It is good to be here at the national archives. To be back here i should say. I have researched all of my books at the national archives. Is a place of buried treasures they have a lot of boxes here filled with little folders filled with papers in the stories headed and escapers if you listen closely you may have somebody take a piece of paper upstairs and read it to a head yell holy cow. We dont have those that often the when they come it is what keeps the researches going. This book exists because i gave in to the deep dark desire that lurks in the depth with the human soul and researched the desired to prove that your boss is full of baloney. This happened in 2010. At American History magazine i immediately made a suggestion to the launch of the plays and had just hired me. The with the 50th anniversary is coming up. Why dont we take a couple of pages to run a newspaper story aired on dash story i that it was a good idea. But he did not and he said the civil ward journalism is lousy. I cannot imagine that somehow this the biggest parade American History. But i was not sure so i kept it out. I went to a library and i got a couple books on civil war journalism. I found out a lot of civil war journalism was really lousy some was great that most was mediocre. Sort id like todays journalism but more important the i came across a synopsis of what seemed like a great story to cover the civil war theme of brown and richardson and when night may 1863 we were desperately trying to catch up to general grants army outside vicksburg. Junius and albert got on a barge filled with hay for grants forces it set out at night so the confederates did not see it but unfortunately it was the night of the full moon and it was visible and the confederates fired cannons out at one hit the barge exploded killing about one dozen Union Soldiers and set up the hay on fire and junius and albert jumped into the river and attempted to float away but the confederates captured them and imprisoned them over the next 20 minutes months but then they escaped in Salisbury North carolina with the help of slaves and the pro Union Bushwhackers bushwhackers, they went up to the union line. This is only about this long and i thought that would make a great movie. Unfortunately i dont make movies. But occasionally i do write books and i thought should i write a book about these guys . I suppose as a novelist that synopsis would or could have been even of to make up the rest but i write history so i had to do some research to find out if there are enough facts available to tell the story. I did a Little Research and learned yes indeed there were such facts facts, memoirs, letters, dia ries in a newspaper stories others that were written as part of a story eyes had to dig them out of the archives including right year the national archives. That was big because that enabled me to have the holy cow experience to take the papers out of boxes. I wrote the book is called junius and alberts adventures in the confederacy because it is an adventure story. A straightforward adventure story that keeps you awake late at night wondering what will happen next. Will they make it home . Or will they get shot or hon over otherwise detained on the way . But i think it eliminates back to the civil war that most people dont know about the culture of reporters would it is like in confederate prison and most important a the war fought by the pro union folks in the mountains of North Carolina and to tennessee and virginia. The story has many colorful characters per of course, the made our junius brown and Albert Richardson both 27 years old and best friends but they were very different. Albert was a big strapping handsome farm boy from massachusetts who grew up on a farm but he hated the farm he was a romantic who wanted to be the explorer of the American West as he headed west and wendy back to cincinnati he took up a job as a of a newspaper reporter he was a natural he had the reporters ability to attract people to him and make them want to tell him things. During the war he managed to hobnob with the ordinary soldiers and generals and even president lincoln. He also attracted women and he started to date a young bookstore clerk she soon got pregnant so they got married and when albert was captured he was buried with three children and his wife is pregnant with the forth. Junius is scrawny and premature bald guys with big ears and was a rich kid the son of the cincinnati banker fence sent to the State College off that is a rigorous a Jesuit School where he learned to speak off latin and french. Keep killed himself as an intellectual and philosopher one of his favorite pastimes is to read the works of philosophy of ancient greek. His friend albert used to kid him about that. Junius was not good faugh factually he was too shy and would standoff and watch and then sit down to right the floury and literary essays from ancient writers. And that was a pretty common practice in those days. It was much more floury than what we have now. So from the new york tribune sometimes they would travel together sometimes they travel the part they always looking for an army about to go into battle which was hard to predict. Albert was better to figure that out there and junius looking afford dan nelson and shiloh and dignity of the naval battles along the mississippi. The first was the battle of fort henry favor in cairo illinois and hitched a ride with general grant as he put his army on a bunch of ships sailing down the Tennessee River so i thought i would read a little passage about that. Richardson went ashore. Going to the swampy woods to accompany the soldiers on their march weld richard to find that all oak tree. For what our they pounded each other with the shells hit so full of smoke that bridgeses could no longer see the gun ships. Albert went down the trees to join the Union Soldiers as they came into force in the. Shots had made great havoc he reported the magazines were toward open and the ground is stained with blood with fragments of flash. And blankets with the six corpses one with the head toward off and others with breast opened with impressive loons. He said