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Tim McGrath - BOOK - Three Roads to Gettysburg · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: Destroyed about this now more than ever. Listen as often
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  Speaker 1: as possible. Fifty five KRC The Talk Station ATO six.
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  Speaker 1: Here at fifty five KRC DE Talk Station, Happy Friday
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  Speaker 1: Eve the return of iHeart Media Abash expert Jay ratlerf
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  Speaker 1: at the bottom the ar. Can't wait for that since
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  Speaker 1: Jay's went off for health issues and I was really
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  Speaker 1: looking forward to this segment. Welcome to the fifty five
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  Speaker 1: KRC Morning Show. Award winning author Tim McGrath, who is
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  Speaker 1: continuing the theme. We just talked with a Lincoln portray
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  Speaker 1: as he's going to be doing a seminar tonight as
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  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. This man has been doing her for twenty
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  Speaker 1: two years. Speaking of schools. He looks like Lincoln and
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  Speaker 1: he knows everything there is to know about Lincoln. Tim McGrath.
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  Speaker 1: He just told me that seventeen thousand books have been
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  Speaker 1: written about Lincoln. I don't know how many books have
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  Speaker 1: even mentioned George Gordon Mead, If there are, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know who George Gordon Mead is. You've written a book
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  Speaker 1: detailing his role in the Battle of Gettysburg Three Roads
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  Speaker 1: to Gettysburg, subtitled Mead Lee Lincoln and the Battle That
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  Speaker 1: Changed the war, the speech that changed the nation. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Morning Show, Tim McGrath. It's a real pleasure
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  Speaker 1: to have you on.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, mister Thomas. How's life in Cincinnati this morning?
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  Speaker 1: Hey, life is always good on a Friday Eve because
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  Speaker 1: tomorrow's Friday end. It's the weekend. That's my attitude about life.
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  Speaker 1: You've written some congratulations on the awardgy one James Monroe
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  Speaker 1: a life Give me a fast Ship. You wrote that
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  Speaker 1: in John Berry, which is also highly a praise an
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  Speaker 1: American hero in the age of sail. What drew you
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  Speaker 1: to write about this? Three Roads of Gettyburg, the Battle
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  Speaker 1: of Gettysburg, But also George Mead? And you're gonna have
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  Speaker 1: to give me a little insight into who George Mead
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  Speaker 1: was and how important he turned out to be in
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  Speaker 1: the course of the war.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, and again thanks for having me. Happy to George
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  Speaker 2: Mead's an unsung hero of the Civil War, end of
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  Speaker 2: our history. He was a son coming from a very
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  Speaker 2: successful Philadelphia merchantly. In fact, his dad was a hugely
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  Speaker 2: successful financier. Mead was born into Spain during the Napoleonic
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  Speaker 2: tail end of the Napoleonic Wars, and his father was
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  Speaker 2: worth about had a fortune of about half a million dollars,
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  Speaker 2: which would make him easily a billionaire today's times, and
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  Speaker 2: the bit of a hard customer when it came to
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  Speaker 2: negotiations and deals. But he lent his fortune to the
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  Speaker 2: Spanish government at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and
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  Speaker 2: he never got it back. In fact, he wound up
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  Speaker 2: in prisoned twice trying to get it back. So Mead
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  Speaker 2: was not born into the better living days of the family.
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  Speaker 2: He attended West Point he was fifteen and graduated nineteenth
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  Speaker 2: in his class. He had wanted to be a lawyer,
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  Speaker 2: but that door was closed him. Forsons West Point is free.
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  Speaker 2: But he really had a talent for engineering. Mister Thomas
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  Speaker 2: he right before and right after the Mexican War, where
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  Speaker 2: he served rather gallantly under Zachary Taylor. He designed and
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  Speaker 2: an oversaw construction of lighthouses from New Jersey down to
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  Speaker 2: the Florida Keys, and while they're not operational, most of
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  Speaker 2: them are still standing today. In one instance, he built
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  Speaker 2: one on a key where the lighthouse had been washed
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  Speaker 2: out twice by hurricanes and decided the best way to
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  Speaker 2: do it was to build a skeletal structure with a
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  Speaker 2: lighthouse on top and usual quarters on the key. There
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  Speaker 2: were two hurricanes that wiped out everything but the lighthouse.
