Groups. Long story short, i was invited to speak at a church in Washington County in july 2016. The church was celebrating their 150th anniversary, and they invited me to come up and talk about what it mightve been like trying to start a church in the immediate aftermath of the american civil war. My wife and i drove up and we walked into the back of the sanctuary, and there was one lady sitting in the sanctuary, and she jumps up, runs to the back, shakes my hand, and says my family and i have something we think you may have an interest in. Would you come out to the car after the program . I said, sure. I go out to the car, she opens the trunk and tells me to hold my arms out. And shes in and out the truck, and the stack is growing taller and taller. And i say, what do we have here . And she says, these are my grandfather Thomas Wallace colleys seven volumes of handwritten journals of his service in the first virginia cavalry and his postwar life. I thought i was going to fall over in the parking lot. As a historian, you dream about things like that. I want to thank all of the colley family. They are the most wonderful people i have ever had the pleasure to work with, and id be remiss if i did not thank the university of Tennessee Press who published the book. So the family is happy, the publisher is happy, so i am happy. So, a little bit about this man now that you have heard how this journey began. This obviously is the cover of the book. Tom much later in life. Hes pictured with crutches. I will briefly talk about why he was missing a left foot. He became quite a popular man in southwest virginia, was photographed a great deal. Ill show you a few of the photographs. I got the photos from his grandson, who is still living. Hes in florida. He is 95 years old. He does email better than i do. He has shared so many photos. We cannot see them all, but i will close with my favorite photograph, and that is also the only time i will read anything, is at the end. So, this is tom later in life. We will come back to the story of the foot in just a little bit. This is the earliest photo we have of tom. It was taken on his wedding day. He was married on Christmas Day 1872. Ill show you another photograph shortly of he and his young bride and the lady that probably saved his life. I will elaborate on that as we go through. Tom was born in 1837 about two miles outside of abington. The delegates were still in richmond in the Secession Convention contemplating whether or not they were going to take virginia out of the union. Well, there was an old army officer, William Edmondson jones. Some of you have probably heard that name. He was a Brigadier General in the confederate cavalry. He got along great with everybody in the war effort. Except one person. Unfortunately, that person was jeb stuart. But he got along well with everybody else. Jeb graduated west point. He was stationed out on the frontier. Virginia is still voting whether or not she is going to leave the union. I guess jones could see the war clouds forming on the horizon, so he went into abington trying to enlist young men to learn the art of war. , if you will, and tom colley was one of those 100 or so young men who wanted to participate in this new they all thought at that point in time, an adventure, a great battle, a winner, a loser, everyone would go home and everything would all end. His time in the virginia cavalry almost reads like an allstar list of the confederate cavalry service. First colonel was jeb stuart. You had John Singleton mosby. The list goes on and on. Mosby was there training with tom colley. They were together the first year or so, and then jeb stuart figured out this guy is pretty good at going behind enemy lines at night, typically by himself, and bringing that information back. And mosby, as you know, eventually got his own independent command, but for about the first year of the war, he and tom were riding saddle to saddle in many Different Missions as they went on with the first virginia cavalry. I say this as the earliest known photograph we have of tom. After i met the greatgranddaughter and the grandson, i started doing some research at virginia tech. I discovered they had over 50 letters, actual letters, that tom wrote during the war. On the battlefield. Starting with the very first letter number one in the archives, a letter he wrote to his family after he fought at bull run in july 1861. All of those letters are in the book. He wrote often to his mother. His brother was in the cavalry, but in a different regiment in Northern Virginia. He typically would see his brother on occasion, so not too many letters to his brother, but to his mother, sisters, father. He mentioned that he had recently gone into richmond and had his likeness taken. Thats how they would say in those days they had gone to a studio to have their portrait taken. He was enclosing it with the letter. Well, we know the letter got back home. Thats how it ended up at virginia tech. A Family Member had the letters and donated them in the will when they passed away. They donated the letters to the archives in blacksburg. Whatever happened to that photograph, no