back to uh , to Grant and his strategy . Uh his , what was his goal of , you mentioned the overland campaign , is that the same as the wilderness campaign . Wilderness . The Battle of Wilderness is the first kind of battle in the overland campaign . So what were the key battle ? What well , first described the uh strategy um of that campaign ? And what were the key battles in it ? So grants basically his goal with the campaign is to move towards Richmond . Uh and he is going to try to do it in the quickest and most direct way , which takes , which basically goes through the old Chancellorsville battlefield , the old fredericksburg battlefield and then works its way south . His and there's a lot of enthusiasm in the army of the potomac . Again , he's , he's overseeing the entire force , but he's with the army of the potomac . So he's accompanying the army of the potomac as well as um , Ambrose Burnside , uh , ninth Corps , um , this is going to lead to some command confusion because Burnside and meat are technically the same rank . Burnside technically outranks mead . Um , he's in command of a corps . Meade's in command of an army . Grant is there and , and Grant can of course give orders to both , but Burnside doesn't want to take orders from mead . So there's some , there's command confusion a bit , but the basic , but the basic approaches , yeah , they're gonna move on on Richmond . Meanwhile , as I mentioned earlier , William Sherman's army is moving towards Atlanta . And the battles that ensue are due to , as we , another kind of old adage of , you know , a battle plan only survives till the first shot . Right ? So a lot of what's going to ensue in the overland campaign is in a , in response to the confederate reactions to Grant actions . But in , in May of 18 64 there's a lot of enthusiasm among the soldiers in the east . They think we finally , you know , this guy who doesn't look like we're used to , he's wearing a slouch hat and a uniform and he's only about five ft 735 £140 . It's very slight guy with a , you know , kind of raggedy beard , but he's a , he's one battle . So there's this thought that this is finally what we're going to need to defeat robert e lee's seemingly impregnable or invincible army of northern Virginia . Um and there's gonna be a wake up call there during the overland campaign . Uh Grand strategy is ultimately successful , but the overland campaign itself becomes a slog . Um So the first battle is known as the battle , the wilderness , which again , it's it's in the same place , same battlefield as as Chancellorsville . So these are , in some cases , there are soldiers in , in like Governor warrants core , for example , who are in the same position that they were in two years earlier . Uh there are in cases , you know , shallow graves that are being turned up after seasonal rains and they're seeing soldiers that they had actually served with two years ago from their same units in some cases , same divisions that had been buried in shallow graves before . So it's it's a very ominous feeling and if ever if you ever visited that battlefield , even just seeing it today , you get a sense of this is a very difficult place to operate . There are some open areas that the Chancellorsville Tavern area was open . Um but a lot of it is , would it a lot of it is dense thickets . Um but what was it ? And it was that way in the day as well . It was some of the battlefields that I've been to um it's there's a lot of trees but you know , we learned that oh those those weren't here during the , during the battle . So . Okay . Yeah it's it was it was very dense , it was very it was it was difficult to move , especially in these woods and The battles are going to start on May five , and basically for three days it's the same story over and over . It's their order to attack , they start to move , they get separated from the soldier , the regiments on their right or left because they can't see them . They come up on confederate defenders or defend . Confederate Attackers that they didn't know were there because it's so dense and then a bloody foray and then chaos and it's basically three days of that um Grant is almost Grant's army . The army of potomac is set almost two to break out . But again , another kind of confederate trick of fate trick of luck . Uh James , Longstreet soldiers who were in reserve are on their way up and they kind of arrived just in time . Um And this is just sort of what what happens ? It's it's effectively a draw . It's three days . It's very bloody but it's a draw and a lot of the soldiers even after that three days were very worn out . Um The differences and for a while this is going to be a morale boost is that after the battle of wilderness General Grant doesn't order the army , the potomac to retreat back across the river and regroup . He orders it to continue on . Um , so at that point , if you would have looked at the army , the potomac and these eastern armies on May 8th , they're excited . This is , this is great . We're actually , you know , yeah , we fought to a draw , but we , you know , we killed a lot of them too . And now we're still moving . We're still going . And is that for Grant , Is that a lesson learned from Chattanooga And what happening in Gettysburg or other battles ? I think that was just grants Way . I think at that point at this point in after the wilderness , I think that is just grant is determined . Grant is , is somewhat stubborn . Grant is , you know , he's going to follow through with his strategy and his strategy is to keep the pressure on because one of the things that grant does understand is when the wilderness begins , he has 100,000 soldiers under his command . That's almost twice as many as much as generally has . So he understands that if he just keeps the pressure on eventually , he's going to break this enemy army out . Um , what's gonna happen though is over the next couple of months , there are a series of , you really can call him setbacks . Um , because if you just , I'll kind of go through a list of some of the battles that are gonna take place , spotsylvania Courthouse 88 to 21 May , uh a cavalry battle during that time , Yellow Tavern um Cold Harbor 31 made to june 12th . Um That's one that granted his memoirs later said he regrets . Um they're eventually going across the James River . Um So these are defeats for the Union . They're really draws . So there in some cases draws in some cases you could argue their tactical defeats , um strategic victories in some sense , but they're in cases hollow victories . Um But in every instance , he just bypasses moves on . He continues to have to kind of move on . Um and continue his move south . But what's gonna end up happening is because of where these battles are fought , he can't directly go to Richmond . So he changes direction and comes south of Richmond and then wants to move up through Petersburg . Um And so he kind of has to , his direct line is cut off because lee's army is constantly basically beating him to where he wants to go . So how does that affect his line of communication , then his line of communication stays relatively open because he has access to the coast . Um But what's gonna basically be shot is his army's morale . Um Because by june they've been fighting nonstop for two or three days or two or three months . And while they communication is open . Uh the army often out marches , its food supply . Um and they're hungry . They've suffered very heavy casualties in this time . And for example , at um the famous mule shoe at spotsylvania . Um it's just a two day attack against a fortified salient . Um That that leads to heavy casualties on both sides , including um uh the corps commander in General Sedgwick , um Cold Harbor . The reason Grant says he later regrets it is he orders attacks against a well fortified confederate position that leads to thousands of casualties in a matter of an hour . Um So it's it's very , very brutal . This is where , you know , he's gonna earn the nickname , the butcher . His armies are beginning , you know , desertion levels are going up and and it's it's looking almost kind of down and and downtrodden because he's , yes , he's continued to advance , but at what cost . Um and I mean he's lost at this point . If you just look at the official records of casualties and I have it written down here , so I don't get it quite wrong here , but um there are 54,000 , almost 55,000 casualties in Grant's forces . That's including of course that's killed , wounded and missing . Um But we're talking about almost almost 8000 killed and another almost 40,000 that are gonna be wounded and a lot of them are gonna return to duty , but out of his 120,000 or so soldiers , 56,000 casualties . 55,000 casualties is heavy , heavy toll . And um You compare that to the confederate casualties of about 32,000 . Now , the big difference is Grant does have the ability to replenish that where lee's army does not . Um , and if you look at compare , if you look at percentages , lee actually suffers a heavier percentage of casualties , but to the soldiers in the field , that doesn't really , that doesn't matter as much right . Um , and so by the time General Grant gets to Petersburg , he's hoping for one last sort of sort of victory . And I mentioned in the last session , General William , baldi smith , He was the engineer who opened the cracker line of Chattanooga . Now he's a corps commander . Um , and he is part of General Benjamin Butler's army , the James , which is kind of down by Fort Monroe and his core was detached from the army of the James to assist Grants forces as they advanced south . And he was kind of , he's ordered to attack Petersburg . Uh , and when he attacks Petersburg , the only defenders , there are a handful of confederate soldiers and he really has , if he would have continued his attack in , there's a chance he could have actually opened Petersburg before the army . The potomac arrived , but he was , he was very afraid that lee's army was like right there and it wasn't , but he thought it was right there . So he kind of hesitates . He kind of goes into defensive mode . General Grant's not too happy about that when he arrives , he's going to launch an attack . But again , by that time , by the time that Grant gets to Petersburg , his soldiers are pretty fought out . So he decides to lay siege , which um in a lot of ways actually revitalizes the army . So they're laying siege to Petersburg . And then we have uh Battle of the Crater . Something I always found fascinating what what what was that at Petersburg and describe what happened there . That is , so that's during the siege and it's in um which last the siege from Petersburg is going to last from june of 18 64 and it will be eventually uh they'll they'll break through and and the siege in in March of 18 65 . So it's it's a long time , long time . Um And yeah , the Battle of the crater is an interesting one . It was a gamble . Um basically there was some a regiment of soldiers that were comprised of a lot of former miners um and they came up with a plan , they said that we could tunnel under the confederates , put a lot of dynamite , a lot of dynamite under it , blow it up , it would blow up a defensive force that was directly above it , allowing us to break through the line and potentially get in . Um And it was a gamble And Grant though decides to give it a shot . He had tried something similar at Vicksburg at a much smaller scale . Um But he he looks to General Burnside ninth Corps and I kind of remember I kind of mentioned earlier that there's this command confusion issue . Um But he could he confers with General Meade and they decide that they'll give this to General Burnside . General Burnside has um a couple divisions in his core . One of them is a U . S . Colored troops division that's under the command of Brigadier General Edward Ferrero , that's the division that he says is going to do this , we're going we're going to blow up the crater or blow up the mine basically . And then you're this this black division all black soldier division is going to lead the attack . And they go through this extensive training period of how are they going to do this ? And they come up with this way of they're going to split up , they're gonna go to each side of the now huge hole in the ground , they're not gonna go in it , they're gonna go around it . Um They have kind of ladders that they're gonna use to to scale their different things . They come with this very very well planned out , very elaborate uh attempt . Um And we don't unfortunately get to know how it played out because on the eve of the attack , General Meade is very concerned that this could turn out very poorly if these black soldiers lead this attack one , what if it fails and then the U . S . Colored troops are again only reinforces the negative stereotypes that existed to what if they're captured and we have another fort pillow or three . This is more cynical maybe . And whether or not meat actually thought this is what if they succeed and they break through where the others didn't . Um But they confer with , he confers with General Grant again meet can't technically order burnside to not do this . But he confers with General Grant and Grant most likely out of fear of if it fails . What's that gonna mean for the overall view of the U . S . Colored troops ? Um He agrees and at the last minute a white division under the command of Brigadier General James Ledley who some reports indicated that he was drunk during the attack that he that he did not think there was any chance of success for this . So he just sort of took to the bottle . But in any event the first part of it goes really well the the mineshaft , it does its job , it blows up and everything above it is decimated . It leaves this enormous crater in the ground that part worked . Um And the confederates there had no idea they're caught off guard . There's a there's a moment of just pure confusion on their part as you can imagine . And then the the infantry assault begins . Now the troops that had been put into that position the night before day before they had not been training for it . They didn't really know what to do . And rather than going around they run into the crater and they tried to go through the breach line , which is effectively this huge hole in the ground and of course they get stuck in it and the confederates after a few moments of confusion , regroup and then begin basically fish in a barrel type thing . And the colored troops are eventually told to go in and follow up the attack . But by this point it had devolved into just chaos because the initial plan had all had already completely fallen apart . So by the end of the battle , um it's really uh you can call it a defeat . Um It's not really defeat because in a sense , it just re establish the status quo . Uh it's but it certainly wasn't a success . Um And unfortunately the gamble didn't pay off and we'll never know what had happened had it not been for the the last minute change . It's fascinating and interesting . It's uh an imaginative um concept , but