All language subtitles for The.Civil.War.S01E02.A.Very.Bloody.Affair.1990

Original production
of "the civil war"

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Before thousands
fell on the battlefield,

before millions were
freed and before a country

forged its identity...
A nation declared a new

birth of freedom,
rededicating itself to the

proposition that all
men are created equal.

Bank of America is proud
to sponsor "the civil war,"

a film by Ken burns,

newly restored for
it's 25th anniversary.

At the Willard hotel
in Washington, D.C.,

the poet Julia Ward Howe

awoke from a spectacular dream.

That day, she had heard
a new England regiment

singing on parade...
And had fallen asleep

with the song John brown's body

ringing in her head.

Now, in the dark, she got up

and scribbled out the words
with a pencil stub.

She sold her poem

to the Atlantic monthly
for $4.00.

It became the anthem
of the union.

By 1862, Russia
had emancipated the serfs.

In France, Victor Hugo
published Les Miserables,

and Jean Bernard Foucault
measured the speed of light.

In America, the United States

passed the first
national income tax

to pay for war.

The Gatling gun was invented,

and war itself was changing.

The shocking casualties

of bull run and Wilson's creek

were dwarfed
by battle after battle.

And now there were
new questions--

would the north's strength
be offset

by incompetence and low morale?

Would England side
with cotton and the south?

Who would control
the Mississippi?

For a year,
the nation, now two nations,

had torn itself apart.

From a bloodless duel

over a man-made island
in Charleston harbor,

the war had spread along
a thousand-mile line

from Manassas, Virginia,

to Shanghai, Missouri,
and beyond.

As 1862 began,

over a million men
were massing for war.

In a fierce struggle
for Tennessee,

the people of Clarksville
on the Cumberland

found themselves prisoners
in their own homes.

Far north of any fighting,

the people of deer isle, Maine,
suffered, too--

with sad news

from places most of them
had never heard of.

By the end of the war,

the little town
of Winchester, Virginia,

had changed hands 72 times.

Sam Watkins,
a confederate private,

would see his first big battle

in April on the banks
of the Tennessee.

Elisha Hunt Rhodes,

a clerk from Providence,
Rhode Island,

would celebrate
his 20th birthday

in a union camp.

Union general George McClellan,

the idol of his troops,
would fashion a mighty army

and lead it south
towards Richmond,

where Robert E. Lee
was waiting.

"The struggle of today,"
Lincoln told congress,

"is not altogether for today.

It is
for a vast future, also."

Now, in this, its second year,

the war was becoming a struggle

over the future of freedom.

It really is one of those, um...

One of those watershed things.

It was a huge chasm

between the beginning
and the end of the war.

The nation had come face to face

with, uh, a dreadful tragedy,

and we reacted the way
a family would do

with a dreadful tragedy.

Uh, it was almost inconceivable

that anything that
horrendous could happen.

You must remember that
casualties in civil war battles

were so far beyond anything
we can imagine now.

If we had 10% casualties
in a battle today,

it would be looked on
as a bloodbath.

They had 30% in several battles,

and one after another, you see.

"this afternoon, seeing the
general alone in the office,

"I stepped up to him and said,

"general, I want to go home.

"Want to go home? And for what?
He replied.

"As I could not
think of an excuse,

"I blurted out, I want
to see my mother.

"Is she sick?
He asked.

"No, I replied, I hope not.

"He then asked me how
long since I left home

"and if I was ever away

"for so long a time before.

"I told him

"I had been
in the service 7 months

"and never had been
away from home alone before.

"Well, said the general,

"you have been a good boy,

and you shall have a
furlough for 10 days."

Elisha hunt Rhodes.

"I always shot at privates.

"It was they that did
the shooting and killing,

"and if I could kill
or wound a private,

"why, my chances
were so much the better.

I always looked on officers
as harmless personages."

Sam Watkins.

The commander of
Sam Watkins' company "H"

was captain
William R. Johnston.

His immediate superior
was colonel George Maney

of the 1st Tennessee.

From there, the confederate
chain of command

ascended through
colonel William H. Stephens

of the 2nd brigade

to general Benjamin Cheatham,

commander of the 2nd division

of general Leonidas Polk's
1st army corps,

then to general
Albert Sidney Johnston,

commander of the army
of the Mississippi,

above that, to war secretary
George W. Randolph...

Finally, to Jefferson Davis,

President of the confederate
states of America.

For one union soldier,

the chain of command descended
from president Lincoln,

secretary of war Simon Cameron,

and general McClellan,

commander of the army
of the Potomac,

to general Erasmus Keyes,

commander of the union
4th corps,

general Darius N. Couch
of "couch's brigade,"

to colonel Frank Wheaton,

commander of the 2nd
Rhode Island volunteers,

and finally to private
Elisha hunt Rhodes.

"January 31, 1862.

"Mud, mud, mud.

"I'm thinking of starting
a steamboat line

"to run on pennsylvania avenue

"between our office
and the capitol.

Will the mud never dry
so the army can move?"

"Of all detestable places,

"Washington is the first.

"Crowd, heat, bad quarters,

"bad fare, bad smells,

"mosquitoes,
and a plague of flies

"transcending everything
within my experience.

"Beelzebub surely reigns here,

and Willard's hotel
is his temple."

George Templeton strong.

