Robert E. Lee & his Generals: with (Dr. Gary Gallagher)

Robert E. Lee & his Generals: with (Dr. Gary Gallagher)

In this episode of the American Civil War & UK History Podcast, host Daz is joined by renowned Civil War historian Dr. Gary Gallagher to explore General Robert E. Lee’s relationships with some of his most important subordinates: Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, and J.E.B. Stuart.

How did Lee work with these very different personalities? What made his relationship with Jackson so successful, and how did his relationships with Longstreet and Stuart evolve throughout the war?

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

To keep up to date with everything American Civil War and UK history, head over to our website ACW and UK History.com. And remember, this podcast has a PowerPoint presentation that goes along with the show. So if you would like to see the PowerPoint presentation, then head over to our YouTube channel at American Civil War and UK History. Cheers. Hello everyone, I'm Daz and welcome to American Civil War and UK History Podcast. This presentation is available as a video on our YouTube channel or as a podcast from wherever you get your podcast from. And if you're watching on YouTube, remember to hit that subscribe button and give us a big thumbs up. And check out our website at www.acwandukhistory.com where you'll find podcast blog posts and links to all of our social media pages. And the link is also available in the podcast description. And joining me today, I'm really pleased to say, is Dr. Gary Gallagher. Welcome, Gary. Thank you very much. Delighted to be here. And uh of course, today we will be discussing Robert E. Lee and his relationship with his subordinates, which you know is uh is a is a great thing to study and talk about. But before we get into that, Gary, I have a really important question for you. I'd love to know how you first became interested in history.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

I first became interested in the Civil War really when I was about 10, and I can be very specific. My grandmother Gallagher or Gallagher, as they would say, in your part of the world, gave me a subscription to National Geographic. And when the Civil War Centennial started, National Geographic had an article that talked about the coming centennial. And I was captivated by that and prompted to buy a book called The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War, which had a text by Bruce Catton that was published in 1916. That's the book that really hooked me on the Civil War. It's just my I was sort of enthralled by that, started buying books by the time I got to high school. I had about 150 Civil War books, memoirs by guys on both sides. And uh it was but I it started when I was 10, uh at the right at the outset of the centennial.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Fantastic. How brilliant! And uh yeah, thank you for telling us that. Okay, so uh like I said, we're gonna talk about Robert E. Lee and uh his uh subordinates, but first we're gonna talk a little bit about Robert E. Lee. So could you give us a little bit of background on his family life, if you wouldn't mind, Gary?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Well, on the you mean on his broad, he comes from one of the great families in early Americanslash U.S. history, uh the the Lees. Very prominent people. He had two signers of the declaration among his relatives. His father was a very prominent officer under George Washington, uh, a prominent politician in Virginia. He's very, very well connected that way. Uh his he lost his, he didn't have a close relationship with his father because Lighthorse Harry Lee had problems with the law and ended up leaving the United States. And Lee was really much closer to his mother, sort of a mother's boy in some ways, very important to his mother, uh, who was also from a very prominent, she was a Carter, she was from another one of the great Virginia family. So he is a, he's his his family is at the very top of the sort of aristocratic class in Virginia, although he didn't grow up with a lot of wealth. He was born at Stratford Hall, a big house, but his father's financial problems caused the family to lose that house. He ended up living in Alexandria with his mother in a much more modest house when he was growing up.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Excellent. And so how much? So obviously, as we know, his journey takes him to the uh American-Mexican War. So, how much does that shape Robert Lee as uh a general, and how much does he sort of learn from that experience?

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Well, I think he learned Lee's a very bright guy, finished second in his class at West Point, went into the engineers, which the people who graduated highest did. So he's in the engineers, has a career in the engineers before the war with Mexico, but he ended up establishing a relationship with Winfield Scott, who was the greatest soldier of the age for the United States. Even uh the Duke of Wellington called him the greatest soldier of the age after his campaign from Veracruz to Mexico City during the war with Mexico. Lee is on his staff. Lee does all kinds of things in that campaign: reconnaissance, placing artillery, all kinds of things. Impresses Winfield Scott enormously. He won three brevets for gallantry during the war with Mexico, and he comes out of that war with a significant reputation. But more than that, he comes out of that war at the very top of Winfield Scott's list of promising young officers. And Scott, I'll say again, Scott is sort of a comical figure to some people who study the Civil War because by the by 1861, he was weighed 350 pounds, uh, had not, he was kind of decrepit, job of the hut like. But he was actually a brilliant soldier, extremely important in the development of the regular United States Army, Scott was and a towering figure. He was he was 6'5, uh, and with his boots and his hat, he would have been close to seven feet tall. Very impressive figure. And if you want someone to be impressed by you, he's the guy in the army in the mid-19th century, and Lee is his is his guy. He thought Lee was a superb soldier based on what he had seen in Mexico.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yeah, and there's lots of other, you know, people that were influenced by Scott, as you said, one of the greatest soldiers to ever live in the US. Absolutely. Um, fantastic. Okay, so now people might not know, but people might know um if they're civil war buffs that is. Robert E. Lee is offered, isn't he, at the outset of the American Civil War, um, because he's in the U.S. Army, isn't he? He's offered command of uh U.S. Army and he turns it down. So just tell us a little bit of background on that, if you wouldn't mind, Garrett.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Lee had uh Lee had been superintendent of West Point in the mid-1850s. Then he went off to Texas as the second in command of the 2nd United States Cavalry. Jefferson Davis created these elite cavalry units uh in the 1850s when he was Secretary of War. Lee was a lieutenant colonel. He was promoted to colonel right on the eve of the Civil War of the 1st United States Cavalry. And that was his rank when things began to fall apart. And in the at the at the end of the secession crisis, he was offered, not by Lincoln, but Lincoln did it through someone that he trusted, was offered command of the troops that were being gathered near Washington, D.C., the ones who fought at the Battle of First Bull Run. Lee was offered command of those troops who were there to suppress the rebellion. This is in April. Uh and he, and and we all know he turned it down and very shortly thereafter accepted appointment as the head. Virginia was still in the United States, hadn't seceded yet at this point. He accepted command of the Virginia State Forces. Virginia was not in the Confederacy yet. Lee doesn't go from the U.S. Army to the Confederate Army. He goes from the U.S. Army, resigns his commission as a colonel, and accepts a major generalcy in command of the Virginia State Forces.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah, and uh am I right in saying he has some early engagements, which is gonna um give bring him a little bit of criticism, isn't it, when he's eventually gonna take over the Army of Northern Virginia as it will be named by URL.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

