WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.339 I want you to imagine just for a second a conflict 00:00:02.339 --> 00:00:06.879 that is so transformative and well so utterly 00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:09.859 devastating that it claims the lives of up to 00:00:09.859 --> 00:00:13.779 a million people. Like imagine a war that basically 00:00:13.779 --> 00:00:17.000 introduces the entire world to the terrifying 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.500 mechanized horrors of modern industrial combat 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:24.370 and in the process. It fundamentally rewrites 00:00:24.370 --> 00:00:27.070 the very definition of freedom for an entire 00:00:27.070 --> 00:00:29.329 nation. Yeah, and the really staggering part 00:00:29.329 --> 00:00:33.630 of that image is realizing this wasn't an invasion 00:00:33.630 --> 00:00:36.829 by some foreign power. This was a nation literally 00:00:36.829 --> 00:00:38.869 tearing itself apart from the inside. We're talking 00:00:38.869 --> 00:00:41.750 neighborhood by neighborhood with battlefields 00:00:41.750 --> 00:00:44.070 just erupting in farm fields in people's front 00:00:44.070 --> 00:00:46.710 yards. It's wild. And for you listening, as someone 00:00:46.710 --> 00:00:48.829 who loves to learn, you probably already know 00:00:48.829 --> 00:00:51.210 the basic dates and the major players of the 00:00:51.210 --> 00:00:52.810 American Civil War. You've heard of Lincoln, 00:00:53.090 --> 00:00:55.329 Lee, Gettysburg, all of that. Right, the standard 00:00:55.329 --> 00:00:58.310 textbook stuff. Exactly. But our mission today 00:00:58.310 --> 00:01:00.869 isn't to just walk you through a dry textbook 00:01:00.869 --> 00:01:03.929 timeline. In today's deep dive into the source 00:01:03.929 --> 00:01:06.890 material, which is this massive, really comprehensive 00:01:06.890 --> 00:01:09.829 encyclopedic breakdown of the conflict, we are 00:01:09.829 --> 00:01:12.329 entirely bypassing the standard overview. We're 00:01:12.329 --> 00:01:14.780 digging into the good stuff. Yeah. We are uncovering 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:17.159 the hidden mechanics, those weird technological 00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:20.760 aha moments, and the incredible personal stories 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:22.659 that usually just get left in the margins. I 00:01:22.659 --> 00:01:24.859 mean, we are talking about everything from the 00:01:24.859 --> 00:01:27.439 bizarre economic blunders that doomed an empire 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:30.620 to women fighting on the front lines in complete 00:01:30.620 --> 00:01:33.079 disguise. Because when you strip away the mythology, 00:01:33.739 --> 00:01:36.780 it really reveals the sheer logistical, economic, 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:39.659 and political machinery that drove four years 00:01:39.659 --> 00:01:42.480 of just unprecedented bloodshed. It becomes way 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:45.939 less a story. of marble statues and oil paintings, 00:01:46.099 --> 00:01:48.620 and much more a story of frantic innovation and 00:01:48.620 --> 00:01:50.540 these brutal learning curves. OK, let's unpack 00:01:50.540 --> 00:01:52.459 this. Because before the massive armies ever 00:01:52.459 --> 00:01:54.459 even clashed on a battlefield, there was this 00:01:54.459 --> 00:01:57.060 incredibly high stakes political tightrope walk. 00:01:57.480 --> 00:01:59.459 And the match that finally dropped into the powder 00:01:59.459 --> 00:02:02.120 keg was the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln. 00:02:02.379 --> 00:02:04.420 Right. So Lincoln represented the new Republican 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:06.780 Party, which vehemently opposed the expansion 00:02:06.780 --> 00:02:09.379 of slavery into new Western territories. And 00:02:09.379 --> 00:02:11.659 when he won the presidency, without securing 00:02:11.659 --> 00:02:15.000 a single electoral vote from the South. I mean, 00:02:15.139 --> 00:02:18.060 none. It triggered a massive immediate chain 00:02:18.060 --> 00:02:21.580 reaction. Seven deep South states seceded almost 00:02:21.580 --> 00:02:24.159 overnight. Just like that. Just like that. And 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:26.159 these were states whose entire riverfront and 00:02:26.159 --> 00:02:28.620 coastal economies were completely reliant on 00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:31.659 a singular economic engine, which was cotton 00:02:31.659 --> 00:02:35.259 cultivated by enslaved labor. And the documentation 00:02:35.259 --> 00:02:38.099 from the era leaves absolutely zero ambiguity 00:02:38.099 --> 00:02:41.090 about the motivations behind this split. Looking 00:02:41.090 --> 00:02:43.650 at the historical consensus in our sources, these 00:02:43.650 --> 00:02:46.389 states explicitly seceded to preserve the institution 00:02:46.389 --> 00:02:50.189 of slavery. They really did. Mississippi's secession 00:02:50.189 --> 00:02:52.389 declaration, for example, flat out stated, and 00:02:52.389 --> 00:02:54.509 I'm quoting here, our position is thoroughly 00:02:54.509 --> 00:02:56.949 identified with the institution of slavery, the 00:02:56.949 --> 00:02:59.169 greatest material interest of the world. Yeah, 00:02:59.210 --> 00:03:02.229 and that declaration created an immediate, highly 00:03:02.229 --> 00:03:05.590 volatile standoff. As these states formed the 00:03:05.590 --> 00:03:08.030 Confederacy, they just began seizing federal 00:03:08.030 --> 00:03:12.039 property. Mints? arsenals, military forts right 00:03:12.039 --> 00:03:14.000 within their borders. Which puts the outgoing 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:16.780 U .S. president, James Buchanan, in a terrible 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:19.520 spot, right? Well, yeah, and he completely paralyzed 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:22.120 the federal response. He argued that states didn't 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:24.300 have the constitutional right to secede, sure, 00:03:24.539 --> 00:03:26.620 but he simultaneously claimed he had no legal 00:03:26.620 --> 00:03:29.180 authority to actually stop them by force. Oh, 00:03:29.180 --> 00:03:31.919 wow. So he just he did nothing. Pretty much nothing. 