Book does well maybe these places will not be so obscure. Places like the glowworm cave, people in new zealand know about. So sometimes its a case of case of spotlighting places that are only known locally. Im bringing in more people from outside so they know about it. In general that is a concern. In terms of cultural sensitivity , absolutely this is a big concern of ours after we never want to point to something to say thats weird, what are these people doing. We include things in the book because we want to celebrate them. We want to show i get a sense of what is out there the world. One of the prime reasons press doing this is how do people see the world. What perspectives can we view this from. So that was definitely something we thought about in terms of the language and tone we are using. Speaking to people who are part of these groups anywhere in these museums. That trying to to represent them without talking to them. I mean even the concept of exploration and discovery is a little bit loaded. It is kind of the images of the white guy in the ship or the phrase cabinet of curiosities. Are the grand european tour. Its cashed up white guy going and taking stuff and bring it back. We want to move beyond that. We see expiration and discovery is something that doesnt require money or status or feud to be a particular type of person. So it is more about the mentality and philosophy of it. We wanted to be accessible to all. [inaudible conversations] good evening, everyone. Welcome to National Press club. The washington correspondent in the 109th president of National Press club. And the author of an imperfect union in the aftermath welcome to our Live Audience today as well as hes been the tv. In his new book, check exports of the gettysburgs most stories searching for his soldier son in the haze of the battle while also touching on the journals of practice. In the full measure of devotion. Jim baron said of the imperfect union, hes perfect though, one that contains an aerial intimate view of the cost of the greatest value in north america. And served as a National Correspondent for 25 years. A graduate of South Dakota State University at stanford and is a proud member of the National Press club. Tell us a little bit about the book and then will switch to questions for a while. The book is an imperfect union. I see an awful lot of familiar faces out here and anticipate the questions coming down the road. I will say that i hope you withhold judgment on this afterwards and as donald trump taught us last night you really shouldnt make snap judgments. So give me the whole hour. I may. We will get out of here as soon as we can. I want to have fun tonight and answer questions mainly. I wrote this book one of which is an episode you remember in a situation that nfl player went to war as this hero in this Great American hero going to afghanistan and it turns out later that what has been built up around him was not necessarily the correct thing that happened. He most likely later was killed by his own men. So it got me thinking and not spare him the whole issue at the idea of having mythology and mythologize people in war and why we have to do that, why they have to create heroes. Ive been thinking about that for a number of years. In 23rd and when i was in for usa today considering whether or not to take the bio also often one of the sad kind of commentary said the newspaper industry of our time. I was sent to gettysburg to cover the 150th anniversary and i thought this is kind of a boring assignment frankly because who the heck is not read about and read about gettysburg. Everything you can think. Every general wrote a memoir about the battle. I kind of went up there and not all that fired up about the estate. The colic and i were up there two days and reporting and Public Officials and the head of the Gettysburg National territory. We were on the second day and about ready to go home and we decided to make one wise stop which frankly has nothing to do with my boat. Little round top was filled with tourists. They are kids you could look down in the valley and the kids played in iraqs been there with these groups are rapidly taking pictures and not being very quiet even though all the guys were saying this is reverend graham. I noticed off in the corner of my eye there were two elderly couples middleaged turned out to be their sign. They were the clerks from vermont and they had come to the battle field with the diary of a private clerk who had been killed on the third day of the battle of gettysburg. He was a great, great whatever it is, through four generations removed. They had traced his final days and hours that third day of the battle. They were just very quiet, very reverend, very studious about it and they were almost i know what i say overemotional, but they stood out in the emotion that they had as opposed to just the other two areas. And so i went over and talked to them and it turns out the family had helped his diary and very much pristine throughout the generation and often speculated back and forth between the two cause between generations in the country and often speculated they universally liked a lot of people thought he would go a long way and roderick and the Public Service area with a big and he was a really good speaker and very wellliked and like i said he was killed thursday in the battle. And though it struck me there at history and protect these great events that we talk about is not about some remote event hundreds of years ago. Its history