the national battlefield park. he has published a number of articles and reviews on various history topics. one of his primary interests as chief historian and as superintendent at mannasas was leading the emphasis on expanding the interpretation of the civil war for assessment. dr. sutton is currently serving as a consultant to the american battle monuments commission, assisting commission staff in developing interpretive programs to commemorate the centennial of world war i, and he's currently working on a book on world war i aimed at middle school children. dr. sutton has continued teaching, he teaches courses in the johns hopkins program on the senior adult program on civil war in the american west. he will be the resident historian for viking ocean cruises as well. dr. sutton also has written a book on the civil war era in kansas published by sky horse publishing in august 2017, and he and his son lee are editing an autobiography written by his father and lee's grandfather. with that i would like to introduce mr. robert k. sutton. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> i can't tell you how excited i am to be here. this is -- i mean i'm sitting here with goosebumps while i'm hearing the names of the victims of quantrel's raid and you actually hear their names in this setting and it's really quite moving. i have, before i get going here, my wife and my son came with me, they're in the back row, and two of my oldest, oldest friends from california, and i'm going to tell you, we were all like 5 years old when we got acquainted, sitting here on the second row, gary colter and rick anderson. so this is a very special day for me. one of the things that interested me in this topic, was that my great, i got to say -- sometimes you have trouble keeping track of the great, great, greats, but my great, great, great grandmother, my great, great grandfather, and my great grandfather immigrated to kansas in 1855, and my great, great, great grandmother lived to be 89, here in kansas. and my great grandfather was in the kansas cavalry and fought in the civil war. so i have a special attachment to kansas. with that, let me get going here, on may 24th an an of aman american man by the name of anthony byrnes was arrested on his way home from work. he worked in a men's clothing store in boston. he had not murdered anyone, he had not assaulted anyone, he had not embezzled money from his company. he had not robbed anyone at gunpoint and we not run a stoplight. he was arrested for theft, but not theft as we think of it today. he had stolen himself. this was 1854, and he was a fugitive slave from virginia. his owner had tracked him down to boston. he was captured. he was thrown into jail, because in 1854, a fugitive slave, either leaving or being taken away from his plantation was a serious crime. the reaction to the citizens of boston was instantaneous and violent. two days office he was arrested, 7,000 bostonians broke into the jail to try to release him, and in the melee, one u.s. marshal was killed and a number were injured. on may 27, three days after burns was arrested, he was brought before the befo federal magistrate by his owner for what amounted to a hearing. it really wasn't a hearing, because it really wasn't much anybody could do under the fugitive slave law to return a slave to slavery. and so the magistrate made the determination that he was a slave and ordered him returned to slavery. so on june 2nd, if you're keeping track of all this, june 2nd, a few days later, 2,000 soldiers, u.s. soldiers, and marines escorted anthony burns to boston harbor to a ship to return him to slavery. 50,000 bostonians turned out. there wasn't much they could do because they weren't going to take on the army. but they were, as you might imagine, very, very upset about the whole thing. the cost to the federal government to return one slave to bondage was somewhere between 40,000 and $100,000 in 1854 money. to add insult to injury on may 30th, while all this was going on with anthony burns, president franklin pierce signed the kansas-nebraska act which i bet 99.9% of you know what happened. the people of kansas and nebraska had the opportunity to decide whether or not they wanted slavery. and that was through popular sovereignty. that was the kansas-nebraska act. so there's a possibility that at least one, maybe two slave states would be added to the union. now, boston was really a hot bed of anti-slavery activity at the time. but for the most part the conservative businessmen were on the sidelines during this whole debate over slavery. but with the capture of anthony burns, one particular bostonian businessman by the name of amos adams lawrence. does that name sound familiar? he was so upset by whole affair that he wrote a letter to his uncle. in the letter he said we went to bed old-fashioned, conservative, compromised union wigs and waked up stark mad abolitionists. and from that moment on adams put much of his energy and money into ending slavery. now, he came from a very wealthy family. his father and uncle were both successful textile merchants in boston. so they made a lot of money. but they were also very generous with their money. amos's uncle abbott lawrence gave $50,000 to harvard to establish a science and engineering school. at that time it was the largest donation of anybody to any school in the country. and his father, whose name was also amos, retired early and spent the rest of his life doing -- in philanthropy. they were a very generous family, and that sort of was something that amos, the son, took over. and at one point in