York times the Weekly Standard and others. During his time in the white house Jonathan Horn served as a speechwriter and special assistant to president george bush, Yale University and we welcome him. [applause] thank you sell much for that love the introduction. As mentioned i used to work as a president ial speechright ear before i started writing this book so you can imagine my shock when i learned the subject of my new book didnt much care for my old occupation. Robert e. Lee was so offended when he heard that George Washington might have used a ghost writer to pen his famous farewell address that he refused to believe it. He said anyone who said George Washington used a ghost writer was injudicious so in writing this biography, i should care less about my own biography. I am so pleased to be at this Beautiful House and so grateful to the Historical Society for inviting me today. I had a chance to see the Historical Society earlier today and it is such a wonderful facility and i am so happy to see it is expanding a great thing for people who do what i do because we are so reliant on the great work that our archivists and other preservationists do to preserve American History so thank you for your great work. It is a pleasure to be here in louisville. Robert e. Lee came through louisville in 1837. Louisville made quite an impression on him. It wasnt so much what he sought here as who he met. Two ladies and these werent just any ladies. They were decidedly is the most beautiful interesting young ladies. Robert e. Lee told his wife every detail about the escorted those women to their destinations diligently. What took lee to louisville was an assignment from the u. S. Army corps of engineers which was lees employer. They sent into the Mississippi River to do some work. I mention that tonight because it is a different rivers that originally brought me to robert e. Lees story. I confess that on the surface ice seemed like an unlikely person to write a biography about robert e. Lee. I grew up in the suburbs of washington d. C. And spent most of my adult life working in that city and around those parts when you tell people you are planning to write a civil war biography they assume you will write about a union general, not a confederate general and certainly dont expect it you will write about that confederate general. For a long time i avoided explaining myself. I did what you expect someone from washington to do when confronted with a tough question. I ducked it. No more. I want to explain myself. It was what you would least expect. Simple geography. Simply put, robert e. Lee and i grew up along the same river, the potomac. That sounds uprising for two reasons. When we think of the Potomac River i think especially out here in kentucky probably imagine a polluted stream of political corruption. Sometimes that is true. You dont imagine a river of American History. Second when you think of robert e. Lee attend to imagine him personifying an old south it seems light years away from the cosmopolitan capital we know today. But the truth is far different. Reminders of lee are all around the city of washington. That was fortunate for me because one of those reminders was the majority of his papers are in driving distance of washington. I was able to go to the archives and see the letters lee himself wrote to. When writing a biography, requires more and looking at old letters. Also requires getting out and seeing the places where history actually happened and robert e. Lees history took place all around where i live to. During the course of my research on this book i traveled the full length of the Potomac River from its source to its mouth. For those not familiar with the potomac it starts in West Virginia at the Fairfax Stone flows down through the Appalachian Mountains past the city of washington and empties into the Chesapeake Bay. I really did drive my wife along the potomac. So all the things you need to write a biography and understanding a spouse. If you ever take this journey that i just described you will learn some things. You learn that the potomac is much more than a stream of political corruption though it sometimes is. You learn that robert e. Lee at history and blows up and down this river and the most unexpected way said. His history intersect with the father of our countrys history, George Washingtons history. Start way down river westmoreland county, va. At new the Chesapeake Bay where robert e. Lee grew up, was born on a great plantation called stratford hall. Stratford hall was built by robert e. Lees great great uncle thomas lee. He has a distinction no other american has. He thought that two signers of the declaration of independence. In the great house thomas lee built at stratford, symbol of the great wealth that the lee family accumulated. The short drive away westmoreland county, you find where George Washington was born. By the time robert e. Lee was born in 1807 George Washington was long dead but the lee and washington names had been fused together because of robert e. Lees father, henry like force harry lee. White horse harry lee was one of George Washingtons most trusted gallery commanders during the revolutionary war and that is how he got his nickname light horse harry b. But what makes the most famous is what he did after the war. He wrote a eulogy for his old commander. He is the one who wrote the worlds first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of countrymen. That was of course the words we remember George Washington by today and in robert e. Lees time everybody knew his father had written those words. He couldnt quite copy George Washingtons example. She couldnt imitate what he knew was George Washingtons greatest virtue and what was that virgin . Self control and self command. After the revolutionary war, harry lee entered a cycle of tragedy. Ecb that almost all his land, money on land, he lost so badly he ended up in a debtors prison eventually had to go into exile in the caribbean, left his family in the war of 1812 never saw his son robert ever again. Robert e. Lee didnt grow up on a big plantation because of these financial problems. If you want to find where robert e. Lee grew up you have to head of the Potomac River to alexandria where lee lived in modern houses belonging to friends and relatives who took pity on his mother. Today we know alexandria as alexandria virginia but back then, it was the District Of Columbia. The reason for that is George Washington in the District Of Columbia, stuck alexandria into the bottom quarter. If you look at the map of d. C. Today and take the small strip of land in alexandria in virginia you will see it forms a perfect diamond shaped square, George Washingtons original intent from the District Of Columbia including land from maryland and virginia. The town closest to George Washingtons mount vernon plantation alexandria considered itself George Washingtons home town. Young robert didnt have to look far to see reminders of George Washington. Robber e leak worship that the robert e. Lee worship at the church where George Washington and indeed you, attended school at the exam Alexandria Academy which George Washington in doubt. And ran errands for his mother at the marketplace for George Washington had troops during the french and indian war. With the description of robert e. Lees child describing him as almost anything but a boy, as a nurse heading to his mother who was always sick. They describe him as a housekeeper running errands for his family. No one understood what dragged down harry lee better than his wife and she made sure that tragedy did not repeat itself to robert e. Lee. She talked young that robert to put duty before desire. She taught him how to control himself. For the rest of robert e. Lees wife he had an almost compulsive regard for him. That he could never have his own way. As much as robert e. Lee might want for material things he would not lack the virtue that separated harry lee from George Washington. Robert e. Lee knew how to deny himself. What most connects robert e. Lee to George Washington happened up river from arlington, the pillared mansion. If you see Arlington Heights to data across the Potomac River on the lincoln memorial. In june 30th, 1831 robert e. Be married daughter of George Washingtons adopted son. We know our lincoln has a cemetery. It was a memorial to George Washington because George Washingtons adopted son, had built that house and filled it with relics of mount vernon. If you had gone to arlington in the Nineteenth Century you would have seen china furniture portraits in mount vernon. We you would even see the bed where George Washington died and it was left in the same conditions that George Washington liked it. People from all across the country came to our lincoln to see the moment shows as a far lincoln was the museum. There was Something Else at arlington. A sadder legacy for mount vernon. There were slaves who descended from mount vernon. How was that possible . Didnt George Washington famously free his slaves in his will . He did free his own slaves but what he couldnt do much as he wanted to do, he couldnt free his wifes waves and some of those slaves became the property of George Washingtons adopted son. Lee himself thought that slavery was an evil institution. You shouldnt make the mistake he was an abolitionist which was not an abolitionist. He did pray god would end slavery but he thought it was worse for whites ban slaves themselves which is an attitude that is hard for us to understand but he wanted nothing to do with his institution. He tried his hardest to avoid it as much as possible. What ultimately in tables him in the institution of slavery is his fatherinlaw died in 1857 and he leaves a will naming robert e. Lee as executor of state that includes slaves who are descended from mount vernon. On the eve of the civil war robert e. Lee is managing states that include slaves the George Washington had wanted to but could not free. It was the unresolved question of slavery, the personal legacy robert e. Lee received from George Washington. To see the unresolved question of slavery began turning to violence, 50 miles upriver from arlington, 60 miles up the Potomac River to a little town called Harpers Ferry. George washington decided to put an armory in Harpers Ferry. His advisers thought this was a terrible idea. You can see why immediately. It is surrounded by three busts in the blue ridge mountains. George washington thought that would make it easy to defend. It made it completely indefensible. In 1859 group of abolitionists led by john brown crossed the Potomac River seized the armory and took a number of hostages and one of those hostages was a man named Louis Washington who was George Washingtons great grandnephew. He took Something Else from Louis Washingtons house not him personally his accomplices did. That was a sort of that once belonged to George Washington. For the entire time john brown controls Harpers Ferry he is carrying a sword that belongs to George Washington. Who is sent to take back carters ferry to reassert federal control . Robert e. Lee, Lieutenant Colonel robert e. Lee. Lieutenantcolonel robert e. Lee goes to Harpers Ferry and already knows as one of the finest soldiers, year and that reputation war in mexico. He proved to be a brilliant soldier. He had a unique understanding of the biography. He could see things other people could not see. He quipped himself quite well at Harpers Ferry. He performs well puts