The Glenn Beck Program - How the Civil War Started： Lincoln, Early Battles, and America’s Deadliest Turning Point ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 16

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00:00:30.000 Baltimore, Maryland, February 18th, 1861.

00:00:39.100 A young man from New Orleans named Harry Davis sits across the table from Otis Hillard at a restaurant.

00:00:46.580 The two men became fast friends just a few weeks earlier, bonding quickly over their shared passion for Southern white supremacy and their hatred of Abraham Lincoln.

00:00:57.160 Over dinner, Hillard shares thrilling news with Davis.

00:01:01.060 A secretive group of pro-Southern revolutionaries that he belongs to 0.73

00:01:04.860 plans to kill the president-elect, Lincoln.

00:01:08.320 Hillard looks Davis in the eye and admits that if he is granted the task of pulling the trigger,

00:01:13.360 quote,

00:01:13.920 I would do it willingly.

00:01:16.220 There'd be a meeting soon, at which the assassination plans would be finalized.

00:01:21.040 Davis insists he must be there.

00:01:23.660 Hillard promises to see what he can do.

00:01:26.160 two days later hillard has more good news for davis if he swears a loyalty oath to join the

00:01:31.600 southern patriots he'll be able to join the meeting inside the drawing room of a secret

00:01:37.520 house that night a corsican barber named cipriano ferredini holds court he is fiery he's theatrical

00:01:45.840 as he addresses the group of 20 or so men the candlelight dancing in the frames of his round

00:01:52.400 spectacles, Ferradini has Davis step forward, raise his right hand, and swear allegiance to

00:02:00.040 the Southern cause. Then Ferradini goes over the details of their plan. Lincoln's travel schedule

00:02:07.440 had been released to the press. His train would pull into Baltimore's Calvert Street station at

00:02:12.740 12.30 p.m. February 23rd. Lincoln would have to exit the station for a one-mile carriage ride to

00:02:19.480 the Camden station where he would catch his final train to Washington. A large crowd would surge

00:02:25.740 toward the president as he walked through the station. Police officers, many of them southern

00:02:30.200 sympathizers, would be conveniently distracted by a staged fight. In the chaos, an assassin would

00:02:37.060 slip through the crowd, fire on Lincoln, and vanish into the fleeing mob. With a flourish,

00:02:43.620 Ferrandini, his eyes blazing, holds a long knife over his head and says,

00:02:48.640 Gentlemen, this hireling Lincoln shall never, never be president.

00:02:54.900 The room erupts in lusty cheers.

00:02:59.240 Ferrandini continues.

00:03:01.380 Who should do the deed?

00:03:03.500 Who should assume the task of liberating the nation of the foul presence of the abolitionist leader?

00:03:09.840 The room grows quiet again.

00:03:12.480 Then Ferrandini answers his own question.

00:03:15.440 They will each draw a ballot from a box that he's already prepared.

00:03:20.700 Whoever draws the one marked in red is the assassin.

00:03:25.040 But the ballots will remain secret, so no one knows who the assassin is until the final moment.

00:03:32.040 The men take turns stepping forward and pulling a folded slip of paper from the box.

00:03:38.280 Once everyone has a ballot, Ferrandini reaches in and takes the last one.

00:03:43.140 the evening is over the plan is set in motion on their way to the saloon davis and hilliard

00:03:52.400 open their ballots davis's ballot is blank his face fails to hide the disappointment

00:03:58.220 but hillard tells him not to worry he explains that ferredini put eight ballots marked in red

00:04:05.240 to ensure that no matter what at least one man would pull the trigger later davis bids hillard

00:04:12.720 good night, and they go their separate ways, and Hillard goes to his home and Davis to a large

00:04:17.540 office building on South Street. It was a strange destination for such a late hour, but Davis was

00:04:23.400 desperate to speak with a man he knew would be there. His boss, a detective named Alan Pinkerton.

00:04:32.160 You see, Harry Davis was not a Southern revolutionary. He was an undercover agent

00:04:38.300 with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

00:04:44.860 This is the American story, The Beginnings,

00:04:49.160 adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton.

00:04:55.480 Episode 16, How the Civil War Started.

00:05:02.600 Election Day, November 6, 1860.

00:05:05.480 a lanky lawyer from Illinois sat on a sofa in a Springfield telegraph office. Arms folded,

00:05:12.360 legs crossed, yawning. Abraham Lincoln had been waiting all night. The telegraph wires hummed

00:05:19.780 with the numbers that felt more like a verdict on the nation's future. At the center of it all

00:05:25.120 was a man who, on paper at least, seemed like he had no business holding the fate of the nation

00:05:29.900 in his hands. He had run for Senate twice and lost. He had served a single two-year term in

00:05:36.740 the U.S. House of Representatives. Well, when the wires finally spelled it out, 180 electoral votes.

00:05:44.080 Lincoln stood up, calmly made his way through the throng of people cheering in the streets outside,

00:05:49.520 and walked home. There he found his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, fast asleep. He touched her shoulder,

00:05:56.120 And when she started to stir, with a half-smile cracking his weary face, he said,

00:06:02.020 Mary, we are elected.

00:06:06.720 Abraham Lincoln, the very first ever Republican president,

00:06:11.600 elected on a promise to stop slavery's spread.

00:06:15.340 Four men had run in 1860.

00:06:17.740 Stephen Douglas, a Northern Democrat, also from Illinois,

00:06:21.320 clung to his pet policy of popular sovereignty,

00:06:24.040 in which voters in new states would determine for themselves whether or not to allow slavery.

00:06:29.440 Then there was John Breckinridge. He was a Southern Democrat.

00:06:32.920 He was the Slavery Everywhere Democrat. 0.60

00:06:36.040 Then there was John Bell of the very short-lived Constitutional Union Party. 0.74

00:06:41.680 He waved the U.S. flag and hoped for the best.

00:06:45.320 And Lincoln.

00:06:46.700 He carried the hope that reason and rule of law could still bridge the divided country.