00:03:32.300 --> 00:03:34.340 So by the time Lincoln is actually inaugurated 00:03:34.340 --> 00:03:38.120 in March 1861, he inherits this massive ticking 00:03:38.120 --> 00:03:41.110 time bomb. Most notably at Fort Sumter, which 00:03:41.110 --> 00:03:42.990 was sitting right smack in the middle of the 00:03:42.990 --> 00:03:45.250 harbor in Charleston, South Carolina. Right, 00:03:45.250 --> 00:03:47.430 so the troops inside Fort Sumter are entirely 00:03:47.430 --> 00:03:49.729 surrounded by hostile Confederate forces, and 00:03:49.729 --> 00:03:51.949 they are literally running out of food. Completely 00:03:51.949 --> 00:03:54.229 cut off. I was reading how Lincoln handled this, 00:03:54.229 --> 00:03:57.009 and it feels like a brilliant trap. He tells 00:03:57.009 --> 00:03:59.129 the governor of South Carolina that he is sending 00:03:59.129 --> 00:04:03.030 a ship to the fort, but he explicitly promises 00:04:03.030 --> 00:04:05.849 that the ship will only carry provisions for 00:04:05.849 --> 00:04:09.639 the starving men inside. No ammunition exactly 00:04:09.639 --> 00:04:12.919 no ammunition. No reinforcements just bread and 00:04:12.919 --> 00:04:15.840 food Lincoln understood that hostilities were 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:18.560 highly probable But he needed to ensure that 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:21.240 if a war started the Confederacy would be the 00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:24.360 ones firing the first shots He placed the burden 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:26.740 of starting the war squarely on their shoulders. 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:28.519 It makes me think of a game of chess, right? 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:31.399 Where you put your opponent in swing swing? Yeah, 00:04:31.740 --> 00:04:33.379 that board position where any move the opponent 00:04:33.379 --> 00:04:35.540 makes is going to actively hurt them. He trapped 00:04:35.540 --> 00:04:38.639 them. If the South lets the food ships through, 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:41.519 the Union maintains a heavily armed federal fort 00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:43.639 right in the middle of the Confederacy's most 00:04:43.639 --> 00:04:46.339 important harbor, projecting federal authority. 00:04:47.259 --> 00:04:49.879 But if the South opens fire on an unarmed ship 00:04:49.879 --> 00:04:52.040 that is merely bringing bread to starving men, 00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:54.379 they instantly become the aggressors and they 00:04:54.379 --> 00:04:56.420 totally lose the moral high ground on the world 00:04:56.420 --> 00:04:59.860 stage. What's fascinating here is how this single, 00:05:00.339 --> 00:05:03.100 mostly bloodless maneuver completely galvanized 00:05:03.100 --> 00:05:07.040 both sides. On April 12, 1861, the Confederacy 00:05:07.040 --> 00:05:08.980 took the bait. They fired. They opened fire. 00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:12.139 They launched something like 4 ,000 shells at 00:05:12.139 --> 00:05:14.899 Fort Sumter. Wow. The fort surrendered the very 00:05:14.899 --> 00:05:18.879 next day. But that bombardment ignited this massive, 00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:21.870 impassioned, patriotic fire. all across the North. 00:05:22.490 --> 00:05:24.769 Lincoln called for 75 ,000 militiamen to put 00:05:24.769 --> 00:05:27.149 down the rebellion, and Northern states met that 00:05:27.149 --> 00:05:29.790 quota almost instantly. And then the South reacts 00:05:29.790 --> 00:05:32.810 to that mobilization. Exactly. In direct response 00:05:32.810 --> 00:05:35.829 to that massive military buildup, four more Southern 00:05:35.829 --> 00:05:38.209 states, including Virginia, seceded and joined 00:05:38.209 --> 00:05:40.649 the Confederacy. So the chess game was over. 00:05:40.850 --> 00:05:42.819 The physical war had actually begun. And that 00:05:42.819 --> 00:05:46.060 transition from political maneuvering to physical 00:05:46.060 --> 00:05:49.279 combat seems incredibly brutal because once that 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:51.959 trigger was pulled at Sumter, this romanticized, 00:05:51.959 --> 00:05:54.720 you know, 19th century idea of a quick, glorious 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:57.560 war violently collided with the terrifying reality 00:05:57.560 --> 00:05:59.480 of the Industrial Revolution. It was a horrific 00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:01.519 wake up call. We are moving from diplomatic letters 00:06:01.519 --> 00:06:04.100 to a literal technological meat grinder. Right. 00:06:04.259 --> 00:06:06.519 The scale of the military buildup is difficult 00:06:06.519 --> 00:06:09.879 to even overstate. Yeah. In 1860, the US Army 00:06:09.879 --> 00:06:13.060 was this tiny frontier force of about 16 ,000 00:06:13.060 --> 00:06:15.779 men. Just 16 ,000. Yeah, that's it. But within 00:06:15.779 --> 00:06:18.759 a few short years, both the Union and the Confederacy 00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:21.980 had built the largest, most technologically advanced 00:06:21.980 --> 00:06:24.560 armies in the entire world, numbering in the 00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:27.000 millions. Which is an insane leap. And to feed 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.759 that insatiable machine, both sides eventually 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:32.779 had to resort to drafting soldiers. Conscription 00:06:32.779 --> 00:06:35.660 laws were enacted and they were intensely unpopular 00:06:35.660 --> 00:06:38.060 on both sides of the border. So unpopular that 00:06:38.060 --> 00:06:41.360 it created this bizarre almost comical criminal 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:43.740 enterprise in the north. The materials mention 00:06:43.740 --> 00:06:46.399 these men known as bounty jumpers. Oh, the bounty 00:06:46.399 --> 00:06:48.459 jumpers, yeah. Because individual states and 00:06:48.459 --> 00:06:50.899 local towns were so desperate to meet their enlistment 00:06:50.899 --> 00:06:52.939 quotas without forcing their own citizens to 00:06:52.939 --> 00:06:55.639 go, they started offering massive cash bonuses 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:58.300 to anyone