He's in a Confederate uniform, which comes in the summer of which comes in '61. He's the he is the uh he's not the senior person in the Confederate Army. A guy named Cooper was that. And Albert Sidney Johnston also out didn't he have the same rank as Lee, but was at it earlier. But Lee's early commands, he has one in Western Virginia in the autumn of 1861, which doesn't go very well. Then he sent to the South Atlantic coast uh after that, and he and he he emphasizes creating uh entrenchments and defensive positions. He gains a reputation as a soldier who is not aggressive, who doesn't want to fight, who likes to dig rather than to fight. And it's it's really quite an astonishing example of somebody having a reputation that's 180 degrees at odds with what he actually would prove to be. He ends up in the spring of 1862 uh in Richmond as Jefferson Davis' principal military advisor, and that's where he is when George McClellan starts his campaign up the peninsula against Joseph Johnston, who's in command of the Confederate Army.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

How does Robert Lee feel about being in this sort of role? As you said, you know, he's always been.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

That's not the role, that's not the role he wants to be in. He wants to be in the field. It's serendipity that gets him into the field. Joseph Johnson was wounded in the Battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks at the very end of May. And Jefferson Davis turns to Lee to take over command of the troops who were defending Richmond, an army that Lee then will christen uh the Army of Northern Virginia. He gets that command at the very beginning of June and has about three weeks in that position before he and George McClellan engage in what came to be called the Seven Days Battles at the end of June and spilling over to July 1st at Malvern Hill.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

And at the time when he takes over the uh this army, how do uh some of these guys feel about Lee stepping in?

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Some of them know some of the newspapers attack him uh as someone who is too timid, who will, I mean, they'd had enough of Joseph Johnston retreating all the way to Richmond. It didn't seem initially that Lee was an improvement on that. They were afraid that he was not aggressive, he would not be audacious. Uh they really went after him. One woman whose diary is the best published diary, her name is Catherine Ann uh Devereaux Edmondson, Journal of a Secess Lady. Any of your listeners who want a great Civil War woman's diary, they should get Kate Edmondson's. She said in her diary that his nickname was Old Stick in the Mud at this point, and that all he ever did was retreat, and that people were afraid that that's all he was going to do was just retreat. And of course, the seven days showed the Lee that would be there for the rest of the war, who is who is always aggressive, always thinking about how to seize the initiative, exploit the initiative, dictate the action rather than react to what your opponent is doing.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Absolutely. Okay, let's ch let's talk about one of his principal um at the beginning of the war, anyway, um, subordinates, and that is, of course, uh Stonewall Jackson. Um, of course. Um so give us a little background on Jackson just before we get into the relationship that he has with Robert Lee.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Well, Jackson is uh he's also uh a West Pointer, and he's from what is now West Virginia, it was Western Virginia then. He he worked really hard and did okay at West Point. He's not like Lee in terms of his record at West Point. Uh he went off to Mexico as well. He's an artillerist and did well in Mexico, but then got out of the Army and ended up teaching at the Virginia Military Institute in the decade preceding the Civil War. He cut when he and Lee first come together uh in June of 1862. Stonewall Jackson is more famous than Lee at that point. Jackson is the primary military idol in the Confederacy in June 1862, based on his Shenandoah Valley campaign that stretched between May and June, lasted about a month, and gave the Confederate people the only good news from the battlefield that they were getting at that point. The Western Theater was going to hell, New Orleans was gone, Shiloh was a horrible defeat, forts Henry and Donaldson, nothing but bad news from the West. The Premier Army of the United States was literally within five miles of Richmond. Jackson's little victories in the battle uh in the valley, and they are little battles, hardly any of them are really battles at all, but their successes at a time where there weren't other successes in the Confederate people made him their great military idol. So when he gets to Richmond, he's actually more famous than Lee at that point. That will change, but at that point he is.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

And so what does Lee think of Jackson at that point when he first enters, you know, where like you said, he comes from the valley and then he joins in the seven days, which uh, from what I understand, his performance is not great at the seven days, is it, Jackson?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

That's a very gentle way to characterize his performance. It's not great. I think that Lee had high hopes for him. Lee was to a degree the architect of what happened in the valley. Um, Jackson executed it, and Lee didn't look over his shoulder, but it was Lee who wanted the diversion in the Valley. He thought Jackson would be aggressive, which he had been in the Valley. And instead, what he got was Jackson being chronically late, time after time, during the seven days battles. He literally fell asleep at one point in the midst of fighting, horrible at White O'. I mean, it Jackson had a horrible seven days. Edward Porter Alexander, the great Confederate artillerist, was at that point an ordinance officer on Lee's staff. And he put uh he wrote in his memoirs as sort of an aside that there was talk of court-martialing Jackson after the seven days because he had done so poorly. But Lee, with his great sense of politics in the intersection of military affairs and politics, knew that that would be why throw a stink bomb into a success at the wake of the seven days, just so he didn't he didn't take any action against Jackson. But he was clearly disappointed in him, in what he had done at the seven days, clearly disappointed in Jackson.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah. And again, Jackson had some peculiar ways about him, didn't he? So just for people that don't know, just explain Garrett.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

That's another gentle way to put that. He was a weirdo. Yes. Stonewall Jackson was a very strange fellow. There's a great source for this. This isn't something that was just made up later. A British officer, your your listeners all know about Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, who ended up going to observe things in the Confederacy for three months. He heard all these stories about Jackson and he wrote in his diary about them. You know, Jackson would hold his right hand up because he thought he had more blood on that side of his body than the other side. And if he held his hand up, the body would the blood would flow out and establish equilibrium. He thought if he ate pepper, it weakened his left leg, not his right leg, just his left leg. He's a very strange, strange guy. And of course, extremely religious. Uh he's a Presbyterian. He was called Old Blue Light. Some people say, oh, that's because his eyes were so blue. No, that's not because of his Presbyterianism, that nickname was. He does have the best nickname from the Civil War that he got at first bull run. Stonewall, Stonewall's the best, you can't get a better nickname than that, and nicknames are important.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

