Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The American Civil War

080 - Moment Of Decision: The Election of 1864

About this episode: 
Presidential elections essentially boil down to a popular mandate, either supporting an incumbent’s administration or repudiating it. Never was that clearer than in 1864 when some four million people went to the polls to either re-elect Abraham Lincoln or oust him. At the election’s core: to stay the course and finish the war or admit it a failure and call for a cessation of hostilities. Such were the weighty consequences surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s quest for a second term. This is the story of a nation’s moment of decision. This is the story of the presidential election of 1864. 
  

079 - What If The Confederacy Won The American Civil War?

About this episode: 
For millennia humans have reflected on historical events. Quite often, one poses the timeless question: what if - had a life been spared or taken, had a candidate won rather than lost and, as it relates to this episode, what if a battle or war ended differently? So, with a degree of trepidation, we address that last question and will do so through the works of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and two university professors. With writing fueled by incredible imagination and plots, characters and consequences drawn from factual trends and themes, we offer three stories from the genre of alternative and counterfactual history. Three stories that address “what if” the South had won the American Civil War.    
         

078 - Drive on the Heart of the Confederacy: The Atlanta Campaign

About this episode: 
Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant understood numbers. And, in the spring of 1864, he intended to use the North’s advantage in men and materiel to pressure, stretch and snap the Confederacy at multiple points.  And so, he ordered simultaneous campaigns. As Abraham Lincoln put it, “those not skinning can hold a leg.” Three were to begin in Virginia: at Bermuda Hundred, into the Shenandoah Valley and across the Rapidan into the Wilderness. One was to be launched on the Red River in Louisiana and, finally, a campaign from Chattanooga, Tennessee. One that was aimed at the very heart of the Confederacy. This is the story of that campaign. This is the story of William Tecumseh Sherman’s drive on Atlanta. 
         

077 - "Stirring Violent Passions" - Civil War Prisons and Prisoners of War

About this episode: 
Too often, we think only of wild assaults, the terrible collision of armed men, the desperate fighting of soldiers - often, hand to hand - and the killed and wounded but, in the American Civil War, we tend to overlook what happened to another element that comprised battle casualties: Those captured. This is the story about the American Civil War’s prisoners of war. This is also the story of the prisons that contained them. 
         

076 - Prelude To 1860: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

About this episode: 
As we’ve seen in the one presidential debate this election year, a performance has consequences.  Although it was not for the office of chief executive, we turn over time’s shoulder to speak of another storied debate - in 1858 and for the office of U.S. senator.  This is the story of a series of face-to-face confrontations that may not have had immediate ramifications but most certainly resonated two years later when, on the eve of civil war, the two both pursued the office of President of The United States.  This is the story of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. 
         

075 - "It Was Not War; It Was Murder" - North Anna and Cold Harbor

About this episode: 
Washington City was buzzing with anxiety. It was the middle of May 1864 and no news had arrived from Virginia for days. Then, finally, in flurries, it came - word from the front and it was most welcome. Grant was posed to strike a mortal blow. Readers clutched papers that, in bold print, screamed “Extra.” Unable to concentrate, Congress adjourned for three days. At 10 pm on the evening of May 11th, the President moved out onto the Executive Mansion portico where, before him, a massive crowd sprawled on the lawn. He announced the times as dramatic and, in his high, reedy voice, Mr. Lincoln read a message from Grant, “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” And, indeed, it would. To the tune of Union casualties that numbered as many or more as Robert E. Lee had in his Confederate army. This is the story of two more Overland Campaign collisions between Lee and Grant. Two more that continued to bleed both armies. This is the story of the battles at the North Anna and Cold Harbor.
         

