All language subtitles for The.Civil.War.S01E06.Valley.of.the.Shadow.of.Death.1990

Original production
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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.

"I have just this moment
heard from the front.

"There is nothing yet
of a movement,

"but each side
is continually on the alert,

"expecting something to happen.

"To think we are
to have here soon

"what I've seen
so many times--

"the awful loads
and trains and boatloads

"of bloody and pale,
and wounded young men again.

"For that is what
we certainly will have.

I see all the signs here."

Walt Whitman.

Men's beliefs, uh, had
a startling simplicity to it.

Uh, for example, a soldier
in line at Gettysburg

told, "you will advance
a mile across that open valley

and take that hill."

I, for one, would say,

"general, I--I don't think
we should do this.

I don't believe
we can get there."

But they--they--they took it
in a matter of course.

Um, and you must remember
they fought for four years,

which is a long time.

And this simplicity
was severely tested,

but they never lost it.

Uh, they--they--duty, uh,
bravery under adversity--

very simple virtues,
and they had them.

In 1864, a rebellion in China
that cost 20 million lives

finally came to an end.

In 1864, the czar's armies
conquered Turkistan

and Tolstoy finished
war and peace.

In 1864, Louis Pasteur
pasteurized wine,

the Geneva convention

established the neutrality
of battlefield hospitals,

and Karl Marx

founded the international
workingmen's association

in London and New York.

Nevada became a state,

and for the first time,

the words "in god we trust"
appeared on a U.S. coin.

In 1864, the civil war
was in its fourth year.

Union ships
controlled the Mississippi.

The union blockade
was tightening.

Lee had been beaten
at Gettysburg.

Vicksburg and Chattanooga
had fallen.

As confederate hopes
began to dim,

union objectives
became clear--

attack the heart of
the confederacy at Atlanta

and destroy Lee's army
of northern Virginia.

But there was still
no real end in sight.

As Robert E. Lee
and Ulysses S. Grant

prepared to confront each other
for the first time,

neither knew
what awaited their armies

along a 100-mile Crescent
east of Richmond.

To win, one would
have to outthink

as well as outfight the other.

In 1864, for the first time
in history,

a nation would try
to hold an election

in the midst of civil war.

After 3 1/2 years of war,

Abraham Lincoln's prospects
for reelection

did not seem bright.

For Elisha Hunt Rhodes,

stuck in the union trenches
outside Petersburg,

the war stretched on
interminably.

To confederate Sam Watkins
at Franklin, Tennessee,

it seemed
"the death angel was there

to gather its last harvest."

That same year,
William Tecumseh Sherman,

now in command of
the union's western armies,

would set out through
the mountains of Georgia

for Atlanta.

Lieutenant Washington Roebling,

who thought he'd seen
the worst at Gettysburg,

came close to losing his faith
in the union cause.

In Washington,
a sometime poet, Walt Whitman,

worked as a nurse
in the crowded union hospitals

until they overwhelmed him.

In 1864, the pictures that
would come back from the war

would be too horrible to look at
for years to come.

"it is enough to make
the whole world start

"at the awful amount
of death and destruction

"that now stalks abroad.

"I begin to regard
the death and mangling

"of a couple of thousand men
as a small affair,

"a kind of morning dash,

"and it may be well
that we become hardened.

The worst of the war
is not yet begun."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

In early 1864, Spotswood rice,

a slave on a tobacco plantation,

escaped and made his way
to Glasgow, Missouri,

where he enlisted
in the union army.

"Benton barracks hospital,
St. Louis, Missouri.

"My children,

"a few lines to let you know
that I have not forgot you

"and that I want to see you
as bad as ever.

"I feel confident
that I will get you.

"Your miss kitty said
that I tried to steal you,

"but I let her know
that god never intended for man

"to steal
his own flesh and blood.

"I once thought that I had
some respect for them,

"but now my respect
is worn-out,

and I have no sympathy
for slave holders."

Spotswood rice.

"The Willard hotel may be
much more justly called

"the center of Washington
and the union

"than either the capitol,
the white house,

"or the state department.

Everybody may be seen there."

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

On the afternoon
of march 8, 1864,

a stubby, rumpled man
made his way

across the crowded lobby
of Willard's hotel.

A 14-year-old boy
carrying a satchel

followed in his wake.

He didn't have
his three stars on yet

because he wasn't going
to get his commission

until the next day,

but he just walked
up to the desk

and asked for a room,

and there had been
a great many generals

in and out of Willard's.

Practically all of them had been
in and out of Willard's.

The desk clerk said,
"well, I've got something

up on the top floor,
if that will do,"

and Grant said,
"that will do fine,"

and he gave him
the register to sign,

and Grant signed it.

When the clerk looked down
and saw "U.S. grant and son,

galena, Illinois,"

his eyes bugged out of his head.

Word spread quickly

that the man
Lincoln had recently placed

at the head
of all the union armies

was in the hotel,

and when he and his son entered
the crowded dining room,

everyone stood and cheered.

afterwards,
he strolled two blocks

up pennsylvania avenue
to the white house,

where president
and Mrs. Lincoln

were giving a reception.

"I wish to express
my entire satisfaction

"with what you have done
up to this time,

"so far as I can understand it.

