Lecture 18 - "War So Terrible": Why the Union Won and the Confederacy Lost at Home and Abroad

<audio controls><source src="https://archive.org/download/hist119_06_013108/hist119_18_032708.mp3" /></audio> <br /> <br /> This lecture probes the reasons for confederate defeat and union victory. Professor Blight begins with an elucidation of the loss-of-will thesis, which suggests that it was a lack of conviction on the home front that assured confederate defeat, before offering another of other popular explanations for northern victory: industrial capacity, political leadership, military leadership, international diplomacy, a pre-existing political culture, and emancipation. Blight warns, however, that we cannot forget the battlefield, and, to this end, concludes his lecture with a discussion of the decisive Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July of 1863. <div> <br /></div> <div> <a href="http://oyc.yale.edu/transcript/559/hist-119">Transcript</a></div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <a href="http://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-119/lecture-18">Lecture Page</a></div>