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The ENTIRE American Civil War Explained in 23 Minutes [NO AI] — Transcript

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0:00America wants to tear itself in half.
0:02Brother fought brother, father fought
0:04son. 620,000 people died. More Americans
0:08than in every other war combined. How
0:10did one country end up killing itself
0:12and how did it survive? To understand
0:15this, we need to go back to a deal that
0:16was always going to explode.
0:19Back in the early 1800s, America didn't
0:21have 50 states. It started with just 13
0:24and it kept growing. Every few years, a
0:26new chunk of land would ask to become a
0:28state and every time that happened, the
0:30same terrifying question came up. Will
0:33this new state allow slavery or ban it?
0:37See, America had a government called
0:38Congress where every state got a vote.
0:41In 1820, there were exactly 11 states
0:44that allowed slavery and 11 that didn't.
0:47Perfect tie. If one new state picked a
0:49side, that side would have more votes
0:51and could start making the rules for
0:53everybody. That's when a territory
0:55called Missouri said it wanted to join
0:58and Congress lost its mind. Politicians
1:01screamed at each other for two whole
1:03years. Thomas Jefferson, one of the guys
1:05who helped build America, was an old man
1:07by now. He said the Missouri fight
1:10scared him like a fire bell ringing in
1:12the night. Then, a smooth-talking
1:14politician named Henry Clay walked in
1:17with a deal. No more slave states. It
1:19stops here.
1:21You can't tell us what to do. Boys,
1:24boys. What if Missouri gets slavery, but
1:27we also let Maine join as a free state?
1:30State's balanced. Then we draw a line
1:33across the map. Above the line, no
1:35slavery allowed.
1:41I guess that works.
1:43I hate it, but fine.
1:45They called it the Missouri Compromise
1:48and Congress celebrated like heroes. A
1:50few weeks later, a school teacher in
1:52Virginia tries to explain the compromise
1:54to her class. She unrolls a big map and
1:57draws the new line with chalk. A kid in
1:59the back raises his hand and says,
2:01"Ma'am, what happens when they run out
2:03of room above the line?"
2:05She stares at him.
2:06Then at the map and then she quietly
2:09rolls it back up and changes the
2:10subject.
2:11That kid asked the one question nobody
2:14wanted to think about. But they hadn't
2:16fixed the problem. They just delayed it.
2:19And the two halves of America were
2:21turning into completely different
2:23worlds.
2:26The compromise was holding. No more
2:28fights in Congress. But underneath the
2:30surface, America was quietly splitting
2:33in two. And once you see the numbers,
2:35you're going to understand why this was
2:36always going to explode. By the 1850s,
2:39the north and south barely looked like
2:41they belonged together. Look at the map.
2:43See all that green farmland across the
2:45south? Cotton fields stretching to the
2:48horizon. About 84% of southerners worked
2:51on farms and the whole economy ran on
2:53the backs of enslaved people. Now look
2:56north. Factories on every corner.
2:58Railroad tracks crisscrossing entire
3:00states. Cities swelling with millions of
3:03immigrants arriving from Europe. The
3:05north produced 32 times more firearms
3:07than the south. If this were a video
3:09game, one side was upgrading to rocket
3:11launchers while the other was still
3:13using slingshots.
3:15I just got a machine that makes cloth
3:17ridiculously fast. What one?
3:20No, machines break down too much.
3:22Uh, so how do you make your money down
3:24there? Cotton. Mountains of it.
3:27With machines?
3:29With the
3:31people.
3:32You pay people to pick it?
3:35Well, not exactly pay.
3:43These two halves needed completely
3:45different things from their government.
3:46The north wanted taxes on foreign goods.
3:49That way people would buy stuff from
3:51their factories instead. The south
3:53wanted those taxes kept low so they
3:55could sell cotton overseas and buy cheap
3:57European goods. Every single issue
4:00pushed them further apart. Meanwhile, in
4:02Congress, a southern cotton farmer and a
4:05northern factory owner are sitting next
4:07to each other trying to agree on
4:08anything. The farmer wants the
4:10government to leave him alone. The
4:11factory owner wants government money for
4:13railroads. They can't even agree on what
4:15time lunch should be. Two different
4:17worlds shoved under one roof. And the
4:20argument about to blow that roof wide
4:22open was heading straight for a little
4:24territory out west.
4:28Remember that line they drew across the
4:29map? The one that was supposed to keep
4:31the peace? Well, America kept grabbing
4:34new land out west. And every time it
4:36did, the same ugly fight would come
4:38back. Should slavery be allowed there?