in the aftermath of war is neverending. It never leads families. With that in mind, with those to invent his mind, there had to have been a bigger story there. This story that is central to my book there is a very prominent display about a 19yearold lieutenant of the union army, the youngest artillery officer in the union army was the hero day one that gettysburg. His unit had been sent into an untenable position by very controversial skill debate and tactical decisions that was put forth by very controversial general. The story, the myth around him is that he was this kid at 18 euros old had held the line just long enough for reinforcements of the union army to hold the rich and for that position the army was able to repel the next two days of assault and basically held the union and by implication held the union together. Its my belief after researching this book number 909foot of oyo apologized if i look a little eyes weary. After researching this book, it is my contention that would have been but this kid on the first day in the 2209 it was near him on the battlefield is every bit as important as what happened and takes charge two days later. If they hadnt acted and they hadnt gone into the breach, the whole union army wouldve been rolled up and probably pushed back in harrisburg, baltimore or washington. So from that point, it became evident to me that putting the two events together, the mythmaking netted, contemporaneously around that one episode that we were so equipped to make him a hero and the story was heroically led this countercharge at the same men in afghanistan are ducky day. But when you started peeling down the real story, it was not a myth built up around him. So consequently, i felt this was the best stories to tell because the story of these two people, the father who was a New York Times correspondent and his son has been so mythologize. A very famous author or artist at the time had made this very heroic etching of head and if you look at history books and if you go to art museums, you can see renditions of this in the depiction of young man painting or sold holding a sword, standing a bloody surrounded on all three sides. We thought there would be a great back story to look and see how the myth match reality. I concluded two things. Number one the story told about how he was wounded and died, which is a particularly gruesome story but part of the mythology of heroism, he has said if you go up to gettysburg, he is said to have had shot through the leg in the state. The cannonball source in that way and be self amputated his leg and stayed on the battlefield and still direct that his men for 10 minutes before hes hauled off to the county courthouse. That is what she read when you go up there. You can see the night and which is alleged to have cut his own leg off. I believe after my research and whatever that that didnt happen that way. I think it happened in a different way. So while it debunks the mythology around him and i think may have cost a little bit of heart ache at the National Military park, i believe that the reality of the story of how he arrived on the battlefield, how he fought on the battlefield and more so how you spend the next and final 10 hours of his life for it clears more selfsacrificing, more heroic and more endearing to the permanent story than any myth that we could ever throw around. Its not a particularly good story. It is not a comforting story, but it is a realist worry about what happens to people in the water. The other thing that i thought was a good hook for this story was a very famous New York Times person at the time that he was not only hope into journalism. He was into a number of other areas of public life and a staunch abolitionist. Hed run for Public Office himself before becoming a journalist as an abolitionist. He was married to the sister of Elizabeth Cady stanton, his wife was somewhat tangential in the movement. And so he was a very public figure and he had been very, very outspoken about the need to win the war. He was what they called a bitter renderer. He felt like there was no sacrifice of a separate pane included the life of one of his nephews whom he had his body he had to retrieve the year before gettysburg after he had been killed there. So he was on record in the very decisive ways the same no matter what the sacrifices, we need to win this war. Suddenly, he apprised of the battlefield on the first day of gettysburg and misinformed by several officers that his son has been badly wounded. They take him to the poor house on the other side and so the book is about his search for his boy in the aftermath of the battle and the tens of thousands of people that came from all over the country whose paths he crossed as armies are pulling out the survey of mercy kamen and a whole balance of heroes were unknown including africanamericans whove been hunted, it even stepped forward to help in hearing the two armies pulled out of a search to 20,000 men. You can imagine the kind of challenges that were there. So the stories about his search for his son, but also in that area. But they also felt like because he was such a prominent journalist at the time that he would have been a good book. The book is also about the rise of the war correspondent. This was the first major american war and really the second born after the crimean war where you have reporters embedded with our mr. Battlefield and there were about 45 of the correspondence with both armies that gettysburg. So the story is kind of how