You could have handed over to the unified government. They underestimated the threat of violence. They were telling them they were sending daily keep saying this was happening. I need more troops. On paper they created a peacekeeping force to go to the province but it wasnt for us with the details. He was busy drawing the flags in and the supposedly 50,000 member army force that went there and ended up being less than 2,000 people with actual rifles so they were not able to suppress the violence quickly. And they didnt have the troops in place and that was the british responsibility for the law and order up until that point so there were mistakes made. Its too easy you go to india today and pakistan today it is far too easy. You dont have any limits. At the time that you spent connecting with our faculty and classrooms so i want to congratulate you and thank you all for coming. Best of luck. [applause] you have other questions i can answer them individually. And talk to supporters on a swing through the state. And we will be live at a Campaign Rally tomorrow afternoon everyone thank you so much for being here today. I work with some of the events here and on behalf of the owners and the staff i want to welcome you to politics and prose. We are recording this events this afternoon and we also have cspan here with us today. Not having any interruptions would be great. We are going to have about an hour long presentation here with half the time given to the offers presentations and the other half to the questions. We have one microphone on the side. If you would end my and using that for the question we can pick it up on the recording. We ask that people of your chairs before and if you can leave the chairs where we are we do have another couple of events this afternoon. I am so pleased to be welcoming canvas to politics and prose to discuss her book lincolns generalize women who influenced the war for better and worse. This book is a detailed lively account during the civil war using memoirs and subjects of travel reports the group biography made to the Union Army General shows how they influence the spouses and threw the throue president and the nation. A writer and advisory in dc and the ulysses s. Grant historical home in detroit. She also let me know before we started she had a poe that she m published in the district lines. She has received her m. A. In history and George Washington university and this is her first book so help me in welcoming canvas to politics and prose. [applause] i tend to politics and prose and my home away from home went to my favorite section over there. The book that led me here today to talk to you about my book thank you all so much for coming. Its been said by grace and biographers of Abraham Lincoln including said he blumenthal was here just a month ago that Abraham Lincoln wouldnt have been Abraham Lincoln without his wife. I can tell you after eight years of research and writing the same is true of the Union Civil War generals and their lives. John charles fremont, William Tecumseh sherman and ulysses s. Grant wouldnt have been who they were without jesse, ellen ewing and julia dent. From president lincoln in january of 1862 i knew Jesse Benton Fremont lobbied presidene president on her husbands behalf a few months earlier. As a former congressional aide and a lobbyist i was intrigued by their lobbying efforts and by very different results that they achieved. I wanted to know more about how the influenced their husbands careers. I was confident that the that td because i was raised in a military family. And i learned very early the strength, courage and resilience required of military spouses. I began after initial research decided to also tell the stories of the trajectories of the civil war roughly matched those of fremont and sherman. Like fremont, George Mcclellan was one of the very first appointments to the great majorgeneral in may of 1861 and the 62 neither of those men commanded any truths at all. Lincoln had removed that of command. The same day they were made majorgeneral, William Tecumseh sherman grant received his first command two months later in july of 1861. But the 1865, sherman and grant were at the very top of the United States army command. They rose from obscurity to national and Even International fame i have bonus material that isnt in my book yet but it is still in. This is fremont and mcclellan in 1861 and this is sherman and grant in 1865. You know the old adage behind every great man is a great woman but how exactly does that work and what about the not so great men of history and the women behind them even now it seems to me more than coincidence that when i found a piece matching genitals i found those that shared important characteristi characteristics. Today i will only be able to talk about a few of those characteristics. Early on i realized none of them lived in one place during the war into some o and some of thed traveled widely even in the south. A long time map lover i decided to map and begin with rough distance calculations on my computer with mapquest. Ivana wisely as you can see hired a professional cartographer who would work with me on an earlier project. He was just accepted the position as the senior map editor for National Geographic and washington. He took my nap is from letters to newspapers, memoirs and official military records and mapped the wartime travel as others have asked the general. Scott believed and i do, to back that the maps in this book tells a new story of the civil war. They also tell much about the relationship to the husbands and wives. Smart, savvy, but warren into a political family who educated and groomed her to washington society. At the age of 15 she fell in love with fremont, a dashing exporter for the core with no social standing and little financial prospects. He wasnt about to allow his daughter to marry so far beneath her station. But mary m. She did in 1841 when she was 17yearsold. The aggressive ambition for her husband resembled the coaching of a stage mother. She