"The particulars of your plans

I neither know
nor seek to know."

Abraham Lincoln.

Three years earlier,

Grant had been notable
only for his failures.

Now he was the conqueror
of Donelson,

Vicksburg, and Chattanooga
come to Washington

to receive the rank
of lieutenant general,

last held by George Washington.

He had command now
of 533,000 men,

the largest army in the world.

"I want to push on
as rapidly as possible

"to save hard fighting.

"These terrible battles are
very good things to read about

"for persons
who lose no friends,

"but I am decidedly in favor

"of having as little of it
as possible.

The way to avoid it
is to push forward."

Ulysses S. Grant.

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born
at point pleasant, Ohio,

on April 27, 1822.

His father Jesse ran a tannery,

and its stench was one
of his first memories.

He was sensitive
and withdrawn with people,

but wonderful with horses.

His father thought him
hopelessly impractical

and got him an appointment
to west point.

A clerk mistakenly
registered the boy

as Ulysses S. Grant

and rather than complain,
he lived with it.

His friends called him Sam.

He was graduated
in the middle of his class.

The next year he was engaged
to Julia dent,

the daughter
of a Missouri slave owner.

He adored her, and she
bore him four children.

Grant thought
the Mexican war wicked

but went anyway.

"I considered my supreme duty
was to my flag," he wrote,

and served bravely in battle,

riding alone through
a hail of enemy fire

to bring ammunition to his men.

After the war,

the army sent him to a remote
California outpost,

where, lonely and miserable
without his family,

he began to drink.

"dear Julia, I sometimes
get so anxious to see you

"and our children that
I am almost tempted to resign

"and trust to Providence

"and my own exertions
for a living.

"Whenever I get to thinking up
the subject, however,

poverty, poverty begins
to stare me in the face."

In 1854, he left
the army and returned east

to rejoin Julia
and work a piece of land

his father-in-law gave him.

He called it "hardscrabble farm"
and could not make a go of it.

He tried bill collecting,
real estate, raising potatoes,

even peddling firewood
in the street.

Nothing worked.

One year, in St. Louis,
he pawned his watch

to buy Christmas presents
for his family.

He had been reduced
to working as a clerk

in his father's harness shop
in galena, Illinois,

when the war began.

As a west point graduate,
Grant was a scarce commodity.

He reentered the army
and never looked back.

"in this season,
I saw energies in Grant.

"He dropped a stooped-shouldered
way of walking

"and set his hat
forward on his head

in a careless fashion."

John A. Rawlins.

He was promoted
to brigadier general,

won a small battle
at Belmont, Missouri,

then a big one at fort Donelson

at a time when
other northern generals

were going down to defeat.

"his soldiers do not salute him.

"They only watch him

"with a certain
sort of familiar reverence.

"They observe him coming
and, rising to their feet,

"gather on each side of the way
to see him pass.

"No napoleonic displays,
no ostentation, no speech,

no superfluous flummery."

He was distinctly unglamorous

and had only
one personal attendant,

a runaway Missouri slave
named bill.

He didn't like marching bands

and could recognize
only two tunes.

"One was Yankee doodle, "
he said,

"and the other wasn't."

He insisted that his meat
be cooked dry

because even a suggestion
of blood on his plate

made him sick.

Once, on the Eve of a battle

in which thousands
of men would die,

he had a teamster
tied to a tree for six hours

for mistreating a horse.

He was methodical, dogged,

and uncommonly clearheaded
under fire.

Grant the general
has many qualities,

but he had a... A thing
that's very necessary

for a great general.

He had what they call
4:00-in-the-morning courage.

You could wake him up
at 4:00 in the morning

and tell him that they just
turned his right flank,

and he would be
as cool as a cucumber.

He had an ability
to concentrate,

and a good example of that

is he would be working
at his desk, bent over writing,

and he would need something
across the room--

a document or something.

He would get up

and never get out
of that crouched position,

go over there and pick up
the document he'd need,

and come back to his desk
and sit down again

without ever having
straightened up.

It's an example of how
he could concentrate.

He drank bourbon,
and he got drunk easily.

A galena neighbor, John Rawlins,
was made his chief of staff

and took it upon himself
to keep Grant sober.

Grant never got drunk
when his wife was around.

There was only two conditions
Grant would drink under.

One was his wife wasn't there,

and the other was there
wasn't anything going on.

He went on a true bender
during the Vicksburg campaign,

but it was when
nothing was happening.

It was if he--

whether it was anything sexual

about his wife
being out of touch,

I'm not too sure about,

but I do know
that it was, uh, boredom

that would--
that would make him drink.

Now he traveled south
to Meade's headquarters

at Brandy station
near Culpeper, Virginia--

the largest union encampment
of the war.

"April 19. Yesterday
the 6th corps was reviewed

"by lieutenant general
U.S. Grant.

"He is a short, thickset man

"and rode his horse
like a bag of meal.

"I was a little disappointed
in the appearance,

but I liked
the look of his eye."

Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

"We all felt at
last that the boss had arrived."

While Grant
conferred with Meade,

members of his staff
described Grant's triumphs

in the west.

Veterans of the army of
the Potomac were not impressed.

"That may be," one said,

"but Grant
never met Bobby Lee."

