Skaggs scads of books and articles. You dont hear the word scads very often. Gary not from adults. [laughter] we dont want to speak only about your scholarship. You said you dont want to make it all about you. He says no. Its going to be ok. Gary i said ill do whatever you want to do. Peter i can assure you he did not say that. Gary this is the profound flaw in oral history. [laughter] gary because there you are. Youre going to write about tonight. You have two diametrically different comments. You need to pick one and pretend thats correct. Peter so this evening, we did agree upon this. Again, were going to come back to your scholarship, but we vote tonight about the lesserknown gary gallagher, the unknown gary gallagher. We wont divulge all your secrets. Is that ok . We didnt agree upon that either. We did . Ok. Were having trouble getting out of the gate. Gary im just listening, peter. Youre the one controlling the gate. Peter so your first professional job, can you tell us a little bit about that position . Gary i went to graduate school at the university of texas in austin and i was there in the mid1970s, took all my coursework, and surveyed the countryside. And there were no jobs. I was part of a lost generation of Doctoral Students then, and i was asked in the summer of 1976 to edit a backlog of oral histories. They have 125 oral histories that were conducted in 1968 and 1969 and just sat there. I agreed to do that. When i finished that, they asked if i would like a job as an archivist as part of the National Archives. Abouttalked we talked as a family and decided that was a smart thing to do because there is no teaching jobs. Peter what were some of the things you did . Gary i specialized in the papers of some of johnsons key aids. I did joe caliph on those papers. I did bill moyers papers. The Kerner Commission on violence from 1968, those kinds of things. But toward the end of my career, i spent a good deal of my time helping with exhibits they mounted. They did wonderful exhibits, tremendous exhibit on ulysses s artifacts. Borrowed thats what i did a lot. And because i had a phd, they had me haul famous figures around when they came into talk. So i got to talk to henry and people like that. Henry kissinger and people like that. Peter tell us about kissinger. Gary he was secretary of state. [laughter] peter retail your conversation with henry kissinger. Gary i would lob one question and then i would be quiet for a long time. He did tell a story about lbj. You dont want to hear this. Peter i do want to hear this. I asked. Gary he said he was driving with lbj one time and he looked over to him and said henry, what that . He pointed at a piece of machinery. Henry, lets that . Once that . Whats that . The third time, he pointed to a cow. Thought it was a trick question and said im not sure. He said henry, thats a cow. That passes as humor. Peter while youre an archivist, you finished your dissertation. Gary i did. Peter tell us about that process. Gary i dropped out of graduate school because i had been assigned a dissertation topic, which you well know i do not do. Thats the worst thing you can do is pick topics for your students. Its hard enough to write a dissertation if youre interested in it. And they picked one for me, which was the election of 1852 and the demise of the whig party. This is when it was catching fire and using computers. That wouldve been disastrous for me, but i pretended to be working on it for two years and went all over the country and took lots of notes. But nothing happened. I did write one paragraph over the course of two and a half years and i kept getting threatening notes from the department of history. Youre about to run out of time. I had a string of fellowships there. They werent concerned about me. They were concerned if i didnt finish, it would make the Department Look bad because they had given me four of these fellowships. Justy rate, in the end, i had some good friends over one night. We built a fire. I burned all the notes i had taken into an half years, and then i sent them a very theatrical letter, withdrawing from the department of history. Peter how did you get back in . Gary a couple weeks went by. Im sure they had a meeting and said this makes us look bad. They said what if we let you write about something youre interested in . I said all right, but im still close to the six year limit. I had i think 16 months to finish. And they said if you can find a topic that would work, well let you do that. And i didnt have a topic. But a friend of mine, named alan purcell, who taught at Austin Community college, said he ran across a great set of letters that headed been havent been exploited. I went down, took a look. Theyre spectacular, two great sets of letters. One to his best friend, a man named david shank. And one to the woman he married. So, a great set of love letters and a great set of public issues. And the bottom line, id been doing the background reading for that since i was 10. So it was actually a topic i could do in 16 months. So thats what i did. That turned into the first book that i published. Peter so i use this transition you were 10were 10, growing up in colorado on a farm. Were going to talk about this. What did you enjoy . Gary about being on a farm . Nothing. [laughter] gary i knew by the time i was 11, i wanted to live on city, water and sewer, and do something for a living where one cloud couldnt come over on one afternoon and ruin the whole summers work. But i kind of lost myself in the civil war there. I read the American Heritage picture history of the civil war when i was 11, bought a copy, came out