Okay. So, Professor Gallagher, there's a thing called the Lost Cause that held great sway on American opinion for a long time. I think it still does, by the way. I don't think it's totally been eradicated as what people believe. Tell our viewers a little bit of the elements of the Lost Cause. What is this all about? Because a lot of people don't know that. What would the tenets of the Lost Cause be?
The Lost Cause is really the Confederate memory of the Civil War. The different people who lived through the war had different memories. The Lost Cause is how most white southerners who supported the Confederacy remembered the war. And it had several key elements. The former Confederates are the only white Americans who'd ever really suffered a shattering defeat. They're unlike other white Americans in US history because that isn't a US experience. They had to make sense of this all-encompassing failure that not only killed about 30% of their white military-age males, but also cost them the institution of slavery, which is the thing they had sought to protect in establishing the Confederacy in the first place. They had to position themselves before the bar of history in a positive way. And here is how they interpreted the war. They said it was not a war about slavery. First of all, they knew they were out of step with the Western world there. They said slavery wasn't the key. It was a fight for high constitutional principles for those who believed in state authority rather than an overreaching central authority.
They also argued that it was a war that they never could have won because the Yankees had too much of everything. They had too many men, too much material. So, it's a hopeless fight for high constitutional principles. And they put at the center of their fight Robert E. Lee because he is their most attractive figure. Even Confederates didn't like Jefferson Davis that much. He was very controversial. Lee had fought against long odds, won famous battlefield victories, was seen even by many people in the North as a Christian gentleman. So they argued that he is how you should try to interpret what the Confederacy was about, as people like Robert E. Lee, an honorable man who fought well against long odds and so forth. And they argued that the enslaved people in the Confederacy were loyal and that the white women in the Confederacy were ardent patriots. And so that is their take on the war. It's not about slavery. It's high constitutional principle. We never could have won. No loss of honor if it's a war you never could have won. But it was a gallant fight for high principle, and Lee absolutely stood for everything they thought was good about that fight. And that's why there were so many big monuments to him, including one in New Orleans that was there for many years on that tall pedestal before it came down.
So am I correct in saying the myth of the Lost Cause was so powerful that it actually captured an Ivy League history department?
Well, it captured people who worked in Ivy League history departments. And of course it was helped along by the two most influential Civil War-related movies in our history, Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind. Both gave a Lost Cause take on the war, and those are the two most influential ones.
And you know, of course, and you had Birth of a Nation. But this did—I was very far, and I want to interrupt here. The reason that I'm so fascinated by this is you're right. I grew up in Louisiana. I went to LSU. But the one thing that you got to know about me, I had a particularly good undergraduate history education that has really affected my life going forward. And if you don't have Gary Williams, did you take Gary Williams?
Five courses. I never made a B in his course and I never made an A.
He was a—he was a little—
He was—he's one of the most influential Civil War historians of his era by far. When he was working on—he was writing a book on Lyndon Johnson at the end of his life, or working on one, and he used to come stay with us and do Civil War trivia. He was a character, a real character.
Oh my god. You know he did an oral history at Hue Long, which won the Pulitzer Prize. I was in his class and he told us about the day he got the phone call.
He won the Pulitzer Prize. Yep.
Right. But he would tell a story. He would tell us a story of a little 11-year-old girl came home from Sunday school in Richmond in like 1938. She says, 'Mama, I forget, was General Lee in the Old Testament or the New Testament?'
I've heard that. I actually had a woman in Richmond, Virginia tell me that her grandmother told her the same thing when she can't remember, General Lee in the Old Testament or the New Testament.
One thing about a good story, there's no patent on it and we can all pass it around.
So we can—we mentioned Lee and he's so central to the whole thing. Tell us your opinion on Lee the commander and Lee a person, but because he was—he's very central to this whole argument here.