"can anybody say
they know the general?

"I doubt it.

He looks so cold,
quiet, and grand."

"I think that Lee
should have been hanged.

"It was all the worse
that he was a good man

"and a fine character
and acted conscientiously.

"It's always the good men
who do the most harm

in the world."

Henry Adams.

Lee is, uh, one of the most
difficult people to talk about

because he's been immortalized,

or as they call him now,
some people, "the marble man."

He's been dehumanized
by the glory and the worship.

Uh, he was a warm, outgoing man,

always had time for any private
soldier's complaint.

Uh, once a northern soldier

being marched
to the rear as a prisoner

complained to Lee in person
that someone had taken his hat.

And he said, "that man got it."

And Lee made the man
give him his hat back.

The man Grant faced across the
Rapidan river in Virginia

came from a family as celebrated

as Grant's was obscure.

Robert E. Lee
was born in 1807

at Stratford in
Westmoreland county, Virginia,

and was raised by his mother.

She taught him to revere
general Washington,

a neighbor remembered,

"to practice self-denial
and self-control" in all things.

His father,
"light horse Harry" Lee,

had been a friend
and favorite lieutenant

of George Washington,

but light horse Harry also
squandered two wives' fortunes

before deserting his family
for the west indies.

At west point,

Robert E. Lee did not earn
a single demerit.

Classmates called him
"the marble model,"

but liked him in spite
of his perfection.

He was graduated second
in his class in 1829.

In 1831, he married

Martha Washington's
granddaughter, Mary Custis.

She bore him seven children

and endured his long absences
as best she could.

The mansion at Arlington
with its 250 slaves

was her home before it was his.

Appointed to the prestigious
corps of engineers,

he was three times
promoted for bravery

during the Mexican war,

where he once met
a young Ulysses s. Grant.

Superintendent of west point,
captor of John brown,

he was at the start of the war

the nation's
most promising soldier.

In 1861, Lee refused command
of the union army

and followed his state
out of the union,

not because he approved
of slavery or secession,

but because he believed
his first duty was to Virginia.

"I did only
what my duty demanded.

"I could have taken
no other course

without dishonor."

"the man who stood before
us was the realized king Arthur.

"The soul that looked
out of his eyes

"was as honest and fearless

"as when it first
looked out on life.

"One saw the character
as clear as crystal,

"without complication,

and the heart as tender
as that of ideal womanhood."

A union girl watching Lee
ride past her Pennsylvania home

said, "I wish he were ours."

Early in the war,
he was ridiculed

as "the king of spades"

because of his fondness
for entrenching

and "granny Lee" because of
his gray hair and strict ways,

but after he drove McClellan
off the peninsula,

stopped pope at second Manassas,

demolished Burnside
at Fredericksburg,

and destroyed hooker
at Chancellorsville--

all despite
overwhelming odds--

he won the unshakable confidence
of Jefferson Davis

and the unqualified love
of his officers and men.

He is a very great general,

and, uh, h-he's superb on both
the offensive and the defensive.

Uh, he took long chances,

but he took them
because he had to.

If Grant had not
had superior numbers,

he might have taken chances
as long as Lee took.

The only way to win
was with long chances,

and it made him brilliant.

No one ever called him
Bobby Lee to his face.

His men called him
"Marse Robert"

or "uncle Robert."

He had a terrible temper,

which he worked all his life
to control.

When angered,
his icy stare was unforgettable.

There was a young man
brought before him

for some infraction
of the rules,

and can you imagine being
brought before general Lee

for having broken the rules?

And the young man was trembling,

and Lee said,
"you need not be afraid.

You'll get justice here,"

and the young man said,
"I know it, general.

That's what I'm scared of."

He referred to
the union army as "those people"

rather than as "the enemy."

Now "those people"
had a new commander

whom Lee had not tested.

When Grant began
his spring campaign of '64,

he took what they called
"the heavies" --

the heavy artillerymen
out of the forts in Washington

and put them in the field.

Many had been in the army
two or three years

and never had heard
a shot fired in anger,

and as these units marched
into camp,

they were so much larger
than the combat regiments

that, uh, soldiers alongside
the road used to say,

"what division is that?"

There were so many of them,

but they had some fierce things.

The first time
they'd go into combat,

they'd have a mangled corpse--
an artillery casualty--

by the side of the road
with a blanket over him,

and as the new green regiments
came abreast of them,

they'd whisk
the blanket off and say,

"this is what's waiting
for you up ahead."

Not a--not a--
not a very pleasant story.

"to get possession of Lee's
army was the first object.

"With the capture of his army,

"Richmond would
necessarily follow.

"It was better to fight him
outside his stronghold

than in it."

Ulysses S. Grant.

"This advance by general Grant

"inaugurated the seventh act
in the on to Richmond drama

played by the armies
of the union."

General John B. Gordon.

"That man Grant will fight
us every day and every hour

till the end of the war."

General James Longstreet.

Grant's plan called
for four simultaneous blows.

William Tecumseh Sherman
had orders

to strike out from Chattanooga
for Atlanta.

Franz Sigel would advance
up the Shenandoah valley.

Benjamin Butler
was to lead an army

up from the James river,

and George Gordon Meade was
to lead the army of the Potomac,

110,000 strong,

south against Lee.

