August 26, 2025 • 82 mins
We’re excited to welcome back famous historian and author Dr. Samuel W. Mitcham to SCV CHAT! Dr. Mitcham will be discussing his brand-new release, The Encyclopedia of Union Generals, as well as his book, The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals. Don’t miss this in-depth conversation as we explore the lives, leadership, and legacies of the men who shaped the course of the War Between the States.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
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(01:26):
bentan eet.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, isn't your boys talking out across Dicks and manssen?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
You send me the little send the chappy man, lack
of Fred train rolling, bringing truth.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Bombs down, the Nie, the mood in.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
The Southland water Way. Out of time, Chat time chap
(03:13):
starts now.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
It's Monday, not exactly at seven o'clock. But that's what
happens when you get to people that love talking to
each other behind the scenes. That's my fault. I don't
look at the clock, and me and doctor Mitchell were
having a good discussion. But I am happy to see everybody.
(03:39):
This gave everybody time to get on, like, for instance,
Kyle Thompson, the Kentucky Division commander, he's on time tonight
that we should throw a parade. Uh So, I'm glad
to see everybody. But yeah, no, y'all, y'all can blame me.
Me and doctor Mitchell love talking to each other. But
(04:00):
it's good to see everybody. Good to see everybody. Hello, Hello, hello, hello,
How is everybody doing in Dixie Lane. Tonight, we have
a great show for you.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Plan.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
Of course, we are welcoming back doctor Sandy Mitchum, famous
historian and author. He has been on the show numerous
times now, but we are happy for him to be back.
You know. Oh, apparently I'm popular all of a sudden.
Isn't it funny? Once you're bored, your phone doesn't blow up,
(04:33):
but when you're working, your phone does. But I've been
looking forward to having doctor Mitchrill back on the show
for a while now, and I'm happy he is back.
Talking about his new book, which I'm putting a link
in the chat and it will be scrolling across the
screen just for a reference. Tonight, we'll be talking about
his new book on Union generals, and we'll also be
(04:58):
talking a bit about his book on Confederate Generals. But
I will say this, as most of you know, we
have a new show coming on Tuesdays. We're still planning everything,
still getting everything ready for that show. But if you
want to get used to coming and watching something Tuesday
at seven pm Confederate Standard time, don't worry. I have
(05:19):
a couple reruns scheduled through run tomorrow will be on
the Confederate General's Book with doctor Mitchum, and next Tuesday
we actually did an episode on at Confederate Generals from
Louisiana with doctor Mitchrim, so those be the next Tuesday's reruns.
The link is in the chat to go support doctor
(05:40):
Mitchum's new books. I highly recommend you do again. A
phenomenal historian and author. We brought them on numerous times,
talked about his books, and I have read numerous books
of his. Now I haven't gotten this one yet. I
will mess with Dr Mitchum about that. He made a
union book and all of a sudden, you know, I
(06:03):
stopped by it. But maybe that says more about me
than doctor Mitcham, but I will be getting it. I
just want to poke fun at him for a second.
Great historian, great man. If you don't know doctor Mitcham,
he hates me reading his whole introduction, So I'm going
to do that to mess with him. Why he can't
defend himself behind the scenes. But he is from Louisiana.
(06:23):
He attended Northeast Louisiana University, North Carolina State University, and
the University of Tennessee, where he got his PhD. He
has authored more than forty books, including the famous book
that we've talked about numerous times on the show. Bust
Hell wide opened The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest It
Wasn't About Slavery, exposing the great Live the Civil War,
(06:46):
which preger you has a video on that. We made
a whole episode rebutting it, and have the book interview
about It Wasn't About Slavery with Doctor Mitcham. Two great
resources you should check out to combat the life eyes
that academic historians use historians very lightly because I respect
(07:06):
that title have been using. He's also done the Vicksburg
Bloody Siege and that tie that turned the tide of
the Civil War, Richard Taylor and the Red River Campaign
and the death of Hitler's war machines, and many others.
He is a past Heritage Operations officer of the Sons
(07:28):
of Confederate Veterans, Camp commander of the Thomas Magoore. Look,
I can see him shaking his head. He's gonna correct
me on that. I'm just gonna say he was Camp
commander of Camp seventeen fourteen. To save us both some embarrassment,
and of course he has won the very prestigious Jefferson
(07:49):
Davis god Gold Medal from the United Daughters of the
Confederacy and the John Cook Literary Ward for Excellence in
Southern Fiction by the Military Orders of the Stars and Bars.
And I believe that was for We've done an episode
on that book too. I have it somewhere in my notes.
The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln,
(08:12):
that is the book that won the Southern Fiction Award. So,
without further ado, So I don't take up any of
his time, and he doesn't call me later to tell
me that I just stole all his time. I pulled
to Kennedy and just took all his time. But without
further ado, Doctor Sandy Mitchell.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Well, thank you, Moss. You want to ask a question,
how do you want to feel it?
Speaker 5 (08:40):
Well, yes, sir, I'll go ahead and start with the
questions again. This is a new book you've written on
the Union General. So I guess the best way to
start is who do you think was the best Union general?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
I would say it's a man most people I've never
heard of. His name was Emery Upton. He was a
graduate of West Point in eighteen sixty one, when the
war started his rank was cadet. When the war ended,
he was a brevet major general commanding a corps, a
(09:18):
corps commander at age twenty five, and did a great
job of that. He did a great job at every level.
He did a great job as an artillery battery commander.
He then moved up into the infantry and became a
brigade commander, and at Spotsylvania he gave Robert E. Lee
(09:41):
one of his worst moments Invenian tactics. Confederate tactics, too
featured broad attacks by infantry, brigades and divisions. Well, he
decided the best way to break the Confederate trench line
was a column formation attack of narrowsky and attack it
(10:02):
on the run and not allow his men to fire.
So they reached the Confederate lines and the result was
a dangerous breakthrough at the Mule Shoe in Potsylvania. Had
his senior officers acted promptly, he could have crushed the
(10:24):
army in Northern Virginia and inflicted a major defeat. Unfortunately
for US, they didn't, but they did break the line.
They did eliminate the Mule Shoe, and they basically wiped
out Allegheny Johnson's whole division and captured about a battalion's
worth of Confederate artillery. This guy knew his business. And
(10:50):
then later he fought in the Channondoa Valley and was
badly wounded in the Third Winchester, and after he covered,
they gave him command of the Calvary Corps of General
James Wilson's Military Division of the Mississippi, essentially an army group.
(11:11):
So he commanded a Calvary corps at the Battle of
Selma and inflicted the only real defeat in Nathan Forrest
ever suffered. Of course, he had a lot of advantages.
He out numbered him four to one, and he was
armed with repeating rifles. But hey, it proves in the pudding.
He won the battle and then won the last I
(11:34):
think significant battle in the history of the Confederacy at Columbus, Georgia.
So he had made a distinguished career and everybody knew it.
So post war they picked him to tour Europe and
examined the armies of Europe and Asia. He was fluent
(11:56):
in German, French, and I don't know what else.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
But.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
He did this, and when he came back he wrote
a fifty four page recommendation that was later published by
the US Army. And what he did that changed the
army and it continues today, is he institutionalized military excellence.
(12:26):
He you know, prior to this we were mimicking the
French more than anybody else. Well, he wanted to limit
the Russians. He liked their academy or Chris Academy, of
their war academy. There war schools, and we didn't have
(12:47):
much in the wave standardized schools. There was a school
for calvary practice up at Carlisle Barracks, the artillery School
for practice at Fort Monroe, Virginia. But our officers were
not well trained, and we saw that in the Civil War.
(13:07):
I mean they filled a lot of cemeteries doing on
the job training for their officers. I mean there were
eleven hundred of them when the war began, and the
Union Army was what had two point eight million men
serve in it, the Confederate Army at eight hundred thousand,
(13:30):
eight hundred and fifty thousand. Simply, we're enough good officers,
and you can see it today. His recommendations were all adopted.
I think I can't think of a single one that
wasn't and the modern US officers spends twenty years in
(13:52):
the service will spend eight of them in schools, and
that's directly traceable to himry Upton. His post war life
somewhat tragic. He married a beautiful woman in eighteen sixty
eight and she prompably came down with tuberculosis, went to
(14:14):
the West India to recover and died there in eighteen
seventy and he never remarried. He was kind of heartbroken,
but he moved up on the ranks until about eighteen
eighty one from Donna Presidio. But he was having very
(14:35):
severe headaches. We don't know if he had a brain
tumor some authors think he did. It may have just
been severe migraines, may have been brain cancer. Like I say,
we don't know. They didn't do an autopsy. But in
eighteen eighty one he shot himself in the head and
had had he lived, he would have I mean, there's
(14:58):
no question would have been General in chief of the
US Army one day. But that was the best they had.
I think he was the second best general in the
Civil War, right behind Nathan Budford Forest and pretty close
(15:19):
run thing frankly, and.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
I'm glad you say that I know the answer, but
you know again kind of throwing your specialties out there.
You've done two books now on war between the States generals.
So I guess who do you think is the best
general from the war?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
And you know why, well, I would say Nathan Budford Forest.
He was American phenomena first grade dropout. I spent over
twenty years in the services, icker duty, Reserve, National Guard, officer, cadet,
and so forth, graduating commandage of the Staff College, qualified
(16:03):
through the rank of major general. And he knew more
the first day he put his bottom on a saddle
than I did after over twenty years. He just like it,
absorbed it from the air. He was a private and
rose to lieutenant general in four years. And he was
(16:24):
a first grade dropout. He never could write properly, and
he didn't even know military terminology. In his first battle,
he wanted to catch him in the flank, but he
didn't know what a flank was. So he ordered him
charge him on both ends, and they did, and it worked,
(16:46):
and hunder naedy engagements and won some incredible victories like
Lawrence Plantation. Yankees out numbered him four to one and
no Yankees escaped. That's pretty remarkable. And oh, you talk
(17:06):
about Bright's Crossroads. A lot of people think that was
his greatest victory. It was about thirteen thousand Yankees thirty
two hundred rebels. Took them nine days to go from
their staging areas near Memphis to near Guntown, Mississippi. Bethany,
(17:27):
Mississippi area. Took him two and a half days to
get back. But they were unencumbered by things like artillery
and ambulances and caissons and supply wagons. Forests had them all. Okelogna,
I thought it was even more impressive to me. They
(17:51):
had seven thousand calvaryman ty arms Sharp's car beings, considered
the best calvary weapon in the world at that time
by a lot of people. Forrest met him with twenty
five hundred men, so it was almost three to one
in favor of the Yankees, but six hundred forest men
(18:13):
were unarmed. He told them, get in the line anyway.
You can't shoot, but you can yell, and don't worry.
You will have your pick plenty of good northern weapons shortly,
and this was the Green Berets of the Yankee cavalry.
(18:35):
They were handpicked, got the best horses, and I were
uncumbered by anything on the wheel vehicles. Ahead was cannons
and ambulances, and Forrest tore a limb from limb and
chased them eleven miles. He also enjoyed the combat. He
(19:04):
didn't elect war, but he enjoyed handhand combat. He put
in an advertisement in the Memphis US paper once, come on, boys,
let's have some fun and kill some Yankees, and he
meant that he killed about He killed thirty and one
(19:26):
on one combat, probably seriously wounded another sixty. And he
of course was personally wounded several times. Four of them
you would call severe serious. But he, in my view,
(19:52):
was the best of the bunch. And Jefferson Davis later
came around to say so. Forrest was grade at waiting
by enemy lines, cutting supply lines, and he was the
best person to destroy a railroad in the Civil War.