down the insurrection, reasserts federal control and what becomes known as john browns raid to impressive military resume it also does Something Else. It heralds the coming of the american civil war. I want to take you to one final place on the potomac trip upriver from Harpers Ferry. Is a quiet National Park today where you will find a cornfield a sunken road and a stone bridge over a creek called antietam. On september 17th, 1862, robert e. Lee, allemande and outgunned army of Northern Virginia fought the union army of the potomac which was much larger, to a stalemate in the bloodiest single day of combat in American History. The battle of antietam mark the end of robert e. Lees first invasion across the potomac and gave Abraham Lincoln who was president the opportunity to issue the preliminary emancipation proclamation which in turn would allow Abraham Lincoln to get a new birth of freedom to the union George Washington had forged. Anyone who takes the journey i just described must wrestle with an unavoidable question. How did an army officer so and associated with George Washingtons legacy go to work against what we today consider George Washingtons greatest legacy, the union . It was this questions that ultimately drew me to robert e. Lees story. It is the knowledge that history could have turned out so much differently. On the eve of the civil war, leaders on both sides of the potomac, in richmond and washington saw lees services for high command. Both knew about his connections to George Washington. That was Common Knowledge and both saw tremendous significance in them. They also knew that Winfield Scott who at the time was the ranking general in the u. S. Army thought that lee was the best soldier he had ever seen in the field and robert e. Lee looked like a fine soldier. He stood under 6 feet tall, had powerful broad shoulders barrel chest, perfect posture. Everybody who saw him said some version of the same thing. That man looks every inch the soldier. The people of 1861, an emissary for Abraham Lincoln asks robert e. Lee to ride across from arlington and come to the city of washington. That emissarys name is Frances Blair and he makes an extraordinary offer to robert e. Lee, will you lead the main union army to crush secession . As Scowcroft Vix 16 remembered the story blair tried in every way to convince robert e. Lee to say yes. He said the country looks to you, quote, as the representative of the washington family to save the union George Washington forged and that is not an exaggeration because year after all was the son of George Washingtons most famous eulogists and son in law to washingtons adopted child. So now only one word separated robert e. Lee from the pinnacle of his profession to command of the largest American Army ever raised, from glory perhaps that no american since George Washington had no. And what did he say . He said he opposed secession and he did oppose secession. He thought secession was illegal. He thought George Washington would have opposed secession. That was no given at the time. People on both sides of this conflict claimed George Washington for their own. Secessionists said George Washington was a rebel who rebelled against a union with the british. On the other side unionists would say George Washington in his farewell address said to prize the union above any sectional allegiance. Robert e. Lee is reading a biography of George Washington in the months before the civil war and during these arguments and he concludes he agrees with the unionist position. He believes George Washington would have opposed secession. What else does he say to Francis Blair . That he would gladly wash his hands of slavery. He would gladly get rid of all slavery if it could of wood work but then he says how can i raise my sword against my native state . Blair Family Tradition says lee hesitated as if searching for an answer but he gave the answer at once, no. Turned down the command. He did not yet turn in his commission in the army had served for three decades. He returned to our lincoln, learned virginia in fact had voted to secede from the union and on april 20th wrote a letter resigning from the army and his wife called the decision to resign the severest struggle of his life. Three days after sending the resignation letter, lee is welcome in richmond as the new commanderinchief of regions armed forces and the Convention President that Secession Convention says basically that robert e. Lee hopes what was once said of George Washington will be set of robbery be, first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of country, the very words carry be used to describe George Washington. We face this tragic tension. He didnt have a choice. Wasnt so much that he made the right choice, but he made the only choice. It was very much like saying he could never have his own way. He decided to have vas way. At the same time, virginians made different decisions. Winfield scott decided to stay with the union. When robert e. Lee came to Winfield Scott and told him he turned down command of the union army, Winfield Scott said you made the greatest mistake of your life but i feared it would be so. The decision robert e. Lee made cost him terribly. One of the first things that happened after robert e. Lee decides to fight for va is Union Soldiers cross the bridge from washington. If you have ever been to washington you know why they did this. If the confederacy managed a fortified those heights overlooking the city of washington. You could have destroyed washington and been barred at the white house. As casualties amount in this war Union Authorities decide to turn arlington, the estate of robert e. Lee and George Washingtons adopted son into the cemetery. That is just the beginning. As