Jocko Podcast Civil War Excursion With JD Baker Pt.4: Good Leadership Wins...

Lincoln wants offense, but want the army staying between Lee and DC. Lee is trying to stay between DC and Richmond. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Podcast Civil War Excursion Number Four with JD Baker and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening JD.

• 0:10JD Baker?

  Good evening Jocko.

• 0:13Jocko Willink?

  We slept upon our arms last night and daylight this morning found us in line. The battle began at an early hour and the shot and shells screeched and screamed over our heads. To our right, we could see the fight going on for the heights beyond the back of Fredericksburg. General Sumner tried to take the hills but failed. The city was on fire in several places and the noise was deafening. We could see the long lines of Union troops move up the hill and melt away before the rebel fire. But we were not idle,

• 0:56Jocko Willink?

  although at times, there would be a lull in our front and we would watch and we could watch the fight on the right. At 3pm, our regiment was sent down to the left of the line in order to support a battery. This was no fun for us, for we had to stand the rebel shells fired at the battery. Just at dark, the firing ceased. But what a scene was before us. The dead and wounded covered the ground in all directions. Ambulances were sent out to pick up the wounded, but the enemy opened fire upon them and wounded were left to suffer. During the evening, if a match was lighted, it would bring a

• 1:41Jocko Willink?

  shell from the rebel forts on the hills. At 8pm, we were ordered to the rear and our division rested for the night.

• 1:54Jocko Willink?

  That right there is an excerpt from Elijah Hunt Rhodes book, his book All for the Union. And it's, it's his account as they began the Battle of Fredericksburg.

• 2:09Jocko Willink?

  And at this point, since our last podcast, which focused on the Battle at Antietam,

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  there's been some pretty significant, pretty significant changes in what was going on. Uh, Lincoln was not happy with his leadership in the Union Army. So he, he's going to make some changes. That's what's good, that's what's going to go down. So we, before we get to Fredericksburg and what happened there, let's talk about some of these changes. So here's an, here's an order coming down. This is from Lincoln, from the Executive Mansion, Washington, November 5th, 1862. By, by direction of the President, it is ordered that Major General McClellan be relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac and that Major General Burnside take command of that Army.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  Also that Major General Hunter take command of the Corps in said Army, which is now commanded by General Burnside. That Major General Fitzjohn Porter be relieved from the command of the Corps he now commands in said Army and that Major General Hooker take command of said Corps. The General in Chief is authorized in his discretion to issue an order substantially as the above forthwith or so soon as he may deem proper. Signed, A. Lincoln.

• 3:38Jocko Willink?

  So there's, I mean, that's a, that's a, there's a lot of changes going on from one paragraph worth of orders.

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  What's going on behind the scenes?

• 3:47JD Baker?

  Uh, yeah, so, uh, you know, basically Lincoln, he's, he's, he's fed up. He's had enough. He's, his fun meter is pegged with General McClellan. Uh, so, you know, he, he's out. Coming in November, uh, out of, uh, you know, September, uh, a lot of the folks remember, uh, with the Battle of Antietam, that, that one, uh, single day, uh, bloodiest day in American history coming out of there. I mean, if you could imagine, you know, you're like, man, wow, all the way till, uh, till November, you know, uh, Robert E. Lee gets pushed back into Virginia. Uh, after the Battle of Antietam, I mean, these, both of these armies are a wreck. I mean, they're just wrecked, uh, with that, that one single day. Uh, so there's

• 4:30JD Baker?

  a lot of regrouping and, and then, you know, Abraham Lincoln's got to make the decision, okay, well, first, if, if we're going to get rid of McClellan, who are we going to pick to be the new Army Commander of the Potomac? Uh, so of course, that, that's going to go in discussion, uh, you know, and he's got his cabinet. He's got a lot of the folks, uh, that are up there that he's, you know, in discussion with from, you know, Seward, Secretary of State, you got Halleck, you got all these guys that are in there, uh, and, and they're basically going to come to, you know, Burnside, uh, we already know about him at Burnside Bridge, uh, as, as a commander and, and how it played out for him in Antietam. And then you're going to look at the aspects of, he's a West Point grad, uh, you know what I mean? He's, him and Lincoln, uh, they've got a really good

• 5:15JD Baker?

  relationship. Uh, so he's going to call Burnside, uh, in, uh, you know, before he's even does this order and, and he's like, hey, General Burnside, I'm, I'm thinking about putting you, uh, as the new Army Commander of the Potomac. And, you know, basically Burnside's kind of like, well, hey, dude, that's a little bit out of my wheelhouse, man. You know what I mean? Like, I like being a general, like, you know, I'm, I'm having a, you know, a pretty good time. I didn't have a good go at Antietam. I don't know if you read the after action report of this whole Burnside Bridge that's now named after me, which I'm not really happy about. Uh, it's not a good reason to have something named after you. And I don't really think that, I mean, and which is pretty cool on Burnside to kind

• 6:00JD Baker?

  of know what his limitations are, and he doesn't believe that he would be a good army commander of the Potomac. And Lincoln's basically like looking at him like, well, okay, well, then if not you, then I'm going to put General Hooker in there. And Burnside's like, whoa, whoa, hey, slow your roll, brother. Like, I do not want to work for Hooker. And, you know, and, and you read it in there with the, uh, coming from, uh, the executive order from Abraham Lincoln of, you know, he's going to get, uh, Porter, he's going to relieve him, and he's going to put Hooker and put him in with a corps commander. I mean, he's going to elevate Hooker, even in this. Uh, Hooker does a, a pretty good job, uh, at Antietam. Uh, you know, his, his nickname of, of, of what folks look at is, is Fightin' Joe, you

• 6:44JD Baker?

  know, Fightin' Joe Hooker. Uh, Hooker is an interesting character, uh, needless to say, uh, he's a little bit, uh, different, uh, than some of the other generals. Um, you know, uh, he, let's just leave it at that. He, he does a pretty good job, uh, at Antietam. He gets wounded, uh, at Antietam.

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  You're going to leave it at that?

• 7:06JD Baker?

  You want me to leave it at that?

• 7:08Jocko Willink?

  Let's, let's go.

• 7:09JD Baker?

  Okay. So, uh, you know, if, if I, if I say the word Hooker, like, what's the first thing that pops into your mind?

• 7:16Jocko Willink?

  Well, from the slang, uh, nomenclature of planet Earth, a hooker in America is a prostitute.

• 7:23JD Baker?

  Okay. So, so when we used to call them prostitutes, uh, if you could imagine, uh, you know, Hooker is a general officer, uh, he used to have like this little entourage of, of women. They, they were kind of like groupies, uh, you know what I mean? So if you got like, uh, you know, the big hair bands back in the eighties and stuff, and they got these like groupies that like go around, and I mean, they make movies about groupies. Uh, and so he, he's got some groupies. Well, you know, the typical private, you know what I mean? In, in battle, I mean, you don't see a lot of, a lot of women, you know what I mean? So here, you know, you got like, you know, JD, you know, Private Baker, I'm, I'm sitting

• 8:04JD Baker?

  out there and I, I see these women going by and I'm like, hey, man, who are those women? And one of the other guys is like, dude, those are hookers.

• 8:16JD Baker?

  Meaning, those are hookers' little entourage. Well, it sticks. The term hooker comes into play, which is probably if you're looking at an individual of character, that's probably not what you want to be known for. You know what I mean? Because the privates are like, hey, can we get some hookers? You know what I mean? Can we have some bakers out here too? And no, you know what I mean? Like, the private doesn't get that. So, you know, and that's seen as a leader, you're always under observation. So, the privates are always constantly, I mean, you know as well as anybody, man, if you're in charge, everything that you do 24/7,

• 8:58JD Baker?

  365 days, you're under observation. People are watching you because they're looking for anything. You know what I mean? If you show a flaw that they can exploit. Because one day, I'm going to be in Subic Bay in the Philippines, you know what I mean? Running through Alonopo, and you're going to bring me in for, you know, for captain's mass, and I'm going to be like, well, wait a minute there, sir. I believe I saw you just last week doing the same thing, and I've got witnesses. You know what I mean? So, you know, I mean, you're always under observation. And, you know, do you not think that the privates want to have a little bit? I mean, some of these guys, man, like the general officers, they're going to swoop out, man. They got their wives coming up. They

• 9:41JD Baker?

  get to see, you know, that is, that opportunity is not afforded to the common soldier. Well, if you're that, like, so far removed from what's going on at the lower levels in the command, that those guys aren't, like, a little chapped, like, you know what I mean? Like, hey, I'd like to see my wife too. Or, I'd like to, like, go into the fill. You know, can we get, like, a liberty pass? Can I go home on libo? You know what I mean? Oh, no, you're denied. And then you see the command and staff going on, you know, they're going on their little entourage, and you don't get to do that. Well, that's kind of undermining inside the command. So, you know, Hooker, he gets elevated up.

• 10:25JD Baker?

