I actually did a small video about Arlington. my channel primarily talks about the Fallout videogame franchise and one of the Fallout games depicts a fictionalized version of Arlington National Cemetary. so I did a video showing the history of Arlington national Cemetary and comparing what exists in real life, to what was created in game. it's pretty basic but if you're interested, I'd love to hear a critique from VTH. It's called "Fact Versus Fallout | Arlington National Cemetery"
Much, much better than your BS about Stalingrad being the turning point instead of the Battle of Moscow. Yep, we “botched” it. I thought you did an excellent job with the time selecting the knowledge to another’s presentation.
At the surrender, Grant did not accept Lee's sword. Also, the horses were not taken because Grant said they would be needed for the soldiers to be able to plow their fields and aid in taking care of themselves and their families. Grant was a very good man. Yes, he had his personal problems, but he was a very thoughtful, compassionate man. I wish that side of him was more apparent in how he is taught in history classes.
Indeed, one thing that often gets overlooked in how ruinous historical wars are is the depletion of the stock of horses and other work animals. Most such animals take something like 5 years to grow to adulthood, which is longer than most wars last, so every horse assigned to the war effort is one less horse for the civilian economy. Especially if you are under blockade and can't easily import horses. Add to that how work animals would have been particularly important for the Southern agrarian economy, not only for production but transportation too, which you can't do without when your economy is based on exporting cash crops and is even a net importer of food despite being agrarian.
Grant allowed it, but it was Lee that asked for that concession on the horses and mules. He noted that the men supplied their own mounts, not the confederate government
@@anderskorsback4104 Grant talks in his Memoirs about seeing corpses of horses and remains of broken wagons laying on the side of the road for MILES while he was traveling to Chattanooga to face Bragg.
Hi Chris, was glad to see Brazil come up. My great-great-grandparents were among the many Southerners encouraged to move to Brazil after the war by former Confederate General A. T. Hawthorne. As Southern Baptist missionaries, however, they were more concerned with converting Catholics and African-Brazilians than continuing Confederate ways. In fact my great-great-grandfather left behind a glowing diary entry about the end of slavery in 1888 and the public street celebrations that ensued.
I have a relative who died of starvation at Andersonville after being captured at Chickamauga. He’s buried in the cemetery there, one of the lucky ones with a marked grave instead of being shown as Unknown.
As a proud Irish man, I've been interested in our nations role in American history and culture. Learning about the 69th New York was very emotional for me but incredibly important to paint a picture of the sacrifice made over the 1860's. I really appreciate learning more about the aftermath of the horrendous war.
Stories of Irish Immigrants have always fascinated me as well. My ancestor Samuel Thompson immigrated from Ulster and was badly wounded fighting for the Patriot Cause in the American Revolution. He forged his way West and ended up as a Captain in the East Tennessee Militia in the War of 1812
It's as if Ireland's civil wars were transplanted to America. A majority of Confederate soldiers had Scots/Ulster/Protestant Irish ancestry, while the Union filled the ranks with hordes of Catholic Irish conscripts. A Confederate general quipped to his Yankee counterpart after the war that "the only reason you won is that you had more Irish".
@@Grenadier311I would assume the south may have had a few tory irish catholics who went away from cromwells attacks in ireland aswell with the royalists. A southern johnson guy who married alot of indians was from ireland. Pretty ironic that puritan boston would see alot of catholic irish people move there. The catholic irish started the draft riots against blacks though so they were in almost no way commited to the conflict.
The Freedmen's Bureau is also a source for genealogy for the former slaves's descendants now. Thankfully some of their records survived. I've helped a couple of people find relatives information there. My family had such a quandary about the war, especially the Tennessee family members. I had 4 2nd-Great Great Grandfathers in the Civil War. 2 Union: GW Warfield in the 30th Illinois Infantry and J.M. Clayton of the 6th TN Cavalry Regiment. The two Confederates were AJ Brown in the 26th TN Infantry and CC Smith of the 41st Georgia Infantry. Fun fact: GW Warfield was at Vicksburg and so was CC Smith. They ended up with CC in the POW group. So, mom's side captured dad's side. After the war, GW went to Iowa, AJ, CC, and JM were all in Texas. And, JM's daughter married AJ's son, which is how our family got over the war. CC 's granddaughter (my grandmother) ended up marrying JM and AJ's grandson (my grandfather). GW was my mom's great-great grandfather So our family basically patched up the fight in their own way.
Hey Chris. I’ve been tuned in with the channel for about a month and have fell in love with how diverse and informational your content is across all your channels. I’m not one to watch another person react to stuff, however you give such great insight on just about everything involving U.S history, as well as European history. God bless you and the family!
@@ikematthews6866 You're treating a typical southern soldier as if he was on the same level as Adolf Hitler. Back then, both sides had respect for each other after the war. Persecution would have been just continuing the conflict in another way. Grant was very graceful to let his opponent and his men return home with their guns and horses. That's something we'll never see again today.
@@FordHoard He's not talking about the soldiers he's talking about the leaders nor is he comparing their actions to Hitler. There's a big difference between persecuting leadership and persecuting soldiers/followers. Some members of Confederate leadership not getting the rope but instead a slap on the wrist can already be considered a miracle by most measures. Allowing them immediate access to political power was an interesting choice and can be argued as overly lenient. Nothing wrong with seeking reconciliation and restoring things to how they were, but there are always consequences to your actions.
When people say we botched reconstruction, I guess I misunderstood. I thought they meant Lincoln would have been lenient and avoided resentment, but his successor was harsh and pushed them to anger. But I've watched the original vid and now your reaction and all I've gotten both times is that we should have absolutely annihilated any spirit left in the south. There was too much leniency. If that's what is meant by failing at reconstruction then I misunderstood, which isn't a big deal. It hardly seems debatable to me though. The south kept trying to fan their still hot coals back into flames, so the union kept splashing water on it, and the south just kept acting like bratty children. Had we been even more soft on them, obviously we see what would have happened. They frickin tried to restart slavery with work contracts. That's so deviant it's actually insane.