you read how this decision, is this shockingly personal the price lee paid. My wife will tell you the reason i became so fascinated by this decision is how irreversible it was. I have a different life because i can write something i can research and change in a million times. That is what writers do. Lee never had that luxury. There was no going back. We talked so often about social movement and trends history is not inevitable. History can turn on the decision of a single individual in such an example. This decision change the course of American History. Ask yourself how did it change the course of American History . Imagine the counterfactual. What would have happened had he accepted command . If the soldier most associated with George Washington had saved the union George Washington created. What would he think of the country . How would that change the outlook . No better place to ponder that question than arlington. If you go past the grave and died defending the union and go to Arlington Heights which robert e. Lees fatherinlaw billed as a memorial to George Washington but is now a monument to robert e. Lee at the National Robert e. Lee memorial it used tear across the Potomac River at the city of washington you will see the Washington Monument rising in the distance. Before the Washington Monument is the lincoln memorial. That is a powerful symbol for the country because for all of robert e. Lees connections to George Washington he is no longer the american we most closely associate with George Washington. That belongs to a son of kentucky born without a single connection to George Washington. That honor belongs to Abraham Lincoln. Herman melville once wrote who looks at lee must think of washington. Hiding the fought with deepest meaning. I think we have had for too long. I hope you will be about it and i hope you will come to washington i am thankful to you all for coming and i will be happy to answer your questions. Thank you. [applause] there is a story after the war in a church, a black man comes forward, you know the story. Myself i dont believe it but i would like utah comment on it because it is told in several ways as very factual. The story is robert e. Lee is in that church, theres a black man praying and no one knows what to do because robert e. Lee goes up and kneels beside him. That is a story that has been told by many people. The truth is we dont know. Was told many years after the event. Is difficult to evaluate the accuracy of the story. I had seen a recent article of people debating it. I can answer the question. Is there some evidence Something Like that happened . What robert e. Lees motive for doing it, that is something we cant answer. Is possible when he was actually thinking was simply that he didnt like people feeling awkward and thought the best way to put the event behind him was to go on with his business and set an example for everybody else did they should go on with their business. We dont know. Is a great story. I cant say it is not true and i cant say it is true. It is on the front lines of history. Yes . What happened to lee after the war . He spent some time there. That was one summer a few years after the war was over, others were there as well. He end did the the the up signing the green doctrine. Let me ask you a little bit about what lee talked about after the war. After the war he leaves appomattox, goes back to richmond and has a vision that he will get a bottom land and farm if the Union Authorities allow him to do that. The most unexpected things happen. You have been elected president of washington college. Washington college actually had a real connection to George Washington. It had been doubt in its history by George Washington. The college had been destroyed during the civil war. Soldiers had run all over the campus, smashed the facilities and it was in very bad shape. Most people thought this was beneath robert e. B. And he takes different attitude. He says for four years i have met the young man of the south in war. Hes asked all kinds of questions, and they really want him to speak for virginia and he really doesnt want to do that at this point but he does answer questions. And he says i dont even read newspapers anymore which isnt completely true because he still has a very Firm Understanding of whats happening in the country. So he is slightly pulling a fast one. And he does, in his private correspondence actually remain extremely engaged in politics. Hes very opposed to what he sees as the radical republicans and what theyre doing to the country. And he actually, i told you before the war he thought secession was illegal. But after the war he actually changes his views, and you may have heard about some of these letters that he writes. He actually says maybe secession wasnt illegal, and he thinks maybe the Founding Fathers had always permitted secession. So i think its understandable why he might have changed his views, of course, because hes just been through this horrific war, hes led thousands of men into battle, and at some point he just absorbed the southern argument for secession. So lee does also do one other important thing and ill mention this right now is just because he thinks now that secession might not have been illegal, he tells people this matter is forever settled. He tells them to raise their chirp as americans, to put their children as americans, to put the civil war behind and go be productive citizens. We. Did you find any evidence of where his antislavery feelings came from . I mean, did he read like,. [inaudible] people like that . Where did that come from . So thats a great question. Actually robert e. Lee married into a family, his motherinlaw was very religious, and she took the attitude she basically