🇬🇧BRIT Reacts To THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR PART 2!

🇬🇧 BRIT Reacts To THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR PART 2!
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Hi everyone, I’m Kabir and welcome to another episode of Kabir Considers! In this video I’m going to React To THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR PART 2!
• The American Civil War...
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[@warriorfight111]

12:06 - Lincoln actually said to send Grant more whiskey by the way, that's not just a bit in the video it's a real thing. Which makes it even more hilarious.

[@PenelopeFrank]

Yeah most everything is true… even the fact he grew out his beard on the recommendation of a little girl.

[@josephsoto9933]

Another take on that remark was that Lincoln wanted to send Grant's brand of whiskey to his other Generals, in the hope that they would be ad successful as Grant.

[@Isolder74]

He also said to send a barrel to the rest of his generals too.

[@arcxjo]

​@@josephsoto9933 Specifically, it was Old Crow, which is the the best $10 whiskey you'll find.

[@Deadxman616]

@@PenelopeFrank when a general sent a snide remark on what to do with 1000 cows they captured....lincon sent a telegram simply saying "milk them"

[@theblackbear211]

Ulysses S. Grant was indeed referred to as "Unconditional Surrender" Grant by supportive newspapermen.

[@RiseOfThePhoenix30]

And Butcher Grant by the others

[@Widdershins.]

It's the initials. In case anyone missed that connection.

[@ms_scribbles]

@@RiseOfThePhoenix30 Yeaaaahhh, others that seemed to have this notion that we'd win the war without anyone dying. "Whaaat? Soldiers went to war, and...died?? Shocking!" I mean, yes, Grant had a large casualty list compared to the other generals, but that was because the other generals didn't do a damn thing. That's why they kept losing battles. They'd come up, fight a little bit, then order a retreat the moment people started dying.

[@RiseOfThePhoenix30]

I was a historical tour guide...look up the Seige of Petersburg...black solders the first night could have overran Peterburg and ended the war. Grant and the other Generals made them stop because they didnt want to black soldiers getting that glory. They wanted it because of their political aspirations after the war...look how long that last and how many died...people die but way more than needed

[@RiseOfThePhoenix30]

Any other questions? Or does here end the lesson?

[@Counterpoint1951]

Every non-American who reacts to this series ends up hating McClellan, lol.

[@aresee8208]

McClellan wasn't the worst general ever. He was just solidly mediocre. But, he made up for that by being a complete egotist. You know when people say someone thinks they're always the smartest one in the room? Well, that was McClellan.

[@FreddieSea]

As a non American I agree with this comment

[@chago4202000]

If you've never seen the movie "Glory", it is excellent! About a black regiment in the civil war. Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Matthew Broderick... great movie.

[@jasonmartin569]

That is a great movie about the 54th Massachusetts regiment. I own it on DVD

[@mikecarew8329]

Strongly agree - great film!

[@johnalden5821]

On McClellan, there are two schools of thought: Some historians believe he was simply conservative in his approach because he genuinely understood the problems of logistics, training and equipping the army -- and McClellan's Army of the Potomac was always well trained, equipped and supported. Others, however, note that he was very political and his party was opposed to Lincoln's Party. In fact, he ended up running for president against Lincoln in 1864. So there have been insinuations and allegations over the years that he was not acting in good faith, although when he ran in 1864, he did try to make clear that he would not end the war with recognizing the South's secession. IMHO, he was just a pompous arse.

[@Perfectly_Cromulent351]

That bit about Wilmer McLean and his wife, Martha, refusing to leave the house wasn’t just a throwaway joke. He was a real person and the Battle of Bill Run partially took place on his farm. Seeing as how he was directly between the two warring capitals, McLean decided to move his family away from the war by relocating to Appomattox, Virginia. Ironically, the war found him again four years later when General Lee surrendered to General Grant in his house. McLean is supposed to have said, “The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor.”

[@DontLookAtMeLookAtPoo]

Lincoln famously sent a letter to General McClellan reading, “If General McClellan does not want to use the Army, I would like to borrow it for a time, provided I could see how it could be made to do something.”

[@FishHatcheryGuy]

It was actually 3 cigars that gave away Lee’s strategy and the battle of Antietam had 20000+ casualties total from both sides.

[@ЯАга-я4л]

Either it was deliberate sabotage from some North sympathyser in Lee's army or some of his officers was so unimaginably careless he wrapped his cigars in his orders, put those in his pocket and lost them. I don't even know what sounds more plausible

[@hkiller57]

@@ЯАга-я4л Definitely sounds like something a drunk, incompetent general appointed for his status in civilian life would do

[@timheller8475]

Lincoln was such a nice person, i believe all he ever said about McClellan was that he had a serious case of the slows

[@JPMadden]