No, yeah, absolutely. And like you said, especially in that age of uh selling newspapers, and that's the way you get your news, isn't it? You know, so um, but yeah, um, but they do start to form a bond, don't they?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Because the thing is with Jackson, Jackson is very good at reading strengths in his subordinates. That's one of his real gifts, and he understands that one of Jackson's gifts is operating in semi-independent command in an aggressive way. He had done that in the Valley. Lee uses him that way during the next campaign, during the second Bull Run, Second Manassas campaign. He sends Jackson off from the rest of the army to maneuver semi-independently. That's what Jackson is great at. He's not so good when the battle actually starts. He has a number of fumbling tactical performances in his career, uh, including during the Valley campaign. He has another one at Cedar Mountain. He has another one at Fredericksburg. Jackson's great strength is maneuvering, getting into a position to cause your opponent problems. Uh that's his great strength. And I think Lee understands that and uses him that way. What Lee did, Lee inherited an army that didn't have any command unit higher than a division. So he had all these major generals commanding divisions, and the the Confederate Congress hadn't created, hadn't okayed having a corps yet or the rank of lieutenant generals for someone who would command a corps. What Lee did was in essence divide his army into two corps. He called them wings. He gave Jackson one wing and he gave James Longstreet the other wing. So they're in effect corps commanders. They don't have the rank yet, but they're still only major generals, but that is the command structure. Half the infantry to Longstreet, half the infantry to Jackson, the cavalry, which was just a division under Jeb Stewart. And Lee eased a lot of the inferior officers, another thing he was really good at, out of the Army. So Benjamin Yu G goes. Uh John Bankhead Magruder goes. You have guys who who weren't really that good, but were all senior major generals. They're just not in the army anymore. And he's left with Longstreet, Jackson, and Jeb Stewart as his three principal subordinates.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Absolutely. Now, how much, um, like you said, obviously he's famous, more famous than Lee because of the Valley campaign. How much does that play into the minds of the Union Army in that area at the time?

SPEAKER_00 17:47

I think at that time, at the beginning of the seven days, I think his reputation was certainly higher among the Northern newspapers, the Northern soldiers, they would the, or the U.S. soldiers, which is a more accurate way to say it. I think Jack Jackson is just the more famous figure at that point. Lee had a big reputation early on. People knew that what Winfield Scott had said about him, but as you brought up earlier, what he did in Western Virginia and then along the South Atlantic coast really damaged his standing at the outset of the Seven Days. The Seven Days turned that around dramatically. Now, then the newspapers loved him because he was aggressive. He was taking the war to the enemy rather than just waiting for the enemy to bring the war to him. The Confederate people had hungered for that. They really liked that element of what Lee did. What Lee did in every organization has a culture. Lee created a culture in the Army in Northern Virginia that prized aggressiveness, sought to inflict the greatest possible damage on the enemy, would allow latitude to people who saw an option to do something and they did it. It's the antithesis of the culture that George McClellan cultivated in the Army of the Potomac, which was a culture of caution, of not taking risks. Lee's culture is a risk-taking, aggressive culture, and Jackson is an ideal subordinate for that culture.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

And let's talk about one of his um earlier great victories or involvement, and that is obviously the second bull run, isn't it? So how how involved is Jackson in that actual battle?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Well, Jackson's very involved in it because he lee it's Lee's aggressiveness and audacity comes into play multiple times during the second bull run. First, he's opposing McClellan near Richmond. He divides his army in the face of the Army of the Potomac and sends Jackson off toward Gordonsville with part of his army to meet John Pope, because the United States had another army in the field now under John Pope, who was advancing along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad into Virginia. Jackson goes to deal with him while Lee and Longstreet stay to keep an eye on George B. McClellan. Jackson defeats part of Pope's army at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, the second week of August, and then swings on north and comes in from behind and captures a huge United States supply depot at Manassas Junction that helps set up what becomes the Second Battle of Bull Run. It's a great logistical success for the Confederates and one that reorients the war away from Richmond toward Northern Virginia where it had been a year before.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah. One of I I don't know whether you agree with me or not, but one of his bet better uh victories or one of his better uh days was um Harper's Ferry uh before Antietam. Would you say that? Especially when his artillery um expertise comes into play for that one, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Yes, Harper's Ferry is a huge success, and um, it's often sort of left out of reckonings of casualties during the Maryland campaign. But Jackson captured 12,500 United States soldiers at Harper's Ferry. That's the largest surrender of United States soldiers until the Philippines fell in World War II. It's a huge deal. A huge deal. And one that the Confederate people actually paid a lot of attention to, much more than we do now, uh, usually. But that was Jackson again, Lee dividing his little army, having Jackson operate independently, bring three different columns together to close in on Harper's Ferry and reduce that garrison before he then hurried north to rejoin Lee and Longstreet, who had taken up their positions uh at Sharpsburg uh near Antietam Creek. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And let's talk about one of Jackson's most famous, uh, as you know, Chancellorsville, the flank march. Um, for people that don't know, just explain the flank march. But obviously, it doesn't, it's not actually successful in the end, as we know. Um, but I'll let you explain.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Well, it's the most famous flank march in the Civil War. Uh, no question about it. It. Lee again, this is Lee's audacity again in the Joseph Hooker, who is Ambrose Burns. I mean, one thing you have, there's so much to say here in not much time. I mean, one advantage that the Confederates have in the Eastern Theater is that they have this great continuity at the top in the Army in Northern Virginia. From June of 1862 until May of 1863, when Jackson is wounded and then dies, you have the same three guys who are Lee's principal subordinates. You have absolute consistency at the top of the Army of Northern Virginia. And on the Union side, you have McClellan, you have Pope, you have McClellan again, you have Burnside, you have Hooker. There's no continuity. There are 13 people who command a corps in the Army of the Potomac at the same time that Jackson and Longstreet alone are commanding the corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. At Chancellorsville, Lee had had to detach half of Longstreet and half his corps. He took two divisions, Pickett's and John Bell Hood's, to southeastern Virginia. That left Lee with Jackson's corps and with half of James Longstreet's corps, about 65,000 men, to oppose Hooker's more than 130,000. And Hooker knew he had a two-to-one advantage. He had a very good intelligence service at that point. Everybody knew it. But even in the face of those odds, when Hooker started his plan very well, he left about 40,000 men at Fredericksburg to keep Lee's attention, swung up the Rappahannock, got in Lee's rear with a very powerful column, doing just what he said he wanted to do. He thought Lee would retreat toward Richmond, but instead Lee divided his army, left about 10,000 under Jubilarly at Fredericksburg, and took Jackson and most of the two divisions of Longstreet west to meet Hooker. They met on May the 1st. As soon as the fighting started, Hooker retreated back to Chancellorsville, hunkered down in a defensive position, passed the initiative to Lee. And then the question is, how do we get at him? They checked on the night of May 1st, couldn't get around Hooker's left flank. The front was too strong. What they found out was that Hooker's right flank might be vulnerable, and they put together local knowledge of roads, let them put together a route that allowed Jackson on May 2nd to take his 28,000 men on this long flank march and strike O.O. Howard's 11th Corps, which were the right flank of Hooker's Army, and shatter the 11th Corps. They broke the 11th Corps. But as you suggested, I mean, so it's very successful to that degree. But at the end of the day on May 2nd, Lee was in worse position than he was when the sun came up on May 2nd. Now his army's in three pieces. Early back at Fredericksburg, Lee with two divisions, Longstreets of Richard H. Anderson and Lafayette McClaws, watching Hooker at Chancellorsville, and eventually Jeb Stewart in charge of Jackson's three divisions off to the west. They're in three different pieces, very vulnerable. A good general would have made them pay for it, but Joseph Hooker didn't. And on May 3rd, they fought the two wings of the army together. And we all know Chancellorsville ended up as a great Confederate victory. Shouldn't have, should never have been a Confederate victory, but it ended up being one. And the most famous part of it is Jackson's flank attack.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yes. And again, that just shows you, Robert E. Lee, at this point. Do you think at this point Lee's sort of reached his pinnacle and peak? Or would you say that?

