Being on the Supreme Court was an improbable dream. Its hard work and its controversial. Without information, there is no freedom. And its journalists who provide that information. Window rolls down and this guy says, hey, he goes to 11 00. [laughter]. Sam gwynne, welcome. Its nice to be here. Nice to see you, old pal. Good to have you. It is nice. Congratulations. Back together again. It is indeed. For the first time on any american stage. Indeed. Its like the beatles reuniting, actually, right . No, im just overwhelmed with joy for your great success. Thank you. With these two books, and the Stonewall Jackson book especially because honestly, i know that over the last ten or 15 years we have seen a resurgence in interest in the civil war as a topic for books, but this book really seems to have left ahead of many of the others. And the thing that i find most remarkable is your vision. Looking out and saying this guys going to be an interesting subject for a book because hes such an Unlikely Hero and such an unlikely protagonist. He is. Hes an eccentric physics professor at a small. Not even a good professor, right . Oh, no, a very poor. He was the worst teacher anybody had ever seen. And here he was at the moment, moments before the war started in this role. Right. And lo and behold 14 months later hes the most famous military man in the western world. Yeah. Americas napoleon, right, which we mean in a positive sense, not in the pejorative sense, right . We do, we do. And you described him as eccentric, which of course he is. Well get into that, and he was a terrible physics professor, but he had so many personal attributes that set him up for anything but the heroism. He was a terrible hypochondriac, right . Hypochondriac. Unbelievably awkward in public. Deeply shy, deeply shy. He was so awkward in public that he tried to improve himself, so he would go to this debating society. He wanted to get better at speaking. And so he would stand up at whatever the topic of the day was, some Public Interest thing, and he would start to speak and he would sputter and he would stutter, and then he would get very red in the face and then he would eventually stop and then he would sit down and everyone cringing around him. And then even worse, later in that same evening, he would often stand again and try it again and do exactly the same thing again. Yeah. And he was sort of the peculiar major. Yeah, amazing to consider these attributes ultimately contribute to what is, you know, amazing leadership. I mean, i think we all have a sense of what makes a great leader. And obviously in the modern era as were sitting here now contemplating another president ial campaign and were taking measure of all these people who come forward one after another after another. Were trying to figure out whos good and whos not good and who has it and who doesnt have it. If you had, in the contemporary sense, somebody with these attributes step forward and say i want to lead in some way, not a war, but lead the country, you would laugh that person out of consideration. Wouldnt even get to square one. Wouldnt even get to square one. What was interesting was what command did to individuals in the civil war. Its one of the great stories, i think, in American History is the transformations that took place during the civil war. Not just on the confederate side, right . Oh, on both sides. Like grant and sherman, right, would be examples as well. And not just positive, but negative. The average transformation, by the way, was some glorious businessman senator congressman who became one of those political generals in the early going and who was very quickly exposed as a coward and an incompetent, and they weeded those people out and many of them in disgrace. Okay, that was the negative side. The positive side, the one that we all know, is grant. Is grant. Leaning on the broom in the fathers leather store, months before the war, a failure at everything hed ever done. A washout from drinking from the army. I mean, this is what it was. And, of course, he is grant. Sherman failed at everything he did. Teaching at a small military school in louisiana. Right. Sheridan, a quartermaster scout. But of all those, and this is what interests me about jackson, the most profound, the most dramatic. And 14 months. The fastest was Stonewall Jackson. Right. And so things that have happened, you know, since have overshadowed that. Of course. And the war went on for three years after he died and so forth. But people forget that. His was the first great, stunning, dramatic transformation. Do you think that the civil war itself is part of the story in that if you look towards, prior or since, that there were not the same kinds of transformations . I mean, because there are so many who say, so many stories associated with that war particularly. Right. Where the Unlikely Heroes step up. Theres nothing quite like it. Nothing quite like it. Not only just in sheer numbers of people, you had so many people. So many people, when the war started, on both sides were trying to sort of make their way through this weird world of militias and people that didnt know what they were doing and incompetent politicians, and the odd west point graduate, and people mexican war experience, and all this crazy quilt that was just before the war. So you almost couldnt help but have it. And also by the time it was a war that, you know, it was a war that people had to learn to how to fight minute by minute. Nobody knew how to do it. The mexican war was not that great a dress rehearsal. Right. And the other part that you alluded to, his death, he died at 39. Right. And, really, he was a victim of friendly fire. Would we call it that . Yeah, it was absolutely friendly fire. It was friendly fire. Yeah, he was shot by a confederate soldier. The worst staff work of the war. The staff that didnt know that he was out there. Very bad. So he shot, he has an amputation. Right. And the medical treatment of him ultimately is unsuccessful in that he gets sicker and sicker. He contracts pneumonia and ultimately dies at 39. At 39. So why dont we well come to lee in a second here and the relationship between robert e. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Lee emerges from this period as a much more celebrated and famous and better known, right . Famous or infamous, depending upon how you look at his figure. Better known, yeah. But jackson today is not really as widely known, which is why i think its so interesting that you gravitated there as a subject. Why has jackson not been why is he not better known . I think there were things that overshadowed him. History sort of moved beyond him in some ways. Let me give you a really good example of this. You mentioned he dies. So he gets shot by his own men. This is completely accidental and, again, bad staff work that anybody was out there for that to happen. And then he contracts pneumonia and dies. What happens then is absolutely extraordinary. Its the first great outpouring of grief for a fallen leader in American History. History, right. And i said American History. I didnt say confederate history. Right. The fallen leaders, so to speak, of the Founding Fathers were all in their dotage, most of them. There was nothing like it. Correct. Jacksons death shattered the south on many levels. He had given them a myth of invincibility and this idea that they could win with less resources. It was absolutely a shattering event without precedent in American History. Now what happens . Almost exactly two years later someone else dies. Its lincoln. And lincolns death, of course, with the Million People that see it and the cortege going through new york. And the circumstances. And the circumstances, right. And it was interesting. Both of them were leaders. Both fell at the absolute height of their powers, the height of their prestige, and height of their accomplishments. Right. But jacksons death, i think, is overshadowed by lincolns. To some extent, jacksons death, which happens right after he and lee engineer the single greatest confederate victory of the war, chancellorsville. Chancellorsville. Chancellorsville. But then jacksons gone. And then what happens immediately after . Gettysburg. Yeah. What happens . Confederacy loses, largely in part because jackson isnt there. Lee is on then for another two and a half years of the war. I think jackson sort of got subsumed into the war. However, i must say in the confederacy, in parts of the old confederacy, jackson is still the man. The state of virginia today, there is still lee jackson day. Its a school holiday. Right. But the reality is outside of the old confederacy. Right, right. No, yeah. Theres not a ton of knowledge of exactly what happened and how awesome, really, jackson turns out to be as a military tactician and strategist. Exactly. And thats what i wanted to bring back. Because thats the opportunity i saw, exactly what youre saying is that jackson was a remarkable figure who exercised remarkable power and influence in the landscape. He was a great soldier. And i think, yes, he got kind of rolled up into that other history. And the important you talk about his accomplishments, the important thing people for remember or to know, if they dont already know it, is the degree to which he and his men were underdogs. Yes. At so many crucial points where he is leading them into battle, where hes in command. You know, the size of the force that they faced was significantly larger. The conditions on the ground, you never would have imagined that the confederacy had a chance in hell to defeat but, in fact, in many cases not only defeated the union soldiers, but, you know, just killed them. I mean, really. Im thinking about driving them back to washington. Right. All the stuff that they did you kind of go, this is an amazing you couldnt believe it if you made it up. The narrative, and that makes for such a great reading, i have to say, in the book. It does. It does. Jacksons it is. What he gave to the confederacy was the myth of the underdog, the myth of invisibility. Right. The idea that you could win withess sos. Mean, after all, you know, one confederate better be worth three yankees because those were the numerical differences. Thats the numbers, right. And so you had these great offsets. Anyway, and it was jackson gave them this myth. And what happened was in 1862 there was this he performed his Shenandoah Valley campaign. This was before grant was famous. This was before anybody really heard much about lee. Lee hadnt done well in the early war and he hadnt been given command yet. So in a period of three months, jackson, with a force of 12,000 or 13,000, you know, basically drove three or four union armies out of the Shenandoah Valley with forces numbering more than 50,000. So what it did is it was just this stunning i mean, people still study it. I mean, the germans studied it very closely in world war ii, so did george patton. It was one of the most remarkable military campaigns in history compared to napoleons italian campaign. And it happened again before lee had even, again, been given command of the confederate army. Amazing. So he wasnt there yet. Grant was this thing in the west that had won that you know, had won some battles in the west, but that was all he was. Are you surprised, sam, as i confess i am, how much interest there is all these years later in that story . Its amazing. I mean, the civil war, i said earlier, the last ten or 15 years, ton of civil war books and many of them best sellers. A lot of interest in this subject. Why . Whats brought this . I mean, its not all those civil war reenactors on tv. [laughter]. Surely its more than people playing dress up. Yeah. And if i ever am a reenactor, by the way, i want to be one of those eviscerated guys on the fence rail, you know. You thought about this, thats great. Remember, theres one guy in the confederates in the attic whose specialty was bloating. [laughter]. Not exactly the resume line i would have chosen, but thats actually