Transcripts For CSPAN2 Elizabeth Varon Armies Of Deliverance 20240712

Historian who works at the estate. Most recently on health and education. And we will have a questionandanswer session during the end. There other sponsors as well pretty good were website. Now enjoy. Hello and good afternoon everyone and welcome to hear on june 14th pretty welcome everyone. Todays guest will be professor Elizabeth Varon and the book armies of deliverance. For you guys who are not familiar with this institute of American History. First, welcome and we are so glad you can join is prodigious to tell you a little bit about this institute is a Nonprofit Organization dedicated to k12 history and education pretty were also serving the general public. Our mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American History through Educational Programs such as this one and other resources. We also provide direct access to unique primary source materials through this amazing collection. And if youre interested in finding out anymore of about that in amazing programs and the collection please go to Gilder Lehrman. Org. What im not hosting, mutually working on the Hamilton Education program. If you want to find out more about Hamilton Education program. No to the website. I also have with me, a tutorial, with the Gilder Lehrman collection. So freeways out there in our audience, you can notice that your screens are off. Microphones are off. So please just know that is normal. There is no video and microphone for you guys. But then you said say how shall i ask a question. We will have a great conversation today and we will going to generate a lot of great questions. So if you look at the 590 screen, you will see a little q a teacher down there. During conversation, please submit the question separated when you submit your question, also leave a little north of where youre from. Because we would like to know where everybody is from here. Allison will be gathering of these questions eventual be asking them here in the second half of the program. We have big guardians of several hundred people. So just please know youre probably not going to be able to get to all questions but really pointed our best. And to ask as many questions as possible. Our speaker today, our speaker today is professor Elizabeth Varon prayed professor of American History at the university of virginia and served on the council of the john civil war history. Shes a specialist in the civil war era. She is also authored several books before the world but will be talking about today. Some of her previous books include, need to be counted. White women in politics. Southern lady, inky spy, the true story of elisabeth, the union agent in the heart of the confederacy. And the coming of the american civil war, 79 8059 and victory defeat and freedom at the end of the civil war. Today will be speaking about her was book, armies of deliverance, new history of the civil war. This is an amazing book on how i had a chance to read it so now, i will stop sign my screen and welcome the professor Elizabeth Varon. Welcome. Elizabeth think is much. James tackling this seems like an incredibly daunting task and you have done it through the theme of deliverance is in the title armies of deliverance. But deliverance seems to touch on so many different topics related to the civil war. Can tell us a little bit about why you decided to tackle the whole narrative history of the civil war. In the little bit more about what is meant by deliverance rated. Elizabeth absolutely. So im a historian of american politics. My focus is mostly on the american path. In my home state of virginia. I was commissioned to write history of the entire civil war. I knew that would involve a learning curve for me. I was eager to answer for myself and for my readers some questions about politics and questions that historians have debated. This questions on the ones that interested me most were followed and i was interested to learn more about the motivation of the Union Soldiers. How they sustain the morale over the course of a long war. Understanding why men and women in the early days of their short and sweet warrants which victory. Not all of that tricky by the nurse and what is happening the race. And what prepare them for combat. In our complex questions and wanted to have insight into those. I was interested in the question of leadership. Now the build a coalition to win the civil war. And i use this term because Northern Society was divided. And they were ready to process broad political spectrum. Whatever they were abolitionist, the radical republicans who are ready to take aim at slavery. On the other far end of that spectrum were dimmer crowds who were very anti. And in the middle of the political spectrum were figures like abraham lincoln. And they were uneasy about slavery and about abolition. As of lincoln had to manage a divided order. And i was interested to learn more about how he built coalition and sustained a coalition. That is also interested in the third major question on slavery. In the emancipation policy and how it took shape in the degree to which emancipation gained political traction. So over the course of my research, i discovered the northerners were around the theme of deliverance. This was the union victories, that would uplift both southern whites and blacks alike. By delivering them from their elite slave holding secessionists who had held them under the thumb. As the northerners saw it rated to deliver to them, the blessings the free society. To put it another way, the soldiers marched off to war in 1961 believing that their purpose is not to conquer the south, but to save it. To save the southern masses from their own leaders. So i argue over the course of the book that this theme of deliverance was such a struggle the drew followers like a magnet to this cause and permitted lincoln not only to afford at the coalition but to grow it over of the war. Included republicans involved in the political strikes in the party some democrats the opposition party. Some residents of the slaveHolding Border states anti confederate southerners. Deliverance rhetoric was key to all the makes pretty animate the case that