Transcripts For CSPAN3 Escaped Union Prisoners Of War 20170821

I know of the civil war and their experiences attempting to make it safely to union lines. This talk was part of the Civil War Institute conference at Gettysburg College. Good afternoon again, im p. Carmichael, member of the History Program here at Gettysburg College. Our final talk for this evening or this afternoon is lorien foote. Lorien foote is a professor of history at texas a m university where she teaches on history of reconstruction, 1960 america and reform movements. Loren got her start at university of kansas where she did her undergrad and got her ph. D. At the university of oklahoma. Her second book published in 2010, the gentlemen in the roughs, manhood honor and violence in the union army. One of my favorites on the soldier experience. Lorien did fantastic research. She dug in the National Archives and looked at Court Marshal records which had been underutilized until lorien got ahold of them. David brooks the klummist from the New York Times mentioned in fact you got a lot of play from david brooks in his editorial. Well worth reading. Her second book, yankee plague, escaped units and the collapse of the confederacy. Its a suggest of her talk this afternoon. Please welcome lorien foote. Thank you so much, good afternoon. Thank so much pete for inviting me and thank you to the audience, youve had a long day and listened to a lot of talks, so i appreciate that youre here to hear this wonderful story. I wanted to start out, ive hat several people at this conference ask me this question individually so ill announce it to the entire group. I am not Shelby Footes daughter. Well get that out of the way right away. So in the fall of 1864, the people of the carolinas experienced an event that they described as a plague. One local South Carolina newspaper put it this way, they seem to be every where, they actually cover the land like the locusts of egypt. This newspaper was referring to thousands of yankees who were sneaking through the South Carolina countryside under the cover of darkness. These yankees would dig into farmers sweet potato fields and steal their sweet potatoes. They would nap in peoples barns and under the followeder. They would accost unsuspected white and black southerners. Yankees snuck to a slave camp, woke up a slave, planned a guide. One minister in South Carolina found three yankees napping when he found them they woke up and attacked him and there was a brutal fist fight between them. So, these thousands of yankees were not soldier marching with williams shermans army, they were escaped prisoners of war, ravenous and unarmed, moving through carolinas countryside in shocking numbers between september of 1864 and february of 1865. There were almost 3,000 of them during that winter. So, where did all of these escaped prisoners come from and what can their story tell us about the final days the final months i should say of confederacy . First i want to tell you the story of where these 3,000 escaped prisoners come from, and then well talk being what it can tell us about the collapse of the confederacy. So, first lets talk about the escapes. The story begins when desperate confederate officials attempt to remove their prisoner of war population from georgia after sherman capturing atlanta on september 2, 1864. They dont want sherman to liberate these captives so they decide to move them and megan where the officers are kept. But the problem is they dont have anywhere else prepared in the region to remove thousands of prisoners of war. The other problem is there is divided command and control in the confederate prison system. There is no one Single Person in charge of the confederate prison system at this point in the civil war. Instead theres divided command between two generals, neither of whom is entirely sure which prisons theyre responsible for and what their authority is and the extend of their authority. Theres a lot of confusion in the confederate bowie racksy at this point in the war and it shows up when they face this crises moment. John winder is in charge of the evacuation and he sends thousands of prisoners from arneson vil to vana without notifying the commander in savannah that prisoners are coming. He find out when an aid runs up to him and says a train arrived with 6,000 pows. He sent a letter and says you must have a train concession of the force i possess in this district. They do notify Major General samuel jones who is the commander of the department of South Carolina, georgia and florida for the confederacy. Jones is in charleston and he gets advanced warning that up to 15,000 prisoners are on the way to the city, but no one had consulted him about whether he had the able to guard these prisoners while at the same time hes trying to defend charleston from ongoing an active Union Military operations. And he protests and he says i cannot guard these prisoners. And they say youre going to have to talk them, we dont have anywhere else to send them. And he says look if i have any trouble with them im going to march them out of the city and let them go. Which is pretty much as were going to see whats going to happen. So he gets initially a batch of 6,000 enlisted men show up, along with a group of officers. And, so what jones does is he continually protests the aprivately of these prisoners, he doesnt have enough men to guard them and right as these prisoners arrive, september 5th and 6th, medical officials in charleston declare a yellow fever epidemic in the city. What