in 1960, and i was just captivated by that book. And i had one grandmother who didnt care about the civil war, but was the most loving, wonderful grandmother, and she started buying books for me on birthdays and christmas. Me many books. That was in the middle of the centennial. There was a lot going on. My mother and grandmother and i, in between irrigations on our farm, my father said we could do this as long as we werent gone more than 12 days. We drove to gettysburg and back in 12 days. And he had a bunch of sites along the way. It was great. My mother and grandmother dumped me off, got their hair done. I know that because my grandmother kept a diary, which i have, a diary of the trip, which is the most wonderful thing to have. And she wrote in her diary i appeared to be having fun. [laughter] peter and i gary and i was. Peter so that first visit to gettysburg . Gary 1965. Peter where did you go . Gary there are pictures of me in the Peach Orchard and what i thought was the most iconic photograph of the civil war, the sharpshooter killed, not a mark on his body. Did a funny description in the sketchbook. I was photographed there, the usual places. I lookedfrom colorado, at Cemetery Ridge and looked at things called hills and ridges here and thought, where are the hills and ridges . [laughter] gary theyre little wrinkles in the ground and they call that South Mountain . [laughter] gary anyway. I wasnt impressed with the high ground in the east. Gettysburg,oming to as is the case for so many of us, has such a powerful impact. Though often, when one goes into academic history, you totally lose sight of its importance. You never have. Could you talk to us a little bit about the power and how thats been a part of your teaching . Gary i think because i had somewhat an atypical avenue into academia because i worked at the library and i had been in the real world for a while, it always seemed important to me that whatever i did in academia should also have some dimension that reached out to people who are just interested in the era, the way i had been when i was growing up. It seemed that there should be more bridges between academia and the public than there are. And one of the key places where that can happen was at battlefields, where you can make a connection to the past in a way that you cant. Seems like im mainly aimed this way, so im going to turn like this. You can make a connection there you cant make in many other places, and make ones and you know this well where you go to talking about the battle to much larger issues. The main thing is to orient them to the ground. You can also talk about why the man in uniform that should appear, what did they think was an issue . How did this battle reverberate among civilian populations when it was over . Those kind of things are easy to do on a battlefield site. Peter and of all the places, and youve done countless tours, virginia gary hundreds. Peter tell me, is there a particular battlefield or spot where you find has incredible interpretive power . Gary i think gettysburg is in a category by itself because it has so much that allows you interpret the memory of the war as well as what happened here, just because of the amount of Outdoor Sculpture here. Theres nothing else like it. The inscriptions are golden for someone trying to interpret. Just making comparisons, the first time i came here, there was no indication Joshua Lauren straightens Joshua Lawrence chamberlain ever trod into the earth. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain were not mentioned in the booklet. Top was of little round gouverneur lauren, who we might infer because he was the one who has a statue on the battlefield. The view of the people who were alive then is gouverneur warren, not Joshua Lawrence chamberlain. The second one would be vincent, who is on top of the 83rd pennsylvania monument, and has the little modest marker that says he was wounded and died and promoted to brigadier general. Its the wonderful place to talk about the disjuncture between history and memory. You can do that at gettysburg as well as anyplace ive ever taken people. You can also do that in petersburg. You can point to the monument at petersburg that went up right after glory came out and talk about how culture spills over into how we view historical figures. If you take the killer angels and ken burns, and ron maxwells translation to sinema out, Joshua Chamberlain isnt what he is now. Thats a perfect example of how Popular Culture and memory and history are combined and work off of one another, and sometimes work against one another. Id like to talk about David Ireland and juxtapose them against Joshua Lawrence tamerlan in the 20th main. By any standard, the one 37th new york did at least as well, and i think better at spacing an entire brigade of federalists, who climbed up and down round top in the afternoon. But David Ireland didnt live forever, didnt survive the war, didnt write his memoirs, didnt become governor of maine, all the things he didnt do. I admire Joshua Chamberlain. Hes an academic who function in the real world. Just think about that. [laughter] gary think about that for just a minute. [applause] gary so you have to admire that about him. But still, he has become an outsized figure. I wrote a book about him a number of years ago about the civil war in sinema and popular art. And i had two graduate students, who are now published senior scholars in the field, who went through every issue of all the popular civil war magazines to see which figures had been painted most often. And of union figures, its Joshua Lawrence chamberlain. And that