(20:12):
If you had to pick one, you'd pick him. Sherman
and his men would rip up rails and heat them
in the middle and wrap them around trees, and they
called them Sherman's neckties, and made a good picture in
the northern newspapers. But it was hardly efficient. What force
would do is start a little loft fires all up
(20:34):
and down the line on the rails and it would
work them five three or four inches maybe two not much,
but you couldn't run a train on it. And before
the anchors could get to their railroads back in operation,
(20:55):
they had to rip out their own useless rails. So
while rip up the rails yourself and make the eggs
do it, and that insult to injury. The wood he
used was Union cord wood made to propel their locomotives
(21:16):
and forrest and wanted to when Sherman was driving on Atlanta,
he wanted to cut behind him, cut his rail and
that would have been a disaster for Sherman. He had
hundred thirty five thousand men, thirty five thousand horses and mules,
and you couldn't He didn't had like seven hundred something braggon. See,
(21:39):
that wasn't enough to feed them. He depended on one
rail line or fourty miles long. And he later ran
into forest on a steamboat after the war. So only
time they ever had a conversation, and I wish somebody
had been able to record it. They went to a
(22:00):
table and we don't have snatches of it, but Sherman
told Forrest if he was driving on Atlanta, they had
nightmares about Forrest destroying his railroad. And Forrest said, had
they let me go, I would have made your nightmares
(22:22):
come true. He would have. And Jefferson Davis said that
later he realized he made a mistake. He listened to
his military advisors and they didn't use Brax and Bragg's name,
but he was a senior military adviser at that time,
and he had a little opinion of Forrest. And I
(22:43):
think Davis listened to brag and didn't release Forrest, and
consequently Atlanta fell, and that was our last chance to
win the war of the opinion, the South had three
(23:04):
chances to win the war. They could have won it diplomatically, militarily,
or politically. We lost it diplomatically when Abraham Lincoln issued
the Emancipation Proclamation because the lower class French and English
would not have tolerated a war that was framed as
(23:29):
being about slavery. Abraham Lincoln understood pr and the other Militarily,
I think we realistically lost the chance to defeat them
militarily at Gettisburg and Vicksburg, and politically though we had
(23:51):
a good chance. All we had to do was not lose,
keep fighting untild the November eighteen sixty four election, and
if Lincoln was defeated, the Democrats had a peace platform.
Anything was possible, including a negotiated settlement. And among the
(24:14):
people who agree with me on this is Abraham Lincoln.
He thought he was going to lose that election until
Atlanta fell in September. Second. Of course, the election I
think was November the eighth, So that's how close we came.
And as far as had cut that railroad, no way
(24:35):
Sherman could taken Atlanta anyway. That's either here nor there.
The Union generals here, Oh. I am never intended to
write a book about him, but Bregner History, my book
(24:56):
on the encyclopedic Confederate journalist, did very well, and they
asked me if i'd write a book on Union generals.
I said, I want you to write encyclopedia on them.
I said, I want to double my advance, and they did.
That's so I wrote it. It was interesting I space
(25:24):
became an issue. Encyclopedic Confederate generals. There were four and
twenty six of them, so I was able to write
a say, four ninety words long on the average on
each general, but with five hundred and eighty eight Union
generals it was down to four and two, so I
(25:47):
had to cram it in and lose some stuff and
kind of hate that, but you, publishing is a business too.
Multiple volume books lose money. So anyway, it was. It
(26:09):
was fun, not some interesting characters, so to speak. When
I was laughy atte Baker. He was the called the
Czar of the underworld. He was head of the National
Detective Police Bureau, and uh he arrested a lot of
(26:29):
Union people for crimes they might commit. There was suspension
of the right of favorites corpus in mister Lincoln's America,
which Davis never did to any extent, and this guy
was shady. The people eventually shot John Willis Booth, which
(26:53):
led to his promotion to book at General, but he
took the position that Sectionary of War, and when Stanning
was deeply involved in the plot to assassinate Lincoln and
even said so. And Baker survived kidnapping attempt and two
(27:15):
assassination attempts, and then in eighteen sixty eight he was
found dead and the official cause of death was spider
men and Johannis. His family, however, insisted on an artopsy
and the cause of death was changed to arsenic poisoning.
(27:40):
So a lot of stories about Lafayette Baker that haven't
been told. Oh there were, I say, quite a few others.
Spoons Butler, you're probably familiar with. They call him Beast Butler. Well,
this problem is the lack of maturity. I mean, you
(28:07):
can defeat the Confederate armies, and they did. You can
kill Confederate soldiers, and they did. But if a crew
old lady walks by on the sidewalk and you speak
to her and she sticks her nose up in the air,
there's really nothing you can do about it. And if
(28:31):
you know any creoles, some of them stick their nose
so far in the air you think I'll flip over backwards.
But they would. They were strongly pro Confederate. They would
cross the streets so they wouldn't have to pass by
Union soldiers. They would cross the streets so they wouldn't
(28:52):
have to touch the shadow of a Union flag. And
Butler didn't know how to handle this. He call in
father Murray Murphy, I'm sorry, And because he'd heard a
(29:12):
report that he refused to preside over the funeral of
a Union soldier, and he chewed him out pretty good.
And Father Murray said, when he got a word in Edgeway,
he said, generally, have been misinformed. Nothing would afford me
greater pleasure than to preside over the funeral of you
(29:35):
and all of your men. And you know the story
when a New Orleans lady entered the contents of the
chamber pot over Admiral Farragut's head, he answered a decree
(29:57):
that any woman who treated Union soldiers rudely would be
treated as a prostitute applying her profession. Well, that almost
created a revolt, and Abraham Lincoln's up in Washington. He
wants to use Louisiana as his showpiece for reconstruction, and
(30:19):
things were just totally out of hand New Orleans. So
he fired Butler. They replaced him with Nathanuel Pte Banks,
who was also a poor field commander, but he knew
how to treat people better, and it worked out better
for Lincoln until the famous Red River campaigns. I've written
(30:43):
a couple of books about but Spoons ended up. He
was a political pointee. Lincoln had a great many and
that's why at the upper levels, Confederate Army generally speaking,
(31:03):
was better than the Union Army until near the end
of the war because they the Yankees only had two
general ranks for much of the war brigadier general, major general.
Now the list ended and they had two point eight
million people. President Davis early on I had brigadier general
(31:27):
major general, but he immediately realized they needed another rank,
so he created the rank of general or full general.
And then in the second year of the war he
said that wasn't enough, so he created the rank of
lieutenant general between major general and general, and this helped
(31:48):
the Confederate Army well. Those ranks didn't exist in the
Union Army. They only had one lieutenant general, Ulysses S.
Grant early in the war when field Scott held a
breadt an honorary rack lieutenant general exhausted the list till
near the end of the war, and Lincoln clogged it
(32:14):
with some pretty incompetent people. His friend, Senator Baker was
a brigadier general, and Lincoln was going promoted major general
even though he hadn't seen that action. He only was
stopped because Baker led a raid Confederate line near Leesburg,
(32:41):
Virginia called the battle the Ball's Bluff will across the river,
but he only had four boats, and Confederates acted quickly
under Shank's evans and pushed them back, and Baker was
shot in the head and died. H Lincoln was very upset,
(33:01):
but he couldn't blame Baker for political reasons through his
superior General Stone. It was quite a good general. Foom
in jail said, in prison for over.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
A year.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Without charge or trial, so early on having Lincoln his
commander in chief. And I know some people are going
to hate this. It was a major advantage for the South.
Lincoln had no military experience except ninety days in the
(33:38):
Black Hawk War. All he succeeded in doing there was
getting demoted from captain to private. He never heard of
shot fired and anger. Jefferson Davis was a lieutenant in
the same war. He did one combat patrol, personally captured
Chief Black Hawking ended the war, so a little bit
(33:59):
of b of difference there. He was educated at West Point.
Colonel at commanded the first Mississippi Rifles at Buena Vista,
save the US Army there, and then later it was
an excellent Secretary of War so that was an advantage,
(34:20):
and northern historians don't like to hear that, but it was.
And he knew these people, and he wasn't There weren't
that many politicians at the higher Confederate ranks as there
were in the Union army, and consequently we filled fewer cemeteries. Anyway,
(34:51):
but I.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Hate to interrupt you. We're going good. We're going to
get back to the program in just a minute, but
I do it is time for our pop tart break
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(35:12):
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Speaker 6 (36:52):
Gotten to the SCV after receiving a reward back when
I was in high school. I had no clue what
the SCV was. All I knew was that it was
a rebel flag and it was supposed to be racist.
I decided I would go and look further into it.
Everything that we're taught from a very young age is
(37:14):
that the Confederacy was wrong. They were treason us. It
turns out it wasn't just because the South had slaves.
This is because of a very fundamental principle.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Of big government.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
There's nothing more American than keeping the government in line.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
It's what we were bred to do.
Speaker 6 (37:39):
Comes down from seventeen seventy six Declaration of Independence. Is
because we decided to keep a government that we've beemed
tyrannical in line. That's what the true definition of the
calls is. Me being a young black American and being
a part of the sons of Confederate veterans is a
shock to a lot of people. The black Confederate soldier
(38:04):
would have had to have been one of the hardest
working soldiers there was. These are men who decided to
take up a cause because in the end it was
their own cause. In fact, most owners wanted the slaves
to stay back because that was how they were steadily
(38:25):
making income.
Speaker 5 (38:28):
They made a choice to do something that was bigger
than themselves.
Speaker 6 (38:33):
That's why, as a black Confederate now it is my
beauty that I owe them to do something greater than myself.
Confederate history is American history, and you cannot separate the two.
(38:55):
I am Sammie Travis, descendant of Private Benjamin Row.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Now course, your break is always And before I get
into the next question, I do want to remind everybody
that the links for doctor Mitchum's books are in the
chat below, so please go support them. And so now
I'm probably going to ask you one of the questions
I've been looking forward to because it is a question
(39:45):
that has asked a lot online in the historical world.
It is a very heated debates a lot uh And normally,
of course you get these biased are fake our fake historians,
I like to call them, because you know, historians today
really aren't doing a good job of being historians. But
(40:06):
this is one of the questions that I've been looking
forward to. Yeah, who had the best generals the North
or the South?
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Well, it really depends on when I think the issue
is not a matter of the order of magnitude, but degrees.
They both had pretty good generals. The South early in
the war just clearly had the best general. I mean,
(40:41):
the Union commander was supposed to take Richmond was a
man named McDowell. He was brave and energetic, but he
was a supply officer. He had never held a command.
Their general in chief was Winfield Scott, one of the
greatest generals in American history Street, but he was too
old for this war. He did come up with a
(41:05):
plan that eventually defeated the Confederacy, the Antiknda Plan, but
Lincoln didn't adopt it until the second year of the war. Basically,
there may be a little bit of biased here, but
I think we did overall. Yeah. Part of the problem
(41:29):
the Union generals and any of them got shot and
they'd go home. Confederate Jones got shot, they took a
medical leave, and then they came back to the front,
and that gave us an experience edge. Of course, we
had a lot of generals killed, seventy seven of them,
(41:52):
and a lot of more were crippled. But that was
true enlisted men too. General Grant complained about it. He
said that Union soldier to be captured get released, he'd
go home, he may or may not come back, and
(42:14):
he certainly wouldn't come back for thirty or sixty days.