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  Speaker 2: He was a very good judge of the ground, which
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  Speaker 2: certainly came in handy at Gettysburg Kay.
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  Speaker 1: But with given that background, as brilliant as it may
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  Speaker 1: have been in his engineering background, how in the hell
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  Speaker 1: did Lincoln end up choosing him to lead the Union
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  Speaker 1: army in battle against Robert E. Lee.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Lincoln was having a tough time if you're a
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  Speaker 2: baseball fan. He was sort of like a better version
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  Speaker 2: of George Steinberner trying to find managers back in the
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  Speaker 2: seventies and eighties. He went to George McDowell, Urban McDowell,
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  Speaker 2: George mccollan twice, John Pope, Ambrose Birdside, and lastly fighting
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  Speaker 2: Joe Hooker, who had lost a disastrous battle at Chancellorsville
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  Speaker 2: in May of sixty three, and kept going back and
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  Speaker 2: forth with Hooker do we keep him or not? And
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  Speaker 2: finally on June twenty eighth, Hooker offered his resignation for
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  Speaker 2: the emptieenth time, and Lincoln took it and then sent
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  Speaker 2: a friend of me, Colonel Hardy, to Frederick, Maryland, where
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  Speaker 2: Mead and his corps from the Army of the Potomac
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  Speaker 2: were in camp. He woke me up at four point
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  Speaker 2: thirty and me thought he was being arrested because he'd
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  Speaker 2: gotten into an argument with Hooker when Hooker said that
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  Speaker 2: his generals all voted to retreat and me wanted to
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  Speaker 2: fight another day at Chancellorsville. So when Hardy told him
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  Speaker 2: that Lincoln wanted him to command the Army of the Potomac,
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  Speaker 2: he said, I don't want to do it. And Hardy said,
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  Speaker 2: this isn't an offer, this is a command. You were
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  Speaker 2: ordered to take command of the army. He was a
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  Speaker 2: Pennsylvanian and that might have had something to do with it,
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  Speaker 2: because by now a good bit of Lee's army was
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  Speaker 2: already in Pennsylvania. So he only had about three days
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  Speaker 2: to try to get things organized and moving forward before
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  Speaker 2: the Battle of Gettysburg commenced on July first.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Sir, was he unproven in battle at that point
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  Speaker 1: when he was tapped for that job.
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  Speaker 2: No, not at all. He had been an engine and
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  Speaker 2: an aid and a scalptor Zachary Taylor in the Mexican
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  Speaker 2: War and served very bravely. He had by eighteen sixty two.
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  Speaker 2: I had command of his own corps and at Fredericksburg
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  Speaker 2: in December of sixty two, which was a total disaster
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  Speaker 2: for the Army of the Potomac. Charging up to Maurice Heights,
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  Speaker 2: Lee had a definite high ground to that battle, but
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  Speaker 2: Mead's offense of that morning came this close to punching
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  Speaker 2: a hole in Lee's line, and he had to withdraw
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  Speaker 2: because he was asking for reinforcements to keep going and
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  Speaker 2: did not get them. It's sad because after the war
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  Speaker 2: there were jet political generals that he had either removed
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  Speaker 2: or replaced or whatever that said. Oh, he didn't even
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  Speaker 2: want to fight at Gettysburg. He wanted to retreat from Gettysburg.
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  Speaker 2: One of them, most reciferously was a fellow Dan Sickles,
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  Speaker 2: who's a story itself. We would need another time to
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  Speaker 2: talk about that guy.
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  Speaker 1: There's another boy for you, Tim, but.
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  Speaker 2: Quite a scalawag. But he wasn't afraid to fight. He
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  Speaker 2: was very well seasoned, and while not as well known
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  Speaker 2: in the army, he won over their respect and was
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  Speaker 2: cheered mightily after that battle and at Apamatics. He was
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  Speaker 2: not present at McLean House with Grant and his entourage,
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  Speaker 2: but I think he would rather have stayed with his men.
