All language subtitles for The.Civil.War.S01E08.War.is.Hell.1990

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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.

"We believed
that it was most desirable

"that the north should win.

"We believed in the principle

"that the union is indissoluble.

"We, or many of us at least,
also believed

"that the conflict
was inevitable

"and that slavery
had lasted long enough,

"but we equally believed
that those who stood against us

"held just as sacred convictions

"that were the opposite of ours,

"and we respected them
as every man with a heart

must respect those
who give all for their belief."

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

We are the veterans
of the civil war,

'61 to '65.

This flag is of
the Hawkins' Zouaves,

New York.

Now salute.

As a southerner, I would say

one of the main importances
of the war

is that southerners
have a sense of defeat,

uh, which, uh, none of the rest
of the country has.

You'll see in the movie Patton,

the actor
who plays Patton saying,

"we Americans
have never lost a war."

That's a rather amazing
statement for him to make

as Patton because
Patton's grandfather

was in Lee's army
of northern Virginia,

and he certainly lost a war.

In 1865 in South Africa,

whites drove the Basuto tribe
from their land.

In Afghanistan,

Russian troop movements
along the border

were a cause of great
international concern.

At a monastery in Austria,

Gregor Mendel established

the principle of heredity,

and in Ireland,

the poet William Butler
Yeats was born.

In 1865 in America,

Samuel Clemens published
his first short story

as Mark twain.

The 13th amendment,
abolishing slavery,

was formally ratified,

and the Ku Klux Klan was formed.

In 1860,

most of the nation's
31 million people

lived peaceably
on farms or in small towns.

By 1865, everything had changed.

Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Atlanta, Georgia.

By the beginning of 1865,

the confederacy was dying.

To the west,

only the tattered confederate
army of Tennessee remained.

Its soldiers, like Sam Watkins,

worried more about food
and blankets and shoes

than fighting.

Outside Petersburg,

Elisha Hunt Rhodes
and 120,000 other union troops

were dug in,

unable to dislodge
the stubborn rebel army.

Atlanta had been razed,

and georgia and the carolinas
lay helpless

in William Tecumseh Sherman's
path.

As the new year began,

Robert E. Lee assumed command
of all Southern forces

and, with it, the hopeless task

of hurling back
the huge union armies

now closing in from every side.

With victory within his grasp,

Abraham Lincoln looked forward
to a second presidential term

and a new challenge--

healing the nation

he had struggled so hard
to reunite.

"Here was the greatest
and most moving chapter

"in American history,

"a blending
of meanness and greatness,

"an ending and a beginning.

"It came out of what men were,

"but it did not go
as men had planned.

"Of all men,
Abraham Lincoln came the closest

"to understanding
what had happened.

"Yet even he, in his final
backward glance,

"had to confess that something
that went beyond words

had been at work
in the land."

"The almighty had
his own purposes."

Bruce Catton.

MAN, AS SHERMAN: "My aim
was to whip the rebels,

"to humble their pride,

"to follow them
to their innermost recesses,

and to make them
fear and dread us."

"War is cruelty.

"There's no use
trying to reform it.

The crueler it is,
the sooner it will be over."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

"War is all hell,"

William Tecumseh Sherman
once said,

and it was now his aim
to bring that hell

to the heart of the confederacy.

He saw from the very beginning

how hard a war it was gonna be,

and when he said how
hard a war it was gonna be,

he was retired
under suspicion of insanity

and then brought back
when they decided

maybe he wasn't
so crazy after all.

Sherman is maybe the first
truly modern general.

He was the first one
to understand,

in the present-day world,

that civilians were
the backers-up of things

and that if you
went against civilians,

you deprived the army
of what kept it going,

so he quite purposely
made war against civilians.

From Atlanta in late 1864,

Sherman proposed
to march his army

through the heart of Georgia
all the way to Savannah.

His army would live
off the land,

destroying everything
in its path

that could conceivably aid
the faltering confederacy

and a good deal that couldn't.

"I can make this march,"
he promised,

"and make Georgia howl."

Lincoln's advisors thought
Sherman's plan foolhardy.

The president approved it.

"If you can whip Lee

and I can march to the
Atlantic," Sherman told Grant,

"I think uncle Abe
will give us 20 days' leave

to see the young folks."

"there are rumors
that we are to cut loose

"and march south to the ocean.

"We're in fine shape
and, I think,

could go anywhere
uncle Billy would lead."

Private Theodore Upson.

Before leaving Atlanta,

Sherman ordered all townspeople,
white and black,

out of their homes,

then directed his men
to burn or destroy

anything of use to the rebels.

Civilians looted the town

and helped spread the Blaze
throughout the city.

"A grand and awful spectacle
is presented to the beholder

"in this beautiful city,
now in flames.

"The heaven is one expanse
of lurid fire.

"The air is filled
with flying cinders.

"The city which,
next to Richmond,

"has furnished more material
for prosecuting the war

than any other
in the south..."

"Exists no more
as a means for injury

to be used by the enemies
of the union."