jones does, i think this also shows in this theater of the war, theres a real break down in communication that i saw on numerous levels, mil fairly, bowie contractually that is occurring in this region. What jones does is decides to get rid of these prisoners. He sends 6 thous of the prisoners of war, the enlisted men out of sharcharleston so hes not notify the city officials that hes done this. Nobody in richmond knows what hes done. What jones does, and heres a map of South Carolina and you can see the Railroad Lines, so, he sends a batch of these federal prisoners of war up the railroad to a Small Community of florence, South Carolina. These 6,000 prisoners have a guard of 125 men. The guards under the command of major ff worthily, the guards turn these prisoner out into an open field next to the railroad. Now, these guys are veterans of a summer in anderson vil and theyre not that interested of being put into another confederate prison camp. Many of them are very very ill and sick, theres a group that mute any, and the witnesses that i have both the confederate records and the Union Records estimate that theres 400 to 700 man involved in the mooutny. In the book i chose the conservative 400 number b uhhuh it could have been as many as 700 men. They leave these open field, they attack the guard, they plunder citizens in the vicinity of this open field for clothing and food and they attack and try to destroy the railroad. So, worley tell telegraphs back to charleston that this situation is happening and jones has to deploy a Field Artillery union, a cavalry union and an infantry union to florence to try to suppress this moount any. But that is not enough to get control of the situation. They mobilize all of the people in the countryside around florence and they ask everyone who has any kind of arms to just join in the hunt for these escaped prk ows. So local citizens join with these forces to chase and track down these escaped yankees, in some cases they recapture them after theyve crossed the border into North Carolina. After several weeks of this they actually round everybody up except 23. 23 of these prisoners praermly escaped, and ill get to this in a moment. 21 of them report to union forces in knoxville, tennessee. So, they recapture these people, theyve got more guards and artillery pieces to keep them in this open field while slaves from the community who had been conscripted on the spot to build a stock aid to put these yankees in, are working to build the stock aid. Very quickly that stockade is ready but once again the federal government loelzs local civilians who show up on the day the stockade is finished with their arms and formed a massive ring around the stockade with their weapons to be there to put the yankees inside the stockade at florence. Well, that creates a prison for enlisted men, but jones still has the federal officers on his hands. By this point, 1500 of them have arrived in charleston. So what jones does with them, and this is going to sown really familiar, he decides to send them out of the city once again without notifying federal prison authorities what hes done, and he does this in october. I cant go into it now, but partly because these officers them have been caught up in a retaliation situation where these officers are put under confederate fire i mean under union fire and the union retaliates but bringing 600 confederate pows from the north and put them under confederate on the island. But thats another story. The beginning of october, jones will send them out of the city with the same disasterous results that happened at florence. So im beginning to go back to the map so you can see the i think ive got gene here, its not working. Anyway, hes going to send these officer pows from charleston up the Railroad Line to the capital city of colombia. More than 100 of these officers escaped as their being marched either from the charleston jail or from the hospital where that are being held. They escape on the street where they end up hiding among Union Citizens in florence. Some of them are fund l from house to house. Eventually they make their way to the wars where africanamericans pilot them on boats to the union lines on hilton head islands. So several of them escape in the city and more escape by jumping off the trains when they stop to take on water at either kingsville or branch vil. And theyre going to make their way to colombia. The yankees are marched through the city a day of Jefferson David had given a speech in florida. Their mash march through the city about two miles outside of the city and there turned out an old field. So naturally there are going to be a lot of escapes. There would be more escapes than there were but the confederates put on a dramatic display to try to discourage what had happened at florence. One of the officers who jumps off the train is recaptured by dogs and mangled by dogs. Confederate officials bring that dead officers body with its clear being mangled by dogs and put it in front of the prisoners. So they really are intimidated by that but it gives them the impression theyre going to be chased and hunted by dogs if they try to escape. But even with that, hundreds of machine escaped from this open field in colombia which they nicknamed camp sort again. While the confederate goes through this investigation, what happened, where are these prisoners, why are they there, who has authority over them. Theres four weeks of rangling over this. During this time they get no adequate shelter or food. In the