It's March 18 64. President Lincoln is concerned. The first real victory in the east, the Battle of Gettysburg is short lived when General George Mead, commander of the army of Potomac, fails to capture generally in the army of Northern Virginia before they slip back into the Virginia wilderness. Now political pressure is mounting on President Lincoln with Northern Democrats and Copperheads pushing him to make peace with the confederacy combined with a growing number of union casualties,
the New York draft riots and a mix of results in the West. Lincoln is faced with a possibility of a divided nation and the continuation of slavery in North America for generations to come, the wartime stakes could never be higher. Welcome to warring. Greetings. I am Kylin Bondo, and this is Warganki Overland. My American Civil War history podcast follows General Ulysses S Grant in the army of the Potomac on its 47 day 113 Mile Military Campaign South from Culpepper to Petersburg, Virginia.
In this episode, I'm gonna set the stage for the Overlying campaign. I'm gonna do that by exploring Abraham Lincoln's stakes going into 18 64. And to begin unveiling the toughest year in Lincoln's presidency, I need to first lay out the issues facing him at the dawn of 18 64 because the list is long and because without a doubt, fate of the nation really did hang in the balance in 18 64. But why? Well, to really unravel this, Let's kinda get into
what 18 64 really meant for the civil war. First, it's the 4th year of this war. For 3 long years since really the election of Abraham Lincoln to now, from 18 60, 18 61, The war has been going on for 3 years. So the 4th year is a big deal. And by this time, it was clear that neither sign was about to give in. Everyone
was in it for the long haul. And president Abraham Lincoln, of course, we know that him as the 16th president of the United States, was fully aware that there was really no end to this war in sight. Neither side was about to give in. And because neither side would give in, really, of military victory was really what he needed. And then we'll get into that a little bit later. I think it's amazing to think of how much pressure is placed on the 1 leader who sits in the Oval Office.
We really don't understand the decisions that are made by the president of the United States. And Abraham Lincoln was no different. He was a president that before his inauguration, states started to succeed. Here's a guy who is vaulted to the highest office in in the land. And really oversees the destruction of the entire union.
Now, if you imagine yourself in that position, as president of the United States and suddenly everybody just wants to leave the room and you can't get anything accomplished. That's a tough position to be in for any leader. You really have to think about the pressure placed on the 1 leader and how much of the country was really against him. And thinking about Abraham Lincoln in the beginning of 18 64. He has a lot of different type of problems
to deal with. I mean, first, he has to deal with the military problems. I mean, this is the Civil War. And the Union Army has been very successful in Tennessee and the Mississippi Valley. But it has a series of problems in what is called the eastern front, which is primarily Virginia
and the area between Washington DC and Richmond. If you if you understand how Virginia works, Virginia is not very mountainous. I mean, the Shenandoah mountains are there, but if you're from the the West Coast, or even from the the Midwest and you've been by the Rockies, you understand that the Shenandoah Mountains and even the the the Blue Ridge Mountains, they're not that big. 35100 feet tops.
They're I mean, to someone from the Rockies, the mountains in Virginia are molehills. They're bumps. But what Virginia lacks in high topographical features that makes up more than makes up in rivers and scraggle brush and forest and all sorts of really swampy areas. Because you're you're talking Intel Chesapeake Bay Area, a Tidewater region all the way up north, is kind of this mushy mash of of swamp and forest.
And because it's kinda flat, water kinda goes wherever it wants to go. So you have this this eastern front area, that is difficult to navigate, difficult to travel over, easily turns into mud. There is something that is very real called Virginia Red Clay. And it's just under the top soil and it's nasty.
It sticks to everything. It's hard as a rock and it exists everywhere, especially when it rains. So you have this this really interesting place at the eastern front, and the union has been unsuccessful in any real serious military victories here. And because it just so happens that it's just a few miles between Washington DC and Richmond, it's very weird to think that these 2 capitals have really the battle lines between them has really remained unchanged. Since the war began in 1861.
