@@snakyYTexcept Grant was the furthest thing from a “butcher” that war had. He gets called that and yet had some of the lowest casualty rates whereas Lee (who’s treated like a god) had the highest. Also, all those who died so McClellan could get nowhere? It’s self defeating. Sure Grant may have lost more in a battle but difference being, *he advanced* so it wasn’t for nothing.
@marquisdelafayette1929 it makes sense Lee had the most casualties though. The north switched their generals so many times. Lee replaced a southern genral early in the war.
One interesting thing to note is how at the start of the war the north mostly saw slavery as an economic issue. This was because most never had actually seen it and by the end of the war the young men that actually went south and fought and saw the horrors of true slavery changed there minds and supported Lincolns abolishianism
@@Genesis50000 Not just Americans, racism was/is a global thing regardless of the status of freed men vs slaves during that era. Still to this day though it is steadily dying out.
They also saw the huge loss if the South actually left/succeeded . It evolved to become about more than just secession but at the start of the war it was more about keeping the country together/protecting profits(sounds bad but its part of the governments job to keep the country strong/getting as much taxes).
A quote I find incredibly interesting when talking about John Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry was one from Frederick Douglass: "His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was a taper light, his was the burning sun. Mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the silent shores of eternity. I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave"
The word "Zeal" exemplifies it. To find something so axiomatically abhorrent that it drives you to frothing rage... Douglass was a smart man doing a life's work. Brown was a maniac following his heart.
When you mentioned that it was crazy how quickly they formed an army, it was because Before World War One, there was no standing unified army. It was essentially every state would have their own army that would fight under the banner of the republic during war time. This was why there were often armies in this war called thing like “The Massachusetts 2nd” or “The Texas Fifth Regiment” because they were formed by a state by state basis
That's not entirely correct. There was a small standing US Army (USA), often referred to as the "Regular Army". (Who do you think was manning Ft Sumpter and running West Point?) There were 16,400 members of the USA at the start of the Civil War. States did, however, contribute the numbered militia units you mentioned, which were known as United States Volunteers (USV). Officers leading these units were referred to by their rank, followed by the title "of Volunteers." (For instance, "Captain of Volunteers." ) Also regular army officers often had 2 ranks, their regular/ actual rank and their rank in the volunteer army. (George Armstrong Custer was a Lt. Col in the regular army/ USA and a Major General in the USV during the Civil War.)
To add another angle to this, the US, despite even recent shifts in priorities at the federal level, has long had a cultural identity revolving around the notion of "you fight for your own place in the world" which makes it so that finding people motivated enough to enlist when our sovereignty is directly threatened very easy and this is also one of the reasons that effectively disarming the entire civilian population of the US is functionally improbable if not impossible
Huh, that's pretty much like the old "tribal" territories for example early medieval scandinavia and east europe (welp... all the non-feudal territories I guess) never knew that, thanks for sharing lad
Charles Sumner (the senator who was hit with a cane) was really a man ahead of his time. He spent his entire career fighting not only for an end to slavery, but also an end to exclusionary immigration laws, an end to imperialism, advocated for women’s rights, and tried to pass a civil rights bill a full 80 years before the country finally got around to implementing one. Most of his contemporaries shunned his efforts at granting full land ownership and voting rights to the newly freed slaves during Reconstruction. A shame he’s only remembered for being hit with a cane.
Additional fun fact: The Monitor's turret malfunctioned not long into the battle and wouldn't stop rotating. So the gunners (who already had just the worst job aboard, being deafened by not only their own guns but the cannonballs hitting the outside of the turret) basically got to sit there and wait for the target to be in front of the gunports and then hurry and fire before they spun past again. Shockingly, taking brand new, advanced, thoroughly untested technology straight into battle is the sort of thing that invites all kinds of unforeseen problems.
When you travel down to Virginia, visit some of the battle sites because they are all over the state. I’ve lived here for several years and moved 3 times and have always had a battle site, skirmish, or encampment within 15 miles
Part of the reason Lincoln didn't enact the emancipation proclamation right away was because Maryland was on the fence about which side they wanted to be on. He was compromising with them and trying not to have DC, and himself, surrounded by the enemy if Maryland flipped.
Love your reaction, but I think you missed the idea of what they meant by economic issue. The people worried about it economically were already dirt poor farmers in the north who didn't have slaves and were worried about their land getting bought out by rich plantation owners, leaving them both dirt poor and then homeless. Like another comment said, they also had almost no idea about the details of slavery, most never travelling outside their small towns and information coming slowly if it came at all. The quote "never attribute to malice what you can to ignorance" is very fitting for this.
Yeah, people need to stop vilifying economics and acknowledge it as a legitimate concern. They are far too quick to dismiss economic concerns these days probably because in many ways we, at least in the US, live in what is probably the closest thing possible to a post-scarcity world and are so far removed from survival that we just don’t realize how much has to be done to not starve especially in a world without safety nets. Which leads to us forgetting that economic interests especially in historical settings are in many cases actually just concerns about being able to acquire/produce things like food. I mean that’s why historically theft was punished so severely because in many cases you were effectively threatening the victim with starvation.
Yeah he was quick to label them as rich farmers who we’re worried about losing their wealth, but they were poor farmers with very little income or property, so the large plantations would destroy their livelihoods entirely 😊
Britain outlawed slavery in 1833, about thirty years before the American Civil War. The British abolition movement was pushed by a great many people, including such notables as William Wilberforce. France, by the way, had abolished slavery in 1794. The northern American states had all abolished slavery by 1804. Also, it's worth noting that the Oversimplified video underplays the religious moral opposition to slavery. It notes that Lincoln saw slavery as a moral evil, but there were a _lot_ of abolitionists out there who saw it the same way. The abolition movements in Britain and America largely started by Quakers, who were joined by other Christians on moral grounds. The _economic_ consequences of slavery were present, but the vocal abolitionists were far, far more motivated by religious and moral considerations.
Of course, while England *officially* ended slavery in their colonies 1833.... (slavery was really gone much sooner in England itself because they had labor surpluses rather than shortages) ...plantation owners in British colonies quickly replaced their slaves with Indentured East Indian labor, who in practice were treated as slaves into the 20th century. Indian indentures really didn't end until WWI and the rise of Indian nationalism,
@@ilikehardplay And because history isn’t complicated enough, the English did more than any other country on the face of the planet Earth to stomp out slavery globally. Even though they definitely DID use questionable labor in parts of the world.
As a new citizen, and a veteran, I suggest you investigate the Battle of the Little Bighorn/Greasy Grass, AKA "Custer's Last Stand". Though it really was more of a retreat under fire. The Civil War is absolutely key to American psychology, and sociology. It was the Civil War that changed the way Americans literally refer to themselves: ante-bellum it was "The US are"; after the war it became 'the US is". I would also advise, you NOT do the typical tourist spots that Euros do, and take the time to visit Gettysburg and Antietam. Both are within a few hours drive of each other.AFA other countries: The UK made slavery illegal throughout the Empire in about 1833. The Netherlands outlawed slavery in their colonies about 1850. Brazil did not outlaw slavery until the late 1800's. In fact, many ex-plantation owners emigrated to Brazil for this reason. So most European powers AND yes the US all outlawed slavery only within about 30 years of each other. I should point out, that for northern farmers it was NOT about "making more money". These are not "farms" like estates/agribusinesses in the UK. These were SUBSISTENCE farmers, who made enough to feed their families, with a small surplus to sell.
exactly 💯 when I was little kid my favorite place to go in the world was locally up to the Mill Mountain star here where I live in Roanoke Virginia right now before we moved off to Texas and also drive about 4 hours North to Gettysburg. We went every summer in August and we always stopped at the McDonald's in Woodstock Virginia and that was that going up there because I was a big history fanatic starting when I was 8 years old.. people still have old civil War flags and it's really disgusting because people say it's racist but it has nothing to do with that and it's kind of like the old TV show " The dukes of Hazzard". It's a southern thing and just part of the Southern tradition or Southern pride and the more rural or sub rural Life versus Big City New York or La etcetera etcetera but it absolutely has nothing to do with the race or slavery whatsoever but it's just a part of American history. Most of the people here in the South really do like history and unlike a lot of people up north and on the West Coast in the coastal elite up in the Northeast, we love history here and out in the South Midwest etc and even up in the Rockies. Here in the South we definitely do have American flags and some people will have both and it's just part of the US history. I've been to visit some people. Not only do they have everything that they received in service in the military etcetera etcetera but they got American flag and the old Confederate flag. In the 1980s there was a TV show called The dukes of Hazzard county and I think it was placed in North or South Carolina. These two cousins drove a vehicle that was a muscle car like an old Dodge and it was actually painted like a Confederate flag. 😂 It was a really really good show. The civil War was heartbreaking but I didn't blame that on the part of The Americans. Slavery was brought here by the Europeans whether it was Britain France or Spain. When the USA began as a country, some slaveholding founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Washington wanted to keep it out of the Constitution and do away with slavery because it was a colonial thing and South Carolina and Georgia refused to ratify the Constitution without slavery.. the reason they did at the time had nothing to do with race but it was because the south in the deep southern area there was not as heavily populated and it still was not anywhere near as populated during the civil War as the North and they needed labor. It's really really sad and to keep our Union together because we were vulnerable new country of course the Jefferson and Washington allowed slavery to stay.. The problem with keeping slavery is that it went from being something the European powers start in here in the Americas but Congress in the USA continued to kick the can down the road just like they do with everything!!!! Look at our budget at 35 trillion and that is Congress kicking the can down the road and they do it with social security and Medicare and everything else.. they are only worried about raising money and getting re-elected and pleasing their donors and when they do work most of them do what their riches donors want them to do. It's really sad because I want a president for everybody regardless of whether we're rich poor or working middle class etc the sad thing is over history and especially since the 1960s people either vote for who they perceive as American royalty like the Kennedys or Obama etcetera or they vote for people who are just politically savvy even if they're jerks... Trump was the first business owner non-politician to get elected and I actually liked that but I hate it and I still do hate the darn nasty talk around it because no Americans should talk so evil about anybody here in the USA.. nobody nobody and we used to be a dysfunctional family being that they could call us names and vice versa but nobody else could😂 it started getting so bad around 2008 and 2012 during the elections that was just so nasty every 4 years and I couldn't stand it... 2016 was a pretty enjoyable election year and after that I dread them. It's ridiculous that it cost so much money to run for political office and I think of all the homeless people that could be fed and our national debt that can be paid you know. .