end, more than 373 prisoners escape. Now more than that, leave the camp at given times, but theres ultimately 373 that kind of permanently escaped. So, what were going to see is the prisoners who escaped during this october transfer from charleston to colombia, these escapes are going to joining to in parties of two to six men and take one of three escape wrutsz. Their goal is to try to get back to union lines. To do that they chose one of three routes which i kind of have an n a gray color on this map you see. Some of them chose to try to get back to the union lines of the union forces besieging charleston. The headquarters are on hilton head islands. These escaped prisoners are going to follow the rivers and try to get back to the atlantic coast. Thats a shorter route but there is a Confederate Forces between them with the union armies. The popular route escaped officers are going to pick is travel northwest to the countries of South Carolina and try to go to knoxville, tennessee which is occupied by the union army. This route is going to tack them through western South Carolina, Western North carolina and east tennessee. Theres also a group of escaped prisoners that they figured their best plan is to try to find shermans army which they know is operated in where in georgia and might be heading for augusta. Theyre going to travel a route trying to get to augusta, g whe georgia, where they hope to find shermans army somewhere. I think the journeys of these escaped prisoners gives us incredible insight into the final months of the confederacy in South Carolina, North Carolina, and tennessee. These escaped yankees, unlike soldier marching with union armies under sherman, these guys are confused, lost and dependant on africanamericans and symp m sympathetic white southerners for aid. So what they talk about in their diary and reports back to the marshal about what they experienced, they saw thing that other Union Soldier didnt notice, and they spent a lot of time with people that we dont have other records for. And, so i think following the journey of these escaped prisoners is really a story not just about the prisoners but about the people in this region of the south and what they were experiencing in the final months of the confederacy. So what i want to do today is talk about three aspect of the collapse of the confederacy that we can examine through the journey of these prisoners. At this point, the confederacy is collapsing and the People Living inside of the confederacy are experiencing that collapse on multiple levels. Theres several that i talk about in the book, but here today i want to talk about three aspect to that collapse. The collapse of slavery, the collapse of the home front and the collapse of boarders. So, those are going to be the three that well talk about. So, first i want to focus on the collapse of slavery. Slavery collapses in the south at a different pace in different ways across space and time. It collapses on different different time lines and different places. So, we see this in the state of South Carolina, im going to go back to the map quickly. So, in the low country part of South Carolina, slavery was already destabilized by the time these escaped yankees are pouring out of these open fields. Low country South Carolina it was close to the union lines on hilton heads and close to the gun boats that were controls the coast and sometimes coming up the rivers a little bit in South Carolina. So you had a lot of male slaves that had run away. You had female slaves who were slowing down work, who were defying their mistresses and you had a lot of theft, a lot of disorganization of slavery in the low country. In the up country, in the hill country of South Carolina, slavery was much more stable in the fall of 1864, it wouldnt disrupted in the same way that it was in the low country. The mass escape of all of these prisoners of war gives slaves an opportunity no both regions to escalate their resistance and these mass escapes helped to escalate the collapse of slavery. Because what we see throughout the civil war, slaveries try to assess and they act when they think circumstances are favorable for success. And slaves in South Carolina realize that something is going really wrong for the confederacy or there would not be thousands of yankees crossing through the South Carolina countryside. They recognize that something is going down that shows the confederacy is having trouble here. So what we see is that when the first federals escape in september around florence and then october around columbia, individual slaves will provide food, shelter and guidance. But very quickly this aid becomes more organized and it becomes more directly aimed at the confederate state. So, for example, in the low country part of South Carolina, as yankees are pouring through some of these counties in the low country, where slavery is already very destabilized, we see slaves forming military companies that Begin Operating in these counties and also use these military organizations to protect the yankees making their way through these counties. And, in fact, in the South Carolina state archives, in their military records, i found that the governor in december has to send some militia units to counties in this part of South Carolina with orders for them to suppress the armed military companies of slaves that are operating in these regions. And he also gives them orders to keep it quiet so that people dont know that things have reached that level of desperation. So along the up