And he is a Confederate soldier captured, released, He was
back in his unit in two days. I think I
think we did have an edge in the generalship part
(42:36):
of it, because the war was here. If you were
a successful lawyer up north in Rochester, New York, or
Buffalo or somewhere, you might decide to stay home and
pursue your career and try to build it. Or if
you were a dentist or doctor, the same principle might
(42:58):
apply in the South of wars here, and women of
the South, as Sherman and Seaward and the others said,
or a major contributing factor to the Southern Army. I
told the story, I may have told it on this
(43:19):
show about General Sherman captured Savannah and he ordered all
the wives of Confederate generals to leave the city. Well,
they packed their bags and they were ready to leave,
and the Union officers decided they were going to search
(43:40):
the suitcases. Well, the ladies said, you most certainly will not,
so I will not allow you to place your filthy
hands on my sukie drawer. And they didn't. They dug
in and finally ended up for General Sherman. He said,
and women are the hardest cases I ever saw. This
(44:03):
war would have been over long ago if it hadn't
been for you. I believe you'd keep this war going
for thirty years. He turned to his officers, which said,
leave the suitcases alone. Of course they were, you know,
look for jewelry and steel is what they're gonna do.
Speaker 6 (44:23):
And that.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Was a major factor because the Southern men, you know,
if they were in a town, most of them were
small agricultural communities. If you wouldn't go off to war,
you were ostracized. Women wouldn't have anything to do with you.
Story up in farm of a Louisiana here where I live,
(44:49):
illustrated it very well. I never was able to confirm it,
but I believe it now. One boy I just wouldn't
didn't want to go to war. I didn't wasn't patriotic.
He didn't want to get shot. Well, one day he
was walking down the sidewalk and a herd of women
(45:09):
attacked him, go into the sidewalk and put him in address,
and history doesn't record but they put makeup on him
or not, but I hope they did. H the and
(45:30):
that applied to the upper class as well. I mean,
you had your leaders of the community, uh political leaders
and legal leaders, uh businessmen. If they wanted to continue
in their profession after the war, they better put on
(45:55):
a gray uniform. And you know, a lot of it's
patriotism too.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
They were invaded and that meant a lot in eighteen
sixty two, sixty four and so forth. Americans they don't
realize exactly what that meant. The Southerners know, and that's
(46:26):
why we stayed in the field so long. You establishment
historians like to quote the population figures. Most of them
put the Union population at about twenty two point five million,
or Southern population at nine million. And what that does
(46:51):
is minimized the odds because they never segregated out. Three
point five million of that nine million were slaves. And
I would only count them as a military factor if
I believed that they served in the same proportion as
(47:14):
a white Confederate as well. They didn't. I think about years.
I can tell the figures are kind of soft because
of the destruction of documents at the end of the war,
but they were about eighty thousand to ninety six thousand
(47:34):
black Confederate soldiers as opposed to one hundred and ninety
one thousand black Union soldiers. So if you look at
just the light population, which I believe is I don't
know way to properly do it, you have twenty two
(47:55):
and a half million Yankees as opposed to zero point
five Southerners at quarter to one ratio. That's pretty long odds.
And then Lincoln, of course recruited mercenaries and a massive scale.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
He had.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
What was it four to eighty nine and twenty mercenaries
recruited from fifteen foreign countries, many southern prisons. A lot
of the people couldn't even speak English. When Siegel invaded
(48:38):
the Shenandoah, his orders were always translated into German, Hungarian
and English. Mercenaries played a major role. And it's rather
interesting to compare the Germans. You know, in World War two,
(48:58):
most historians can than the best soldiers. In the Civil War,
they're considered among the worst soldiers. And I think the
difference was the cause. The German mercenary was he paid
fifteen bucks a month. He got free passage over you've
(49:21):
already gotten that. And he really wasn't invested in the
union cause, I mean, restore the Union. What did he
care free the slaves? Well, I didn't care much about
that either. And whatever you want to say about Nazi
(49:44):
Germany may not be sure what they believed in that,
they were certainly sold on the idea. And I read
a book by a Confederate surgeon. He said they weren't
much use in combat, but they could drive wagons and
(50:06):
such and release good American soldiers for use at the front.
So an orthe every advantage, Yeah, except courage and brains.
Speaker 5 (50:25):
So I guess that kind of leads up to the
next question. You know, we talked about, you know, some
of the best Union generals, who were some of the
worst Union generals.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
Uh, you know, there was a I think he won
a Pulitzer Prize Gentiles Street, and he listed he talked
about the best in the worst. He listed Braxton Bragg
as worst Confederate in general and under the heading of
(51:01):
worst Union generals, he said, I have no idea, there's
too much competition. To me, Eliza Pain was the worst.
He was West Point graduate, fought the seminoles, got out
(51:26):
the service, became a lawyer and ILLINOI good friend Braham Lincoln,
and they gave him command of a regiment in the brigade,
and he performed poorly everywhere, I mean New Madrid Island
number ten, Siege of Karth And after that they simply
(51:48):
used him in territorial commands, and he commanded Western Tennessee
in western Kentucky at various times. They gave him command
there at Gatlin, Tennessee area, where he developed a reputation
for cruelty. People were shot and hanged without trial or evidence,
(52:15):
and the accusation enough was enough to kill. He was
not interested in the facts. He sometimes put suspects on
old horses and told him to run, and his men
would run him down kill. He hanged more than one
(52:36):
hundred people in the public square of Glacton, Tennessee alone.
One author wrote that he just wanted to see a
dead body. There was a private Dalton who deserted in
the Confederate Army took the earth Allegiance. The next day
(53:00):
pain at him, hauled out and shot him personally six times,
killed him. He was also corrupt. He stole fenced furniture
by the wagon load he sent it back to Dollinois.
He was eventually investigated and found guilty of corruption, extortion, fencing,
(53:22):
stolen goods, unjust taxation, and immoral behavior.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
Lincoln protected him because they were friends, but Sherman finally
got enough of him after formally reprimanded him for brutality
towards civilians. He sent him home. Man has no place
in my army. And if Sherman UH would do that,
(53:49):
you're you're pretty pretty match. Yeah, it was horrible. It's
a general thing. O'Neill who was pretty bad up in
Missouri too, But people like a boil and pain in
(54:09):
Kentucky more Kentucky and served in the Union Army Confederacy
probably about two to win ratio. But they said after
the war Kentucky was the most pro Confederate state there was,
and it was because of bad Union generalship. They put
their second third rate people commanding territories and they did
(54:37):
not win the hearts and minds of the people. In fact,
there were a lot of Confederate raiders and guerrillas and
so forth, and that was one of the reasons. There
were some others I was reigning about some handel fiends
(55:01):
Alexander some heindel Feening. He was a German general. They
hired a lot of mercenaries. This was better than most,
but his troops tended to run away and Gettysburg on
the first day they broke the Confederate better. It's poured
into the town. As you know. Gettysburg on July first
(55:25):
was a Confederate victory. And he got surrounded and he
hid in the covert and then made a brake, for
it was climbing a fence and he had forsythe enough
to remove his badge's rank. And as he was climbing
his fence, Confederate soldier tapped him in the back of
(55:46):
his head with the butt of his rifle and flipped
him over the fence. And he's laying there semi unconscious.
But they didn't know he was a general, so they
left him. They just went on and he then when
they regained his census, took shelter in the only place
(56:07):
he could find, a big sty, and he spent three
days in the big sty. Didn't have any water, and
the only food he hads with the pigs left. But
the Confederates joke later that that was pretty good place
for Union in general. But when Lee retreated on July fifth,
(56:34):
uh he was able to escape ended up occupying Charleston.
He was the first Union general in Charleston, South Carolina.
H So as Union mercenaries went, he was bettered as
a communist. Most of them were, and there was one
(56:55):
called Osterhausen, who might a great deal of respect for
He became a core commander. Sure. But one of my
favorite stories is this private McBride and Mississippi Regiment I
(57:16):
think forty fifth. They were in the Stone River Campaign,
the Battle of Trahoon, and he and his company commander
Captain O'Connor, who told this story, were cut off and
(57:37):
they escaped. Well, the Yankee calvary was on them, and
they came to a fence and it had rained and
they couldn't climb the fence. So they had Yankee calvary
on three sides and the fence and the other. Well,
O'Connor threw up his hands. McBride didn't he He jumped
(57:59):
on the Yankee commanding the Calvert detachment of major and
almost bit his finger off. He ruined his finger before
the Yankees could pull him off, and some of the
Yankees wanted to kill him. And others said, no, he's
a prisoner, we can't do that. And they said, well
that ouster Housen, so he was a Carlis at that point,
(58:24):
Well him decide and they hauled him in front of
him and the German looked him up and down and
then said, I want you to accord him every right
due a prisoner of war. I don't want every one
of you to fight just like he did. Wow. So
(58:48):
there was a lot of variation there. The most of
the German generals were appointed for political reasons, and that
usually led it to a disaster. Lincoln felt like he
needed to do that anyway. That's uh what else he
(59:12):
got there? Moose?
Speaker 5 (59:14):
All right, well, I mean while you were writing these books,
are this book, what are some of the lesser known
Union generals who had an interesting story?
Speaker 4 (59:26):
Oh? There was a that's basically what my book's about.
There were quite a few of them. The I liked
Curtis Newton. Curtis he was a giant of a man.
(59:48):
He was an upstate New York. I read his book
on his Regiment sixteenth New York, and they made it
very clear that he was fighting to preserve of the Union,
not any other reason. Right after Fort Summer, I was
fired on enlisted, and this guy was six foot seven
(01:00:11):
and weighed two hundred and twenty five pounds. At that time,
the average American was in the Union Army was five
foot seven and weighed one hundred and fifty one hundred
and forty three pounds. So he was a giant. And
his family taught tried to talk him out of it,
(01:00:32):
because said, you're so big, you will attract more lead
than anyone else and get yourself killed. He came pretty close,
he was. He was shot. He was fairly seriously wounded
six times, and the last time was the Battle of
(01:00:52):
Fort Fisher, the second one where he won the Congressional
Medal of Honor. But he led the breakthrough that led
to the fall of the fort. Now, the thing about
when you lead a breakthrough like that, the Confederate artillery,
which is slightly behind the lines, can see it, and
they're going to turn every cube against you. And they did.
(01:01:15):
And one of the it was it was rapping on
the arm, but also right below the left eye, which
had destroyed the socket and blinded him in the left eye.
Speaker 5 (01:01:28):
Then he.
Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
So later he got the thirty five years later they
hoarded the Medal of Honor for it. But he was
a very brave man h and later a congressman, and
he tried to get He was in favor of reunification.
(01:01:52):
There was some other good ones. Frederick Steele captured Little
Rocket virtually no costs. He was not popular with the administration.
He married a Southern woman and he treated Southern civilians well,
(01:02:15):
and they called him a copperhead behind his back, but
he was very good at what he did. Later played
a major role in the capture of Mobile. I liked him.
He was killed in a carriage accident in San Francisco
a couple of years after the war. Phil Carney was
(01:02:41):
one of the more interesting ones. He was a very
rich man. He inherited a fortunate modern equivalent of twenty
five million dollars, so he didn't have to do anything.
