Transcripts For CSPAN3 Four Influential Civil War Military Wives 20161127

Wives four women who influenced the civil war for better and for worse. Hooper served as press secretary and legislative assistant to the late texas of assistant Charlie Wilson before becoming ice president of a Multinational Energy company. She then joined a major new York Law Firm as legislative council. With her husband, she later found that the lobbying firm cooper, uber, and a win. She holds a journalism degree from the university of illinois, a law degree from georgetown, and a master of arts from George Washington university. Her writing has been published in the journal of military history and the new york times. She has lectured at the u. S. Naval academy. In addition to serving on these founding board of directors at president lincolns cottage, she serves on the Advisory Board of foundation. Grant coceo. Ain is the she integrates our management role at the network with that of with that as on camera interview were sitting down with president s and first ladies. 20132014, she was a host of cspans especial biography history first ladies. This was the ninth book project she has led working with public affairs. Past titles have included to bring court and abraham lincoln. Each book is a special collection of cspan interviews uniqueto retain the perspective of their featured subjects. Has dorians have written hundreds of volumes on lincolns role in the civil war and his relationship with the military leadership and rank and file. To thew book gives voice other half of society and provides a valuable addition to civil war scholarship i looking at the wives of George Mcclellan, william sherman, and Ulysses Grant and the key role a play. Providing a look at these womens complete lives including mapping their movements running the civil war, she shows how Jessie Fremont nl in mcclellan butted heads with lincoln as their husbands did while Ellen Sherman and julia grant encouraged their husbands dedication to lincoln. It is a fascinating tale on how influential noncombatants played a key role in lincolns military strategy. Please join me in welcoming candice shy hooper and susan swain. [applause] good evening everyone. Nice to seo. I will tell you a personal note. Other 30 i knew each years ago and we have not seen each other says. When the cottage folks called and asked if i would do this tonight, first of all, cspan has done a number of events here and we are happy to support the cottage but to see a chance but to have a chance to see candy in this capacity, i could not possibly say no. This is a bit of a personal anchored we want this to be a personal event tonight and we are emphasizing the conversation part of this. Candy fortalking to 25 minutes or so and then we really want to hear your questions. These are four very interesting women. I will only be able to skim the surface and we want to hear what you would like to hear about them. Let us get added. I know from the many biographers i have had a chance to meet over the years that when you take on a project like this, you and your family live with these people. For the time you are doing the research and the writing. Having lived with these women, which ones did you most enjoy living with and which one did you want to divorce . [laughter] said, we lived with them. My husband and i lived with them. I has been says he lived with five women for eight years. [laughter] it is pretty clear that Jessie Fremont seemed to be the one that was most irritating at times. She had such a strong and really always charged forward on everything. The one that i think that i enjoyed the most though was probably julia grant. Julia was a revelation to me. She was a much more complex character then i really think most by give her credit for. Read her memoirs, and she was the first first lady to ever write memoirs. She mostly dictated them. Not published until 1976. They were set aside for many years. If you read her memoirs closely, you will see that she gets back who did not think that hurt ulysses was going to be successful in life. She jabs at them. She is funny as can be. She makes some of the funniest comments. And she is just really a delightful person but with a sense of gravitas and dignity as well. Putting the concept of this book together, you had a basic thesis. I will have you explain to the audience the basic the system that pulled this into a cohesive whole. My first instinct after graduating from graduate school was to write an article about women who had gone to see lincoln during the civil war to ask for help for their husbands who were in the military. I had stumbled on a number of these stories. Fremont who jessie had a disastrous meeting with lincoln. One of the most famous meetings in the white house during the civil war and famously bad. Shermanarned that ellen had gone to washington to try to get help for her husband when he was declared insane by all of the newspapers, north and south. And her meeting went very well. At that time, even as i was toll i had gone back graduate school, i was still working as a lobbyist. And i thought that these were two different lobbying styles and i thought let me look and see what they did. I knew there were other women, wives of military officers but this booky brought together was when i tried to another general whose ofeer path matched that fremont who started out as a Major General the first month of the war in may, 19 1861, lincoln appointed him. Lincoln hadf 1862, relieved him of command. I was looking for another general and there was George Mcclellan. Same career trajectory. With Ellen Sherman i went and wondered what other general had the same career path as William Tecumseh