who would just volunteer. So these 00:06:58.300 --> 00:07:01.040 enterprising criminals would enlist, collect 00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:03.360 the thick envelope of cash, wait until nightfall 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:05.819 to desert the army camp and then just take a 00:07:05.819 --> 00:07:07.839 train to the next town. They would slap on a 00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:10.620 fake name, maybe a fake mustache and enlist all 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:13.649 over again to get another bonus. I mean, without 00:07:13.649 --> 00:07:16.209 centralized photo identification or fingerprinting, 00:07:16.569 --> 00:07:19.250 it was a remarkably easy scam to pull off, at 00:07:19.250 --> 00:07:21.149 least until the military caught on. Did they 00:07:21.149 --> 00:07:23.110 catch a lot of them? The military actually ended 00:07:23.110 --> 00:07:26.910 up catching and executing 141 of these bounty 00:07:26.910 --> 00:07:29.930 jumpers. Oh, wow. OK, so not so comical in the 00:07:29.930 --> 00:07:32.910 end. No, not at all. And while men were actively 00:07:32.910 --> 00:07:36.089 dodging the draft, the actual tools of war were 00:07:36.089 --> 00:07:38.819 advancing at a terrifying speed. This was one 00:07:38.819 --> 00:07:41.220 of the first true industrial wars. You had railroads 00:07:41.220 --> 00:07:44.220 moving entire divisions across the country in 00:07:44.220 --> 00:07:47.060 days instead of months. And the telegraph. Yes. 00:07:47.459 --> 00:07:49.860 Telegraphs allowed commanders to coordinate simultaneous 00:07:49.860 --> 00:07:52.120 attacks across different states in real time. 00:07:52.779 --> 00:07:55.899 And perhaps most famously, naval warfare changed 00:07:55.899 --> 00:07:58.060 literally overnight with the clash of ironclad 00:07:58.060 --> 00:08:00.319 warships. You're talking about the USS Monitor 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:03.980 versus the CSS Virginia? Exactly. The Confederacy 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:06.879 recognized they couldn't outbuild the Union Navy, 00:08:07.220 --> 00:08:09.259 so they tried to out -innovate it. They took 00:08:09.259 --> 00:08:11.839 the hull of a sunken Union ship, essentially 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.259 bolted a slanted iron roof onto it, and sent 00:08:15.259 --> 00:08:17.680 it out to break the Union naval blockade. And 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:20.040 it worked, initially, right? The results were 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:22.800 devastating. The ironclad rammed and destroyed 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:25.560 the Union's wooden ships, while the Union's cannonballs 00:08:25.560 --> 00:08:28.759 literally just bounced off its iron sloping sides. 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:31.120 That must have been terrifying for the sailors 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:33.879 on the wooden ships. Utterly terrifying. But 00:08:33.879 --> 00:08:36.899 the very next day, the Union's own experimental 00:08:36.899 --> 00:08:39.820 ironclad, the Monitor, which looked like a cheese 00:08:39.820 --> 00:08:42.360 box on a raft, arrived. It's a cheese box on 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:44.179 a raft. That's what they called it. They fought 00:08:44.179 --> 00:08:46.700 a grueling three -hour battle. The battle itself 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:49.220 was a draw, but it proved to every Navy on Earth 00:08:49.220 --> 00:08:51.299 that the era of wooden fleets was permanently 00:08:51.299 --> 00:08:54.149 over. Right. But I have to push back on the military 00:08:54.149 --> 00:08:56.610 tactics happening on land, though, because reading 00:08:56.610 --> 00:08:59.029 through the descriptions of these major battles, 00:08:59.409 --> 00:09:02.090 it is completely baffling. How so? Well, we are 00:09:02.090 --> 00:09:05.009 seeing massive leaps in weapon lethality. You 00:09:05.009 --> 00:09:07.610 have the introduction of accurate rifled barrels, 00:09:07.929 --> 00:09:09.850 something called the mini -ball, and eventually 00:09:09.850 --> 00:09:13.539 rapid -fire gatling guns. Yet the generals on 00:09:13.539 --> 00:09:16.580 both sides kept using old Napoleonic tactics. 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:18.720 They were literally ordering their men to stand 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:21.100 shoulder to shoulder marching in a straight line 00:09:21.100 --> 00:09:24.019 across an open field directly into rapid fire 00:09:24.019 --> 00:09:27.139 weaponry. Right. Why on earth would any commander 00:09:27.139 --> 00:09:29.600 do that? Isn't that just a recipe for an absolute 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:32.700 massacre? It was a massacre. But the grim reality 00:09:32.700 --> 00:09:36.159 of military history is that the technology of 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:39.340 war almost always evolves vastly faster than 00:09:39.340 --> 00:09:41.460 the military doctrine itself. OK, so they were 00:09:41.460 --> 00:09:43.759 just stuck in the past. Exactly. The generals 00:09:43.759 --> 00:09:46.259 commanding these armies were trained in the tactics 00:09:46.259 --> 00:09:48.299 of the Mexican -American War and the Napoleonic 00:09:48.299 --> 00:09:52.029 Wars. Back then, soldiers used smoothbore muskets. 