Transcripts For CSPAN2 Author 20240703

Founding director of the dale center for the study of war and society. He has several major publications, including vietnams forgotten army heroism and betrayal in the aavin for which he won the society for military histories book award. So dr. Rice, i know i mispronounced part of that. But take it away. Good afternoon. I have the today of hosting the america war panel here at the mississippi book festival. And i would like to thank the festivals organizers especially ellen rogers, who we saw earlier. Shes wearing this beautiful dress with butterflies on it. Yall thank her if you see her and course would like to thank the audience members here and in who are in person on cspan for joining us today. Yall are in a treat. We get yall in for a treat. We get to talk about for that cover the entire span of u. S. Military history, all the way from how the creeks were up as a nation, all the way up to Operation Iraqi freedom and beyond. And 2003. First, id like to introduce our panelists in order that they appear in your program, which also be the order in which ill throw some airway first today to my far right is emily lufkin, who worked as a family physician on the Navajo Nation for many years, then taught science and math in rural colorado. Shes the author of the poetry collection manifold poetry of mathematics. I dont understand poetry or mathematics. I would be impressed to read that some point and her poems have appeared journals and anthologies today. Shes here to discuss her book titled thousand paces left behind one soldiers account of jungle in World War Two burma. Next is dr. Heather marie stir, a colleague mine in the History Department at the university of southern mississippi and a senior fellow and southern. Dale center for the study of war and. Shes the author many books. I mentioned to here saigon at war South Vietnam and the global sixties and combat women and gender in the vietnam war era. And today stir is here to discuss her new book titled 21 days to baghdad general Buford Blount and Third Infantry Division in the iraq war. Next up to my left is peter cozzens, whos the author or editor of 18 acclaimed books on the American Civil War and the indian wars of the American West and a hes also a member of the Advisory Council for the lincoln prize. In 2002, he was awarded American Foreign Service Associate highest honor. The william risk award given annually one of the four as to the one Foreign Service officer for their exemplary moral courage, integrity and creative dissent. Today, peter is here to discuss his newest book titled a brutal Andrew Jackson the creek indians and the epic war for the american south. Our final panelist today, right to my immediate is chris wimmer, whos the creator, host and lead of the legends of the old west, a long form narrative that tells true stories. The American West. He has a masters degree in journalism from the Walter Cronkite school of journalism at Arizona State university and has won numerous local, state and National Awards for his writing. Today, chris is here to discuss his first book, titled the summer of 1876. Now lets begin our discussion and i proposed deal with the books in order that. The authors were just introduced, which means ill throw a couple of questions to emily lutton first. For those of you who have not had a chance to her book, emilys a thousand pieces left behind is the story of detachment one or one of the army that operated behind japanese lines in the burma theater of World War Two, a unit in which her father served the japanese had rolled to victories against us and the british in southeast ever since pearl harbor, leaving on the military ropes. And one of our first local counterattacks was through the use of special operators had the daunting task of penetrate behind the japanese lines and sowing chaos in the nearly trackless jungles of burma. The story of a thousand paces left behind as one of great success, operating all odds and fearful terrain alongside a local group called the kachin people knew i was going get that wrong. And my first question for emily today is why do you think your fathers was so successful against such a long odds . What they do right so as you mentioned, this is sort of a memoir was a long time coming, but dictated into a tape recorder, 60 years after the fact. But he was for the majority of the in burma, which is now called myanmar. But for the purposes of the book, we say burma because thats what all the literature and referred to at the time. The americans were in the northern part of burma which is kachin state and the oasis and other intelligence Gathering Services also stands for offices Strategic Services for anybody who doesnt might not know it was sort of a military Intelligence Group but they also later in the war had the mandate to cause trouble in addition to just getting information and they were very successful in that. And i think the underlying thread through his book that he mentions a lot is that the most important thing he did there was learn language of the local people, ask for their advice and he and others in oasis one on one were very respectful of the culture of the people and the he as a 21 year old, figured that the way to survive to any or town that he went to, he would ask elders if they would consider going with him. His advisors. And so in of his adventure years there he always had a group of the kitchen words along the elder advisors who went with him. And i think this was really key. The extraordinary they had where they had, i think the oasis as a whole probably had less than a thousand casualties. And they there were at least 15,000 japanese casualties that conflict. And part of it was, or most of it was probably because of the kitchen people and the help that they gave us. And a lot of us dont know that, but thats part of the reason we wanted to get the book out. The next question i want to ask that china, burma, india, as is now and is probably the least research, especially in the u. S. Theater of of World War Two. And i teach a class on World War Two and the kachin people are even more underresearched than i had never even heard of. And which i hate to admit, somebody who gives final exams on World War Two, who were. They were. And why are they so understudied as well . Well, there are lot of ethnic groups in myanmar. People probably know theres many different people. And even in northern burma, this group is the Largest Group in the area where the americans, which is the very north of burma, the british, were a little to the south of there and. So they were a good group to affiliate with because they didnt want anyone invading and their country and the japanese had already started to do this and they were already fighting at that point. When we arrived and so they were a natural ally and they did a lot for us. So real undersung heroes of that war. Now, your dad actually had this wonderful chance to go back to burma to reconnect with some of these people. Long ago, after the war, how long after the war was that . And what was it like for your dad to go back . Did he meet anybody hed actually served with, which would be so fascinating. Yes, they are. So all of the went to what was this one on one veterans wanted to do something for the kitchen for a long time and they mostly werent able to for lots of different reasons, political reasons and, things going on in in myanmar, but when they all reached retirement age and most of family obligations were out of the way. They started and at that time there was a little window what was happening in burma also. So they started some projects to help the kitchens and about three different projects one was brick and mortar schools. One was they translated book where there is no doctor and two kitchen, which is david warner book thats been around for a while and they distributed those. But the main project they did was