"Wherever Lee goes,
you will go also,"

Grant told Meade,

and Grant would come along, too.

Lee's strategy was unchanged--

destroy the union resolve
to wage war.

He would refuse to fight Grant
in the open,

force him to attack
fortified confederate positions,

and thereby offset
Grant's superior numbers.

The bloody cost

of trying to force the south
back into the union at gunpoint

would bolster antiwar sentiment
in the north.

"if we can break up
the enemy's arrangements early

"and throw him back,

"he will not be able to recover
his position or his morale

"until the presidential
election is over,

and then we shall have a new
president to treat with."

General James Longstreet.

"April 1, 1864.

"The president came down
to Culpeper to review the army.

"The president was mounted
on a fractious horse.

"Soon after the march began,
his tall hat fell off.

"His pantaloons
slipped up to the knees,

"showing his white
homemade drawers,

"which presently
slipped up also,

"revealing a long, hairy leg.

"While we were inclined
to smile,

"we were, uh, very much chagrined
to see our poor president

compelled to endure
such... Torture."

Washington Roebling.

"On the morning of may 4, 1864,

"we, with the entire
grand army of the Potomac,

"were in motion
toward the Rapidan.

"The dawn was clear,
warm, and beautiful.

"As the almost countless
encampments were broken up,

"with bands in all directions
playing lively airs,

"banners waving,

"regiments, brigades,
and divisions falling into line.

"The scene, even to eyes
long familiar

"with military displays,

was one of unusual grandeur."

Chaplain A.M. Stewart.

Lee's 60,000 men
were waiting for Grant

in the tangled thicket
known as the wilderness,

in which they had trapped
the same army

under Joseph hooker
only a year before.

"covered by a dense forest

"almost impenetrable by troops
in line of battle,

"the undergrowth was so heavy

"that it was scarcely possible
to see more than 100 yards

"in any direction.

"The movements of the enemy
could not be observed

until the lines
were almost in collision."

Advance units of the union army

camped for the night on the old
Chancellorsville battlefield,

where winter rains had
washed open the shallow graves.

"in glades
they meet skull after skull

"where pine cones lay--

"the rusted gun,
green shoes full of bones,

"the moldering coat
and cuddled-up skeleton.

"And scores of such.

"Some start as in dreams,

"and comrades lost bemoan.

"By the edge of these wilds,
stonewall had charged,

but the year and the man
were gone."

"It grew dark,
and we built a fire.

"The dead were all around us.

"Their eyeless skulls
seemed to stare steadily at us.

The trees swayed and sighed
gently in the soft wind."

Private Frank Wilkeson.

The battle of
the wilderness began in chaos.

Units got lost,
fired on their own comrades.

Officers tried to navigate
by compass.

But on the second day,

union forces drove through
the confederate center.

As a worried Lee watched,

general John Gregg's texans
hurried to plug up the hole.

"scarce had we moved a step

"when general Lee,
in front of the whole command,

"raised himself in his stirrups,
uncovered his gray hairs,

"and with an earnest voice
exclaimed,

texans always move them."

"Never before in my lifetime
did I ever see such a scene

"as was enacted
when Lee pronounced these words.

"A yell rent the air

"that must have been heard
for miles around.

"A courier riding by my side,

"with tears coursing
down his cheeks, exclaimed,

I would charge hell itself
for that old man."

The texans held the position
until reinforcements came.

By the end of the day,

the confederates had smashed
Grant's right,

seized two generals
and 600 prisoners,

and come close to cutting
the union supply line.

Grant received these reports
without comment.

Right in the middle
of the battle of the wilderness,

all staff men
who had been fighting

in the east all this time--

and he had just come
from the west--

kept talking about
Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee.

He will do this
and do that other,

and Grant finally told them,

"I'm tired of hearing
about Bobby Lee.

"You'd think he was going
to do a double somersault

"and land in our rear.

"Quit thinking about
what he's going to do to you

"and think about what
you're going to do to him.

Bring some guns up here."

Things like that.

Grant's, uh--he's wonderful.

The wilderness is probably not
the bloodiest battle in the war,

but the most terrible battle
in the war in many ways.

Grant in two days loses more men

than hooker did--did
at Chancellorsville.

But in the wilderness,

the leaves from the previous
year cover the ground,

and using the type of weapon
they used in the civil war,

you have lots of lint
and linen smoldering,

falling into the leaves,

and it will set
these leaves afire,

and men who've been shot badly
through the bowels,

with broken legs,

will not be able to move

as the fire starts burning
toward them,

and large numbers of wounded men
will perish in the flames.

Grant's first move
had been a disaster.

The wilderness had cost
17,000 men.

That night, brush fires
raged through the woods.

200 wounded federal soldiers
burned alive

while the entrenched armies
listened to their screams.

"I am holding my breath in awe
at the vastness of the shadow

"that floats like a pall
over our heads.

"It is come that man has no
longer an individual existence,

but is counted in thousands
and measured in miles."

Clara Barton.

In the wilderness,

surgeons amputated limbs without
letup for more than 100 hours

and sent back behind the lines
2,000 wounded men each day.

