Lessons from the American Civil War

**Jordan Schneider** (0:00)
For the past few months, I've been off on paternity leave, and the dad energy newly coursing through me has compelled me to read close to 15 titles on the American Civil War. Alongside watching my daughter mature into a lovely, adorable four-month-old, it has been a great joy to dive into the 1860s. The Civil War obviously raises some traditional ChinaTalk themes around, you know, war, technological change and organizational design, but it is also a uniquely well-documented war just on the cusp of modernity, with gripping characters and human drama, basically wherever you look. To discuss all things Civil War, I have on today Jeremy Neufeld. He does immigration policy at the Institute for Progress, but is also an enormous Civil War nerd and runs a Twitter account that follows the war in real time. And Wayne Hsieh, a professor at the Naval Academy, who most recently co-authored Savage War, an excellent modern military history of the Civil War.
Wayne, why should ChinaTalk listeners care about the American Civil War?

**Wayne Hsieh** (1:02)
Well, I think one, it's really important for the history of the United States. It's really important for kind of whether or not the United States is going to be kind of a more fragmented or centralized polity, for better or for worse, that has big implications, obviously, for whether or not the United States is going to be kind of a great power in kind of a global sense. You know, the Civil War has actually obviously a big, important role to play in that. It also has a big, important role to play in kind of the issue of American race relations and American slavery.
And I mean, the Civil War essentially decides, at least the question of chattel slavery obviously doesn't decide all questions of racial relations in the United States. So if you think of the United States as a really important country, then obviously today, in this world, for lots of people who are non-Americans, then obviously a big part of settings of stage for that is going to be connected to what happens in the middle of the 19th century.

**Jordan Schneider** (1:57)
Jeremy, what's your pitch for caring about the Civil War?

**Jeremy Neufeld** (2:00)
Well, first, I think the way I got into it is simply the intense human drama at the heart of one of the United States' greatest conflicts. But as I've learned more, I think one thing that's remarkably interesting is that here you have a number of incredibly important new technologies, like the telegraph, the railroad, and steamships, which allow for instant communication over large distances, transportation over large distances. And for the first time, you have military commanders trying to figure out how to use these new technologies at a strategic and operational level.
Without it having been done before. And that learning experience, I think, is really fascinating.

**Jordan Schneider** (2:44)
Well, I agree with everything you guys all said, but from another perspective, like part of your ability to study history is sort of rate limited by the historians who you are going to be able to read, and the primary sources that you're going to be able to engage with in a period. And I think on both of those counts, the Civil War has really stood out for me as base as the best experience I've ever had from both perspectives. So I think because the Civil War is so dramatic and so seminal in American history, it has attracted just such an enormous amount of both amateur and professional talent over the past 150 years. And I think another thing which is really special, particularly for English speakers is lots of wars, it's difficult to read primary sources on from both sides because you have different countries who speak different languages fighting on each other. But both because there was this real culture of letter writing and diaries and memoirs in the middle of the 19th century. And the war lasted long enough for the most incredible, remarkable people to bubble up to the top of their respective organizations by the end of the war. The memoirs both from the general perspective as well as just the sheer amount of correspondence that you get from privates, and captains, and majors, and whatnot, just makes for a really rich experience of exploring what it was actually like to live in the times and fight in these battles and be part of the organizations that ended up making war for the better part of making war during the Civil War. So anyways, with that, all right, let's start with technology. Let's start off with a little top three. How about most impactful 19th century technological innovations on the way the Civil War played out? I'll give you two both a second to make your little lists in your head.