All language subtitles for The.Civil.War.S01E04.Simply.Murder.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.

"In this army,

"one hole in the seat
of the britches

"indicates a captain,

"two holes--a lieutenant,

"and the seat of the pants
all out

indicates that the individual
is a private."

They both had
a particular way of yelling.

The northern troops made
a sort of hurrah.

It was called by one soldier,

"the deep, generous, manly
shout" of the northern soldier.

The confederates, of course, had
what was called the rebel yell.

We don't really know
what that sounded like.

One northerner described it,
he said--

he described it by describing
the peculiar corkscrew sensation

that goes up your backbone
when you hear it,

and he said, "if you claim
you've heard it

"and weren't scared,

that means you never
heard it."

It was...

It was basically, I think,
a sort of fox hunt yip

mixed up with a sort
of banshee squall.

And it was used on the attack.

And an old confederate veteran
after the war

was asked at a UDC meeting
in Tennessee somewhere

to give the rebel yell.

The ladies had never heard it.

And he said, "it can't be done,
except at a run,

"and I couldn't do it anyhow

"with a mouth
full of false teeth

and a stomach full of food."

So they never got to hear
what it sounded like.

The civil war
was fought in 10,000 places.

Murfreesboro, Chambersburg,
Dranesville, and Opelousas,

Apache canyon,
St. Augustine,

Paducah, and Brandy station,

on the red river,
the Rappahannock,

and the Rapidan,

across the Susquehanna
and the Monongahela,

from mount Ida and mount olive

to mount Zion,

from Ninevah and Nickajack gap

to new Berne, New Carthage,

new Iberia, new Lisbon,

and new hope,

from the Yazoo delta

to the Chickasaw bluffs.

By 1863, the Taiping
rebellion in China

had entered its 13th year.

Civil war broke out
in Afghanistan.

In America, Eddie Cuthbert
of the Philadelphia keystones

stole the first base
in professional baseball.

The national academy of science

was founded in Washington.

The roller skate was patented,

and Henry Ford
and William Randolph Hearst

were born.

In 1863, confederate general
stonewall Jackson

would become a terror
to the union army

and a legend north and south.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,

a college professor from Maine,

would lead his regiment to glory

on hillsides in Virginia
and Pennsylvania.

In the wilderness
west of Fredericksburg,

Robert E. Lee would devise

one of the most daring
and brilliant battle plans

of the war...

While 1,000 miles to the west,

Ulysses S. Grant
continued to hammer away

at the rebel stronghold
at Vicksburg.

Confederate private Sam Watkins

would fight at murfreesboro,
Shelbyville,

Chickamauga, lookout mountain,
and missionary Ridge,

and somehow survive,

while Elisha hunt Rhodes

would have the best
fourth of July of his life.

In 1863, despite
a northern victory Atantietam,

despite emancipation,

despite a clear superiority
in men and materiel,

the union seemed close
to fumbling all it had.

Meanwhile, from Vicksburg
to Charleston,

the fragile confederate
coalition

was coming apart,

and yet somehow the confederacy
stayed alive

by the daring and luck
and genius

of its high command.

But the biggest tests
were coming that summer

where the Mississippi
took a sharp turn at Vicksburg

and at a sleepy corner
of Pennsylvania.

"Murfreesboro, Tennessee,
January 1, 1863.

"Martha, I can inform you

"that I have seen
the monkey show at last,

"and I don't want
to see it no more.

"I never want to go on another
fight anymore, sister.

"I want to come home
worse than I ever did before.

Thomas Warwick."

"Charles coffin, Boston journal.

"All the surrounding forests
had disappeared,

"built into huts with chimneys
of sticks and mud

"or cut for burning
in the stone fireplaces.

"The soldiers were discouraged.

"They knew that
they had fought bravely

"but that there had been
mismanagement

and inefficient
generalship."

"Falmouth, Virginia.

"This morning,
we found ourselves covered

"with snow that had fallen
during the night.

"It is too cold to write.

"How I would like to have

"some of those on to Richmond
fellows out here with us.

Elisha hunt Rhodes."

The men of
the army of the Potomac

had not been paid for 6 months,

and while army warehouses
at Washington bulged with food,

little of it got
to the winter camp.

"I do not believe

"I have ever seen greater
misery from sickness

"than now exists
in our army of the Potomac.

Thomas F. Perly,
inspector general."

One Wisconsin officer

called the winter camp
at falmouth, Virginia,

the union's valley forge.

Hundreds died from scurvy,
dysentery,

typhoid, diphtheria, pneumonia.

There were epidemics
of measles, mumps,

and other childhood diseases.

And farm boys,
crowded with other men

for the first time
in their lives,

were especially susceptible.

Disease was the chief killer
of the war,

taking two for every one
who died of battle wounds.

