All language subtitles for The.Civil.War.S01E03.Forever.Free.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.

Private Edwin Tennison,

killed in action
at Malvern hill,

July 1, 1862.

During the civil war,

photographers followed
the armies everywhere

to make proud portraits
for the boys to send home

and to capture
as much of the action

as cumbersome equipment

and slow shutter speeds allowed.

Near the battle
of fair oaks, Virginia,

captain George Armstrong Custer

paused to have his picture taken

with J.B. Washington,

close friend and classmate
from west point--

and now a confederate lieutenant

who had just that morning

been captured
by federal pickets.

As 1862 dragged on,

the character of the war
was changing,

and much of the country
was changing with it.

By 1862, more than
a million farm workers

had enlisted in the union army,

and travelers in the Midwest

saw more women at work
in the fields than men.

The year, which had begun
so promisingly for the north,

had now gone awry.

U.S. Grant's triumphs
at Donelson and Shiloh

were being overshadowed
by disasters in the east.

In Virginia, union general
George McClellan's army

sat outside Richmond,

its commander in possession
of vastly greater forces,

but without the will to fight.

Meanwhile, the confederacy
was beginning to appreciate

the brilliance
of a new commander,

Robert E. Lee,

who would soon
establish a reputation

as one of the greatest
military leaders of all time.

And there was still
more trouble for the union.

At Blackburn, England,

a public meeting declared
that it was impossible

for the north
to vanquish the south

and called for a negotiated
settlement of the war.

With Europe poised
to recognize the confederacy,

the unthinkable
looked increasingly likely--

the union was going to
lose the war.

"We must change our tactics
or lose the game,"

Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1862.

To Lincoln, it was clear now

that it was no longer possible

to restore the old union.

A new one had to be embraced.

By summer, he knew
what tactic was needed

to win the war--
emancipation--

but doubted whether
he would ever have

the political or military
opportunity to use it.

"I find it hard
to maintain my lively faith

in the triumph
of the nation and the law,"

New York lawyer
George Templeton strong

confided to his diary.

"These are the darkest days
we have seen since bull run."

What no one knew
was that the year

would soon see
the bloodiest day of the war

and then the brightest.

It could have been
Avery ugly, filthy war

with no redeeming
characteristics at all...

And it was the battle
for emancipation

and the people
who pushed it forward--

the slaves, the free black
people, the abolitionists,

and a lot
of ordinary citizens--

it was they who ennobled

what otherwise would have
been meaningless carnage

into something higher.

Outside Richmond,

George McClellan continued
to call anxiously

for more troops,

though his
110,000-man force

already greatly outnumbered
Joseph Johnston's army.

Meanwhile,
west of the blue Ridge

in the Shenandoah valley,

general Thomas J. Jackson

was keeping
3 federal armies busy.

"always mystify, mislead,
and surprise the enemy.

"And when you strike
and overcome him,

"never let up in the pursuit.

"Never fight against heavy odds

"if you can hurl your force

"on only a part of your
enemy and crush it.

"A small army may thus
destroy a large one,

and repeated victory
will make it invincible."

General T.J. Jackson.

He was a true eccentric.

He believed that if he
had pepper in his food,

it would make his left leg ache.

He would never mail a letter

that would be
in transit on a Sunday.

He was a strict observer
of the sabbath.

And yet so many of his battles
were fought on Sundays

that the soldiers began to believe
that he would fight on Sunday

because the lord
would be even more with him.

Jackson was a pious,
blue-eyed killer,

utterly untroubled
by the likelihood of death.

It was a man's
"entire duty," he said,

"to pray and fight."

"he would have a man shot
at the drop of a hat,

and he'd drop it himself."

Sam Watkins.

He had a strange quality
of overlooking suffering.

During one of the battles,
he had a young courier,

and Jackson looked
around for him,

and he wasn't there.

And he said, "where is
lieutenant so-and-so?"

And they said, "he was
killed, general."

Jackson said, "very
commendable, very commendable."

And then put him
out of his mind.

"all old Jackson gave us

"was a musket, 100 rounds,
and a gum blanket,

and he drove us like hell."

His men did not love him.

He was too grim, too remote,
and he demanded too much.

Some thought him mad.

He believed that only by
keeping one hand in the air

could he stop himself
from going out of balance.

And he sucked
constantly on lemons,

even in the midst of battle.

Others worried
that his religious fervor

would cloud his judgment.

His command, Jackson said,

was "an army of the living god,

as well as of its country."

But his men
were willing to endure

the 36-mile-a-day marches
he demanded

because he
brought them victories.

It was Jackson's duty
in the Shenandoah

to unsettle the union

and keep Washington
from reinforcing McClellan.

Operating in the midst
of 3 federal armies,

each with more men than
his own force of 17,000,

Jackson lashed out
at one army and then another.

Armed with a detailed map
that stretched 8 1/2 feet,

he surprised them
every time--

at Winchester,

front royal,

cross keys,

port Republic,

and a half dozen other places.

After routing
Nathaniel banks' army

at the battle of Winchester,

Jackson chased it
all the way to the Potomac.

"Stop, men!" Banks shouted
to his retreating troops.

"Don't you
love your country?"

"Yes, by god," said one,

"and I'm trying
to get back to it

just as fast as I can."

Jackson's valley campaign
was a triumph.

In just over a month,

his men marched
almost 400 miles,

inflicted 7,000 casualties,

seized huge quantities
of badly needed supplies,

and kept almost 40,000
federal troops

off the peninsula.

