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And that it is our guest speaker, a leading civil war historian, edward ayers is professor of humanities at university of richmond where he is president emeritus picky was awarded the National Humanities medal in 2013 by president barack obama and his family serving as president of the organization of american historians with the 20172018 term. He joins us to discuss his latest book the thin light of freedom the civil war and emancipation in the heart of america which is on sale today in our store. Please join in welcoming ed ayers. [applause] so thank you so much for being here to discuss this great new book. My pleasure. The book came out a digital project, the value valley of the shadow. Can you tell us about the project outlet to you writing the previous book and this book . We thought this up in 1991, and those of you who will remember the World Wide Web didnt exist then. The idea was quickly be great if we could share every piece of evidence about every person who lived into communities, Shenandoah Valley, and Augusta County virginia virginia, stanton. Instead of history being something that just is presented as a done deal, the students and the people who like to read history, we could share the actual evidentiary record. That seems like a great idea and it took us 14 years to do that because it turns out there is enormous amount of material about 19thcentury america. Its every letter, diary, newspaper article since this entry, military record, church record, tax records, all those kinds of things. The idea was that i wouldnt be the only one to see all that evidence, that people could explore it for themselves. You can see every source that a use for this book for yourself and see exactly how wrong i was. Its been used many millions of times all around the world. Teachers use it to get a sense of where history comes from. Its not just that we make up stuff or its our opinion. Its based on evidence. I have to admit i often think of my mom who is a fifthgrade teacher. I told her i wasnt going to go to graduate school history. She said what for, we already know what happened. Ever since it up and show her no, we dont. Its a lot more complicated than you think. The valley created the opportunity to write the presence of enemies in 2003 and then became a dean and the president and then fulltime valley of the shadow was waiting for me to come back. Last year i was able to spend a year exploring it again. The beautiful thing is it still works, so i hope you will the valley of the shadow. Great. This book focuses on two counties answer the broadcast of characters. Can you tell us who are some of your favorite characters . Yeah, i mean, its better to be lucky than smart. And so it turns out that after i chose these two places because i knew they were centrally involved in the work we discover these remarkable records about people. It turns out were the only payable direct of the husband and wife threat the entire war from franklin county, rachel and samuel. Everybody who reads the book falls in love with it. They are entirely appealing people who from canada come back to pennsylvania to help save the United States. So samuel is in the 17th cavalry. Rachel is at home with her baby, and watching as big events sweep over the invasion of pennsylvania that becomes the battle of gettysburg. We are able to follow them on the homefront and the battlefield threat every step of the worker im big big, big faf them. Theres a guy who has left the direct evidence of instant. His newspaper men he sees everything with the eyes of reporter but as it turned that his baptized him he cant fight so we saw with ten women, his wife and sister and other people including enslave people, and he writes down every day what it looks like from, hes kind of skeptical. He admits before the war he has doubts about slavery. He admits along the way he has doubts about the confederacy and jeff he is a staunch defender. So to see what it looks like behind the scenes. As any of the thing i felt so lucky for the valley of the shadow and this book contains the largest single collection of letters from africanamerican soldiers who fought the United States, color troops. They were misfiled in the county next door because the widow of the man who is one of the characters, she remarries after the war after he dies from loans at fort wagner, and they are filed with her second husband in the next county over. New york times did a story about the value of the shadow back in 1999. This professor said you never find it but you wont believe how great these letters are. So we have come yell remember the story of glory. These been armed with that unit at every step from drilling in boston all the way up through marching back through the streets of boston after the war. I love all those people. Sometimes people make cameos. They just have one quote, or they appear just a fleeting instance. Theres one that i like, i dont know her name, a Union Officer is in the Shenandoah Valley down near augusta and he notices a 75yearold woman who is marching along with the union army determined not to be left behind. He says shes walking for freedom i suppose. Theres hundreds of people in there, and its hard choosing just which vignettes capture them so thats an unfair question but we will stop with that. In the book you discussed gettysburg where 50,000 50,000m both sides were killed. Once this was the turning point in the war . And also i was wondering if youd like to talk about the story of john, another character in the book. It seems a little insensitive to come from