4:41Whoever controlled the new territories
4:43would control the future of the whole
4:45country. So, in 1854, Congress came up
4:48with a new idea. Instead of drawing
4:50lines, let the people living in each
4:52territory vote for themselves. Sounds
4:55fair, right? Except both sides
4:58immediately started cheating. The
5:00territory of Kansas was up first.
5:03Pro-slavery families rushed across the
5:05border from Missouri to stuff the vote.
5:07Anti-slavery families flooded in from
5:09north to do the same [music] and Kansas
5:11turned into a chess match where nobody
5:13followed the rules.
5:15I'm here to make Kansas a free
5:17territory.
5:18Funny. I'm here to make it a slave
5:20territory. Where are you even from?
5:23Missouri. Just crossed the border this
5:25morning.
5:26You can't just show up and vote. You
5:28don't even live here.
5:29I do now. See that tent? That's my
5:31house.
5:33That's a bed sheet on a stick.
5:35It's called rustic charm. Kansas ended
5:38up with two separate governments. One
5:40pro-slavery, one anti-slavery. Both
5:43claiming to be in charge. Then the
5:45voting stopped and the shooting started.
5:48They called it Bleeding Kansas and it
5:51earned that name fast. Mobs burned down
5:54whole towns. Armed gangs raided farms in
5:56the middle of the night. One man named
5:59John Brown, a guy who believed slavery
6:01was evil and had to be destroyed by
6:02force, showed up with a wagon full of
6:05swords and led violent raids against
6:07pro-slavery settlers. Over 50 people
6:10died. Americans were already killing
6:12each other over slavery and the actual
6:14Civil War hadn't even started yet. All
6:17it would take now was one election to
6:19light the fuse. If you're enjoying this,
6:22subscribe because from here on out,
6:24nobody makes good decisions.
6:27November 1860. America was about to hold
6:30the most dangerous election in its
6:32history. The country was so divided that
6:34even the political parties had split
6:36apart. The Democratic Party, which used
6:38to be one big group, cracked right down
6:40the middle. Northern Democrats picked
6:42one candidate. Southern Democrats picked
6:45a different one. A third party showed up
6:47with yet another guy.
6:48And then there were the Republicans.
6:51This was a brand new party. Only about
6:53six years old. Built specifically to
6:56stop slavery from spreading. Their
6:58candidate was a tall, lanky lawyer from
7:01Illinois named Abraham Lincoln.
7:04Lincoln's message was simple. Slavery
7:06should not spread into new territories.
7:09He didn't say he'd end it where it
7:10already existed. He just said it
7:12shouldn't grow.
7:14But to the south, that sounded like the
7:16beginning of the end.
7:18People today get this wrong. This war
7:21wasn't about slavery. It was about
7:23states' rights. About who gets to decide
7:27how we live.
7:29Here's the wild part. Lincoln wasn't
7:31even on the ballot in 10 southern
7:33states. His name literally did not
7:35appear on the voting paper. You couldn't
7:37vote for him even if you wanted to.
7:40If that Lincoln fellow wins, I'm done
7:42with this country. He said he won't
7:44touch slavery where it exists. And you
7:47believe a politician?
7:49Okay.
7:50But what are you going to actually do
7:52about it? Leave?
7:54Watch me.
7:55You can't just leave a country.
7:58Pretty sure we're about to find out.
8:01Down in South Carolina, a newspaper
8:03editor reads the election results by
8:05candlelight. He counts the numbers
8:08twice, [music] then a third time. He
8:10puts the paper down, walks outside, and
8:13starts ringing the church bell at 2:00
8:15in the morning. His neighbor storms out
8:17in a nightgown yelling, "What are you
8:19doing?" The editor holds up the
8:21newspaper and says, "Lincoln won. Start
8:24packing."
8:25Lincoln won without a single southern
8:28vote. For the first time ever, a
8:30president was elected without any
8:32support from an entire [music] region of
8:33the country. Southern leaders looked at
8:35the results and realized they lost
8:37control of the government. Maybe
8:40permanently. The talking was over and
8:42within weeks, states started walking out
8:44the door.
8:48South Carolina didn't even wait for
8:50Lincoln to take office. Six weeks after
8:52the election on December 20th, 1860,
8:55they voted to leave the United States.
8:57The reason? They believed Lincoln would
8:59eventually destroy slavery and slavery
9:02was the foundation of their entire way
9:03of life. No negotiation, no compromise,
9:07just goodbye.
9:09Then the dominoes started falling.
