A Short Walk through Our Long History Clayton Mills

Well, we talked last episode about the expansion of the British Empire during the 1800’s, but there were a lot of other countries that were trying to build their empires as well.  No one is going to be as good at it as the British, but a lot of other countries did try to get in on the imperialism action.  

So I should maybe take a moment to explain what imperialism is, first.  Most countries have something like natural borders. Or there are sort of geographic limits to where people from one language or ethnic group live.  For example, most of the Germans live in Germany.  If you go west a bit from where the Germans live, you get to a whole other group of people, the Dutch.  Or southwest, you get the French.  Different languages, different tribal backgrounds, different cultures.  

Imperialism is the idea that the people in one ethnic or language group should basically attack and conquer some other group in another area, and take over that area and make it their own, part of their empire. So when you think about Napoleon, who called himself an emperor - it was his goal to take over most of Europe and make it all kind of French.  Or at least, controlled by the French.  That would mean that the German people would be controlled by the French, and the Polish people would be controlled by the French, and the Russian people,  - well, we know how that turned out.  It didn’t end well for Napoleon. 
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When we last looked at the British Empire, 15 !! Episodes ago, Queen Victoria was on the throne.  And she still is.  I mean, not today, today it’s King Charles and his weird red official portrait, but I mean Victoria is still queen at this point in our timeline.  We did kind of spend a lot of episodes focusing on the American Civil War, but we really didn’t cover much time.  I mean, it’s only 1877 or so.  This brings up an important topic - who did the British support during the Civil War?  Well, technically, neither side.  They had their own Empire to look out for.  

When Lincoln died, Andrew Johnson became the President.  Johnson was from the south, having been born in North Carolina.  When he was 17, his family moved to Tennessee, which is where he grew up.  He joined the Democratic Party, being a believer in states’ rights, and served as a US Congressman, then the Governor of Tennessee, then a US Senator.  He was the US Senator from Tennessee when Tennessee seceded from the Union, but he opposed secession, and he alone of all the southern senators stayed at his post in the US Senate.  

Once Tennessee was completely under Union control, Lincoln appointed him the military governor of the state.  So as a sort of southern democrat, he was an odd choice for VP, in some ways, but Lincoln thought that it would help carry the northern democrats who were in favor of continuing the war.  Luckily for Lincoln and Johnson, Sherman had captured Atlanta in September, just before the November elections, and so public support for Lincoln and the pro-war Republicans was strong.  Adding Johnson ended up being helpful as well, as he took away votes from McClellan who had run as a Democrat.
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Well, the Civil War is over.  Mostly.  The big battles are over, and though there are going to be a few more battles, everyone knows that the south has lost.  The question on everyone’s mind is, ‘What’s going to happen now?’  Is this going to be a smooth transition, or a rough one.  Turns out, it’s going to be kind of rough.  

And one of the reasons that it’s going to be rough is what we are covering in this episode - Lincoln’s assassination.  What’s also going to be rough is keeping this episode short, because besides history, my other favorite topic is conspiracy theories, and Lincoln’s assassination is full of them.  In fact, if I ever finish this podcast - this short walk - my next podcast will be on conspiracy theories, and I’ll probably start right here, with the assassination of Lincoln.  For the sake of brevity here, I’ll stay to stick to the generally accepted story, which, oddly enough, includes a conspiracy as part of the story.
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At the same time that Sherman was burning his way through Georgia, but avoiding major battles, Grant was up in Virginia, trying to provoke major battles.  In March of 1864, Lincoln had put Grant in charge of all the Union armies.  General Meade was still the commander of the Army of the Potomac, so Grant took Meade and together they headed into Virginia to try to defeat Robert E Lee.  Grant’s goal was to draw Lee into a huge battle, and destroy the Army of Northern Virginia. 
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The Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, well, the draw at Antietam that forced the South to stop their invasion of the north, was seen as a huge victory in the north, even though the actual battle that day was a draw.  Both armies basically left the field shattered, but since McClellan didn’t follow up and crush what was left of Lee’s army, the Confederates were able to get back to Virginia, and reorganize.  And guess what?  They will be back.  Lee’s going to invade, again, soon, and that’s going to take us to a battle that was even bigger and bloodier than Antietam.  

But first we need to head west, to the Mississippi, and back to our one Union general with a winning record, Ulysses S Grant.  
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email:  shortwalkthroughhistory@gmail.com