his diary he wrote he hoped he could make enough money from his businesses that he could continue to support all the programs that were important to him. well, with his newfound stark mad abolitionism, you're wondering where that comes from right? he quickly had an opportunity to put his money where his mouth was. because a gentleman in massachusetts by the name of eli thayer, who's a member of the massachusetts legislature, had just created the immigrant aid company. and the purpose was to have interest in kansas in anti-slavery movement in kansas. but mostly it was to make it as easy as possible for people from new england to migrate to kansas. well, thayer was a really good idea person, not so much a good business person and the company was sort of teetering when a mutual acquaintance introduced thayer and lawrence. and so they connected in a partnership in which thayer had the good ideas. lawrence had the muroney. all of a sudden it was very successful. lawrence realized that what was really important at this early stage was to have -- was to get people to kansas as quickly as possible. so he underwrote a survey party to go to kansas. and then he made a commitment to invest as much money as was necessary to make the trip to kansas as easy as possible and then to make it as easy as possible for the people who got there to make a living. so he sent a scouting party. and the scouting party reported back, and very quickly the first immigrant party went to kansas and arrived here august 1, 1854. now, if you're looking at the timeline, you know the thing with anthony burns was may. he was returned to slavery in june. so in a very short time, actually less than two months. they had the first immigrant party going to kansas. well, a number of immigrant parties followed this first one. they decided when the second one arrived, they decided to name their town, thinking of all kinds of names boston. they decided to name it lawrence after amos lawrence because everyone knew how much money he put into it. one local resident had a cute quote. the name sounded good and it didn't have a bad odor anywhere in the union. they decided to stick with the name lawrence. very early, as soon as the town was founded, there were three newspapers. and from the herald of freedom, which lasted longer than any of the first three, which is, by the way, online if you're interested in looking at it. i did. you can really get a sense of how quickly lawrence developed. it had a number of ads in the paper. we talked about businesses being established. it actually developed so quickly that it almost was filled up before they knew what to do with all the people that came. well, as you remember from the kansas-nebraska act, it was up to the people of kansas whether they wanted to have slavery or not. the pro-slavery side, from missouri, was almost certain that the state would be a slave state. why not? i mean, missouri is right next door. the strongest slavery plantations were right next door. so they assumed it was going to become a slave state. they were kind of alarmed when they saw all of these anti-slavery people coming into kansas. now, the pro-slavery people of missouri actually wanted to make the state a slave state, but they didn't even mind playing dirty. in fact, they were looking forward to playing dirty. and so the first territorial governor by the name of anthony reeder, one of his first jobs was to take a census of the territory. and the purpose of that was to elect a territorial legislature shortly thereafter. and so when they had the territorial election, people from missouri, hordes of people from missouri flooded across the border, either scared away or so intimidated, most of the native kansans, that they won the election. to give you a sense of how overwhelming this was, according to the 1855 census, there were 2,378 males eligible to vote in kansas, and the vote was held shortly thereafter. but 6,307 voted. now, obviously they probably missed a few. you can't catch everybody. but not 4,000. and to give you another -- a little bit more specifics here, lawrence according to the census, had 369 males eligible to vote, but 1,034 voted. so, you know, we talk about, you've heard all kinds of things. you don't have to be human -- too savvy with the news, to realize there's all kinds of talk about fraudulent elections, rigged elections, voter suppression, blah blah. this is a real thing. no doubt about this one. so what happened was the territorial legislature was made up of missouriens. they had no intention of ever, ever living in kansas. they lived in -- in fact, they moved the first -- the first capital to shawnee mission which is almost right on the missouri border so they could actually come across to do their business. the first thing they did was to pass one of the harshest slave codes in american history. to give you an example, if anyone tried to incite a slave rebellion, that was punishable by death. well, the kansas-nebraska act clearly stated that the territorial legislature would be elected by the residents of the territory. so the election of the missourians was clearly illegal. but president franklin pierce who was a northerner decided to side with the south and with the pro-slavery side and he declared the pro-slavery legislature was legal. the power of the federal government was behind this illegal, but legal pro-slavery legislature. the free state kansans, they decided they weren't going to sit around and let all this happen. so they created their own government. they elected a legislature. they elected a governor. and this also was