Willie and his younger brother Tad were considered "notorious hellions" when they lived in Springfield. Their father's law partner William Herndon said they pulled books off their shelves while their father appeared oblivious. When Abraham Lincoln took office as President of the United States, Willie and Tad moved into the White House. To give them playmates, Mary Todd Lincoln asked Julia Taft to bring her younger brothers, 14-year-old "Bud" (Horatio Nelson Taft Jr., 1847-1915) and 12-year-old "Holly" (Halsey Cook Taft, 1849-1897) to the White House. Willie and Tad became ill in early 1862, possibly with typhoid fever. Tad was relatively lightly affected but Willie gradually weakened; his parents spent much time at his bedside. He died on February 20. Both parents and Tad were deeply affected. Lincoln said, "My poor boy. He was too good for this earth. God has called him home. I know that he is much better off in heaven, but then we loved him so much. It is hard, hard to have him die!"; after the burial, he shut himself in a room and wept alone. Mary Lincoln remained in bed for three weeks and was unable to attend Willie's funeral or look after Tad. Abraham Lincoln took solace in caring for and comforting Tad, who remained very ill and was grieving himself for his brother's death. Tad also lost the companionship of Bud and Holly, whom Mary refused to allow in the White House anymore, as they reminded her too much of Willie. Willie was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown. After Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, he was re-interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, first in a temporary tomb and in 1871 in a state tomb alongside his father and his brother Eddie. Tad and Mary Todd Lincoln were also later placed in the crypt of the Lincoln Tomb.
What I love most about watching your channel is how intelligent you are and how seasoned your perspective is. You've got a deeper understanding of how the world works than the typical person, and it shows in the insights you raise.
When you travel the US, you HAVE to come down to the Gettysburg battlefield. I live about 45 minutes away from it and it’s such a nice place to tour for a full day. And yes, it will take nearly a full day to go through all of it, there’s so much history and sites to travel to and visit just in that one battlefield.
I second this. It’s one thing to read about the battle, but actually walking the battlefield makes you understand better why certain decisions were made, and why some areas were absolutely critical to turning the tide of battle.
About an hour and a half or so for me, but I've done many school trips, family trips, and Scout trips to Gettysburg. With the Scouts, we camped there and walked a lot of battles, including Picket's Charge which is over a field that seems so much bigger in person than it ever has on a screen.
If your wondering how the confederates were able to make an army so fast, it's because of national and state guard. Essentially each state has its own mini army of sorts. Idk if other countries do this, or if they just have reserves.
A late reply but most European countries at the time had standing armies of various sizes alongside a sizeable reserve that could be called up. As wars were less common near the USA they had a smaller standing army, but the national guards of the various states could be called up if needed, a lot of officers who would get to lead armies in the civil war came from the pre-war army and a lot of them knew each other to some degree. Even Lee and Grant had met before the war began, back during the American-Mexican War. This is why Lee was such an effective general, as he not only knew tactics and strategy, but also most of the enemy commanders personally or by reputation, and thus had a good grasp on how they would act.
As a Mainer since 2 (with New Englander family that goes back to the colonies) it's nice to have you here! Also, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Joshua Chamberlain, from Brunswick, Maine.
9:50 child labour was pretty commonplace all over the world at this time, including in the USA. It just was more visible in industrialised nations with kids working in horrible conditions in mines and factories. But kids had been working on farms and plantations for centuries too. It was just considered normal. And if you were a slave, child or not, you had no choice but to work... Slave children were defacto free labour. At least non slave children got paid even if it often was a pittance. Slave children were sold and traded like livestock often taken away from their parents and sold off.
It seems like the rebels formed an army very rapidly, but they had spent the better part of a year building up, seizing armories and forts, and recruiting throughout the South. I think it was something like half a dozen forts had already been taken by the time Fort Sumter was taken. The South knew a war was coming and had been preparing long before they attempted to leave.
“Do you know what the southern states were up to before the war?” “Chillin. Yearnin for freedom from yankee tyranny.” “Not exactly.” God I love checkmate Lincolnites.
@@DongusMcBongusidk how they pretend like their VP didn’t straight up give a speech about the “Cornerstone” of their “new great nation is the fundamental truth that African Americans are not equal to whites”.
You should watch the movie "Lincoln", with Daniel Day Lewis. It gives a really incredible insight on Abraham Lincoln, the abolition issue, and the final months of the war. In my opinion its one of the best movies ever made about him.
I love hearing your perspective and insight.I thought it was really interesting that in Manchester you have a statue of Lincoln. Thanks for sharing some cool history. I'm from Illinois and we are also known as "Land of Lincoln" and it's printed on drivers plates.
31:04 if you ever make your way down to virginia, richmond is a really cool place to check out. tons of civil war history here, including the confederate white house, nearby battlefields, chimborazo hospital, etc. also has some cool revolutionary war history, including the church where patrick henry gave his “give me liberty or give me death” speech - st. john’s church in church hill.
Fun fact:Portugal was the first country to abolish slavery (or at least the first empire to do so) (at least I'm the mainland) in 1761,though it was only abolished in the colonies in 1869 And britain abolished it In the 1830s
One point this video leaves out is that the slave trade - especially the American slave trade - was run by the Dutch. It was the Dutch that would procure slaves from African empires and either ship them over themselves, or then sell them off to others to ship out of Africa.
You're missing something in red dead (it's not vital but it's a fun mini story) There is photos of gunslingers in arthurs satchel view them and you get mission locations and they're fun and worth doing
Yeah… having grown up in the south we were taught almost none of this in school. Or about the multiple racial massacres in my state, much less the one so many of us realized happened while watching The Watchmen show. Oh and was definitely taught that the civil war was about states rights. Fun stuff, having to pick up all this history slowly as you run across it and realize how horribly uninformed you were.
See I keep hearing and seeing comments like this and I just can’t agree. I personally consider oversimplified fun and well done but very shallow, a very basic summery that can actually be somewhat misleading at times in its simplicity especially with the jokes. There is almost nothing in the American history ones I didn’t already know by high school a lot of it I probably knew coming out of middle school to be honest. I don’t know maybe I just had exceptional exposure as a kid. I suppose I did visit civil war battlefields/forts and see re-enactments as a young kid with my dad and grandfather but it really doesn’t seem like I did anything exceptional I just actually paid attention in class, visited monuments/museums/historic sites occasionally, and read my textbooks alongside a couple other books on the subject.
@@ethansenter5298 I can absolutely believe that, but unfortunately education is wildly inconsistent in the US (not saying anything about comparison to other places, I just have no point of reference there). I was in various versions of honors, and eventually AP courses middle school at more or less mid sized schools in a fairly large city in the south. We barely covered the civil war, or the civil rights movement or anything related and while it’s entirely possible I just don’t remember mention, I’d like to think I would have noticed even then if the multiple entirely race based massacres post civil war were even mentioned. That said, absolutely they are -very- high level/basic overviews. I mean, they wouldn’t be very oversimplified if not. It’s a gateway to realizing there were chunks of history that you didn’t know even existed. For some it might not matter, but I put a lot of value on the approachable summaries as a way to get people interested in knowing more and questioning what they missed. I know most of what these videos bring up, but a disturbing amount of it I only know because I stumbled across something mentioning it and then dug into it myself. And any simplification is going to have some things that can be misleading. I don’t love it, and it’s complicated, but then I’m also from an engineering background where you don’t get anywhere without simplifying at least some things to where they aren’t quite exactly correct but all told get a better end result/understanding than trying to start from the accurate but confusing and counter intuitive exact answer. IE how basic courses generally teach that wings produce lift is.. not actually true.
