To the video saying the promise of jamesville is the promise of america and that line gave me goosebumps because i heard that Youtube Video after the a simile plant closed. So there was an iron he to what is president ial candidate became president was saying. Jamesville was part of the sitdown strike in the 1930s, and the domestic war effort in world war ii, they stopped making vehicles and started turning out artillery shells. A big moment in the 20th century, i just like that history. Before i knew anything about this community or met anybody here i had the sense i might find some interesting politics. I just thought there might be Something Interesting about a youth and represented by paul ryan. The gaithersburg book festival live on booktv wrapping up with a discussion on the United States expansion into the west. A couple routine announcements to begin here. We are being broadcast live on cspan. If you have a problem with that, let me know. I have a couple minutes, right . Okay. Welcome to gaithersburg book festival. If youre not sure where you are you are in gaithersburg. I am a member of Gaithersburg City Council and someone who loves reading good books especially about history so gaithersburg is a city that supports the arts and humanities, pleased to bring this fabulous event free, thanks to the generous support of sponsors and volunteers. If you see someone wearing a blue shirt or might be a sponsor say thank you. If you have one of these please silence it. Put it in vibration mode and if you are on social media and we hope you are, use the hashtag gbs, it is important and valuable so surveys are available here and on the gaithersburg book festival website, you will be entered to a drive for 100 visa gift card and a quick word about buying books. It helps these guys too and the more books we sell, the more publishers, to speak with us. Politics and prose, help support the greatest independent bookstores. If you enjoy this program and in position to do so please buy your books here at the politics and prose tends. Peter cousins Peter Cozzens and William Hogeland will sign their books after the presentation, their books are on sale in the politics and prose tends. Today, Peter Cozzens and William Hogeland will be discussing their works that bookend the history of the us expansion westward from the Atlantic States to the pacific. Each book addresses the impact of that extension and the natural destiny on the lives, cultures and societies of the people indigenous to the continent, people we call native americans or American Indians. It is not necessarily an element of American History that gives us great pride. Gives the meaning to the expression land of the free and home of the brave but there are two sides to the history of the presentation of perspective of the new and indigenous elements in both of these books. William hogeland is the author of the autumn of the black snake. He writes and speaks and brings his banjo on topics that connect American History and todays political and cultural struggles, his focus is on insurrection, economic crisis, social class and conflicting american visions of democracy, equality and liberty. He has several critically acclaimed works of early us history included in the american collection and the university of texas covering america series. The autumn of the fifth snake is his fifth book. It begins in 1791. These are the indian wars many of us are less familiar with. He writes of the battle between the pioneers and indians and the political battle between important for your figures in American History. Peter cozzens is author and editor of 17 books on the American Civil War and American West and recipient of a number of awards including the most recent book, the prize for military history, very prestigious prize among historians. He recently retired from the 30 year career as Foreign Service officer at the department of state and prior to joining Foreign Service served as captain in the u. S. Army, someone who has a career like that has time to offer 17 books and many of these books have the same sweeping nature of his early work. Peters newest book, the epic story of the indian wars for the American West, names are familiar, custer, sherman, grant and a host of other military and political figures and great native leaders such as crazy horse, sitting will, geronimo and red cloud. One viewer describe the work as a reminder the tragedy, not melodrama, best characterizes the struggles for the American West so please join me in welcoming the gaithersburg book festival welcome to William Hogeland and Peter Cozzens. [applause] thank you very much. We will try to keep it informal. We didnt bring banjos but each of us will talk about our books and interview one another, then take questions from you folks. My book the earth is weeping, the story of the indian wars, is a history of the climactic struggles for the American West from the end of the civil war until the tragedy at wounded knee, and i cover the entire sweep of the indian wars from the Canadian Border south into the recesses of the sierra madre, mexico, a lot of beds of northern california, east to arkansas missouri rivers, three decades and a lot of struggles condensed into one book. What i have sought to do in my book more than anything else is tele balanced story from both the indian and white perspective equally. To give you the story from both perspectives as best i could. We jump back in history and i turn it over to bill. My book the autumn of the black snake came today, the story of the first war this nation ever fought. Not only the first war the nation ever fought but the war in which the u. S. Army was formed. The army was formed as