"One of the wonders
of these times

"was the army cough.

"It is almost a literal fact

"that when 100,000 men
began to stir at reveille,

"the sound of their coughing

would drown out that
of the beating drums."

"The newspapers say the army

"is eager for another fight.

"It is false.

"They are heartily sick
of battles

that produce no results."

"I don't think I have
received half of my letters.

"It cannot be possible
that one is my quota

"in over 3 weeks from home.

"I've written constantly
from every place

"where we have stopped
long enough to write

"and could mail a letter.

Edward Hastings Ripley."

200 men deserted every day.

By late January,
1/4 of the union army

was absent without leave.

Added to the men's misery

were memories of the battle
they had fought

across the Rappahannock
at Fredericksburg in December.

At Fredericksburg,
there was a... An exchange

across the Rappahannock.

One of them hollered,
"hey, reb,"

and they said, "yeah?"

"When are you fellas
going to come over?"

They said, "when we get
good and ready.

What do you want?"

And they said,
"want Fredericksburg."

"Don't you wish,
you may get it!"

And things like that.

There were a lot
of those exchanges.

A line of hills overlooked
Fredericksburg, Virginia,

a key confederate
transportation link

midway between Richmond
and Washington.

Union general
Ambrose E. Burnside's plan

had been to cross
the Rappahannock by pontoon,

occupy the town,

then take
the thinly defended heights.

Bold action did not come
naturally to Ambrose Burnside,

though he had led his men
to Fredericksburg

determined to display

the fighting spirit
his predecessor George McClellan

had so conspicuously lacked.

But now the war department
failed him,

and 17 days passed

waiting for pontoon Bridges
to arrive.

By the time the bridge
was in place,

Lee had 75,000 men
waiting in the hills.

Stonewall Jackson
was on the right,

James Longstreet on the left

along a bluff called
Marye's heights.

From the top of the heights,

Lee could just see
Chatham mansion

across the river
on the union side,

where 30 years before

he had courted his wife
Mary Custis.

It was now Burnside's
headquarters.

On December 11,

union guns began shelling
Fredericksburg,

setting much of the town
on fire.

Then the troops started
across the river.

Some wondered
why the confederates

did not make it harder
for them to cross.

"They want to get us in,"
one private said.

"Getting out won't be
quite so smart and easy."

While waiting to attack
the heights,

union men looted
what was left of the town.

The great assault came
two days later on December 13.

Federal forces advanced
toward Marye's heights.

Lee could not believe
the enemy would be so foolish.

His artillery covered
all the approaches.

4 lines of riflemen
waited behind a stone wall

that ran along
the base of the hill.

"General," an officer
assured James Longstreet,

"a chicken could not
live in that field

when we open on it."

"how beautifully they came on.

"Their bright bayonets
glistening in the sunlight

"made the line look like a huge
serpent of blue and steel.

"We could see our shells
bursting in their ranks,

"making great gaps,
but on they came,

"as though they would go
straight through us and over us.

"Now we gave them canister,
and that staggered them.

"A few more paces onward,

"and the Georgians
in the road below us Rose up

"and let loose a storm of lead

into the faces
of the advancing brigade."

"The brilliant assault
of their Irish brigade

"was beyond description.

"We forgot they were
fighting us,

"and cheer after cheer
at their fearlessness went up

"along our lines.

General George Pickett."

It was suicide.

"They came forward,"
one man said,

"as though they were breasting
a storm of rain and sleet.

"Faces and bodies
half turned to the storm.

Shoulders shrugged."

The Irish brigade got
within 25 paces of the wall.

The men of the 24th Georgia
who shot them down

were Irish, too.

A union officer
watching from a church steeple

saw brigade after brigade
charge the stone wall.

"They seemed to melt," he said,

"like snow coming down
on warm ground."

They still believed
that to take a position,

you massed your men and moved up

and gave them the bayonet.

There were practically
no bayonet wounds

in the civil war
much more than there were

in the first world war
or the second.

They never came
in that kind of contact,

or at least very seldom
came in that kind of contact,

but they still thought
that to mass their fire

they had to mass their men.

So they lined up

and marched up toward
an entrenched line

and got blown away.

14 assaults were
beaten back from Marye's heights

before Burnside decided
it could not be taken.

9,000 men fell
before the confederate guns.

More credit for valor is given
to confederate soldiers.

They're supposed to have had
more elan and dash.

Actually, I know of
no braver men in either army

than the union troops
at Fredericksburg,

which is a serious defeat.

But to keep charging that wall

at the foot of Marye's heights,

after all the failures
there had been--

and they were all failures--
is a singular instance of valor.

Watching from above,
even Robert E. Lee was moved.

"It is well," he said,
"that war is so terrible.

We should grow
too fond of it."