Actually, I would say most of this was covered by my school. There were even several things covered in school that weren't mentioned in Oversimplified history. The problem is in how the information is presented. Seeing a bunch of names and dates spanning four dense chapters is difficult enough to focus on. But when the textbooks decide to categorize information based on events instead of chronology (under some weird belief that it makes the content more digestible)? That's just makes everything a confusing mess. I'd advise any history teacher to show Oversimplified videos FIRST and then dive into the textbook so students already have some context and know what names and events to pay special attention to...
Britain abolished slavery in 1833, around 30 years before the outbreak of war. Canada, like most imperial dominions, followed suit quickly after the UK's law was passed, abolishing slavery in 1834. I grew up in the UK too. I had a module in GCSE History on American History, although not much about the civil war. As ever, each school uses different exam boards and some don't cover it.
Britain through several hundred years unleaa im mistaken were one of the few with the ships capable of getting the slaves into the slave trade. The british east india company. They dominated the global trade they traded apices sugar, slaves. They needed the slaves to farm the crop. It was rough. Same thing is happening today apple uses china to put the factory there and china will promise bonuses that dont show up and they get welded in a camp because their covid forced mutation vaccine lab is leaking. Its still happening they just moved rhe slaves to where its harder to free them
Another fun fact is that Lincoln was a wrestler and won 299 matches and lost 1 but even then was questionable so it got him into the national hall of fame for wrestling. As of people a lot of the people where related to the founding fathers. Like Robert E. Lee was related to George Washington by marriage and his land in Arlington was captured the union on the outskirts of DC and was later turned in the national cemetery. Reading generals minds: another thing about Lee is before the war he was the headmaster at West Point (the officer training school) and was even offered the position of commander of the army of the Potomac and again most of the generals on both sides had been friends and colleagues for decades While Lincoln was a good political leader he wasn’t the best general and made a lot of calls where he should have just let his generals do his thing
To answer a couple questions you asked in the video: the Northern US states had small numbers of slaves in the 1700s but starting with Vermont they all made chattel slavery illegal in the decades immediately following the American revolution (although debt slavery and indentured servitude still existed to some extent). Britain was one of the first European countries to make chattel slavery illegal in 1833, although with the major exception of Jamaica and a couple other British colonies who's economies depended on cheap labor mainly for sugar cultivation. In 1808 the US had banned the importation of new slaves, but not the keeping and sale thereof and slavery was widespread from Maryland and Delaware all the way down through the south-eastern quarter of the continental US, although the largest enslaved populations were in the cotton producing states of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama. In the 1830s onward the British navy had a dedicated anti-slavetrade fleet which patrolled the Atlantic and intercepted mostly Portuguese and Spanish slave ships traveling from West Africa to Central and South America. However, the motivation for this antislavery action was perhaps more to undermine the economies of their Catholic rivals than out of any altruism for the Africans. On the question of slaves escaping during the war, many did and made their way North where they were eventually allowed to join the Union army. In Jones county Mississippi, escaped slaves, fugitives and Confederate deserters hid in marshlands and using hit and run tactics, starting a counter-rebellion and by wars' end had liberated the county and susceded from Mississippi declaring their own free soil state. However the Union didnt support them and the state of Mississippi renamed the county and supressed knowledge of them.
The picture of the two iron clads fighting was during the battle of Hampton roads. It was the first time iron clads were used and it happened 2 minutes away away from my house.
General Robert E Lee was a very interesting individual. I did a history report on him back in high school and uncovered a few things I wasn't expecting. Many biographies gave me the impression that, although he was a general that fought for the Confederate States, he personally didn't care for slavery and was a very upstanding & honorable man. It made me sad to hear about his statues being torn down because of history recording him as "the bad guy"
The American Civil War was the first "modern war". The first military use of repeating firearms, the Spencer & Henry rifles, the first use of "machine guns", with galing guns. It also featured the first use of aerial surveillance, with the use of balloons. Telegraph networks were set up, allowing near instantaneous communications across hundreds of miles. The first combat used of submarines, naval mines, and, armored warships. Large numbers of troops were transported rapidly by railroad for the first time. And, there were European military observers from all the major powers there for all of it, taking notes. In that way, it really was the breeding ground for the horror of WW1.
@@7heSlime Fair point, but apparently his genealogy can be traced back to Lincoln's grandparents, making him roughly a third cousin several times removed. He's also a sixth cousin of Mister Rogers. On a different note, Barack Obama is a descendant of Robert E. Lee through his mother.
I live in Tennessee and we saw quite a lot of the Civil War, just 10 minutes away from my apartment is the Stones River Battlefield which actually saw a higher percentage of casualties on both sides than any battle in the war. My 4th great grandfather also served for the Confederacy, 49th infantry regiment of Tennessee at the Battle of Ft. Donelson. That's where Grant got his "unconditional surrender" name.
35:36 "The Civil War was the first large and prolonged conflict recorded by photography. During the war, dozens of photographers--both as private individuals and as employees of the Confederate and Union Governments--photographed civilians and civilian activities; military personnel, equipment, and activities; and the locations and aftermaths of battles." - US National Archives
YES!! Watch part 2 right away! I love your reactions and enjoy hearing your unique perspective on US history. I will check back soon to see if you finished watching it. Keep up with the great videos!
YES he’s joining our cult. Slowly turn to the dark side Also a few facts where I am in Kentucky was a border state so they were “neutral” and stayed part of the Union (even though we are a SOUTHERN state) but, there was a lot of support from both sides and families were torn apart because of it. Another interesting fact is there are Underground Railroad tunnels all under Louisville that have now been used for plumbing pipes.
No, not neutral. We were a border, along with Missouri and Maryland, because they were slave states but didn't want leave the Union. So Washington allowed them to keep their slaves so as not to make those states mad and succeed as well.
@@codygates7418 If you pay attention to the Emancipation Proclamation, it only frees slave in *Confederate* states. It didn't free slaves in slave states that remained in the Union, because Lincoln didn't want to lose the support of those states.
@@Maria_Erias I guess I’m a little bit confused. I know that the Emancipation freed the slaves in Confederate states but, I thought it freed all slaves (North and South)
@@codygates7418 The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in state engaging in active rebellion. If states had decided to leave the confederacy and rejoin the Union before it took effect, they would have been allowed to retain slaves. Really, the only thing the proclamation did was give the Union army legal grounds for liberating slaves.
My great-grandmother met my gx2 grandma during reconstruction. And boy oh boy. The stories they had. I was still very young but lucky my grandmother still remembers how they had 3 families in one house down south, I never got to meet my great-grandparents but I can't imagine being someone on a steamship and finding love
For tactical military games, I highly recommend Ultimate General: Civil War and Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail. Somewhat similar to the Total War games.
19:36 “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” This quote being the ending of Danny Vineyard's paper in American History X, and narrated as the outro post-mortem, has always stuck with me.
The sad thing is that slavery was actually in a decline in the late 1700s for various reasons, and probably would have ended before long. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794 thinking that it would hasten the end of slavery, but it instead made slavery economically viable again.
Hate to break this to you, but according to the 1860 census, slavery was as profitable as it had ever been. Eight of the ten richest states in the nation were located in the South. And the cash value of the slaves in the South was greater that all the land and improvements taken together. The belief that "slavery was in decline" was a product of post-Civil War Southern historians seeking to argue that the war was unnecessary and the fault of abolitionist threats..
@@ilikehardplay Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794 when slavery was in decline, not 1860. His hope was that it would hasten the fall of slavery, but it instead had the opposite effect, making slavery once again economically viable and causing the massive increase of slavery in the 1800s that led to the Civil War. I've edited the original comment to make this more clear.
Nah it definetly helped kill slavery bro. Suddenly they didnt need a gazillion slavea for that one job they needed 5 slaves to do the same work it meant anyone without the magical machine needed mkre slaves to make the same money they had to feed them they had to buy them now that the machine is out a cotton slave is worth less because a machine just took their job. The cotton gin played a huge role you coukd even say it was one kf the straws the broke its back like how the free states outnumbered the slave states littls by little it all adds up
Most of the Northern states had abolished slavery in the 1780s, whereas the Civil War takes place in the 1860s. So half the nation was 80 years behind, like if half the nation still resembled the 1940s today. However, there were 2 different approaches to ending slavery. In the New England states, they just abolished it completely and freed everyone. But in the Mid-Atlantic states, they instead made a law that the children of slaves could not be slaves, and no more slaves could be brought from overseas. So once the last remaining slaves died off naturally, that would be it. That approach was likely Lincoln's hope for the South, and why he kept saying he wasn't going to take away their slaves. He wasn't. He was going to take away their ability to create new slaves, with the last remaining living slaves giving the South a couple generations to adjust. That unfortunately wasn't good enough for the South. By this time in history, every major Western nation had abolished slavery except the American South and Brazil. Brazil would peacefully end it about a decade later, as it wasn't much in practice by then anyway.
Theres a place I like to go fishing about 5 minutea from my house where the union marched through and burned down an entire town EXCEPT for the facilities necessary to keep the whiskey mill running and the whiskey mill itself. It's called Jolly Mill, I still find musket balls, cannon balls, knives, and belt buckles ( so far) and ive been walking these woods for 2 decades. Cool stuff.
England, arguably got rid of slavery long before the US, though you could say their slavery went from having slaves from Africa to having slaves from their own people.