one, including his grandson, who has all of his grandpas photos, doesnt have that one. I keep hoping it will pop up one of these days. This is jones, who i already spoke about on the left, and John Singleton mosby on the right. Once jones became a righthand man for jeb stuart, wrote a fabulous book, warriors with jeb stuart. Blackfurt and jones, once they finished training in virginia decided to leave the union. Jones had about 100 young troopers. They rode to richmond. Eventually, they received orders to report to, at the time, colonel jeb stuart, and they were mustered into the Confederate Service is the first virginia cavalry from the washington mounted rivals which the name jones had given the company and abington. A lot of groups i speak to i added this slide not too long ago because many groups, especially out west, they are not that familiar with the first virginia cavalry. Often id get questions like, what battles were they in . I am careful not to be short or i certainly dont want to appear rude in an answer, but basically, the first virginia cavalry was in virtually all of the battles in the theater. However, tom colley was not in all of those battles. We talked about first manassas bull run. There is one glaring omission i will come to in a minute. There was a plan to traverse up the peninsula and come in the back door to richmond, so to speak. Tom was there with jeb stuart doing cavalry reconnaissance. The first of three wounds and by far the least severe he received was at Waterloo Bridge two days before the second battle of manassas when a spent miniball spent meaning it had already traveled a great distance i guess it had run out of steam. Tom was mounted. He saw the ball strike dirt. It ricocheted up and hit the insole of his right boot. He did not miss any service time but he had a very sore and bruised foot for several weeks and it was quite painful to mount and dismount his horse. That was mild compared to the injuries he would receive later. He participated in the seven days campaign, probably most famously known today, after general joseph e. Johnston was seriously wounded in that battle. Im sure everyone has heard this name, robert e. Lee, he took command. Tom almost missed the battle of antietam or sharpsburg. If were in the confederate cavalry, you had to provide your own horse. When he left Washington County, he left riding one of his fathers horses. Not a rich family, but they had some land and some horses. The army of Northern Virginia was north of the potomac on maryland soil, and toms horse became ill. It wasnt shot or anything. If he knew what was wrong with the horse, he didnt write about it. He probably didnt know. He wasnt a veterinarian. Well, the army of Northern Virginia is not going to wait on tom to find a horse. They move on and tom is scurrying around. Tom had never been to maryland in his life. He doesnt know anyone. After several hours, he said and you can use her own imagination on filling in this potential clue he secured a horse. He had no idea where the army of Northern Virginia was. They were not planning to fight along the banks of antietam creek. Tom goes riding north, and in the distance, he can hear the sound of the guns. By the time he arrived at antitem, the battle had been raging for hours. During the battle, certainly a horrendous battle, still the most costly day in our nations history in terms of casualties, september 17, 1862, in antietam. In the middle of a battle like that, you cannot say excuse me, can anyone point me in the direction of the cavalry . I am looking for jeb stuart and his boys. Tom is there, they are fighting, he doesnt want to miss it. He just secured his horse. So he takes it to the rear, ties it to a tree you dont want your horse to get shot. And he joins the battle with the second South Carolina infantry. He writes a great deal about that. It was a unique experience for him and it was important for him to find a horse because if you are in the confederate cavalry and you lost your horse, you had better find another one quickly or you are going into the infantry. Nothing wrong with boots on the ground at all, but by that point in the war, troopers had grown very fond of life in the saddle, especially with jeb stuart. So they did not want to transfer from the cavalry to the infantry. Kellys ford i will come back to that in just a minute. St. Patricks day 1863, when tom was left on the field for dead. Thats why you do not see gettysburg on the slide. The cavalry was in gettysburg. They participated on day three. It was about the same time that the picket pettigrew trimble charge was heading in from the front. Tom was still lying in a hospital bed in richmond and every surgeon who looked at him said, son, you are not going to make it. Thats why he was not at gettysburg. After convalescing for a little over a year and in the interim, once surgeons believed he had gained enough strength, they thought the best thing that could aid in the healing process would be to let him go back home to Washington County. Nothing like a mothers love that can help in the healing process. So tom is lying there in the home he was born