Hi, Chris, this is what makes history so interesting, the fact that events today are still impacted by actions taken two hundred years or even five hundred years ago. Armchair Historian is very good. I enjoyed this and learned a lot. Arnchair Historian has a video on the evolution of German borders which I thought was very good.
It is pretty good. Not comprehensive, but hits on some good points and does a lot better than a channel led by a Ben Shapiro-lookalike than I first thought it would. I hate admitting falling for the stereotype initially, but the history community does not have a great reputation as a whole on the social side of things. Glad to see so many popular TH-cam history channels go against it.
13:37 fun fact, those northerners who went south to take advantage of the situation often carried fancy bags made of capet, which is where the term "carpetbagger" comes from. Now its original meaning did get lost over time but that's where it came from. Edit: There's also a mini series by Wartime Stories on Champ Ferguson you might want to try out.
First I am a Lee of Virginia I am a direct descendant of Edmond J Lee, Who was Robert E Lee’s Uncle. I just want to add a few things. The taxes on the property his wife tried several times to pay the taxes on what really was her land she had inherited the land from her father but do to women not having the right to own property it went to Robert officially. Do to her being a woman was the loophole the government tried to use to not accept the payments. Roberts son got a lot of money for the land I think in today’s money it would be around 25 million. Also Robert did everything to put the country back together even going as far as stating put the flag away and in museums but not to fly it as the confederacy was dead and we are all part of the United States. He also said no statues or monuments should be done for the confederacy. Robert would not get his citizenship back till President Ford signed the order. The US government feared if Lee had gotten his citizenship back while alive he would become President.
My Great Great grandpa was enlisted in the fall of 1861. He was in the 11th Ky infantry until after Shiloh. (He was under Buell, so he only fought the 2nd day) after that he asked for discharge to take a commission in the 35th Ky mounted infantry. It's with them he went to Saltville.
My great grandfather (18 South Carolina) lost his younger teenage brother at Second Manassas, and lost his leg at the end of the war. I’m sure he had a very tough life after the war. Poor boy before the war- poor and broken man after. His wooden leg was still up in the attic when my father was a young boy. He says he could hear it walking around late at night.
Another exceptional breakdown with great anecdotal and factual insights. As a life-long student of history, I always learn new, and interesting, tidbits from your vast knowledge base and expertise. I also share your utter disgust with the abhorrent failure of reconstruction after the Civil War… truly one of the worst missed opportunities to fully realize Lincoln’s vision of a more perfect union.
Brazil only abolished slavery in 1888, last country in the Western hemisphere to do so. And they imported more slaves from Africa than any country on earth. Kinda crazy
Both true. But the abolition of slavery in Brazil was a long process. In the mid 19th century slaves were already a minority of the black population because manumition was very common. Also unlike in the USA, according to the 1824 constitution freed slaves born in Brazil were full citizens. We also had very influential mulattos in the imperial government, including ministers, senators, ambassadors etc.
Lansford Hastings -- who wrote the "Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California," sent the Donner Party down his "Hastings' Cutoff" to their doom, and ultimately had an enormous influence on the USA's borders in the West -- was one of the Confederates who moved to Brazil after the war. He wrote the "Emigrants' Guide to Brazil" in 1867 and died in the Virgin Islands in 1870 while leading settlers to his colony.
I've always been more into the Great War and the Golden Age of Piracy, but you've honestly made me want to read more about the Civil War. Thanks for that!
Man, I really appreciate and love what you do. You manage to take great content and add all this extra knowledge and information propelling the content into whole new tier of it's own. Thank you VTH!
I have family in Americana. It is a nice city, but the majority of the population is of Italian ancestry, with people of Confederate ancestry only making up a minority of the population. Many confederates did eventually return to the US in the decades following the founding of the town, they did form a influential and wealthy community here in Brazil, which keeps their southern traditions to this day.
Lee's wife, Mary Custis, was the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington and step-great-granddaughter of George Washington. When they seized Arlington House, it was looted and Lee remarked that a lot of the things taken had been the possessions of George Washington.
One interesting story about the overly lenient reconstruction: In the 1940s, Georgia had a very hardline secessionist governor, Herman Talmadge. The sort of guy who would threaten rivers of blood flowing over integration, made sure people lynching blacks got off scot free, all that stuff. He gave an oral history interview in 1990 where he was asked about his feelings on the civil rights era in retrospect and how he thought it could have been handled better. Two quotes from that interview: On integration: "Well, really, we should have started long before. We should have just started with the Fourteenth Amendment. It could have been done with ease then. We'd just lost the war, and they'd crammed it down our throat at the point of a bayonet. That'd been the time to do it." Asked about whether it would have been a good idea to wait another 20-30 years for the South to come around on integration on its own without federal intervention: "Well, it would have prevented lots of turmoil and everything else that we did have. 'Course, the route that we should have gone, when they passed the Fourteenth Amendment, that really was the basis of all these so-called rights and still is. At that time, we ought not to have ever had segregated schools, segregation in the South. Once you adopt a pattern and a mold of conduct with all of the laws involved, including your Constitution, and it's been in being for over a 100 years, people don't change their habits." So even some hardline Southerners agreed that a more harsh reconstruction could have prevented black oppression in the South for another century.
Hi Chris. Just another suggestion on a series you could make a reaction to, BBC's Horrible Histories I think is a prettty entertaining show which covers a lot of ground in terms of history that I think you could add some really nice details to.
Hello Chris, havn't been sending you a comment in a while, but hope you're doing alright. I am aware that this has nothing to do with the topic of the video directly but I am wondering as a fellow tutor and future history teacher, how much didacticism is involved in studying History in the US, especially since if I am not mistaken, you visit schools, talk in front of classes and so on. I wonder if you have the same kind of "how to teach and talk about histor"-courses over in the US as we do here in Germany and if so where the general focus is put on. Also more on topic: I always love your reactions to the Armchair Historian, almost as much as your Mr. Beat reactions, you always seem to have such a great chemistry when reacting to their videos and to their characters in general.