1) At 2:43, Lincoln has lit the Beacons of Minas Tirith and is blowing the Horn of Gondor! 2) At 5:30, OverSimplified stated that "no one knew how destructive this war was going to be." The 15-20 years preceding the war saw the introduction of new weapons, specifically the rifled musket. Few military men appreciated that the new weapons required new tactics. They were all using Napoleon's tactics from the early 1800s. The muskets used by foot soldiers then were "smooth bore" inside. The musket ball came out of the barrel with no spin and behaved in the same erratic manner that a baseball or soccer ball does without spin. The muskets were notoriously inaccurate, which is why in paintings of old battles the opposing armies were standing so close to each other. It was difficult to hit a target beyond a range of 50 or 100 yards. In order for an army to concentrate its fire it had to concentrate its men. Rifled muskets did exist in the early 1800s, but they were very expensive and thus in short supply. Rifles got their name from the practice of etching (rifling) grooves in a spiral pattern inside the barrel of a musket. In the mid-1800s, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, it became economical to manufacture rifled muskets for every foot soldier. These new rifled muskets could accurately hit a target from several hundred yards. As a result, it was routine for a Civil War battle to have casualty (dead and wounded) rates of 30% or higher. Just for one day. Other factors made Civil War battles very deadly: Firstly, the bullets used then were larger and travelled slower than modern ones, which means they caused grievous wounds when hitting flesh; and when they hit bones they shattered them rather than piercing them the way modern bullets do. The shattered bones required amputations. And secondly, the war was fought 1861-1865, just before the beginning of modern medicine. Civil War medicine at least had ether for amputations, but it was horrific otherwise. They didn't use antiseptics because they didn't understand germs, so men routinely developed lethal infections from minor wounds. Men who suffered serious wounds sometimes had to travel for days in horse-drawn ambulances over primitive dirt roads. Assuming they survived the journey, when they reached what passed for a hospital their wounds might be crawling with maggots. Lastly, like all wars before modern medicine, more men died from disease than battle. Hundreds of thousands of men from rural areas, who had likely never travelled more than 50 miles from home, were camped together in close quarters for months. There were epidemics of many diseases, especially those caused by drinking water contaminated by feces--cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. I have heard it suggested that diarrhea killed more men than battles. 3) George McClellan was an enigma then and he still is. He (and others) did a masterful job in late 1861 of building up the pre-war army of less than 20,000 professional soldiers to the 1862 army of about one million volunteers. But he was one of the worst field generals in history. He thought he was a genius and seemed to think everyone else, including Lincoln, was a fool. He might have had some sort of narcissistic personality disorder. When he died of a heart attack at age 58 he was writing his memoirs, in which he defended himself, or so he thought. The posthumous release of his memoirs actually made him look worse. Before Lincoln fired McClellan, he was so exasperated that he privately commented or wrote that “If General McClellan isn’t going to use his army, I’d like to borrow it for a time.” Lincoln had a surprising amount of trouble getting his generals to follow orders because most of them, like most of the rest of the army, were technically not in the U.S. Army but served in the state militias (what we now call the National Guard). (This doesn't apply to McClellan, who was U.S. Army.) They had been appointed by their state governments. Some of them were incompetent but so politically well-connected that Lincoln was forced to keep them. As the war progressed he managed to move these political generals to less important jobs. 4) General Grant's name was originally Hiram Ulysses Grant. At West Point (the army's military academy) he was enrolled as Ulysses S. Grant, due to a clerical error (the middle initial did not stand for anything). I read somewhere that supposedly Grant did not object to this error because he did not want his classmates to call him "H.U.G." The nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant was created by newspaper reporters. His army buddies called him Sam (pretending U.S. stood for Uncle Sam). Grant later served as the 18th U.S. President, 1869-1877. He was a decent but too-trusting man who hired or agreed to hire many dishonest men. His administration had more scandals than most. 5) I'm only guessing, but the textile mill owners in the UK might have pressured their government to support the South because they were losing money without southern cotton. But it's my understanding that popular opinion in the UK would not have tolerated a government which supported a slave-holding nation. By the way, there was also slavery in the North during the war. The four northernmost slave-holding "border" states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware did not secede, although some of their citizens fought for the South. There was slavery in the portion of Virginia which refused to secede and became West Virginia. And according to the 1860 Census, there were 18 elderly slaves in New Jersey, despite the state having abolished slavery in 1804. Some northern states which had slavery earlier in the 1800s "grandfathered in" existing slaves. All blacks would be born free afterwards, but existing slaves remained enslaved. That's obviously unfair, but I wonder whether it was more humane to those few slaves who did reach old age and would be too old to work or to take care of themselves if emancipated. 6) Despite finding the enemy's battle plans, General McClellan could only achieve a draw at the Battle of Antietam. He then refused to follow his weakened opponent and attempt to finish him off. At that point Lincoln fired him. But since the Confederates retreated from northern territory, Lincoln treated it like the victory he needed. 7) The Emancipation Proclamation applied only those slaves held in enemy territory. They would be freed only when the Union Army conquered where they were held. The Proclamation did not free any slaves held in the 4 border states in the North, because they almost certainly would have seceded, and Washington, D.C., would have been surrounded by enemy territory. The Proclamation was symbolic. Slavery would not finally end until the Constitution was amended in 1865.

[@Snipergoat1]

A point about rifles. It was not so much of them being expensive. They were only a bit more expensive than muskets due to the extra work needed to rifle the barrels. The problem was mostly that it took a much longer time to reload a a rifle since you had to pack the bullet through the much tighter rifled barrels. You could fire 4 times or more often with a musket and with battles of the time being fought in massed formation with swords often finishing the fight the greater accuracy was not worth the low rate of fire. Towards the end of the Crimean war (Britain V Russia about 10 years earlier) the Minne ball was developed. It was a collapsed bullet that expanded to engage with the rifling when fired but allowed the rifle to be reloaded as quickly as a musket. So while rifles gained popularity at the end of that war, the US civil war was the first to use rifles exclusively. Also the breach loaders that where being developed required no special effort to load as a rifle as opposed to the now obsolete muskets. The US civil war was a testing ground for several new technologies. The USS Monitor vs. the CSS Virginia (AKA USS Merrimac if you're damn yankee who didn't recognize that they stole it fair and square. I say the confederate had it so we should use their name) were not the first ironclads, they were the first ironclads to fight and they quickly showed all other warships were now obsolete. One British Naval officer noted that in one day we went from having 100 first class ships of the line to having 4. With all of their lovely big gunned wooden ships being relegated to second class status. Other important developments were either ignored by the Europeans or the wrong lessons were taken from them. A big one was that it was really stupid to send men charging into an entrenched position when they have rapid fire weaponry. They kind had trouble with this seemingly obvious concept hence the unconscionably poor tactics shown through much of WW1. It also saw the first use of submarines. Although these early attempts were usually more deadly to their own crew than to the enemy, eventually they became an important part of Naval warfare.