What interest me learning more about history the most are the unusual characters that are not talked about but made big impacts. It's so interesting how they came to be and where they were coming from in their life when they made an impact.
Yah, before this I didn’t know much other than the war. Our schools teach us about the civil war and said it was always about slavery, they never really taught what led up to the war.
“Why don’t I know about this?” That’s how I feel when I learn about England and Frances history. Fun fact, most Americans don’t even know this about the civil war.
24:25 ya, at the time war was a total spectacle. people would often find some flatland or a nice hill to have a sunday picnic on while watching the battle. you need to finish this.
Antietam wasn't exactly a Union victory. The Union army had more casualties by around 2,000+ and the Confederates simply withdrew. It was more akin to a draw. However, because the Confederate army withdrew Lincoln could mark it as a Union victory to push forward his Emancipation Proclamation. Which was good but sadly wasn't the crippling blow to the Confederates he wanted to happen. Hell, there was even a single cornfield the two armies fought over and it exchanged hands many times and resulted in hundreds if not thousands dead on both sides. From ONE. cornfield that one unit the 12th Massachusets suffered ~67% casualties of their force. The morning phase of the battle alone saw ~13,000 casualties of both Union and Confederates.
Except that "victory" and "defeat" in military terms are referring to whether goals were accomplished, not recourses expent to achieve said goal. That's why the concept of a pyhric victory exists (if your not familiar with the term a pyhric victory is a battle where an army is victorious (IE they achieved their objectives) but at such a high cost that the victory is meaningless (or even detrimental) to the war in the longterm.
So fun thing with the ironclads is that they had breach loading cannons rather than muzzle loading which brought up the fire rate to 10 rounds per minute rather than 3, also also the first fight between 2 ironclads took 3 hours and ended in a draw with no significant damage to either ship and no deaths and only a handful of injuries
8:33 actually this was a bit late to the party of abolishing slavery, most of western europe had already abolished slavery by this point(on the mainland at least) so this wasn't really a turning point for slavery at all, globally speaking.
Just a heads up @OriginalHuman the reason the confederacy was able to mobilize so fast is because each state still had their own state militia at the time, however I think it went out of practice after the civil war
There’s some pretty nice letters to Lincoln from worker organisations in Manchester, and yeah workers refused to work with cotton picked by American slaves - at the time this lead to a lot of economic hardship on top of the already existing issues. The USA send some aid and a statue as a tanks. Lots of pretty cool statues here, there’s one on Engles that we got after the collapse of the USSR as Manchester was where him and Marx did a lot of their work. Also on that note there are also some pretty neat letters to Lincoln from Marx, always cool to hear how historical figures interact.
My great great great grandfather was from New Hampshire and fought for the Union in the Civil War. He died near Camp Parapet in Louisiana. His son was my great great grandfather, whose son was my great grandfather, whose son was my Grandpa Wally, whose son was my dad.
Lincoln’s war powers were essentially a response to a national emergency, considering that the entire country was essentially a militarized zone. There’s always been debates about how far the powers of authority go during an emergency such as this, but the country was literally being ripped apart from within. Later, during World War I, free-speech was also suppressed. And there has been much debate over the patriot act.
A thing that fascinates me about the civil war is Robert E. Lee arguably the most infamous confederate. He was not a secessionist nor in favor of slavery. He was a West Point graduate, second in his class, a Colonel, and even fought alongside Ulysses S. Grant during the Mexican-American war. He resigned his position in the union army after Virginia, his home state, seceded. Lee stated he would not fight his own friend and family. The more I read about Robert E. Lee the more amazed I was, he was not at all this monster everyone had painted him to be, and if there is one reason to betray your country, I would say refusing to fight your friends and family is a pretty damn solid one.
Fun fact: Ulysses S Grant isn't his real name. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, but his initials spelled HUG and he hated that. When someone made a documentation error and wrote Ulysses S Grant, he just decided that was gonna be his name and went with it.
If you’d still like to see actual photographs from the war, I’d recommend Matthew Brady’s work. Most of his photographs are taken from the battlefield though, so they are incredibly graphic.
9:06 Statue of Lincoln in Manchester, relating to Manchester (1st) not to accept cotton picked by slaves...good mentions--informational.-Ernie Moore Jr
some amusing quotes by president Licolon “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”― Abraham Lincoln “I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.”― Abraham Lincoln “There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”― Abraham Lincoln "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg." --President Abraham Lincoln "Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." --President Abraham Lincoln
A couple things: there are actual pictures from this period, photography was in it's infancy but there a were a lot of pictures taken. If you really want to learn about the civil war I'd suggest the Ken Burns series "The Civil War". At first Lincoln's main purpose was to preserve the union he in fact said this to a journalist: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that".
When watching a subject that is OverSimplified it is wise not to jump to conclusions. While it is true the north had mixed reasons for being against slavery that is only a partial truth. As a direct descent of an English Clergyman who Fled England for his life I take great exception to this generalization and your indignant response. The Civil War was going to be a thing from the get-go. The tobacco growers settled Virginia (the South) and a few years later the Pilgrims settled Massachusetts (the North) So we had the plantations in the south, the Christians who fled religious persecution in England in the North. The pilgrims, (Puritans) never were for slavery. My 10th great grandfather was one of the clergy who fled due to threats from the Bishop of Norwich and landed in Watertown MA. Many years later my 2nd great grandfather fought for the Union in the Civil War, had his eardrums blown out at Antietam.
They never mentioned that we sent Cassius Clay to Russia as an ambassador and almost got them involved before the signing of the emancipation proclamation which also basically forced Lincoln to sign it prematurely.
5:50 man was in part massasheutes and the other part was actually New-Brunswick Canada until they chose the Saint-John river valley has the boarder this is why you have many Acadians and French speaking Americans living in Main.
Funny enough, general McClellan actually did say "I didn't lose! I merely failed to win!" after his campaign.
He was the William Howe of the Civil War: good general, but way to skittish about pursuit.
Also when people called us grant a butcher Lincoln did ask what did he drink. And then said give him more whiskey.
@@snakyYT Paraphrasing: "If it would make them fight like Grant, I would send all of my generals a barrel."
@@snakyYTexcept Grant was the furthest thing from a “butcher” that war had. He gets called that and yet had some of the lowest casualty rates whereas Lee (who’s treated like a god) had the highest.
Also, all those who died so McClellan could get nowhere? It’s self defeating. Sure Grant may have lost more in a battle but difference being, *he advanced* so it wasn’t for nothing.
@marquisdelafayette1929 it makes sense Lee had the most casualties though. The north switched their generals so many times. Lee replaced a southern genral early in the war.
You go, “I’ll probably split these into 15 min parts” i check the time to see it’s a 40 min video. I love it
I enjoyed it too much haha
@@OriginalHuman it's okay my guy. I've never met anyone who didn't like longer videos, we love them
@@OriginalHuman you should react to the Napoleon Wars from Oversimplified or Prohibition. when you have the time i know you have a bus to work on lmao
@@OriginalHuman we did too! Keep up the good content!
@@OriginalHuman We all glad you did. Great video
One interesting thing to note is how at the start of the war the north mostly saw slavery as an economic issue. This was because most never had actually seen it and by the end of the war the young men that actually went south and fought and saw the horrors of true slavery changed there minds and supported Lincolns abolishianism
you're also forgetting that just about all Americans were Racists at the time.
@@Genesis50000 Not just Americans, racism was/is a global thing regardless of the status of freed men vs slaves during that era. Still to this day though it is steadily dying out.
Including General Sherman. He became a big advocate of voting rights for African Americans after the war.
They also saw the huge loss if the South actually left/succeeded . It evolved to become about more than just secession but at the start of the war it was more about keeping the country together/protecting profits(sounds bad but its part of the governments job to keep the country strong/getting as much taxes).
@@captaindestruction9332 I mean, what sounds better and "more" morally upright. Fighting over slavery or over economics.
A quote I find incredibly interesting when talking about John Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry was one from Frederick Douglass: "His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was a taper light, his was the burning sun. Mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the silent shores of eternity. I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave"
The word "Zeal" exemplifies it.
To find something so axiomatically abhorrent that it drives you to frothing rage...
Douglass was a smart man doing a life's work.
Brown was a maniac following his heart.
When you mentioned that it was crazy how quickly they formed an army, it was because Before World War One, there was no standing unified army. It was essentially every state would have their own army that would fight under the banner of the republic during war time. This was why there were often armies in this war called thing like “The Massachusetts 2nd” or “The Texas Fifth Regiment” because they were formed by a state by state basis
That's not entirely correct. There was a small standing US Army (USA), often referred to as the "Regular Army". (Who do you think was manning Ft Sumpter and running West Point?) There were 16,400 members of the USA at the start of the Civil War. States did, however, contribute the numbered militia units you mentioned, which were known as United States Volunteers (USV). Officers leading these units were referred to by their rank, followed by the title "of Volunteers." (For instance, "Captain of Volunteers." ) Also regular army officers often had 2 ranks, their regular/ actual rank and their rank in the volunteer army. (George Armstrong Custer was a Lt. Col in the regular army/ USA and a Major General in the USV during the Civil War.)
@@helifanodobezanozi7689 thank you for the clarification!