sherman. He could hardly get back into the army. Even when he did, he could not get a command. He had setbacks and rough putting but by the end of the war, he was on top. . Ho matches that grant. And i wanted to look at their wise. Mcclellan and i looked at julia grant and they seemed to have some very similar characteristics to fremont and sherman. And i thought this cannot be a coincidence that you could have the wives of two generals that have such a disastrous short tenure of command and coincidences are doing the wives of the two men who really rose to greatness. It seems the great men are supported by their wives. Let us talk about what the taurean women. The influence of Victorian Women appears to be an opposing concept. At that time, women were domestic. They were not to have public personas. How did these women yield wield influence . As part of that asus, was and of their relationship their opinion of lincoln. You first begin to get a sense of what each of them thought about lincoln and then you put them in this victorian mold where the iconic victorian wife was the shy, behind the scenes person and the husband was out in the publics ear. Sphere. C but women who wanted to have ways of making their opinion getting their husbands to begin to think their way. Likeme cases, it might be mary lincoln invited them to the theater on april 14, 1865. Julia refused to go. Her husband had already told lincoln in another meeting that they would go but julia said no. So she had what she called a freak. Another way they could influence them. And this is where i think the book becomes the most interesting. It is where you see the women who encouraged their husbands every thought and even their every quarter judgment as opposed to the women who questioned their husbands on what they were doing and questioned why they were doing as juliasaid to them grant did when grant issued the move the jews out of the military camps because they were selling cotton. She said it was odious and he should never have done that. Have a see that women means of reinforcing either the best in their husbands or the worst. And that is what this study is. Susan as an aside, i asked the Museum Director which room in this cottage was the bedroom and a. Are sitting in i can just see the conversations between mary lincoln and the president that may have happened in this room. Lincoln hened which theseround planets orbit. Lincoln was so, heavily involved in choosing officers and Senior Officers in command. It is a world that we have not truman wasbe probably the last president that inlly intervened so directly the choosing of senior commanders, the hiring and the firing. And in most of those cases, he knew something about the general. He either knew them from their reputation in the earlier war, the mexican war, when many of them did make their reputation or he knew them from their relationship or their family or their family ties or their in general mcclellan and frank blair who were members of congress who he appointed. He appointed political generals and he raised meritorious generals. This was washington was a small world then. Generals or captains or majors or even first lieutenants felt they should be promoted, and they were not getting the attention they want it, sometimes they sent their very pretty wives in to see lincoln and he enjoyed that very much. He actually wrote about it least two of the wives and how his pretty wife says i should make him a major. , that sheanother wife wants her husband to be a Brigadier General and i may just have to do it or that bossy woman will torment me forever. [laughter] but it was a very personal relationship with his generals. Susan evidently making him lobby a bowl lobbyable. Mary lincoln kept her eye on his correspondence with some of these women. Thing betweenive julia grant and mary lincoln because she may have been paying a little too much attention to the president. Mary lincolns dressmaker, elizabeth kegley, she once observed that if a woman wanted to get into great disfavor with mary lincoln she should pay president lincoln a compliment. And julia did that on one occasion. At city point late in the war. And mary was very unhappy about that. And it set the tone for their whole experience together in the last days of the war. Susan she had a long memory. Before i leave my planet metaphor, you used a metaphor for these generals. I wanted to share that. The two generals who had the difficult careers were meteors and the two, sherman and grant that were successful were stars. What did this metaphor mean to you . What i tried to say was that fremont and mcclellan burst on the scene in the civil war as meteors. They climbed high in the public site. They created huge light and chaos and then they disappeared from sight. In a short time. Where sherman and grant were more like stars. In twilight, you dont see them too much but as things get darker and darker, they get brighter and brighter. Led the essentially path home. Susan we will spend more time with these women. It is always more fun to start with the negative. Let us start with Jessie Fremont. Nameemphasizing her maiden because she was the daughter of a famous legislator. Tell me about the family. She was the daughter of thomas harkin, one of the first senators from missouri. A man that was so respected for , particularly his antislavery stance which first cost him his seat in the senate and then in the house. That both Theodore Roosevelt ande a biography of him john kennedy included him in his profiles in courage. He was a giant of a man who came from a slaveholding family and then went in completely the opposite direction. He was sure that his first child was going to be a boy