I asked you a question on a stream about your favorite alternate history scenario other than "What if Woodrow Wilson was never President?" and you said if Lincoln's running mate in 1864 had been Hannibal Hamlin or some other not Andrew Johnson option. Even if you do count that scenario, would you still say that the one about Lincoln's running mate is still your favorite over the one about Woodrow Wilson?
I live in Washington, NC. My family were merchants that relocated from Connecticut to NC in the 1770s, just before the Revolution. Washington was captured during the mid point by the Union because it was a port just upriver from the Pamlico Sound. I dont know much about what my family during the Civil War but there is a family story that my great great great grandmother, from a very prominent local family that had a lot of land holdings, refused to sign the Oath of Allegiance and never did. She was a Blount and if you know Tennessee history, one of her relatives, William Blount, had extensive land holdings in Tennessee and was instramental in early Tennessee history.
Canada here. I don't agree that the Northern victors should have come down hard on the South. Minds cannot be changed by coercion, only persuasion, and that takes time.
Jefferson was held at Ft. Monroe VA. where I lived as a teen, and now I live right down the road from where he was caught in Washington GA. We've even had treasure hunters want to search my mom and dads land for the lost Confederate gold.
22:33 ... Ah, yes, people who lead a rebellion against the US government eventually being put back into leading positions into that government. Such a foreign and exotic notion. Really can't imagine that ever happening nowadays.
Interesting to note that the 43rd SecDef for the US Luke Wright was a 2LT in the Confederate Army and had seen action during the war and his successor Jacob Dickinson the 44th SecDef served as a Private in the CSA
Wartime Stories made a two-part series about Champ Fergurson in case anyone is interested to know more about him. Just look up 'The Confederate Who Murdered a Hundred Men'
I believe I heard Griffin say that James Longstreet was the only major Confederate officer to become a Republican after the war. But John Singleton Mosby also did. Maybe Griffin doesn't consider Mosby a major Confederate officer.
He was born in NC. He lived his entire adult and professional life in Tennessee, where he served as a Senator and Governor. He is “from” North Carolina the same way George W Bush is “from” Connecticut.
while Grants terms with surrender were generous, I dont think it embellishes his name as unconditional surrender. as he didn't need those terms like that to get the surrender, its just what was best for the nation
You can grant concessions after receiving an unconditional surrender. "Unconditional surrender" just means that you won't negotiate those concessions prior to the surrender.
I am not even American but I learned so much from this channel about American history. Hopefully I can come there as an engineer some day in the future🙏
Most of the section about Brazil is factually incorrect and, more worrisomely, gives the wrong idea about Dom Pedro II. The Emperor never issued any invitation to confederates to settle in Brazil, the country was simply open to immigration, specially european. My own family came from Italy in the second wave during the 1880s (though they settled much farther west than the first wave). The confederates took advantage of this and came into the country after the end of the Civil War. They did not found the town of Americana, it was simply a name that came about for the village after the influx of americans into the area, which had already been settled for more than fifty years when they arrived. In fact, pretty soon after that, a wave of italian immigrants came in, and settled in the same area. The area is still mostly italian, with descendants of the confederates being a minority since that wave of italian migrants. With regards to the Emperor, he was a staunch abolitionist and had been working hard to get the institution of slavery over and done with. You must understand that Brazil had a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute one. The power mostly resided with the planter class and the Emperor was limited to what we called the "Moderator" power. He could veto any laws, but he could not propose any himself, as that power rested with congress. For decades he maneuvered society, exercising what today would be called Soft Power based on his enormous popularity. The immigration policies which allowed europeans (and the americans in this particular case) to come and settle the farmland were designed specifically to show the power of free labor and how outdated and inefficient slavery was. When he did finally get enough support to abolish slavery, he did so (through his daughter and heir Princess Isabel) and within a year suffered a military coup backed by the planter elite who had lost their slaves. Instead of rallying the population (which supported the Emperor to the tune of about 90% in polls), which would have caused a bloody civil war of our own, he decided to let go and left for Europe to live out the rest of his days. In my opinion, he remains the greatest brazilian who ever lived.
NB Forrest’s life during reconstruction was pretty interesting. Many videos on reconstruction mention the klan but don’t go into specifics. I recommend reading his biography by Jack Hurst. Side note, I am not advocating for him. I merely point out that people like Grant, Lincoln, Davis, Lee, etc get all of the limelight in videos about reconstruction where as someone who contributed to the most prevalent force against reconstruction for most of its duration rarely gets a few sentences mentioning his klan affiliation.
@Byzant7 the first shots can be several different times. It is that is when history wanted it and Lincoln chose to call it that way. Buchanan could have chose the first shots before if he had chose to do it that way.
@@mikejohnson9606 “could” doesn’t mean it did. It was a federal fort, being resupplied, and General Beauregard along with governor Pickens gave the order to fire upon the fort. The south were the aggressors. Full stop
As my most available expert, would Lincoln's political capital have been enough to make it better or would he have simply tarnished his legacy trying to sort through the morass that came after? Did Booth do Lincoln a favor?
That is fascinating that ex-confederates could hold government positions after the war...you wouldn't think that would be the case on the surface...I would like to learn more about that.
I just found out my first family member to come to the US in 1750 from Scotland was a stowaway on a ship and was a slave in Scotland. He arrived in Virginia
One of my grandfathers - a lifelong Nazi - had been captured by US troops in France and had been as POW in the south. PLaying piano in an officers club he liked the - racist - life there so much that he had an internal fight to go back to wife and two little girls in Vienna after the war.
It was as if the federal government was intent on creating newly equal opportunities for the freed slaves but the president himself, Andrew Johnson, seemed to have other ideas.