To add another angle to this, the US, despite even recent shifts in priorities at the federal level, has long had a cultural identity revolving around the notion of "you fight for your own place in the world" which makes it so that finding people motivated enough to enlist when our sovereignty is directly threatened very easy and this is also one of the reasons that effectively disarming the entire civilian population of the US is functionally improbable if not impossible
Huh, that's pretty much like the old "tribal" territories
for example early medieval scandinavia and east europe
(welp... all the non-feudal territories I guess)
never knew that, thanks for sharing lad
My 4th great grandfather was in the 49th regiment of Tennessee infantry for example.
Charles Sumner (the senator who was hit with a cane) was really a man ahead of his time. He spent his entire career fighting not only for an end to slavery, but also an end to exclusionary immigration laws, an end to imperialism, advocated for women’s rights, and tried to pass a civil rights bill a full 80 years before the country finally got around to implementing one. Most of his contemporaries shunned his efforts at granting full land ownership and voting rights to the newly freed slaves during Reconstruction. A shame he’s only remembered for being hit with a cane.
He was very badly injured, too, and ended up with what we would now call PTSD.
Fun fact about the Iron Clads: Two of them fought to a stalemate in one battle where both ships ran out of ammo and did no damage to each other.
It was decided a union victory since the merrimack ran out of coal and retreated first. But realistically yes, a stalemate
Bruh waste of ammo
Additional fun fact: The Monitor's turret malfunctioned not long into the battle and wouldn't stop rotating. So the gunners (who already had just the worst job aboard, being deafened by not only their own guns but the cannonballs hitting the outside of the turret) basically got to sit there and wait for the target to be in front of the gunports and then hurry and fire before they spun past again.
Shockingly, taking brand new, advanced, thoroughly untested technology straight into battle is the sort of thing that invites all kinds of unforeseen problems.
That must have been awkward
@@saintcynicism2654 And this is why you beta test.
When you travel down to Virginia, visit some of the battle sites because they are all over the state. I’ve lived here for several years and moved 3 times and have always had a battle site, skirmish, or encampment within 15 miles
As a Virginian. I live 15 minutes from at least 3 battle sights.
I live about 30 minutes away from Manassas and have found Civil War bullets in my backyard
Facts. I used to live in VA (NN represent!) and history sites/museums/etc is literally everywhere.
Smack Dab in the heart of VA (between Cville and Richmond.) I wonder why history is my favorite subject. lol
Yea we got cool historical stuff all over the place here. I love VA so much.
I like how he says “ what would happen if “we” didn’t win this war?” Glad to see that you are fully embracing American patriotism, we love to see it❤️
That's the beauty of being American. It's for everyone lol
@@BenJoverwe’re a nation made of immigrants afterall.
He must be a Republican
that changed once he moved back to England.
@@TripleDinLV no he doesn't. Hés a clown who gets most of his views from his Indian followers.
All jokes aside this the channel Oversimplified helped me study for my exam. It is funny and educational.
Part of the reason Lincoln didn't enact the emancipation proclamation right away was because Maryland was on the fence about which side they wanted to be on. He was compromising with them and trying not to have DC, and himself, surrounded by the enemy if Maryland flipped.
Don't forget that Abe was slaying vampires behind the scenes of all this👌
And also traveling through time with Bill and Ted.
@@Maria_EriasParty On, Dudes!
I’m so happy you did this one, you should watch all of his they are great
Love your reaction, but I think you missed the idea of what they meant by economic issue. The people worried about it economically were already dirt poor farmers in the north who didn't have slaves and were worried about their land getting bought out by rich plantation owners, leaving them both dirt poor and then homeless. Like another comment said, they also had almost no idea about the details of slavery, most never travelling outside their small towns and information coming slowly if it came at all. The quote "never attribute to malice what you can to ignorance" is very fitting for this.
Yeah, people need to stop vilifying economics and acknowledge it as a legitimate concern. They are far too quick to dismiss economic concerns these days probably because in many ways we, at least in the US, live in what is probably the closest thing possible to a post-scarcity world and are so far removed from survival that we just don’t realize how much has to be done to not starve especially in a world without safety nets. Which leads to us forgetting that economic interests especially in historical settings are in many cases actually just concerns about being able to acquire/produce things like food. I mean that’s why historically theft was punished so severely because in many cases you were effectively threatening the victim with starvation.
Yeah he was quick to label them as rich farmers who we’re worried about losing their wealth, but they were poor farmers with very little income or property, so the large plantations would destroy their livelihoods entirely 😊
Britain outlawed slavery in 1833, about thirty years before the American Civil War. The British abolition movement was pushed by a great many people, including such notables as William Wilberforce. France, by the way, had abolished slavery in 1794. The northern American states had all abolished slavery by 1804.
Also, it's worth noting that the Oversimplified video underplays the religious moral opposition to slavery. It notes that Lincoln saw slavery as a moral evil, but there were a _lot_ of abolitionists out there who saw it the same way. The abolition movements in Britain and America largely started by Quakers, who were joined by other Christians on moral grounds. The _economic_ consequences of slavery were present, but the vocal abolitionists were far, far more motivated by religious and moral considerations.
Then how is it that the British had slave colonies well into 1967?
Of course, while England *officially* ended slavery in their colonies 1833....
(slavery was really gone much sooner in England itself because they had labor surpluses rather than shortages)
...plantation owners in British colonies quickly replaced their slaves with Indentured East Indian labor, who in practice were treated as slaves into the 20th century. Indian indentures really didn't end until WWI and the rise of Indian nationalism,
meh, the other side also quoted the Bible in defense of the practice of slavery.
@@ilikehardplay
And because history isn’t complicated enough, the English did more than any other country on the face of the planet Earth to stomp out slavery globally. Even though they definitely DID use questionable labor in parts of the world.
Man i love the Quakers so fucking much dude. One of the most progressive Christian denominations out there
As a new citizen, and a veteran, I suggest you investigate the Battle of the Little Bighorn/Greasy Grass, AKA "Custer's Last Stand". Though it really was more of a retreat under fire. The Civil War is absolutely key to American psychology, and sociology. It was the Civil War that changed the way Americans literally refer to themselves: ante-bellum it was "The US are"; after the war it became 'the US is". I would also advise, you NOT do the typical tourist spots that Euros do, and take the time to visit Gettysburg and Antietam. Both are within a few hours drive of each other.AFA other countries: The UK made slavery illegal throughout the Empire in about 1833. The Netherlands outlawed slavery in their colonies about 1850. Brazil did not outlaw slavery until the late 1800's. In fact, many ex-plantation owners emigrated to Brazil for this reason. So most European powers AND yes the US all outlawed slavery only within about 30 years of each other.
I should point out, that for northern farmers it was NOT about "making more money". These are not "farms" like estates/agribusinesses in the UK. These were SUBSISTENCE farmers, who made enough to feed their families, with a small surplus to sell.
exactly 💯 when I was little kid my favorite place to go in the world was locally up to the Mill Mountain star here where I live in Roanoke Virginia right now before we moved off to Texas and also drive about 4 hours North to Gettysburg. We went every summer in August and we always stopped at the McDonald's in Woodstock Virginia and that was that going up there because I was a big history fanatic starting when I was 8 years old.. people still have old civil War flags and it's really disgusting because people say it's racist but it has nothing to do with that and it's kind of like the old TV show " The dukes of Hazzard". It's a southern thing and just part of the Southern tradition or Southern pride and the more rural or sub rural Life versus Big City New York or La etcetera etcetera but it absolutely has nothing to do with the race or slavery whatsoever but it's just a part of American history.
Most of the people here in the South really do like history and unlike a lot of people up north and on the West Coast in the coastal elite up in the Northeast, we love history here and out in the South Midwest etc and even up in the Rockies. Here in the South we definitely do have American flags and some people will have both and it's just part of the US history. I've been to visit some people. Not only do they have everything that they received in service in the military etcetera etcetera but they got American flag and the old Confederate flag.
In the 1980s there was a TV show called The dukes of Hazzard county and I think it was placed in North or South Carolina. These two cousins drove a vehicle that was a muscle car like an old Dodge and it was actually painted like a Confederate flag. 😂 It was a really really good show. The civil War was heartbreaking but I didn't blame that on the part of The Americans. Slavery was brought here by the Europeans whether it was Britain France or Spain. When the USA began as a country, some slaveholding founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Washington wanted to keep it out of the Constitution and do away with slavery because it was a colonial thing and South Carolina and Georgia refused to ratify the Constitution without slavery.. the reason they did at the time had nothing to do with race but it was because the south in the deep southern area there was not as heavily populated and it still was not anywhere near as populated during the civil War as the North and they needed labor. It's really really sad and to keep our Union together because we were vulnerable new country of course the Jefferson and Washington allowed slavery to stay..