like you're saying , I just not followed through properly . So um Alright , so we've got um grants forces or you know , the army of the potomac , is that what are they calling that now ? The it's still the army , the potomac . And there's also like said Burnside score and in the army of the James is in Virginia as well . Under General Benjamin Butler . Uhm So they're laying siege to Petersburg basically . Um But now what's happening out west now we've got General Sherman is now in command . So what's his plan and what actions is he taking ? So at the same time that in early May that Grant launches his over land campaign . General Sherman breaks out from , from Chattanooga . And General Sherman . He has , he's in , he's commanding the military division of the Mississippi , which so he has basically three armies under him as well as a handful of other core here and there . But the three armies under him are are the army of the Cumberland under command . Since Chattanooga of Major General George thomas , he has the army of the Tennessee under command of General Major General James B . Mcpherson and then he has the army of Ohio under the command of Major General john scofield . Um and Sherman's approaches to move on to Atlanta in this , in this case . Um , and the , the issue that was holding the armies back before this was , how do you supply ? How do you keep this ? Because the farther you get from Chattanooga , the deeper you get into the south , the farther away you are from your supply lines . How do you keep the army fed ? And Sherman decides he's going to kind of take his own gamble and live off the land . Um , He's going to spread his armies into three separate columns . Um , and he's gonna have , he's going to give orders that they're going to send out foragers every day . Um and his view is it's time to punish the south and they , they are the reason for this war , I want to end this war and you know it's time to you live off the land . Um There's a lot of myths and a lot of mis perceptions of what Sherman actually does . There's all these you know that gone with the wind , only burns farms that really didn't happen . Um Typically fires that were set were either set by retreating confederates or the people who owned the farms themselves who didn't to prevent them from falling into U . S . Hands . Um So so the kind of the atrocities that are often attributed Sherman just our myths didn't happen but he does live off the land . He sometimes he will actually pay people some of them for they weren't just taking the animals they often did but and sometimes the pay was useless in some cases but but he was um but yeah there was , you're gonna find your own animals , you're gonna find food you're gonna find for it . You're gonna go through um if there's a farmhouse and they have stocks of grain , we're gonna take what we need . Um And that's how he's going to feed his his armies and he's gonna move them through the deep south through Georgia towards Atlanta . Um And he's gonna do it in a way where he's trying to outmaneuver the other armies . I mentioned the last time we talked about general Bragg being in charge um in the confederate forces there . He's been replaced now by general joseph johnston . Um And so for a lot of this campaign it's Sherman and johnston johnston eventually be replaced as well . But um he's just trying to outmaneuver there are a handful of skirmishes , there's a handful of small battles but Sherman is really just trying to do as much damage as he can without a large pitched battle . He's really taking to heart the kind of the old , you know art of war . Adage of you know , maneuver is how you win . Um And he also thinks that if he can demoralize the confederate populace by doing this . Um And keep johnston confused as to where he's actually moving where he's going . If he's sending his three armies in different directions they know where they're going . But perhaps General johnson doesn't . And are they moving forces ? And so so he's constantly keeping him guessing , he's constantly keeping him moving . And he's trying to demoralize not only the civilian populace there but also the enemy army um as he moves towards towards Atlanta . And like I said , there's a there's a handful of battles there . Um Not many pitched battles with the exception of one which I think we'll talk about . Yeah . So let's yeah let's talk about that one uh kennesaw mountain . So um describe what happened there . Yeah so that's that's June 27 , 1860 for um and this is the one moment where Sherman sort of moves away from his personal strategy . Uh He saw an opportunity um johnston's army was effectively somewhat consolidated in this position . It's of course a as the name kind of indicated and before we get into so um where is kennesaw mountain when you consider Chattanooga and then Atlanta ? So that is it closer to Atlanta or closer to chat ? It's in Georgia , it's in Georgia and um it's one of those , I just kind of miss , it's just sort of a mistake battle . Um And Sherman , Sherman realizes