deliverance rhetoric proved persistent over the course of the war. Tonight tried to explain how is it that they persisted in believing that they could save the southern masses from southern leaders even in the face of massive evidence the federalists did not want to be saved. I would also try to address the issue with the impact of this deliverance and rhetoric into notes that while it was instrumental in Union Victory for being a sort of a total coalition, deliverance rhetoric also ultimately failed to persuade confederates to accept victory or to accept black freedom on the north term. I was think ago if the teacher when i wrote this book in the sense is was commissioned to write a book that would appeal to general readership and we suitable for use as a textbook in College Classrooms and high school. Head the aims in mind, i wanted students to take away two important things from this book. And to learn and understand two things that americans sometimes struggle to put in the same frame and those are, first, that racism was an american problem, not only a southern problem, American Society wassive fused with racist in the 19th century and the north and south and africanamericans were waging a freedom struggle on two fronts. The literal war of the horrors slavery in south and White Supremacy, and i battle in the north for political rights, there was persistent discrimination in the north where they were free but relegated to a second class status. I empathize that to understand the consequences and the course and the causes of the civil war you have to grapple with the depth and breath or american racism and i want my student readers of the book to come away understanding Something Else and that is that the union and the confederate si were startly different mission cal skims. Representing starkly different ideologies, representing starkly different destinies for america and it was these differences that Frederick Douglass had in meaned when he said in 1878 speech, a right side and the wrong side in the war. The was was as douglass described it a war of ideas between the old and knew, between slavery and freedom, between, to quote him, barbarism and civilization, and douglass war under no illusion that Northern Society was perfect he was in van guard of the movement to reform Northern Society bus douglass now that Union Ideology with it emphasis on free labor as opposed to enslaved labor and he emphasis on majority rule and moral reform, Union Ideology created a framework in which change and progress were possible. Not inevitable, innovate by any means easy, not even likely, but possible, and activists like douglass pushed open the door against great odds in the face of great adversity, pushed open the doctor change and progress. And douglass new that decreeds crested were the avowed enemy of change and explosion they were intent on pulling the door shut and locking ill chaining it shut and throwing away the key. Its important to understand all this because i want students to be mindful forks guard against falling into the trap of a false equivalency between the union and the confederatey. We know and were remind he all the time, by event thursday charlottesville and their aftermath that the trap of false equivalency is a very dangerous trap indeed. Looking tet the encriminal challenge lincoln had ahead of hem when he was elect, keeping this gigantic complicated situation in the north with abolitionists and dealing with the Slave Holdings states that remained in the union. Can you talk about then how his views of emancipation evolved going from the con tis situation act to the emancipation of washington to the emancipation proclamation and how that played into the political dynamic going on in the north. Absolutely. So, the standard way we account for the emergence of emancipation as a core war aim on the northern side is to emphasize lincolns pragmatism as a politician. He knew that he had to keep this unwieldy political entity dont, especially concerned to keep the slave Holding Border states in the union no, tot alien alienate and moderates andcrests and knew that most Union Soldiers when the bar begins wouldnt identify themselves as abolitionists, they were committed to proproject of saving the union but not to award to end slavery. We that lincoln experiments with various policies. He offers gradual compensated emans addition to try to lure slaveholders back the union with the promise if they voluntarily flee the slaves hell compensate for the losses and colonialize. The freed people, he makes series of appeals that we consider part of a long tradition of antislavery gradualism and the standard narratives one in which lincoln comes around when he observes that events on the ground, most especially the massive resistance against slavery by the enslaved, their flight, their exodus from farms and plantations to union lines, when he sees that this the war itself and this activism and resistance by the enslaved eroding the institution, that his offers are for to take him up on the gradual solutions are being rebuffed and he comes around, driven by a sort of pragmatic belief that the right move for saving the union is abolition, abolition is a means to the end end of saving the union and then makes arguments on behalf of emancipation that are, again, pragmatic, arguments based on military necessity to bring along doubtful, hesitant, resistant northerners by saying we emaps pate as a means to an end, driven by practicing pragmatism because emancipation is a military necessity to take resources away from the enemy. I recognize the value of that particular narrative but i emphasize in my book, lynns idealism as he comes around as it were to be sure theres an evolution in lincolns thinking and change. But once he comes to embrace emancipation, he and his allies make what in the context of the time was a quite idealistic, ament that emancipation would benefit all americans and that ill will benefit southerners and white southerners. It will benefit them by opening the way for all of them to get the blessings of free society, free speech, economic prosperity, to flow into Southern Society and will remove the source of contention between the