and he was going to name the boy after his father jesse. Well, things happen. Jesse buts named spelled a little differently jessie. And he educated her like a man. He had one of the best libraries in washington, it rivals the library of congress. He had the best library in the west. As i said, he raised her with an education as a man and talk her politics and by the time she was a teenager, she spoke french and spanish and she read latin and greek. And she was totally unfit to be a victorian wife. She was so interested in politics. Her mother who was obviously somebody she was very close to but was a woman who had been raised on a plantation. But she alsovery did not feel comfortable either in the rough and tumble st. Louis or in washington politics and she withdrew from society. Jessie grew up as her fathers daughter. Susan did she share her fathers pastime for revolution . She was very antislavery. She wrote against it. She said that she would rather have her children brought up in the midst of smallpox than in the midst of slavery. End fremontid she make a match . John Charles Fremont was one of the great explorers or leaders of expeditions and mapmakers in our history. Born out ofeen wedlock in south carolina. He had no future. He did not go to west point. But he did go to the college of charleston. And he got some good skills there which he turned into mapmaking. Part of what is called the Army Topographical service. He went on many expeditions. When he would come back from the west, he went across the country on five different expeditions. And his first one, when he came back, thomas was always there in st. Louis to grab everyone coming from the west because he had such a strong belief in the potential for the west for the u. S. He would grab fremont and when fremont came to washington to write up his reports and make his maps from his fieldnotes, he would meet him and was enchanted youngs dashing lieutenant. At one point, when jessie was 15, thomas took john fremont to at his daughters boarding school in washington. And jessie felt immediately in love at 15. And stayed in love. It was a passionate relationship. But as soon as senator benton and his wife realized that this daughter they had raised and groomed to be the toast of Washington Society was in love with a man with no pedigree and shipped himre, they off to another expedition in nebraska or something. But in fact, when he did come back and when she was 17, they got married. Vengeance were not happy about it. But when benton told him to leave the house, she looked at her husband and said where you go, i go and at that point, Thomas Benton said then you are both staying here because he could not give her up. Susan because of time i want you to get to the crux of their story and what it was that put them at odds with president lincoln and doomed his career. The most important thing was one of the things we celebrate which isthis room called the emancipation room where lincoln helped write the preliminary emancipation proclamation which was issued in september, 1862. August, 1860 one, at the beginning of the war, before anyone was fighting to end slavery and they were fighting to keep the union together, john issued his own emancipation proclamation in st. Louis for the missouri territory and kentucky. And lincoln had to read about it in the newspaper. He did not send him an advance copy or a tweet or anything. [laughter] and what started happening was that men in missouri were signed up to fight to save the union decided they would not fight for slavery. It was too early. At that point, lincoln asked him to revoke his emancipation order on a train tos washington and goes to the white house and in cis on a latenight meeting. They go in and and end up having a verbal fistfight. That fremonts order be revoked and she is still not happy about it for several days afterward. And in fact, she encourages fremont to continue to distribute the order afterwards. It is when lincoln learns that that fremont is out. Susan you tell us that over view ofsie Fremont Lincoln ewald from naive to irrelevant to open disdain. In thats she progression at the time of the meeting . When the meeting happened, she was still thinking he was irrelevant. Need to let did not him know because he told fremont to take things to take care of things in missouri and that is what he was doing. Soon after the meeting, he took fremonts command away and she moved to disdain. And then that became her pattern. She never said a nice thing about lincoln again. Spend just ayou magnet because would you spend just a minute because these people had big lives. And then a fortune lost it and she died panelists. How did that happen . It was all because of fremont poor management skills which was on display in his management of the military department of st. Louis which is something he had been investigated for. But he had, during one of his expeditions, to california, given a man 3000 and told him to invest it in some land which is now san francisco. The man messed up and invested it in the use amity valley. And at that point, fremont is too busy to undo that error. But pretty soon, they find gold. And they find a lot of gold. The problem is that it takes a lot of money to take a lot of gold out of the ground and fremont was not good at matching the input and the output of those equations very well. But he finally did sell the property after the war. He sold it for 4 million which at that time was real money. And they were fabulously wealthy. Most of it invested in a railroads game which went west. Bust. Ch went in the end, he went back to washington to try to get a pension for himself and he was given a pension and on his way back home, he