>> antonio mora, award winning and hard hitting. >> people are dying because of this policy... >> there's no status quo, just the bottom line. >> but what is the administration doing behind the scenes? >> real perspective, consider this on al jazeera america >> on america tonight, the weekend edition, behind the headlines, the first real promise, zmapp, inside the lap where the drug was developed and an exclusive conversation with the scientist behind it. >> there aren't many of us who got that experience where you can draw a straight line from discovery to success. >> it's the holy grail in the field of research. >> it's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. >> also ahead on the trail of

the gun, america tonight's chris takes us undercover on the path from gun show to gun buyer. >> if he's from indiana, he can get it today. >> he shows us how so many end up on the streets of chicago, tells us where they come from and examines a new effort to track a weapons d.n.a. and social media context to stop gun violence before it happens. >> a true american hero sacrificed all in the bloody battle of the civil war. >> he said lt., let's get you, he said no, i'll stay here and fight it out or die in the attempt. >> why it took a little old lady in wisconsin to give him his due. >> why were you so interested? >> because nobody else was, i think. >>

why alonzo cushing is still waiting. >> good evening, thanks for joining us. for america tonight, the weekend edition. as a new york city doctor continues to be treated in isolation for the deadly ebola virus, drug makers in a race against time to develop a vaccine. one drug that has shown promise in the treatment of ebola is zmapp. in an in-depth america tonight report, our correspondent has the first television interview from inside the lab where zmapp is made. >> when professor charles first suggested more than a decade ago that the root to fighting ebola might lie in of all things a tobacco plants, neither farmers nor the pharmaceutical industry were buying it. >> when we were he prosing this in 2002, lots of people thought

it was a crazy idea. this is tobacco, this is a terrible plant that, you know, people smoke and all sorts of bad things about it. >> that proposal, his eventual research led to the development of zmapp, the drug credited for saving the lives of two american aid workers, doctor which the kent brandy and nancy writebol and thee others. >> the first thing i did was show my wife the website. i said we started this. to see some fundamental discovery actually reach the point that you can say yes, this had an effect on human health and even more dramatically saved a life, i -- there aren't many of us who get that experience where you can draw a straight line from discovery to success. >> it's the holy grail in the field of research. >> it's wonderful. absolutely wonderful.

>> today, developers are in a race against time to produce more doses. he gave america tonight his first television interview in his lab at the bio design institute of arizona state university. >> when will there be more zmapp on the market and what are the roadblocks to getting it out. >> we thought we had two more years to build everything up, so expand facilities before we'd testing. i don't think anybody in their wildest imagination thought that we would need thousands of doses. this outbreak was totally unanticipated, so now everything is going full if it, more equipment, train more people, expand the facilities, go as fast as you can. if we have a thousand doses by year's end, i think we will be fortunate. >> will there be enough zmapp to take care of the problem in the short term future?

>> i can see no way in which there will be enough zmapp, maybe even the next 12 months to treat all the africans coming down with the disease. it's terrible. it's unfortunate, but i think it's the truth. there's no way you can just start from nothing and create a manufacturing system so quickly. >> but in terms of the number of americans who might come down with this, you believe there might be enough zmapp for them. >> i think if we adopt the proper safety containment plans that are being implemented in the u.s., the number of potential ebola patients are going to be small and i think there will be enough zmapp, if it's decided that the zmapp which is manufactured is first made available here, i think we would have enough. >> zmapp was born in the wake of 9/11, when the u.s. army began funding projects that would

protect americans from potential bio terrorism attacks. he with a partner pharmaceutical country began creating vaccines for ebola, consider add category a threat. >> they replicate quickly, and so it's almost like this tobacco plant is a ready-made pharmaceutical manufacturing system that works better than any other plant species that we've tried. >> here's how the drug is made. developers with the ebola virus fuse with the genes of a natural tobacco virus. the plants are injected with this new virus. >> you can see it's spreading out through the leaf. essentially, the liquid is going in, replacing all the air space