9:11Mississippi left. Florida left. Alabama,
9:14Georgia, Louisiana, Texas. All gone
9:17within weeks. Seven states vanished from
9:19the union. And they didn't just leave.
9:22They built a whole new country. They
9:24called it the Confederate States of
9:26America. Basically, their own version of
9:28the United States with its own
9:30president, its own flag, and its own
9:32army. They picked a former senator from
9:34Mississippi named Jefferson Davis to run
9:36it.
9:37Uh, Mr. President, we left the union.
9:40Now what?
9:41First, we need a flag. Can't be a
9:43country without a flag.
9:45Done.
9:46What else?
9:48An army.
9:49Working on it.
9:51Uh, there's a problem. What now?
9:54Uh, there are union soldiers just
9:56sitting in our harbors eating lunch like
9:58nothing happened.
10:01That's awkward.
10:03Very.
10:04Should we ask them to leave?
10:06Politely? Uh, and if they don't leave
10:09politely
10:10we ask them less politely.
10:13Meanwhile, on a small farm in Virginia,
10:16two brothers are sitting on a porch
10:18staring at a newspaper. The older one
10:20folds it carefully and says he's heading
10:22south to join the Confederacy. The
10:24younger one says he's staying loyal to
10:26the Union.
10:27Their mother walks out holding two
10:29packed lunches, looks at both of them,
10:31and doesn't know which son to hand them
10:33to.
10:34She leaves both lunches on the railing
10:36and goes back inside without a word.
10:38Across the South, scenes like this
10:40played out in thousands of [music]
10:42homes. Cousins stopped talking,
10:44childhood friends picked opposite sides,
10:46entire churches split down the middle.
10:49But the Confederacy had one stubborn
10:51problem it couldn't ignore. A federal
10:53fort sitting in Charleston Harbor, South
10:56Carolina.
10:57Its name was Fort Sumter. And the
10:59soldiers inside had no plans to leave.
11:04Lincoln showed up for his first day as
11:06president on March 4th, 1861, and
11:09immediately got the worst possible news.
11:12The commander at Fort Sumter, that Union
11:14fort sitting right in the middle of
11:15Confederate territory, sent an urgent
11:17message. We're running out of food. No
11:20supplies means the soldiers starve
11:22within weeks.
11:24Lincoln had three terrible options. Send
11:26warships and start a war, abandon the
11:29fort and basically admit the Confederacy
11:31is a real country, or do nothing and let
11:34his own men die.
11:36So, he came up with a sneaky move. He
11:38announced he'd send ships carrying only
11:40food. No soldiers, no cannons, just
11:43bread and pork.
11:44Good luck looking like the good guy for
11:46shooting at a bread delivery, right?
11:48Sir, Lincoln's sending ships to Fort
11:51Sumter.
11:52Hm. Ships with what?
11:54He says just food, sir.
11:57If we let them resupply, that fort stays
11:59in our harbor forever.
12:02If we shoot at a bread delivery,
12:04we kind of look terrible, sir.
12:06He's trapped us. Tell them to surrender.
12:09If they refuse, open fire.
12:12This is going to be a whole big thing,
12:14isn't it?
12:15Yep.
12:174:30 in the morning, April 12th, 1861.
12:21Sky pitch black over Charleston Harbor.
12:24A Confederate soldier lights the fuse on
12:26a massive cannon aimed right at Fort
12:29Sumter. The blast echoes across the
12:31water like thunder. Within minutes,
12:33dozens of cannons are firing from every
12:35direction. The bombardment lasted 34
12:38straight hours. Walls cracked, fires
12:41broke out everywhere, the fort's flag
12:43got shot down twice, and soldiers kept
12:45sprinting out to put it back up.
12:47Thousands of cannonballs, [music]
12:49and somehow
12:50somehow
12:52zero people died in the fighting.
12:55But it didn't matter. Those cannon
12:56blasts were heard across the entire
12:59country. Lincoln called for 75,000
13:02volunteers the next morning.
13:04Four more Southern states, including
13:06Virginia, right on Washington's
13:07doorstep, joined the Confederacy, and
13:10everybody figured it would all be
13:12wrapped up in about 90 days.
13:14They were very
13:16very wrong.
13:1990 days. That's how long everyone
13:21figured this war would last. Newspapers
13:23in Washington printed headlines
13:25screaming, "On to Richmond!" That was
13:27the Confederate capital, just 100 miles
13:30south.
13:32Union generals promised a quick
13:33smackdown, home by dinner, easy.
13:37Some folks in Washington believed this
13:39so hard that they packed picnic blankets
13:41and rode their carriages out to watch
13:43the first big battle.
