Our speaker candice shy hooper, our fine careers on capitol hill and as a lobbyist, candice earned a masters degree in history with a concentration in military history from the George Washington university. She has served on the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal of the ulysses s and julia d grant home, and the board of directors of president lincolns her work in the historical field has also included publications in the New York Times. The journal of military history and the michigan war studies review her book lincolns generals wives for women who influenced the civil war, for better or for worse, won three nati awards. Her most recent publication, delivered under fire, absalom the first biography of thel, childhood friend ulysses us grant. And while serving as a special agent of the Us Post Office department, he was often called grants postmaster general in his role as agent of the Us Post Office department during grants presidency. Mark passage of the ku klux klan act of 1871. Candace will be speaking to us about her book delivered fire, which adds to the scholarship to the understanding of the unions Postal Network during the civil war and crucial years during. And i had the privilege of talking to candice just before the program, and she shared with me that her unclelongtime letten indiana and gave her an appreciation for the of working for the post office. So thank you. Please welcome candice. Anthony. See. So thank you much, lynn. And thank you, susan in the back. The two of them have been great great help to me and writing this book here in the only place i could find that knew. Absolutely. Mark lynns name before i started. And thank all of you for coming and including those on zoom, i first encountered absalom on when iast book because he popped up when in the letters between julia grant and Ulysses Grant and between Eleanor Sherman and William Tecumseh sherman and the name, of course, mark e thats going to stick in your mind. And even though i thought was going to write a different book after this one, i just get that name of my head. I realid e papers i found at the library of congress while i was doing this book that he had something to do with the mail during the civil war. But thats all i could tell from those papers. So that made me begin to think, you know, how did mail get delivered during the civil war . In fact, the last statistic is that there are more than 100,000 books that have been published about the civil war since. It started, that told how the letters that nearly all of them cite in those books got delivered between, the front lines and the home front. So this book is the first biography of absalom maclean, but its also the first book about delivery of mail during the civil war. Absalom markland, born in kentucky, when he was a young, very young man, six years old, s father moved the family to maysvie, kentucky, which is right on the ohio river. You can sen th background. Kentucky was then, of course, a slave state. Ohio was a free state and maysville, among many things that it was, was stop, an important stop on the railroad for slaves who were trying get to freedom literally. Theyd slaves on the steps of the courthouse in Washington County at maysville. And people hid slaves and helped them escape to freedom. There. So markland grew up in what lincoln later called a house divided. Just that one town was a microcosm of the whole of the civil war while he was there, maysville he attended the Maysville Academy and for 11 months another young man also attended. At that time his name was hiram Ulysses Grant. He later became known course as ulysses us grant the two of them partici painted in a debate society. There are records of their debates and the subject m■atteri talk about in the book some of its very ironic. But then grants father decided he wasnt paying enough attention. His studies for what he was paying into with and for him. So he sent him off to west point where tuition was free and the two of them in 1838 sort of separated separated. Marquand went on to go Augusta College in kentucky and to study the law and became a steamboat clerk and then in 1848, he and, his father went to washington, d. C. , where they each became clerks in different offices and mark then became a clerk in the pension, which dealt with the pensions for revolutionary soldiers still alive at that time. And soldiers the war of 1812. He a busy, busy young man but. 1850 he married the daughter of a wealthy developer in washington, d. C. His name sampson simsndartha sims is n see. Tiful young woman, as you we tt this made about the time of their wedding. And thats thats why weve at is the only photograph we have of martha. Althern the book i do have a description of her that was written by one of the generals who met her. That is one of only three photographs of absalom so he married. And as the war began to build or at least the move for secession built steam marshland became a part of Abraham Lincolns, kentucky inner circle because kentucky was so important as a border state to. The the success of the Union Lincoln is supposed to have said and there are a number of people who have reported this that he said you know i would like have god on my side but i must have kentucky. And so he scour washington knewt kentucky and kentucky politics. And mark on was one of them, one of the young ones. So as hes as the war is coming on and then as the war begins, markland decides, well, its not just enough to be bit of real estate speculation. He wanted to do something more for the union now his brother went into ther army did not he decided he would ask lincoln to make him an army paymaster. So he would be the person who would pay the soldiers. It would be, you know, a relatively calmer existence and he wrote a letter, a lengthy is in the national ahives and lincoln wrote on the back of it the first one, say respect fully submitted to the war department. On