it . Um but he attacks uh he launches a series of frontal assaults against a well fortified defender . Um He kind of saw it as an opportunity . He he thought , okay , if they're consolidated here again , I out out number them by a large margin . If I can get my all three of my armies here and launch coordinated attack , we can Maybe just defeat Johnston . Um it doesn't work out . It's again it's it's a series of frontal assaults . Um most repulsed a few cases of , you know , a breakthrough here and there , but mostly repulse and how long was this battle ? It was just it was just a day , it was a day fight a couple of days . I mean the campaign , you look at there's there's again there's fighting around it , but the pitch battle , the main element of it was June 27 and afterwards the confederates suffer about equal numbers of casualties , but afterwards german reverts back to his um to his strategy of maneuver . He says , I'm not doing that again . I'm going to you know this this is too costly . I don't want I don't want to risk losing so many because he still outnumbers them and he understands that but he doesn't want to risk another heavy casualty battle or series of battles where then he loses his advantage . So he wants to press the advantage that he goes back into after kennesaw mountain . His his initial sort of mindset . So does the union even take kennesaw mountain or they just bypass it ? They kinda just go around it . They sort of just he he reverts back into his maneuver he splits up and they start moving around again . Um There's no there's no real necessity to capture it if you're not if it's not worth fighting for . And so the johnston's forces who were defending Kenesaw mountain dew . Any of them stay there or do they all withdraw also they're gonna they're gonna basically go back into their their game of chase . They're gonna he's gonna pull his pull them off . They're gonna have to kind of keep trying to match Sherman move remove because he's the only thing that stands between Sherman and Atlanta effectively . Yeah aside from some militia units here there and some other small small contingents but as far as field armies he is basically the main army that's in the way right . And then so um they bypass kennesaw mountain and start heading south . All right and then in our next episode , I think we're gonna go into more details about what takes place through the battles of Atlanta and Sherman's infamous march to the sea and through the Carolinas . Um But before we wrap this up , there's something that's interesting that's also happening , we've got um Petersburg is you know , under siege . So uh generally take some other action . He uh um he sends some forces up and attacks again in Maryland . Two different battles that you know , just like to hear you talk about with the battle of Monocacy and the battle of Fort stevens . Monocacy is in Maryland , stevens is in D . C . So just talk about what happened in those and why did we do it ? Why was it important to take place ? So yeah . So lee is going to dispatch General jubal early and he is going uh for the sake of who was jubal early , he was one of his core commanders , jubal early is also the person arguably most responsible for creating the lost cause myth after the war . Um but he's going to to dispatch him to move uh down the Shenandoah valley , which means north and and up into uh to try to basically create havoc . Um also to get some some food and things from the Shenandoah for his own army but effectively create havoc for uh the the initial phase is actually to defend against Grant attempted an attack in the Shenandoah as well . So early's armies are there to defend against the attack . And that's the that's the kind of the first part of its in Lynchburg Virginia . West west Virginia I guess . Um And there's a there's a few battles there . Newmarket Piedmont . Um After those battles is when early early thinks if I can go up into Maryland once again across the potomac river get into Maryland and then move towards D . C . Grant has pulled all the Dc defenders to reinforce his army . So he's , so the thought is that D . C . Is is basically undefended and if he could move on it and attack it not really believing he could capture the city . Not really believing that he could actually end the war that way . But it might force Grant to lift the siege and and send some soldiers back up . So that's what really is going on at Monocacy and at Fort stevens . Um So early early soldiers early troops across the river . Um And they move towards Frederick Maryland , Frederick Maryland is another one of these places where it's just like wow everything happens there . You know it's just it's just outside there that on the eve of the Battle of Antietam that that the lost order is found . It's just outside Frederick and Frederick is going to become a effectively a living hospital for soldiers from for wounded soldiers from Antietam . And then later here's this battle of an oxy uh Meade's army was was at Frederick Frederick right before