Cspan is in lynchburg, virginia learning about local history. Next, historic sandusky during the battle of lynchburg. House was central to the 1864 civil war battle at lynchburg. While the battle raged, the union use this as its headquarters. Lets take a look at how it got its name. It was built by Charles Johnston, who grew up in the richmond a hand petersburg area. He entered Business Life as a merchant, stock worker, clerk. When he was about 20yearsold he went to kentucky to accompany his boss through the ohio territory through the state of kentucky to survey some land his boss bought. But went to the ohio river, a boat, picked up six passengers and traveled down the ohio river with the goal of reaching kentucky. They were warned about hostile native american indians. They were careful to stay in the middle of the ohio river. At one point to white men came to the banks of the river and us andhelp us, save they went to the bank to say them. It was a decoy. Byy were instantly attacked 4050 indians and two of them were killed. Charles and several others were taken prisoner. They were trundled northward through the ohio territory for about five weeks and finally carried up to upper sandusky, a small trading post and village. There they entered a trading post run by a frenchman and charles pleaded for the frenchman to help them because he was a prisoner and did not know what the rest of his life might be. The frenchman was able to strike a deal with the indians, purchasing Charles Johnston out of 600age for the price silver brooches. Charles johnston was freed on his 21st birthday. He then sought to come home to virginia. That was a difficult thing to do through the wilderness and the frontier from near lake erie back to virginia. He had to wait until he could find transportation back, someone who was skilled at guiding him through the dangerous parts of the frontier. It took him about five months to get back to virginia. On his way back he passed through new york city, which was the capital of our country in 1790 and was interviewed by president George Washington and secretary of war henry knox, who wanted to know what was happening on the frontier. There were continual struggles and strife on our frontiers between indians, between french, between british and between the colonists, which would later come into play during the war of 1812. Charles got back to virginia and resumed his life as a clerk and a businessman and was doing pretty well, he did a lot of his business in the tobacco trade. At some point he decided to come to this part of virginia, and was then campbell county, and he built this house, sandusky, in 1808. It was a fairly opulent house for a young man in his 30s. He made his wealth off the tobacco trade. He brokered the sale and transportation of tobacco from lynchburg to richmond and he did a lot of these tobacco transactions for thomas jefferson, who was getting into growing and selling tobacco at his nearby home, poplar forest. When he built this home, he named it sandusky, which was a Shawnee Indian word which means by the cool waters, which means lake erie. That episode in his life had such a profound effect on his life that he named his estate after that place where he won his freedom. He also wrote a memoir about his captivity at the hands of the Shawnee Indians. It is a fascinating account. Charles made his fortune in the tobacco trade and that was very important to virginias economy and often what goes up must come down. In 1818, the Tobacco Market crashed in virginia. Charles went from prosperity to poverty practically overnight. He was forced to sell sandusky, he cannot afford to keep it or keep it up. We have the deed of him showing where he sold it in 1818 to christopher clark. Now we are going to take a look at some of the later owners of historic sandusky. This was the formal parlor of historic sandusky. It is restored to the 1850s era. This is our third interpretive period. This is the area when the hutter family owned the house and also owned the house during the battle of lynchburg. Were restoring the house to the civil war era, the hutters lived here until 1952. They emigrated to virginia from pennsylvania and prior to that from germany. Being the formal parlor of the house, this room was used primarily for entertaining. It would not be used on a daily basis. This is where guests would be received for business purposes, for entertaining, for music, conversation, even weddings and wakes took place in this room but this was not used on a daily basis. It is decorated in a fairly opulent style because this is how the family presented itself to the world. You will find the finest furnishings in this room between the carpet, the candle holders, the tables, the mirrors, and all of the portraits and landscape paintings that reflect the style and the taste and the class of the family and what the family wanted to present to the public. One of the central pieces of any formal parlor was the pianoforte. This is an 1840s piano and chickering made thousands of pianos in the 19th century. This was the Entertainment Center of a 19thcentury home. The hutters had a chickering piano and it sat right here. George hutters niece wrote a piece of music in honor of sandusky. Hutter. Onor of mrs. Polka ande sandusky it was written in 1852 by his niece and published when she was only 14 years