That tonights program, which is being recorded, will last approximately 45 minutes. This includes 15 minutes for questions and answers. Please submit your questions via the q a function on your zoom screen at any time during the talk. We will respond to as many as possible during the final part of the program. And now, saving the union and ending the civil war. So our series has argued that in aggregate, objects and documents have the singular power to convey a sweeping historical narrative, in our case, the story of the civil war. So harold, now looking back on the book, which inspired the series, the civil war and 50 objects, are there any objects or documents among the plethora of choices we had in new york historics collection that you wish we had been able to include . Oh, from the book . I would say we covered the waterfront pretty well in terms of diversifying the choices. I guess a couple of regrets for time reasons was the handwritten diary of George Templeton strong, perhaps, one of the great simple war diaries except its written in such tiny hand tiny. Tiny, tiny. Tiny. And the relics i know you feel the same what, from the 1864 metropolitan fair, the Biggest Charity fair of the civil war era. And the Historical Society has the records, the minutes, the photographs. But again, well do it in the next eight episodes exactly absolutely. So it is a bittersweet pleasure to be doing our final episode, and we have three objects that well be looking at this evening. The projection of the november, 1864, election, the terms of surrender, and freeing beliefs from Abraham Lincolns year. Long before computerized recordkeeping and political track polling, lincoln seemed uncannily able to comprehend, retain, and analyze even the most fragmented early voting trends. You write in the book lincoln had been a serious student of voting trends ever since his days as a poll watcher in his rural new salem, illinois. So tell me, were his predictions political, or were they statistical, or were they just instinctive . All of the above. He was by all accounts of people who knew him a remarkable and very localized analyst of votes. He used to make the rounds in the illinois legal circuit in the 1850s and would come into a county and look at the Election Results and say, wow, you the republican part of the vote increased by 2 . If this continues, by 1858, well be able to elect a senator. And maybe with a little bit more president ial electives. He had it in his head from precinct to precinct. And why . Because he lived and died by those results. He knew about turnout and vote polling and all of the above. So our first object is a projection of the november, 1864, election, and this is in lincolns handwriting. Well see an image in a moment. What exactly does this reflect . So dont worry about your focus. This is a very faded document. It was not meant to be kept. Those of us old enough, not valerie, of course, to remember the 2000 election when tim russert famously wrote a series of electoral vote estimates on a big piece of oak tag now in the smithsonian. This is lincoln doodling in october, 1864, a month before election day, about how on earth hes going to get to 116 which is the magic number for 1864. How many electoral votes he needed. He knew he had been in trouble, hes wondering if hes made enough of a recovery since sherman took atlanta a month earlier. And hes pretty conservative here about the tabulation. If you look on the right, he gives himself just one more than the bare minimum in where he thinks things stand. If you look at the left, hes giving new york, pennsylvania, and his home state of illinois to the democrats. Hes worried, and in this case hes not such a great vote counter. Well, he didnt campaign for himself during the 1860 president ial race, and was determined to do the same in 1864. We have a Campaign Flag image from our collection. So how was he feeling about his chances in august, 1864 . In august, it was political suicide time. Everything was going wrong. The war was going terribly. New york editor Horace Greeley had led an unauthorized Peace Mission to try to give away emancipation in return for peace. The editor of the new york times, who happened to be lincolns campaign manager, told him he couldnt win. There was no way he could win. He might as well might as well seek peace his own terms with Jefferson Davis. Lincoln was so upset that he wrote a memorandum pledging his administration to cooperate with the Incoming Democratic administration in order to save the union between election day and Inauguration Day. Its called the blind memorandum because lincoln asked his cabinet to sign it without reading it. In fact, he pasted it together. I just think he was acting irrationally at this point. He also took a meeting with fred ri Rick Douglass at the white house and tried to create an army of africanamerican volunteers to head into the confederacy and alert as many hamlin, but some brilliant seamstress sewed the entered johnson on top of the former Vice President ial candidate who was dumped from the ticket in june of 1864. This is quite ive never seen a relic like this, and we it include it in the book. Exactly. And coming up next, we do have some nasty cartoon from this very period. But we do see that the momentum of the war was shifted. This is the fall would you describe this a little bit and what exactly it meant . Yeah. So in lieu of campaigning, political clubs had events as they still do. And this was an alleged event at a lincoln headquarters in new york city on the anniversary of the emancipation