would have surprised philip henry sheridan. They wouldve been taken aback to think that chamberlain would resonate more than either of them. Peter when you think about people coming to these sites and thinking about these questions as you put forth, our visitors actually able to do that . When you think about the interpretation thats available in the monuments themselves, it seems to me that these important ,ssues between whats happened the vast majority of people who come to these sites are not thinking about those issues. Peter i agree gary i agree. Peter so what can be done . Gary thats where people such as uni come in you and i come in the most important things anybody who teaches history should do, right at the beginning, is get the audience, whether undergraduate students or graduate seminar, or interested laypeople such as we have here tonight, to get them to understand the difference between history and memory. Theyre not the same thing. To understand memory, often, i would say usually, trumps what happens because people think what happens. Its been given to them by an encore or grandfather, no matter how may times someone at the end of my civil war class, where one of the themes i hammer is of course that wouldnt have been secession or war without slavery. You simply cant get there. But theyll say i really enjoy your course but my uncle says youre wrong. He says slavery isnt that important. I used to ask sharp questions. Now i just smile. Is this your uncle, the haberdashery . Your uncle, the tobaccoer . [laughter] gary and i mean that in a really nice way, of course. I mean really, its so easy if you can get someone to agree only to look at the evidence thats available in the midst of events. If youre trying to figure out how important slavery is to secession and the coming of the war, dont read anything after 1860 and 1861. I dont want to hear about anything written after the war. Dont bring it up. I want to know what they are saying going forward, not retrospectively when they are trying to fix things so that they will look better. And the two Perfect People is Jefferson Davis and alexander stephens. Tell them what they said in the spring of 1861, and then read of the late war between the states and the rise and fall of the confederate government. And it makes the case beautifully. Peter one of the other things you pointed to about coming to battlefields is the importance of military history. Could you just speak about the place of military history within the field of academic history . Gary yes, ive grown sort of weary of this. Peter i can tell by your reaction. Gary there are a number of people who like to pretend that im this oldfashioned, operational military historian, and that i think thats all thats important about the civil war, which of course, is an infamous falsehood. I think that military history is important. I think if youre going to deal with the civil war, you have to come to grips with military history in a serious way. Because the ways in which what happened on battlefields and with armies crossed over into Everything Else that was happening, whether youre talking about social phenomena or political, whatever it is, theres tremendous connections between the two. You have to understand between the homefront and the battlefront. And you have to understand the generation. Look at the covers of harpers weekly during the civil war. 80 of them deal with military topics. Its just what people are thinking about. You cant understand the process of emancipation if you take the union armies out of the picture. You cant understand why emancipation moved to the fore in july of 1862 if you dont jorgetand the impact of for phones retreat after the seven days. I mean, is it just coincidence that on july 17, the second is a coincidence . Lincoln tells us cabinet is going to issue a proclamation of proclamation emancipation . Antietam isnt the key battle. Antietam gives the occasion to announce the limitary proclamation, but its the seven days and mcclellans failure and mcclellans retreat at the moment of potential victory that convinced both lincoln and the congress that its going to take a longer, harder war. Its going to put slavery on the table for the confederacy. Once you do that, everything is on the table. You cant overemphasize how big a shift that is in july of 1862. And that flows from a single military event, because the world is going to help further confederates, militarily, even in places that dont matter, like where i grew up. Yes, henry sibley wandered up the rio grande, and then he wandered back. [laughter] gary that didnt change the course of the war. The seven days did. And all the bad news in the west, within the civil war context, the theater between the mississippi and the appalachians. If mississippi had fallen, as it should have, that wouldve ended the war. That wouldve been it. But it didnt. Peter you got your job at the western theater, 15 minutes in, i thought it would come in. Gary i love the western theater. Im a westerner. It doesnt matter. [laughter] peter i agree with you overall. Lets go back to the emphasis on the military operations. Gary we can talk about your boyhood in indiana. Peter well do that tomorrow. Gary ok. Peter but one thing left out of the equation is that the slaves didnt notice the process of little bit. Gary i didnt say they didnt. Peter but you didnt say they did either. Gary you asked me about the military. Here would be my question. Come does possible freedom soonest and most obviously during the civil war . And the answer is it comes from United States military forces, appears soonest and stays longest