Transcripts For CSPAN2 Author Discussion On The Civil War And The South 20240714

Everyone. Fternoon yall find seats and will get our panel going. Good morning. Welcome to the fifth annual mississippi book festival. Im Chris Goodwin with Mississippi Department of archives and history. If you havent done so, please silence your cell phone. This panel on the u. S. Civil war is sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council and Mississippi State university. One of the book festivals Board Members from Mississippi State John Marszalek is on the panel. Is Francis Coleman here . Dean of the libraries . Another strong supporter. As is stewart rock off director of the Mississippi Humanities Council. I do believe hes in the room. We thank them for their support and we are in the room today courtesy of foreman watkins law firm. Our panelists are Jacquelyn Hall, shelby harriel, ben wynne and john nsmarszalek. You can purchase the books ne outdoors. And you can find the times they will be signing in your brochure. We will hear from our panelists for about 40 minutes and then we will open the floor for questions. Please go to the podium and asked the question at the microphone at that time. Help me welcome author of civil war siege of jackson mississippi. [applause] will come everyone. Glad to have you today. Id like to introduce our authors, beginning to my immediate left doctor Jacquelyn Hall who is in oklahoma dated. She has an undergraduate degree from what is now Rhodes College and memphis. A phd from Columbia University among her many accomplishments shes the founding director of the Southern Oral History Program and the abat the university of North Carolina chapel hill. Shes the author of several books including like a family the making of a southern cotton mill world and the topic of todays discussion sisters and rebels, a struggle for the soul of america. Next to her is shelby ashelby harriel mississippi native and graduate of the Southern University mississippi. Currently an instructor of mathematics which scares me to death. At Pearl River Community college and proper bill. Her Ongoing Research on the role of women soldiers in the civil war has been widely published and utilized by the National Park service and state historic sites. Earlier this year her interest in the topic resulted in her first book behind the rifle, women soldiers and civil war mississippi published by the University Press of mississippi. Next to her is doctor John Marszalek native of buffalo new york. Earned his phd from university of notre dame after serving the military. He began a distinguished teaching career and since 1973 has been on the faculty of Mississippi State university where he is now the giles distinguish professor at emeritus in history. He is the author of 15 books but perhaps most significantly for todays apdiscussion since 2008 he has served as executive director of the Ulysses S Grant associations president ial library at Mississippi State. Doctor John Marszalek is coauthor of hold on with the bulldog grid a short study of Ulysses S Grant which will be discussed today. Finally, author and historian doctor ben wynne is a native of florence mississippi. Luluafter attending Millsaps College as an undergraduate he earned an ma in history from Mississippi College and a doctorate from the university an of is to be. He currently serves as professor of history at the university of north georgia in gainesville. He is the author of four books including in tune aband the subject of todays discussion the man who punched Jefferson Davis the political life of henry stuart foot published by lsu press in 2018. Im going to start with ben. If he doesnt mind too much. And ask each of you to give a brief overview of your book and what we are talking about today. Thanks. Im ben wynne the book title the man who punched Jefferson Davis, really should have been titled the man who punched a i and fill in the blank because this man punched a lot of guys during his career. Before we get started i want t pick mississippi book festival for inviting me here today. I want to thank cspan of course and i also, im a jackson native i want to give charlotte to st. Andrews Episcopal School where i attended school from grade 1 to 12. In first grade they literally taught me to write in the most literal sense. The foundation of the Educational Foundation that we all got there was very important. I discovered henry foot when i was back in the dark ages doing my doctoral dissertation and i was doing it on the mississippi unionist before the civil war, the people who didnt want to succeed they were more moderate as far as the secession issue. Not particularly the slavery issue but the secession issue specifically. I started researching those type of people and their politics in the sky foot his name kept popping up everywhere. He was a u. S. Senator for mississippi from 1847 to 1851, which was the period where you had what some people call the first secession crisis a lot of issues that when slavery came to a head it was a lot of backandforth in washington to a very tense time that era produce something called the compromise of 1850 would postpone the civil war for about a decade. He was all wrapped up in that. Then he became governor of mississippi right after that. What was interesting about foot is he really went