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  Speaker 2: And when they got the news and he wrote down
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  Speaker 2: the ranks to tell them all, he was cheered rather bravely.
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  Speaker 1: Now I presume that he learned military strategy well on
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  Speaker 1: the ground training in any of the battles he fought.
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  Speaker 1: But did they teach military strategy at West Point when
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  Speaker 1: he was there?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Sure, But it was also the best engineering school
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  Speaker 2: in the Western Hemisphere, and Roberty Lee is an amazing engineer.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things I found out was that he
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  Speaker 2: was sent in the eighteen thirty seven to Saint Louis,
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  Speaker 2: which was in danger of becoming dry dock because there
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  Speaker 2: was so much silt, sand and debris coming down river
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  Speaker 2: the way the current flowed that literally they weren't sandbars
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  Speaker 2: so much as islands. And he didn't have the money.
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  Speaker 2: He wanted to do things to get things straightened away.
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  Speaker 2: But he went the fault isn't here, it's further north,
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  Speaker 2: and he went up to the rapids along the river
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  Speaker 2: in Iowa des Moines Rapids and further down and came
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  Speaker 2: up with the idea of just blowing up little avenues
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  Speaker 2: in the rapids and the barriers and increasing the flow
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  Speaker 2: of the water, and it worked. He cleaned all that out,
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  Speaker 2: which ticked off some Illinois speculators across on the other
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  Speaker 2: side of the river who figured out, okay, that's going
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  Speaker 2: to be a ghost town. We'll set up a new
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  Speaker 2: commercial point and make a fortune. I found it ironic
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  Speaker 2: that historians and biographers have talked about Abraham Lincoln's two
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  Speaker 2: trips as a flat boatman down the Mississippi to New Orleans,
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  Speaker 2: and how those trips changed him and hit him so
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  Speaker 2: hard about the plight of the enslaved enslaved Americans, and
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  Speaker 2: that his trips down the Mississippi changed Lincoln. He leaves
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  Speaker 2: trip on the Mississippi changed the Mississippi.
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  Speaker 1: That's amazing, so wild how things get connected like that. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I want you just to briefly explain how important that
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  Speaker 1: the name of the book again three Roads of Gettysburg
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  Speaker 1: made Lee Lincoln, and the battle that changed the war,
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  Speaker 1: and the speech that changed the nation. Of course, the
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  Speaker 1: speech you're referring to one hundred and ninety second anniversary yesterday,
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  Speaker 1: the Gettysburg Address, The importance of the Battle of Gettysburg
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  Speaker 1: boiled down into simpler terms. How important was that battle,
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  Speaker 1: and you know what might have happened had made Up
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  Speaker 1: been successful, had.
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  Speaker 2: Lean won, and it was the three of the bloody estates,
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  Speaker 2: the highest amount of casualties in a battle those three days,
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  Speaker 2: over fifty thousand between both armies and Mead would have
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  Speaker 2: had to have fought another battle, but it would have
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  Speaker 2: opened things up for Lee. Do I want to go
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  Speaker 2: to Philadelphia? Do I want to go to Baltimore? Do
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  Speaker 2: I want to go to Washington? Had had he won
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  Speaker 2: the ward, there would have been another battle. It would
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  Speaker 2: have been interesting to see how that turned out. Ironically,
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  Speaker 2: neither general was there when the battle started. Lee didn't
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  Speaker 2: get to Gettysburg until late in the afternoon. Me did
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  Speaker 2: not get up, unable to get up till till it
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  Speaker 2: was well after nightfall. And by the luck of the draw,
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  Speaker 2: he had two other Pennsylvania generals, John Reynolds, who had
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  Speaker 2: also been offered the command of the army. It had
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  Speaker 2: turned it down, but a year earlier Reynolds, for the
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  Speaker 2: governor of Pennsylvania, had done some reconnaissant work about if
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  Speaker 2: we get invaded, where's the good spot to fight? And
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  Speaker 2: he saw the high ground at Gettysburg. There's a legendary
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  Speaker 2: little bit of things about the Duke of Wellington when
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  Speaker 2: they asked him that the Battle of Waterloo, why did
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  Speaker 2: you pick this place? And he said because I saw
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  Speaker 2: it a year ago and I kept it in my pocket.