died of a heart attack. Jessie was left with nothing. Susan i was fascinated by the lasted forhe disdain the rest of her life for lincoln. She published her memoirs and omitted lincoln from those that she had met. Biographers wanted her to write about lincoln and she refused. Cap d her his cool depths susan let us jump into Nelly Mcclellan who also had a famous father. How did she meet general mcclellan . One of the things i love about this book is how important fathersmens bothers were in their careers. He was also a famous explorer. And he did much of the early expeditions into the great planes and his books great plains and his books were used by many guides and there are a number of animals named after him. He was a giant of a man and wellrespected in the army. In indian territory in wisconsin with his wife who was very adventurous when nelly was born. One of her first mayonnaise was onendian squaw who can nannniesirst was an indian squaw who carried her in a papoose. Susan unlike the previous couple, mcclellan had a real thing for her for his future wife but she did not return that. Think that it was that she was a beautiful young woman. She had eight offers of marriage including two from mcclellan before she took his but she hill whogot engaged to later became a famous confederate general. But her parents did not like hill because he was a line officer. And so she would not have the life that they wanted her to have. It would be a hard life. I do think her life was probably more trying than it may seem on the surface. I do think that there was this sense of ambivalence. By the time she finally married mcclellan, she was out of options. Father nearly 26 and her was taking her and her mother to his new posting in the minnesota was indian territory. They stopped in chicago where in thean, who was famous mexican war, is president of the illinois central railroad, has a beautiful home. He asks her for a second time, and she looks around and says, yes. [laughter] the firstd us with two wives, they encouraged the worst in their men. With mcclellan, you say she had mental issues he had mental issues, that he was finally ordained for higher purpose, and that is what give him trouble for the general. Candice hooper he took her form of medicine. Her family was big in homeopathy. They began jefferson medical college, one of the first radical schools in the united states. Medical schools in the united states. He becomes a presbyterian. It does not say anything against presbyterians, because i am sure Stonewall Jackson was a famous presbyterian. The fact that you had a divine or predestined, whether you are going to be victorious or you were going to lose on the field make peopleidnt sit around and wait for it to happen. In essence, what filters through mcclellans mind is the doctrine of predestination. Whatever happens was divinely ordained. He won a battle, it was him. But if he lost, it was not him. And it just created enormous susan how did he account for in action . Candice hooper he was waiting for a sign. [laughter] Candice Hooper that is the always thing i can imagine, he was waiting for a sign. Susan lincoln finally got frustrated and fired him. The amazing thing is you been challenged him for the presidency. He then challenged him for the presidency. And she encouraged him. Candice hooper fremont and mcclellan ran against lincoln in the 1864 campaign. Jesse maneuvers her husband out of it, but mcclellan was the democratic candidate for president against lincoln in the 1864 campaign. And you know, whatever he wanted to do, that was fine with nelly. Wasnt disastrously and prepared for it. As i say, that was the first time that he ever underestimated the number of men opposed to him, because he always on the battlefield said there are many more enemies, i need more men. Is sounds worst thing like that nelly did for her husband about whom she thinks i think she was ambivalent was what . ,andice hooper mcclellan wrote mcclellan got them to agree they would write each other they were every day they were apart. He wrote a letter to her every night, and it was the most amazing language when it came to lincoln, who was a guerrilla gorillas. Alec was theudas, devil. These were private, but after she died, suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 58, his literary executor published a set of memoirs that the literary executor put together and then put those letters in. Said,t believe that nelly yes, i want these letters to be published, but i do think that she had just had enough, and when the literary executor said, i will handle this for you, your husband has just died. It was the same year that grant died and his memoirs were being sold so famously, and we are going to get you more money, if we put these letters in, it will be a good thing. It was a disaster. Susan so Elinor Sherman also had a famous father. She is also notable that she was a catholic, part of her biography. It is interesting that three of her brothers and her husband were generals in the civil war, totally immersed in this war effort. You have alluded to the crux of her story is that her father was accused of being insane. Eleanor goes into motion at this point. How does she help to restore her husband . Candice hooper in the very , 1861,art of the war sherman is in kentucky, and he is second in command to robert failed. , and he has command and to take had asked lincoln three weeks ,efore he not be given command and he just thinks there is an overwhelming force against him and he shows signs of nervous breakdown, and he asks to be relieved. Then the newspapers carried the headline that general William T Sherman is insane. He wants to hide. He is near committing suicide