that was in there, and wherever the liquid comes in contact with a cell in the leaf, that cell gets invaded by the virus and all of a sudden that cell is now a manufacturing system. it's making the proteins we want, which is the antibodies. after this, in say 10 days, we're going to have in 20 of these plants, we'll have about a gram of antibodies. >> is zmapp the answer to this crisis? >> zmapp is one component. we need vaccines against ebola. there's a lot of testing of new vaccines underway now. they've shown success in monkeys, but we know from vaccine work what you see in a monkey doesn't always work in people. there are anti viral drugs being tested. are they going to work? we can be hopeful, but at the

present time, i'd say the only certainty that we have is zmapp. >> can we say that zmapp conclusively worked in those cases? in other words, how do we know that those people didn't survive because they were simply treated earlier, there wasn't some other medical intervention that helped them survive? >> from a purely scientific stand point, we haven't done the control experiment with zmapp. it will be done with more work with monkeys as the surrogate model for humans. in the meantime, you ask me as an individual, i just say this only makes sense, what we're seeing with people is exactly what was seen with the monkeys in preclinical experiments that was predicted with the monkey study. as an individual,

i'm 99.9% certain that zmapp is an effective drug. >> what does the information look like in your view a year from now, and vaccine and helping victims both in africa and here in the united states? >> if we take a time frame of one year out, things look very much more optimistic. you can see all the aid coming in to west africa, just to build treatment facilities. we are going to be testing new drugs and vaccines will come along eventually, hopefully in a year. i'm hopeful that a year from now, we'll look back and say this has been a global stance to a terrible epidemic and we're getting it under control. >> aljazeera, tempe, arizona. >> right after the break, when a

modern playing last spread across america, the pandemic and what health workers might learn from that health crisis to help with this one. >> america votes 2014 midterms it's all come down to this... >> you are going to determine whether i'm going to be the next senator from iowa >> the candidates last chance to convince voters they're the one... they will stop at nothing to get your vote >> david young, how are you? >> run for congress >> it's important to be out here talking to voters >> director aj schnack's unprecedented series concludes >> it's certainly something that doesn't exist in politics on television >> america votes 2014 midterms only on al jazeera america

>> now available, the new al jazeea america mobile news app. get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. a global perspective wherever you are. the major headlines in context. mashable says... you'll never miss the latest news >> they will continue looking for survivors... >> the potential for energy production is huge... >> no noise, no clutter, just real reporting. the new al jazeera america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now >> every saturday, al jazeera america brings you controversial... >> both parties are owned by the corporations. >> ..entertaining >> it's fun to play with ideas. >> ...thought provoking >> get your damn education. >> ...surprising >> oh, absolutely! >> ...exclusive one-on-one interviews with the most interesting people of our time. >> you're listening because you want to see what's going to happen. >> i want to know what works what do you know works? >> conversations you won't find anywhere else. >> talk to al jazeera. >> only on al jazeera america. >> oh my!

>> a killer virus and novak teens prevent it and americans unclear what to do to protect themselves. the year was 1819 and influenza terrorized americans. more than one in four americans fell sick and it was the deadliest outbreak in modern history. american tonight now with a look at the influenza pandemic and what we might learn from that health crisis. >> it was an epidemic that spanned the globe. one of the most intense outbreaks of disease in human history, affecting 500 that million, killing more than 50 million. here in the u.s., 675,000 people died. nothing like this had happened before, whole families were wiped out.

>> before then, people died of normal things. i mean, cerebral hemorrhages, heart attacks, everything else. you go down through this page, it's like influenza page after page. >> the records here at the cemetery in baltimore go from three or four burials a day to 29, 165 in one week, so great was the need, a new section was opened and it became known as flu hill. >> it was the first time and the only time in the history of cemetery being a religious cemetery that burials were made on sundays. workers couldn't possibly keep up with it. families actually came in and dug the graves for their own family members. >> the flu arrived just as the first world war was binding down. in the end, the virus proved much deadlier than even that global conflict.

the first outbreak recorded in 1918 was limited, but by may, reports of influenza were spreading across the globe. it was on the front lines of word war one that the virus caught hold and began it's destructive force. >> the specialist at the ford immediate museum south of baltimore. >> the conditions in the trenches are what caused diseases to foster in fume beings because of the very nature of the close proximity we're all stuffed into. >> the trenches were like a giant pete tree dish.