I heard interesting fact that Washington DC was once considered the most fortified city on the planet It had 30 miles of trench works and
barricades and forks around it with heavy with heavy cannons and soldiers. I think there was, like, 50,000 Union soldiers protecting DC at 1 time. It is really a fortress. It's fortress America. But it didn't really have any advantage by being Fortress America because they couldn't push that front line any further south except to somewhere near the Rapohanic River. Which is about 40 miles south of Washington DC. So if you can imagine this line, this river, and it's not a very big river. As far as rivers go, it's actually not that big at all. It's maybe a couple 100 feet and it's widest point. It's very shallow in places, rocky. It hits what something's called the fall line. Which is where you can get navigatable
ships and cargo up to a certain point, and then it gets this rocky, fall area where you really can't get a ship past that. And that's usually where these major cities pop up at. That's like cities like Richmond and Fredericksburg appear right before you can't get past because of the rocks. And so you have this this kind of strange topographical nature of this place that has weird winters and weird summers and weird rainstorms. And it's remained unchanged for 3 years.
Now, another disadvantage of this battle line, these eastern front battle line, unlike the west, is that newspaper reporters from New York and from Philadelphia and Washington DC, they have access to the battlefields in your Washington DC. So they can really see these battles up close and impersonal and report and get those reports back to newspapers almost in real time.
So people in those cities are seeing, the northern cities are seeing firsthand and reading firsthand what is going on in this eastern theater. Where on the western theater, a reporter has to get on, you know, ride a carriage or get on a horse or walk or maybe get on a ship, and then get on a train and take that train all the way, it takes them a month to get out to the western front. And by the time they get there to see the battle, they have access to the to the battlefield. And they'll be able to report back. That's difficult.
But near DC, wow. Poorly operating Union Army, right there in front of newspapers where they can report right back to the people within almost near real time. That's a huge disadvantage for any president. They have bad news from a battlefield. Take place. Almost days after it happens, where if something out in the west would take maybe weeks. So that's a huge problem. Meanwhile, even with the victory at Gettysburg. The victory at Gettysburg.
Finally, Lincoln gets a victory worth noting about. And what happens? Well, general Mead, the gentleman who was placed in charge of the army of the Potomac, just days before days were even happens. He is seen as the the great hero of Gettysburg
because, you know, once Lee takes Gettysburg, it's just a stone throw way of threatening Washington DC or Philadelphia. So there's this huge threat. Oh my gosh. Lee can actually move his army beyond the rapid Rapohanic river beyond the Potomac and threaten us. Oh, no. So there's this great fear that Lee's army can move at will, will Gettysburg help squash some of that? And Mead is considered the hero of Gettysburg. But he does something that Lincoln just gets
unbelievably frustrated over because he can't capitalize on it because Mead is afraid to move quickly. He needs everything to be placed perfectly. He needs a plan and placed perfectly. He needs his all his supply lines be activated before he can ever move this army. So he's slow to move and Lee escapes. And this is very frustrating because Here's the huge victory that may have churned the tide of the war. Some historians claim the Gettysburg is where the confederacy's back was broken.
I am I'm an amateur historian. I don't think that's the truth. I see it as a great opportunity
lost because Mead couldn't capitalize on it. He could not chase Lee fast enough, and Lee escapes into the wilderness, Virginia. And as you'll see through this, as we start exploring the overland campaign, the wilderness, Virginia is no joke. So Mead gets down to the Rapihan Rapihanic River and the Rapihan River, and he's stuck because Lee has defenses along those rivers. He uses these natural barriers in Virginia because unlike other rivers that flow north south all over the country, Virginia's rivers flow east West. They're almost like natural barricades to a north south battle. As you're going south, you're crossing these little creeks and these little streams that turn into these bigger creeks and bigger streams and even rivers
that are just high banks. They're deep in a lot of places with rocks. They're really hard to get over. And if you were the army on the other side and you're trying to cross this river, while the enemy is in defenses high above the river banks, you're in deep trouble because it's basically a turkey shoot. So that's a huge problem for for Lincoln. Geddesburg just didn't pay off.
Furthermore, Lincoln was not getting any accomplishments out of his current US Army General And Chief Henry Hallick or who they affectionately refer to as old brains. Yet another general. Senior general. Oh, I I have risen to the rank because I've been around the longest. He was not getting it done either. And Lincoln was frustrated with this long line of generals who just were not capable of being aggressive. So Lincoln really needs to reshuffle his generals.
And he's looking for the 1 senior commander that he can bring everything together. And this has been really his challenge for the past 3 years. Militarily, his generals are just not aggressive enough. They're not they're not thinking ahead enough. They're thinking only about the battle or the campaign they're in at the moment. They're not thinking big picture.