illegal. so we have two illegal territorial legislatures. one is backed by the federal government. the other one is not backed by the federal government, but they're both illegal. well, the president franklin pierce, as i said, sided with the pro-slavery legislature. and he decided that the free state legislature was not only illegal, but it was treasonous. so he had all the leaders of this free state party arrested and thrown in jail for treason. the leader of the free state party had been the main businessman in kansas for the immigrant aid company. his name was charles robinson. that name might be familiar with a lot of you, but he was the leader of the free state movement. charles robinson and i think six other kansans were arrested for treason. this is kind of interesting too. the grand jury that indicted robinson and the others, they also indicted the free state hotel and the newspapers. now, how in the world can you say that a newspaper and a hotel is treason? well, they did. and this becomes significant a little bit later on. well, to the pro-slavery folks in missouri, lawrence was sort of like a scab that needed to be picked. lawrence became the center of attack for these missourians. in 1855 the missourians lined up on the outskirts of lawrence ready to attack. but they quickly realized that the people of lawrence were well trained and well armed. and so the missourians backed off and the raccarussa was a war with no bloodshed. a free state man was killed on his way to lawrence. he became a martyr. but the chapter of that book -- that chapter in my book, i call it the almost bloodless rakka rusea war. what's interesting about the kansas at this time, and especially the free state side of kansas was the role of women. there were two free state women, margaret wood and lois brown who joined their husbands in defying the pro-slavery forces. and in the raccarussa war they took a way gone through the missouri pro-slavery lines to a cache of weapons and ammunition outside of lawrence. they loaded it in the wagon, came back through town and so they provided all these goodies for their anti-slavery husbands. what's interesting is that these two women and a number of other women were equal partners to their husbands in the anti-slavery movement, something very unusual at the time. one woman who i really sort of got attached to through this whole thing is sarah robinson, the wife of charles robinson. in 1856 she wrote a book that was called the -- i'll get it here in a minute. "kansas: interior and exterior life," wrote it in 1856. she beautifully chronicled the life in kansas and it became influential in the east, people in the east read it, recognized what was going on with the folks especially in lawrence, kansas. and she had a very important role in the early history of kansas. and also when her husband, charles robinson, was being held for treason. she traveled to the east, she met a number of people along the way, including abraham lincoln in illinois, she went to boston and she worked with amos lawrence to get her husband and the rest of these captives released. so she had a very important role. now, the people of lawrence recognized that they were targets and that they had to defend themselves. so they were very successful working with amos lawrence, horace greeley and others in the east in acquiring the finest weapons of the day called sharps rifles. and they shipped them to kansas in kind of interesting ways. they called them bibles, called them books. they would take them all apart and put them back together when they got to kansas. another person who helped raise money for this was the reverend henry ward beecher from new york. and he was -- in fact a lot of these were called beecher's bibles, the weapons were called beecher's bibles. and someone asked him why he did this as a christian minister, why did he raise this money for these bibles. he said one sharps rifle had more power with the pro-slavery folks than 100 bibles. he said you might as well read bibles to buffalos. as try to convince these folks that they're wrong. so it was kind of a fun story. but while charles robinson and some of the others were being held in prison, the pro-slavery missourians again attacked lawrence. this time they had the federal government behind them, the army behind them. and it was called the sack of lawrence. and the free state actually stayed overnight at the -- free state hotel last night. so the free state hotel was burned. the newspapers were -- they were not burned, but they scattered -- ruined the presses, threw all of the type in the river and scattered it around, a number of houses were burned. so even though the folks in lawrence were armed to the teeth with the finest weapons available, amos lawrence and charles robinson really warned the people of kansas to not become violent. they felt it was important for them not to become violent. but one recent arrival in kansas, a gentleman by the name of john brown, decided that the generally approach to the anti-slavery folks was not working too well. he was not a resident of lawrence. he lived a number of miles south of lawrence. he, his sons and others murdered five pro-slavery settlers this touched attacks and counterattacks in what was called bleeding kansas. proand anti-slavery militias attacked each other. they attacked pro-slavery strongholds in and around lawrence. and they reacquired -- the stubs reacquired a cannon that was confiscated from them in the sack of lawrence. they only had a couple of cannon balls. they got the people of lawrence to collect the type from the