00:09:52.409 --> 00:09:54.389 The inside of the barrel was perfectly smooth, 00:09:54.450 --> 00:09:57.090 like a water pipe. When you fired, the round 00:09:57.090 --> 00:09:59.509 -laid ball just bounced down the barrel and flew 00:09:59.509 --> 00:10:02.029 out completely unpredictably. You couldn't hit 00:10:02.029 --> 00:10:05.269 a specific target past maybe 50 yards. So in 00:10:05.269 --> 00:10:08.169 that old reality, massing your troops in a tight 00:10:08.169 --> 00:10:11.210 line was the only mathematical way to concentrate 00:10:11.210 --> 00:10:13.669 enough firepower to actually hit anything. But 00:10:13.669 --> 00:10:16.370 the new weapons fundamentally change that math. 00:10:16.549 --> 00:10:19.679 Dramatically. The new rifles had spiral grooves 00:10:19.679 --> 00:10:22.159 carved into the inside of the barrel, that's 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:24.620 the rifling, combined with a mini ball, which 00:10:24.620 --> 00:10:26.820 by the way wasn't a ball at all. It was conical, 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:28.940 right? Yeah, it was a conical aerodynamic bullet 00:10:28.940 --> 00:10:31.679 with a hollow base that expanded to grip those 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:35.720 grooves. So the bullet spun like a perfectly 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:38.639 thrown football. Wow. Suddenly an average soldier 00:10:38.639 --> 00:10:40.220 wasn't just firing in the general direction of 00:10:40.220 --> 00:10:42.600 the enemy, they could snipe a specific target 00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:46.019 from 500 yards away. and the bullet itself was 00:10:46.019 --> 00:10:48.179 incredibly heavy and soft. So it did a lot of 00:10:48.179 --> 00:10:50.980 damage. Horrific damage. When it struck a soldier, 00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:53.080 it flattened out and completely shattered the 00:10:53.080 --> 00:10:55.659 bone, causing catastrophic injuries that almost 00:10:55.659 --> 00:10:59.259 always required amputation. So ordering men to 00:10:59.259 --> 00:11:01.840 march in tight formations against that kind of 00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:04.100 precision firepower is literally just sending 00:11:04.100 --> 00:11:07.279 them into a woodchipper. It really was. And if 00:11:07.279 --> 00:11:10.039 we connect this to the bigger picture, this brutal 00:11:10.039 --> 00:11:13.200 learning curve directly foreshadowed the horrific 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:15.919 trench warfare of World War I. Because they finally 00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:18.759 realized standing up was a bad idea. Right. Soldiers 00:11:18.759 --> 00:11:21.559 are not blind. They quickly realized that standing 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:24.679 in an open field meant certain death. By the 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:26.659 end of the conflict, during engagements like 00:11:26.659 --> 00:11:29.419 the siege of Petersburg, the armies had dug these 00:11:29.419 --> 00:11:32.480 massive, elaborate networks of trenches hiding 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:34.659 below ground from the relentless sniper fire. 00:11:34.779 --> 00:11:36.779 Which explains a lot about the casualty numbers. 00:11:36.980 --> 00:11:39.940 Yes. That devastating mismatch between old tactics 00:11:39.940 --> 00:11:42.500 and new weapons is a major reason why the casualties 00:11:42.500 --> 00:11:45.480 were astronomical. The records show over 828 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:49.960 ,000 casualties for the Union and over 864 ,000 00:11:49.960 --> 00:11:52.220 for the Confederacy. But the craziest part of 00:11:52.220 --> 00:11:54.759 that death toll, which is estimated to be around 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:57.000 a million people in total, is that two thirds 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:59.320 of those soldiers didn't even die from a mini 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:01.820 ball or cannon fire. No, they didn't. They died 00:12:01.820 --> 00:12:05.600 from microscopic enemies. They died from a disease. 00:12:06.019 --> 00:12:08.279 Medical science simply hadn't caught up to the 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:11.019 realities of mass mobilization. The germ theory 00:12:11.019 --> 00:12:13.340 of disease wasn't widely accepted or even understood 00:12:13.340 --> 00:12:15.730 yet. Right. So when you pack hundreds of thousands 00:12:15.730 --> 00:12:18.490 of farm boys who had never been exposed to the 00:12:18.490 --> 00:12:21.509 diseases of crowded cities into these massive 00:12:21.509 --> 00:12:24.190 unsanitary camps. Where they were digging latrines 00:12:24.190 --> 00:12:27.190 right next to the drinking water. Exactly. disaster 00:12:27.190 --> 00:12:30.129 strikes. Dysentery, typhoid, and malaria just 00:12:30.129 --> 00:12:32.389 swept through the ranks, proving far deadlier 00:12:32.389 --> 00:12:35.049 than any Confederate or Union general. Here's 00:12:35.049 --> 00:12:37.490 where it gets really interesting, though, because 00:12:37.490 --> 00:12:40.230 while all this unimaginable carnage is happening 00:12:40.230 --> 00:12:42.529 on the battlefields and in the field hospitals, 00:12:43.190 --> 00:12:45.669 the war was also being fought and arguably won 00:12:45.669 --> 00:12:48.610 on hidden front lines. It was being waged by 00:12:48.610 --> 00:12:51.269 marginalized groups and driven by global economic 00:12:51.269 --> 00:12:54.169 forces far, far away from the actual shooting. 00:12:54.460 --> 00:12:56.759 Taking a look at those hidden front lines provides 00:12:56.759 --> 00:12:59.240 a completely different perspective on how a society 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:02.419 actually sustains a war. The source material 00:13:02.419 --> 00:13:04.419 highlights the incredible role of women, for 00:13:04.419 --> 00:13:07.279 instance. Yeah. Between 500 and 1 ,000 women 00:13:07.279 --> 00:13:10.200 actually enlisted and fought in the war, completely 00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:12.639 disguised as men. Which is wild. How did they 00:13:12.639 --> 00:13:16.100 even pull that off? Passing a military physical 00:13:16.100 --> 00:13:18.460 seems impossible if you're trying to hide your 00:13:18.460 --> 00:13:20.659 identity. Well, the physical examinations were 00:13:20.659 --> 00:13:23.399 shockingly brief because the armies were just 00:13:23.399 --> 00:13:26.919 so desperate for bodies. Often, a doctor would 00:13:26.919 --> 00:13:29.299 simply check if a recruit had a functioning trigger 00:13:29.299 --> 00:13:31.879 finger and enough front teeth to physically tear 00:13:31.879 --> 00:13:34.440 open a paper powder cartridge. Yeet, that's it. 00:13:34.500 --> 00:13:36.679 That was basically it. Yeah. If you passed those 00:13:36.679 --> 00:13:39.600 two tests, you were handed a uniform. And because 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:42.139 uniforms were loose fitting and soldiers slept 00:13:42.139 --> 00:13:45.279 in their clothes and rarely bathed, someone maintaining 00:13:45.279 --> 00:13:48.120 a quiet profile could easily hide their identity 00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:51.259 for years. That is incredible. The sources mentioned 00:13:51.259 --> 00:13:54.220 Jenny Hodgers, who enlisted in an Illinois infantry 00:13:54.220 --> 00:13:56.940 regiment under the name Albert D .J. Cashier. 