against the trend at the time, the political trend. Most of the politicians were starting to become pretty radical with regard to the slavery issue and already talking about secession and so on and so forth. Foot at great Political Risk was a prounion politician for mississippi during that period and he espoused that on the floor of the u. S. Senate and one of his election defeated Jefferson Davis for governor on that platform. I thought that was a pretty interesting study looking for things about sthim and then i found out, i just made a short list of what he did, as a politician this guy was wild. He was all over the place. He would go from being this very refined, he was a great writer, statesmanlike persona, to this maniac. While during his political licareer he fought in six duos innumerable fistfights while he was on the floor United States senate this is what he did there among other things. Pull the gun on Thomas Hart Benton another senator from missouri on the floor of the senate. He pulled a knife on a abgot in a fist fight with a fellow senator from arkansas on the floor of the United States senate. I got in a fight in the cloakroom with a guy named Johnson Fremont who ended d goo being the first republican candidate for president. Got in a fight with him, they are not on the floor of the senate set in the senate cloakroom. He threatened to inhang john c hale another senator from a tree. Then he got the famous fistfight with Jefferson Davis. I looked at all that and said how can i not see what scott was up to. He has this very volatile career he was born in 1806 and died in 1880 so his public career spanned a very controversial period of time. He had this great feud with Jefferson Davis probably Jefferson Davis most outspoken critic. He ended up getting elected to the Confederate Congress and some people believed he did that just so he could stand up on the comp floor of the Confederate Congress and talk about Jefferson Davis. Thats all he did. Demanding investigations of an Jefferson Davis was not talking much of what a coward he was and how he was screwing up the whole war effort. Over and over again. Again, he was a smooth article guy that led this Colorful Life to say the least and when he died all the obituaries the people either love them, they bought into what he was doing or more people hated him because he tended to burn his bridges wherever he went. One other thing he did, he was a politician, that wasnt enough he ran for office as a jacksonian democrat as a way to as a mainstream democrat as a Union Democrat as a member of the know Nothing Party as a Confederate Congressman and finally ended up joining the Republican Party after the war. So he did all of that as well. He published ended up when he died he had published four books he publishes own personal history of the confederate war effort he published that to lambaste all his enemies in the book. He also tried to broker a Peace Agreement with the Lincoln Administration in 1965 you just left the Confederate Congress and decided to go try to do that he was never able to talk to lincoln he did get as far as seward and was arrested and thrown out of the country as a result. Quite an interesting character and thats what kind of drew me to him. This book, the title, and holding it up for obvious reasons because im showing it. Theres a book hold on with the bulldog grip a short history of Ulysses S Grant. The title is important its been selected by Mississippi State university this year to serve as its 2019 maroon edition. What happens each Year University gives to all incoming freshmen and transfer students a gratis copy of some particular book which is then used in a common reading project in class events on gatherings on campus etc. The whole thing starts this coming thursday, august 22 in the Humphrey Coliseum who abthis is the 10th year this has been done. This years book was actually inspired by the us grant president ial library being housed in the Mitchell Memorial Library on campus. I should tell you that since grant came to mississippi every phone call that comes in from the media always asks the same question. How is it possible that us grant could be in the heart of mississippi . In answering the question we normally tell a lie first. We quote lincolns comment to grant during the virginia campaign, remember grant and lee fought each other in virginia. Lincoln wrote to grant and said, hold on with the bulldog grip. So we like to say that even lincoln knew. [laughter] so we have a new Mississippi State bulldog. To tell the truth, we do is we then tried to tell the truth that in addition to grants historical connection to mississippi, Mississippi State made the best offer of a lot of different institutions around the country to provide Institutional Support for this grant president ial library. Msu president mark aquino came up with the idea for this book and when you look at the copy of the cover you will notice that the book has been written by a number of people, mark aquino has had a chapter, chief justice of rhode island retired Frank Williams two grand editors. We wrote this book, which every freshman now will be getting and discussing over the years. The thing that we tried to do you can see its a thin book. Knowing what students are like we wanted something for him so they might actually read