Because my apology and a half to bring in really because my politics enough and being in the money that it took to do a worldclass hotel. This skyline is very much representative of henrys legacy with the hotel. And we are back live again at the university of virginia in charlottesville. This is American History tv on cspan3. Among these questions, we will post a question. Sometimes, they will be directed at a specific panelist, but all the panelists are welcome to give their two cents worth. I am going to start here with the question and that gets back to lincoln and the press. A question from the box asks, was the pushback against lincolns handling of editors shutting down newspapers and what was his biggest mistake in dealing with the Northern Press . That is very good question. There was surprisingly little pushback from editors, authors of modern journals, we would have thought would have protested and raised the issue of the sanctity of the freedom of the press. Henry of the New York Times was the most influential journalist in the union. He talked about the limits of the press. One cannot i mention beads of sweat. [laughter] and yet oh, you are back. Our clock wasnt working. All sarcasm is appreciated however. [laughter] chair holzer i thought the clock stopped. So, surprisingly little pushback. And from the democrats, there was always the fear that if you protested this new interpretation, you would fall victim to the punitive nature of the Lincoln Administration in dealing with what it regarded as seditious press. I think the second part of the question, lincolns biggest mistake where journalism is concerned was probably trusting that horace would be a loyal man as henry raymond, the founder of the New York Times. He would drop the reservation in 1964 and not only supported anybody but lincoln for the republican nomination, but after years of supporting abolition years of attacking all the things one would expect from horace greeley, he proved willing in the late summer of 1864, to actually sacrificed the proclamation for immediate peace. And that is where grilli and lincoln separated. Cochair varon can we take just a minute then have the perspective on the perspective of the press and could the in the confederacy . The davis do much . Could he have done more . I am not filler with davis in the press, im afraid. Chair holzer there was just as much pushback in the confederacy as there was in the north. Davis was hoping, however for a forest of support. You know . So it may not have been actual attacks on him. It was his policy and his personality. He was unpopular throughout the war. Stevens had papers that were organs of his critique of the davis the ministration. Legislation eventually passed in the confederacy to limit the press us press freedoms. They were very cool to davis throughout the war. Cruel to davis throughout the war. I dont know about his impression of them, but certainly he has enemies in the press who were, as you are hinting, almost seditious in their criticism of davis. Chair holzer i do want to make one brief point it is not criticism of lincoln that the administration craps down on. It is criticism of enlistment, criticism of the draft. That is what provokes the shutdown. Cochair varon because those things danger the army, in lincolns mind. Chair holzer and the constitution. This question is from the audience and it follows on a discussion of the continuing influence of the lost cause. It says, how is it that u. S. Army forces are named after confederate generals . I would think fort bragg, fort hood, that is open to anyone on this panel. Edward ayers it is very similar to what you are talking about it is naming major bases on the assumption that, i imagine, although i have heard critical things about one of my favorite military figures. Nobody likes him with that exception. Some of these bases are not considered very desirable places. But for the most part, you would say it is an honor to have a militarybased military base named for you. There could be an ironic element to this, too, because fort bragg in North Carolina and fort polk louisiana, those arent exactly pallet of confederate issues. They could be considered some of the best fence the union had. [laughter] edward ayers and they have been a but of jokes for anybody around the table. [laughter] thank you for exposing the shallowness. [laughter] [applause] cochair varon we talked a little bit about this team of punishment and the lincoln conspirators. One of the questions has asked i think this is properly for elizabeth, what trout does henry worth occupy . And why is this man singled out in the way he is . What is he symbolic of . Henry for joseph holt, who prosecuted the conspirators well, i should back up and say at that conspiracy trial henry was very present in the testimony and in the governments case against the conspirators because the government was trying to prove not just the local conspiracy against lincoln, but this much larger conspiracy and time to get assassination to all kinds of heinous acts on the part of the confederacy. Andersonville and henry were part of that habit. So i think for hold, he did certainly stumble in his efforts to hand the tail on jefferson davis. But henry was another target for him. And, in some earth, kind of the last cast of at least gasp of at least his ability to extract or to inflict punishment in the way that he felt punishment to be inflicted on confederate leaders. Just a word they were into collation in the north. And aroused people as deeply as you can say the photographs, the newsreels that the soldiers took in the concentration caps on the 20th century. They were horrific. Dr. Elizabeth leonard they were horrific, and i find it interesting that he was not a native United States citizen. Somehow, i feel that contributed to his vulnerability. He said after the eight were convicted and then the four were executed that the likelihood of another usborn white elite or even the likelihood of someone like that taking the kind of punishment that were took were pretty low. They could have prosecuted somebody but who oversaw the current northerners felt that one of the things they resented most about the was his denial most aboutlee was his most about lee was his denial of what happened in the camps. A way of, again, trying to establish a broader complicity. I think we tend to forget the complicity. They were really in the crosshairs, not only with the execution, but how important the propaganda pictures were. And the sensitivity of southerners to the