>> it hit the army the hardest. >> we had trains and we were a mobile society, so it didn't take long, when considered the army is standing up, men from all over the country and these men came from everywhere, so we had men here at camp immediate from 15 different states. >> dr. wells, a former army lt. col. was one of several doctors who witnessed the outbreak, the center of the hot zone then. a new school of hygiene and public health called in an expert from harvard to perform autopsies. he ordered a rockefeller lab scientist to drop everything and make a vaccine. he told the army to order camp hospitals expanded and to impose quarantine measures, but it was too little, too late. flu victims were contagious for several days before showing symptoms and soldiers mixed with

civilian staffers who went home to their family every night. the virus soon appeared almost everywhere. >> within a week, those first initial cases went to 1900 cases. in one week. >> back then, the equivalent of the c.d.c. was the p.h.s., the public health service. they gathered information and initiated response. >> so more difficult is that they didn't know exactly what was causing the pandemic, that is that they didn't epidemiologists and bacteriologists didn't ever the tools to detail what was causing the epidemic. >> quarantine was the most effective tool for controlling epidemics, like today, but quarantines were difficult to

enforce. >> you would get one town saying we're closing down bars, who will houses, areas of entertainment, so what would people do? they would go to the next town, which had not imposed such kinds of quarantine and closing down of entertainments, so you got people spreading the virus ironically because of those kinds of interventions that were not coordinated. >> immigrants arriving at ellis island were examined as a precaution, similar to those leaving west africa today. back then like now, health care workers were on the front line risking all for the benefits of the local community, and again like now, a mixture of hysteria and fear spread across the nation. william h.sardo, jr. wrote in his diary about remembering the pine caskets in the living room of his family's house, a funeral home in washington, d.c. he was six years old tell the of his infection.

>> the city had slowed to a near halt. schools were closed. church services were banned. people were dying. some who took ill in the morning were dead by night. >> the pandemic eventually burned itself out at the end of 1918, but not before touching the lives of 1/5 of the global population and one in four of all americans. aljazeera, baltimore. >> when we return, on the trail to the source of chicago's vicious gun violence. >> just, i just wish that it was stopped. god, i wish it was stopped. it's happening every day. >> would you do you think that we can't get those guns off the street in this country? >> bringing the guns in is the issue with me. where are they coming from? >> what's the paperwork? >> there's no paperwork on a private

person, so... as far as i know, it's cash and carry. >> undercover with an investigation into where the guns come from, the path that follows a firearm's d.n.a. and a new effort to track its biography could stop gun violence before it happens. federal authorities have charged seven people with conspiring with al qaeda. >> since 9/11 the us has spent has spent billions of dollars on domestic counter-terrorism operations. >> i wanted to be in on the big game and to be paid top-dollar for it. that's it. >> many of these involved targeted informant led stings. >> to them, everyone in the muslim community is a potential informant or a potential terrorist. >> america votes 2014 on al jazeera america focusing on what matters to you >> what are the issues

that americans need to know about? >> everybody needs healthcare... >> lower taxes... >> job opportunities... >> reporting from the battle ground states... >> alaska... >> kentucky... >> iowa... >> local elections with national impact >> we're visiting with the people making the decisions... >> covering what it all means for you... >> ...the mine shut down, it hurts everything... >> i just keep puttin' one foot in front of the other... >> we're fighting for the future of our state >> for straight forward unbiassed political coverage... stay with al jazeera america

