Civil War's Bloodiest Day Started With Stolen Cigars — Nobody Checked

The American Civil War was the most expensive divorce in human history — filed by eleven states in eighteen sixty-one who were absolutely certain they would win, and were not. Wilmer McLean fled the first battle when a cannonball came through his kitchen wall. Four years later, the war ended in his living room in Appomattox, Virginia. The surrender table Lee used that day is now at the Chicago History Museum. Admission is nineteen dollars. The conflict began as a real-estate argument about who owned the labor supply and escalated because Congress spent forty years treating a moral catastrophe like a scheduling inconvenience. This is the story of how the Sunk Cost Fallacy, the Planning Fallacy, and an extraordinary amount of bad paperwork produced the bloodiest war in American history — and what that pattern looks like when it shows up wearing a different uniform today. Questions this video answers: Why did eleven states actually secede and what did their own documents say about it? How did the Civil War end and why did the guy who surrendered show up in a cleaner uniform than the guy who won? What actually happened at Antietam and is it true the whole battle started because someone lost their cigars? 00:00 — Cold Open: The Man Who Ran from the War and Hosted Its Ending 00:30 — The Most Expensive Divorce in American History: A Setup 01:15 — Chapter One: The Cotton Gin, the Compromise, and the Can Nobody Stopped Kicking 03:30 — Chapter Two: The Caning, John Brown, and the Election That Broke the Room 06:00 — Chapter Three: Fort Sumter, the Planning Fallacy in Uniform, and the Cigar Wrapper That Started Antietam 09:00 — Chapter Four: The Arithmetic Grant Understood and Everyone Else Refused 11:30 — The Sunk Cost Fallacy at Continental Scale: A Bias Autopsy 13:00 — The Pattern That Did Not Stay in the Nineteenth Century 14:00 — Outro: The Table Is in a Museum, the Lunch Man Lost 🔥 CRAVING MORE CHAOS? WATCH THIS NEXT:    • How One PICKLED EAR Started a World War 👂💀...   🎬 Binge-Watching Matrix -    • History’s Dumbest Fails: Idiots, Assassins...   Documented Historical Record: Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January first, eighteen sixty-three; the original is held at the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D C. The Dred Scott v. Sandford decision was delivered by Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney on March sixth, eighteen fifty-seven, and is held in the records of the Supreme Court of the United States. Alexander Hamilton Stephens delivered the Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia on March twenty-first, eighteen sixty-one; the full text was recorded by the Savannah Republican and is preserved in the collections of the Georgia Historical Society, Savannah. The surrender at Appomattox Court House was recorded in the personal memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, published by Charles L. Webster and Company, New York, eighteen eighty-five. The original McLean House surrender table is held at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D C. The Lee surrender table is held at the Chicago History Museum, Chicago, Illinois. Primary Sources: National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D C: Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863 Supreme Court of the United States Records: Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, March 6, 1857 Georgia Historical Society, Savannah: Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861, recorded by the Savannah Republican Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Charles L. Webster and Company, New York, 1885 Library of Congress, Manuscript Division: Abraham Lincoln Papers, including drafts of the Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Volume XIX: Antietam Campaign documents including the Lost Order (Special Orders No. 191), September 1862, National Archives 🔥 Binge the Dark History Playlist:    • WW2 Roasts: History's Dumbest War 💀 | Dark...   Support the Autopsy: https://ko-fi.com/yourchannel Fair Use Disclaimer: This video is produced for educational and commentary purposes. All historical footage, images, and documents referenced are used under the Fair Use provision of Title 17, United States Code, Section 107. #CivilDivorceFiled #History #WilliamShermanMarchToSea #WhyDidTheCivilWarHappen #CivilWarCausesExplained