Colonel
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

and his 20th Maine

were among the thousands
of union men

pinned down
at the foot of the heights.

That night, the temperature
fell below freezing,

and a stiff wind blew.

Men now froze
as well as bled to death.

Night brought quiet.

"But out of
that silence Rose new sounds,

"more appalling still--
a strange ventriloquism,

"of which you could not
locate the source.

"A smothered moan,

"as if a thousand discords
were flowing together

"into a keynote--

"weird, unearthly,
terrible to hear and bear,

"yet startling
with its nearness.

"The writhing Concord
broken by cries for help.

"Some begging for a drop
of water,

"some calling on god for pity,

"and some on friendly hands
to finish

"what the enemy
had so horribly begun.

"Some with delirious,
dreamy voices

"murmuring loved names

as if the dearest
were bending over them."

"And underneath, all the time,

"the deep bass note
from closed lips

too hopeless or too heroic
to articulate their agony."

"At last, outwearied
and depressed,

"I moved two dead men a little

"and lay down between them,

"making a pillow
of the breast of a third,

"drew the flap of his overcoat
over my face

"and tried to sleep.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain."

They were stuck there all night

and all the next day,

crouching behind a wall
of their own dead,

trying not to hear
the confederate bullets

thudding into the corpses
of their friends.

Burnside, openly weeping,

declared that he himself
would lead the new attack.

Subordinates talked him
out of it.

That night, Chamberlain
and his men

scraped out shallow graves
for the dead.

As they worked,

the northern lights
began to dance

in the winter sky.

"Who
would not pass on as they did?

"Dead for their country's life

"and lighted to burial
by the meteor splendors

of their native sky."

It was very unusual
to see the northern lights

that far south,

but the whole heavens were
lit up with streamers of fire,

and whatever
the northern lights are.

And the confederates
took it as a sign

that god almighty himself

was celebrating
a confederate victory.

"The slaughter is terrible,

"the result, disastrous.

"Until we have good generals,

it is useless
to fight battles."

The union had lost 12,600 men.

The south had lost 5,300 men,

but many of them
were only missing--

gone home for Christmas.

The battered union army
limped back across the river.

Icy rain began to fall.

From the ruins
of Fredericksburg,

confederate soldiers
openly taunted the union troops

huddled miserably on the far
side of the Rappahannock.

After the battle
of Fredericksburg,

the confederates went
back into the town,

and they saw all the damage
that had been done

during the union occupation
of the town--

it was a great deal
of damage, real vandalism--

and they were shocked.

And someone
on Jackson's staff said,

"how are we going to put an end

to all this kind of thing?"

And Jackson said,
"kill them. Kill them all."

"Clarksville.

"Those hateful gunboats.

"They looked like they
were from the lower regions.

"Now this is the second night

"that 4 of them have been
anchored in the river

"opposite our house.

"I see the men crawling
about on the boats

"like so many black snakes.

Nannie Haskins."

1,500 union men
were now stationed

at Clarksville, Tennessee.

No one could enter
or leave the town

without a military pass.

"Every day," Mrs. D.N. Kennedy
wrote her husband in Georgia,

"the reins are tightened."

On deer isle, Maine,

the parents of private
Harlton Powers

learned that he was among
the missing at Fredericksburg.

In fact, his fellow soldiers
were certain he was dead,

but had been unable
to recognize his body

among the swollen,
blackened union corpses.

His father placed a stone
to his memory anyway

in the little cemetery
at southwest harbor.

Private Alfred Robbins, age 20,

collapsed and died while
on his way to mail a letter

in camp near
port Hudson, Louisiana.

The cause was never discovered.

In march, corporal
Farnum Haskell's coffin

came home from Louisiana

and was buried
at mount Adams cemetery,

despite the great difficulty
of digging a grave

in the frozen ground.

During the long, cold,
rainy winter of 1863,

confederate forces
huddled in defensive positions

south of the duck river
near Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Confederate officers
liked to explain

that Tullahoma came
from the Greek word tulla,

meaning mud,

and homa, meaning more mud.

The confederacy was on the move.

Confederate general
John C. Pemberton

beat back union forces

trying to take
the Chickasaw bluffs

north of Vicksburg.

John Morgan's
confederate cavalry

raided Kentucky,
burning Bridges,

twisting train tracks,

and taking 2,000
union prisoners.

And Nathan Bedford Forrest

was driving the union army mad
everywhere he went--

stealing horses,
harrying supply lines,

attacking armies 4 times
the strength of his,

then disappearing
without a trace.

In two weeks, Forrest stole
10,000 rifles,

wrecked $3 million
worth of equipment,

cut U.S. Grant's life lines,

and forced him to retreat.

In Texas,
general John B. Magruder

captured a union flotilla
at Galveston.

