Lincoln & the Civil War

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.3 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Inaugurated into the thick of secession and assassinated just weeks after Confederate surrender, there is no separating the story of Abraham Lincoln from the Civil War.

So in this second part of our series on Lincoln, Don speaks to Adam Smith about Lincoln's leadership of the Union army during the war.

Adam is a professor at the University of Oxford and Director of their Rothermere American Institute. He is also the host of podcast 'The Last Best Hope?' and author of 'The Stormy Present: Conservatism and the Problem of Slavery in Northern Politics, 1846-1865'.

Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The War Department in Washington is a beehive of activity.
0:03.5	Day and night people stride in and out, keeping the cogs of war in gear.
0:08.0	One frequent visitor is President Abraham Lincoln, who often crosses alone from the White House a short distance away.
0:15.6	He arrives without ceremony, pushing through the throng gathered in the halls.
0:20.5	The old library has been converted to a telegraph office.
0:24.0	Here, all communications for the war have been centralized.
0:27.0	Here, Lincoln can receive real-time information from the front
0:31.0	and send his own strategic notions to his commander in the field, General George McLellan.
0:37.0	In his dispatch today, April 6, 1862, Lincoln barely conceals his frustration.
0:44.6	You have now over 100,000 troops with you.
0:48.1	I think you better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to Warwick River at once. This will probably use time as
0:54.6	advantageously as you can. Here in the War Department Abraham Lincoln,
0:59.2	commander-in-chief, can be engaged directly in the war. A war that directly affects the lives of
1:06.0	every single American and which for this moment at least early in the war is not
1:11.5	going according to plan. Oh, Greetings, happy to have you long. This is American History Hit and I'm Don Wildman. Few leaders in human history have faced challenges
1:45.7	as daunting as those confronted by Abraham Lincoln as he assumed the office of the U.S.
1:50.6	presidency in 1861.
1:53.2	With his nation teetering on the brink of collapse,
1:56.2	driven by deep-seated divisions over enslavement and states' rights,
2:00.2	Lincoln would have to wage a war he didn't even want to fight.
2:04.0	But the South's choice to pit itself against the North,
2:07.0	to fire the first shots against a federal fort,
	...

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