Throughout Lincoln's
presidency--

and this is true
of most presidents--

he was fairly run crazy
by office seekers,

especially at the start,

when his campaign managers
had promised jobs

to a great many people
who came to collect them.

And one man saw him one day,

and he looked
particularly worried.

The man said, "what's
the matter, Mr. president?"

And Lincoln said, "there's
too many pigs for the tits."

Abraham Lincoln's
problems were not confined

to fighting rebels alone.

The president's unwieldy cabinet

included former
conservative whigs,

freesoil whigs,

and union democrats.

4 had been his rivals

for the republican
presidential nomination.

Nearly all were privately sure

they could do a better job
than their chief.

Secretary of state
William H. Seward

hoped to replace Lincoln.

Secretary of the treasury
Salmon P. Chase

wanted to replace Seward.

Mary Todd told her husband

to get rid of both of them.

Instead, Lincoln fired
war secretary Simon P. Cameron,

a Pennsylvania boss
so corrupt, said Lincoln,

that the only thing
he wouldn't steal

was a red-hot stove.

The new secretary of war
was Edwin M. Stanton,

an able, ruthless
war democrat from Ohio

who worried about
what he believed to be

Lincoln's
"painful imbecility."

On one thing,
the cabinet was agreed.

General George McClellan
was not moving fast enough

against the confederates.

"The army," secretary of war
Stanton said,

"has got to fight or run away.

"The champagne and oysters
on the Potomac

must be stopped."

"dear Ellen,

"I can't tell you
how disgusted I am becoming

"with these
wretched politicians.

"They are a most
despicable set of men.

"Seward is a meddling, officious,
incompetent little puppy.

"The president is nothing more

than a well-meaning
baboon."

George McClellan.

The president
pored over military books,

asked officers for advice,

and in exasperation

suggested that
"if general McClellan

"does not want to use the army,

I would like to borrow it
for a time."

Finally, he ordered McClellan

to move on Manassas junction,

and then proceed overland
to take Richmond,

but McClellan would not move

and took to his bed
with a fever.

McClellan did not want to fight

the vast confederate army
he had convinced himself

now occupied northern Virginia.

Instead, he proposed
to float his army

to fortress Monroe

at the tip of the finger of land

between the James
and York rivers,

then race up the peninsula

to seize
the confederate capital.

Impatient for any action,
Lincoln agreed.

McClellan would move
in mid march.

It had been 8 months

since the northern army
had crawled back

into Washington after bull run.

"February 9, 1862.

"Dear Mr. president,

"general McClellan has almost
ruined your administration

"and the country.

"He is a do-nothing.

"He is thinking
of the presidency in '64.

"He is placating
the rebels--

"that's what ails him.

Depend upon it."

Joseph Medill.

"What shall I do?

"The people are impatient.

"Chase has no money

"and tells me
he can raise no more.

"The general of the army,
McClellan,

"has typhoid fever.

"The bottom is out of the tub.

What shall I do?"

"Washington.

"Dear Ellen,

"I went to the white house
shortly after tea,

"where I found
the original gorilla,

"about as intelligent as ever.

What a specimen to be at the
head of our affairs now."

George McClellan.

In the midst
of all his troubles,

the president delighted
in his sons.

The oldest, Robert,
was away at Harvard,

but Willie, 11,
and 8-year-old Thomas,

known as tad,

had the run of the white house.

Willie was studious,
liked to compose verse

and memorize
railroad timetables.

He had raised a boys' battalion

from among his schoolmates

and invaded cabinet meetings
with his "troops."

In February,

he developed what the doctor
called "bilious fever."

His parents sat up
night after night

to nurse him.

On February 20, Willie died.

For 3 months,

Mary Lincoln veered
between loud weeping

and silent depression

and sought to communicate
with her dead child

through spiritualists.

"if I had not felt

"the spur of necessity
urging me to cheer Mr. Lincoln,

"whose grief
was as great as my own,

I could never
have smiled again."

The war left Lincoln
little time to mourn.

He was soon back working
18 hours a day.

"as she came plowing
through the water,

"she looked like a huge
half-submerged crocodile.

"At her prow,

I could see the iron ram
projecting straight forward."

The confederacy
had begun the war

with no Navy whatsoever,

but by the fall of 1861,

confederate engineers
were bolting iron plates

to the hull of
the steam frigate Merrimack,

building a warship more powerful

than anything the union had.

News of the monster
quickly reached the north.

Secretary of war Stanton

feared she would steam
up the Potomac

and shell the white house.

There was probably
only one man in America

who could stop the Merrimack,

and he was mad at the Navy.

The Swedish-born inventor
John Ericsson

was proud, vain, and cranky,

and felt he had been
cheated out of payment

for services to
the government years before,

but when secretary
of the Navy Gideon Welles

begged him to do something
to stop the Merrimack,

Ericsson came up with
an extraordinary design.

His ship
would have only two guns

to the Merrimack's 10,

but they would be mounted
on a revolving turret,

and though his vessel would
be made entirely of iron,

Ericsson assured everybody

that "the sea
shall ride over her,

and she shall live in it
like a duck."

Professional Navy men
dismissed the plan,

but Lincoln overruled them,

and just 100 days later,
on January 30, 1862,

Ericsson's ship slid
into Manhattan's east river.

He called her the monitor,

and there had never been
anything like her.

The single vessel contained
47 patentable inventions.

"we ran first
to the New York side

"and then to Brooklyn,

"and so back and forth
across the river,

"like a drunken man
on a sidewalk.