  He does become a corps commander. He gets moved in. But it also says a little bit about Burnside. Like, Burnside doesn't want to be the army commander, but he also doesn't want to work for Hooker. You know what I mean? So he's basically just gonna take the job because he doesn't want to work for Hooker, which is probably not the guy that you want running the, especially it's not like they're gonna move the whole army of the Potomac and they're gonna go fight in the Western theater now. You're still going up against the Army of Northern Virginia. Like, nothing has changed. You're still with the Army of the Potomac. You're still based right next to Washington DC. You are right on the flagpole. You know what I mean? You've

• 11:07JD Baker?

  got all these political leaders that are all there in DC and you are under observation of a keen eye all the time. And now you're gonna go up against Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and James Longstreet. And, you know, and you might wanna like, I don't know, like if it was me, I'd be like, hey, sir, can I go up against like Bragg? Can you send me out west and let me go up against Bragg and some of those guys out there? You know what I mean? It's kinda like when you look at like sports. I mean, if you play in the American League East, you know what I mean, in Major League Baseball, you know what I mean? You got the Yankees, you got the Red Sox, you got the Orioles. I mean, you got Toronto. I mean, these guys are all competing at a high level. They're like, can we play more games

• 11:52JD Baker?

  out in like the American League Central? I mean, nothing against the American League Central, but you know what I mean? Like, it's kinda like being here, San Diego, you got LA, you got San Francisco. You know what I mean? Like, the West out here in, in baseball, they're kinda like, dude, can't we play like more games like against the Brewers and the Cubs? I mean, can you get more of those games in so we can win more? You know, so he's gonna go up against the, the, you know, I mean, at this point in time, you know, even after the Battle of Antietam, and it's a draw, you know, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, I mean, they are still the, the premier army of the Confederacy. They're the ones that are gonna push that envelope to get them to be left alone, you

• 12:37JD Baker?

  know what I mean, and become a Confederate states. And...

• 12:41Jocko Willink?

  With that, with Burnside getting moved and elevated in position, Lincoln wants action. Lincoln wants offense, which is, you know, whenever I think of Lincoln, you know, you think of this kind of thoughtful, cerebral leader, which he certainly is. But normally that doesn't go hand in hand with like, I want you to go kick people's asses. Right. Which is what Lincoln wants. Lincoln wants you to go kick ass. That's what he wants Burnside to do.

• 13:09JD Baker?

  Yeah. I mean, he, he doesn't, I mean, he, he doesn't just want them to win the battle. He wants them to destroy the army of Northern Virginia. I mean, you can't get any more clearer of what Lincoln wants. He doesn't want them to just like, you know, just win the battle. Hey, like push them off the field. Like we kind of talked about Antietam. Oh, he, you know, like McClellan looks at it like, well, hey, I got him out of Maryland, boss. What you pissed off about? You didn't destroy them. They are still active. They're still recruiting and they're still a threat. I want that threat eliminated. Like take that off the plate. Then we can just focus out of the West. We get rid of that. We threaten down, make them displace out of Richmond.

• 13:52JD Baker?

  Make them move the capital back to Montgomery, Alabama. Don't make them move us like back to Philly. Like what are you not getting? So yeah, Lincoln wants somebody to start taking action. And he's going to have, you know, General Burnside is now, hey, man, you've got the cog. And, and like you said, I mean, this is, this is in November. Now, I mean, I know like Virginia, you know what I mean? Is considered the South, but in November, like I live in Virginia, December and stuff like that. Like it's fricking cold. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's in the twenties and thirties. You know what I mean? I mean, it's not like, you know, like, you know, like Wisconsin or, you know, living in Buffalo,

• 14:32JD Baker?

  New York, but you know, 30 degrees. I don't care where the hell you're at, man. It's cold. So now you're going to go into a winter kind of campaign.

• 14:43Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 14:43JD Baker?

  To where like a lot of times the armies are like, you know, even if you date all the way back, even like Washington, like as soon as like first snowflake, up, going into winter quarters.

• 14:52Jocko Willink?

  Now Burnside's kind of initial proposal is kind of doing a big flanking movement to get down to Richmond. And is that right?

• 15:01JD Baker?

  Yeah, he's gonna want to like, instead of like, you know, hey diddle diddle VR direct, right down the telegraph road.

• 15:07Jocko Willink?

  So explain the telegraph. The telegraph road is a road that goes from DC to Richmond, basically.

• 15:12JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 15:13Jocko Willink?

  Which is, how, how long is it?

• 15:15JD Baker?

  Uh, I would probably, from DC to Richmond, I would probably put it right around, you know, between 90 and, and 100 miles.

• 15:24Jocko Willink?

  So this is striking distance, really for both armies. I mean, you can move 100 miles. It's gonna take a few days, but a few days you can get there. And there's this telegraph road. Well, how's that set up? Why is that set up?

• 15:38JD Baker?

  Well, they call it the telegraph road. So it's modern day, what we would call Route One. Uh, you know, I mean, before I-95. If anybody's ever been out in that corridor, uh, it's gonna, you know, take you straight through, uh, you know, Fredericksburg, you're gonna come right Stafford County, Spotsylvania County, into Caroline County, bam, you're gonna hit into Henrico, boom, you are in Richmond. I mean, it is a, it's like you said, and they call it the telegraph road because they run the telegraph down that road. It's like, you know what I mean? Like the power line. So it's called the telegraph road.

• 16:10Jocko Willink?

  So Burnside's initial stab at a plan is like, okay, well, I'm gonna do a little, a bigger, broader flanking movement. I'm not gonna go direct because I wanna, you know, take, take a little bit of advantage of some of the terrain over here to the west, go a different, a little bit of a different direction. That's his initial cut on the plan, his initial proposal.

• 16:31JD Baker?

  Right. You know, so there's, there's different ways to get to Virginia. And if you live in Virginia, like, nobody wants to get on I-95 because it's just a parking lot. You know what I mean? And, and, you know, even with the HOVs and all that kind of stuff, I mean, just 95 is like, anybody that's ever been in the national capital region, they just hate I-95. So like, local folks from around there, like, I don't have to get on I-95 to get to Richmond. You can go, because these roads, like, where we're talking about, like, in and around Fredericksburg is if you go out what's called the modern day Route Three, well, you're gonna pick up 20, and you can go to Charlottesville. Well, that's, that's called the Constitution Route.

• 17:14JD Baker?

  Meaning that that road and those been established before the constitution was even written for this country. So you can go out and around through Culpeper and you can come in kind of like from the west and then go south, southeast and come into Richmond that way. So that's where Burnside and his initial thoughts is I'm going to come out and sweep out and around. You know what I mean? McClellan tried to to come down through the peninsula. You know, McDowell tried to push down, you know what I mean? Down the modern day Route One. So, you know, I mean, if you're looking at it also of logistically of moving now, the, like I said, Fredericksburg of where we're about ready to end up with, you know,

• 17:56JD Baker?

  Elijah Hunt Roads kind of told us a little bit about that. If you go to the modern day Route One of of the Telegraph Road and you enter into of what's called Falmouth in southern Stafford area and you're crossing over the Rappahannock River. So there's a bridge that's there and it's on the Telegraph Road to get over the Rappahannock River. Right where the Telegraph Road is, that is, that's the fall line. Meaning, everything to the east of the Telegraph Road is tidal. Everything to the west of Telegraph Road is rapid. Meaning, it's not navigable. So that's why Fredericksburg is so important because you can bring your

• 18:41JD Baker?

  goods in if you're a farmer.

• 18:44Jocko Willink?

  So there's a waterway, it's a navigable waterway that goes all the way up to Fredericksburg.

• 18:50JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 18:52Jocko Willink?

  Beyond Fredericksburg, you don't have the waterway anymore, or it's problematic.

• 18:57JD Baker?

  Right. You're not going to run a boat up it. You know what I mean? Like, the Rappahannock River, you know, it's you're right there in what's, you know, Ferry Farm. If you're looking at, that's where George Washington was born and raised. You know what I mean? It's right there, right across from Fredericksburg. And there's a canal that's up there. They, you know, they can dam it. They can run a canal in and around Fredericksburg. And it's all about like moving resources. Just like we kind of talked about the tow path up on the Potomac. These, these areas. So if, if you go out and around, you know, you, you're not necessarily dealing with the, a tidal, the river, you know what I mean? It's, it's at its widest point there. It's deep. You're not, it's going to make logistical to get across because

• 19:42JD Baker?

  the Confederates knew that this was a natural obstacle. If you blow all the bridges. So there is no route one bridge. There used to be one. They got rid of it. The rail line. They blew the rail bridge coming in right there into Fredericksburg. So it's almost as if, if you're going to go straight down the telegraph road, you're, the, the one natural barrier is going to be the Rappahannock River.

• 20:08Jocko Willink?

  Now, because we know that this, this big barrier is there and Burnside figures, hey, I can swoop out around to the west and come in from a different approach and avoid that major obstacle. Seems like a good idea, but Lincoln don't like it. Because, because now we've got, now, now if you're, if you're taking your big giant army and you're swooping out to the west, well, that means that General Lee's sitting there looking 90 miles north and he sees DC and maybe he can just roll up there while you're moving out to the west. He can roll straight up. No resistance.

• 20:39JD Baker?

  Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, it's all about the protection of, of DC. I mean, of course, Abraham Lincoln's worried about that. So yeah, if he does go, but you know, if you look at it, you know, logistically for Burnside, if, because now he's going to have to, to do bridging. Like you're going to have to bring in bridging. The engineers, I mean, it's just a lot more of a to do than if you go out towards Culpeper, like out towards Orange County and Spotsylvania County, that area, you've got like Elise Ford. You've got, you know what I mean?

• 21:10Jocko Willink?

  I've been sitting here thinking about the, the, the great lengths that soldiers will go to, to avoid the water. I mean, like, there's a reason the SEAL teams is, is good at what we're doing and why there's so few people in the SEAL teams. It's like, oh, because you've got to deal with the worst possible obstacle in the world and that's water. You know, whether it's a river or, you think SEALs like? Like doing river and stream crossings. It's like we'll look at map. We'll study maps for five hours trying to figure out a way to get around doing a river and stream crossing. We'll do anything we can to get over the beach without getting in the water. The water's a is a is a nightmare. It's a nightmare.

• 21:49Jocko Willink?

  And so I can see why he's thinking, hey, we don't really want to get into this and because it's the obstacle of water, like you just said. You gotta you gotta you gotta bring in a whole new range of of systems to solve that problem and it's not easy.

• 22:05JD Baker?

  Yeah, I mean, you're gonna it's like modern day today, you're just gonna be like, you're gonna need an engineer battalion.

• 22:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 22:10JD Baker?

  I mean, they're gonna have to come up and and and bridge. And then you and then, you know, you look at the size of the numbers of the army. Okay, so you got to then you got to get like 90,000 people and all their stuff. Across this and it's it's coming into, you know, by the time they get down there, like Elijah Hunt Rhodes is talking about. It's it's coming at end of November into December. Frickin' water's cold.

• 22:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so that's what link. So just to just to make this clear, the decision is made, no, you're not going to hook around to the West. You're going to go straight down Telegraph Road. You're going to go straight down Telegraph Road. Your your goal is to get to Richmond. But there's the first big obstacle you're gonna hit. Is gonna be sitting on the sitting on the Rappahannock River with Fredericksburg.

• 23:02Jocko Willink?

  So, you know, let's get there. So Burnside, he's starts marching south.

• 23:09Jocko Willink?

  Starts marching south down down Telegraph Road, which Telegraph Road. Uh, modern day is called what? What's it called now?

• 23:18JD Baker?

  Uh, now, well, just recently, it's the uh, Emancipation Parkway.

• 23:22Jocko Willink?

  And and a little while ago, I mean, like a couple of years ago.

• 23:26JD Baker?

  Oh, this is like, yeah, like.

• 23:27Jocko Willink?

  Because it because it was up to that time called Jefferson Davis Highway.

• 23:30JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 23:31Jocko Willink?

  Like a few years ago. So now it's called a emancipation Parkway. But back in the day called a Telegraph Road.

• 23:41Jocko Willink?

  He's got, Burnside has 124,000 troops on the march. 124,000 troops. I gotta run the math sometime and just see how much, how much physical space that takes. Like, how many miles is 124,000 people four-breast walking? That's, that's a massive group of people. How many people run the, run the New York City Marathon? Or the Boston Marathon? You know these marathons that you run? How many people run one of those?

• 24:08JD Baker?

  Uh, let's just, I've just recently, uh, the Marine Corps, my son-in-law Zach just got done running the Marine Corps Marathon. There was, you know, 25,000 people out there.

• 24:15Jocko Willink?

  25, and you, we know what that crowd looks like.

• 24:17JD Baker?

  And that, okay, so that's a corps.

• 24:19Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 24:19JD Baker?

  Let's just say that's a corps.

• 24:20Jocko Willink?

  So you're going 5X that?

• 24:22JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Jocko Willink?

  And you're, they're, they're freaking got gear, they got horses, they got weapons. Like, this is a pack of people. There's a massive number of people.

• 24:34JD Baker?

  And, I mean, and if you look at like, a, a road back then is not like, like a road that we see today. You know what I mean? Like, one, it's dirt. Uh, you know what I mean? And then, you know, it's Virginia. So I'm like, right now, you know, we're in SoCal. Like, you know, if it rains, everybody gets excited. In Virginia, we don't get excited, man, because it rains a lot. You know what I mean? Like, everything's green. I mean, when it rains, I literally, I cut my grass, literally, right before I came out here. I mean, it's in November and I'm still cutting grass. So I'm ready for the rain to stop. So, and what does rain on a, on a mud road? Now, you know what I mean? You'll hear terms as well, like, people will call it like, oh, it's the plank road. Well, that means that they like had planks of wood on the road.

• 25:19JD Baker?

  But if they planked it, normally they told it.

• 25:24JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? So it's like, give me a little bit of money. You know what I mean? You want to run it on the plank road. It's like the HOV lane. You know what I mean? Well, if JD's just the dirt poor farmer, man, and I don't, you know, want to spend the $9.62 to go four miles on the plank road, I'm gonna go out and around so I can save that money, but the roads aren't gonna be as, as, as good and as stable. Uh, you know, the, the modern day Route 1 is, is The best, it is the best road until I-95 came in, you know, Telegraph Road was the best means of transportation and the rail runs, I mean, it's still the same rail. Like when I go to New York City, I go to Fredericksburg, to the same exact train, to the same exact

• 26:06JD Baker?

  train track that was there in 1862. It's been running from DC to Philly to Baltimore to New York, all the way up, man. It's the same system's been there for a really long time. And, you know, when you, when you look at the aspects of, of Burnside's got to move them down. And now what's the importance if he does gain and get Fredericksburg? Well, then because of now he can move his logistical base. Because with that water that is now its tidal, he can then start having, you know, his resupplies coming from the north can now go all the way down, come up the Rappahannock River and dump off all of his logistical needs right there in Fredericksburg. And because that's the, that's like the biggest

• 26:49JD Baker?

  obstacle between DC and Richmond is the Rappahannock River. I mean, there's a couple other rivers. I mean, just, you know, there's the Poe River, the Nye River, the Mata River. We call it the Mata-Po-Nye in Spotsylvania County. That's just in the county, but they're not like the Rappahannock River. They're, they're more like the Antietam Creek kind of, of a river, even though they, they still call them rivers. So, and he's got 124,000 people and to help imagine that, it's kind of like watching the Macy's Day Parade. Like everybody just watched it over Thanksgiving. They just don't have like floats and stuff. You know what I mean? But it's like that many people coming down that narrow of a

• 27:31JD Baker?

  road in New York and there's just thousands of them coming with their horses and all their stuff. And then you got contractors. You know what I mean? Like, because nothing's changed. It's like, we got contractors today that, you know what I mean? Like this morning when I went for the run, there's buildings that are out there that are specifically set aside just for contractors to support the military. So they got all their stuff. And then there's people that live there. You know what I mean? That are trying to get in and around the area. And now you've got these two huge arms. I couldn't imagine living in Fredericksburg and it's like, hey, man, there's 124,000 people about ready to come to your town. You know, and, and, you know, there's a couple of big shops and you're worried about like,

• 28:13JD Baker?

  what are they going to do with all my storage of stuff that I've canned and stored for the winter? Because these people are going to be hungry. Where are they going to get their, their, their means and their rations from? So, you know, so here you got the Macy's Day Parade coming down the Telegraph Road. And, you know, at this point, they're going to start running their logistical bases. There's a little place right in Stafford County called Akwaia Harbor, where, you know, they're going to use that to be able to run logistics. The other thing that's of key to note for people to understand is up north, when you talk about rail lines and you talk about like the gauging of the tracks, like in the north, all the gauging is the same. The, in the, in the southern states, if you owned

• 28:58JD Baker?

  a piece of your rail line, and let's say my gauge is, I'm going to run my gauge at five inches. And then you own the next set of tracks and you're going to run your gauge at six inches. Well, that means that when I get all of my supplies to your line, now we have to offload everything off of the trains and get them over and move them over to yours. Instead of just running the same one track. Now, in America, they're all gauged the same for that specific reason. You know what I mean? But so that's going to be a problem moving logistically by rail for the Confederacy. Because they're going to have to deal with this of offloading and onloading. I mean, I couldn't imagine being on those working parties. Like, it's like, you gotta be shitting me, man. You know what I mean?

• 29:40JD Baker?

  Like, we just loaded this thing. We went like 10 miles and there's another gauge and now we gotta offload it. I mean, I could just imagine the morale of that working party.

• 29:50Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, if, if, if, if he can get Fredericksburg. And move his logistical base, I mean, it, that's gonna set him up. How far is Fredericksburg from Richmond? From Richmond, it's, it's literally, I mean, 55, 60 miles. So you could, almost half the distance, or just about half the distance that it is from DC. It's two day hike. Yes, that logistics train is gonna make all the difference in the world. Huge.

• 30:17Jocko Willink?