Judah P Benjamin 14:20 thereabouts. Ya know it's always interesting to see the curious relationship between blacks and Jews playout in the midst of American racial politics. You have the oppressed of the old world (Jews) and the oppressed of the new world (blacks), their relationship only beginning to come together in somewhat of a positive like after the horrors of the holocaust and WWII. You see after those events it is unlikely that you'd had seen a Judah P. Benjamin playing a Eugene "Bull" Connor, or George C. Wallace type figure in the 1950s and 1960s just on account of having white skin seeing how that alone didn't save them from Auschwitz or Buchenwald. Morality often requires a certain level of experience to be perfected.
My 2x great grandfather Horace King was a Buffalo soldier 9th calvary stationed at Ft.Leavenworth and it was passed down to us "Burning Kansas" was the beginning of the Civil War against slavery ...black soldiers had to quarter themselves on Indian land at that time provided by an Indian princess named Quindaro which is where a majority of runaway slaves settled after crossing the Missouri River on the underground railroad...John Brown enlisted these black men as infantry in his raids on Missouri they later became what we know as the Buffalo soldiers...but it seems history and the Union at that time didn't want to kick start a Civil War over what was considered then slave revolts Lincolns reluctance on squashing the rebellion led to Missouri joining the confederacy and Kansas being a free state one if not the first but we were also told the first shots of the Civil War were taken in Perry-Lecompton KS a few miles from Lawrence KS...let me know if I have any of this wrong
I'd be interested to know your views on the country of Liberia being set up by Monroe, as a place to return freed blacks in the years before the civil war. The Capital Monrovia still bearing his name today!
I wish so much you could do a non-scripted joust with Atun-Shei Andy if you would defend the south just a bit. Let's see if he'd be up for a challenge.
It's _per se_ misleading to correct a dollar figure using inflation alone. The median income in 1860 was $300. That's 67 years to make $20k. Compare that to $370k today with a median income of 47k. That's only 7.8 years. Then there's unemployment, slavery and incomes per family.
K... at about 2:30 Yeah, I think I can say that the nation botched Reconstruction in about as similar a fashion as the victorious Allies out of WWI did Versailles and its aftermath period of about 10-15 years. I'll defer to your Civil War expertise to tell me how on or off I am with that comparison.
There is no reason to believe race relations would be any different no matter how reconstruction went. There would still be a giant achievement gap between blacks and whites (test scores, wealth, IQ scores), which is at the heart of our strained race relations.
While the criminal underfunding of the US education system (seriously look it up) is at the cause for two of those it not just colored people suffering under the underfunding of the education system
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I actually did a small video about Arlington. my channel primarily talks about the Fallout videogame franchise and one of the Fallout games depicts a fictionalized version of Arlington National Cemetary. so I did a video showing the history of Arlington national Cemetary and comparing what exists in real life, to what was created in game. it's pretty basic but if you're interested, I'd love to hear a critique from VTH. It's called "Fact Versus Fallout | Arlington National Cemetery"
Much, much better than your BS about Stalingrad being the turning point instead of the Battle of Moscow.
Yep, we “botched” it. I thought you did an excellent job with the time selecting the knowledge to another’s presentation.
You should do a reactionary video on uncle Tom ll
I still think Buchanan was the worst president.
At the surrender, Grant did not accept Lee's sword. Also, the horses were not taken because Grant said they would be needed for the soldiers to be able to plow their fields and aid in taking care of themselves and their families. Grant was a very good man. Yes, he had his personal problems, but he was a very thoughtful, compassionate man. I wish that side of him was more apparent in how he is taught in history classes.
Indeed, one thing that often gets overlooked in how ruinous historical wars are is the depletion of the stock of horses and other work animals. Most such animals take something like 5 years to grow to adulthood, which is longer than most wars last, so every horse assigned to the war effort is one less horse for the civilian economy. Especially if you are under blockade and can't easily import horses. Add to that how work animals would have been particularly important for the Southern agrarian economy, not only for production but transportation too, which you can't do without when your economy is based on exporting cash crops and is even a net importer of food despite being agrarian.
I read that Lee didn’t allow an unkind word about grant in his presence after that.
Grant allowed it, but it was Lee that asked for that concession on the horses and mules. He noted that the men supplied their own mounts, not the confederate government
@@anderskorsback4104 Grant talks in his Memoirs about seeing corpses of horses and remains of broken wagons laying on the side of the road for MILES while he was traveling to Chattanooga to face Bragg.
Both Lee and Grant were passionate and compassionate men 😊
Hi Chris, was glad to see Brazil come up. My great-great-grandparents were among the many Southerners encouraged to move to Brazil after the war by former Confederate General A. T. Hawthorne. As Southern Baptist missionaries, however, they were more concerned with converting Catholics and African-Brazilians than continuing Confederate ways. In fact my great-great-grandfather left behind a glowing diary entry about the end of slavery in 1888 and the public street celebrations that ensued.
Brasil mencionado
COME TO BRAZIL
@@Dino-lemon265lmao, perfect use of this meme!
@@Dino-lemon265 i was there in March, first time since i was 8. I am now 62!
it's too bad they still celebrate the Confederacy
The South's hope died with Lincoln.
Ironic
@@missaelcastillo5154 Andrew Johnson
@@Jones25fulexactly
You included a comma in this sentence for no reason.
@@edwarddorey4480yes, he did
I have a relative who died of starvation at Andersonville after being captured at Chickamauga. He’s buried in the cemetery there, one of the lucky ones with a marked grave instead of being shown as Unknown.
Brutal way to go
And to think the Confederate traitors were basically let off with a tap on the wrist. Literally one of the biggest mistakes made in the American past.
And to think the Confederates were essentially let off with a tap on the wrist. Unbelievable
More confederates died in Union prisons than Union prisoners in Confederate prisons.
@@Peter-jo6yu Criminal. Johnson was a traitor.
Petition for Chris to finish the Reconstruction series. I learned so much and I’ll keep asking.
As a proud Irish man, I've been interested in our nations role in American history and culture. Learning about the 69th New York was very emotional for me but incredibly important to paint a picture of the sacrifice made over the 1860's. I really appreciate learning more about the aftermath of the horrendous war.