Gettysburg . That's where his base of operations was . On the eve of Gettysburg . So what happens in Frederick including kind of culminates in this battle of Monocacy which is fought um in july 18 64 9 july ninth and General Major General Lew Wallace is the kind of defender now . General Wallace . Um He's more famous for his post war work . He wrote Ben hur um He had been with Grant early in the war out in um during the battles of Shiloh or the battle of Shiloh . He was there and he's somewhat maybe unfairly blamed for some problems there . But after Shiloh he's kind of dismissed to to yeah you're gonna command stuff in D . C . But you're not really gonna be a real , you're going to have command but you're not going to be a combatant commander . Um But he's really all it's there . Uh And so he dispatches with only about 4000 . Um actually about 2000 men to go to Frederick to face off what is a larger force . He's outnumbered about 2 to 1 um jubal early and there's a he's basically fighting a delaying action and he realizes that he's of course going to you know their wiring Grant there's an army and there's an army 90 minutes . You know outside of D . C . In terms of not walking driving driving . But yeah there there there there you need to send send troops . Um Grant is at first sort of dismissive of this Grant sort of he's not quite sure what's really going on . He wants to be sure that this is real and it's not some kind of ploy . Um Eventually he will dispatch some soldiers there . Um But Wallace basically fights a delaying action outside men Ocracy and our outside Frederick near the moxie creek knoxy river . Um And manages to delay early soldiers by about two days . Um Wallace is eventually gonna have to retreat from the field . Wallace is eventually gonna have to bring his soldiers back to D . C . They're they're just they're outnumbered they're they're not in a very good position but he holds them off long enough that that one or two days delay is enough for those soldiers . Those few 1000 soldiers that Grant dispatched from Petersburg to arrive in Dc remand the forts . So the battle of Fort stevens is sort of that aspect of it . The forts around Dc are now reinforced . I think there's what was it 44 47 forts in total that circled the D . C . The city of D . C . At the time . Um And early is the closest early soldiers get is Fort stevens . There's a there's a sort of a minor battle there and that's on the northern edge I think of D . C sort of yeah kind of the northwestern yeah edge of D . C . Um And President Lincoln comes out to to see what's happening you know he's staying at what he called his summer White House . Um it's what about 15 miles north of actual uh the White House that far . Yeah it's because he used to travel by carriage each day . So um it's and it's where where what we call today the old soldier's home is right it's near its it's pretty near um like in north northeast D . C . Today near the like the catholic university thinks it's in that area . Um So he he was very close to fort stevens so he went up there when the battle was taking place . He was and he actually got a little too close for comfort for a lot of people . He goes up onto the under the walls there under the parapet and uh you know they kinda had to tell him get down you know we don't need you this is about the last thing we need is a six ft four man in a suit and top hat you know getting getting uh getting shot here and needlessly . Um So he's actually the commander in chief actually at a battle observing the battle as it's taking actually observing it . Yeah and eventually like I said they convinced him to get down and get out of the way . Um And he kind of and he he listens um And but yeah it's it's it's effectively uh early's forces by this point um Maybe three days earlier his 4000 soldiers could have done some damage but the fact that uh Lew Wallace's troops had delayed them long enough . Um Grant had put just enough in the forts are re there are remand and if you were to look at them there's no way of 4000 content division is going to capture these forts . So they're they're repulsed and they were and they moved back into the Shenandoah . Okay . So they withdraw back south . They do and they withdraw back through basically . They go back the way they came um They go back up through Maryland over towards Frederick , get back on their side of the other side of the Blue Ridge mountains and cross back over . Um And then in partly in response . But that's when shortly after is when uh General Grant gives general Philip Sheridan permission to launch his valley campaign . Which I'm sure will be discussed in another . Oh um yeah so the so the valley campaign that that the new the army of the Shenandoah under commander Commander of General Sheridan is a series of battles that he launches against early's forces in the Shenandoah . Um And he so he's he leaves from Petersburg . He goes into the Shenandoah Valley and between um july and the end of the year really july and september october um There's there's