My name is allen watke and im on the event staff here, we have many events that are three locations. With everything confirmed you can go to politicianspros. Com and pick up one of our monthly printed calendars. I would like to ask everyone to please silence your cell phones so as not to disrupt the event. And when we get to the queue and a if you could line up at this microphone at the pillar that would be great as we are audio recording, cspan for booktv is filming as well. We would like to have your questions in there. In the q and a we will have a signing writer at this table. If you could leave your chairs where we are we have a couple more readings today. We are very excited to welcome robert plumb celebrating his newest book the better angels 5 women who changed civil war america. A collective biography of five extraordinary women who came to National Prominence during the civil war. Documenting how the conflict left openings for women to assume roles usually held by men, showing the depth of their passion and commitment. Harriet tubmans tireless work in the underground railroad, Clara Bartons move to a Clerk Position in washington where she began to establish the American Red Cross. Chronicles how Harriet Beecher stowes abolitionism to write Uncle Toms Cabin. Julia ward howe was inspired by military actions to write the battle hymn of the republic. And Sarah Joseph Hill advocated for a national day of thanksgiving. Robert plumb is the author of a brother in arms, a Union Soldiers odyssey, and his written from a memory county historical societys journal, the Washington Post in the Washington Post magazine among others. Please join me in welcoming to politics and prose robert plumb. [applause] thank you very much for that warm introduction. I feel like at politics and prose it is like if you are a musician and youre invited to play at carnegie hall. It is especially wonderful for me because this book was released on march 1st which most of you, if not all of you know that march is womens History Month and coincides with the one hundredth anniversary of the signing of the nineteenth amendment which gave women the right to vote. The five women i talked about died in the Twentieth Century so they never got a chance to vote but certainly the things they did during the course of the American Civil War pave the way for suffrage that came after the Twentieth Century. What i am going to do today is give you a snapshot of who these five women were and read brief passages from my book the kind of flesh out the important things that occurred and then i am going to sum it up by talking about what i think are the ten most critical characteristics these women possessed that allow them to do the things they did during the war. The war was tough enough but the fact that they were women give them an additional hurdle all of them overcame. Not once did the fact they were women deter them from what they did. It gave them more energy to do what they did. The books title comes from abraham lincolns first inaugural speech, delivered in early march in 1861, lincoln was prescient in terms of knowing what was going to happen when he took over as president , that war was going to tear the country apart and he acknowledged that in his inaugural address but also said we have to rely on those better angels of our nature to bring the country back, bring this country back together after the war was over. Certainly the five women im going to talk about played major roles to bring the union together and to ensure that the union succeeded. The five women, very briefly, Harriet Tubman, who took her role primarily in the antebellum period before the war started in 1849, she freed herself, self alliteration, more astounding she came back again and again to Dorchester County, maryland, most people agree there are 7080 people she freed during the course of 14 years. An extraordinary thing by anyones imagination. Harriet beechers oh was a writer but not until she wrote Uncle Toms Cabin that she will open the whole story of slavery not only with facts and figures and information but with a compelling narrative she brought alive the characters in the book, some very favorable and some not so favorable. It hit the bookshelves of america like nothing had ever done in the past. It sold over 100,000 copies the first week it was out. It started out as a serial in a magazine and got such popularity in the course of that year running as a serial that it was turned into a book in 1852. The next person i want to talk about is Harriet Beecher stowe. She was a poet in the early 1860s when the war had just begun. She came to washington with her husband, doctor Samuel Gridley is a piece of work himself, not shy when talking about his ability to do great things. She came and was in the backseat while he was off doing things with the sanitary commission, an early version of the red cross. She went in a wagon with some friends across the potomac and watched the Union Soldiers parade and do their military kinds of things. On the way back they were surrounded by Union Soldiers and she was struck by two things, one was the fact that they were very young, some not much older than her own children and they started singing and what they started singing was john browns body. A rousing marching thunberg one of the persons who accompanied her across the potomac was her minister from massachusetts who said you know, harriet, you could do a better job writing something than that. That is denigrating to john brown. She processed that and that might when she went back to where she and her husband were saving she woke up in the lanai, grabbed some