herald of freedom that had been scattered around, and molded this type into cannon balls lead cannon balls. the next time they fired the fort, the cannoner, here is the next edition of the herald freedom. i love that -- that's one of my favorite things from the whole story. well, the violence nearly stopped in 1856 when a new governor by the name of john gary became the territorial governor. he was not going to take sides, not proslave or free state. he made it very clear, but he also put his money where his mouth was. the missourians were ready to attack lawrence yet again. they sent the army down overnight and they stopped what would have been the third attack on lawrence. but also, as the soldiers were marching back to lee compton, the territorial capital, lawrence stubs were coming back from an attack on a pro-slavery stronghold. he arrested them as well. he made it clear he wasn't going to side with pro-slavery or anti-slavery sides. in 1857 things began to change because there was a new election for a territorial legislature. and this time the missourians didn't cross the border and the abolitionists finally won an election fair and square. the new free state territorial legislature tore down and built up new laws for kansas. first thing they did was rescind all of the pro-slavery laws. but before they became the state -- the territorial legislature, the pro-slavery legislature called for a constitutional convention and wrote a constitution called the lee compton constitution. now, this gets really, really confusing so i'm going to try to -- i should have a blackboard to write all this up here. the free state legislature had written a constitution in 1856, and they sent it to congress, a constitution for the state of kansas. it didn't pass congress, really not much of a chance to pass things. the lee compton constitution was the second constitution that was prepared by the pro-slavery side. it was sent to congress. they had a vote in kansas, but the anti-slavery folks boycotted the election. so it won, but just by a tiny fraction of residents in kansas. the new president at the time, james buchanan wanted kansas to be admitted as a slave state. so he did everything he could to get the lee compton constitution through congress. congress refused to pass it, sent it back to kansas for another vote. the kansans voted that one down, so the pro-slavery folks are out of the picture in kansas. the new legislature actually -- the new territorial legislature actually wrote two new constitutions. so are you keeping track? one, two, three, four actually had a chance of passing because the constitutional convention for the fourth one actually had a very balanced membership on the committee to write the constitution. it went to congress. but again it had really no chance of passing because the congress was so horribly divided. how about the term dysfunctional? that they really couldn't pass any significant legislation. but as soon as the south receded and the legislators, the congress people from the north -- or excuse me from the south left with their states that seceded, now there was enough votes for kansas to be admitted and so kansas was admitted to the union on the eve of the civil war. now, when the civil war started, there was -- there really was no state in the country that probably was more prepared for the civil war than kansas because they'd been through all this bleeding kansas. and what's interesting is that the kansas provided more soldiers per capita and had more casualties per capita than any other northern state. and it was -- you know, just a really, really -- also came to lawrence. and what's interesting is that there are some of the folks in the lawrence that had a real -- they were really conflicted with this issue of fugitive slaves. all they knew was that slavery was wrong, and they knew they needed to do something to end slavery. they were very conflicted because they knew they would be breaking the law. one person in particular, a really fascinating -- the minister of the congregational church, his name was richard cordley, wrote two histories of lawrence. he wrote in one of his books that when he was a student at an dover seminary in the east, the fugitive slave law was passed and he said that when he saw it he decided it was the scum of all villainies. and he decided if he ever had a chance to do anything about it he would do whatever he could to help slaves if they escaped. when he was confronted with the chance to actually put his money where his mouth was, he said it's really easy to talk bravely from a thousand miles away but it's very difficult to actually make a decision about this when you have the opportunity. but one of his parishioners came to him and asked if he and his wife, they didn't have any children, would keep an escaped slave woman by the name of lizzie in their house. when the opportunity presented, there was only one thing to do so he kept lizzie. he and his wife kept lizzie in their house for a period of time until they were actually able to sneak her out of the state into canada. some of the people were conflicted, but some of them had no problem at all trying to help slaves escape. so one of my favorite people in the story was a man named dr. john doy. he listed his profession as a hydropathic doctor. i think if you translate that is probably means quack. but anyway, one of the things that he -- one of the things he did, he was a close associate of john brown. he actually would go into missouri to help not only try to help slaves escape, but he'd actually go in and try to steal them from