"he who does not see
the hand of god in this

is blind, sir, blind."

"There is no doubt
that Jefferson Davis

"and other leaders of the south

"have made an army.

"They are making,
it appears, a Navy,

"and they have made
what is more than either.

"They have made a nation.

"We may anticipate
with certainty

the success
of the Southern states."

William E. Gladstone.

Confederate gospel
held that Britain and France

could not survive
without Southern cotton.

Before long, one or both
would surely intervene

on behalf of the confederacy

to end the union blockade.

To put more pressure on Europe,

the confederates
cut cotton production 90%.

2.5 million bales
were burned

or left to rot
on confederate wharves

to keep it out of English hands.

Now, in addition
to directing a war at home,

Lincoln had to find a way
to keep Europe

from coming in
on the side of the south.

And increasingly, in the north,

there was pressure
for emancipation,

and it came from unlikely people

in unlikely places.

On may 1, 1862,

Lincoln named
general Benjamin F. Butler

military governor
of occupied New Orleans.

Butler went right to work.

He hanged a man

suspected of having desecrated
the American flag.

He closed
a secessionist newspaper,

confiscated the property

of citizens who refused
to swear allegiance

to the union,

and was given the scornful
nickname "spoons"

for allegedly
pocketing silverware.

New Orleans women routinely
insulted his troops.

When a woman
in the French quarter

leaned from a window
to dump her chamber pot

on the head of admiral Farragut,

Butler issued
general order number 28.

"As the officers and soldiers
of the United States

"have been subject
to repeated insults

"from the women calling
themselves ladies of New Orleans,

"it is ordered that, hereafter,

"when any female shall,

"by word, gesture, or movement,

"insult or show contempt

"for any officer or soldier
of the United States,

"she shall be regarded
and held liable

"to be treated
as a woman of the town,

plying her avocation."

General Benjamin Butler.

Southerners were outraged

and called Butler "the beast."

A New Orleans entrepreneur
sold chamber pots

featuring Butler's portrait
inside the bowl.

In Charleston, south Carolina,

a private citizen
offered a $10,000 reward

for the capture
of "beast" Ben Butler--

dead or alive.

But the harassment
of his men stopped.

With the union army so near,

unrest on Louisiana
plantations increased.

When desperate slave owners

began complaining
of rebellious blacks,

Butler declared the planters
disloyal to the union,

then took away their slaves.

"Go to the Yankees,"

one slave-holder
told his slaves.

"They are kings here now."

"I have been reading
so much about the Yankees,

"I was very anxious to see them.

"The whites would tell
their colored people

"not to go to the Yankees,

"for they would
harness them to carts

"and make them pull the carts
around in place of horses.

"I asked grandmother
one day if this was true.

"She replied, certainly not,

"that the white people

"did not want slaves
to go over to the Yankees

"and told them these things
to frighten them.

"I wanted to see those
wonderful Yankees so much,

"as I heard my parents say

that the Yankees were going
to set all the slaves free."

Susan king Taylor.

The slaves understood
that that war was about slavery

before it was a war.

They made a nuisance
for the army,

and they also made an issue
that the army had to deal with.

And if the army
had to deal with it,

the war department
had to deal with it.

If the war department
had to deal with it,

congress had to deal with it.

That means that
every fugitive slave

who made a nuisance of himself

to the local commander

eventually made
a figure of himself

to the congress
of the United States.

Congress,
controlled by Republicans,

now forbade the army

to return slaves
to their masters.

And in June,

it outlawed slavery
in the territories,

finally reversing
the old Dred Scott decision.

"only the damnedest
of damned abolitionists

"dreamed of such things
a year ago.

"John brown's soul
is marching on,

with the people after it."

George Templeton strong.

"The slavery question
perplexes the president

"almost as much as ever,

"and yet I think
he is about to emerge

"from the obscurities

"where he has been groping

"into somewhat clearer light.

So, you see,
the man moves."

Salmon P. Chase.

"July 4, 1862.

"I would do it

"if I were not afraid

"that half the officers
would fling down their arms

and 3 more states
would rise."

Lincoln continued to back a plan

to pay $400
for every slave freed

and then encourage the freed men

to sail off to a colony
in Africa or Central America.

The abolitionist
Wendell Phillips

called Abraham Lincoln

a first-rate
second-rate man.

I lose Patience
with the argument

that because of someone's time,

his limitations are therefore
excusable or even praiseworthy.

It is not true
that it was impossible

in that time and place

to look any higher.

Think of Wendell Phillips, who,

commenting on
Abraham Lincoln's proposal

to colonize black people
out of the country,

was sarcastic.

He said, "colonize the blacks?

"A man might as well
colonize his own hands.

"Or when the robber
is in his house,

he might as well
colonize his revolver."

"emancipation is
the demand of civilization.

"That is a principle.

All else is intrigue."

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

On the Virginia
peninsula, the rains came,

inundating the bottomlands.

Along the roads
outside Richmond,

George McClellan's force
was divided in two

by the flooded
Chickahominy river.

The rebels saw their chance

and attacked the smaller force
on may 31st.

In the fierce fighting
that followed,

the confederates did best

near a crossroads
called seven pines.

The union soldiers

were most successful
at fair oaks.

When the battle
of fair oaks was over,

the north had lost 5,000 men,

the south, 6,000,

and it hadn't changed a thing.

Joseph Johnston,

the overall
confederate commander,

was himself severely wounded

and carried from the field.