Sherman began his march.

62,000 men in blue
were on the move

in two great columns.

Their supply train
stretched 25 miles.

A slave watching the army
stream past

wondered aloud
if anybody was left up north.

"The name of the captor
of Atlanta, if he fails now,

"will become
the scoff of mankind

"and the humiliation of
the United States for all time.

If he succeeds, it will be
written on the tablet of fame."

London herald.

"reaching the hill just
outside the old rebel works,

"we paused to look back.

"Behind us lay Atlanta in ruins,

"the black smoke
rising high in the air,

"hanging like a pall.

"Then we turned
our horses' heads to the east.

"Atlanta was soon lost
behind the screen of trees

and became
a thing of the past."

It had been cumulative evidence

that an army
could subsist itself

on what was growing
in the fields, winter or summer,

and they were
a moving city, like.

They would grind their own corn

at the grist mills
along the way,

butcher their own cattle.

Sherman was perfectly satisfied
he could make the march

without difficulty
with regard to supplies.

In fact, they ate better
on that march

than they did not marching.

Sweet potatoes were
particularly prized, and pork.

They had plenty to eat.

"This is probably

"the most gigantic
pleasure excursion ever planned.

"It already beats everything
I ever saw soldiering

and promises
to prove much richer yet."

"we had a gay old campaign.

"Destroyed all we could not eat,
stole their niggers,

"burned their cotton and gins,
spilled their sorghum,

"burned and twisted
their railroads,

and raised hell, generally."

Sherman's men tore up railroads,

heating the rails
and twisting them beyond repair.

It became a trademark--

Sherman's neckties.

He forbade his men to plunder
the homes they passed,

but neither he nor they
took the order very seriously.

"I've got a regiment that
can kill, gut, and scrape a pig

without breaking ranks."

"they say no living thing

"is found in Sherman's track,

"only chimneys,
like telegraph poles,

to carry the news of
his attack backwards."

Mary Chesnut.

"I doubt if history
affords a parallel

"to the deep and bitter enmity

"of the women of the south.

"No one who sees them and hears

but must feel the
intensity of their hate."

"as far as the eye could reach,

"the lurid flames
of burning houses

"lit up the heavens.

"I could stand
out on the veranda

and, for 2 or 3 miles, watch
the Yankees as they came on."

"I could Mark
when they reached the residence

of each and every friend
on the road."

The troops looted slave
cabins, as well as mansions,

poked their ramrods
into flower beds

in search of buried valuables,

and burned everything
in their path.

"The thousand pounds of
meat in my smokehouse is gone.

"My 18 fat turkeys, my hens,

"chickens, and fowl,
my young pigs

"are shot down in my yard

as if they were
the rebels."

"the cruelties practiced

"on this campaign
towards the citizens

"have been enough to blast
a more sacred cause than ours.

We hardly deserve
success."

At Milledgeville, Georgia,

Sherman's men
boiled their coffee

over bonfires
of confederate currency,

held a mock session
of the legislature

that passed a resolution
returning Georgia to the union.

Sherman's men
were feasting on delicacies

foraged from local farms

when a band of emaciated men
tottered into the firelight.

They were union escapees
from Andersonville prison.

An Indiana colonel remembered

that the sight
of the starved men

"sickened and infuriated"
his troops.

"When foraging now,

"they think of
the tens of thousands

"of their imprisoned comrades
slowly perishing with hunger,

and they sweep
with the scythe of destruction."

Before they were
through, Sherman and his men

would cross 425 miles
of hostile territory

and wreak $100 million
worth of havoc.

The south would never forget.

"We will fight you to the death.

"Better to die a thousand deaths

than submit to live under you
and your negro allies."

General John bell hood.

Lacking a leg
and the use of one arm,

John bell hood had to be strapped
to the saddle each morning,

but he fought as hard
and as recklessly as ever.

Hood and his dwindling army

now tried to divert
Sherman's attention

by moving north to join forces

with Nathan Bedford Forrest's
cavalry

and invade Tennessee.

Sherman was delighted.

"If he will go
to the Ohio river,

I'll give him rations," he said.

"My business
is down south."

Waiting for hood in Tennessee

was a fresh, well-equipped
union army

1/3 again as large as hood's,

commanded by George Thomas,
"the rock of Chickamauga."

At Franklin, hood ordered
a series of 13 hopeless charges

in which 12 confederate generals

and 7,000 soldiers were lost,

more men than U.S. Grant
had lost at cold harbor

the year before,

more than George McClellan lost

in all the battles
of the 7 days in 1862.

Franklin is a horrendous battle,

and the flower of the army fell.

There's a strong suspicion

that hood was trying
to discipline his army

by staging that charge,

and there's some truth in it.

His army was wrecked.

The defeat at Nashville
is in large part

due to what had happened
at Franklin a month before.

At Nashville,
George Thomas attacked

what was left of hood's army.

"My boot was full of blood

"and my clothing
saturated with it.