they were having to reinvent this profession and embed the profession of the workhorse during a Communications Revolution telegraph, which to me is every bit as impact in on that era of American History as the internet has been in our era. The correspondence called it the lightning. It took three weeks to get the news that the end of the battle of 1812 for the work they can fall back to washington. Samuelson was filing instantaneously and so the book goes into all of these carrots errors and they were cared chairs. They ranged from very smug intellectuals to excons that were out working for newspapers than gathering news. They literally had to walk through valleys of death. One was killed and gettysburg. Several were wounded. One correspondent embedded with the union navy who was shot 18 times during the war. So the book also explores that area as well. So im not now, i have marked five short passages of the book that in particular i think you folks in the room better in the business, but even if youre not in the business, we will relate to and it shows how relatable history can be to the modern construct of our lives. If youll indulge me a promise i wont read too long. The first one is an extra from this guy named Charlie Kaufman is a very colorful reporter for the boston journal. He was fearless. He was really known for taking risk and a lot of his other course on it, fellow course on it when commenting on how reckless he wasnt covering battles. After the battle, he writes the following. As the bloodiest single day of the war. He writes about how the war correspondent went about his work and i say his because as far as i know there were only a handful that were in apple valley have correspondents covering the war. Heres an describing how how they went about this is. It goes to the points where journalists from everybody else over to, quote, when the soldiers are seeking rest, the work of the Army Correspondent begins. All through today, i offenders have been up in. The notebook is sprawled, but meaningless a few hours later. Every reporter in the room will understand that. He must his way along the lines of the dark is, visit the hospitals, here the narratives of all, eliminate error, get out the probable group, not proof, the probable truth, keeping of remind that each general takes is for great come at each colonel thinks his regiment, every cap in his company. End quote. I picked that out because of the term probable end that the good circles us back to pat tillman and kind of this whole idea of writing the first draft of his eerie. Tommy and i were talking earlier today about the lessons i learned. One of the lessons i learned is no story is ever finished. You need to keep coming back to the story. To me that is what this part thats a charlie page thats a charlie page told me in this. Anybody in your has ever covered war or covert conflict would understand this and that contacts. So that is the first. The second one actually is probably my favorite quote of the book and its my favorite quote of all the research i did and it has to do with something every journalist in the room i never did do this. Expense accounts. Even if youre not a journalist, you relate to it. Horace greeley was for a long time the boss sam wilson at the new york tribune and he whispered at the the Rupert Murdoch ted turner, whatever, at this time. Probably the most famous man in america other than abraham lincoln. But he also is running an enterprise at newspapers that were losing money. They relay not a lot of money. Early in the war, albeit from the book, he really raised a ruckus over creative writing an expense account of a colleague named charlie paige, another one of these carrots yours. When greeley ault were some unusual at and an indignant page for relate that he got the news he paid for. Quote, he says, early news is expensive news, mr. Greeley. If i have watermelons and whiskey ready when officers come along, i get the news that asking questions. [laughter] that to me im going to use the watermelons and whiskey line the next time i follow up a disputed expense report. The third passage, this is what editors fall over. This is my way of saying the world couldnt exist and still cant exist without editors. I dont care whats going on in our business, we need them. This is about another character that was working for horace greeley. He was very well known. He was a very excellent editor and later on, he had greeley had a falling out over the war. This is a particularly interesting episode at the beginning of the war when the reporters were so kind of green. At the tribune, wilson was one of many carrots are surrounding greeley. The managing editor who would like sam eventually run into disagreement with greeley over the course of the war was quick witted, ambitious and skeptical. Early in the war, a green correspondent had begun a telegraph dispatch of a battle, this is honest to god, to god almighty be the glory, mine eyes have seen the work of the lord and the cause of the righteous have triumphed. End quote. Charles dean shot back a one sentence telegraph response. Hereafter, tina wrote sarcasm dripping, in sending your report, please specify the number of ahead and save telegraph accident is. [laughter] so who would want to work with people like that . Okay, lets see, we have a couple last year. I appreciate your indulgence. This is my favorite reporters story and anytime we get into a reporter editor argument about who is more valuable to the process, which i think is