was one of the leading members of the American Colonization Society. And she thought it was, basically, a religious duty to prepare slaves to find freedom in african colonies. And this was a very Important Mission to robert e. Lees motherinlaw and then to his wife. Robert e. Lee wasnt so active, necessarily, in the American Colonization Society but, actually, his fatherinlaw became somewhat active as well and when he died he actually left a will, as i mentioned. But the will had Something Else in it, it said you must raise enough money to pay off my debts and my legacy but you must emancipate my slaves within five years. Now, these are completely impossible goals to reconcile. Because he cant pay off the debts and legacies the estate to eau owes owes if hes emancipating the work force that he needs to raise the money. And this whole conflict actually plays out in the National Media before the civil war because theres a Great National interest in what happens to these slaves because people know that robert e. Lees fatherinlaw was George Washingtons adopted son. Robert e. Lee actually really struggles with this. We can get into that more later, but he actually at some point says his fatherinlaw has left him a terrible legacy. Yes. He has great affection for virginia obviously, because he is a native virginian but theres so much in his life that must have drawn him to have great affection for the nation. West point, the United States army. He didnt just live in virginia, he lived all over the country. What tipped the scales in your opinion . Well, i think what tipped the scales and youre absolutely right. He constantly talks about how he, how much he loves the union and his devotion to the union. But he says that hes been taught from his very first day that his fist allegiance first asleep januaries is to allegiance is to virginia. Even in that time there were people who were surprised, they said it just seems strange to us that someone so associated to George Washington is ignoring the message of his farewell address. But lee always felt he had a duty the virginia, and he was determined to full pill that duty. So in some sense, he is in a nowin situation because hes either going to betray his country, or hes going to go to war against his home state and that, of course, would be very difficult to do too. Its not to say other virginians didnt make that choice they did. Its just to understand that it was an extremely difficult decision to have to make. Yes. How about the statement that one of the timps cans between differences between lee and washington was that washington realized that the commander in chief, what he mainly had to do was not lose the war and that lee never had that insight and possibly in the civil war that would also have been true . So, and thats one of the criticisms thats often leveled at robert e. Lee. But the civil war was very different that be the revolutionary war. During the revolutionary war George Washington was facing an enemy who was an ocean away. Robert e. Lee was fighting an enemy that was a river away. And he very much felt that time was not on his side. Thats sort of a revisionist argument to say he felt the longer war went on for, the more men the union could bring to bear, the more that union armies would come to and cause damage, he thought the souths social order would snap. So basically he felt he had to break the norths political will before the south had its social order snapped. So thats why you find robert e. Lee so devoted to the concept of trying to destroy the union army. And even after his greatest bucketlies, hes frustrated. You think that is lees greatest victory, lee doesnt celebrate it because the union army got away and he felt that he had to destroy the union army. And there is, i thinks there is a good argument to be made for his point of view that time wasnt necessarily on his side. Yes. I came across [inaudible] in jones [inaudible] toward the end of the war theres a sentiment to make him dictator. Crown lee as caesar and maybe win this thing. Did you come across that . Yes, i did. In fact, it was plushed in newspapers published in newspapers at the time. Newspapers openly said basically, George Washington was essentially a dictator at the end of the revolutionary war, what we need right now is robert e. Lee to take that authority. Now, lee himself was never interested in that. He felt that he could barely do what he had to do to oversee the army of Northern Virginia, how could he possibly take responsibility for Everything Else . That said he does end up accepting the title of general in chief of all the Confederate Forces which just makes his job all the much harder. And you might think again, he celebrates this as a great honor. But when it comes to him, he doesnt see it that way. He sees it as a burden and not something to celebrate because again, its a sign of just how desperate the times were, that people were saying things like that. Yes. How can you not support the social order in the south and be for, you know be for the southern effort of secession and repel on . Rebellion . He wanted to have the social order of the south main taped as it was maintained as it was, how is it possible to do so . I think you could make the argument that he had a more gradual view, and he would have said this, for example. It wasnt that he was opposed to emancipation, but he was in favor of as he said after the war, gradual emancipation. He said that was always his point of view. It doesnt mean he necessarily wanted everything to happen at once. And i think part of the key is understanding robert e. Lee was truly a conservative. In fact, he was so conservative that he ends up being unable to rebel, i suppose you could say, against rebellion. It