00:06:52.440 He won just under 40% of the popular vote nationwide, and he won every northern state

00:06:58.800 except for New Jersey. But his name wasn't even on the ballot in 10 southern states. In Virginia,

00:07:05.020 he won just 1.2% of the vote. South Carolina, which by that point had been on a hair trigger

00:07:11.820 of secession for nearly 30 years, didn't hesitate. On December 20th, just six weeks after Lincoln's

00:07:18.220 election, South Carolina stormed out of the Union, the first domino in a chain that by February

00:07:24.260 included Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The governor of Texas, Sam

00:07:31.880 Houston, opposed secession, and when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Southern

00:07:37.140 Confederacy, he was promptly removed from office. Underneath these states' justification for leaving

00:07:44.160 the Union was a simple factor. It was fear. Fear that because Lincoln had been elected,

00:07:50.680 the Southern way of life, economic, social, and political, all tied to slavery,

00:07:55.640 was under existential threat. All of that, and Lincoln hadn't even taken office yet.

00:08:03.200 For four long months from November to March, the country existed in kind of a suspended animation.

00:08:10.040 The sitting president, James Buchanan,

00:08:12.100 believed secession was illegal,

00:08:14.280 but also believed he had no authority to stop it,

00:08:17.120 so he didn't do anything.

00:08:26.720 By February 1861, with Lincoln's inauguration set for the following month,

00:08:31.520 the death threats poured into his Springfield office.

00:08:35.780 Lincoln's newly hired private secretary, a 29-year-old John Nicolay, said,

00:08:40.920 His mail was infested with brutal and vulgar menace,

00:08:44.560 and warnings of all sorts came to him from zealous or nervous friends.

00:08:49.340 But he had himself so sane a mind, and a heart so kindly, even to his enemies,

00:08:54.360 that it was hard for him to believe in political hatred so deadly as to lead to murder.

00:08:59.580 Lincoln shrugged off the threats at first,

00:09:01.740 telling his aide that he wasn't afraid and trusted the people.

00:09:04.980 But amid the swirl of rumors and threats of violence surrounding the inauguration,

00:09:09.920 Samuel Felton, president of Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad,

00:09:14.680 felt the urgent need to secure his rail lines.

00:09:18.080 There were threats of sabotage to his lines to try to keep Lincoln from reaching Washington,

00:09:23.040 so Felton hired Alan Pinkerton to investigate.

00:09:26.780 Pinkerton was a Scottish immigrant with a detective's sharp eye and zero tolerance for nonsense.

00:09:32.380 As soon as he was hired, Pinkerton smelled something worse than railroad sabotage.

00:09:38.760 He slipped into Baltimore undercover as John H. Hutchinson.

00:09:43.040 He was a stockbroker with a Southern sympathy.

00:09:45.940 His agents also fanned out, including Kate Warren, America's first female private detective,

00:09:51.820 posing as a society lady, and Harry Davis, who ended up in that secret meeting where

00:09:57.220 the ballots were drawn to determine who would assassinate Lincoln.

00:10:00.660 Pinkerton and his agents infiltrated Baltimore saloons and hotels,

00:10:05.220 uncovering in just a few weeks a very well-organized assassination plot.

00:10:10.360 By the time Harry Davis rushed to Pinkerton's office late at night with concrete details of that plot,

00:10:16.900 Lincoln had already started his train tour from Illinois to Washington,

00:10:20.880 with speeches and celebration stops in multiple cities.

00:10:25.280 Pinkerton raced to Philadelphia on February 21st and got an urgent message through to Lincoln at the Continental Hotel.

00:10:32.720 Ward Hill LeMond, Lincoln's burly friend, traveled with the president-elect and appointed himself Lincoln's bodyguard.

00:10:40.440 At the hotel, Pinkerton found LeMond already armed with two revolvers, a large knife, and brass knuckles.

00:10:47.280 Lincoln met with Pinkerton, who laid out the plot and the danger lurking in Baltimore.

00:10:52.980 Pinkerton was struck by Lincoln's calm.

00:10:56.600 During the entire interview, he had not evinced the slightest evidence of agitation of fear.

00:11:02.380 Calm and self-possessed, his only sentiments appeared to be those of profound regret,

00:11:07.540 that the Southern sympathizers could be so far led away by the excitement of the hour

00:11:12.020 as to consider his death a necessity for the furtherance of their cause.

00:11:16.920 Lincoln listened patiently, but he was reluctant to cancel his event in Harrisburg the next day,

00:11:22.680 and he hated the thought of sneaking into Washington.

00:11:25.560 It felt undignified, almost cowardly.

00:11:29.360 But after confirmation of the plot came from the additional trusted sources,

00:11:33.440 Lincoln finally relented to Pinkerton's plan to get him to Washington.

00:11:41.080 On the night of February 22nd, the plan was set into motion.

00:11:46.120 Up until then, Lincoln's travel across the country had been very public, speeches, flag

00:11:50.780 raisings, shaking thousands of hands, but in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he quietly altered

00:11:56.160 his schedule, cutting short a planned appearance.

00:11:59.900 And then, under the cover of darkness, he slipped away.

00:12:03.720 He removed his recognizable stovepipe hat and put on a soft wool cap that he had received

00:12:09.100 as a gift in New York.

00:12:10.980 He put a shawl around his shoulders and got into a carriage with Le Mans, who was still

00:12:15.420 heavily armed. The carriage took them to a special train, which whisked them back toward

00:12:20.740 Philadelphia. Once back in Philadelphia, Lincoln, still wearing his disguise, climbed aboard the 11

00:12:27.700 p.m. sleeper car. Kate Warren had booked them berths at the very back of the train, posing as

00:12:33.940 Lincoln's sister, escorting her invalid brother. The telegraph lines between Harrisburg and Baltimore 0.77

00:12:40.240 were cut by Pinkerton's men. No messages will get through. At the time, Baltimore was the fourth

00:12:46.660 largest city in the nation, so to get to Washington, D.C. by train, there was no practical way to avoid

00:12:52.400 connecting through Baltimore. Pinkerton's plan was to get Lincoln through Baltimore in the middle of

00:12:58.160 the night, hours ahead of his published arrival time in Baltimore and ahead of when Lincoln's

00:13:03.600 assassins planned to spring their trap. The train hurled south through the first half of the night.