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Well, I think what happened, I think Chancellorsville, it's the capstone of this Lee Jackson partnership. I mean, it literally is because Jackson's gone after that. But there's also, there's actually a moment on May the 3rd, May the 2nd, when Jackson's flank attack took place. Casualties are relatively light. The bloody day at Chancellorsville, it's almost as bloody as Antietam as one day spiding. 22,000 casualties on May the 3rd at Chancellorsville. As Lee's wings of the army fought their way together near Chancellorsville Clearing, Hooker had moved to the north. The Army of the Potomac was retreating toward the Rappahannock to dig in again. Lee's army came together and Lee rode into the midst of his men there. It's a very famous moment. And the troops just went wild when they saw him, went absolutely wild. I think that's the moment where his bonding with the army was put in place forever. The sense, I think the men looked at him and thought, there's the old man. Here we are. We have won again against the odds. He's the reason. And I think that Lee looked at his infantry and decided, you know what? They can do anything I ask them to do. Whenever I ask them to do something, they do it. And just look at them here. I think if you want to understand Gettysburg, you have to go back to May 3rd at Chancellor's Bill to understand why at Gettysburg Lee finally just said, you know, I think I'll let my infantry take care of this. Yeah, fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Oh, goosebumps when he said that. But um, yeah, no, um, so also going back to Jackson, he had a very awkward relationship with his subordinates, didn't he? He put some up on charges, didn't he?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

He had his two senior subordinates under arrest during the Maryland campaign as they were going north. He would never have been a good army commander because he didn't have the political skills that Lee had an abundance of. I often think of Lee as sort of like Dwight Eisenhower. And you you can we can all imagine Dwight Eisenhower waking up, having his third cigarette within 10 minutes and thinking, oh, that's right, Montgomery and Patton are both still under my command. I have these two pained in the ass subordinates that I have to deal with. But Ike was good at dealing with them, dealing with them, and so was Lee. You don't have any of the drama in the Army of Northern Virginia that you have in the Army of Tennessee, that you have in the Army of the Potomac, people going to politicians, backbiting, maneuvering. There's none of that in the Army of Northern Virginia because Lee is such an adept military politician. Jackson didn't have any of those skills. Jackson had reached his level of command and he had the right guy in charge of him. That's what made the partnership so good.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

And and so is that what, again, he understood each individual and how they operated. So he treated each differently.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. He did. He did. He knew that well, we'll we may, if we're gonna get to Jeb Stewart, I'll say that. He read he knew the strengths of his subordinates and used them to the best uh of their abilities, I think.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

So losing Jackson for Robert Lee, how much of a loss is that for him?

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Not only personally, but you know, I think it's a no I think it's a huge loss. He and Jackson aren't bosom. I actually think Lee was closer to Longstreet personally than he was to Jackson. Jackson's a strange guy. Jackson is a prickly strange guy, but Lee knew and he said it to his son. Lee did, and to others. I he I'm there will be someone who's put in his place, but he's irreplaceable. We're not there's not another Stonewall Jackson waiting in the wing somewhere, and there absolutely was certain well he wasn't A. P. Hill or Richard Ewell. They were not Stonewall Jackson. So he never the closest he came was Early in terms of trusting someone else. Um, but Early's not Stonewall Jackson either. Jackson is is not replaceable, and neither was Longstreet. There's not another person like James Longstreet either.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Okay, let's let's get on to James Longstreet. So again, just give us a little bit of background on his his uh rise to prominence.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Well, Longstreet, it again, they're all West Pointers, uh, and he he didn't have a dazzling record at West Point, to put it mildly. Uh he was popular at West Point. He and U.S. Grant were great friends. Uh they were great friends before the war, maintained that friendship uh even even after the war. Longstreet uh had he had a good, steady career uh in the old army as a professional soldier. He is there from the beginning to the end in the Civil War. His memoirs are titled From Manassas to Appomattox, and James Longstreet was present from Manassas to Appomattox, put an asterisk because he's not at Chancellorsville, because he's off in southeastern Virginia. But Longstreet's strengths were uh he's acts, he's he's impervious to pressure on a battlefield. He keeps his head in difficult circumstances. He develops a really strong bond with the soldiers who serve under him. Even when he became an unpopular Republican politician after the war and was accused of being a race traitor by many in the White South. His soldiers never lost their affection for James Longstreet. His nickname, they called him Old Pete. That's a great nickname to have. It's a sort of familial nickname. Or the Bull of the Woods, another good nickname to have. He was an absolute rock on a battlefield and could deliver powerful assaults. He oversaw the largest assault of the war by any Confederate army at Gaines' Mill during the Seven Days Campaign. Another powerful assault on the climactic day, second bull run, when he sort of saved Jackson's bacon there. Longstreet is a very, very good subordinate. Lee gives affectionate nicknames to two subordinates during the war. James Longstreet, my old war horse, which he says at Antietam, and Jubal Early, my bad old man. So those are the two guys who get affectionate nicknames. Jackson doesn't have one. Longstreet, Longstreet had a very solid record. He's not good everywhere, and he wasn't good in semi-independent command in East Tennessee. Longstreet also reached his level of competencies. Corps commander is where he should have stopped. He wouldn't have made a good army commander either.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah. And so you would say that Longstreet is definitely uh was a second to Lee in a way when it comes to the structure, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 32:07