country route. Let me get to my outline for you here. So thats the low country military companies. But along the up country route, we can follow the transition that slaves make from october through december as the number of escaped prisoners moving across the landscape increases. Aid to prisoners becomes very organized. Utilizing the slaves Communication Networks between farms and plantations and using the trails and routes that they had already figured out to move around their neighborhoods to avoid the notice of their masters and of the slave patrols. So they already have in place kind of a geography of resistance and they already have in place Communication Networks. Now theyre going to use these to facilitate the movement of these escaped prisoners out of their state. So for example, when Hannibal Johnson of the 3rd maine escaped in late november, slave guides take him from station to station in northwest South Carolina. Over the course of eight nights in that section of his journey, he was handed off between 13 different guides who took him to prearranged stops and hiding places in woods and slave cabins. And i think its interesting because one of his guides, when they go to the arranged Meeting Place and they meet their next guide, he says, okay, so youre my next group of birdies. And im not sure why this slave nicknamed his yankee cargo birdies but that is what he apparently called them. So its a short step from running this you might almost say this kind of reverse underground railroad. To actually creating organizations to protect these escaped prisoners. So one of the most interesting stories that i found is that around jalopa, South Carolina, some whites had formed a picket on the road. They knew these yankees were moving at night. And so they formed a picket on the road to try to intercept them. And the prisoners did try to stick to the roads as much as possible because they were terrified of getting lost. So they formed this pick et on the road. And slaves in the area formed a counterpicket on the road below. So that they could intercept the escaped prisoners and guide them around the pickets that their masters had set. So there really gets to be a level of organization. But we can also see how the presence of all these escaped prisoners begins to destabilize and effect the relationship between masters and slaves on an individual level. So we see this in the case of spartanburg. Again, ill put it on my map so you can kind of picture. And while you gaze at the map and contemplate, im going to drink some water, so hold on. So we can see this if we look on a farm in spartanburg, South Carolina. It was a farm that was owned by david and Elizabeth Harris. They had ten slaves on their farm. And this is what i mean about slavery kind of collapsing in different ways. So this is october, november of 1864. Slaves on their farm still worked, planted, plowed and obeyed. But the harrises record in their diary. David keeps the diary. When he has to go on active service in charleston, elizabeth will continue writing it. And they both talk about thievery. Thievery really increases in spartanburg. To the extent that both of them say law and order has completely collapsed. We live in a lawless land. And harris even says the thieves are bothering me as much as the war. We cannot keep our farm going with this level of theft. And i saw that recorded by a lot of people in this part of South Carolina, this part of the war. So they all know their slaves are doing the stealing. This escalation. Theyre slaughtering hogs. Leaving these hogs in the field. Theyre stealing produce. Theyre stealing horses. So its just this rampant theft. But it really seems to escalate in october and november. And elizabeth at this point is alone and shes writing in her diary. We just cant keep going. Everything is getting stolen. And then she figures out why theres been this escalation of theft. Because she discovers that her slaves have been hiding escaped Union Prisoners in their house. So she alerts her neighbors. They set up patrols and pickets. But the yankees sneak away. And she finds evidence that yankees have been inhabiting her gin house and being helped by her slaves for several weeks. And she wants someone to whip her male slaves for doing this. And she records in her diary she cant find anyone to do that for her. And she writes in her diary, and this is a quote, it seems that everyone is getting afraid of the negros. And so i think when we look at the experience of the harris family. Because after she finds this and tries to get people to whip her slaves and no one will, a week later, two of the slaves leave the farm without permission. They take start taking longer breaks than theyre allowed. They start coming and going. And from that point on, the harris slaves no longer behave with obedience and they no longer do what theyre supposed to do. And when Elizabeth Harris goes out to that gin house and sees the evidence of yankee inhabitation, she knows her slaves had declared war against her and that it was never going to be the same again and it never was. So i think this journey of escaped prisoners sheds a lot of light on the collapse of slavery going on in South Carolina. The other thing that i think that this story tells us is it tells us a lot about the collapse of the home front. Now, theres a lot of aspects to the collapse of the home front that i see happening in this region. Theres many different facets to that. But i just want to focus on one here. What these the journey of these