Civil War, The (1954)

in 1861 three balls as I in 1861 three balls as I in 1861 we leak the Yankees at Bull Run and we'll all drink stone-blind Johnny come fill the bowl in 1863 a special train had come up from Washington bringing a mighty important man who had a speech to make at a place called Gettysburg today Gettysburg lies peaceful and quiet in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains but what happened there sometime back is history not far from Gettysburg does a Great Valley lying a strut calling it the Cumberland and another self the Shenandoah and at Harpers Ferry right where the valleys meet a grave and tragic conflict springs to life I John Brown am now quite sure that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood john brown's body lies a mole dhryn in the grave but heart stone above the Great Valley anticipating a deadly struggle between two ways of life well the valley flowed north into an area both agriculturally rich industrially productive a land where factories were becoming part of the lands but in the southern part of the valley and the land beyond a wet life depending on the hand labor of slaves a different way of life that seemed to call for a different kind of government disunion was established on the right of state to do as it pleased on the question of slavery and every other question [Music] a house divided against itself cannot stand April twelfth 1861 Confederate guns fire on Fort Sumter the war had come South Carolina had seceded from the Union in December of eighteen sixty and six other slave states had soon followed but the state of Virginia hesitated even after Sumter and whether it would secede or not was of grave concern to a Virginian named robert e lee if Virginia stands by the olean so will I but if she succeeds then I will follow my native state with Motley my life and so when Virginia seceded five days after Sumter the North lost more than a state it lost a general who a mistake we lost the run three bows as I grew a mistake we lost the run three balls through a mistake we lost the run and we all skedaddle to Washington and we'll all leave home blind Johnny come fill the bowl neither side had won the first battle was in half and manner boy Johnny read for Billy yank soldier faced his own worst moments alone waiting the wrong northern troops hadn't meant to run that day but run they did it wasn't going to be a short war Bull Run was a defeat for the north but not a decisive one and by the spring of 62 McClellan now with a tough and discipline army the army of the potomac embarked aboard a huge fleet of wooden ships to the James River for a drive on Richmond hard fighting brought the Union Army to within four miles of Richmond the heart and symbol the Confederacy but with victory almost within his grasp mcclellan learned that his own capital was threatened by Confederate cavalry they were stopped by Union forces but McClellan despite his superior numbers was defeated by Lee in a series of battles known as seven days Richmond was still threatened but for that matter so was Washington thus the war in the East was indecisive but things were going differently in the West here where broad rivers cut into the Confederacy an unknown Union General it surrounded fernanda asked this unknown for terms the reply was no terms except unconditional surrender an unconditional surrender grant it was from that day on but ulysses s grant was not always to have things on his own terms one Sunday morning in early April is headquarters grants forces have been surprised and thus began the terrible battle of shiloh 40,000 Confederates press the Union troops to the very edge of the river towards what looked like inevitable disaster but federal reinforcements arrived overnight reinforcements which turned the tide of the battle and when it was over the Union Army held the ground but at a cost more terrible than could be imagined General Grant looked over the field I looked at a field over which the Confederates had made charges the day before so covered Dan now after more than a year of hostilities the grand strategy of the North began to emerge total blockade on the sea and the splitting of the Confederacy by way of the western rivers thus the west was to prove crucial on this war between north and south but Lee in the East was a general to be reckoned with it crossed the Potomac just above Washington and early in September of 62 his army met McClellan's of a place called Antietam Creek and in two days the cornfields of Maryland became one of the bloodiest battle fields of the entire war it was not news of a decisive victory which reached the White House but it was enough of a victory and what Abraham Lincoln had been waiting for all persons held as slaves within any state the people of which shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then thenceforward and forever free now the fate of the Union and the fate of slavery were one and the same the spring of 63 found the war moving into its third tragic year with federal troops deep and Confederate territory in the West but once again Lee's lieutenants were on the march in the Cumberland Valley and in June of 63 the tides of war converged on a little town which until then had been as peaceful as the seminary which stood nearby a town called Gettysburg now to determine armies faced each other seventy five thousand men under Lee ninety thousand or more under meet the hardened veterans entranced on Little Round Top waited the Union sharpshooters and devils den waited the fertile fields of Pennsylvania waited [Music] but Lee's first assault failed to dislodge the federal troops from Cemetery Ridge meads men got what sleep they could among the graves at night the fighting at Bernard and one morning of the third day came we mounted this fateful attack [Music] [Music] [Music] general Pickett had sent his men charging across an open space nearly a mile in length they had moved with a steadiness of a dress parade their defeat was one which all but sealed the fate of the Confederacy now in the midst of a tragic war not yet won a lot of folks gather and get his bird for a dedication and among them is the president he looks older now seldom smiles war's been so long so many did on both sides after a while after the main speaker he has a few words to say he speaks briefly quietly of the brave men living and dead who struggled here says we must resolve that they shall not have died in vain that our nation shall have a new birth of freedom and that government all of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth [Music] but the terrible war went on and once again the West proved crucial Vicksburg had surrendered to ulysses s grant in July of 63 then grant took command in Chattanooga and strong the Confederate positions on missionary rich East Tennessee the way into Georgia was now in Union hands this was the Mississippi River the Confederacy was divided and in Grant Lincoln had at last found of fighting general now placed in supreme command of all Union forces grant through the army of the potomac into the wilderness campaign slashed at lee's line was pushed back struck again and again the south was slowly being worn down by the better equipped to larger armies of the north by strangling blockade on the sea and once again word came from the West federal victories there were opening the way into georgia and the way into georgia was taken by William Tecumseh Sherman Atlanta fell to shrivel in August of 64 then began a 300 mile march to the sea a March whose mission was to destroy the productive heartland of South a March whose mission was accomplished the garden area the Confederacy was laid waste in 1864 the rebels Hadean of the war and we'll all drink stone-blind Johnny come fill the bowl the war could not go on much longer grandpa seeds Petersburg and with Sherman's cavalry joining him forced ly to abandon his capital it is april third 1865 Lee's armies are all but surrounded six days later two former graduates of West Point meet in the small house in the town called Appomattox and ulysses s grant whose initials stand for unconditional surrender in verses at length with robert e lee who hopes for something better than unconditional surrender my men would like to take their mounts home with them for the spring plowing yes it's doubtful if they will be able to put in a crop without the horses they are now riding with malice toward none with charity for all let us bind up the nation's wounds to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his forward to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations [Music]