Stories of Irish Immigrants have always fascinated me as well. My ancestor Samuel Thompson immigrated from Ulster and was badly wounded fighting for the Patriot Cause in the American Revolution. He forged his way West and ended up as a Captain in the East Tennessee Militia in the War of 1812
It's as if Ireland's civil wars were transplanted to America. A majority of Confederate soldiers had Scots/Ulster/Protestant Irish ancestry, while the Union filled the ranks with hordes of Catholic Irish conscripts.
A Confederate general quipped to his Yankee counterpart after the war that "the only reason you won is that you had more Irish".
@@Grenadier311I would assume the south may have had a few tory irish catholics who went away from cromwells attacks in ireland aswell with the royalists. A southern johnson guy who married alot of indians was from ireland. Pretty ironic that puritan boston would see alot of catholic irish people move there. The catholic irish started the draft riots against blacks though so they were in almost no way commited to the conflict.
The Freedmen's Bureau is also a source for genealogy for the former slaves's descendants now. Thankfully some of their records survived. I've helped a couple of people find relatives information there.
My family had such a quandary about the war, especially the Tennessee family members. I had 4 2nd-Great Great Grandfathers in the Civil War. 2 Union: GW Warfield in the 30th Illinois Infantry and J.M. Clayton of the 6th TN Cavalry Regiment. The two Confederates were AJ Brown in the 26th TN Infantry and CC Smith of the 41st Georgia Infantry. Fun fact: GW Warfield was at Vicksburg and so was CC Smith. They ended up with CC in the POW group. So, mom's side captured dad's side. After the war, GW went to Iowa, AJ, CC, and JM were all in Texas. And, JM's daughter married AJ's son, which is how our family got over the war. CC 's granddaughter (my grandmother) ended up marrying JM and AJ's grandson (my grandfather). GW was my mom's great-great grandfather So our family basically patched up the fight in their own way.
Hey Chris. I’ve been tuned in with the channel for about a month and have fell in love with how diverse and informational your content is across all your channels. I’m not one to watch another person react to stuff, however you give such great insight on just about everything involving U.S history, as well as European history. God bless you and the family!
I understand wanting to reconcile after the war, but it's crazy that anyone could commit treason and then serve in government afterwards.
Ya maybe it made sense at the time but I don’t like how Lee and others were basically allowed to go just go home scot free.
Don't look at me. I voted for Thadeus Stevens
You think the founding fathers didn't commit treason? The United States was literally founded by traitors.
@@ikematthews6866 You're treating a typical southern soldier as if he was on the same level as Adolf Hitler. Back then, both sides had respect for each other after the war. Persecution would have been just continuing the conflict in another way. Grant was very graceful to let his opponent and his men return home with their guns and horses. That's something we'll never see again today.
@@FordHoard He's not talking about the soldiers he's talking about the leaders nor is he comparing their actions to Hitler. There's a big difference between persecuting leadership and persecuting soldiers/followers. Some members of Confederate leadership not getting the rope but instead a slap on the wrist can already be considered a miracle by most measures. Allowing them immediate access to political power was an interesting choice and can be argued as overly lenient.
Nothing wrong with seeking reconciliation and restoring things to how they were, but there are always consequences to your actions.
When people say we botched reconstruction, I guess I misunderstood. I thought they meant Lincoln would have been lenient and avoided resentment, but his successor was harsh and pushed them to anger. But I've watched the original vid and now your reaction and all I've gotten both times is that we should have absolutely annihilated any spirit left in the south. There was too much leniency. If that's what is meant by failing at reconstruction then I misunderstood, which isn't a big deal. It hardly seems debatable to me though. The south kept trying to fan their still hot coals back into flames, so the union kept splashing water on it, and the south just kept acting like bratty children. Had we been even more soft on them, obviously we see what would have happened. They frickin tried to restart slavery with work contracts. That's so deviant it's actually insane.
Hi, Chris, this is what makes history so interesting, the fact that events today are still impacted by actions taken two hundred years or even five hundred years ago. Armchair Historian is very good. I enjoyed this and learned a lot. Arnchair Historian has a video on the evolution of German borders which I thought was very good.
It is pretty good. Not comprehensive, but hits on some good points and does a lot better than a channel led by a Ben Shapiro-lookalike than I first thought it would. I hate admitting falling for the stereotype initially, but the history community does not have a great reputation as a whole on the social side of things. Glad to see so many popular TH-cam history channels go against it.
13:37 fun fact, those northerners who went south to take advantage of the situation often carried fancy bags made of capet, which is where the term "carpetbagger" comes from. Now its original meaning did get lost over time but that's where it came from.
Edit: There's also a mini series by Wartime Stories on Champ Ferguson you might want to try out.
I have never known "carpetbagger" to mean anything other than "damn Yankee".
@@endubito These days I think it mainly refers to politicians taking office in places they don't have much ties to.
The bags were not fancy. Carpet bags were a cheap means of making luggage from old worn out rugs.
First I am a Lee of Virginia I am a direct descendant of Edmond J Lee, Who was Robert E Lee’s Uncle. I just want to add a few things. The taxes on the property his wife tried several times to pay the taxes on what really was her land she had inherited the land from her father but do to women not having the right to own property it went to Robert officially. Do to her being a woman was the loophole the government tried to use to not accept the payments. Roberts son got a lot of money for the land I think in today’s money it would be around 25 million. Also Robert did everything to put the country back together even going as far as stating put the flag away and in museums but not to fly it as the confederacy was dead and we are all part of the United States. He also said no statues or monuments should be done for the confederacy. Robert would not get his citizenship back till President Ford signed the order. The US government feared if Lee had gotten his citizenship back while alive he would become President.
My Great Great grandpa was enlisted in the fall of 1861. He was in the 11th Ky infantry until after Shiloh. (He was under Buell, so he only fought the 2nd day) after that he asked for discharge to take a commission in the 35th Ky mounted infantry. It's with them he went to Saltville.