We found she would not answer
her rudder at all."

Once at sea, water spilled in,

ventilators failed,

the ship filled with gas,
her crew began to faint,

but the monitor
kept limping south.

400 miles away,
off the coast of Virginia,

the Merrimack was waiting.

Saturday, march 8, was wash day

for the union fleet
in Hampton roads, Virginia.

Laundry was drying
on the rigging

of the union warships

when the confederate Merrimack

headed straight
for the U.S.S. Cumberland.

The Cumberland opened fire,

but the shots bounced harmlessly

off the Merrimack's side.

The confederate ship
rammed the Cumberland,

then stood in so close,

their muzzles almost touched.

The Cumberland
sank in shallow water.

The Merrimack went on

to set
the U.S.S. Congress afire,

drove the U.S.S. Minnesota
aground,

then drew back for the night.

For one day,

the confederate Navy
ruled the sea.

At 1:00 that morning,

the crew
of the battered Minnesota

saw a strange-looking ship
draw up alongside them

in the darkness.

"close alongside the Minnesota,

"there was a craft
such as the eyes of a seaman

"never looked upon before--

"an immense shingle
floating on the water

"with a gigantic cheese box
rising from its center.

"No sails, no wheels,
no smokestack, no guns.

What could it be?"

The monitor had arrived.

The next morning,

the epic battle
of ironclads began.

Hull to hull, the two ships
hammered away at each other,

so close, they collided 5 times

as the men inside,
half-blind with smoke,

loaded and fired.

After 4 1/2 hours,
the Merrimack drew off.

It was her only fight.

Two months later,

rather than surrender
their ship,

the confederates blew her up

when they were forced
out of Norfolk.

Both sides set to work
building more ironclads

while Europe watched
in worried fascination.

From the moment the two ships

opened fire that Sunday morning,

every other Navy on earth
was obsolete.

"general Grant habitually
wears an expression

"as if he had determined
to drive his head

through a brick wall
and was about to do it."

The year 1862

would introduce two great
forces into the war--

unspeakable slaughter
and Ulysses S. Grant.

While McClellan
hesitated in Washington,

Grant, back in the field
after months of desk duty,

won two crucial victories
out west.

Launching simultaneous attacks
by land and water,

he took first fort Henry
on the Tennessee river,

then fort Donelson
on the Cumberland,

where he issued an ultimatum
to the confederate commander--

"no terms except unconditional

and immediate surrender."

The Tennessee
and Cumberland rivers

were now in union hands.

The confederates had been
driven from Kentucky.

Dozens of Southern towns

were now occupied
by union troops.

In less than a year,

Grant had gone from clerk
to union hero.

News stories described him
coolly smoking under fire,

and admirers shipped him
barrels of cigars.

A delighted northern public
now thought they knew

what the initials
in his name stood for.

They called him

"unconditional surrender" Grant.

But before Grant's men
marched into fort Donelson,

confederate general
Nathan Bedford Forrest

slipped out of it
with 1,000 men.

"I did not come here
for the purpose

of surrendering my command,"
he said,

and led his troops 75 miles
through the snow to safety.

Grant and the union army

would meet
Bedford Forrest again.

After the confederate defeat
at fort Donelson,

the female academy
and Stewart college

at nearby
Clarksville, Tennessee,

were converted to hospitals.

"Sunday the news came.

"Such panic-stricken people
were never before seen.

"The wounded
were being brought up.

"The citizens were running.

"There were already
two hospitals here

"which were filled
with the sick,

"and they, poor fellas, were
crawling out from every piece--

"walking, going on horseback,

in wagons."

Nannie Haskins.

The union army
was right behind the wounded.

They met no resistance.

A white flag flew

above tiny fort defiance
west of town,

and mayor Smith came out

to inform the union commander

that the confederate army
had retreated to Nashville.

Farmer John barker
wrote in his diary

that there were nothing
but lincolnites

throughout the county.

An uneasy federal occupation
of Clarksville began.

Early in the war, some--
um, a union squad closed in

on a single ragged confederate,

and he obviously
didn't own any slaves.

He couldn't have much interest
in--in the constitution

or anything else.

They said, "what are you fighting
for, anyhow?" They asked him.

And he said, "I'm fighting

because you're down here,"

which is a pretty
satisfactory answer.

On April 4,
George McClellan at last

began to move
for Richmond--

121,500 men,

14,592 horses and mules,

1,150 wagons,

44 batteries of artillery,

ambulances, pontoon Bridges,

tons of provisions,
tents, telegraph wire.

It took 400 boats
3 weeks to land it all

at fortress Monroe
on the Virginia coast.

"the whole region seems

"literally filled with soldiery.

"One of the finest armies

"ever marshalled on the globe

"now wakes up these long,
stagnant fields and woods.

"General McClellan is here

and commands
in person."

Reverend
A.M. Stewart.

"I am to watch over you

"as a parent over his children,

"and you know that
your general loves you

"from the depths of his heart.

"It shall be my care

to gain success with the
least possible loss."

But at Yorktown,
less than 20 miles away,

the confederates waited,

vastly outnumbered

but determined
to defend their homes

and hurl back the invaders.

For the north,
it was slow going.

Roads said to be
bone dry were bogs.

Union officers,

forced to rely
on store-bought maps,

lost their way.