00:13:09.960 Lincoln and his protectors didn't sleep much.

00:13:12.500 Lincoln was too tall to lay down in the berth anyway.

00:13:15.920 Instead, he quietly cracked jokes in his dry manner.

00:13:19.760 Pinkerton and LeMond took turns stepping out onto the back platform,

00:13:23.640 watching for anything suspicious.

00:13:25.820 At 3.30 a.m., they crept into Baltimore,

00:13:29.340 with the city still asleep and totally unaware.

00:13:32.800 There was no cheering mob that was greeting them at the Calvert Street station.

00:13:37.040 Instead, it was a quiet transfer.

00:13:39.340 Lincoln's car was uncoupled and pulled by horses to Camden Station in the pre-dawn

00:13:44.860 chill. Then they faced a long anxious wait for the connecting train to arrive.

00:13:50.780 With the clock ticking, Pinkerton and Le Mans worried every moment that they

00:13:55.540 remained in Baltimore increased the risk that their secret cargo would be

00:13:59.320 discovered. Finally, 4.30 a.m., the welcome sounds of rail workers coupling

00:14:08.100 their car to the train for the final leg of their undercover journey to Washington, D.C.

00:14:13.960 At dawn on February 23rd, the train pulled into Washington. Lincoln stepped off, unrecognized at

00:14:21.060 first, his shawl still draped over his shoulders, Pinkerton exhausted but triumphant. He later wrote,

00:14:27.420 I had informed Mr. Lincoln in Philadelphia that I would answer with my life for his safe arrival

00:14:33.180 in Washington, and I had redeemed my pledge. Back in Baltimore, the plotters woke to rumors

00:14:40.860 and rage. Lincoln was already in the Capitol. Ferrandini and his men were left clutching

00:14:47.740 their red ballots in despair. On March 4th, Lincoln stood in the Capitol's steps and took

00:14:59.580 the oath of office. He was sworn into a complex crisis that no president had ever faced.

00:15:06.500 There was no precedent to serve as a guide. He concluded his address with an appeal for peace.

00:15:12.860 In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil

00:15:19.640 war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the

00:15:25.340 aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the

00:15:30.880 most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not

00:15:37.540 be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

00:15:42.980 The mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living

00:15:47.720 heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the union,

00:15:53.160 when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

00:15:59.080 But in the South, that olive branch, extended by Lincoln, was quickly swatted away.

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00:18:13.600 U.S. Major Robert Anderson understood exactly what was coming, and he knew he couldn't stop it.

00:18:25.640 He stood inside a half-finished brick fortress smack in the middle of Charleston Harbor,

00:18:30.680 staring out across dark water toward a city that no longer recognized his authority.

00:18:35.660 The stars and stripes still flew above him, but just barely. Anderson was a Kentuckian,

00:18:41.940 and a former slaveholder himself, he had taught artillery at West Point and counted future

00:18:47.080 Confederate leaders among his students, including a quiet, precise officer named Pierre G.T.

00:18:52.920 Beauregard. Now, in one of those peculiar twists of history, the same Beauregard was preparing

00:18:59.800 to fire on him. Fort Sumter, April 1861. Major Anderson had already made one gutsy call back

00:19:09.900 in December. When South Carolina seceded from the Union, he quietly slipped his small garrison of

00:19:15.420 just 85 men from the exposed Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter under the cover of night, and Sumter was a

00:19:22.680 stronger but still unfinished fort on a man-made island in the harbor. It was a calculated gamble

00:19:30.340 to hold federal property in a very hostile state. It turned Charleston into the most volatile

00:19:36.780 tinderbox in America. And by April, the clock was ticking. Anderson's force was running low on food,

00:19:44.840 they had little ammunition, and they were completely isolated. But President Lincoln

00:19:51.060 refused to blink first. He had only been in office for a few weeks. The Union was unraveling faster

00:19:57.680 than anyone had predicted, and seven states had already seceded. Federal property across the South

00:20:03.600 had been seized by Confederates except for a handful of stubborn outposts like Fort Sumter.

00:20:09.500 And Lincoln faced a trap. If he abandoned Fort Sumter, he signaled weakness, maybe even the

00:20:16.100 end of federal authority. But if he reinforced it, he risked provoking war. So he chose something

00:20:23.100 in between. He notified South Carolina's governor that a supply ship was coming,

00:20:28.620 with food only, no troops, no guns. It was classic Lincoln chess, forced the other side to fire the

00:20:36.300 first shot. Lincoln's instructions to Anderson were clear. The resupply would be peaceful unless

00:20:42.940 resisted. But in Charleston, Lincoln's nuance in the situation didn't matter. To the Confederacy,

00:20:49.680 any resupply was aggression. Confederate Brigadier General Beauregard received his orders on April

00:20:56.180 10th. Demand surrender, and if Anderson doesn't comply, reduce the fort to rubble.

00:21:03.980 At noon the following day, slaves rode three Confederate aides more than three miles across

00:21:09.940 the harbor with the ultimatum. At Fort Sumter, they were received by U.S. Army Lieutenant

00:21:15.400 Jefferson C. Davis. Not to be confused with the other Jefferson Davis, who had recently become

00:21:22.340 President of the Confederacy.

00:21:24.680 Major Anderson consulted with his officers.

00:21:27.380 Without additional food, they could hold out

00:21:29.980 for maybe five more days at most.

00:21:33.120 Anderson refused to surrender,

00:21:34.980 and in his message to the Confederates said this.