"I reached
general hood's headquarters.

"He was much agitated
and affected,

"pulling his hair
with his one hand--

"he had but one--

and crying like
his heart would break."

Sam Watkins.

Hood's army had disintegrated.

"I beheld for the first
and only time," he confessed,

"a confederate army
abandon the field in confusion."

Hood resigned.

Lee recalled Joe Johnston
to active duty

and put him in charge
of patching together

whatever confederate forces
remained outside of Virginia.

"We were willing to go anywhere

"or to follow anyone
who would lead us.

"We were anxious
to flee, fight, or fortify.

"I have never seen an army
so confused and demoralized.

The whole thing seemed to be
tottering and trembling."

"gentlemen,
you cannot qualify war

"in harsher terms than I will.

"We cannot change the hearts

"of these people of the south,

"but we can make war so terrible

"and make them so sick of war

"that generations will pass away

before they again
appeal to it."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

"Darkest of all Decembers

"ever my life has known,

"sitting here by the embers,

stunned, helpless, alone."

Mary Chesnut.

"My name is Charles Jess.

"I was born in south Carolina
as a slave,

"and I was freed

"when Sherman's army came
into the county of Chatham.

"I was a union man.

"I's a slave
and could not be anything else

"because I wanted my freedom,

"and I hoped and expected
it would give me my freedom,

as it did."

"the negroes followed the army

"like a sable cloud in the sky
before a thunderstorm.

They thought it was freedom
now or never."

25,000 slaves
fled to Sherman's army,

jubilant he had come
to liberate them,

but fearful that if they strayed
too far from his columns,

they would be caught
by confederate guerrillas.

"Perfect anarchy reigned,"
one plantation owner said.

It was, said another,
"the breath of emancipation."

MAN, ON RECORDING: And the Yankees
would come, and after a while,

there would be
a whole troop of men come.

They said they were Yankees,

all riding horses.

So I asked them, I said,
"where are they going?"

They said they all
going home now.

They said, "well, all of you
niggers is all free now."

MAN, AS SHERMAN: "They gather
around me in crowds,

"and I can't find out
whether I am Moses or Aaron,

but surely I am rated
as one of the congregation."

"it seems the good
people in the north

"are terribly worried about us.

"They called us the lost army,

"and some thought we
would never show up again.

"I don't think they know
what kind of an army this is

"that uncle Billy has.

"Why, if Grant can keep
Lee and his troops busy,

we can tramp all over
this confederacy."

Private Theodore Upson.

Throughout the north,

people wondered what
had happened to Sherman's army,

until suddenly,

William Tecumseh Sherman
emerged near Savannah.

"December 25, 1864.

"Dear Mr. president,

"I beg to present you,
as a Christmas gift,

"the city of Savannah,

"with 150 heavy guns
and plenty of ammunition,

also about 25,000 bales
of cotton."

He then regroups at Savannah,

and in the last week

of January,

he starts into south Carolina.

South Carolina gets it
even worse than Georgia

because they figured
that's where secession started.

Sherman now turned
his columns northward

into the carolinas.

A relentless
winter rain was falling,

and confederate generals
were confident

no army could march
through the mud,

but Sherman and his men
made a steady 10 miles a day.

Battalions of axmen led the way,

hacking down whole forests
to construct corduroy roads.

"When I learned
that Sherman's army

"was marching through
the Salkehatchie swamps

"making its own roads

"at the rate
of a dozen miles a day

"and bringing its artillery
and wagons with it,

"I made up my mind that there had
been no such army in existence

since the days
of Julius Caesar."

Joseph E. Johnston.

Sherman's men were still
harsher in south Carolina

than they had been in Georgia.

"Here is where treason began,"
a private said,

"and by god,
this is where it shall end."

Few houses were left standing.

"The wind moans
among the bleak chimneys

"and whistles through
the gaping windows.

"The market is a ruined shell,

its spire fallen in,

"the old bell, secessia,

"that had rung out every
state as it seceded,

lying half-buried
in the earth."

On February 17, 1865,

fort Sumter was abandoned,

along with all of Charleston.

"This disappointment,"
Jefferson Davis admitted,

"is extremely bitter."

"a city of ruins,

"of desolation,

of vacant houses,
of widowed women..."

"Of rotting wharves,

"of deserted warehouses,

"of weed-wild gardens,
of miles of grass-grown streets,

"of acres of pitiful
and voiceful barrenness--

"that is Charleston,

wherein rebellion
loftily reared its head."

"Jack Middleton
writes from Richmond,

"the wolf is at the door here.

"We dread starvation far more

"than we do Grant or Sherman.

Famine--that is the word now."

Mary Chesnut.

Everywhere the union
armies marched,

the back roads filled
with confederate refugees.

Thousands fled to Texas
in search of a new start.

Thousands more
flocked to Richmond,

hoping the confederate
government would care for them.

There was little it could do.

The confederate government
was coming apart.

The governor of north Carolina

refused to permit
any but his own troops

to wear the 92,000 uniforms
he was hoarding.