"as a wounded man
was lifted on the table,

"often shrieking with pain
as the attendants handled him,

"the surgeon quickly
examined the wound

"and resolved upon
cutting off the wounded limb.

"Some ether was administered.

"The surgeon snatched his knife
from between his teeth,

"wiped it rapidly once or twice

"across his bloodstained apron,

"and the cutting began.

"The operation accomplished,

"the surgeon would look around
with a deep sigh

"and then...

Next."

Carl Schurz.

"The wilderness
was a useless battle

fought with great loss
and no result."

Washington Roebling.

Grant, in the wilderness--

after that first night
in the wilderness--

went to his tent,
broke down, and cried very hard.

Uh, some
of the staff members said

they'd never seen a man
so unstrung,

but he didn't cry
until the battle was over,

and he wasn't crying
when it began again next day.

What was different about Grant

became clear the next morning

when he gave the order to march.

For the first time
after a defeat,

the army of the Potomac
was moving forward.

"may 7.

"If we were under
any other general except Grant,

"I should expect a retreat,

but Grant is not
that kind of soldier."

Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

"our spirits Rose,"
one union man remembered.

"We marched free.
The men began to sing."

"Ulysses," another soldier said,
"don't scare worth a damn."

"general Grant
is not going to retreat.

"He will move his army
to Spotsylvania.

"I'm so sure of his next move

that I have already made
arrangements."

He knew what Grant
was going to do

because he could
make himself Grant

for long enough to figure out

what Grant would do
in a situation.

When, uh, they fired, let's see,
five or six generals

before they got to Grant,

and by the time
they let McClellan go,

Lee said, "I'm afraid they're
gonna keep making these changes

until they get someone
I don't understand."

Uh, they never got anyone
he didn't understand,

but, uh, they finally got Grant,

who knew how to whip him
and did.

In the first years of the war,

battle was bloody but sporadic.

From now on, it would be waged
without a break.

From the wilderness
to cold harbor,

it would not stop for 30 days.

It was, one soldier wrote,

"living night and day

within the valley
of the shadow of death."

Our father, who art in heaven...

"may 8.

"The dreadful work
is beginning again.

"John I. Miller,
my cousin,

"killed at the head
of his regiment.

"The blows now fall so fast
on our heads,

it is bewildering."

Mary Chesnut.

But deliver us from evil.

At Spotsylvania,

the two armies mauled each other
for days without gaining ground.

It was the most
relentless exchange of fire

in the history of warfare
up to that time.

Some men were hit
by so many bullets

that their bodies fell apart.

A union veteran remembered it

simply as "the most terrible day
I have ever lived."

"the enemy's dead
were piled upon each other

"in front
of the captured breastworks,

"in some places
four layers deep.

"Below the mass
of fast-decaying corpses,

"the convulsive twitching
of limbs showed

"that there were wounded men
still alive.

The place was well named
the bloody angle."

The two armies lost
another 20,000 men.

"may 12th,
yellow tavern, Virginia.

General Jeb Stuart killed."

When Lee got the news, he said,

"I can scarcely think of him
without weeping."

Again and again,
Lee anticipated Grant,

and again and again, the union
commander skirted south and east

in a semicircle,

the two armies locked in
a brutal, clumsy stranglehold

as the battle lines lurched
toward Richmond.

"we must destroy
this army of Grant's

"before he gets to the James.

"If he gets there,
it will become a siege,

and then it will be
a mere question of time."

"May 11th.

"We have now ended the sixth day
of very heavy fighting,

"and the result up to this time
is much in our favor.

"I propose to fight it out
on this line,

if it takes all summer."

Grant continued
his stubborn flanking maneuvers

in an attempt
to get around Lee's right

and move on Richmond.

He did it with
superior numbers and doggedness,

kept going,
move by the left flank,

move by the left flank,
move by the left flank,

and Lee's backing up
the whole time,

losing men
that he couldn't replace.

"may 15, 1864.

"Dear Emily,
the papers must have told you

"that we have been
fighting a little.

"Our corps has only 12,000 left
out of 27,000.

"Uncle Robert E. Lee
isn't licked yet by a long shot,

"and if we are not mighty
careful, he'll beat us.

"I think we have done very well
to avoid that fate so far.

"Tomorrow we have
another battle.

I don't think
it will amount to much."

Washington Roebling.

Grant and Lee now raced for a
crossroads called cold harbor

near the Chickahominy river.

Again, Lee got there first
and ordered his men to dig in

and prepare for the all-out
assault he knew would follow.

As they settled down
for the night on June 2nd,

veterans on the union side
sensed what was coming.

"the men were calmly writing
their names and home addresses

"on slips of paper

"and pinning them
to the backs of their coats

"so that their bodies
might be recognized

and their fate made known
to their families at home."

General Horace Porter.

When the bugles blew
for the attack at 4:30 A.M.,

60,000 union men started
toward the unseen enemy.

The battle of cold harbor
had begun.

"I had seen the dreadful
carnage in front of Marye's hill

"at Fredericksburg,

"but I had seen nothing
to exceed this.

It was not war.
It was murder."

Those were men who
knew how to take a position

where you could do
the most killing from.

When that whole army
was lined up,

they're waiting and hoping

and praying something
would come at them,

and Grant threw three corps
at them,

and in approximately 7 minutes,
they shot about 7,000 men down.