it. [laughter] but in any case, readers will read this together book and they will learn about grant the man and not just direct the myth. They will have a chance to read about grants friendship with lincoln and really most significantly, i think, the connection between the grant family and the family of the first msu president confederate general Stephen D Lee. I think they also learned something important for freshmen to learn from gregs life and we hope that this will inspire them to make more frequent visits to the grant president ial library to learn even more. Fortunately, the University Press of mississippi the publisher of the book has made the book available for purchase to the general public. And the story of grant and his fascinating connections to Abraham Lincoln and this confederate general Stephen D Lee makes grant become even more wellknown than he already is. Thank you. Shelby . [applause] jim, along with probably many of you will take comfort in the fact that my book contains no mathematics at all. [laughter] even though i have an article coming out in january, historical article, i do cite the law of science. So math and history in the article but out of the book. My book is behind the rifle, women soldiers civil war in mississippi. It is the first book dealing with women soldiers with the regional focus. Theres not a lot out there and my book is the first want to deal with the regional focus. Even though the focus is mississippi i branch out and talk about women soldiers who fought in ogettysburg, and tal about women soldiers who were confined in andersonville prison. Its not all about mississippi but of course that is my focus. Basically a chronology of mississippis involvement in the civil war as told to the stories of women who fought there. Which is still relatively new topic. Theres not a whole lot out there but i did find women who fought in every battle in mississippi except for maybe tupelo. Interestingly enough, women werent allowed to serve as soldiers in the civil war hundred 50 years ago so they had to be sneaky about it. There was one woman who claimed ignorance when she was caught she said that nobody specified that women couldnt fight. So there she was. She was discovered and, which she kind of told on herself because she was disguised as a man so obviously she had to know she couldnt be there but she tried anyway. But like this woman, women had to disguise themselves as men in order to serve in the civil war which of course makes my job much more difficult. I have to find out who they really were and their true names which a lot of them had multiple feminine names and multiple mail aliases. D they had to enlist under. But, like i had to be a detective to find out all of this. Something interesting to note is there were at least two womens whose brigades faced off against each other at champion hill, which of course is the major battle of the vicksburg campaign. In my mind that they probably shouldve let the women take care of it anyway. The war wouldve ended very quickly or still going on today. Thats basically it. Still a lot am still ndresearching and finding out n information every day. Its a lot of new information in my book. I hope you will enjoy it. [applause]. Thank you. Im thrilled to be here. Sisters and rebels follows Three Sisters who were born in the 1880s and 90s over the course of the 20th century. And uses them and their circles of lovers, colleagues and friends, to lift up the struggle of white southerners to come with the grips of the legacy of slavery secession and segregation. In short, full disclosure, its not about the civil war. It compares the reality of his live with the stories he tells his daughters. A key chapter of the book, maybe the key chapter of the book is about the late 19th century struggle of white southerners to win thehe battle for historical memories. That is to define how the country was going to remember slavery and the civil war. In the aftermath of the civil war. Struggle for what they call the lost movement. This was to commemorate the lost cause. William the father of these Three Sisters had been obscure private and actual war that he made his name as a colonel in the United States veterans. He devoted his live to this project. Most important for my story, he also inculcated his three daughters with his devotion to the cause. He trained them in what was in the mail identified as the art and deployed them around the south as girls. The veterans reunions. Needless to say, this upbringing had a profound impact on their lives. Each of the sisters grappled with the legacy of that upbringing and bringing it up in a different way. Elizabeth the oldest, was pushed at the boundaries of womanhood in her own way but she did not stray very far from her fathers teachings. But catherine and grace lived what i think were fascinating unconventional lives. Key to those lives, to that process of re self and reinvention and self liberation, was a confrontation with the question that lies at the heart of the debate we are having today over the meanings of confederate monuments in theme nature of the lost cause. Ive often think about and wonder about what catherine, the youngest, the moral compass of a book to say that she relied today and participating in those debates, but i thought it would be interested in reading in one