In Georgia,

governor Joseph brown
threatened to secede

from the confederacy.

States' rights still came first.

"If the confederacy fails,

"there should be written
on its tombstone--

died of a theory."

President Jefferson Davis.

MAN, AS LEE: "I have been up
to see the congress,

"and they do not seem able
to do anything

"except eat peanuts
and chew tobacco,

while my army
is starving."

Robert E. Lee.

Lee begged for more supplies.

Davis had none to give.

A single stick of firewood
cost $5.00 in Richmond.

A barrel of flour
had risen to $250

and could rarely be found
even at that price.

"I daily part
with my raiment for food.

"We find no one
who will exchange eatables

"for confederate money,

so we are devouring
our clothes."

Hundreds of confederate soldiers
were deserting every day,

cold, hungry, barefoot,

driven by desperate letters
from home.

Lee asked that slaves
now be armed

to defend the confederacy.

"We must decide," he said,

"whether the negro shall fight
for us or against us.

Those willing to fight,"
he added,

would be freed
after the war."

The confederate congress
finally authorized black troops

because,
as the Richmond examiner said,

"the country will not deny
general Lee anything

he may ask for."

6 days later,

the citizens of Richmond
saw an astonishing sight--

a new confederate battalion

made up of white convalescents
and black hospital orderlies

marching up main street
to the strains of Dixie.

"you cannot make
soldiers of slaves

"or slaves of soldiers.

"The day you make
a soldier of them

"is the beginning of the end
of the revolution,

"and if slaves
seem good soldiers,

then our whole theory
of slavery is wrong."

Senator Howell Cobb, Georgia.

Earlier that winter,

the United States congress
had voted 119 to 56

to pass the 13th amendment
to abolish slavery

and sent it to the states
for ratification.

11 months later,

slavery was officially
abolished everywhere

and for all time.

"Verily, the work does not end

"with the abolition of slavery,

but only begins."

Frederick Douglass.

"I see the president
almost every day.

"I saw him this morning
about 8:30,

"coming into business.

"We've got so that we exchange
bows, and very cordial ones.

"I see very plainly

"Abraham Lincoln's dark brown
face with its deep-cut lines,

"the eyes always, to me,

with a latent sadness
in the expression."

"None of the artists or pictures

"has caught the deep, though
subtle and indirect, expression

"of this man's face.

"There is something else there.

"One of the great
portrait painters

of 2 or 3 centuries ago
is needed."

Walt Whitman.

"March 4th.

"We captured 25 Cannon.

"General mower fired them today
in a salute

"in honor of the inauguration
of Mr. Lincoln

"for his second term.

"His first inauguration was not
celebrated in north Carolina,

"but the glorification over
the beginning of his second term

goes to make up
the deficiency."

George Nichols.

Inauguration day
was cold and windy,

just as it had been
4 years earlier...

But the U.S. capitol
was now complete,

its great iron dome in place,

crowned by a bronze Liberty.

Just before the president
began to speak,

the clouds parted,

flooding the stand
with brilliant sunlight.

MAN, AS LINCOLN:
"Fondly do we hope,

"fervently do we pray

that this mighty scourge of war
may speedily pass away."

"Yet if god wills
that it continue

"until all the wealth piled up

"by the bondsman's 250 years
of unrequited toil

"shall be sunk

"and until every drop of blood
drawn with the lash

"shall be paid
by another drawn with the sword,

"as was said 3,000 years ago,

"so still must be said,

"the judgments of the lord

are true and righteous
altogether."

"With malice towards none,

"with charity for all...

"With firmness in the right

"as god gives us
to see the right,

"let us strive on
to finish the work we are in,

"to bind up the nation's wounds,

"to care for him
who shall have borne the battle

"and for his widow
and his orphan...

"To do all
which may achieve and Cherish

"a just and lasting peace
among ourselves

and with all nations."

Can it be anyone but Lincoln

that any of us could be drawn to

as the central figure
of the war?

Because, in a way,
he comprehended both sides.

"We must not be enemies.
We must be friends."

"I'm a tired man,"
Lincoln said afterwards.

"Sometimes I think
I'm the tiredest man on earth."

In the crowd
just a few yards from Lincoln

was the young actor
John Wilkes booth,

a pistol in his pocket.

His vantage point
on the balcony,

booth said afterwards,
had offered

"an excellent chance
to kill the president...

If I had wished."

John Wilkes booth

was a fervent believer
in slavery and white supremacy,

but during 4 years of war,

he had not been able
to bring himself

actually to fight
for the Southern cause.

MAN, AS BOOTH: "I have begun
to deem myself a coward

and to despise
my own existence."

His mind fixed on Lincoln

as the tyrant responsible
for all the country's troubles

and his own.

Booth hatched a scheme
to kidnap Lincoln

and gathered a worshipful band
of dubious conspirators

willing to help out.

Lewis Paine,

a wounded confederate

who had recently sworn
allegiance to the union.