proclamation where allege it was alleged that africanamericans and whites danced together, heaven forbid. And this was supposed to be an eyewitness account those with good eyes can see some white faces peeking in in horror in the skylight above at this clandestine dance. And this was part of a series of charges that lincoln was a radical intent on introducing integration should he be elected. And without campaigning, he had difficulty answering this in new york where these charges hurt him. I will say one thing about campaigning. He didnt campaign. One thing he did do, and these things got printed in the papers, he stood at the white house window and greeted regiments as they demobilized and went home. All of the remarks were published. He said thing like, im living proof that any one of your children can come and live in this big white house the way my fathers son has. Thats a jewel worth fighting for. The remarks did count a little bit for campaign speeches. This kind of thing hurt him in new york. Sure. But even show the momentum of the war was shifting, shermans victory in atlanta, mobile bay. And news of the destruction of the commerce raider alabama by the uss kirsarge in france. How did lincoln capitalize on these events politically . I would say because they were visualized in images because they were widely reported in the press, he just rode on the crest of renewed enthusiasm. And i suppose there was kind of a latent union sentiment there, but just people were exhausted from the casualties and the lack of victories. And these events really cheered people, including as you say a battle that took place in cherbourg harbor thousands of miles away that was really merely symbolic, but it ended the life of a confederate pirate ship that had run roughshod over Union Merchant ships for years. And it was a very big symbolic victory and a morale booster. So lincoln rode the crest of that wave all the way to election day. So tell us about this handwritten ledger. This is our first object of the program. We see detail here. We can see a little bit more close up. Close up. And you know, hes got new englands electoral votes for him, maryland, which is no small feat because it had been formerly a democratic area, but hes conceding all of these states. The last two on the list are kentucky, his birthplace state, and illinois, his home state. That must have a painful thing to concede to his opponents. And of course by this time i think he should have known better. He was rather negative. Sure. He also had seen to the admission of nevada into the union. I wonder what the reaction of the public would be today. He got one more state admitted that would vote republican. And it did. So this particular object is interesting. He was doodling at the while he was visiting the secretary of war, of Edwin Stantons office in his office, right. He left this piece of paper behind. A clerk picked it up, and our next slide shows a little detail of an affidavit that the clerk wrote out explaining that he picked this up and brought it back to lincoln. See the initials on the ballpark, aehj, his name is johnson. Yeah. He saved it. And why was lincoln in the war secretarys office . Because every evening he would go there and watch the telegraph wires for news of military movements and battles and casualties. Ive often wondered why the white house did not equip itself with its own telegraph so lincoln didnt have to leave. I think he enjoyed it. He walked along a fence way to the nearby War Department every evening and enjoyed the banter with the telegraph operators. And obviously the election is paramount on his mind. Otherwise, hell lose his role as commander in chief. And it was still a very perilous military situation with a month to go in the election. So lets move back to move forward to the military situation and go to our next object this evening. And this is the terms of surrender, april 9th, 1865. So the most famous scene that would forever enshrine Ulysses S Grant as a hero was at the civil war certificate at appomattox courthouse in virginia on april 9th, 1865. So we can move to the next image which shows the two men, grant and lee. And there was quite a contrast between the two. The unkempt grant and the rather noble looking lee. So how were their physical differences used to make a symbolic point about what was going on at the surrender . Well, this was definitely the triumph of the common man over, you know, dynastic royalty. Lee was a descendant of li lighthouse hair we weaver, he was a drunk, and married into Martha Washingtons family. He was kind of american royalty, certainly confederate royalty. And he also looked the part. He was before his white hair and bearded stage, he was considered the hand somest man in the United States army. He was still a terrific looking guy as he neared age 60. And in this photograph, interestingly, taken on the back porch of his richmond home a few days after the surrender, he stripped off all the military insignia from his uniform. He did not want to project a defiant image. Its a little less than the resplendancy where he looked fancy with the sword and sash. Grant arrived in a mudsplattered uniform with muddy boots that you see here. So they did present a tremendous contrast. Its interesting, the day before the surrender, the dignified lee was apparently in a savage mood. He was pacing back and forth, sort of documents tell us, like a caged lion and stating that hed rather die 1,000 deaths than surrender. And yet the scene is quite different the next day. We have that image thats memorialized