  Lee, so Lee, Lee sees this happening, right? And he knows that the first best natural terrain to try and stop this 124,000 people heading his way is to get there to Fredericksburg. So, so that's what he does. Gets, gets his army, he's got 86,000, I think is the number, 86,000 troops. And when, when he gets to Fredericksburg, so Fredericksburg, like, you, you got the river. And Fredericksburg is on the, I guess, the southwest side of the river. And, right? Yep, yep. And, and then it's, and it's on the river. Uh, right on. On the river. On the river.

• 31:02Jocko Willink?

  There's no space after the river. It's the river, and then on the banks of the river, on the southwest side, is the town. And then there's sort of a flat area where the town is located. And then you had a little bit further southwest, and it starts to creep up, and you get, you get a little bit of altitude. You get a little, little bit of terrain, a little bit, some hills, which are called Mary's Heights. And Lee shows up, and he is trying to make a, really a tactical decision of what, how he should set up, where he should set up, because I, you can, you can make a case for both places to set up. If you set up right there in the town,

• 31:47Jocko Willink?

  well, then you got the Union coming across that river. They're gonna have to build bridges, they're gonna be channelized, you're gonna be right there on them, and you can, you can do some damage there. Or... You can take the high ground a little bit further back. They're gonna have, maybe have a little bit easier time to get across the river, but you know, you're gonna be at altitude, still have some good ways to, to cause problems for them. So that's Lee's decision to make. Do I, do I actually defend the town itself right on the river? Or do I back off and take the high ground, which is gonna make it easier for the Union to get across the river, but you're gonna have the high ground when they get across. That's the decision Lee comes up, has to make.

• 32:31JD Baker?

  Yeah, and just like when you look at, I mean Fredericksburg, like I said, I mean, you know, George Washington, you know, grew up there. I mean Fredericksburg, Robert E. Lee courted his wife in Fredericksburg. I mean, it's a, it's a prominent Virginia town, still is to this day. I mean, when you look at Virginia, you got Fredericksburg, you got Williamsburg, Charlottesville, I mean, even still this day, I mean, today up on Mary's Heights is the University of Mary Washington. I mean, you know, named, you know, Ferry Farm right there. It's, it's a very historic town and it has a lot of meaning, but like you said, I mean, that had to be a, a huge struggle for Robert E. Lee. Because, you know, and

• 33:13JD Baker?

  it's almost like the same thing when we talked about Antietam and Jackson wasn't with him. It's the same thing when he comes into Fredericksburg. So when he's coming into Fredericksburg, okay, he's got this army, he knows they're moving south, but he doesn't know, are they gonna cross at Fredericksburg? Are they gonna go up and use the US Ford, Ely's Ford? Are they gonna try to swing out and around? Like where are they gonna go? And again, he, he can't collectively keep both corps there. So you know what I mean? So he's got half. So you know what I mean? When you're looking at the numbers that he has there, it's kinda, it's kind of ironic, isn't it, that he's hanging out with James Longstreet again? And Jackson is off, you know what I mean, with his core independent actions.

• 33:57JD Baker?

  But he's close enough to be able to win. Robert E. Lee's like, hey, giddy up Stonewall. I need you here. Like, they're ready to to call an audible. They're gonna wait and see what is the army of the Potomac gonna do? Because as you talked about those Mary's Heights, and it is a pretty prominent terrain feature that comes in about. So you got Fredericksburg that's sitting flat, and then it drops off right there onto the river. And then in between the actual town of Gettysburg, there's a

• 34:28Jocko Willink?

  Fredericksburg.

• 34:28JD Baker?

  Yeah, Fredericksburg. There's a large, open area, what is like, back then, it was the Fredericksburg Fairgrounds.

• 34:36Jocko Willink?

  So you got river, you got town, you got fairgrounds, which is like an open area where you'd have a fair.

• 34:43JD Baker?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Jocko Willink?

  And then it starts to go up into Mary's Heights, a little bit of altitude.

• 34:48JD Baker?

  Yep. And that that ridge line runs all the way down. I mean, it's it's a prominent, like, today, if you go there, it's called Lee Drive. So you get off the sunken road, you get onto Lee Drive, and it is a prominent, it's the first prominent ridge line coming across north to south over the Rappahannock River. Now, if you look over onto the Stafford side, the north side, there's a manor that's there. It's called Chatham Manor. And it is still to this day, man, it is a beautiful, beautiful house. Well, where does Burnside decide to set up its headquarters? I mean, there's kind of a trend here with these Union generals, man. You know what

• 35:31JD Baker?

  I mean? Like, the Pry House, Chatham Manor, you know what I mean? So it is a

• 35:37Jocko Willink?

  I might be turning red right now from me setting up in one of Saddam's old, like, stately homes on the Frady's River in Ramadi. You know, I had like the the big pillars out front. Yeah, that was me. So maybe I got a little Burnside in me.

• 35:53JD Baker?

  Well, I mean, if you're gonna be in town for a while, why not? Yeah, go big or go home, man. So he goes big. And the Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania Battlefield Park, they now own Chatham Manor. So you can go there, take tour. It's a beautiful, beautiful house and it is a commanding, unlike the Pry House, like we talked about, like, you remember McClellan could only see like one third of the battle. Well, dude, if you're at Chatham Manor, dude, you can see everything. I mean, it's a commanding.

• 36:25Jocko Willink?

  Are you in range of Confederate cannons?

• 36:27JD Baker?

  Oh, yeah. Both of them are in range and that's gotta be a decision. So just like you said, like if you were Bobby and you're gonna go down and like, let's say, let's decide like, hey, we love Fredericksburg, we love the citizens, let's defend the town of Gettysburg. So we go right to the edge of the river and you've got artillery up on Stafford Heights where Chatham Manor is. It is a prominent terrain feature. You are gonna get pounded by artillery and small arms fire. Like, that is just not a good place to be. So Robert E. Lee's gotta give up the town of Gettys, or Fredericksburg. It's like, where are you at, JD? You know what I mean? So he's gonna give up the town of Fredericksburg and he's gonna, he's gonna, he's got Longstreet. So right behind where

• 37:12JD Baker?

  the fairground is, you know, because just like folks, they're gonna bring their stuff to market or whatever, they're gonna put them in the fair, they got holding pens, just like they do in every county across America today, that fairground, and then there's a sunken road that's there with this stone wall that's there. And then you've got the heights of Mary's Heights right behind this. So it is a great piece of ground, very defendable. And so that's where Longstreet's gonna be with his corps.

• 37:44Jocko Willink?

  Now, we mentioned the water obstacle and what a challenge that is and how are you gonna get across this water obstacle? The way you're gonna get across this water obstacle is you're gonna use these pontoon bridges. That's the plan, right?

• 37:59JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 38:02Jocko Willink?

  How long does it take to get these pontoon bridges organized and sent down and all this? What's going on with that?

• 38:07JD Baker?

  It's gonna take a lot longer than what you would think. When you look at it of like, you know, your priorit- your priorization of like, okay, what's the, what's the most important thing we need here? And you know, you got your staff there. The other thing that we should talk about just real quick is Burnside's gonna come up with, instead of just having like corps commanders, he's gonna have wing commanders. So he's gonna make a new thing here. You know what I mean?

• 38:33Jocko Willink?

  What's the difference between a wing and a corps?

• 38:35JD Baker?

  Like now you got like a corps commander, you know, can operate independently, but now he's gonna make a wing commander that's over top of two corps commander. He's, he's making more.

• 38:47Jocko Willink?

  Layers.

• 38:48JD Baker?

  Layers. And it's also, so now that these wing commanders, so he makes three of them. And you know, so, and each one of them have two corps commanders underneath there. So you got like, there's a lot of generals here. There's a lot of staff. You know what I mean? Like, have you ever gone in somewhere and you're like, dude, there's more people on the staff than you got like people carrying rifles.

• 39:08Jocko Willink?

  We got the wing with two corps in each wing. So we got six corps?

• 39:15JD Baker?

  Yeah, it's pretty much, he's got six corps, but he's gonna make a.

• 39:18Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, generally on the other side, he's got two corps.

• 39:22JD Baker?

  Two corps.

• 39:23Jocko Willink?

  Got two people he needs to talk to.

• 39:25JD Baker?

  That's it.

• 39:26Jocko Willink?

  No extra layer in there.

• 39:27JD Baker?

  No, there's no layer. It's generally straight to the two corps commanders. I mean, and you're seeing like, it was great when you read the antedom, the order that he writes. I mean, Lee's very, he, he's good. You know what I mean? And, and, and he, you know, he trusts his two corps commander. Like, he doesn't need to put another layer over top of them or create, create any more layers in the organization. Uh, it's, the, the army of Northern Virginia, it's like in modern, we call it a flat organization. It's very flat. Not so much now with the army of the Potomac. So they're gonna add this layer. They're gonna have, you know, a left wing, center wing, and a right wing. There we go. And these wing commanders,

• 40:07JD Baker?

  they're gonna make all the calls of what they do. So it's almost like as if he is completely detached himself of any responsibility. So it's almost as like as if, well, that wasn't me. That was Hooker was the wing commander on there. He's the one that made that decision. You know what I mean? And but you can kind of expect it coming from Burnside. When Lincoln offered him the job, he knew that this was out of his wheelhouse. So he's gonna create this layer. So he creates the layer, and just so that people have the understanding of what's gonna of what's going on. And then he's he's got to get this bridging. So then when he

• 40:42Jocko Willink?