It was a bloody mess.

It's the only thing Grant ever
admitted that he'd done wrong.

"I've always regretted

"that the last assault
at cold harbor was ever made.

"No advantage whatever
was gained

to compensate for
the heavy loss we sustained."

When another assault
was suggested,

union officers
rejected the idea outright.

"I will not take my regiment
in another such charge,"

said a New Hampshire captain,

"if Jesus Christ himself
should order it."

After the battle,

the diary of a young
Massachusetts volunteer

was found spattered with blood.

Its last entry read,

"June 3, 1864,
cold harbor, Virginia.

I was killed."

"our matters here
are at a deadlock.

"Unless the rebs
commit some great error,

"they will hold us in check
until kingdom come.

"We are thoroughly tired
and disgusted.

"These two armies remind me
very much of two schoolboys

"trying to stare each other
out of countenance.

"Everyone knows that if Lee were
to come out of his trenchments,

"we could whip him,

but Bob Lee is a little
too smart for us."

Washington Roebling.

From the wilderness to
cold harbor, in a single month,

the army of the Potomac
had lost 50,000 men,

half as many as it had lost
in three years of struggle.

"June 5, 1864.

"Our people lost
very severely yesterday.

"In every calculation
that we make,

"we make ourselves out
to be 20,000 men stronger,

"yet in every fight, they show
as many men as we have,

"and they always show
as long a line as we do

"no matter how long
we make ours.

"June 7, 1864.

"Another one of
my best friends in the army

"has been killed.

One goes after the other
with perfect regularity."

"Grant doesn't care a snap if
men fall like the leaves fall.

"He fights to win,
that chap does.

"He has the disagreeable habit

of not retreating
before irresistible veterans."

Mary Chesnut.

"he keeps his own counsel,
padlocks his mouth,

"while his countenance
indicates nothing--

"that is, gives no expression
of his feelings

"and no evidence
of his intentions.

"He smokes almost constantly

"and has a habit of whittling
with a small knife,

"cutting a small stick
into small chips,

making nothing."

"Grant is a butcher

"and not fit
to be at the head of an army.

"He loses two men
to the enemy's one.

"He has no management,
no regard for life.

I could fight an army
as well myself."

Mary Lincoln.

When several of Lee's officers
denounced Grant as a butcher,

Lee quieted them.

"I think Grant has managed
his affairs remarkably well

up to the present time,"
he said.

Grant kept moving.

He slipped his army

out of his trenches,

crossed the Chickahominy,

feinted toward Richmond,

then shifted left again

to the James river.

His target now was Petersburg--

south of
the confederate capital--

where he hoped to cut off
Lee's supplies

and destroy the army
of northern Virginia.

For the first time, Lee
misjudged Grant's intentions,

rushing much of his army
to the outskirts of Richmond

to meet an attack
Grant did not plan to make.

Instead, union engineers
laid a pontoon bridge

all the way across the James
in just eight hours.

On June 12th,

the massive army of the Potomac
began to cross.

It took four days.

"general Grant,
I begin to see it.

"You will succeed.

"God bless you.

A. Lincoln."

16,000 union troops
under general William Smith

were the first
to reach Petersburg.

The city was defended

by fewer than 3,000 confederates
under general Beauregard.

Smith moved slowly
to the attack.

Reinforcements intended
to aid him got lost on the way.

Still, his late-afternoon
assault made progress.

When night fell,

Petersburg seemed
within the union's grasp.

General Winfield Scott Hancock
urged a moonlight assault,

but Smith begged off,

remembering cold harbor.

During the night,

confederate reinforcements
were brought up.

The opportunity was gone.

"the rage of the enlisted
men was devilish.

"The most bloodcurdling
blasphemy I ever listened to

I heard that night."

In just six weeks,

Grant and Lee had
all but crippled each other,

and now both armies dug in
for a siege.

The burrowing would go on
for 10 months.

The men lived in a 20-mile
labyrinth of trenches,

plagued by flies,

open to rain
and the fierce Virginia sun,

and exposed to shell
and mortar fire.

"nothing for excitement

"except that a few were
picked off by sharpshooters.

"A feeling prevails
that sooner or later,

this experience
will befall us all."

Private John W. Haley.

Fire!

Colonel
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,

one of the heroes of Gettysburg,

led his regiment
in an assault on Petersburg.

As he turned to rally his men,

a bullet smashed
through his pelvis,

severed arteries,
nicked his bladder.

He stayed on his feet,

leaning on his sword
with one hand

and waving his men on
with the other

until they had
all passed him by.

Then he sank to the ground.

Doctors did not expect him
to live.

In tribute to his courage,

Grant promoted him on the field
to brigadier general.

Chamberlain's obituary appeared
in the newspapers the next day.

Petersburg is
a magnificent salute

to the durability of men
on both sides.

Uh, it was just--
it was a rehearsal

for world war I trench warfare,

and they stood up
very well to it,

but the soldiers always did
in that war.

They were--it's, to us,
an almost incredible bravery,

considering the casualties.

"June 23, 1864.

"The demand down here
for killing purposes

"is far ahead of the supply.