they deliver the highest ranking caprine captain to the area of the fort with general grant a commander of the federal gun go. How can you fight against those . To it is hard but i like to use my people. The chicago reporter interrupted to ask the most necessary question. How you spell your name general . Sir, he replied it general grant uses my name in official despatched and i have no objections but i do not wish to appear at all in this manner of any newspaper accounts for those that were previously captured he said i am not giving my name to any newspaper whatsoever. Of course, richardson included his name in the story and he wrote his article aboard the union ship. So albert heads back to buy the story and junius stays with the union army and goes across 12 miles of the vote swampy land in a snowstorm to attack for dawson. Fort donaldson. And the union army to bat for a 12,000 prisoners the first big victory for the union. Junius file a long feature story became most famous for was what occurred during the battle of the last day junius and the reporter from the year times found snipers trying to pick off the confederate artillery batteries they were behind the walls made of logs favor though the gun and then pop up a and fire it and then the snipers were try to shoot them when it popped up but the confederates would try to keep their head back so finally won got so frustrated he handed his rifle to junius and said you try it. I suspected he had fired a rifle at some point in his life but he was not a soldier or a marksman and certainly not a sniper but he said what the hell he crouched down and aimed their rifles and fired and a battery went silent the cyprus and i thank you have got him then junius said would not be surprised. [laughter] of course, he was completely surprised but he did have a presence of mind to walk away before anyone could give him another rifle to expect him to do it again. That story illustrates how journalists have changed over the years. Cannot help suspect the old post boss at the post would not be happy to hear one of his correspondence put down the notebook can pick up the of m16 but ethics did not even use the phrase or people would have laughed like it was the oxymoron. A couple weeks later junius is in st. Louis and heres a union army was to invade arkansas. So he tried to jump on a plane to watch the invasion. It i will read what happens next. When komer realized down in misery that the battle was fought with the confederate army. To realize that thomas knox was with the arrival of the new york newspaper they devised a simple solution that they needed to win simple to attack with the rivers in the reports. These are a difficult but hardly unprecedented. Journalist in the 19th century were not iniki. And would not ruin a good story newspapers said the meager supply of facts of rivers and exaggerations and political rance in the political pros that escape the gravitational pull. During the civil war they would hear the dying words as a soliloquy. The soldiers never complained. All of these have been that became popular during the war. But even by those lax standards what he did was outrageous to right long eyewitness accounts but the pieces were so ludicrous and overblown that the men were competing to outdo one another. It seems possible now that others were involved. To have the first person journalism that even now trying to get my disconnected thoughts the sound of the cannon weld beiges of carnage in the flame of thought battle hover above my site with the excitement of a struggle that is on minders. That was hard to find. With the whole town to reflect as it was. To learn that the union won the fact the on dash victory in a dramatic charge said he was cast as the hero. Never was better fighting dan or more closely contested with the can and they did there bloody work. Every soldier kept his eye fixed on the fear this leader wherever they saw his hand they do they were safe strain she was not killed the would go on for the rebels to end his career. One carried away the spectacle. On and on the he went to steal a whole page out of the tribune to suggest the union army did it to every union soldier. Banal reporters should be fired but it became more hilarious when the ides of london suggested that was the best part of the war. [laughter] so would year later after junius and albert was captured they were not that worried that it about it at the time and were quickly released retreated for other prisoners said they thought they would be quickly released but the confederate stated the york tribune because it was the abolition this paper and had a banner headline so somehow the confederate officials did not like that so they just said point blank i would not release these prisoners they are the most obnoxious ones that we have. Theyve moved them one place to another over 20 months. I thought 20 months in prison . People would get bored but that turned out not to be true there was a lot of strange and weird incidences in the prison in the mets a lot of fascinating characters. With the five months they were in richmond. The warded was wonderfully colorful the captain George Washington alexander with long black here in the blackbeard with a black shirt and black pants and black belts into big revolvers it had a big red sash and would saunter around the prison this 100 lb dog who scare the hell out of the prisoners. Alexander had seen he was a pirate the was locked into fort mchenry but he escaped and jumped off the pair pat into the bay and will swim ashore and somehow made it back to richmond when he got there the authorities figured if he knows how to escape from a prison we should put it in charge of representative they put him in charge. In addition to being a war did he was also a poet and up playwright and a songwriter and he wrote musical comedy one that was truly awful performed in richmond during the rope or and he would leave the prison after the work day to where he had written himself the great scene right across the stage on the big black horse and everyone would stand up and cheer. This really happen to. You cannot make this up so one other thing about