>> we've been watching the fight for chicago here on america tonight and while fool call temperatures may bring down the pressure, it has been another tough year for violence on the city streets. 331 people were gunned down in chick so far this year, most in gang-related shootings. in an investigation, america tonight goes undercover to investigate the gun pipeline into the city, and a new approach aimed at blocking it. >> in a makeshift memorial on chicago's south side, diane latiker keeps stones with the names of every child and young adult killed in the city's violence. >> of the hundred was stones you have here, how many are gun-related? >> that would be 98%. >> 98%. >> or more, yeah. >> killed by guns. >> yeah. >> the carnage in chicago comes

in a city under siege, from a steady flow of illegal weapons. >> there's too many guns coming in . >> several thousand illegal guns were taken offer the streets, more than l.a. and new york combined. >> how easy is it to get a gun? >> as easy as to get get a pack of gum. you got the money? you go get a gun. >> diane built the memorial to shock the city over how many kids were being shot to death. >> they were lives, they were somebody's family, somebody's child. i know it sounds cliche, everybody says that, but there were. there are stories behind each of these stones. >> a son was killed last year, shot multiple times in a neighborhood known for gang activity. >> it's taken a bad toll.

i just wish that it would stop. god, i wish it would stop. it's happening every day, and you can't really even start a healing process at all, because the next day, it's somebody else's child. >> why do you think that we can't get those guns off the street in this country? >> bringing the guns in is the issue with me. where are they coming from? >> there's a variety of pathways that guns flow into the city of chicago. >> john heads the a.t.f.'s gun trafficking task force in chicago. he says the gun trade is fueled by a thriving black market. >> the price of a gun on the streets of chicago is $800 to $1,000. they're valuable, there's a demand for firearms. >> that has given rise to a lucrative and illegal trafficking of guns to gangs. one know tore cuss gun runner was a college student out to score extra cash. these are just a few of the

hundreds of guns that he brought into chicago from 2008-2012. >> he was going to indiana gun shows and purchasing guns and bringing them back to chicago. those guns were then being trafficked to gang members. we call that straw purchasing. >> more him, getting the guns was easy. all he had to do was cross the state line into indiana. there, he scoured the state for gun shows, filling duffel bags with dozens of guns. he brought them back to chicago and resold them on the street. >> he could bias many guns as he wanted, because indiana has no restrictions on state residents buying weapons from private dealers. after flashing an indiana driver's license, he wasn't required to fill out any paperwork on the weapons gun shows. those guns nearly impossible to trace back to him made their way to chicago's most violent street gangs. >> of those guns being used in

shootings by gaining members, a high percentage are coming from indiana than anywhere else. >> so america tonight decided to visit an indiana gun show with hidden cameras, to see how easy it might be to set up a straw purchase. at the fairgrounds in lafayette, thousands of guns from a.q.47 semiautomatic rifles to 357 magnum revolvers were on display. my producer posed as a straw purchaser from indiana and we attempted to buy guns. we spoke with a federally licensed firearms dealer. he correctly said i would need a firearm owner identification card if i was not a resident of indiana. >> i live in chicago, so what's the deal here? >> 24 hours. on a handgun, i got to ship it to a dealer there. >> ok. >> he's from indiana, but he can buy it, right? >> he's cool. now he can't buy it for you, that's a straw purchase.

>> when i spoke with a private collector selling what he said was his personal collection of brand new glocks and other handguns, the reception was much warmer. there's no paperwork on a private person, so. as far as i know, it's cash and carry. >> he can do it, he can do it. >> i carry a smith and wesson 40 calendar. >> we met another private collector who told us exactly how oh to have make an illegal straw purchase.

>> such straw purchases make the trafficking of illegal guns almost impossible. >>a.t.f. is generally only able to trace that firearm back to the retail purchase. further transactions that take place, oftentimes, there's no record kept of it. >> john is a supervisor at the a.t.f.'s crime center in chicago. >> this is a crime map that one of our analysts here in the crime gun intelligence center's creating using information from chicago police department databases. >> looking at where drugs are covered, whether they've been linked to other crimes, agents create a map of a gun's social connections that would shed light how it traveled from manufacture to murder scene. >> this person, for instance, the suspect in a homicide was also the possessor of these four

different firearms, three of which came from indiana, one which came from chicago. >> from this one gun, you have other crimes, other suspects and patterns of gun photographicking all from this one gun. >> exactly. >> the a.t.f. said the work has led to 170 referrals for federal prosecution. agents here are refining the techniques, including the use of government informants they used to nail david for dealing guns to chicago gangs. >> do you think you'll be able to get violent offenders off the street who otherwise might never have been put in jail? >> absolutely. >> the flow of guns maybe hard to stop. congress has refused to regulate gun shows and thousands of guns will continue to wind up in the streets of chicago where the kids who's names are on these bricks are killed. >> the laws have to be changed,