a national, federally organized force to fight this war but of course that army has gone on to have global significance and the politics of forming that army were a fraud to put it mildly. George washington wanted a standing army. A lot of people didnt. In the context of this war, the littleknown doesnt figure in the popular imagine the same way, littleknown founding indian war, our army was created and in fact takes place, the warfare takes place largely in the midwest. It was the conquest of what became the american midwest which so quickly after that started to become the industrial heartland, industrial economic driver that helped make america a great force around the world. I thought it is funny we dont talk about this or. I got into it here and it is interesting how the two books in a funny way combine. Once we fought the war, it begins to open up the entire conquests of what became the bigger American West. What peter epic, sweeping. This is the smaller, two or three sentences another book and i had to pry it open to get a story out of it so they complement each other and contrast in interesting ways. We are going to moderate ourselves, we will keep it moderate. I will ask questions and turn it around and ask me and themes will develop, have some questions as well. The biggest question, what got you interested in the history of the war . I came to the indian wars circuit asleep. Not at all intentionally. My other works were on the American Civil War, i was writing a biography of john pope who is forgotten, after he lost the battle of second manassas. I was intrigued, pope went on to have a distinguished career as an Army Department commander in the west and what struck me was how empathetic he was toward the indians in their play and how humanitarian he was in the general level discussed with the fraud and injustice perpetrated folks need more reading and his attitude was quite common among Army Generals who thought the indian wars. Came at it indirectly so from that, increasing the subject overall. What comes up, one of the many things is the mythology around the indian wars. Touch on the missed we are familiar with. One thing i argue in my prologue, to some degree or another all history is informed by myth but i would contend there is no other period in American History that is so deeply shrouded in mist that the indian wars of the American West it is traditionally presented in much popular fiction, cinema and to a lesser degree more serious works of nonfiction, absolute struggle between good and evil with villains and heroes being changed to accommodate and evolving national consciousness. What you had in the first 80 years after wounded knee was the story of the indian wars presented in which the government was trying to civilize the west, the army was seen as shining night of an enlightened governmental policy and indians were vilified or trivialized, certainly presented 1dimensional fashion and wounded knee, 1970 of the year later one of my favorite films, little big man, Dustin Hoffman and the American Indian movement, the growing National Sentence of guilt over the injustice done to the American Indians, coincided with the latter years of the vietnam war and the story shifted to the other extreme and you had the indians being absolute good and the army and government embodying absolute evil. The truth never reflects one extreme or the other and i tried to bring balance. The three principal miss i touched on quickly, one of the myths the government pursuing indian policy that was extermination in nature, it was never there was never an intention of the government to exterminate the indian, cultural genocide to use a modern term doing away with the indians way of life was taken for granted if the indian were to survive but physical genocide was not part of the governments intention. The myth the army was hellbent on exterminating the indians i alluded to john popes views and tried to counter that in my book. Thirdly, a notion that there was a united indian resistance against white encroachment in the west and nothing could be farther from the truth. No tribe was ever unified, white expansion, accommodation and traditional elements in each tribe but those of the principal miss i try to disabuse the reader of in the book. In terms of consistent white opposition, the question of indian identity throughout your book, is there a common indian identity that the tribes go around. How does that function . No sense of indian this among the indians. The indians identified first and foremost as members of extended family group, secondarily members of their tribe, thirdly and occasionally as part of an alliance with one or two other tribes but never as members of a larger ethnic or racial group. Rarely indians identify above the tribal levelland tribes have been fighting one another for many many years before whites appeared on the scene. It was generally a contentious relationship among tribes in the west. Root causes of that what you said. Competing with each other for so long already. Are there other causes for the absence you identify . The struggle for hunting grounds, land, limited resources and the cultures in the west for the most part were warrior cultures and the only way a younger man could make anything of self, a younger man couldnt even date a girl until he established for himself a certain number of war owners and those war honors were obtained at the expense of other tribes, stealing horses, taking scalps, counting coup. This warrior culture is a fundamental part of the way of life among the tribes in the west. Which leads me to this question, that is one kind of warrior culture. Can you speak to the contrast between the