in the Mississippi River valley on the lower peninsula of virginia. You chart the progress of the United States armies and you can chart freedoms spread during the civil war. Im not saying black people dont play a role. Of course not. But it doesnt matter how much you want to achieve freedom. Youre probably not going to. Peter absolutely not. Gary enslaved people in texas have no chance of achieving freedom because texas is beyond the reach of the United States military. Peter youre also acknowledging if slaves had not taken that step, that they did not want them to take. Gary most of them didnt. Not all of them, but most of them. Peter i think were generalizing here. Gary most white northerners didnt give a good god damn. By our standards, they were profoundly racist. There is a book of officers in the western theater. They embraced emancipation as they did in the eastern theater, for the most part, not because they cared about black people, but because it would help restore the union. They had very pragmatic, selfinterested, and we could say racist interests in doing it. Peter practical. Gary very practical. Peter the author is speaking here next year. Gary well, good for him. [laughter] gary but the point is, and peter, i love this. This isnt a zerosum game. If i make the point that the United States forces is crucial to the process of emancipation, it doesnt mean im saying black people dont have a Critical Role. Peter i agree. Gary thats what youre saying. Peter that part of your analysis i did not hear. Gary the longest chapter in this book is on emancipation. They are not what we wish they would be. Would be great if the mass of white, loyal citizens really cared about black people who were enslaved in the slaveholder states. They just didnt. Peter i agree, but youre overstating it a little bit. I think what youre missing is there was a shift, a pragmatic shift, that turned many white northerners to become antislavery. While youre correct the racial views were still up warrant, ash , i abhorrent gary what do you mean by antislavery . The confederate war depends on slave labor. The confederacy wouldnt have mobilized 80 of its white males except for the presence of enslaved labor. Peter and many northerners venturing to the south saw the south as a backward place. They didnt attribute that to slippery. Gary they did. Peter its not just for a military and, look for the future of the country. Gary they slot thought slavery hurt white people. They had more empathy for them than black people. Peter without a doubt, youre one of the first civil war scholars to integrate military history with the home front. You did that in a series of essays that opens the book on various campaigns, the very first ones you did were at gettysburg, i believe. Then you did one on fredericksburg, richmond campaign, antietam. And almost every one of those itumes, the opening piece, was an eyeopening exploration into the views of civilians, how those views were so interconnected to what is happening on the road home front. I agree. Im curious, that approach, where did it come from . Something you thought about in graduate school . I need to look at this. Peter gary it came from reading things. Peter in graduate school or after . Gary in graduate school i wasnt supposed to work on the civil war. It came very late. So no, it wasnt really graduate school. It was later. And its an plea became apparent, after time and it simply became apparent, after time, i had to understand what impact they had on the home front and, in turn, have concerns on the home front shaped what happened with armies. What resources they got. Why did grant come east in 1864 . He didnt need to come east. That is a political necessity, because the civilian population of the United States demanded that their best soldier beat lees army. Grant was a savvy guy. He understood that. It was imperative he knew that. He didnt need to do that. It just seems to me these ties were there and he didnt see many people at that time, 20 years ago now, were exploring them. Peter lets talk about your craft. Read a quote from you in another interview, where youre referencing Norma Peterson, when you were an undergrad, college or university . Gary now is a university. College when i was there. Peter this is dr. Gallagher in another interview. Dr. Norma peterson was ferociously in favor of playing it straight with the evidence. She pounded that into me. What exactly does that mean . Gary Norma Peterson taught us in colorado. Said, chairman of the department. Thats what she insisted on being called. She published four books while she did this, which is astonishing. Andok her civil war course she didnt mention armies or battles one time in her civil war course. Thats what i read about as a kid. Thats a whole new civil war to me. I would talk to her about how to do this. What do you do when youre trying to decide something about the past . And her answer was, you look at as much evidence as possible, and you go where the evidence takes you, even if it takes you someplace you didnt want to go. And my mentor in grad, my main mentor in graduate school, was barnes fletcher lathrop, who didnt publish very much. He trained 44 phds in his career at texas. But he had the same attitude, just absolutely, i had a really good idea at one point. And then i read some stuff and i figured out the idea was not going to work. And i went in, in a slightly whining tone, told him that. And he just looked at me and said, god dammit, gallagher, just go where the evidence leads you and youll be alright. And i think thats right. Thats my philosophy. Look at as much stuff