Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War A Conversation With Historian Allen Guelzo 20240713

War era Study Program and did graduate work in university of pennsylvania where he focused on the history of religion. He holds a master of divinity degree. His roster of publications is so long im not going to try to read them all to you. You can go to his website to get a full accounting of not only his publications but oerjt sail ient elements of other saileint elements of hig biography. Im going to offer five books i think is pertinent. The first is called Abraham Lincoln published by william b in 1998 and the first of allen lincolns prizes. Lincolns emancipation pags proclamation end of slavery in america. Publish in 2004 brought his second lincoln prize. Lincoln and douglas the debates that define america. 2008. Some reason didnt win the lincoln prize. Faithful lightening new history of the civil war and reconstruction came out from Oxford University press in 2012 and the 5th title i will mention is is gettiesburg the last invasion published in 2013 which brought a third lincoln prize to allen, the only person who has won three. Others have won two. He is currently working on a biography of robert e. Lee and that will be one of the things well get to today. He and i will talk about his work today and about the field of civil war era studies more broadly. And i want to begin with a question relating to the opportunities for people in our field to try to reach a broader audience. Allen writes for National Newspapers and other publications and has done courses for the teaching company, the great courses company. You have reached a broader audience and id like your thought s about whether this is something we really should strive to do, why you do it, how effective you think it is, and what it yields for our field in terms of disseminating really good scholarship to a broader audience. Well, first of all, let me thank you gary for the opportunity to be here and especially to the now center, to will kirk, to everyone here who has to liz, stephanie, to everyone who has just made my visit here over the last several days such an exceedingly pleasant ones. And youve sneaked in some research. Oh, indeed. Indeed. I have been within the reach of many manu scripts, some diaries, what not, like that. Looking at what people are writing and thinking and saying in those Tumultuous Times 150 years ago. Im particularly glad to be here on this very, very significant and special day. One of the greatest days in American History. And im noticing that people are starting to look at each other like, oh, is this the fourth of july . No, no. No, its september 22nd. And we did this on purpose. Its 1555th anniversary of the preliminary emancipation pags proclamation. Writing that in 2012 in the wall street journal got some unusual responses. Got a death threat. Doesnt often happen to people writing in the wall street journal. You get other type of threats, i suppose. I succeeded in injuring someones sensibilities in writing basket emancipation pags proclamation. In a way it testifies to the fact you say it was a good thing. I did. And that upset someone . It upset someone, yes. I think it speaking it the large audien audience trying to identify ourselves, shouldnt be based on religi religion, race, any of those things, what identifies us as americans, lincoln nailed it on the gettiesburg address, it is a proposition that alternate men are created equal and the history of how we have unfolded and lived that proposition is the most important aspect of our identity. When we write about our history we do a year by year, decade by decade, sometimes referendum on that proposition. I have really been on two sides of one coin, that is, how do we explain ourselves to ourselves as americans . F that should draw in all of us, because that touches all of us and identifies all of us. So if i write for the journal of the early republic or for Civil War History or if im writing for the wall street journal or if im writing for washington post, i really regard those as being part of an overall endeavor. Its our constant reminder of ourselves, of who we are and what we are dedicated to. That involves more than academics, more than just college students. It really is something which embraces all of us. So its important, especially for historyians, to be able to speak to everybody, were speaking to our identity as americans. Not just speaking professionally. Were speaking as citizens. There is one and only one identifier of an american. That is, that you are a citizen. To be a citizen of the American Republic is if, in my book, just about the greatest privilege on earth. Were especially well positioned to reach a broader audience is because so many issues from the civil war continue to resonate, we can see echoes of them. We can see echoes of them in our daytoday life, including responses from some states to our current president , our preceding president , talking about succession. Texas, when president obama was in office. California with President Trump in office now. You dont have to look very far in current american politics and society to find echoes of the civil war era. Sometimes its even more than echoes. There was an oped in the Sacramento Bee. I think im citing this correctly. There was on oped in the Sacramento Bee yesterday, i think, in which the lead of the oped said that california is a 21st century state, which is mired in a 19th century country and, therefore, it should separate itself, which is a way of saying california is an entirely different culture from the rest of the United States. And i thought, yeah, that is exactly what they were saying in South Carolina in december of 1860. Im trying to ask people if theres really striving to emulate South Carolina in 1860. Is the that your role mod snell. Perhaps short term. I think it didnt turn out so well for South Carolina but it does come back to the fact that so often questions that we think are uniquely current and uniquely modern really have these long roots and sometimes are replicating even the rhetoric of 150 years ago and longer. Yes. Theres almost nothing new. It does seem to be that way. It seems new if you dont know anything. Thats because the fundamental questions that are posed by the american experiment really do not change either. We really are all about the business of debating that fundamental proposition, so in a sense its not a total surprise that the kind of rhetoric and a sum uggs a assumptions and kind of stances that you hear people strike today well find uncanny and sometimes unnerving echoes of those 150 or 155 years ago. For the historian what we have to do is to signal this is what the relationships are. Be careful what you wish for. Whether its the Sacramento Bee or the charleston mercury. When you write do you write specifically with more than one audience in mind . I mean, obviously your books are reviewed in the mainline scholarly journals, but do you have one or the other of those audiences more in mind or do you not even think about thats especially . I cant say that i really think about it. Sometimes im asked, well, you know, what kind of schooling did you have in writing . How do you go about the writing . And to that i i can only shrug my shoulders. I never had a writing class. I never had someone instruct me. This is how you write this. This is how you write that. I have no better explanation than to simply say i want to explain something to people. I want to communicate with people, and i look for ways to do that, and i dont really have a better explanation. You certainly read a lot of good writing. I think i did. I think i did. Thats probably the best. And im probably good at imitating. Its nothing in my mind, at least, its nothing more complicated than that and i cant make it more complicated. I wont try to make you more complicated than that. I have a question that i really want to get to, and that is did you wake up one morning and think poor Abraham Lincoln. He just hasnt gotten enough attention from writers. I think i better write a book about lincoln. What brought you youre trained as a historian and you wrote about Jonathan Edwards in your dissertation and your early work. How do you get from Jonathan Edwards and religion to Abraham Lincoln . Well, its a little unusual, but not more unusual, well, lets say a chess game. Theres a few strange moves that have to get made and processed, but not too many. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Jonathan Edwards and the problem of determinism and free will in 18th century moral philosophy. Thats a title made for wide public consumption. Yeah. I was is that in the 19th printing now . They actually they actually did do a second edition, but, all right. The one with Matthew Mcconaughey and Jonathan Edwards is the one that really resonates. Yeah, yeah, and the one with nick nolte at lurking. When nick nolte as george whitfield, right, but i i wrote the dissertation which was then published by Wesleyan University press, and the problem with free will and determinism seem to me a real perennial philosophical american problem, maybe not the kind of thing you stay up at night reading about, but still a perennial, and i had planned to write a followup volume, kind of a, you know, Jonathan Edwards 2. 0 or free will 2. 0 and bring things bring the discussion of the problem of this philosophical problem of modern philosophy, and as i was working on this project, this was in the mid90s, i knew that Abraham Lincoln had some things to say on the subject of free will and fatalism. I had some familiarity with the lincoln corpus, and thought it would really jazz the book up, you know. Heres a book on philosophy and determinism and other sleepy subjects. To be able to interject Abraham Lincoln into that discussion would really put some fizz into it. I thought, well, wouldnt that be clever of me so i ended up writing a paper on lincoln and doctor Doug Mcdermott determinism. What he called his doctrine of necessity, because he told people frankly he was a fatalist, and he read that paper in springfield, illinois, at a meeting of the Abraham Lincoln association, and to my surprise it was well received. A book publisher got in touch with me. Would i be interested in writing a religious biography of Abraham Lincoln and i said no, because i had seen a number of writers get swallowed up in the swamp on that subject, and i thought i really dont want to do that. Publisher got back in touch sometime later. Would i do this biography, this religion biography of lincoln and i said no. Finally a friend of the publisher called me and said, look, if you dont do this book, they are going to give it to professor so and so. Someone you knew . Yeah. The hand hit the forehead, and so i i got back in touch with the editorinchief of the of this publisher, and i said to him, look, ill make a deal with you. Ill write the book that you want but let me do it as an intellectual biography of lincoln, but of all the intellectual influences on lincoln, to treat lincoln not just as a political figure but lincoln in the ideas of the 19th century. Thats how he became president and having got my hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, i just really couldnt get it out, and up lincoln book became another lincoln book became another lincoln book and so on and so forth and youve already gone down the list and, no, ive never actually gotten back to writing that free will 2. 0. But i cant even from the way youre talking you think there are more elements to lincoln that deserve further study. He hasnt been exhausted . Oh, i think so. I think thats entirely true. Lincoln is an extremely complicated and complex individual, and people underestimate lincoln because they think that he is just the 16th president. Hes just the civil war president. Hes just a politician. Hes just a lawyer, and that misses what people in lincolns own time knew and said about him. Lincoln, first of all, was a very reticent shutmouthed man as one of his Legal Associates said of him. Another who practiced law with him on the eighth judicial circuit for many years said that anyone who took abe lincoln for a simpleminded man would wake up with his back in a ditch, and i think that may be one. Truest things ever said about lincoln. He was a man of very meager education but extraordinary intellectual curiosity. He would delve into anything. John hey, his secretary in his diary in 1863 recorded an incident in which hey said the t, that was his short hand for the tycoon, thats what he called tycoon. The t and i had a discussion about phonology for which the t has an unsuspected interest, and you think, phonology. Okay. Lets look that up really quick before anybody noticed. Its the study of languages. Lincoln had intellectual curiosities in so many different directions. He was not a philosopher. He was not what we would call an intellectual but he had curiosities that way and he liked to pursue them. He once said towards the end. His life in an interview that he did with the journalist noah brooks. Brooks had asked him what were the most influential books in your life, and lincolns reply was very peculiar. He said butlers analogy meaning Bishop Joseph butlers analogy of religion from 1735, singularly important text for natural religion in the 18th century, and John Stuart Mill on liberty which today still functions as a major text for people thing about free speech, about libertarian political philosophy, and then he added, and i always wanted to get at president edwards on the will, and i thought yes, go, go. So that spoke to you, the third of it did, but the thing is what this suggested is heres a man who does not simply say, i read the newspaper and do the crossword puzzle and read the funnies. Hes a man who has the ability to ask some very serious questions. Its the part of lincoln we miss because were so impressed with the folksy political backslapper, shrewd political wirepuller. Thats the lincoln were most familiar with. We dont often see the lincoln that his closest friends sometimes had a peek into, and that was in some ways a very different lincoln. How do you explain lincolns facility with language . I mean, can you talk about his other attributes. Youve talked about several of them, but his ability to deal with complicated issues and render them in very brief texts, in language that can soar or make a point with an effectiveness that almost no one else who has ever been in the white house anyway has been able to match. How do you get to the second inaugural from someone with lincolns background and lincolns education . Well, one thing John Stuart Mill i dont think knows how to do that. No. One thing that certainly shaped lincoln as a communicator was having to be a lawyer and in this case a trial lawyer. He spends virtually all of his professional life