old. The house has its own theme music in the sandusky polka. Smartactually a very piece of music. Starbuck we are fortunate at historic sandusky that most of the furnishings are original. They were collected and donated to us by the hutter family who are still great supporters of what we do here. Items like the lamps, the tables, and even this painting are original to the house. This painting tells a unique story. If you notice, there is damage to the painting. The tradition passed down through the family is that this painting was slashed, was banned vandalized by Union Soldiers during their occupation at sandusky during the civil war battles. We did find written accounts of the vandalism that took place here during the battle. This painting was passed down to us from the hutter family through the granddaughter of ada hutter who was a teenager who lived here during the battle of lynchburg. We are going to go in to the parlor and talk more about her family and the battle. This is the family parlor of sandusky. This is the room where the families would spend most of their time, sitting, reading, relaxing, talking with each other and over the mantle we can see portraits of George Hutter and his wife harriet. George and harriet owned the house during the civil war battle of lynchburg. Lynchburg was very important to the confederacy. It was a transportation center, a manufacturing center, it was a hospital center, it was a pow camp for Union Soldiers, and by 1864 general ulysses s. Grant decided it would be good to take seize it but for a day, take it out of the war effort. Major general david hunter to march upon lynchburg and attack it. Major hunter marched down the lynchburg salem turnpike and met his first resistance at the Quaker Meeting House which is about a mile up the road. After that first days battle he rode over to sandusky and commandeered the house to serve as his headquarters. Generals like to sleep in bed and on couches rather than on the ground. This house became their headquarters. The hutter family were made prisoners in the house. Try to imagine an army camped all around this house. In this house are dozens of officers and men. They are taking over the house, they are taking things from the house, they are eating all the food in the house, they are sleeping in the beds and try to imagine your position if this was your house and you had all of these uninvited guests taking over your house and abusing it. We know a lot of what happened here through the writings of young ada in her diary that she kept. We are fortunate to have which was also donated to us by her granddaughter. What she writes is fascinating. She writes about the battle, she writes about her concern for her brother, she has three brothers and their fate is unknown to her. She writes about things that a teenage girl would write about. She writes about not getting along with her parents, she writes about what her hopes and dreams are for her future. We learn from the diary that she was very proconfederate. In fact, when the union army was defeated, she gloats about it in her diary and after two days of battle, david hunter and his soldiers were defeated and they retreated and lynchburg was saved. Lynchburg has unique history of being the only Virginia City during the civil war that was not captured during the war. The battle of lynchburg caused some damage and vandalism to the house and also to the fields and the surroundings of the house. The family recovered really well from the battle and from the war. The hutters continued to own sandusky until 1952 and that is when the house was broken up among the family members. That is why we have so much of the furniture is that they stayed in the house until 1952. Another owner took over the house in 1952. As she got older she wanted to sell the house and she sold it to a small group of concerned Community Citizens who formed a Nonprofit Organization to purchase the house with the intent to turn it into a Public Museum. That effort has been ongoing since 2000. Two years ago the house was acquired by Lynchburg College who operate it as a Public Museum but also as a history lab for learning and teaching students about history, how to run a museum, how to run a business and we have several students working here, giving tours, doing bookkeeping, doing research, working in our archaeology lab. It is exciting to be in a site that serves dual functions of being both a public site but also a Higher Learning center for people interested in history. Announcer hours cities tour staff recently traveled to lynchburg, virginia, to learn about its rich history. You are watching American History tv, all weekend every weekend on cspan3. Next, a Founding Member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee recounts his experiences as one of the ginal 13 freedom writers freedom riders. He describes being wounded during battle. He also described his combat Medic Service during the vietnam war, racial tension, and being wounded in battle. The interview is about 70 minutes. Host we are here at the west point center for oral history studio on february 23, 2015 with mr. Henry james thomas. Hello, mr. Thomas. Hank hi, how are you doing . Host we are very happy to have the chance to talk to you today. Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood . I am interested because it seems liker