escaped prisoners reveal is that in counties throughout both South Carolina and North Carolina, we see entire households that are mobilized to fight within their community. And im going to show this. And what i mean by entire households, i mean the children. So these escaped prisoners are moving through counties where people are mobilized to resist the confederacy. Either because theyre unionists or because theyre protecting confederate deserters. Deserters from the confederate army. But theyve mobilized their entire family to either attack people within their community or to defend themselves from the confederate state. So i think the experience of jay madison drake, whos a lieutenant in the 9th new jersey. Thats his picture on the screen. Hes a firefighter. His dream is to be a journalist. And hes a shameless selfpromoter. When he dies, his obituary, which is in numerous newspapers across the United States, they call him a famous civil war veteran. And he was famous because he was such a great selfpromoter. But he had jumped off that train between charleston and columbia. He had jumped off the train at kingsville. With several companions. Theyd worked their way through South Carolina. They enter into North Carolina. And they get to Caldwell County. So Caldwell Countys not on this particular map. But if you see wilkes county, kind of up towards the top, Caldwell County is near there. So they had reached Caldwell County. And theyre walking through a ravine. And they see a couple of women and a 13yearold boy cutting sorgum grass. And so they have this story theyve decide theyre going to tell if they run into white people, where theyre going to claim theyre deserters from kentucky trying to make their way back. And one of them can fake or thinks he can fake a southern accent. So thats why they think they can pull this off. Anyway, they go up, they want to get some food. They go up and say this. The little boy runs off and he comes back with his mother, a woman named mary estes. Shes a very large and powerful woman. She comes up and she says, what do you want . They start to try to tell the story about were in the confederate army, were deserters, were from kentucky, trying to get home. She cuts them off and says, i dont believe you. I think youre yankees. I hate the confederacy and i am not afraid of you whether you are confederate or whether youre union. Because if i raise my hand, there are a dozen true rifles that are trained on you at this moment. And if i give the command by raising my hand, they will open fire. So tell me again, who are you . So drake says, okay, we got to be honest, and he pulls out the diary that he had kept while he was in prison and his commission that he carries with him as an officer in the u. S. Army. So when she sees that, he takes a white handkerchief out of her pocket and she waves it around her head three times. And as soon as she does this, 20 men in confederate uniform come out of the hills and woods around the ravine and come up. So this is her husband, bill estes, and his band of deserters that are engaged in a war with their neighbors and their community and with the North Carolina home guard that is determined to capture them. So from this point in their journey, drake and his companions were hidden, fed and guided to knoxville. By a network of families who fought against the confederate state and their supporters in their communities. Some of them engaged in guerrilla warfare. All of them protected with violence the men who were deserters or draft dodgers from the confederate army. These families ultimately used their knowledge and their resources and their violence to protect and aid hundreds of u. S. Soldiers seeking to return to union lines with the express purpose of rejoining their regiment. So escaped prisoner Charles Maddox who was from maine. And a very aristocratic snobby officer. I actually really admire him, but he is a snob. He is hidden by the lauftist family in brevard, North Carolina. This family and their extended kin networks raided their rebel neighbors for beef. They armed every boy in the family over 12 years old. They posted pickets on the road 24 hours a day. Women took the day shift. Men took the night shift. When rebel neighbors or state troops would attack their house, they had drilled holes in the walls of their home. They would turn the home into a fortress where women would load the weapons, hand the guns to the men who would stick them through the holes in the walls and fire. After one skirmish that occurred just days before maddux and his escape party arrived in the neighborhood, there were several rebels lined in the yard. And whats interesting is women and Children Play a Critical Role in this violence. Theyre the supply line for the guerrillas who are fighting rebels. And they provide food, clothing and they carry messages for deserters about troop movements and raids. And what i found really interesting was that families did not hesitate to employ Young Children in this warfare and also Young Children to help these escaped yankee prisoners. So one family in South Carolina sent a 9yearold boy by himself with an escape party of six escaped prisoners and they sent this 9yearold boy alone to guide these yankees over the mountain to a place where confederate deserters rendezvoused. Because the family thought the deserters would help these prisoners. And one of my favorite incidents from all the stories i encountered. In east tennessee, a 16yearold girl on horseback guided a party of 70 men through her