00:13:57.019 --> 00:13:59.259 She fought in over 40 battles for the Union. 00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:01.139 Forty battles. And she didn't just fight and 00:14:01.139 --> 00:14:02.960 then go back to her old life. She continued living 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:05.879 as a man for decades after the war, all the way 00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:08.720 until 1915. It really highlights how much the 00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:11.799 conflict scrambled societal norms. And beyond 00:14:11.799 --> 00:14:14.179 the battlefield, women were stepping up to keep 00:14:14.179 --> 00:14:16.600 both economies from completely collapsing. Right, 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:19.379 because the men were gone. Exactly. South, with 00:14:19.379 --> 00:14:21.820 the vast majority of white men gone, women took 00:14:21.820 --> 00:14:24.659 over the management of massive agricultural plantations. 00:14:25.379 --> 00:14:27.919 Suddenly, they were responsible for navigating 00:14:27.919 --> 00:14:30.899 an increasingly rebellious enslaved population. 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:34.039 And they were spies, too. Yes, women on both 00:14:34.039 --> 00:14:37.360 sides acted as crucial intelligence spies. They 00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:39.500 became the first professional female nurses in 00:14:39.500 --> 00:14:41.720 military hospitals and they kept the northern 00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:44.000 industrial factories running. Which is a perfect 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:46.320 pivot because the factories and the economy ultimately 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:49.740 bring us to the Union's grand overarching strategy 00:14:49.740 --> 00:14:53.899 to win the war. The Anaconda Plan. Ah yes, the 00:14:53.899 --> 00:14:56.220 Anaconda Plan. It is such a vivid concept. It 00:14:56.220 --> 00:14:59.600 was essentially a literal continental scale python. 00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:03.159 The Union High Command realized early on that 00:15:03.159 --> 00:15:05.259 just winning battles in Virginia wasn't going 00:15:05.259 --> 00:15:08.360 to end the rebellion. They had to slowly methodically 00:15:08.360 --> 00:15:11.120 wrap a naval blockade around the entire 3 ,500 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:13.580 -mile coastline of the South. The goal was to 00:15:13.580 --> 00:15:15.679 suffocate them, cutting off their ability to 00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:18.440 sell cotton or buy weapons, and literally physically 00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:20.799 squeeze the economic breath out of the Confederacy. 00:15:21.379 --> 00:15:24.580 And the logistical challenge of blockading 3 00:15:24.580 --> 00:15:28.320 ,500 miles of coastline with a Navy that, at 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:31.379 the start, initially only had about 90 ships 00:15:31.379 --> 00:15:35.139 is just mind -boggling. It seems impossible. 00:15:35.299 --> 00:15:37.700 It does. Now the Confederacy's primary counter 00:15:37.700 --> 00:15:40.139 -strategy to this strangulation was a diplomatic 00:15:40.139 --> 00:15:42.799 gamble known as King Cotton. Right. The Southern 00:15:42.799 --> 00:15:45.000 leadership firmly believed that the economies 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.899 of European superpowers, especially Great Britain 00:15:47.899 --> 00:15:50.740 and France, were so deeply dependent on Southern 00:15:50.740 --> 00:15:53.740 cotton to run their textile mills that they would 00:15:53.740 --> 00:15:55.879 eventually be forced to declare war on the United 00:15:55.879 --> 00:15:57.559 States. They thought Europe would swoop in and 00:15:57.559 --> 00:16:00.480 save them. Exactly. The South thought Europe 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:02.960 would send their own navies to smash the union 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:05.259 blockade just to save their own textile industries. 00:16:05.419 --> 00:16:07.659 But the gamble completely failed. It failed for 00:16:07.659 --> 00:16:10.559 a few fascinating reasons. First, the South made 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:13.620 a massive unforced error. Early in the war, before 00:16:13.620 --> 00:16:15.419 the Union blockade was even fully established, 00:16:15.860 --> 00:16:18.120 the Confederacy voluntarily embargoed their own 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:19.960 cotton. Wait, they blocked their own exports? 00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:23.659 Yes. They refused to ship it out, hoping to artificially 00:16:23.659 --> 00:16:25.539 create a cotton shortage in Europe and force 00:16:25.539 --> 00:16:29.059 Europe's hand immediately. Oh, wow. That backfired. 00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:31.980 Terribly. By the time the South realized they 00:16:31.980 --> 00:16:34.320 desperately needed to export that cotton to buy 00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:37.159 rifles and cannons, the Union Python had grown 00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:39.639 and tightened. The blockade was in full effect. 00:16:40.139 --> 00:16:43.080 But more importantly, Europe didn't intervene 00:16:43.080 --> 00:16:44.899 because they simply pivoted. They just bought 00:16:44.899 --> 00:16:47.620 it somewhere else. Exactly. They found new suppliers, 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:50.440 rapidly expanding cotton production in their 00:16:50.440 --> 00:16:53.379 colonies in Egypt and India. Plus there was a 00:16:53.379 --> 00:16:56.080 completely different agricultural king dominating 00:16:56.080 --> 00:16:58.899 the global chessboard at the time. Europe was 00:16:58.899 --> 00:17:01.360 suffering from a series of severe crop failures 00:17:01.360 --> 00:17:06.079 between 1860 and 1862. So they desperately needed 00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:08.660 imported grain to feed their populations and 00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:11.059 prevent widespread famine. And who was producing 00:17:11.059 --> 00:17:14.299 massive surpluses of grain? The Union. The Union. 