What does this mean for the country? What does this mean for the presidency? What does this mean for the election? None of these generals are thinking about this. And what's the thinking about their own personal game? This is a problem with a lot of the generals from the civil war is they were in in some ways very prideful, they were very vain, and a lot of them were eager to promote themselves
rather than be a servant to the country. Then this is a theme. If you if you read Civilor history, you start to see the theme emerge of Lincoln's generals. It's really kind of frustrating to imagine having this
vast array of military, you know, trained at West Point, these the cream with a crop of generals, and all of them can talk about strategy in in battles all day long, but none of them can really effectively achieve that in the field. And then Lincoln has has probably reached the end of his rope by the beginning of 18 64. He's had enough and he's looking for something different. Even if he's constantly being counseled
not to go down this road, he needs something different. And he's learning too. This is the best thing about about what 63 really taught Lincoln is he's learning
really what it takes to have military leadership that that what he was told the military leadership was is not what turns out to be. Lincoln has been a student of this as well. So this is an interesting change to the presidency at this point. Now what are his political problems? Because military is not just the only part of it. He now has to fight the other problems. Because there's a nor there's an enormous northern political pressure for him to make peace with the confederates. Now I used to think about this when the country split in half, the confederate party, which was all Democrats,
didn't all go to the south. He had a whole lot of Northern Democrats who were talking about peace. They called them peace Democrats, and there were war Democrats as well, but there weren't very many of them. And then there was even people who were considered unionists who were pro peace as well. And a lot of of people who want this war to end You really can't blame them for wanting peace. Because again, we've been through 3 years of war, and now there's a draft.
And these wounded vets are returning home. And now there's a growing list of soldiers who are not only killed in action, but are missing in action. And they may or may not be prisoners of war. They're just missing. Some of these battlefields, and we'll talk about this, especially when we get into the battle of the wilderness.
Some of these battlefields of the war, the battle takes place, and the armies move on, and the dead are just laying there. And in some respects, for years, just laying open, not buried, not disturbed, just laying there rotting in the field or rotting in the forest. And this has really upset a lot of the northern families whose brothers and fathers and and cousins
and sons have all gone off to war Only now they're either they're they're coming home in a casket when they're not coming on all. So this is creating war weariness. This is a huge problem for Lincoln. It's the war weariness
kicks off things that like the New York draft riots where people are just they just there's they don't wanna be drafted. 1 of the interesting things about the the draft act in 1860 3 is that only single men are drafted. If you're married, you don't get drafted. Listen to my last episode, 1 of my family members, got married real quick to avoid the draft. So this is an interesting thing that's going on in the country. So the political unrest of the actual population
is something called the voting constituents, if you would. 1864 is also the last year of Lincoln's first term. So now 18 64 is an election year. I used to think about is not only you have to worry about can you win or can you beat the competitors for you? Can you put down the rebellion? But now, can you even get reelected in time to continue the war? Or will you be defeated by a copperhead or by a peace Democrat? And they'll make peace with a confederacy and the country will stay divided
or worse, the union will be reestablished but slavery will not go. This is a problem in 18 64. It's an election year with little to show 4 in 3 years, but about 200,000 dead and some victories in the West. This is a problem for Liberhand Lincoln. And now he has to think about not only his reelection, but the politics of reelection, because you can't just win With just 1 way of looking at the population, you have to play, in some respects, play the middle. So you have to convince
people who may or may not be on your side. That may be the war going on for another year is not a bad thing. That we can do this. We're almost there. Just suck it up a little bit in a sense. You know, we can ride through the storm. And so Lincoln, with his reelection coming up, if he can win the war before his election, then the war's over, then it's not an issue. But 1 way or another, the war will be concluded
whether he's president or not. Because if he stays president, he can conclude the war because he's the commander in chief. If he gets defeated, his successor will end the war 1 way or another, either by maintaining the path, by continuing the war, or by making peace. So he knows, historically,
this is kind of a big deal. Think about what happens if Lincoln actually loses this election. And that is a successor who turns out would have been would have been Democrat and former general George B McKellen, who is his first general he put in charge to take on the competency. Well, this is his this is become will become his challenger in 18 64. The general he technically fired and put out the pasture is now going to run for the Democratic ticket against Lincoln.
