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- [Voiceover] So in the last video,
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we talked about the year 1864
in the American Civil War,
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and now we're getting down
to the very end of the war.
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In 1864, William Tecumseh Sherman had his
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sort of famous march to the sea,
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where he captured Atlanta and
then carried on a total war
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through the state of Georgia to Savannah,
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and from Savannah he turns north
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and starts heading to the forces of Grant,
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so he can back him up in a
final victory against Lee,
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who has encamped in Richmond.
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Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln
wins the election of 1864,
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and is ready to bring this war to a close.
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So let's move on to 1865.
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A lot happens very quickly in 1865,
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starting with, in January,
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Congress passed the 13th Amendment.
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The 13th Amendment outlawed
slavery for all time.
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It's clear that when the
south is brought back in
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to the United States, it is
going to be brought back in
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without slavery, there
is no option for slavery
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in the United States going forward.
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Now Grant, after his incredible
victory in Tennessee,
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in Vicksburg, has been going
after Lee's army in Virginia.
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Now Lee has holed up in
Richmond and eventually,
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he realizes his forces
can't stay there anymore,
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they can't hold the city, so
in the beginning of April,
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they evacuate Richmond and on April 3rd,
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the United States forces occupy Richmond.
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Abraham Lincoln himself actually goes down
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to visit Richmond, which
he'd never been to before,
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and he even goes to the
government building in Richmond
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where Confederate President
Jefferson Davis had governed,
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and goes into his office.
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He's there less than 48 hours
after Davis himself had left.
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And then events, after that,
events take place very quickly.
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So Lee falls back from
Richmond to Petersburg,
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and Grant is kind of
marking him the whole time,
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and they retreat across
Virginia to the west,
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Lee is probably heading for Lynchburg,
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and Grant manages to catch
up with him at Appomattox.
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At first, Lee thinks that he's actually
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going to fight at Appomattox,
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and then he realizes he just does not
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have the men necessary, so
he invites Grant to come
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and have a parlay for
surrender, and they meet,
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this is actually a picture
of Lee outside the house
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in Appomattox courthouse, Virginia,
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where he surrendered the Army of
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Northern Virginia to Grant.
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Now that is not the actual
end of the Civil War,
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but it's kind of the end
for all intents and purposes
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because Lee is the General-in-Chief
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of the Confederate Armies.
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Grant is likewise for the United States.
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And after this point, it's just gonna be
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kind of a matter of
time until all the rest
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of the Confederate armies surrender.
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So there's great celebration
in Washington, D.C.,
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everyone is very happy, finally
this four year long war,
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where 620,000 Americans
have died, is over,
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and Abraham Lincoln
goes and gives a speech,
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talking about what Reconstruction
is going to be like.
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And in this speech, he lays
out that African Americans,
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after the Civil War, are
going to have citizenship,
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at least some of them,
and the right to vote,
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which is in keeping with
everything that he's really said
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since the Emancipation Proclamation.
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But what he does not
know, is that this man,
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John Wilkes Booth, is
in the crowd that day,
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listening to him, and
when he hears Lincoln say
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that African Americans are
gonna have citizenship,
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they're gonna have the right to vote,
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he vows to kill Lincoln.
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John Wilkes Booth is really
interesting character,
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we only know so much about him.
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He himself was a famous actor, in fact,
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Lincoln had seen him
perform a number of times,
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and liked him, even invited
him to the White House,
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cause he thought he was a great actor,
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but Booth refused to go and see Lincoln.
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And he was from a family of famous actors,
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I think kind of a modern-day equivalent
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might be the Sheen family.
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Booth had a famous brother
who was also an actor,
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and a famous father who was also an actor,
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just like Martin Sheen's
sons are Emilio Estevez
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and Charlie Sheen today.
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So this would be like, if
Emilio Estevez or Charlie Sheen
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suddenly decided to murder the President,
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which would be a pretty
incredibly big deal,
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just as it was then.
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Booth was a Confederate sympathizer,
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and almost certainly a Confederate spy
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who had gone up to Canada at some time
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to plot some movement on
behalf of the Confederacy.
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He was an outright racist,
I think the part where
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Lincoln said African Americans
would have citizenship
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was what pushed him over the edge
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into assassinating Lincoln.
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Originally he had actually
planned to kidnap Lincoln,
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and ransom him for the
end of the Civil War,
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but after Lee surrenders,
Booth's plan changes.