as possible and go where it takes you. Gary do you see any limitations to that approach . Gary no. Mean, every approach has limitations, but i see far more benefits. There are on a number of ways to do history. You find evidence that supports your great idea. Theres a most always enough evidence to support any idea. Theres tons of evidence. Peter lets talk about another one of your books, a very important influential book, the confederate war. I dont have the publishing publication date. Gary 1997. Peter why did you think it needed to be done . And were there any surprises . Gary i wrote the confederate war, which argues they had a sense of nationalism, and struggled resolutely to achieve independence, for which i was called a neoconfederate, which is interesting. The letter its at that time was emphasizing the home front, unhappiness of women in the confederacy, tremendous class, divisions in the confederacy, arguments the confederate student try the hard. There was an argument in the book called why the south lost, which is a good book by had way and arthur jones. Its a book ive used a lot. But it its a good book, argues that they really should have tried harder. And then at the end, compares them to paraguayans, who basically engaged in selfmutilation in the 1870s. And it just seemed to me that key parts of the evidence were at odds with this idea. And one of the key parts is the percentage of loss among the white population in the confederacy far exceeds that of any work. It wasnt even close. Its a greater percentage than the british and the germans or the french or the russians in world war i, which is often the standard we use for slaughter. While all the things we were writing about our true, of course theres class conflict. Theres always class conflict. That is not even interesting to me. Thats like going to the beach and discovering sand. [laughter] gary im at the beach, i found sand. God almighty, who wouldve thought . The interest in question to me is whether that conflict really has a bearing on a major event. So yes, theres conflict. Yes, people come become disaffected. Thats actually true. But it seems to me that on the whole, its a resolute resistance the confederates put up. There main reason is that slaveholding social system is at stake. If they lose the war, theyre not going back into the union the way they were. They were going back without certain control over black people. Just read Robert E Lees letter to the secretary of war in january of 1863. Lee is considered a moderate on these things. He is beside himself writing about the emancipation proclamation. View ofn apocalyptic what the confederacy would mean because of the emancipation announced a few days earlier. Peter i would say the presence of class to censure, that it has been so diminished of late in our understanding of the confederacy. Ite racial explanation is obscured, some of those tensions. So again, just a move toward confederate history started back in colorado. Gary and the seeds of that book came out of the other but. He book. He deployed that language all the time. And it seemed to me this dichotomy, youre either loyal to your state or loyal to your nation. Thats how lee is often presented. Our loyalty is much more complicated than that. Theres also loyalty to the slaveholding south from this class, and its that loyalty, i believe, that easily turned into loyalty to the confederacy. Its a seamless transition there, i think. So, when w peter you think about the status of confederate history today, where do we go . Gary theres always someplace ago. I dont know exactly where we are going. Peter you said something in another interview. Historians that are looking at new things, that their research is often on the margins. So, what do you mean by that . That may help us understand where our next step is. Gary i dont think all of it is, and i dont mean that in any cash i just mean that i just mean that some of the things we havent explored are things that would be considered marginal. Guerrilla warfare has gotten more attention the last 15 years than it did in all the years leading down to the last 15 years. I think guerrilla warfare is very important in the war. I think its something we need to understand better. Where i think we go off the rails as if we argued guerrilla warfare is the most important element of military affairs in the civil war, because i just dont believe evidence supports that at all. Peter but dont you think it would benefit the field if we stop framing questions around the outcome of the war so when we look at guerrilla warfare, people wouldnt make the claim it had this Critical Role in ultimate Union Success or whatever . Wouldnt it be better to simply try to understand the nature of guerrilla warfare, which i think a lot of the scholars are doing . Gary it would be better. Peter it opens up the class conflict. Gary if you found great stuff about something and immerse yourself in a topic, to argue for its centrality rather than marginality. Im not saying guerrilla war is marginal, but its not the center of things. And im not i dont want to linger on the west. I think what happened in the western areas, your smiling, i really believe its important. And we should know more about it. And when i say the west, the real west. The transmississippi. My west. The west where it doesnt rain enough to grow crops. I think what happens out there is interesting. I think its worth writing about. I just dont think it figured very prominently in the war planning and the allocation of resources for either United States or the confederacy. And if you want to figure out what people