their owners in missouri. he wrote an autobiography which was fun. you can get it online, kind of cool. there's a youtube -- the story i'll get to in a minute, a nub of h youtube you can pull up easily. if i can do it, you can do it. in 1859, this is interesting, the people of lawrence asked him if he would help 12 free blacks leave lawrence and go to canada. now, he -- he had helped, i don't know how many dozen slaves, slaves escape, fugitive slaves escape, but now he's being asked to take free african-americans out of lawrence. he agrees to do it. he gets a few miles out of town and he's arrested by missourians. this is kind of like -- i'm sure you heard about al capone. he did all these horrible things, but he was arrested for income tax evasion. well, john doy had helped slaves escape. when he's trying to help free blacks -- the reason they're doing this is that slave catchers would come into lawrence and try to kidnap either free blacks or slaves. so he gets 12 miles out of town, he's arrested. he is taken to missouri. he's tried. he is convicted. i won't go the whole story, he's convicted to five years of hard labor. well, in one of the really, really interesting stories is ten men from lawrence went to where he was being held. they broke him out of jail. they took him back to lawrence, and there's a wonderful picture of -- they're called the immortal ten, taken back to lawrence where he's a hero. well, what happened during the civil war was that kansas -- there were -- there were gorillas in kansas called the jay hawkers. if you don't know -- if you've never heard the word jay hawk or jay hawkers, there are something wrong here. but the jay hawkers were guerrillas on the union side, the union army tried to control them without much luck, but they tried to control them. but on the confederate side guerrillas were not only legal, but encouraged by the federal government. in 1862 the confederate government passed the partisan ranger act of 1816. guerrillas were not only legal, but they could be paid by the government and have their officers and so forth. one young man by the name of william clark quantril became a guerrilla leader. i have a problem calling him a guerrilla. to me he's really a thug. by the time he finished he had some of the nastiest people you could ever imagine in his guerrilla band. bloody bill anderson was part of his band. toward the end, people who were around him said that every time he was beginning to think of killing people he'd literally start foaming at the mouth. cole younger was part of the gang. frank james, and later his kid brother jesse james were part of this whole thing. everything came to a head, a tragic head in august 1863 and you know all about that because you've heard the names of the people killed in quantril's raid on lawrence in 1863. there were 400 guerrillas. they were directed to kill every man and every boy tall enough to hold a gun. as you know about 200 were killed. and there's some we're not even sure about. so 200 more or less were killed. quantril's raid was the most gruesome act in the entire civil war, and most historians would agree that. the descriptions will make you sick. i'm not going to read those. but there were also a number of remarkable escapes. one african-american man, he knew that he was probably a target. so he took off and started running, ran for four miles to the walker russa river, climbed up in a tree, thought he was safe only to realize a couple hours later that when quantril's army left, they literally marched under the tree he was in. but he was safe, not attacked. another story that's kind of interesting is the night before the raid a gentleman by the name of mr. wenchel, we don't know his first name, that worked for the pacific railroad was in town to talk about the railroad coming to lawrence. when the raid happened he ran into the house of episcopal minister who happened to be away. the minister's wife helped him shave off his beard, put dresses on him, wrapped him in blankets, put him in a chair with medicine bottles around him. when the men came in, don't bother aunt bessie, we don't know how much longer she's going to be with us. he was saved. reverend fisher -- one of the major targets of quantril were politicians and ministers. the minister of the methodist church, reverend fisher, was in his house. the guerrillas knew he was in his house. they decided they were going to -- whatever they were going to do, they were going to kill him. they couldn't find him so they set the house on fire. well, reverend fisher's wife helped him crawl out of the cellar, the basement. she covered him with rugs and furniture while the house was burning and he was saved. so there were some remarkable saves as well. now, before quantril's raid, this is kind of hard to do the transition because it's -- makes sense but it doesn't. a few months before quantril's raid the legislature in kansas made the decision that the university of kansas would be in lawrence. part of the deal was that they had to come up with $15,000 to the state legislature for that to happen. in order to get the university in their town, josiah miller, who had been the editor of one of the first newspapers in town, he sort of in and out of lawrence, josiah miller bribed the state legislators, gave them each $5 to vote for lawrence. when the vote came he realized he'd missed two. he snuck over, he didn't have enough to give them each five, but he gave them four and they voted for lawrence to have the state university. well, of course, with quantril's raid, coming up with $15,000 was a big deal because