The American Civil War was a brutal and transformative conflict born from deep divisions over slavery and states' rights, ultimately preserving the Union and redefining the nation's identity through immense sacrifice and pivotal leadership.
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From the bloodiest day in American
history to the emotional surrender of a
Confederate general to the president
saving America from the brink of
collapse and then getting assassinated
[screaming] 5 days later. This is the
American Civil War explained. A war so
violent it killed more Americans than
any other war in US history. And if it
wasn't for some legendary heroes, we
wouldn't have made it out alive. But
let's go back cuz wars don't just pop
out of nowhere, they simmer, they stew.
And by the time 1861 rolled around,
exploded. Cuz the United States was
basically two worlds living under one
flag. Up north, it was speeding towards
the future with factories, big cities,
and railroads. And down south, well, the
economy ran on cotton, an empire powered
by 4 million slaves. But it wasn't just
about dollars and cotton. It was about
power, morality, and who got to define
America. And this flared up every time a
new territory joined the Union. Would it
be a free state or a slave state? And
here's the thing, whoever controlled
more states controlled Congress,
controlled policy, and basically
controlled the future. So for decades,
presidents just slapped duct tape on the
problem. The Missouri Compromise. The
Compromise of 1850. It was like patching
a sinking ship with a band-aid. Sir,
we're going to need more tape. And by
election day 1860, it finally blew its
lid. Cuz unlike most presidents before
him, Abraham Lincoln wasn't born sipping
tea on fine china. He came from the
dirt. Literally. He grew up in a one
room log cabin in Kentucky. His mother
died when he was nine. And he had less
than a year of schooling. But Lincoln
had something you just can't teach.
Grit. Cuz after a full day of chopping
wood, he taught himself law. And by the
time he stepped into politics, people
called him Honest Abe. A lawyer that
actually stood by his word. In fact, Abe
once walked miles to return six cents of
change to a customer he accidentally
overcharged. That's the kind of guy this
dude was. A man of character. But what
made Lincoln so dangerous to the South
is that he opposed the expansion of
slavery. Cuz when he got elected
president without a single southern
state, it was basically game over for
the South. And South Carolina didn't
wait around for the welcome speech. Cuz
before Lincoln could even unpack his
bags, they seceded from the Union. And
within weeks, six more states followed.
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, and Texas. who all got
together and formed a brand new nation,
the Confederate States of America. But
Lincoln didn't jump the gun and invade
the South. Instead, it all started with
an island fortress off the coast of
Charleston, South Carolina, Fort
Sumpter, one of the last Union outpost
in Confederate territory. The problem,
both sides claimed it. So Lincoln faced
an impossible choice. If he sent
supplies, the South would call it an
invasion. If he abandoned the fort, the
North would see him as weak. So, he
chose a middle path and sent only food.
No guns, no ammo, just bread, beans, and
the hope that the Confederates would
just look the other way. My man was
basically trying to deliver Door Dash to
avoid the Civil War. But unfortunately,
the South wasn't hungry for compromise
cuz Confederate General PGT Bogard gave
the order. Open fire. And for 34
straight hours, cannons thundered across
Charleston Harbor. Yet somehow,
miraculously, no one died. Ouch. But
when the Union commander surrendered,
the message echoed across the nation.
War had begun. So Lincoln didn't waste a
second and called for 75,000 volunteers
to crush the rebellion which ironically
poured more fuel on the fire cuz four
more states Virginia, Arkansas,
Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the
Confederacy. Sir, I think that
backfired. But Virginia was the big one,
the crown jewel. Cuz its secession
didn't just double the Confederacy's
size, it delivered their greatest
military weapon, Robert E. Lee, the son
of a Revolutionary War hero, a West
Point graduate who finished second in
his class and a decorated veteran of the
MexicanAmerican War. Believe it or not,
when the Union needed a commander,
Lincoln actually offered Lee the job,
but he turned it down. And not for the
reason you might think, cuz Lee opposed
secession and even called slavery a
moral and political evil. But when
Virginia left the Union, Lee faced his
own impossible choice. Fight against his
country or fight against his home. and
he sided with Virginia, gifting the
Confederacy one of the sharpest military
minds in history. But here's the crazy
part. Both sides assumed the war would
be over pretty quick. Cuz when Union
troops marched toward Virginia, the mood
was almost festive. People from DC
actually packed picnic baskets and rode
out in carriages to watch the battle.
Anyone have some popcorn? Ooh, don't
mind if I do. But the good vibes didn't
last long cuz the Battle of Bull Run
began with the two armies colliding. And
at first, the Union pushed the
Confederates back. But when Brigadier
General Thomas Jackson arrived with his
brigade, the Confederates rallied. One
Confederate officer even pointed and
shouted, "There stands Jackson like a
stonewall." And the nickname stuck.