  So when does when is Jackson able to make it? If those pontoon bridges would have been there, is this a similar scenario to Antietam where it's like, hey, if these bridges were there, we'd just had we'd just had Longstreet to deal with. The Union would have only had Longstreet, half, half the amount of people, half the force, would have been a totally different scene. But the freaking pontoon bridges don't show up.

• 41:04JD Baker?

  Yeah. And for folks to kind of know what like a up at Chatham Manor, they actually have some of these pontoons like on display. So if you could imagine like a like, pretty much everybody knows what a John boat kind of looks like. You know what I mean? Just a flat bottom John boat. Imagine putting wagon wheels on the John boat. And you know what I mean? And so you can pull them. So they're they're land mobile. And then when you get there, you're gonna take these pontoons and you're just gonna basically stack them up, port to starboard, instead of not not nose to nose, you know, port to starboard, all the way across the river, you're gonna lash them all together. You're gonna lay boards on top of these pontoons. And then you're gonna

• 41:48JD Baker?

  put some dirt on there. And then now you've got a bridge. Pretty simple process. We've been doing it for, you know what I mean? Like the pontoon bridges is nothing new, but you know, they're all the way up, up around the Harpers Ferry area. You know what I mean? Because that's where, that's the last time we were monkeying around with rivers and creeks and streams. So the problem is, is you know, normally if, if this is like your number one thing, it's like, you know, when I told you when I came here, you know, and, and, and Monday night and we linked up. And, and I showed up and I had the suitcase and it had all these books in the suitcase. And when I, and it's not like, like I, I like to check a bag, man. And that way I could just stroll through the airport and I'm not dragging a bunch of shit with me and I don't have to like lift it up.

• 42:33JD Baker?

  But as I'm making the decision, I'm like, if I check this bag and it's got all these books, I mean, what did I bring? Like, like 18 books? We got like 18 books laying around?

• 42:46JD Baker?

  If I check the bag and I give it to the airline people, they lose that bag. We wouldn't be sitting here right now having this conversation because I'd be still over at the airport trying to find my bag. So I made the decision, this is the single point of failure is this fricking bag of books. Their single point of failure is these pontoon bridges. So he puts a lieutenant.

• 43:12JD Baker?

  Like, wow, you got like so many general, you could throw a stick in the army of the Potomac and you're going to hit a fricking general. I mean, you got wing commanders, you got corps commanders, you got division commanders, you got brigade commander, like you got generals like everywhere, man. You know what I mean? It's a general, general, like doctor, doctor, like everybody's afraid, you know what I mean? And who do you pick? The boot lieutenant to put him in charge? That's like me giving it to like the boot lieutenant. You're going to carry that bag. I'm putting you in charge. The, the books are staying with me, man. So, and, and you could imagine just like in modern day, you know, I mean, you got this lieutenant and lieutenant's going to call a colonel. Cause he needs to get something. It'd be like, hey, sir, you know, Colonel answers the phone. Colonel Baker here.

• 43:57JD Baker?

  This is, uh, sir, this is, uh, Lieutenant, uh, Jocko. Uh, and I was wondering if I could, you know what I mean? And then next thing, cause the Colonel's like, what's this lieutenant calling me, man? You know what I mean? And so now they're having problems because he's just sending a memo up of a request. You know, please send the pontoon bridges. And they're all sitting around over there to chat them, chat a manner.

• 44:24JD Baker?

  Waiting around, hey, man, with pontoons, they, they on their way? Sir, I haven't gotten really a response. I left a message, sent a text. I sent like numerous emails, uh, and I, I did a read receipt. He hasn't even opened up the email yet. He hasn't even looked at it. Uh, you know what I mean? So with that delay of getting the pontoon bridges down there is getting time again for Robert E. Lee. Cause he's sitting there just watching. He, cause you know, he's ready to call the audible. He hasn't necessarily made his decision. He's just gonna sit up there at Mary's Heights with Longstreet. And then when, and again, both of them are commanding views. I mean, you can see, and you gotta remember now that we're coming into December, there's no foliage in the trees.

• 45:09JD Baker?

  So any of the tree coverage is gone. So they can see both sides, even still to this day, you can stand on both sides and you can see both sides. Uh, and, and he's sitting there watching and he's like, you know, probably having a conversation with James. He's like, hey, they're warhorse. Are they really gonna put those bridges in right there? Hmm, this is gonna be interesting. They're gonna cross right here and across from Fredericksburg.

• 45:36JD Baker?

  So Lee's got enough time of buying time for the bridging. And then again, it's December and you got your engineer guys. And they're like, well, it would have been easier to put the bridging in if we got here before the Confederates did because Robert E. Lee's gonna take Barksdale and his Mississippians. And he's gonna put them down into the town. So now you're talking urban. You know what I mean? So these guys are gonna go urban and he's gonna take Barksdale and his Mississippians and they're gonna start laying the wood to these engineer guys that are gonna be trying to lay this bridge and then coming across the river and it's December.

• 46:18Jocko Willink?

  So by the time the bridges show up and they're inserting the bridges, putting the bridges into place. So now you got Burnside, he's got Sumner, Hooker and Franklin. Those are the wing commanders. And, and they're on the east side of the Rabahannock and then you got Lee Longstreet, Jackson's now arrived.

• 46:37JD Baker?

  You know, he's in route.

• 46:38Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so he's still in route.

• 46:39JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 46:40Jocko Willink?

  But in order to slow down the insertion of these bridges,

• 46:44Jocko Willink?

  they, they send these sharpshooters, the Mississippians down there into the town where you can do like little elements, like it's a different type of warfare. And they're, they're down there taking pot shots as these pattoons, uh, uh, pontoon boots, boats are being put in. Again, Lee's just trying to slow these guys down.

• 47:06JD Baker?

  It's all he's doing.

• 47:09Jocko Willink?

  Finally, Jackson does arrive.

• 47:13JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 47:13Jocko Willink?

  And, and his, his initial thought is, let's flank these bastards.

• 47:18JD Baker?

  Offense dude, you know what I mean? Like what am I here? He's the offense guy. Like what are you here for? To go offense, of course.

• 47:27Jocko Willink?

  And Lee says, no. Lee says, uh, no, we're gonna, you know, hook in, hook in on the, what is he hooking on the right flank?

• 47:35JD Baker?

  Yeah, he's on the, so you got, uh, up there on Mary's Heights, right behind the fairgrounds, sunken road area that's got Longstreet. So he's gonna tie into Longstreet's right flank and he's gonna run that, what is modern day lead drive that I kinda talked about? Over towards like, there's a Prospect Hill, uh, that's back through there. Uh, and so he's gonna tie in. There's also a rail line that runs down all the way to Norfolk, uh, pretty much if that kinda gives you a picture of where, you know, going in that, uh, southeast direction.

• 48:04Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's so classic. This is like, uh, well, the, the fourth battle we've talked about, but these end up with the sort of very. Very sort of like traditional battle lines. You know, you look at World War II, you start charting out where people are. Sometimes there's battles with battle lines really specific for you and I fighting in our age. It was like the battle lines were really blurry. These are very, end up very specific battle lines. Once again, you know, basically the two sides of the river, and we're gonna fight. We're lined up and we're gonna fight each other. They end up, once again, with kind of three sections of bridge. The upper bridge, the middle bridge,

• 48:44Jocko Willink?

  the lower bridge. The, it's just a nightmare from the day, from when it starts, when these guys actually start coming across, when the Union starts coming across these bridges. It's a nightmare.

• 48:59JD Baker?

  Yeah, and if you could imagine, so the reaction of the Army of the Potomac, so okay, so we stick these Mississippians, Barksdale down there, and they're gonna start like occupying some of these houses, and start, you know, what we would call sniping. You know what I mean? And so they're gonna start hitting these guys. So what's the reaction from them? We're gonna use our artillery. So now they're gonna start lobbing artillery in, which then causes rubble, which you know as well as anybody, it's easier to find the sniper that's not in rubble. You start rubbleing in an urban environment, man, now you're looking at like every little crest

• 49:40JD Baker?

  and crevice of where these guys can get into. You know what I mean? And it's gonna make it very difficult.

• 49:47Jocko Willink?

  And what about the civilian populace?

• 49:49JD Baker?

  The civilian populace is, I mean, you can either harbor up in the basement, not a good call. So the women and kids are literally gonna be displaced into the woods. Like, they're just gonna run out of Fredericksburg, and they're gonna get as far away from the battle, and it's in December, and you've got women and kids that are literally now homeless. And you have to imagine, like, you know, with the armies that are there. Robert, you're gonna have to deal with that. Like, you mean, you just can't let them run. You, these are your people. You know what I mean? And now they're being displaced out of their town and their home. So that's another aspect of what Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy's

• 50:31JD Baker?

  gonna have to deal with is this, you know what I mean? What do we do with these people? We can't just leave them out here in December. These are kids. And of course, they're trying to take as much stuff with them as they can on the way out. But, you know, most of the time, I mean, it's like, you know, you kind of look at what's going on in Ukraine right now. I mean, people are losing their homes. They got nowhere to go. I mean, the country, you have to take care of those people. So they got to deal with that, which is huge of like, man, I mean, how do you do that to civilians? I mean, you're bombarding their town. And what do you think that does for the morale on the southern side? They're like, dude, these guys, man, yeah, they come across this river, brother. We're gonna

• 51:15JD Baker?

  lay the wood to that ass. And that's what they're gonna do. Because they're gonna see that. You know what I mean? It's like anybody-

• 51:21Jocko Willink?