every penny they had, every ounce of energy they had was going toward rebuilding their town. so they didn't have that. so charles robinson contacted our friend amos lawrence and asked him if he would -- if he would contribute 15,000 so that they could have the university. he had already contributed, oh, gosh, i couldn't keep track. i think -- i'm not good at math. everything i was able to add up, it looks like he gave about $50,000 to lawrence and to kansas and that's in 1850 money. he gave them $10,000, they were able to come up with the rest of the money to have the university of kansas located in lawrence. now, what's interesting is i've read several things that said that lawrence, his name was attached to the town but he never came here. well, actually he did. in 1884, amos lawrence, his wife, his daughter, and the mayor of boston, came to kansas and to lawrence. they rolled out the red carpet, had all kinds of things planned over several weeks for them. lawrence was a very private man. he really did not like the limelight. after about two or three days, he just didn't want to be here anymore, talk all these adulations. he got back on the train and went to boston. but he did visit here. and so that is -- i think this is amazing. but after -- with lawrence's money, with the railroad, there actually were two railroads that came through lawrence shortly after the war, a new bridge built across the kansas river. lawrence actually recovered very quickly and very successfully with all of these economic features and with the university and it became a thriving town very quickly after quantril's raid. in my mind history doesn't have a whole lot of value unless it can inform the present. i think kansas really provides a wonderful opportunity for us to do that. american politicians today talk about voter fraud, voter suppression, and so forth. but the territorial election in kansas in 1855, i mean, there is no question that this was a prime example of voter fraud. i think the most -- most critical piece for a democratic republic to function properly is for the participation in the pop lus in selecting its representatives. anything that undermines that process compromises the entire system. so i think that's one lesson that we learned that you just -- that blatant voter fraud just does not work. this past week we came to realize that hatred, bigotry, racism faced by the people of lawrence over 150 years ago has reared its ugly face in charlottesville, virginia. i think the people of lawrence and kansas refuse to tolerate bigotry and racism in the 1850s and 60s and were willing to go to great lengths to eradicate that. and i think that's another lesson that we have, that people were willing -- literally willing to give their lives to eradicate hatred and bigotry in the 1850s. but i think the most important lesson from this story is that many americans were so passionate about ending slavery, people like amos lawrence poured a fortune of his own money toward ensuring that kansas would become a free state. other abolitionists were willing to immigrate to an unfamiliar area of the country without any assurances of financial success to make kansas a free state. and finally, americans in the north were willing to fight a civil war to preserve the union and to end the institution of slavery. maybe we can learn from their example and recognize that eradicating evil benefits all. thank you. [ applause ] >> i'm very happy to take questions. >> i have a question. >> yes, ma'am. >> you mentioned that guerrillas banding together -- were somewhat encouraged by the government and in fact paid. >> by the confederates, not by the north, but by the south, that is correct. >> oh, by the south? >> by the south confederates, not the north. >> quantril had been a -- >> he actually was a captain in the confederate army, theoretically, and he was able to have -- actually he was very upset. he thought he was so cool. he traveled to richmond and demanded that he be made a colonel. they began to find out how -- what -- how bloodthirsty he was. they didn't give him that title. he could have had the title of colonel as a guerrilla chieftain. in some ways i look at this as domestic terrorism, sanctioned by the government, paid by the government, recognized by the government. on the north they tried to control the jay hawkers. had some success. but they were -- they were not encouraged to go on their own as guerrillas. in fact, they tried to control them with varying degrees of success, mostly unsuccess. yes? let me catch this young lady here in the front, and then i'll try to repeat the questions so that you -- yes, ma'am. >> i would like to know if you in your studies have run across the name of james monroe williams. >> i don't recall that name. but if you look at the -- look at the index of my book, there are about a thousand -- not a thousand, a lot of names. i might have come across it, but i just don't recall, sorry. >> that's okay. he was one of the first foreign immigrants. >> yes, i did remember that. when you threw the middle name in, i didn't catch it. yes, was it the first colored regiment. i do remember that, i'm sorry. >> he was my great uncle. >> fantastic. did you hear that? the leader of the first kansas infantry regiment colored at fort scott was her great uncle. >> dr. sutton, i'm particularly interested in your perspective related to your -- today with regard to the confederate monuments. >> this is -- i'm sorry to laugh. but we were just talking before. i said i bet the first question i get -- yes, it took three. >> so particularly, is it your