I really had always wanted to write this kind of sweeping saga of the civil war and for me as a military historian over the years what ive noticed is that as much as we are fascinated by what happens on the battlefield and the sweeping changes that take place because of this campaign or that campaign the soldiers want to know how soon they can make it home, did you get the crops income is the horse still lame, thats what they want to know about, and so i really come to the side in all of my writing that you have to look at those. You have to look at the soldiers and their families, the battlefront and homefront if you are going to understand the war. So, when i started the book, the primary goal was to leave the latest arguments, the latest historical theories and stories. So, that for example, one of the standard arguments for a long time in the field was one of the reasons the confederacy was defeated as they lost the will to fight, the confederate widow was broken and in part it was broken because so many women were writing to demand that the saying i dont know exactly what youre fighting for me to come home because we have about one fifth of the crop that we normally do. I just. Our youngest in the back and we are not going to have anything left. You need to come home. Well, there had been a recent book out and we talked about this on the confederate nationalism, amy taylor talked about this, the latest book that really addressed in detail was by Stephanie Mccurry called reckoning and what they were able to show is that the women were not all saying you need to come home, they were saying to the county representatives, to the state governments, president Jefferson Davis. You either take care of the deal in the bargain or are sent home and what is fascinating is we found this happening over the United States its about one fifth of georgias budget fight eating 64 was going to provide the soldiers families and the poor, realizing again if you are not taking care of the homefront, it doesnhomefront, t you do vice versa. It is this combined effort. I also wanted to point out it is not just southerners who were wearing down. And so, rather than assume and on the southern family where the weather was kind of freaking out, i did to show those examples of the women writing to the county officials and state officials but i decided to zoom in on the northern family that was getting exhausted and that was from minnesota and he is very, very dedicated to the war and motivated. They still hadnt come home and you promised me you want just wondering where you coming home and still had to come home. What you mean . This kind of stuff. I was able to weave in the latest arguments and use stories to do that. It is people i am hoping are absorbing this. I wrote about years, brothers. Erskine will be left at home in texas, she had her husband own and in, a cotton mill, a fairy they ran. A huge business. He was in charge of handling a lot of cattle in the family business. When the civil war began her brother goes to war but not for another year her husband goes as well. A number of Young Children including a newborn and they recently lost a child who walked into the river and drowned so i wanted to talk about her story, her husband did not go off and serve, he fought with the texas rangers, and going for the community for years. He does not want his children to know he was drafted. He had volunteered. It is not like madison dollars. It is his duty. A dead federal soldier, with photograph of the child. She will get a letter. In late fall of 1862. I dont even know how to write this but your brother has just been killed. That was second bull run in august 1962. A letter from his brother, but her husband was just killed in the better of antietam. I can tell you he died peacefully which may or may not be true. She lost her brother in 1862. She her child died during the war on a cattle drive. Under the age of 8 or 9, and that was fun knowing i was letting people hear a voice that hadnt been heard. She never remarried, she does all of this on her own and does very well. It got me thinking i need to incorporate more stories, kept it together. Men come home and life more than it was before. What happens if he comes home horribly sick and dies within a year or two . Those women have to find a way to move on. There will be a certain amount of local support and confederate pensions but i really wanted to get into stories of talking about how these women do it and it is hard to tell the story. They dont always leave diaries. In the census record, this is what the family want in 1960, she was widowed in 1870, this is where she is when she applied for a pension in 1900. I can tell the stories that way. They are harder to get to but you can get at those stories, you have to include them. Some betterknown people, people pick up general history of the civil war they want to hear about Abraham Lincoln. I would tell it from the perspective of someone they didnt always think about. I dont talk as much about Abraham Lincoln but Mary Todd Lincoln and her brother who was wounded in the battle of shiloh and that awful tension, you are first lady of the United States but the media is happy to talk in a very ugly way about the fact that you have brothers serving in the confederacy. And how she dealt with that and i want to talk about the death of their son willie who died in spring of 1862, to make people realize both president s, daviss and lincoln lose a child during the war. Wasnt like these elite families who remained untouched. They are suffering as well. When i talk about Jefferson Davis i did the same thing, talk more about his wife who i like better than Jefferson Davis. It was neat seeing that. That way, you get people in these stories. I cant talk about the civil war without talking about the lincoln assassination. It is endlessly fascinating to me and readers. But i tell it from the perspective of Claire Harris who is there with her fiance in the president ial box when president lincoln is assassinated and whose husband she is engaged to at the time and is traumatized in part by the experience but apart from rehabilitation, mental illness, he is suffering over the years but he will wind up after the war along with her children talking about again i couldnt protect her, somebody came in and attacked my family. Later he admits he killed them himself but still trying to save the president , still traumatized, he almost died the night of the