00:21:38.020 I will not in the meantime open my fire upon your forces

00:21:41.660 unless compelled to do so by some hostile act

00:21:45.000 against this fort or the flag of my government.

00:21:52.340 At 4.30 a.m. the next morning, the first mortar shell arced high from Fort Johnson and burst above Sumter like a signal flare from hell.

00:22:04.240 The first shot of the Civil War, fired by Confederate forces under Beauregard at his former West Point instructor.

00:22:13.420 Then the sky over Charleston Harbor lit up.

00:22:16.880 Within minutes, every Confederate battery around the harbor unleashed a barrage.

00:22:20.920 Fort Moultrie, Cummings Point, Morris Island, dozens of guns raining fire.

00:22:26.940 Anderson's men returned fire, but they had to conserve ammunition from the start.

00:22:31.340 No reinforcements were coming. No real hope of relief.

00:22:35.580 For 34 straight hours, the bombardment hammered Fort Sumter.

00:22:40.760 Fires gutted the wooden quarters. The main gates collapsed in flames.

00:22:45.140 Fort Sumter's flagpole snapped and threw by a shell.

00:22:48.840 Anderson's men scrambled to raise the flag again on a makeshift pole.

00:22:52.560 They were exhausted and almost out of ammunition to return fire.

00:22:56.600 With the fort a smoking ruin, Anderson finally accepted the same evacuation terms Beauregard had offered before the first shot.

00:23:05.260 So on April 14th, Anderson marched his garrison out with colors flying and drums beating, firing a 50-gun salute to the tattered U.S. flag.

00:23:15.980 During that ceremony, the cannon misfired and killed two Union soldiers.

00:23:22.340 Incredibly, they were the only two fatalities of the Fort Sumter battle.

00:23:28.040 Once safely aboard a U.S. steamship, Anderson telegraphed Secretary of War Simon Cameron.

00:23:33.800 Having defended Fort Sumter for 34 hours until the quarters were entirely burned,

00:23:39.600 four barrels and three cartridges of powder only being available,

00:23:44.280 and no provisions remaining but pork,

00:23:48.500 I accepted terms of evacuation offered by General Beauregard.

00:23:55.120 Major Anderson's stubborn defense at Fort Sumter

00:23:58.160 had given Lincoln the moral high ground.

00:24:00.620 Lincoln's reaction was immediate and strategic.

00:24:03.900 Two days after Anderson's surrender,

00:24:05.540 Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 militia volunteers.

00:24:11.460 He appealed...

00:24:12.380 to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate,

00:24:15.320 and aid this effort to maintain the honor,

00:24:17.860 the integrity, and the existence of our national union.

00:24:21.480 The nation responded with enthusiasm.

00:24:24.120 Young men from northern farms and shops

00:24:26.620 and colleges flooded enlistment stations,

00:24:29.000 convinced this would be a 90-day adventure.

00:24:32.140 But Lincoln's call also pushed four more states

00:24:35.240 into the Confederacy.

00:24:36.880 Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

00:24:41.500 The war was no longer theoretical.

00:24:44.820 And with the Confederacy now strengthened, Washington, D.C. suddenly felt dangerously exposed.

00:24:54.140 Lincoln understood something critical.

00:24:56.720 Symbolism mattered.

00:24:58.440 Fort Sumter was more than a military outpost.

00:25:00.360 It represented a test of federal authority.

00:25:03.800 Now the Union had to respond with authority.

00:25:07.320 But the question is, how?

00:25:09.640 The answer came three months later, July 21, 1861, in Manassas, Virginia, that's 25 miles southwest of Washington.

00:25:17.480 At the beginning of the Civil War, people thought it would be quick, one battle, a decisive Union victory, and a return to normalcy.

00:25:24.600 The overconfidence in Washington was almost comical.

00:25:29.460 Politicians and society ladies packed picnic baskets and hired carriages and rode out to watch the battle unfold from nearby hills.

00:25:37.820 Everyone assumed it would be an easy Union triumph.

00:25:40.700 To these spectators, it was a show.

00:25:44.180 They'd never seen war up close.

00:25:46.400 And then the carnage began near Bull Run Creek.

00:25:52.860 Union Brigadier General Irvin McDowell commanded 35,000 mostly green recruits.

00:26:00.020 McDowell had planned a flanking march around the Confederate left to seize the vital Manassas Railroad Junction.

00:26:06.940 Opposing him were roughly 32,000 Confederates led by General P.G.T. Beauregard,

00:26:13.860 the same man who had ordered the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

00:26:17.840 His troops included the last-minute reinforcement of 10,000 men under General Joseph Johnson from the Shenandoah Valley.

00:26:25.620 They arrived by rail, the first major use of trains for rapid troop movement in U.S. history. 0.62

00:26:31.520 At first, the Union had the advantage. McDowell's forces pushed Confederate troops back across

00:26:38.840 Bull Run. But then early that afternoon, the Union force met stubborn resistance at Henry

00:26:44.220 House Hill. One Confederate brigade stood firm. At its center was an eccentric, relatively

00:26:51.620 unknown general, Thomas Jackson. In the midst of the heavy fighting, Jackson remained upright

00:26:58.420 on his horse, commanding his men.

00:27:00.480 One Confederate general reportedly pointed to Jackson

00:27:03.560 and yelled to his own fleeing troops.

00:27:05.660 Look, there stands Jackson like a stone wall.

00:27:09.060 Rally behind the Virginians.

00:27:11.540 Stonewall Jackson.

00:27:13.600 That name stuck.

00:27:14.940 Jackson's brigade more than held their line.

00:27:17.640 Reinforcements arrived, and suddenly, momentum shifted.

00:27:23.420 The Confederates surged forward.

00:27:25.280 Union lines began to break.

00:27:26.820 Confusion spread with units mistaking friend for foe, and Stonewall Jackson ordered a counter-charge on the Union, and the Union assault crumbled.

00:27:37.580 A soldier from Virginia described this fierce stage in the fighting.