probably an argument or get resolved, but at least its fun to have. Sam wilson in the Peninsula Campaign, each of them almost died covering that campaign. At least one of them suffering ptsd. One night he decided he didnt want to die of chance. He didnt want to bother his mates. So he walks out of the tent and almost round. A union army surgeon has to come along and basically brings him back to life. Here is what happened after this episode. Set during the Peninsula Campaign and the ensuing battles of 1862, diamond will send slept nearly sidebyside out yours or in private homes commanded by union troops. The experience of may 25th, 1862 typify their situation. A bottle with t. He shared with officers who granted interviews, keeping enough to try and do an ailing back, but the horrific conditions continue to take tolls. Over the course of the next week he would twice be prescribed opiate, treating his serious stomach pains and. One night commonwealths then shared a beatendown cabin as headquarters for a Union Brigadier general. He had long supported as a source this general. He spent most of the evening interviewing officers think id join him. Not so much the next day. The mattress bed shared was so bad that in spite of my fatigue i stumbled considerably as wilkinson told me in the morning. Heres where it gets good. God became so ill that will send ordered him back to new york. He arrived by train june 5th, 1862 looking like a walking skeleton in racks. I was wretchedly fan with a sunburned face, my hair long he wrote. My hat without a bed in which i had often said emile, may have the code of steam from the rain, the earth and the resident gun against which i had lands. A waistcoat was almost but less. My trousers tucked and can want to miss the defeat wanted to racks on the saddle. So we go on. To make matters worse, his editors immediately began lambasting him about the excess and by implication the stories the tribune was not kidding. One of them told god would almost died covering the war that he admired the herald in shaping mcclellan, for his correspondent. In other words, you were getting beaten. So it even pushing yourself to the threshold of death store to get the story was not enough to please editors in this hyper competitive new world. One last one and then we could go to questions. There was laughter, if i can find it here. Here it is. People ask how could a nonaspect of life and in that era of the world, how could you send someone off to war . How could a mother send a son off to war or, you know, these men march into almost certain death in certain circumstances. They often mention Charlie Kaufman who would spend about a week after gettysburg reported on the battle, leading dennis byrd when he ran into one of the mothers, one of the many mothers who had come from far away. This one was from new york who would come down to look for her wounded son. So i write, for the north, gettysburg was a victory such importance and caused but they seem to be no real earthly way to describe it. The expectations put upon the men who fought there were immense and intimate. Not long after leaving, the boston journal had compared to a shiny night dream into a mother whose son had been captured the year before it and then had been wounded at gettysburg. Her boy had fought in 15 battles. She liked dozens of others had rushed to the battlefield and there she was relieved to find he was survived. But she was more proud than relieved in what she had heard about how hard her soldier boy had fought. I told him when he went away that i would rather hear he was dead and that he had disgraced himself the mother told father. Coffman told the mother he was perplexed at that. He told the mother they had done his part. And that certainly he believed she was time for him to come home. Even at gettysburg and she was happy about them. They had the crushing blow she told kaufman. [applause] there is a lot to dive into and want to get to audience questions but i am always interested in the reactions so what have they contacted you . I got it ebs on tuesday from a great great great krantz nephew who is said history professor. [laughter] and also apologized to be for his familys propensity to name all the people in the family either john or sam. [laughter] when you read the book is very hard there is john, jr. That was really tough to do. Even my sons name was sam bush was a coincidence also want the young man that i write about in the book the same name but not the same birth year pdf. Since we are here at the National Press club by eminent treat to talk about the journalism side. Travel is a mid1800s hearses now looking at Matthew Brady with the 24 7 news cycle quick. There was that same reaction going on in the middle of the civil war brought the battle of antietam there was some very graphic after photos and it changed the conversation it did not allow them to distance themselves as much as a was going on about what impact that would have that is the same thing we have had on the internet what is journalism . So that aspect and that was also the technology of it. I do love into a chapter in the book of the Amazing Things that they try to get their stories out ahead of time to get them accurately and one correspondent commandeered 7 miles of telegraph lines and out of gettysburg. So there was a lot of focus on technology and how that would change journalism and been. To get that as accurately as the of probable truth because of their version of the truth been but i will say a number of