as a lawyer, trying courses in county courthouses all across the middle of the state of illinois. He enjoys being in the courtroom he enjoys being in front of a jury, but he also knows that these are juries that he has to persuade, and this is in an age when juries are significant for two things that we dont often pick up today. One is is that in these Little County courthouses a jury would often be summoned from bystanders at back of the room, so you could have almost anyone sitting in the jury box, and you had to be able to communicate with them and you had to be able to do it fast because if you werent able to make yourself clear and make a clear case of things, then you were not going to be a functioning profitable lawyer for very long, so he has to learn how a to communicate directly with people, and his partner of many years, william herndon, once said that that was lincolns real passion, how to make something Crystal Clear to people. He said that lincoln would tie himself up in knots in the office. He would just sit there, concentrating, concentrating, how to get an idea into a small compass of easily understood words, and he was so effective at it that certainly one occasion theres a story about lincoln even in just his Opening Statement in a case, the judge interrupting him and saying all right, brother lincoln, thank you, now we will hear from the other side. He had made the case so clearly that he wasnt even finished his Opening Statement before it seemed like he had won it. He had that wonderful capacity to open up an idea and put it in these wonderfullly clear terms, and i think a lot of that comes out of his experience as a trial lawyer, but it comes out of the maps logical bent. Mans logical bent. He put himself to the discipline of logical expression, and it was once said by someone in their autobiography who had listened to the Lincoln Douglass debates that if you listened to Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass for five minutes you would always take the side of stephen a. Douglass because douglass was always about passion, about shaking that huge mane of hair, about stamping his feet, but if you listened to them for half an hour, you would be taken by lincoln, because lincoln, even though he spoke in this high, reedy, somewhat nasal tone of voice, he always set things out like bait on a hook, and logically speaking once he got that hook in your mouth, all he needed to do afterwards was reel the thing in, and you were his. He would state the case in such a way that it was absolutely logically irresistible. He had that bent for logic, for lining things up right. He was not a man of passion or emotion. Herndon once said that his head ruled his heart tyranically. He was not a man of emotional appeal. He could be eloquent, eloquent in an extremely reasonable way. When you look at the second inaugural. Yes, it is eloquent in very logical ways. If we assume, if we understand, if god is like this, if we see this war as the payment. Drawing of blood through the sore to 250 years of labor and sword to pay for the bond mens unrequited 250 years of labor for for every drop of blood drawn by the lash. Thats etiquette but thats also elegance because at the end you cant resist because hes got you. Its logic, but its also a great its a daring move on his part. That is not what most of the people in that audience wanted to hear that day that they were as culpable as the rebels . And he knew that, too. How many people would be willing to do that . I mean, thats that is a remarkable speech on many levels. Thats one of the levels, to me, telling people exactly what they dont want to hear. They want to hear that there will be retribution. God was on our side and will chastise the rebels. They were wrong, we were right. They didnt say that at all. A great new york political operator wrote to lincoln afterwards to compliment him. And lincoln thanked him for the compliment and he wrote back to say i dont think people are eager to have heard what i had to say. The no one likes to be told that god has a controversy with them, but, lincoln said, it was something that i thought needed to be said, and i was the one who had to say it. Thats a remarkable speech on many levels. And if you put it alongside the emancipation proclamation you couldnt have i think a stronger contrast between this incredibly powerful language in the second inaugural and what some people have compared to the emancipation proclamation. But they are two different documents. Yes, ive heard that. And what i want you to do is youve written a book about the proclamation. The proclamation has been interpreted many different ways by scholars as essentially meaningless and not doing what it should do and in the end not having that great of impact. Originals saying its everything. What is your shorthand take on the importance and place of the emancipation proclamation in the much broader story of the process of emancipation. I think its single most profoundly president ial document ever written and i think its largely because you think its important . I would say so, at least moderately. The language of the emancipation proclamation disappoints people, no question. Thats why Richard Hofstadter made hits famous quip in 1948 about the emancipation proclamation having all of the moral grandeur of a bill of lading. Well, right off the bat that made my antenna eye quiver. A bill of lading is not an unimportant document if youre involved in commerce, but, all right, lets go with the flow. What is the emancipation proclamation . Is it a rhetorical Statement Like the gettysburg address . No. The gettysburg address is marvelous, beautiful prose, but you cant take it into a court of law and do anything with it, can you . When the trooper pulls you over on the interstate dont try reciting the gettysburg address. That person is only interested in the. The emancipation proclamation is a legal document. It has to be carefully honed and crafted so that it survives challenges in the court and lincoln knew this. President s after all are only president s and lincoln he didnt have, directly speaking, the authority to emancipate anybody. At least not under normal circumstances, the war changed circumstances, as commanders in chief he would have more powers. Thats explore that. During the time of war theres war powers. Is emancipation one of those war powers . We dont know. Lets find out. Who is going tonight arbiter . Well, the federal courts. If lincoln so to speak pops off and just simply jel yelling down pennsylvania avenue free the first thing thats going to happen is slave owners are going to flock to county courthouses and ask for injunctions. Whats more, theyre going to get them too. Then theres going to be appeals, and theyre going to go through the courts and theyre going to wind up with the United States Supreme Court. By the way, who is the chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1862 . Roger taney. If taney makes one slipup in craft considering an emancipation proclamation, that will be raw meat to roger b. Tony when it finally winds up on his desk so lincoln must craft an emancipation proclamation which is clearly based with on his war powers as commander in chief which treads very quickly carefully about who is free and who is not. This is why there are these exceptions, why the emancipation proclamation does not apply to slaves in kentucky, delaware, maryland, missouri. Why . Theyre not at war with the United States. Parts of virginia, louisiana. Any place where the United States army was in control. Exactly. Therefore the government was in control. Wherever the courts and military were back in control where a civil process existed, he is aware his war powers no longer are functioning, or at least, he cannot take a chance that if he makes an an assertion in those areas that might be the stick that he gets the beak and if tony gets the stick in his and he can disrupt the ole so whole process of emancipation pags for another political generation, maybe even longer. So lincoln has to be very careful in how he puts that proclamation. Because it has to stick, it has to work. Theres one time he allows one small element thats at the end when he says believing this to be not only a constitutional exercise of his commander in chief powers but an act of justice invoking the favor of almighty god. You know, then he proceeds to i, therefore, et cetera. Thats the only moment hell let himself do that. The rest of it, yes. Its as dry as a legal document can possibly be, and thats because its a legal document and it has work to do and whats more that work turns out to be extremely effective. There is a political dimension to this as well. Casting this as a military necessity is the only way that he could make it palatable to any democrats. Sure. It needs republicans and republicans to support the war sometimes people believe this was done as a medical necessity and then people conclude his heart wasnt in it, wasnt doing it as an act of justice. He was only doing it as a way to win the war. Its pure cynicism. No, its not. No, its not. He is once again being the lawyer par excellence, so the only slender thread by which he has the authority to lay a finger on slavery as president is by military necessity , by the war powers as commander in chief. Which is only useful if youre at. War. Exactly. Now someone might ask well, why doesnt he he just cut to the chase and the answer to that is 1862 do you really think you would have gotten a 13th amendment through congress. As it was, the 13th amendment only squeaks by in 1865 by a margin of two votes. The 13th amendment voted on in 1862 would have guaranteed slavery. Thats right. But then six states ratified it. In 1862 there was a amendment no more thans chance of a 13th amendment to abolish slavery than there was of grizzly bears dressing up in tuxedos. It didnt going to happen. The political environments doesnt change, not as fast as he hoped it would chain. Because in 189 because in 1864 idea is floated in congress, it fails then and its not until 1865 when lincoln is able to say in 1864, look, i think the people have been, time to get on about the program. Lets get this 13th amendment. Its only then that lincoln gets political with number of people in congress that it does get passed and only by the narrowest of margins. Even when he passes it in the last annual message to congress he says in a great war everyone has to agree on a goal, our goal is union, we need the 13th amendment to help achieve. Even then hes trying to bring in the greatest possible number of supporters. He needs all those votes, once he gets them he is able to say this is kings cure for the evil, because the 13th amendment obviates any attempt from the federal courts to turn back abolition. The emancipation proclamation he thought was constitutional but he had to admit he didnt know what would happen once the shooting stops. Cant guarantee that. He could guarantee amendment to the constitution and is what he gets in 1865 and is what the spielburg movie was all about. I hope we will be able to get to that. But now i want to move only. You picked lincoln. What about gettiesbu186gettysbu brought you to gettysburg as a topic . Why did mallory want to mt. Everest . Was there a book about gettysburg up there . I dont know. The one book he heard of but never found it . Because its there. Oh, okay. Why write another . Why add to this enormous corpus it was much of what is written about gettysburg is, shall we say, forgettable. Im not going to try to identify. One thing that is important about talking about gettysburg is the new military history. Beginning with john keegan, patty griffith, british writers who imported a good deal of what we might call social history into the writing of military history. In other words, paying attention in military history. Not to the kinds of things that have been done over and over and over again which is to say rectangles moving around on maps. Thats been done ad nauseam, thats true. What keegan and griffith and Richard Holmes and people that wanted to do is what is the experience of the battle . What is in the title of keegans book, the face of battle . What does that look like . Keegan did a marvelous job in the face of battle by taking three different battle scenarios separated by the centuries. Au jin corp. Water loo and sim. And in them he asked a whole different set of questions. Not what general command of this brigade to go and do that . Rather, it was what was the experience of being there . What did it sound like . What did it smell like . What did it feel like . How did people behave in those circumstances . How were they organized, disciplined, how did they respond to their ncos, to their commissioned officers . There were a galaxy of questions about the experience of battle which had never penetrated a lot of the American Military writing. And especially writing about civil war battles and gettysburg in particular. I wanted to take those kinds of insights and explore gettysburg with them. That in large measure is what the book is about what i really wanted to explore was things like the sounds of the battle. The weird harmonic made by bullets striking fixed bayonets. They were like tuning forks. Boing. Or the peculiar sound like broken china of bullets striking teeth. The weird sound made by the rose farm bell on the bell being repeatedly struck by bullets. From both sides. Ding, ding, ding. This in the middle of an environment where people are fighting for their lives. Those were the kinds of experiences of the soldiers on the ground that keegan had described. I greatly admired how they did their work. That is one thing. The second thing is the politics. In effect, what i wanted to write is a political history of the battle of gettysburg. Because this was a political war and the people who are involved in it took their politics into the war with them. When we think about politics and the war, we generally think almost exclusively about George Mcclellan and his spate with lincoln. But mcclellan is only one face in a crowd of politically motivated generals. Over and over again in the battle of gettysburg, people are making military decisions on what are really political motivations. And i wanted to explore that involvement of politics at intersection politics with what is ordinarily treated as a simply straight forward military story. The army is still mcclellans army. It is. In the summer of 63, his imprint on it, he created the culture in the army and the culture was powerful. You could plot the political identities and allegiance of the 7th infantry tour way to gettysburg along the spectrum, a spectrum that would run from the most ardently abolitionists howard . Howard, and the 1 he 1 11th core, no question. Also, also, you would get dan sickles in the third corps. Whatever else he lacked in