After the bombardment was over,

confederate major A.M. Lea

went aboard the badly hit
U.S.S. Harriet Lane.

There he found his son,
a federal lieutenant,

dying on the deck.

"January 24, near falmouth.

"Daylight showed
a strange scene.

"Men, horses, artillery,
pontoons, and wagons

"were stuck in the mud.

"Rebels put up a sign marked

"'Burnside stuck in the mud.'

"we can fight rebels,
but not in the mud.

Elisha hunt Rhodes."

"I wish you could hear
Joshua give off a command

"and see him ride
along the battalion

"on his white horse.

"He looked so splendidly.

"He told me last night

"that he never felt
so well in his life.

Tom Chamberlain."

"What makes it strange

"is that I should have
gained 12 pounds

living on worms."

"We live so mean here
that hard bread is all worm,

"and the meat stinks like hell.

"And rice two or 3 times a week,

"and worms
as long as your finger.

I liked rice once,
but goddamn the stuff now."

"It was no uncommon occurrence

"for a man to find the surface
of his pot of coffee

"swimming with weevils

"after breaking up
hardtack in it,

"but they were easily
skimmed off

and left no distinctive
flavor behind."

"Tell ma that I think
of her beans and collards often

"and wish for some,
but wishing does no good.

Benjamin Franklin Jackson."

Union troops
were issued beans; Bacon;

Pickled beef--
called salt horse by the men--

desiccated, compressed
mixed vegetables;

And hardtack--square flour
and water biscuits

hard enough, some said,
they could stop bullets.

In the Southern army,
you ate something called sloosh.

You got issued cornmeal
and bacon,

and you fried the bacon,

which left a great deal
of grease in the pan.

Then you took the cornmeal

and swirled it around
in the grease

to make the dough.

Then you might take the dough
and make a snake of it

and put it around your ramrod

and cook it over the campfire.

That was called sloosh.

They ate a lot of that.

Coffee was the
preferred drink of both armies.

Union troops crushed the beans
with their rifle butts,

drank 4 pints of it a day--

strong enough, one man said,
to float an iron wedge--

and when they could
not build a fire,

were content
to chew the grounds.

Southerners made do
with substitutes

brewed from peanuts,
potatoes, and chicory.

"We have been living
on the contents

"of those boxes you sent to us.

"Nothing was spoiled
except that card of biscuits.

"Those were molded some,

"but we used over half
of them in a soup.

"Thank Mr. Berdicts
a thousand times for me,

"also Mrs. Maxson
for those pies,

"and those fried cakes
and gingersnaps

"are first-rate.

"And the dried berries,
they're nice,

"and the dried beef
and applesauce--

that was first-rate."

"No one agent
so much obstructs this army

"as the degrading vice
of drunkenness.

"Total abstinence would be
worth 50,000 men

"to the armies
of the United States.

General George McClellan."

If a soldier couldn't
buy it, he made it.

One union recipe
called for bark juice,

tar water, turpentine,
brown sugar,

lamp oil, and alcohol.

Southerners sometimes
dropped in raw meat

and let the mixture ferment
for a month or so

to add what one veteran
remembered

as "an old
and mellow taste."

The men called their home brew
"nockum stiff,"

"pop skull,"
and "oh! Be joyful."

"I invited my comrades
to assist me

"in emptying 3 canteens
of oh! Be joyful,

"then spent the balance
of the evening singing.

Then we parted
in good spirits."

In march 1863,

John Mosby's confederate rangers

raided Fairfax court house,
Virginia,

capturing two captains,
30 privates,

58 horses, and brigadier general
Edwin Stoughton.

"For that, I am sorry,"
Lincoln said

when told of the capture,

"for I can make
brigadier generals,

but I can't make horses."

General Mosby had
made life miserable

for northern commanders
throughout the war.

No other confederate officer

was mentioned favorably

as many times in
Robert E. Lee's dispatches.

As John singleton Mosby.

There were no medals
in the confederate army,

not one in the whole
course of the war.

The confederate reason
for that given was

that they were all heroes
and it would not do

to single anyone out.

They were not all heroes.

But there was a suggestion
made to Lee

that there be a roll of honor

for the army of
northern Virginia,

and Lee disallowed it.

The highest honor you could
get in the confederate army

was to be mentioned
in dispatches,

and that was considered
absolutely enough.

"March 5, 1863.

"The arm of the slaves

"is the best defense

"against the arm
of the slave holder.

"Who would be free themselves

"must strike the blow.

"I urge you to fly to arms

"and smite with death

"the power that would
bury the government

"and your Liberty

"in the same hopeless grave.

This is our
golden opportunity."

Frederick Douglass."

"The colored population

"is the great available,
and yet unavailed of, force

"for restoring the union.