a series of battles there between Sheridan's army as well as his cavalry forces and they neutralize early . Um And then now the what would have been known as the breadbasket . The confederacy is now effectively in in U . S . Army control and by that it is and and Sheridan then is able to with his army after his campaign rejoin Grant in uh in in Petersburg . And and the army of the Shenandoah was basically the ad hoc army created by Grant . It had been , there were some early forces there that were in west Virginia . Um grandson shared in their takeover this army plus some other soldiers and . Alright so . Alright well great . Well thanks so much . Um This has been um um very interesting , very enlightening seeing the strategy and hearing how it's playing out . Um And is there anything else that comes to mind that that you wanted to add or ? No I think that's about it . I just just kind of wrap it up . I know you're going to talk more about the end of the war and another session but just sort of to reiterate that . Yeah the the overland campaign did a lot of damage to the army , the potomac . Um But Petersburg campaign is what really lets it it gets revitalized . Sieges usually have the opposite effect . Trench warfare usually has the opposite effect . But for an army that had been fighting nonstop for three months that the relative rest is as they say it was probably welcomed by the soldiers . Um So now um last bit is are you a trivia ? So what what piece of trivia do you have for this time period . Yeah . Again I don't know if it's I don't know who it is . But um I think one of the interesting things about this period is the today that this national symbol of Arlington National Cemetery that we tend to think of changing the guard . Um This the symbol of sacrifice and heroism um during the Wilderness campaign effectively is when it becomes in some ways a cemetery . Uh It had been under union control since the very first moments of the war . That was robert E lee's estate , Arlington House . The Arlington estate was owned by him and his wife . Um And across the river overseas D . C . And it's it's a in theory it could be an imposing position but so that the U . S . Army wastes no time in capturing that . Um And basically making sure that throughout the course of the war it would not fall back into uh and they also do some there's some sneaky finagle ng with taxes . And they basically said that if mrs li didn't return to Washington in person to pay the $93 state tax that it fell to government control of course she wasn't gonna do that . So that's how they kind of maintain control of it . But Quartermaster General Montgomery migs during the wilderness campaign because casualties are so high and they're taking people from the from the front back into D . C . And there's these dc hospitals Dc Dc cemeteries and and quite frankly the cemeteries are getting full . Um And the hospitals are getting full . And people who are dying other either of disease or from their wounds In these dc hospitals need a place to be buried . And parts of the Arlington estate had been used to bury Friedman for a while . But Mig says Let's turn this into a cemetery . He was personally , he had a personal vendetta against Lee in the Confederacy . His son was killed during the Valley campaign . So throughout 1864 he basically converts and he wants the bodies buried right next to the house . He wants the bodies buried in this in mrs lee's rose garden so that they would never return . Um And actually the first K I A s who were buried who had died in in D . C . Hospitals but were wounded in action later later died and died of their wounds . The first ones of them who were buried in Arlington cemetery were some of those substitute soldiers that I had talked about last time that they had , you know they were basically bought out by someone who was drafted and they and so some of the first ones killed were actually the uh the substitute soldiers that well thank you so much appreciate it again matt . Um Great job . Great . Uh great information . It's really very fascinating and um so thank you for discussion today . Thanks for having insights and if anyone wants to learn more about the civil war and more about army history in general , that I encourage you to explore our website at history dot army dot mil . And as I mentioned earlier , our books and pamphlets series are all available at this website and um the two that we talked about earlier the U . S . Army campaigns in the Civil war . Uh it's great read their short reads but really some great details in there about the civil war , free pdf downloads and our department , the army historical summaries . Uh the DSM's are available as well and uh that uh takes part in writing those each year . And if you want to experience army history every day then visit our social media sites on facebook twitter and instagram and join us every week on this podcast for more in depth discussions as we cover topics from all eras of U . S . 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