thought at the time was important, where do they spend money . Where did they put their armies . Where did they spend their money . And that was east of the mississippi, for the most part. Peter staying on this topic of confederate history, there doesnt seem to be a lot of room to maneuver for new scholarship. But what about just doing confederate history in todays climate . What would you say if you were still training graduate students who wants to do something and confederate history . Gary i would tell them they need to be very careful. Its what i told you when you said you wanted to do military history. I didnt let anybody write about military history. I had to graduate students who did, two out of 31. I told them dont do that because you wont get a job. You have to think about whats getting received in the perception profession, and thats not going to be. I would be careful about picking a federal confederate topic. Peter when you are in graduate school, you made a point that they picked a topic for you and you didnt have an opportunity to focus on Civil War History. So tell us about that experience, because it was still a very meaningful and powerful one. I assume a very exciting time. What did you get from graduate school in texas . Gary i got from graduate school that youre generally miserable in graduate school and filled with selfdoubt, and you get butterflies for going into seminars. You know, the usual things. And then you wont get a job. Other than that, its just all wonderful. [laughter] stuff. Hat i love finding i like reading evidence. And then putting it together. I mean, looking at as much as you can look at, thinking about it, and if you can find new patterns or patterns that seem at odds with what dominant interpretations seem to be, thats exciting to me. But the key is always, are the patterns really there . Are the patterns really there in the evidence . Because if they are not, do something else. Peter yes. Gary i know that smile very well, peter. Go ahead. [laughter] peter yes, youre right. Those patterns are important. And i would argue those patterns arise because thats where the evidence leads us. The problem is our evidencebased is almost imperfect. Thats no great surprise. But that Evidence Base almost always comes from a particular class. Thats usually the privileged and the most powerful. And put simply, those patterns are so important because it helps us understand dominant values, dominant ideology. And thus, it gives us an opportunity to maybe look elsewhere that doesnt fit those patterns. You might claim they are on the margins, i want to know about those people. I want to know how they interacted with those dominant patterns. I dont think we should just go with where evidence leads us. Definitely do that. But i think we need to look elsewhere to voices that are not so common. Gary youre talking about evidence. Peter absolutely. Gary so youre still going where the evidence leads you. But lifting up those voices that say im stuck in my evidence here and this pile is so low. Peter what gary what he means is i said that to him when he was writing his last book. We went backandforth and peter would listen and then ignore me. [laughter] gary and in the end, i said thats ok because its your book. You dont make someone write the book that you wouldve written. That is the worst thing you can do. Peter i mean all kidding aside, i never, ever, ever felt any pressure in graduate school in writing three books under you now, that you ever said pete, you need to do this. Gary i wouldnt have. Peter absolutely. I speak for many of dr. Gallaghers former students here, theyd all agree we always felt we could go into the classroom and turn something into you. And you would look at it, look at it hard, ask tough questions. And my book that just cannot is a lot that are, and its because of you. I will be honest, there were days when maybe nice words didnt come out about the editorial process. [laughter] gary and i wouldve thought i cant imagine anyone being more patient than i was. But go ahead. [laughter] gary why cant you just let me get the last word in . Er get the last word in peter why cant you let me get the last word in . Gary get the last word in, peter. Gone. No, the moments [laughter] peter the debate or seminar that really stuck with you, to this day. Gary the best seminar i had in graduate school was a seminar on the american west, taught by a man named john sumner, whose own work had been on the first trait. He wrote four books on the first trait in the 1960s for trade in the 1960s. And he was an authority on the fur trade, and he taught a seminar in the west that was revelatory. He defined the west to include canada. He said the west doesnt change when you cross the boundary of the United States and canada. It also included part of mexico. It went below the rio grande. Mindy rethink how do you reconceptualize the west it made me rethink how do you reconceptualize the west . He also encouraged me to make any kind of argument we wanted. And everything was new to me. I didnt know much at all about the west. But he did a masterful job of guiding the discussion. He intervened only rarely, when he really thought we had gone so far off the rails that we needed to be reined in a little bit, so the rest of the meeting could be productive. Thats the best seminar i ever took. Peter and i suspect he said to you what you always said to us, take the authors on his or her terms. Dont critique an author for the book they did not write, which is just infuriating that it continues to happen. Gary if you agree to review a book in a journal, dont review it and