074 - Confederate Cavalier: J.E.B. Stuart

About this episode: 
With gray cape lined with red satin and ostrich plume in hat, he was the beau ideal of the cavalier South. He rode and campaigned with Sam Sweeney on banjo and Mulatto Bob on the bones. At times, one wondered was it war or just a lark. Despite all the showy display, he was Robert E. Lee’s “eyes and ears” and his reconnaissance set the table for battles and campaigns. And, in doing so, he came across as a knight in shining armor on a holy quest - a happy warrior in the middle of a desperate war. A dashing adventurer who loved to see his name in headlines, there were some who believed that for him, the contest was a constant quest for glory. And, sometimes, that propensity got himself, his comrades and the commander he dearly loved in trouble. This is the story of a man whose exploits paved the way for Confederate victories, and, to many, one of its greatest defeats. This is the story of James Ewell Brown Stuart. 
         

073 - The Confederacy's Last First Lady: Varina Howell Davis

About this episode: 
She was witty, intelligent and a great conversationalist: everything that raised the eyebrows of proper Southern women in the mid-19th century. And then, she married the man who became the first and only President of the Confederacy. Wedded to her fate with him and a doomed nation, her life was filled with trying times. She was, if you will, locked in a personal civil war as she struggled to reconcile her societal duties with strong individual beliefs. This is the story of a remarkably resilient woman who served as the Confederacy's First Lady. This is the story of Varina Howell Davis.
         

072 - The Dawning Of A New Age: The Fight Between The USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia

About this episode: 
For those aboard the fifty-gun USS Congress, it had been a quiet morning. Its crew, as usual, prepared the twenty-year-old vessel for inspection which would be held the next day. Meanwhile, the ship’s quartermaster gazed out over Hampton Roads which glistened under a late winter sun. All seemed normal. And then, at 12:45 p.m., a column of heavy black smoke. Curiosity aroused, the quartermaster turned to a fellow officer, handed him his glass and asked for him to take a look. Their gaze created concern. Indeed, as the quartermaster put it, at last, “that thing is a-comin”. Something no one had ever seen before. Its mission - to change the course of the war. It was Saturday, March 8, 1862, and one vessel, an ironclad, was about to alter centuries of naval warfare. This is the story of technology turning a page. This is the story of the Duel between the Ironclads.
  
                    

071 - Edwin McMasters Stanton: Lincoln's "Unloved" Secretary Of War

About this episode: 
When exercising power, the 16th President’s stocky and sphinxlike Secretary of War could demonstrate a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Personally honest, he could be unforgiving and given to histrionics when he thought them necessary. And again, when required, warm hearted, selfless and patriotic. In charge of the Union’s land-based operations, he made tough decisions and did so with little regard for those affected by those decisions. His mission was to win the war and he pursued that purpose with relentless fury. In doing so, far too many simply remembered him as the “unloved Secretary of War”. In the pantheon that was Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet, this is the story of his Mars. This is the story of Edwin McMasters Stanton.   
                    

070 - Combatting The Invisible Enemy: Medicine During The Civil War

About this episode: 
For most of us, our mental snapshot of 19th-century battlefield medicine is captured when Union Major General Carl Schurz recorded a ghastly scene at Gettysburg: “There stood the surgeons, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows … [One] surgeon snatched his knife from between his teeth …, wiped it rapidly once or twice across his bloodstained apron, and the cutting began. The operation accomplished, the surgeon would look around with a deep sigh, and then – 'Next!'”  Relying on first-hand accounts, meticulous statistics and research, we share a side of the conflict that few who fought wanted to think about and, particularly, experience.  For our 70th episode, we tell the story of Civil War Medicine.
                    

069 - Fredericksburg Revisited

About this episode: 
Back in December of 2018, we told the story of an engagement that took place along the banks of the Rappahannock and detailed events that took place afterwards.  Now, five years later, we return to that story but with greater detail, and the addition of first person accounts.  Once again, we would like to take you back to November and December 1862, when yet another Federal commander wanted Richmond but, in order to do that, had to take a sleepy little town almost halfway between the Southern capital and Washington City. Once again, we return to stories not only about men in battle but men showing compassion for one another - yes, even for those deemed their enemy.  This is story of the Battle of Fredericksburg, revisited. 
                        