might be one of the keys to understanding his personality is that he cant rebel against rebellion, and he gets basically since he cant have his own way, hes going to have virginia s way. He opted to support the south, the south of rebellion and slavery, didnt he . Well, i think as a factual question thats true. I mean, thats and theres no escaping that. The point that youre making, that is, in fact, what the cause ended up becoming. And robert e. Lee is somewhat aware of that. Because later in the war there are some confederates who are holding out hope for foreign recognition. And robert e. Lee is basically not interested in hearing it at that point because he says to the rest of world in this looks like a contest between slavery and freedom, and as long as thats case no the case no foreign powers going to intervene on our behalf. So put aside those thoughts. I think your point is well taken. Did you come across anything in his writing about his thoughts about lincolns fascination . He actually gives an interview when he gets back to richmond which is, again not completely like him, so hes on the record about his views about that. Hes very disturbed by it. He thinks this is a terrible act, and his biggest fear is that the north is going to blame this on the south, and its going to lead to retribution or even worse retribution than what was already going to happen. So he was very upset about this and he thought this was a terrible act. You give us a visual of the signing of the treaty at appomattox . What ive read about lee was so formal in his military gear and grant was just the opposite. I heard that is, in fact, accurate. And pretty much that moment has been tribed that way described that way ever since it happened. Robert e. Lee comes in, and hes buttoned up to his throat. Grant has his blouse kind of not even fully buttoned. Robert e. Lee has this fancy sword, ulysses s. Grant has no sword at all. Robert e. Lee had beautiful spurs, gallant comes in with muddy grant comes in with muddy boots. Robert e. Lee has this perfect posture, grant is slumped over looking, so you had this major contrast between two great generals, and its something that people noted then and have noted ever since. Yes. I believe that robert e. Lee graduated second in his accuracy at west in his class at west point, and it was at the time they usually went, became engineers. How was he able to get into the infantry . And where did he learn all his [inaudible] to be able to be the head of the Northern Virginia army . Im glad you asked because actually robert e. Lee was an engineer. He did graduate second in his class, and he did go into the engineers, and that was considered the most prestigious bran p of the army that you could go into. To go back to what i said at the beginning, thats the reason why he was coming through louisville in 1837. He was on his way to st. Louis to perform some work on the Mississippi River. Its during the mexicanamerican war that he really puts his skills to work because engineers play an Important Role in deciding where armies can go, and lee had whats called then a, quote, peculiar talent for to positionty topography, and he recognizes he can see routes that ore people cant see. But his background as an engineer actually comes back during lees early campaigns in the civil war. We tend to have this image that robert e. Lee was immediately successful in the civil war. Thats not true. His first campaigns were disasters. Heft sent to western he was sent to West Virginia in 1861 and columns converge all at the same moment, and the plan just a complete failure and newspapers in the south south actually say robert e. Lee is too much of an engineer to be able to command. He is not a soldier, and what we need right now is fighting men. Now, of course, in 1862 when robert e. Lee chases George Mcclelland off the we anyoneses la those peninsula, those same newspapers are speaking differently about lee at that point. Yes. What was grants personal opinion of robert e. Lee . Did you sure. Whats amazing is grant writes about moment at appomattox, too and he says lee is, its almost impossible to read his facial expressions because even in this moment of ultimate defeat for lee, he is holding himself together with complete selfcontrol and grant notes that. The other thing was thats so interesting about that meeting between grant and lee is that grant actually has a pretty good memory of robert e. Lee from the mexicanamerican war, and lee has been struggling to sort of picture grants face the whole time hes been fighting him because during that time robert e. Lee was much more important than ulysses s. Grant. Theres actually one more meeting that happens between two, and that takes place at the white house when grant becomes president , and robert e. Lee actually goes to the white house and meets the newest occupant. And so you can only imagine what that meeting must have been like for robert e. Lee. Yes. So you say that he had this peculiaral meant for looking at topography. To the gettysburg fiasco right. Where he did not take his lieutenants advisements under consideration. Do you believe that his personality of Holding Things in and being in control and being overwhelmed with the loss of Stonewall Jackson just before had anything to do with his poor Decision Making . Well lee certainly looks back at gettysburg and has never given explanations for why gettysburg has failed. He says hes not getting good intelligence because jeb stewart has disappeared. Jeb stewart as some of you know lees cavalry commander and he goes on, basically a joyride before gettysburg, and lee relies on him for intelligence. He believes his corps commanders dont act in unison and even pickets charge could have succeeded if they