terms of military acumen, he was a political general and the worst dream of George Mcclellan. He was a turncoat democrat. Because he was a war democrat and a ferocious supporter of lincoln calling for abolition. So whatever else dan sickles did wrong, he got that right. Thats one end, at the other end you have the second corps commanded by hancock who is one of the most ardent mcclellanitis, hard core democrat. And he comes in barely a second so sedgwick and the sixth corps and george in the fifth core. Somewhere in the middle you might have John Reynolds and the first corps. Reynolds is a pennsylvania democrat. But he has a number of abolitionists in division command. John cleveland robinson, abner double day. James wattsworth. So you plot the politics of the seven army corps and that tells you a good deal about the kinds of decisions that are being made on the battlefield. Do you see much difference between the army of potomac and the Northern Virginia in the degree which they were politicized . They are both highly politicized. The issues are different. In the army of Northern Virginia, the real questions swim around a, virginia and the dominance of virginians in high command in the army and, b, whether youre sufficiently or suspected of being sufficiently ardent about succession. This is why North Carolina units, for instance, always had a hard pull. In the army of Northern Virginia because they were widely suspected of being half hearts on the subject of succession. North carolina was the tail end of succession. 20th of may, 1861. A lot of people in the army of Northern Virginia strongly suspected that the north carolinians couldnt be trusted. Then theres the virginia problem. So many of the people populate in the upper echelons of command are virginians. And thats especially true in a. P. Hills corps and in richards corps. The odd men out are the people in longstreets corps. If you start with longstreet who is not a virginian and you go down the command list there, its one none virginian officer after another. Lots of georgians. Deep southern . Oh, yeah. Mississippians. Ardent fire eaters. Oh, yeah. Among the generals and colonels. But always feeling as though they are somehow second class confederates in this army dominated by virginians. They dont deal with that gracefully. Nor do the virginiaians, the virginians are not shy about letting other people feel they are somehow along for the ride and the real heavy lifting is being done by virginians. Did you find any real surprises in working on that book . Constantly. Constantly. Give us a couple examples. The story that most people are familiar with about the battle of gettysburg is the one that comes from ron maxwells movie, Joshua Lawrence chamberlain on little round top. Save the republic. Yeah. I think the western world. Lets stay with saving america. You talk to a lot to wilt chamber lan. Hes an academic, for god sake. Thats what my 12 step process is about. No. People are familiar with that both because of the movie and because of michaels wonderful novel. And ken loved chamberlain. He did. All honor to joshua jameis beret lan, he did the right thing in the right moment. What i thought was important to put attention on was how chamberlains story really gets replicated so often and in so many different places on july 2nd. In a sense chamberlain is only one example of how when the command structures of third corps and fifth corps are really going to pieces, junior officers, people who are a couple months out of clerking in their fathers law office, take charge of a situation somehow he i instinctively make all of the right calls and keep saving the day time and time and time again. Its no the just chamberlain on the south face of the little round top. Its Patty Orourke showing up at the last split second with 1 140th new york to push them back down the hill. Its william callville and the first minnesota. Its samuel sprig carol sprinting across cemetery hill. Or David Ireland in new york doing exactly what the 20th main did. Exactly. Only against far more rebels. But my favorite story is actually about the 19th main which was second corps unit and which hancock posted to cover one or two of the artillery batteries that were trying to cover the disintegration of the third corps. Out of the smoke and may lay and confusion that prevailed in the Late Afternoon and early evening, coming up out of that is Andrew Atkinson humphries, commander of one of the divisions. His division has gone to pieces. Its been ripped apart. And humphries hes a philadelphian. Hes a very talented engineer. But on this afternoon, he is out of his mind with panic, grief, and fear. He stalks up to the 19th main and he tells them to fix their bayonets and use them on his retreating division, the people from the soldiers, the unorganized mass that was fleeing all around them. Turn their weapons on these fleeing soldiers of his own division. And he is stalking right down the line and telling them, use them on these cowards. Behind humphries is the commander of the 19th main. Lieutenant colonel francis heath. Heath is exactly one of those people that just come from his fathers law office in portland, maine. He had not come to gettysburg to shoot down or to bayonet his own colleagues, his own fellow soldiers. He was walking behind humphries while he is raving like a mad man and saying, dont listen to him. Dont pay any attention to him. I think that was one of the bravest deeds on the field that day. Its a great story. It illuminates the difference between citizen soldiers which he was and Andrew Atkinson humphries who was a regular soldier and took a different view. Time is slipping by very quickly. I want to get to your current project. And then i have other things i want to get to as well. I want to make sure that we talk about lee a little bit. I dont know how long ago you chose lee as your subject. But events of the past several months have certainly cast lee in a different light in the minds of many people. Im just wondering, ill make it a two part question, why did you select lee as a topic and has you have changed your approach to him at all in terms of what you think you need to do in light of recent events . Not just here in charlottesville. But many other places as well. I came to the lee project because of a vision that i had. It was in the middle of the night and general lee came to me and said, not enough has been written about me. And too much about lincoln. You must atone. Actually, too much about la. Youre from philadelphia. Thats right. And your story about which regiment you selected. Thats right. Yeah, were talking about this over dinner. On facebook a friend had posed a question. If you could be the member of a civil war regiment which one would you choose and a lot of people who responded said things like id be part of the 26th northwest california or the 24th michigan or the 20th maine. And i responded and put down 45th United States colored troops. Because im a yankee from yankee land. And it sometimes baffles me to try to understand what the other side of this great controversy was fighting for and what it was doing and especially robert e. Lee who had been a serving officer of the United States army for all of his career, had distinguished himself in the war in mexico, had been superintendent of west point, was handled a colonels commission in 1861 to take command of the first cavalry and resigned and went and