The problem with keeping slavery is that it went from being something the European powers start in here in the Americas but Congress in the USA continued to kick the can down the road just like they do with everything!!!! Look at our budget at 35 trillion and that is Congress kicking the can down the road and they do it with social security and Medicare and everything else.. they are only worried about raising money and getting re-elected and pleasing their donors and when they do work most of them do what their riches donors want them to do. It's really sad because I want a president for everybody regardless of whether we're rich poor or working middle class etc the sad thing is over history and especially since the 1960s people either vote for who they perceive as American royalty like the Kennedys or Obama etcetera or they vote for people who are just politically savvy even if they're jerks... Trump was the first business owner non-politician to get elected and I actually liked that but I hate it and I still do hate the darn nasty talk around it because no Americans should talk so evil about anybody here in the USA.. nobody nobody and we used to be a dysfunctional family being that they could call us names and vice versa but nobody else could😂 it started getting so bad around 2008 and 2012 during the elections that was just so nasty every 4 years and I couldn't stand it... 2016 was a pretty enjoyable election year and after that I dread them. It's ridiculous that it cost so much money to run for political office and I think of all the homeless people that could be fed and our national debt that can be paid you know.
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Willie and his younger brother Tad were considered "notorious hellions" when they lived in Springfield. Their father's law partner William Herndon said they pulled books off their shelves while their father appeared oblivious.
When Abraham Lincoln took office as President of the United States, Willie and Tad moved into the White House. To give them playmates, Mary Todd Lincoln asked Julia Taft to bring her younger brothers, 14-year-old "Bud" (Horatio Nelson Taft Jr., 1847-1915) and 12-year-old "Holly" (Halsey Cook Taft, 1849-1897) to the White House.
Willie and Tad became ill in early 1862, possibly with typhoid fever. Tad was relatively lightly affected but Willie gradually weakened; his parents spent much time at his bedside. He died on February 20.
Both parents and Tad were deeply affected. Lincoln said, "My poor boy. He was too good for this earth. God has called him home. I know that he is much better off in heaven, but then we loved him so much. It is hard, hard to have him die!"; after the burial, he shut himself in a room and wept alone. Mary Lincoln remained in bed for three weeks and was unable to attend Willie's funeral or look after Tad. Abraham Lincoln took solace in caring for and comforting Tad, who remained very ill and was grieving himself for his brother's death. Tad also lost the companionship of Bud and Holly, whom Mary refused to allow in the White House anymore, as they reminded her too much of Willie.
Willie was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown. After Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, he was re-interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, first in a temporary tomb and in 1871 in a state tomb alongside his father and his brother Eddie. Tad and Mary Todd Lincoln were also later placed in the crypt of the Lincoln Tomb.
What I love most about watching your channel is how intelligent you are and how seasoned your perspective is. You've got a deeper understanding of how the world works than the typical person, and it shows in the insights you raise.
When you travel the US, you HAVE to come down to the Gettysburg battlefield. I live about 45 minutes away from it and it’s such a nice place to tour for a full day. And yes, it will take nearly a full day to go through all of it, there’s so much history and sites to travel to and visit just in that one battlefield.
I second this. It’s one thing to read about the battle, but actually walking the battlefield makes you understand better why certain decisions were made, and why some areas were absolutely critical to turning the tide of battle.
About an hour and a half or so for me, but I've done many school trips, family trips, and Scout trips to Gettysburg. With the Scouts, we camped there and walked a lot of battles, including Picket's Charge which is over a field that seems so much bigger in person than it ever has on a screen.
Well he's already living in Maine as he said. But he should totally check out these historic battle grounds.
If your wondering how the confederates were able to make an army so fast, it's because of national and state guard. Essentially each state has its own mini army of sorts. Idk if other countries do this, or if they just have reserves.
A late reply but most European countries at the time had standing armies of various sizes alongside a sizeable reserve that could be called up. As wars were less common near the USA they had a smaller standing army, but the national guards of the various states could be called up if needed, a lot of officers who would get to lead armies in the civil war came from the pre-war army and a lot of them knew each other to some degree. Even Lee and Grant had met before the war began, back during the American-Mexican War. This is why Lee was such an effective general, as he not only knew tactics and strategy, but also most of the enemy commanders personally or by reputation, and thus had a good grasp on how they would act.
Glad you chose to do this one after the revolutionary war by oversimplified
As a Mainer since 2 (with New Englander family that goes back to the colonies) it's nice to have you here! Also, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Joshua Chamberlain, from Brunswick, Maine.
9:50 child labour was pretty commonplace all over the world at this time, including in the USA. It just was more visible in industrialised nations with kids working in horrible conditions in mines and factories. But kids had been working on farms and plantations for centuries too. It was just considered normal.
And if you were a slave, child or not, you had no choice but to work... Slave children were defacto free labour. At least non slave children got paid even if it often was a pittance. Slave children were sold and traded like livestock often taken away from their parents and sold off.
As many times as I watched reactions to this, I just now noticed Lincoln reading "Vampire Hunting for Dummies" at 2:19. ROFL
It seems like the rebels formed an army very rapidly, but they had spent the better part of a year building up, seizing armories and forts, and recruiting throughout the South. I think it was something like half a dozen forts had already been taken by the time Fort Sumter was taken. The South knew a war was coming and had been preparing long before they attempted to leave.
“Do you know what the southern states were up to before the war?”
“Chillin. Yearnin for freedom from yankee tyranny.”
“Not exactly.”
God I love checkmate Lincolnites.
@@DongusMcBongusidk how they pretend like their VP didn’t straight up give a speech about the “Cornerstone” of their “new great nation is the fundamental truth that African Americans are not equal to whites”.
I wanted to comment "stop, you've already done this video". Then I realized I've seen so many Brits react to this I questioned my own motives.
You should watch the movie "Lincoln", with Daniel Day Lewis. It gives a really incredible insight on Abraham Lincoln, the abolition issue, and the final months of the war. In my opinion its one of the best movies ever made about him.
Glory is the only civil war movie I watched. I am not a movie guy but holy shit that movie is great.
Perfect balance of saying "wow" and laughing, and actually adding something to the video
I love hearing your perspective and insight.I thought it was really interesting that in Manchester you have a statue of Lincoln. Thanks for sharing some cool history. I'm from Illinois and we are also known as "Land of Lincoln" and it's printed on drivers plates.
31:04 if you ever make your way down to virginia, richmond is a really cool place to check out. tons of civil war history here, including the confederate white house, nearby battlefields, chimborazo hospital, etc. also has some cool revolutionary war history, including the church where patrick henry gave his “give me liberty or give me death” speech - st. john’s church in church hill.
Fun fact:Portugal was the first country to abolish slavery (or at least the first empire to do so) (at least I'm the mainland) in 1761,though it was only abolished in the colonies in 1869
And britain abolished it In the 1830s
The first unconditional slavery abolishment was Haiti
One point this video leaves out is that the slave trade - especially the American slave trade - was run by the Dutch. It was the Dutch that would procure slaves from African empires and either ship them over themselves, or then sell them off to others to ship out of Africa.
based
I'd love to see you play more strategy games like Total War or anything Paradox, don't think the viewership would be there though.
Paradox games will get da viewssssssssssssssssss XD
@@stratosk2864 I agree
You're missing something in red dead (it's not vital but it's a fun mini story)
There is photos of gunslingers in arthurs satchel view them and you get mission locations and they're fun and worth doing
And he should pick up their guns
1000% you should watch the second part! It's so fun watching these videos of yours
Oversimplified goes more in depth than most US high schools. That is why I love these videos.
Yeah… having grown up in the south we were taught almost none of this in school. Or about the multiple racial massacres in my state, much less the one so many of us realized happened while watching The Watchmen show. Oh and was definitely taught that the civil war was about states rights. Fun stuff, having to pick up all this history slowly as you run across it and realize how horribly uninformed you were.
See I keep hearing and seeing comments like this and I just can’t agree. I personally consider oversimplified fun and well done but very shallow, a very basic summery that can actually be somewhat misleading at times in its simplicity especially with the jokes. There is almost nothing in the American history ones I didn’t already know by high school a lot of it I probably knew coming out of middle school to be honest. I don’t know maybe I just had exceptional exposure as a kid. I suppose I did visit civil war battlefields/forts and see re-enactments as a young kid with my dad and grandfather but it really doesn’t seem like I did anything exceptional I just actually paid attention in class, visited monuments/museums/historic sites occasionally, and read my textbooks alongside a couple other books on the subject.
@@ethansenter5298 I can absolutely believe that, but unfortunately education is wildly inconsistent in the US (not saying anything about comparison to other places, I just have no point of reference there). I was in various versions of honors, and eventually AP courses middle school at more or less mid sized schools in a fairly large city in the south. We barely covered the civil war, or the civil rights movement or anything related and while it’s entirely possible I just don’t remember mention, I’d like to think I would have noticed even then if the multiple entirely race based massacres post civil war were even mentioned.
That said, absolutely they are -very- high level/basic overviews. I mean, they wouldn’t be very oversimplified if not. It’s a gateway to realizing there were chunks of history that you didn’t know even existed. For some it might not matter, but I put a lot of value on the approachable summaries as a way to get people interested in knowing more and questioning what they missed. I know most of what these videos bring up, but a disturbing amount of it I only know because I stumbled across something mentioning it and then dug into it myself. And any simplification is going to have some things that can be misleading. I don’t love it, and it’s complicated, but then I’m also from an engineering background where you don’t get anywhere without simplifying at least some things to where they aren’t quite exactly correct but all told get a better end result/understanding than trying to start from the accurate but confusing and counter intuitive exact answer. IE how basic courses generally teach that wings produce lift is.. not actually true.
