Endowment for the humanities, where he was awarded. Where he awarded 500 million in grants to cultural universities. Scholars for seven years. He directed the nea operation homecoming, writing the wartime experience program, taught therapeutic writing workshops for u. S. Troops during their deployment on domestic bases and in military. He has published in humanities inside of Higher Education and the wall street journal and other. He has coedited an essay on flannery oconnor. Hello, so glad youre here. It is my distinct honor to introduce and to interview jeff shaara his new book which on notice signing is at 3 00 and i think youll to be there after you hear this and. And jeff is well known to us. Hes signed many of his books here, the state hes the author of more than 15 york times bestseller. As you certainly would know, gods and generals, other books that to mind the last full me about Teddy Roosevelt and rather than read this standard bio i thought i would tell a story. So jeff, i have known each other for about years when. We were younger. Lets say, and project that was just mentioned to government project operation where we worked with our troops in afghanistan and iraq as they were rotating in and out of the war, helping them share stories, helping them in many ways unburden their experiences and then domestically with military families and some our war two veterans, shelby foote recorded statements, in fact, as the last interview with Shelby Footes life. The recording for that project jeff we went to alaska, colorado, and at one point we found ourselves in bahrain, in the persian gulf on, an Aircraft Carrier. And we took a hiloen. And he was teaching, writing and know how limited it is, what you can take on a vessel in a war zone for half a year deployment sailors had in his duffle a beat up paperback of one of jeffs books. Now think of all the possessions you can bring pictures of family, what have you. He brought one of jeffs books and he was a little shy. It was tattered, was dog eared. The cover was a little bit detached. And and he got up his courage to say, you know, mr. Shiro, will you will you sign this for me . And jeff, whos so warm, always to his audience . He went to sign it. Now, heres the only unfortunate thing i know about this gentleman. Hes left handed. So he went to sign it. That cover went flying all over. So fair warning. I know were probably selling paperbacks. Just fair warning in and the vigor of his signing but we we see the public face of somebody and we dont always know what what they gave back and that was it that whole experience was pretty complicated. You know, it was a tough time. The people he was serving as a writer were going through some tough things. So i wanted to give you that introduction about jeff shaara not the right or but the man and thats a good to pivot to you now lives gettysburg, pennsylvania within the footprint your house within the footprint of that, uh, national all sacred space really. Tell us about while thats particularly special between you and your father. Well, my father took us kids his family totourists, like, you kn2 Million People a year do. And he went there with no agenda, he was not a historian. He had not done much research. Hed done some and my father was for all his life a storyteller. And he was a good and he knew a good story when he saw one walking the battlefield at gettysburg. And and he became obsessed telling that story and totally that that would happen to him. The obsession lasted seven years. Manuscript based on the battle of gettysburg and it was called the killer angels and i when people nod their heads every when i say the title of the book he tried to sell this in new york. Ill think about the early seven days, which is when he was trying to sell this book. What else is going in this country . The end of the vietnam war . Absolutely no. Wants to read a book about generals, which is about what the killer angelsointment. My father, he went through 15 publishers until he finally got house, the david mackay company, who was going out of business and reluctantly agreed to publish killer angels. There were 3500 copies published. That was it. And so there today. Theyre collectors items. The book comes out to no great commercial success and yet year later, in 1975, the book comes out in 74, which, by the way, next year is the 50th anniversary of the killers aroud that, but the book comes out 74, does nothing commercially, and the following we get a real surprise because a telegram comes to my Fathers House congratulations. The killer has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Now that was a surprise. Everybody especially, especially people, had no interest in the book. And still the book was not commercially. And he went. In fact, people often ask what other historical works did your father write . The answer is none. Oh, he went on to do a sort of a hitchcock sci fi story that did nothing and. He wrote a baseball story, which i can talk about little later, but he did nothing else. And in 1988, he his second heart attack and passed old, five years later, ted puts up the money. The movie gettysburg comes out based on the killer angels. The killer angels becomes, a number one bestseller, five years after my fathers death. Those are the footsteps walking in. Had it not been for his early demise, i never would have a writer because it was ted turner who came to me and said, wouldnt it be great to take, you know, go in both directions, do more stories like your fathers go before and after gettysburg . The before became my first book, which was gods and generals. So my tie to gettysburg pretty significant. And now that i live there and you know, my wife is, a native born and raised in gettysburg, the tie, the full circle, plenty of sense and. You know, its a wonderful place to is my office and head out the window of my attic. I have a perfect view of the round tops i can see little round top. My window right across the field will pick its to place. Its a pretty special place of so we dont forgetyour your dag through his files that. I dont know