Finally, on April 5,

the advance guard
reached Yorktown,

where the confederates
had taken over the building

used by lord Cornwallis
as headquarters

during the revolutionary war.

There were just 11,000
Southern troops dug in--

not even 1/10
of McClellan's force...

But the confederate commander

was John Bankhead Magruder,

a showy virginian
who loved amateur theatricals.

He now outdid even himself.

To fool McClellan into believing

that his small force
was enormous,

Magruder kept up a sporadic,

widely scattered
artillery barrage

and paraded one battalion
in and out of a clearing

in an endless circle

until it seemed, to union
observers, a mighty host.

Corporal Edmund Patterson,
9th Alabama.

"This morning,
we were called out

"by the long roll,
and have been traveling

"most of the day,

"seeming with no other view than
to show ourselves to the enemy

"at as many different points
of the line as possible.

I'm pretty tired."

"it seems clear
that I shall have

the whole force
of the enemy on my hands,"

McClellan telegraphed Lincoln,

"probably not less
than 100,000 men,

and possibly more."

McClellan called
for reinforcements.

General Joseph E. Johnston,

the overall
confederate commander,

could not believe his luck.

"Nobody but McClellan," he said,

"could have hesitated
to attack."

"once more, let me tell you,

"it is indispensable to you

"that you strike a blow.

"I have never written
to you or spoken to you

"in greater kindness than now,

"nor with Fuller purpose
to sustain you,

but you must act."

"The president
very coolly telegraphed me

"that he thought I had better
break the enemy's lines at once.

"I was much tempted to reply

that he had better come
and do it himself."

George McClellan.

"I don't see the sense

"of piling up earth
to keep us apart.

"If we don't get at
each other sometime,

"when will the war end?

"My plan would be
to quit ditching

and go to fighting."

But McClellan chose to dig in.

As he settled in
for a siege of Yorktown,

union general Phil Kearny

took to calling his commander

"the Virginia creeper."

During the peninsula campaign,

uh, McClellan's working his way

up the York James peninsula,
and he came to a stream.

And he and his staff
were sitting there wondering

how deep it was,
if they had to march across it.

And Custer, who was
a junior officer on his staff--

just graduated from west
point, a captain, I think--

rode out into midstream,

sat on his horse, and
turned around in the saddle

and said to McClellan, "this
is how deep it is, general."

"a man's conceit dwindles

"when he crawls
into an unteasled shirt,

"trousers too short
and baggy behind,

"coat too long at both ends,

"and a cap as shapeless
as a feedbag.

"A photograph
of any one of them,

"covered with yellow dust
or mosaics of mud,

"could ornament any
mantel, north or south,

as a true picture
of our boy."

North and south,
the average soldier

was 5'8" tall
and weighed 143 pounds.

His chance of dying
in combat was 1 in 65;

Of being wounded, 1 in 10.

1 in 13 would die of disease.

The average age
of a soldier was 25.

The minimum age
for enlistment was 18,

but recruiting officers
were not particular.

Drummer boys
as young as 9 signed on.

There were more than 100,000
soldiers in the union army

who were not yet 15 years old.

William black was
not yet 12 when he enlisted.

Shot in the left arm
during battle,

he was thought to be
the youngest combat soldier

wounded in the war.

"almost every known
trade, profession,

"or calling has
its representatives

"in our regiment--

"tailors, carpenters,
masons, and plasterers,

"moulders and glassblowers,

"puddlers and rollers,

"machinists and architects,

"printers, bookbinders
and publishers,

"gentlemen of leisure,

"politicians, merchants,

"legislators, judges,

"lawyers, doctors, preachers.

"Some malicious fellow
might ask the privilege

"of completing
the catalogue by naming

"jailbirds, idlers,
loafers, drunkards,

"and gamblers...

But we beg his pardon
and refuse the license."

"All the appliances of home life

"which are possible
are being introduced

"into our encampment--

"a weekly newspaper,

"a photographic establishment,

"a temperance league,

"and a Christian association.

"We have a post office,
letter box,

"postmaster, and mail carrier.

"Our boys write
vastly more letters

"than they receive.

"You can hardly imagine
the eagerness

"with which the mailman
is looked for,

"the delight on the
reception of a letter,

"the sadness,
sometimes even to tears,

"with which those
who are disappointed

turn away."

Reverend
A.M. Stewart.

For the enlisted man,

army life meant
periods of tedium

punctuated by moments
of extreme terror.

It also meant long absences

from family and home.

"July 1862.
Tupelo, Mississippi.

"Dear sisters,

"I would be
the gladdest person in the world

"to see you and talk
with you awhile,

"for I see nobody here but men,

"and they appear to be
very sorry company.

"I think that I could
enjoy myself at home

better than anywhere
else in the world."

Benjamin Stubbs.

For those officers
who took their families

with them to camp,
life was somewhat better.

"there has been
a great battle indeed

"in the southwest,

"a conflict of two days,

"closely fought
and with varying fortune

"and by great armies.

"It seems entitled to a place

among the first-class
battles of history."

George Templeton strong.

It was fought in early April.

The trees were leafed out,

and the roads were
meandering cowpaths.

Nobody knew north from
south, east from west.

They had never been in
combat before, most of them,

especially on the Southern side.

So it was just a disorganized,
murderous fistfight--

100,000 men slamming
away at each other.