He's absolutely central. Lee the commander, I think Lee—and there's nothing revolutionary about this—I think Lee and Grant are the two best soldiers in the Civil War. And I think if I had to win a war, I would want Grant as my general. He commanded on a larger level than Lee was command general and chief. But if I had to win one battle, I would pick Lee as my commander. And I think Lee had a very good understanding of what it would take to win the war for the Confederacy. He knew the Confederacy was outnumbered. He believed the way to do it. He understood that the key was the civilian population of the United States. If you persuaded them that the war wasn't worth it, the war was over, even if they had more of everything. And as a child of the Vietnam era, I understand that. But I saw that happen in real time in the United States. Lee understood that. He's been criticized by a lot of historians in the Ivy League and elsewhere for not understanding, for wasting his men and piling up too many casualties. I think he knew the best way to win the war: defeat Union armies, inflict casualties, and erode civilian morale. And he came closer than anything else to achieving that, especially in the late spring, early summer of 1863 after Chancellorsville, and then in the summer of 1864 after he and Grant had slugged it out in the Overland Campaign. That's the low point of the war for the United States. It's when Lincoln said he didn't think he was going to be reelected. August of '64 is the low point. Lee understood that better, I think, than a lot of his critics. Now, he's a very good general in many ways. Could be too audacious sometimes, as he was at Gettysburg. We might get to that. He was, within a mid-19th century context, a—he's a Christian gentleman. He is a Christian. He doesn't toot his own horn. He was attractive in many ways. His admirers often pretend he was anti-slavery. He wasn't anti-slavery. He's from the tiptop of the slaveholding aristocracy of the Old South. His family were the elite. His old man lost all the money, but the family was still at the top. He had conventional views. He was in favor of slavery. He said God would take care of it in God's time and so forth. He was unhappy with the Emancipation Proclamation. So he's a conventional white southerner in many ways, but he has qualities that make him attractive even in many places in the North at the time.
So what I was taught, and is this valid, that Lee understood strategically there were three possible outcomes: a Northern victory, a Confederate victory, or a tie. The Confederate victory or the tie he would win. He could play for the tie.
That's exactly right. And that's what I was getting at with Northern public morale and public sentiment. A tie is as good as a win for the Confederacy, which is a huge advantage for the Confederacy in this war.
Okay. So, the other thing that Williams taught up—
And James, they had at hand, readily at hand, people on both sides an example of a much weaker side winning a war against a much stronger side in the American Revolution. That's the example that they had there.
In many ways, Lee and his army came to function in the Confederacy much as Washington and his Continental Army had during the American Revolution. They're the most important national institution.
So when I was also taught that, look, the way to look at this, Lee was the greatest old-time general. He was a master of Napoleonic tactics. Grant was like the first, and Sherman too. Okay. To be fair, they both understood that war was a civilian endeavor as much as a military endeavor. Is that correct?
No. I don't think that's correct. I think it's correct that Grant and Sherman anticipated some things that came later. But I don't think Lee is old-fashioned and doesn't understand what's going on. I think that his awareness of the connections between military events and civilian morale, that's a very modern way to look at how conflicts play out. I think he was very good about that. Yes, he did launch frontal assaults like Napoleon did. So did US Grant. So did William Tecumseh Sherman. So did everybody else who commanded an army during the Civil War. Anybody who's been to Franklin, anybody—I mean, everybody does it. Lee famously did it because Gettysburg is so famous and gets so much attention. The Pickett-Pettigrew assault is the most famous infantry assault probably in US history, and Lee ordered that, and it didn't work. And so that's a good way to say he didn't understand what was going on.
Okay. Like I'm like Bill Parcells. I'm gonna take on the great Gary Gallagher here in terms of Lee. You are what your record says you are. He never won an away game. All he ever won was a home game against bad teams.