no question about it. >> they don't live where i live. i believe in the pursuit of happiness. i believe in all of that, but this is not happiness. >> last year after placing 374 bricks, diane ran out of room. she plans to expand her memorial to mark the names of another 470 young people killed in the city, nearly all by guns, since she began keeping counted r. count. aljazeera, chicago. >> armed and in their community, considered dangerous. tomorrow on america tonight, a shocking report from the amish community, the attackers are known

as the burkehold barbers. in our america tonight exclusive, we get inside the community. adam sits down with the grandson who fled the group and speaks with his wife, as well. >> how would you describe sam? >> he's a very gentle, loving man, and yes, he can get stern, just like anybody else, but people say he has power. people say he has power over us to keep us here. >> does he? >> no. anybody that lives here as of now, can leaf on their own free will. >> they have said that your husband believes he is a prophet, that he talks directly to god. is that true? >> my husband, i'm not sure how to word it, that anybody would even understand, i have heard and seen things myself

that i know that he is a man of god. >> the allegations that people here are punished by putting them in animal pen, are those true? >> yes, i was one of them. >> how long did you spend in one? >> 18 days. i had time, quiet time to pray, talk to god, wrote letters. it wasn't that bad. it wasn't that bad. i went on my own will. as far as i know, everybody else that was put in an animal pen went of their own free will. >> and children? >> no, those were all adults. >> they do things to you like chicken coop and paddling because they say they want to help you, that it helps you get better. >> you were put into an animal pen? >> yes. >> for how long? >> seven days. >> did you have a choice?

they made you write down your sins. >> he's just one guy and he's not god. >> do you think he acted like a god? >> yes, still does. >> we continue our look at america votes, 2014 with an in democratic look at kansas, long reliably led, why republicans are staging a revolution there now. >> i'm pretty conservative myself that they weren't nuts. we had the weirdest damn set of bills come before the legislature this last year, just weird things. >> we begin a three part series on the battle for kansas, after the break. >> a brutal drug war

>> this here were the remains of 31 peop that were found... >> thousands disappearing >> the cost of kidnapping and killing a human being is almost zero >> fault lines, al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> today they will be arrested... >> ground breaking... they're firing canisters of gas at us... emmy award winning investigative series... new episode the disappeared only on al jazeera america

>> with the mid term elections over a week away, we look to kansas as red as a red state can get. president obama lost it by more than 20 points. former senators braun yak one the governor's race, two years later led a purge of moderates from the state government. he became too extreme even for members of his own party and now republicans fighting back.

we look at battle for kansas, as america votes, 2014. >> good morning, everyone, welcome to the cans state fair in what could be a pivotal year in state politics. >> in the race for governor of kansas, challenger paul davis is running neck and neck witness incumbent, sam brownback. >> good morning, kansas. good morning, kansas state fair! good morning, good to of you here. i've been coming to these for over 40 years and i love a kansas get together. that is fabulous. >> i'm paul davis, a moderate, common sense leader, independent

thinker. i'm supported by over 100 current and former republican elected officials. the governor's experiment just isn't working. we are trailing our surrounding states and the rest of the country in virtually every economic growth indicator there is, and it has plunged our state deep into debt. >> sam brownback ran in 2010, a huge republican year across the country and he won a sweeping victory here. he also brought in with him a very, very conservative right wing house of representatives. >> he became one of the most powerful governors i've covered during my years covering kansas politics. the governor felt that the state needed to do something to jump start its economy. >> promises to cut taxes and there would be a surge in edge employment, a surge in economic growth, and that certainly hasn't happened.