David E. Herold,

a druggist's clerk

who was thought by some
to be mentally retarded.

George Atzerodt,

a German-born wagon painter

barely able to make himself
understood in English.

And John H. Surratt,

a sometime confederate spy

whose widowed mother Mary

kept a Washington boardinghouse

where booth and his admirers
sometimes met.

Two weeks
after the inauguration,

booth and his accomplices,
all wearing masks,

rode out
toward the soldiers' home,

where Lincoln often slept,

hoping to intercept
his carriage.

The president never came.

"So goes the world,"
booth wrote.

"Might makes right."

Late in march, Lincoln sailed
down to city point, Virginia,

to confer with his generals

aboard Grant's
floating headquarters,

the river queen.

Sherman, who had interrupted
his march through the carolinas,

had met Lincoln
only once before, in 1861,

and found him then
a weak and partisan politician

unequal to his task.

The talks lasted two days.

Grant, Sherman,
and admiral Porter

detailed plans
for one last major campaign.

Lincoln, satisfied that victory
seemed within reach,

outlined plans for peace.

"If the rebels would lay down their
guns and go home," Lincoln said,

"they should be welcomed back

as citizens
of the United States."

"I never saw him again.

"Of all the men I ever met,

"he seemed to me to possess more
of the elements of greatness

"combined with goodness

than any other."

William Tecumseh Sherman.

"My own corps was stretched

"until the men stood
like a row of vedettes

"15 feet apart.

"It was not a line,

it was the mere skeleton
of a line."

General John B. Gordon.

Ulysses S. Grant
and Robert E. Lee

had faced one another
in front of Petersburg

for 9 months.

Slowly, steadily,

Grant had extended his trenches
around Petersburg.

Lee's lines had been forced
to stretch, too,

but his army was shrinking.

In 9 months,

60,000 Southern soldiers
had deserted.

"All of us think
we're whipped now.

"The men are ragged
and are getting half rations.

"Some say we'll have to
go to Georgey,

but the men
will not go there."

The thinning confederate
lines around Petersburg

finally extended 53 miles.

Grant's forces numbered 125,000.

Lee's had dwindled to 35,000.

Lee's only hope lay in
moving his army to the southwest

to link up with Johnston
in the hills of north Carolina

and fight on.

On march 25th,

confederates
under John B. Gordon

mounted a sudden night assault
that briefly won possession

of an earthwork
called fort Stedman.

It was Lee's last advance.

Grant counterattacked,

racing around the rebel flank

to block Lee's escape
at five forks.

There, on April 1st,

he routed a confederate division
under George Pickett.

The next day,

union forces attacked
all along the Petersburg line.

Slowly, relentlessly,
and at great cost,

they drove the confederates
out of their trenches.

Among the Southern dead
left behind

were shoeless boys
as young as 14.

"The conduct
of the Southern people

"appears many times truly noble,
as exemplified, for instance,

"in the defense of Petersburg.

"Old men with silver locks
lay dead in the trenches

"side by side
with mere boys of 13 or 14.

"It almost makes one sorry
to have to fight against people

who show such devotion for
their homes and their country."

Washington Roebling.

A.P. hill, who had served Lee
faithfully in a dozen battles

and staved off confederate
disaster at Antietam,

tried to rally his men.

Two union infantrymen
shot him dead

as he rode between the lines.

"He is at rest,

and we who are left
are the ones to suffer."

Petersburg, the scene
of 9 months' siege,

fell to Grant's army.

As black civilians
cheered the black soldiers

that led the union
columns into the city,

Lee's army slipped
across the Appomattox river.

In Richmond, Jefferson Davis
was attending 10:00 services

that Sunday morning

at St. Paul's
episcopal church

when the sexton
handed him a message.

"President Davis, my lines
are broken in 3 places.

Richmond must be evacuated
this evening."

Robert E. Lee.

"I happened to sit in the
rear of the president's pew,

"so near that I plainly saw
the sort of gray pallor

"that came upon his face

as he read a scrap of paper
thrust into his hand."

Davis hurried from the church

and ordered his government
to move to Danville, Virginia,

140 miles to the south.

On the evening of April 2nd,

Davis and his cabinet
boarded the last train,

a series of freight cars
labeled "treasury department,"

"quartermaster's department,"
"war department."

"we tried to comfort
ourselves by saying in low tones

"that the capital
was only moved temporarily,

"that general Lee
would make a stand

"and repulse the daring enemy,

and that we would yet win
the battle and the day."

A slave dealer named Lumpkin

failed to get his
50 chained slaves aboard.

He had to unlock $50,000 worth
of property in the street

and let them go.

The retreating confederates
set fire to much of Richmond.

Mobs plundered stores,
broke into abandoned houses.

The fire on land spread
to the confederate arsenal.

The explosion rocked the city

and shattered windows
for miles around.

"Everything was
in the wildest confusion.

"The low characters of the town
had broken into everything

"and were looting the town,

"being aided
to a considerable extent

"by the soldiers

who had broken
through all discipline."