september 5th tt should have gotten secretary of war hat he wanted to that lincoln wanted him appoint this man a paymaster. T the next day hed heard nothing. And so he writes again to lincoln on september six d says, you know, lets get on it. In fact, he wrote three times to meron who shortly thereafter but not shortly enough was to russia as as mister trussia and maybe his attitude toward lincoln was was one of the reasons. But why secretary cameron was delayed in responding to lincoln and a kentuckian in lincolns cabinet reached out and brought him into his his cabinet department. And that was postmaster blair, who had to west point, who was a kentuckian and and was postmaster general. He appointed marquand in the fall 1861 to be as special agent. The Us Post Office department. Now at that time special agents were the Police Department of the post office and indeed their successors. Today are called postal inspectors. Met one of them when i gave this talk and charles, then a couple of weeks ago it was to you was wonderful to actually meet one of them. But they are ones that that cracked down on crime dealing with mail. If you remember when steve bannon was arrested on the russian lets build the wall scam, he arrested by a postal inspector. Thesmeat have to be smart, brazil elegant, resourceful and courageous in dealing with problems. So he becomes this special and hes sent to cairo, illinois, at that time, the biggest crisis in the post department was the number of soldiers until the civil war started. Most of the mail that the post office carried was really newspar letters. But once the war started and had all of these men moving all over away from their homes, mostly for the first time ever, thousands of letters, a torrent of letters cin post Office Department and chaos reigned in cairo, illinois. The postal there. When mark one got there, it was a little bit smaller than this room. It was 11 by 14 was filled to the ceiling mail that had not been sorted or and there were 40 cars on the side full of mail that had not been ded i markland got to work, captured the people he o itone and got it done and was was doing ne day on the street Ulysses Grant who had bee me commander of the department of southern illinois. That southpartment came by and recognized mark cohen. Now this is theyeach other in 11 they were just teenaged years 13 and 11. And now theyre men and theyre men with beards ive got pictures of the beards in the in the book but they are, you know, some of the worst hair that youve seen even in the context of the civil war. But in any event, grant y fell in together as friends and soon in february, grant asked him, do you want to seand mark . One said, yes. So mark one got on board the that grant took two fort henry, which was the first major battle in west of the civil war. And it was a victory. And that made it, in essence the first victory athe union had had had in the civil war on the way fort henr gnt asks mark one, well, youre wh e post office. Do you think you can help me keep up the mail to the soldiers as we move along . Because if youve read my first book and even if you hadnt, ill you he longed for mail his wife his wife was not just notorious about not writing, but almost criminal about not writing. And he loved her. She not have written, but it just made him so depressed that his one of his Top Prioritieseve soldiers to keep up morale. And that really one of the Top Priorities of all Commanding Officers in every war that ever been fought to be to have communication between home front and thfrontbecause that keeps up morale on both sides of the war. And it is important in the so as marquand took on this job and, he said hed do it and later he got the postmaster generals blessing do it. But you know, like a smart guy, he took the job. He but he became famous and, eas theres almost no purse or no record of absalorq the newspapers record of him are extensive extensive because. Everywhere he went, the peopl mt through and. So. So at fort and the next battle was fort don osten. And that was the first one that he really worked at in when grant sold years were coming in one side of the fort at fort henry and taking from the confessor. Thats who had surrendered the mail carriers coming in from the other side to bring the mail and then he went from there to nashville or to memphis. He was always with grant. He was everywhere. And thatof the most beloved men in the United States. So heres our man. In 1862, colonel marquand, superintendent of mails, and youll s tt this photograph is fm rmy Heritage Center in carlisle. And the interesting thing to note is, of coursees not wearing a uniform. In fact, he was never actuay commissioned a colonel but grant called him colonel tgi him the status he needed to cut through red tape, which was in fact a term that originated in the civil war, to cut through red tape. And because grant called him colonel, everybody called him colonel, literally for the rest of his life. There is not one iota of formal gave him a formal commission. But, you know, here here he is in charge of the mail for us ar. Now, im going to take just a moment out to give you of the Bigger Picture and let know what was going on in the south with their mail in the south, the postmaster was a man named john regan, who had been a us congressman from texas, and he realized that he was in deep trouble. The the confederate constitution included a clause thatcm■ said t the post office was supposed to pay for itself that was never going to happen. So he pretty much just didnt handle the mail. And in fact, he had very little infrastructure to do it. The south had very poor Railroad Ties and those were all being and so what happened was there were sort of independent contractors and this man and there was a man, the confederate ■1 war coincidences go who was from kentucky who had been a steamboat man to and whos name was absalom . And he was the confederate mail