north and south. It will displace that slaveholding belief that had tom nateed Southern Society. And benefit southern whites and intended to enlist various allies from the slaveHolding Border states and a few southerners from Confederate States willing to support him. He tries to sign them on in making this case that emancipation will have broad benefits and giving free tom to she slave we assure freedom to the free as he famously said. To recognize lincoln is making an argument about the broad benefits to seat of emancipation is a little bit sobering andtive appointing because one thing that it signals the arguments for emancipation remain more white centered, on benefits to whites than we would have liked, than hey should have. The focus should have been on the suffering of slaves and on their rights to free tom and to citizenship, but northern antislavery politics remaintain quite white centered in lincolns version of them. Another way to think but this, is that in the context of what had come before, this argument that emancipation will have broad benefits for all meshes i devoce radical because it is a rev rev futuration re futuration of what had been centuries of zero sum think can but history life slavery and you could not have black freedom because any gain for africanamericans would come at the expense of whites, and lincoln and his allies expect this is the, and it is a big break with the past to reject this kind of thinking. And it has to be noted and emphasized that lincoln here is in a sense following the lead of the true antislavery vanguard and that is to the enslaved people who have taken matters into their own hands and risen up against slavery to with draw from ill, flee from it and join the union army, and also very much in debt to intellectually figure advertise fred domestic douglass who had been building a case for abolition, one lincolns when he didnt break that he embraced it in this way that was i think quite a big break from what had come before. An emancipation seemed to play not just a role domestically but internationally as well because also the concept of deliverance you talk about, that lincoln had to keep an eye across the atlantic because cotton was part of a Global Economy and the British Empire was dependent on cotton from the south and then also this trying to prevent the south from being recognized as a nation seeking selfdetermination. Can you talk a little bit more pout the International Aspect of delivering an emancipation . Yes, deliverance rhetoric is important. Really the emphasis in deliverance rhetoric for someone like lincoln and a central premise of it was what we might call the dill lewd dill lewdded mallses theory of southern politics and a very widespread popular belief on the part of northerners that the white southern masses most of whom did not own slaves had been seduced, duped, cajoled, dill lewdded, pressured, terrorized interest outing secessionist leader and if the union to break the spell the secessionists cast over the southern masses the southern masses would welcome deliverance at the hand of the union army and lincoln was referred to the war as a rebellion and insurrection and secession was the work of a small group, secessionist conspirators and was not a legitimate movement that rejected that reflected the true will of the southern masses we can talk about, again, how it is northerners could believe that in the face of so much evidence of confederate support but this all had impreliminary indications as you said in terms of geopolitics and diplomacy, the decreeds were making a bid to persuade european power, particularly the british, they were a legitimate state and should we recognize as such and lincoln was trying to make the case and deliverrans resident ring was helpful to say this is not a legitimate exercise in nation building by people of have been the victim odd tyranny, this is a conspiracy by a small number of slaveholder who are riding roughshod over the rights of the southern masses and to have to be toppled in order to restore the union. And of course confederate hopes of foreign recognition are ated and lincolns embase of emancipation, the preliminary proclamation and the Union Victory in identified the union at war with the emancipation politics. For the confederacy how did they react to the what was their ideology against the north so to speak . So, heres an important thing to note that is at the heart of these ideological battles and propaganda wars. We tend to imagine that what happens in wars is that people demonize each other, one side demonizes the other and we do see demonization in the civil bar but the premise of the union war was that southerners would once again be the countrymen of northerners; that the union would be restored and unionists tended, as i say the book to describe southerners metaphorically as eric and his prodigal sons, pupils who needed teaching and drunksard monday he needed to sober up and mad men who should come to their centers and sinners who should re spent and so on, and bringing them into the national fold. Confederate leaders were attuned to this deliverance rhetoric and wanted at all costs to discredit it. So, from the very start of the war, i indeed before the first shots were fire the focus of confederate ideology is on making the case to white southerners that the union is intent on a war of extermination, and so if deliverance is a key word for unionists, on the confederate side the key words are things leak degradation, pollution, extermination, in a sense the confederate ideology is meant to preempt and disdecreed the appeal to the southern masses by suggesting that northerners are intent on subjugation of the south. This raises a corollary issue and that is how much dissent white southern ewan. You was there in the south in and thats been a tricky question to answer, but unfortunately confederate propaganda was powerful and effective unionism never materialized among whited in Confederate States to the degree lincoln and others hoped it would. The war showed the true blue unionists were africanamericans, who whose participation in the war effort up to enlist. In the union army is absolutely decisive in Union