00:17:14.660 --> 00:17:17.140 As the contemporary saying went, King Corn was 00:17:17.140 --> 00:17:19.619 more powerful than King Cotton. Britain wasn't 00:17:19.619 --> 00:17:21.359 going to risk a war that might cut off their 00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:23.380 food supply just to get cheaper cotton. Right. 00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:25.819 That economic isolation broke the back of the 00:17:25.819 --> 00:17:28.299 Southern war machine. The South did have a small 00:17:28.299 --> 00:17:30.900 lifeline, though. The blockade runners. Yes. 00:17:31.579 --> 00:17:34.039 British investors and shipbuilders designed these 00:17:34.039 --> 00:17:37.900 incredibly fast, low -profile steamships specifically 00:17:37.900 --> 00:17:41.559 built to evade the Union Navy. These blockade 00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:44.299 runners operated out of neutral ports like Bermuda 00:17:44.299 --> 00:17:46.660 and the Bahamas. Like pirate smugglers? Pretty 00:17:46.660 --> 00:17:48.880 much. They were painted a dull gray to blend 00:17:48.880 --> 00:17:51.579 into the fog. They burned a specific type of 00:17:51.579 --> 00:17:54.019 smokeless coal and they would wait for moonless 00:17:54.019 --> 00:17:57.220 nights to sprint past the Union warships. They 00:17:57.220 --> 00:17:59.900 smuggled highly valuable cotton out and crucial 00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:02.099 munitions in. And they were pretty successful, 00:18:02.099 --> 00:18:04.599 right? They actually managed to smuggle in an 00:18:04.599 --> 00:18:08.000 estimated 600 ,000 arms, which some historians 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:10.380 argue allowed the Confederacy to keep fighting 00:18:10.380 --> 00:18:13.180 for an additional two years. OK, but if they 00:18:13.180 --> 00:18:15.720 were getting that many weapons through, did the 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.160 Anaconda plan actually work? That's the thing. 00:18:18.579 --> 00:18:20.799 The success of a naval blockade isn't measured 00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:23.380 by the handful of sleek, custom -built ships 00:18:23.380 --> 00:18:25.509 that managed to slip through the net. It's measured 00:18:25.509 --> 00:18:28.170 by the thousands of massive, slow -moving merchant 00:18:28.170 --> 00:18:31.230 ships that never even try to dock. Ah, I see. 00:18:31.549 --> 00:18:34.309 The marine insurance rates skyrocketed, the financial 00:18:34.309 --> 00:18:37.190 risks were too great, and normal global commerce 00:18:37.190 --> 00:18:40.529 with the South completely ceased. The Southern 00:18:40.529 --> 00:18:43.509 economy experienced hyperinflation, food riots 00:18:43.509 --> 00:18:45.910 broke out in Confederate cities, and the Army 00:18:45.910 --> 00:18:49.160 eventually starved. So wars, as it turns out, 00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:51.839 are won in shipping lanes, in banking houses, 00:18:51.880 --> 00:18:53.839 and on the home front, just as much they are 00:18:53.839 --> 00:18:56.559 won by generals on horseback. Absolutely. And 00:18:56.559 --> 00:18:59.099 as the South is being economically suffocated 00:18:59.099 --> 00:19:01.980 by this blockade, the North comes to a massive 00:19:01.980 --> 00:19:05.319 political and moral realization. Saving the pre 00:19:05.319 --> 00:19:08.400 -war union, which was Lincoln's original carefully 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:11.180 stated goal, wasn't going to be enough to justify 00:19:11.180 --> 00:19:13.559 the rivers of blood being spilled. Right. They 00:19:13.559 --> 00:19:15.660 had to fundamentally change the moral purpose 00:19:15.660 --> 00:19:17.950 of the conflict if they wanted to secure a permanent 00:19:17.950 --> 00:19:20.089 victory and ensure the country didn't just end 00:19:20.089 --> 00:19:22.430 up fighting the exact same war a decade later. 00:19:22.809 --> 00:19:25.289 Right. Because early in the war, Lincoln was 00:19:25.289 --> 00:19:28.450 walking a perilous political tightrope. He was 00:19:28.450 --> 00:19:31.190 terrified that if he made the war explicitly 00:19:31.190 --> 00:19:33.990 about abolishing slavery, the critical border 00:19:33.990 --> 00:19:36.869 states, states like Maryland and Kentucky, that 00:19:36.869 --> 00:19:39.269 legally permitted slavery but had remained loyal 00:19:39.269 --> 00:19:42.170 to the United States would instantly secede and 00:19:42.170 --> 00:19:44.650 join the Confederacy. And if they lost Maryland, 00:19:45.130 --> 00:19:48.190 Washington DC is completely surrounded. Entirely 00:19:48.190 --> 00:19:50.789 surrounded by enemy territory. But as the war 00:19:50.789 --> 00:19:53.509 dragged into its second year, it became undeniable 00:19:53.509 --> 00:19:56.130 that enslaved labor was the economic engine allowing 00:19:56.130 --> 00:19:58.309 the Confederacy to put nearly all of its white 00:19:58.309 --> 00:20:01.549 male population on the battlefield. So taking 00:20:01.549 --> 00:20:04.170 action against slavery became, in the legal wording 00:20:04.170 --> 00:20:07.130 of the Emancipation Proclamation itself, a fit 00:20:07.130 --> 00:20:10.250 and necessary war measure. Lincoln used his powers 00:20:10.250 --> 00:20:12.430 as commander -in -chief to seize the property 00:20:12.430 --> 00:20:14.849 the enemy was using to wage war. But he couldn't 00:20:14.849 --> 00:20:16.970 just issue a monumental decree like that out 00:20:16.970 --> 00:20:19.509 of nowhere, right? Especially when the Union 00:20:19.509 --> 00:20:21.309 army had been losing a string of battles in the 00:20:21.309 --> 00:20:24.029 East, he needed a major military victory, so 00:20:24.029 --> 00:20:26.410 the proclamation sounded like an edict from a 00:20:26.410 --> 00:20:28.809 position of strength, rather than a desperate 00:20:28.809 --> 00:20:32.140 cry for help. Exactly. He finally got that opportunity 00:20:32.140 --> 00:20:35.019 when the Union Army halted a massive Confederate 00:20:35.019 --> 00:20:37.920 invasion at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland, 00:20:38.380 --> 00:20:40.640 which, by the way, still stands today as the 00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:43.539 bloodiest single day in American military history. 