had proper artillery support but no one told him they were running low after that initial bombardment. He does feel that hes running out of time, he has to destroy the union army. And if you go back actually to chancellorsville i mentioned this earlier and you look at robert e. Lees attitude after of the battle of chancellorsville, hes furious that Joseph Hooker manages to escape. And the final position was a pretty strong position x robert e. Lee was planning to run a frontal assault, but hooker withdraws that night. And so in some sense hooker makes the greatest mistake of his life by retreating, and he saves robert e. Lee from making the mistake hes going to make at picketts charge. Yes. Did lee ever write down what he thought of arming slaves as confederate soldiers in. He did he did. He was asked that question directly and he did say he thought at point it was better to begin to enlist africanamericans in the fight and he thought you had to have been to include emancipation as part of that deal because people would not fight unless they were going to get emancipation. And basically the attitude was its better to have them fighting with us if theyre going to be fighting against us. So he does take that view. Yes. I believe after the war there was a lot of pressure on lee from former generals and officials of the former confederacy to write his memoirs, and he procrastinated and, of course, he died in i think, 1870. I was curious, though, was there any preliminary material that he might have gathered together that was available for historians . In there is, actually, and its a relatively recent discovery. Lee did say right after the war that he wanted to write his memoirs. But you have to remember that he had lost almost all of his personal papers during the war. So hes actually writing letters and asking people to send him those documents so he can try to reconstruct some idea of whats happened, but its such a frustrating process that he basically does abandon project. What he does instead, some of you may know is he writes a memoir of his power for a of his father for a new edition of harry lees memoirs x he writes a short biography and thats an awkward task because he actually goes through and you can see this in his edits, where he crosses out certain things. For example it says his father had zealously opposed the virginia resolution as some of you know from 1798, and robert e. Lee crosses that out, and he doesnt want harry lee had also mayed an Important Role in put played an Important Role in putting down the whiskey rebellion, and robert e. Lees brother suggests they Say Something along the line of trying to make a comparison between the whiskey rebellion and the civil war and how merciful they were compared to how brutal the Union Authorities had been to the late confederates. And robert e. Lee basically strikes this spire paragraph and says i will not acknowledge any comparison between the civil war and the whiskey rebellion. Yes. Hes an con of the lost cause an icon of lost cause philosophy but did he ever himself write in favor of it or comment on it . I think thats an extremely ironic thing. You have soldier who was so reluctant about she education who become secession who becomes the icon of the lost cause. You know, his wife certainly recognizes whats happened after robert e. Lee dies, because one of the paris things that does fist things that does happen when he dies is, as you can imagine, there are a lot of jewelies given about eulogies begin about robert event lee, and they say he is first in war first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen the very words his father used to describe George Washington. So that sort of brings us full circle a little bit here so but that mythology starts growing up very quickly. Yes. How did your understanding or your feeling for him change as you went through the journey that you described from the compelling question that drew you to him . Did you find some reconciliation yourself . How did you feel about his decision as an historian . Well, im glad you asked that question because actually going back to the previous question, so much we actually think of robert e. Lee as a symbol for one thing or another and hes such a divisive figure in our society and were always trying to make him represent something regardless of what whatever you think about the civil war. And what i found and which was wonderful to find was by looking at what he actually wrote and looking at the letters he wrote to his wife and to his children, i got to see a man who could be very funny at times, who could be sometimes flirtatious with women, as i mentioned to you, but he also had just an extreme sense of frustration. He had this feeling that he could never have his own way in life and that he was always being forced into roles not of his own choosing and theres something about that i think that makes his story very tragic. You know i think robert e. Lees story is a unique tragedy in American History. Yes. As president of washington college, how effective was he, and what was his life like there, and what was his emotional state following the war, his experience . He was actually a very involved president. You might think that he just took that post and was going to sort of, you know, let other people do the work but that wasnt much like robert e. Lee. He actually held long office hours when boys didnt cotheir work. They were do their work. They were called in to see general lee [laughter] and we can only imagine how that went. Actually we know, a lot of them left with tears. And he actually was quite progressive in his ideas about education. He thought at this point that we needed to the college needed to expand offerings to prepare people for the