in, in the bedroom he slept in every night since he was a wee little baby, and he hears horses on his mom and dads front lawn. Before he can even get out of bed, someone yells, colley, can you ride . And he goes to the window, and its grumble jones. Jones had recently been appointed to head up the newly created Confederate Military district of southwest virginia in upper east tennessee. Major had captured forces and they were advancing up through eastern tennessee, probably headed toward southwest virginia specifically saltville, which at that point in the war was the only remaining supply of salt for the entire confederacy. All of the confederacy leased wellspace in saltville. So, jones was going south to try to block burnsides troops advance, and he knew tom. He had trained him. Early in 1861, tom told jones, well, i dont have a uniform yet. Im not going to describe it. Jones said, it doesnt matter, do you have a horse . Colley said, sure, i can borrow one from my dad. Jones said, come on, i need you. Here you have a man, colley, dressed as a civilian. A Brigadier General is giving him directions and orders and colley is deploying infantry, artillery, and cavalry during the battle. And everybody in bluntville has never seen this guy before. Most of them had never seen jones before. Hes new in command of the new district. So they assumed this guy knows what hes doing. So they were calling colley everything from colonel colley to major colley to captain colley, and he loved it. Eventually, the Confederate War Department decided that he had gained enough strength that surely there was something they could find for him to do. He worked in the horse depot for a few months, tending sick and wounded horses to get them healthy to rejoin or be sent back to the army of Northern Virginia. Tom went before the surgical review board on numerous occasions. The only thing on his mind, where is the first virginia cavalry . Someone told him last we heard, they were out on the peninsula. So tom goes riding off by himself, took him about three days to find them. He rejoined them. It was a happy moment. He always called the troops he served with his comrades. I think you mentioned that when you were speaking earlier about comrades. It was a happy moment that quickly turned sad because after he had hugged and saw a lot of his friends he had not seen for a little over a year, they informed him that jeb stuart had passed away a couple of days before from the mortal wound he received at the battle of yellow tavern. He went from a high to a deep low in a matter of minutes because he thought highly of stuart and he was sad he would not be able to see him again, at least on this earth. The first engagement he participated in with the first virginians was at wilsons war or kennins landing. You notice a lot of these battles have two names. Some of them have a lot of names. Fort pocahontas, you dont hear that much, but its the same thing. Tom was so happy to be back fighting for the first virginia. About a week after wilsons war, about six miles due north of richmond was in all cavalry engagement. The day before the fighting, tom had received paperwork from the War Department notifying him he had been promoted to corporal. So hes pretty happy, finally got a promotion. And in the battle, he had his left foot blown off, which led to the amputation. Ill speak more about that in a minute. Back to kellys ford. There are a lot of people who make maps or books, but in my opinion, george is the best of the best. He did a fabulous job. The guys a mind reader. This is a small version of the fullpage map in the book. I will point out this stone wall here, which is still standing. I was there on the anniversary of the battle, st. Patricks day, and i went out at the crack of dawn and walked every foot of the wall. Its 300 yards. And it was 23 degrees that morning. In toms writings, he never mentioned anything about it being cold, but he had been fighting dismounted. He was trained early to fight dismounted as a sharpshooter. He had a special carbine to assist in that objective. And this was fought in three waves. This was about midway between one and two. So there were troops on this side of the stone wall. Pardon me. Silenced the phone. You got to hear my ring tone. Toms fighting dismounted on this side of the wall. This is where the gallant pelham was killed. Major john pelham. He was in the artillery. Whats he doing here . He was close by, heard the sound of the guns and didnt want to miss the fighting. He asked if he could have a horse, and they said sure. He went in and an artillery fragment entered the back of his skull. He never regained consciousness and died. So thomas fighting dismounted. Stuart is not on the field yet. Jeb stuart is on the way with reinforcements. Fitzhugh lee orders tom and all the other boys fighting behind the stone wall to mount up and fall back because federal Brigadier GeneralWilliam Woods abel is crossing here at kellys ford in rapidly increasing numbers, and all the confederates, tom and others, behind the stone wall are getting ready to be overrun, captured, and taken prisoner. As i mentioned, tom didnt