Category: US Civil War

US Civil War history book – “Meade The Price of Command” (Kent State University Press, 2018) – John Selby interview

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Dr. John Selby is a professor of history at Roanoke College. His concentrations are American 19th century history, the US Civil War, and he Vietnam War as well as American history in general. We discussed his latest book on General Meade.

0:50 – John talks about how he got into writing about the US Civil War. His first study was on the lives of seven Confederate soldiers. He then co-edited a volume on Confederate papers.

4:16 – John talks about the theme of this book.

8:01 – John talks about the Meade memorial in Washington, D.C.

12:34 – John mentions Meade’s work on lighthouses.

22:33 – John talks about the two people who caused Meade the most problems.

23:04 – John talks about general Sickles and his problems with General Meade.

30:38 – John talks more about why Meade doesn’t get credit for the victory at Gettysburg.

36:57 – John talks about the resources he used for his research. It included Meade’s voluminous number of letters.

45:55 – John talks about two questions he grappled with while doing his research.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: John Selby

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, US Civil War, George Meade, Robert E. Lee, Army of the Northern Virginia, Army of the Potomac, leadership, Union, Confederate

US Civil War history book – “The Decision Was Always My Own” (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018) – Timothy Smith interview

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Dr. Tim Smith has worked for the National Park Service and now teaches history at the University of Tennessee – Martin. He’s always been interested in the Civil War and he’s written close to 20 books on the subject. We talked about his latest book on Grant at Vicksburg.

1:24- Dr. Smith talks about how he got into history. A course on the Old South at Ole Miss got him interested in Civil War history.

2:47 – The last book on Grant at Vicksburg was Myers book in the 1960s. Dr. Smith is editing a series on Grant so he wrote this book.

4:51 – This book looks at Vicksburg from Grant’s point of view. One of his big gambles was to cross the river south of Vicksburg. Few people approved of his decision.

7:30 – Grant had a lot of soul searching during the 9 months of the Vicksburg campaign. He nearly gives up and commits to a suicidal attack but then he chooses a gamble type of move instead.

10:54 – Grant corresponded to a lot of different people and Dr. Smith had a huge amount of correspondence to go through to write this book.

13:10 – Sherman was willing to call Grant out when he doesn’t agree with him. But Grant said he never held a council of war even though he got opinions and ideas from other officers.

22:22 – Politicians and newspaper editors pressured Grant to warp up the Vicksburg campaign. People wanted him removed.

27:45 – Grant made plenty of mistakes giving orders at the Vicksburg campaign. He was good at organizing his forces but not perfect. Grant actually didn’t have a good staff and they weren’t very professional. He picked a lot of old Army friends for his staff.

31:06 – Grant was a micro-manager and probably got involved in too much of the menial issues of his army. Grant was a tender-hearted and kind person though.

38:21 – Twenty years ago you had to go to archives for research but now everything is online and at a researcher’s fingertips. One little used source is the two volume history of Grant’s post-war world tour where he discussed the war with a newspaper reporter.

42:44 – Dr. Smith grew up around Vicksburg so he has a lot of experience with the terrain there.

53:15 – His next book is on Grant’s May assaults at Vicksburg. It’ll be a major battle book with plenty of details. He is worried about the interest in the US Civil War but he hopes and thinks it might revive again as this generation gets older.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Dr. Timothy Smith

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, US civil war, grant, sherman, confederates, union, Halleck, Lincoln, Vicksburg, Jayhawks, cavalry, attacks, july 4th

US Civil War history book – “The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) – John Reeves interview

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John Reeves has taught history and written about financial matters. He’s written a new US Civil War book on the indictment of Robert E. Lee after the war. I interviewed him about it.

1:38 – John Reeves taught history for 15 years. He also wrote on finance for some time.

3:15 – Robert E. Lee tried to bring North and South together after the war. But Northerners wanted to punish him for treason and bring charges against him.

5:36 – Lee applied for amnesty against the charges and studied ways to defend himself.

9:14 – Lee kept his letters privates because he didn’t want to seem to be playing politics.

12:38 – Lee and his fellow defendants weren’t jailed during the trial because of Grant’s insistence that he had made a deal for the Southern leaders to be free until the war was officially over. The war officially ended in August 1866. Jefferson Davis didn’t have this protection though.

16:35 – The defendants were indicted in Virginia because they were accused of making treasonous war in Virginia.

19:37 – Lee defended himself on the merits of the case. He also had to go to DC to testify before a Congressional committee about treason. He was advised by a lawyer, Senator Johnson from Maryland.

23:52 – Lee was called as a witness for the Davis trial.

27:32 – John’s first step was to find the indictment itself. They seemed to have been lost but John discovered they were in the state library of Virginia in Richmond.

33:32 – John found many documents at the Library of Congress including Lee’s papers. But people don’t have permission to look in one box of Lee’s papers. Andrew Johnson’s papers are there too.

38:37 – Lee was accused of treating his slaves brutally.

44:34 – The defense of Lee became entwined with the Lost Cause movement. Robert E. Lee was even in a stained glass window in the National Cathedral.

49:40 – The failure of the indictments provides an idea as to why Reconstruction failed.

56:19 – John is on twitter at reevesjw. His website is john-reeves.com.

Links

http://www.john-reeves.com/

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: John Reeves

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, robert e. lee, civil war, confederates, union, lost cause, arlington, gettysburg, lincoln, andrew johnson, jefferson davis