something called project old soldier, which was a farm promoting thing they had. They got see aids and they got expertise from agricultural in the United States and they went over. So this was in about in the midnight is from the mid from 96 i think until the last hour, says one of one veteran who was involved, died in 2017. They kept this Program Going and they met a lot of people who were in his battalion in but most of the ones that had been in positions he knew had already died. But there there were a lot of people who had with him who he got to visit. And it was really a wonderful experience. Now youve had a chance to read the book. Youll understand that the genesis of it dates all the way back to your father, telling stories when you were young. Whats it like to write a book, your father . And what kind of process did you have to go through to collect those stories . Because no, your memory of some of those campfire stories had to be a little perishable. How did you go back and get them all . So when became apparent that my dad was not going to write his book, we my youngest brother, sat him down when the recorder and a map of burma was very detailed. We just went through and looked at where he went and he told all his stories and we had that those 17 tapes transcribed and with about 800 pages of stories. And while he was still, we sat down with him and started working on editing. And for a couple of years edited and then even after he died, we continued to edit and fact check. And so yes some of the stories we didnt include any second hand stories really anything that he told it had happened to somebody else. We just stuck with what had happened to him. And then we tried as best we could to fact check. Then most of the people by that time had gone, so it was hard to do that. There are some books we referred to. There was a book by ray piers, who was his commanding called behind the burma road. Then there are some other books that there was a historian of ours, this one, a one, troy sac, and he wrote a book and we used those to kind of. To touch base, but it was difficult then we just tried to do the best we could and so if you read it, youll know that its what it is. Its an oral history told by an old guy, had a lot of great war stories, but some really good, i think, into war on foreign soil and what we can do when we when we do that and we have to now sadly for each one of these great books, i only have about 10 minutes worth of questions before i can have to move on to the next one. So this is going to have to be last for this one. But if you read the book, it has so many Great Stories in it too. Two of my favorites were your dad getting shot in the by a bullet ricochet and a and a tiger attacking people of all. Do you have a favorite little story that just stuck with you the most . I do. I have a my favorite story is is the story in the book called guide for general morale and yeah, my dad was sent a message, stillwell, that he needed to provide a a guide across this tract of just flat. So real briefly went to his elders asked can you get me a guide . And they all said no, cant. No one has been across there. They said there was guy who hunted in there. But. But hes dead. And then one of them said, oh, but he had a son. Maybe he could guide you. So they bring his son up and his son is 12. And since over there, the average height used to be about five, four. Hes also very tiny and we used to love to hear this story when we were kids, because this little. Says, yes, i can do this. And so my dad takes in general morale and morale kind of looks at him and, uh, but he he says, okay. And so this child leads them 40 miles of jungle and its kind of a great and very sort of interesting story because it tells you a little the people there, how responsible they are at such an early age and how they know so much about the jungle. Its a its a good its my favorite. And of course, the morale she refers to is the famous morale of merrills marauders. So its a big thing for a 12 year old to do well naptime heather sturt to get in the hot seat and i was going to say nobody here has had a chance to read dr. Shers book because it isnt out yet its this wonderful thing when you first get to hold your book in your hand and i got to see dr. Sturt hold her book for her first time in her hand the day that book is 21 days to baghdad, which focuses Operation Iraqi freedom through the career and eyes of general Buford Blount, who led the us forces of the Third Infantry Division into baghdad in 2003. Its a book thats part biography and part battle and how does the character Buford Blount hold that together . Because he has a very complicated history. Yeah. So the first thing that drew me to this project was general blunt himself. Hes a Family History. One of his sisters did genealogy of the family, and she was able to trace their ancestry back to a couple of brothers who fought at the battle of hastings in 1066. So they have a long military tradition in their family. They have had and have had ancestors who fought in almost u. S. War since, the american revolution. And so that Family History made him fascinating to me as i got to know him and and learn that he also has deep roots in mississippi they were blood relatives that were in mississippi as early as the beginning of the 19th century, eventually settled in the bass field area. General didnt really grow up in mississippi though, because his father was career military, so he lived germany. He went to high school in london. And so he just had a fascinating life himself as the son, a career military officer there. His dad was in the air force after war two and the cold war. And so i was interested in general blunt himself. And then i got to talk to him, especially about the invasion of iraq and the drive baghdad. It became very clear to me how central he was to what went on on the ground in, the invasion from crossing kuwait into iraq all the way to getting into. And ill give three examples of that. Well, one was he made the decision early to split the division in, take two routes towards baghdad. One that would be taking a paved road, a highway, and the other that the tanks and other tracked vehicles through the western desert. His thought was, you know, weve got 10,000 vehicles that need need to get from kuwait to baghdad, more than 300 kilometers. We can do that all up one paved road. And thats to take us a long time. Or we can split in the tanks or the tracked vehicles handle going on to the sand and meet up just outside of baghdad before the invasion. The reason why he came up with that is because he spent several years serving with the u. S. Army in saudi arabia. He was, the advisor to the modernization of the Saudi National guard, and he talked about being in his office in riyadh and imagining desert warfare and particularly imagining tank desert. And it was from that experience that he realized that we could actually do this and get all of our vehicles to baghdad more quickly. He sold it to his superiors and they and the division did that. Another example of something that he did that was very significant how the invasion played out is that he pushed for speed speed in terms of getting to baghdad, any waiting the enemy to regroup up to figure out what u. S. Forces are doing to make a plan. And he always push speed even when others might caution were not sure about through this area. I dont know if we can go through quickly. He always pushed speed and so therefore the division made it to baghdad in 21 days a a drive that was initially thought might take six months. They did in three weeks. And then the third example that shows how significant he was to what happened in the drive to baghdad is that the third id was not initially supposed actually go into baghdad. They were supposed to get just outside the city and then the 101st airborne was going to go in to baghdad. But blunt realized, is that one