Mckellan supported the continuation of the war and restoration of the union, but he had a problem. His party platform, because he's running as a Democrat, was written by people who were opposed this position. In fact, a copperhead named Clement Valingham was the 1 of the party members who wrote the platform
that really was opposed to any continuation of the war at all. So Macmillan's already starting to be estranged from the ticket he's running on because really he's running as someone who's against Lincoln more than he is against the war. McKellan's position is even further compromised. But the fact that his former is running mate is former governor of Connecticut, Thomas H. Seymour, who has declared the war to be a failure
And he is in favor of the immediate end of hostilities without securing a union victory. So McKellan, who's running as a war democrat, is sitting on a party platform against the war with a running mate who thinks that the war has already failed. So if Lincoln loses, McKellan would become president and would be really hard pressed to make peace with what could be southern independence. Because although he's a war democrat,
his entire party and even his running mate are against the war. And it it would seem that Lincoln's loss although McKellan would be considered the president of the United States probably wouldn't have much success in continuing the war. And so if Lincoln loses the election,
the war ends 1 way or another. Either he gets to finish it now before the election, He is reelected, becomes president this or second term, and can continue the war till its conclusion, or he loses and his successor is really pushed into peace and an easy peace with a whole new nation to the south that will continue slavery. So the fate of America really laid in the balance of these decisions, and Lincoln had to make a lot of this in the 1st months of 1864.
So you have really have to imagine the pressure. The pressure of if I make the wrong decision or series of decisions over the next few months, That's it. Game over. So the big mystery that has really yet to be solved as Lincoln goes into 1864. And the 4th year of the civil war is what happens if Lincoln fails to end the war before he's reelected? Or fails to even get any kind of military victory for is reelected and loses the presidency. What happens to the country? What happens to all of this?
All that sacrifice. That is really the mystery going into 64 and the question weighing on Abraham Lincoln as the New Year's rolls in. But before we can get into what this course change means for the Union War effort, wanna talk to you about the American Battlefield Trust.
If you love Civil War history, then I wanna take a brief moment to remind you of a profound statement from Abraham Lincoln. He said, the world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Now, if you love history like I do, then you know that America's freedoms were secured on the battlefield of the revolutionary war, the war of 18 12, and of course, the Civil War. But what you may not know is that these battles were fought at 13,000 places with only a fraction remaining today Because these unprotected the battlefields tell the rest of the story of how America was forged into the nation we are today, we must do something to preserve what few battlefields remain that can be saved.
That's why I want you to consider supporting the American Battlefield Trust. The American Battlefield Trust is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to preserving the sacred places that are etched into our national memory. They have already saved over 50,000 acres of land, but there are still millions of unprotected sites that are being paved over, built on, and erased from history every day. This is why the American Battlefield Trust needs your help to preserve these sites for current and future Americans to study and enjoy.
They see each battlefield as outdoor classrooms and living memorials to America's 1st citizen soldiers who fought and died on these now quiet in Hollyfield. Join me in the fight to save our nation's historic battlefields by visiting the American Battlefield Trust website at battlefields.org.
Because the American Battlefield Trust knows, there is no substitute for experiencing history in the places where it actually took place. Join the only national organization working to save America's historic battlefields today and discover how you can help preserve America's history forever. That's battlefields, battlefield with an s.org. What happens if Lincoln fails to end the war in 18 64? Well, there are a couple possibilities to really consider.
First, peace means that the secessionist win. And if the secessionist win, it really means disintegration of the union because there's gonna be 2 countries. In fact, there's a book by Harry Turdle Dove. Called the Guns of the South. It's a revisionist history or alternative history where a group of South Africans go back in time and give the Confederacy AKA 47s before they go to, you know, they do pickets charge Gettysburg. And it really means that 2 countries are created.
Because if you can't force the other side to surrender and they're not planning on giving up until the last man, you really can't fathom what that means going forward except that it's 2 countries. It has to be 2 countries. That's really how this is going to work out. It's gonna be decentration of the union. And not only would it disintegrate the union, but peace is going to embolden the south and allow them to reinforce and shift armies to other locations.
They're going to to be able to lick their wounds, be able to reconsolidate their entire army.
And then if continue over war suddenly kicked off a second time. Well, the confederacy wouldn't be this kind of broken up little little place. They would actually have a commander in chief. They would actually have a unified army strategy. They would actually have a supply line that was we wasn't just state by state. It would have a real military. If they had any chance to take a breath, the confederacy would be very, very difficult to beat.
So that was what peace would really mean is that there's no there's no really taking the confederacy without having yet another long war. And not to mention whether or not they can actually consolidate their resources enough to even beat the north. It could be possible. Plus, they could also retake lost territory occupied the union. Remember, we still have the west west, the frontier, you know, manifest destiny, all that stuff out there, Louisiana purchase.