068 - The Confederacy’s Last Salvo - The Career of the CSS Shenandoah

About this episode: 
By 1864, a desperate Confederacy realized it must resort to desperate measures.  Measures not only confined to land battles and trying to break the Union blockade, but the procuring and use of commerce raiders which would scour the oceans to wreak havoc on the North’s vast merchant marine.  Anything to create economic hardship. Anything to doom Abraham Lincoln’s chances for reelection.  This is the story of one such raider.  This is the story of the CSS Shenandoah. 
                        

067 - Return to the ”Daughter of the Stars” - The Valley Campaign of 1864

About this episode: 
The Native Americans referred to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley as “Daughter of the Stars.” Yet, both the Federal Union and the Confederacy knew it to be the “Breadbasket of Virginia” - and that made it a theater for military operations. Both sides very aware of “Stonewall” Jackson’s assessment in 1862, “If the Valley is lost, then Virginia is lost.” Played out in 1864, this is the story of the dramatic ebb and flow to control that strategic site. This is the story of the Second Valley Campaign.
                        

066 - Waging War: Strategy, Tactics, Arms and Technology in the American Civil War

About this episode: 
This time around, a different delivery, a different approach. Rather than anecdotes and stories from a biography, battle or campaign, this time a series of facts, figures, theories and themes that set the stage for waging civil war. This session: Strategy, Tactics, Arms and Technology - a basis for understanding why our civil conflict was so long and so costly.
                        

065 - The Soldier’s Friend: Clara Barton

About this episode: 
It was over 140 years ago that the American Red Cross was founded. Though most know its founder, few know the details of her lifetime of charity, sacrifice and service. This is an attempt to correct that. This is the story of an American pioneer - an American hero. This is the story of Clara Barton.
                        

064 - Taking Down The Citadel: The Siege of Vicksburg

About this episode: 
In the first days of the American Civil War, Winfield Scott, the then 74-year-old Union General-in-Chief, advised a strategy that he believed was key in putting down the Southern rebellion.  Derisively tabbed the “Anaconda” Plan, Scott believed: one, the Border States had to be held and used as avenues for invasion; two, Southern ports should be blockaded and, third, to split the Confederacy, the Mississippi River should become a Union highway.  This is the story of the incredible campaign that made Scott’s third element reality.  This is the story of Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign and siege of Vicksburg.
                        

063 - Then And Now: The Lost Cause

About this episode: 
It was January 1872. In Lexington, Virginia and on the campus of recently re-named Washington and Lee College, former Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early was on a mission: a mission to venerate Robert E. Lee, and to give Southerners a positive spin on their defeat - not only to address the recent past, but to arm them and their descendants with, as he and his disciples put it, a “correct” narrative of the war. This is the story of an ideology that simmers even to this day. This is the story of the creation and foundations of the Lost Cause.  
                        

062 - ”...Hell Can’t Beat That Terrible Scene”: Spotsylvania Court House

About this episode: 
It was May 1864 and Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign was underway. After two days of violence in the Wilderness and a swing to the southeast, weary men from the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac found themselves eyeball to eyeball yet again. The fighting to come: savage, up close, personal, hand to hand. The consequences: bloody, even ghastly. This is the story of the most vicious episode of sustained combat ever to occur on the North American continent. This is the story of Spotsylvania Court House.

061 - Duty, Honor, Countries: The West Point Class of 1846

About this episode: 
The United States Military Academy has a long and distinguished history. Established in 1802, its stated mission continues to be “to educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army.” Six decades after its creation, that mission took on new and unusual interpretation, for their country was at war with itself. All too often, fellow alums and classmates - all trained on the west bank of the Hudson River - were pitted against one another. This is the story of one prominent class that found itself caught in that tragic dilemma. This is the story of the West Point Class of 1846.