Gary Gallagher: belief

Transcript context

…You cannot control what a great military event can set loose. More battle casualties than US forces had suffered in every war combined down to that point happened in two days. Two and a half months after that, George B. McClellan’s army engaged with Lee’s army in what came to be called the Seven Days Battles at Richmond, 36,000 casualties. So those two together just showed that this was gonna be on a totally different scale. He added a psychological twist. What Grant envisioned his doing, and Sheridan actually did it in the Shenandoah Valley before Sherman did it in Georgia, is go into an agriculturally productive area, burn the mills, kill the livestock, destroy the crops, lay waste to it so that it can’t be a logistical support of the Confederacy anymore. Sheridan did it in the Shenandoah Valley, and then Sherman did it in Georgia. But Sherman said, “But I’m also going to break them psychologically. I’m gonna show them that my army can go wherever it wants to go whenever it wants to go, and there’s nothing Jefferson Davis can do about it. ” The “great forces are all that matters and individuals don’t really matter” notion of history, I think, is ridiculous. Individuals really matter. For the United States, Lincoln and Grant matter beyond calculation- … in this war. And on the Confederate side, if you take Lee out of the picture, the war doesn’t last nearly as long as it does. In terms of causation, if you take slavery out of the picture, there is no Civil War, period. The following is a conversation with Gary Gallagher, a historian of the American Civil War. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description where you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, give feedback, and so on. And now, dear friends, here’s Gary Gallagher. The American Civil War broke out in 1861. What were the causes of the Civil War? Could it have been avoided, or was it inevitable?…

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