say anything about the weather, but he had on a long, heavy overcoat. He did write that he decided, and i dont know why, maybe to be more comfortable, he decided before he mounted up that he was going to take the coat off. He took the heavy coat off, threw it over the back of his saddle, already had his hand on the pommel, getting ready to swing over, and he federal miniball entered on his right side, penetrated to the naval area, it hit something, and exited his back. In 19th century medical knowledge, a wound like that, there is nothing surgeons can do for you. So tom is lying there in the mud. He had a pocket watch that belonged to his father. He quickly gave that to one of his comrades before they scampered away, or they would end up in a federal prison. He gave his carbine to another. And who knows how many federal cavalry troopers had ridden by tom. There was one in the 16th pennsylvania cavalry. I dont know if he saw tom move, but he rode over to tom and he dismounted, and got down on his hands and knees, put some water in a handkerchief, patted toms head, and saw this guy is still alive. It looked pretty bad, but he is still alive. So the trooper from pennsylvania and i cannot use his name because tom colley never knew the mans name that probably saved his life. He had few regrets, but that was a big one. He spent the rest of his life trying to find the man who saved his life so he could shake his hand, get to know his name, and say, thank you, and he was never able to do so. There was a lot of fighting left. This was in march 1863. Whoever that trooper was, he could have been killed the next week, the next month, or the day before the surrender at appomattox courthouse. So, this trooper from pennsylvania summons a federal surgeon. The surgeon comes over, gets down on his hands and knees, takes a quick look at and says son, there is nothing we can do for you. You have minutes left to live. The best we can do is make you comfortable. Tom was acquainted with the Wheatley Family farmhouse. Tom told the surgeon i would rather die in their homes than lying out here in the mud. The trooper picked him up, carried him to an ambulance wagon. The wagon goes to the wheatley farmhouse, the trooper picks them up, carries him into the home, get him comfortable on the floor, and goes out the door. Tom never sees him again. Jeb stuart arrives with reinforcements, drives the federals from the field. Couple hours have gone by, one of the first cavalry troopers in the front door of the farmhouse is one of toms cousins. He sees him lying there and says, tom, i thought you died two hours ago. His condition was so delicate, the surgeons were afraid to move him. They came to the home for several weeks and treated him there. And its a miracle. I think as i explain more about toms story, this will hopefully make sense. I think it was probably only by the grace of god that colley survived. He had no way of knowing that at the time, but there are no other explanations. Again, i am not going to get gross about the amputation on may 28, 1864, but the surgeon they amputated toms foot on the field. And they threw him in the back of a wagon, went bouncing on the way to richmond. They must not have given him anything for pain. He didnt say that they bandaged the amputation. They wouldve had to or he wouldve bled to death, but he was in excruciating pain. And the ambulance driver was, i think, trying to qualify for the daytona 500 on his way to the hospital in richmond. It got so bad tom always carried a revolver. Tom pulled his gun out, put it to the back of the ambulance drivers head, and i wont repeat word for word what he said, but he got the message across that if you dont slow this wagon down, i am going to blow your brains out. So, the guy slows the wagon down, he gets into richmond, and he got lost. It took them three hours to find the old jackson hospital, which was not far within sight, actually very close, to Hollywood Cemetery in richmond. And as soon as they unloaded tom and took him into the hospital, the old jackson hospital, the surgeons there went ballistic when they saw the amputation. They demanded to know they went on a witch hunt. Whatever happened to this guy tom probably never knew. If he did, he didnt write about it. The surgeons that amputated his foot on the battlefield was intoxicated. And he botched the amputation with a capital b. Tom learned a lot and he wrote very detailed information about what the surgeons did. Contrary to popular belief and opinion you hear all of these Horror Stories of surgeons who were so bad, and the hospitals were so atrocious, tom actually had some very good things to say about the surgeons, specifically the old jackson hospital. This on the far left is the only known photograph of that church in Washington County. It looks absolutely nothing like that today. Then, it was a oneroom small building. Today, it is a structure probably 10 times the size of this one. In 1866, when they got the idea of building this church, tom colley owned the land. Also, tom colley these were his words, not mine was drunk 24 hours a day. He had a violent temper. He was withdrawn from