13:45Real food, fancy cheese, opera glasses.
13:48They set up blankets on a hillside near
13:50a creek called Bull Run in Virginia and
13:52treated it like a day out at the
13:54theater.
13:55Oh, look, Harold. The soldiers are
13:57shooting.
13:59Marvelous. Pass the cheese, would you?
14:02I do hope our boys win quickly.
14:04I have a dinner party tonight.
14:06I'm sure it'll be over by lunch. More
14:09champagne?
14:10Why are those soldiers running toward
14:12us?
14:13Uh
14:14must be a victory parade.
14:17Run! We lost! They're coming!
14:21Oh,
14:21uh, I've spilled my champagne.
14:24Harold, get in the carriage!
14:27The picnic was over. And so was the
14:29fantasy. The Union Army didn't just lose
14:32at Bull Run, it fell apart completely.
14:35Soldiers threw down their weapons and
14:37sprinted back toward Washington in total
14:39panic, crashing into fancy carriages and
14:42picnic blankets on the way.
14:43Back in a small Connecticut town, a
14:45young man named Tommy Aldridge had
14:48signed up for his 90-day adventure just
14:502 weeks earlier.
14:51>> [music]
14:51>> He told his mother he'd be home before
14:53the leaves changed color.
14:55After Bull Run, the army told him 90
14:57days was now 3 years.
15:00Tommy pulled out his mother's letter,
15:02read it one more time, then stuffed it
15:04back in his pocket, and started
15:06marching. By the end of that single
15:08afternoon, nearly 5,000 soldiers on both
15:11sides were dead, wounded, or missing.
15:15One afternoon. And this was supposed to
15:17be the quick, easy war.
15:19Both sides went quiet. Nobody had a plan
15:21for what came next. And the reason for
15:24fighting was about to change [music] in
15:25a way nobody saw coming.
15:29For months, Lincoln had been hiding
15:30something in his desk drawer. A secret
15:33document that would transform the entire
15:35world. He called it the Emancipation
15:37Proclamation. An official order
15:39declaring every enslaved person in
15:41Confederate states forever free.
15:44But his advisers begged him to wait. The
15:47Union was losing badly. Battle after
15:50battle, Confederate armies kept winning.
15:52If Lincoln released this now, it would
15:54look desperate. He needed a victory
15:57first. There was another reason, too.
15:59Britain and France were talking about
16:01helping the Confederacy. The South grew
16:04most of the world's cotton, and European
16:06factories needed it. If those countries
16:08sent money or weapons to the
16:09Confederacy, the Union was in serious
16:12trouble.
16:13Then came September 17th, 1862,
16:18a place called Antietam Creek in
16:20Maryland.
16:21The single bloodiest day in all of
16:23American history.
16:25By sunset, around 22,700
16:28soldiers were dead, wounded, or missing.
16:32In one day.
16:34The Confederates pulled back. Close
16:36enough to a win.
16:37Lincoln finally had his moment.
16:41Gentlemen, I'm freeing the slaves in
16:43rebel states.
16:45Uh, all of them?
16:47And here's the clever bit. No European
16:50country wants to be seen helping a
16:52nation that's fighting to keep slavery.
16:55One piece of paper, and we cut off their
16:57allies.
16:59That's
17:00actually brilliant.
17:02I know. Someone get me a pen. A nervous
17:06telegram operator in a tiny Washington
17:08office is clicking away on his machine
17:11when his device suddenly goes crazy.
17:14He reads the message,
17:16knocks over his coffee, and sprints down
17:18the hallway yelling, "The president did
17:20it! He's freeing the slaves!" Papers fly
17:24everywhere. A clerk drops his sandwich.
17:26Someone trips over a chair.
17:28On January 1st, 1863, [music] the
17:31proclamation went into effect, and
17:33something remarkable followed.
17:36Around 200,000 black men signed up to
17:39fight for the Union.
17:41Former slaves picked up rifles and
17:43marched against the very system that had
17:45enslaved them.
17:47The war to save the country had become a
17:49war to end slavery. And the summer of
17:521863 was about to bring two battles that
17:55would decide everything.
17:58Summer, 1863. The Confederacy was losing
18:02men, losing supplies, and losing ground.
18:05So, Confederate General Robert E. Lee
18:07decided to gamble everything on one
18:10massive invasion of the North. His plan
18:12was bold and desperate. March into
18:15Pennsylvania, win a huge battle on
18:17northern soil, and scare everyday
18:19northerners into demanding peace.
