[ bell ringing ]the the fourth year of the war ending in the spring of 1865, of shermans march, the toils of petersburg, richmond fallen, the wars end, relief, grief and rejoicing. I call forth Sergeant Clark b. Hall, greatgreat grandson of charles h. Hall of the 13th mississippi infantry. A u. S. Marine corps veteran of sley, vietnam, and 1st lieutenant samuel mosley, a korean war veteran and winner of a silver star and a purple heart. [ bell ringing ] [ bell ringing ] [ bell ringing ] pr and now at precisely 3 15 on the afternoon of april 9, 2015, 5, bells will ring across america. [ applause ] as the department of labor calls for new Consumer Protections for workers saving for their tournament, National EconomicCouncil Director will deliver a keynote address on the potential new rules at an event. Hell be followed by a discussion about the future policies. See the full event live beginning at 10 00 eastern own cspan. And later Vice President joe biden will talk about the Ukraine Russia conflict and its implications for european security. Those remarks will be live from the Brookings Institution at 12 15 eastern. David mccullough on the Wright Brothers their quest for flight. I was 2 mystery of who it was that hit wilbur in the teeth with a hockey stick knocked out all his upper teeth when he was 18 and sent him into a spell of depression and selfimposed seclusion in his house for three years. Was not able to go to college which he had planned to do. He wanted to go to yale. Instead he stayed at home seldom went out at all reading, and providing himself with a liberal Arts Education of a kind most people would dream of having all on his own, with the help of his father and the local public library. But it was it swerved his the path of his life in a way that no one had ever had any way of anticipating. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q and a. Now well hear from the two living historians who portrayed generals grant and lee at the appomattox courthouse National Historic site events commemorating the surrender 150 years ago. This is 30 minutes. Youreatching American History tv on cspan3. A live look from the appomattox courthouse National Historic park in virginia. The site where 150 years ago this past thursday confederate he general robert e. Lee surrendered his army to Ulysses Grant ending the civil war. W well be live from the park for tackin the nextg three hours as the comem ration continues today with reenactments of the gun stangs that took place on this day when more than 22,000 of general lees infantry troops turned over their weapons and battle flags. Were going to bring you the sights and sounds. Youre hear remarks from historian david blight. Well give you a chance to call in and talk with professor blight. But first were joined by the by tw two men who played a starring role in thursdays ceremony, the surrender ceremony that you just saw here on American History tv. Ulysses grant and robert lee. General lee by Thomas Jessee. You can all 2027488900. Mountain and pacific, 2027488901. Send us a tweet and join us on n histor facebook. So this moment we just saw, our thinki viewers saw onng American History tv, gentlemen, what were you thinking as that as general lee rode away . Sadness. I felt empathy for the h confederate soldier. I knew how much they were suffering with the surrender after they had fought so hard for four long years. I felt it was almost anticlimatic. One of the things i noted was ndidat the silence. There were no guns, no con noannon ating, no sounds. The silence wu a sound we had not heard for four years. And it approachede wa the eerie. As we watched that sight moments ago, you seemed to pause for a moment before mounting. What was going through your mind . At that particular moment i was concerned for my horse. We were putting the bridle on anfor mo e removed the forelock from ldiers underneath the bridle. But what was going on in my mind foremost is how i was going to tell my soldiers that they were surrender ared and be able to dofor fo it, to actually say the words. And to let those men that had followed me for four years ak fiesed everything, marched in the rain and the mud from petersburg and finally tell them youre surrendered and its over. Ur ameri thats what was going through my mind. A reminder to our American History tv viewers, well be here for the next 20 25 minutes talking to Ulysses Grant played by curt fields and robert e. Lee played by Thomas Jessee. Lets go to donald in jacksonville. Youre on the air. Go ahead. Okay. I dont hear that. E days lets continue on. Well get to calls in just a moment. General lee, in the days before the surrender on april 9th i ment y had read in your memoirs that , you you had a severe head ache. But the moment you received the news you became instantly well . The headache immediately disappeared. Never to return again. The no i expect it was because of the great relief for the note that