You know, Texas is really kind of a new state. Coming into the union. All that stuff out west would then be contested because who owns it? The South could really the Confederacy could take back the lost territory that already had been taken by the union big during the civil war. After they consolidated take more territory back, And then the longer the war goes on, the higher the chance that the British and the French get involved.
And here is the the key thing that Lincoln is thinking about the entire time because he's an abolitionist. So if there's peace, That means there's no end of slavery in North America. And it was likely that it would expand because now the Confederate Army could protect landowners who own slaves and expand the whole slave trade. Because remember, at this point, it's chattel slavery. It's slaves being born. You can't bring new slaves over legally.
There's a black market going on, of course. So there's this this whole kind of hold on keeping the 4,000,000 slaves in the United States at that number more or less. Well, if the piracy becomes its own country, and if you read the the secessionist decrees of each 1 of these states, They talk about how it's all about defending slavery. I think the South Carolina declaration of succession. They mentioned slavery
several dozen times. So to say it's not about slavery, it's totally about slavery. They want to maintain their way of life. They're an agricultural culture. That uses slavery as manual labor without having to pay them, which allows them to maximize their profits and increase their crops and yields And of course, they're plantation size and mint tulips and all that other nifty things that come with the evil of slavery. And so you have this suddenly
a new country forms that is now pro slavery. Not only pro slavery, but, oh my gosh, we fought a war and now we've declared that slavery is a just cause for us. What does that mean? Well, it won't be child slavery anymore. Welcome back to the slavery as it was before they ended the slave trade. That is really what you're asking for. A whole new generation of slaves. And maybe not just not just black slaves. Maybe they would expand it to all sorts of other kind of slaves.
So the confederacy, a piece with a confederacy, is not something Lincoln is really going to even want to address. And then it all the things that come with confederate states of America being created below the United States of America is the 13th Amendment would fail because peace with the confederacy would mean that there is no more sympathetic northern democrats.
Those who are pro slavery in the north probably gonna continue to be pro laboratory in the north because there's no real risk to it. There will be a hostile nation to the South United States of America that may really consider Once they've kinda lick their wounds, that we can take the whole pie. The union can actually be beat now. They could surround them and take them. This is really the historical moment of 1864, the gravity of this. So now it kinda laid out the stakes.
What does Lincoln need to do to turn the tide of this war? This is really kind of the critical point. And what President Lincoln is in dire need of is something called a turning point and a turning point is defined as a notable course change. He needs to do something different. For the past 3 years, what he's been doing is not working. And so he needs to become very aware of how 18 64
needs to be that year of notable change. Because he knew that it's 18 64 would be a major turning point of the war. And, of course, in an American history, 1 way or another, because we just talked about it before, lose the election. There's peace. Competitor states America becomes a real thing. If he wins the election, he can continue to award and beat the confederacy before he has a chance to regroup. To turning point. This election is critical. And this is where I think 2 very critical events
underscore what I believe are Lincoln's awareness to the weight of history unfolding before him. And the first 1 is something that I think it gets overlooked a lot. Because, of course, you can't go and ask Lincoln. You can read what he wrote. You can read his speeches. You know his antidote hole of events of what people talk to him about. You know his actions, but you really can't go up and ask him, what do you think the stakes are?
But I have a time machine. And in my time machine, I know exactly what Lincoln was thinking going into 1864. And it's called the Gettysburg address. Because Lincoln goes to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in November of 1863. Now remember, the battle took place in the summertime, so it's been a few months. And he goes out to Gettysburg. And, of course, the history of Gettysburg's address is is infamous.
Right? Write it on the back of an envelope. It's something he wrote last minute. Not that a lot of people couldn't hear him. A lot of people's handed out. There's like a couple different versions of it. Because what people remember it was said, but I like I like this version of it, and it goes a little something like this. 4 score in 7 years ago, Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived at liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. We cannot concentrate. We cannot hollow this ground.
The brave men living in dead who struggled here have concentrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve, that those dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation, under god, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Abraham Lincoln November 19 1963. That is my time machine.