00:27:41.660 The shouts of the combatants, the groans of the wounded and dying, and the explosion of shells made a complete pandemonium.

00:27:48.980 The atmosphere was black with the smoke of the battle.

00:27:51.720 By mid-afternoon, the Northern Army broke in panic.

00:27:56.820 Picnickers who had come for a show now found themselves fleeing alongside terrified soldiers

00:28:03.820 on the road back to Washington.

00:28:05.820 The Union lost about 2,900 men, the Confederates just under 2,000.

00:28:11.820 The First Battle of Bull Run shattered the illusion that this war would end quickly.

00:28:17.820 It was the first brutal lesson that this national struggle would be long, bloody,

00:28:24.820 and anything but a picnic.

00:28:32.140 When was the last time you heard about Lahaina?

00:28:35.100 Three years ago, right?

00:28:36.100 The deadliest American wildfire in the century

00:28:38.180 turned that beautiful Hawaiian town into ash.

00:28:40.780 102 people died.

00:28:43.040 Last 4th of July, a river rose 26 feet and 45 minutes,

00:28:46.600 ripped through Camp Mystic in Texas Hill Country.

00:28:49.240 135 killed, including 25 little girls

00:28:52.820 asleep in their cabins.

00:28:54.820 In western North Carolina, Helene wiped whole towns off the map.

00:28:58.340 Across the region, 250 dead.

00:29:00.960 The cameras broadcast the horror, but eventually they left.

00:29:05.280 Mercury One never did.

00:29:07.100 We are still there today, rebuilding communities and ensuring our fellow Americans are not forgotten.

00:29:14.320 But it's storm season again.

00:29:16.200 While rebuilding continues, we have to be ready to respond anew at a moment's notice.

00:29:20.000 And we want to invite you to be part of this amazing project.

00:29:23.100 Help us have the biggest possible impact.

00:29:26.660 On the 15th anniversary of Mercury One, join our loyal society of committed monthly partners with a gift of $15 or more.

00:29:34.420 Text LOYALTY to 852017 or visit MercuryOne.org.

00:29:39.600 Remember, text LOYALTY to 852017 or MercuryOne.org.

00:29:44.760 Join the Mercury One family.

00:29:46.860 We'd love to have you.

00:29:47.920 Standard data and message rates do apply.

00:29:49.640 You know, people don't even realize that they're getting half the story online.

00:29:54.260 If you only read one version of events, even from people you generally agree with,

00:29:58.200 you're still missing part of the picture.

00:30:00.260 You're not finding the truth, the whole truth. 0.91

00:30:02.500 You're finding their version of it.

00:30:04.580 And that's why I love FreeSpoke.

00:30:06.400 FreeSpoke will let you compare how the left, right, and independent sources

00:30:10.320 are all covering the same story so you can draw your own conclusion.

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00:30:19.260 even the searches, all of the searches, independent podcasts.

00:30:23.180 So you can hear from people who are having conversations

00:30:25.480 instead of reading from just the mainstream media.

00:30:28.720 Freespoke doesn't track your searches or build a profile on you.

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00:30:33.460 and no algorithm is deciding the truth you're allowed to see.

00:30:36.800 With Freespoke Premium, you get a completely ad-free experience

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00:30:43.440 Freespoke.com slash Beck.

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00:30:58.360 Early April, 1862, the Tennessee woods around Pittsburgh Landing were just waking up.

00:31:06.100 Mist was lifting off the river, birds cutting through the damp morning air.

00:31:11.020 40,000 Union soldiers lounged in camp, cooking breakfast, writing letters,

00:31:15.580 complaining about the mud. They weren't expecting a battle that day. Neither was Ulysses S. Grant.

00:31:23.400 He was waiting to be joined by troops from Nashville, and once the combined force was ready,

00:31:29.080 they would head to Corinth, Mississippi, to capture a key railroad crossing. That is where

00:31:35.160 they expected major resistance. In the meantime, Grant positioned his force alongside the Tennessee

00:31:41.460 River near a small Methodist church made of logs called Shiloh, a name from the Old Testament which

00:31:47.700 meant place of peace. It was an ironic name considering what was about to happen.

00:31:55.700 At dawn Sunday, April 6th, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston launched a surprise

00:32:01.220 attack. His troops slammed into Union lines before many soldiers had even formed ranks.

00:32:06.980 Men scrambled for rifles, others ran barefoot into the trees. Grant was caught off guard

00:32:11.860 and wasn't even at the front when it began. He was downriver, recovering from a severely

00:32:17.140 sprained ankle. Two days earlier his horse had slipped and fell in a heavy downpour,

00:32:21.700 trapping Grant's leg underneath. But when the news reached him, he hobbled onto a steamship

00:32:26.900 which rushed him upriver towards the sound of cannon fire. When Grant arrived, it was chaos,

00:32:33.620 Units breaking, commanders struggling

00:32:35.780 to hold their buckling lines together.

00:32:38.500 Grant's second-in-command, William T. Sherman,

00:32:41.360 was shot in his hand and shoulder.

00:32:43.440 By the end of the day, three horses were shot out

00:32:46.000 from under Sherman.

00:32:47.940 The sound of fighting was continuous.

00:32:50.500 It's just a war.

00:32:52.200 One patch of ground became legendary.

00:32:55.080 The survivors there called it the Hornet's Nest.

00:32:59.380 Union soldiers held their ground there for hours,

00:33:02.240 absorbing wave after wave of Confederate assaults, eight different attacks in all.

00:33:08.600 The air constantly buzzed with bullets. Soldiers later said it was like a swarm of angry hornets.

00:33:15.960 Albert Sidney Johnston, who was Jefferson Davis's favorite general, was shot in the right knee.

00:33:22.560 The bullet severed an artery, and he died in the middle of the battlefield.

00:33:26.700 Command then passed to General P.G.T. Beauregard.