Victory, and another point i want to emphasize to people is that while its a bit of short hand to equate the south and confederacy, we shouldnt do so because the were africanamericans were anticonfederate southerners, the 200,000 africanamericans who served the union army, nearly 80 were southerners, and so this comes back to your question, confederate used ideology was a bid to argue there was a solid south of confederate nationalists of loyal slaves and so on but we had a divide south and lincoln was able to capitalize on some of those divisions. And then taking a look at these two different ideologies, like you summarize the confederate viewpoint as they called it northern barbarity and southern victimization and the north is on one hand trying to use deliverance as a way to bring the south back to into fold, theyre wayward injured with the start of he reconstruction and some of the legacies then in some ways that the Southern View almost negates or takes advantage of the northern view of trying to bring them back into the fold and in a peaceful way make them brothers once again. I found as i researched this book, although i hadnt started with a provisional thesis in mind, i came to realize that what i was finding in the sources was in a sense the back story to a tale i told in my previous book. I wrote about the surrender to grand at appomattox and i made a case that grant had been so magnanimous to the defeated southerners, not to exonerate them but as a means of affecting their repentance. Thefored their re pentens and believed there was a right side and a wrong side in the war and southerner wood respond to his leniency with contrition and then his leniency be a way of changing hearts and minds; so in a essence what i describe in this book is the forces of those set of assumptions on grants part, and its easy to ask, was grant delusional . Why would he think he would get this kind of repentance in whoa would northerners persist in believing they can change southern hearts and minds . I try to argue in the book is that northerners looked around the landscape of the war and saw places where the felt deliverance was working, that whatever they saw evidence of desertion in the south, and disaffection in the south they saw a potential sign that deliverance was working. The fact the slave Holding Border states stayed in the union and that republican parties with antislavery allegeds began to get some traction in places like missouri and maryland, they saw as evidence that deliverance was working. The breaking up of West Virginia from virginia and the formation there of the separate unionist state, they saw as evidence that deliverance was working. So a powerful yearning on the part of northerners to believe this, and indeed, grant clung to this idea he could change southern hearts and minds well into the first phase of recondition instruction. Part of what i try to convey is that the appeal, the resonance of this deliverance, that you can punish the guilty and redeem the masses, this resonance was an emotional resonance. Northerners knew if they wanted to they cooperate have sub jug dated a region to the size of the confederacy. They were hoping to change hearts and mines. As you said they failed to do that. It turned out that confederates were not about to repudiation theyre fallen letter or their lost cause, and so we see defiance in the post war south, rejection of the premises over the union war and we see two things that are very telling. The first of these things i often the case when wars end. A coalition that had come together to fight and win the war, once that goal is achieved, falls apart and arguments begin about the meaning of victory, what were the meaning of freedom to what extent were africanamericans going to be able to exercise a full rights and progress and inclusion in American Society. Deliverance rhetoric hadnt resolved the questions, and we see the falling apart of the coalition dramatized so much by Andrew Johnson, lincolns successor. Chosen to run in 1864 when lincoln was trying to win reelection, precisely because the was a southerner who had seen the light or so it seemed. He supported the union. And came to support emancipation as a military necessity during the war. Well, at the end of the war, johnson essentially revealed that his notion of black freedom is a very narrow one, freedom defind narrowly only at the right to work for wages but not the right for political voice and it comes to life he is seeking to build a coalition of his own that includes former planters and he abuses lincolns amnesty policy, a key thing to this i try to underscore in the public while he focused rightly on emancipation, lincolns signature policy, he has a second signature policy, the amnesty to defeat confederates, this was lincolns bid again to appeal to disaffected southerners away from the confederacy, and back into the union. Johnson abuses that amnesty policy with massive pardons to the very secessionist elites who northerners south to punish and defang and the result is a first stage of reconstruction in which the white south imposes all kinds of forms of subordination meant to be as close to slavery as possible without defying the 13th amendment. I could be talking with thank you who day but this is my last question so we can get to the audience questions, but my last question then is, because the audience has a lot of teachers viewing right now, can you talk a little bit how teachers can help their students understand this incredibly complex subject of the civil war, the politics, the dip preliminary diplomacy the rahr affirm emancipation and what were your favorite sources in doing research, like where did you turn to hear the voices from the people of that time . Thats a wonderful question, and let me say that first of all, i feel that biography is a wonderful way of getting at tricky and difficult political questions, and that therefore i rather have students read very deeply in the over someone like Frederick Douglass than reading 15 quotes from short quotes from 15 different people. Context is everything for historians so giving students representative lies with enough context to understand the come mixty of the