neighborhood. Her family sent her by herself. She guided this party of 76 men through a land where there were a lot of confederate guerrillas. So and this girl knew what houses contained families that supported confederate guerrillas. She knew where the guerrillas usually posted pickets. So she guided these escaped prisoners, you know, around the houses of confederates. She guided them past the places where there were usually pickets. And then when the party reached a river in east tennessee, she left these men and she rode alone on horseback over a bridge over the river to reka noiter and find out if there were guerilla pickets on the other side of the river. She comes back, she tells them the coast is clear and she rides home. These yankees did not know her name at the time. Many of them. And they nicknamed her the nameless heroine. Her name was actually melvina stevens. Thats a sketch of her. Thats an illustration from a book that was published after the war that gives an illustration of her exploits. Now, what i think is interesting also, because you have these entire families mobilized, were going to see kind of the complete collapse of law and order and security in these counties where this is happening. And what is really interesting to me was that i found when i looked at State Government records about this. In december of 1864 the North Carolina General Assembly is basically going to recognize the battlelike conditions in many places in North Carolina. So theyre going to pass a law that basically authorizes people to form paramilitary companies. They pass a law that says any time 10 persons or more and then heres a quote from the law associate themselves as a military company, they can operate on behalf of the state just without pay or equipment. Thats a really fascinating law, isnt it . Theyre basically sanctioning people associating themselves into organizations. Only very loosely associated with the state. And theyre sanctioned to employ whatever violence they deem necessary to suppress unionists and deserters in their communities. The other thing i think shows the complete collapse of local security is the fact that while all these escaped yankees are moving through South Carolina, theyre joining forces with confederate deserters. Theyre joining forces with slaves who are escalating their resistance. The state of South Carolina has to call up its militia to try to join with the Confederate Forces that are going to try to resist sherman. So in late november, early december, the governor of South Carolina calls up the state militia. He demands that every man report. They do a huge effort. And this nets 1,300 men. Which is 20 of South Carolina state militia forces. Only 20 of the men responded to the call of their state to come and defend the state from sherman. Why did they not respond . Well, i think i know why. Its because theyre running around their own neighborhoods trying to capture escaped yankee prisoners and handle the slaves who are now forming military companies. Because at the same time the governors saying, where are all these men, we need all these men, im reading local newspapers that are saying, well, today, the citizens brought in 100 yankees and put them in the jail. And im reading in diaries and reports of escaped prisoners to provost marshals that they say, yeah, we were hiding, you know, in the woods and we started to be chased by citizens or some of the men in their diaries who are recaptured, they report theyre hiding in the woods. A couple of people show up and find them. Ride off. Come back with ten more of their neighbors. And then these 11 people escort these yankees and put them in the local jail. Hundreds of citizens are recapturing and arresting these yankees. And from what i can tell in my research, these are all citizens that were supposed to have responded to the militia call. But theyve made the assessment that theres a danger on their front door. And that they have to deal with that. First. So finally, the third thing that i want to talk about is that the escaped prisoner problem i think reveals the collapse of borders. So of course any nation must protect its borders to have security. And the confederacy tried to protect its borders not only with military force from external enemies but the confederacy also wanted to control the movement of internal enemies. So people within the confederacy who were disaffected or who were disloyal to the confederacy, the confederacy wants to control their movement. So theres a passport system thats instituted. If youre going to move outside the confederacy, leave the confederacy, you have to apply and get permission. And the secretary of war says that the goal of this passport system is to preclude this is a quote, to preclude the passage of dangerous and disaffected persons. So the permit system is supposed to guard against spies, smugglers, subversives and men who sought to evade conscription. They dont want them leaving the confederacy. In fall of 1864, in addition to union armies that have already invaded the borders and are moving through the borders, whats interesting to me is the borders of confederacy are wide open to thousands of people moving across the borders of the confederacy leaving the confederacy. Men who owed their military service to this government. According to the conscription laws. Theyre doing so in company with thousands of escaped yankee prisoners. And then these people who are moving out of the confederacy, thousands of them are joining union army units in east