He could live a life of wealth and privilege. Instead,
he joined the US Army, fought in Mexico, became an
(01:03:05):
aid to Winfield Scott, who called him the bravest man
I ever met. Surebisco. His arm was ready lost his
left arm, but he was making of the army despite
his wealth. When his marriage fell apart, so he shocked
(01:03:29):
up with this other woman in an era when they
didn't do that. They can get away with it today,
I'm sure, but not then, and he was forced to resign,
went to Paris, had a child by his mistress, and
then his wife finally decided to grant him a divorce,
(01:03:51):
so he came back to the States, joined the army
when the war began, Like say, didn't have to outfitted
his own caboy unit at his own expense, and was
very brave and quite successful for a while. But after
(01:04:12):
the defeat of the Union army at the Second Manassas,
Abraham Lincoln was even considering him make him come under
of the Army of the Potomac, but that Tenttilli or
ox Hill. Right after Second Manassas, he blundered in to
the line of the forty ninth Georgia and they ordered
(01:04:36):
him to surrender, and he shouted at his aid they
couldn't hit a barn. He turned and ran away, and
guess what forty ninth Georgia could hit a barn? Shot
him right through the heart, and ap Hill came up
(01:04:56):
shortly thereafter. He was friends at the carnif from the
old army and said Carney deserved a better faith than
to die in the mud, but he did. His death
reminded me of James McPherson, the army commander up there
(01:05:18):
in Atlanta. He blundered into Confederate lines and was in
his aid. His aide had sense enough when they were
name to surrender. He actually surrendered, and McPherson made a
break for it, and they shot him dead. And the
Confederates asked the aid who was this general, And the
(01:05:43):
aide said, sir, you have killed the best man in
our army. They named it to Ford up in Georgia
after McPherson. Now there were quite a few lesser knowns.
(01:06:03):
I liked green Clay Smith. He was Caul Clay's, part
of the famous Henry Clay family. He could have enjoyed
a life of wealth and privilege his whole life, but
he volunteered for service in the Mexican War service lieutenant.
(01:06:27):
He was a Unionist. He had slaves, but he thought
the war was the preservation of the Union. He joined
it and was promoted rapidly colonel brigadier general. And he
faced John Morgan and always came out second best. And Boyle,
(01:06:57):
the commander of the district up there, wrote Highick a dyspatchy,
can't you take General Smith off our hands? He went
by the last nae Smith, and they did relieve him
and just kept him around for court martials or whatever.
(01:07:24):
So he was a poor general, but he was a
much better man than he was a general. He went
to Congress, was governor of Montana Territory for a few years,
but mainly it was a pastor from I think it
was eight don't quote me, in years eighteen sixty nine
(01:07:47):
to the turn of the century. Is very good at it,
holding with bibles and whatever. So you run across this
from several places. Some men are a better better men
than there were generals, other than which were better generals.
And there were men some were good at both and
(01:08:08):
some were good at neither. I don't ever, I don't
know if I ever told you about General Scott. Robert Scott.
He was a good general. Then later became the carpetbagger
governor of South Carolina, where he stole everything it wasn't
(01:08:32):
red hot or tied down, and he finally had to
flee the state. But he was rich in South Carolina
as a result of the reconstruction era didn't pay off
their reconstruction debts until nineteen fifty five. Scott went home wealthy.
(01:09:00):
His fifteen year old son was an alcoholic, and one
night he didn't come home, and Scott figured he spent
the night with this twenty three year old man. Draw
your own conclusions, and he went to the guy's house
and he asked to see his son, and I refused
(01:09:22):
to allow him to Nope, he's sleep, you can't bother.
And then, according to Scott has gun somehow discharged and
killed the twenty three year old. Well, they put him
on trial and apparently bribed the jury because it's pretty
(01:09:44):
obvious he'd kill this fellow. But he was acquitted, and
a lynch mob decided they were going to take out Scott,
and they came to his house and Scott met him
with two charls of whiskey and a handful of bringbacks,
(01:10:04):
and the mob stopped and decided that they would abide
by the decision of the court. They took the money
in the whiskey left, and that's where we get the
term getting off Scott free. Other union generals were much different.
General Grifson he was a Oh did you see the
(01:10:30):
movie The horse soldiers from John Wayne. He was the
one that Colonel Marlow was supposted and patterned on, but
extremely loosely. John Wayne in that movie was nothing like
the real Grifson. He was a section hand in the movie.
(01:10:52):
In reality he was a music teacher. He liked to
compose songs, and he didn't like horses. But General Sherman
said he was the best cavalry officer he ever saw.
Speaker 5 (01:11:04):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:11:05):
Every time he fought a battle, he won, unless the
commander was General Forrest, which case he never won. But
the people Mississippi respected him uh because he he Uh.
(01:11:25):
If one of his soldiers got out of line as civilian,
Gerson would come down on him like a ton of bricks. Uh.
If you were a Union soldier and you wanted dinner
the home of a Southern person, he knocked on the
door and you were not allowed to steal. And he
(01:11:47):
kept under tight control. And later he he commanded US
Colored Troops USC T the official name uh uh out
west the Buffalo soldiers and helped establish their reputation. Uh.
He was the one who defeated Geronimo. And the idea
(01:12:10):
was that take the USC two troops, put them around
every water hole, the apaches would have to attack and
they would outnumber the Black troops. But uh, you know,
it was obvious where they were coming from, and there
(01:12:31):
was no element of surprise, and they were able to
force Geronimo back to the reservation. So person Liston had
a brain.
Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Hm.
Speaker 4 (01:12:47):
Anyway, there were a lot of a lot of generals
that nobody ever heard of, which is the focus of
my books, both Encyclopedia of Union Generals and Encyclopedia Confederate Generals.
(01:13:08):
We're going to meet some people in there that you
you never heard of before, and some of them are
actually at a five.
Speaker 5 (01:13:21):
Well, as we kind of wrap up tonight's episode, I
know the question we kind of ask every time we
wrap up, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Are you
working on any books right now? Is there anything you
can tell us about that?
Speaker 4 (01:13:40):
Yes, I was an author with a regulary history that
they've been bought out by Skyhorse and sky Horst is
now going to do this one, The Death of Veitler's
War Machine, my last World War Two book in paperback.
(01:14:03):
I'm running a magnus opus, The Rise and Fall of
the Southern Confederacy. It's going to be about two hundred
thousand words could be a big book, but it's pretty
ambitious to cover the whole history of the Confederacy in
one volume. We may have to do too, and if
(01:14:26):
we do, it will be Volume one will be the
rise of the Confederacy. Volume two will be the Fall
of the Confederacy, and it will be possible to purchase
one volume without the other. Whatever you're interested in. And also,
(01:14:49):
there's a man called Joe con Jimmy from the Duck
Dynasty family. His family in merit into It. I call
him Jersey Joe on the podcast. He's the last man
that Phil Robertson mentored. As matter of fact, he was
(01:15:11):
with Phil the day died, and he decided he wanted
to write a book about Phil how it changed his life.
In fact, he's from New Jersey. They call him Jersey Joe,
and his life was a mess, but he was very
(01:15:31):
successful in his business as fire chief. He went down
to the basement of the fire department one day, tried
to click on a pornographic movie and Doug Dynasty came home.
He never heard of it, and he decided that these
(01:15:55):
people down in Louisiana, that's something he lacked, something he
wanted and he had no idea it was over. He
was going to meet Phil Robertson, but he came to
our church. Phil and I were tending the same church
at that time. Phil always did the sermon and he
(01:16:18):
had me lead communion and we sat each by each
other for four and a half years, which was a
real privement. And anyway, he liked what he saw and
he told his wife when he got when they got home,
(01:16:38):
get packed, we're moving to Louisiana. And they did. And uh,
I say, it changed his life and he now preachers
and teachers and Phil mender ord him. He was he
was the last one. Phil got to mentor and he
(01:17:06):
decided to write a book, and he approached me so
he wanted me to write it, and he would tell
me what to write. It's because I can't write. And
turns out he undressed about it himself. He's not a
bad writer.
Speaker 6 (01:17:23):
But we're.
Speaker 4 (01:17:25):
We're putting that together now we're about half to well.
Speaker 5 (01:17:29):
That is definitely awesome. You know, for those who don't know,
a lot of my farm businesses and a lot of
my duck hunting businesses. Of course, I took a lot
of inspiration from field spiritually and business wise. So that
is that is awesome. I can't wait to read those
books you're working on. I can't wait to have you
(01:17:51):
on to talk about him either.
Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
Well, eventually i'd like to get know on your show
and talk about phil Southern culture. Like I say, he
he left New Jersey for.
Speaker 5 (01:18:11):
A reason, Well, you let him know. The doors open anytime.
We'd love to have him on. As we tell everybody,
we don't just focus on eighteen sixty one to eighteen
sixty five on this show, because Southern history and heritage
goes all the way from Jamestown in sixteen oh seven
all the way to present day. We have a very
(01:18:32):
rich history, very proud Southern history, and is something we
need to be talking about more because, as Carl has said,
you know, people have been taught to hate their Southern history.
And how can they be proud of their Confederate history
if they're not proud of their Southern history. So you
(01:18:53):
let him know that anytime he wants to come on,
just let us know. And as always, doctor Mitcham, it's
been great to have you on. I'm sure we're going
to talk some more behind the scenes like we always do,
but it is great to have you back on the show.
I ask everybody please share this episode out, help us out,
(01:19:13):
and of course one more plug. The links to both books,
the Confederate Generals and Union General Book is in the chat.
Please go support doctor mitchrim again. He's a phenomenal historian
and author. I've always had a great time reading his books,
and from someone that is dyslexic, it is very helpful
(01:19:34):
to have a book that's engaging. Also when you have ADHD,
it helps me learn and one of the easiest books
I've been able to pick up and understand and learn history.
So please go support doctor Mitchell on these new books.
Even I'm going to buy the Union General Book. I
like to mess with doctor mitchm about that because when
(01:19:57):
he told me about it, I was like, he's like,
you gonna buy I copy. I was like, well, I'll try.
That's my nice way of saying I wasn't, but I
am going to buy one now. I think it'd be
a very interesting read. And of course you need to
know all avenues of history if you're going to be
able to talk about it. But again, please support Docu
(01:20:19):
Minchrum with those links below. Can't wait to have you
back on again, doctor mitchrum. I do want to remind
everybody the two hundred and fiftieth are two yeah, two
hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is coming up.
So we have a great shirt for you to celebrate
that the South is right in eighteen sixty one because
(01:20:39):
America is right in seventeen seventy six. Make sure you
have that for your Fourth of July celebrations in twenty
twenty six as well as again, please pick up the
Encyclopedia of Union Generals and the Encyclopedias of Confederate Generals. Again,
we want to thank all of our Patreon members. We
(01:21:01):
did get a new Patreon member. It was Elliott Jackson,
so thank you for joining us, Elliott, and we appreciate
your support of the show. Thank you all for watching.