of the areas where the iraqis actually had some success against u. S. Forces was with their antiaircraft forces, that they were shooting down and really getting an american airpower in ways that the americans hadnt expected. So general blunt went to his superiors and said, a, an air assault in to baghdad, the iraqis are going to have a chance, really get get at us. And get in the way of us being successful in an air assault. Let the third i. D. Make a land assault into baghdad were weve trained for this. Were prepared for this. And i know my division can make this happen. And again, his superiors gave him the green light. And so the third id ended up being the division that the first into baghdad. So he it became very clear to me as was getting to know him and talking to him, that as a division commander, he actually was very significant to how the invasion of and the drive to baghdad and the entry into baghdad played out, of course, the conquest of baghdad. So and really unexpectedly was an incredible military feat for what blanton, his Third Infantry Division was be able to pull off. But of course, sadly, all know the war did not end. There rather devolved into a long and frustrating insurgency. What did blunt think of that transformation, and what did he think that for his war . Was this war a success or failure . Ken know he as a player in the war, he has to be guarded about that. But as a historian, perhaps you could weigh a little more. Well, when he saw the division arrived in baghdad, they completed their missions. The 30th division was told, your mission is well, initially it was to get to the outskirts of, baghdad, than it is to get into baghdad, secure the city. And that is the mission. That was the mission that the division trained for. That was the mission that division executed. But once the was in baghdad, it became clear that there wasnt a plan for. What happened next . And part of the reason for that was because of how quickly the division in baghdad, the planners in the pentagon were still trying to figure out what the next phase was going to be, because they didnt expect for baghdad to fall as quickly as it did. So there wasnt a plan in place. What happened next . There really wasnt even sense of who would take over in once the Third Infantry Division and the other that were there as well. The first airborne, 82nd airborne and other elements that were there who was going to come in and take take over. So meanwhile, as these, you know, conversations are being had as to what is going to happen next, general blunt decided, well, the third idea is here and know that iraqi citizens have needs. So what were going to do now is try to figure out how we can meet those needs to the best that we can since were here. So he began to go out and he would go on his own or with a couple of members of his staff and walk neighborhoods and see if there were people out that he could talk to find out, okay, what do people need . So people needed electricity turned back on saddam hussein, had a kind of a policy of where he electrified the parts of baghdad, where he knew he had political support, did not electrify the parts of baghdad, where he had political opposition. He believed he had political opposition. So general blunt and identified the areas where electricity needed to be turned back and then he would send units of engineers go and make that happen sometimes that involved having to find the person who had the key to the power plant in that neighborhood to let them in to do the work that needed to be done. And he was on the ground doing this with his staff. Another thing that he went around to do is to see what was needed in hospitals if hospitals were equipped, if there was anything that the division could provide hospitals making sure that people had propane for their cooking stoves, that that the way that most iraqi kitchens operated, they needed propane. And so what his mindset was well, we want the people of baghdad to believe that what we did was good for them. And so if were here, were still here. Lets try to make their basic met. Now one of the issues that i mean there are a lot of complicating factors here, one of them being that the soldier of the Third Infantry Division and their families back home understood the divisions mission to be captured. Baghdad secure baghdad. And then once thats done someone else is going to come in and take care of the postwar activities. Well, the third is achieve that mission. But they werent coming home. And so soldiers began to morale of soldiers began to decline families back home in fort stewart, georgia, which is where the Third Infantry Division is headquartered, began to get restless there were some spouses who wrote newspapers to the post, wrote letters to the post post newspaper expressing why are our family members coming home . We were told that they were to get to baghdad. Did that they should be home by now. And because of that, those discussions, those conversations, concerns about soldiers morale, the division began to be withdrawn and sent back to the u. S. Now general blunt asked a stay. He said, okay, send my soldiers home. Keep me here with a team. Actually, elements of the second brigade of the Third Infantry Division went to fallujah, and general blunt felt that what happened in fallujah was an example of the success that could continue iraq, if there could be some kind of continued u. S. Presence there. There was unrest in fallujah sentiment, but the commander of the brigade and of his staff met with the mayor of fallujah met with other city leaders like general one had done in baghdad, figured out what they could do to help in fallujah and from general ones perspective, subdued the underlay, antiamericanism and unrest was beginning to boil up there. So holds up fallujah in the summer of 2003 as an example of the success that have been if that kind of local engagement had another issue that posed a problem was the administration, president George W Bush didnt want to have large heavy Division Like the Third Infantry Division. Armored division remained in iraq, that they done the job that they were given. So they needed to come home. And then it would be diplomats, others who would handle what was going to happen in iraq and regime change and nation building, you know, and those sorts of things. And so the Third Infantry Division was eventually recalled fully by the beginning of the fall of 2003. And in addition to talking to general about this, i talked to some of his the commanders that were under him and in one conversation that i had with his Public Affairs officer by the name of mike birmingham, he said that as he is leaving there is sense among anyone in the third id that anything is going to come once gone, that theyre already aware or that unrest is happening. And as know, there was a long and drawn out war in iraq that continued 2011 and so general blunt i think he would be honest and say hes very proud of what the division accomplished in terms the quickness with which they made to baghdad and the way that they achieved the mission for which they trained. But its disappointing. See, what came after and i think he might say that it was unnecessary. So well sadly our 10 minutes are up because i want to hopefully leave some time for audience questions at the end. So ill move all the way to my left. Peter cozzens and his book a, brutal reckoning, which is a fascinating study. And its a its a its kind of a monumental antiracist can be kind of hard to encapsulate this in this room. A couple of questions. But creek wars that ran alongside the u. S. War of 1812, and it looks at those creek wars through the eyes of both native fighters and their society and through the eyes of the fledgling and often bumbling early u. S. Militias. The events of the book are some of the most momentous in u. S. History. Central to opening the lands east of the mississippi white