Union

It's enough to fill 30 huge football stadiums.

About 2.1 million soldiers fought for the Union in the North, and around one million for the Confederacy in the South.

That sounds terrifying.

Was President Lincoln fighting in the battles?

He must have been so stressed.

Did the North start winning?

At first, the Union army struggled.

The battles were devastating.

Hooker's Plans.

After the great disaster of Fredericksburg, General Burnside, the commander of the Union Army, was superseded by Major General Joseph Hooker, a graduate of West Point, who, having formerly held a high position on the staff of General Gideon J. Pillow in the war with Mexico, was supposed to be well acquainted with military operations on a large scale.

He had subsequently left the army, and had been engaged in civil pursuits for several years.

He was a man of fine presence, of great personal magnetism, and had the reputation of being one of our most efficient and successful corps commanders.

French also, who had started for Todd's Tavern, returned.

He encountered the enemy, but was ordered in and did not engage them.

That portion of the country around Chancellorsville within the Union lines on the morning of May 2nd may, with some exceptions, be described as a plain covered by dense thickets, with open spaces in the vicinity of the houses, varied by the high ground at Tally's on the west and by the hills of Fairview and Hazel Grove on the south, and terminating in a deep ravine near the river.

Our general line was separated from that of the enemy by small streams, which principally ran through ravines, forming obstacles useful for defensive purposes.

By late afternoon, April 8th, 1864, the road outside Mansfield, Louisiana had become a death trap.

Union soldiers were pouring to the

rear as Confederate troops crashed through the broken lines, but there was nowhere for them to go.

The only road behind them was jammed with hundreds of wagons, frightened horses, loose mules, artillery pieces, ambulances, and men desperately trying to escape.

Yeah, that's right.

They had old Dixon Porter with them, moving up the Red River beside him.

The plan there was to capture Shreveport, destroy Confederate power in the region, threaten Texas, prove that the Union could go wherever it wanted west of the Mississippi.

Hmm.

Hooker's Plans.

After the great disaster of Fredericksburg, General Burnside, the commander of the Union Army, was superseded by Major General Joseph Hooker, a graduate of West Point, who, having formerly held a high position on the staff of General Gideon J. Pillow in the war with Mexico, was supposed to be well acquainted with military operations on a large scale.

He had subsequently left the army and had been engaged in civil pursuits for several years.

He was a man of fine presence, of great personal magnetism, and had the reputation of being one of our most efficient and successful corps commanders.

French also, who had started for Todd's Tavern, returned.

He encountered the enemy, but was ordered in and did not engage them.

That portion of the country around Chancellorsville within the Union lines on the morning of May 2nd may, with some exceptions, be described as a plain covered by dense thickets, with open spaces in the vicinity of the houses, varied by the high ground at Tally's on the west and by the hills of Fairview and Hazel Grove on the south, and terminating in a deep ravine near the river.

Our general line was separated from that of the enemy by small streams, which principally ran through ravines, forming obstacles useful for defensive purposes.

The Industrial Revolution and National Politics.

Southern Plans for Union with the West.

it was long the design of southern statesmen like calhoun to hold the west and the south together in one political party the theory on which they based their hope was simple both sections were agricultural the producers of raw materials and the buyers of manufactured goods the planters were heavy purchasers of western bacon pork mules and grain the mississippi river and its tributaries formed the natural channel for the transportation of heavy produce southward to the plantations and outward to europe therefore ran their political reasoning the interests of the two sections were one by standing together in favor of low tariffs they could buy their manufactures cheaply in europe and pay for them in cotton tobacco and grain the union of the two sections under jackson's management seemed perfect The East forms ties with the West.

Eastern leaders were not blind to the ambitions of Southern statesmen.

By 1818, slavery had become so entrenched and the anti-slavery movement so strong that Missouri's quest for admission brought out both houses of Congress into a deadlock that was broken only by compromise.

the south having half the senators could prevent the admission of missouri stripped of slavery and the north powerful in the house of representatives could keep missouri without slavery out of the union indefinitely an adjustment of pretensions was the last resort.

Maine, separated from the parent state of Massachusetts, was brought into the Union with freedom, and Missouri with bondage.