"The bare sight of 50,000
armed and drilled black soldiers

"upon the banks
of the Mississippi

"would end
the rebellion at once,

"and who doubts that we
can present that sight

"if we but take hold in earnest?

Abraham Lincoln."

The people most affected
by the emancipation proclamation

obviously did not
receive it as news

because they knew
before Lincoln knew

that the war
was about emancipation,

and moreover, they knew,

as perhaps Lincoln did
without fully realizing it,

and certainly as many people
today do not realize,

that the emancipation
proclamation did nothing

to get them their freedom.

It said that they had a right

to go and put their bodies
on the line

if they had the nerve
to believe in it,

and many of them had
the nerve to believe in it,

and many suffered for that.

To Lincoln, it was now clear

that harsher measures
were needed

to destroy the confederacy.

He called for more troops,

and in February,

pushed a conscription act
through congress.

The emancipation proclamation
had already authorized

the arming of freed slaves.

"As to the politics
of Washington,

"the most striking thing

"is the absence of personal
loyalty to the president.

"It does not exist.

"He has no admirers,
no enthusiastic supporters,

no one to bet on his head."

The fall elections
had not gone well.

Fredericksburg
only made matters worse.

And in Washington, talk of
the disaster was everywhere.

"If there is
a worse place than hell,"

Lincoln told a visitor,
"I am in it."

The single most unpopular act
of Lincoln's administration

was the emancipation
proclamation.

It not only was horribly
unpopular in the confederacy,

where Jefferson Davis called it

"the most wicked thing

that the dark side of humankind
had ever come up with,"

but millions of northerners
responded to it as well.

They did not
really want the--

a great many northerners
did not want the war

to be changed to a war
over slave liberation.

Opposition to the war
was spreading,

especially among democrats
in the heartland--

Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana,

and the Southern half
of Lincoln's own Illinois.

The proclamation ignited
an antiwar movement

in the north.

All but 35 men
of the 138th Illinois

deserted over emancipation,

declaring they would lie
in the woods

until moss grew on their backs

rather than help
free the slaves.

Groups with names like
the knights of the golden circle

and sons of Liberty
met in secret

and muttered of forcing
an end to the war.

Their enemies
called them copperheads,

and they wore on their lapels
the head of Liberty,

snipped from a copper penny.

Their leader was congressman
clement Vallandigham of Ohio.

Lincoln had him thrown in jail

and later banished
to the confederacy.

"You have not conquered
the south. You never will.

"War for the union
was abandoned,

"war for the negro openly begun

"and with stronger battalions
than before.

"With what success?

Let the dead
at fredericksburg answer."

All of these things
bore in on him,

plus the fact that the south
had a strong army

and a good leadership
and was--

but then he would pick up
a Richmond newspaper,

and he'd say,
"here's what they're saying

"about Jeff Davis... Down here.

You know,
I don't look so bad."

Because the south
had a free press, too.

And he realized, you know,

that Jeff was not doing
any better than he was

as far as they were concerned.

Davis was walking down
the street in Richmond one day,

and a confederate soldier,

who was in Richmond
on furlough, passed him

and stopped him and said,

"sir, mister,
be you Jefferson Davis?"

Davis said that he was.

The soldier said,
"well, I thought so.

You look so much like
a confederate postage stamp."

Jefferson Davis
was trying to win a war

while forging a nation
out of 11 states

suspicious of
even the most trivial move

toward centralized government.

When Davis called for a day
of national fasting,

the governor of Georgia
ignored it,

then named a different fast day
of his own.

"I entered into this revolution

"to contribute my might

"to sustain the rights of states

"and to prevent the
consolidation of the government.

"And I am still a rebel,
no matter who may be in power.

Governor Joseph brown
of Georgia."

"the confederacy has been

"done to death by politicians.

Mary Chesnut."

"pardon me," a south carolinian

wrote his congressman,

"is the majority
always drunk?"

Vice president
Alexander Stephens

believed Davis
weak and vacillating,

timid, petulant,
peevish, obstinate.

Stephens left Richmond in 1862,
rarely to return.

"I make no terms,"
Davis once said.

"I accept no compromise."

He refused to unbend in public

or to curry favor
with the press.

Privately, he commuted
nearly every death sentence

for desertion
that reached his desk,

explaining that
the poorest use of a soldier

was to shoot him.

He's often described
as a bloodless pedant,

a man who filled all his time

with small-time paperwork
and never anything else,

an icy-cold man
who had no friendliness in him.

I found the opposite to be true

in all those respects.

Davis was an outgoing,
friendly man,

a great family man--

loved his wife and children--

an infinite store of compassion.

Lee said it best--

he said, "I don't think
anyone could name anyone

"who could have done
a better job than Davis did.

"And I personally
don't know of anyone

who could have done
as good a job."