In early April,
as McClellan continued

to sit in front of Yorktown,

42,000 union troops under
general Ulysses S. Grant

were encamped on the West Side
of the Tennessee river

near Pittsburgh landing.

Grant's invasion of Tennessee

had practically
cut the state in two,

and now he was waiting

for Don Carlos Buell's
army of the Ohio

to join him.

Their combined forces
were then to plunge

into the heart of Mississippi,

but Buell was late,

and at Corinth, Mississippi,
22 miles away,

the commander of the western
department of the confederate army,

Albert Sidney Johnston,

saw no reason to wait.

Their armies were still
evenly matched,

and he would attack
and end Grant's invasion.

"Tonight we will water our
horses in the Tennessee,"

Johnston told his staff officers

on the morning of April 6.

The confederates quietly
moved toward the union lines.

"it was a most
beautiful morning.

"It really seemed like Sunday
in the country at home.

"The boys were scattered
around camp,

"polishing and brightening
their muskets

"and brushing up and cleaning

their shoes, jackets,
and trousers for inspection."

Private Leander Stilwell.

At the head
of one union division

was William Tecumseh Sherman,

who had shaken off
the melancholy

that had sent him home
the previous year.

His ohioans
were encamped on a hill

not far from a little
log-built Methodist church

called Shiloh

when the 6th Mississippi
attacked.

"I saw men in gray
and brown clothes

"running through the camp.

"And I saw something else, too,

"something I had
never seen before--

"a gaudy sort of thing
with red bars...

A rebel flag."

"We were crowding them.

"One more charge, and their
lines waver and break.

"They retreat in wild confusion.

"We were jubilant,

"and the officers
could not curb their men

to keep them in line."

Sam Watkins.

The battle extended
along a 3-mile front.

The worst fighting
was in the center,

where the rebels came on and on

like "maddened demons,"
a union soldier said.

The generals didn't
know their jobs.

The soldiers didn't
know their jobs.

It was just pure determination
to stand and fight

and not retreat,

and the bloodiness of it
was just astounding to everyone.

It also corrected a Southern
misconception which had said,

"one good Southern soldier

is worth 10
Yankee hirelings."

They found out that wasn't
true by a long shot.

In a peach orchard,
the federals lay flat

beneath the blossoming trees,

firing as the rebels came,

soft pink petals raining down

on the living and the dead.

By late morning, thousands
of untried federal troops

had seen enough.

Most did not stop running until
they reached the river,

where almost 5,000 men
cowered beneath the bluff.

"We are sweeping the field,"
general Johnston told

his second in command,
Beauregard,

"and I think we shall
press them to the river."

Grant's back
was to the Tennessee.

There was no sign of Buell
and nowhere else to go,

but a thin federal line
held in the center,

Illinois and Iowa
farm boys mostly,

prone along a sunken road.

Their commander,
Benjamin Prentiss,

understood
the deadly seriousness

of Grant's order
to "maintain that position

at all costs."

The confederates launched
a dozen massive assaults

against what became known
as the hornet's nest.

Albert Sidney Johnston
himself led the last charge.

Uh, he came out of it with, uh,
bits of his clothing nicked all up.

One boot sole was shot in half,

and he flapped his--
on--on horseback there,

and said, "they didn't
trip me up that time."

And very soon after that, they
saw him reel in the saddle

and realized he was hurt,

and then someone said,
"general, are you wounded?"

And he said, "yes,
and I fear seriously,"

and he was shot
behind the knee--

in the femoral artery,
I suppose--

and bled to death.

They saw blood
coming out of his boot,

and he could have been easily
saved with a tourniquet,

but he had sent
his--his surgeon off

to take care of some
federal prisoners.

"advancing a little further,

"we saw general
Albert Sidney Johnston

"surrounded by his staff.

"We saw some little commotion

"among those who surrounded him,

"but we did not know at the
time that he was dead.

The fact was kept
from the troops."

Sam Watkins.

The command of the western army

now passed
to general Beauregard.

Albert Sidney Johnston
was looked on by many people

at the time of Shiloh,

and especially before
Shiloh while he was

holding that line
up in Kentucky,

as the south's
number-one field soldier.

Jefferson Davis
viewed him as that,

and when he lost
Albert Sidney Johnston,

he said, "I realized our strongest
pillar had been broken."

Meanwhile,
the center of the union line

bent back on itself

but would not break.

Confederates trained 62 Cannon

at point-blank range
and opened fire.

The hornet's nest
exploded in a hail

of splintered trees
and shattered men.

At 5:30, Prentiss
and the 2,200 survivors

of his division surrendered.

They had held up
the Southern advance

for nearly 6 hours,

and it was growing dark.

Beauregard wired Jefferson Davis

that he had won
a complete victory.

"I had general Grant
just where I wanted him,"

he said, "and could finish
him up in the morning."

Everywhere, wounded men
lay in agony.

Neither army had yet
devised a system

for gathering or caring
for them on the field.

Scores of wounded
collapsed and died

drinking from a mud hole
near the peach orchard,

staining the water red.

It began to rain,

and flashes of lightning

showed hogs feeding
on the ungathered dead.

"some cried for water,

"others for someone to
come and help them.

"I can hear those poor
fellows crying for water.

"God heard them,
for the heavens opened

and the rain came."

Grant spent that night
beneath a tree

rather than listen to the
screams of the wounded men

in his headquarters.

It was there that
Sherman found him.