Stonewall Jackson had arrived, allowing
the Confederates to regroup and
counterattack, where they broke the
Union line and forced them to retreat in
a full-blown panic. And it was so
chaotic, civilian carriages were bumping
into Union troops in the rush to get
home. Hey, wait up. [screaming]
Can somebody give me a ride? But this
was only the beginning, cuz 1862 would
unleash a level of violence America had
never seen before. Down in Tennessee, a
quiet cigar chewing Union general named
Ulissiz Srant was making his move. He
captured Fort Henry, then Fort
Donaldelsson. And when the Confederate
commander asked for surrender terms,
Grant replied with the line that made
him famous. No terms except
unconditional and immediate surrender
can be accepted. Translation: I'm not
here to negotiate. I'm here to win. But
Grant's real test came at a place called
Shiloh, where Confederate forces
launched a surprise attack and Union
lines buckled. But Grant didn't panic.
He never panicked. That night,
reinforcements arrived. And at sunrise,
Grant counterattacked and hard cuz by
the end of day two, the Confederates
were the ones retreating.
A close call, right? Well, not exactly.
Because when the smoke cleared, it
revealed over 23,000 casualties, more
than all previous American wars
combined. I just can't believe it. So,
with war heating up, Lincoln desperately
needed someone to lead his main army.
And in comes General George Mlen. Young,
brilliant, and a guy convinced he was
Napoleon 2.0. But Mlen's confidence came
with a fatal flaw. He hated taking
risks. If the stars weren't aligned, the
weather wasn't perfect, and the odds
were 110% in his favor, he just wouldn't
attack. GET BACK IN LINE, FLAPPY.
SORRY, SIR. MEANWHILE, Lincoln was
losing his patience. He sent Mlelen a
note saying, "If you don't want to use
the army, I would like to borrow it for
a while." Ouch. So Mlen finally launched
the Peninsula campaign. A massive push
to capture Richmond, the Confederate
capital. And for a moment, it looked
like the crazy kid might pull it off.
Union troops got so close they could
hear Richmond's church bells ringing.
But that's when everything changed cuz a
new commander took charge of the
Confederate army, Robert E. Lee. And oh
boy did he not waste a moment cuz Lee
went straight on the attack and hammered
Mlen's army. Mud, bayonets, forest on
fire. It was straight up madness. Yet in
the end, Lee actually lost more men than
Mlen, but he didn't care. He'd achieved
exactly what he wanted. The Union Army
pushed away from Richmond, and Mlen's
confidence was shattered. and shattered
is the perfect way to put it cuz Mlen
walked away convinced he'd been
outnumbered, outmatched, and crushed by
some massive Confederate force. But in
reality, Lee's army was smaller. So,
riding high from his victories, Lee made
a bold move and took the war into the
north by invading Maryland. But that's
when fate dropped a plot twist so crazy,
Miss Flappy thought I was literally
making this up. But I'm not. I swear.
cuz a Union soldier stumbled across an
abandoned Confederate campsite and found
a copy of Lee's battle plan. There it
was, the full blueprint. Mlelen
literally held the Confederacy's
playbook in his hands. So, with this new
advantage up against Lee's tactical
genius, we finally got ourselves a fair
fight. And what came next was the
bloodiest day in American history, the
Battle of Antidum, where Union troops
surged into a cornfield and faced a
storm of lead. Men charged, fell, and
charged again. Bodies dropped
everywhere. And one soldier later said a
man could walk from one end of the field
to the other without ever touching the
ground. Horrifying. But just when you
thought the battle couldn't get worse,
it moved to Bloody Lane, a sunken road
where Confederates packed in and mowed
down wave after wave of Union soldiers
charging straight into the rifles.
Eventually, Union troops flanked the
road and fired downward into the trapped
Confederates below, creating a mass
grave carved into the earth. But the
final push came at Antidum Creek, where
Union forces crossed the bridge to
finish Lee's army for good. until out of
nowhere, surprise reinforcements
appeared and forced the Union back. The
cornfield changed hands 15 times and
bloody lane stacked three deep. And when
the sun finally set, there were more
than 23,000 [music]
casualties. The single bloodiest day in
American history was over. And on paper,
Antidum was a draw. But strategically,
the Union forced Lee to retreat. Sir,
I'll be flying the flag at half mast for
the next decade cuz that was just
devastating. But back in DC, Lincoln
wanted to use this momentum to his
advantage. So he issued the Emancipation
Proclamation declaring that all slaves
are and henceforward shall be free.