virginia to pennsylvania and civic gettysburg was not the turning point of the war, but here i am doing that. We look back on it and it seems that it was the pivot of the war, and both the white north and the white south agree it was a pivot of the war because it ended being exactly in the middle as it turns out. What reminds this is that many men died after gettysburg as died before. That war is certainly not determined by gettysburg and even its coincidence with the book in general is telling us to forget what you know about the war, which are self initiated other people who were living it at the time. You will realize that there are so many turning points, and that one thing at point out is that the war was impossible. The civil war could not have happened. The things that happen in the civil war was a deeply unlikely. So gettysburg is very important. Theres a reason that polly went into with gettysburg and volume two begins with it so you get double your gettysburg worth. It is dramatically important, but in some ways its important for what didnt happen. Winds book begins, leak patches come up big victories at chancellorsville. He feels the need to get the armies out of virginia. They are ravaging the country side. He also wants to demonstrate to the north that they cannot believe Abraham Lincoln, that he cannot predict to protect them, that they can just walk right into pennsylvania, this beautifully rich area, and is nothing the union army can do to stop them. He writes his wife and says what i really want to do is affect the election next year. Everything thats political is also military, and vice versa. What could it happen and what lee expected to happen is to be able to stay in pennsylvania for a long time, resupply their very hungry horses and men, ship massive amounts of the bounty of pennsylvania back into virginia, and maybe make it all the way to philadelphia. Maybe make it to harrisburg is what they think theyre going to be able to do. They did not limiting able to stay such a short time to be driven way. If you consider what mightve happened and what consequences of that and didnt happen, gettysburg is a turning point. If you consider what did happen, there was much hard fighting and much still up in the air after gettysburg. You discuss the election of 1864, which you describe as the most critical in our history. Can you talk about what were some of the issues in the election and why was the elections of critical . And maybe just a little bit about the platform of the republicans and democrats. I can. What i argue is that the Pivotal Moment in the civil war was the election of 1864. Many things are pointing towards that. The Confederate States of america adopt the United States constitution almost in all, changes couple of things. One, frank a talisman of slavery rather than people held the upper surface and exceeding the term of the president of six years. The Jefferson Davis never has to come up for reelection. But as soon as lincoln is elected in 1860 he knows hes going to come up again in 1864. A lot of the war pivots around that knowledge. Heres what you need to remember. After gettysburg, after the gettysburg address, after vicksburg, lee does not think in the fall of agency before is going to be reelected. Lincoln in the fall of 1864 does not think hes going to be reelected. The war is going so badly, especially in virginia, sherman is still bottled up at the board of tennessee and georgia, that the United States has to made us so much, and get cannot seem to defeat this enemy that they outnumber and have so much more material than they do. So democrats are vicious against lincoln. I think if people read this book, and all of you will, its a wonderful holiday gift, whatever holiday you may have. [laughing] but you will see that they are seeing things harder about Abraham Lincoln than we can imagine. Hes an imbecile, its on his bloody hands the rest the death of your sons can things like that that are very powerful. So the democrats are in a tough position because they dont want to pull against the United States, but they in some ways that won the war to go to war because lincoln would be reelected. They are on a platform that says what we should before is peace. Harmony of your sons are you you willing to give . Do you really want to see the slaves freed . Do you want them to flood into places like pennsylvania . Do you really want that lacks because thats not what we went to war for. We went to war to save the United States, this Republican Party has turned it, perverted it into an antisleepy war is what the democrats are saying. Heres the remarkable thing. Its very close, the democrats have their convention in chicago. They are feeling great and when they get back home, sherman has taken a letter. Its like, you know, it undercuts the whole argument that the war is being lost and theyre going to have to negotiate with the confederates. The democrats dont say much about the future of slavery. Slavery has been deeply disrupted wherever the United States army army goes but remer even as late as this, 3 million of the enslaved people in the south have never come with the intent of the union army. That the south is a size of the Continental Europe and the United States without all all e paraphernalia that we have today cannot penetrate a lot of those places. Its not clear what the future of slavery might be. After sherman falls, things look a lot better but pennsylvania still hangs in the balance. Lincoln says if i lose pennsylvania i might lose everything. The two largest states, new york and pennsylvania, new york is going to go to