I cannot wait to see y'all Thursday. Make sure to
tune in Thursday, same Confederate time, same Confederate channel for
your weekly episode to look around the Confederation. Please send
(01:21:23):
in some news. We will have a division on. I'm
drawing a blank, but I believe it's the Arizona Division
that's gonna come on and talk about some interesting things,
so I'm looking forward to that. So again, I can't
wait to see y'all Thursday. Make sure to share this
out and until next time, Chattheads, remember no fu mar
(01:21:44):
in the elevator. Good night, everybody a
Appen a the.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Of day, applis at a.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Pup at, appens.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
At ass and appen ettal.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
At the attend a peoples in a look at the
(01:26):
bentan eet.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, isn't your boys talking out across Dicks and manssen?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
You send me the little send the chappy man, lack
of Fred train rolling, bringing truth.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Bombs down, the Nie, the mood in.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
The Southland water Way. Out of time, Chat time chap
(03:13):
starts now.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
It's Monday, not exactly at seven o'clock. But that's what
happens when you get to people that love talking to
each other behind the scenes. That's my fault. I don't
look at the clock, and me and doctor Mitchell were
having a good discussion. But I am happy to see everybody.
(03:39):
This gave everybody time to get on, like, for instance,
Kyle Thompson, the Kentucky Division commander, he's on time tonight
that we should throw a parade. Uh So, I'm glad
to see everybody. But yeah, no, y'all, y'all can blame me.
Me and doctor Mitchell love talking to each other. But
(04:00):
it's good to see everybody. Good to see everybody. Hello, Hello, hello, hello,
How is everybody doing in Dixie Lane. Tonight, we have
a great show for you.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Plan.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
Of course, we are welcoming back doctor Sandy Mitchum, famous
historian and author. He has been on the show numerous
times now, but we are happy for him to be back.
You know. Oh, apparently I'm popular all of a sudden.
Isn't it funny? Once you're bored, your phone doesn't blow up,
(04:33):
but when you're working, your phone does. But I've been
looking forward to having doctor Mitchrill back on the show
for a while now, and I'm happy he is back.
Talking about his new book, which I'm putting a link
in the chat and it will be scrolling across the
screen just for a reference. Tonight, we'll be talking about
his new book on Union generals, and we'll also be
(04:58):
talking a bit about his book on Confederate Generals. But
I will say this, as most of you know, we
have a new show coming on Tuesdays. We're still planning everything,
still getting everything ready for that show. But if you
want to get used to coming and watching something Tuesday
at seven pm Confederate Standard time, don't worry. I have
(05:19):
a couple reruns scheduled through run tomorrow will be on
the Confederate General's Book with doctor Mitchum, and next Tuesday
we actually did an episode on at Confederate Generals from
Louisiana with doctor Mitchrim, so those be the next Tuesday's reruns.
The link is in the chat to go support doctor
(05:40):
Mitchum's new books. I highly recommend you do again. A
phenomenal historian and author. We brought them on numerous times,
talked about his books, and I have read numerous books
of his. Now I haven't gotten this one yet. I
will mess with Dr Mitchum about that. He made a
union book and all of a sudden, you know, I
(06:03):
stopped by it. But maybe that says more about me
than doctor Mitcham, but I will be getting it. I
just want to poke fun at him for a second.
Great historian, great man. If you don't know doctor Mitcham,
he hates me reading his whole introduction, So I'm going
to do that to mess with him. Why he can't
defend himself behind the scenes. But he is from Louisiana.
(06:23):
He attended Northeast Louisiana University, North Carolina State University, and
the University of Tennessee, where he got his PhD. He
has authored more than forty books, including the famous book
that we've talked about numerous times on the show. Bust
Hell wide opened The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest It
Wasn't About Slavery, exposing the great Live the Civil War,
(06:46):
which preger you has a video on that. We made
a whole episode rebutting it, and have the book interview
about It Wasn't About Slavery with Doctor Mitcham. Two great
resources you should check out to combat the life eyes
that academic historians use historians very lightly because I respect
(07:06):
that title have been using. He's also done the Vicksburg
Bloody Siege and that tie that turned the tide of
the Civil War, Richard Taylor and the Red River Campaign
and the death of Hitler's war machines, and many others.
He is a past Heritage Operations officer of the Sons
(07:28):
of Confederate Veterans, Camp commander of the Thomas Magoore. Look,
I can see him shaking his head. He's gonna correct
me on that. I'm just gonna say he was Camp
commander of Camp seventeen fourteen. To save us both some embarrassment,
and of course he has won the very prestigious Jefferson
(07:49):
Davis god Gold Medal from the United Daughters of the
Confederacy and the John Cook Literary Ward for Excellence in
Southern Fiction by the Military Orders of the Stars and Bars.
And I believe that was for We've done an episode
on that book too. I have it somewhere in my notes.
The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln,
(08:12):
that is the book that won the Southern Fiction Award. So,
without further ado, So I don't take up any of
his time, and he doesn't call me later to tell
me that I just stole all his time. I pulled
to Kennedy and just took all his time. But without
further ado, Doctor Sandy Mitchell.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Well, thank you, Moss. You want to ask a question,
how do you want to feel it?
Speaker 5 (08:40):
Well, yes, sir, I'll go ahead and start with the
questions again. This is a new book you've written on
the Union General. So I guess the best way to
start is who do you think was the best Union general?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
I would say it's a man most people I've never
heard of. His name was Emery Upton. He was a
graduate of West Point in eighteen sixty one, when the
war started his rank was cadet. When the war ended,
he was a brevet major general commanding a corps, a
(09:18):
corps commander at age twenty five, and did a great
job of that. He did a great job at every level.
He did a great job as an artillery battery commander.
He then moved up into the infantry and became a
brigade commander, and at Spotsylvania he gave Robert E. Lee
(09:41):
one of his worst moments Invenian tactics. Confederate tactics, too
featured broad attacks by infantry, brigades and divisions. Well, he
decided the best way to break the Confederate trench line
was a column formation attack of narrowsky and attack it
(10:02):
on the run and not allow his men to fire.
So they reached the Confederate lines and the result was
a dangerous breakthrough at the Mule Shoe in Potsylvania. Had
his senior officers acted promptly, he could have crushed the
(10:24):
army in Northern Virginia and inflicted a major defeat. Unfortunately
for US, they didn't, but they did break the line.
They did eliminate the Mule Shoe, and they basically wiped
out Allegheny Johnson's whole division and captured about a battalion's
worth of Confederate artillery. This guy knew his business. And
(10:50):
then later he fought in the Channondoa Valley and was
badly wounded in the Third Winchester, and after he covered,
they gave him command of the Calvary Corps of General
James Wilson's Military Division of the Mississippi, essentially an army group.
(11:11):
So he commanded a Calvary corps at the Battle of
Selma and inflicted the only real defeat in Nathan Forrest
ever suffered. Of course, he had a lot of advantages.
He out numbered him four to one, and he was
armed with repeating rifles. But hey, it proves in the pudding.
He won the battle and then won the last I
(11:34):
think significant battle in the history of the Confederacy at Columbus, Georgia.
So he had made a distinguished career and everybody knew it.
So post war they picked him to tour Europe and
examined the armies of Europe and Asia. He was fluent
(11:56):
in German, French, and I don't know what else.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
But.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
He did this, and when he came back he wrote
a fifty four page recommendation that was later published by
the US Army. And what he did that changed the
army and it continues today, is he institutionalized military excellence.
(12:26):
He you know, prior to this we were mimicking the
French more than anybody else. Well, he wanted to limit
the Russians. He liked their academy or Chris Academy, of
their war academy. There war schools, and we didn't have
(12:47):
much in the wave standardized schools. There was a school
for calvary practice up at Carlisle Barracks, the artillery School
for practice at Fort Monroe, Virginia. But our officers were
not well trained, and we saw that in the Civil War.
(13:07):
I mean they filled a lot of cemeteries doing on
the job training for their officers. I mean there were
eleven hundred of them when the war began, and the
Union Army was what had two point eight million men
serve in it, the Confederate Army at eight hundred thousand,
(13:30):
eight hundred and fifty thousand. Simply, we're enough good officers,
and you can see it today. His recommendations were all adopted.
I think I can't think of a single one that
wasn't and the modern US officers spends twenty years in
(13:52):
the service will spend eight of them in schools, and
that's directly traceable to himry Upton. His post war life
somewhat tragic. He married a beautiful woman in eighteen sixty
eight and she prompably came down with tuberculosis, went to
(14:14):
the West India to recover and died there in eighteen
seventy and he never remarried. He was kind of heartbroken,
but he moved up on the ranks until about eighteen
eighty one from Donna Presidio. But he was having very
(14:35):
severe headaches. We don't know if he had a brain
tumor some authors think he did. It may have just
been severe migraines, may have been brain cancer. Like I say,
we don't know. They didn't do an autopsy. But in
eighteen eighty one he shot himself in the head and
had had he lived, he would have I mean, there's
(14:58):
no question would have been General in chief of the
US Army one day. But that was the best they had.
I think he was the second best general in the
Civil War, right behind Nathan Budford Forest and pretty close
(15:19):
run thing frankly, and.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
I'm glad you say that I know the answer, but
you know again kind of throwing your specialties out there.
You've done two books now on war between the States generals.
So I guess who do you think is the best
general from the war?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
And you know why, well, I would say Nathan Budford Forest.
He was American phenomena first grade dropout. I spent over
twenty years in the services, icker duty, Reserve, National Guard, officer, cadet,
and so forth, graduating commandage of the Staff College, qualified
(16:03):
through the rank of major general. And he knew more
the first day he put his bottom on a saddle
than I did after over twenty years. He just like it,
absorbed it from the air. He was a private and
rose to lieutenant general in four years. And he was
(16:24):
a first grade dropout. He never could write properly, and
he didn't even know military terminology. In his first battle,
he wanted to catch him in the flank, but he
didn't know what a flank was. So he ordered him
charge him on both ends, and they did, and it worked,
(16:46):
and hunder naedy engagements and won some incredible victories like
Lawrence Plantation. Yankees out numbered him four to one and
no Yankees escaped. That's pretty remarkable. And oh, you talk
(17:06):
about Bright's Crossroads. A lot of people think that was
his greatest victory. It was about thirteen thousand Yankees thirty
two hundred rebels. Took them nine days to go from
their staging areas near Memphis to near Guntown, Mississippi. Bethany,
(17:27):
Mississippi area. Took him two and a half days to
get back. But they were unencumbered by things like artillery
and ambulances and caissons and supply wagons. Forests had them all. Okelogna,
I thought it was even more impressive to me. They
(17:51):
had seven thousand calvaryman ty arms Sharp's car beings, considered
the best calvary weapon in the world at that time
by a lot of people. Forrest met him with twenty
five hundred men, so it was almost three to one
in favor of the Yankees, but six hundred forest men
(18:13):
were unarmed. He told them, get in the line anyway.
You can't shoot, but you can yell, and don't worry.
You will have your pick plenty of good northern weapons shortly,
and this was the Green Berets of the Yankee cavalry.
(18:35):
They were handpicked, got the best horses, and I were
uncumbered by anything on the wheel vehicles. Ahead was cannons
and ambulances, and Forrest tore a limb from limb and
chased them eleven miles. He also enjoyed the combat. He
(19:04):
didn't elect war, but he enjoyed handhand combat. He put
in an advertisement in the Memphis US paper once, come on, boys,
let's have some fun and kill some Yankees, and he
meant that he killed about He killed thirty and one
(19:26):
on one combat, probably seriously wounded another sixty. And he
of course was personally wounded several times. Four of them
you would call severe serious. But he, in my view,
(19:52):
was the best of the bunch. And Jefferson Davis later
came around to say so. Forrest was grade at waiting
by enemy lines, cutting supply lines, and he was the
best person to destroy a railroad in the Civil War.