00:20:43.619 --> 00:20:46.380 It was horrific. But that gruesome victory gave 00:20:46.380 --> 00:20:49.039 Lincoln the political capital he needed. But 00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:52.440 reading the actual text of the Emancipation Proclamation, 00:20:52.440 --> 00:20:54.680 it brings up a really pointed question. What's 00:20:54.680 --> 00:20:57.779 that? Did the document actually free a single 00:20:57.779 --> 00:21:00.579 person on the day it went into effect? Because 00:21:00.579 --> 00:21:03.339 the text explicitly states it only applied to 00:21:03.339 --> 00:21:05.519 enslaved people in states that were currently 00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:07.940 in active rebellion against the United States, 00:21:08.339 --> 00:21:11.059 meaning it only applied to territory where Lincoln 00:21:11.059 --> 00:21:13.940 at that exact moment had absolutely no physical 00:21:13.940 --> 00:21:17.059 control or legal authority. This raises an important 00:21:17.059 --> 00:21:19.630 question. And it really highlights the brilliant 00:21:19.630 --> 00:21:21.730 multi -layered nature of the document. You're 00:21:21.730 --> 00:21:24.990 completely correct. Its immediate practical impact 00:21:24.990 --> 00:21:28.230 on the ground on January 1st, 1863, was highly 00:21:28.230 --> 00:21:31.269 limited. It deliberately exempted the loyal border 00:21:31.269 --> 00:21:33.670 states and areas of the South already occupied 00:21:33.670 --> 00:21:37.549 by the Union Army. But practically and strategically 00:21:37.549 --> 00:21:40.549 speaking, it entirely shifted the fundamental 00:21:40.549 --> 00:21:43.730 mission of the war. How so? It legally transformed 00:21:43.730 --> 00:21:46.750 the advancing Union Army into an army of liberation. 00:21:47.659 --> 00:21:50.980 From that day forward, whenever Union troops 00:21:50.980 --> 00:21:53.700 pushed into new southern territory, the enslaved 00:21:53.700 --> 00:21:55.980 people living there were legally and permanently 00:21:55.980 --> 00:21:58.200 freed by the federal government. It also triggered 00:21:58.200 --> 00:22:00.319 a massive demographic shift in the makeup of 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:03.299 the military, too. Huge shift. The proclamation 00:22:03.299 --> 00:22:05.539 officially authorized African American men to 00:22:05.539 --> 00:22:08.809 enlist in the United States military. Approximately 00:22:08.809 --> 00:22:11.849 190 ,000 black men volunteered to fight for their 00:22:11.849 --> 00:22:14.069 own freedom and the freedom of their families. 00:22:14.089 --> 00:22:16.410 Wow. They served with distinction, making up 00:22:16.410 --> 00:22:19.430 roughly 10 % of all Union military deaths by 00:22:19.430 --> 00:22:21.910 the end of the conflict. The historical records 00:22:21.910 --> 00:22:24.329 note they suffered significantly higher mortality 00:22:24.329 --> 00:22:27.089 rates than white troops. Why was that? Partly 00:22:27.089 --> 00:22:29.410 due to being assigned heavy labor duties in disease 00:22:29.410 --> 00:22:31.710 -ridden environments, and partly because Confederate 00:22:31.710 --> 00:22:33.970 forces often refused to treat them as legitimate 00:22:33.970 --> 00:22:36.490 prisoners of war. Which is just awful. It was. 00:22:36.680 --> 00:22:39.359 And diplomatically, the proclamation was also 00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:42.599 a masterstroke. By making the total destruction 00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:45.779 of slavery an explicit uncompromising war aim, 00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:49.880 Lincoln permanently slammed the door on any lingering 00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:52.720 Confederate hopes of securing military intervention 00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:54.799 from Great Britain or France. Because they had 00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:57.079 already abolished it. Right. Both of those nations 00:22:57.079 --> 00:22:59.740 had already abolished slavery decades earlier, 00:22:59.740 --> 00:23:02.559 and their working class publics deeply opposed 00:23:02.559 --> 00:23:05.440 the institution. They could not politically justify 00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:08.339 going to war to defend it. And the sources detail 00:23:08.339 --> 00:23:10.900 how after this massive shift in the war's purpose, 00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:13.640 the Union military strategy evolved into what 00:23:13.640 --> 00:23:17.180 we now call total war. Under the command of generals 00:23:17.180 --> 00:23:19.759 like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, 00:23:20.180 --> 00:23:22.700 the primary objective was no longer just defeating 00:23:22.700 --> 00:23:24.519 the Confederate armies on the battlefield. It 00:23:24.519 --> 00:23:27.000 was completely breaking the psychological will 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:29.180 and the economic infrastructure that supported 00:23:29.180 --> 00:23:31.759 those armies. Sherman's famous march to the sea 00:23:31.759 --> 00:23:35.259 is the prime example of this. Yeah. His army 00:23:35.259 --> 00:23:38.000 cut entirely loose from their supply lines and 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:40.779 carved a massive path of destruction across Georgia. 00:23:41.210 --> 00:23:43.650 They didn't just fight soldiers, they laid waste 00:23:43.650 --> 00:23:45.589 to the infrastructure. And destroyed everything. 