  They're sitting there watching.

• 51:22JD Baker?

  Yeah, they're watching this all go down. And then they're gonna start. So, you know, you got the, so you got with the, the, the upper, the bridging, which is up kind of close, as close to the Telegraph Road as it is, that upper bridge, upstream, if you would say. And you got one, one of the bridges is right there in the middle, right there coming up, probably closest to like, modern day William Street that's there. And there's actually a bridge there that's now, it's running the middle. And then downstream from there, a little bit farther, outside of the town, is that, that lower bridge. And as you said, you know, you've got Hooker, that's basically in the middle, you got Sumner, and

• 52:03JD Baker?

  you got Franklin. And those folks are gonna try to gain that foothold, like, right there across into Fredericksburg. And that's where, basically, those Mississippians and those guys are gonna give resistance. But then they're gonna start the retrograde back to, I mean, Mary's Heights is the, that's the primary line of battle that you were kind of talking about, like, their drawn line of battle. And like you said, so when Jackson shows up, and, you know, he just looks straight at the geometry of the battlefield, and he's like, hmm.

• 52:38JD Baker?

  You know what I mean? You hold them, I skin them. And, uh, and he just wants to go offense and, and Robert E. Lee's like, you know what? Stonewall tie in on the extreme right flank there. We're going to run defensive operations. This is a new thing here. This whole defense, this digging, this, you know, fortified positions. You know, at the beginning, when people are like, well, this isn't very manly. Now they're like, dude, you put dirt in front of me? It's like stops bullets and now you can only see like 10 inches of my head. And wow, this is cool. There's a fricking stone wall right here with a sunken road. We had a sunken road, you know, up at Antietam. I mean, nothing good happens to sunken roads.

• 53:20JD Baker?

  So in the occupied position, so you've got infantry down there on this stone wall and you've got artillery on the heights. Uh, behind them. And even though they're outnumbered, I mean, you know, you did the math with how many folks, it, it doesn't matter. Who's got the better ground? And it's Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. And then they're going to run that line all the way down that ridge line. Uh, and as the farther you get south of Fredericksburg where that lower bridge is, if you went there today. It's now, it's a, uh, it's a, it's an airport. Like it's like a small, local, little airport, like grass airport. If that kind of lets you know, airports are usually put in flat spots.

• 54:01JD Baker?

  That is a flat, large, open area of at least. It's over, it's, it's at least. Over a mile from the river to that ridge line.

• 54:16Jocko Willink?

  So when you, you know, sometimes I'll be talking to people, trying to be set up like a hypothetical scenario, some, some terrible hypothetical scenario. I'll say, hey, you know, what if I told you that there's enemy in an elevated position bunkered in, and I want you to charge that hill? What would you say? And I always, you know, I have the, the, the learning point of, I might, you know, I would, I would want you to say is, hey, Jocko. There's enemy in a bunker position elevated. You want me to charge up the hill? That doesn't make sense. We should not do that. That's what, that's a learning. Right, right. I try and set up the worst case scenario so that my subordinate says, hey Jocko, this doesn't sound like a good idea. This is the scenario I set up. This is actually even worse because now we're going to throw in the amphibious part where we're channelized coming across a

• 55:01Jocko Willink?

  river. So you're getting channelized, you're coming across a river, then you're gonna, oh, it's gonna be even worse as well. Before you get the assault up the hill, first you're gonna spend several hundred yards passing through an urban area. Oh, and then by the way, it's gonna be even worse because then you're gonna go through an open area where you got elevated positions above you and there's no cover. You can't use any terrain at all. That's what the Union is trying to do. They're trying to come across a river. Once they get across the river, find their way through this rumbled urban area. If that urban area extended all the way to the heights, that'd actually be better, but it doesn't. It stops and now you've got this open fairground area where there's no cover. When you get to the end of the fairground, there's

• 55:46Jocko Willink?

  a sunken road with a stone wall where the enemy is and then it elevates there. So now you've got artillery and more firepower up above. This is an absolute worst case scenario. This is just a horrible situation to get into and you can, you can figure out how it goes. I mean, this is a bloodbath. This is a bloodbath for the Union as they push through this.

• 56:18Jocko Willink?

  That being said, at the lower bridge, there's actually some, some progress. Meade, who we're gonna hear a lot about in the future, but Meade, who's, what's his position at this point? What is he? One of the uh?

• 56:35JD Baker?

  Division commander.

• 56:37Jocko Willink?

  So he's a division commander. He actually.

• 56:42Jocko Willink?

  Correct me if I'm wrong. The terrain kinda dictates to him, there's an opportunity to get into some terrain. His men are naturally drawn into this sort of ravine. They push into this ravine. Turns out to be an area where the Confederates haven't really set up because it doesn't seem like it's a great spot to attack. But because there's cover there, Union forces end up there and all of a sudden, there's a little penetration here for Meade.

• 57:08JD Baker?

  Yeah, so if you could imagine, we're all like, we're running across this huge open field and we're just, you know, and it's Jackson. So it's second corps. It's, you know, Stonewall, they've made it up in there. They've got the heights and it's a prominent, prominent height and probably the first ounce of any kind of cover is that rail line that kinda runs, because you know, it's a raised bed. So you know, if they can get at least there, but I mean, dude, Jocko, I mean, man, you get, nowadays, like, it's literally, it's called the slaughter pen now. Like, when you drive through Frederichburg and you're down there doing a battle study, you're gonna go to the slaughter pen.

• 57:51JD Baker?

  So if that gives you kind of a description of what they call it. So this slaughter pen that they're running across and Meade's guys, it's like one of this, a drawl that goes up to the ridge line and it's wooded. So if we're getting shot at, you know what I mean? Me and you are like, hey JD, man, let's run over there where the trees are.

• 58:12Jocko Willink?

  And no direction needed.

• 58:14JD Baker?

  Yeah, like, it's not like Meade was like, hey, boys, let's head over there. Dude, they're already going that way and Meade is letting them go and he follows them up in there. Well, when, and it's, and it's a very wooded, thick, you know what I mean? Like, like area. So when, when Jackson's setting his lines in up there, one, he also, you know, we didn't talk about this, but Jackson, he does what he's told by Robert E. Lee, but he takes Hill and he kinda puts him in reserve and he looks at Hill and he's like, hey dude, like, you're not gonna get up here on the line, I'm gonna keep you back here in reserve because I'm gonna go back and. Talk to Bobby and I'm gonna see if he's gonna let me take you and we're gonna go down

• 58:57JD Baker?

  and we're gonna flank him. You know what I mean? So and Hill, yep, got it boss, we'll stay right here. I mean, it's a Stonewall Jackson telling you, you know, getting reserved.

• 59:05Jocko Willink?

  So Hill, so Jackson's got his whole corps up online except for Hill who's sat back. And he's saying, look, as soon as we get the chance, I'm gonna go talk to General Lee. When the opportunity presents itself, we're gonna flank these guys and, and, and mop them up.

• 59:22JD Baker?

  Yep. And, and so if, if you could imagine, I mean, the line up there, I mean, this is a, this is a large that we're talking their, their, their coverage of a frontage of Long Street and, and Jackson. It's like a three mile coverage, frontage, three mile. I mean, it's, it's a long road. Uh, I, I run it all the time. Love it. But I mean, it's a long frontage of just troops. And you can, the trenches are still there to this day. So these guys are like, they're, they're into it. Like they're, they're seeing to where we're in an elevated position. We're gonna dig in. And these guys are gonna come at us and I basically have like a dog target, you know what I mean? Of me over the rifle pit and these guys are on a flat, open area with no cover.

• 1:00:07JD Baker?

  So when they looked at it up on this ridge line and they see this draw coming up and it's heavily wooded. They leave a gap there. They don't put any personnel there. So you've got a whole bunch, you know, private, private, private companies, regiments all lined up. And then you've got a gap. And that gap is probably, I mean, the gap is no more than 100, 150 yards. But that's where Meade's folks end up in that draw and they come out on top of the ridge. And they're like, well, holy shit, man. We're in behind Jackson's lines.

• 1:00:44JD Baker?

  And Meade is seeing this. And another thing that Jackson does, you know, we talk about this guy Pelham. Uh, he's an artillery guy. He's like a, a horse artillery guy. He's working for Jackson. He's gonna slip down in over kinda like, so you got Jackson, he's gonna go down off of Jackson's southern end and there's like this, this road with a ditch going towards the river and he's gonna take his artillery down there. And he's just gonna start like lobbing artillery shots over at, at the Union guys coming across this slaughter.

• 1:01:17Jocko Willink?