nner. The for the confederacy. And he also spied and he got caught and. He escaped it time and time again. In fact, you know, the stories his life are are truly amazing, but that was the situation in the south was very much patched together, poor mail service, very poor morale. So to go back in this first full year war, winter of christmas you have this need for communication and mark on is starting to stand it up but what you also had and i try to give a Bigger Picture of the whole postal system then is a postal system that required that everybody go to the post office to their mail and you wouldnt know exactly when the mail w going to come in or not, but you had to to the post office to get your mail. Its just what i have to do on my Little Island in florida. I have to go to the post office to get the mail, but when its winter and its freezing in cleveland or new york, when its summer and its hot, when there are crowds all these women, mostly women waiting in line. And in the new york cityt office, a big post office, they had a ladys window, but in most places they did not. So they would be waiting in line and they would finally make it upname. And they might oftene presented with a letter like this one telling this woman that her husband been killed at gettysburg and the woman would break down or she would be given a whole stack, undelivered letters that she had written to her husband that that the minute that the postmaster started to hand them over, she knew that he was dead. So the postmaster in cleveland, a man named Joseph William briggs decided that he just wouldnt was not going to let the st office bome a public place of grief for theserted tsf me delivery with his post office. And as all good bosses do. Montgomery blair, postmaster general heard about this and he agreed with that. By the end of the war, there were 49 cities that we g delive. So the civil war is why you get mail delivered at home. Its also why your street has a street sign in your house has a number, and there are rules about cleaning the sidewalk of snow because all of those things had to happen in order for mail to be delivered to houses. So that the whole mail system that most of us except me enjoys is because the civil war and direct i mean, they would have gotten it too, at some time. But but Joseph Briggs jumped, the ball now by the end of the war markland had been everywhere that grant had been. And you could see this and at the very end he was even in near pomattox. E of his Great Adventures was when grant approved ma the sea and he sent markland down to atlanta to confer sherman about how to handle all of the mail that would be still coming into at from their families, while the soldiers were on the march completely cut off in less contact with the rest of world than we now have. Men on the moon. And so went down there and he not only figured out how to handle that mail, but he figured out to do it in a way that could confuse the confederates and keep them not knowing where sherman was going for at least the first couple of weeks that worked. Andmonth, sherman shows up outse of savannah. Hes his army just outside of savannah. Nobody really knew that was where he was going to end up. In fact, shermans brother asked Abraham Lincoln at a reception, do you know where my brother is . And lincoln said, well, know what hole we went into, but we dont know what hole hes coming out of. But when he came out of that hole and markland was there just off shore with a boat with 28 tons of mail, those soldiers, it is the most remarkable logistical in the civil war. I, i havent heard anybody dispute that. But it is just amazing. And so he the war is over in april of 1865, mark en to go into civilian life, become a lawyer, lobis and and grant who has just done, you know, lee on april 9th and is now trying to get the get everything in order to reduce the army, put everybody back in the into civilian mode, takes out from his busy schedule to send mark on this this is a saddle this saddle that grant used throughout the civil war and the tt that accompanies it is just beautiful. I have it in the book, but it basically says this is a token ofythe hopes that we can contue our service together. It is the prize of the artermaster museum at, a place that used to be calledor lee, virginia, but has since been changed to fort gregg adams and it is it is stunning. And when i called the Ulysses Grant president ial library to the headf the library there and museum, if they had any information, other gifts that grant hagi to people during the war, in addition to the saddle, they were just stunned. They didnt even know about the saddle, but more importantly, they said no. Grant didnt give gifts except to his family. They had no record of any other gifts. So this was really an extraordinary tribute to the man who did exactly what he was asked to do in the early stages of the war. And so in this hope that they might continue their Services Together when grant became president in 1868, he called markland in and asked him this was 1869 when he took office, asked■k him he would take on the job of being in charge of the mail in kentucky and. Tennessee. Now, thatards for somebody who had been the postmaster general of the entire army across the entire United States. But in huge responsibility. The ku klux klan began in tesewas ending and was just wreg death and destruction, part ullina. North carolina, but was also very active in tennessee and kentucky. And in kentucky, it was called the bluegrass klan. So mark one takes on this job. And the first thing he does hirm gibson, who is a free black man fromaltimore. He was he was very well educated, played th violin. He wanted to be a minister. But when he wa18, he went to louisville, kentucky, and up a school for blacks. And was very success for that. And he known. And when marcon was looking for somebody to help out grants efforts at, increasing civil rights and integrating the p