- All right so we've been talking about
the later stages of the Civil War.
And in the last video we just did a brief overview
of the end of 1863
after the north has won the battle of Gettysburg
and Lee has been turned around and sent back down
to Richmond where he will be encamped for some time
and Ulysses S. Grant not only takes control
of the Mississippi River with the victory at Vicksburg,
he also comes up into Tennessee,
takes control of the state of Tennessee
and in return Lincoln makes him General in Chief
of the Union armies.
So now let's move on and talk about 1864
and Sherman's March of the Sea and the election of 1864.
Both would be very important to the United States victory.
All right so let's take a look at our map again.
Now as we recall Lee is here in Richmond
and Grant who was in Tennessee
now coming over to challenge Lee
at the siege of Richmond.
So Grant has crossed over from the Western theater
of the war where he's been pretty much the entire time
into the Eastern theater
and he's going for the killing blow now.
You're remember that thanks to the Anaconda strategy
the union now has control
of the entire area of the South
through a blockade on this side,
control of the Mississippi and now control of Tennessee.
So there's just this litte area that's left.
So now what happens?
Well one of Grants generals who served
under him in this Tennessee campaign
is now going to turn his attention
to a massive campaign of total war in the south.
So this is William Tecumseh Sherman
and Sherman's idea is that he is going to
cut a swath through the South
and he is going to try to destroy the South's morale
by not only trying to get rid of food stuffs
and interrupt supply lines,
destroy infrastructure, burn houses.
He's gonna make things so bad on the home front
that the Confederate soldiers who are fighting
up here with Lee are gonna get upset
that their property and their families
are not being protected at home.
So he's trying to win a morale victory
by making people in the South really tired
of being at war and also by making Lee's soldiers
want to desert and come back
and defend their home territory.
So Sherman turns his troops toward Atlanta
and in September of 1864
Sherman takes Atlanta.
There's a very famous scene of this in Gone with the Wind
where you see Scarlet O'Hara looking out
over the many injured people in the city of Atlanta.
That's Sherman's doing.
But now let's turn attention away
from the military campaigns for a second
and talk about the politics of 1864.
Now in 1864 it's an election year.
It's been four years
since Lincoln was elected in November of 1860
so now Lincoln has to stand for reelection.
And this is a really interesting election
for lots of reasons.
One is that it's the first election
during wartime since 1812.
So in the election of 1864
soldiers are going to cast their ballots
either by getting short leaves to go to the ballot box
or by sending in their ballots by mail.
Another thing that's really interesting about this
is that Lincoln is not at all sure
that he's going to win this election.
In fact many in his own party, the Republican Party,
feel that he's been considerably too soft on the south,
that his plans for reunification
are not nearly punitive enough.
There are many who want to replace Lincoln
with a more radical candidate in 1864
but that does not end up happening.
But one interesting thing that does end up happening
is to try to increase Lincoln's appeal
his running mate is Andrew Johnson.
Johnson was a slaveholder,
believe it or not from Tennessee
and the idea was that maybe Johnson could pick up
some of the Democrats who might necessarily
have voted for McClellan
and maybe he could pick up some of the border states
the same way that we often might
choose a vice president today
because they come from a crucial swing state.
And this is gonna be important later
because after Lincoln is assassinated
Andrew Johnson will take over as president
and he is quite a different president
then Lincoln might have been in the circumstances.
Now on the Democratic side
the candidate is George McClellan.
You might remember McClellan because he was one
of the first commanders of the Union army
and Lincoln sent him down for failing to
really go after the enemy strongly
in the early stages of the war.
Now the Democratic Party is having
some internal struggles at this point.
There are some who think that the war
against the South is very foolish,
that no one should be fighting in the north to end slavery
which Lincoln has clearly made a war goal by this point.
So many just wish to have peace
with the South on the terms of the South
which is as a separate nation
with the continuation of slavery.
And then there are those Democrats
who would like to continue the war
and McClellan ends up being one of those.
Obviously being a general,
it would have been pretty difficult for him
to say that the war was pointless
without having disappointed so many people
who had fought for him or with him.
This election is really crucial
because many in the South are hoping
that if someone other than Lincoln gets elected,
if the Democrats are elected,
that is gonna be their last best hope
to try to achieve their independence from the union.
If Lincoln is replaced by someone who is pro-South,
who is pro-slavery then perhaps they'll just end the war
and that would be the end of it.
So whites the South are really holding on
to the idea that Lincoln will be defeated in 1864.
And there are a lot of reasons to think that Lincoln
might have been defeated in this.
Lincoln himself was not very sure
that he will win this election.
Remember that there has not a single American president
who has been reelected in more than 30 years.
The last president to be reelected
was Andrew Jackson in 1832.
So reelection is very a unusual thing at this point
and McClellan was a very popular general.
He got popular because he was very keen
to spare the lives of his soldiers
which is quite different from the approach that
Ulysses S. Grant will end up taking
at the end of the war.
But there are several things that go in Lincolns' favor.
One is the capture of Atlanta by Sherman in September
and some very good military victories
also in this eastern theater of the war.
So McClellan who had hoped that the war was going badly
didn't have much on his side
when it actually came to election day
'cause at that point the war was going pretty well.
Remember that Sherman is here in Atlanta
and Sherman is now going to pick up
what is known as his March to the Sea
when he cuts a 60 mile wide swath
of destruction through Georgia.
So things are looking pretty good
for the United States at this point.
And the turning point for Lincoln in this election
is really the votes of the soldiers
and they have a really strong pro-Lincoln mandate.
One of Lincoln's campaign slogan
is Vote As You Shot.
So Lincoln ends up trouncing McClellan
in the election of 1864
and he really comes away with a strong mandate
to finish the war,
finish it with an unconditional surrender of the South
and the end of slavery.
And having triumpthed in the election of 1864
Lincoln it gets even more good news from Georgia
which is a telegram from General Sherman
from the city of Savannah
saying Mr. President,
I wish to offer you the city of Savannah
as a Christmas present.
So in December 25, 1864
Sherman's March to the Sea has concluded.
And from there he's going to start heading north.
And we'll get to that in the next video.