00:33:30.320 By dusk, the Confederates pushed the Bluecoats back to the Tennessee River,

00:33:35.420 but Beauregard then halted his attack. It was a pause, and that pause would

00:33:43.260 prove fatal to the Confederate hopes.

00:33:49.200 That night, Grant set up headquarters under a large tree, his ankles swollen and

00:33:54.060 throbbing as rain started to pour. His pain and the downpour made sleep

00:33:58.580 impossible so he ventured to a nearby log cabin serving as a makeshift hospital inside army

00:34:05.620 surgeons were busy amputating limbs with only whiskey as any kind of anesthetic the soldiers

00:34:11.780 screams cut through the downpour piles of arms and legs littered the floor grant wasn't usually

00:34:19.060 queasy around horrors of war but he just couldn't take the sight of all of the suffering amputees

00:34:24.740 he later wrote the site was more unendurable than encountering the enemy's fire and i returned to

00:34:31.540 my tree in the rain confederate victory seemed within reach but overnight reinforcements arrived

00:34:40.100 for the union under general don buell and grant prepared a counter-attack at 6 a.m the next

00:34:48.660 morning, momentum flipped. The Union Army surged forward. This time, it was Confederates who were

00:34:58.500 driven back. By the end of the second day, the field belonged to Grant, but it came at a staggering

00:35:04.400 combined cost, over 23,000 casualties in two days, more than all previous American wars combined up

00:35:13.400 to that point. Grant described the horrific aftermath. I saw an open field so covered with

00:35:20.160 dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction, stepping

00:35:25.820 on dead bodies without a foot touching the ground. The Northern press raked Grant over the coals for

00:35:33.700 falling victim to the Confederates' surprise attack and for the appalling casualties. Northern

00:35:40.480 critics demanded that Lincoln fire Grant, but Lincoln, already exhausted one year into the war,

00:35:46.060 recognized the stubborn grit in Grant that he knew the Union needed. He defended Grant, saying,

00:35:52.700 I can't spare this man. He fights. Shiloh inflicted a slaughter on both sides,

00:36:00.160 a reality check about what it would take and how long it would take for either side to win this war.

00:36:06.400 in the summer of 1862 union general george mcclellan's grand effort to capture richmond

00:36:15.680 known as the peninsula campaign fizzled his massive army of the potomac sat stalled outside

00:36:23.480 the confederate capital and lincoln completely frustrated decided to shake things up he pulled

00:36:30.280 troops north and created the Army of Virginia under the brash new commander, Major General

00:36:35.860 John Pope. Pope talked a big game. He promised to be aggressive, have his troops live off the land

00:36:43.640 and crush the backward rebels, but he made a crucial mistake. He underestimated General Robert 0.99

00:36:49.640 E. Lee. Four months after Shiloh, the war returned to a place already stained with blood,

00:36:55.120 Bull Run, the creek in Manassas, Virginia. The armies were back at the exact same ground because

00:37:01.720 the railroad junction there was a choke point for supplies on the road to Washington.

00:37:06.140 Lee knew it, Pope knew it, and the stage was set for round two. Lee, who was methodical and

00:37:13.020 aggressive, had reorganized his army after earlier campaigns. He sent Stonewall Jackson's corps

00:37:19.020 racing north to hit Pope before McClellan's reinforcements could link up. Jackson's men

00:37:24.680 Jackson pulled off one of the war's greatest raids, swooping in, torching Pope's supply

00:37:29.160 depot in Manassas Junction, and then vanishing in the woods.

00:37:34.260 Pope convinced that Jackson was isolated, marched his entire army back to the old Bullrun

00:37:39.020 battlefield.

00:37:40.820 On August 28th, the two sides slammed together at Bronner Farm.

00:37:47.760 Jackson's outnumbered troops, just as they had a year earlier, stubbornly held their

00:37:52.620 ground.

00:37:53.620 The next day, Pope hurled continuous waves at Jackson and was repulsed with horrific losses.

00:38:00.360 James Longstreet, Lee's other key general, arrived with reinforcements.

00:38:05.040 Longstreet's 28,000-man wings slammed in from the right,

00:38:08.960 the largest simultaneous assault of the entire war, and the Union's left flank just disintegrated.

00:38:15.600 It was another rout, with more than 21,000 casualties, over 7,000 for the Confederates, and 14,000 for the Union.

00:38:27.580 Pope's army retreated. They went towards Washington, once again shaken and demoralized.

00:38:32.800 Pope was finished. He was relieved of command and shipped west.

00:38:37.280 And once again, all eyes turned to Lincoln.

00:38:40.060 Lincoln was under immense pressure.

00:38:43.920 The war wasn't going according to plan,

00:38:46.260 and victories like Shiloh came at a terrible cost.

00:38:50.500 Losses like the second bull run raised deeper doubts,

00:38:54.360 and Lincoln was exasperated by the performance of his generals, saying,

00:38:58.320 We had the enemy in our hands on Friday.

00:39:00.720 All of our present difficulties and reverses have been brought upon us

00:39:03.880 by these quarrels of the generals.

00:39:06.260 In desperation, Lincoln swallowed his pride

00:39:09.200 and put McClellan back in charge of the army of the Potomac.

00:39:12.900 It was a gamble, but Lincoln needed someone, anyone, who could stop Lee's momentum.

00:39:19.040 Meanwhile, General Lee, smelling blood, decided on a gamble of his own.

00:39:23.980 He felt it was time to invade the North.

00:39:30.220 Lee's army crossed into Maryland.