Actually, I would say most of this was covered by my school. There were even several things covered in school that weren't mentioned in Oversimplified history. The problem is in how the information is presented. Seeing a bunch of names and dates spanning four dense chapters is difficult enough to focus on. But when the textbooks decide to categorize information based on events instead of chronology (under some weird belief that it makes the content more digestible)? That's just makes everything a confusing mess. I'd advise any history teacher to show Oversimplified videos FIRST and then dive into the textbook so students already have some context and know what names and events to pay special attention to...
Britain abolished slavery in 1833, around 30 years before the outbreak of war. Canada, like most imperial dominions, followed suit quickly after the UK's law was passed, abolishing slavery in 1834.
I grew up in the UK too. I had a module in GCSE History on American History, although not much about the civil war. As ever, each school uses different exam boards and some don't cover it.
Britain through several hundred years unleaa im mistaken were one of the few with the ships capable of getting the slaves into the slave trade. The british east india company. They dominated the global trade they traded apices sugar, slaves. They needed the slaves to farm the crop. It was rough. Same thing is happening today apple uses china to put the factory there and china will promise bonuses that dont show up and they get welded in a camp because their covid forced mutation vaccine lab is leaking. Its still happening they just moved rhe slaves to where its harder to free them
YES I WAS WAITING FOR YOUR REACTION FOR DAYSS😅😌
Another fun fact is that Lincoln was a wrestler and won 299 matches and lost 1 but even then was questionable so it got him into the national hall of fame for wrestling.
As of people a lot of the people where related to the founding fathers. Like Robert E. Lee was related to George Washington by marriage and his land in Arlington was captured the union on the outskirts of DC and was later turned in the national cemetery.
Reading generals minds: another thing about Lee is before the war he was the headmaster at West Point (the officer training school) and was even offered the position of commander of the army of the Potomac and again most of the generals on both sides had been friends and colleagues for decades
While Lincoln was a good political leader he wasn’t the best general and made a lot of calls where he should have just let his generals do his thing
Watch the one on the football war.
Speaking of which, excellent work against Everton yesterday.
To answer a couple questions you asked in the video: the Northern US states had small numbers of slaves in the 1700s but starting with Vermont they all made chattel slavery illegal in the decades immediately following the American revolution (although debt slavery and indentured servitude still existed to some extent). Britain was one of the first European countries to make chattel slavery illegal in 1833, although with the major exception of Jamaica and a couple other British colonies who's economies depended on cheap labor mainly for sugar cultivation. In 1808 the US had banned the importation of new slaves, but not the keeping and sale thereof and slavery was widespread from Maryland and Delaware all the way down through the south-eastern quarter of the continental US, although the largest enslaved populations were in the cotton producing states of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama. In the 1830s onward the British navy had a dedicated anti-slavetrade fleet which patrolled the Atlantic and intercepted mostly Portuguese and Spanish slave ships traveling from West Africa to Central and South America. However, the motivation for this antislavery action was perhaps more to undermine the economies of their Catholic rivals than out of any altruism for the Africans. On the question of slaves escaping during the war, many did and made their way North where they were eventually allowed to join the Union army. In Jones county Mississippi, escaped slaves, fugitives and Confederate deserters hid in marshlands and using hit and run tactics, starting a counter-rebellion and by wars' end had liberated the county and susceded from Mississippi declaring their own free soil state. However the Union didnt support them and the state of Mississippi renamed the county and supressed knowledge of them.
You should watch Ken Burn’s civil war documentary if you want to better understand the US civil war.
Thanks!
I couldn’t edit my message but I’m happy you enjoyed learning about the civil war! Can’t wait for the next one!
Thank you! 💚
I was about to sleep then I saw this uploaded and watched all of it then crashed as soon as it finished
P.s I been up for like 26H
DO THINE EYES DECEIVE ME?! A 40 min upload??
Finally the gods have answered my prayers.
I genuinely would love it if you made longer videos man lol.
Nice vid man hope you enjoy more oversimplified content
The picture of the two iron clads fighting was during the battle of Hampton roads. It was the first time iron clads were used and it happened 2 minutes away away from my house.
General Robert E Lee was a very interesting individual. I did a history report on him back in high school and uncovered a few things I wasn't expecting. Many biographies gave me the impression that, although he was a general that fought for the Confederate States, he personally didn't care for slavery and was a very upstanding & honorable man. It made me sad to hear about his statues being torn down because of history recording him as "the bad guy"
I did a similar project. However the moment he turned traitor he lost all "honorable qualities"
Robert E Lee didn't care about slaves yet owned slaves.
Anyone who takes up arms against his country is a traitor.
He's lucky people remember him as fondly as some do.
The American Civil War was the first "modern war". The first military use of repeating firearms, the Spencer & Henry rifles, the first use of "machine guns", with galing guns. It also featured the first use of aerial surveillance, with the use of balloons. Telegraph networks were set up, allowing near instantaneous communications across hundreds of miles. The first combat used of submarines, naval mines, and, armored warships. Large numbers of troops were transported rapidly by railroad for the first time. And, there were European military observers from all the major powers there for all of it, taking notes. In that way, it really was the breeding ground for the horror of WW1.
Fun fact: Tom hanks is related to Abe Lincoln, because Abe’s mothers maiden name was hanks
Not saying he isn't because I don't know, but not everyone named Hanks is necessarily related.
@@7heSlime Fair point, but apparently his genealogy can be traced back to Lincoln's grandparents, making him roughly a third cousin several times removed. He's also a sixth cousin of Mister Rogers.
On a different note, Barack Obama is a descendant of Robert E. Lee through his mother.
Epstein
I live in Tennessee and we saw quite a lot of the Civil War, just 10 minutes away from my apartment is the Stones River Battlefield which actually saw a higher percentage of casualties on both sides than any battle in the war. My 4th great grandfather also served for the Confederacy, 49th infantry regiment of Tennessee at the Battle of Ft. Donelson. That's where Grant got his "unconditional surrender" name.
35:36 "The Civil War was the first large and prolonged conflict recorded by photography. During the war, dozens of photographers--both as private individuals and as employees of the Confederate and Union Governments--photographed civilians and civilian activities; military personnel, equipment, and activities; and the locations and aftermaths of battles." - US National Archives
YES!! Watch part 2 right away! I love your reactions and enjoy hearing your unique perspective on US history. I will check back soon to see if you finished watching it. Keep up with the great videos!
YES he’s joining our cult. Slowly turn to the dark side
Also a few facts where I am in Kentucky was a border state so they were “neutral” and stayed part of the Union (even though we are a SOUTHERN state) but, there was a lot of support from both sides and families were torn apart because of it. Another interesting fact is there are Underground Railroad tunnels all under Louisville that have now been used for plumbing pipes.
No, not neutral. We were a border, along with Missouri and Maryland, because they were slave states but didn't want leave the Union. So Washington allowed them to keep their slaves so as not to make those states mad and succeed as well.
@@jay_g1984 Oh didn’t know that. What I was more saying though is that the border states had high number of supporters for both sides.
@@codygates7418 If you pay attention to the Emancipation Proclamation, it only frees slave in *Confederate* states. It didn't free slaves in slave states that remained in the Union, because Lincoln didn't want to lose the support of those states.
@@Maria_Erias I guess I’m a little bit confused. I know that the Emancipation freed the slaves in Confederate states but, I thought it freed all slaves (North and South)
@@codygates7418 The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in state engaging in active rebellion. If states had decided to leave the confederacy and rejoin the Union before it took effect, they would have been allowed to retain slaves. Really, the only thing the proclamation did was give the Union army legal grounds for liberating slaves.
My great-grandmother met my gx2 grandma during reconstruction. And boy oh boy. The stories they had. I was still very young but lucky my grandmother still remembers how they had 3 families in one house down south, I never got to meet my great-grandparents but I can't imagine being someone on a steamship and finding love
For tactical military games, I highly recommend Ultimate General: Civil War and Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail. Somewhat similar to the Total War games.
19:36
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
This quote being the ending of Danny Vineyard's paper in American History X, and narrated as the outro post-mortem, has always stuck with me.
The sad thing is that slavery was actually in a decline in the late 1700s for various reasons, and probably would have ended before long. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794 thinking that it would hasten the end of slavery, but it instead made slavery economically viable again.
Hate to break this to you, but according to the 1860 census, slavery was as profitable as it had ever been. Eight of the ten richest states in the nation were located in the South. And the cash value of the slaves in the South was greater that all the land and improvements taken together. The belief that "slavery was in decline" was a product of post-Civil War Southern historians seeking to argue that the war was unnecessary and the fault of abolitionist threats..
@@ilikehardplay Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794 when slavery was in decline, not 1860. His hope was that it would hasten the fall of slavery, but it instead had the opposite effect, making slavery once again economically viable and causing the massive increase of slavery in the 1800s that led to the Civil War.
I've edited the original comment to make this more clear.