settlement, central to, the coming and infamous trail of tears and finally, also central to the rise of Andrew Jackson. It became a pivotal and somewhat figure in u. S. History. But first question to peter then is with such great importance, why does why did the wars of the American West against the native americans have so much more play and this will so ignored its a very good question and im guilty of that myself because this this book is the final volume in a trilogy that i wrote on the westward expansion of the United States, beginning with the end of the revolutionary war through the indian wars of the west. And like everyone i because of i guess, cinema and popular fiction and i associated the indian wars with the American West and so the first line of my trilogy was called the earth is weeping the epic wars for the indian epic story of the indian. The story of a river. There is this way of being epic story of india was the American West. Then i realized when my finished it that wait a minute, you know the actual the actual decisive conflicts that made victory over the native americans in the possible the use of conflicts were actually fought east the mississippi specifically in what was called the old northwest the modern midwest and in the deep south. And that it was the victories in these two areas that again made the outcome in the west. You a foregone conclusion but neither the war that was fought against chief tecumseh in the midwest or the creek were at all inevitable in their outcomes. They were it was. If you read either of both books, see that the war could have gone against the United States and in very nearly did. And i think you know, i think part of the reason that, you know, its i guess it was hollywood was the silent movie year. I mean, the American West made sexier cinema. Then then, you know, indians fighting militia, cambridge and alabama and whatnot. Its just something about the american movie was part of the buffalo bill and is wild west. So that that so you know imprinted the American West and that the quickly legendary fights against indians and american consciousness and also in the european consciousness the things that happened east of the mississippi were maybe overtaken by the americans war and other developments. And and never received the the attention that they they deserved or a recognition of how centrally were to the creation of the United States. Now this is such a story that when you read the book and, its a fascinating book. Andrew jackson doesnt even really show up. Like for the first third of the book, hes hes more of a character for the last two thirds of the book. So much the beginning of the book centers on the creek indians themselves investigating their culture the way back to their first brush with hernando de. How did you get at the creek indians . What kind of sources and, and how were you able to capture their story . Because their story does come through vividly. Its difficult to find that you were in native American History. The harder it is to obtain any sort of accounts mirror of the indians or of of of whites who interacted with them, were just kind of like are real on the south at the time, the outbreak of the war of 1812, when the heart of the action of the book occurs, it was up between puerto diversity, the cherokee, the the chickasaw nation, the chickasaw and choctaw at the time occupied most of modern day mississippi. The creeks. To give you an idea how significant they were as a people they controlled all of modern alabama and all of western western half of georgia. I mean they a huge power and they also made possible their existence made the continued spanish presence in florida in a way i got the creek sources they were about 26,000 people. The creek and there had been a over the course of time from the time the first english colonists thered been a lot of intermarriage among the creeks and, english colonists and later later americans. In fact, the majority of leaders in the creek wore who opposed the United States had names like william weatherford, josiah francis. I mean, they were mixed group mixed breeds, mixed caste or however you want to put it, mestizo mestizo. Some of them were literate and left letters, recollections that i was able to drawn for for a creek. But to really develop the picture of the creeks, i had to rely, you know, measure on first on european peons who who lived or traveled among them later on there indian agent. I also delved to spanish sources from spain that had not been used before, but it it was difficult. It was very easy. And the earth is weeping to get at the indian side of the story because so many of the participants in those conflicts were in the 20th century. And were interviewed by by anthropologists and others. Their stories, the farther back went, the harder it was. So a of it i had to piece together from the of white observers. But fortunately there were enough, you know, mixed, mixed race critics who left records. I was able to draw on that. Also as a person who more researches modern battles, when i reading again about of the battles between largely the red sticks on one side, this faction, the greeks and the various us on the other, what im but i was constantly stunned by was the ineptitude of these guys that go down the wrong road, they attack the wrong. Everybody runs out of stuff, the natives run out of stuff and half their army goes the wrong way. Are these were were these just functions, the weaknesses of their society . Were the commanders bad or a little bit of both. Well, the greek war occurred started as a civil war among the greeks between one faction of the greeks, mostly who lived in the the upper of the greek country, against those in, the southern portion, the ones in the upper portion who call themselves the red sticks. And they essentially wanted to revitalize their traditional culture and they opposed american pressure on, their country, whereas the the greeks had begun to become somewhat. Advanced slowly some integrated into the american economy. And so it started as a civil war and then became a war against the United States were part the greeks actually fought with the United States but one of the things that made it difficult for the red that was the greeks was a the nature Crete Society the greek it was not a nation the like the cherokee, the greek greeks were a confederacy, a grouping of largely independent villages throughout alabama, western georgia, that were essentially autonomous and seldom came for any single purpose. And so that made it difficult for either the red states or the lower greeks who opposed to act in a unified fashion, in a coherent fashion, to to plan, plan a long term strategy, strategy that may succeed. That that was that was the principal i think the principal difficulty on this side of the the red sticks. And they also unfortunately for them, they the war a year but a year or two early if they had waited until the british had gotten rid of napoleon and sent troops to the to the gulf coast and they subsequently invaded the gulf coast, i think the british created the british race, that combination would have would have won for the greeks and the british controlled the coast, coast for some time to come. But that the case in that the two was it was equal on the american and that largely was due to logistical problems. The administration. James madison so busy fighting the british as important though it was to to defeat the radicals and maintain of the south they pretty much let the states of tennessee, georgia and the mississippi territory do things their own. So you had i mean, the three of them, tennessee, georgia, mississippi territory were all they were separated by modern day alabama and western. They couldnt coordinate among themselves, had very little assistance from the federal government. And they had really just really bad logistical systems. So it was it was a mess. Sadly, we