00:39:32.580 Their goal was to shift the war onto Union soil,

00:39:36.360 influence foreign powers to support the South,

00:39:38.700 perhaps even force a political settlement with the U.S., but on September 13, 1862,

00:39:45.220 something extraordinary happened. Outside Frederick, Maryland, soldiers from the 27th

00:39:51.360 Indiana Infantry, part of the Union advance, flopped down in a grassy meadow to rest after

00:39:57.380 an early march. Private Barton Mitchell spotted a small envelope in the tall grass near where they

00:40:03.980 had stacked their rifles. Inside, three cigars wrapped in two sheets of paper were covered in

00:40:11.460 writing. He walked it over to the 1st Sergeant John Bloss, who took one look and ran it up the

00:40:17.580 chain of command. The pages contained Robert E. Lee's orders, his entire battle plan, addressed

00:40:24.680 to General D.H. Hill, detailing exactly how the Confederate Army was divided and where every

00:40:30.580 peace was added. An entire strategy laid out in writing dropped in a field and accidentally

00:40:37.000 handed to the enemy. The mystery of how Lee's orders landed in that field has never been solved.

00:40:43.620 But when the pages reached General McClellan, he said,

00:40:46.980 Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home.

00:40:53.980 McClellan still moved much slower than Lincoln wanted, but he finally attacked Lee's divided

00:40:59.280 Army near Sharpsburg, Maryland, along Antietam Creek. September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam

00:41:08.080 unfolded in vicious phases. First, the cornfield. Union and Confederate troops fought back and forth

00:41:17.680 through rows of corns visibly limited. Confusion everywhere. Control of the field changed hands

00:41:23.440 multiple times then the sunken road later called bloody lane confederate soldiers there held a

00:41:31.200 natural trench mowing down advancing union troops but eventually the line broke and the road filled

00:41:38.000 with bodies four and five deep and finally the stone bridge at antietam creek union general

00:41:47.040 Ambrose Burnside's troops struggled for hours to cross a narrow stone bridge with ferocious fire.

00:41:54.900 When his men finally made it across, it looked like the Union might break through,

00:41:59.420 but Confederate reinforcements arrived just in time.

00:42:03.880 The battle ended in kind of a stalemate.

00:42:07.580 Lee, heavily outnumbered and battered, pulled back across the Potomac.

00:42:11.820 McClellan failed to pursue him aggressively, which irritated Lincoln even further,

00:42:16.200 but Lee's initial invasion of the North was over. Antietam was the bloodiest single day

00:42:23.080 in American history. Almost 23,000 casualties in one day. It was a brutal, costly victory.

00:42:32.640 And it was a win that Lincoln desperately craved. Because he had a plan to capitalize on it

00:42:39.080 and to recalibrate the nexus of the entire war.

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00:43:15.780 Let me ask you a question, and I want you to really think about it.

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00:43:33.420 He called Chapter, the only Medicare advisor that I trust,

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00:43:39.760 His Chapter advisor dug in and found the record that they were using on him,

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00:43:45.340 So she corrected it and went back to work finding him better options.

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00:43:51.140 That's the difference.

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00:44:08.700 That's pound 250.

00:44:10.080 Keyword chapter.

00:44:10.980 For more of the history that inspired this podcast series, be sure to read The American

00:44:17.440 Story, The Beginnings, by David Barton and Tim Barton, available now at wallbuilders.com.

00:44:28.200 Weeks before the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln wrote words that would change the

00:44:33.120 direction of the Civil War. But he kept them folded inside his desk because timing for Lincoln

00:44:39.600 was everything. Lincoln was a careful lawyer who saw slavery as the Confederacy's lifeblood,

00:44:48.080 a target that had to be struck if the Union was ever going to win.

00:44:52.160 July 1862, he showed his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet.

00:45:00.060 Secretary of State William H. Seward advised him plainly, wait for a clear Union victory to issue

00:45:06.340 the proclamation. Otherwise, it's going to look like the desperate move of a weak government.

00:45:11.180 Lincoln agreed. He waited. And then Antietam happened. Still the deadliest single day in

00:45:17.940 U.S. military history across all wars. But despite the shocking casualties, the Union

00:45:23.660 eked out a win, keeping General Lee at bay, temporarily at least. So Lincoln saw his opening

00:45:30.440 and took it. Five days after Antietam, on September 22, 1862, he announced the Emancipation

00:45:38.420 Proclamation. It was a warning to the Confederate states and a deadline. If they did not return to

00:45:45.720 the Union by January 1, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state in rebellion against

00:45:53.140 the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. And the executive government

00:45:59.780 of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize

00:46:05.040 and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such

00:46:11.020 persons in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

00:46:15.040 With this calculated gamble, Lincoln redefined the war.

00:46:19.860 Now the fight would be about preserving the Union and destroying slavery.

00:46:24.600 In the weeks after announcing the Emancipation policy, Lincoln craved another military victory to help back it up.

00:46:32.440 But McClellan's sluggish, cautious approach in confronting the Confederates annoyed Lincoln.

00:46:38.080 In November, he replaced McClellan with Ambrose Burnside, who had one of those wraparound mutton-chop beards, which became known as sideburns.

00:46:47.520 Burnside's first test came in December at the sleepy river town of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

00:46:54.600 General Burnside had a bold plan to cross the Rappahannock River quickly, seize the

00:47:04.660 high ground and move straight towards Richmond.

00:47:09.460 But building the pontoon bridges to get his army across the river took far too long, pending

00:47:13.720 Lee time to dig in on the high ground behind Fredericksburg.

00:47:18.820 On December 11th, Union engineers tried to finish the pontoon bridges across the river,

00:47:23.460 heavy Confederate sniper fire stopped him. Burnside shelled the town with heavy cannon fire.

00:47:29.800 Then, units crossed the river in boats and engaged in the first major urban combat of the war.

00:47:36.100 With troops clearing houses door to door, only then were the snipers silenced and the Union

00:47:42.040 was able to finish their bridges. Two days into the battle, the nightmare peaked. Burnside ordered

00:47:47.960 wave after wave of frontal assaults across open fields towards Mary's Heights, straight into a

00:47:53.220 sunken road protected by a stone wall and Confederate artillery. The Union lost 12,500

00:48:03.900 men, the Confederates about 6,000. It was another slaughter. When Lincoln learned about the latest

00:48:11.200 defeat, he said, if there is a worse place than hell, I am in it. Northern morale plummeted. There

00:48:18.160 were calls in Washington for cabinet shake-ups and even peace talks with the South. Lincoln somehow

00:48:23.180 absorbed the blows and just kept going, he drafted a public message, consoling the army

00:48:28.920 of the Potomac.