"the shot that struck me down

"was the best ever fired
for the confederacy,

"for I possessed in no degree

"the confidence
of the government,

"and now a man who does
enjoy it will succeed me

and be able to accomplish
what I never could."

"His name might be audacity.

"He will take more chances
and take them quicker,

"than any other general
in this country,

north or south."

Now for
the first time in the war,

Robert E. Lee was placed

at the head of a major army.

"I prefer Lee to Johnston.

"Lee is too cautious

"and weak under
grave responsibility.

"Personally brave
and energetic to a fault,

"he is yet wanting
in moral firmness

when pressed
by heavy responsibility."

George McClellan.

McClellan completely misjudged

the new confederate commander.

Robert E. Lee
was a fighter.

Wanting to get at the union men

who had dared invade his state,

Lee renamed his force
the army of northern Virginia,

seized the initiative,
and never let it go.

First, Lee sent
his cavalry chief, Jeb Stuart,

to reconnoiter
McClellan's forces.

Stuart now led 1,200 troopers

on a pounding 3-day,
150-mile ride

around McClellan's huge army.

His men burned federal camps,

cut down telegraph poles,

took prisoners
and horses and mules,

and slowed only
to accept bouquets and kisses

from women along the way.

In vain pursuit

was Stuart's
own father-in-law,

who had stayed loyal
to the union

and become a general--

a decision Stuart said
he would "regret but once,

and that will be
continuously."

Throughout the whole campaign,

Lee carefully observed

McClellan's tentative advance
up the peninsula.

As McClellan
was preparing at last

to lay siege to Richmond,

Lee surprised him first,

at Mechanicsville on June 26th.

It was a daring move.

Defying all military convention,

Lee divided his tiny force

and then attacked
the huge union army,

gambling that McClellan
would be too cautious

to move into Richmond.

Lee's assault didn't work.

He lost 1,500 men
at Mechanicsville,

but he would not let up.

Determined to drive McClellan
out of Virginia,

Lee kept on the attack.

And so it went.

For 7 days,
the two armies clashed.

From Gaine's mill...

From savage's station...

To Frayser's farm...

And Malvern hill,

where federal gunners
stopped the confederates

who came at them
up the long slope.

"our ears had been
filled all night

"with agonizing cries
before the fog was lifted.

"But now our eyes saw

"that 5,000 dead or wounded men

"were on the ground.

"A third of them
were dead or dying,

"but enough of them
were alive and moving

to give the field
a singular crawling effect."

"each of the battles
of those 7 days

"brought a harvest of wounded

"to our hospital.

"I used to veil myself closely

"as I walked to
and from my hotel,

"that I might shut out

"the dreadful sights.

"Once I did see
one of those dreadful wagons.

"In it, a stiff arm was raised,

"and it shook as it was
driven down the street,

"as though the dead owner

appealed to heaven
for vengeance."

All but one of
the battles of the 7 days

were union victories,

yet McClellan
treated them as defeats,

continuing to back down

until he reached the safety
of federal gunboats

at Harrison's landing
on the James river.

Union officers urged
a counterattack.

Lee had lost 20,000 men.

McClellan refused.

One officer suggested

his commander was motivated

either by "cowardice
or treason."

In just one week,

Lee had completely unnerved
the union general

and demonstrated
for the first time

the strengths that
would make him a legend--

surprise, audacity,

and an eerie ability
to read his opponent's mind.

In just 7 days,

McClellan had been
totally out-generaled.

"I am tired of the sickening
sight of the battlefield,

"with its mangled corpses
and poor suffering wounded.

"Victory has no charms for me

when purchased at such cost."

On July 7th,

an exasperated Lincoln
sailed down to see

his commanding general.

He had not lost,
McClellan insisted.

He had merely failed to win.

He needed 50,000 more men,
or perhaps 100,000.

No such numbers were available,

Lincoln told him.

If McClellan did not feel

he could resume the offensive,

his men would be withdrawn
from the peninsula.

"If I gave McClellan
all the men he asks for,

"they couldn't find
room to lie down.

"They'd have
to sleep standing up.

"Sending men to that army

"is like shoveling fleas
across a barnyard--

not half of them
get there."

"September 3.

"Today we took a steamer

"and went up the Potomac
past Washington

"and landed at Georgetown.

"It is hard to have reached

"the point we
started from last march,

and Richmond is still
the rebel capital."

Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

Union guns battered fort Pulaski,
Georgia, into surrendering

and choked off
the Savannah river

to Southern ships.

There was fighting

at Foyt's plantation,
north Carolina,

St. Andrew's bay, Florida,

Wartrace, Tennessee,

and at Albuquerque in far-off
new Mexico territory.

"sea islands, Georgia.

"Here I am,
surrounded by troopers,

"missionaries, contrabands,

"cotton fields, and serpents,

"in a summer climate,

"disgusted with
all things military

"and fighting off malaria

"with whiskey and tobacco.

"No man seems to realize that
here in this little island,

"all around us,
has begun the solution

"of the tremendous
nigger question.

"Some 10,000 former slaves

"are thrown upon the hands

"of the unfortunate government.

"They are the forerunners

of hundreds
of thousands more."

Lieutenant
Charles Francis Adams.

Stationed in places

like Hilton head and Beaufort,

new englanders got their
first taste of the tropics.

None of the 2nd Massachusetts

had ever seen
a palm tree before.

When union forces took parts
of the south Carolina coast,

plantation owners fled,

leaving behind empty houses
and 10,000 slaves.

Missionaries, teachers,
and other volunteers

soon arrived to help
the newly-liberated.