tennessee. That are then returning into the carolinas on constant raids that are going on between november of 1864 and then the end of the war in 1865. So what i found is it is very typical that by the time these escaped prisoners get to Western North carolina and eastern tennessee, they are generally traveling with anywhere from 70 to 100 confederate deserters who have decided to join them on their journey to knoxville. So we see this in the case of captain Isaiah Conley who was a pennsylvania captain. And his escape party gets to northwest South Carolina. They run into an africanamerican named henry martin whos actually a free man. And he has contacts with a group of confederate deserters that are hiding out. So he puts conley and his party in contact with these deserters. The deserters agree to guide the yankees to knoxville. And they travel all the way to knoxville together. Whats interesting is often these deserters turn into recruits for the union army. That happens to drake. The new jersey fireman and selfpromoter that met mary es tes. After he meets mary, he ends up going to knoxville in company with her husband bill and 14 deserters. And when they get to crab orchard, tennessee, they meet a group of 63, if my math is right here, because theyre going to end up being 76 so whatever adds up to 76. They meet a group of 63 people from North Carolina and South Carolina and north georgia that are all traveling together to knoxville. So they all join together. Theyre a party now of 76. And they just, by chance, run into a lieutenant, james hartley, from the third North Carolina. A Union Regiment that open rapt operates out of east tennessee. Hes on a recruiting expedition. This is very common. I came across this constantly. These parties run into Union Officers who are moving into North Carolina, into South Carolina on recruiting expeditions. Hes like, great, i dont have to travel any farther. I have you guys. Will you join the union army . And these guys say, yes, we will. So the whole party now travels to knoxville in company with hartley who now has 63 recruits for the union army. What i found is when i put all this together and i looked at the union army records and the reports of these escaped prisoners, there are literally thousands of people on the move in the appalachians, in the last winter of the war. People that the confederacy wants to keep contained because they are deserters that are moving out of the confederacy, joining the union army that end returning as a raiders. Theres many reasons the confederacy cannot contain this movement effectively at the end of the war. One of most Important Reasons i think is that the confederacy has absolutely confused military jurisdictions in this region of the south. So i am about to put a slide up and say some things very rapidly that are going to lead you to be incredibly confused. But i think it is important that i do that because by the time im done and you are confused, you will be in the same mental state as the confederate secretary of war james a. Sedan. Which i will prove to you here in a moment, okay. So these yankees and deserters are traveling through the Confederate Military district of Western North carolina. But the question is, whos in charge of that district . Whos in charge of it . So for months nobody in the Confederate War Department had been clear on whether the district of Western North carolina was part of the department of North Carolina and southern virginia or the department of east tennessee and west virginia. And then the problem was that at this time, beauregard was in charge of the military division of west, which encompassed all of tennessee. Except he didnt seem to have authority over the department of east tennessee and west virginia. And then there was also the department of Northern Virginia because lee is also issuing orders to subordinates in all of these departments. And the people in these various military departments, it was very clear to me, i read their correspondence. They dont know who is in charge of them. And theres many times they hear about a raid and they actually send messages to the commanders of all of these departments. And then when they get responses back, they debate amongst themselves about which order theyre supposed to obey. Robert e. Lee is very unclear about what troops are department, what theyre doing and then in one of my favorite moments in doing the research for this book, theres a moment of it where theres an exchange in the War Department and it is absolutely clear that the confederate secretary of war has no idea who the commander of the district of Western North carolina is. Because he gives an order, tell this district commander to do this, and then eventually it comes out, he wasnt the commander. So the War Department doesnt even know whos in charge. With such confused military jurisdictions. With things being so chaotic for the confederacy in this region, theyre never able to form an Effective Response to the thousands of people moving across the borders. So as the confederacy collapsed, its going to unleash one more wave of yankee prisoners which im not going to talk about here because you have to have a lot of things to read in the book. But in february 1865, when sherman is now fullscale in his invasion of South Carolina, the confederacys going to try to move those florence and columbia prisoners once again. And when they do, more than 1,700 will escape. And the teaser i will give you is these escapes will actually interfere with shermans military operations