in some peoples opinion, that that will be his legacy, but ellen wants to fight. As she goes into motion and says, we are not, you are not going to hide, we are going to fight. She gets her brother and her father to begin to write letters, deal with the editors. She writes general halleck, and then she goes to see president lincoln. Susan how does it turn out . Candice hooper that is an interesting meeting because lincoln suffered from melancholy of early in his life milling early in hischolia life. He realized sherman was probably going through the same thing, because he had seen sherman right after the battle of bull run and was very impressed with him. Empathized with what was going on. General have germ sherman keep doing what he is doing, and it will get better. They went away. More ornt ask for demand more. They went away, and that is what happened. He did get better and kept on moving. Susan on to your favorite, julia grant who is also from st. Louis. She was a child of the slavery system. Here she grew up married to the commanding general of the union army. How did she reconcile those two things . Candice hooper not just that, she brought her slaves with her during the war. Her slaves traveled with her. Julia,ves name was also legend that she was born at the same time, also named julia. She took her with her to the various military camps where it was. Julia lysses and their lives were very different. His parents would not come to their wedding because they were avid abolitionists, and they did not want to go to be entertained in the home of slaveowners. They did not even attend their wedding. Julia, and heved dealt with it, because that was her life. He so that is a hard thing seems to reconcile, but we know he did not like slavery. He ended up having her disown the slaves probably through julias father, but he gave freedom at the time the grants needed the money but it could have gotten where they could have gotten from selling the slaves. When her slaves finally left her because she was going to be taking her back into missouri where she would be enslaved again, grant didnt raise a finger to try to find that slave or julia. A veryobviously difficult i would say complicated situation, but it wasnt difficult because julia never said a word against her husband or the fight against slavery or all the changes that are brought in the life that she grew up in. Susan so the interesting thing about grants career was that it was in two parts. He had an early military career and left. Then had an unsuccessful time trying to find his way in business, then went back for a second part which wind up being and it up being successful for lincoln and the country. Whya was part of the reason he left. He loved her so much, he was desperate to hear from her, and she wouldnt write to him on the battlefield. He became a very, very sad and lonely and did not have that support. Why didnt she write to him on the battlefield . Candice hooper i think because defect an id fact eye that impairs your vision, makes your regular vision for. You have no 3d or depth perception, and you dont see things in 3d. Everything looks like a painting. She had difficulty, and as a child instead of being disciplined for trying to overcome that problem as Robert Todd Lincoln was, as Benjamin Butler was, her parents and pampered her. They said, oh you know, if you are going to stumble on your way to school, her brothers would carry her in a chair on her way to school. She, and if she didnt write, she didnt read. The teachers were fine with that. I think she just grew up thinking everything was going to be fine, even if she off in certain areas even if she slacked off in certain areas. But grant needed and hungered to be reassured of her love for him. She compensated for that in part two of his military career is illustrated right here. I will hold it up. You can tell this story. She went and researched the four generals wives, and the amount of trying time they spent traveling, 10,000 miles on the part of julia grant. She made up by not writing letters by actually be in camp. It must have been hard for the confederates. Candice hooper she came within hours of being kidnapped by them in december 1862 at holly springs, mississippi. Telegraph froma her husband. She was there, he said to come to oxford that the railroad was open then. Instead of waiting for the sheend like ulysses thought would, she got on the train with her son and her slaves, and they got right up to oxford, and the confederates came in under colonel van dorn, the cavalry, and they went to the very house that julia had been staying in and asked for her, so they knew she was there. Susan what was the Important Role she played in the success of his second foray into the military . , herce hooper the determination to overcome the fact that she could not write to him and keep him reassured in that way meant that she had to find other ways to do it. The first way she tried doing it with sending their 11yearold son off to him when he got his first command in 1861, but they were going to war, and fred came back. It was then she decided if she wasnt going to write to him, and they knew she wouldnt, she would travel to be with him. 10,000 miles, trains, fairies, both, bad eyesight. That is the reason why her slave was so important to you. Oftentimes all four of their children, always at least one child. It was a real testament to their devotion, her major contribution to the war effort. Candice hooper i will say from learning about first ladys susan i will say about learning from first lady is, she was one that loves being first lady more than anyone else. When ulysses did not decide to run, he did not tell her until after he