sentence. What she said about her own participation in that lost cause movement as a child. She says, no lesson of our history wasas taught as earlier and none was greater urgency than the either or terms in which this was couched. Soldiers and my parish, slavery my end, mansions might humble but it is long and its white retained their dominance over blacks, the south caused would not be lost. Thank you. [applause] i would like to. A couple of questions and i want to begin with a quote from your book actually, its a wonderful book from catherine. One of the sisters where she said to her sorrow, she learned that when people read books, very often they b read with a wh to read, not what the author means atut all. Read into it their feelings and their sentiments and their outlooks and they can to leave poor author out in the cold. But i like to thanks each of you know begin with you if thats all right. What did you wish to impart to the people who read your book. If you can have a main theme and also what do you hope they dont take away from theth book. Jacquelyn what a good question. Can i see exactly what she meant first. Mainly what she meant is that she writes just as i write, and some details about the period before she was born, about the period of her parents and her grandparents. She tried to write aboutod themn that. In a way that really conveys how she understood it when she was a child. Then she goes on to talk about how she came to understand it as she grew older. There were actually, the book was very well received in the south as well as it was published in 1946 but there were readers the thought that she was a member of the magnolias school, that she was an apologist forlo slavery, an apologist for the south. Of view and civil war and so on. Because she was trying to convey how she saw it as a child. As for me, gosh, this is such a complicated book so many different names and i guess one thing that id helped that readers take away is that on the one hand, i really am interested in trying r to understand these particular women. What motivated them and so on. Even more important to me, is to try and understand the times that they were part of in the movement that they were part of in the generation that they were partth of. I hope that readers dont come away concentrating only on the personal stories. Anyone else . Student i can tell you about this book that we did so long with the bulldog rep. There are several lanes. Actually the great idea for this book came from the president marked him who is the big civil war buff and he likes the civil war and he likes to read about it. He was very supportive of the grant president ial library etc. It seems to me that what we are trying to do in this book is maybe two things that to try to show grant as a person not a somebody on a statute or a pedestal but a real live breathing human being and wed also like the people who read the book to come to a better understand the answer the question that i mentioned earlier, how is it possible that grants in mississippi in the heart of the oldld and fantasy. Confederacy. We try this book to really present the facts. Not to present them as mythology. Not to try to convince anybody of anything. Simply present what the situation really was and what we are trying to do. What we hope does not happen as we hope that some of the myths about grant are not reinforced by something that we might have written in this particular book just one example, to show that grant was indeed a human being team. If youe read his letters to his wife into his family, he always seems to end the letters to his live with Something Like love and kisses to the children. My beloved wife. Thats something that you would normally think of grant doing and secondly, we hope when people read this book that they dont get idea the sum of the mythology is been associated with grant particularly in g ths missive mississippi its not reinforced. Jacquelyn what i like people take away from my book is the appreciation of the enormous sacrifice involved with these women soldiers as i mentioned a while ago, and to be sneaky when they enlisted, they had to assume a male identity. The first of all theyve lost their names in most cases they nast their names to history. Because these women when they die, nobody knew who they truly were. They knew most cases with their mail alias was but nobody knew who they really work. There were bodies of female soldiers being exhumed years after the war and nobody knew who they were. So again, they lost who they were. They lost their identities, and in some cases theyti lost their lives in very gruesome ways. I think about a woman soldier from North Carolina who was found after the battle had her face beaten away. They endured the same physical demands that the male soldiers did. They suffered like the male soldiers did. So i want people to understand the enormous amount of sacrifice involved. They did so for a lot of the same reasons the men did. I guess what i dont want people to take away from the book is the fact they were not feminis feminists. That iss not why they enlisted. They were knocked activist. Even though activists in the future or after the war such as Elizabeth Cady stanton pointed to their successes and their endeavors as evident that the women could be successful outside of the home. Om