itime he had just been given from generalnd i lee was the first time he had used the word surrender. And i knew the end was near. And the relief was tremendous. And then the stress of pounding through the virginia countryside to try to get to general lee to stop the wkilling. What was the final final straw really in your decisionmaking, general lee, for calling for a meeting with general grant . I sent general gordon forward to the west to see if we had a clear road or to see if we couldge break through. G and general gordon and general see i long street andf myself decided were going to give it one more time and see if theres any way out. When general m gordon sent me the message back that he had fought the soldiers to a frazzle and the way was blocked by infantry, then i knew right then that was i time to meet general grant. I think we have donald still on the line from jacksonville. Are you there . Caller im still here. Go ahead. Caller can you hear me . We can. Go ahead. Were fine, thank you. T caller what aim trying to find out is, after all these years the confederacy is still flying the flag f around the country, which is disrespectful to blacks and people that are fought and died to represent the union. Why is the Confederate Flag off stillen and its very it offensive. If a so today were talking about ng aro 2015 and i got a couple of granddaughters come in this t world. I dont want the Confederate Flag flying around. Its offensive and i think something should be done. Can you comment on that. Appreciate it donald. Gentlemen, any thoughts on the flag . I have no comment on that rnl i have no comment on that either. Part of the ceremony here was the banners and the flags. Those flags represented my army, my soldiers represented our sacrifice. Wit what i should point out is the and flags were treated with reverence by the army of the potomac and general grant. thats good enough for me. Travis in florence, alabama, hello hello. Florence, alabama, are you there . Caller yes im here. Can you hear me . Yes, we can. Go ahead with your comment. Caller im travis bails fromstio florence, alabama. Had i had several relatives in the army in northern virginia. Have and my question is had lee been able to link up with johnson in North Carolina, could. War have been turned in the southeast favor . No. Why not . T out. The south was fought out. The men had done more longer n out. With less than any army in erally history but they were fought e out. They were worn out. , he c had general lee been able to escape my forces he couldnt have lasted any longer than days. His men were starved, out of ted ammunition, barefoot, many of spiri them. They were defeated in everything except spirit. But had general lee been able to break loose from my forces it would not have prolonged the war and certainly would not have changed the outcome of the war. General lee. I. I had a men duty to try. I had a duty to my government bsolut and myel men. But in retrospect, general grant is absolutely right. By the time i would reach general john sob, theres no very m telling how many men i would have left. I wasild anng losing men every mile because they were exhausted and manag they were starving. They just they couldnt go any further. If i had managed to escape general grant here im convinced he would have caught up with me before i made excite terms the ovalley. How many days in advance did you begin to device the terms of surrender . At our last meeting on the river queen with president he presi lincoln, general sherman ver, w admiral David Dickson port enand clinton myself, we asked the president in talking, we said, its almostc2avthat over. What then . And then president lincoln said, let them up easy. So that was my plan. President lincoln also indicated to me, you get them to stop neral. Fighting and lay down the arms and leave the politics to me, general. So i began thinking about what i would write in the surrender terms, and i wrote the most verbally economic document that i could write. Because i did not want to put a jot or did l in that document about which anyone could debate, argue or harangue. I kept it simple. If youll read it, its strictlyat wer military. No politice f in it. What were your impressions m general lee of seeing general grant for the first time. You both fought in the mexican war. May i address that first was the general . Of ptcourse. Yes. I was nervous. I had met general lee in the mexican war but even then he was the great captain lee with a long shadow. Ished i was a Second Lieutenant not long out of the academy. General lee was quite the distinguished man. He was born to be the warrior that he is. N when i met him in the parlor of at had the mclean house, i was word. Dishevelled and general lee was in a uniform that had never been worn before with a jewelled h presentation sword. I was nervous. I trie in fact, in chatting with him, o trying to break the tension, general lee finally