if you call it a novel or a novella that manuscript that baseball manuscript. Dont you give him a quick oh, yeah. My father had written a baseball story, as i said, and he had given up on it. He couldnt sell it then publishers wouldnt buy after his death. My and i, going through his effects, found a manuscript. There was one manuscript that was all. He could very well have thrown it away. I took it to new york. Baseball had gotten hot and so the book was published all over. Kevin costner jumped all over it. The movie was made in 1999. Some of you maybe it may have seen for love of the game, Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston are the movies on cable all the time and most people dont realize that movie is based on the book by Michael Scherer twice movies have come out based on his books that he didnt live to see. And im in the movie, by the way i got my one second claim to fame. So so on and. Now we talked about his work in it and again is, Teddy Roosevelt, which were going to get to and the incredible amount of writing done around the american civil war, World War Two, the american revolution, mexican war. We were just the mexican war and his korean war books are just remarkable, remarkable books. And particularly the stories we dont necessarily know. Ill pair that to where we are as a country. Terms of our high school and middle schools and junior high. So theres something called the nepa. The nations report card is a shorthand and we just had the back this year for eighth graders across the nation. So only 22 of eighth graders are even proficient in civics. Only 14 are proficient in u. S. History. Were approaching in 2026. The 250th Year Anniversary for the simi quincentennial of americas founding. And were going to get that level of knowledge just through history books. We are going to need our novels, even our hollywood or our musicians. Were going to need everyone but to the young. What would you say . What would you want them to know about well, first of all right, off the bat, the easy one is he was president of the united states. I mean, if it didnt this is ive heard this said about people in hollywood if it didnt in their lifetime, it didnt happen. And think there may be some of that when you talk about young people that they just have no reason to think back no reason to learn who the president s were no reason to pay to the important ones. There were a lot of unimportant ones, but ones who did things that changed our world it changed what were living today. And roosevelt certainly responsf all, for things like the National ForestService Responsible for you know the National Parks as we know them today. I mean, without roosevelt, a lot that land or yellowstone or yosemite, on and on and on would have been developed. There were people actively trying to run railroads through these places, and there was one congress men in particular a fellow from something in the midwest somewhere who his not 0. 01 for scenery, you know, thats what roosevelt was up against. And he provided us scenery and he provided great deal of it and many you know the panama canal wood which roosevelt himself admitted had been up to congress to do the panama, it would have taken 50 years. And roosevelt did it in three. And i could, you know, just keep on listing. I dont want to get involved, bogged down so much in roosevelts presidency because as interesting as that is and it is interesting and he accomplished extraordinary number things fighting for the little man i mean fighting for the the common worker against corporate the the the sort of the evil, you know, corporate empires. I mean, he was responsible for knocking down a lot of that for forming what become a lot of unions to fight against corporate abuse. I mean, he did all of this stuff and thats his presidency. And to get back to your question, people need to know this. A lot of the good that we in our Society Today came from that period of time in our history, the first decade of the 20th century. And was, you know, because of Teddy Roosevelt, the the other we think of Teddy Roosevelt. And then that strong way, the man in the arena and, th groupse are surprised. I, i feel well informed. His support for suffrage was was way out of character in the universities. I think people know. But as the general public, we a lot of us werent told that he had Booker T Washington dinner at the white house which president wilson certainly wouldnt allow there. There are so many ways that he ahead of his time. Yeah i mean itd be easy for me to sit up here basically and read you a synopsis of the book. Yeah. And my wife always gets on me. Dont do that, because then people have no reason to buy the book. But in fact i mean, you know he he Booker T Washington the first African American to dinner in the white house ever. I mean lincoln had africanamerican visiting the white house and Frederick Douglass and so forth. But terry teddy was the first man to actually have dinner with one in the white house and boy, did that cause a stink. I mean, newspapers attacked him for that, particularly in the south in memphis, there was a paper that said respectable southern woman will ever set foot in the white house again. You know, and on and on and on. I mean, there was there was a lot of that suffrage he supported womans right to vote decades before actually came to pass. And again that was an stab in the peoples you know, why do women need the right to things are going along just fine the way they have you know since you know the 1780s. Fine Women Deserve the right to vote when that was a very unpopular stance. So again i could go through, you know, all the minutia, if you will, of his life and, his presidency. But theres so much more to this character and all our, so you dont have tomississippi, ill f course, that the bear story is in here and we know that one. But you also remind us the connection that when the african. Postmistress in 1903 in indianola was pressured and forced, the people said wont accept her being there. He closed the post pointed her d it was too dangerous, and she did not stay in