(20:12):
If you had to pick one, you'd pick him. Sherman
and his men would rip up rails and heat them
in the middle and wrap them around trees, and they
called them Sherman's neckties, and made a good picture in
the northern newspapers. But it was hardly efficient. What force
would do is start a little loft fires all up
(20:34):
and down the line on the rails and it would
work them five three or four inches maybe two not much,
but you couldn't run a train on it. And before
the anchors could get to their railroads back in operation,
(20:55):
they had to rip out their own useless rails. So
while rip up the rails yourself and make the eggs
do it, and that insult to injury. The wood he
used was Union cord wood made to propel their locomotives
(21:16):
and forrest and wanted to when Sherman was driving on Atlanta,
he wanted to cut behind him, cut his rail and
that would have been a disaster for Sherman. He had
hundred thirty five thousand men, thirty five thousand horses and mules,
and you couldn't He didn't had like seven hundred something braggon. See,
(21:39):
that wasn't enough to feed them. He depended on one
rail line or fourty miles long. And he later ran
into forest on a steamboat after the war. So only
time they ever had a conversation, and I wish somebody
had been able to record it. They went to a
(22:00):
table and we don't have snatches of it, but Sherman
told Forrest if he was driving on Atlanta, they had
nightmares about Forrest destroying his railroad. And Forrest said, had
they let me go, I would have made your nightmares
(22:22):
come true. He would have. And Jefferson Davis said that
later he realized he made a mistake. He listened to
his military advisors and they didn't use Brax and Bragg's name,
but he was a senior military adviser at that time,
and he had a little opinion of Forrest. And I
(22:43):
think Davis listened to brag and didn't release Forrest, and
consequently Atlanta fell, and that was our last chance to
win the war of the opinion, the South had three
(23:04):
chances to win the war. They could have won it diplomatically, militarily,
or politically. We lost it diplomatically when Abraham Lincoln issued
the Emancipation Proclamation because the lower class French and English
would not have tolerated a war that was framed as
(23:29):
being about slavery. Abraham Lincoln understood pr and the other Militarily,
I think we realistically lost the chance to defeat them
militarily at Gettisburg and Vicksburg, and politically though we had
(23:51):
a good chance. All we had to do was not lose,
keep fighting untild the November eighteen sixty four election, and
if Lincoln was defeated, the Democrats had a peace platform.
Anything was possible, including a negotiated settlement. And among the
(24:14):
people who agree with me on this is Abraham Lincoln.
He thought he was going to lose that election until
Atlanta fell in September. Second. Of course, the election I
think was November the eighth, So that's how close we came.
And as far as had cut that railroad, no way
(24:35):
Sherman could taken Atlanta anyway. That's either here nor there.
The Union generals here, Oh. I am never intended to
write a book about him, but Bregner History, my book
(24:56):
on the encyclopedic Confederate journalist, did very well, and they
asked me if i'd write a book on Union generals.
I said, I want you to write encyclopedia on them.
I said, I want to double my advance, and they did.
That's so I wrote it. It was interesting I space
(25:24):
became an issue. Encyclopedic Confederate generals. There were four and
twenty six of them, so I was able to write
a say, four ninety words long on the average on
each general, but with five hundred and eighty eight Union
generals it was down to four and two, so I
(25:47):
had to cram it in and lose some stuff and
kind of hate that, but you, publishing is a business too.
Multiple volume books lose money. So anyway, it was. It
(26:09):
was fun, not some interesting characters, so to speak. When
I was laughy atte Baker. He was the called the
Czar of the underworld. He was head of the National
Detective Police Bureau, and uh he arrested a lot of
(26:29):
Union people for crimes they might commit. There was suspension
of the right of favorites corpus in mister Lincoln's America,
which Davis never did to any extent, and this guy
was shady. The people eventually shot John Willis Booth, which
(26:53):
led to his promotion to book at General, but he
took the position that Sectionary of War, and when Stanning
was deeply involved in the plot to assassinate Lincoln and
even said so. And Baker survived kidnapping attempt and two
(27:15):
assassination attempts, and then in eighteen sixty eight he was
found dead and the official cause of death was spider
men and Johannis. His family, however, insisted on an artopsy
and the cause of death was changed to arsenic poisoning.
(27:40):
So a lot of stories about Lafayette Baker that haven't
been told. Oh there were, I say, quite a few others.
Spoons Butler, you're probably familiar with. They call him Beast Butler. Well,
this problem is the lack of maturity. I mean, you
(28:07):
can defeat the Confederate armies, and they did. You can
kill Confederate soldiers, and they did. But if a crew
old lady walks by on the sidewalk and you speak
to her and she sticks her nose up in the air,
there's really nothing you can do about it. And if
(28:31):
you know any creoles, some of them stick their nose
so far in the air you think I'll flip over backwards.
But they would. They were strongly pro Confederate. They would
cross the streets so they wouldn't have to pass by
Union soldiers. They would cross the streets so they wouldn't
(28:52):
have to touch the shadow of a Union flag. And
Butler didn't know how to handle this. He call in
father Murray Murphy, I'm sorry, And because he'd heard a
(29:12):
report that he refused to preside over the funeral of
a Union soldier, and he chewed him out pretty good.
And Father Murray said, when he got a word in Edgeway,
he said, generally, have been misinformed. Nothing would afford me
greater pleasure than to preside over the funeral of you
(29:35):
and all of your men. And you know the story
when a New Orleans lady entered the contents of the
chamber pot over Admiral Farragut's head, he answered a decree
(29:57):
that any woman who treated Union soldiers rudely would be
treated as a prostitute applying her profession. Well, that almost
created a revolt, and Abraham Lincoln's up in Washington. He
wants to use Louisiana as his showpiece for reconstruction, and
(30:19):
things were just totally out of hand New Orleans. So
he fired Butler. They replaced him with Nathanuel Pte Banks,
who was also a poor field commander, but he knew
how to treat people better, and it worked out better
for Lincoln until the famous Red River campaigns. I've written
(30:43):
a couple of books about but Spoons ended up. He
was a political pointee. Lincoln had a great many and
that's why at the upper levels, Confederate Army generally speaking,
(31:03):
was better than the Union Army until near the end
of the war because they the Yankees only had two
general ranks for much of the war brigadier general, major general.
Now the list ended and they had two point eight
million people. President Davis early on I had brigadier general
(31:27):
major general, but he immediately realized they needed another rank,
so he created the rank of general or full general.
And then in the second year of the war he
said that wasn't enough, so he created the rank of
lieutenant general between major general and general, and this helped
(31:48):
the Confederate Army well. Those ranks didn't exist in the
Union Army. They only had one lieutenant general, Ulysses S.
Grant early in the war when field Scott held a
breadt an honorary rack lieutenant general exhausted the list till
near the end of the war, and Lincoln clogged it
(32:14):
with some pretty incompetent people. His friend, Senator Baker was
a brigadier general, and Lincoln was going promoted major general
even though he hadn't seen that action. He only was
stopped because Baker led a raid Confederate line near Leesburg,
(32:41):
Virginia called the battle the Ball's Bluff will across the river,
but he only had four boats, and Confederates acted quickly
under Shank's evans and pushed them back, and Baker was
shot in the head and died. H Lincoln was very upset,
(33:01):
but he couldn't blame Baker for political reasons through his
superior General Stone. It was quite a good general. Foom
in jail said, in prison for over.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
A year.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Without charge or trial, so early on having Lincoln his
commander in chief. And I know some people are going
to hate this. It was a major advantage for the South.
Lincoln had no military experience except ninety days in the
(33:38):
Black Hawk War. All he succeeded in doing there was
getting demoted from captain to private. He never heard of
shot fired and anger. Jefferson Davis was a lieutenant in
the same war. He did one combat patrol, personally captured
Chief Black Hawking ended the war, so a little bit
(33:59):
of b of difference there. He was educated at West Point.
Colonel at commanded the first Mississippi Rifles at Buena Vista,
save the US Army there, and then later it was
an excellent Secretary of War so that was an advantage,
(34:20):
and northern historians don't like to hear that, but it was.
And he knew these people, and he wasn't There weren't
that many politicians at the higher Confederate ranks as there
were in the Union army, and consequently we filled fewer cemeteries. Anyway,
(34:51):
but I.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Hate to interrupt you. We're going good. We're going to
get back to the program in just a minute, but
I do it is time for our pop tart break
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(35:12):
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Speaker 6 (36:52):
Gotten to the SCV after receiving a reward back when
I was in high school. I had no clue what
the SCV was. All I knew was that it was
a rebel flag and it was supposed to be racist.
I decided I would go and look further into it.
Everything that we're taught from a very young age is
(37:14):
that the Confederacy was wrong. They were treason us. It
turns out it wasn't just because the South had slaves.
This is because of a very fundamental principle.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Of big government.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
There's nothing more American than keeping the government in line.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
It's what we were bred to do.
Speaker 6 (37:39):
Comes down from seventeen seventy six Declaration of Independence. Is
because we decided to keep a government that we've beemed
tyrannical in line. That's what the true definition of the
calls is. Me being a young black American and being
a part of the sons of Confederate veterans is a
shock to a lot of people. The black Confederate soldier
(38:04):
would have had to have been one of the hardest
working soldiers there was. These are men who decided to
take up a cause because in the end it was
their own cause. In fact, most owners wanted the slaves
to stay back because that was how they were steadily
(38:25):
making income.
Speaker 5 (38:28):
They made a choice to do something that was bigger
than themselves.
Speaker 6 (38:33):
That's why, as a black Confederate now it is my
beauty that I owe them to do something greater than myself.
Confederate history is American history, and you cannot separate the two.
(38:55):
I am Sammie Travis, descendant of Private Benjamin Row.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Now course, your break is always And before I get
into the next question, I do want to remind everybody
that the links for doctor Mitchum's books are in the
chat below, so please go support them. And so now
I'm probably going to ask you one of the questions
I've been looking forward to because it is a question
(39:45):
that has asked a lot online in the historical world.
It is a very heated debates a lot uh And normally,
of course you get these biased are fake our fake historians,
I like to call them, because you know, historians today
really aren't doing a good job of being historians. But
(40:06):
this is one of the questions that I've been looking
forward to. Yeah, who had the best generals the North
or the South?
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Well, it really depends on when I think the issue
is not a matter of the order of magnitude, but degrees.
They both had pretty good generals. The South early in
the war just clearly had the best general. I mean,
(40:41):
the Union commander was supposed to take Richmond was a
man named McDowell. He was brave and energetic, but he
was a supply officer. He had never held a command.
Their general in chief was Winfield Scott, one of the
greatest generals in American history Street, but he was too
old for this war. He did come up with a
(41:05):
plan that eventually defeated the Confederacy, the Antiknda Plan, but
Lincoln didn't adopt it until the second year of the war. Basically,
there may be a little bit of biased here, but
I think we did overall. Yeah. Part of the problem
(41:29):
the Union generals and any of them got shot and
they'd go home. Confederate Jones got shot, they took a
medical leave, and then they came back to the front,
and that gave us an experience edge. Of course, we
had a lot of generals killed, seventy seven of them,
(41:52):
and a lot of more were crippled. But that was
true enlisted men too. General Grant complained about it. He
said that Union soldier to be captured get released, he'd
go home, he may or may not come back, and
(42:14):
he certainly wouldn't come back for thirty or sixty days.