fine. But to answer your question, i think the fact is that in spite of all thats been written about it, it is the Great American story, period. Nothing im sorry, the revolutionary war is an interesting thing. It doesnt come near the civil war. Right. And the civil war, theres just nothing like this story. Theres nothing like the internal dynamics of the story with brother against brother, slavery in the middle of it. The brother against brother stuff is really a great narrative element. Its amazing. It. And what it presents as a historian, unfortunately, is to walk up to the starting line, you got to read a book full of a room full of books. I mean, it is the burden of research. How daunting though, right . Let me tell you. Yeah. And how do you come up with something that hasnt been written before. Well, but thats it. Good luck. Yeah, but as i said to katie, i said, you know, if jackson had survived through gettysburg we would be divorced now. You would still be reading. I would still have to do gettysburg. I want to ask you about the Quanah Parker book, which in some ways is another war book, right . Of great transformation. Great transformation. But before that, how do you research well, for that matter, how do you research the Quanah Parker book either . How do you in this era of research and reporting and journalism and authorship, when you have all the tools of Technology Available to you but there are not really primary document. I mean, theres really a limited amount that you can do. If you were writing about, say, the iraq war, the Research Available to you is significantly different. Yeah, yeah. So talk a little bit about that. I mean, beyond reading every book imaginable, what else do you do . You know, the best research you can do in the civil war one of the things about the civil war is that everybody who came out of the civil war wrote a book about it. Not only regimental histories, but there were some colonel who did pretty well at some battle wrote some book about it, and there were so many memoirs and those sorts of things that came out of the war. So you actually had a lot of firstperson accounts . Yes, and there are lots of firstperson accounts. Theres also a fair amount of just, like the official records of the civil war, you know, battle messages going back and forth. And theres proceedings of congress about the war. Theres a fair amount of stuff. I think in some ways, a historian working now in the civil war, because of the what is digital. I mean, i had advantages that absolutely. So you actually think its almost a good time to be doing this . I think it is, because my ability to get a firsthand account or to check a fact or to do anything i want to do. So contrary to the idea that this would be a harder thing to do, maybe its actually easier. Its easier now than it was when Douglas Southall freeman was writing his books about lee in the 1930s, 1940s. Absolutely, no question about it. Right. Its still a huge i mean, the biggest the problem you have to have is you have to have done all of the primary research yourself. Then you have to Read Everything that everybody has ever about it. Correct. And then you have to sit down in front of the screen and somehow come up with something that is yours. Yeah. So, did you start with the civil war and get to Stonewall Jackson or did you start with Stonewall Jackson . Started with Stonewall Jackson. You knew it . Yeah. Because what happened to me was sort of like, i think this should happen to every author. I had a Big International best seller in empire of the summer moon and so when that happens to you, a window opens it may never open again, but it opens. And it opens, and the window is you can sort of do what you want. And so i had to really sit back and go, hmmm, thats an interesting idea. Yeah. What would i really want to do . Right. And so i went back to, literally, my childhood and i thought, okay, francis marion, the swamp fox, daniel boone, benedict arnold, the people that i was interested in. I mean, i went back to the well and i said just fundamentally who is the most interesting person i have ever heard of . And that was jackson. So i chose jackson and jackson led me into the war. And it obviously turned out to be a great decision. It was, but im glad he didnt live to gettysburg, but otherwise. [laughter]. Well, so now do a little compare and contrast with Quanah Parker. You know, again. That was a whole different deal. But some similarities in, you know, thematically, you know. Oh, thematically. Its a war book and the story of transformation, but obviously very different story, very different protagonist, and ultimately probably a very different process for writing the book. Yeah. I mean, he was i mean, quanah was one of the great transforming figures of the American West as he crossed from being the greatest comanche warrior into being the leader of his tribe and peace. Right. It was one of the most astonishing and successful transformations on the frontier of all times, so i guess what im interested in fundamentally are transformations. Also underdogs. Yes, and underdogs and transformations. Transformations, you know, we all know people who have transformed themselves. I mean, my brotherinlaw has, you know, i mean. Are you just going to leave that hanging out there . What did he do . But i just think people who have changed who they were. But the point is that the thing im really so interested in is that intersection of personal transformation with American History. When, you know, there are a lot of people who were great generals, Like Washington and eisenhower, to me who were not great transformations. They were not dramatic eisenhower was a wonderful general but he was not a dramatic transformation. So that intersection where big events in American History were on the gale and this personal transformation occurs right in the middle of it. And the reality is the story of the comanches has a whole bunch of other stories that come from it, you know. Because of the c