And two on the road. Yes. Lee was 0 and 2 on the road. That is—I used to have a cartoon on my door at the University of Virginia. Question: Why did the Confederacy lose the war? Answer: Because Robert E. Lee couldn't win on the road. So, yes, Antietam and Gettysburg were bad days for the Army of Northern Virginia. But he—but so, I mean, who can dispute that? That's true. And did he have a good battle at Gettysburg? He did not. He was too aggressive at Gettysburg. A Georgian named Porter Alexander, who was the best artillerist in his army, said after the big Confederate victory on July 1st, Lee should have hunkered down and made me attack him. I think that's probably right. But Lee was an aggressive guy. Too aggressive in some ways.
So, I'm gonna get diverted. I'm get distracted, but that's okay. I do that. Let's talk about Longstreet. Let's talk about Longstreet because Longstreet's second wife died in Metairie, which is a New Orleans suburb, in 1952. Helen Dortch Longstreet. During the Confederate monument controversy, and people say, 'You got to acknowledge history,' I said, 'Good, put a statue of Longstreet up.' And they said, 'Oh, no, we can't do that.' Why can't you? He might have been one of the three best generals in the Confederacy, right?
Yes. And why didn't they? Because you know why they didn't. Of course we know. Longstreet and Lee. Longstreet and Lee were very close to one another. Lee relied on Longstreet. He knew Longstreet was a very good general. He gave him a—he called him 'my old warhorse.' Lee only gave affectionate nicknames to two people: Longstreet, 'my old warhorse,' and Jubal Early, 'my bad old man.' He called him.
We don't. Okay, we'll get to Jubal. But yes, Longstreet was a very good soldier. But here's what Longstreet did. Longstreet had been close to Grant before the war when they were at West Point and in the old army together. He remained close to Grant. He became a Republican, and in New Orleans, he's a Republican in New Orleans. He attacked Lee in print. Said that Lee made mistakes at Gettysburg. It's like he sat down one night and said, 'Okay, what five things can I do that will make the White South turn on me? Okay, I'm going to become a Republican. I'm going to align with Grant. I'm going to say General Lee wasn't good all the time. Is there anything else? Yeah, I think I'll become a Catholic too. That might help. I won't forget anything.' He did all of those things and he became a pariah, as you know. No monument to him. There are monuments to Confederate generals who could barely put their shoes on the right feet, but not to Longstreet. And that is why it's all about the memory of the war with Longstreet. You're absolutely right. And when you get a monument, you're going to be at Gettysburg. Have you ever seen Longstreet's monument at Gettysburg?
In 1986, and I was in the middle of a gum campaign. I'm distracted. So I'm going Saturday, and I'm going to talk to you before I go because I go ahead.
You have to see Longstreet's statue because it's a statue that Jubal Early would love. It looks—it looks—it's—I'm not going to say anything else. I'm just going to say it doesn't quite convey the sense, let's say, that the Lee statue at Gettysburg does.
We're going to film it all. Just as a personal side note. My great-grandfather, not my great-great-grandfather, my great-grandfather, most people know him, was born in County Monaghan in Ireland. I actually saw the house, immigrated through Toronto to Wisconsin. Apparently some affluent people took him out of their way. He went to a military academy in Indiana, was a Union soldier at the end of the war. It is very unclear if he ever saw any combat, and became a Republican member of the Louisiana legislature. In fact, was kind of the floor leader for Governor Pinchback.
That's a nice connection to have. That's a nice connection. I can't—I one day I'm gonna call Professor Forn at Columbia and see if he can help me because the record, of course, they all burned, so I can't go back and get the records I need. But he definitely was a—was anything but a Republican in that time. Different, yes. They—no, that's a—that is a—my Gallaghers came from down County Donegal, probably about the same time.
So I'm going to Gettysburg Saturday, and I—you know, I mean, we know Chamberlain, we know all things that we sort of really know. The Pickett's charge, maybe the most famous thing ever. My own view as a political consultant, and that's the way I'm looking at it, not a historian. It is considered that the first day was a Union, a federal loss. I think the first day was the most significant. I think the battle was won by the Union after the first day.