Because I can look right into Lincoln's mind and and understand exactly what he's thinking at this time in the civil war. Because he says that line. The line that says, it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. This is Lincoln asking the union to stay the course for now. He wants the union to know things like this are not easy and to stop now would ruin everything, all the sacrifice would be just given up. Because then he adds this line to, quote,
that we hear highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. Lincoln is telling the union that changing leadership now would have wasted the sacrifice of those 200 soldiers that have already died, not to mention the ones who have already died. They'll be right at LinkedIn Gettysburg, but those who have died since the war began. And this is where Lincoln's mind is in November of 1863. He was already setting the stage for what 18 64 needed to be. He's already looking ahead.
It's an all or nothing gamble on finally breaking the back of the rebellion before his political and military enemies find a way to win. So when historians talk about Gettysburg is the place that broke the Confederate's back,
I think a lot of them think it's militarily how it broke their back. But I don't think that's it. I think the spirit of Abraham Lincoln's leadership because of Gettysburg and his rise to the occasion of creating this monumental speech of the Gettysburg address really inspires the union to rise up and stay the course. Because
we can look, you know, we have the advantage of hindsight and seeing what actually unfold in history. But we see that the Union army doesn't give up. We see that Lincoln doesn't lose reelection. We see all these kind of events unfold. But imagine yourself in November of 1863 thinking, man, this is this is not working out so well. Things are not going so great. Maybe it'd just be better to have peace.
You know, my brother, he came home in a box. My dad came home without a leg. I don't know where my cousin is. Just imagine that kind of thinking. Entire neighborhoods wiped out. That's the kind of thing that's going on. And so we look at this speech and we go, oh, he he completely sees what the course is. He's already thinking a year ahead. Already thinking a year ahead.
And that's a that's a pretty profound thing to think. And it leads me to my second point, a second turning point decision that I think is crucial in what happens at the beginning of 18 64.
And for the 1st 3 years of the war, what it did is it taught Lincoln that military experience and seniority was not enough to create victories. And even the military today, we have this problem, is we have leadership really dictated by a lot of seniority. There is a lot of seniority and a lot of people get promoted to certain posts because they're the highest ranking person
for that job. It's not always the case. But Lincoln is learning that because of that attitude in the 18 sixties, he really hasn't had all the results. So he's really learning that military experience and seniority is not enough for critical victories. He now understands that military leadership is rare. And he could only be found in just a few of his commanding generals, and he really needs to make a radical change on how the war is being conducted.
And this education that he's getting by witnessing these commanding generals fail continuously before him or refuse to take advantage of situations, or they complain endlessly about no supplies. I need more men. I can do it if I just have more men. I can do it if I had more supplies. I can't make something out of nothing. Oh, I can't move until I have all my horses. I can't move until I have all my guns. This is the the constant complaining he gets from these generals.
And so he needs a major victory before the he needs to really show the entire north that this war can be won. And without a major victory,
It's not gonna happen because Gettysburg is like last week's news. Yeah. There was a victory there, but what have you done for me lately? That's the need for politics. It's got a really short memory. Time, you know, the history began yesterday with a lot of these. And these papers they although they promote Gettysburg as a major success, then start to point to other battles
that don't do so well. And you start to get more losses and more stalemate that isn't really pushing the point the Lincoln is making that the war can be won. Needs to be 1. It has to be 1 because the sin of slavery needs to be eradicated from North America. So every general he's trusted up at this point to win battles or to follow his orders or to lead the unions to any kind of victory, at least in the east has failed him. Continuously. And, of course, these failures have consequences
because these failures have been emboldened the Confederate leadership in Richmond, which is just only a hundred miles away, to begin courting foreign governments for recognition and military support. And this is the true danger of not having military victories in the field, especially in the east where the newspapers are going right across the water to everyone in Europe because Europeans are paying attention. And as president of the United States of America, he needs to keep these foreign governments out of the fight because if they back the confederacy, that's gonna be a problem for him. Right now, he's got the men in the supplies
and he's got the advantage of having a bigger army and more resources.
But that could tea change very quickly if the Europeans get involved. It's up to this point of the war. Most European powers have chosen remain neutral, they'll not stop them from really taking economic advantage of these 2 sides fighting. And really what it comes down to is they're they're making money off of both sides. They're supplying both sides of the argument because they're making hand money hand over fist, and they know that, hey, whoever wins, that's all back. Well, the British have taken this 1 step further because they're providing significant wartime assistance to the confederacy.