"Thank god, however,
for the consolation

"that when the last man is
killed, the war will be over.

"This war, you know, differs
from all previous wars

"in having no object
to fight for.

"It can't be finished

"until all the men
on either the one side

"or the other are killed.

"Both sides are trying
to do that as fast as they can

"because it would be a pity
to spin this affair out

for two or three years
longer."

Washington Roebling.

"dear Henry,

"I feel more lonely and sad
than I have been in some time.

"Oh, that I knew

what the termination of this
awful conflict would be."

"Henry, I want to see you,
but don't you come.

"Join for the war
if 'tis 40 years.

"If you get killed,
'tis the most honorable death.

"If you escape, I will rejoice.

I love thee still."

Mollie Vanderberg.

"our bleeding, bankrupt,
almost dying country

"longs for peace,

"shudders at the prospect of
further wholesale devastation,

of new rivers
of human blood."

Horace Greeley.

"At night, my ward became

"like the dim caverns
of the catacombs,

"where, instead of the dead
in their final rest,

"there were wasted figures
burning with fever

"and raving from the agony
of splintered bones,

"tossing restlessly
from side to side

"with every ill, it seemed,
which human flesh was heir to.

"From the rafters,

"the flickering oil lamp
swung mournfully,

casting a ghastly light."

Private Alexander hunter,
17th Virginia.

When the war began,

there were only a handful
of army hospitals in the north.

When it ended,

the union was running
more than 350,

the confederacy, 154.

There were 16 hospitals
in Washington alone.

When these proved insufficient,

men were cared for
in the patent office,

even in the house
and senate chambers.

Hospitals were
giant warehouses for the dying.

The biggest and best,
north or south,

was Chimborazo at Richmond,

with 8,000 beds,

five soup kitchens,
icehouses, dairy cattle,

a herd of goats,

a bakery that turned out
10,000 loaves of bread a day,

and a 400-keg brewery.

"arous'd and angry,

"I'd thought to beat the alarum,

"and urge relentless war.

"But soon my fingers fail'd me,

"my face droop'd
and I resign'd myself

"to sit by the wounded
and soothe them,

or silently
watch the dead."

Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman was
too old for the ranks,

not qualified to be an officer,

not enthusiastic about
"firing a gun

or drawing a sword
on another man,"

but when his younger brother
was wounded at Antietam,

and Whitman went to find him
in the hospital,

he was appalled by what he saw.

He moved to Washington
to help with the wounded,

giving out small gifts,
changing dressings,

and reciting his poetry.

"the doctors tell me

"I supply the patients
with a medicine

"which all their drugs
and bottles and powders

"are helpless to yield.

"It has saved
more than one life,

"so I go around.

Some of my boys die.
Some get well."

"no woman under 30 years
need apply to serve

"in government hospitals.

"All nurses are required
to be very plain-looking women.

"Their dresses must be
brown or black,

"with no bows,
no curls, no jewelry,

and no hoop skirts."

Dorothea Dix.

Early in the war,

Dorothea Dix volunteered
her services to the union.

The 59-year-old crusader
for the mentally ill

was put in charge
of all women nurses

employed by the armies.

Tireless, and so autocratic

one woman called her
"dragon Dix,"

she barred any applicant
she thought interested

in romantic adventure.

Even nuns were sometimes
turned down.

By the end of the war, though,

the only question
she asked potential recruits

was "when can you start?"

Under her strict guidance,

care for the sick and wounded
was vastly improved.

Despite the bitter criticism
and petty rivalry

of male colleagues,

she stayed at her post
for all four years--

the entire war--
without pay.

"army square hospital.

"I am learning
not to let myself feel

"as much as I did at first,

yet I never can
get used to it."

Harriet Foote Hawley.

"they would see that
the doctor gave them up

"and would ask me about it.

"I would tell them the truth.

"I told one man that,
and he asked, how long?

"I said, not over 20 minutes.

"He did not show any fear.
They never do.

"He put his hand up slow

"and closed his eyes
with his own fingers,

"and stretched himself out

"and crossed his arms
over his breast.

"Now, fix me, he said.

"I pinned the toes
of his stockings together.

"That was the way
we laid corpses out,

"and he died in a few minutes.

"His face looked as pleasant
as if he was asleep,

"and many is the time

the boys would fix themselves
that way before they died."

"Lorenzo strong, company a,
9th United States cavalry.

"Shot by a shell last Sunday.

"Right leg amputated
on the field.

"Took a turn for the worse.

"I stayed and saw all.

"The doctor comes in and gives
him a little chloroform.

"One of the nurses
constantly fans him,

"for it is fearfully hot.

"He asks to be raised up,

"and they put him
in a half-sitting posture.

"He called for Mark repeatedly,

"half deliriously, all day.

"Life ebbs, runs now
with the speed of a millrace.

"His eyes turned back.

"A crowd, including
two or three doctors,

"several students,
and many soldiers,

"has silently gathered.

"The struggle goes on
and dwindles

"a little more
and a little more,

"and then welcome oblivion,

"painlessness, death.

"A pause.

The crowd drops away."

"June 17, 1864.

"Dearest mother,

"this place seems to have got
the better of me.

I think I shall come home
for a short time."