got time for one more question here, but it might the hardest one, americas out some really good military commanders love to put eisenhower up there. Weve turned out some controversial or maybe bad ones. Westmoreland comes to mind. Where does jackson fit in there. And jackson . I you know, i still not 100 sure what to make of him. I really tried to get him as much as i into his soul, as persona, as i could in the book, not only him, but also his relationship with his wife, with his subordinates, his fellow officers. Jackson was a it was a real mature, mercurial figure, a very volcanic temperament. There are two things you could say for Andrew Jackson. One is that he was not wanting in personal courage. I mean, the guy had and he and that started when he was a kid a young teen and wounded in the revolutionary war by a british officer, it was they were stroking their head and so he had personal courage and he had a real sense of purpose and perseverance that other american Militia Volunteer commanders, state and territorial governors lacked and by time Andrew Jackson achieved a victory for the United States in the greek war everyone else they pretty much given up the mississippi territory their volunteers had gone home and they said well, you know, were not going to be invaded. So its that little red six out of alabama, in western georgia georgia, they called their troops home. They kind of threw in the towel. And even the governor of tennessee to jackson, hey, you know, why dont you come home . Theres no threat to tennessee. Give it up to jackson and most of his troops, almost all his troops have very few troops. And then our people in this room remained with him at one point, the rest of the went home. Their enlistment had had terminated. But he he sat there and edge creek territory said, i came in for purpose. Im going to see this war conclusion. Not because he hated the red states, not because he hated the indians, but he hated the british with a passion. I mean he remembered that wounding when he was a kid. The fact his mother had died taking care of american prisoners in the revolutionary war. He hated the british and he knew that if that he believed that if he did not pursue war to a conclusion that the british would indeed come in and make common cause with the red stick portion. The greeks and take over the deep south and belatedly Us Government gave him a regiment of regular troops. He got some some capable volunteer from tennessee and he also got a huge contingent of cherokee indians who if you read the book youll be surprised as i was they actually won the decisive battle of the greek war fought in the battle of birth through band horseshoe band was won by the greeks, the isi, by the charities and by jackson. Jackson conveniently ignored. That is report of the battle. But thats what really happened. So i suggest was i give him credit for personal and perseverance. He was a terrible logistician. You mean he didnt realize that napoleons maxim that soldiers on their on full stomachs so they dont fight at all. You know he did not understand that and wasnt the the of the leader because he tended to be sort of. He had a hard time adapting to to changes and of course to combat. Well the panel is rounded out today by chris wimmer and his book, the summer of 1876. And i was scanning audience and i think theres a couple of people out who are my age and i grew up on the famous stories of cowboys and battles and the law of the old west. And little did i know that until i read this, that nearly all those stories were condensed together and happened. The transformative summer of 1876, the james gang got shot up in northfield, the battle of little bighorn took care of custer while hickock and Matt Masterson were doing their thing. Everything seemed to be crammed together into this summer and theyre covered in this Tour De Force book, the summer of 1876. So, chris, what got you interested in this specific year . How did you figure out all this stuff happened in this year . Make you want to write a book about it i figured out actually the podcast that i produced, i had each one of these different stories. Theres probably five main storylines in the book and so id researched each one of those individually over the course of trying to produce long form podcast series about them. But i quickly realized that i had never seen a book to all of them together, and it suddenly hit me that each book that i read, of course, focused solely jesse james or Wild Bill Hickok or any those people. But none of them really referenced the other things that were happening at the same time, once i realized that there was about 90 day period from midjune june to midseptember in 1876, that so of these huge, pivotal events that featured so many of these prominent people of the American West, all happened in this 90 day period. I thought that would actually be a really interesting book. I would love to write a book that focuses more on the overlap of the stories and not so much a deep dive into any one of those because you can read wonderful of wyatt earp and Wild Bill Hickok, Pat Masterson and of course, endless about custer and crazy horse sitting bull in the campaign and on the Northern Plains, one of which i would highly recommend from this gentleman to my left, the earth is which you mentioned earlier, you can read all those books individually, but i wanted to focus on the context and the overlap. Now, you mentioned that you are the host of a very popular longform podcast. Im a writer, have never podcasts youre podcaster and broke into writing whats the how was that transition what was the difference between the craft of the written word and the craft of the spoken word . Oh, my gosh. The difference well, luckily huge differences. You know what to think about music when youre writing when youre writing a book, when i have to write the podcast series, we do them. Theyre essentially like relatively short audio books, but they have music and sometimes sound effects under them. So the podcast series that we produce end up being hybrids between the old style radio dramas and the style radio plays and a modern book. And so i constantly have to think about how to write the podcast scripts, the music, or envision what kind of music is going to play underneath a section. And i have to go choose all the music and theres a whole different level of production thats involved. So its a little bit freeing to just simply write the book and not have to worry about how im going to have to myself read it and then hate my own voice doing that and then choose the music and then figure out how to get the whole thing edited. Other people who can handle that stuff, the dreaded editor of one of the things that would have been daunting to me, a as a writer of this book, when read it, i hope you do get a chance to read it. Youve got nine point plates spinning all the time in each chapter. Theres going to be a little bit on masterson and then youll jump to the background of little bighorn, and then suddenly were in the east forming National League baseball. How do you keep all that together . Because its its it sounds daunting to me. It is. It in fact, it was very daunting and it was mind melting was just dumb. I started to write the book about this. I dont know, what am i doing . This is absurd choosing five full storylines that each have a whole list characters that go with each one of them, and then trying to sprinkle in subsets and sub storylines beneath those. I well, this is a great concept and then theres a pretty huge difference between concept practicality and doing it in theory or the theory of it, and then doing it in practice. It turned out to be there was some soul searching that happened the early part of the of the writing of the book that i just ended up plowing through and getting it done. So it was it became a very a balancing act of both time management and how i how much