"I saw a confederate
soldier on horseback

"pause under my window.

"He wheeled
and fired behind him,

"rode a short distance,

"wheeled and fired again.

Coming up the street
rode a body of men in blue."

"arriving at the capital,
I sprang from my horse,

"first unbuckling the stars
and stripes from my saddle,

"and with captain Langdon,
I rushed up to the roof.

"Together, we hoisted the first
large flag over Richmond

and, on the peak of the roof,
drank to its success."

Mrs. Robert e. Lee, too crippled
by arthritis to travel,

remained in Richmond.

The union commander
posted a guard before her house,

a black cavalryman,

to ensure no harm came to her.

MAN, AS LINCOLN:
"April 3, 1865.

"Thank god
I have lived to see this.

"It seems to me

"that I have been dreaming
a horrid nightmare

"for 4 years,

"and now the nightmare is gone.

I want to see Richmond."

On April 3rd,
Abraham Lincoln and his son tad

arrived at Rockett's wharf
aboard a small barge

and were escorted
through the smoking city

by a unit of black cavalry.

Freed slaves
mobbed the president,

laughing, singing,
weeping for joy,

kneeling before him,

straining to touch his clothes.

"I know I am free,"
said one man,

"for I have seen father Abraham
and felt him."

The president walked
about a mile through the crowd

and loped up the steps
of the confederate white house,

now union headquarters.

When he sat down
at Jefferson Davis' desk,

the troops outside
burst into cheers.

"Richmond has fallen,

"and I have no heart
to write about it.

"They are too many for us.

"Everything lost in Richmond,
even our archives.

Blue-black
is our horizon."

Mary Chesnut.

"There is a stillness
in the midst of which

"Richmond, with her ruins
and her unchanging spires,

"rests beneath a ghastly,
fitful glare.

"We are under the shadow
of ruins.

"From the pavements
where we walk

"stretches a vista
of devastation.

"The wreck, the loneliness
seem interminable.

"There is no sound of life

"but the stillness
of the catacomb,

"only as our footsteps fall dull
on the deserted sidewalk

"and a funeral troop of echoes

"bump against the dead walls
and closed shutters in reply.

"And this is Richmond,

"says a melancholy voice.

And this is Richmond."

On April 8th,

Abraham and Mary Lincoln
took a drive together

past a country cemetery
on the outskirts of Petersburg.

WOMAN, AS MARY: "It was a
retired place shaded by trees,

"and early spring flowers were
opening on nearly every grave.

"It was so quiet and attractive

"that we stopped the carriage
and walked through it.

"Mr. Lincoln seemed
thoughtful and impressed.

"He said,

"Mary, you are younger than I.
You will survive me.

"When I'm gone,

lay my remains in some
quiet place like this."

"general Lee was riding slowly

"along the line
of tangled wagons.

He rode erect,
as if incapable of fatigue."

Lee's army fled westward.

Grant was right behind them.

"On and on, hour after hour,

"from hilltop to hilltop,

"the lines were alternately
forming, fighting,

"and retreating,

"making one
almost continuous battle.

"A boy soldier came running by
at the top of his speed.

"When asked why he was running,
he shouted back,

I'm running
'cause I can't fly."

From Danville on April 4th,

Jefferson Davis
issued a proclamation

pledging to fight on.

MAN, AS DAVIS: "Relieved from the
necessity of guarding cities,

"with our army free to move
from point to point,

"nothing is now needed
to render our triumph certain

"but our own
unquenchable resolve.

No peace will ever be made
with the infamous invaders."

On April 6th at Sayler's creek,

union cavalry and infantry

inflicted 6,000 casualties
on Lee's army

and captured 8 generals,

including Lee's own son Custis.

He now had fewer
than 25,000 men.

125,000 federal troops

were now closing in on Lee
from 3 sides.

Union general Phil Sheridan
wired Grant,

"if the thing is pressed,

I think
that Lee will surrender."

"Let the thing be pressed,"
Lincoln answered.

An officer urged Lee
to surrender.

The general asked what the country would
think of him if he failed to fight on.

"The country be damned,"
said the officer,

"there is no country.

"There has been no country
for a year or more.

You're the country
to these men."

"the few men who still
carried their muskets

"had hardly the appearance
of soldiers,

"their clothes all tattered
and covered with mud,

"their eyes sunken
and lusterless,

"yet still they were waiting
for general Lee to say

where they were
to face about and fight."

Magnus Thompson,
35th Virginia cavalry battalion.

Lee's confederate army
was moving

along one side
of the Appomattox river,

a Willow-fringed run
that any country boy could jump.

His pursuers clung
to the opposite bank.

MAN, AS GRANT:
"5 P.M., April 7, 1865.

"General Lee,

"the result of last week
must convince you

"of the hopelessness
of further resistance.

"I regard it as my duty
to shift from myself

"the responsibility
of any further effusion of blood

"by asking of you the surrender

"of that portion
of the confederate states army

known as the army
of northern Virginia."