At the same time it was agreed that the remainder of the vast Louisiana territory, north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, should be, like the old Northwest, forever free, while the southern portion was left to slavery.

he was one of virginia's delegates to the first continental congress and although he said but little he was regarded by all the representatives from the other colonies as the strongest man among them there was something about him even then which commanded the respect and the confidence of every one who came in contact with him it was from new england far removed from his own state that the demand came for his appointment as commander-in-chief of the american army silently he accepted the duty and leaving philadelphia took command of the army at cambridge there is no need to trace him through the events that followed from the time when he drew his sword under the famous elm tree he was the embodiment of the american revolution and without him that revolution would have failed almost at the start how he carried it to victory through defeat and trial and every possible obstacle is known to all men when it was all over he found himself facing a new situation he was the idol of the country and of his soldiers the army was unpaid and the veteran troops with arms in their hands were eager to have him take control of the disordered country as cromwell had done in england a little more than a century before with the army at his back and supported by the great forces which in every community desire order before everything else and are ready to assent to any arrangement which will bring peace and quiet nothing would have been easier than for washington to have made himself the ruler of the new nation but that was not his conception of duty and he not only refused to have anything to do with such a movement himself but he repressed by his dominant personal influence all such intentions on the part of the army on the twenty third of december seventeen eighty three he met the congress at annapolis and there resigned his commission what he then said is one of the two most memorable speeches ever made in the united states and is also memorable for its meaning and spirit among all speeches ever made by men he spoke as follows mr president the great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place i have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to congress and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country.

Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with diffidence, a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.

the successful termination of the war has verified the most sanguine expectations and my gratitude for the interposition of providence and the assistance i have received from my countrymen increases with every review of the momentous contest while i repeat my obligations to the army in general i should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge in this place the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the war it was impossible that the choice of confidential officers to compose my family should have been more fortunate permit me sir to recommend in particular those who have continued in service to the present moment as worthy of the favorable notice and patronage of congress i consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of almighty god and those who have the superintendence of them to his holy keeping having now finished the work assigned me i retire from the great theatre of action and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body under whose orders i have so long acted i here offer my commission and take my leave of all the employments of public life The great master of English fiction, writing of this scene at Annapolis, says, Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed, the opening feast of Prince George in London, or the resignation of Washington? Which is the noble character for after ages to admire, yon fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate victory? washington did not refuse the dictatorship or rather the opportunity to take control of the country because he feared heavy responsibility but solely because as a high-minded and patriotic man he did not believe in meeting the situation in that way he was moreover entirely devoid of personal ambition and had no vulgar longing for personal power after resigning his commission he returned quietly to mount vernon but he did not hold himself aloof from public affairs On the contrary, he watched their course with the utmost anxiety.

He saw the feeble confederation breaking to pieces, and he soon realized that that form of government was an utter failure.

He showed, among other things, that he had not offered the petition, but had only asked the opinion of the speaker upon it, and that the petition itself prayed that slavery should not be abolished.

When he closed his speech, which was quite as savage as any made against him, and infinitely abler, no one desired to reply, and the idea of censuring him was dropped.

The greatest struggle, however, came five years later, when, on January 21, 1842, Mr. Adams presented the petition of certain citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying for the dissolution of the Union on account of slavery.

His enemies felt that now, at last, he had delivered himself into their hands.

Kentucky was not a Confederate state.

It originally declared itself neutral, but eventually joined the Union.

More Kentuckians fought for the Union than defected to the Confederates, which is not to say that Kentucky can cover itself with glory.

Kentucky was a slave state, and slavery stayed legal there until after the Civil War ended and the 13th Amendment was ratified.

Oh yeah, there's that too.

Yeah, and after that, that patriot hero statesman turned traitor and became the president of the Confederacy.

Because America in 2026 seems like it needs a quick refresher, the Confederacy are the folks that lost the Civil War.

They started the war because they wanted to keep chattel slavery and were willing to secede from the Union over it.

music music

It is the winter of 1863, and in Richmond's Libby Prison, Union captives face another day of deprivation.

None of the castles and dungeons of Europe have a stranger or sadder history than this.

Many a heart has been wrung, many a spirit broken, many a noble soul has there breathed out its last sigh.

The well-being of the prisoners from the United States Army is the least of the Confederacy's concerns.

They are just numbers.

Libby Prison was built specifically to house Union officers, men like Captain Andrew G. Hamilton, Captain Isaac N. Johnston, and Colonel Thomas Rose.

Early in the war, both sides exchanged prisoners regularly.