time i could spend researching each one of those threads and then what becomes vitally to put in the book which things are absolute, the most important. So it really became a balance of priorities. Now, one of the things that fascinated me about the book, having you know, being a dilettante, this in this area was that there seemed to be two or three bar owners that seemed to own a bar every time. One of these western guys got in a fight. They got in a fight with these bar owners in a different. Did that surprise you that these bar owners seem to be the crux about which everything spun to some degree and at some degree that was how i started realizing there was so much overlap as you researching each individual topic. The why the life of wyatt earp and then the life of Wild Bill Hickok and you start seeing the same in both of those types of books. So for instance, there was a saloon owner named ben thompson, who youre probably thinking of when youre when youre devising that question who owned a saloon in dodge city with ben and his brother billy were born in england and then raised in texas and ben to a larger extent because billy spent part of his life on the run for having killed a couple of folks. He shouldnt have killed. Ben ended up being almost a forrest gump style character where he seemed be in the right place at the right time to interact with everybody. He probably had a run in with wyatt earp in a town in kansas. Absolutely. Had some run ins with wild hickok in dodge or in abilene, kansas. And then he, of course, was in a Little Village in texas called sweetwater, where he owned a saloon where he ended up helping mastersons life after bat very severely shot. So he had wider Bat Masterson and Wild Bill Hickok, who he roamed around with in a very short space of time i that he was reading those names in those books. Thats what started to really provide the through line for the one that i write i wanted to write that these same guys kept popping up in the hot spots around the west now in a in a its going to be like asking you to pick your favorite child. Whichever child every child wants to do. Which one of us is your is your favorite you asked good question. Never to answer. But there are so many characters in stories now, the one that perhaps gets the most physical is custer and little bighorn. But is there one that just fascinated you the most out of this, lets say, six major stories and characters. Yeah, i think i think of these characters think i will probably always be partial to Wild Bill Hickok for people who who dont know his story. And i certainly wont drone on about his entire biography. But he ended up dying when he was 39 years old and typically you see a portrayal of him in the movies, always played by an actor who is significantly than 39 years old and. I dont know how much of a conscious choice goes that its usually just find a really good name actor to play role and hopefully you get people to watch the movie. But he did seem like he lived lives of ten men by the time he was 39 he had done so much that you almost cant believe that a Single Person was all of those places and did all of those things. And so thats why i always keep getting drawn to him for a quick. Do you i think peter was talking about it too. We were talking about the why people drawn to certain elements of the west in the American West and of course you know think youre talking about hollywood cinema and hollywood really fixating on certain of things from the American West and of course, the audience always wants see gunfights and Bank Robberies and certainly very much learned that i am a lover of the old west. I want to see those things and hear about those things. And one of the cool moments that i think i learned at some point, but what people might not know is that Wild Bill Hickok participated in what is assumed to be generally accepted to be the first record in quickdraw gunfight night in the American West. And so if you remember any of those movies that youve ever seen where two guys walk out into the street and square off with each other and pull their guns and the faster guy lives and the slower guy does not. That almost never happened in the American West. Very, very few instances where that happened. And it just so happens that Wild Bill Hickok was in one of those gunfights in springfield, missouri, right after civil war. And since he lived beyond that, he was clearly the winner of that. And the other guy was not. And so thats one of the few, just one of the early distinctions of hitchcocks. And with one last question to kind of bring us back to the theme of the panel, america at war. You have an infamous commander or famous commander in your book custer. Was he good . Was he a good commander or was even oh, was he a good commander . I think he was in strict military sense. And i certainly have to qualify this as im not a military, but i guess i would say that in a military sense, he seemed like he could devise strategy, but i dont know if i would call him a good commander. Hes he seemed in the research ive done and certainly peter has done far more research on than even i have but he seemed to be all the stereotype so youve probably heard about custer they seem to be true that he seemed to have a level of arrogance him he seemed to be a freelancer who would go and do what he wanted to do, regardless of what kind of military circumstance he was in. He was also very much a glory seeker and that absolutely helped lead to his end and to an informed his Decision Making when he brought roughly 600 soldiers toward a native american of about 8000 people, a thousand or 2000 of which were warriors. So when he realized what he was potentially up against and had chances to do things differently, he chose not to and he chose to just for it and hope that he could make it work like he always had in the past. And this time it, of course, didnt what technically were over time because we got started about 15 minutes late. Would there be time for audience questions or no thats up. Thats your call. I, i would love having heard great conversation and some wonderful books and some important commanders across American History. We have any questions from the audience for, any of our panelists and means get up and ask a question. Yes, course. Hi there. I have a question kind of initially i was thinking your book about the greeks and Andrew Jackson, but i guess technically to be for all of them would. What role does the terrain that these warriors, these these people in history are fighting on . How does impact both how they fight kind of just overall. You know theyre i guess their you know in war or in, you know, these battles thats excellent question. And i think in the case of all of americas wars against against, the indians and the native american warriors clearly had an advantage knowing the terrain and knowing to make best use of it, beginning with the defeat of almost the entire United States army in 1791, in when Arthur Sinclair stumbled against a confederacy that predated all the way too to fighting the apaches and other tribes in the west. I mean, the the knowledge the indians had of terrain in many cases did compensate for the generally inferior numbers that they had. And so that thats i mean, i could spend a whole hour talking about it easily, but thats a very good question and its very relevant. It was relevant in the greek war too because the creek country and large was terra incognita to the american militia forces that invaded it and they they they were going long blindly a good part of the time i guess if you want to jump in it was it was a huge part of the battle of the little if youve ever been there and those who havent. Ill turn this into a quick page to. Go visit the battlefield. If youve never been there. It is incredible. Its a series of Rolling Hills and you can stand there and stand in various places where some the battles happened and