jobs that were actually available in the south at that time. And so he really actually expands the school dramatically. He increases its endowment he creates new programs. One of programs that he proposes is actually a scholarship for field, im sorry a course of study in a field that he really dislikes which is journalism. [laughter] you know, i think people see robert e. Lee after the war, and a lot of people see him taking long rides on his horse troweler and they wonder whats on his mind because they can see a sadness in his eyes. And so, you know his son says you know one can only imagine what he was thinking during those rides. Yeah. I thought the story of reconstruction has been somewhat reassessed recently or not too long ago, or do Many Americans still look at reconstruction through the eyes of [inaudible] and gone with the wind . No, i think youre absolutely right. It has been reassessed. People definitely look at it differently. I didnt mean to imply that i looked at it one way or another when i said what robert e. Lee thought about it. Thats sort of what i bring to you today, what robert e. Lee thought about what was happening to the country. Its not so much i dont know if you care to know what i necessarily think about the country, and certainly i think reconstruction has been reevaluated, and we see a lot of really good things that are very different from that old traditional power intive and a lot of narrative and a lot of ideas that would later find their time in American History and were certainly a better country because of it so yes. Does lee ever address a guilt about the deaths of [inaudible] under his command . Yes. So i guess id answer that question two different ways. When hes talking about those people, which is the union army, he to be perfectly blunt, he often says he wishes that he could have destroyed more of the army because again he thinks its so essential to victory to destroy the union army. But after gettysburg he does say i dont have the exact words right here, but he basically says he wishes he could never see blood again or have to watch bullets be fired ever again because hes seen so many good men die. So i think that is a statement of i wouldnt say its regret, but its certainly a sign of just how much these deaths affect him. Actually, i didnt want get a chance to even mention this, but one of the very first, most personal deaths that happens to robert e. Lee is during one of his early campaigns in 1861 in western virginia, he brings as an aide another great grand nephew of George Washington and this man is actually the heir to mount vernon, and he dies under robert t e. Lees command and this has a devastating impact on robert e. Lee. He feels this loss very sharply. Is there a final question in. Yes. Im just curious as you [inaudible] all the characters back then how do they compare with the characters today in washington . [laughter] is there like, is there some of these guys back then, did you have any thoughts, oh, that sounds like this guy this way . You know i said in the beginning when confronted with a tough question [laughter] finish or finish theres one thing you expect people from washington to do and thats duck. But youre not in washington. No, im not in washington. [laughter] its just so hard to say. Im often asked what would robert e. Lee say about the way the world is today, and i think its just an impossible question. Its just we cant know because so much has happened and its not fair to stick him from 1870 which is the last thing he knew into 2015 and say what do you think about, you know, about Health Care Reform or Something Like that . [laughter] its just he couldnt have even conceived where we are as a country. One thing we can know, i think, is he would be fascinated about the developments in transportation that have taken place because he was an engineer to the end, and he did have this great feeling about the country being bound together by these different modes of transportation. Whenever he took a train, he would quack and say, you know, it could have been half a day faster if it had been run more efficiently. So i think he would find that very interesting. But as for our political situation, im going to take a pass on the question because its just too hard to make comparisons. The civil war is such a unique period in our history and i think we can all agree that we hope that that matter has been forever settled and our country never has to undergo Something Like that ever again. Thank you john. Thank you. Ms. [applause] this is booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Heres our prime time lineup fascist italy under mussolini came in to help franco. Germany particularly gave franco a 5,000man air force that was called typical hitlers sort of flashiness called the condor legion. And it was a chance for hitler first, to make mischief so that as he said in one of his conferences, we can go ahead and do what were doing and people wont be looking at us, theyll be looking at spain. But it was also a chance to test out all their weaponry. So people speak of the spanish civil war. This relatively small war in that little backward part of europe as a its bed or a trial as a test bed or a trial run for the second world war. And everybody who got into the war on whatever side from elsewhere in the world tried to test out whatever new equipment they had. The soviet union backed the republic for a while except that they didnt donate the equipment they gave the spanish repluck, they sold it to them republic, they sold it to them for spanish gold. Watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Booktv p continue now with nina moore in what she contends is a raciallybiased criminal justice system. [inaudible conversations]