"I think I understand

"the purpose
of the south properly

"and that the best way
to deal with them

"is to meet them fair
and square on any issue.

"We must fight them,
cut into them,

"not talk to them, and pursue
till they cry enough.

"War is the remedy
our enemies have chosen,

and I say let us give them
all they want."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

On the same day that Grant
stepped off into the wilderness,

Sherman's grand army of the west

moved south from Chattanooga
towards Atlanta,

100 miles away.

William Tecumseh Sherman
and Ulysses S. Grant

had survived
hard times together.

Their friendship
had been forged in Kentucky

when Sherman had come close
to breaking down,

persuaded the war
would never end.

"Grant stood by me
when I was crazy,

"and I stood by him
when he was drunk,

and now we stand
by each other always."

Sherman was an orphan

and had graduated sixth
in his class at west point

when he was only 20.

Tall and red-haired,
intelligent and irritable,

he wore shoes
rather than military boots,

slept little, and talked a lot.

"Boiling over with ideas,"
a friend said.

"he was always too busy
to eat much.

"He talked and smoked cigars
incessantly,

"giving orders,
dictating telegrams,

bright and chipper."

He hated politicians,
profiteers, sentimentalists.

Above all, he hated reporters,

whom he considered
worse than spies

because they printed
military secrets

just to sell newspapers.

"these dirty
newspaper scribblers

"have the impudence of Satan.

"They come into camp, poke about
among the lazy shirks,

"and pick up their camp rumors
and publish them as facts.

"They are a pest,

and I treat them as spies,
which, in truth, they are."

He was convinced
if he killed them all,

there would be news from hell
before breakfast.

Family and friends
called him "Cump."

His men called him
"uncle Billy."

He was ruthless in war.

Now Grant entrusted his friend

with the second
most important part

of his grand strategy--

to seize Atlanta and smash
the combined confederate armies

of Tennessee and Mississippi
under Joseph E. Johnston.

In Washington,

Lincoln's chances
for reelection were slim.

"I'm going to be beaten,"
Lincoln wrote that summer,

"and unless some
great change takes place,

badly beaten."

With Grant stalled
at Petersburg,

Sherman had to win.

Sherman had surveyed
parts of Georgia

as a young lieutenant.

"I knew Georgia better than
the rebels did," he wrote.

He knew the fighting there
would be scattered and sporadic,

"a big Indian war,"
he called it.

Joseph E. Johnston,

the confederate commander
who now faced Sherman,

was heartily disliked
by president Jefferson Davis,

but he was very nearly
worshiped by his men.

"I do not believe
there was a soldier in his army

"but would gladly
have died for him.

"With him,
everything was his soldiers.

He would feed his soldiers
if the country starved."

Sam Watkins.

Outgunned, outsupplied,

and outnumbered almost 2 to 1,

Joseph Johnston could only hope
to slow Sherman's advance

and perhaps lure him into making

the kind of doomed frontal attack

that would help swing
the election against Lincoln.

But Sherman's advance
was a masterpiece of planning.

In a matter of hours,

his engineers replaced
burned Bridges

and repaired
ripped up rail lines.

When Nathan Bedford Forrest's
raiders collapsed a tunnel

in Sherman's rear,

one weary Southern private
was not impressed.

"Sherman," he said,

"probably carried
a spare tunnel with him."

Slowly, relentlessly,

he forced Johnston
out of Dalton...

Resaca...

Cassville...

Allatoona...

New hope church.

A surrendering confederate
told his captors,

"Sherman will never go to hell.
He'll flank the devil

and make heaven
in spite of the guards."

"June 14th.

"We killed
general Polk yesterday

and made good
progress today."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

At Kennesaw mountain,
north of Atlanta,

the confederates dug in.

On June 27th,

13,000 union men
stormed up the mountain

and were hurled back.

The federals "seemed to walk up
and take death,"

a southerner remembered,

"as coolly as if they were
automatic or wooden men."

"I've heard men say that
if they ever killed a yankee

"during the war,
they were not aware of it.

"I am satisfied
that on this memorable day

"every man in our regiment
killed from 20 to 100 each.

All that was necessary
was to load and shoot."

The union lost 3,000 men,

the confederates, only 750.

"One or two more such assaults,"
an aide warned Sherman,

"would use up this army."

Sherman never admitted

he had made a mistake
at Kennesaw mountain,

but he never repeated it either.

Reluctantly, he returned
to his slow flanking maneuvers,

forcing Johnston
back to within sight

of Atlanta itself,

but there, he stalled,

just like Grant.

Two months
of relentless fighting

had resulted
in identical stalemates.

Sherman was stopped
north of Atlanta.

Grant and Lee were deadlocked
outside Petersburg.

Without a decisive victory
somewhere,

Abraham Lincoln was sure
to lose the fall election.

Time was running out.

"Miss Kitty Diggs,

"I want you to understand
that Mary is my child,

"and she is a god-given right
of my own,

"and you may hold on to her
as long as you can,

"but I want you to remember
this one thing--

"that the longer you keep
my child from me,

"the longer you will
have to burn in hell

"and the quicker
you will get there.

"I have no fears about
getting Mary out of your hands.

"This whole government
gives cheer to me,

and you cannot
help yourself."

Spotswood rice.

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
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