shelby and they could vote and become productive members of society these women were precursors of our women in the military today. In 2015, that women in military roles were opened up toen women. All military roles that they were fighting and dying on battlefields hundred and 50 years ago. Thats, what i would like peope away from it. John one take away could be the general volatility of politics. Before the civil war. Today, we hear, the more divided the we have ever been. Everybody is divided in only bad things are happening. Well, we probably have been more divided in the past eras. Or at least. As divided as we might d be today. On the floor o of the u. S. Sena, you have henry pulling a gun on another senator. He pulled a u knife, on another senator. They on the floor of the u. S. He had gotten into these brawls. Rolling around on the floor of the u. S. Senate. These guys back then, prior to the civil war that era, they were a very violent crew or could be. It was the only one who acted out like that. But if that were around today, then you would see film clips of him probably in cspan2. He could provide material in cspan2. [laughter]. T one take away from my book might be just divided the divisions within the politics that she had back p then but it was very serious it was very violent not just the people in general for the representatives in congress were pretty rowdy group this what i would say that henry foot if you read about his live, he had an ultimate way to view with regard to the issue of secession and usually a talk about mississippi and theres a list of names of people that were behind that. You got a lot of counties that were named that and you dont really care about the people that preach cooperation with the north. At least for a a while. The people that were caught on the whole secessionov movement. Understand there were people out there that had ultimate views on this. In writing history in particular people who have done biographies, obviously you get very well appointed with the people who are the subject of your book. In your case you actually talk to two of the sisters as i recall. And john you may have known u. S. Pat. I you i am not sure. [laughter] im not sure. As Much Research as we are able to do there are always things that you dont ever know about a person. There are things that remain unknown and maybe unknowable. As a i. C. E. Each of you that maybe shelby, meet there are a number of things in your book probably but things that you would really like to know the you were never able or have been able to find out. Scylla start with the shelby. Shelby every woman i have wrote about, they gave up who they were. Their names. We dont know who they were. I would like to know the real names. In a lot of cases, whatpe happed to them after the war. A lot of the stories are right about we see them pop up and they were discovered and killed or whatever and it just kind of followup of the face of the earth. Their stories to stand. I was fortunate that i was able to conclude some of the stories for some of the women but a lot of them just simply and anonymously. And so hopefully there are some letters or diaries out there that remain undiscovered that maybe the come to light. And we can outsmart pieces to the puzzle. Just the nature of my research, ovthese women didnt want to be discovered. They didnt want their story to be told. Theres a lot involved. A lot of digging and detective work. For most of them, we probably wont ever know who they truly were over they came from. Or ultimately what happened to them. It drives me crazy. [laughter]. John minus maybe for simple or maybe more complicated to what you just said. What i wanted to and when my time comes, and i pass away, and i go up to the big History Library up in the sky. I hope that what i can do is spend eternity sitting next to people that i have written about. I just asked them one basic question. How close did i get it. [laughter] one of the worries as any biographer has arisen any historian has is how do we know. Imagine in your case, if somebody came so long and was going to write your biography and based just on the letters that you wrote to various people does not really give you a complete insight. Just the letters you wrote, nothing else. Mostly thats what we have. Somebody like jackie has had the opportunity to speak to the people she has written about. Most people dont do that. Most people dont have the luxury. In light of that and id also like to know speaking of grant, what did grant really think. Because hes a very tough nut to crack. To get inside his head. Any person is hard to get inside his head. But you have the situation for example here, that where we have the grant family and the stephen lee family confederate union, actually get to know each other and to getke to like each other. The keynote speaker for example one of the great statue of stephen delete, was raised up. The keynote speaker was pregnant. Grants firstborn son. And then later on, lee who was a child of stephen delete, went up to galena and gavete a lecture r a talk about grant and what was considered grants own hand. Anyone her health how much is this exactly can you base your things on this. Some things you just dont know and will never know. Tonight when i was doing it search on henry foot, i just wished i could talk to