Ulysses S. Grant.

On April 8th,

Grant again flanked Lee's army

and captured two trainloads
of supplies.

The confederates were living
on handfuls of parched corn.

That night,

Lee and his weary lieutenants
gathered around a campfire

near the little village
of Appomattox courthouse.

"We met in the woods
at his headquarters

"by a low-burning
bivouac fire.

"There was no tent, no table,
no chairs, no camp stools.

"On blankets spread
upon the ground

"or on saddles
at the roots of trees

we sat around
the great commander."

General John B. Gordon.

They were almost
entirely surrounded,

outnumbered nearly 5 to 1,

without hope
of resupply or reinforcement.

"By sunrise, we had reached
Appomattox station,

"where we might
cut Lee's retreat.

"Already we heard the sharp ring
of the horse artillery.

"There was no mistake.

"Sheridan was square
across the enemy's front,

"holding at bay
all that was left

"of the proudest army
of the confederacy.

It had come at last--
the supreme hour."

April 9th was palm Sunday.

Lee ordered Gordon to make one
more attempt at breaking out.

At dawn, just outside
Appomattox courthouse,

Gordon's men drove federal
cavalry from their positions

and swept forward
to the crest of a hill.

Below them,

a solid wall of blue
was advancing--

the entire union army
of the James.

MAN, AS LEE: "There is
nothing left for me to do

"but to go
and see general Grant,

and I would rather die
a thousand deaths."

Shortly before noon,

Lee dispatched a letter
under a white flag

into the union lines.

Grant was resting in a field,

nursing a blinding headache.

Suddenly, a horseman
galloped up at full speed,

a reporter noted,

"waving his hat above his head
and shouting at every jump."

Grant opened the envelope,
looked at it,

then asked his friend
general John Rawlins

to read it aloud--

Lee would surrender.

Grant himself said nothing,

betrayed no more emotion,
a witness said,

than "last year's bird nest,"

but his headache
had instantly disappeared.

"No one looked
his comrade in the face.

"Finally colonel duff,
chief of artillery,

"sprang upon a log
and proposed 3 cheers.

"A feeble hurrah came
from a few throats,

when all broke down
in tears."

Lee dispatched
colonel Charles Marshall

to Appomattox courthouse

to find a suitable building

in which he and Grant
might meet.

The streets
were almost deserted.

Marshall stopped the first
civilian he happened to see,

Wilmer McLean,
who reluctantly agreed

to loan the armies his house
for the occasion.

"By a singular coincidence,

"the meeting
of generals Lee and Grant

"took place in the house
of Wilmer McLean,

"the same gentleman
who, in 1861,

"at the battle of bull run,

"had tendered his house
to general Beauregard

"for headquarters.

"He removed from Manassas
after the battle

"with the intention
of seeking some quiet nook

where the alarms of war
could never find him."

"1:00 came.

"I turned about.

"There behind me appeared
a commanding form,

"superbly mounted,
richly accoutered,

"of imposing bearing,
noble countenance,

"with expression of deep sadness

"over-mastered
by a deeper strength.

"It was no other
than Robert E. Lee.

"Not long after
appeared another form--

"plain, unassuming, simple,
and familiar to our eyes,

"but as awe-inspiring as Lee
in his splendor and sadness.

"It was Grant,

"sitting his saddle
with the ease of a born master,

"taking no notice of anything,

"all his faculties gathered
into intense thought.

"He seemed greater
than I had ever seen him,

a look as of another world
about him."

Lee arrived
at the McLean house first,

magnificent
in a crisp gray uniform,

an engraved sword at his side.

"I have probably to be
general Grant's prisoner,"

he explained to an aide,

"and thought I must make
my best appearance."

He waited half an hour
for Grant to arrive.

The union commander wore
a private's dirty jacket.

His boots and trousers
were splattered with mud.

He had no sword.

The two commanders shook hands.

MAN, AS GRANT: "What general Lee's
feelings were, I do not know.

"As he was a man of much dignity

"with an impassible face,

"his feelings
were entirely concealed

"from my observation,

"but my own feelings
were sad and depressed.

"I felt like anything
rather than rejoicing

"at the downfall of a foe

"who had fought
so long and valiantly

"and had suffered so much
for a cause,

"though that cause was,
I believe,

one of the worst for which
people ever fought."

Grant reminded Lee that
they had met once before

during the Mexican war.

Lee said he had not remembered
what Grant looked like.

MAN, AS GRANT: "Our
conversation grew so pleasant

"that I almost forgot
the object of the meeting.

General Lee called my attention
to the object."

They knew each other.

Grant remembered Lee very well.

Lee didn't quite remember Grant.

That was understandable

from the time
that they were acquainted

back in the early days,

but I think
it was the sensitivity

that the two men
had for each other

and for the moment,

enormous dignity and yet
the necessary informality--

Grant not wanting to get
to the point too quickly,

Lee bringing him up shortly

to the point
of why they're together;

Lee dressed
in his last good uniform,

Grant apologizing that
he was rushing from the field

and didn't have time to change;

The scribe being unable
to hold the pen steady

and having it taken
by another soldier;

The, uh...