had to cough and say general, we must be about the business that we are here to attend to. Reco yes. General . That was quite true. A i had been trying to recollect what i had looked like from the mexican war. I do have a very good memory. I remember the incident of meeting him but it was briefly and i could not recall a single feature. I was clean shaven at that time. I had not grown a beard. As r moreel importantly when he arrived, i was relieved that he was there and i was not d not concerned with hiskn appearance. I was concerned with mine because at that time i did not know what the terms would be. There was a possibility that i would be his prisoner. Im a gentleman and you make your best appearance. Also, our wagons had been burnt. And the uniform that i wore, as new as it was and fine as it was, was the last uniform i had. Were joined by Thomas Jessee and curt fields here at appomattox appomattox. Were taging your calls here on American History e tv. Joe in new york, youre on the air. Caller yes, i have a neral question for general grant. Ppeare at thed surrender ceremony in the n mclean house onow april 9th general lee appeared in an immaculate uniform as he appeared to be wearing right now, because he thought he would become general grants prisoner. I would like to ask general lee of did he ever consider he might be arrested and charged with the crime ofco treason . Thank you very much. That did come up after the war and i communicated with general grant pointing out that i had a parole. I made sure i had one. I had gone home and i did not o raise arms. Politically there washast aed call to have me arrested and tried for treason. I wanted to settle the matter and i communicated with general grant and the matter died. Had were you concerned at all that you in terms of the settlement, hadnt had a chance to speak to confederate president Jefferson Davis . I had communicated with him. I dont know if he received any of any communications. Ion you can understand that general grant after me, the lines of communication were bad. President davis had gone on ahead by rail. Messa i didnt really know where he ituati wason located. I sent him the messages letting him know the situation. And then i felt i did what i my i had a duty to my soldiers. And once that happened, it was my decision. Mi lets go back to our callers. Jay is in miami, florida. Welcome. Caller hello. Yes. Im calling from miami. The yes, jaye. Caller my question dealt with the topic that general lee just talked about, which was ve surrendering before president rhaps he jefferson, Jefferson Davis did so. Some peoplet say perhaps he should have waited for hi ste commander in chief to surrender, that perhaps he took that step tly, earlier than he should have. Ever, is i know that his men were suffering greatly. However, looking back on it now, is he still convinced that it was the right decision in. Y yes,it absolutely. Deci it was thesi right decision. And i was a commander of the army ief. And i was also commander in chief. And there was no way to communicate with general davis. I made the decision and it was made the rightth decision. General grant, you made the decision to allow your rations, the union rations to be distributed to union troops but your own troops were fairly we starved from the chase as well. They were hungry because we had been on the run for several days in pursuit of the army of northern virginia. Actually u gave general lee the provisions that i had kept him from getting. It muz my rations. Gn it was his rations that i gave him. I was magnanimous of you to do so. I thought it was at the time. We also gave him some of our rations. His men were starving. Mine were hungry but we had been in a head long rush to get to this place. No and for the first time in the k war i saw a phenomenon that nea there were no stragglers in my army. We all knew the end was near and every man was pushing to be at the front. No one wanted to be at the rear. A question for you from facebook. John landford wants to know what happened to the firearms that were turned in by southern soldiers on this date as a matter of fact, april 12 1865. They were destroyed. They were destroyed. And you also allowed the tant generals officer to keep their side arms. The impo why was that . The important issue in that question is not what i said but what i didnt say. Because what has been lost over time, what has slid off the i h pages of the history books into the binding is that ive already spoken to making the document as economically verbal as possible. I had let the officers keep as their side arms and their horses. But the reason i did that is notg a bunc because as i was criticized, i was letting a bunch of reds loose with weapons. I knew they were men of honor and would stand by their pledge. What the significance of that is, is by letting them keep their side arms, i also let them keep their swords. So not a confederate officer had