My great grandfather (18 South Carolina) lost his younger teenage brother at Second Manassas, and lost his leg at the end of the war.
I’m sure he had a very tough life after the war.
Poor boy before the war- poor and broken man after.
His wooden leg was still up in the attic when my father was a young boy.
He says he could hear it walking around late at night.
I requested this a few days ago didn’t think Chris would react to it so fact great work Chris
You're series on Reconstruction was great, would love to see it continued.
Nice video as always, also it's August 9th, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki
Another exceptional breakdown with great anecdotal and factual insights. As a life-long student of history, I always learn new, and interesting, tidbits from your vast knowledge base and expertise. I also share your utter disgust with the abhorrent failure of reconstruction after the Civil War… truly one of the worst missed opportunities to fully realize Lincoln’s vision of a more perfect union.
We couldn't see the pictures you were showing us because of the black screen
Brazil only abolished slavery in 1888, last country in the Western hemisphere to do so. And they imported more slaves from Africa than any country on earth. Kinda crazy
This is irrelevant. "Others did evil too, so I'm justified!"
@@Peter-jo6yu Was never an attempt to justify anything. You are making irrelevant assumptions. "Others have done this so this must be as well"
Mauritania was the last country to abolish slavery in the western hemisphere,not Brazil
Both true. But the abolition of slavery in Brazil was a long process. In the mid 19th century slaves were already a minority of the black population because manumition was very common. Also unlike in the USA, according to the 1824 constitution freed slaves born in Brazil were full citizens. We also had very influential mulattos in the imperial government, including ministers, senators, ambassadors etc.
Its kinda mad that people will defend a war that was about people being too lazy to pick their own cotton
Lansford Hastings -- who wrote the "Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California," sent the Donner Party down his "Hastings' Cutoff" to their doom, and ultimately had an enormous influence on the USA's borders in the West -- was one of the Confederates who moved to Brazil after the war. He wrote the "Emigrants' Guide to Brazil" in 1867 and died in the Virgin Islands in 1870 while leading settlers to his colony.
I've always been more into the Great War and the Golden Age of Piracy, but you've honestly made me want to read more about the Civil War. Thanks for that!
Man, I really appreciate and love what you do. You manage to take great content and add all this extra knowledge and information propelling the content into whole new tier of it's own. Thank you VTH!
The story of Arlington Cemetary I have heard is that troops first dug graves in the rose garden before the land was seized to become a cemetery.
It was near the rose garden but not it in.
Watched this the other day so glad you are reacting to it .
I have family in Americana. It is a nice city, but the majority of the population is of Italian ancestry, with people of Confederate ancestry only making up a minority of the population. Many confederates did eventually return to the US in the decades following the founding of the town, they did form a influential and wealthy community here in Brazil, which keeps their southern traditions to this day.
Glad to see you react to Armchair Historian,they have one of the best production quality of history TH-cam channels
Lee's wife, Mary Custis, was the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington and step-great-granddaughter of George Washington. When they seized Arlington House, it was looted and Lee remarked that a lot of the things taken had been the possessions of George Washington.
Simon Whistler did a video on Wirz's actions and the consequences in his Into the Shadows channel. I would love to see your tale on it.
This inspires a watch of the epic "North and South" with Patrick Swayze! (The music track is very similar)
been waiting for this one!
Watched this a weekish ago and have been waiting for this.
One interesting story about the overly lenient reconstruction: In the 1940s, Georgia had a very hardline secessionist governor, Herman Talmadge. The sort of guy who would threaten rivers of blood flowing over integration, made sure people lynching blacks got off scot free, all that stuff.
He gave an oral history interview in 1990 where he was asked about his feelings on the civil rights era in retrospect and how he thought it could have been handled better. Two quotes from that interview:
On integration:
"Well, really, we should have started long before. We should have just started with the Fourteenth Amendment. It could have been done with ease then. We'd just lost the war, and they'd crammed it down our throat at the point of a bayonet. That'd been the time to do it."
Asked about whether it would have been a good idea to wait another 20-30 years for the South to come around on integration on its own without federal intervention:
"Well, it would have prevented lots of turmoil and everything else that we did have. 'Course, the route that we should have gone, when they passed the Fourteenth Amendment, that really was the basis of all these so-called rights and still is. At that time, we ought not to have ever had segregated schools, segregation in the South. Once you adopt a pattern and a mold of conduct with all of the laws involved, including your Constitution, and it's been in being for over a 100 years, people don't change their habits."
So even some hardline Southerners agreed that a more harsh reconstruction could have prevented black oppression in the South for another century.
I’m from Andrew Johnson’s hometown lol I’ve been in his house they still have preserved like 20 times its pretty cool
16:51 As soon as you said you don’t want a debate in the comment section I knew he was talking about Forrest
Yeah he was almost certainly going to say Nathan Bedford Forrest. I question the sincerity of Forrest’s change but who knows.
26:10
If anybody would like to learn more about these labor contracts I recommend Knowing Better’s video about Neoslavery. Truly awful what happened.
Hi Chris. Just another suggestion on a series you could make a reaction to, BBC's Horrible Histories I think is a prettty entertaining show which covers a lot of ground in terms of history that I think you could add some really nice details to.
He’s tried in the past but it automatically gets copyright claimed.
@@luketonkinson5440 I see. Thanks for telling me
Hello Chris, havn't been sending you a comment in a while, but hope you're doing alright. I am aware that this has nothing to do with the topic of the video directly but I am wondering as a fellow tutor and future history teacher, how much didacticism is involved in studying History in the US, especially since if I am not mistaken, you visit schools, talk in front of classes and so on. I wonder if you have the same kind of "how to teach and talk about histor"-courses over in the US as we do here in Germany and if so where the general focus is put on.
Also more on topic: I always love your reactions to the Armchair Historian, almost as much as your Mr. Beat reactions, you always seem to have such a great chemistry when reacting to their videos and to their characters in general.