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He wants to basically
decapitate the government,
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so he conspires with a
couple of other people,
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and they plan that they're going to kill
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all the highest people
in government at once.
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So they're going to kill Lincoln,
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they're going to kill General Grant,
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they're going to kill William Seward,
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the secretary of state,
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and they're going to kill Andrew Johnson,
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the Vice-President.
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And Booth thinks that perhaps,
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in this moment of panic that follows
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the decapitation of the entire
United States government,
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that perhaps something positive
for the south with happen.
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Remember, they had hoped
that getting rid of Lincoln
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in the election of 1864
might result in putting
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a government more favorable to the south
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in office to the north,
which didn't happen,
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so perhaps Booth wants to
do the same thing this time.
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So Booth reads in the
newspaper that Abraham Lincoln
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is going to be attending
a play at Ford's Theater
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that evening.
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And Booth is a regular at Ford's Theater,
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in fact, he even has his
mail delivered there,
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so it's kind of his home away from home.
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And when Booth goes to the theater
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with the intent to kill Lincoln,
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he pretty much just goes
up to Lincoln's box,
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and everyone knows who he is,
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and they say hi John,
and he just walks on by,
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walks right into Lincoln's box,
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shuts the door behind him,
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and shoots Lincoln through
the back of the head.
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At that point, he jumped on
the stage from the booth,
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which is maybe 14 feet above the stage.
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If you've never been to Ford's Theater
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and you have an opportunity,
I highly recommend you go,
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it's a really interesting
museum and historical place,
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and in the process, he
actually breaks his ankle,
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so in his running away he's dealing with
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this broken ankle and
eventually he is captured,
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and refuses to be taken
alive, so he is killed.
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And later the rest of the
conspirators are hanged
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for their participation in this plot.
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There's some confusion
over what Booth said
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when he jumped out of the box.
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A lot of people say that he
yelled sic semper tyrannis,
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which means, thus always to tyrants,
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and is also the motto of
the state of Virginia.
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Other people heard him say
things like I've done it,
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or revenge for the south,
but sic semper tyrannis
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is kind of the famous phrase
that has come out of this.
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So Booth is calling Lincoln a tyrant,
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and tyrants are eventually
always assassinated.
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The rest of the assassination plot
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from that evening mostly failed.
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One of the conspirators, Lewis Powell,
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did manage to get in to
William Seward's house
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and stab him, he did not
succeed in killing him,
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but he did wound Seward very badly.
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The rest of the assassination plots
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did not come to fruition whatsoever.
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One thing you'll notice
is that only a few parts
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of the Confederate Army
have actually surrendered
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at the time of Lincoln's assassination.
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So the war is, in some
cases, still ongoing,
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particularly in North Carolina,
in Raleigh and Durham,
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where Sherman's forces have come up
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through South Carolina and North Carolina
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to meet the forces of
Confederate General Joe Johnston.
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And it's on April the
26th that Joe Johnston
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surrenders to William Tecumseh Sherman.
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From that point forward, there
are a few dribs and drabs
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of other armies that
are still surrendering.
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Interesting fact, the last
Confederate unit to surrender
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actually surrendered in November of 1865,
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in Liverpool, England,
this was a Confederate ship
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that had been sailing around,
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and when they finally came into port,
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they officially surrendered.
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Now after Lincoln's assassination,
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which was an incredible
shock to the United States,
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remember that no President had ever
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been assassinated before,
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the power is then transferred
to Andrew Johnson,
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Lincoln's Vice-President.
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And Johnson's Presidency
is going to end up
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being very problematic
for a number of reasons,
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the most important of which being that
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he's very sympathetic to the south.
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With Johnson in power as President,
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he's going to have a
considerable amount of conflict
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with the American Congress,
which is dominated
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by radical Republicans who
think that Lincoln himself
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was not nearly punitive
enough toward the south.
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There's going to be just an
incredible battle of wills
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between Congress and
Johnson that's going to end
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with Johnson being the
first American President
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to be impeached.
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And so thus endeth the Civil
War of the United States,
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with the north victorious.
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The southern states come
back into the Union.
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The rebellion in the south is defeated,
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slavery has ended, and the
era of states rights is over.
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In the next video I'd like to talk,
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just for a few moments,
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about the big takeaways
about the American Civil War.
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What is is that makes it so important?
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And what were the lasting effects?
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I'll get to that in the next video.