00:23:45.819 --> 00:23:48.299 They destroyed an estimated 20 percent of all 00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:51.240 the farms in the state, burned cotton gins and 00:23:51.240 --> 00:23:54.180 tore up the railroads. They would literally heat 00:23:54.180 --> 00:23:57.180 the iron railroad ties over massive bonfires 00:23:57.180 --> 00:23:59.819 and bend them around tree trunks. They called 00:23:59.819 --> 00:24:02.579 them Sherman's neckties. So the steel could never 00:24:02.579 --> 00:24:05.079 be used again. It was a systematic dismantling 00:24:05.079 --> 00:24:07.839 of the southern capacity to wage war. It really 00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:10.039 was. And, you know, looking at the historiography 00:24:10.039 --> 00:24:12.460 in our sources, it's fascinating to see how this 00:24:12.460 --> 00:24:14.740 brutal reality was processed after the fact. 00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:17.799 The encyclopedic text details how the actual 00:24:17.799 --> 00:24:20.099 motivations for the war, primarily the defense 00:24:20.099 --> 00:24:22.980 of slavery, were later actively reframed by some 00:24:22.980 --> 00:24:25.319 post -war writers. Right. Through what's known 00:24:25.319 --> 00:24:28.440 as the lost cause ideology. Exactly. And to be 00:24:28.440 --> 00:24:29.799 clear to the listener, we are just presenting 00:24:29.799 --> 00:24:32.279 what the source material states here. The historical 00:24:32.279 --> 00:24:34.880 consensus defines this as a pseudo -historical 00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:37.140 movement created to vindicate the Confederacy, 00:24:37.660 --> 00:24:39.720 heavily downplay the central role of slavery 00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:42.359 in causing the secession, and romanticize the 00:24:42.359 --> 00:24:44.720 Southern cause as a noble defense of states' 00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:58.970 rights. that follow, the narrative of the war 00:24:58.970 --> 00:25:01.670 became almost as hotly contested as the battlefields 00:25:01.670 --> 00:25:04.049 themselves. So what does this all mean? If we 00:25:04.049 --> 00:25:05.809 look back at the journey through these sources, 00:25:05.950 --> 00:25:08.190 you can see the massive connective tissue of 00:25:08.190 --> 00:25:10.349 this conflict. It didn't just happen, it was 00:25:10.349 --> 00:25:13.589 a complex machine. It started with a brilliant 00:25:13.589 --> 00:25:16.109 political checkmate in the harbor of Fort Sumter, 00:25:16.269 --> 00:25:19.150 forcing the aggressor's hand. It then exploded 00:25:19.150 --> 00:25:21.410 into a horrifying technological meat grinder 00:25:21.410 --> 00:25:23.829 where military tactics lagged decades behind 00:25:23.829 --> 00:25:26.109 the lethal reality of the new spiraling rifle 00:25:26.109 --> 00:25:29.430 bullets. Right. While the soldiers fought and 00:25:29.430 --> 00:25:32.450 died of disease, the Union's Anaconda Plan acted 00:25:32.450 --> 00:25:36.390 as a slow, methodical economic python, starving 00:25:36.390 --> 00:25:38.930 the South of resources and rendering their cotton 00:25:38.930 --> 00:25:42.390 useless. And ultimately, the sheer scale of the 00:25:42.390 --> 00:25:45.089 bloodletting forced a redefinition of American 00:25:45.089 --> 00:25:47.910 freedom itself through the Emancipation Proclamation. 00:25:47.950 --> 00:25:50.710 It really did. This immense bloody struggle took 00:25:50.710 --> 00:25:53.630 a fractured agrarian landscape of loosely connected 00:25:53.630 --> 00:25:57.049 states and forged the centralized industrial 00:25:56.839 --> 00:26:00.579 national powerhouse we recognize today. It was 00:26:00.579 --> 00:26:02.539 the ultimate crucible that burned down the Old 00:26:02.539 --> 00:26:05.619 Republic and forged modern America. But to leave 00:26:05.619 --> 00:26:08.819 you with one final mind -bending historical technicality 00:26:08.819 --> 00:26:10.819 pulled directly from the archives. Oh, I love 00:26:10.819 --> 00:26:13.180 these. We often naturally assume that a war has 00:26:13.180 --> 00:26:15.799 a clean, dramatic ending. The famous image ingrained 00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:17.980 in our culture is Confederate General Robert 00:26:17.980 --> 00:26:20.819 E. Lee sitting in a quiet parlor, surrendering 00:26:20.819 --> 00:26:24.140 his sword to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse 00:26:24.140 --> 00:26:27.140 on April 9th, 1865. Right, that's the image in 00:26:27.140 --> 00:26:28.980 all the textbooks in the movie, the handshake 00:26:28.980 --> 00:26:31.099 that ended the war. But the war actually dragged 00:26:31.099 --> 00:26:34.119 on for a surprisingly long time after that handshake. 00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:36.920 Confederate forces were spread out across a massive, 00:26:36.940 --> 00:26:39.660 disconnected continent, and news traveled slowly. 00:26:39.960 --> 00:26:42.740 Really? How slowly? Well, Confederate leader 00:26:42.740 --> 00:26:45.279 and Cherokee General Stan Woody didn't surrender 00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:47.559 his indigenous forces out in the western territories 00:26:47.559 --> 00:26:53.019 until June 23, 1865. Oh, wow. Months later. Months 00:26:53.019 --> 00:26:55.980 later. But even more incredibly, from a strictly 00:26:55.980 --> 00:26:58.700 legal and constitutional standpoint, the American 00:26:58.700 --> 00:27:01.559 Civil War did not officially end until President 00:27:01.559 --> 00:27:04.279 Andrew Johnson issued a formal, binding proclamation 00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:06.619 of peace. Yeah, and when was that? That legal 00:27:06.619 --> 00:27:09.640 document wasn't signed until August 20, 1866. 00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:14.000 Wait, 1866? 1966. That is more than a full 16 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:16.359 months after Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Wow. 00:27:16.539 --> 00:27:19.299 August 1866. That really forces you to look back 00:27:19.299 --> 00:27:21.539 at our opening thoughts about the muddy, complex 00:27:21.539 --> 00:27:23.839 waters of history, because it leaves you pondering 00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:26.000 this. In the eyes of history, when does a war 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:28.200 actually end? Is it when the guns finally stop 00:27:28.200 --> 00:27:30.700 firing on the muddy battlefields, when the generals 00:27:30.700 --> 00:27:33.380 shake hands, or is it when the final piece of 00:27:33.380 --> 00:27:36.200 paperwork is meticulously signed in a quiet room 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:38.480 in Washington long after the smoke has cleared? 00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:41.319 It's a fascinating question to leave on, and 00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:44.359 a perfect reminder that history is rarely as 00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:46.759 neat and tidy as the dates in a textbook. Keep 00:27:46.759 --> 00:27:48.960 learning, keep questioning, and we'll catch you 00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:50.160 on the next deep dive.