[@JPMadden]

@@Snipergoat1 Excellent comment. I'm from New England, but not a "Yankee" in the ways we define it. I'm not a Yankee fan, nor am I ethnically and culturally a Yankee (descended from colonial English settlers). Hopefully, I'm not a "damn" anything! I agree that's it weird to refer to the CSS Virginia as the USS Merrimack. Why would you want to use the name of one of your ships for an enemy ship you're trying to sink?

[@td644]

McClellan simply put just wasn't a good battlefield commander like at all. But credit where it's due he was great at organizing and training troops. In fact it was his work building the Army of the Potomac that would ultimately lead to victories down the road.

[@corvanna4438]

McClellan went 10 and 3 on the battlefield, we mock him today as Lincoln was martyred and he opposed Lincoln. The biggest problem with McClellan was he was not willing to crush the South, he thought they would just give up, and he wanted fewer casualties.

[@ms_scribbles]

@@corvanna4438 So...he was a fool. They started the damn war! Why was he so stupid to think they'd just give up?

[@corvanna4438]

@@ms_scribbles because, the whole South was not behind secession. The Southern States had to hide votes or outright brutalize people to get the acts to pass, West Virginia seceded from Virginia over the issue. McClellan thought he could get those people to overthrow the rebels if he was careful not to force them to fight.

[@thehowlinggamer5784]

@@corvanna4438 Funny considering his tactics at Richmond which ultimately created more casualties than necessary by allowing Lee to shift troops around from one flank to another ro defend instead if throwing his superior numbers at Lee and overwhelm him.

[@corvanna4438]

@@thehowlinggamer5784 Malvern Hill he paid Lee back in full. He could have overwhelmed Lee at Antietam too, bt people forget Lincoln had ordered mcClellan to keep DC defended - yet nobody blames Lincoln for Mcclellan holding that reserve.

[@Phouraces11]

Hey Kabir! I am actually a descendent of U.S. Grant, and while he wasn't a great US President, he was an incredible General and one of the major reasons we won the Civil War, and I also like Whiskey! Also, I hope you've seen my email and will think about reacting to the Sons of Ben!

[@kabirconsiders]

No way! That’s an impressive individual to have in your family tree. I haven’t checked that inbox in a while, I’ll do it now. And I see you’re a man of good taste 🥃😎

[@Alex-dh2cx]

@Trade Bum Simmons he led what had been widely considered to be the most corrupt administration in US history. Not that he was corrupt, but he didn't stop it from happening despite being in charge.

[@Alex-dh2cx]

@Trade Bum Simmons again, he was bad, because he let insane amounts of corruption and corporate interest go on inside his own administration, something like that is either corruption, apathy, or incompetence.

[@Snipergoat1]

He also established the tradition of American Generals known more for their tenacity than their field maneuvers and of defeating highly skilled opposing generals with the judicious use of force and while methodically cutting off their opponents opportunities to get crafty then forcing them into a fight that was not on their terms.

[@danheisey9052]

American history is quite strange and disturbing sometimes, and what they DON’T put in the history books is even crazier.

[@Fuzz32]

One of the craziest stories I’ve ever heard about the Civil War was the story of Cooter Brown. The story goes that he lived on the Union/Confederate border and had family on both sides. So to keep from choosing sides, he got piss drunk on moonshine and recruiters from both sides deemed him “too inebriated for service”. And in fact the phrase “Drunk as Cooter Brown” was widely used in the South for many years.

[@robertdedrick7937]

Interestingly most of these Generals/Officers went to West Point Military Academy together and knew each other. West Point is still to this day where many of our Generals Officers and even a few Presidents attend. Its in NY about an hour north of NYC.

[@josephsoto9933]

At one point Lee was the West Point Commandant. Also not mentioned (or maybe I missed it)...Lincoln asked Lee to command the Union Army but Lee felt a greater loyalty to his home state (Virginia) and declined. Lee's estate (actually his wife's) is located across the Potomac River from D.C. It was appropriated by Lincoln during the war and used as place to shelter escaped slaves and as a hospital for wounded Union Soldiers. It is now Arlington National Cemetery.

[@faithnfire4769]

@@josephsoto9933 Bizarrely enough, his estate (or him, I'm not certain about the timeline) later won a court case that deemed the seizure illegal under US law. So if I recall right his family ended up getting paid for their land. Though it was clear at that point the cemetery was to stay (which was possibly one of the reasons behind burying people there in the first place). The West point connection is also part of why so many commanders on both sides were engineers or experienced in such matters, as West Point had a major millitary engineering focus at the time. It was so prolific it might have had an effect on overall strategy, though obv. look at a historians take for that.

[@darreljones8645]

@@josephsoto9933 Another interesting fact about Robert E. Lee... He is the only West Point cadet in history to graduate without earing a single demerit the whole four years.

[@theblackbear211]

Remember too, many of these officers knew each other well, many were close friends. A civil war is a tragic thing - there were truly cases where brothers fought on opposite sides.

[@loongcat6500]

Deadliest conflict in American history. Tragic, but at the end of the day a necessary evil.

[@invisigoth510]

Yep, I have old family photos of ancestors in both Union & Confederate uniforms from the same nuclear family. It was quite literally brother against brother

[@brandyforsythe1882]

Love your reaction! We learn this stuff in American history, but as with most things details get forgotten. I'm glad to have a flrefresher course! Have a fabulous week- from Texas

[@MrTommygunz420]

I do hate some of what falls through the cracks in books too; (Kabir this will be in part 2 so I will be vague.) had to do a report on Sherman in Jr high and read the details of the March to the Sea (it's some brutal stuff for the time.) It's definitely fitting that the first tanks that had additional weapons besides the main cannon (to cause more damage to the field,) would be named the Sherman class of tank.

[@kabirconsiders]

Thanks Brandy :)

[@backident]

14:10 One of the things about the war is that most of the officers were from the south, and 2/3 of the army defected at the start of the war. McClellan was a younger man and was brilliant at training soldiers. He turned the masses of extremely diverse people into one fighting unit. His men loved him and he loved them back. He had no experience fighting and was terrified of risking his pals in a slaughter if he were to muck it up.