Well, the first day is a huge Confederate victory. They pummel two Union corps, the Union First Corps and the 11th Corps. It's interesting. I used to give a handout to my students when I did tours at Gettysburg. The 15 Union regiments that suffered the heaviest casualties at Gettysburg, 13 of them fought mainly on July 1st. They're in the First Corps and the 11th Corps. It's often forgotten because, as you say, July 2nd, Little Round Top, Wheatfield, Peach Orchard, all of that stuff. Third day, Pickett's charge. Nobody—the first day gets slighted. To me, in many ways, it's the most interesting day of the whole battle. And it's one that is—there's huge action. It's really important.
Explain to our listeners and viewers what is the fishhook and what is the importance of the fishhook? Because I really want to concentrate on the fishhook.
The terrain at Gettysburg is very easy to read. Some battlefields are kind of—if you go to Shiloh, it's hard to tell what's going on. You're in the woods, you can't see anything. At Gettysburg, you can. The key piece of high ground at Gettysburg is Cemetery Hill, which is just a little bit outside of town. It was during the Civil War. And it is the middle of what came to be called the Fishhook line. It's a line that looks like a fishhook. The barb is at Culp's Hill, which is off—if you're looking at it from a Union perspective, the Union right flank is anchored on Culp's Hill. That's the barb of the fishhook. Then it swings around through Cemetery Hill and then goes straight south to Little Round Top. That's the shank of the fishhook. So you go from the barb—Union left, where Joshua Chamberlain was, down on the slopes of Little Round Top, up to Cemetery Hill, and then you curve off to your right, which is off to the east and a little bit to the southeast from Cemetery Hill at Culp's Hill. That's the fishhook, and that's the Union line as it was composed on July 2nd and 3rd.
So in connecting my pop politics and me, in January of 2025, I wrote an op-ed piece that I received people hated me for it. Said what the Democrats need to do is play possum and let Trump come in and let him—and I was so influenced by the first day of Gettysburg, and I did not realize it until I came back and said, 'James, why in the world did you say that?' Because you studied history as an undergraduate, and you kind of knew you long-term you had a better position than they did, but you had to let them play themselves out. Is that a crazy thing for an undergraduate to say?
The key at Gettysburg is why did Lee keep attacking on the second and third after this great victory on the first? Because the Federals had the high ground: Culp's Hill, Cemetery Hill, Little Round Top. The Confederates are on Seminary Ridge, which isn't as high, and so they're in a bigger fishhook on the outside on lower ground. So the Federals have the better ground. And Lee attacks it on July 2nd and attacks it again on July 3rd. Porter Alexander, whom I mentioned earlier, said, 'What we should have done after that great victory on the first day, we should have hunkered down and made the Yankees attack us. They never would have driven us off Seminary Ridge.' But Lee—I think Lee, he believed he had momentum, and he knew the morale in his army was sky-high. And in the end, I just think he believed that his infantry could do anything that he asked them to do because he had seen them do it many times before. But yes, yes, come and attack us. Yeah. Play possum. Here we are. And then come and get us. That's what the Confederates did on July 2nd and 3rd. They attack more numerous Federals on better ground.
So I remember, I'm 82 in October, but undergraduate studying, and I couldn't get Cemetery Ridge, Seminary Ridge, Seminary Hill. God damn. Could you—I didn't know if I was in Chancellorsville or Gettysburg.
It's too much. It's too much. Just—all you need to know is Seminary Ridge parallels Cemetery Ridge, and the Confederates are on one of them and the Federals are on the other one, and the Confederates don't have any—the key piece of high ground is Cemetery Hill.
Cemetery Hill. Cemetery Ridge runs in and ends at Cemetery Hill, and then there's a little dip, and you're over at Culp's Hill. And it's the fact that the Confederates—if the Confederates had gotten a hold of Cemetery Hill on July 1st, the Federals would have just retreated and taken up a line somewhere else. The fact that they didn't, and they argued about that endlessly after the war. If only Stonewall Jackson would have been there, he would have taken Cemetery Hill. Richard Ewell was a loser because he didn't attack Cemetery Hill. Everybody knew Cemetery Hill was the key ground, and the Confederates didn't get it on July 1st, and it was the anchor for the Federals for the rest of the battle.