He is. He is always Lee's senior subordinate. He is he is senior to Jackson in that regard. And it's it's very interesting when the Confederacy did create Corps, and when the rank of Lieutenant General, three-star general, came into the mix, Jefferson Davis asked for two names from Lee. Lee sent Longstreet's name forward with no comment, just Longstreet will get one. He'll get the first corps, not the second corps, the first corps. And to me, that says, I don't need to explain why Longstreet is one of these guys. He explained why Jackson was one of them. And I think he needed to do that because Jackson's performance had been so problematical at the seven days. Lee has a very, you read this silly stuff about how Lee didn't trust Longstreet. He camped next to him because Longstreet moved slow all the time. That's baloney. That's absolute anti-Longstreet baloney. Lee had a very high opinion of Longstreet, got along with him very well, and made him his senior subordinate, which he was throughout the war.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah. And again, the lost cause is very damaging for Longstreet, anyway, isn't it? And also you get that you get that um myth of him being very defensive and very slow, like you said, but that's not really the case.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

No, not the case. Not the case. He he had a horrible day at Gettysburg on July the 2nd. No question about that. He was not a good subordinate on July the 2nd at Gettysburg, I think. But AP Hill had a horrible battle at Gettysburg. Richard Ewell didn't have a good day at Gettysburg. Jeb Stewart had a horrible end of the Gettysburg campaign. But Longstreet, Longstreet is a very good soldier. Lee relies on him, Lee trusts him. Losing Longstreet to that wound in the Battle of the Wilderness right at the beginning of the Overland campaign is a big, big loss for the Army in Northern Virginia.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, so obviously you said um about him, you know, not being great at Gettysburg. And you know, everyone knows that. That he's a bit slow. Well, slow's a nice word, as again uh putting it. Slow's a nice way of putting it. Yeah. Um, but does that affect their relationship going forward after Gettysburg?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

It's not. Does not. Nope. Just as Jeb Stewart's really poor performance at Gettysburg didn't affect Lee's over. I mean, Lee had a body of work with these two guys. This isn't so this is an aberration. Gettysburg is an aberration, and that's how Lee treats it. I mean, because the they're solid, solid, solid subordinates. They didn't do that great at Gettysburg. Uh and so there, I mean Longstreet's Longstreet's actions on at the Battle of the Wilderness on the first when when the world's falling apart and Lee rides to the front uh in the Whidow Tap field, and Longstreet is his usual imperturbable self there. He's it says in essence, well, you know, if you want to do my job, go ahead and do it, and I'll go to the rear where it's safe. But this is my job, and you should go to the rear. That's what Longstreet did, and he managed it and settled things down. He's in his best in difficult situations like that. Very good in the Battle of Antietam, very good there. Uh, it's it's he he's a solid subordinate, and that is how Lee treats him.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Yeah, and again, myself as a Civil War buff, I have a lot of affection for James Longstreet myself. So, yeah. He deserves a better statue than he has at Gettysburg. Oh, 100%. 100%. Poor guy got um got, like I said, with the lost causes got hold of him, didn't they? But um let's talk about Jeb Stewart. Now, Jeb Stewart and Lee's relationship goes quite far back, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 35:50

It does because Stewart was a cadet at West Point when Lee was superintendent at West Point, and Jeb Stewart was invited to the superintendent's house more than once. Uh maybe there were even thoughts of maybe one of the many Lee daughters, uh, none of whom ever got married. Uh, maybe Jeb Stewart would have been a good someone for one of them. Jeb Stewart is well known to Lee from when he was a very young man, when Stewart was a very young man. And Stewart stayed in the army. Uh, he was wounded uh fighting uh in in the West before in the late 1850s, uh, and comes on, he's only in his 20s. This is a great picture. This picture that you have up right now is as important as anything in making me interested in the Civil War. That was in the American Heritage Picture Picture History of the Civil War, and I just couldn't imagine anybody who looked like that. It seemed it seemed so anyway. That's a great picture of Stuart.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

He was uh he yeah, I'm all right in saying he was he sort of um um portrayed himself as a cavalier.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Not sort of. He absolutely there he's got his hat with an ostrich plume. There you go. He had a scarlet lined cape, he had he he affected this persona. He's a fascinating combination to me as a sort of perpetual adolescent who craves attention, really craves attention, has to have attention, and a kind of hard-bitten, really effective cavalry officer, good at what cavalry did, which was screen your army and gather intelligence about your opponent's army. Stewart was exceptionally good at those things, and that's what Robert E. Lee Prize put up with the nonsense, uh the self-congratulatory, flamboyant nonsense because Stuart did his job so well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Now, people might not realize as well, but in 1859, in Harper's Ferry, who's gonna be called to the braid of John Brown? And of course, it's gonna be Robert Lee and Jeb Stewart, isn't it? So just again, that just shows you, you know, they've known each other for some time, haven't they?

SPEAKER_00 38:03

They have. They have. You have a you have a an army officer put in charge of Marines at at Harpers Ferry and Jeb Stewart's there as well. Lee knows Stewart very well. He trusts him. He hewart is in charge of the cavalry for the whole time he's with the Army Northern Virginia under Lee. He is in charge of the cavalry. It's interesting that whereas there's no one who can really replace either Jackson or Longstreet, there were there was someone to replace Stewart. Wade Hampton did an exceptional job replacing Stewart, and Fitzhugh Lee did too. Stewart had done a good job uh with those subordinates helping to get them up to speed. And with the the cavalry never suffered the kind of drop in effectiveness at that level that the second corps did or the third corps in the Army in Northern Virginia.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Yeah. Now I I want to ask you uh your opinion on this. Now, I've had um somebody else's, and I'm talking about the late um Eric Wittenberg. Um I had done a podcast on how Jeb Stewart gets to Gettysburg. Now, of course, the movie portrays him as going off, getting his name in the paper. Now, there are some aspects to that, yes, but there are aspects of the communication breakdown between Lee and um Stewart not being Stewart's fault. So, what is your view on his journey to Gettysburg?