thought of these key figures is very, very important. In terms of sources, for me, ultimately i found soldiers letters so moving, letters by Union Soldiers, i read very widefully letter by Union Soldiers. Africanamerican soldiers, white soldiers, new englanders, people from the border states, and so on, and the often times the sophistication of the own thinking surprised me. Sometimes quite profound thoughts appear in a language, a grammar, spellings and so an that seem less than polished but the sentimentses unlv nonetheless reveal provide great insight. So tuning in those voices is to important, and the key thing always in these sort of projects is that we have to strike a balance between the in me moment sources and post facto services. For me the letters and diaries, wonderful collection of uva on newly acquired soldiers letters and diaries we have gotten, and those in the moment sources are so important because they are a bit of a kind of control group that sort of enables you to see how arguments that are being made in speeches, in ceremonyons berk politicians, by editors are landing and resounding in peoples daily lives. So sounds a little abstract. If i only found the deliverrans resident republic i described in speeches and in sermons and editorial is would have wondered about how much it really mattered and meant. What i found was that in Union Soldiers to diaries and letters, the moment sources written as the smoke was clearing off battle fields literally. Found Union Soldiers professing and then repeating lake mantras though theyd been given a scrimmage from which to read this desire to save the south from southern leaders and again, one is looking for the broad spectrum, certainly not all the Union Soldiers signed on to that project and even those who supported emancipation theres a range and the africanamerican soldier make case this is a battle against discrimination and slavery and that deliverance will not be complete unless america is delivered from the institution of slavery and the wages of sin, delivered from racism itself. Black soldiers again make a second station are less hopeful about any kind of quick conversion on the part of former confederates much more focused on the broadcome complicity of whites in the racist system but we see in the soldiers letters and die raise spectrum and gives us a chance to see how ideology again hands, shapes, affects, lived experience. And i should mention, too, by training historian of american women as well as the southern history, and at the voices of women, women as warriors in the case 0 people like elizabeth and harriet tubman, and those that are key to the medical apparatus in both sections as in the case of someone like suzy king taylor, when as political commentators Francis Parker and women are integral to the story. Try to do in the book rather than having women set aside in separate chapters to leave the voices of women throughout. Absolutely. Its been really great speaking with you, and this is an incredible book. Thank you so much for writing it. And now i want to hand it over 0 allison with questions from the audience. Thank you, id be delighted to answer them. Hi, professor. Thank you so much for being with us here today. We have almost 100 questions in the q a to difficult to take only a small handful but hopefully these will fulfill most burning questions the first question from isaac a teacher at International School in germany. Isaac would like to mow if the north was so intent on deliver egg south why id did northerners follow for the lost cause howdy the southern narrative gain such traction . Thats a very, very important question, and historians have offered up a series of answers that emphasizes a few things to be sure that lost cause ideology doesnt gain traction, and it is a the best way to think of lost cause ideology was its gloryification of the confederacy is a massive Misinformation Campaign, and northerners approved susceptible to that Misinformation Campaign because of the persistence of racism in north that proved sort of receptive to that Misinformation Campaign because in a very cynical way, white southerners caused chaos through violence and propaganda in the south and then suggest that the only answer to the chaos is to go back to the way things were before. So its sort of selffulfilling prophecy that White Supremacy violence and propaganda is went to wear northerners out and it does. It suggests to them they can only have peace by abandoning the hope of deliverance and we can see this seven, the cynicism is quite telling but just to give one angle, way of thinking about this, northerners dont sort of whats the way to put this dont give into lost cause ideology easily. Always counternarratives. That emphasizes the union cause was righteous and only one of the two parties should be able to occupy the moral high ground and that is northerners. A reconciliationist ideology that seeks to sort of blunt southern defiance and bitterness between the two sides by focusing on reconciliation, the message of lost cause ideology is southerners former confederates will accept reconciliation only if the share the moral high ground. People say to me, if northerners wanted to win hearts and mind why was there a sort of marshal plan of the north for the defeated south. There is would sort of marshall plan. Freedoms bureau. Portrayed in lost cause ideology as a sort of agency of subjugation and oppression and tyranny. So no length that lost cause types wouldnt go to rei distort history and part of the distortion was sweeping under the rug the evidence of dissent. Sweeping under the rug the contributions of southern black Union Victory and their opposition to slavery and so on. In order to create a fiction and again northerners and others who had hoped in change to come in the face of a Massive Campaign of propaganda and violence. Ive been think about this a lot because im writing a biography about James Longstreet who was almost alone among confederate generals savedded grabs terms and drew the conclusion that defeated confederates did have to yield the ideas of the victor, namely to the victorious union and longstreet will go on to support the Republican Party