  He's taking a little bit of a flank.

• 1:01:19JD Baker?

  He's taking a flank.

• 1:01:20Jocko Willink?

  Taking a little bit of a flank on the Union and he's lobbing.

• 1:01:24JD Baker?

  Just, yeah, I mean, but he's like that gnat. So it's this gnat. So they got a couple of these shots that are coming out. Well, next thing you know, he starts turning the army. They start concentrating like, okay, let's, let's all, let's go after this dude.

• 1:01:42Jocko Willink?

  So, so they, instead of focusing up the hill.

• 1:01:46JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 1:01:47Jocko Willink?

  Where Meade just penetrated.

• 1:01:49JD Baker?

  Yep.

• 1:01:49Jocko Willink?

  They start focusing to the left where they're getting flanked a little bit, but it shouldn't, it's a distraction more than anything else.

• 1:01:56JD Baker?

  That's all it is, is Pelham. And even the guys that are up there, up, up at Prospect Hill on that ridge line are like, hey, they're all looking up at it. Hey dude, look at what Pelham's doing. You know what I mean? He's, now they're not shooting at us anymore where they're supposed to be coming. Now they're starting to focus and, and Pelham, he's not staying there. He's, he's, he's stationary. But he can get up and move quick. Like he's not gonna stand toe to toe with these folks. He's just distracting them enough. You know what I mean? To now allow, cause as soon, if they turn towards Pelham, now their flank is exposed to the folks up on the ridge line. That's a bad move. So these guys are focusing on Pelham. So everybody's up there like, dude, look at Pelham, man. You know what I mean? He's getting after it. You know what I mean? He's got these guys focused on them, which is making it better for us.

• 1:02:41JD Baker?

  Now they're not coming to take the heights. So Meade, you know, he's got his peer. You know what I mean? And peer leadership is always, always difficult. You know what I mean? Cause you know, you tell me if you and I are peers, I'm like, Chaka, you're not in charge. You know what I mean? So Meade has made this, he's exploited success here. The only dude on the entire battlefield that's having any success.

• 1:03:05Jocko Willink?

  And it's a major success. By the way, you broke through the lines.

• 1:03:09JD Baker?

  Yep. You've got a gap in the line. Now, because now you can split Jackson's core.

• 1:03:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:14JD Baker?

  And then now you've gained what? Oh, oh shit. You got high ground. So he's gonna send a note back down. He's trying to get his peers to be like, hey dude, we broke the lines, man. Let's all come in. And they're all looking at him like, dude, that's gonna have to come from the wing commander, man. I don't take orders from you. Well, as you know with anything, I mean, that, that window of opportunity is only gonna stay open for a certain amount of time because you got that guy Hill that was left in reserve. They see what's happening up there. I mean, it's not like, you know, once they get into lines and the shooting starts, they're all kind of like, holy shit, man. We got a hole in our line. We need to plug it. And Hill, without Jackson's not there. And he knows, Jackson told him, you stay right there.

• 1:03:59JD Baker?

  Cause when I come back, we're going offensive, brother. And he, on his own, takes his folks, bam, they plug the hole. Meade gets pushed back down through that same draw and back towards the river. That window just shuts on Meade because he can't convince any of his peers to support him.

• 1:04:20Jocko Willink?

  So this is, uh, I kind of, that's where day one kind of ends up. But in the meantime, you got up at the fairgrounds, going back up to the fairgrounds where these guys were getting annihilated.

• 1:04:38Jocko Willink?

  Joshua Lawrence Chauvelin, he's up there and he, uh, has a night where he calls it the bivouac with the dead.

• 1:04:48Jocko Willink?

  And we're, we're going to talk a lot about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. I don't know who likes him more, you or me, it's pretty close. But you know, he's got this book covered on the podcast. It's called Bayonet Ford. It's just unbelievable book. This is, this is a guy that we're going to learn a lot about. Incredible guy, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. And he writes this, "It was a cold night." So this is after the first day's battle. They've been in this bloodbath all day. They, you really, it's going to be really difficult to go back. It's one of those situations that lose, lose. We're going to go back and you'll be getting fired on again. You'll have to try and cross the river again. Or you go forward, you can't go any further forward. You're just stuck. And that's where they are. They're stuck. Bivouac with the dead. Here we go.

• 1:05:32Jocko Willink?

  "It was a cold night. Bitter, raw north winds swept stark slopes. The men, heated by their energetic and exciting work, felt keenly a chilling change. Many of them had neither overcoat nor blanket, having left them with the discarded knapsacks. They roamed about to find some garment not needed by the dead. Mounted officers all lacked outer covering. This had gone back with the horses strapped to the saddles. So we joined the uncanny quest. Necessity compels strange uses. For myself, it seemed best to bestow my body between two dead men, among the many left there by earlier assaults,

• 1:06:15Jocko Willink?

  and to draw another crosswise for a pillow out of the trampled, blood-soaked sod, pulling the flap of his coat over my face to fend off the chilling winds. And still more chilling, the deep, many-voiced moan that overspread the field.

• 1:06:35Jocko Willink?

  It was heartrending. It could not be borne. I rose at midnight from my unearthly bivouac, and taking our adjutant for my companion, went forth to see what we could use, see what we could do for these forsaken sufferers. The deep sound led us to our right and rear, where the fiercest of the fight had held brave spirits too long. As we advanced over that stricken field, the grave conglomerate monotone resolved itself into a diverse, several elements, some breathing inarticulate agony."

• 1:07:18Jocko Willink?

  Some dear home names, some begging for a drop of water, some caring for, some for a caring word, some praying God for a strength to bear, some for life, some for quick death.

• 1:07:34Jocko Willink?

  We did what we could, but how little it was on a field so boundless for feeble human reach.

• 1:07:47Jocko Willink?

  So you got, I mean, I wish I could do justice reading that this guy, they're up there, the, the screams, the agonies, the begging for death, the begging for life, the prayers, it overwhelms them, the sound of it overwhelms them and they get up, they try and help these guys, they try and provide them some comfort.

• 1:08:11Jocko Willink?

  While they're freezing, by the way, they all left their, their, their, you know, their coats, they left them back before they did the assault, hey, you know, this isn't going to take too long.

• 1:08:22Jocko Willink?

  So you got Chamberlain, some of his guys out there trying to take care of these dying. He's not the only one that's doing it, not by a long shot, there's a, another hero, Sergeant Richard Roland Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina. And there's a book called The Fredericksburg Campaign by Francis O'Reilly, and he's got a, an account of this.

• 1:08:49Jocko Willink?

  Here we go to this book. 20-year-old Sergeant Richard Roland Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina felt particularly moved by the pathos.

• 1:09:01Jocko Willink?

  Because he's up there and he's hearing the screams and the agony as well. He asked General Kershaw if he could take water to the injured northerners. Generals, general, he besieged, "I can't stand this." Kirkland, the general answered, "Don't you know that you would get a bullet through your head the moment you stepped over that wall?"

• 1:09:25Jocko Willink?

  But the youth was willing to take that risk. "If you will let me," the sergeant stated, "I am willing to try it."

• 1:09:32Jocko Willink?

  Kershaw acquiesced. He told the sergeant, "I will not refuse your request, trusting that God may protect you."

• 1:09:41Jocko Willink?

  Kirkland asked if he could wave a white flag to stop the shooting, but Kershaw could not allow it. Military protocol forbade such a usage. "All right, sir," he replied. "I'll take the chances."

• 1:09:55Jocko Willink?

  Kershaw watched the sergeant leave the Stevens house with the feeling of profound admiration. Kirkland filled several canteens at Martha Stevens' well, and then entered the field between the lines. Federals immediately opened fire. A watching Georgian thought the bullets were so concentrated that it seemed a bird could not escape them. Kirkland reached the first wounded Federal and knelt to give him a drink. The Carolinian placed a knapsack under the Northerner's head, covered him with a blanket, and then moved on to the next man.

• 1:10:32Jocko Willink?

  The Federals stopped shooting and watched. Troops on both sides cheered as the brave sergeant moved from soldier to soldier.

• 1:10:42Jocko Willink?

  The ceasefire may have been, may have prompted others to come forward with more water. The historian for Kershaw's brigade remembered the event with a Georgian running between the lines with water. A squad, according to the staff officer, went out after dark on the same charitable mission.

• 1:11:01Jocko Willink?

  At least one Federal procured water for the discomfited, which an Admiral Rebel called "The coolest performance I witnessed during the war."

• 1:11:13Jocko Willink?

  Whether Kirkland acted alone or pioneered a host of encounters and somehow became a composite for all the works of mercy is hard to determine. Seventeen years after the battle, a newspaper correspondent begged for the name of the man who gave water to his enemies.

• 1:11:32Jocko Willink?

  General Joseph Kershaw responded instantly, naming Richard Kirkland as "The Angel of Mary's Heights."

• 1:11:49Jocko Willink?

  Kirkland.

• 1:11:54Jocko Willink?

  Incredible story.

• 1:11:55JD Baker?

  Incredible.

• 1:11:58JD Baker?