They've even gone as far as to allow Confederate warships and their blockade runners to be constructed in English shipyards. That's a little more than just supplies. There's even other foreign powers. They've decided to look the other way as their own soldiers decide to go join the fight on both sides. It's the only war in town right now, so the soldiers being soldiers wanna go and experience what is going on in the civil war because all sorts of new military
technologies are being tested for the first time. Tactics are being tested for the first time. New ways of combat are being explored for the first time, and a lot of these foreign military people will go back to their own countries and utilize some of these tactics. In the upcoming Great War. This is really a problem that Lincoln has with the confederates
gaining support from Britain and France. And every year the union fails to put down a rebellion is a year closer to foreign government getting involved, significantly getting involved. In fact, confederate president, Jefferson Davis, felt bad if the competitors could hold on for 1 more year. Again, 18 64. They could gain enough support to draw the war into a stalemate. That's really become their goal at this point. Just stay alive long enough for for us to be supported by a European power.
And the confederacy isn't stupid. They're already using Britain and France's dependency on American cotton. All grown in the southern states, of course, as a bargaining chip. This is the the king cotton diplomacy in which the confederates threaten the supply of cotton to foreign textile mills and they're holding they can hold back this trade as a mean to pressure these companies into aiding their costs. Cotton is really in demand.
And the last thing you want is the cotton trade ended because your government won't supply guns or ships or cannons or soldiers to the south. So this is really the play, the confederates have going on, coming into 1864. Stay alive. Keep the union in check. Don't allow them any major victories. Defeat Lincoln in his presidency by infiltrating the north and creating dissidents, creating of opposition.
Make this war cost them as much as possible because if we can stay alive as long as possible, we get our own country. It's really Jefferson Davis's whole position. It kinda seems kinda grim. 18 64 is a grim time in the civil war because it looks like if the confederates can win peace, The nation stays divided forever. So at the very beginning of this episode, I called this, I introduced this as March 1864.
And really, this is where Lincoln's bottom line is coming into this year. That March, a c c 18 64 is when things start to move. The spring is coming and usually in the civil war because of the winters and the way things work
south and north. The major offenses start happening in the spring. So the war is about to heat back up in 18 64 as Virginia starts the thaw. So what does Lincoln need to do? What's the bottom line? Well, first, He needs to capitalize on the gains in the west, mainly these victories in Vicksburg and Chattanooga because they have really
they've kind of fulfilled Operation Anaconda. They've kind of given him and haven't kind of given him. They have given the union complete control of the Mississippi River. They control the Mississippi River, the Atlantic Coast, the Gulf of Mexico. They now have naval superiority all around the competency.
Well, what are you gonna do with that navy superiority? You have to use it somehow, so they're gonna increase the pressure on the confederacy using the navy. Well, next, he needs a military victory in Virginia, specifically Virginia, so that he can get these reporters down here from New York and from Philadelphia, and to see the Union Army is not done. This war is not over, and the Competitorcy is not undefeatable. And so that he wants these these reporters
embedded in the union army as the union army goes south to see these battlefields to move south and see the union army is actually an unstoppable force. He needs those victories in the eastern theater, and Virginia is the key because that's where that's where bodily is. General Lee, the superhero of the of the competency, where everyone thinks that he's undefeatable. Lincoln needs him to be defeated.
It's an advantage he needs to really carry him into into the presidency, defeat of the army of Northern Virginia, something the union has really not been able to do, except at Gettysburg.
So that major victory in Virginia is a big deal. That's definitely on his list. So he needs to show the press. He needs to show the public of the North, he needs to show his political adversaries and his allies and the union army, and even the confederacy and foreign powers, that this war is not over, and they need to hesitate on deciding that it is. And finally, He needs a way to threaten Richmond.
He really needs to shake their cage. He needs to cut off the competency leadership, ability, to rally the confederacy and at some point force them to surrender. He needs to have a way of putting so much pressure on the confederacy they decide the war is over for them, the rebellion is lost. But to do all this, he needs 1 thing the Union army has yet to produce, a commanding general who will fight.
In the next episode of War Yankee, I will explore Lincoln's wake up of his military command appointments with the promotion of Ulysses S Grant to Lieutenant General and why he is the key to Lincoln's grand political strategy. And a major turning point in the Civil War. War Yankee Overland. Is my American Civil War history podcast created by me, Kyle Embossett, and produced by Gekko pod. Hope you've enjoyed me as I continue to follow the civil war history, hiding in my own backyard.
Follow the Overland campaign's march to Petersburg. Atorganke.com.