and black voting and to be cast out of southern white Southern Society as a pariah for having made this surprising and almost singular sort of switch. So, with grant and others who extended leniency and clemency hoped for was to change southern hearts and minds and at the end of the day, the longstreets were very few and far between, and former confederates closed ranks to again discredit and preempt any appeal to the masses. Thank you. Our next question comes from lois, a teacher from grants pass, oregon. Low is want to know if you can address what kind of Agency Formerly enslaved persons had at an matusz and before president grant took office . We see we have to make a very, very important distinction as we think about the post war period and reconstruction between the first phase while johnson is president , and the second phase, congressional reconstruction. And a wealth of wonderful recent historical work has shown former slaves in the wake of conserved defeat lets kind in mine it was confederate defeat that was the true dawn of freedom, the potential dawn of freedom. Lincoln issue eat the emancipation proclamation in 1863 but as long as there were confederate arm idea the field slavery was protected by them. The defeat of southern armies raises the hopes of freedom among africanamericans and they define the freedom very broadly, freedom to work for wages as someone like johnson would have but political voice, Legal Protections of the kind that would void the old dred scott decision that denied them citizenship, the rights to form families and protect the families the right to marriage, economic opportunity, and so on. So they began instantly to move for and to demand those rights to try to secure them. And they are met from the very beginning of this president ial phase of redone instruction is white southern recalcitrance who is smoked by Andrew Johnson who restores them to power. That has a series of laws passed in he south under the johnsonian regime which shows the survivaloff he proslavery ideology in a world worth slavery. When we have congressional reconstruction we see real change for the first time because africanamericans have become voters and officeholder, and they acquire in that window of congressional reconstruction the key rights, right to selfprotection, some kind of minimal right to selfprotection which had been denied them. They acquire a political voice and as i explained, tragically that experiment in interracial democracy in the south and congressam reconstruction is under siege from the moment it begins and indeed even before it begins. , if you will in the confederate ideology and Democratic Party southern democratic ideology was meant to revive the zero sum game thing thinking and propose the idea that any begin for from from wood come at the expense of whites. Our next question comes from christopher from illinois. Christopher wants to know, the philadelphia of deliverance play a role in the lost cause narrative othe confederacy . Did they make reconstruction more difficult in terms of the south feeling they did not have no saving . A few things to say there and i think the questioner has alluded to these things. One hap to the philosophy of deliverance was problematic. Many zornes found it condescending. And many felt that this was part of a representative of a kind of northern conde condescension. Now it must be say that northerners felt that southern slave holders ideology was conde senting to them, so that ran in both directions. We can see the problems with deliverance ideology. Deliverance ideology kept white southern suffering at the center of northern politics. White northerners were so concern but southern unionists, southernrefugees, and and this was a problem because someone like johnson could come long and did come along and say in effect, johnsonside, the white southern masses who suffered under the domination of elite slaveholder are now suffering under the domination of radical republicans and johnson claimed he would fight radical republicans just like he fought secessionist in the name of delivering the white southern masses. This ideology has many opinions. Johnson put it to a reactionary use. This is meant to underscore for us how leadership matters, how president ial leadership matters, and lincoln residents view of deliverance was very different than johnsons. The next question from emile ya from new york city, and she asks how did the deliverance vary between officers and enlisted soldiers and between u. S. Units and white unitses. Thats a great question. Alluded to some of the differences. Think i found that it was ubiquitous among all of those soldiers but with some important variations. Officers fortothe deliverance rest rick tended more often to be class inflicted by class, class associations and so on, the image of poor southern whites in the eyes of northerners would an knowledge of people who were an image of people who are unauto indicated, living in primitive circumstances and needed to be not only brought around to an embrace of free labor ideology and also uplift evidence socially and this notion of project of social uplift you see articulated a little bit more explicitly among the more educated and wealthy officers. Again, before i try africanamericans believed in the power of free labor to regenerate the south. They hoped that some of the truly anticonfederate southern whites he, the small number of truly anticonfederate southern likes hike Elizabeth Van lieu might by allies in the freedom struggle. But africanamerican soldiers were again much more focused on the idea that deliverance meant not only the end of slavery and the reunion of north and south, it meant the end of racism and they believed very, very strongly that you would not have National Security and peace unless you rewarded the truest of the south unionists, that is to say, africanamericans themselves with the vote, because without that tool, that vulnerability to exploitation would persist. So, you do see some variation if you think about the verious social groups. Our next question comes from sherry. She would like to mow did africanamericans serve voluntarily in the Confederate Army . No. Africanamericans