accusations and implications they were at fault for mistreating prisoners. Among the first and most specific answers the response to the charges of complicity and deliver it mistreatment of prisoners, that was the issue that was much more important now than it has been to us in our retrospective look at the war. And the charges that the north was just as bad. Chair holzer right. That they were just the same, and the north could afford they had the resources yet the death rate was the same. This counter narrative was, to some degree, very accurate. This is from the audience. You consider the civil war to be driven by the feeling of a lost cause rather than a . The way i am interpreting that question is that there is more confederate interest in the war today then union interest. Maybe it is a product. We certainly see an interest in the civil war in the south and and and covertly, as someone who lives in indiana now, there is someone a difference between my student us students interest in the work. But we have come to associate the civil war with the confederacy. The symbols of the work, yes the United States flag with similar. And similar enough to the flag debt unless you look closely, it is hard to tell the difference. But the battle flag of the confederate stands out. And it has become a symbol of the work. Sometimes it is easier for people to understand the confederate cause than the unit cause. And sometimes the confederate symbols are symbols of resistance to authority and the federal government and cultural domination and Political Correctness and all those kinds of things have sort of taken on a larger meeting. Meaning. Dr. Caroline janney and we like the story of the underdogs right . We like the story of the underdogs who are struggling and we can read so much into the confederate stories. And epic tales like gone with the wind certainly after that charm and the romance of war. Please. Out just going to say, i think there is a resonance to the mythology well, the mythology around the confederacy with the revolutionary war, we just sort of a founding myth right . Chair holzer i think some of the northern interest is folded into a lincoln interest. But i think one of the problems in civil war memory was the movement in the early 20th century and onto the Civil Rights Movement to reinterpret the emancipation proclamation. And perhaps be more critical of its limitations than celebratory of its revolutionary aspect. I think we have begun to come out of that interpretation with the cisco tenniel of the proclamation and realizing its limitations more as tactical than as philosophical. I think that has wouldve helped create a more of a rainbow of appreciation of the war in the north. There are certain things that do bring pieces of the war that have been pushed aside, or at least not focused, back into the attention. I think americans, for the most part, didnt even know there were black soldiers in the civil war because they have been sort of airbrushed out of the picture. Glory did a remarkable job of bringing that back into focus. And yield the things such as the monument in washington. It really had an impact. It also immobilized the africanamerican reenactment community. As everyone knows, reenactment since they became popular in the one 25th. In the 1980s and since, that despite the overwhelming numbers and resources, the reality was quite the opposite. It was 10 to one confederate to union actors in reenactments. The head ask soldiers from the confederate to act for the north to make it look more realistic. [laughter] the most recently seen in richmond a couple weeks ago this was to also in a commemorative mark of troops entering richmond in 1995. In a similarly and a Similar Program was part of the one 50th and Richland Richmond a few weeks ago. Union troops entering the city. It was led by africanamerican reenactors. That pose, almost entirely ethic, to glory. And the movie lincoln has done aside what it has done for interest in lincoln, has done what historians have wanted to do, which is focus on the 13th amendment. Bravo to spielberg for doing what few historians have done. Cochair varon what did you think of the spielberg movie and his handling, depiction of the politics echo chair holzer well, i was an historical consultant who was ignored. [laughter] so, i love the parties and the premiers and meeting daniel daylewis, but yeah, i loved it. I thought it was perfect. It is a movie, not a history lesson. I thought the consulting was especially [laughter] very impressive. Your name was into smaller letters i thought. [laughter] chair holzer i thought so, too. John coski it was interesting that it was recorded in richmond. Chair holzer government subsidies, which the confederates would have never dreamed about. [laughter] one of the things i really like about it was the portrayal of mary cobb i can. I think it was very impressive to me, sally fields is still the flying nun, so to speak. [laughter] but i felt that the depiction of her as someone wracked by greed, as opposed to just being a madwoman, was really wonderful. I think the great thing about the movie that it focused on politics. Of all the things you could have done with Abraham Lincoln and the civil war that is also in the very capital where the confederate government was based , for those things were reenacted. But i thought it was a bold move by spielberg to say, you know, first of all, it shows that the white north is still wrestling. And some of the racist things the democrats said took your breath away, would also remind you that the war itself could resolve all the things that needed to be resolved. That still require the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to do that. I thought it was a better movie than we could have expected. Chair holzer there is actually a sixhour screen script owned by spielberg that wrote. Someday, maybe a miniseries it is up to spielberg, but it is there. Cochair varon another question, this from twitter asking us to look for the postwar. In terms of taking the opportunity to extend civil rights, how radical was reconstruction . This is for anyone of us. If you pull back the camera to look at the global scene, it was incredibly radical. In other places slavery has not been followed by the adventures meant in extension of all rights , so i think it really was radical reconstruction. But as the movie shows, it is so radical that a lot of northerners were resisting how far it went. We look we rush ahead to the end of the story and saw that a lot of the gains in