in engavings at the time. In any case, grants words rose above the optics of these physical contrasts that we just described. And in a preliminary message, grant advised lee in very straightforward prose, much like grant himself and the way he looked, that he hoped by laying down arms they might save thousands of human lives and hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed. But its curious his best line is prevent needless efusion of blood, needless further efusion of blood. That influenced the caged lion lee the army is starving, it had been decimated by illness and desertion. He really had no choice. The fact that he founded such a difficult decision is a little difficult to understand. He did not want to give up the cause, 40s, or his enslaved people. He also had this kind of nobility as a chieftan, and he just didnt believe that he had been beaten by a superior tactician in grant. Well, did lincoln give grant any particular instructions on what to say and do at the surrender . Well, according to grants memoirs and shermans, when they had their last war conference, immortalized in a different painting thats in the white house, lincoln told them to let him up easy. That was his definition. And he made jokes about hoping that Jefferson Davis would escape, unbeknownst to him. And i think he generally hoped although he didnt say so specifically according to grant that generous enough terms would be offered so there was not either acrimony or guerilla resistance to the war. That if grant gave up, the rest of the armies in the west, johnstons army, for example, the armies in texas recently collapsed, it would all be over with. So set the scene for us at will murr mcclains brick house, home, in appomattox courthouse, virginia, on april 9th, 1865. How did the meeting between the men begin . And, you know, who was there . Well, grant and his staff were there, and you see them assembled here in this fanciful image, no less fanciful than the one we just saw. But a little more crowded, as you see. This is grants general cadre of officers. And lee arrived, grant arrived, and then grant tried very hard to make small talk. He said to lee, you may remember me from the mexican war. And lee looked at him and said, i have no recollection, basically. He really dissed him. And grant, you know, typically didnt care. He realized that lee was a more important figure in the army at that point, although grant was an important border master and was supplying lees army. And then lee sort of interrupted the small talk and said i think we should get down to business. So grant took up this contraption this is interesting. This is why we have the relic we do. It was called a manifold, sort of the early version of carbon paper, except its a its got sheets of wax paper and paper between them. We think lee bought it at a washington Stationery Store when he arrived in washington to be commissioned lieutenant general. And he said he began writing out the terms. And high showed the original and made suggestions, and then grant handed over the writing of the final to a clerk. You siee the clerk sitting at te time here at right. And when it was all over, lee stood up and left and shook hands with the officers. Well get to the big story at the end. But when it was over, he gave one of the wax paper impressions to the third man from the right, colonel eely parker. He took over the task of writing on this manifold thing. Who was eli parker . Im glad you asked because hes he is hes a native american who is on the senior staff which was unusual. He was a seneca indian, known as wolf to his tribe. He had advanced in grants inner circle to the point that he was a trusted adviser, trusted enough not only to witness this scene but to receive as a souvenir copy, a souvenir one of the copies of the actual terms of surrender. Everything about this surrender was priceless. We talked briefly last year, and i sort of last week, and i sort of pushed off the answer about souvenirs. Look at the furniture in this room. Every last piece of furniture was taken by grants officers as souvenir. Poor wilmer mcclain. He had had had a home in bull ron. In the first bull run. In the first war it got shot up. He said lets move to someplace like appomattox courthouse. As ken burns great script once said, the war began on his doorstep and ended in his parlor. He copyrighted this print in a desperate effort to make some money so he could buy some furniture. I sort of feel bad for the guy, but he was even though he was a confederate. After it was over, lee stood up and greeted all of general grants staff, shook each hand, and i guess what he considered lets look at we have some more images of these people, of course this is the copy in grants handwriting on the ;a you see lee with the sword anyway. Yes. And so we move back to grants secretary parker who took over the task from one of lees men of writing out the terms. And tell us a bit more about parkers sort of odyssey as a member of grants staff. We have an image of that staff coming up next. Right. I mean, he rose, and parker is to left here. He rose in the inner circle, colonel he did face yes he did face a lot of issues and prejudice, though. He was a lawyer, he was quite skilled, and yet grant liked him. You know, he took a real shine to him. He did. And he repaid him by being instrumental in the fundraising and the dedication of grants tomb when his old general died. This is a great shot of the inner circle. The next shot, the next slide shows a closeup of eli parker that gives a sense of his nobility and his