"We have come to do
antislavery work,"

one teacher wrote.

"We think it noble work,

and we will do it nobly."

"my dear wife,

"this day I can address you,

"thank god, as a free man.

"I had a little trouble
getting away,

"but as the lord led the children
of Israel to the land of Canaan,

"so he led me to a land
where freedom will reign

"in spite of earth and hell.

"My dear, I trust
the time will come

"when we will meet again.

"And if we don't meet on earth,

"we will meet in heaven,
where Jesus reigns.

"Dear wife, I must close.

"Rest yourself contented.
I am free.

"Your affectionate husband.

Kiss Daniel for me."

John Boston.

At deer isle, Maine,

people were afraid to go
to the post office,

where the casualty lists
were posted.

"new Berne, north Carolina.

"March 20, 1862.

"To Mr. John Webster, Jr.,

"deer isle, Maine.

"Dear sir...

"It is with pain

"that I have to announce to you

"the death of your
brother Charles gray.

"By his good conduct

"and bravery while with me,

"he had risen
to the rank of corporal,

"and had he lived, I should
have promoted him again.

"He was shot through the body

"at the battle of new Berne.

"His last words were,
we will never give up.

"He is buried here.

"His effects I shall send home

"at the earliest opportunity.

"Yours truly,
E.A.P. Brewster,

"captain commanding company 'a',

23rd Massachusetts."

Deer isle had lost
its first soldier.

A parcel containing
Charles gray's personal effects

arrived in the mail--

his hat, promotion papers
attesting to his valor,

and a cartridge box

in which someone had placed

the mangled bullet
that killed him.

His mother refused
to look at it.

The men of
the reduced fishing fleet

struggled to harvest a catch.

Wives tended kitchen gardens

and scraped linen for the lint

from which army bandages
were made.

More bad news arrived.

Private Alex Henderson
had died of disease

at fort Jackson, Louisiana,

leaving a widow
and several children.

At Clarksville, Tennessee,

tensions between the town

and the occupying
union army ran high.

Federal troops vandalized
Stewart college,

wrecking laboratories
and stealing books,

then set up headquarters there.

Soldiers burst in
on a church service,

arrested the preacher,
commandeered horses,

and forced
reluctant parishioners

to take a loyalty oath.

As much as possible,
the residents stayed at home.

The answer to--
a southerner would give you

as to why are you fighting
if you were a northerner--

he would say, "I'm fighting
'cause you're down here."

He was being invaded,

and he fought, as he
thought, to defend his home.

Lincoln had
a much more difficult job

of sending men out

to shoot up
somebody else's home.

And he had to unite them
before he could do that.

And his way of doing it
was double.

One was to say that the
Republic must be preserved,

not split in two.
That was one.

And the other one
he gave them as a cause--

the freeing of the slaves.

On the morning of July 22, 1862,

the president called
a cabinet meeting.

What he said
took everyone by surprise.

After long thought,
he told them,

he had decided
to emancipate the slaves.

It was a stunning moment.

It was against everything

Lincoln had promised
all the Republicans

and indeed the country--

that he would not
become an abolitionist,

he would not strike at slavery
where it existed.

And here, suddenly,
he was changing

the character of the war.

But secretary
of state Seward worried

that until the army had won
a real victory,

emancipation would seem like

the last shriek on the retreat.

Lincoln agreed
to wait for a victory.

It's hard to separate
one issue from another.

Obviously, Lincoln
had to win the war.

He had to keep
his respectability

as president of a country

that would not allow itself
to be defeated

by a group of rebels.

So that was always an issue,

and it was especially an
issue, of course, in 1862.

He could not let himself
be made a fool

and the union be made a fool

by standing up for principles

that could not be vindicated
on the battlefield.

Desperate for a victory,
Lincoln removed McClellan

and put tall, bombastic
John pope in command.

Pope so often bragged

that his headquarters
were in the saddle,

people began to say
he had his headquarters

where his hindquarters
should have been.

Lincoln was warned at the start

that pope was not to be trusted
with telling the truth.

And Lincoln said, "I've known
the popes back in Illinois.

"Known all of them. They're
all liars and braggarts,

"but I don't know of any particular
reason why a liar and a braggart

shouldn't make
a good general."

Pope wasted no time
charging into northern Virginia

after the rebel armies,

but he was in trouble
from the start.

First, stonewall Jackson
fought him to a stand-off

at cedar mountain.

Jeb Stuart hit him next,

raiding his headquarters

and getting away
with $35,000 in cash

and the union commander's
dress coat.

Then the rebels
simply disappeared.

It took pope
two days to find them,

dug in along
an abandoned railroad

overlooking the old
bull run battlefield.

On August 29th, pope attacked,

promising to "bag
the whole crowd."

But the confederates held,

Jackson's men hurling rocks
when ammunition ran low.

At 2:00 the next afternoon,

confederate general
James Longstreet

sent 5 divisions
storming into the union flank.

It was another union disaster.

25,000 men were killed,
wounded, or missing

at second bull run,

five times the figure

that had so horrified
the country

the first time
north and south fought there.

Lincoln sent pope west
to Minnesota

to deal with an uprising
among the sioux

and reluctantly
put George McClellan

back in command.

"We must use the tools we have,"

Lincoln said.

McClellan told his wife

he had been called upon
to save the country

once again.

"we would ask
the north carolinians

"if they had any tar

"and call them tar heels.