That, from Lee's point of view,
awful moment,

and from Grant's point
of view, glorious moment,

and yet for the two of them,
a sad and quiet moment;

And Lee taking his leave

and doffing his hat
from traveller

and riding back to his troops

after securing
those reasonable terms.

It was the--
it was the beginning

of the unification
of the country.

The terms Grant offered
were simple and generous.

Confederate officers

could keep their side-arms
and personal possessions.

Officers and men
who owned their own horses

could keep them, too.

It was planting season.

Grant asked Lee
how many men he had

and if they needed any rations.

Lee said he no longer knew
the size of his army,

but he was sure
all his men were hungry.

Grant offered 25,000 rations.

MAN, AS LEE: "This will have
the best effect upon my men.

"It will be very gratifying

and do much toward
conciliating our people."

Colonel Ely S. Parker,

a Seneca Indian
and a member of Grant's staff,

inscribed the articles
of surrender

for the two commanders to sign.

The two men shook hands again.

Lee left the house,
mounted traveller,

and started
back toward his army.

The union soldiers
began to cheer.

Grant ordered them to stop.

"The confederates
are now our prisoners,"

he explained,

"and we do not want to exult
over their downfall.

"The war is over.

The rebels are
our countrymen again."

Lee's men lined the road
to his camp.

"As he approached,

"we could see
the reins hanging loose,

"and his head was sunk
low on his breast.

"As the men began to cheer,

"he raised his head,
and, hat in hand, he passed by,

his face flushed,
his eyes ablaze."

"as he passed,
they raised their heads

"and looked upon him
with swimming eyes.

"Those who could find voice
said good-bye.

"Those who could not speak

passed their hands gently
over the sides of traveller."

"if one army drank
the joy of victory

"and the other
the bitter draught of defeat,

"it was a joy moderated
by the recollection of the cost

"at which it had been purchased

"and a defeat mollified

"by the consciousness
of many triumphs.

"If the Victors could recall
a Malvern hill, an Antietam,

"a Gettysburg, a five forks,

"the vanquished could recall
a Manassas, a fredericksburg,

a Chancellorsville,
a cold harbor."

A crowd of soldiers
waited in front of Lee's tent.

"Boys," he told them,

"I have done
the best I could for you.

"Go home now,

"and if you make as good
citizens as you have soldiers,

"you will do well,

"and I shall
always be proud of you.

Good-bye,
and god bless you all."

He turned and disappeared
into his tent.

The formal surrender
came 3 days later.

General John B. Gordon,

shot through the face
and wounded 4 more times

in the service
of the confederacy,

led 20,000 men toward the union
lines for the last time--

not to fight,
but to stack their arms

and surrender
their battle flags.

There to receive them

was major general
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,

himself wounded six times
for the union.

Promoted on the field
at Petersburg near death,

he had somehow survived.

"On they come

"with the old swinging route
step and swaying battle flags.

"Before us in proud humiliation

"stood the embodiment
of manhood--

"thin, worn, and famished,

"but erect and with eyes
looking level into ours,

"waking memories that bound us
together as no other bond.

"Was not such manhood
to be welcomed back

"into the union
so tested and assured?

"On our part, not a sound
of trumpet more

"nor roll of drum,
not a cheer nor word

"nor whisper of vain glorying
nor motion of man,

"but an awed stillness, rather,
and breath-holding,

as if it were
the passing of the dead."

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

Now Chamberlain made
an extraordinary gesture.

"Chamberlain called his men
into line,

"and as my men marched
in front of them,

"the veterans in blue
gave a soldierly salute

"to those vanquished heroes,

a token of respect
from Americans to Americans."

General John B. Gordon.

"At the sound of that
machinelike snap of arms,

"general Gordon started,

"then wheeled his horse,
facing me,

"touching him gently
with the spur

"so that the animal
slightly reared,

"and, as he wheeled,
horse and rider made one motion.

"The horse's head swung down
with a graceful bow,

"and general Gordon dropped
his sword point to his toe

in salutation."

In Washington,
fireworks filled the sky.

A great crowd gathered
around the white house

and called for Lincoln.

He was too weary
to make a formal speech

but asked the band
to play Dixie.

"I have always thought it one of the
best tunes I ever heard," he said.

The next day,

Lincoln walked over
to Alexander Gardner's studio

at the corner
of 7th and D street

to sit for another portrait.

Somehow, the glass-plate
negative cracked

while being developed.

The photographer
made a single print,

then threw the negative away.

Over the next 4 years,

there would be plenty of time
to make more Lincoln portraits.

Just a few blocks away,

a friend found John Wilkes booth
alone in his darkened room

and asked him if he wanted
to get a drink.

"Yes," said booth,

who was now drinking
a quart of Brandy a day,

"anything to drive away
the blues."

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.