viewpoint that we should leave those up as a reminder of our past, or should they be removed? if they should be removed, what is the criteria for deciding which of our monuments and statues should be removed? >> that's a good question. it's supposed to be yes or no though. i have -- to me it's a complicated issue, and i've been thinking about it actually for quite a while. and i have been thinking of it in the context of the confederate flag. so the confederate battle flag, you know, the st. andrews cross, the battle flag, to me it has no place at all in our country. i don't care what anybody says. and the reason is because it essentially disappeared from the public entirely until a civil rights movement. and the confederate battle flag became the symbol of the anti-civil rights movement. and so it should be -- it should be done away with. that's my feeling about that. but about confederate monuments. my personal view is that they should not be taken down. they're part of our culture. like it or not, they're part of our culture. what i would like to see is what richmond actually proposed early on. now i think they've sort of changed the view of this. but to leave the monuments in place and put interpretive markers there to interpret what happened. we did that in the park service. there was a monument in harpers ferry to hayward shepherd. he was a free black man, the first person killed in john brown's raid. and the daughters of the confederacy put a monument up to hayward shepherd, said he was a nice guy. essentially an uncle tom, right? and so the park didn't know what to do with it. for a while they built a wooden box to put over this monument. so the sons and daughters of the confederacy were upset because they put the wooden box around it. the naacp was upset because they didn't take it and throw it in the river. eventually what they did is put an interpretive marker. for the most part, that's what i would do with confederate monuments. there are exceptions, and i think the exceptions are very important. so i just saw the other day that lexington, kentucky has confederate monuments. but they are on the site of a former slave market. and they did it for a reason, there was good reason why they did that. not a good reason, but the reason they did that. so i think they should be removed, taken away from a slave market because that is now, i think, sacred ground that does not deserve to have a confederate monument. they should be taken away. and then there are some particularly in my mind egregious individuals that should not have monuments, and i would just as soon see them gone completely like nathan bedford forest. he murdered hundreds of african-american soldiers who had surrendered at fort pillow and then he became the founding member of the ku klux klan. from what i understand, i don't know this for a fact, i've heard it from several people, there are more monuments to nathan bedford forest in tennessee than all three presidents from tennessee combined. in my mind you take away all the nathan bedford forest monuments, and that's fine. what's also interesting is that robert e. lee said he didn't want monuments, didn't think it was appropriate to build monuments after the civil war. that's what he said. it's complicated. that's kind of my -- i've got to tell you, my views are sort of evolving. i hope others are too. that's my take on that. yes, sir? >> you didn't mention john brown very much. was he a help or a hindrance? what did he do specifically to help kansas? >> he didn't do much to help kansas, to be honest. >> i didn't think so. but the people -- >> if anything he was a real detriment to kansas. by killing the pro-slavery people in pottawatamie creek, he started bloody kansas. he worked with dr. john doy, doctor in quotes, john doy to go steal slaves in missouri. so he came back and did that. but in my mind he was more of a detriment than he was a help. but what's interesting is that he had an interesting relationship with amos lawrence. he had sold wool to amos lawrence years before, i don't remember exactly when, but years before this whole story of kansas. and then when he went to kansas, he went to see his buddy, amos lawrence, who essentially wrote a letter of introduction to him. and then he came back again, not long before he went to harpers ferry. and met with lawrence again and asked lawrence to help him with this project. and lawrence, of course, refused. and he said, you know, i've given a lot of money to kansas, and, you know, to this issue already, which he had. but when john brown asked him if he would take care of his family, if anything happened to him, lawrence agreed to do that. and he did. he actually took care of his family when john brown -- and he wrote a letter to the governor of virginia hoping that they would give him a fair trial. which they did, so that's -- there's more connections. it doesn't really -- there's not a whole lot that fits with the story because he triggered things, but then kind of left. >> the good people of kansas think the civil war started there. they look at mr. brown as a hero. i've always kind of disagreed with that a little bit. >> there's so much debate over john brown, was he completely insane or was he just a zealot? i don't know. was he insane or a zealot, i don't know, i have no idea. anyone else? yes, sir. >> you -- quantril. was there a directive to try and keep irritating the union army? >> yes, part of their -- part of the deal with the partisan ranger act was that they were supposed to -- if they were requested by the confederate commanders to join up, that was