"They would reply
that they were just out

"as they had let us virginians
have all they had

"to make us stick
in the last fight

"and call us sore backs,

"as they'd knocked all
the skin off our backs

"running over us
to get into battle.

"And so it would go,
but all in the best of humor,

knowing that all
did their duty."

John Casler, 33rd regiment, Virginia
infantry, stonewall's brigade.

You must remember they were
all from the same state.

They had followed the same flag.

The battles they had fought in,

the names were stitched
on that flag.

And there was a great
deal of unit pride.

And I'm sure there was
a great deal of sadness

over the losses
that they suffered.

But there was a closeness
among those men

that came from years
of being exposed

to the most horrendous
warfare that I know of.

"dear father, the next morning,

"we had our second battle.

"It was rather strange music

"to hear the balls scream
within an inch of my head.

"I had a bullet strike me
on top of the head

"just as I was going to fire,

"and a piece of shell
struck my foot.

"A ball hit my finger,
and another hit my thumb.

"The firing increased tenfold,

"then it sounded like
the rolls of thunder,

"and all the time
every man shouting

"as loud as he could.

"I got rather more excited

than I wish to again."

"I saw the body

"of a man killed
the previous day this morning,

"and a horrible sight it was.

"Such sights do not affect me
as they once did.

"I cannot describe the change,

"nor do I know
when it took place,

"yet I know there is a change,

"for I look on
the carcass of a man now

"with pretty much
the same feeling as I would do

were it a horse or a hog."

"Sunday a soldier of company
'a' died and was buried.

"Everything went on as if
nothing had happened,

"for death is so common that
little sentiment is wasted.

It is not like
death at home."

Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

Falling back
from the bull run battlefield,

union troops skirmished briefly
with rebel forces

at falls church, Virginia,

where the men
stopped long enough

to scribble their names
on the chapel walls.

"In great contests,"

Abraham Lincoln wrote
as the summer waned,

"each party claims to act
in accordance

"with the will of god.

"Both may be,
but one must be, wrong.

"God cannot be for
and against the same thing

at the same time."

"August 20, 1862.

An open letter
to the president."

"We think you are
unduly influenced

"by the counsels of certain
fossil politicians

"hailing
from border slave states.

"We ask you to consider
that slavery

"is everywhere the inciting
cause and sustaining base

"of treason.

"It seems to us
the most obvious truth

"that whatever strengthens
or fortifies slavery

"drives home the wedge

intended to divide the union."

Horace Greeley.

"August 22nd.

"My Paramount object
in this struggle

"is to save the union

"and is not either to save

"or to destroy slavery.

"If I could save the union

"without freeing any slave,
I would do it.

"If I could save it
by freeing all the slaves,

"I would do it.

"And if I could save it
by freeing some

"and leaving others alone,

I would also do that."

"it seems to me that
time is fast approaching

"when some joint offer
of mediation

"by England, France, and Russia

"might be made with
some prospect of success

"to the combatants
in north America.

"The proposal would
naturally be made

"to both north and south.

"If both accepted, we should
recommend an armistice

"and cessation of blockades,

"with a view to negotiation

on the basis of separation."

Prime minister Palmerston.

Lincoln had to have a victory.

"September 3, 1862.

"The present seems to be

"the most propitious time

"since the commencement
of the war

for the confederate
army to enter Maryland."

Robert E. Lee.

The brilliant Southern
victories of spring and summer

had brought Lee's army
international renown.

"One more successful campaign,"

he wrote Jefferson Davis,

"would force Europe
to recognize the confederacy."

Now, for the first time,

Lee led 40,000 soldiers
across the Potomac

and onto union soil.

"this body of men
moving along with no order,

"their guns carried
in every fashion,

"no two dressed alike,

"their officers
hardly distinguishable

"from the privates--

"were these the men that had
driven back again and again

our splendid legions?"

"They were the dirtiest men
I ever saw,

"a most ragged, lean,

"and hungry set of wolves.

"Yet there was a dash about them

that the northern
men lacked."

Lee's target was
the federal rail center

at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Hoping marylanders would rise up

against the union,

he instructed his men to sing
Maryland, my Maryland

as they marched.

It didn't work.

Most residents
of the small towns

stayed fearfully
behind closed doors.

Then, on September 13th,
in a Meadow near Frederick,

a union soldier found 3 cigars

wrapped in a piece of paper.

It was a copy
of Lee's battle plans,

accidentally left behind.

McClellan now knew
Lee had divided his army,

sending one part off
to seize Harpers ferry.

McClellan had in his hands

the instrument with which
to destroy Lee.

Still, he did nothing
for 18 crucial hours.

On September 15th,

Lee and his confederates
took up positions

along the crest
of a 3-mile Ridge

just east of the town
of Sharpsburg

and only 52 miles
from Washington.

The Potomac was at their back.

In front ran a creek
called Antietam.

"On the forenoon of the 15th,

"the blue uniforms
of the federals

"appeared among the trees
that crowned the heights

"on the eastern bank
of the Antietam.

"The number increased, and larger
and larger grew the field of blue

"till it seemed to stretch
as far as the eye could see.

"And from the tops of the mountains
down to the edges of the stream

gathered the great army
of McClellan."

General James Longstreet.

Had McClellan hurled his army

at the confederates that day,

the war might have ended,
but he did not.

"There was a single item
in our advantage,"

an aide to Lee remembered,

"but it was an important one.

"McClellan had brought
superior forces

to Sharpsburg,"
the aide conceded,

"but he had also
brought himself."