potential gains were sort of push back, but i dont think we want to as we come upon the anniversary of the reconstruction i think that the the world importance of that experiment hasnt fully been appreciated by the americans because we are so focused on how it failed. John coski it is only eight years between when scott said a black person cannot be a citizen to the 13th amendment and beyond. It is exley mindboggling within the context of American History. It again shows how the concert quinces the consequences of wars range far beyond what anyone imagined. Edward ayers for the United States to go so far so fast to doing that, i think that is what takeaway we can hope will come out of the anniversary is that this is of global importance. And of profound surprise. But also to think about what doesnt happen. The resistance is also enormous. The payoff from those wonderful amendment is a long time in coming. Even among northerners, the things that are on the table, why not pick up the estates and reward the lawyer with land . That is not on the table for very long. Exactly. [crosstalk] chair holzer i would also throw my hat in with the retreat from reconstruction. Do you really think there was retreat . I dont think the white north was ever really committed . You can never really retreat from anything that you were embracing. I dont think that the white north caret about lack people. They will embrace emancipation because it helps defeat the rebels and renomination, but they are not willing to go beyond that very far. There is a retreat in a sense of trusting the running of their own affairs. And it this trust gives way because of fatigue and opposition. In which whites are premised violence creates chaos. African are going to be republican voters. They are going to change the balance of power, so of course that is resistance and racism in the north. I think we also need to differentiate between slavery and rights. Slavery had allowed the confederacy to continue for as long as it did because ending slavery was a way of punishing the south. The 13th, 14th and even the 15th amendments, we need to stand that understand that for many white northerners, this was seen as punishment. They are not necessarily on board with black men wearing their white gutters anymore than what southerners were. That we need slavery and race are obviously connected, but we need to understand that as 19thcentury americans did and pull them apart. Edward ayers that still means that reconstruction was radical. Dr. Caroline janney absolutely. Edward ayers i heard a story and ask what time a question that the panel before us was asked, what if lincoln had not been assassinated . And he said he thinks it wouldve slowed the Civil Rights Movement because they wouldnt have been a 14th and 15th amendment because it wouldnt have had the resistance that the white north was willing to overcome that fatigue to make it radical. An interesting thought that if if you dont have a 14th amendment, you dont have a foundation for this overwrites movement that follows. I think she made a right point that it is not such a retreat as they are driven from the field in some ways. The white south actually wins reconstruction through military force. Through the ku klux klan and riots and those kind of things i think it is it is and Andrew Johnson gave them a little notch. If they left it up to Andrew Johnson, there would be no it would have taken a real military operation to force reconstruction, and there would have been no way that would have happened because it wouldve been widely expensive. And many northerners actually bridled the even when they engaged in the indian wars, the republic wants the army to be smaller and smaller and smaller, but still protect the borders and the frontiers. Cochair gallagher the u. S. Army 1 u. S. Army got down to 1 10 of its size. Ok, this is sort of a specific question. What was the confederate policy regarding africanamerican soldier. Ws . Pows . What is the confederate policy . Once he was colored troops were in action, the policy was to basically treat them and officers who commanded them as lamenting slave rebellion. So they were basically slaves slaves rebelling against authority. They were more like runaway slaves and they were soldiers to be treated as soldiers. There is a rogue document out there that circulated i think through philadelphia that a sickly davis ordered execution of all slaves. That has apparently been debunked, but the policy was to treat the officers who commanded black troops as if they were white men slave rebellion. And if the soldiers had been slaves, they would be returned to their owners and not treated as prisoners of war. It is for that articulation of that policy the pow cartel broke down in andersonville and the other prison camps. There were no longer being exchanged and the already overwhelmed. Dubya system became even more the overwhelmed pow system became even more overwhelmed. There were lots of instances precisely. Lots of that. Instances of black troops apparently [indiscernible] a lot of instances of execution on the spot of black prisoners or even those after they were prisoners and being routed to the back, instead of making it to the depot to be taken to a prison camp, they were executed on the way. But there were no executions at prison caps on, no state executions. But eventually, the exchanges resumed in limited ways in late 1864. Chair holzer one of lincolns finest moment, he says that for every africanamerican soldier killed, there will be a confederate prisoner killed. For everybody reinstated, there will be a confederate prisoner set to hard labor. And you can give him a little bit of credit, i think, for that disappearing for to some degree. John coski and that was all window dressing for the policy that are prisoners do Better Service and prison camps and basically, we can win the numbers game better than the confederates can. So there is a school of thought that it was deliberate holocene a callous policy on the part of the government, to let their own on the part of the u. S. Government to let their own prisoners remain in prison camps because they could afford their own man to continue to be in prison. The numbers game worked in favor of the United States. That the u. S. Troops it was an excuse for following the policy. We will return to some of these names in the afternoon panel. We have a few seconds left. Lunch is next on the agenda and we will reconvene for panel 3. Everyone enjoyed. Thank you for your good questions. [applause] we will return