did not serve in the Confederate Army. This is one of to the myths that was generated by lost cause types to enshrine an idea of a faithful slave and a solid south. Africanamericans were forced to do hard labor by confederate soldiers, labor of the kind they had always done, labor meant to serve the interests of southern slave holders and the southern whites so they were forced to clear roads, to build fort tick indications to fortifications and grow crops and so on but not welcomed into the Confederate Military am debate about the potential enlistment of blag soldiers as a by white confederates in the very last stage oses the war and terrific work by people live kevin loven and bruce levin shows clearly that was a bid to preserve slavery by forcing some black men to bear arms and subordinate rolled with no eye toward their potential equality or citizenship to rescue slavery for the rest of Southern Society that debate that went nowhere with the slave hold terse who were not withing to give their slaves over to the army in that capacity to be used in that way, so its very, very important to put that myth of black confederates to rest once and for all. Africanamerican men served in the union arm,ot in the Confederate Army. The next question from jennifer from washington, dc. Can you identify a turning point or something that triggered lincoln to move from trying to stop expansionist slavery to ending it . So, i would say that there in a sense the traditional story has it right. Lincoln says fame newsily at one point as he is offering again gradual compensatessed emancipation to border state slave holders that enough accepted, the friction and i operation of wars are ending slavery and has in mind the mass exodus of slaves to the union army. He can see the writing on the wall. He its a combination of seeing the war erode slavery and seeing that the slave Holding Border states are not going to abandon the union and not going to accept his offer of gradual compensated emancipation, series of converging factor, and also someone this ultimately so important to remember as we think about avoiding false equivalency. The Union Abraham Lincoln one of our greatest president s, man of moral striving and growth who changes his views, adapts, listens, learns, admits when he is wrong as he did to grant after vicksburg, and sort of traveled a journey which was often become this this by saying a private lincoln, we have evidence that private lincoln always loathed slavery on some level. A public lincoln driven by pragmatic concerns and this delicate balancing act of keep the coalition together. We do on the eve of assassination, converging of the private and public lincoln as he sometimes the key thing here is once he knows the north is going to twin the war he can having learn what he has learn, he can speak in a truly antislavery cadences that evoke the abolitionism of people like david walker and douglass and garrison. Cant be emphasized enough hutch to the manufacturance of africanamerican troops is a factor in lincoln coming to defend emancipation the way he does. In moral terms. The next question from joseph. And joseph would like to mow, how do you address those who continue to cite the lost cause and states rights argument about the cause of the war . I was political power of slavery. So, this is something that is we as educators about the civil war deal with all the time, and we observe, for example, about states rights, that states rights was not separate from the issue of slavery. Thats a false dichotomy with the states rightses that secessionists moe wanted to protect, one was the right to own slaves and they with very unabashed about that. We asked those who are for one reason or another estopped in the lost cause set of notions we asked them to read the primary sources. Secessionists were absolutely unabashed in telling us why seceded. They he secede stowed protect and perpetuate slavery and tell us so in the documents they use to explain their actions and the ordnance of secession, of georgia or South Carolina. Its not theyre not subtle. They tell news no Uncertain Terms what secession was about. Now, the question raises a exists at another level. Theres no dispute no serious modern historian denies that secession was bid to protect and extend slavery. We also know as northerners of the time know that most white southerners did not own slaves s and types like lincoln as they fought pout Southern Society managed the nonslave Holding White southerners must resent slave holders who had kept for themselves the preponderance of wealth and power in the south. Northerners failed to reckon with the degree to which slave holders ideology had sunk its hooks in southern seat. I out only to only one in four white southerners families who hold slaves but you count those who hopes to own slaves and worked with slave owners and had slave owners in a their families and so on, we see that a broad majority of white southerned in the see succeeded states believed they had a stake in slavery was a system of profit and social control and white southern propagandistic led them to believe the north was a threat to their own wellbeing and that racial control was, again, tragically very effective. Time for one more question. You mentioned the South Carolina secession. Our collection has two copies of them and viewers know our website and view more information about those and what they say. Ours are quite large but very interesting to look at. Our final question today comes from kelly, and kelly wants to know how many confederate soldiers defect ordinary switched sides to fight their the north . Thats a good question. I have a figure at the that i can quote right now. There are some books on socalled galvanized yankees people who were confederates who fought on then union side. Emphasize in my book that there were well, lets put is the way. One thing it emphasized in a wonderful become by a man named William Freeland called the south verse the south and the title tells you a good deal but the thesis of the book. He observes that 450,000 men in slave states fought for the union army, the blue uniform. 