"September 16th-- that night, I
lay beside the Charlestown pike

"and watched until morning

"the grimy columns come
pouring up from the pontoons.

"It was a weird, uncanny sight

"and drove sleep from my eyes.

"It was something demon-like,

"a scene from an inferno.

"They were silent as ghosts,

"ruthless and rushing
in their speed,

"ragged, earth-colored,
disheveled, and devilish.

"The shuffle of their
badly shod feet

"on the hard surface of the pike

"was so rapid
as to be continuous,

"like the hiss
of a great serpent.

"The spectral, ghostly picture

will never be erased
from my memory."

Captain Edward Hastings Ripley.

"as night grew nearer,

"whispers of a great battle

"to be fought the next
day grew louder,

"and we shuddered
at the prospect,

"for the battles had
come to mean to us,

"as they never had before,

blood, wounds, and death."

The battle
that began the next day

was really 3 battles.

The first began at 6 A.M.
on Lee's left,

where a federal force

charged along
the Hagerstown pike

to attack
stonewall Jackson's men

hidden in woods
beyond a big cornfield.

The union objective

was a plateau
edged with artillery

on which stood a small
whitewashed church,

built by a German baptist
pacifist sect, the dunkards,

for whom even a steeple
was thought immodest.

The union field commander
was major general Joe hooker,

a profane and hard-drinking
Massachusetts soldier

known as fighting Joe.

As hooker cautiously advanced,

he noticed the glint of bayonets
in the cornfield

and ordered 4 batteries
to fire into it.

The rebels countercharged.

The battle surged back and forth

across the cornfield 15 times.

In a matter of minutes,

the 12th Massachusetts
lost 224 of 334 men.

Hooker himself
was carried from the field,

shot through the foot.

"the men are loading and firing

"with demoniacal fury

"and shouting and laughing
hysterically,

"and the whole field before us

"is covered with rebels
fleeing for life

into the woods."

Hooker's men were closing
in on the Dunkard church.

At that moment, stonewall Jackson
sent in his last reserves,

John bell hood's division--
fierce fighters at any time,

but now enraged
at having missed breakfast,

which had promised to be
their first real meal in days.

Their first volley was

"like a scythe running
through our line,"

one union survivor remembered.

And then the confederate
counterattack came on.

"Every stalk of
corn was cut as closely

"as could have been done
with a knife,

"and the slain lay in rows,

"precisely as they
had stood in their ranks

a few moments before."

Joseph hooker.

The northern troops
ran back through the cornfield.

Hood's men ran after them,
but were stopped

by a hail of shells
and federal reinforcements.

When the confederates
finally withdrew,

one officer asked hood
where his division was.

"Dead on the field,"
he answered.

"I have never
in my soldier's life

"seen such a sight.

"The dead and wounded
covered the ground.

"In one spot,
"a rebel officer and 20 men

"lay near a wreck of a battery.

"It is said battery 'a',

1st Rhode Island artillery
did this work."

Elisha hunt Rhodes.

By 10 A.M.,
8,000 men lay dead or wounded.

Jackson's lines
had wavered, but held.

After his part
of the battle was over,

Jackson was sitting on
his horse, eating a peach,

and his medical director,
Dr. McGguire, was there.

And, uh...

He looked out over this field

where there were dead of both sides
littered all over the place.

And as he's eating
the peach, he said,

"god has been
very kind to us this day."

The second part of
the battle of Antietam

began at the center
of Lee's line,

a sunken country road

that now served as
a ready-made rifle pit

for two confederate brigades.

Lee ordered it held at all costs.

General John B. Gordon
assured him,

"these men are going
to stay here, general,

till the sun goes down
or victory is won."

Then the union attacked.

"The brave union commander,

"superbly mounted,
placed himself in front,

"while his band cheered them

"with martial music.

"I thought, what a pity
to spoil with bullets

such a scene
of martial beauty."

General John B. Gordon.

Gordon let the blue line

get within a few yards,

then gave the order to fire.

The union commander
was killed instantly.

His men wavered, retreated,
then came back

at the confederates
5 more times.

Gordon was hit twice
in the right leg,

once in the left arm,

a fourth time
through the shoulder.

He refused all aid,

limping along the line
to steady his men

as the federals kept coming.

"I was finally
shot down by a fifth ball,

"which struck me
squarely in the face.

"I fell forward
and lay unconscious

"with my face in my cap.

"I might have smothered in blood

"but for a yankee bullet hole

which let the blood run out."

Still the confederates held.

Unit after unit
of northern troops

fell back from the sheets
of Southern fire.

Finally, some new yorkers
managed to find a spot

from which they could shoot down

on the road's defenders.

The tide of battle turned.

The sunken road,

remembered now as bloody Lane,

rapidly filled
with Southern bodies,

two and 3 deep,

and the triumphant federals
knelt on top

of what one called
"this ghastly flooring"

to fire at
the fleeing survivors.

The confederate center
had splintered.

One more push might
have broken it apart.

General McClellan, however,

decided it "would not
be prudent" to attack again.

All day long, in hastily
constructed field hospitals,

Clara Barton tended the wounded.

She worked so close
to the fighting

that a bullet
went through her sleeve

and killed a man
she was treating.

"I had to wring the blood

"from the bottom of my clothing

"before I could step,

for the weight about my feet."

"I was lying on my back,
supported on my elbows,

"watching the shells explode
overhead and speculating

"as to how long I could
hold up my finger

"before it would be shot off.

"When the order
to get up was given,

"I turned over to look
at colonel Kimball,

thinking he had become
suddenly insane."