capt. Alexander he was as crooked as a pretzel. Well over 1,000 prisoners most living in squalor in these huge rooms in the south of the floor with this super speckled with maggots but he set up inside one group called the citizens room big enough for 50 people with windows you could open and close with a wooden stove and picked out prisoners who are rich or to get shipments from money or food if he can get that he could save the citizens room provided that he shared those with alexander and his cronies. So the prisoners looked pretty well into of them were junius and albert they got money and food from their buddy from the tribune and they shared in the of it pretty well in the south of london. But february 80 and 64 labour transferred to a prison in North Carolina. That was not too bad. With a couple of other prisoners favor living indoors but there was a yard outside they could play baseball so that is how they amuse themselves a lot of prisoners were Political Prisoners those who had died just were deserted or generally made it known they were not down with the confederate cause. Most were from the Mountain Areas of North Carolina and virginia and Tennessee River filled with pro union people there was not a lot of slavery of their so with the family farms eking out the subsistence living in they were not that excited about risking their lives to fight for this confederacy established by the slave own name plantation people and had not cheated the Mountain Area well. Said junius and albert met a lot of the dissidents from the prison and it was a pro union organization. So it hide Something Like 10,000 members in North Carolina and tennessee and virginia in the Mountain Areas. They learned of the secret handshakes in science and passwords that they would use to identify themselves to each other. That would come in handy leader of when they would escape. So in the fall of 1864 with the union armies of richmond said the prisoners south most went to andersonville but about 9,000 Union Soldiers were sent to sauls berry so so in a city hundred men at living indoors you have to thousand with 9,000 with being in the yard readies to play baseball it was now filled with makeshift shacks and no holes in the ground that the people were living in. It was a cold and wet fall and winter it rained a lot and a snowden some. They did not get much food and were exposed to the elements by the time december came they were dying at the rate of two dozen per day dysentery and exposure and starvation so the end of november the prisoners had insurrection hoping to break out but the guards fired down and pushed back killing 16 and wounding 60 before weeks later the junius and albert and a couple of friends escaped from the prison with the help of a guard who was part of the heros of america. So they set out on a rainy and cold december night headed for the nearest lines in knoxville across the appellation appalachian mountains. And headed for knoxville 200 miles away they could only get help from those who could be sympathetic to the prisoners. Who would that be . Slaves. So they would walk all night headed north and when it dawn was coming i will read a little bit about that. It was almost done in the located this slave cabin several white men word here by it was filled with a damp cornhusk to have warmth and the sleep they found little of either remained there until dark with their muscles sore with the skin itching. They shook off the wet clothes and made a few feeble attempts to comb their hair. And then one realized he had lost his hat but there is no time to look for a. They had to search over somebody who might feed them. With the old man who lived there for the every yankees he said he would be happy to take them. He invited them into the cabin and introduce them to his wife and daughter and went outside he stayed there on guard while the zero women cut than the yankees huddled by the fire with their close to being. Looking around realizing it was the first private housing injured in 20 months. It was cramped but there is plates and utensils civilized amenities that made him long for his own home. With the keys to our the checkin he took out the back of to he smuggled out of the women had never seen it before so he showed them how to brew it and then the slaves in the escaped prisoners sat down for the odd little to party. The yankees thank to the host thank god that to leave. May god bless you the woman said with tears in her eyes. The has been noticed the long cold journey into got his own hat and handed it to the reporter. He had almost nothing in did not even own it himself but willing to give his hat to a stranger you probably never see again. So in the land they look for the slave cabin they never fail to let them down. But they were small. And they could not tell them by the color of their skin. In then banned with men with the confederate of guard made up of a draft dodgers taking the rifles to head for the mountains to head out to the woods. Said then trying to figure of who may help in him them where we . About comment so theyre in the mountains there is a lot of warfare if you have seen the book called mountain that is the situation depicted pretty well with the guerrilla war and the bushwhackers. I would like to read one scene from that part of the book and at this point junius and albert had joined up with ellis he was famous of the people across the mountains. He also had a mountain look to stand the key to be a base plays it prepare for the is easy top he was almost killed so many times he had concluded that god was protecting him. So having this protection and caused him to take a lot of chances that scare the people out of the people that were with him. Said to take across the mountains to sell to the union army when they got to knoxville. He would go as fast as possible through the roughest terrain possible and they were stampeding across the mountains. So let me read some of this progress this point there were several dozen those on horseback go one way those who are on foot go another way. Albert is on horseback in the first time they have been separated since 20 months earlier. Said know i