assassination because no one is paying attention to him, they are trying to save the president and Claire Harris finally says he needs some attention but amazingly tragic story. I was talking about slavery, you cannot understand the war without understanding slavery, wrestling with this human institution. I wanted to weave in some figures who are fairly well known, Frederick Douglass and key figures like that but also wanted to get people in these stories people dont always realize and one of the most powerful stories is Joseph Miller who was enslaved in kentucky. By 1864, kentucky is a union state remains in the union, Joseph Miller runs away and is able to join the army and he insists on bringing family with them. There are accounts of men who went to join the union army but left their families at home and getting letters that you need to get us, we are getting beaten, horribly abused but Joseph Miller brings his family with and he was promised in exchange for his service his family could remain in camp and would all have their freedom. By november 18, 64 union forces in kentucky are building Winter Quarters and realized the section of camp where africanamericans are, the contraband has to be moved out and they forcibly remove the africanamericans who had been in escaping slavery coming to the camp, told they were provided for, forcibly put these individuals in wagons and removed them from the camp because they needed that section for union troops, Joseph Miller talked about the fact he goes and sees his wife. They have a horribly sick child, he is told where they are going to be taken, racing after these wagons and gets permission at night to leave camp, go down the road and try to find his family. He find these men, women and children crowded in and finds his wife and she is cradling the body of one of their children who died, had no business there. Miller is absolutely furious. He has to go back to camp, get permission to go back the next morning to bury his child. We learned this story because he filed a formal complaint with the army saying like women on the home front, we had a deal. I would serve, you would provide for my family. This was the understanding and the horrible tragedy of Joseph Miller is two things. Number one, he never gets the opportunity to fight for his own freedom, this is in the fall of 1864 and spring of 1865 his wife has died and Joseph Miller, all died from disease which is part of also being forced into the sections of camp that were very unhealthy, very little medical care provided. The other tragedy as part of this book gets covered in all the newspapers including some abolitionists, we told you you dont have to worry about all these free slaves coming north and taking jobs. They will stay down south so dont worry. We can free slaves without anything inconveniencing our own bigotry, our own beliefs. It was this powerful, painful story and i knew resonated with students, to see how this beautiful story of emancipation had so much ugliness wrapped up with it. I wanted to include the major battles in the book, but coming added from the angle they hadnt seen before like the battle of gettysburg, a Union Soldier who becomes famous in the aftermath of the battle because his body is found in town, he is leaning against the building along the street in town but holding a picture of three Young Children. They finally track his family down, track down his wife and she has become almost a celebrity by this point and they bring her and the three children to gettysburg because in gettysburg they open an orphanage to provide for all the families who have been left destitute of the biggest battle of the civil war, the most casualties, you have a huge amount of devastation, this orphanage that she will run. A beautiful story, she is miserable, she ends up marrying a gentleman coming through town, they live amazing lives but what is interesting is when the children are into their older years nobody realized they were the orphans of gettysburg is how they were referred to. They never talked about the story at all. It helps me make case that for some people the civil war broke them, they were traumatized by this war, they were never going to be okay again. Former state department and National Security officials will debate the threat north korea poses to its neighbors in the us, hosted by the foundation for defense of democracy. Live coverage get started at 9 15 eastern on cspan2. At noon eastern bio security and medical officials will discuss biological and chemical threats and their potential use by extremist organizations, live from Potomac Institute for policy studies on cspan2. You can follow both events on cspan. Org or the free cspan radio apps. This week on cspan2, tonight at 8 00 with the budget is something for congress to handle we will look at pending proposals for the federal budget and friday a profile of interview with agriculture secretary sonny perdue. My political history, i tell people when i was born in 1946, they step democrat on your birth certificate. I made a political decision called truth in advertising in 1998 to change parties and became a republican at that point. Follow that by a conversation with devcon founder jeff moss. There were no jobs for any of us. Only people doing security were people in the military so this is a hobby. The internet grew and there were jobs and people were putting things online and there was money at risk. All of a sudden hackers started getting jobs doing security. Watch on cspan, and cspan. Org and listen using the free cspan radio apps. Booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. Next is hillbilly eulogy, fantastic book and everything i heard about it is wonderful, talks about associational life in america. An issue i have been looking into on the joint Economic Committee and the struggles of people not only in appalachia but throughout the country. Booktv wants to know what you are reading. Send us your Summer Reading list via twitter booktv or instagram book a tv or post it to our facebook page, facebook. Com booktv. Booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Now president of farm and ranch associations in the us, canada and mexico speak about their support for the north Atlantic Free trade agreement, representatives of the three countries have become a new round of talks to update the pact by 2018. This event was held at the National Press club
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.