told the party. She was devastated. She loved being in the white house. Her life from all of the time spent on the battlefield data in the made up in the white house. More, but it is time for your questions. Bob riley is back here with the microphone. Anyone that has one just wait a second until he can get to you so people on cspan can hear it also. Right up there in front. By the families these women come from, those strong fathers. They are obviously encouraged to be strong women as opposed to wife who wasons quite shy and almost embarrassed to show herself in public. How much, in your opinion, does that family background count in how these women developed . Candice hooper i think it is tremendously important because first of all, these men, you know, these women were attracting men who were singularly ambitious, and for the most part, you know, with all appearance of having a successful future ahead of them. Women, i think, had to be extraordinary in order to attract those men and literally to lead the lives that they did. And the family upbringing again, their mothers get shorted in the story to a certain extent , because there is not that much available about those mothers. But you can see with eleanors money mother and her catholic upbringing, what a great influence that had on her. You can see in jessies case, her mother with drawing wanted to make her more active in a marriage, but it is very important. I know that the emancipation that lincoln wrote only free slaves that were in Confederate States and not the other states, because he wanted to keep them on the side of the union. What was the misery piece of that . I didnt understand. Candice hooper missouri was a border state, and so that is why the slave the slave that she had and her father had remain slaves during the war. Remain slaves during the war. But when she was traveling with ulysses, she was in Union Territory when he was in his camps, but they still counted her as a slave. 1863,d of the time, early their son fred is back in missouri. They are in memphis. Their son fred is in missouri, and he is ill, and they need to go back. So she is going to go back to missouri with her slave, and julia, the slave, would not go back and risk being enslaved again. Off she goes. The thing that is so great about this story, in julias memoir, she writes soon after we learned she got married, so we know there was a happy ending. In a book of letters by young jesse grant, every year on his birthday, he would get a letter from jewel asking him for a present. He kept in touch with them for a long time. Would also asking about fremonts early emancipation . Candice hooper im sorry, the fremonts were in missouri. He did that as a way of trying to tampa down the guerrilla violence going on in that state at the time. He thought if he issued an order , and this was very early in the war, that said, if you are fighting against the union, your slaves will be freed, that the guerrillas would come home to save their slaves. But that was not the way it was going to work. So much a better interviewer, you caught that. That was what the problem was. He saw it really is like part of martial law, trying to keep order in the state, and wasnt reading about the big picture, wasnt thinking about what it could do in terms of the union side of the war effort. He was only thinking about trying to get the guerrillas to stop fighting. Thank you. Appreciate your comments. As a member of the ulysses s i appreciatetion, the emphasis on julia, because i agree, she is underappreciated. Can you speak to this you know, these women werent brought up to be independent and financial they werent taught Financial Management skills and all, and yet, especially in the case of grant and shermans wives, they were left for very long periods to manage the household, many children, the finances. Ellen sherman of course had means with her father, so maybe she had more help with it, but what does that say about julia grant and her wherewithal to get through those tough years and managed the household and the finances go toward Candice Hooper that is such a great view of her. And frankly it says a great deal about all of these women, really only Alan Mcclellan Nelly Mcclellan was in the lap of luxury. Alan and julia and julia had to manage these. My eyes would blair blur with what ulysses was trying to get her to do, paying this debt and holding onto that note. It is very complicated. Up in ao me, i grew military family. My dad was [indiscernible] and i could always see my mom having to deal with stuff while he was on the 30. Sea duty. This has the same thing about military spouses even now, the enormous amount of complicated financial parenting, social issues that they had to deal with all the time. Question . Has a right here in front. Was a controversial at the time that julia grant had a slave . Was it public controversy . Candice hooper it was a point it was used by some of grants detractors to try to get linkedin to get rid of him lincoln to get rid of him. Her having a slave was not an issue until she brought her into the military camps and then people who did not like grant, and at this early stage, it was mostly newspaper editors who did not like him allowing freedom of the press and only wanted their newspaper circulated in the camp , that wrote a letter to lincoln had said, you have got the general who has got a slave in his camp in cairo, illinois. What are you going to do about it . Lincoln did nothing. Anyone else . Mary todd lincoln was probably not the kind of person who had girlfriends, but did she have any kind of a positive relationship with any of these women who do are women . Candice hooper not really. That said, she