became of course general robert e. Lee and eventually the federal chief of the confederacy. And my father was a career army officer, ive taken the oath three generations of my family have taken the oath, same oath that lee took. And what really puzzled me, the burr under my saddle is how do i understand this, how do you write the biography of someone who commits treason . And im conscience of the fact sitting here in charlottesville thats not an easy thing to say. He was never convicted in he was indicted but never convicted in a court of law, i know that. And yet de facto he raised his hand against the flag my family has always served, and which i as a citizen expect to be protected by. How do i understand how he made that decision and then did the things that he did . I could very easily simply dismiss him as a monster, and there have been some there have been some traitors in the past who really have been. Some scoundrels like erin burr, grandson of Jonathan Edwards. Yes, were back to john edwards, but what i knew of lee lee was definitely not erin burr hes not anything like that. And his idol is george washington. Yes. How do you parse how do you understand what lee did in hez life, what he did in his career and then what he did at the very end of his service as a general and in the 5 years remaining to him when he was the president of Washington College . Thats that is not an easy portrait to assemble. The different pieces of that mosaic dont fit into an easily comprehensible puzzle. Because on the one hand i cannot get around and i dont think anyone honestly can get around the fact that lee consciously made the decision to fight against his country. Now, there are reasons you can line out and lee lined them out in spacious detail. Still doesnt get away from the fundamental fact he actually became more of an ardent confederate nationalist during t after the war. He was pretty ardent during the war. And yet here is someone also all through the war is telling people he does not really see how the confederacy is going to win the war. What he said to William Nelson pendleton, i knew it was all going to come to this. This is not an easy person to get into an algorithm either to make him into a saint or to make him into a demon. He doesnt yield easily to either of those. Because on the one hand, yes, he does something i at the very bottom of my babolitionist souli find deeply reprehensible yet at the same time i also know what he did was to save the country from a nightmare infninantly more unspeakable. All lee had to say was one word. All he had to say was yes and all the other forces would have followed suit. And if we think that during reconstruction the ku klux klan and the red shirts, and if we think they were a problem they would have been a sunday School Picnic compared to what would have happened if the confederate armies had taken to the mountains the same way john brown and we could still be fighting it. Look what happened in missouri. Look what happened in tennessee during the war. It was the war of all against all. Missouri had descended into a nightmare. From lee saying that one word. Because lee was easily the most important person in the confederacy and had been for a long time. He was the confederacy. Some people dont agree with that. Oh, but its true. Henry wise sat there and said you are the confederacy to everybody. And henry wise wasnt right a woel lot but even a broken clock was right two times a day. All that lee would have done is hitailed it and wed be living with a nightmare that could have extended as far as the most reprehensible racial genocide. Look at yugoslavia, look at the serbs, and they were talking about controversies, battles, massacres over 400 years. David reef ipa wonderful little book of called in praise of forgetting he talked about his experience as a journalist in the midst of the yugoslav upheavals in the 90s and someone pressed a folded piece of paper into his hand and afterwards he looked at it. It had one thing written on it, 1453. In other words, the day when islam conquered constantinopole. The only thing that stood between that and living today as we do is the one word, am i exaggerating . No, i dont think i am. That one word lee could have spoken. Youre asking and answering your own question so im just going to sit here. I think you might be exaggerating just a little bit. Im a pessimist it would have been hard to pursue that kind of warfare if just said no were not going to do that and he did say no. Lets put it this way. Lets say maybe it wouldnt have been that bad, should we take a chance . No. I think your giving lee credit for that, you should give him credit for that. Is this going to be a full biography . Are you going to take him through all his campaigns and through mexico his whole prewar career everything and presidency of Washington College . Which i think are the five happiest years of his life. I think when when he goes to lexington first of all, he leaves behind all of virginia he had wasnt known and really now for him is dead. And he goes to the valley where the social is more Stonewall Jackson than robert e. Lee. But there for the first time in his life hes got a free hand to do what he wants to do. Its not like being superintendent of west point where the chief of the corps of engineers was always looking over his shoulder. Hes free to be the kindn  the numbers are extraordinary. Churches founded by the four principle denominations, protestant denominations grew at a rate approximately 300 times greater than the increase of the american population. The influence of American Religion at every level of Popular Culture and a lead culture is extraordinary. Go from college to college in the 1840s and 1850s and there are almost all being run by clergymen, staffed by clergy as professors, and what theyre teaching is a religionized version of natural law and natural rights. It is the matrix in which americans of the civil war era find their bearings and then their relationships to each other. When you read the enormous volume of soldier letters, soldier diaries you are simply overwhelmed to the degree in which religion was the infliction. But many soldier studies they have chapters on many other parts of soldiers lives and attitudes because theyre looking for what they think is the really exciting stuff, and that is cholera, the bedbugs, bullets and theyre passing by the religion as though they did want hear it. What thats a deliberate choice. I think its a mistake. Now Something Else that has to be seen here, though, is not just the context religion poses for the war. What does the war do to religion . That is yet again an important story because i think that the civil war has an extremely negative impact on that religious culture. I think that people who go through the war have a lot of the assumptions that religion had equipped them with ripped out of their hands, a sense of the regularity of the universe, a sense of its predictability. James garfield once made a comment to William Dean Howells that after his first sight of the battlefield, a sight of men killed by other men garfield said that something went out of him and never came back again, some sense of the sanctity of life and its divine origins. And garfield was a man who had been raised in the disciples. Because what the war was about was not about predictability, about an orderly and regular universe for presided by an allpowerful and wise