"Well, Grant," he said,

"we've had the devil's
own day, haven't we?"

"Yes," said Grant.
"Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

"never to me was the sight

"of reinforcing
legions so welcome

"as on that Sunday evening

"when Buell's
advance column deployed

on the bluffs of
Pittsburgh landing."

During the night,
Buell's army finally arrived.

The union men marched ashore
as a band played Dixie.

At dawn, the union force,
now 70,000 strong,

drove into Beauregard's 30,000.

The confederates fell back,
counterattacked,

fell back again,

and began to withdraw.

The union held the field.

Covering the confederate retreat

was Nathan Bedford Forrest,

who now turned to lead
one last cavalry charge

headlong into the pursuing
northern army.

And he landed square in the
main body of the union troops.

He was surrounded by-- one
gray uniform in a sea of blue,

and, uh, they began to holler,

"kill him.
Kill the goddamn rebel.

Knock him off his horse,"

and one soldier did, uh,
stick his, uh, rifle out

into Forrest's side
and pulled the trigger

and lifted Forrest
clear of the saddle

with the impact of the bullet,

and Forrest, meantime,
was slashing with his saber.

His horse was kicking
and turning,

and Forrest sawed him around

and got him clear and took off,

and they were
shooting after him,

so he reached down
and grabbed one union soldier

and swung him up behind him

on the crupper of the horse
to use as a shield,

and when he got out of range,

he threw the man off
and rode back

to join his command.

That was the last shot fired
in the battle of Shiloh.

The ground, Grant said,
was so covered with dead

that it would have been possible
to walk across the clearing

in any direction,
stepping on dead bodies

without a foot
touching the ground.

"when the grave was ready,

"we placed the bodies
therein, two deep.

"All the monument reared
to those brave men was a board

"upon which I cut
with my pocket knife

the words 125 rebels."

2,477 men were killed at Shiloh.

There were 23,000
casualties overall--

more than all
the American casualties

in all previous
American wars combined...

And it was only the beginning.

Shiloh had the same
number of casualties

as Waterloo,

and yet, when it was fought,

there were another
20 Waterloos to follow,

and Grant, shortly
before Shiloh, said,

"I consider this war
practically over.

They're ready to give up,"

and the day after
Shiloh, he said,

"I saw that it was going to
have to be a war of conquest

if we were to win."

Shiloh did that,

and it sobered the nation
up something awful,

the realization that they had

Avery bloody affair
on their hands,

and it called for
a huge reassessment

of what this thing
was going to be.

Years afterward,
a union veteran said,

the most a soldier
could say of any fight was,

"I was worse scared
than I was at Shiloh."

"Shiloh" is a Hebrew word

meaning
"place of peace."

"April 11, 1862.

"I firmly believe that
before many centuries more,

"science will be
the master of man.

"The engines
he will have invented

"will be beyond
his strength to control.

"Someday, science shall have
the existence of mankind

"in its power,

"and the human race
commit suicide

by blowing up the world."

Henry Adams.

The armies that U.S. Grant
and George McClellan led

were the best-equipped
in history.

The productive capacity
and technical ingenuity

of the north were now
focused on weapons...

And the civil war would see

the first railroad artillery,

the first land mines
and telescopic sights,

the first military telegraphs.

In 1862 alone,

240 patents were issued
for military weapons.

Lincoln was fascinated
by new weaponry.

He personally tested new rifles

and ordered up
10 union repeating guns,

forerunners of the machine gun,

but he passed up a scheme

to manufacture
canoe-shaped footwear

for walking on water,

and tactfully declined
a herd of war elephants

offered by the king of Siam.

Oh, they had many crazy ideas,

uh, along with some good ones.

There was one plan
to use two Cannon,

each with a cannonball

and the two cannonballs
connected by a chain.

And you would fire the two
cannons at the same time,

and the balls would go out,

and the chain between them

would just cut a swath through
everything in the way.

The trouble was,
one Cannon, of course,

went off before
the other one did

with the result that the
ball went around in a circle

from the other Cannon.

The most important
innovation of the whole war

was the rifled musket,

along with
a French refinement--

captain Claude Minie's
new bullet,

an inch-long lead slug

that expanded into
the barrel's rifled grooves

and spun as it left the muzzle.

The minie ball could kill
at half a mile

and was accurate
at 250 yards--

5 times as far
as any other one-man weapon.

The age of the bayonet
charge had ended,

though most officers
did not yet know it

when the war began,

and some had still
not learned it

when the war was over.

It was brutal stuff.

The reason for the high casualties
is really quite simple--

the weapons were way
ahead of the tactics.

The rifle itself,

it threw a.53 caliber
soft lead bullet

at a low muzzle velocity,

and when it hit--

uh, the reason there were
so many amputations,

if you got hit here,
it didn't clip your bone

the way the modern
steel-jacketed bullet does.

You didn't have any bone
from here to here.

They had no choice
but to take your arm off,

and you'll see pictures
of the dead on the battlefield

with their clothes in disarray

as if someone had been
going--rifling their bodies.

That was the men themselves
tearing their clothes up

to see where the wound was,

and they knew perfectly well

if they were
gut shot, they'd die.

"April 25, 1862,

"Pittsburgh landing, Tennessee.

"Dear Julia...

"I'm no longer boss.

"General Halleck is here,

"and I'm truly glad of it.

"I hope the papers
will let me alone

"in the future.