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Well, Wittenberg and I disagree completely on this. And in fact, when I say I wrote a few things a few years ago, some of that group kind of lost their minds. I mean, here for me, this is the bottom line. Does Jeb Stewart know what his job is? The answer is yes, he does know what his job is. I screen the army, I gather intelligence. That's what I do. That is my job. And I should do it the best way possible. Is the best way possible to do that, to ride off to the east, try to swing around the entire army of the Potomac to do that? My response to that would be no, that's not the best way possible. It's a way, it's not the best way possible. And as it turned out, it turned out to be a disastrous way to try to do that because the Army of the Potomac started to move north, and Stuart got trapped east of the Army and couldn't communicate with Lee. He had circled McClellan's army twice. Easier to do that because McClellan's army wasn't usually moving. Uh I just don't think there have been all the apologists, beginning with John Mosby, of course, who was a huge apologist for Stuart. To me, Stewart's reputation took a ding at Brandy Station. The Richmond papers were very mean about him, said he'd been surprised that there's one thing a cavalry officer shouldn't ever happen, it's be surprised. Your point is not to be surprised. Your point is to know what's going on. I think he was trying to do something flashy to offset the bad press he got at Brandy Station. It would have worked if the Army of the Potomac hadn't started to move north, but it did. And my question is: was his decision to do it that way based on that's the best way to do it, or that's the way that might bring me the best publicity? And I think it's the latter. And so were there probably maybe yes.

unknown 41:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

All of these caveats you can throw out to me. The key question is, did Stuart know what his job was? The answer is yes, he did. Did he do it the very best, most efficient way? And my answer to that would be no, he did not.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Absolutely love that answer. Yeah, no, I agree with you. Not only that as well, like you said, the speed of the army of the Potomac to Gettysburg is very fast compared to how it has been in the past, and that probably caught him right off guard, probably thought he could do what he wanted to do, like you said, get his name back in the papers.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

And it's even worse than that because I mean there were his defenders say, well, he didn't take all the cavalry. No, he just took his three best brigades with him. He he left Beverly Robertson behind, who never should have even been in command. Uh anyway, it's I it's I think the fact that Lee Lee was genuinely puzzled by not getting. I mean, I think Lee couldn't even imagine that he would have done something like this. And and he I would love to have a transcript of their discussion from July 2nd when Stuart finally got to Gettysburg. Nobody else was there, we'll never know what went on. Uh, but uh I actually think the movie Gettysburg probably does a pretty good job of that. Yes, yes, absolutely. Staff officers thought Stuart should be court-martialed for what he did in Gettysburg.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

No, now one thing he does do very well is stepping in when the time is right. So, as you said, Jackson, when he gets wounded, Jeb Stewart steps in, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Stewart did a great job at Chancellorsville, a great job. Jackson gets wounded, A.P. Hill would have been next in command. Hill got wounded, so Lee put Jackson in charge. I mean, put Stewart in charge. Stewart on May 3rd did a superb job. And the the smartest Confederate commentator about military affairs who served was Edward Porter Alexander. It isn't even close. It's Porter Alexander. You can argue who's second, you can't argue who's first. He thought that Stewart did such a good job that he should have been given the second corps after Chancellorsville. Let somebody else run the cavalry. I think it's a measure of how good a cavalryman he was that Lee left him with the cavalry. And at that point, Lee thought A.P. Hill was probably up to being a corps commander. He learned out very quickly that he wasn't, but at that point I think he thought he was.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Yeah. Am I right in saying as well? He steps in when Longstreet gets wounded at the wilderness as well. Is that right? Or is that Jeb Stewart? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

No, he no, not the way he did at Chancellorsville. His one big moment that way is it. Chancellorsville.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

And he does um and and he does a great job. Does a great job.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Now, again, another good guy is gonna, you know, Lee's gonna lose Jeb Stewart at the Yellow Tavern, isn't he? How much of a loss is that?

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Oh, I think it's certainly a loss, but as I said earlier, there's someone in the wings there in terms of the there are actually two guys in the wings. Stewart's two senior subordinates are Wade Hampton, who was a lot older than Stewart, South Carolinian, and Fitzhugh Lee, Lee's nephew. They were both very good cavalrymen, and Wade Hampton stepped in, and it's kind of a seamless transition of command with the cavalry, which by that point is a corps, not just a division. Wade Hampton is a is a very, very able replacement for Jeb Stewart. So I don't there, Lee doesn't see a big fall off on the cavalry. But it's nothing like when Longstreet gets wounded in the wilderness, there's nobody to step in. Richard H. Anderson ends up, and and it's a huge drop-off. And there is poor poor Dick Anderson is over there on the right. Um he's he's not even close, not even close. The cavalry, that's not the case. There you have there are all the boys there. Second Corps goes to Richard Ewell, uh, your guy on the left there, who clearly wasn't up to it and was uh essentially pushed out of command in the midst of the Overland campaign, very messy, took all of Lee's political skills to minimize uh just how messy that was. AP Hill, who was sick all the time and especially under a crisis, was sick. He wasn't really up to command. Uh he's in the third corps. The next guy over, John Gordon, he may well have ended up being a superb corps commander. He's a very good soldier. He came in so late that it's hard to tell just how good he would have been, but he was a very, and he's not a West Pointer, he didn't have official training. Of that row of buckaroos you have there, John Gordon is is the most accomplished, I think.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Yes, definitely. I totally agree with that. Um, and again, you know, um, so how how difficult was it for Robert Lee at this point when he loses you know, three of his principal commanders?

SPEAKER_00 46:16

You can't overstate how difficult it is, and and a measure of it is is his behavior during the Overland campaign. He doesn't trust his corps commanders. When at Spotsylvania, when the line is broken in the mule shoe, and it's Richard Ewell's job to put that line back together, Lee goes to the front, dresses Yule down, and in effect takes over. He's functioning as both a corps commander and an army commander. Uh when when the when the Federals get into a terrible position, uh and it I I don't want to belabor this, what what you see in the course of the Oberlin campaign is that Lee is taking on responsibilities at both the corps level and army level because he simply doesn't trust the people he has at the corps level. The one he trusts the most in the end, until Longstreet comes back, is Jubileer Lee. But uh Ewell, Hill, Richard Anderson, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Yeah. And also you see that uh um even though he's quite ill, uh uh Mine Run, uh not mine run, sorry. Um, sorry, when they cross the uh the river, uh what's that encasement? Uh part of the overland campaign. Oh, I can't remember what it's called. The creek, you know.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Um guess where the Union Army gets divided on two sides of it, and Lee, they're they're very vulnerable. They would have to cross the the river in some cases twice to get everybody together. And Lee doesn't trust that's the only time in the North Anna. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