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  Speaker 2: Reynolds certainly did the same thing. And ironically, while the
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  Speaker 2: Confederate Army drove the Union Army back and out of Gettysburg,
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  Speaker 2: they drove them right to the high ground Reynolds had
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  Speaker 2: seen the year before. And after Reynolds died in the morning,
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  Speaker 2: Mead sent Winfield Scott Hancock, another Pennsylvanian who he trusted implicitly,
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  Speaker 2: to go over and say, look, you're in charge of
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  Speaker 2: things till I get there. And he saw the ground
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  Speaker 2: and sent a courier back to meet, say we know
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  Speaker 2: where we're going to fight. And that's pretty much. They
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  Speaker 2: held the high ground and it was a near run thing.
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  Speaker 2: You know. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia came pretty
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  Speaker 2: close to breaking the line on July second, and feudalists
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  Speaker 2: pickets charge turned out to be. They still broke the
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  Speaker 2: line for a brief couple of minutes up on Cemetery
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  Speaker 2: Ridge and Cemetery Hill.
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  Speaker 1: Well, in my understanding, of the Gettysburg address. It's so important,
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  Speaker 1: and Lincoln would go from train stop to train stop,
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  Speaker 1: as I understand, delivered the same address. But there was
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  Speaker 1: no internet back then, there was no radio. Of course.
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  Speaker 1: It redefined the Civil War, not just as you know,
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  Speaker 1: there's you know, the struggle between the North and the
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  Speaker 1: South and preserving the Union, but also this idea that
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  Speaker 1: we need to achieve human equality. It's a moral war
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  Speaker 1: in addition to a political conflict. Am I right about
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  Speaker 1: the importance of that?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely, mister Thomas. He didn't utter a word of
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  Speaker 2: it till that afternoon. He had a couple of whistle stops,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, we were talking. Somebody had said, I
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  Speaker 2: just came back, I thought at Gettysburg or something like that.
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  Speaker 2: Well he'll have to tell me about it, and so forth.
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  Speaker 2: But as most people know, he was not the main speaker.
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  Speaker 2: He was invited as a not as an afterthought, but
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  Speaker 2: as a courtesy thinking, you know, he can say something
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  Speaker 2: to wrap things up. And the two hundred and seventy words,
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  Speaker 2: there's three different versions to sixty seven to seventy one,
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  Speaker 2: but he really welded Jefferson sentence. You know that all
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  Speaker 2: men are created equal with what he called a new
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  Speaker 2: birth of freedom. And I keep thinking, as we seem
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  Speaker 2: to collectively in our country have attention deficit syndrome. We
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  Speaker 2: don't keep history like my generation I'm seventy four learned.
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  Speaker 2: We don't teach civics and classes as my generation learned.
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  Speaker 2: And so it's it's short and it's easy to read
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  Speaker 2: and understand, and at the same time, it's a challenge
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  Speaker 2: for each generation of Americans since the Civil War to
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  Speaker 2: live up to that premise. You know that a new
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  Speaker 2: birth of freedom and all men are created equal. And
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  Speaker 2: I think the person who said it best, mister Thomas,
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  Speaker 2: was doctor Barbara Fields and ken Burns's documentary which is
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  Speaker 2: thirty five years ago, when she said the Civil War
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  Speaker 2: is still being fought and it can still be lost.
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  Speaker 1: Timocgrath profound words from you in the book Three Roads
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  Speaker 1: of Gettysburg Mead Lee Lincoln and the Battle that changed
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  Speaker 1: the War and the Speech that changed the Nation. Outstanding
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  Speaker 1: booked Tim. I'm going to encourage my listeners to go
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  Speaker 1: to my blog page if you have Carsey dot com
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  Speaker 1: Oright producer Joe's got a linked your book and a
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  Speaker 1: link to how to get it and I know they
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  Speaker 1: will a lot of history buffs in the audience. I
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  Speaker 1: appreciate you putting pen to paper on this one, Tim.
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  Speaker 1: It's been a real pleasure talking with you, and I
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  Speaker 1: know my listener's going to love the book.