him for about five minutes on this. And get the straight scoop. Henry foot, one problem i had is he didnt leave any papers or not a lot of papers. But luckily, he was so reviled by some people than other people wrote a a lot about him. [laughter]s and he is quoted in the newspapers. He is also likely he was a blowhard and friends with all reporters and they quoted him in the newspapers as all of the country. So there was a more than enough to sort of get a feel about what he was all about. But yet you never really know reading even just the quotes in the paper. You dont get the emotion that he was putting into those. So may or may not been putting into those quotes. Facetoface talking to the person would be good. I wish i could talk to the sky for just a couple of minutes. Just get a couple of things straight. Thats what i would take away from that. Expand. Not knowing the mystery of the human heart at the center of this book in one of the things that i try to do and i hope readers will notice and enjoy or appreciate is that i try to bring leaders into my own detective journey. Into my own expert to the understanding and to know and to be upfront about what i cannot know. I did interview two of the sisters. This was at the very beginning. Im still graduate student. I had just moved to start this Oral History Program and they were among the first to people that i interviewed. Jacquelyn these interviews were invaluable. I came back to t them over and over again. When i decided to write this book many years later. One of the things fascinating about the interviews was all of the things that they didnt want to talk about. When i began to do research on this book, i decided that there were parts or i discovered that there were parts of their lives they had just eliminated from the historical records. Like burning their papers and laundering theirde papers and by continuing to either refuse or to talk depending on the sister, to talk about certain aspects of the past. In an honest way. I try to fill in those gaps by turning over every possible rock of evidence that i can. But in the end there is still certain mysteries that i cant know from the inside. Just as my fellow panelist said, i can now know a lot about what they did and what they loathes and who they were involved with and so on because i had so few personal letters in many cases. I am trying to like a fiction writer, imagine my way into how they felt about these things. Host thank you. We would like to invite any of you might have questions or for our panelist to come to the microphone at this time. Thanks them something and if not, i will continue to thanks a few questions but feel free to come on up. I would like to thanks each of you if you could, in the subject area that you rip written about. I know your book is the best one in that area, but are there other books related to the topic that you would recommend people might explore. Jacquelyn yes. First of all, i like for people to read adam his autobiography. I loved it. I think it is a classic. It was one of the or the first really, example of what has become an important genre of southern writing. In which white southerners tried to write about their own involvement in the south system. In how they liberated themselves from the views that they were taught as children another auto biography that i would recommend called outside the magic circle which is, she was a little younger but a contemporary of these women. He gives a wonderful view of these antiracist southern white southerners that i am trying to write about here. There is also a literature in the history that is growing that is. Im starting to a friend here it is so and when you are putting panels together, we had the several war and in the civil rights movement. There was a whole lot of history in between those two things. Which is where my book falls. In the era of jim crow, the era of the cold war and the mccarthyism. And this is also the error between the womens Century Movement which we are celebrating the anniversary of this year. And the Womens Liberation Movement of the 60s and 70s policewomen fall in between those two things. Theyey were or they wouldve called themselves feminists but they were feminists. Certain strands. They represented a certain strand of feminism, a certain period of feminism that really complicates our understanding of foot feminist is. I wont tryy to name all of the books, it is a growing literature that i would recommend keeping your eye out for. Ou host was the name of catherines biography. Jacquelyn the making of o a southerner. His been a real brought a sense of grant studies in the last several years. We like to think about simon who was a formerti executive directr of the Grant Association any published over since 1967, 31 volumes of grants writings. They had never were available. We finish that situation out and yet that only represents about 20 percent of the material on grant and others that we have at the Mississippi State but there were several really goodd books. Ron chernow many of you know who is more famous for his books and his broadway play, on hamilton. His book is wonderful. Ron white at the Huntington Library is in a terrific job but im hoping i dont leave anybody out. But john bought at ucla is written a wonderful short book. It is just really very well done. And