That's from Robert E. Lee,

which is pretty good authority.

Davis may well have been
the only southerner

who understood
Southern nationality,

who understood what sacrifices
had to be made

if the confederacy was ever
going to jell as a nation.

He kept saying, "I need the kind
of powers that Lincoln got.

"I need the kind of resources
that he got in the draft laws.

"I need to be able to suspend

the writ of habeas corpus
like he did."

He would have said,

"we can't live by the dogmas
of the quiet past any longer."

He didn't say that,
but he acted that out.

He said, "I have to
be given the kinds--

"this confederate government

"needs the kind of national
authority--national power

that the union had
in order to win."

And they didn't get it
because the states' rights

helped kill the confederacy.

A single cake of soap
now cost $1.10--

1/10 of a soldier's monthly pay.

At the beginning of 1863,

a barrel of flour
cost $70 in the south.

By year's end, it cost $250.

The confederate treasury
cranked out millions of dollars

in notes unbacked by gold.

Southern printing
was so primitive

that counterfeiters
were sometimes caught

because their work was too good.

By 1862 and 1863,
the south suffered

from terrible
inflationary currency.

What was really at a premium
was a union gold dollar.

So that the confederate people

could never get away
from the union,

not even economically.

"If the confederacy is defeated,

"it will be
by the people at home.

Atlanta Southern confederacy."

Thousands of women,
infuriated by soaring prices,

stormed through
downtown Richmond shops,

smashing windows
and gathering up

armfuls of food and clothing.

Troops tried to stop them,

and Jefferson Davis
himself came out,

throwing what money he had
in his pockets to the crowd

and begging them
to blame the Yankees,

not the government.

Then he warned the troops
would open fire

if they did not disperse.

The women straggled home.

"Patriotic planters
would willingly put

"their own flesh and blood
into the army,

"but when they were asked
for a negro,

"it was like drawing
an eyetooth.

Senator Louis T. Wigfall,
Texas."

Farmers were called upon

to contribute
1/10 of their produce,

and the confederate army
was empowered

to impress male slaves
as laborers,

provided a monthly fee was paid
to their masters.

Planters moved
their slaves inland,

away from the government
and the fighting.

150,000 slaves were marched
all the way to Texas.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands,
died along the way.

Man as Benjamin Franklin "Wartrace,
Tennessee, June 10, 1863.

"I have just heard
from Hilliard's legion.

"They're deserting every day.

"They say they don't
get enough to eat.

"I have just bought me
a testament.

"I gave $2.00 for it.

"Everything's high here.

Benjamin Franklin Jackson."

"I saw a sight today
that made me feel mighty bad.

"I saw a man shot for deserting.

"There was 24 guns at him,

"and they shot him
all to pieces.

"He went home,
and they brought him back,

"and then he went home again,
so they shot him for that.

Martha, it was one sight
that I did hate to see."

By the end of the year,

2/5 of the Southern army
would be absent,

with or without leave.

Deserters sometimes
banded together,

often fed and clothed
by union sympathizers.

In north Carolina,
the pro-union heroes of America

had over 10,000 members.

By the end of the war,

unionists from every confederate
state except south Carolina

had sent regiments to the north.

In Jones county, Mississippi,

a guerrilla band ran off
tax collectors, burned Bridges,

and ambushed confederate columns
for 3 years.

Reporters called the region

the kingdom of Jones.

"How I wish you
could hear the music

"of this encampment tonight.

"Just stand out in the open air
a little while and listen.

"All seems happy,
and all seems gay,

"but still, could you
look into their hearts,

"you would see thoughts
of the loved ones

"that they have left at home

"rise above their
mirth and gaiety.

"Yet, they are contented,
though not happy,

"contented to do their duty,

"contented to bear
their part in this war,

and sing sad thoughts away."

"Dear Fanny,

"I don't know what
we should have done

"without our band.

"It's acknowledged by everyone

"to be the best in the division.

"Every night about sundown,

"Gilmore gives us
a splendid concert,

"playing selections
from the operas

"and some very pretty marches,

quicksteps, waltzes,
and the like."

Troops sang in camp

and on the way to battle.

Confederates favored "Dixie"

and "the Bonnie blue flag."

Union soldiers still preferred
an old methodist tune.

Mostly, they liked
sentimental songs.

"Just before
the battle, mother,"

"the vacant chair," "all quiet
along the Potomac,"

and "home sweet home."

In many camps, the men were
forbidden to play a song called

"weeping, sad and lonely,"

officers considering it
destructive of morale.

Both sides loved "lorena."

"April 14, 1863,

"Rappahannock river, Virginia,
near Franklin's crossing.

"General Thomas J. Jackson came
down to the riverbank today

"with a party
of ladies and officers.

"We raised our hats to
the party, and strange to say,

"the ladies waved
their handkerchiefs in reply.