did sort of have a girlfriend, and that was a woman named Elizabeth Blair lee whose father owned Silver Spring here and is the one who built the blair house that is in washington. She lives in the townhouse next to it. She would go back and forth, and she would entertain mary, and she would go over for tea. But of all of the people that i know, that is really the only one that i know of, and frankly, if any of you ever have an opportunity to read Elizabeth Blair lees letters, she was writing a letter to her husband on the night of the assassination, somebody knocked on her door with the news, and that is the most dramatic letter about the assassination that you will ever read. Like ladybird reporting the assassination of kennedy for her alltime. Hereou tell our group about your research and how much documentary evidence there was about these women and how you found it . Candice hooper research is the most fun part about doing any of this. Sometimes you are tearing your hair out. , had to turn to michelle grow the civil war and reconstruction specialist at the library of congress, who has been an enormous support through the eight years it took me to write this book. I have spent many hours, many of those eight hours in the library of congress. It is very uneven. With the fremonts, they wrote a great deal and wrote memoirs, but once they died, their daughter, she destroyed most of their correspondence. There is almost nothing left. From other letters that they wrote and from their memoirs, you have a pretty full picture of their lives. With Nelly Mcclellan, as we said, George Mcclellan wrote letters every day. Nelly did too. Only five of hers survive it library of congress in her prose works diary. But because they are writing every day, you are answering or reflecting on things that they said. You can almost, on a daily basis, understand what they are doing too. I think i am the first person that ever read the mcclellan letters to understand what nelly was doing and not understand what george was doing. We all know what george was or wasnt doing. [laughter] Candice Hooper but it was a fascinating thing to try to read letters that way. Ellen sherman and William Tecumseh sherman, [indiscernible] his father died when he was nine. His father and alans father had been best friends. Allens father went next door, offered to take in one of the 11 children that had been left fatherless and penniless, and they gave him [indiscernible] together, although they were away at boarding school a lot, but they always wrote to each other. He saved all of her letters. He is the only one who saved all of her letters. And so, and they are all of the university of notre dame. Sherman would be rolling over in his grave now. He would never convert to catholicism, but it is amazing. They not only have those letters there to look at the originals, they have transcripts all online, digitized all of them. I can be reading them in montana or anywhere or here. I just go out to notre dame. Looked through some of the artifacts in the archives, and that was fascinating. Of course, Ulysses Grant, what are they up to now . 37 volumes now if his papers. The ones i am looking at are the first dozen or so. Another situation, not only does julia not write often, but if you officers the few letters she did right, not good. There was one that was saved, and michelle let me look at the real letter, which is amazing. Mostly you see them online. It was saved because she wrote it on the back of one of his letters. When it went back, she wrote, save this letter and give it back to me. She was so determined to save all of his letters that accidentally one of hers got saved. Susan this gentleman has a question about characters, you describe all four of them as tough and fearless women. They were into with politics. The in tune with politics. Did that surprise you . Candice hooper it did. Wererprised me that they against women suffrage. It seems she would be most obvious to do it. But i think she didnt want to become public about that, because it would reflect poorly on her husband who would later ran for president in an arrow where that was not a popular era where that was not a popular position. Susan we discovered by course of doing colleagues and the like callins and the like there was a hunger for american womens history. Mothers and daughters were calling us. We realize we had tapped into a vein of stories that are not enough told in this country. I want to thank candace shy candice shy for her world in understanding women in the civil war. In understanding women in the civil war. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer 1 on the morning of december 7, 1941, japanese the u. S. Tacked in fleet at pearl harbor. Almost 2400 americans were killed. American history tv marks the 75th anniversary of the surprise attack on saturday, december 10 at 8 00 eastern. We will show archival film, first person accounts from survivorss from and more. And we will take your calls. That is saturday, december 10 beginning at 8 00 a. M. Eastern here on American History tv, only on cspan3. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and it is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. On lectures in history, hadley arkes teaches oftory lesson on the laws government. He discusses aristotle, ever have lincoln and abraham lincoln. The class debates how moral truth relates to law decided by majority. This class is about and hour and half. An hour and a half. Hadley arkes lets do a bit of a recap, because we have people joining us now, and an audience coming in for the first moments of this course when we are still setting the groundwork. Remember, this course with people joining us this