Woohoo. Well, the only problem was it
didn't actually free anyone in
Confederate states yet. But it did give
Union soldiers a moral cause worth
fighting for. It allowed black men to
enlist with the nearly 200,000 answering
the call and shut the door on European
intervention cuz Britain and France
could no longer side with the
Confederacy without openly defending
slavery. Yep, Lincoln had officially
changed the game. But he had another big
problem on his hands. A general problem.
Cuz Robert E. Lee was on the move again.
This time merching 75,000 men into
Pennsylvania. And Lincoln was desperate
for a commander who could finally stop
him. So he made another change at the
top and replaced his general with George
me just three days before battle. Me
wasn't a genius, but he was solid, calm
under pressure and the kind of guy who
wouldn't panic if I misfired my gun.
Sorry, sir. But it all kicked off when
Confederate and Union forces collided
near a quiet little town called
Gettysburg. And by nightfall, the
Confederates had the upper hand. But on
day two, the battle didn't just
continue. It erupted into chaos. Kazi
launched massive assaults on both Union
flanks. And one of the fiercest attacks
came at Little Roundtop, a rocky hill
that anchored the entire Union line. If
it fell, the battle and maybe even the
war could have been lost. But that's
when Colonel Joshua Chamberlain in his
20th main made a heroic stand.
Outnumbered and out of ammunition,
Chamberlain had nothing left to shoot.
So he ordered one final desperate move.
A bayonet charge downhill. And against
all odds, it worked. Meanwhile, on the
other flank, Confederate forces stormed
Cemetery Hill and Culps Hill as night
fell. The fighting devolved into
ruthless hand-to-hand combat in the
dark, but again, the Union refused to
break. Lee had thrown everything at me's
flanks and failed. Enraged, Lee made a
fateful decision. Attack the center. So
on day three, Confederate artillery
unleashed the largest bombardment ever
seen in the Western Hemisphere. Cannons
thundered. The earth trembled. And the
sky turned to smoke so thick it
swallowed the sun. And then silence.
Out of the drifting haze. 12,000
Confederate soldiers emerged and began
their march. Pickicket's charge. The
last gamble.
So the Union line waited and then
unleashed a storm of bullets. Men fell
by the hundreds, but still the grrey
line pushed forward and somehow a few
hundred Confederates actually broke
through. Led by General Lewis Armistad,
they reached the Union guns and in an
effort to flip the battle, Armistad
placed his hand on a Union cannon and
shouted for his men to fire the enemy
cannons back at him. But little did he
know, this was the furthest any
Confederate would ever get on northern
soil. Because when Armistad turned
around, he was completely alone. Bang.
The charge had failed. Of the 12,000 men
who began that march, less than half
returned uninjured. And when Lee rode
out to meet the survivors, tears
streamed down his face. "It's all my
fault," he quietly said to himself.
"It's all my fault." The Battle of
Gettysburg proved to be the deadliest of
the Civil War, resulting 50,000
casualties total. But while Gettysburg
shook the east, another battle was
roaring 900 m away. Cuz General Ulissiz
Srant had spent months trying and
failing to capture Vixsburg, the last
Confederate fortress on the Mississippi
River. So, he decided to change it up
and do something borderline insane. At 2
am, Grant rolled the dice and sent Union
gunboats right past Vixsburg's cannons,
fully aware that if even one was hit,
the whole plan would collapse. But it
was so dark, the cannons couldn't see a
thing. And the boat slid right past him,
allowing Grant to finally tighten his
grip around Vixsburg. Cuz inside,
Confederate soldiers ran out of food.
They ate mules, dogs, and eventually
rats. Hey boys, maybe stay away from the
Eagles. All right, ready please. But by
July 4th, 1863, the Confederates in
Vixsburg surrendered. Now with
Gettysburg in the east and Vixsburg in
the west, the war had officially turned.
Cuz now it was clear as day. Lincoln had
finally found his general, Ulissiz
Srant, who he promoted to command all
Union armies. and Grant wasted no time
setting his strategy. In the west, he
handed command to William Sherman with
the order, "Destroy the Confederate army
in Georgia and take Atlanta." Meanwhile,
in the east, Grant set his own sights on
Robert E. Lee. And they both locked
horns in a blood bath across Virginia.
First, at the wilderness, they fought in
a thick forest with gunsm smoke so thick
soldiers could barely see in front of
them. And after two days of combat,
Grant's losses were enormous. Every
Union general before him had retreated
after facing Lee, but not Grant. He
marched south, still attacking, still
pushing, and still grinding Lee down. At
Spot, bodies piled so high they had to
be dragged away just to keep fighting.