I’m guessing Chris was going to say Nathan Bedford Forrest around the 17:00 mark and I would have agreed with him.
Yes, he confirmed that with an earlier post.
I asked you a question on a stream about your favorite alternate history scenario other than "What if Woodrow Wilson was never President?" and you said if Lincoln's running mate in 1864 had been Hannibal Hamlin or some other not Andrew Johnson option. Even if you do count that scenario, would you still say that the one about Lincoln's running mate is still your favorite over the one about Woodrow Wilson?
I live in Washington, NC. My family were merchants that relocated from Connecticut to NC in the 1770s, just before the Revolution. Washington was captured during the mid point by the Union because it was a port just upriver from the Pamlico Sound.
I dont know much about what my family during the Civil War but there is a family story that my great great great grandmother, from a very prominent local family that had a lot of land holdings, refused to sign the Oath of Allegiance and never did.
She was a Blount and if you know Tennessee history, one of her relatives, William Blount, had extensive land holdings in Tennessee and was instramental in early Tennessee history.
“It only came back under you-know-who” 😂😂👏🏻
Canada here. I don't agree that the Northern victors should have come down hard on the South. Minds cannot be changed by coercion, only persuasion, and that takes time.
Hello Chris, looking in hindsight do you think we should’ve been harder on the former Confederates or more magnanimous?
Jefferson was held at Ft. Monroe VA. where I lived as a teen, and now I live right down the road from where he was caught in Washington GA. We've even had treasure hunters want to search my mom and dads land for the lost Confederate gold.
Is the screen just going black whenever Chris stops the video?
Yeah it is but I made a comment but it got deleted
I’m wondering why he’s doing that
Should have moved on to punishment and dismantling of old powerstructures and entrenched elites, before granting amnesty and reconstruction.
I didn’t know the KKK came back with Voldemort 😂just kidding great video!👍🏼
Perfect vid to put on in the background while I play Diablo
Was wondering what you were going to add that would lead you to arguments - maybe a name to lookup?
A lot of people also moved out west to the frontier starting the peak of the old west
You should react to the one he made about how Yugoslavia liberated itself during ww2. I find it the most interesting out of all of his videos
22:33 ... Ah, yes, people who lead a rebellion against the US government eventually being put back into leading positions into that government. Such a foreign and exotic notion. Really can't imagine that ever happening nowadays.
Oh the irony.
The seceded states had the right to secede when none of the persons on the ballet became president.
Interesting to note that the 43rd SecDef for the US Luke Wright was a 2LT in the Confederate Army and had seen action during the war and his successor Jacob Dickinson the 44th SecDef served as a Private in the CSA
That office didn't exist at the time; he was Secretary of War.
Love how the guy at 13:55 when he is talking about collution looks like one of the Simpsons!
Wartime Stories made a two-part series about Champ Fergurson in case anyone is interested to know more about him. Just look up 'The Confederate Who Murdered a Hundred Men'
Great vid
I would love to see you redux your Reconstruction series and complete it
Just as @vloggingthroughhistory was saying Free State of Jones I was thinking it 😅
Petition for vlogging through history to talk about the philippine American war day 8
I believe I heard Griffin say that James Longstreet was the only major Confederate officer to become a Republican after the war. But John Singleton Mosby also did. Maybe Griffin doesn't consider Mosby a major Confederate officer.
Mosby was a Colonel so I’m guessing that’s why but yes he was a Republican
@VloggingThroughHistory also P.G.T. Beauregard later became a prominent civil rights activist
@@agentspaniel4428Which I find very interesting to learn considering he literally started the civil war at Sumter.
Love your content man 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Watched this yesterday and I said to myself, "I wonder if Chris will see this and....."
Forrest. You were going to say Forrest, weren't you? Lol
Chamberlain is just an all around good dude.
How close are you to Dayton, Ohio? I'm headed out there the day after tomorrow with my nephews and my Dad.
To defend the video's author about SC starting the war, one could argue that "Bleeding Kansas" could be argued of being the prelude of the Civil War.
How is the screen black? What’s the long story? TL:DR?
17;00. Thinking about Forrest?
Yep.
Andrew Johnson was from NC not TN, there is a statue of him in front of the Raleigh NC courthouse.
He was born in NC. He lived his entire adult and professional life in Tennessee, where he served as a Senator and Governor. He is “from” North Carolina the same way George W Bush is “from” Connecticut.
@@VloggingThroughHistory even though he’s an awful president I have to show love to my home state POTUS’s
Already watched the great original video, but I enjoy hearing your insights!
while Grants terms with surrender were generous, I dont think it embellishes his name as unconditional surrender. as he didn't need those terms like that to get the surrender, its just what was best for the nation
You can grant concessions after receiving an unconditional surrender. "Unconditional surrender" just means that you won't negotiate those concessions prior to the surrender.
I am not even American but I learned so much from this channel about American history. Hopefully I can come there as an engineer some day in the future🙏
Where are you from? US Civil War is some intense history. It shaped the world we live in today. Glad to see you get into it.
@@firingallcylinders2949 From Turkey hopefully a Turkish American in the future
Most of the section about Brazil is factually incorrect and, more worrisomely, gives the wrong idea about Dom Pedro II.
The Emperor never issued any invitation to confederates to settle in Brazil, the country was simply open to immigration, specially european. My own family came from Italy in the second wave during the 1880s (though they settled much farther west than the first wave). The confederates took advantage of this and came into the country after the end of the Civil War.
They did not found the town of Americana, it was simply a name that came about for the village after the influx of americans into the area, which had already been settled for more than fifty years when they arrived. In fact, pretty soon after that, a wave of italian immigrants came in, and settled in the same area. The area is still mostly italian, with descendants of the confederates being a minority since that wave of italian migrants.