to surrender their sword to the ed insul victor. I eliminated insult to injury. They were able to keep their swords. So they man were able to take them home and hang them over the mantle. It is live American History t here with general u lee see k. Grant and general robert e. Lee taking your calls and comments for the next 20 minutes or so. Mbt and a pacific 2027488901. Sk both im going to ask you to step outer of character for a moment. Curt fields, tell us your background and how you came to play general grant on this day. Im a retire educator. I hold a ph. D. In education fromcer Michigan State university. I was a principal for 25 years, taught for eight years, been a hostag Memphis Police officer professional drummer was a adjun hostage negotiator. I like to refer to it as a defunction professor. Im an adjunct professor at the university of memphis. Rician i teach sociology. An Thomas Jessee . Im an electrician, been superintendent for ana Electrical Contractor in tampa florida. And ive been a reenactor since ive been 18 years. Not a living historian a living reactor. Whats the difference there. We hear that term used by different people. Reenac whats the difference . As a reenactor, youre showing a battle. Youre showing an event, reenacting the event. A living historian is presenting as a person and theyre telling that person theyre being that person. Is if you believed i was robert e. Lee and you believed he was neral general grant we did living history like it was supposed to ap beon done. The reenactors are the gentlemen over here having to surrender not their weapons. Theyre not particular people. As theyre recreating an event. Es t as far as the Details Behind the scenes theres not a lot of difference. We allow people to part the curtains of history and look down that long corridor of time and see things as they really t were. I. D. Either of you ever expect to be here . Never. No. If you had told me this two ve years ago, i wouldnt have believed it. I think say is w on the line, miami, jay, you still there . Jay from miami, florida. Go ahead. I think just a remind are, jay and other callers, make sure you listen your television and listen over the phone so you can get the answer. S call you still i there . [ inaudible ] well get back to his call in a moment. Let me ask you in the days after appomattox appomattox, general lee, what did you do . I was her e at my headquarters. At first i decided i would follow my troops out to surrender their weapons. I would be with them. General gordon and general rters longstreet convinced me that would not be a wise move. Day they would take care of it. I stayed here at my headquarters at my tent until the last surrender. The last day. I was taking care of ting on correspondence making sure the men got rations, finding paroles. I was waiting on colonel marshal he was your aid . He was a general and he was the one who usually wrote my orders. So colonel gen marshal from baltimore wrote general order number nine. How quickly did you notify washington of the surrender and i how long were you on the took battlefield or in appomattox rather after the a i took care after the surrender and general lee left me a myriad of nigh muminutia. It was later that day that my him. Staff reminded me that i would telegraph and tell them of the surrender are. And i said yes, indeed. And i telegraphed them. The next morning on april 10th horse i o wanted to speak with general lee again and i rode my horse e saw out to meet him. He did not know i was coming. When he saw me, he got quickly mounted and rode out to meet me and we had about a 30minute conversation. And in, m to that conversation i asked him to order all confederate armies to lay their weapons out sp down. And he demurred and said i real hi cannot do that without speaking to the president. He did not know, nor did i, that ple that at the moment we were speaking president davis w u your fleeing to georgia. I told him theres not a southerner under arms who will respec not obey yout r order. And what i disagreed with him, i respect him for it. He said this is a political y deal matter that i w cannot deal with. I can only deal with my army to surrender. Lets get one more call from s mike illinois. This is mike in metropolitan, illinois. Like, go ahead. Caller yes, this is mike in metropolis, illinois. W what kind of documents, were there any particular documents or records that were the most have helpful to you in preparing what obviously you have a comprehensive knowledge of general grant. Were there any particular documents that were especially helpful . No, there werent. N i had been giving the document t of t quite a bithe of thought. Thats a good question. Any t it gets toem the root of the matter. I did not have any templates or pattern to follow. I had to write my own terms. President lincoln did not dictate to me what he wanted me to say. So it was up to me. I refer you to the surrender