I know historians hate to play this game, but we're going to play it anyway. What if Stonewall Jackson was not shot by his own troops at Chancellorsville and he would have been at Gettysburg? In your opinion, would that have changed anything?
It would. Yes, it would have changed one thing. If Jackson had gotten—if Lee had told Jackson to attack Cemetery Hill, if practicable, which is what he told Ewell, Stonewall Jackson would have attacked. Now, would he have captured the hill? I don't know. But would he have attacked? Yes, he would have attacked because he and Lee were perfectly aligned in the way they approach things, which is to push it to the greatest degree possible, inflict the greatest damage possible. If you get your foot on somebody's throat, stomp on them. They're the antithesis of somebody like George McClellan on the Union side who—God. So, yes, that's the one difference I would have seen. He would have attacked. Would it have been successful? Who knows. But he would have tried. I don't think there's any question about that because that's what he did.
So, I've developed this theory. Tell me if it's valid. When Lee was at West Point, I think somebody—I don't know who the guy was—somebody actually finished ahead of him, but he was like, he never had a—
Two behind a New Yorker who never did anything in the army. Yeah.
And Grant would sit and read, which they were not supposed to do. He would like read literature and write. Apparently, Grant could—the only thing I've ever excelled at, not like, is riding a horse. I could ride a horse like the wind when I was—but Grant could really ride a horse.
He was a horse whisperer. I really think he was. He honestly—and he set jumping records at West Point that lasted 50 years. He was a great—
He got drunk on Canal Avenue and fell off his horse in New Orleans, which I always liked about Grant. He got drunk and fell off his horse. He never fell off a horse his entire life.
Just like he did—the Lost Cause portrayed Grant as a kind of drunken butcher who just understood arithmetic, and that carried over. There's an episode from The Beverly Hillbillies where US Grant falls off his horse and Granny sees him, and I mean that's the Lost Cause popping up on The Beverly Hillbillies in the 1960s. It crops up everywhere.
And when did the Lost Cause—didn't start in June of 1865, did it? I mean, there was some delay, and people were trying to figure out in their days how they were going to explain this.
They didn't have a memory conference right after the war in the former Confederates where they sent out the word, 'We got to get our story straight. Let's have a conference, send some delegates, and we'll hammer something out.' No, it came in dribs and drabs, but began right after the war and was pretty much in place by the early 1870s, and very much so. And they became much more aggressive about it after Lee died in October of 1870 because Lee's advice—Lee was unhappy with how the war ended. But his public stance was, 'We tried, we lost. They set the terms. We abide by the terms.' And he was against, as you know this, he was against putting up monuments. He said, 'Don't look backward, look forward.' Once he was dead, Jubal and others had free rein to really push—Lee wouldn't have liked this image of him as sort of a perfect, unblemished character. Once he was dead, they had free rein to push that part of the Lost Cause very hard.
So, as I understand it, Lee in his last years at Washington or Washington and Lee, he would refuse to march in step. I mean, he didn't think the military was a great career for someone, did he?
No. No, he did not. He did not. There really—it's really important to distinguish between the private Lee and the public Lee after the war. Privately, as I said, he was unhappy with Reconstruction. He didn't like a lot of the legislation that was coming out of the Republican Congress, but publicly he said reunite, put aside arguments, don't look back, look forward. So there's a public persona that is for kind of public reconciliation and a privately where he's very unhappy with what's going on, especially with the radical Republicans.
Okay. So, as a Louisianan, I got it because we talk a lot about Gettysburg. We talk a lot about the Overland Campaign. We talk a lot about McClellan. And I always thought, well, we give short shrift to Vicksburg and Atlanta.