The Battle of North Anna of Remember.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Yeah, it's uh where they get divided on the North Anna, the Union troops, do it. They're on both sides of it. And Lee doesn't trust Longstreet, is still out with his wound from the wilderness. Jubileer Lee hasn't really stepped up. Lee doesn't trust anybody. And so that opportunity passes because Lee does not trust anybody in Corps command to oversee what needed to be done there. Do you think at this point Lee feels very isolated and alone as well? Do you get that sense? I do. I I do. With that, I mean, by May the 12th, and this is after May the 12th, as I said, you had great continuity at Army headquarters in the Army in Northern Virginia. Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, Stewart. By May 12th, Jackson's dead, Longstreet's hideously wounded, nobody knew when he would come back, and Jeb Stewart's mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern. The whole, that whole High Command is gone uh by May the 12th, 1864. And Lee never reconstitutes it. He gets Longstreet back uh for the Siege of Petersburg, uh, but he's gone for the rest of the Overland campaign. And so it's it's a it's a tremendous attrition in the High Command is a gigantic problem in the Army in Northern Virginia, and and it it's a totally different army and a totally different command style and relationship for Lee. He looks over Richard Anderson's shoulder all the time, gives him the kind of specific orders he never gave Jackson, never gave Longstreet. He would kind of tell them what he wanted them to do and then let them do it. Couldn't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Also, I think as well, and you know this, he's dealing with somebody like Ulysses S. Grant that is not like anyone he's ever faced before. So, what's his faults on personal thoughts on Grant? And, you know, is he worried about facing Grant?

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Well, I I've always found this fascinating. I have great admiration for both Lee and Grant as soldiers. And they are usually generous toward their opponents, and neither one of them ever admitted that the other guy was the best person he ever faced. And that, of course, of course, Grant was the best person Lee ever faced. Of course, Lee was the best person Grant ever faced. And they did, for some reason, they never could quite admit that. And I find that kind of amusing and interesting. Uh Lee's army, when they heard Grant was coming, they they said, big deal. Pope came from the West too. Look what happened to him. Grant has won all those victories against the third string out west. Bragg, really? Bragg's, I mean, they didn't think that that Grant's victories in the West meant that much. They found out very differently. But but Grant also, I think, thought that that Lee had been up against the second and third string, and now he was there. And what he what Grant had to deal with for a long time was that he's had George B. McClellan's army, basically, with that culture in place, which is a culture of caution, which Grant had took him a long time to root those guys out and get more of his own people in. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Okay, let's let again, you know, a lot of people will know this if they civil buffs, but the Western theater is an absolute disaster from beginning to end for the Confederacy. There you've got him.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

You've got Albert Sidney Johnson, yeah, second from the left. I've always thought that that top button on on the on his right side is doing heroic work there. It looks like it's about to pop off. That coat looks way too small for him. But you've got Joe Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, Gustav Touton, Beauregard, and our boy Braxton Bragg there. I mean, those are the big guys in the West. Johnston was eaten, Joseph Johnston on the left, a Virginian likely, his father, a Revolutionary War hero likely at West Point together, they're exact contemporaries. He was so envious of Lee, he was eaten up with envy of Lee uh practically his whole life after 1861.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

He couldn't get on with Jeff Davies either, could he?

SPEAKER_00 51:51

He just because he thought that he should have been the ranking officer in the Confederate Army instead of the fourth rank. He was a brigadier general of staff in 1861, and Davis said what matters is line rank and and Albert Sidney Johnston and Robert E. Lee. Anyway, Joe Johnson ended up fourth, and he never got over that. And he and Davis loathed one another. So did Begaard and Davis.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

They didn't get along either. Well, I'd like to ask you about Albert Sidney Johnson because there's this consensus, isn't there, with some Civil War buffs that Joe Johnson was the Lee of the West. What would you say uh to that?

SPEAKER_00 52:33

Well, I think uh Braxton well Albert Sidney Johnston was Jefferson Davis's great hope. Davis thought Johnston was the greatest soldier that the Confederacy had. Uh high they were very high hopes for Albert Sidney Johnston, but I think that the campaigning between January and his death at Shiloh in April 1862 shows that Johnston, I I think he had severe limitations. Now he had a tough decision, he had a tough job to do out in that huge Western theater, but I don't think he lived up to the promise of his reputation. And I and I I was very close to a historian named Charles P. Rowland, who wrote a biography, still the best biography, of Albert Sidney Johnston. And Charlie and I would, he thought Johnston was a better soldier than I did, um, than I do. But Johnston didn't live up to his reputation in the West. Bragg, of course, didn't. Uh Beauregard's a smart guy and good at some things. Uh Joe Johnston was a smart guy and good at some things, but Johnston, but not I think the Confederacy's, this is a fact in the Confederacy, in my view. They only ever found one person who could really command an army effectively, and that's Ari Lee. Yeah. And because they had more than one army, that's a real problem. The United States, in the end, found four men who could really command an army effectively: Grant and Sherman, and Sheridan and Thomas. And Grant made Sherman possible. Sherman was a was a failure without Grant, and he made Sheridan possible. Um, so I think that's a huge U.S. advantage by the end. The Confederates just didn't didn't they didn't develop Army commanders. And these guys are all older. Uh Albert Sidney Johnston and Joseph Johnston and Robert E. Lee, they're all older than the the Union Army commanders are younger, much younger on the whole.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

One question I would ask is if the roles were reversed and Robert E. Lee ended in the West, do you think you'd be looking at a different situation or not?

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Yeah, that question, I I don't I don't have any way to answer that. I really don't. I think that Lee Lee would have been better than anybody who commanded in the West. I don't have any doubt about that. Whether it would have changed things in the West, I'm not sure. If my choice is in any situation, Robert E. Lee or the field among Confederate generals, my answer is Robert, uh, give me Robert E. Lee. I'll take Lee against the field in every situation, in every theater, at any time in the war.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Great answer. Absolutely great answer. Okay, we are going to end uh again talking about Lee. And uh again, you know, how would you rank him as again? I know he fought for the Confederacy, but let's put that aside. How would you rank him as in U.S. history uh general wise?