presence. Absolutely. So so the deed done, lee mounts his horse traveler, departs the house dont let him depart yet, we have to do the handshakes. He shakes hands all around inside the parlor by the way, lincolns son, robert, is on the porch. Hes on the staff, but hes not senior enough to be an eyewitness. Probably not a smart move by grant. He shakes hands all around, comes to eli parker. He takes his hand and sort of pulls back a little bit, looking into his face and wondering, i hope i havent shaken the hand of a man of color. That would be too much. And he he realizes that parker is a native american and he says, i see theres at least one real american here. And that was a dig, of course. And parker looked him straight in the eye and said, general, today we are all americans. Quite a moment. Such an elegant, elegant moment indeed. So were on to our final object this evening. And its this one here, this is once again the image. Our final object are the frame leads from Abraham Lincolns beer. Less than a week after appomattox of president lincoln, he is assassinated, assassinated. And his death as you say elevates him to the stoosz of secular saint. How so . Status of secular staaint. How so . Walt whitman had a way of putting it, what a place this man whom his friends had been patronizing for four years as a wellmean, kindhearted, ignorant old cottager had won for himself in the hearts of his people, what a place he will fill in history. You know, i think it was the sudden change in emotion from elation to grief. A week after the fireworks and the church bell ringing it harted, he suddenly dead he died on good friday, which has also sorts of sorry, he was shot on good friday, which has all sorts of religious connotations. That sunday, Easter Services were devoted to what they called the black easter. Lilies were painted black in churches as crepe begins to adorn public buildings and religious buildings. Its also the jewish holiday of passover. And in synagogues across the north, the jewish prayer for the dead is recited for lincoln by many accounts the first time that a nonjew had been honored with a prayer for the dead in synagogues. So hes immediately seen as a second jesus dying for the nations sins and a second moses whos led people to the Promised Land without quite making it there himself. And i think that, of course, helped this this profound sense of mass mourning, as did the series of few minutes that took place retracing his inaugural route from washington all the way back to springfield, illinois. Yes, we have an image of city hall during that time, and heres the assassination heres the assassination, right. But an image of city hall at this time, there were national democratonstrations of mourning and demonstrations of mourning and remembrance. But this was the biggest of all. What was it like . Look at the throngs just in front of city hall. We know its barricaded so they cant get more than three people in past the police desk. But hundreds of thousands of people lining every area from the train station where his body entered the ferry slip, all the way down broadway to city hall. And this is just one phase. Then he lays in state in city hall. At the top of the steps that lead to the governors room, still called we have an image, and we have an image or engraving of this, as well. Right. There he is. This is based on a photograph of the pair hes lying in a coffin in the front of the room where he had been insulted by the mayor of new york at a reception four years later. Here he is now, 100,000 people walk by, one young man put that a. L. On his chest, a floral bouquet. So its a little bit raucous at this demonstration of grieve, black people, white people. No one had ever seen anything like it. And indeed until grants funeral. It was the biggest expression of mass mourning. And it continued. Albany, buffalo, chicago, indianapolis. It was a month we have another image of new york. In is aster place, and what the demonstration was like, the throngs of people on the street. This is the hearse being drawn either down the street or up the street. Hard to tell. But in one of these moments, Young Theodore roosevelt can be seen perched on his thirdfloor window. I dont know why his father let him perch on the window, but thats another story. This is before window guards. He and his brother are watching the funeral. So teddy as a boy actually saw the new york funeral of Abraham Lincoln. You see the horse, the black trained horses drawing the coffin, the rolling coffin, down the street. And it was packed like this for for miles. So lets go back to this relic which is our final object. What is this, what does this demonstrate . What does this show . Its an amazing little relic. Its like many of the things weve shown, val, in our series, its very personal. Its a sprig of laurel leaf that one of those people who passed by the open coffin at city hall simply took, plucked, not legally certainly, but plucked, put it in his pocket and took home as a souvenir. And then lovingly framed, pressed and framed the leaf in a gold, oval frame, along with and look in the center, youll see a little silhouetted cutout photograph of Abraham Lincoln made the year before. It was it was the same photograph that now appears on the 5 bill. And below it, a little shred of black mourning crepe that perhaps this same person wore on his lapel as he walked around new york that weekend. A city that was draped in black. Everything was black. So this is just kind of a sacred, very personal memento of h lincolns new york funeral. Well, to end our series on a perhaps more hopeful note, out of this tumultuous period emerged the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery. Lincoln famously said it winds the whole thing up. How so . Its a great way to wind up the series, i think, because lincoln fought for this amendment, he got it through a recalcitrant house of representatives so it could be sent to the states. Of course, this is the amendment abolishing slavery everywhere. I should add that before it was ratified, africanamericans were banned from the parade for lincolns funeral in new york. Only by order of the secretary of war was that order think of it. After all the new york africanamerican regiments had done to win the war, after it was clear that slavery had caused the war, they were still banned. 