supposed to be their role. they could call on them. and so theoretically what they were supposed to do was to like be scouts, you know, cover retreats and that sort of thing. they were supposed to be available when called upon. and sometimes they were -- quantril's folks were twice when called upon. bloody bill anderson kind of went his own way. i read about him and i just go, my goodness gracious. in my book i have a picture of him, looks like a squash buckling hero, and i have audit picture and he's dead. anything else? yes, ma'am. >> with quantril, you didn't address what his profession was at one point. >> i could go on forever about him. he was a schoolteacher. he was a schoolteacher, apparently a real smart guy. what's interesting is later, after he's dead, there are all kinds of things, but people said he was a real scoundrel. as a boy testifies such a nasty boy, he would pull the wings off of flies and that sort of thing. people who knew him said no, he was very studious. you would never in a million ways guessed what he would have been like later. when he was a teenager, he actually taught school, went to indiana and illinois to teach school. his father died when he was young so he was sort of the breadwinner for the family. he was from ohio originally. so he went back to his home in ohio and then went to kansas with a group of folks from his town. they settled there. the folks in this group from the town, it's called dover canal, i think was the name of the time. now it's called dover ohio. noticed things were missing. they eventually caught him red handed stealing things from this group. they told him to leave, he did leave. but he taught school in kansas also. and then he went west, went to pikes peak. he actually came back to lawrence. he lived in lawrence for a while under the name of william clark, i think. is that -- yeah, i can't remember names. william clark. william clark, and that's when he really turned into what he became later. because he became a horse thief. he realized he could make a lot of money stealing horses. he also was a slave stealer. what he would do is go to missouri and steal slaves and come back and then take the slaves back to missouri to get the reward for capturing the slaves. at one point he and five quakers went on a mission to try to capture -- to capture slaves at a big plantation. they went there. he said when they arrived he said i'm going to go scout out the situation so we can go do our deal tonight. so what he did was he went and found the son of the slave owner, said this is what's going to happen tonight. these five quakers are going to attack, why don't you get someone to counterattack? they did. so he stayed out of the picture. they shot -- they killed one quaker. two of them escaped back to lawrence. two of them were injured, hid out. he went out with the son of the slave owner, shot the two quakers who had left, and that really was sort of the turning point in his life. he then joined the confederate army and then became a -- you get a sense of he wasn't a really nice guy. he really wasn't. after the raid in lawrence he and his band went down to -- i think to texas, arkansas area. the army -- the confederate army was getting kind of disgusted with these guerrillas. they didn't like them very much. they reorganized. quantril was voted out as a leader. he was underground for a while. eventually he went to kentucky, took his band to kentucky and again he called himself william clark. he had him dressed in union uniforms, part of the fifth missouri cavalry. eventually he was shot. what's interesting is he was shot after the war was over, shot in the back. he lingered for a couple of days. he became a -- the report is he became a very devout catholic just before he died. he was buried and then it really gets bizarre. he was buried in lexington, kentucky, but a friend of his took some of the bones to dover where he was from. someone kept his head. and then about 15 years ago the sons of confederate veterans took some of the bones and buried them in missouri. so if you want to try to find everything that belongs to william clark quantril, be my guest. he was really a pretty -- as far as i can tell, a pretty nasty person. anything else? all right, thank you. [ applause ] >> there weekend on american history tv on cspan 3, saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on lectures in history, american university professor aaron bell talks about privacy laws and federal surveillance of civil rights leaders. >> here's the head and intel operations, william sullivan shortly after -- martin luther king's famous i have a dream speech. we must mark king now, if we have not before, as the most dangerous negro in the future of this nation. >> announcer: former members of congress and vietnam war veterans reflect on lessons learned and ignored during the war. >> we learned the limits of military power during the vietnam war. we learned that as a society, as a culture, that you can't kill an idea with a bullet. >> announcer: american history tv this weekend only on c-span 3. >> announcer: you're watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span 3. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. >> announcer: our c-span cities tour takes american history tv on the road to feature the history of cities across america. on our recent visit to sioux falls, south dakota, we visited an exhibit on native american studies. it tells the story of american indians and white immigrants who called this region home. voices of the northern plains refers to many different ways that life on