One oak tree, 2 ft thick, was cut down
by rifle fire alone. Then came Cold
Harbor where Grant ordered an assault
turned disaster cuz more than 7,000
Union soldiers fell in less than an
hour. Grant later admitted it was the
one attack he truly regretted. But
here's one thing Lee couldn't do. Stop
him. Cuz every time Grant lost men, he
replaced them. And every time Lee lost
men, he didn't get them back. So by the
siege of Petersburg, the fighting
dragged on for nine brutal months. Lee's
army was pinned down, starving, and cut
off. And at the same time, northern
newspapers called Grant the butcher for
wasting tens of thousands of Union
lives. But Lincoln understood what
others didn't. I can't spare this man.
He fights. In other words, Grant is the
first general willing to do what it
actually takes to win. Meanwhile, in the
West, General Sherman took things in a,
let's call it, a unique direction cuz he
believed in something called total war,
which means not just defeating the
enemy, but breaking their will to fight.
War is cruelty. There's no use trying to
reform it. The cruer it is, the sooner
it'll be over. So throughout the summer
of 1864, Sherman pushed toward Atlanta
and by September it fell. Afterwards,
Sherman sent a simple telegram to
Lincoln. Atlanta is ours and fairly won
and the timing couldn't have been better
cuz Lincoln faced reelection in November
and things weren't looking too good. War
fatigue was high, casualties were
staggering, and public confidence was
slipping away. But when Sherman achieved
victory in Atlanta, everything changed.
Lincoln won re-election in a landslide.
Woohoo. But wait, the war wasn't over
yet. And Sherman knew it. So instead of
stopping in Atlanta, he proposed
something radical. March across Georgia
to the Atlantic and destroy everything
of military value along the way.
I can make this march, Sherman told
Grant, and make Georgia howl. Grant
approved and unleashed him. So Sherman
set Atlanta ablaze and began his
legendary march to the sea, where 60,000
soldiers moved in two massive columns 60
mi wide. They ripped up railroads,
burned factories, and everywhere they
went liberated slaves. With thousands
joining the march, singing songs of
freedom. And by the time Sherman reached
Savannah, his army had carved a path of
destruction nearly 300 m long. He sent
Lincoln a telegram that simply read, "I
beg to present you as a Christmas gift
the city of Savannah." By 1865, the
Confederacy was on life support. Lee's
army was starving. Men were deserting
and ammunition was almost gone. When
Union forces broke through at Five Forks
and severed Lee's last supply line,
within days, Petersburg fell, then
Richmond. As Confederate officials fled
the capital, they set fire to their own
warehouses to keep supplies from falling
into Union hands. But the flames raged
out of control, burning Richmond to the
ground. Lee fled west with 30,000
starving men, but Grant was everywhere.
He cut off every road, bridge, and hope
of escape. It was the end. Lee was
completely surrounded. So, with no
options left, Lee asked for a meeting
with Grant, [music] and they met at
Appamatics Courthouse. The contrast
between the two generals couldn't have
been more stark. Grant arrived in a mud
stained uniform, looking like a soldier
who hadn't slept in days. Whereas Lee
wore his finest dress uniform, every
button polished to a shine. He was
sending a message. I may be defeated,
but I'll surrender with dignity. And
Grand offered pretty generous terms.
Confederate soldiers could keep their
horses. Officers could keep their
sidearms. And every man would be
parrolled and allowed to go home. No
executions, no treason trials, no
revenge. Lee's face softened. This will
have a very happy effect on my army, he
said quietly. Lee then asked if Grant
could spare rations. Grant nodded.
Certainly. How many men? About 25,000.
Without hesitation, Grant sent 25,000
rations to Lee's starving soldiers. And
when the meeting ended, the two men
shook hands. But then came one of the
most human moments of the entire war cuz
Lee mounted his horse and rode back to
his army where soldiers crowded around
reaching for his hand as tears streaked
down their faces. Lee couldn't speak. He
simply removed his hat and salute. The
Civil War, America's deadliest conflict,
was finally over. But there was one
[music] final tragedy no one expected.
Just 5 days after Lee's surrender,
Abraham Lincoln attended a play at
Ford's Theater where Confederate
sympathizer John Wils Booth slipped into
the presidential box and shot Lincoln
[screaming] in the back of the head. But
it wasn't just Lincoln's tragic death
that makes it so sad. It was the timing.
Abraham Lincoln guided America through
its darkest hour, preserved the Union,
and struck the chains of slavery from 4
million people, only to die just before
he could see the promised land.
We'll miss you, sir. But in the end, the
American Civil War didn't just change
America, it defined it. because over
600,000 Americans died, more than all
other American wars combined until
Vietnam, which is insane to think about.
But from its ashes, the United States
was given a second chance. A chance to
live up to the founders ideals that all
men are created equal. God bless
America, man. I freaking love this
place. But speaking of tragic
presidential deaths that changed the
course of America, this is how every US
president died and their final words.
From eating raw cherries to contaminated
water at the White House to getting
assassinated in broad daylight. If you
thought Lincoln's death was crazy, just
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