these people were eyewitnesses sunday did have to depend upon other people about half a dozen others were on Cemetery Ridge actually one of almost was killed. Q. Are inactive journalist how did you write to misinform you or change any way how you freeport the first draft of history . It taught me that the story never ends it just continues said it would always circle back. If it made me appreciate the id at that the more you can authenticate back in to the original source is the better you can be. That want is more of a danger when we start repeating half of the truth or half of the lie that is the effect on the internet. I found a number of sites in going back to the original site with a different twist and a different take. That is how the mythology would build up. But anyone who serves in is a hero. Can the introduction and to speculate otherwise it would be riposte carnage. So there is another aspect but that we would stand and off. But a different view of heroes in those moments. There are more with the characters they admen and in the titular that was of president of the upper house. And she risked her life. But to be bid should include that. And how those average people one, it was the biggest human catastrophe anywhere from 20 or 30,000 some doubt wonder that battlefield for days. Want but in fighting stories. And that is what attracted me. And is considered the best. And that is the best and because that makes it even more compelling. And the fact that the commanding general had sacrifice his son by a very bad tactical decision. To have better students of the battle. I have some unquestioned myself. But you dont want that the famous gettysburg address some live years of dispatch bob. The language is one we can only come up one of the when he went home one bois the people were worried about them. And there was the speech that lincoln gave two blocks away and after the battle the two most famous Union Victories that was some of the same phraseology. And that phrase that shows up so as the reader of newspapers along those same lines. And then how wet places these events. With that immense sacrifice. By have a question. If you were a reporter how was the story filed . There is a lot of gunfire so is there a telegraph line and their . If there were then you would hire the runners in the next jump shot with that Confederate Army said they had to string them in. Because those correspondents depend upon the union army and those corbels with a little bit of power that there was a lot of censorship with those congressional investigations and how it was treating the correspondence but those lines when ride up the battlefield. There is no clear pattern but one man who was shot out to so he got on the fast train to baltimore and with that telegraph office. And as he is transmitting but then to interview them. And then to be the head competitor of this with some of version of the Old Testament and if you have the telegraph you keep it and then they start typing from the bible. But i can imagine being on the other end of that. It is a very good question but that has totally changed the communication and with those facts with the telegraph in those that were with the dispatch was probably the most recreated in the world and to make as special type of pamphlet. But i think that percapita dead newspaper use was higher than in any advertisement the country but then the head of the Census Bureau case now with a very long report of the role the newspaper played an increasing literacy to democratize. With all those different newspapers covering the war but was in your times editorial stance price how did that compare to other papers . Very good question it was very conservative most of that tribune 11 that was one of the reasons why that he went there. But there was of Great Movement as the antiwar paper. They kept pushing for accommodation in the peace treaty but they hire three times as many reporters as india other newspaper. That is a good question. But i a. M. Intrigued by watermelon stand whiskey. As a much more modern circumstance of the first goal for as those journalists were abetted with us troops and what was the relationship like . And those that carried the pen and pad . The Union General as the commander of the union army two weeks before the battle of gettysburg dont believe everything you read on the internet. [laughter] he said a telegraph that was head of the war effort that they are reporting a my whereabouts reporting people anonymously can i throw them out . He said if you want but i can tell you that it will be hard to keep the amount. And then honestly that tell me about this so lincoln suspended habeas corpus there were a number of editors from of philadelphia of bulletin throated jail for printing that to but he was removed three days. But there were episodes of tarring and other bettering of reporters and another one that was basically a courtmartialed and they tied him up backwards on a mule. And tried to shoot ilium. One negative humiliate him. But if they were captured and with the expansion of the 04. And there is one study will not be labor but as wide sherman hated the media and that protagonist in the story. Now you are teasing us. So did you have got off hob moment . So of the National Military park. Did to the question even those that had the incorrect grammar what they were much more observant. The average every daybreak seeing of the 90 yearold or 15 yearold girl watching take your breath away today. Then i realized in the moment that