Lieutenant Matthew J. Grohan.

The third battle took
place on the confederate right,

where the union army,
led by general Burnside's corps,

tried to fight its way

across a strongly defended
stone bridge

over Antietam creek.

Ambrose Burnside was
a genial, dapper man--

his distinctive whiskers
or sideburns set a fashion--

but "he shrank
from responsibility,"

an admiring fellow officer said,

"with Sincere modesty,"

and he owed his position

to his old friend McClellan,
who now promised

to support his assault
across the bridge.

Burnside had 12,500 men

against barely 400 Georgians

led by Robert Toombs.

But the confederates
commanded the bluff

overlooking the bridge

and poured
a relentless volley of fire

down on the union troops.

It took 3 hours
and 3 bloody charges

for the federals
to cross the creek

and begin fighting
their way up the slope

towards Sharpsburg.

7 successive union
color bearers were hit

before the confederates
finally broke,

racing back into the town.

"oh, how I ran.

"I was afraid of being
struck in the back,

"and I frequently turned
around in running

"so as to avoid, if possible,

so disgraceful a wound."

Private John Dooley.

Union victory
again seemed certain.

But while
the union troops cheered,

the confederate light
division was arriving

from Harpers ferry...

3,000 men, footsore
from their 17-mile march,

but otherwise ready to fight

and commanded
by general A.P. Hill,

dressed in the red shirt
he liked to wear in battle.

"A.P. Hill is the
fightingest division commander

"in Lee's army.

"Hill arrived at another one of
those Nick-of-the-moment things,

"and it was the last one,

"and it succeeded
in throwing Burnside back

after he finally
got across the bridge."

Hill slammed into
the celebrating union troops.

Burnside begged McClellan
to send up

the reinforcements
he had promised.

McClellan refused.

As night fell, Burnside withdrew

to the stone bridge his men
had fought so hard to seize.

The battle was over.

No ground had been gained.

"before the sunlight faded,

"I walked over the narrow field.

"All around lay
the confederate dead,

"clad in butternut.

"As I looked down
on the poor pinched faces,

all enmity died out."

"There was no secession
in those rigid forms,

"nor in those fixed eyes
staring at the sky.

Clearly, it was not their war."

"The sun went down.
The thunder died away.

"The musketry ceased.

"Bivouac fires gleamed out

as if a great city
had lighted its lamps."

It had been the bloodiest day

in American history.

The union lost 2,108 dead,

another 10,293 wounded
or missing--

double the casualties
of d-day 82 years later.

Lee lost fewer men--

10,318 casualties--

but that was a quarter
of his army.

"Why did we not attack them

"and drive them into the river?

"I do not understand
these things.

But then, I am only a boy."

Elisha hunt Rhodes.

McClellan had plenty of reserves

waiting outside Sharpsburg,

but he never used them.

Lee, outnumbered 3-to-1,

braced for a new attack
all the next day.

It never came.

On the 18th,
Lee and his army slipped back

across the Potomac.

McClellan could claim a victory,

but he could have won the war.

Lee's invasion had been halted,

he had suffered terrible losses,

but his army
had not been destroyed.

"the causes of the war
were wide apart,

but the manhood was the same."

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,
20th Maine.

Held in reserve
outside Sharpsburg,

the 20th Maine included
farmers and lumbermen,

seamen and shopkeepers
and trappers.

Its colonel was
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,

a 33-year-old professor
of rhetoric, oratory,

and modern languages
at Bowdoin college.

Denied a leave of absence
to enlist,

he applied for a sabbatical
to study in Europe,

then volunteered.

On paper, his only
qualification for command

was that he was a gentleman
of the highest moral,

intellectual,
and literary worth.

Chamberlain was still
at Sharpsburg

when Abraham Lincoln
came to see the battlefield.

"we could see the deep sadness

"in the president's face

"and feel the burden
on his heart,

"thinking of his great
commission to save this people

"and knowing that he could
do this no otherwise

"than as he had been doing--

by and through
the manliness of these men."

Watching the
president review his troops,

it seemed to
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

that a "mystic bond,
wonderful in its intensity,"

joined the men
to their commander in chief.

The object of Lincoln's visit

was to get McClellan
to pursue Lee.

"I came back thinking
he would move at once.

"But when I got home,

"he began to argue
why he ought not to move.

"I peremptorily
ordered him to advance.

"It was 19 days before
he put a man over the river,

"and 9 days longer before
he got his army across.

And then he stopped again."

Lincoln at last had
had enough of George McClellan.

The president relieved him
of command permanently.

"they have made a great mistake.

Alas, for my poor country."

"September 21, 1862.

"Dear Sam, Jr.,

"a great many of your old
friends and schoolmates

"have died or been killed.

"I will merely name
Lem Ambercrombie,

"Jeff Montgomery,

"John Garrett,

"Lem hatch, John hill,

"Proctor Porter, Bill Humes,

"John white,

"Walter Maxey,

"Angus Alston.

"Old Mrs. Thomas
of our neighborhood

"has lost 5 sons.

Your mother, Margaret Houston."

You do have a big problem
when you have units

that are from states
and counties and even towns.

And one of those regiments

can get in a very tight spot

in a particular battle,

like in the cornfield
at Sharpsburg,

and the news may be

that there are no more
young men in that town.

They're all dead.

In October of 1862,
at his New York gallery,

Mathew Brady opened
an exhibition of photographs

entitled
"the dead of Antietam."

Nothing like them had ever
been seen in America before.