chucknd calhoun who is retid from university in North Carolina, did a book on grant his which revolutionized again, matt studies. I would think and we would like tos think that what we have done at Mississippi State is we have published a number of books on grant. Including the first completely annotated memoirs of Ulysses S Grant. University press published it for us and i might that went out i think ive got an opening to the door here if i have to, but were also working on the memoirs of sherman two. So we are getting that done. Dont hold that against me. Southern Illinois University University Press has also started a series called thehe worldli of Ulysses S Grant and e have some really major historians writing some excellent books on grant. What they are all basically staying is the old mythology doesnt hold water. Its just not accurate. So what you want to do is read what i tell people if you going to read one book, and i love all of these b books, but the shortt one is the one by joan wall and it is wonderful because she deals with memory as jackie mentioned. She also mentions and talks about his live. So its really quite good. But you cant mess with ron or any of the other ones. Jacquelyn the seminal work is dn blanton and lauren cook. They fought like demons. He came out in 2002. Soso are 15 years old. I have been able to date a lot of the research. And i think in my book actually include 20 brandnew accounts that have never been published before. Rosetta was one of only a handful of women who wrote letters during the war. They didnt want their stories to get out because if they were discovered they were ashamed and ostracized. I had to rely in other people vewho researched the topic of h to rely on accounts from male soldiers, letters and diaries and thank goodness so much material has been digitized now not that many newspapers are being digitized now so we have a lot more in our fingertips. Im working on another book of soldiers in general. Thats years down the road. Not a whole lot out there that they felt like it would probably the work right now anyway luckily for me there was no biography of henry foot in existence. A couple articles were written about him in fact, the 1960s early 1970s is one reason i chose him for a topic and nobody had written on him before. He was involved as much politics leading up to the civil war and after the civil war. His central rivalry in his whole career as mentioned before was Jefferson Davis was his chief rival. He was daviss most outspoken critic and the hatred between the two men, we are talking andrew jackson, calhoun, lbj, robert kennedy, the hatred was strong. I might suggest with the looks on Jefferson Davis, a lot more than that actually. But to read some of those and see how foot is treated by these individuals who wrote the davis biographies and then contrast them and everyone get my book and contrast them, compared notes. Its kind of interesting to see how foot is treated by some of daviss biographers. We had a question and you left, if youd like to come back with both glad to entertain it. Yes maam clicks the gentleman before said you already answer his question. We are always taught to learn from history so we wont repeat it again. I was just wondering, and for anybody on the panel, is there any one thing that you want us to pick up from your book that says can marinethis, learn from and dont do it again. Anybody . I can speak to that. The two younger sisters that i write about catherine and grace led through the mccarthy era reacted to it in very different ways but in both cases their lives were derailed by the anticommunist hysteria of that and repression of that period. So i certainly say do the ab dont do that again. I agree. Anyone else . Everybody always says read your history so you wont repeat your mistakes. But we keep repeating them over and over again. Thats my only comment. Yes sir. Im not a fan of that period but i do rely on nonfiction and read a lot of history. But im not very familiar with the civil war period. Eand it may be something called some kind of social memory or Something Like that some of the psychologists the modern era said that war was psychosis and im thinking guess about the meridians but and i never have been able to understand why the war went on so long, because the commanders for the president wanted Unconditional Surrender . Because we were taught that the deal was over after vicksburg. And then it went on two years. Who wants to jump into that . How long do we have . [laughter] i think theres a host of reasons the war continued. And a lot of it had to do i think with the willingness of these people to continue to fight. Yes. I have a statement and a question. The statement is for doctor murrayi know youre trying to work really hard at the university to restate the image of Ulysses S Grant. I want you to know that my great grandfather on my mother side dfof the family surrendered to grant at vicksburg, he lied to us grant he said he would proceeded to go to alabama in a different outfit. Thats my statement. I was going to say one of the interesting things is that grant is the only commander on either side to have three armies completely surrendered to him and in many cases they would go home. The vicksburg situations is particularly interesting. Joan wall is working on a book right