150,000 of those 450,000 were africanamericans who fought in the union army but the other 300,000 were border state whites and slaveholding states who chose the union army rather than the confederate arm where and 100,000 whites in Confederate States who chose the union army. So there is there again are these substantial divisions within Southern Society that should again lead us to think wise but equating the south with the confederacy. Northerners believe the southerners who did switch side, that been in the conserved Confederate Army didnt deserve to join with the union army or endorse the unions war, those kinds of southerners were symbolically very important to lincoln and i can give you one example am confederate namedded war gant who edward gant from arkansas who came to embrace the Republican Party and the Lincoln Administration and emancipation and was held up 0 as a sign and symbol that this was possible. The last thing ill say on this is as follows. Lincoln proposes this plan of amnesty in december of 1863. Nick named the 10 plan and the when is this. Lincoln was hoping that by offering amnesty to confederates he could get 10 of the confederate population to peel away from the confederacy, joint the union, and that 10 could be a vanguard that might lead eat restored states back the union. The fact he chose the number 10 tells you something but the absence of support for the union in those Confederate States, and the fact he had to adjust his expectation about the potential of people switching sides. There were pockets pockets pockm in the south but true blue unionists among whites were few and far between and somewhat beleaguered and yearning for deliverance to be sure, but having to wait a very long time for it. Professor, thank you so much for this absolutely fascinating conversation, i also thank you for corralling all the great questions. Much appreciated. Im going share my screen one more time so i can share with all your folk us out the a whole bunch of personality links. Important links. Going into the chat feature so these are not clickable, but go to the chat window to click on any of these listed here. Let me also say, friends, that its 100 odd questions and a chance to answer only a few of them that will leave peoples Unanswered Questions and im happy to answer them by email if you want to reach out to me. Im absolutely delighted to answer questions that are emailed. Fantastic. Thank you. If youre interested in buying professor varons book, army 0s deliverance go to this link, booksharp. Org, the Gilder Lehrman page. This will help support Gilder Lehrman and help support independent book stores. Once we end the webinar here youll be sent to this ling here for a twominute survey. Please fill out the survey. We always like to knoll how were doing and how we can improve. And if youre interested in learning about more about book break you can go to Gilder Lehrman. Org book break and i hope you can join us nest sunday at 2 00 p. M. Eastern time with to professor ted widmer and his book lincoln on the verge. If you youre interested in finding anything else out about Gilder Lehrman, the program and their collection, go to gilder her moan. Org, well shut off the screen and sound and leave this up here no minute. But you will be sent these links in a followup email you should be getting storm the recording of this session will be on the book breaks website by the end of the week. So, again, big thank you to professor varon for the great conversation. Thank you allison and thank you to you, our audience out there, and hope to see you again next week. Have a great afternoon, everyone. Youre watching booktv on cspan2, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. Television for serious readers. Heres some programs to watch out for. Wired Magazine Editor steven leavy reports 0 the creation, growth and future of facebook. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich offers thoughts on why President Trump should be reelected in 2020. And david lip, former speech writer for president obama provides his views on american democracy. Find more Schedule Information at booktv. Org or consult your program guide. The president s, from public affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. Presents biographies of every president , organized by their ranking bit note historians from best to worst. And features privileges into the lives our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website, cspan. Org the president s, to learn more bother each pratt and his historian featured and order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. In on tuesday, President Trumps niece, mary trump, released her book that is critical of the president. Its tile it to do much and never enough. On Good Morning America she talk about the impact her grandfather, fred trump, had on the rest of her family. It all begins with your grandfather. Absolutely, absolutely. A sociopath. Yes. What do you mean by that . He had no empathy. He was incredibly driven in a way that turned other people, including his children, his wife, into pawns to be used to his own ends. If somebody could be of service to him, then he would use them. If they couldnt be, he excised them. And in my fathers case, tragically, he was not of use. You write donald with the complicity silence and inaction of hi siblings destroyed my father. Yeah. That was hard to write. Much harder to witness. You say that was a hard sentence to write. Left out the next sentence. Okay. I cant let him destroy my country. Yes. That sounds pretty arrogant so let me explain what i mean. I feel as i write in the book that there is so many parallels between the circumstances in which my family operated and didnt n which this country is now operating. I saw first hand what focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people, can do, the Collateral Damage that can be created by allowing somebody to live their lives without accountability. If i can do anything to change the narrative and to tell the truth, i need to do that because i dont believe the American People had the entire truth four years ago. See, im jessica and him one of the owners that relate and we are so excited to us nice events. This new book girl scout troop