make the review about what you wouldve written. You can disagree with it, but dont just engage. Yes, thats right. And he did another thing. Graduate students are prone to attack whatever they are reading. What a ridiculous argument. This is stupid. Thats right, i picked 21 books, which is probably how many you read in seminars. I tried to find the 22 that are gleeful flogged deeply flawed deeply flawed and assigned those to you. Had usone thing is you read the socalled classics. You werent afraid to assign a ub philips. I mean, you would never just assign as books published in the last five years. Gary they dont make sense. Peter they dont make sense. And i feel old when i said when you said you taught so many phds. You did a graphical class with barnes lathrop, and everybody got an incomplete. It took you a year to finish the paper. Gary the paper was 340 pages long for that class. Everybody took an incomplete. I was a year late and i was the third to finish out of 12. Peter and if you had turned it in sooner, you wouldve been disappointed. Gary yes, he was an odd fellow. Peter so youve now been retired for a year. You spent last year at the Huntington Library. Gary i did. Peter people would love to know what the Huntington Library is and what you did there. Gary its heaven for people like us. Its a spectacularly rich collection of historical materials. It also has art. And one of its great strengths is 19thcentury u. S. Of gardens 200 acres in san marino, california, immediately adjacent to pasadena. You have this anger reveals right behind you you have the san gabriels right behind you. You can roam around to your hearts content. Its unbelievable. And one of their huntington put together this collection, not by buying individual items, although the gutenberg bible was individual, and the audubon burns of america. But he also bought great collections. John Paige Nicholson was a Union Veteran who began in the late 19th century to collect everything about the civil war, when his library was published as a catalog in 1914. It was a thousand pages long. Thats one of the foundational collections at the Huntington Library. Its an amazing place. Peter what were you working on . Gary i went there to do one thing and i ended up doing another thing. I went there to write one last book about, kind of, what i worldis wrong about the of civil war understanding now and in Popular Culture. I was grumpy and not really and someone said you already done that. Thats why youre struggling with this. Youve been writing these thousand word essays for civil war times for 15 years or whatever it is, and every idea youre talking about now, to me, appeared in one of those in some way, and appeared in books. She said why dont you just gather all of those, put them in groupings, write analytical introductions, and frame those as this book . And i started doing that in late january and finished it the day before i left for huntington. Thats all about the enduring civil war. Peter these essays focus on what you think is wrong, currently. Gary wrong or right. Peter so tell us some of the good things. What gives you hope about the future of Civil War History . Gary what gives me the most hope is the variety of elements in the war that have been explored in useful ways. The civil war was a very narrow the civil war was high politics, military affairs, and diplomacy, for the most part when i was wrong when i was young, even when you were young. Its become incredibly richer than that. We didnt know much about common soldiers. Bill riley was really it. There was incredibly rich ive used incredible twice now about w a lot more its not as if we didnt know about what sometimes called the dark side of the war. Of course we always knew. But we didnt know about it like now. We didnt know nearly as much about women in the war. I think well have reached the best place in dealing with women in the war when its no longer specialized studies that talk about women in the war but theyre seamlessly integrated into studies of some other aspect of the war. Peter layered narratives. Gary thats right. In the process of emancipation and the africanamerican side of the war is you cant even explain, really, how much richer it is now than it was 30 years ago. Peter but also in danger of becoming this autonomous story. Gary no, none of this is theyre all part of a much broader tapestry. And thats the challenge, when we know so much about so many elements, how do you do justice to all the things we know now in a narrative that still maintains some momentum and can carry there is a narrative to the civil war. There actually is. And it does go into different directions. Peter i think many people realized dont realize what an impact the series, civil war, has had on this field. You edited this series for how many years . Gary i began in the late 1980s, before we named it. Hodgson, a legend and publishing, he was really wonderful. Peter how many titles did you do . Gary we did 15 books before we named it civil war america. Series, 115 books in the were ones that i peter reminds me of something you said earlier, you were charged with being a neoconfederate. You have to not take into consideration civil war america, which covers all facets of the war. Imagine civil war is one of the most important books on the cultural history of the war. There are no books committed to women in the war, to memory. Much of what you spoke to about muchichness of the field, of it comes from civil war america. There are a lot of things for you to be proud of in your career. Telus, what russian tell us tell us, what stands out . Gary my students continued