in our own current culture to tweak to 140 words then throwing them away. It was a part to of who you were in great care was taken that was a prolific letter writing family those that were involving all sorts of different people and those that tell the story so it is the original stuff. Is very interesting but i dont keep bed dire reid personally but then you know absolutely. That there was a diary the fact that he kept the diary you could read that all mine to talk about july 1st when his unit comes onto the battlefield and he puts on a new shirt because he was to get to battle and people were falling left and right but they were picking him up with heat exhaustion whereas today it is no fleeing and we have a tendency to treat words as a throwaway object. With the gse that was a relatively new term because we are too shellshocked was that treated all are recognized . The officer that was responsible to deliver those orders that created that precarious position was a guy named princess channing very good you do are be officer but shot and almost died and gettysburg and then shot and get enough for dead and then his wife came when mr. Life want to nurse them back to halt the. And she became wellknown in the union army and his wife died of typhus the she had gotten from the soldiers were. And basically he lost it may had to haul him out with the straitjacket to say you cannot do this anymore and they sent him to europe just to clear his head. He comes back at the end of the war this and runs for Public Office and becomes the attorneygeneral it is the most responsible for breaking up tammany hall. But they took breaks. Talk about the Battlefield Medicine no sanitation. The Ambulance Service in the system that we have now began at the battle seven months before it was in practice more in gettysburg but in practicality we were light years ahead but those battlefield injuries that were barely the goal would routinely kill people. That is why there is an episode that one of the superior officers seized them and knows that it is over for him. So the gap between the two was horrendous and indescribable so timid but the percentage of people now like is 1 that was a higher number back then. The population was 30 million what there were more than 3 million best served in the two combined armies. And it would hit upon added every 10 families so by the end of the war it was in a personal way. Did you find any hairs in your research . There is a debate about to do was responsible holding high ground and this was embroiled of the 1864 election. There is one that Howard University was named and hancock who in my mind basically came to make the decision we will stay here. And they argued for years that Congress Said early 1864 to award a metal plate the hancock was more responsible i not alone in that but does give me a different view of that moment they were outnumbered two one and they did not know if it was spread over 60 miles over maryland and pennsylvania. Want to talk about a few more things before be wrapped up there have been hundreds of books written of gettysburg itself to focusing on the of lost the families face and the loss that they have as well as the impact of generations after that. That is what struck me when hundred 50 years later they are still speculating about the loss of this young man. Even if not overt the story goes on because a raises more questions than answers. I want to make this an exposition of the futility war but since the beginning of civilization but it gave me a sense of meaning even if youre not connected to the military is never over. But that measure is there such a thing as a noble death if he will know you will die on the battlefield . There was a concept 1863 that is called the good death. We tended to put the civil war into isolation but this in is the era in which everybody lost somebody and that was a part of life that we dont have that expectation today. So this concept of the good deaf there was the idea i started off with it was better to live in mobile and died heroically at age 19 and to live aimlessly at 90 years. So that goes back to the mother to say i dont care if he die as if he fought well but then you realize mass burials on long island from cholera. 10,000 people buried in new orleans out one time with the mass trenches from dysentery and cholera. Said those trenches of the civil war were not new but part of society and of course, what was going in general was pretty well known by then and extrapolated as the armies gathered together more people died from disease than from battle. But it was more noble to die of that then sitting at home. Ill like to present our guest with the National Press club mug. [applause] the fare is friday November November 18 and he will sign books there as well. So leave us with uh take away dont give away everything but i read this over the course of the week but what do i get . Induce a sense of the supreme so sacrifice in a very precarious position. We really could have won in 22 countries that that momentum was more than blind devotion it was adjusted quest for heroism or mythology but there was a belief it was complected some thought they were fighting for the union some thought they were fighting to free of the slaves some thought both but there was that kind current belief that it was different from many different perspectives for a cause greater than themselves with all the research that i had did. Thanks for being here. [applause]
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.