And he is a Confederate soldier captured, released, He was
back in his unit in two days. I think I
think we did have an edge in the generalship part
(42:36):
of it, because the war was here. If you were
a successful lawyer up north in Rochester, New York, or
Buffalo or somewhere, you might decide to stay home and
pursue your career and try to build it. Or if
you were a dentist or doctor, the same principle might
(42:58):
apply in the South of wars here, and women of
the South, as Sherman and Seaward and the others said,
or a major contributing factor to the Southern Army. I
told the story, I may have told it on this
(43:19):
show about General Sherman captured Savannah and he ordered all
the wives of Confederate generals to leave the city. Well,
they packed their bags and they were ready to leave,
and the Union officers decided they were going to search
(43:40):
the suitcases. Well, the ladies said, you most certainly will not,
so I will not allow you to place your filthy
hands on my sukie drawer. And they didn't. They dug
in and finally ended up for General Sherman. He said,
and women are the hardest cases I ever saw. This
(44:03):
war would have been over long ago if it hadn't
been for you. I believe you'd keep this war going
for thirty years. He turned to his officers, which said,
leave the suitcases alone. Of course they were, you know,
look for jewelry and steel is what they're gonna do.
Speaker 6 (44:23):
And that.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Was a major factor because the Southern men, you know,
if they were in a town, most of them were
small agricultural communities. If you wouldn't go off to war,
you were ostracized. Women wouldn't have anything to do with you.
Story up in farm of a Louisiana here where I live,
(44:49):
illustrated it very well. I never was able to confirm it,
but I believe it now. One boy I just wouldn't
didn't want to go to war. I didn't wasn't patriotic.
He didn't want to get shot. Well, one day he
was walking down the sidewalk and a herd of women
(45:09):
attacked him, go into the sidewalk and put him in address,
and history doesn't record but they put makeup on him
or not, but I hope they did. H the and
(45:30):
that applied to the upper class as well. I mean,
you had your leaders of the community, uh political leaders
and legal leaders, uh businessmen. If they wanted to continue
in their profession after the war, they better put on
(45:55):
a gray uniform. And you know, a lot of it's
patriotism too.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
They were invaded and that meant a lot in eighteen
sixty two, sixty four and so forth. Americans they don't
realize exactly what that meant. The Southerners know, and that's
(46:26):
why we stayed in the field so long. You establishment
historians like to quote the population figures. Most of them
put the Union population at about twenty two point five million,
or Southern population at nine million. And what that does
(46:51):
is minimized the odds because they never segregated out. Three
point five million of that nine million were slaves. And
I would only count them as a military factor if
I believed that they served in the same proportion as
(47:14):
a white Confederate as well. They didn't. I think about years.
I can tell the figures are kind of soft because
of the destruction of documents at the end of the war,
but they were about eighty thousand to ninety six thousand
(47:34):
black Confederate soldiers as opposed to one hundred and ninety
one thousand black Union soldiers. So if you look at
just the light population, which I believe is I don't
know way to properly do it, you have twenty two
(47:55):
and a half million Yankees as opposed to zero point
five Southerners at quarter to one ratio. That's pretty long odds.
And then Lincoln, of course recruited mercenaries and a massive scale.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
He had.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
What was it four to eighty nine and twenty mercenaries
recruited from fifteen foreign countries, many southern prisons. A lot
of the people couldn't even speak English. When Siegel invaded
(48:38):
the Shenandoah, his orders were always translated into German, Hungarian
and English. Mercenaries played a major role. And it's rather
interesting to compare the Germans. You know, in World War two,
(48:58):
most historians can than the best soldiers. In the Civil War,
they're considered among the worst soldiers. And I think the
difference was the cause. The German mercenary was he paid
fifteen bucks a month. He got free passage over you've
(49:21):
already gotten that. And he really wasn't invested in the
union cause, I mean, restore the Union. What did he
care free the slaves? Well, I didn't care much about
that either. And whatever you want to say about Nazi
(49:44):
Germany may not be sure what they believed in that,
they were certainly sold on the idea. And I read
a book by a Confederate surgeon. He said they weren't
much use in combat, but they could drive wagons and
(50:06):
such and release good American soldiers for use at the front.
So an orthe every advantage, Yeah, except courage and brains.
Speaker 5 (50:25):
So I guess that kind of leads up to the
next question. You know, we talked about, you know, some
of the best Union generals, who were some of the
worst Union generals.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
Uh, you know, there was a I think he won
a Pulitzer Prize Gentiles Street, and he listed he talked
about the best in the worst. He listed Braxton Bragg
as worst Confederate in general and under the heading of
(51:01):
worst Union generals, he said, I have no idea, there's
too much competition. To me, Eliza Pain was the worst.
He was West Point graduate, fought the seminoles, got out
(51:26):
the service, became a lawyer and ILLINOI good friend Braham Lincoln,
and they gave him command of a regiment in the brigade,
and he performed poorly everywhere, I mean New Madrid Island
number ten, Siege of Karth And after that they simply
(51:48):
used him in territorial commands, and he commanded Western Tennessee
in western Kentucky at various times. They gave him command
there at Gatlin, Tennessee area, where he developed a reputation
for cruelty. People were shot and hanged without trial or evidence,
(52:15):
and the accusation enough was enough to kill. He was
not interested in the facts. He sometimes put suspects on
old horses and told him to run, and his men
would run him down kill. He hanged more than one
(52:36):
hundred people in the public square of Glacton, Tennessee alone.
One author wrote that he just wanted to see a
dead body. There was a private Dalton who deserted in
the Confederate Army took the earth Allegiance. The next day
(53:00):
pain at him, hauled out and shot him personally six times,
killed him. He was also corrupt. He stole fenced furniture
by the wagon load he sent it back to Dollinois.
He was eventually investigated and found guilty of corruption, extortion, fencing,
(53:22):
stolen goods, unjust taxation, and immoral behavior.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
Lincoln protected him because they were friends, but Sherman finally
got enough of him after formally reprimanded him for brutality
towards civilians. He sent him home. Man has no place
in my army. And if Sherman UH would do that,
(53:49):
you're you're pretty pretty match. Yeah, it was horrible. It's
a general thing. O'Neill who was pretty bad up in
Missouri too, But people like a boil and pain in
(54:09):
Kentucky more Kentucky and served in the Union Army Confederacy
probably about two to win ratio. But they said after
the war Kentucky was the most pro Confederate state there was,
and it was because of bad Union generalship. They put
their second third rate people commanding territories and they did
(54:37):
not win the hearts and minds of the people. In fact,
there were a lot of Confederate raiders and guerrillas and
so forth, and that was one of the reasons. There
were some others I was reigning about some handel fiends
(55:01):
Alexander some heindel Feening. He was a German general. They
hired a lot of mercenaries. This was better than most,
but his troops tended to run away and Gettysburg on
the first day they broke the Confederate better. It's poured
into the town. As you know. Gettysburg on July first
(55:25):
was a Confederate victory. And he got surrounded and he
hid in the covert and then made a brake, for
it was climbing a fence and he had forsythe enough
to remove his badge's rank. And as he was climbing
his fence, Confederate soldier tapped him in the back of
(55:46):
his head with the butt of his rifle and flipped
him over the fence. And he's laying there semi unconscious.
But they didn't know he was a general, so they
left him. They just went on and he then when
they regained his census, took shelter in the only place
(56:07):
he could find, a big sty, and he spent three
days in the big sty. Didn't have any water, and
the only food he hads with the pigs left. But
the Confederates joke later that that was pretty good place
for Union in general. But when Lee retreated on July fifth,
(56:34):
uh he was able to escape ended up occupying Charleston.
He was the first Union general in Charleston, South Carolina.
H So as Union mercenaries went, he was bettered as
a communist. Most of them were, and there was one
(56:55):
called Osterhausen, who might a great deal of respect for
He became a core commander. Sure. But one of my
favorite stories is this private McBride and Mississippi Regiment I
(57:16):
think forty fifth. They were in the Stone River Campaign,
the Battle of Trahoon, and he and his company commander
Captain O'Connor, who told this story, were cut off and
(57:37):
they escaped. Well, the Yankee calvary was on them, and
they came to a fence and it had rained and
they couldn't climb the fence. So they had Yankee calvary
on three sides and the fence and the other. Well,
O'Connor threw up his hands. McBride didn't he He jumped
(57:59):
on the Yankee commanding the Calvert detachment of major and
almost bit his finger off. He ruined his finger before
the Yankees could pull him off, and some of the
Yankees wanted to kill him. And others said, no, he's
a prisoner, we can't do that. And they said, well
that ouster Housen, so he was a Carlis at that point,
(58:24):
Well him decide and they hauled him in front of
him and the German looked him up and down and
then said, I want you to accord him every right
due a prisoner of war. I don't want every one
of you to fight just like he did. Wow. So
(58:48):
there was a lot of variation there. The most of
the German generals were appointed for political reasons, and that
usually led it to a disaster. Lincoln felt like he
needed to do that anyway. That's uh what else he
(59:12):
got there? Moose?
Speaker 5 (59:14):
All right, well, I mean while you were writing these books,
are this book, what are some of the lesser known
Union generals who had an interesting story?
Speaker 4 (59:26):
Oh? There was a that's basically what my book's about.
There were quite a few of them. The I liked
Curtis Newton. Curtis he was a giant of a man.
(59:48):
He was an upstate New York. I read his book
on his Regiment sixteenth New York, and they made it
very clear that he was fighting to preserve of the Union,
not any other reason. Right after Fort Summer, I was
fired on enlisted, and this guy was six foot seven
(01:00:11):
and weighed two hundred and twenty five pounds. At that time,
the average American was in the Union Army was five
foot seven and weighed one hundred and fifty one hundred
and forty three pounds. So he was a giant. And
his family taught tried to talk him out of it,
(01:00:32):
because said, you're so big, you will attract more lead
than anyone else and get yourself killed. He came pretty close,
he was. He was shot. He was fairly seriously wounded
six times, and the last time was the Battle of
(01:00:52):
Fort Fisher, the second one where he won the Congressional
Medal of Honor. But he led the breakthrough that led
to the fall of the fort. Now, the thing about
when you lead a breakthrough like that, the Confederate artillery,
which is slightly behind the lines, can see it, and
they're going to turn every cube against you. And they did.
(01:01:15):
And one of the it was it was rapping on
the arm, but also right below the left eye, which
had destroyed the socket and blinded him in the left eye.
Speaker 5 (01:01:28):
Then he.
Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
So later he got the thirty five years later they
hoarded the Medal of Honor for it. But he was
a very brave man h and later a congressman, and
he tried to get He was in favor of reunification.
(01:01:52):
There was some other good ones. Frederick Steele captured Little
Rocket virtually no costs. He was not popular with the administration.
He married a Southern woman and he treated Southern civilians well,
(01:02:15):
and they called him a copperhead behind his back, but
he was very good at what he did. Later played
a major role in the capture of Mobile. I liked him.
He was killed in a carriage accident in San Francisco
a couple of years after the war. Phil Carney was
(01:02:41):
one of the more interesting ones. He was a very
rich man. He inherited a fortunate modern equivalent of twenty
five million dollars, so he didn't have to do anything.