"the dead of the battlefield
come up to us very rarely,

"even in dreams.

"We see the lists in the
morning paper at breakfast,

"but dismiss its recollection
with the coffee.

"Mr. Mathew Brady
has done something

"to bring to us
the terrible reality

"and earnestness of the war.

"If he has not brought bodies

"and laid them in our dooryards
and along our streets,

he has done something
very like it."

Against the advice
of his advisers,

Lincoln reinstated
U.S. Grant to field command.

"I can't spare this man,"
Lincoln said. "He fights."

1,000 miles to the west,

Vicksburg, high on a bluff
overlooking the Mississippi river,

remained confederate.

"Vicksburg,"
Jefferson Davis said,

"is the nail that holds the
south's two halves together."

That fall, Grant tried to take

the heavily fortified city.

He failed.

The confederacy was
on the offensive

over a 1,000-mile front.

Mr. Gladstone, a power
in the English cabinet,

is saying,
"Jeff Davis has made a Navy.

He's made an army,"
and, what's more important,

intimating that
he's made a nation.

But the invasion
of Maryland fails.

Lee is defeated, falls back.

They lose at Perryville
in Kentucky.

They lose at luka
and Corinth in Mississippi,

and even Newtonia in Missouri.

And the confederate tide
rolls back.

Lincoln, as a result
of Antietam,

converted the war
to a higher plane,

again the master politician.

He announces a preliminary
emancipation proclamation.

Of course, it doesn't free
a single slave in revolt,

frees only as a war measure

and only frees
the slaves in states

where the confederacy
is in control,

and it will take effect
on the first day of January.

"On the first day of January,

"in the year of our lord 1863,

"all persons held as slaves
within any state

"or designated part of a state,

"the people whereof
shall then be in rebellion

"against the United States,

"shall be then, thenceforth,
and forever free.

Abraham Lincoln."

On September 22nd,

just 5 days after
the battle of Antietam,

the president issued
his emancipation proclamation.

"If my name ever goes
into history,"

Lincoln said,

"it will be for this act."

The south was outraged.

Jefferson Davis called it
the "most execrable measure

recorded in the history
of guilty man."

At a Washington dinner, John hay,

the president's
23-year-old secretary,

noted that
"everyone seemed to feel

"a new sort
of exhilarating life.

"The president's proclamation
had freed them,

as well as the slaves."

"it was no longer a question

"of the union as it was

"that was to be
re-established.

"It was the union
as it should be--

"that is to say, washed clean

"from its original sin.

"We were no longer
merely the soldiers

"of a political controversy.

"We were now the missionaries

"of a great work of redemption,

"the armed liberators
of millions.

The war was ennobled.
The object was higher."

Abroad,
the proclamation had the effect

Lincoln had hoped for.

Neither England nor France
was willing openly to oppose

a United States pledge
to end slavery.

"the triumph of the confederacy

"would be a victory
of the powers of evil,

"which would give courage
to the enemies of progress

"and damp the spirits of friends

"all over the civilized world.

"The American civil war

"is destined to be
a turning point,

"for good or evil,

of the course
of human affairs."

John Stuart mill.

"put not your trust in princes,

"and rest not your hopes
on foreign nations.

"This war is ours.

We must fight it out
ourselves."

Jefferson Davis.

That December,
Lincoln spoke to congress.

"The dogmas of the quiet past

"are inadequate
to the stormy present.

"As our case is new,
so we must think anew

"and act anew.

"We must disenthrall ourselves,

"and then we shall save
our country.

"Fellow citizens,
we cannot escape history.

"The fiery trial
through which we pass

"will light us down,
in honor or dishonor,

"to the latest generation.

"We say we are for union.

"The world will not forget
that we say this.

"In giving freedom to the slave,

"we assure freedom
to the free--

"honorable alike in what we give

"and what we preserve.

"We shall nobly save
or meanly lose

the last best hope
of earth."

"December 31.

"Well, the year 1862
is drawing to a close,

"and as I look back,
I am bewildered

"when I think
of the hundreds of miles

"I have tramped,

"the thousands of dead
and wounded that I have seen.

"But we hope for the best

"and feel sure that in the end,
the union will be restored.

Goodbye, 1862."

Elisha hunt Rhodes.

"We shout for joy
that we live to record

"this righteous decree--
free forever!

"Oh, ye millions of free
and loyal men

"who have earnestly sought

"to free your bleeding country

"from the dreadful ravages
of revolution and anarchy,

"lift up now your voices
with joy and Thanksgiving,

"for with freedom to the slave

will come peace and safety
to your country."

Frederick Douglass.

On December 31st,
a large crowd of abolitionists,

including Harriet Tubman
and Wendell Phillips,

gathered together
in the music hall in Boston.

At midnight,
the emancipation proclamation

would take effect.

On the stage,
William Lloyd Garrison

wept with joy
beside Frederick Douglass.

The cheering crowd called
for Harriet Beecher Stowe.

She stood in the balcony,
tears in her eyes.

At a Washington, D.C.,
contraband camp,

former slaves testified.

One remembered the sale
of his daughter.

"Now no more of that," he said.

"They can't sell my wife
and children anymore.

Bless the lord."

On the sea islands
off south Carolina,

federal agents read
the proclamation aloud

to former slaves

under the spreading boughs
of a huge oak tree.

As the commander
of a new all-black regiment

unfurled an American flag,

his men broke into song.

"It seemed the choked voice

of a race at last unloosed,"
he wrote.

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.