just look at 60 and see all the hills you and picture all of them swarmed with warriors who were firing arrows and bullets nonstop and imagine how terrifying it must have been to one of them. Been in one of these few warriors. And when youre there, you can trace the movement of the soldiers in custers various units by the tombstones where they died as. You can see how they moved through the hills theyve theyve done a pretty good job of marking the graves roughly where the bodies were found after the battle and at the far end, of course, now in more recent times, excuse me, i dont know exactly when, but they actually have the battlefield. The monument has outfitted one of the key positions, which is called reno. So you can walk around the perimeter, reno hill, where hundreds of soldiers were trapped over the course of a day and night. And you look down the gulch is where the warriors would have swarmed up. And you can look at the hills where snipers were firing and you can what its been like to have been trapped on this hill with dead bodies up and digging out little pits, rifle pits with your tin cup. How terrible it would have been. So you can really how the geography helped their two things this day i think if i cross that to you having been labor day protesting when i first went to little bighorn, i was standing up on the Last Stand Hill where custer was killed, and it will be handful of men who who formed around him. And its you look off on the horizon not too far in the race. You can see to me one of the rather prettier sights in the American West, and that is the Bighorn Mountains. You can see the blue, you know, line of mountains, and cheese. These guys died in this godforsaken scrub grass, you know, a high, a hill. And theres these beautiful Bighorn Mountains in the distance. And i found the one of the most poignant lines from the Indian Perspective is one when lakota warriors said years later, telling a story said, you there were so many of us that we didnt even weapons we could have just ridden over these guys with our horses and trampled them all to death. I mean, thats how one sided it was, you know. We knew we didnt need weapons right over. Yeah, i thats a great question. And terrain was definitely that affected the invasion of iraq and the drive to baghdad both in terms of the desert and then also the urban terrain of baghdad. So one of the few things that slowed down the third ids advance was a major sandstorm form that hit in march, late march and stop Ground Division to a fully to a halt and visibility was just a few feet. So they had to stop their invasion and wait until the sandstorm ended and was something that was completely out of control of the army, the urban terrain was also a major concern, especially thinking about sending in Armor Division into a dense city. One of the issues that came up for at the Division Level and at the fifth corps level was somalia. And this idea that we dont want back to be another mogadishu in which u. S. Troops get trapped inside of a city and then insert come and attack, and there killed bodies, dragged the streets and that sort of things. Theres a lot of concern about sending tanks into into a city and tanks great on a desert road. Theyre impenetrable, but they are a liability when youre trying to turn in a major metropolis. So and i would say that the jungle is a completely different and varied important consideration that people in the jungle are just a description of some of the engagements that he talks about people were as close as from you to me and didnt know they were there because its everything sort of hidden. And this a great advantage to the guerrilla warfare tactics that were being used at the time because could you could be very to somebody else. They wouldnt even know it. So thats why intelligence was really important is to sort of find out where people were. But it was a its a completely different and i remember we were talking about this, but my father was sort of opposed to orange because said at least in his war the jungle his friend it what protected him and the people he was with and they used it to their advantage they didnt want to get rid of it so well were waiting for the next question as our next question comes up, i would say that theres no way to understand a battle without going to the battlefield. We love taking our students to the battlefields and investigate geography. Yes, sir. Actually my question is related exactly to that. So i really this panel, you know, all of you are writing stories about, things that you have not seen. You know you are you have heard it, you have imagined it, and now youre putting it on paper. And, you know how much creative license are you allowed take . How much of what . I read your book, i may really seeing your literature powers versus actual history that happened because youre not writing fiction that you describing something that has happened the past that has been brought down to you maybe about through a literary tradition. Know in your case, from what you heard from your father, in your case, you know, by general brody. So how of it is your words and how much of it is real history . Should we start at this end of the table there . So i can say my question all of the stories in the book were told by my father so not me. I just edited it so that was by a guy who was in the middle of it and you can read it with that in i mean it was written a long time. The fact of it, but it was by somebody who there. Yeah also a great i have not to iraq but i in the course of doing the research for the book i spent a week at fort stewart, georgia with the Third Infantry Division getting to know what it felt like to be as part of a tank division. So i spent time with tank crews. I talked various levels of command within the Division Running an armored brigade being part of an armored brigade, an division. I mean, and i got in, i got inside of a tank. I got to observe a battle simulation and those sorts of things. So that helped me understand the soldiers. The third id were doing as far as Technical Skills that they had to have to the job. I do think that having if i had had the opportunity to to feel what the desert felt like, that would helped. Ive written about the vietnam war, and ive been to vietnam. In fact, i lived in vietnam a year. And having and just being able understand what vietnam feels like and smells like, looks like, sounds, i think really help me write those books in a way that i just didnt have the benefit of that. As far as what iraq feels like, sounds and you know, those sorts of things. But i did find that spending a week with the division there, headquarters helped me the job that they had to do and the training that they had got. I think that i mean i consider myself im not a historian right by. Trade im a former diplomat but. I consider myself first and foremost a storyteller and i think to process is very important in writing history to tell a story that is not not only as close to what occurred as possible to decipher it is distance, but also one thats engaging to read that that carries reader along that said, there, you know, there are certain licenses think that one can take and i have taken in for instance in writing my biography of tecumseh and his brother sony prophet. You know, i did i, i couldnt know exactly tecumseh was raised as an individual, but i knew how shawnee boys were raised. And you know as as part of their culture. And you can draw conclusions from that. And, and on that and one of my personal i dont know, i of things is that if very find myself getting ready to say perhaps or he he may have been thinking or just said i stopped myself i dont go there and i, i try to remain within the the confines of, of the, the primary sources to the best that i can and moving even further look at various primary sources that that exist covering a particular event and trying to decipher the ones that