[@thatguyofdark]

this is probably one of the most complete statements about him. its always a mixture of things but definitely lack of combat experience and not willing to risk troops when victory wasnt certain. politics may have had a hand as well but history is written by the victors, so he definitely gets a worse reputation than he deserves and his achivements are always downplayed or outright not mentioned

[@bueno_oneub_0]

The reason why Lincoln didn't fire McClellan was because he was a democrat who was in favour of the war, and many people up north liked him. So to help with the congressional election to help have republicans maintain control of congress, he had to make sure McClellan was on the same side. Lincoln also had Andrew Johnson be his vice president because Johnson was a southern democrat but remained loyal to the union. And in order to get the message of Union, Lincoln had him be his VP. However unfortunately the racist Vice president became president after Lincoln was assassinated and it lead to a botched reconstruction.

[@Thoreaux]

The President is the Commander in Chief, the highest link in the chain of command, but they're also a citizen who does not necessarily have any military knowledge or sense. It's the CiC's role to tell the generals what their objective is, but it's the general's role to assess the particulars and decide how to make the best use of the nation's military assets toward that objective. It looks like a weak system in the case of McClellan (at least as far as OS portrays him), but I do think this is basically how it should be. The president could be any rando popular enough to bring in the votes. What if the country ended up with some total knucklehead (like an orange reality TV person/unsuccessful real estate tycoon) as their Commander in Chief? On the basis of their expertise your actual military leaders have to be able to exercise their own judgment and discretion.

[@Spongebrain97]

When it came to Britian, politicans were split on their opinions of the Confederacy but more did sympathize with them. The British people on the other hand were overwhelmimgly in favor of the Union. Same with Canada

[@Dannib823]

I love the running gags of "I'll turn this car around" and "wait a minute..." In these videos

[@Larrybird696]

Frederick Douglass was buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rochester NY. Right around the corner from the hospital I was born at

[@lazymansload520]

15:44 a battle not mentioned here is one that impacted the UK, the battle between the confederate ironclad ship Virginia (commonly called by its former name the Merrimack), which attacked vulnerable union ships and was sent to attack Washington. It fought against the union ironclad Monitor, (sent to stop the Merrimack from reaching Washington). Before, the Merrimack only fought wooden sided battleships, which it commonly sunk. Now, for the first time, two iron clad ships would fight each other. In the end, neither ship was able to damage the other, so the battle ended in a draw (though since the Merrimack never got to Washington, I guess it’s technically a union victory). While the battle is today commonly thought of almost as a joke, it had a pretty big effect on history. In London, when the leaders of the Royal Navy, the largest navy on earth at the time, learned of the battle between the monitor and the Merrimack, they immediately cancelled all their orders for constructing wooden sided battleships; they realized that the age of wooden war ships, which mankind had experienced for thousands of years, had finally ended. Other similar inventions from the civil war include primitive submarines (crank-powered vessels used by the confederates to ram at high speeds into the sides of union ships) and the first United States Air Force (three hot air balloons used to spy on confederate troops).

[@claregale9011]

A brit actually was the first to invent what we now call a submarine back in the 1600s .

[@lazymansload520]

@@claregale9011 true, but this is the earliest example I can think of involving them being used in combat

[@claregale9011]

@@lazymansload520 that's true 👍

[@willardwooten9582]

Don't wait so long ! While it's still fresh in your mind.

[@blaizenova]

I agree. The story loses some of its impact when he waits so long to post the next part!

[@kabirconsiders]

Guys I’ve got like 700 recommendations to get through 😩

[@willardwooten9582]

@@kabirconsiders Brother your young your still just a kid and you don't have much time for Left for a vacation SO up it to 4 vids a day. haha

[@daveeyde9622]

And to this day....we are still trying to wash that original sin away. It's impossible too unless we decide to confront it rather than ignore it. Cheers

[@Alex-dh2cx]

You can take a ferry out to fort Sumter in Charleston, it's still there. Cannon balls are still lodged into the walls. The only casualty of that bombardment was a horse (on the attacker's side), which is insane because the place basically went from 3 stories to 1.

[@MlTCH]

The picnic-watching the war crap still happens today, just not in person. It’s called war correspondents and we watch it on television and the internet. Same concept.

[@danielm6049]

It's a long watch, not good for KZbin, but the single best video resource I've seen was "The Civil War" by Ken Burns. It really gets into what was going through people's minds on both sides.

[@kabirconsiders]

I’ll check it out this weekend

[@wilshade]

I would suggest, for your personal interest, that you watch the 1993 movie "Gettysburg". It's about as historically accurate as a movie can get. Of course, it is about the Battle of Gettysburg. But, it does a pretty good job of giving you some of the backstory of the war as it goes along. Well worth the time.

[@jimmiegiboney2473]

3:13 Mark! Kabir, greetings! 🖖 Ahem. For the record, I've never neen the type of person to ask such questions when I can see where I am and what's happening! 😊

[@velusional]

7:45 😂 i’m so glad you know that reference

[@jimmiegiboney2473]

6:03 Mark! A movie? That or like a sporting event! In the last century people like that finally got a safer venue with sports becoming a major deal! 😮

[@robertdedrick7937]

Grant became President. He's considered one of the best Presidents but somehow overtime has been forgotten by most Americans. Perhaps you should react to Grant ? You would be teaching even Americans some lost history.

[@sophiefilo16]

One of the best? I've always heard him regarded as a rather poor president...

[@wolfmanjack3451]

Grant was a good leader not necessarily a good president,his administration had its share of scandals. Cool thing Grant supported the Transcontinental Railroad Lincoln had started..