"If the papers only knew
how little ambition I have

"outside of putting
down this rebellion

"and getting back once more

"to live quietly
and unobtrusively

"with my family,

I think they would
say fewer falsehoods."

Ulysses S. Grant.

Ulysses S. Grant's reward

for the costly
union victory at Shiloh

was to be removed
from field command.

Grant's superior was
general Henry wager Halleck,

a calculating administrator

who was jealous
of Grant's success

and anxious to get rid
of his chief rival.

After the battle
of fort Donelson,

he spread rumors
Grant was drinking.

After the fearful
losses at Shiloh,

he had Grant reassigned.

Grant decided to quit,

but his friend
William Tecumseh Sherman

talked him out of it.

"You could not be quiet
at home for a week,"

he said, "when armies
are moving."

Grant and Sherman
were both Ohio boys

and west pointers
who were fond of cigars,

scorned pomp and politics,

and had fared poorly
in civilian life.

Grant enjoyed Sherman's
rapid-fire brilliance

and was grateful
for the dispatch

with which he carried out
every order.

Sherman admired
his friend's cool temper,

his steadiness
in the midst of crisis,

and what he called Grant's
"simple faith in success."

They trusted each other.

"I'm a damned sight
smarter than Grant.

"I know more about organization,
supply, and administration,

"and about everything else
than he does.

"But I'll tell you
where he beats me

"and where he beats
the world--

"he don't care a damn for what
the enemy does out of his sight,

but it scares me
like hell."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

"any attempt now

"to separate
the freedom of the slave

"from the victory
of the government,

"any attempt to secure
peace to the whites

"while leaving
the blacks in chains,

"will be labor lost.

"The American people

"and the government
at Washington

"may refuse to
recognize it for a time,

"but the inexorable
logic of events

"will force it upon them
in the end--

"that the war now
being waged in this land

is a war for
and against slavery."

Frederick Douglass.

Letter by letter,
speech by speech,

month after month,

Frederick Douglass
tirelessly lobbied

the government in Washington,

urging Lincoln
to emancipate the slaves...

But the president still insisted

the war was being fought
for union

and publicly avoided Douglass
and the debate.

"our Southern friend tells us

"the north is fighting
for negroes.

"Our union friend says

"they're not fighting
to free the negroes,

"but for the union.

"Very well.

"Let the whites fight
for what they want;

"We negroes fight
for what we want.

"Liberty must take the day,

"nothing shorter.

"We care nothing
about the union.

"We have been in it slaves

over 250 years."

"Whatever nation
gets the control

"of the Ohio, Mississippi,
and Missouri rivers

will control
the continent."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

Out west, union naval strategy
was straightforward--

seize control of the Mississippi

and cut the confederacy in two.

On April 7,

union gunboats and 2,000 troops

took the confederate fortress
at island number 10

near new Madrid, Missouri,

leaving the river open
as far south as Memphis.

Two months later, Memphis fell.

On the night of April 24,

a 60-year-old flag officer,
David g. Farragut,

started north
up the Mississippi,

intent on capturing New Orleans.

But first, he had
to get by the heavy guns

at forts Jackson
and St. Phillips,

70 miles below the city.

When the moon Rose,
the confederates opened fire

and sent blazing rafts
drifting into the union fleet.

The first vessel
was hit 42 times.

Farragut's own flagship
was set on fire,

but somehow the entire fleet
made it past the forts.

New Orleans surrendered
the next day.

Farragut had
the American flag raised

over city hall.

"New Orleans gone--

"and with it, the confederacy?

"Are we not cut in two?

That Mississippi
ruins us, if lost."

Mary Chesnut.

"tupelo, Mississippi.

"I don't know how the war
will be decided

"if England and France
don't interfere

"and stop the war.

"And if the confederacy

"has to gain her
independence by fighting,

"I am afraid she will
have to give it up,

"for there are so few provisions

in this portion
of the confederacy."

James Jackson.

In the following months,

Farragut's fleet gained control

of the Southern Mississippi

as far north
as Baton Rouge and Natchez,

but the north did not
possess the whole river.

The confederate stronghold
at Vicksburg still held.

"republics--
everybody jawing,

"everybody putting
their mouths in,

"nothing sacred,

"all confusion of babble.

"Republics can't carry on war.

Hurrah for a strong
one-man government."

Mary Chesnut.

From the Southern
white house in Richmond,

Jefferson Davis struggled

to keep the war effort on track.

Southern industry grew,
driven by necessity,

and the confederate government,

founded on the principle
of decentralization,

found itself
controlling everything...

From the forging of Cannon

at the big tredegar
iron works in Richmond

to the daily output

of the women who spun cloth

for uniforms in their parlors.

In Charleston,

Mary Chesnut's circle knit socks

for stonewall Jackson's
entire brigade.

Women wove boots
from palmetto fronds,

and saved their urine

from which to distill
niter for gunpowder.

Southerners grew poppies
to yield opium,

and made coffee
from corn and peas,

hypodermic needles from thorns,

rope from Spanish moss...

But the confederate army
was shrinking.

The term of enlistment
for the earliest volunteers

was up in the spring.

Most men planned to go home.

In April, at the insistence
of Jefferson Davis,

the confederate congress
passed two laws.

One extended all enlistments
for the duration.

The other required
all able-bodied white men

between 18 and 35
to serve for 3 years.

It was the first national
draft in American history.