18:22Here's the funny thing. Nobody actually
18:24planned to fight at Gettysburg. Some
18:26Confederate soldiers wandered into the
18:28little town because they'd heard a store
18:30there sold shoes. Their feet were
18:32wrecked from months of marching. They
18:34just wanted boots. Instead, they bumped
18:36into Union scouts. Both sides called for
18:39backup, [music]
18:40and then more backup. All because some
18:42guys needed some new footwear.
18:45By day 3, 165,000
18:47soldiers were crammed around a town most
18:50of them had never heard of. And Lee
18:52ordered one of the most famous and
18:54[music] most doomed attacks in military
18:57history.
18:58General Lee, you want me to do what?
19:01March your men across that open field
19:02toward those Union soldiers on the hill.
19:05The ones with all the cannons?
19:08That's the one.
19:09Across an open field
19:12for almost a mile.
19:15Those are the orders.
19:17Has General Lee seen that field?
19:21He believes in the courage of our men.
19:24I believe in courage, too.
19:26I also believe in math. Nearly half of
19:30Pickett's men were left on that field.
19:33A thousand miles west, Union General
19:35Ulysses S. Grant
19:37>> [music]
19:37>> had the city of Vicksburg surrounded.
19:39Vicksburg sat right on the Mississippi
19:41River, the most important waterway in
19:43America. Whoever held it controlled the
19:45entire middle of the country.
19:48Inside the walls, a skinny Confederate
19:50soldier is down to his last cracker. He
19:52breaks it in half and offers one piece
19:55to his stray cat.
19:56The cat sniffs it, looks deeply
19:58offended, and struts away.
20:01On July 3rd, Lee's invasion collapses at
20:04Gettysburg. The very next day, July 4th,
20:07Vicksburg surrendered. The Union now
20:10controls the Mississippi, slicing the
20:12Confederacy clean in two.
20:15Two battles, one week. The South could
20:18still fight. The war could drag on for
20:20years.
20:21But one man was about to decide how it
20:24would end.
20:25Lincoln needed someone [music] who would
20:27finish this war. He chose Ulysses S.
20:30Grant, the general who had just won
20:32Vicksburg, and gave him one simple
20:34order,
20:35"End it." Grant's strategy sounded
20:37almost crazy. Attack every single day.
20:40Never stop. Never rest. Never give Lee's
20:42army a chance to breathe. Even when the
20:45Union lost a battle, Grant didn't
20:46retreat like previous generals had. He
20:48just marched forward and attacked again.
20:51The cost was staggering. In just 6 weeks
20:54during spring 1864, over 55,000 Union
20:58soldiers were killed or wounded.
21:00Newspapers started calling Grant a
21:02butcher. Families across the North
21:04dreaded every knock at the door. In a
21:06small Ohio town, a mail carrier drops
21:09off a bag of letters at the post office.
21:11Every single envelope is edged in black,
21:15the color families used when someone had
21:17died. The postmaster counts them.
21:2014 black-edged letters in one delivery
21:24for one tiny town.
21:26He looks at the empty main street and
21:28realizes most of the young men who used
21:30to walk past his window every morning
21:33are gone for good.
21:35Then, in September, the mood flipped.
21:38Union General William Sherman captured
21:41Atlanta, one of the biggest and most
21:43important cities in the South. Lincoln
21:45won re-election in a landslide. Sherman
21:48then marched his army 300 miles to the
21:50coast, burning farms, railways, and
21:53anything the Confederate army could use
21:54along the way. His goal was simple,
21:57destroy the South's ability to keep
22:00fighting.
22:01Uh General Lee, Sherman just burned half
22:04of Georgia.
22:05How are our supply lines?
22:08Uh what supply lines?
22:10Food for the men?
22:12We had some cornmeal. Uh horse ate it.
22:16The horse ate our food?
22:18To be fair, sir,
22:20we almost ate the horse.
22:22By April 1865, Lee's army was starving
22:26and surrounded. On April 9th, he
22:28surrendered to Grant at a farmhouse in
22:30Virginia.
22:32Four years of fighting, and the United
22:34States was one country again.
22:37Five days later, Abraham Lincoln went to
22:39see a play. A man named John Wilkes
22:41Booth crept up behind him and pulled the
22:44trigger.
22:45Lincoln died the next morning.
22:47The man who held America together didn't
22:50live to see what it would become.
22:53This war ends in 1865, but the real
22:56aftermath plays out in the Wild West. If
22:59you skip that, you're missing half the
23:00story. Click here to watch it, and I'll
23:02catch you next time.

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