society. And by the way, while he was drunk 24 hours a day, he was serving as Deputy Sheriff of the county. He donated the land for them to build this church on. Was he ever going to set foot in this church . At that point in time, had you asked him, he would have said no way, and he wouldnt have said it that cleanly. But i think it was probably god speaking to him saying, i saved your life at kellys ford, you shouldve died. And tom battled the demons of ptsd. I will talk a little more about that in just a minute. He had the land to build the church on. He had some timber on his property. He had the trees cut down, hauled to a sawmill, cut into boards, and he donated the lumber to build the church. Little did he know that a few years later in 1872, he would meet a young lady who probably saved his life. This in the middle is toms bible, this is the cover. King james version. His greatgranddaughter had that. She let me borrow the bible and i went through every page, from the Old Testament and the new testament. There were a few pages where tom had made a mark on certain passages of scripture. Then i came to 2 samuel 22 7. I dont know if he was trying to make asterisks or not. If he was, he was about as good at making them as i am, but there were quite a few of these marks. I will read it because i know it is probably hard for you to see from where you are sitting. In my distress, i called upon the lord and cried to my god, and he did hear my voice, and my cry did enter into his ears. In all seven volumes of toms journals, he did not mention any particular passage of scripture. However, he did say that when he was lying on the floor of the wheatley farmhouse and every surgeon that looked at him said, son, im sorry, youre gonna die, youre not gonna make it, he was holding his bible. And he mentioned in his writings that occasionally he would read passages of scripture. I dont know about you, but if i had been shot like he was shot and everyone who examined me told me, son, you are not gonna make it, this particular passage, i think, would have special meaning for me. Ptsd, i will briefly touch on that. Tom eventually benefited from something starting with meeting and marrying anna liza. I will show you a picture of the two of them together. They eventually had 12 children. Four of them died either at childbirth or shortly thereafter, which was all too common at that time. Not long ago, i finished reading a book on federal veterans at the end of the war that were suffering from what we now know as posttraumatic stress disorder. We didnt even give that a name until troops started coming home from vietnam. We are still learning about that. But i have talked to specialists in that field and they have read toms writings, and they told me if you go down the list of ptsd symptoms, tom had virtually every single one of them. I think this book i was referencing a moment ago about federal veterans suffering from ptsd, its shocking the number of them that eventually committed suicide. And im not standing here and telling you that tom colley would have eventually committed suicide. I have no way of knowing that, but i can tell you he was headed down a very dark path. He was a cruel man. These are his words, not mine, and leading a very, very bad life. And then he met the young lady who saved his life. The two of them are together. A little trick photography here. I learned something in this process. I think the day we stop learning is the day we die. I did not know that in that part of the 19th century that when the bride and groom were taking their wedding photograph, that if the bride or the groom was much taller, the other would be elevated so they appeared to be the same height. Anna liza was about a foot shorter than tom. When you see it up close, you can barely make out the legs of the stool she was standing on. Toms grandson has a photograph with no photographers name on it, so i do not know who to credit with that, but this guy was very good. They appeared to be the identical same height. The sad part about ptsd, amputations, everything else, is there is nothing pretty about war. Our servicemen and women are still suffering from that today when they come back home. And i have had an opportunity to speak with some of the wounded warriors, and it is sad. Many of them do not have a family to speak of. They are not involved in a church. The first thing toms wife did was get him off the bottle, got him cleaned up, got him sober. And he had the land to build the church on and some of the building materials. He was baptized in that church and eventually became a leading member of the community. I dont know that any of that wouldve happened had it not been for this young lady. And having a supportive Family Network is very, very important still today to our servicemen and women. 