00:48:30.640 The courage with which you, in an open field, maintain the contest against an entrenched

00:48:35.540 foe, and the consummate skill and success with which you crossed and recrossed the river

00:48:41.080 in the face of the enemy, show that you possess all the qualities of a great army, which will

00:48:46.620 yet give victory to the cause of the country and of popular government.

00:48:51.240 Privately, he was crushed by the human cost and stalled progress.

00:48:56.020 The war felt stuck in a bloody stalemate,

00:48:59.100 and his generals kept failing him at the worst possible moments.

00:49:04.040 On New Year's Day, 1863,

00:49:06.760 after shaking hands at the White House reception until his arm went numb,

00:49:11.100 Lincoln retreated to his office and signed the official Emancipation Proclamation,

00:49:16.280 just as he promised.

00:49:18.180 He said,

00:49:18.680 I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper.

00:49:24.680 If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.

00:49:31.460 The proclamation applied only to areas still in rebellion, not border states or areas already captured by the Union.

00:49:38.940 But it recharged the Union cause.

00:49:41.720 Every Union advance now became a march of liberation.

00:49:45.520 Enslaved people streamed towards federal lines in greater numbers,

00:49:49.440 starving the south of its labor source. 0.86

00:49:52.320 Most powerfully, the proclamation opened the door for black men

00:49:55.780 to enlist in the Union Army or Navy.

00:49:58.820 Over 179,000 of them would serve by war's end,

00:50:04.100 fighting for their own freedom.

00:50:06.080 Frederick Douglass understood the significance of the step forward, saying,

00:50:08.900 Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter U.S., 0.71

00:50:14.360 Let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket. 0.95

00:50:19.840 There is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.

00:50:27.260 Diplomatically, the proclamation made Britain and France nations that had already outlawed slavery far less likely to recognize the Confederacy.

00:50:36.580 The war now had a moral core that couldn't be ignored.

00:50:41.400 The president's critics still found plenty to dislike.

00:50:44.280 Northern Democrats warned this would prolong the war.

00:50:47.420 Border states worried it would destabilize their fragile loyalty.

00:50:51.160 Soldiers in the ranks, many of whom had not enlisted to fight for abolition, grumbled.

00:50:55.200 And the Confederacy doubled down, because now losing the war would mean the end of their entire way of life.

00:51:04.880 Because of Burnside's failure at Fredericksburg, Lincoln replaced him with Joseph Hooker.

00:51:10.540 in January 1863. That spring brought fresh hope with Hooker in command. Boastful and

00:51:17.380 energetic, he reorganized the Army of the Potomac, improved rations and promised to crush Lee

00:51:23.320 once and for all. By April, over 130,000 Union troops had crossed the Rappahannock again,

00:51:31.700 aiming to trap the Confederates in the dense wilderness near Chancellorsville, Virginia.

00:51:38.660 Lee outnumbered two to one, with only about 60,000 men, did again something audacious.

00:51:47.540 He split his army, twice.

00:51:50.680 On May 2nd, General Stonewall Jackson led 30,000 Confederates on a grueling all-day

00:51:55.600 flank march through the thick woods, then slammed into the Union's right flank at dusk.

00:52:03.880 The attack shattered the Union line, pushing them back two miles.

00:52:07.800 Tonight, Stonewall Jackson rode forward to scout for a follow-up strike.

00:52:12.600 In darkness, Confederate pickets mistook his party for Union cavalry and opened fire.

00:52:19.620 Jackson was hit three times. His left arm was amputated.

00:52:22.880 A week later, he died of pneumonia.

00:52:25.400 General Lee was crushed.

00:52:27.400 In a letter to his son, he wrote,

00:52:28.820 It is a terrible loss. I do not know how to replace him.

00:52:35.940 Chancellorsville was a Confederate victory, but it cost them dearly.

00:52:41.520 About 13,000 casualties to the Union's 17,000.

00:52:45.060 And when news of yet another stunning defeat reached Lincoln at the White House,

00:52:48.900 he paced his office, his face ashen, and said,

00:52:51.860 My God, my God, what will the country say?

00:52:57.360 Yet somehow or another, Lincoln's resolve endured.

00:53:00.000 he stared down the hellish losses and still chose the harder path.

00:53:06.580 The decision made in the shadow of Antietam,

00:53:09.940 through the winter blood at Fredericksburg,

00:53:12.860 the bold stroke of New Year's Day,

00:53:15.220 and the wilderness ambush at Chancellorsville,

00:53:18.500 reshaped the Civil War and eventually America's soul.

00:53:23.420 For all of the darkness that had already blotted the nation in war,

00:53:27.700 the darkest chapters were still ahead,

00:53:32.280 including the fateful encounter near a tiny little town in Pennsylvania on the countryside

00:53:37.340 called Gettysburg.

00:53:45.260 Coming up on the American Story, The Beginnings.

00:53:49.360 When Chamberlain saw Confederate regiments swinging around even further to his left,

00:53:54.780 He knew one more push would break his exhausted unit.

00:53:58.920 So he did something insane.

00:54:02.600 He yelled, fix bayonets!

00:54:05.020 And the command rippled down the line.

00:54:08.240 With a wild yell, the 20th main charged downhill in a sweeping move straight into the enemy's face.

00:54:15.600 The shock of the bold bayonet assault.

00:54:19.420 Men running, screaming, steel flashing froze the Confederate momentum.

00:54:24.380 Little Round Top held, and so did the Union line.

00:54:29.560 Chamberlain's desperate gamble saved the Army's flank.

00:54:40.500 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast

00:54:44.780 and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.

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The Glenn Beck Program - August 01, 2026

How the Civil War Started： Lincoln, Early Battles, and America’s Deadliest Turning Point ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 16

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