With regards to the Emperor, he was a staunch abolitionist and had been working hard to get the institution of slavery over and done with. You must understand that Brazil had a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute one. The power mostly resided with the planter class and the Emperor was limited to what we called the "Moderator" power. He could veto any laws, but he could not propose any himself, as that power rested with congress. For decades he maneuvered society, exercising what today would be called Soft Power based on his enormous popularity. The immigration policies which allowed europeans (and the americans in this particular case) to come and settle the farmland were designed specifically to show the power of free labor and how outdated and inefficient slavery was.
When he did finally get enough support to abolish slavery, he did so (through his daughter and heir Princess Isabel) and within a year suffered a military coup backed by the planter elite who had lost their slaves. Instead of rallying the population (which supported the Emperor to the tune of about 90% in polls), which would have caused a bloody civil war of our own, he decided to let go and left for Europe to live out the rest of his days.
In my opinion, he remains the greatest brazilian who ever lived.
Hey Vth I was wondering when your next video on vth gaming will be
NB Forrest’s life during reconstruction was pretty interesting. Many videos on reconstruction mention the klan but don’t go into specifics. I recommend reading his biography by Jack Hurst. Side note, I am not advocating for him. I merely point out that people like Grant, Lincoln, Davis, Lee, etc get all of the limelight in videos about reconstruction where as someone who contributed to the most prevalent force against reconstruction for most of its duration rarely gets a few sentences mentioning his klan affiliation.
I'm blown away by Lincoln and Grant's honor. They were so gracious and commited to peace.
Why, because Lincoln wanted the war first. He could had just let Ft. Sumter go back to South Carolina.
@@mikejohnson9606it wasn’t their fort. Also the south fired the first shot
@Byzant7 the first shots can be several different times. It is that is when history wanted it and Lincoln chose to call it that way. Buchanan could have chose the first shots before if he had chose to do it that way.
@@mikejohnson9606 “could” doesn’t mean it did. It was a federal fort, being resupplied, and General Beauregard along with governor Pickens gave the order to fire upon the fort. The south were the aggressors. Full stop
As my most available expert, would Lincoln's political capital have been enough to make it better or would he have simply tarnished his legacy trying to sort through the morass that came after? Did Booth do Lincoln a favor?
That is fascinating that ex-confederates could hold government positions after the war...you wouldn't think that would be the case on the surface...I would like to learn more about that.
I just found out my first family member to come to the US in 1750 from Scotland was a stowaway on a ship and was a slave in Scotland. He arrived in Virginia
His son fought in the Revolutionary War as well.
One of my grandfathers - a lifelong Nazi - had been captured by US troops in France and had been as POW in the south. PLaying piano in an officers club he liked the - racist - life there so much that he had an internal fight to go back to wife and two little girls in Vienna after the war.
Been waiting for this one
19:24 just pointing out that whatever photo you tried to show didn’t pop up during the video.
Sorry if this seems dense, but as someone outside the USA, I don't know who "you know who" is.
It was as if the federal government was intent on creating newly equal opportunities for the freed slaves but the president himself, Andrew Johnson, seemed to have other ideas.
Judah P Benjamin 14:20 thereabouts. Ya know it's always interesting to see the curious relationship between blacks and Jews playout in the midst of American racial politics. You have the oppressed of the old world (Jews) and the oppressed of the new world (blacks), their relationship only beginning to come together in somewhat of a positive like after the horrors of the holocaust and WWII. You see after those events it is unlikely that you'd had seen a Judah P. Benjamin playing a Eugene "Bull" Connor, or George C. Wallace type figure in the 1950s and 1960s just on account of having white skin seeing how that alone didn't save them from Auschwitz or Buchenwald. Morality often requires a certain level of experience to be perfected.
My 2x great grandfather Horace King was a Buffalo soldier 9th calvary stationed at Ft.Leavenworth and it was passed down to us "Burning Kansas" was the beginning of the Civil War against slavery ...black soldiers had to quarter themselves on Indian land at that time provided by an Indian princess named Quindaro which is where a majority of runaway slaves settled after crossing the Missouri River on the underground railroad...John Brown enlisted these black men as infantry in his raids on Missouri they later became what we know as the Buffalo soldiers...but it seems history and the Union at that time didn't want to kick start a Civil War over what was considered then slave revolts Lincolns reluctance on squashing the rebellion led to Missouri joining the confederacy and Kansas being a free state one if not the first but we were also told the first shots of the Civil War were taken in Perry-Lecompton KS a few miles from Lawrence KS...let me know if I have any of this wrong
Your dark shirt and chair colors make you look a little vampiric from a distance, hah.
A historian reacting to a historian, The greatest crossover ever-
" it only came back under you know who." Lol
I'd be interested to know your views on the country of Liberia being set up by Monroe, as a place to return freed blacks in the years before the civil war.
The Capital Monrovia still bearing his name today!
I wish so much you could do a non-scripted joust with Atun-Shei Andy if you would defend the south just a bit. Let's see if he'd be up for a challenge.
it helps to be the victors…nobody who ran the Confederate POW camp in Chicago ever faced charges
It seems that the population of a republic have little patience for long term nation building efforts, for good or for ill.
It's _per se_ misleading to correct a dollar figure using inflation alone. The median income in 1860 was $300. That's 67 years to make $20k. Compare that to $370k today with a median income of 47k. That's only 7.8 years. Then there's unemployment, slavery and incomes per family.
Just found your channel! Love your content brother. Keep up the good work! I love your knowledge and opinions on all these events.
Glad you're here!
The Black Code restrictions reducing persons to indentured servitude is quite similar to men today sent to the Divorcentration Camps for "no fault".
K... at about 2:30 Yeah, I think I can say that the nation botched Reconstruction in about as similar a fashion as the victorious Allies out of WWI did Versailles and its aftermath period of about 10-15 years. I'll defer to your Civil War expertise to tell me how on or off I am with that comparison.
There is no reason to believe race relations would be any different no matter how reconstruction went. There would still be a giant achievement gap between blacks and whites (test scores, wealth, IQ scores), which is at the heart of our strained race relations.
While the criminal underfunding of the US education system (seriously look it up) is at the cause for two of those it not just colored people suffering under the underfunding of the education system