[@robertdedrick7937]

@@sophiefilo16 Grant was the first Civil Rights President and his time was dominated by reconstruction. He ratified the 15 amendment giving African Americans the right to vote. Passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 making it illegal to discriminate against African Americans in public/services . Signed into law 3 enforcement laws that went after the KKK & others attacking African Americans. Created the DOJ, US department of Justice. Made peace between Spain & Britain over the Virginius affair. Got farmers reparations from Britain over lost wages from blockades . He was the most famous American in the world at the time of his death. .Beloved by the overwhelming majority of Americans and later call the best Presidents along with Lincoln and Washington by President Theodore Roosevelt . And then the democrat party overturned everything he did with Jim crow laws and democrat Supreme Court rulings .... Democrat also published "the lost cause" to portrait General Lee as hero and Grant as a villain.

[@jimmiegiboney2473]

7:13 Mark! Oh yeah! By the way! Nowadays people take for granted that a president and vice president will be a team from the same political party. But it wasn't always the case! It used to be that whomever came in second place during a presidential election became the Vice President! That's how there can be animosity back in the day! At some point, the rules or laws were changed to prevent such rivals from having to work together like that. 👍

[@zoeye7095]

Part of the problem with the original Generals for the North was they were unwilling to recognize that war had changed with the invention of new weapons that fired quicker and more accurately. They were stuck in the old tactics. It was very similar to World War I and II where you had a rapid advancement of technology that required different war tactics but people did not realize that yet.

[@lorettaross5146]

You can find the complete Official Records of the Union and Confederate Forces online in the Making of America collection and read actual reports and communications. I don't ferment the exact date now but I found one day in early 1863 when there was a sizeable Union force and a sizeable Confederate force camped just a few miles apart between where I live and the nearest town. Neither seemed to know the other was there. (It would have been a heavily- word wooded area). In any case they didn't fight here that day.

[@lorettaross5146]

Remember the exact date. Not ferment. Wtaf auto-complete? 🤦‍♀️

[@DerOberfeldwebel]

While Winfield Scott did a not too shabby job, he was ALSO a veteran of the war of 1812 and 74 when the war broke out. He resigned in November 1861, though.

[@arcxjo]

11:30 - Grant's name is kind of an interesting story, he was born "Hiram Ulysses Grant" but didn't like the fact his initials were "HUG" so he changed it to "Ulysses Simpson" (Simpson being a family name on his mom's side, even his younger brother's first name was Simpson); what I never hear anyone catch on in these reaction videos is that his initials were "U.S.", but yeah, he tried to make "Unconditional Surrender Grant" a thing because of that.

[@atb2674]

In order to understand McClellan’s poor generalship, zoom out and realize that the last major conflict was in the 1840s a full 20yrs prior (Mex-Am War). Most of the later high ranking military leaders were just young officers then. Few of them saw direct combat as well. And in peacetime until the civil war they would either station at garrisons or academies teaching military theory. These were peacetime soldiers and any actual combat-tested officer like Winfield Scott were just too old by then. Very few Civil War generals had that middle ground of age and experience (like Grant and Lee who directly led units in the Mex-Am War). McClellan led an engineers unit so he supervised making bridges and other things that supported military actions. Also by now USA is almost 100yrs old and family lineage has started to play a role in US military and bureaucracy. There were senators whose dads were senators and their dads before them. Similar to how the Cromwell name would pop up in English history for instance. McClellan’s great-grandpa was a general in the War of US Independence. He also served under Winfield Scott in the Mex-Am War, who would put out good references for him. Even Robert E Lee who is a bonafide leader, was married to George Washington’s great granddaughter or grand niece. Most of these generals got into academies and high ranks simply by family ties or insider connections that got them cushy jobs. Compound that with the fact that McClellan went to academy with many future Confederate Generals, u have a man with an inflated opinion of himself due to a rank he half-earned, a family history to boot, political connections, comfortable w/ military theory rather than applied practice, and who thought he understood the enemy better than Mr Lincoln who was a lawyer from the boonies. He was in over his head, and I don’t think he ever felt he was unjustified in his leadership decisions as Commander of the Union Army

[@valeriefields7902]

Ever watch "The Civil War" by Ken Burns? That is an in-depth look at the conflict, and down-right addicting. All 9 hours of it! In it, McClelland refers to Lincoln as "the original baboon." He was his own biggest fan!

[@kabirconsiders]

I haven’t seen that one! I’ll put it on my list

[@Darknimbus3]

17:05 Also fun fact: The British also sympathized with the Confederates due to the Revolutionary War almost a century ago at that point. They were more than happy to see what happened to them happen to the Union as kind of a quasi-karma.

[@stevedavis5704]

One thing not talked about much in the history classes is Grant and Sherman’s unstated belief that because of the inequity between US and CS armies,the Union could lose 5 or 6 soldiers for every Confederate loss and still have an army in the end.

[@benjaminmorris4962]

The Emancipation Proclamation led to a large amount of desertion from the US Army, as many soldiers felt that they shouldn't be fighting for "n***ers." The Proclamtion also did not extend to the border states or Tennessee (which was under Union control at the time), as it was just an ultimatum to the South (rejoin the Union by *specific date I forgot* or lose all your slaves). It could also be argued to be unconstitutional and invalid as it can be argued that the president does/did not have the power to do that.

[@Jeff_Lichtman]

McClellan's main problem, I believe, is that he saw the conflict as a defensive war. That is, he believed his mission was to protect the rest of the country from the Confederacy. That's why he was so reluctant to attack them in their own territory, and why he failed to pursue Lee after Antietam. Lincoln saw the Confederacy as an illegitimate rebellion, and believed the Confederate states were just as much part of the United States as the states that hadn't seceded He believed the mission was to defeat the Confederates wherever they were so he could preserve the Union. Robert E. Lee, the most important general of the Confederacy, was the same guy who captured John Brown after the raid on Harper's Ferry. When it became obvious that war was coming, Lee was invited to head up the Union armies. But when his home state of Virginia seceded, Lee decided to fight for the Confederacy. That guy Wilmer McLean, who moved his family from Manassas to Appomattox Court House to escape the war, will come up again later. Remember his name.