1897 fast forwarding a little bit. I am almost done. I have my timer. I have four minutes and 38 seconds left. Tom was broke. He had gone into several different business ventures, including going over into kentucky and doing some mining work for andrew carnegie, and several other things. And he and another gentleman had gone into business together and opened a store in southwest virginia, mercantile, that was actually doing very well. And this Business Partner turned out to be a crook. During the wee hours of the night, he went in, had several other people with him, and they stole all the inventory out of the store, all the money out of the cash register, even stole the cash register. So tom lost every penny that he had invested. He was broke. So he and anna liza and eight children moved to South Carolina to work at this textile mill. From 1897 to the latter part of 1899, the entire family worked in this building six days a week from sun up to sundown, and tom writes in great detail about what life was like, how tough it was. They had children who were very young, but they swept the floors and everything. There was something for everybody to do, and they eventually made enough money that they got back on their feet financially. They were able to come back home to Washington County. Tom loved to travel. When he came back to Washington County, thats when he really started writing extensively, and he loved to travel. If you had turned the clock back a few years, you probably would not have seen tom colley at reunions. One of the symptoms of ptsd, which is still valid today with our servicemen and women, when they come back from iraq or afghanistan or wherever, the last thing they want to do is be around people they served with. Early on, tom probably would not have been seen in a photograph like this, but he went to several of the united confederate veteran reunions. This happens to be a reunion of the first virginia cavalry. They had a reunion everywhere somewhere different. This one happened to be in abington. Tom did not have far to travel for this. I think this was in 1902. This is toms gravesite. I know it is hard to see from where you are sitting. The stone is weathered a little bit. It was cleaned. You shouldve seen it before they cleaned it. You could not read anything on it. He is buried from about here to the back wall behind the church. He gave the land to build the church on, had no intention of going into the church until he met anna liza. Most of the rest of the family are interred down to the left of where he and anna liza rest. But he was buried with his rank of corporal, which he received one day before he lost his foot. This is the final slide, and the only thing i am going to read i have one minute left. As soon as i saw this picture, it instantly became one of my favorites. I got this from his grandson bob in florida. This is tom in the center and his two older sons in their doughboy uniforms. We know where they are getting ready to go. Washington county was the departure point for all of the doughboys of all the counties in southwestern virginia that were getting ready to board ships to go across the big pond, so to speak, and fight in world war i. As you can see in this image, the only one really that tom does not have his crutches or a cane. Any time he was photographed and like i mentioned earlier, he was photographed quite a bit because he eventually became a pretty prominent citizen, he always removed his artificial left foot. I think that was his badge of honor. Im sure his two sons are propping him up so that he does not topple over, but i think its an amazing photograph, and i close with this because i think it goes very well with toms obituary. We remember the 100th anniversary of toms death on september 24 of this year. Historians dont do math, so i had to sit down with my wife, who majored in math. That means 1919, right . Im kidding, i can at least do that much math, 100 years ago. Many years before he passed, no one told him to do this, but he thought it was the proper and right thing to do, he tried to keep tabs on all the comrades he had served with in the first virginia. Wherever they were. And theyd scattered to the four corners. There were some in california, texas, all over the country. And whenever they died, tom wrote their obituaries and sent them to the newspapers. Well, now tom has passed. It was not common in those days at all for people to prewrite their obituaries. I know some people do that today. I dont plan to do that and tom didnt do that either. I found his obituary in the archives of Appalachian State university in boone, north carolina. They have no idea who gave it to them or how long theyve had it. All they could tell me as we had it long before anybody had ever heard the word computer. Its four pages. One of the comrades that had served with tom and was doing very well i will not read all four pages. I will read the last three sentences because i think they work with this photograph. His obituary closed by saying he was one of the most daring confederate soldiers in the cavalry service. He was a man of powerful speak and was conspicuous in any crowd, clad as he always was in a suit of gray. He took great interest in looking after the welfare of all his comrades. Thank you very much. [applause] six seconds. Was the church in Washington County near kellys chapel . Its not too far away, less than 10 miles from kellys chapel. [inaudible] oh really . I will be happy to take