that banks in te state of mississippi. What i like is that you dont focus on the presidency so much as. You tell us about the dakota territory in the bad lands. Well, and tell us about that focus. Well, first of all, i have to correct you on one thing that i dont dont tell you about it. Teddy tells you about it. Yeah. The whole point of this is for me to take you with me and put you at his bedside and let him tell you the story. And thats the way this book is written. But the dakotas, in the 1880s, he goes on a hunting trip. You know, he was hes a big and he goes out and hes he wants to kill a buffalo. Thats his motivation for going out there. What he finds when he gets the dakota territory. First of all, there arent very many buffalo left, which is a disappointment. But then he also finds cattle ranching and he gets really excited about raising cattle and he loves the land there, the badlands and what is today north dakota and he meets some people and some of them not so nice, but he gets that was one of the things about teddy i think you can talk in his whole life is a lot of what he does and what he accomplishes is simply because he gets excited and he wants to do something for himself, you know, even against advice. To the contrary, he does it anyway. So he he puts down a bunch of money, he buys a bunch of cattle, he hires some people. And he becomes just like a cattle rancher in the dakotas. And he goes back to new york and goes back and but that experi and some ocertainly this book, e there and thats the one word i have to use to describe from the writers point of view, from being able to tell his story. Fun. I what happens to him, you know, its entertaining was entertaining to me. And i certainly hope as a as a result of that, its entertaining to you and the other is we in way he was received when he got to the badlands hes hes a harvard educated a fluent he wears glasses. I had no idea wearing glasses was such an offense of how you establish those often friendships. Well i think first of all he brings respect with and people know of and know of his name. But he very quickly because he doesnt try to run the show he concedes he doesnt know what hes and so he hires people do and he respects them and so it becomes mutual. And then as time goes by, i mean hes there for three or four years and as time goes by his sacrifice the things that he does, some of the stories in this book, some of the things that happened to and by the way, you mentioned is when he first steps off the train, first time glasses. Iddle of the i mean, because he has to wear glasses, he cant see and he gets told immediatway nobody ous glasses. So you can expect from now on everybodys going to call you for eyes and they do and so everywhere he goes, hes known as four eyes and he just accepts it and just thats just the way it is and he keeps their spare in the room of his hat so he always hes never you know, you wonder why if a guy has one pair of glasses hes riding a horse. Theres a stampede head of cattle, which hes in. So hes always hes always got spares. Hes four eyes and he and he accepts that with humility and he accepts all of with humility. And i think thats what makes him as popular as he is out there to the people that work for him and that brings itpeopla writers leaning on the word fiction. Youre always leaning on the word historical. I mean, talk to us about. The matter of research, the well known historian say to me one time, you know, youre writing fiction, you could write anything you want. You know, can you can create your own history and fudge things and do all of that. Well, that may be true for most people that write historical fiction. Its not true for me i do an enormous Amount Research mainly to get facts straight, get it right. You know, i make huge amounts of notes, which i prefer during the writing. You know, what happened when it happened . Who would happened to who was there, who was not there . Thats so important. When i began to hear from Teacher High School teachers, particularly, who were my books in their classroom, what that did is i mean, first of all, i was shocked because these are novels, you know youre teaching history with a novel and what i heard was, first of all, they said, you, we trust that the history is accurate. But the other part of it is, if can give the student a character to to somebody, they can get into, they dont even realize theyre learning the history. You know, theyre theyre learning the character well. So thats been extremely flattering but that also added to the responsibility feel to get it right you know they dont play around with history, play games, you know, everything role in this book particularly e way its written these are novels definition. I mean theres fiction. The fiction is the dialog because there, you know, no one will ever know exactly the co Teddy Roosevelt and his wife in a certain situation, it just well never know. Thats my job is to fill in those blanks. But if im doing my job, if im doing it right, its seamless. You know, that youre reading about the events as they happened and the history as it happened. But youre there, youre hearing it the way it happened between the characters and thats what thats i try to do in every book ive done. I also think the part that the reason is these are very of we can read them, we can understand them, theyre not written time very precise in your language. You mention a quarter boy road. And of course, my minds thinking. I dont think he means the jacket. You know, i found myself looking it up and remind me so you have that level of nuance to to make sure that it did so precise. But at the same time, youre releasing a book more or less every year, not just about the the division between researching it,rst thing you said. I love putting in tidbits. And thats where historians thats for the people who know you know, every blade of grass and, every thing that happened. So i love putting Little Things just to let them know ive done homework. And this came about because in gods and generals in my first book, i made a mistake like i made a mistake on col