200 people of color did launch in lincolns funeral beneath the banner saying that he gave us freedom to go back in history and look at the way africanamericans felt about lincoln. On these documents, lincoln signed them. He signed the resolution. He signed the documents. And president ial signatures are not required or even requested on resolutions for constitutional amendments. Lincoln signed it anyway, a demonstration of how proud he was and how he did think it wound the whole thing up. His own home state senator introduced a resolution a few days later criticizing him for signing it. Thats how fraught congressional president ial relations were even then, and i hope it sounds familiar. But lincoln wanted his name on it for the same reason that he added his name to the emancipation proclamation. As he said of the amendment, it was a kings cure for all the evils. Slavery would be no more. He lived to see his home state of illinois ratify it, and he lived to see his birth state of kentucky not ratify it which must have painful. By the way, the year that kentucky finally ratified the amendment 1976. Not that it mattered, but it just shows you bigotry, even slavery died hard in the southern states. And lincoln in a way gave his life talking about black Voting Rights in his last speech, a speech that John Wilkes Booth heard and then decided then and there to kill him to prevent equality from marching on. Well, we are up to our q a portion of the program. And our first question is from none other than ken jackson, the Great American historian and also former president of new york Historical Society. He asks grant obviously won great military victories and served two terms as president. Do you not think that grant stood taller at appomattox courthouse than at any other moment in his quite incredible life . What an honor to have ken on this program. And im so glad to hear from him. I absolutely agree with professor jackson on this. Nothing helped grants image more ironically than being seen in these countless engavings and lithographs on an equal playing with the vaunted general lee. Although i think his presidency has been vastly underestimated and ron chernow has done a Great Service in changing that historiography for us. I absolutely agree that it almost made him lincolns inevitable successor three years before the 1868 election. Absolutely. Next question. Did the styles of these two men, grant and lee, at all influence how they led their respective armies . Thats an interesting question. I mean, lee lee was certainly not aloof from the battlefield. He slept in in the tent, although you know, he was very well attended. As was grant who had endless supplies of cigars sent by admirers. Neither of them rode very much on to the battle front. They watched from the rear. They directed troops. They were both their presence among their men on horseback didnt tire their respective armies. Grant was a terrific horseman, and lee looked so terrific, he didnt have to be a terrific horseman, but im sure he was perfectly adequate. So i think their styles were they both worried about tactics of battles, and they both worried about strategy. Lee was usually on the defensive in the last year of the war. And in fact, at gettysburg, had he not been on the offensive, he might have prolonged the war even more. Next question from kind of fact checker. Uhoh. How i know. Its fine. How do we know what was said in the parlor of the surrender . Did someone take notes . Even the casual banter of lee and parker . Well, we are we rely on general Ulysses S Grant who was a memoirist with a terrific memory for dialogue and battle scenes and events. Its his recording of the battle, of the surrender scene, that we weve come to rely on. And hes the best witness we have. Horace porter, one of his aides, was also there and wrote about it. But their recollections magically coincided. The history is written by the victors, right . In this case, absolutely right. Lee did not offer any recollections of the surrender scene. Interesting. So back to lincoln. Was his preelection pessimism at all a function of superstition . Was he a superstitious person . Well, if he had been relying only on superstition, he wouldnt have even worried because in 1860, 61 when he was packing to go to washington for the first time, he looked in the mirror and saw a double image. He saw his face in the mirror and a faded face refracting behind him. For some reason he called in his wife in this morbid wait and said, mary, look, two images. She says, what do you think it means . Ly said, well, i think it means i will be reelected to a second term, but i wont survive it. So that was his that was his superstition. Now cut to 1864, hes a hardnosed politician. Some republicans try to deny him the nomination. Others