to some extent. So theres this other wave of escape. So i think that the story of the end of the civil war is not just about climactic battles. Its also about the movement of prisoners of war. And how the confederacy lost control of the yankees that it held captive. I think the end of the wars about the people of the carolinas. And the first months when the yankees came. Not the armies but the escaped prisoners. Who made backyards and barnyards the sites of war and who heralded the last days of the confederacy. So i am now happy to answer any questions. That you may have. [ applause ] i hear i have time for two questions. Good, i got here first. These routes that guides were taking the escaped prisoners on, were they using underground railroad routes and, if not, is it because there werent any in that area . Right. Or because it would be too dangerous to use them because we want the slaves to escape this way as well . I dont think they were using antebellum underground railroad routes in South Carolina because those actually ran south instead of north. Okay, thank you. You had so many Great Stories in the book. Im curious which one is your favorite, either one that made it into the book or one that you had to leave out. Oh, thank you for that question. So i would say i have something thats one of my favorite moments, even though its not exactly a story. So one of the things that was really compelling to me is these yankees spend a lot of time inside slave cabins. Having long conversations with slaves. And they have a lot of kind of intimate moments where theyre talking about things. One of the things that comes out very strongly. Slaves will usually have a prayer meeting over these escaped prisoners before they take them on. Several of these prisoners record the content of the prayers which is very interesting. But one of the things that comes out very strongly is that these slaves firmly believe that god is acting in this moment of history. And is bringing about the jubilee. And that theyre seeing god moving. And one of the amazing moments that kind of reflects that. Theres these two escaped prisoners. And theyre sneaking up at night behind these two africanamerican men who are walking down the road. And they can hear what these guys are saying as theyre walking. And one of them says, well, this is it, god is moving. And the other one says, yes, he is, do we need to put blood on our doors . Do we need to put blood on our doors . Isnt that incredible . Of course we know africanamericans are steeped in that sense of, you know, the biblical stories of israel and being rescued out of egypt but that theyre taking this so firmly believing that god is moving, that theyre seriously asking each other, maybe we need to put blood on our doors. And i just think thats an incredible moment that shows us what slaves are thinking and feeling as all these epic events are happening at the end of the war. Okay. Thank you very much. [ applause ] well have more from the annual Civil War Institute college at Gettysburg College in just a moment. Coming up tonight on American History tv, well take a look at the congressional debate over slavery that took place in the 1790s as well as talk about the legacy of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his influence on contemporary partisan politics. That will be at 8 00 p. M. Eastern this evening. American history tv is in primetime every night this month while congress is away for their summer recess. This week on cspan, tonight at 8 00 eastern, nasas coverage of the first total Solar Eclipse visible across the United States in 100 years. The eclipse is important because come into alignment at a cosmic moment that were all being part of. Tuesday at 10 00 p. M. , live coverage of president trumps rally in phoenix. Wednesday at 8 00 p. M. , former president s george w. Bush and bill clinton on leadership. I always thought id have a better life, i could have somebody else have a better life too, and i liked it. And i got lucky. I dont care what anybody says. All these people tell you they were born in a log cabin they built themselves are full of bull. Thursday at 8 00 p. M. With the budget something for congress to handle, well look at pending proposals for the federal budget. And friday, a profile interview with agriculture secretary sonny perdue. My political history i tell people i was born in 1946 in perry, georgia, they stamp democrat on your birth certificate. I made a political decision, i call it truth in advertising, in 1998 to change parties and became a republican at that point in time. Followed at 8 30 p. M. By a conversation with black hat and defcon founder. There were no jobs in security for any of us. Only people who were doing security were maybe people in the military or maybe banks. So this was really a hobby. Well, as the internet grew and there were jobs and people putting things online and money at risk, all of a sudden hackers started getting jobs doing security. Watch on cspan and cspan. Org and listen using the free cspan radio app. Youre watching American History tv. 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter cspan history to keep up with our schedule and keep up with the latest history news. Our focus on the civil war continues with the discussion on the myths surrounding confederate women and Union Soldiers that occur during general william shermans march to the sea in 1864. Lisa tendrick frank, she is based out of tallahassee, florida, and she studied at the university of florida where she