carried on tha that way durg the civil war. When her husband assumed command that is directing july of 1861, jesse followed him to st. Louis and established herself in front of his office as his unofficial chief of staff. In st. Louis she was referred to as general jesse. When her husband issued an emancipation in et and 61 without advising president lincoln in advance, it was general jesse that boarded the train to convince the president that he shouldnt revoke the worker even though the Union Soldiers were laying down their arms in missouri because the early stages of war they havent signed up to free slaves. Her latenight encounter in september was one of the most famous meetings in the white house during the civil war. Neither she nor he handled it well but most of the blame goes to jesse who threatened and demanded the confidential correspondence and even seemed to threaten that her husband would challenge the president s authority. She encouraged the fremont and he did and lincoln soon relieved him of command. Though he was given another command in 1862 in western virginia, that also ended badly. Jesse was at his side and set up an office in his office fighting for him alongside him to the very bitter end. Until the election of 1864 when she secretly derailed his candidacy for president against lincoln prompted by a cartoon in harpers weekly magazine. George mcclellan is a fascinating and infuriating couple. He was a child prodigy from an uppermiddleclass family in philadelphia entered west point at the age of 15 going whose story hadnt been told and was a celebrated beauty who turned down eight marriage proposals including one from mcclellan before she accepted the second petition. On their wedding day mcclellan was president of the central railroad. A year and a half later the 34yearold was general chief of the United States army in the middle of a civil war. They were prominent on the party scene in washington, d. C. In the summer and the winter of 1862. Even if the interminable delays. The general ha general had seril problems, too. They revealed that he was often deluded and narcissistic in the extreme. Her husbands disdain the letter mcclellan at his own problems to be sure but she egged him on against his civilian and military. She couldnt have imagined the consequence o to the nation of r unquestioning support. At the headquarters in late 1861 when he took command of all union forces when he finally moved his army south in 1862 she began traveling north to new york and connecticut and new jersey. Indeed more than once she fled to city to avoid criticism that was ranked rampant. Soon after the battl battle of antietam and he cant 62 they fled to europe to escape the humiliation. When they returned he spent much time in the fifth avenue hotel in new york city at the most fervent antilincoln democrats who convinced mcclellan to run for president against lincoln in 1864. After he lost that election day flooded together again. We know for certains. The biographers stated that fact and the answer isnt obvious in my opinion. I tell the tale of the passion and engagement to the future confederate general which was thwarted by her mother but i found even more convincing evidence during the war and later in life after her husband died she abandoned responsibility after his death. She left to the not so tender mercies of a very misguided literary executor who published the most inaccurate criticized memoirs of any general. In those letters which mcclellan had always asked her to keep private its almost enough to make you feel sorry for George Mcclellan, almost. Nellie fox not at all. Unlike the others, she met her husband as a young child. They were neighbors where their fathers were just as. When William Tecumseh shermans father died of typhoid fee he walked next door and offered to take one of the 11 children left fatherless and penniless. Because he was the brightest he was for that. He was nine. Later he went to west point and they wrote each other then and all their lives interesting letters that fostered relationships and love. They were married in 1850 in washington across from the white house at Francis House for the e secretary of interiosecretary on renting. I learned he suffered from numerous illnesses and died from heart failure. Her first ailments struck her a form of external tuberculosis it was a widespread disease that was invented in 1864. Since it was transmitted from the diseased cows it is a disfigured indices marked by huge whales that would slow and even wrapped and temporarily subsided. The win was plagued all her life. I think it speaks volumes about shermans character that this terrible disease did not get atd from loving ellen and mary. But they didnt love each other as obvious in their letters from the earliest days when ellen was in ohio and trump was here before the first battle she wrote to him often asking to bring the newest baby and childd to washington and stay with him. But sherman was opposed to having women in camp and camped with men across the public river and later criticized mcclellan in washington with his wife debate co wife. They traveled on one occasion. In november of 1861 with the concern on the part of the superior she took him to see a doc or. Sherman had been forced to take command in the department when general andersens health failed. Three months earlier sherman asked president lincoln and lincoln agreed. He feared his troops were outnumbered and began to show signs of a nervous breakdown. As he requested the leave of command and moved to a less stressful posting but as a consequence of the motion, newspapers around the country. The startling headlines general William Sherman and so in january of 1862 ellen traveled again on his behalf to ask the president of the United States for help in restoring her husbands reputation. In early october, as sherman left pittsburgh it was clear their youngest son willy was not well. Almost as soon as the boat arrived in memphis the young boy died probably of typhoid. That was the last time she