[@williambranch4283]

In US government, the President is not just Chief Executive, but also Commander in Chief. Because George Washington was able to do both. In GB, this isn't so, the PM is Chief Executive. This creates friction at the top of the chain in the US. With the exception of Winston Churchill, who was uniquely PM and Minister of Defense during WW II... just because he was half American ... which was even more difficult for his generals, who weren't used to that.

[@garrettpapit]

To be fair....had the Confederacy won nobody would be saying they seized Federal land as they seceded. That's a case of the victor writing the narrative. A more intellectually honest statement would be that secession caused disputes to arise concerning federal land that was within the territory of the seceded states. The states considered themselves independent from US rule and therefore viewed the Federal troops as trespassing on state land. The Union obviously didn't view the secession as legally binding and therefore viewed the attempted re-acquisition of these Federal lands as unlawful seizures. Except....the Union sort of did acknowledge that secession was legal and valid. Once Lincoln used the US Navy to blockade the Confederate states he essentially accepted the legal claim of independence by the Confederate states because the Constitution disallows the use of blockades against anyone but a foreign enemy. If the narrative being told is going to assume that the Union's view, that secession was not legal, is correct...then it should take the 3 seconds required to mention that the blockade was thereby unconstitutional and illegal since it was employed against US citizens. And since I can hear the furious keyboard clicks suggesting that I'm a southern sympathizer or neo-confederate of some sort, let me save you the trouble. I've got mixed feelings about the whole thing and identify with both sides in different ways and contexts. I've lived in the south and the north, but was born in the Confederate capital (Richmond, VA) and have more time in the south at this point. And I'm a big believer in the wisdom of strong state's rights and a diminished role for federal government. Yet I'm also a Republican and view Lincoln as a great moral leader and example of the founding ideals of the GOP. Also, of course I'm extremely grateful that the Union was able to keep the country together. But most importantly, I think it was imperative that slavery be ended and the process of racial reconciliation be started. It turns out it will be a very , very, very long process so every day counts. So I have biases both directions and can see both perspectives. I think that some real damage to the Founder's view of Federalism occurred as a result of Union actions and precedent they set....but the end outcome of freeing the slaves justified the means. Having said that, the overreach, yes even abuse, of power that Lincoln employed damaged the foundation of our new, experimental system in ways that could yet prove to be the end of this experiment. The federal government has essentially unchecked power in many ways and the states have no real sovereignty when push comes to shove. This lack of decentralization creates a single-point of failure allowing our nation to falter if the wrong Americans rise to power or even if a foreign enemy infiltrates us with espionage, bribery or even completely legal public investment. The true extent of the power of the centralized federal government is being tested right now. I'd suggest not accidentally. So I think the way we portray things matters. We should try to present it from both perspectives rather than that which best matches the predominant view of the populace to which the history is being presented.

[@jimmiegiboney2473]

18:15 Mark! I forget which movie explains it. But they were inside a diplomatic pouch or something, and either fell out during transport of were deliberately left there by a spy. 🤔

[@dombutterflies7727]

Awesome reaction, also Confederate General Thomas Jackson’s nick name was “Stonewall”. Where I live you can drive about 30 or so minutes to his headquarters when he was fighting in the Shenandoah Valley.

[@hifijohn]

"Willie Mays Made "The Catch," but How Great Was It? | Baseball Bits"

[@michealdrake3421]

McLellan was an ass, but he wasn't actually as incompetent as he seems here. McClellan was a defensive general. His strong suit was holding a position against an enemy advance and he was very good at that. That's why he keeps digging in for sieges and trying to goad the confederates into attacking him. That's the kind of fight he knows how to win. McLellan was a decent commander, he just wasn't the right man for this job. The American Civil War split the UK along class lines. The posh types were missing their American cotton and tobacco, but many working class people identified with the plight of the slaves. British textile workers went on strike when they found out they were being made to work with slave-grown American cotton. British blockade runners would also slip through the union blockade to buy cotton and tobacco to sell in Europe and the North, and I'm the north they'd buy coal and steel to sell down south. The sea floor off the coast of North Carolina is littered with the wrecks of sunken blockade runners.

[@kabirconsiders]

Ahhh I see. He wasn’t suited to lead offensive efforts

[@michealdrake3421]

@@kabirconsiders Yeah. The British actually had a similar problem in the American revolution. Early on they were very cautious, not attacking when they had every reason to do so, I think it's because from their perspective it wasn't a foreign war, it was a civil war against their own citizens, and while you have to be offensive in a civil war (because all the rebels have to do to win is continue existing long enough for other covetous to start recognizing them), they were ultimately planning on bringing those people back into the fold, which will be harder if you've just killed a bunch of their friends and family and destroyed their property. In a similar way, the US had to balance aggression against the south as rebel states with mercy towards southerners as American citizens.

[@jimmiegiboney2473]

4:18 Mark! Notice that Oklahoma is a gray area! It wasn't a state until the 20th Century! Ergo it couldn't choose a side when it didn't exist yet! But I live where people don't know any better because they weren't paying attention in school and profess pride in their so-called "Southern Heritage"! The "Great State of Oklahoma " was formed by merging Oklahoma Territory with Indian Territory! There was even a pretend wedding ceremony to celebrate it! Indian Territory was a squaw by the way. So a union of two skin colors was serendipity. But I digress. During the Civil War the Great Five Civilized Tribes and the rest chose sides in the hopes of not losing any more territory to the White Man. 😮

[@MrTommygunz420]

17:05- literally the entire rest of the world's cotton textile industry was dependent upon the Southern US at the time (the rest of the world just ignored where their cotton came from; they still wanted it.) Spain and France were looking like they would at least start trying to break the blockade to send supplies if not directly helping.

[@RogunK]

We still do this even today, think about all the sweat shops where people barely get payed anything to work ridiculous hours to make all the electrons for Apple and other major companies throughout Asia.