"General Jackson
took his field glasses

"and coolly surveyed our party.

"We could have shot him
with a revolver,

"but we have an agreement

"that neither side will fire,

"as it does no good
and in fact, is simply murder.

Elisha hunt Rhodes."

"General, I have placed you

"at the head of the army
of the Potomac.

"I have heard in such a way
as to believe it

"of your recently saying that
both the army and the government

"needed a dictator.

"Of course, it was not for this

"but in spite of this that
I have given you the command.

"Only those generals
who gain successes

"can set up as dictators.

"What I now ask of you
is military success,

"and I will risk
the dictatorship.

Abraham Lincoln."

Again Lincoln
turned to a new general.

He replaced Burnside
with Joseph hooker,

a tenacious west pointer
called fighting Joe,

who drank and talked
too much for his own good.

It was absolutely necessary,
Lincoln told him,

to destroy Lee's army.

"My plans are perfect.

"May god have mercy
on general Lee,

for I will have none."

Hooker's plans called for

one part of his enormous army

to feign an assault
on Lee's front,

still at fredericksburg,

while the rest marched
up the Rappahannock,

crossed the river,

and attacked Lee from the rear.

On April 30, hooker's
main force--70,000 strong--

reached Chancellorsville--

a lone house in a clearing

surrounded by a thick forest
called the wilderness.

Hooker and his officers
moved in downstairs

and continued
to map out the assault

they were sure would trap Lee.

"The enemy
must either ingloriously fly

"or come out
from behind his defenses

"and give us battle
upon our own ground,

where certain destruction
awaits him."

"The hen is the wisest
of all the animal creation

"because she never cackles

until after the egg
is laid."

But Robert E. Lee,
outnumbered nearly two to one,

was not fooled by hooker's plan.

Defying all military convention,

he divided his own
much smaller force,

leaving only 1/4 of his men
at fredericksburg

before rushing west
to shore up his flank.

When Lee's confederates reached
the edge of the wilderness,

union troops moved out
to engage them.

Fire!

But the fighting
had hardly begun

when fighting Joe hooker
inexplicably ordered his forces

back to defensive positions
around the chancellor house.

"To tell the truth,"
he later tried to explain,

"I just lost confidence
in Joe hooker."

Lee sensed hooker's confusion

and the next day
divided his army a second time,

sending 28,000 men
under stonewall Jackson

on an extraordinary
14-mile march

through the dense wilderness

and around
the union's right flank.

Hooker somehow persuaded himself

that Jackson
was actually retreating

and despite
the skeletal rebel force

remaining in front of him,

chose to stay in camp.

All day long came reports
from terrified union pickets

of a huge rebel force

moving just beyond
the screen of trees to the west.

They were ignored.

Late that afternoon,

union troops were boiling coffee
and playing cards

when deer came bounding
out of the forest

and through their camp.

Jackson's army
was right behind them.

"It was a perfect whirlwind
of men," a survivor said.

"The enemy seemed to come
from every direction."

The federals fell back
nearly two miles

before darkness stopped
the confederate sweep.

Chancellorsville, in
many ways, is Lee's masterpiece.

It's where
the odds were longest.

It's where he took
the greatest risk

in dividing his army

in the presence
of a superior enemy

and kept the pressure on.

The real fault
at Chancellorsville

was the attack was staged
so late in the day

that they were notable
to push it

to the extent
that Jackson had intended to.

And he was even attempting
to make a night attack--

Avery rare thing
in the civil war--

because he knew that
he hadn't finished up

what he had started to begin.

Eager to fight on,

Jackson rode out
between the lines that evening

to scout for a night attack.

When he turned
back toward his men,

nervous confederate pickets
opened fire.

Two of his aides fell dead.

Jackson was hit twice
in the left arm.

His shattered arm
was amputated the next morning.

Lee was horrified.

"He has lost
his left arm," he said,

"but I have lost my right."

Hooker continued to bumble.

As he nervously watched
the fighting

from the porch
of the chancellor house,

a shell split the pillar
he was leaning against

and knocked him senseless.

Groggy all day,

he refused
to relinquish command.

Finally, he ordered retreat.

The defeat was total.

Again the union army withdrew
across the Rappahannock.

Hooker had lost 17,000 men,

even more
than at fredericksburg.

"My god, my god," said Lincoln
when he got the news,

"what will the country say?"

Chancellorsville was
Lee's most brilliant victory

and one of the costliest.

13,000 of his men
were dead or out of action,

but it was the loss of one man
that concerned him most.

Stonewall Jackson
seemed to be recuperating.

Then on Sunday, may 10,

he took a turn for the worse.

The scene is in a bedroom

in which he's coming
in and out of consciousness.

Pneumonia's what he died of,
not the loss of his arm.