appear the most credible and that and that sense i think historians and military historians even more so kind of like i know were kind of like lawyers looking for the best evidence to put together the most. You know, likely chain of events. And, you know, i may have gone and wrong in some places, but i but again, i try to tell a story in an engaging way using create my creative talents such as they are, but never going beyond. What i can support with a primary source that is, say, the writing of someone a credible as credible as possible who was there. Yeah, i agree. Peters gave a great answer. Thats a great question. Thank you for asking. And its actually its interesting. I think he just touched on peter just touched on trying to the facts as we know them or should stay the facts hopefully you know the further back go in history the more difficult it is to determine exactly what happened, especially in an event where there are very few survivors is on one side or the other. So you do your best to write the events as you think happened. And i think the next part of it then a persons individual style and how much they want to try to project emotions and thought and things like that onto the people who actually them and that can be an individual choice. And i know that for myself. I try not to do really any of that. I learned during the podcast a writing process that what i what people who listen to my podcast already seem to like is a fun fast, lean story. They dont want to get too bogged down in too much of the detail. So thats how i write the book. How wrote the book . I was going to say its how i write books, but ive only written one book, so theres been exactly one example of how i done this and i try to do the same thing. Basically rely on amount of action and the number of things that happen and use those kinds of things. Help build suspense and entertainment. And thats the beauty of choosing a book that has five completely different storylines. Theres a dull moment, so i dont have to about flowery language and lots descriptive whatever you can rely on the events as they happen to drive the whole thing. I mean, i just want to say youve hit one of the central questions of being a historian. Were supposed to be neutral arbiters of the past merely by picking a subject youve biased yourself. So its constant balancing act. One last question. Thank you. So im interested in the cultural content. So i was really struck by the fact that all the things that happened in the wild west were, you know, some ten years postcivil war. And there was presumably a lot of color of cultural and been asked that was maybe finding different expression but the same would be true for the war of 1812 and baghdad and these other places and i realize im asking a big question with the short amount of time for a response, but maybe starting with you, chris, i wonder connection you there is from that broader cultural this or you know however you might characterize as that war lord you can go a lot of Different Directions i suppose i could go a lot of Different Directions with the answer. I think probably the easy one to go with is obviously the storyline that is military oriented. In my book is the us army versus native american tribes of the Northern Plains and. Thats the easy cultural aspect to latch on for the sake of trying to provide you with a quick answer here without sitting back here and trying to think about it forever. Is that anybody whos ever read any history, American History and certainly the history of the west about the decimation of the native american tribes in the west. And so this was that cultural aspect in really trying to remove those people from the native american from where they lived and forced them onto reservations and try to system remove their culture from them and try to assimilate them into essentially white europeans civilization that had expanded across the american was a huge part of it. And that was the entire campaign of. 1876 was designed to force the last free roaming people of the Northern Plains reservations. So the westward could continue to happen so that essentially the americans, the American Civilization could open the door to these rich lands in west. And so thats the really difficult aspect that you just have to live with. You to come to terms with the fact that most times when youre dealing native american societies, any time the white did something to native american societies, there was never a good reason for it. There was never a broad or benevolent reason. It was almost always destructive. And its really difficult to have to just live that and have to write it and know that thats going to be a part of the story no matter what. I have no idea if that answered your question, but maybe it was close enough. I would just add to that as far as one of the primary cultural attitudes i that i really picked up on in doing the research for my book is, this idea that the United States can nation build after a war despite so much evidence to the contrary, you have lots examples of the failure to do that, one of which is vietnam. Andy and i both studied the vietnam war. We write about it, we teach about it. And i was really struck by the push to nation build in iraq after a war without really any discussion the policy making level of but about vietnam and it didnt work there and theres there continues to be this for americans that the us can build a stable political nation stable Political Institutions after fighting a war and we dont have many instances of of success with that yet that still remains part of our kind cultural policymaking or the the culture, our policymaking. And i should say i, think that part of the problem is that policymakers were looking at iraq, afghanistan. They they were ignoring the lessons of vietnam and instead looking at the success japan and germany and the differences, not realizing how fundamental differences were. I mean, japan and germany these were homogenous societies and japanese, you know, theto remai. And these were societies that were, again, homogenous culturally. Iraq was far from that it was a patchwork of society, of cultures. One thing and this is back to the American Indians is one would like to make is that especially in speaking of the indian wars of the west, a complicating factor is that there were never, you know, spite of the it was clear that, you know, we wanted indian land we were going to get it and treaties were broken routinely. There was never among the American Indians themselves in the west was never a sense of what i call in my my book earth, earth as weeping, never a sense of indians, never a sense of common purpose, defeating that feeling this, you know, this white incursions there was not a single tribe in the west. It was every unified, you know, in terms of resisting american incursions, american encroachment, forcibly as to trying to coexist. There were always dueling factions. And every and the only tribes that actually displayed any cohesive were those tribes have fought alongside the United States in the west, the pawnee and the shoshone and the crow. So its its very its very its very complicated. You cant simply the native americans against against the whites and the government in the west. It was it was much more complicated than, in fact, right up almost up to the day that the great sioux war broke out early 1876. Again, you know, the Us Government against the code of lakota was fighting the crow indians and they considered them a greater threat. So its its not a black and white issue. Its very complex it is youre right. It is a story of tribes fighting for a long time. And then some of those then fighting against the us. When the us army came into close proximity. But it worked against all their ultimately. Well, id like to thank you guys for being a audience with some great questions. Lets give the panelists a round of applause and go by their books