[@rodneygriffin7666]

The bloodiest war we ever waged was the war against ourselves. It still resonates in the US.

[@theblackbear211]

Like many commanding generals McClellan firmly believed himself to be the person who knew best - but he was loathe to take risks - which did not make him unpopular with his men - it being their lives that he would be risking. but it is no way to win a war. Conversely, Grant would refuse to quit, even when things looked bad, and he was usually proved right - as far as winning battles went, but casualties were often high. So, would you rather limit your casualties and lose, or accept casualties and win?

[@LordBaldur]

Actually casualties for Grant were generally lower than with Lee who happened to cost the most lives out of any general. Grant used numbers to his advantage because that's what you do when you have the numerical advantage.

[@kabirconsiders]

Has to be the latter

[@taliaperkins1389]

14:00ish No, that was about right. General officers are confirmed in their commissions by Congress, so the President is not completely free of political concerns to fire them. And McClellan was angling for a later political career, and thought an accommodationist approach to the Confederacy was expedient.

[@ronluk76]

Hey mate, related to your reaction for Vanilla Ice, I recommend that you react to "2 Legit 2 Quit" by MC Hammer. Hammer was from the same era as Vanilla Ice but was a much bigger star. He was the first big rapper to crossover to big mainstream success. He was really big at one point, he was in national TV ad campaigns for different products and he even had his own doll and Satuday morning cartoon!

[@michaelmcgowen8780]

McClellan's reluctance to engage the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was due to the exaggerated size of Confederate forces that he was being given by Union spies, which was purported to be larger than the Union Army of the Potomac. At no time was the ANV even equal to the size of McClellan's forces, and was, at best, one-third to one-half the size of the Army of the Potomac. Total casualties at the Battle of Antietam (17 Sep 1862) were 24,491 killed, wounded & missing for both armies...to this day the bloodiest single day in American history. An estimated total of 685,000 Americans from both Union & Confederate armies died during the American Civil War, more than all our other wars combined.

[@michaelmcgowen8780]

Kabir...my great-grandfather, Richard Tate Forbes, served in Company I of the 2nd Maine Volunteer Cavalry during the last year of the war (1864-1865) & saw action in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi & Louisiana.

[@Sinvare]

Lee is a little over rated as a commander. He was a good commander who knew he had to take risks to win, and early on these payed off giving him the stunning victories. But Lee is also the reason the south lost, when his strategies later in the war did not pay off and led to casualty numbers the south could not sustain. Lee later said he would of run the war like Grant if he could, by grinding battles of attrition, but the south couldn't. Lee is held up as this great gentleman hero who fought for his state, but he only followed the eastern part of his state and he broke his oaths he had made to his country, the United States, to do so. It comes from the lost cause myth of the past 100-120 years that has tried to gloss over the fact the civil war was fought primarily over economic issues, of which slavery was the biggest factor.

[@sld1776]

Lee was also a convinced defender of slavery, and even after surrendering kept dragging his feet hoping for a better deal for the South. A complete villain.

[@corvus1374]

The commander of Fort Sumter, who was Southern, was looked on as "one of us" by the Confederates, but he stayed loyal to the North. There were two US forts in the harbor, but one was considered less defensible. One night, the Commander went to a party in Charleston, where he was treated as a fellow Southerner, but while he was partying, the defenders of the smaller fort evacuated to Fort Sumter. When the Charlestonians found out that he had fooled them, they were PISSED. Alternate history writer Harry Turtledove wrote an 11-volume series of novels based on the Southern battle plans NOT being discovered, leading to the Confederates winning the civil war, leading to another war in the 1880s over Confederate claims on Mexican lands on the Pacific, which the US also lost (and Britain actually joined the war on the side of the South), and the US and the South fighting against each other again in World War I and World War II. The US were allies of Germany in those two wars because of the British alliance with the South.

[@blaizenova]

Finally! Been waiting a week for this! And I suppose we'll have to wait another week for the next part.

[@Widdershins.]

Yeah, a little disappointing. I got my hopes up when I saw "Part 2" in the title...it's not really. Thought maybe he'd finish Part 1 and tack on Part 2 in one slightly longer video, but I guess not.

[@blaizenova]

@@Widdershins. IKR I've noticed he posts all multi-part videos a week apart.

[@kabirconsiders]

Guys you should honestly see the list of requests I’m working with, there are at least 700 recommendations on it 😅. And I like to keep things fresh, oversimplified don’t have many videos, I could easily burn through them all in like a week but where’s the fun in that?

[@seosamh.forbes]

14:00 Despite the President being the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he doesn't really have direct control over the branches (except the Marines, but they've always been a significantly smaller force than the Army) and usually they leave the running of operations to their generals, but usually a US general is at least 40% competent, unlike McClellan. The president can't even declare war, only congress can, so even though Lincoln himself was adamant about his willingness to pay for the preservation of the nation with blood, if the majority of the Union senators would've said "Nah, forget it" we'd likely have two separate nations today. Also unrelated but super duper cool, Unconditional Surrender Grant eventually became president and is on the $50 bill.

[@benmiller537]

"This must have been the low point in the war for Lincoln." Hoooooooooo boy! Get ready because it can always get lower!

[@ms_scribbles]

"This must be the low point for Abe in this war." Oh, honey, not even close, sadly.

[@jordanspinar9147]

A good video to react to is a Reagan speech called a Soldiers Pledge. It's a short video but definitely worth watching.

[@knightspearhead5718]

@ 10:00 you sound like General Patton lol "A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week."

[@USMC-Goforth]

I'm related to Ulysses S Grant on my father's side. My name is Seth G Grant.

[@georgesnow3985]

Also, after the Revolution and the War of 1812 the UK would love to see the US divided, and ripe for the retaking. Not entirely our friends.

[@jam3sbarry198]

❤ ALL the Reactions !!