being. It seemed to be about contingency, chance, luck, unpredictability and americans were often not prepared to deal with those things. They come out of the war not only physically and psychologically malled by it but culturally malled because the assumptions religion had equipped them with are among the casualties of battle. We have a list of questions here that have come in from all of you, and im going to begin with one that is on point with your discussion of lee and treason. Lee often said that going to virginia was the only decision he could have made and in his biography had a chapter within that title. About 30 of the virginians who were in the United States army in 1861 remained in the United States army, but this question says compare George Thomas who remained loyal to the United States to pary lee in 1861. Why did lee resign his commission and thomas stay in the army . I dont know how much you know about George Thomas but take George Thomas was actually strongly tempted to go for the confederacy. He almost did. His whole family did, and they wrote him out of the family. One thing that held him back was the fact he had a northern born wife, so that was one restraint. But another restraint for him was simply the oath. At the end of the day he could not bring himself to go back on the oath that he believed he had sworn and which he believed as lincoln said was registered in heaven. So thomas stays with the union, but it was not an easy decision for him to make. Why does lee make a different decision . Well, lee justifies it in terms of virginia. Ive never been entirely satisfied with that as an answer if only because lee spent so little time of his life in virginia. In most of lees career its spent in other places. Its spent in georgia. Its spent in new york. Its spent in texas, st. Louis. He actually spends a fairly amount of his life in virginia. Even growing up in alexandria, well the years he grew up in alexandria, it was not part of virginia, it was part of the district of columbia and people were being conscience pretty deep roots. No question, but look at the kind of roots. Look alt his father. Theres real roots that will bind you to virginia. Heres someone who you cant leave the state if youre in debtors prison. But hes a federalist malled within an inch of his life. Hes in a state where the jefr sewngens are only too happy to keep him in Political Office once he leaves governorship. Harry acquires an extreme amount of unpopularity having gone thats a political mistake that virginii virginiian jeffersonians never forgive him for. I think it actually comes down to something more concrete. At this point this is still a theory. But my theory is this. Lee does not own arlington. Both of lees he doesnt own much of anything. In his whole life he doesnt own a house the arlington property along the other properties, these all come from his inlaws. And they actually go to his oldest son by old man custis as well. They actually go to his oldest son. And Mary Custis Lee has a Life Interest in arlington but thats it. Lee himself doesnt actually have any property in arlington. He doesnt own anything, but he does have to be worried about what is going to happen to the arlington property. Now, imagine these scenarios. Lets suppose that virginia secedes from the union, but he decides to stay with the United States army. What will happen to arlington . He has to worry that its going to be confiscated. All right, lets suppose that he decides to go with virginia and there is secession. Maybe there wont be a war. In fact, Winfield Scott has been busy assuring people this is not going to be a war, that theres going to be an unpleasantness for four or five months, and then there may be some kind of reconciliation, or at worst what there will be is three or four different confederacies, but there wont be a war. And this is what scott has been saying to people. And when scott says something thats gospel for robert e. Lee. So lee has to think, all right, if i go with virginia then there wont be a war and i will be able to secure the arlington property for my children, and that can be passed on. I think he has a very concrete idea of what is at stake, and a lot of it is bound up with what is going to happen to those properties and how he can secure them. So he makes the decision that is in very large measure conditioned by what is the future of his family going to be. Hes thinking of his family here. Hes not thinking of himself because hes not going to profit from this. When he talks about i cant raise my hand against my family hes not talking metaphorically. Its not a piece of rhetoric. I think hes really got something very material in view. How can i keep from having happen to my family what happened to my father and stratford . All right, were going to continue with our treason theme. This is if Jefferson Davis treason trial had been pressed by the north or by the United States you think it would have been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. As most of you yefrson davis spent about two years in federal custody after the war and the United States considered putting him on trial. He want today be put on trial. He thought he would be vindicated. He had a very good lawyer, an irishman from new york city who had other thoughts how to handle this, and in the end the United States government did not bring him to trial. So lets assume and didnt bring him to trial because they werent sure they would get a conviction because he would have to be try frd the crime that took place in richmond. And they somehow had the idea it might be possible one juror out of 12 in richmond might not vote to convict Jefferson Davis. So the question is how do you think this would have been settled had it worked its way through the courts . Because as we all know neither says you may or may not secede. The big difficulty here lies in the fact that all of this has occurred before the 14th amendment. Every bit of it. The 14th amendment is what cleary categorically, unambiguously defines as american citizenship and the priority of american citizenship. Put that along with texas vs. White, which just as clearly and unambiguously denies a right to secession, and you really have a strong case against anyone for instance in california or texas today who wants to have day dreams about secession. But that was after the civil war. And we dont have ex post facto convections in american law, so it was entirely possible for davis and in fact lee makes exactly this argument that under the laws and under the constitution as they existed in 1861 his citizenship as a virginian took priority over citizenship in the United States. And therefore, this is what he says in front of the joint committee on reconstruction in 1866. Hes very clear in saying i was doing constitutionally what i was supposed to do and that is to regard my state citizenship as having the priority. It would have been extremely difficult for a federal court to look at that either in the case of davis or lee and to say, oh, no, no, were going to hold you to account, you should have known better. All the jurisprudence had gone the other way. Baron vs. Baltimore, everything that had happened in terms of jurisprudence game some color to the argument. On the face of it its a little difficulty but still the technicalities were there. Would a jury, even a jury in philadelphia, would a jury have convicted lee or davis . I dont think that