  Uh, when I, uh, just for the, if you go to Fredericksburg and there's one thing that you want to see, go to Lafayette Boulevard in Fredericksburg, uh, it's right, it's right where the fair are at, but he talks about, you know, that wall, that's the sunken road. You know, hop over that wall and behind the Fredericksburg Visitor Center for the, uh, the battlefield that's there is the Kirkland Monument. Uh, it's in, as far as I, it's the only enlisted monument

• 1:12:32JD Baker?

  in the entire Civil War, named after an enlisted soldier. And it has nothing to do with his combatant skills. It's his love for the fellow soldier. Uh, and you know, to be named, uh, the Angel of Mary's Heights and, and the monument is just incredible because it literally has, I mean, it's a, it's a big monument, uh, which I'm stoked about, you know what I mean? I love every group that I take to Fredericksburg, like you're going to stand in front of the Kirkland Monument and there's going to be a group picture. Like, we don't take any other pictures anywhere on the battlefield. Well, you're going to get your picture taken at the Kirkland Monument.

• 1:13:06JD Baker?

  The well is still there. You know what I mean? The road is still there. It's not, you, it, you can't drive the road. It, it's a stone wall. I mean, the high, I mean, so you can let literally like, I mean, I love, I, I probably, when I'm at home, I, I run down there, uh, on that sunken road at least once a week. Uh, and every time, you know, I run past, you know, it's 5:15 in the morning, man, not a soul out there. And you're running down and it's that pea gravel that's on there. So all you're hearing is a, you know what I mean? And you can see the Kirkland Monument. And it just, every time I run past there, this is the, this is the only guy, him and Joshua Larch Chamberlain.

• 1:13:48JD Baker?

  Of just when I'm running that sunken road of that, I mean, listen, you know, sleeping, you know, a night with the dead and trying to imagine myself out there in 1862. I left all my kit. You know what I mean? It's back with the wagons because of course, man, I mean, you're going into battle. You don't, you don't want, you want to get rid of as much gear as possible to make you get around faster and, you know, to be out there and for him to, when, when you, you know, Chamberlain, sharing in the suffering. I mean, those two individuals of Kirkland and Chamberlain, you know what I mean? Of what they do for just the love of their comrades is just amazing to me. Those are two of the most incredible

• 1:14:31JD Baker?

  people that are out there and they're both in that. They are so close to each other. You know what I mean? You got one that's, you know, South Carolinian, he's right there at the wall. He was the one that was laying the wood to Chamberlain's guys coming across that Fredericksburg fairground that's out there. So Chamberlain is in that field somewhere that Kirkland and some of these other, and it isn't remarkable that, you know, of course, as soon as he hops over the wall, well, of course, they're going to start taking shots at this guy and he doesn't get hit. And it's not a great distance. I mean, it's not like it's out of range. They're not doing thousand yard shots here. I mean, we're talking a couple

• 1:15:13JD Baker?

  of hundred yards, man. You're within range pretty easily and nothing hits them. And then when they see the, he's not even carrying a rifle. He's just, and, and in that, the monument's depicting him and it's got like the, he's got the canteens just like strung all over his back. And he's just, you know, and it's showing him, I can imagine going around and just, I mean, he just listening to those folks just laying on that deathless field. You know what I mean? Just got to him and, and it's pretty cool that, you know, Kershaw, even, you know, years later, he could recall that instance of, yeah, that was, that was Kirkland. And he gets named, you know, the angel of Mary's Heights. I

• 1:15:55JD Baker?

  mean, people remember that. And it's a, you know, if you're going to visit one thing in Fredericksburg, Virginia, it's, it's the Kirkland monument. It's the, that monument's phenomenal. It's my favorite of.

• 1:16:09Jocko Willink?

  How bad is the suffering? The sounds, because you can't see, right? It's dark. So you're just sitting there behind this wall of people that were just coming to kill you, by the way. People that are attacking your, people that bombed the town in front of you. And they are suffering and they sound so wretched. That you say, you know what? I'm gonna go give them some water. I'm gonna go give them some mercy. You ask the general, the general says, hey, look, I can't say no to you. Go ahead. You step over the wall, you get shot at. I mean, what percentage of people? My ass is right back over the wall. Okay, bro, I was gonna give you some water. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, it's a miracle he didn't get shot. It's a bigger miracle that he didn't jump back over the wall and, you know, find a blanket,

• 1:16:54Jocko Willink?

  go to sleep. Incredible story. And it highlights that even in war, the mercy, the benevolence stands out. Day two, you can probably figure out where this is going. Union gets pushed back across the river. And here's what Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain has to say about the battle after they're back over the river. "Over the river then we marched. And up that bank whence we now looked back across at Fredericksburg and saw the green slopes, blue with the bodies of our dead.

• 1:17:38Jocko Willink?

  It was raining drearily when I brought the regiment to rest by the dismal wayside. General Hooker came riding slowly by. We had not seen him during the terrible three days. Indeed, he had no business to be where we were. We supposed he and our corps commander Butterfield were somewhere controlling and observing their commands. Hooker caught sight of me, sitting in the rain, leaning back against a tree, and gave me kindly greeting. You've had a hard chance, Colonel. I'm glad to see you out of it. I was not cheerful, but tried to be bright. It was chance, General. Not much intelligent design there."

• 1:18:23Jocko Willink?

  God knows I did not put you in, came the rather crisp reply. That was the trouble, General. You should have put us in. We were handled in piecemeal on toasting forks. It was plain talk and he did not reprove me. So this is something that we're seeing and it's something, you know, at Echelon Front, we call it prioritize and execute. You gotta commit to what you're doing. You can't try and do two, three different things at once. In the military, other military principles, they call it concentration of force, right? So we see a lot of this from the North where they have an opportunity to go in.

• 1:19:08Jocko Willink?

  And that's what Chamberlain's saying here is like, put, no, put me in. Let's focus, let's go. Because there's a lot of troops that are being sent in, you know, if I'm gonna fight four different people. And you send one, well, I'm gonna kick his ass. Then you send another one, I'm gonna kick his ass too. You send another one, I'm gonna kick his ass. The fourth one, I might be a little tired, but I'm still gonna kick his ass. You send four people at me at once, I might get a shot on one of them, but then someone's tackling me and it's game over. So the Union, that's kind of how this unfolded for the Union.

• 1:19:48Jocko Willink?

  Carrying on, but the General's remark led to wide inferences, inferences. It disclosed perhaps the main cause of this great disaster. The commander of the Center Grand Division did not put his men in. They were sent by superior orders in detachments to support other commands. Or as a forlorn hope at various times and places during the unexpected developments. Or rather, the almost inevitable accidents of the battle.

• 1:20:20Jocko Willink?

  It should not have been a disaster. Franklin with his 60,000 men should have turned Lee's right. Whereas he attacked with only two divisions and one at a time and did not follow up with his whole force, their splendid initiative. When Franklin failed, it was rashness to expect Sumner to carry the formidable heights behind the city, made impregnable by Lee's best skill and valor. So, what, you really think we're gonna march up this hill? It's everything I just laid out. You think we're gonna go across this river, through the town, across the open, over the stone wall, and up the hill? That's not gonna happen. So why we keep pushing guys there?

• 1:21:01Jocko Willink?

  That front might have been held still under menace while Sumner, reinforced perhaps by the main body of Hooker's Grand Division, might have concentrated upon Lee's left, above the city, and flanked the formidable bastions crowning the heights that entrenched his front with all that earth and manhood could do. Simple as that. Why, hey, why didn't we run a flank? That battle was not fought according to Burnside's intention. And that his plan was mutilated by distrust and disharmony among his subordinate commanders does not exonerate him. So, they didn't do exactly what Burnside wanted, but that, that doesn't mean that

• 1:21:46Jocko Willink?

  Burnside's clear. It is part of the great trust and place of a chief commander to control reluctant and incongruous elements and to make subordinates and opponents submit to his imperial purpose. So if your people aren't doing what you want them to do, that's your fault when you're in charge. Burnside attempted a vindication somewhat on these lines, but too late. He prepared an order removing from command several of his high-ranking but too little subordinate generals and made ready to prefer their, prefer charges against them for trial by court martial. So after the battle, he's like, oh, you know, these guys should have done better. I'm gonna, I'm gonna court martial them.

• 1:22:30Jocko Willink?

  But Lincoln again interposed his common sense advice and the matter was passed over. Lincoln was like, hey dude, you can't throw the blame on these boys. Not long after, at his own request, Burnside was relieved from command of the army and resumed his place with his old Ninth Corps.

• 1:22:56Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 1:22:58Jocko Willink?

  Leadership, leadership, leadership. That's what this is. You have good leadership and you have bad leadership and leadership's the most important thing on the battlefield. Good leadership's gonna win, bad leadership is gonna fail.

• 1:23:12Jocko Willink?

  And this was a failure for the Union.

• 1:23:18Jocko Willink?

  But the war would continue.

• 1:23:21Jocko Willink?

  And we will continue on the next civil war excursion. And if you want to support this podcast, go to jocko store.com, jocko fuel.com, originusa.com, eshlofront.com, and V O M N A.com.

• 1:23:38Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is JD and Jocko. Out.