upbringing and training of the indian warrior, give more detail of that, that would be interesting and that of the american soldiers. The contrast couldnt have been more stark. Indian boys were raised from childhood to become warriors, a little bow and arrow among tribes, the comanche children started riding horses at age two or three so that warrior nature was implicated from the time they were toddlers, and as Army Officers who had any amount of time in their west readily acknowledged the indians, a couple in the book consider the Army Officers to be the finest calvary men, National Cavalry and National Soldiers in the entire world. Certainly man for man they were far better fighters than the army. The postcivil war army was a disaster. It was really the nadir of the u. S. Army after founding. You had the civil war fought by veterans, volunteers fighting for a purpose. The postwar army was a volunteer army that numbered as little as 25,000 blue at one point. The pain was lower than it was during the civil war. There were few incentives to enlist. The desertion rate was 80 . Most men fired their first shots from their weapons when they were engaged with indians. There was very little training of any sort. And listed men were drunken dissipated lot in large member as were their officers in large measure. Why is that q as the army shrunk opportunities for promotion shrunk. I wont say entirely so but among most of the officer corps before the rank of general if you had anything going for you, you got out of the army after the civil war, the indian war, west point graduate, it took 25 years to make major, 37 years to make colonel if you live that long so the army was a very Poor Organization but what it did have was it was fought better, more individualistic. There are great figures, people are familiar with people who show up in your book. Your view of these great figures we might know change markedly in the consequence as a consequence of your research and the writing process . I dont want to steal time from bill or you folks. We will be okay. I would say to give a teaser to buy my book, custer comes off a little better than i thought he would. I dont consider him to have been a fool and i dont exculpate him for little bighorn but i understand where things went wrong for him. No one is black or white but the closest to one emerging, the closest to evelyns geronimo. He was a despicable figure and i will leave it at that and let you read the book. On the other side of the coin, Oliver Otis Howard who founded the university, no one in the army by his fellow general says the general emerges very favorably and on the indian side, a very high appreciation for chief sitting bull and chief joseph. What is coming up . What is your next sweeping epic . My next book will be a biography of a railroad train. [train horn] can everyone hear me okay . Sort of a nice sound. Adds to the ambience of it. My next book will be a biography of chief tecumseh, the great shiny chief shiny chief who led the Indian Alliance in the old northwest, killed in the war of 1812 and interestingly his career as a warrior took shape, took form during the time of buildup. It was very helpful to me. Not only did i enjoy it but it was helpful to understand the early years of tecumsehs life. They do goad together. By two books. I wish i could say for the price of one. I will always the first question back to bill and ask what got him started and interested in this topic. I come at it from a different angle. The early republic specifically resistance to the early republic. My first book was about the whiskey rebellion, and i got into it that way. I have been studying resistance to the founding generations plans for the country and the founding generation this, responses to that. Of the three books i have done on that this is the big story. The big resistance. This is the attempt to prevent us expansion west and north of the ohio river which was a Massive National project, George Washington and many others could not have envisioned without successfully achieving that but while it seems inevitable to us now that it had to happen, no way it couldnt have happened, people of the time from washington to Arthur Sinclair to Anthony Wayne, successful general, to the various leaders of the Indian Confederation that resisted this it wasnt obvious to them that it would happen. Whether this would be a successful conquest or whether the nations would be able to actually resist and even prevent white expansion westward so without the action in this book it is hard to imagine the early republic thriving so it fits into my work in terms of coming at it from that angle. The biggest and best of the stories of resisting the foundation that did in the end occur. Speaking of the Founding Fathers like George Washington and others like Alexander Hamilton figuring in this story. I came away from figuring their motives were not entirely disinterested to say the least. How might my perception of these men change through the lens of the story . Washington is an important character in this book because his interest in that land, talking about what became the midwest. The ohio country, the illinois county and michigan and indiana and the rest of the midwest. In that region, personal interest in that region begins his career as an important person in america. He made his way as a young man beginning in his teenage years by figuring out where the best land was and finding ways to invest in it. He was largely disinherited in favor of his older halfbrother is and massive advantage, people think only hamilton didnt come from massive advantage but washington didnt come from massive advantage and he had to make up for a