the democrats, but pennsylvania could go to the republicans. I dont what to ruin the story, tell you how it turns out, but i would say this. Lincoln persuades almost nobody from the democrats to vote for it in 1864. Nearly 48 of white northern meck would not vote for a dream lincoln in 1864. Isnt that amazing . The greatest National Crisis with our greatest president for the greatest purpose, that democrats will vote for George Mclellan and the end of the war. 80,000 votes in critical areas going the other way wouldve not elected Abraham Lincoln. Sort of the number we may have heard in recent elections about the same percentage we understand now, but the Electoral College it what it was supposed to do. Give lincoln a great mandate took on added election theres a question that that all the things republicans are pursuing. Remember, all through reconstruction that nearly half of white northern and who would support lincoln have not changed my going into reconstruction. Thats a a crucial part of the story we usually leave out. Were eager to cheer on grant and lee. Not lee, lincoln. To see the great outcome of the war that we know, that we forget how many white northern resisted every step of the way. Did i get all the different clauses the things that you asked . Yes. Thats a kind relating to that, lincoln one issues mandate but necessarily kidnap all popular support. He started to believe that a a constitutional amendment was necessary, 13th amendment. Can you talk about what led lincoln to this. Was i can. Ive reasonably people who might be interested in the constitution so lets talk about that. Lincoln says that the election faking of 1864 is really the first popular referendum on emancipation, and it is because everything that happened to in slavery before then have been done by lincoln himself as commander in chief, emancipation proclamation most important. So he realizes that if someone like mcclelland wins in the future, or if the courts challenge his authority to have ended slavery, if theres a different light on the courts, or if congress decides, that it is imperative. You will remember the Great Lincoln movie, and i remember being puzzled all the things you could show why are we seeing after the war is almost over and were seeing lincoln politicking . Thats because what has to happen if you dont get the 13th 13th amendment passed before the war ends, that these things are in jeopardy. So the end of slavery needs to be solidified. He has a lameduck congress, can he persuaded democrats have been an elected that was to be there for another year to go ahead and sign the 13th amendment . Hes able to get it through neroli pics of people dont often realize that the 13th amendment comes before the end of the civil war. But it has to or everything is imperiled. So after the war ends, lee 70 at appomattox, the north is pretty ecstatic about victory until lincoln is assassinated. Johnson becomes president which is not very long of course. So johnson is president. What is the effect on postwar reconstruction . Lincoln doesnt leave very specific instructions from what position for reconstruction would have been. Thanks for all the easy questions. Id sit on that is that lee less public address how i keep saying lee. Lincolns less public address is about reconstruction. This is not a direct quote but if Something Like this. Ill get back to you on the details picky since i have more to say about this in some future date and tragically course he does not. Lincoln does not let lay out an for reconstruction except to try to put the country back together as quickly as he can. He had a plan for each state, 10 of the population would declare the loyalty to the United States and come back to the country they could. So Andrew Johnson believes that he is following lincolns plan which is to help restore the country. Ill be honest with you, i went to Andrew JohnsonElementary School at east tennessee. I think theyre only two in the country, 135 miles away where he was from and for some reason in the town where i grew up. Hes just universally despised, but what we need remember is upon lincolns death, democrats and republicans it at least thank goodness with Andrew Johnson. Because he was the great hero, the only white southern senator who refuse not to go to the confederacy. And then the bent at great peril wartime governor of tennessee. And had been lincolns running mate. Republicans had reason to think this is just what we are looking for. Heres a guy who understands the white south by this committed to union and our success. But johnson, unlike lincoln, really did not value the freedom of the enslaved people. He was willing to sacrifice them and their rights for the quickest reunification of the country that he could come up with. In his mind what that meant was, that you almost all white men in the south support the confederacy. Even though they had been for unity for the work, a massive conversion to the confederacy. That if we dont have those men, including those who fought against the United States, being put back into power their suckling to be a base for a new Republican Party. So we will have to reach out to the good men of the south, i will pardon them, i taken at the word that they have acknowledged that they lost, the slave is over and the secession will not be permitted, and then they can come back into congress. The republicans say, these are the men who were killing us just months ago and now youre going to have them back to terminate our fundamental law . That becomes the fundamental issue is, what will be done with the former confederates . What are the con