worked to mount a thirdparty candidacy for john charles fremont. Horace greeley thought the convention should reconvene after it nominated him and change its mind. So he had a really fraught path to victory. And you know, absent military success, i think it wouldnt have been superstition but reality that might have ended his presidency after one term. So in view of new yorks sympathy for the southern cause, what explains the great grief shown by new yorkers at lincolns funeral procession . Well, thats a really good question. First of all, there was profound regret expressed by Many Democrats after hims passing. First of all, they they trusted Andrew Johnson less than they trusted Abraham Lincoln to reconstruct the south, and democrats in the north were interested in reopening Voting Rights f democrats in the south. So lincoln is suddenly appreciated as being wise and segacious. Certainly the religious confluence of events at easter passover time helped create this secular sainthood for him. I think one statistical unavoidable fact is that new york is such a big town, its a giant town. That even if only republicans came, you know, 150,000 is is probably every lincoln voter in new york city. So it could have easily been a republicanled demonstration of mourning. If you read the democratic newspapers, there is a great deal of regret at not appreciating lincoln, expressed by democratic papers at his murder. Speaking of johnson, heres a question about him. Did lincoln or his circle worry that johnson was dragging down the ticket . Do we know if he had a positive or negative effect on the election . You know, lincoln we dont even have a smoking gun to prove that lincoln wanted johnson on his ticket. I suspect he did. Two of his private secretaries said that they were they carried the word to the national convention. Lincoln had run in 1860 with a quintessential easterner, hannibal hamlin, of maine. Cant get much more eastern than that. But in 64, lincoln was the quintessential northerner, and he needed a prounion southerner, so he calculated. I think he was very happy with johnson. I dont think johnson in that moment dragged anything down. I think he had a positive impact in helping lincoln sweep the country. I didnt mention that he got 212 electoral votes in the end to only 21 for mcclelland. I should have said that when we showed the little the board. But no, johnson didnt begin to show his stripes until Inauguration Day when he turned up drunk for his swearingin. And lincoln may then have realized that he had made perhaps the worst mistake of his presidency. One final question. Did appomattox officially end the war . And if not, what did . Did Jefferson Davis ever officially concede . Jefferson davis was caught a few weeks later in georgia wearing either his wifes raincoat or hoop skirts, depending on what cartoonist vilified the scene. What really ended the war in its finality if you dont count juneteenth and the entrance of the union army into galveston to officially end the war, what probably ended it was the following month in may after appomattox when the forces led by general joe johnston surrendered not once but twice to william t. Sherman. Interestingly, shermans terms were too generous, and the department of war countermanded them in a glitch. And he never spoke to the secretary of war again after that. It ended a little sloppily. And thats probably why we remember this gentlemanly kind of magnanimous stacking of arms at appomattox as the final act. In fact, it would be an epilo e epilogue, and it would be messy. I lied. Theres one more one more question. Oh, good. Yes. And its a good one to end on. Do you think Edwin Stanton said he belongs to the ages or to the angels, if either . Yeah. If either is probably the question. Many people think he said neither or or neither. It came down as he belongs to the ages which i like as a final coda to lincolns extraordinary presidency. We have no way of knowing which he said or if he said either of those memorable phrases. The one thing we can be certain of is he drew the blinds on the window. That was not a dramatic enough ending to this, you know, story of war and sacrifice. We need that wonderful phrase to light us down to today. Well, harold, weve run out of time again. And so not only has the civil war ended, our series has too. You have been such a wonderful partner and its been an absolute pleasure doing this with you. My thanks to you and all of our viewers and other supporters for being a part of this wonderful program. Good night. Thank you, val. American history tv on cspan3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday, at 10 00 eastern on reel america, 75 years ago marked the end of civil war two. Well feature three films about the state of affairs immediately after the war. And on sunday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on american artifacts, a twopart program on africanamericans in congress. Us house of representatives historian and house curator use a selection of artifacts to tell the history of africanamericans in congress. Then at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, a look at past Political Convention accept stance speeches by president ial nominees including bill clinton and george h. W. Bush. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. Up next on the civil war, Gettysburg National Military Park ranger talks about kwefd general james longstreet. He outlines his path during the retreat through richmond to the surrender at appomattox. First of all, on behalf of the National Park service, welcome to