traveled during the war. Ellen bore another son, her seventh child, before atlanta fell and sherman began his march. Cut off from communication along the way, he didnt learn baby Charles Sherman died on december 4th until arriving in savannah and reading about it in the newspaper. For the rest of the war, they devoted their time between two cities. She was a devote catholic and also said to have put others before her family. But that is not true. Let me read charges that catholics served over their poem not their country, but any question on whether a catholic should be a loyal american Ellen Sherman was the definitive answer. She described a passion for the United States of america that the most avid person could suggest. Even before the civil war began, she urged comp to join the army and join the union. When he wanted to hide, she rattled his spirit and kept him in the war. Which sherman threatens to resign, she urged him to remain on duty and saw great victories were him. In her lefters to come, she wrote she wished she were a man so she could fight and wished her sons were old enough to fight. Of her beloved brothers, possible death at the second saddle of bull run she declared no greater glory than to fill a patriots grandma. Grave. Vengeance shall fall pawn them for being false to their country. Fortified by faith, ellen weathered the death of two sons and urged her husband to stay in the field and urge unrelenting war against the rebellion. Ellen traveled to and from. But julia grant was the civil war road warrior. Every biography of grants mentions she was with him a lot. Her memoirs are filled with being at camp with him. Julias map is a rough proximation of her travel and doesnt show many of the shorter trips. No matter, it is clear that july ia travels more than 10,000 miles during the civil war to be with her husband. Why did she travel so much . I found the answer in her eyes. As amazing as it is she traveled so far, often with four Young Children in toe, sometimes through enemy area and even more astoningish when you realize see did it a disability. She was born with a disability that made her eyes looked cross. It embarrassed her all of her life. She always preferred to be photographed in profile. It made it difficult, not but impossible for her to read and write. She never saw anything in three dimensions and had no depth perception. A noninsignificant challenge in an era of tragedy by horses, carriage and fairy. Similar to the attractions to the disfigured ellen, he fell in and love and stayed in love for 40 years. Theirs is one of the Great American love story. Julia loved grant but broke his heart again and again when failing to write letters to him. He pleaded for information about their children. Does fred have teeth yet . Asked if she received valuable items. His commission as the general and he begged over and over again to write to him more often. I needed to understand why she didnt. I first did a close reading of her memoir that provides clues and then i turned to medical expertise. I go in the considerable detail in lincolns generals wives about the eye defect being the reason she didnt write. It shook his self confidence to the core when he did want hear from her and was at the root of him resigning. When he returned to the army in april 1861 they thought to overcome her inability to write to him on a regular bases. Her first offer was to send their 11yearold son fred with him. When he got his command in late july, but grant soon sent fred back when troops were called into battle. As amazing as it may seem, julia decided she would rather travel to be with her husband than have him suffer is the consequences of her not writing. In the fall of 1861 juli e and her children travel to live from the northern tip to the southern tip. She brought her slave, too. We know that lincoln knew julias slave was living in the camp with one of the up and coming generals. He was urged to dismiss grant lincoln did not. The two julias traveled together nearly 5,000 miles during the first two years of the war and came within hours of being captured by confederates in holly springs, mississippi. Julia grants war time journey is a remarkable demonstration of the grants mutual love and devotion. As a result of them, julia had a front row seat as almost no other woman did to the endgame of the civil war. When she and her youngest son jessy lived with grant in the Head Quarters from january to april of 1865 and when he refused to go to fords theater with the lincolns on april 14th. Why were sherman and grant successful as generals and the other two not . There are many reasons but an important answer is found in the women who were their lives. Jessy and nelly never disagreed their husband and encouraged the generals to persist in their delusions. Ellen and julia supported their husbands best instinct including trust for lincoln and rebuffed their worst. Ellen and julia were among lincolns strongest ali allies. They were the source of their strength to win the civil war. Thank you. [applause] now now i am happy to answer any questions. Can you please come to the microphone or i will repeat the question. Okay. When the first son died, his father said to the next son, when you see someone in the military, give them your hat. What does that mean . You are talking about sherman. When Willy Sherman died, and Willy Sherman was his favorite son, there was no question about that. When he died, comp was utterly inconsolable. He wrote a tone deaf letter to his other son tom. What he was saying was that whatever you have, however much money you have, give half of it to the soldiers. He was trying to say you have to be willie because we have lost willie. It is a very heartbreaking moment because of course since he had told them he felt responsible for his sons death. Microphone or i will shout it out again. Thank you very much. Which of the wives did you find the most amount of Research Material to help you in this effort . And which was the most difficult . Most of the women kept their husba