document, or the terms that i wrote for general lee. Id not and its simple, it is uld straightforward. Ar as and as i said early, i didnt want a period in that document that you could comment about. Before we went on the air you and i talked a little bit about farms traveler, the horse portraying traveler. Hes in liberty oklahoma. Hes owned by copper top farms. Its a farm for veterans, wounded army people and nd children. Traveler is a wounded horse and they found that wounded veterans in particular bond with horses. Me is theres something about the horse and the man that bond a lot. The horses name is actually zeus. When they told me that i wasnt sure i wanted to get on him. But hes a great horse and he helped injured people which i lean h think is fantastic. Yesterday and the day before we were up at the mclean house, i was mounted on zeus traveler, he and he stood there for three hours without moving while people took photographs. Hes a remarkable animal. Looks like were going to have a couple more callers. Lets go to david who is in pittsburgh. Good afternoon. Hello, pittsburgh. Are you there . We well wait to get the caller on the line. O back into character here for a minute. There were many surrenders to come. What sort of role several, anyway. What sort of role did general t back grant have no those surrenders . I went back to Washington City at the surrender are here hat to to stop all of the military contracts that were costing the government millions of dollars per day. Im an old quarter master, fourth infantry regiment and i knew what it was costing. General sherman took the tially surrender t of general joseph eggold ston johnson in North Carolina and gave him essentially the same terms that i had given general lee. Unfortunately by that time president lincoln had been assassinated radical republicans had taken control of the congress and they castigated general sherman greatly. Even though they were the same terms . Essentially the same. They wanted to courtmartial him. And i was dispatched to North Carolina in a special train. I never got off the train because i did not c want anyone tol know i was there because i felt it would cast apersians on general sherman. I had sherman come to me. I told him this is not going to on work. Did youre going not to have to write another surrender, a stiffer one. And he didnt like that, be thats sherman. No cho he went back and offered General Johnson another surrender document that he had no choice but to accept. Now that your role was over with the army of northern virginia, how much did you stay in touch how much did you know of the subsequent surrender surrenders in North Carolina, inwas tryi texas . Not very much. I was trying to follow the ichmon information, butd basically i was in seclusion in richmond with mynd they family. Soelli what information i did receive was various letters or people came to pay respects and they would tell me what was happening. You have to understand, in virginia, particularly the lines g of communication were destroyed. In rea so information about General Johnson was slow in reaching me. And by the time i got to me aware general grant had already o taken care of that. And i didnt i was not even aware of that. Step out of character for a is th second. Toda adds we look back 150 years, rn whats the lesson today for people here at appomattox . Whats the lesson to be learned esson from 150 years ago . General . I think the lesson that we should take away from this is that mono mat whaer the issue or the topic, cooler heads must ultimately prevail. We must find compromise we must resolve issues as difficult as it may be. Cooler heads were allowed to prevail and plunged us into a war that really didnt have to that. Happen. Would you agree with general grant . I would agree with him on take that. Rom th i would also like them to take away from this place the sacrifice on both pararmies. Ntindeed. For four years and what it took to come here. But in particular how general a grant handled thedi surrender and how much that made a difference in the healing of the country. We c have jane in albertson, new york. Jane, are you there . Caller yes i am. Hi. I wantednted to extend my gratitude to these gentlemen portraying lee and grant. I think its just an awesome and they are be a l performing a greatot service to the nation. Im aware this has got to be a lot of effort a lot of studying, a lot of financial cost on their tudepart and its really i just wanted to extend thank gratitude to the yogentlemen. Thats a Wonderful Service and they are doing an awesome job. Thank you, gentlemen thank you very much. Thank you. Tha thank you. How far in advance did you know youd be here for these t events on the 150th . I knew three years ago coming up here with the group, lincolns generals, i was portraying grant and my first trip up here three years ago, the park service indicated to mehe grant they wanted me to be the grant for the