to edit. Youve been one of them. One of them was here earlier today. There are many more titles. There must be 130 titles, 135 titles in the series now. Im very proud of that. Im proud of the military campaigns in the civil war series, books of essays i envisioned as a way to have graduate students get publications. Many of my students, including you, had essays. Intended toose were make campaigns as more than armies maneuvering in general. Ive been lucky with my career. Im very proud of my graduate students. Ive had wonderful graduate students, wonderful. Runt of the a graduate students. Gary i dont know what that means. Peter the runt of the litter. Gary i know what runt is. Peter were going to end. 10 questions. Gary ill either answer or i wont. Am i going to be graded . Peter heres question number one. Which historical figure do you most identify with . Gary identify with. I dont really identify with historical figures. I honestly dont. Peter number two, this is easier. Favorite professional sports team . Gary thats not even close. The colts. Peter when they were in baltimore, of course. Gary because of johnny unitas. Peter peyton manning. Gary and lenny moore. Peter Lionel Mitchell . Gary the family that moved them to indianapolis not so much. But i love the colts. Peter conway 20 or the pet shop boys asked conway tw Conway Twitty or the pet shop boys . Gary what was the second one . Peter the pet shop boys. Gary i dont know the pet shop boys. And i dont like Conway Twitty. Peter you know them. We had a discussion. Gary i like willie nelson, where then jennings. Peter what about dwight, dwight yocum . Yoakam isht great. Peter what talent would you most likely have . Gary i would like to play the piano really well. My mother can play the piano really well and i cant play at all. I would love to play the piano. Beet sushi, barbecue, or salad . Gary thats a faux choice. I went barbecue with beet salad. If i can only have one, beet salad. Peter what is your greatest extravagance . Gary art. Peter what kind of art do you like . Gary i like california impressionist art from the late 19th century to the late 1940s. And i like contemporary art that depicts northern new mexico and southern colorado. Those are the kinds of art i spend money on. Peter whos your favorite hero in fiction . Gary has to be a hero, not a heroin . Can it be a heroin . Jane austen. Peter and you read every year. Gary i read all of jane austens novels every year, except northanger abbey. I read the other five. Peter facebook or twitter . Gary please dont make me answer that. Im not on facebook or twitter. Peter i was hoping for a rant. Gary i think you often wonder what might disprove the existence of an all loving god. [laughter] Gary Facebook and twitter would go a long way to doing that, i think. Peter what is your most treasured historical possession . Gary my mothers diary from world war ii, when she was in the only navy uso show in the pacific. She was on guam and saipan. She was on tinian when the enola gay took off. Peter did they do an exhibit to her . Gary it was in the National Archives exhibit on world war ii on the 25th anniversary. And they used my moms diary and some of the other stuff that she had. She was from l. A. And she was an entertainer. She got picked for this show and entertained on the aircraft carrier, and was seated next to admiral byrd, richard people in byrd. And he took his stars of his uniform and gave them to my mother. She made a charm bracelet. Peter do you still have that . Gary i do. I finally got her to give it to me. Its in safe keeping. Peter last question. Your favorite noncivil war Historic Site . Gary mesa verde. Peter ok. What do you love about it . Gary mesa verde, its just an amazing place to think about how that series of structures was constructed, when it was constructed, the environment it was constructed. Its an amazing place to me. And i went to it late. Like many people, i didnt care about where i grew up. My heart was where the civil war was. When i finally got there, and you can climb up the letters and go all through ladders and go all through mesa verde. Its an amazing place. Peter so thats the last one. Im sure youre relieved. Again, thank you so much. Here, i cantond was you how meaningful it to be able to sit in one of dr. Gallaghers classes, as well as his seminars. Momenta really magical and im always thankful dr. Gallagher took the time, you came down with nipper, your dog, and we walked around. Peter battlefield dog gary battlefield dog. Peter and we talked a lot of history. Best decision ive ever made was to go to penn state and study under dr. Gallagher. That dr. My voice, gallagher was not only this great advisor. But he has, and i speak for all his graduate students hes always there for us, always invested in our lives. Not just our professional lives. This is a man, as you can only imagine, extraordinarily busy, the kind of publication record he has, to do all hes done. But he always makes time for his students. Thats one of the great gifts you gave all of us and that we hopefully will take to our own students in our own classes. So again, dr. Gallagher, thank you so much for coming here this evening and were looking forward to hearing you speak about alexander and your new book, civil war places. Thank you, dr. Gallagher. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] learn more about the events and people that reshaped reconstruction only on American History tv on cspan3. Next on American History tv, a discussion about the apollo space suits 50 years after the first u. S. Moon landing. Panelists include spacesuit testers and