Nah it definetly helped kill slavery bro. Suddenly they didnt need a gazillion slavea for that one job they needed 5 slaves to do the same work it meant anyone without the magical machine needed mkre slaves to make the same money they had to feed them they had to buy them now that the machine is out a cotton slave is worth less because a machine just took their job. The cotton gin played a huge role you coukd even say it was one kf the straws the broke its back like how the free states outnumbered the slave states littls by little it all adds up
After John Brown's death, a song was written: "John Brown's Body Lies a Moulderin' in the Grave."
Most of the Northern states had abolished slavery in the 1780s, whereas the Civil War takes place in the 1860s. So half the nation was 80 years behind, like if half the nation still resembled the 1940s today. However, there were 2 different approaches to ending slavery. In the New England states, they just abolished it completely and freed everyone. But in the Mid-Atlantic states, they instead made a law that the children of slaves could not be slaves, and no more slaves could be brought from overseas. So once the last remaining slaves died off naturally, that would be it. That approach was likely Lincoln's hope for the South, and why he kept saying he wasn't going to take away their slaves. He wasn't. He was going to take away their ability to create new slaves, with the last remaining living slaves giving the South a couple generations to adjust. That unfortunately wasn't good enough for the South. By this time in history, every major Western nation had abolished slavery except the American South and Brazil. Brazil would peacefully end it about a decade later, as it wasn't much in practice by then anyway.
Theres a place I like to go fishing about 5 minutea from my house where the union marched through and burned down an entire town EXCEPT for the facilities necessary to keep the whiskey mill running and the whiskey mill itself. It's called Jolly Mill, I still find musket balls, cannon balls, knives, and belt buckles ( so far) and ive been walking these woods for 2 decades. Cool stuff.
YESSS THIS IS THE ONE I WAITING FOR PLAY SOME( TOTAL ROME 2 ) GIVE IT A TRY
I appreciate man thank you
that "MOON" trial took place in a town about 30 miles from my house...Beardstown...the case was about Duff Armstrong..who had been accused of murder.
England, arguably got rid of slavery long before the US, though you could say their slavery went from having slaves from Africa to having slaves from their own people.
Oyy mate you can’t being saying that without a license
What interest me learning more about history the most are the unusual characters that are not talked about but made big impacts. It's so interesting how they came to be and where they were coming from in their life when they made an impact.
Yah, before this I didn’t know much other than the war. Our schools teach us about the civil war and said it was always about slavery, they never really taught what led up to the war.
39:39 I like how he says "It's getting good" like he is watching a tv series.
oversimplified is great
I live about an hour and a half away from Antietam. Walking on those bloodsoaked grounds is like nothing else.
Обожаю смотреть твой канал, так как приятно видеть, насколько хорош в этом мире обычный мужчина.
“Why don’t I know about this?” That’s how I feel when I learn about England and Frances history. Fun fact, most Americans don’t even know this about the civil war.
Its awesome that he’s checking out the history of the united states now that he lives here.
24:25 ya, at the time war was a total spectacle. people would often find some flatland or a nice hill to have a sunday picnic on while watching the battle. you need to finish this.
Antietam wasn't exactly a Union victory. The Union army had more casualties by around 2,000+ and the Confederates simply withdrew. It was more akin to a draw. However, because the Confederate army withdrew Lincoln could mark it as a Union victory to push forward his Emancipation Proclamation. Which was good but sadly wasn't the crippling blow to the Confederates he wanted to happen. Hell, there was even a single cornfield the two armies fought over and it exchanged hands many times and resulted in hundreds if not thousands dead on both sides. From ONE. cornfield that one unit the 12th Massachusets suffered ~67% casualties of their force. The morning phase of the battle alone saw ~13,000 casualties of both Union and Confederates.
Except that "victory" and "defeat" in military terms are referring to whether goals were accomplished, not recourses expent to achieve said goal.
That's why the concept of a pyhric victory exists (if your not familiar with the term a pyhric victory is a battle where an army is victorious (IE they achieved their objectives) but at such a high cost that the victory is meaningless (or even detrimental) to the war in the longterm.
So fun thing with the ironclads is that they had breach loading cannons rather than muzzle loading which brought up the fire rate to 10 rounds per minute rather than 3, also also the first fight between 2 ironclads took 3 hours and ended in a draw with no significant damage to either ship and no deaths and only a handful of injuries
8:33 actually this was a bit late to the party of abolishing slavery, most of western europe had already abolished slavery by this point(on the mainland at least) so this wasn't really a turning point for slavery at all, globally speaking.
Just a heads up @OriginalHuman the reason the confederacy was able to mobilize so fast is because each state still had their own state militia at the time, however I think it went out of practice after the civil war
There’s some pretty nice letters to Lincoln from worker organisations in Manchester, and yeah workers refused to work with cotton picked by American slaves - at the time this lead to a lot of economic hardship on top of the already existing issues. The USA send some aid and a statue as a tanks.
Lots of pretty cool statues here, there’s one on Engles that we got after the collapse of the USSR as Manchester was where him and Marx did a lot of their work. Also on that note there are also some pretty neat letters to Lincoln from Marx, always cool to hear how historical figures interact.
My great great great grandfather was from New Hampshire and fought for the Union in the Civil War. He died near Camp Parapet in Louisiana. His son was my great great grandfather, whose son was my great grandfather, whose son was my Grandpa Wally, whose son was my dad.
Bro they don’t teach half of the events leading to through and past the civil war in US schools. It seriously needs its own subject
That cigar with the battle plans.. it was deposited by a time traveler.
This is probably one of the top tier oversimplified video if not the best.
Lincoln’s war powers were essentially a response to a national emergency, considering that the entire country was essentially a militarized zone. There’s always been debates about how far the powers of authority go during an emergency such as this, but the country was literally being ripped apart from within. Later, during World War I, free-speech was also suppressed. And there has been much debate over the patriot act.
38:09 Yeah it’s definitely one of those moments in history where you wonder for a moment if time travelers really did try something
There is a relatively straight line accrose the east coast called the "ugly scar" of slavey on our current map.
Early US history is really dominated by two things that are deeply intertwined; Slavery and expansion.
A thing that fascinates me about the civil war is Robert E. Lee arguably the most infamous confederate. He was not a secessionist nor in favor of slavery. He was a West Point graduate, second in his class, a Colonel, and even fought alongside Ulysses S. Grant during the Mexican-American war. He resigned his position in the union army after Virginia, his home state, seceded. Lee stated he would not fight his own friend and family. The more I read about Robert E. Lee the more amazed I was, he was not at all this monster everyone had painted him to be, and if there is one reason to betray your country, I would say refusing to fight your friends and family is a pretty damn solid one.
Fun fact: Ulysses S Grant isn't his real name. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, but his initials spelled HUG and he hated that. When someone made a documentation error and wrote Ulysses S Grant, he just decided that was gonna be his name and went with it.
If you’d still like to see actual photographs from the war, I’d recommend Matthew Brady’s work. Most of his photographs are taken from the battlefield though, so they are incredibly graphic.
Wilmer McLean famously stated that “the war started in my back yard and ended in my front parlor”.
this is hilarious, i’ve seen this video before and never noticed the Queen’s servant’s teeth 🤣
9:06 Statue of Lincoln in Manchester, relating to Manchester (1st) not to accept cotton picked by slaves...good mentions--informational.-Ernie Moore Jr
24:29 remember, this is the same time period where people go to public hangings for roughly the same reasons.
some amusing quotes by president Licolon
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”― Abraham Lincoln
“I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.”― Abraham Lincoln
“There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”― Abraham Lincoln
"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg." --President Abraham Lincoln
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." --President Abraham Lincoln
“The problem with quotes on the internet is that nobody knows if they’re real” -Abraham Lincoln
"But id rather chop it down in 30 seconds if the chain saw was invented"
A couple things: there are actual pictures from this period, photography was in it's infancy but there a were a lot of pictures taken. If you really want to learn about the civil war I'd suggest the Ken Burns series "The Civil War". At first Lincoln's main purpose was to preserve the union he in fact said this to a journalist: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that".
Your insights into how the war effected the rest of the world are interesting and add to the video!
I love how the speech bubble lines up with his facecam at 11:13
When watching a subject that is OverSimplified it is wise not to jump to conclusions. While it is true the north had mixed reasons for being against slavery that is only a partial truth. As a direct descent of an English Clergyman who Fled England for his life I take great exception to this generalization and your indignant response. The Civil War was going to be a thing from the get-go. The tobacco growers settled Virginia (the South) and a few years later the Pilgrims settled Massachusetts (the North) So we had the plantations in the south, the Christians who fled religious persecution in England in the North. The pilgrims, (Puritans) never were for slavery. My 10th great grandfather was one of the clergy who fled due to threats from the Bishop of Norwich and landed in Watertown MA. Many years later my 2nd great grandfather fought for the Union in the Civil War, had his eardrums blown out at Antietam.
They never mentioned that we sent Cassius Clay to Russia as an ambassador and almost got them involved before the signing of the emancipation proclamation which also basically forced Lincoln to sign it prematurely.
5:50 man was in part massasheutes and the other part was actually New-Brunswick Canada until they chose the Saint-John river valley has the boarder this is why you have many Acadians and French speaking Americans living in Main.
Second part of this one is soooo much better too.
This whole first part is basically context.