[@kabirconsiders]

Thanks so much bro :)

[@jimmiegiboney2473]

0:02 Mark! 31,490 Views + Mine! 🎉 1.6K Thumbs Up + Mine! 👍 You're welcome, and thanks! ☺️ Notes: Our navy has a proud tradition of naming warships after victorious battles. Some people may be confused because our Revolutionary War and Civil War would have shared battlegrounds. 🤔

[@benjamindouglas862]

I think what Kabir was trying to say around the 10 minute mark, can be summed up by the American colloquialism, "no risk it, no biscuit"

[@tchip1720]

Gotta react to the nba europes video on this years nba finals!

[@theblackbear211]

The UK's longstanding policy of pitting political rivals against each other was definitely in play - they actively (though clandestinely) supported the Confederacy. Many have long said that the "special status" of French speaking Quebec within British Canada was partly insurance against US incursions.

[@benjaminmorris4962]

As the name of the channel suggests, the European interest in the war was oversimplified. More accurately, the European countries, such as Germany, were interested in just observing the war. Britain, however, was most interested in putting an end to the unprecedented amount of death and destruction.

[@MovieGuy808]

Congrats on 20k subs, Kabir. 🍻

[@kabirconsiders]

Thanks so much mate :)

[@teenystudioflicks1635]

In hindsight we see Lincoln as the obvious choice because his cause is so just. However he was not the popular choice at the time with not only the South, but many in the North and in Europe. His cause had the potential of damaging the economy and the exports to other countries. He needed to carefully move forward or be denounced from his office. We still deal with that kind of obstruction and political shallowness today leaving many citizens in the US deprived of basic needs.

[@cliometrician]

McClellan always thought that the Rebel army outnumbered him....always, while he actually had the larger army.

[@dallasoliver1933]

That new into music is lit. Fire beat I like it

[@kabirconsiders]

Thanks bro, it’s probably not staying though the producer said it was KZbin cleared but it’s not 😩

[@ronluk76]

Hey bro, speaking of wars, have you seen the movie "Saving Private Ryan"? Directed by Steven Speilberg. Starring Tom Hanks. One of the best movies ever made!!!

[@rekx_rokx]

In world War II British general Montgomery very cautious. American general George Patton extremely ballsy. Ballers always come out on top.

[@brendan6817]

I live in northern Virginia and there's so many civil war sites near me like bull run, manassas, and many other smaller sites

[@kaiserofkush]

Personally I'm very proud of my state (Iowa)'s part in the civil war. We sent more men than any other state. We joined good ol' General "Burnin' Sherman" and burnt those traitors and their homes to ashes.

[@karlmoles6530]

*Kabir* "That must have been the low point *Shaq* "Hu Hu Hu You'll see"

[@kenbattor6350]

Grant's other nickname was Uncle Sam Grant for U. S. Grant

[@tarik158]

McClellan most certainly was that big of a jerk. He straight refused to follow Lincoln.

[@v.v365]

5:47 it sounds weird to us that people would just spectate an ongoing war, but in Europe people would gather round to watch public executions, and unidentified bodies were set up like window shop sets at morgues so passerby could possibly identify the deceased people. In the past there wasn’t a whole lot to do, and things took way more time than they do now, so I get why people would be bored and go to morbid sources for entertainment.

[@davidthieman8020]

Kabir, The Civil War was hell and its still hard for some peoples to forgotten who won.

[@NickBLeaveIt]

5:36 Yes I can, because of two words: Roman Coliseum.

[@americansmark]

Speaking of the churchbells line, check out "The Night The Drove Old Dixie Down" by The Band. It's a story song above the Union's atrocities in the Civil War.

[@theblackbear211]

Kabir, without stirring up a firestorm of debate, I'm going to suggest that you look up the text of what is called "The Cornerstone Speech", which was made on March the 21st of 1861 by Alexander Stephens, who was at the time, the Vice President of "The Confederate States of America". He was very clear in his mind about why there was a need for separation from the Union. Form your own opinion on the "complications" of the issues at hand.

[@francishaight2062]

McClellan was just not a fighter. He didn't have any initiative.

[@gmunden1]

"No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted, " General Ulysses S. Grant - April 9 1865

[@pushpak]

11:48 Yes, that was his nickname.

[@caseyd9471]

"This must be the low point for Abe in this war" Oh hon...

[@danschreimann215]

Not all of the uk supported the south. Look up the story behind why there is a statue of Lincoln in Manchester

[@chrisstopper4541]

McClellan was positioning himself to run against Lincoln in the next election, and was refusing to following through with what Lincoln wanted, so that Lincoln couldn't take credit.

[@chrisstopper4541]

If you want to read/learn more about the war from Lincoln's perspective, I highly recommend "A Team of Rivals." It is the historical accounts of Lincoln through his presidency that uses the letters and journals of Lincoln and all of his cabinet members to figure out what was really going on. Basically, Lincoln was convinced that the best way to run the country was to put all of his political opponents from inside the Republican Party into positions of power; that way he would always get the input of the people who disagreed with him as a double check against him doing something foolish. Problem was, a number of them were pushing for him to go one direction while getting ready to move themselves in the other, in order to challenge him in the Republican Primaries for the next term. It is believed that McClellan was one of those.

[@JT-Rebel]

McClellan = Mourinho Grant = Klopp 😁

[@SAVikingSA]

Sup comments how you all doing?

[@kabirconsiders]

Hey mate, been a while!

[@lesleyjones6458]

The confederates tried using the very first submarine. It sank off the shore of Connecticut. All hands were lost.

[@mikeadams2677]

Mcclellan's nickname was Little Napoleon.

[@maximilianolimamoreira5002]

don't know why, Napoleon was more efficient and daring than him.

[@mikeadams2677]

@@maximilianolimamoreira5002 McClellan got the nickname because he was so arrogant.

[@cripple9860]

While McClellan was wayyyy over cautious some blame has to be placed on union intelligence, since they were known to overestimate the numbers of the enemy armies