paper and started writing a poem on scraps of paper. The next morning when she got up she made a few tweaks to it but basically it was what it was going to be, the battle hymn of the republic. She had it published a little later, the first of the next year in harpers weekly. It took off, soldiers were singing it as they marched, civilians were moved by its lyrics, finally bringing to the forefront what the union cause was really about. To some extent it was bringing the union back together. That may be a fine unifying argument but hardly raises peoples spirit. When she talked about dying to set men free suddenly the whole purpose of the war took on a new tone coupled with the emancipation proclamation, set the union off on a new track. The next person i want to talk about is clara barton. We think of clara barton as a nurse and indeed she did do nursing duties but i think her real strength was her ability to get medical supplies which were sorely needed at the beginning of the war out into the field where they were needed most. She did nursing duties but i think she was a medical logistics genius. That doesnt have the ring to it that nursing does but it is true. When she took a wagon train of medical supplies to Antietam Battlefield in 1862 the doctors on the field, the surgeons were binding wounds with corn husks they got from nearby cornfield, they ran out of bandages, sheets from a nearby farmhouse tearing them up so she was in the right place at the right time. She said my place is just behind the canon meaning right where the action was and she lived up to them. The next person i want to talk about is the least wellknown among the ones i have mentioned in that is Sarah Josepha hale who back in the mid1800s was famous because she was the successful editor of a womens magazine. The womens journal and a womens book that she was the editor of the she was great at attracting american writers, and as important she paid them which back in those days a lot of people who were running magazines picked up stuff and just ran it. Copyright laws were pretty loose. She had for a long time using her magazine as a launching platform, she raised money believing women needed to be educated in colleges, she raised money in poughkeepsie, new york and raised enough money in college and she also raised money for the Mount Vernon Association so that washingtons home could be renovated. It had fallen into disrepair. A womens advocate but also a part of american history. She was the only one of the five i am talking about who was born in the 1700s, born after washington took office so she had a little bit of an older version of what was appropriate in the way of womens rights. What i would like to do is read some sections of the book that will give you a flavor of these women and follow that at the end with my listing of characteristics or qualities of these women that allow them to do the things they do and did. We will start with Harriet Tubman. Harriet tubman crossed the masondixon line into pennsylvania and freedom after an arduous journey. Accomplished with courage and skill. Once in pennsylvania tubman later admitted to her biographer sarah bradford, quote, when i found i cross that line i looked at my hands to see if i was the same person. There was such glory over everything. The sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields and i felt like i was in heaven yet she contended that her freedom was not without apprehension, she finished by saying i had crossed the line. I was free but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land. Some concept of her technique, to guide her runaway slave, took advantage of the timbered areas, estuaries that made up the escape route along with tidal marshes and creeks. These natural features helps provide cover for small bands of runaways to the north and freedom. Tubman made use of these features and traveled primarily at night by the stars, she reported she could, quote, tell time by the stars and find her way by natural signs as well as any hunter. Along with her knowledge of nature and having an ingenious mind tubman was willing to use force if called for, she routinely carried a pistol and any slave catchers or any runaway who wouldve caught be forced to reveal their escape routes. Tubman was ready to sacrifice a reluctant runaway for the good of the group, did fugitives as she once said would tell no tales. There are more recorded instances of tubman having fired her firearm at runaway slaves but it gives us an indication of the resolution this woman had. The next person i would like to talk about is Harriet Beecher stowe. The novel Uncle Toms Cabin took on slavery as it had never been explained before. Harriet beecher stowes detailed human stories of cruelty and suffering featured well drawn characters who earned the sympathy results in, in the narrative. 7 proponents of slavery based on her belief that slavery was, quote, evil and only evil. Protestant clergyman who saw biblical justification for slavery were treated with equal disdain in Uncle Toms Cabin. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had written never was there such a literary coup the main as this. Proslavery advocates bombarded the press with claims that the book was filled with distortions, exaggerations and outright lies. The scenes that depicted cruelty to slaves were atypical of normal behavior among slaveholders, critics held. Rather than counter these objections point by point, Harriet Beecher stowe had a different strategy, she produced a publication that expand the credibility of her characters, the recipe of the scenes described in the body of law that existed to protect the institution of slavery. It appeared under the rather ponderous title a key to Uncle Toms Cabin presenting the original facts and documents upon which the story is founded together with corroborative statements of the truth of the work. Hard to put that on a tshirt but it got the point across. Her approach of the document want to support her case with facts and examples of real people writing proslavery journalist and clergy and numerous newspaper classified ads offering rewards for runaway slaves. In the court of Public Opinion, Harriet Beecher stowe confounded her critics with facts, data, legal findings and documented examples of cruelty and human malfeasance towards other human beings. There are reality of enslaved humans was put out into the open by a determined 41yearold mother who was outraged at fellow human beings were being treated in a nation founded on the basis of all men being created equal. The power of Uncle Toms Cabin to change Public Opinion about the true nature of slavery and the need to end it is indisputable. Abraham lincoln was reported to have said when first meeting Harriet Beecher stowe in the white house in 1862 so you are the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war. The next person is julia ward howe. Motivation in time of war represent a combination of circumstances. The civil war was no exception, victories on the battlefield, inspired sense of purpose, visionary effective leadership must combine to inspire what the soldiers who fight in citizens who support them. In the early stages of the war, 18611863, with few exceptions was a time when Union Victories were rare and union more out was at its nadir. The sense of purpose was rekindled by the emancipation proclamation and julia ward howes moving in them. Victories and lincolns moved to change the leadership of the union army in spring of 1864 would coalesce to turn the corner for the Union Victory for Union Victory. This destiny was anticipated in the hunting cords he has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat, he is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat be swift my soul to answer, be jubilant my feet. The next person i would like to talk about, some examples of what she had done is clara barton. Pursuing her desire to take supplies to the wars front and take an active role in the care of Wounded Soldiers barton approached daniel h record, head of the quartermaster depot of the district of columbia calling on him and his austere office. Record initially rebuffed her but barton persisted and announced she had three warehouses of supplies ready to go to the front lines. Partners passionately backed by warehouses of evidence of her ability to deliver cause the gruff kernel to relent. He gave barton the use of a wagon and driver and find permission to take government transportation including passage by boat to a union depot in virginia. He obtained a pass signed by the Surgeon General along with a small party of assistants, barton traveled to the fredericksburg Virginia Area and distributed supplies. Are task complete she returned to washington to accumulate more supplies. Following the success of the second battle of manassas, successful the confederates, the union the army under the leadership of robert lee launched an invasion of maryland. Catching her breath resulting from manassas, was even more convinced that she was needed on the battlefield and she had to be in place just before and during the battle to be effective. She learned of the confederates moving to maryland in september 13th, 1862. She quickly approached her patron saint colonel rucker to obtain a wagon and a pastor venture to harpers ferry. Rucker granted the request and on sunday september 14th, she and her assistant, cornelius wells loaded the wagon the army provided with bandages and crucial materials and departed for frederick, maryland. By september 16th, barton, wells, the teamster and their wagon of supplies had reached the army of the potomac near sharpsburg, maryland. There was an impending sense of gloom. The air was soggy and noxious. It was all made and used by the press of human flesh of human beings and animals. Barton was where she longed to be, combat was imminent, treat the wounded with minimal delay. It would be one of the bloodiest engagement of the civil war with horrifying casualties on both sides. It would be the better were bartons friend doctor james dunn who worked with her on the battlefield would confer on her the name the angel of the battlefield. Finally, Sarah Josepha hale, the least known i would expect of the five i am talking about, for a person born during the formation of Constitutional Government of the United States and having participated as a child in the warm and inspiring celebration of a communal feast, hail had a motivation to see the national servants continue. It started under george washington. Perhaps even more than those who followed in later years hail on are the Founding Fathers as great men who knew no north or south, eulogy to the American Family and providential inspiration for the National Government for her campaign to help establish a national day of thanksgiving. September 20 eighth 1863, hail sat down to write an american president. Her persistence was reflected in her letter undimmed by the fact that her youngest daughter had died suddenly the previous may. Her letter is businesslike, cites the support of two key governors and invokes the support of her friend, secretary of state William Seward and set up the importance of the role the president had to play. He mustve been impressed with her presentation of he