He could live a life of wealth and privilege. Instead,
he joined the US Army, fought in Mexico, became an
(01:03:05):
aid to Winfield Scott, who called him the bravest man
I ever met. Surebisco. His arm was ready lost his
left arm, but he was making of the army despite
his wealth. When his marriage fell apart, so he shocked
(01:03:29):
up with this other woman in an era when they
didn't do that. They can get away with it today,
I'm sure, but not then, and he was forced to resign,
went to Paris, had a child by his mistress, and
then his wife finally decided to grant him a divorce,
(01:03:51):
so he came back to the States, joined the army
when the war began, Like say, didn't have to outfitted
his own caboy unit at his own expense, and was
very brave and quite successful for a while. But after
(01:04:12):
the defeat of the Union army at the Second Manassas,
Abraham Lincoln was even considering him make him come under
of the Army of the Potomac, but that Tenttilli or
ox Hill. Right after Second Manassas, he blundered in to
the line of the forty ninth Georgia and they ordered
(01:04:36):
him to surrender, and he shouted at his aid they
couldn't hit a barn. He turned and ran away, and
guess what forty ninth Georgia could hit a barn? Shot
him right through the heart, and ap Hill came up
(01:04:56):
shortly thereafter. He was friends at the carnif from the
old army and said Carney deserved a better faith than
to die in the mud, but he did. His death
reminded me of James McPherson, the army commander up there
(01:05:18):
in Atlanta. He blundered into Confederate lines and was in
his aid. His aide had sense enough when they were
name to surrender. He actually surrendered, and McPherson made a
break for it, and they shot him dead. And the
Confederates asked the aid who was this general, And the
(01:05:43):
aide said, sir, you have killed the best man in
our army. They named it to Ford up in Georgia
after McPherson. Now there were quite a few lesser knowns.
(01:06:03):
I liked green Clay Smith. He was Caul Clay's, part
of the famous Henry Clay family. He could have enjoyed
a life of wealth and privilege his whole life, but
he volunteered for service in the Mexican War service lieutenant.
(01:06:27):
He was a Unionist. He had slaves, but he thought
the war was the preservation of the Union. He joined
it and was promoted rapidly colonel brigadier general. And he
faced John Morgan and always came out second best. And Boyle,
(01:06:57):
the commander of the district up there, wrote Highick a dyspatchy,
can't you take General Smith off our hands? He went
by the last nae Smith, and they did relieve him
and just kept him around for court martials or whatever.
(01:07:24):
So he was a poor general, but he was a
much better man than he was a general. He went
to Congress, was governor of Montana Territory for a few years,
but mainly it was a pastor from I think it
was eight don't quote me, in years eighteen sixty nine
(01:07:47):
to the turn of the century. Is very good at it,
holding with bibles and whatever. So you run across this
from several places. Some men are a better better men
than there were generals, other than which were better generals.
And there were men some were good at both and
(01:08:08):
some were good at neither. I don't ever, I don't
know if I ever told you about General Scott. Robert Scott.
He was a good general. Then later became the carpetbagger
governor of South Carolina, where he stole everything it wasn't
(01:08:32):
red hot or tied down, and he finally had to
flee the state. But he was rich in South Carolina
as a result of the reconstruction era didn't pay off
their reconstruction debts until nineteen fifty five. Scott went home wealthy.
(01:09:00):
His fifteen year old son was an alcoholic, and one
night he didn't come home, and Scott figured he spent
the night with this twenty three year old man. Draw
your own conclusions, and he went to the guy's house
and he asked to see his son, and I refused
(01:09:22):
to allow him to Nope, he's sleep, you can't bother.
And then, according to Scott has gun somehow discharged and
killed the twenty three year old. Well, they put him
on trial and apparently bribed the jury because it's pretty
(01:09:44):
obvious he'd kill this fellow. But he was acquitted, and
a lynch mob decided they were going to take out Scott,
and they came to his house and Scott met him
with two charls of whiskey and a handful of bringbacks,
(01:10:04):
and the mob stopped and decided that they would abide
by the decision of the court. They took the money
in the whiskey left, and that's where we get the
term getting off Scott free. Other union generals were much different.
General Grifson he was a Oh did you see the
(01:10:30):
movie The horse soldiers from John Wayne. He was the
one that Colonel Marlow was supposted and patterned on, but
extremely loosely. John Wayne in that movie was nothing like
the real Grifson. He was a section hand in the movie.
(01:10:52):
In reality he was a music teacher. He liked to
compose songs, and he didn't like horses. But General Sherman
said he was the best cavalry officer he ever saw.
Speaker 5 (01:11:04):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:11:05):
Every time he fought a battle, he won, unless the
commander was General Forrest, which case he never won. But
the people Mississippi respected him uh because he he Uh.
(01:11:25):
If one of his soldiers got out of line as civilian,
Gerson would come down on him like a ton of bricks. Uh.
If you were a Union soldier and you wanted dinner
the home of a Southern person, he knocked on the
door and you were not allowed to steal. And he
(01:11:47):
kept under tight control. And later he he commanded US
Colored Troops USC T the official name uh uh out
west the Buffalo soldiers and helped establish their reputation. Uh.
He was the one who defeated Geronimo. And the idea
(01:12:10):
was that take the USC two troops, put them around
every water hole, the apaches would have to attack and
they would outnumber the Black troops. But uh, you know,
it was obvious where they were coming from, and there
(01:12:31):
was no element of surprise, and they were able to
force Geronimo back to the reservation. So person Liston had
a brain.
Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Hm.
Speaker 4 (01:12:47):
Anyway, there were a lot of a lot of generals
that nobody ever heard of, which is the focus of
my books, both Encyclopedia of Union Generals and Encyclopedia Confederate Generals.
(01:13:08):
We're going to meet some people in there that you
you never heard of before, and some of them are
actually at a five.
Speaker 5 (01:13:21):
Well, as we kind of wrap up tonight's episode, I
know the question we kind of ask every time we
wrap up, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Are you
working on any books right now? Is there anything you
can tell us about that?
Speaker 4 (01:13:40):
Yes, I was an author with a regulary history that
they've been bought out by Skyhorse and sky Horst is
now going to do this one, The Death of Veitler's
War Machine, my last World War Two book in paperback.
(01:14:03):
I'm running a magnus opus, The Rise and Fall of
the Southern Confederacy. It's going to be about two hundred
thousand words could be a big book, but it's pretty
ambitious to cover the whole history of the Confederacy in
one volume. We may have to do too, and if
(01:14:26):
we do, it will be Volume one will be the
rise of the Confederacy. Volume two will be the Fall
of the Confederacy, and it will be possible to purchase
one volume without the other. Whatever you're interested in. And also,
(01:14:49):
there's a man called Joe con Jimmy from the Duck
Dynasty family. His family in merit into It. I call
him Jersey Joe on the podcast. He's the last man
that Phil Robertson mentored. As matter of fact, he was
(01:15:11):
with Phil the day died, and he decided he wanted
to write a book about Phil how it changed his life.
In fact, he's from New Jersey. They call him Jersey Joe,
and his life was a mess, but he was very
(01:15:31):
successful in his business as fire chief. He went down
to the basement of the fire department one day, tried
to click on a pornographic movie and Doug Dynasty came home.
He never heard of it, and he decided that these
(01:15:55):
people down in Louisiana, that's something he lacked, something he
wanted and he had no idea it was over. He
was going to meet Phil Robertson, but he came to
our church. Phil and I were tending the same church
at that time. Phil always did the sermon and he
(01:16:18):
had me lead communion and we sat each by each
other for four and a half years, which was a
real privement. And anyway, he liked what he saw and
he told his wife when he got when they got home,
(01:16:38):
get packed, we're moving to Louisiana. And they did. And uh,
I say, it changed his life and he now preachers
and teachers and Phil mender ord him. He was he
was the last one. Phil got to mentor and he
(01:17:06):
decided to write a book, and he approached me so
he wanted me to write it, and he would tell
me what to write. It's because I can't write. And
turns out he undressed about it himself. He's not a
bad writer.
Speaker 6 (01:17:23):
But we're.
Speaker 4 (01:17:25):
We're putting that together now we're about half to well.
Speaker 5 (01:17:29):
That is definitely awesome. You know, for those who don't know,
a lot of my farm businesses and a lot of
my duck hunting businesses. Of course, I took a lot
of inspiration from field spiritually and business wise. So that
is that is awesome. I can't wait to read those
books you're working on. I can't wait to have you
(01:17:51):
on to talk about him either.
Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
Well, eventually i'd like to get know on your show
and talk about phil Southern culture. Like I say, he
he left New Jersey for.
Speaker 5 (01:18:11):
A reason, Well, you let him know. The doors open anytime.
We'd love to have him on. As we tell everybody,
we don't just focus on eighteen sixty one to eighteen
sixty five on this show, because Southern history and heritage
goes all the way from Jamestown in sixteen oh seven
all the way to present day. We have a very
(01:18:32):
rich history, very proud Southern history, and is something we
need to be talking about more because, as Carl has said,
you know, people have been taught to hate their Southern history.
And how can they be proud of their Confederate history
if they're not proud of their Southern history. So you
(01:18:53):
let him know that anytime he wants to come on,
just let us know. And as always, doctor Mitcham, it's
been great to have you on. I'm sure we're going
to talk some more behind the scenes like we always do,
but it is great to have you back on the show.
I ask everybody please share this episode out, help us out,
(01:19:13):
and of course one more plug. The links to both books,
the Confederate Generals and Union General Book is in the chat.
Please go support doctor mitchrim again. He's a phenomenal historian
and author. I've always had a great time reading his books,
and from someone that is dyslexic, it is very helpful
(01:19:34):
to have a book that's engaging. Also when you have ADHD,
it helps me learn and one of the easiest books
I've been able to pick up and understand and learn history.
So please go support doctor Mitchell on these new books.
Even I'm going to buy the Union General Book. I
like to mess with doctor mitchm about that because when
(01:19:57):
he told me about it, I was like, he's like,
you gonna buy I copy. I was like, well, I'll try.
That's my nice way of saying I wasn't, but I
am going to buy one now. I think it'd be
a very interesting read. And of course you need to
know all avenues of history if you're going to be
able to talk about it. But again, please support Docu
(01:20:19):
Minchrum with those links below. Can't wait to have you
back on again, doctor mitchrum. I do want to remind
everybody the two hundred and fiftieth are two yeah, two
hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is coming up.
So we have a great shirt for you to celebrate
that the South is right in eighteen sixty one because
(01:20:39):
America is right in seventeen seventy six. Make sure you
have that for your Fourth of July celebrations in twenty
twenty six as well as again, please pick up the
Encyclopedia of Union Generals and the Encyclopedias of Confederate Generals. Again,
we want to thank all of our Patreon members. We
(01:21:01):
did get a new Patreon member. It was Elliott Jackson,
so thank you for joining us, Elliott, and we appreciate
your support of the show. Thank you all for watching.
I cannot wait to see y'all Thursday. Make sure to
tune in Thursday, same Confederate time, same Confederate channel for
your weekly episode to look around the Confederation. Please send
(01:21:23):
in some news. We will have a division on. I'm
drawing a blank, but I believe it's the Arizona Division
that's gonna come on and talk about some interesting things,
so I'm looking forward to that. So again, I can't
wait to see y'all Thursday. Make sure to share this
out and until next time, Chattheads, remember no fu mar
(01:21:44):
in the elevator. Good night, everybody a
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