now dealing with this trying to break that not. What was it about grant that he was able to get other armies to absolutely surrender . And that and just quit. I dont know if that answers your question. As you suggest, he had a bulldog grip. That could be. The big thing about grant that most historians are looking at, you look at the civil war as a whole, most of the generals came out of what we call the school of antoine joni that what you did as a general, you maneuvered your troops you had masses of your troops against fractions of the enemy. Grant came along, and lincoln did too and said, the best thing we can do is end this war as quickly as possible in the way we can end this war is by applying all of our numbers, all of our forces, all at the same time rather than maneuvering because every time you maneuver this gives the other side a chance to maneuver too. And pretty soon your troops and their troops are equal again even though you have a large number. Of course lee almost always outmaneuvered grant because we know, thats my observation. I would like to ask doctor wynn a question. You seem to make distinction between Secessionist Movement and the institution of slavery. Earlier in this session. Can you clarify that . Or did i totally a its all intertwined of course. Its all intertwined. But Secession Movement and met the actual political act of seceding the Southern States claiming they were seceding from the union in a political sense. Secession was the product of the fact that one section of the country had slavery and the other didnt. The Southern States seceded to defend that institution. When i was talking about there is a difference talking about the actual political act of secession. Make sense . I think so. And foot was both pro se ab proslavery and antisecession. He was very proslavery thats what made him such a strange character. This is what so interesting i think about what makes the civil war so interesting i think is that you have a situation where there are people who say we shouldnt beret the country, this is a great democracy etc. And then you have others who say, whatever we do we got to make sure that slavery is not stdisturbed. And thats a fascinating thing to try to get into peoples heads but you have, for example, the border states they were more opposed to this political act of secession than they were about the whole question of slavery. Just a moment for questions. Quick question for doctor marszalek, as one of his former students i went on to read his book on sherman and my daughters gave me a new copy of his memoirs and i been reading those and i noticed early in his life when he was in the mexican war he could almost remember to the day when a certain conflict took place, certain campaign, then goes all the way up to shiloh and he is saying exactly what date soandso conflict arose. How can he remember that . Did he take notes along the way . Grant taking notes . Its amazing. What you discover after going through that and annotate . There were some annotations where corrections were made by about one day. Thats an excellent question because both grant and sherman, the big problem with sherman is he never stops talking. He just goes on and on mentions everybody who participated grant speaks more than the mythology but he also makes it possible to create a memoir that is cleaner thats easier. One of the biggest problems we had with the grant memoirs had to do with mississippi. The dog on river cup changing and cutting up these little towns that used to exist and grant will talk in 1885 talk about some tell and mississippi along the river. Nobody in modern time would know what that is. Thats what we tried to do try to make it more open to modern rouge. To give you another example of how things have changed in the study of the civil war one of the big tissues that publisher deal with is putting footnotes at the back of the book. You are reading here you got to flip over you read here you got to flip over. One of the things we did as we insisted they be real footnotes. So your reading along you could drop down. That took some time to get that accomplished. But the two men sherman and grant are completely different people. What i like to point out is they walked in here, those two guys reborn and walked in here, two things that happened. Sherman would start slapping people on the back shaking hands with people. Grant would find some corner of the room where he wouldnt have to talk to too many people. He simply did not like to talk. But yet he thought a lot. Good to see you again. You too. Jacksonian history class. We have come to the end of our session, i want to thank all of our panelists for being here. [applause] thank you all for being here. [inaudible background conversations] every year booktv covers book fairs and festivals around the country. Here is a look at some of the events on the calendar. October 10 to the 12th its the fall for the book festival at George Mason University in fairfax virginia. The same weekend tuning for our live coverage of the southern festival books in nashville. On october 19 and 20th the boston book festival will welcome over 300 speakers and will be live that saturday from the wisconsin book festival in madison. Which anticipates over 15,000 people in attendance. 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