And his wife
got there to be with him,

and the surgeon, Dr. McGuire,

told Mrs. Jackson that
her husband would die that day,

and she told him, said,

"the doctor says that
you won't last the day out,"

and he said, "oh, no, my child.
It's not that serious."

And then finally she said,

"you'll be with the lord
this day,"

and he went off into
some sort of sleepy delirium.

Pneumonia affects people
in strange ways.

And he called the doctor over

and says, "Dr. McGuire, my wife
tells me I'm gonna die today.

Is that true?"

And the doctor said,
"yes, it is."

He said,
"good. Very good.

I always wanted to die
on a Sunday."

And when they offered him
Brandy or morphine,

he said, "no. I want to keep
my mind clear,"

and the last thing
he said--it sort of--

he wandered in his mind.

He was calling on A.P. Hill,
"prepare for action."

And then all of a sudden,

he was quiet, very quiet
for a spell,

and he said in a clear,
distinct voice,

"let us cross over the river

and rest under the shade
of the trees,"

and then died.

"The death of our pious, brave,

"and noble general
stonewall Jackson

is a great blow
to our cause."

Winfield Scott.

Henry Halleck.

Irvin McDowell.

George McClellan.

John pope.

George McClellan again.

Ambrose Burnside.

Joseph hooker.

Lincoln could not find
the general he needed.

He now knew that to win the war,

the Southern armies
had to be crushed.

He had the men,

but he needed a general
with the will to use them.

"No general yet found
can face the arithmetic,

"but the end of the war
will be at hand

when he shall be discovered."

"Vicksburg is the key.

"The war can never be
brought to a close

until the key
is in our pocket."

"a long line of high,
rugged, irregular bluffs

"clearly cut against the sky,

"crowned with Cannon,
which peered ominously

"from embrasures
to the right and left

"as far as the eye
could see--

that is Vicksburg."

For 2 1/2 months,
Ulysses S. Grant

doggedly attempted to
dig or hack or float his army

through the tangled bayous
and seize the town of Vicksburg.

Nothing worked.

The press accused him
of sloth and stupidity,

hinted he was drinking again.

Finally, Grant decided
on a daring plan.

He would march downriver

through the swamps
on the western side,

cross below Vicksburg,

and without hope of resupply
or reinforcement,

come up from behind
and attack the city.

By early may,
Grant had crossed the river.

"When this was effected,

"I felt a degree of relief

"scarcely ever equaled since.

"I was now
in the enemy's country

"with a river
and the stronghold of Vicksburg

"between me
and my base of supply,

"but I was on dry ground

on the same side of the river
with the enemy."

The men knew they were
cut loose from their base,

knew they were going to be
dependent for supplies

on a very tenuous supply line,

but Grant himself
gave them confidence.

They believed Grant knew
what he was doing.

And one great encouragement
for their believing that

was quite often on the march,

whether at night
or in the daytime,

they'd be moving
along a road or over a bridge

and right beside the road
would be Grant on his horse--

a dust-covered man
on a dust-covered horse,

saying "move on, close up."

So they felt very much

that he personally was
in charge of their movement,

and it gave them
an added confidence.

In 3 weeks, Grant's army,

cut off from all communication
with the outside world,

marched 180 miles,

fought and won 5 battles

at port Gibson...

Raymond...

Jackson...

Champion's hill...

And big black river...

And finally surrounded
Vicksburg itself,

trapping 31,000 confederates.

On may 19,

Grant tried to take the town
by direct assault

but was beaten back.

"May 19.

"Thanks be to the great ruler
of the universe.

"Vicksburg is still safe.

"The first great assault

"has been most
successfully repelled.

"All my fears in reference
to taking the place by storm

"now vanished.

"Reverend William
Lovelace Foster,

chaplain, 35th Mississippi
volunteers."

Grant settled in for a siege,

resolved, he said,
to "outcamp the enemy."

"it is such folly for them

"to waste their ammunition
like that.

"How can they ever take a town

"that has such advantages for
defense and protection as this?

"We'll just burrow
into these hills

and let them batter away
as hard as they please."

On may 15, Jefferson Davis

summoned general Lee
to Richmond.

Something had to be done
about Grant.

Davis wanted to send
part of Lee's army

to relieve Vicksburg.

Lee was against it.

He had a bolder plan.

The army of northern Virginia

should invade the north again,

striking this time
into Pennsylvania.

Lee would attack Harrisburg
and Philadelphia

and force Grant north
to defend Washington.

With luck, Washington
itself might fall.

It might even force Lincoln
to sue for peace

and recognize the confederacy.

Davis agreed.

Everything now hung
on Vicksburg in the west

and Pennsylvania in the east.

As Grant pressed
his siege at Vicksburg,

Lee moved north.

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.