"the conscription act,
at one fell swoop,

"strikes down the
sovereignty of the states,

"tramples upon
the constitutional rights

"and personal Liberty
of the citizens,

and arms the president
with imperial powers."

Governor Joseph E. Brown
of Georgia.

"Mrs. Davis
is being utterly upset.

"She is beginning

"to hear the carping
and faultfinding

"to which the president
is subjected.

"There must be an opposition

"in a free country,

but it is
very uncomfortable."

Mary Chesnut.

Veterans were
especially resentful

because potential draftees
who owned 20 slaves or more

could be exempted.

"a law was made
allowing every person

"who owned 20 negroes
to go home.

"It gave us the blues.

"We wanted 20 negroes.

"There was raised the howl

"of rich man's war,
poor man's fight!

"From this time on
till the end of the war,

"a soldier was simply
a machine, a conscript.

"All our pride
and valor had gone,

"and we were sick of war

and cursed
the Southern confederacy."

Sam Watkins.

Nearly half the southerners
eligible for the new draft

failed to sign up.

"April 21.

"16 days have now been
spent in this place.

"Our grand army
has again come to a halt.

"Under the dry pine leaves
where we encamp,

"a great Secesh army
of wood ticks have wintered.

"Few are so happy as not to find

"half a dozen of these
villainous bloodsuckers

sticking in his flesh
every morning."

Chaplain
A.M. Stewart.

"The firing
from the confederate lines

"was of little consequence,

"not amounting to over 10 or
12 artillery shots each day,

"a number of these being
directed at the huge balloon

which went up daily from general
Fitz John's headquarters."

"When about 100 feet
above the ground,

"the rope broke,

"and the general
sailed off toward Richmond

"at a greater speed

"than the army
of the Potomac is moving.

"He had sufficient calmness

"to pull the valve rope,

and gradually descended
about 3 miles from camp."

On the peninsula,

general George McClellan's
huge army

sat in front of the smaller
rebel force at Yorktown

for almost a month.

It rained 2 out of every 3 days.

Hundreds fell ill.

"I feel that the fate
of a nation depends on me,

"and that I have
not one single friend

at the seat
of government."

George McClellan.

McClellan had moved
more than 90 federal guns

to Yorktown by may 3,

some so massive
that it took 100 horses

to haul them up

along hastily constructed
timber highways

called "cor-du-roi" roads.

McClellan finally decided to act

and carefully planned
a massive bombardment

for may 5,

but on the night of the 3rd,

general Magruder's
confederate batteries

suddenly intensified their fire.

McClellan braced for an attack,

but the next morning,
the confederates had vanished.

Disbelieving federal troops

edged into the deserted
Southern camps.

Magruder had packed up
his show and moved on,

but McClellan declared it
a union victory.

"the success is brilliant,

"and you may rest assured

"that its effects will be
of the greatest importance.

"There shall be no delay

in following up
the rebels."

The union men now cautiously

followed the rebel army west
towards Richmond.

"may 20.

"Richmond is just 9 miles off.

"The negroes are
delighted to see us,

"but the whites look

as if they would
like to kill us."

Elisha hunt Rhodes.

From McClellan's lines,

you could hear the bells
of Richmond tolling.

You could hear

the church bells in
the public clock striking,

he was that close.

A worried
Jefferson Davis now prepared

for a siege of Richmond,

relying more and more
on the advice

of his close military
advisor Robert E. Lee.

When Davis asked
where Lee thought

the south's next defensive
line should be drawn

once Richmond fell,

Lee said,
"Richmond must not fall.

It shall not be given up."

Still, George McClellan
refused to attack.

Though his army still
outnumbered the rebels,

he remained convinced
the opposite was true.

One observer noted

that McClellan
had a particular faculty

for "realizing
hallucinations."

He demanded another 40,000 men.

"if he had a million men,

"he would swear
the enemy had two millions,

"and then he would
sit down in the mud

and yell for 3."

Edwin M. Stanton.

With the year half gone,

the union's grand strategy
had stalled.

The western campaign
begun by U.S. Grant

had ground to a halt
in north Mississippi,

and McClellan's mighty forces

were paralyzed
in front of Richmond.

There was worse to come.

The killing that would
soon break out in Virginia

would continue all year

and come to a climax

along a tiny creek
in western Maryland

called the Antietam.

"we talk of
the irrepressible conflict

"and practically
give the lie to our talk.

"We wage war against
slaveholding rebels

"and yet protect
and augment the motive

"which has moved the
slaveholders to rebellion.

"We strike at the effect

"and leave the cause unharmed.

"Fire will not
burn it out of us,

"water cannot wash it out of us,

"that this war
with the slaveholders

"can never be brought
to a desirable termination

"until slavery,

"the guilty cause of
all our national troubles,

has been totally
and forever abolished."

Frederick Douglass.

Corporate
funding for this special 25th

anniversary presentation of
the civil war was provided by.

Before thousands
fell on the battlefield,

before millions were
freed and before a country

forged its identity...
A nation declared a new

birth of freedom,
rededicating itself to the

proposition that all
men are created equal.

Bank of America is proud
to sponsor "the civil war,"

a film by Ken burns,

newly restored for
it's 25th anniversary.

Original
production of "the civil war"

was made possible by
generous contributions

from these funders.

And by the corporation
for public broadcasting.

And by contributions
to your PBS station from

viewers like you, thank you.