could have been predicted very clearly. Another complication when lee is indicted for treason is that the federal courts may not cooperate. And the federal courts in this case meaning the chief justice salmon chase. The District Courts and circuit courts that included virginia were traditionally part of the chief justices circuit. That means chase had jurisdiction as a circuit judge over virginia. Chase deeply objected to the existence of military tribunals and military arrests. He had made that clear and would make it clear in im sorry, exparte millgon. Chase makeatize clear to General Johnson he will not participate in trials in virginia where there are military tribunals still functioning because he regards those as an unconstitutional challenge to the authority of the federal courts. So youve got first of all a constitutional slash legal question in the way and second ely a procedural question being posed by the chief justice of the United States. Could any of this have happened . The odds start to get very, very long. I think thats what the potential prosecutors concluded as well. Well continue where this is a seamless transition. States being supreme in some ways the way people viewed the situation. The question here is we associate state rights with the south, did northerners care about state rights or state allegiance . Thats a slow ball down the middle. Did you ever hear of the short answer is yes. They had invoked them with personal liberty laws in the 1850s and in many other ways. State rights becomes a wax nose that people north and south regularly invoke and then ignore as the situation demanded. When it came to owning slaves suddenly you heard a lot about states rights. When it came to recapturing fugitive slaves who had escaped to the north suddenly you heard about the importance of the federal government and centralized authority and states rights be damned. Reverse the scenario and you have as in ableman vs. Booth, perm liberty laws are invoked to protect a fugitive slave. In nine northern states. Exactly. The wisconsin courts plead state rights, which then puts the federal government in the unusual position of being the chief enforcer of states rights. So it really did depend. You even see this during the war itself. Im saying to one of your graduates students who was working on war governors earlier today that when you look at lincolns relations with the northern war governors they are much more culiegial, much more cooperative, lets talk this over and formulate policy jointly, and Jefferson Davis is very top down. For davis it was i will decide the policies, governors for Southern States are not much more than ciphers and i expect cooperation. If you wanted to give the palm for states rights respect to either lincoln or davis you would really have no option but to give it to Abraham Lincoln. No one of those two, neither of those two had greater functional respect for the rights of the states than Abraham Lincoln whereas by contrast Jefferson Davis is the great centralizer, the Great Authority figure at a National Capitol imposing his will on state governments. The confederate Central Government is the most powerful and intrusive Central Government in American History until deep into the 20th century on the u. S. Side, something this allegedly state right society did things, put up with things that would have been incomprehensible. So it really does depend on the issue and depend on who would like to reach for the states rights arguments first. And lincoln could not have waged the war without respect of he needed the governors, needed the states. He leaned on them, depended on them and they functioned with Great Authority during the war. We have about 3 minutes left. Im trying to find a question here we can answer in 3 minutes, which is not our very strongest suit. Here, well, this one lets just have a brief answer. You say one or two things and i will, too. Is there any civil war subject that has been exhausted, or is there always room to Say Something more . I dont think that anyone should be writing anymore books about gettysburg, the emancipation proclamation, the lincoln, douglas i dont think there is. The subject itself involves so Many Americans at one flash point in our history, just 4 years worth. When you look at civil wars that have been waged in other countries they go on for years and years, decades and decades. Theyre spread out like the delta of a river. For us the civil war is actually a comparatively short war in terms of the context of civil war. It is like a flashbulb going off, and it touches so many people so quickly, so violently and in ways that are recorded in such depth and in such detail that i such great issues at stake. And with such great issues. I dont really see a bottom in the barrel here. I think anyone who wants to write about the civil war, yes even if you want to write about the battle of gettysburg, you have got plenty of untouched material ahead of you, and you have plenty of opportunities and ple plenty of new things to say. I think that the ammunition in that drum is going to be a long time before it starts to click on empty. And i think i will let that be the last word. Thank you all very much for coming this afternoon. [ applause ] youre watching American History tv. 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan 3. Follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. American history tv is on cspan 3 every weekend featuring museum tours, archival films and programs on the presidency, the civil war and more. Heres a clip from a recent program. Today there are no distances. Today the airplane links continents as trains link cities. Today the peoples of the world are one people joined by wings over the globe. Today people of all races of every level move from country to country in a matter of hours. Today vital medical control is established around the modern points of international exchange. The airports, the network of Health Information and services has been extended here from the seaport organization, but is this sufficient . How long does it take before a potential epidemic can be detected . From one continent to another only a few hours flying time. But cholera takes longer to show itself, and yellow fever 3 to 6 days. The incubation period of smallpox from 7 to 16 days. Passengers in a modern plane look perfectly healthy. They are, but how do we know . That little girl when she got the doll did she receive germs as well . Some passengers may be germ carriers. Perhaps already in the incubation stage. Theyll reach their destination before any symptoms show. The Quarantine Service cant keep every plane and passenger grounded for several days to affect thorough medical control. Today that system of defense is no longer enough. Today epidemics must be crushed at the very source. You can watch this and other American History programs on our website where all of our video is archived. Thats cspan. Org history. University of kansas professor beth bailee discusses how issues of race affected the u. S. Military and the selfperception of being colorblind during the vietnam war. She focuses how africanamericans were viewed by white soldiers how they protested this treatment. This video is courtesy of the National Museum and war memorial in kansas city, missouri. Thank you so much, camille. And thank you all for being here tonight. Its a real pleasure to be able to speak to you at the world war