questions. Yes, sir . Did he make it or did he buy it, his artificial foot . Great question. Its the teacher in me coming out. The question was, his prosthetic foot, did he make it or did he buy it . It was given to him by the commonwealth of virginia. They gave him one early on. He hated it. He threw it away. They gave him another. It hurt his stump. They had taken the foot off at the ankle. He threw that one away, too. And eventually, as prosthetics improved, they finally gave him one that was comfortable and he would wear it, and he did where it, unless he was having his photograph taken. Every single picture of him i have ever seen, he does not have the artificial foot on, so i have to believe that was his badge of honor, so to speak. Yes, sir . Did his sons both survive world war i . Both of his sons survived and they were able to return back to the United States and spend some time at least with their father before he died in september 1919. They didnt spend a lot of time with their dad, but they got to spend a little time with him. I saw a hand somewhere and then i lost it. What type of work did tom do after the civil war . What physical labor, minus the foot, what kind of business was he in . He served as Deputy Sheriff of the county. He wrote extensively about that. Here he is mounted on horseback. He was not wearing the artificial foot because he hated it and he had thrown it away. And he was chasing someone, maybe, who had just robbed a bank. And tom is thinking to himself, please dont let them dismount. As long as they stay on horseback, im good, i can chase them. He carried a couple of revolvers. If he gets close enough, he can apprehend them. He went into mining in kentucky for a brief time. There were probably 10 or 12 other jobs. Anything you can think of. He eventually served as he eventually served as commissioner of revenue for the county. He was over the poorhouse. Thats what they called the compounds or houses for people that really were destitute, that had nothing. Most of the counties in the commonwealth and many other states had them. They would go there to live and be tended to and be provided with food. Tom was over that for a time. He did a lot of things. He still farmed up until he died, but nothing, obviously, real hard, manual labor, with the foot. Ironically, the wound that wouldve killed any of us in this room in 1863 never gave him any problems. He did have problems from the botched amputation. The surgeons in richmond cleaned it up and made a better than it probably wouldve been, but that wound is a miracle. The National Museum of civil war medicine in maryland and they are scratching their heads, they are studying his case. No one can explain how he possibly lived. The surgeons initially, their major concern once they got the bleeding stopped, which was not easy, they thought the mini ball had struck his spine and he was going to be paralyzed. I dont know how in the world the mini ball would travel right through the middle of the torso, hit something, and then come out the back, and not hit any vital organs. I think god had something in store for him that tom didnt know about at that point in his life. Did i see a hand over here somewhere . Well thank you again very much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you are watching on American History tv, covering history cspan style with event coverage, eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures, and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend every weekend on cspan three. Weeknights this month, we are featuring American History tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan3. Tuesday, Smithsonian Associates with kermit roosevelt, a cut the two snow law professor, and the greatgreatgrandson of theodore titled,t, his talk is the constitution and declaration of independence, a contrary view on how failures at reinventions as a country have led to our modern core values. American history tv, this weekend every weekend on cspan3. American history tv is on social media. Follow us at cspan history. Eastern, ont 8 00 lectures in history, Virginia Commonwealth University professor all the lives of former slaves following emancipation. Money heate how much would get in back pay if his slaveowner were to pay him the hourly way he gets now for the years of service he had done without pay, he estimated the amount owed to him would be about 11,680. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on American History tv on cspan3. And lectures in history are available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Next on American History tv, art historian Judy Scott Feldman analyzes artistic portrayals of the American Revolution and civil war. She talks about the influence of painting, sculptors, and memorials on how history is remembered. The Smithsonian Associates posted this event. Posted this event. We are going to look at the American Revolution and civil that. Ut a little beyond controversies about the stories we tell. I am going to focus, because it is impossible to cover such an amount of material in one talk, i will focus on the capital and the public buildings on the