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Yeah, yes. I mean, when people I mean, my five greatest United United States soldiers are Washington, Winfield Scott, U.S. Grant, Dwight Eisenhower, and George Marshall. Those are my five greatest U.S. soldiers. And I don't include Lee in that mix because he was never a general in the U.S. Army. No. But I would put him, I would put Lee in that company if we're just talking about American soldiers. Who are the greatest American soldiers, Americans who became generals in a great war? And I would do that because of his combination of political, military/slash political skills. He was a great administrator. He was great with personalities and personnel. He was great. He had an unequaled bond with his soldiers. Only George McClellan comes close in that regard, I think, in the war to this bond between a commander and his soldiers. He he checks all those boxes, checks all those boxes. So if I'm talking about Americans who became generals, then Lee goes in with that group that I gave you. Of U.S. soldiers, he can't be in it because he's not a U.S. general.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

Exactly, absolutely. Now, also, as well, obviously, you know, along with a lot of other Confederate officers, you know, that they're they're given this mystique and this, you know, um, put up on a pedestal. And yes, you know, Robert Ely's amazing, uh uh was an amazing general, as you said. But um, if he hadn't died in 1870, would he have been able to write his own narrative a bit more?

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Well, he was going to write a book and he was working on it a little while. It's just as well he didn't, because he wasn't a very good writer at all. Uh he he wrote a long introduction to his father's Revolutionary War memoirs, which is just mind-numbingly boring. Um I I don't think Lee I I you know I I also it's really interesting with Lee. Lee really looked forward rather than backward. I think he was serious about that. He he was against putting monuments up, which is kind of ironic. Uh he did he did tell Jubil Early that it was important to get our, meaning the Confederate, from his perspective, story of the war out, and and early did that, and many others did it. But I don't know. Lee was busy running a college, and uh I I don't know. I just don't think that memoirs were very high on his list.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Yeah, absolutely. Well, that is uh Robert E. Lee and his generals and his absolutely fascinating conversation. Now, I just want to point people back to the great courses because again, this is where I discovered Gary uh early on in my podcasting career, and I listened to the American Civil War one. Guys, go and listen to this so good. It's a long one. If you're going on a long car journey, this is what you need to listen to. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but also you have the you know, Robert E. Lee in the high command, but you also have one on uh Abraham Lincoln and this, that, and you've got so many. But tell us about these, Gary.

SPEAKER_00 58:35

Well, those I turned down, I was approached by the which used to be used to be the teaching company, now went to great courses, and now it's one dream. And I think they're about to drop the Robert E. Lee and his high command one because Lee is not fashionable anymore. Uh, but the Civil War course, uh, the the third time they asked me, I agreed to do it. And it's one of the best things I I ever did, I think, because it's been, gosh, it's been 27 years since I worked with them on that. And it's still, people still listen to it or watch it and enjoy it. And it's uh it's been a very good thing for me. I really enjoyed doing it. It was so long ago they didn't even have teleprompters when I did this. I just did it with notes and kind of walked around and talked and so forth. It was a very I I that Civil War course is 48 lectures, and I typed uh six lectures a day, did six a day, filmed six a day over eight days to do that course. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed working with the people there and think that uh and I'm I'm really glad that I did it, even though I resisted doing it early on. Did you have like a live audience as well while you were doing it? No, I had a statue of uh William Shakespeare in a chair in front of me. That was the only audience there was and and the and the crew. The a couple of times the uh the filming crew laughed so hard that they had to stop and have me redo something. But that that that was the only audience was Shakespeare and the crew.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

Oh wow, but I've got to say, these are fantastic, and again, they won't be able to get rid of my Robert E. Lee in High Command because I own that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

They're not getting rid of that. I'll tell you, I'm keeping that. Anyway, Gary, now you have also written many books, so it is very hard to try and so. But I've just got a sort of like a little collection here. Obviously, your latest one is, and again, you you mentioned Caton at the beginning. I've listened to Catton's trilogy myself, I love it. So that's your latest one. But you have quite a collection of books that you've written over the years. Out of all of these, which was your and again, this is like asking which is your favourite child, I suppose, but which which is your fave was your one of your favourites to be involved with?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Well, one, I mean, the one that I that you don't have a picture of here, and it's not a book I wrote, but it's a book that I brought into print is Edward Porter Alexander's memoir called Fighting for the Confederacy. That's the only book I've ever worked on that I hated to finish and send off. I enjoyed working on it so much. Of the books that you have here, the ones that have had the greatest impact, I think, and have caused people to argue about things are the Confederate War on the far left and the Union War on the far right. I really enjoyed working on the Union War because I think Americans have no idea what Union meant in the mid-19th century. And if you don't know what Union meant in the mid-19th century, you cannot understand the American Civil War. You have no chance, not a slight chance, zero chance. And so I tried to recover in that book what why some guy from New Hampshire would put on a uniform and risk his life to make South Carolina come back into the Union. Why not just let South Carolina go? Nobody likes South Carolina, just let them go. It would be better if they left. No. Why, what did union mean to these people? And I don't mean to beat up on South Carolina. That would have been their attitude then. I tried to recapture what union meant. Lincoln is some of his most eloquent passages deal with meaning of the union, trying to rally people to save the union. So it's that that book, I I enjoyed working on that a lot as well. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Gary.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Now, just quickly before we finish, because you did mention before we we started recording that you've got something really exciting coming up later in the year. So you just want to tell everyone a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

Well, I I this isn't necessarily for your my mother was in the USO in World War II in the Pacific in June, July, and August. She was on Tinian when the Enola Gay took off. She was with a troop headed by a then prominent actor named Eddie Bracken, and they performed in front of three-quarters of a million soldiers, sailors, and Marines, including on aircraft carriers and other places. She was on Pele Lu and Guam and Tinian and when there were still lots of vestiges of the fighting. She kept a diary at the time, and then in the 1950s, she wrote a memoir based on the diary. The Navy photographers took hundreds of pictures of them. And I have taken her diary and memoir and illustrated with a lot of those pictures, and that's going to come out this fall. I I recently finished a book on Chancellorsville that'll be a little bit farther down the road, but those have been my two latest parts. I really enjoyed working on Chancellorsville. I just can't cut Hooker any slack at all. I mean, there's just no way Hooker should have lost it. No, absolutely not. I mean, you left half your army across the river, you know. Come on. That's right. Come on. That's all yeah, just really just next topic. Yeah. And anyway, probably 25 or 30,000 men in the Army of the Potomac basically didn't even get into the battle, didn't they?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

No, they just stood there, yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's terrible. Um, but Gary, I just want to thank you. It's been absolutely fantastic listening to you uh tell uh you know the uh uh tell the story of Robert Lee and his generals and that. And it's just an absolute pleasure for me to to to get to uh have you as a guest on my podcast. I've really, really enjoyed this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

I appreciate the invitation very much. Happy to do it. And all that is left to say at this point, my friend, is cheers. Back at you.