in fact, what's happened is that as you might expect, when you cut taxes substantially, revenues have plunged. >> last year, kansas lost a fifth of its tax revenue. two credit agencies lowered kansas' bond rating. >> there's a lot of dissatisfaction here. for a politics like governor brownback in a bright red state to be fighting for his political life here is simply a remarkable political story. >> with new restrictions on abortion, some of the toughest in the nation, pro life groups have mobilized to support him. >> i'm a mother and a grandmother, but since i've been 25, i've been involved in the pro life movement. when the governor came on the seen, there was a lot of pent up desire to pass pro life bills. we needed them. paul davis has voted 80 types against pro life bills, so the

differences between he and brownback are so severe, so clear, it's a gift. >> conservatives show up, feel more passionate about the issues. they get out and vote. >> i am pro life, he is pro life. those babies are so precious and important. >> the people in kansas are by and large conservative. they just tend to be republican and conservative. there's a group, you might have seen it of 100 so-called republicans against brownback, every person on there that's been elected was voted out of office in part on this issue. >> we had the weirdest damned set of bills come before the legislature this last year, just weird

things. >> i was born here, i'm fifth generation on the farm. yeah, governor brownback, i've known him since he was in high school. he's very well known in the state, but then immediately came in with extremely conservative and very out on the edge budget cuts that really changed how the state of kansas is financed. we used to say we had this three legged stool, income tax and sails tax and property tax and that was the three legged stool. he virtually eliminated the income tax part, and that sounds really good, because nobody wants to pay for income taxes, but we still have basic functions that's the responsibility of the state to implement, and school districts are going to have to rely more

and more on local property tax to say fund the education system and that's not what we want to do. >> school systems have cut education in the classroom. more is expected if the tax policies continue. >> i've been a 12 year champion for our public schools in the legislature. that's why i oppose governor brownback's single largest cut to school funding in state history. that's why i will make restoring those cuts my very top priority as governor. >> now everything you've heard from representative davis is wrong. i'm sorry to say. number one, there are more people in kansas working now than ever in the history of state. number two, we've put more money in education than ever in the history of the state. let's go through this cut. the cut was the obama stimulus

money going away that paul davis agreed putting it in the budget. he left a fiscal train wreck in the state of cans and he's the democratic leader then. he's the nancy pelosi of kansas. that's what he did. >> governor, you can blame everybody you want, but the fact that remains that you made the single largest cut to public school funding and all you have to do is talk to these teach everies out here. i talked to a teacher the other day. over 30 kids in her classroom because of the cuts you've made to public schools. >> teachers across the state are mobilizing to defeat governor brownback. >> i voted for the governor and ever not seen a positive change. with our state where it's at, we ever to have committee meetings

for decisions on where we will cut next. if we have him again, i'm afraid that in january when legislature comes back, we're going to ever those same conversations. at the local level, we don't know where to cut anymore. >> i'm a teacher in public school. we have a sense in our state that government is broken. we used to have kind of a common sense approach, a value of public schools and that, i think has really lit a fire under our teachers, because they understand that people are attacking their public schools, attacking students and they're attacking teachers and they've got to stand up and do something. we have to do something. this is the election, we're fighting for the future of our state. >> one question that's a fair question to ask is did govern brown yak deserve to have more time to see if his tax cuts given time will succeed in the long run. we don't know if that's going to happen or not depending what voters decide next month. >> it's a very small democratic process here. you have a

governor, he announces plans, he implemented his plans, and now he's being judged on them. what can -- that's a pretty good demonstration of democracy. he he certainly can still win without any question, but right now, the result is in doubt. >> just over a week away, the race is too close to call, but we're going to follow up with others over the next week leading up to election night as the battle for kansas heats up. >> in our final segment this hour, the story of an american treasure. >> the records are accurate and concise. we know when he stood, fought, what kind of ammunition he was using at the end and the accounts are accurate. >> a long overdo honor. why after 150 years he's still waiting for it.

>> in our state eventually doing away with income taxes. >> can governor brownback win better than the government spends it.

>> there is no higher recognition for our members of military services than the congressional medal of honor. it takes an act of congress to award one. the medal began 150 years ago. it has taken even longer for the last warrior of that conflict to

get his very overdo medal. we found that even today, alonzo cushing is still waiting. >> many died here at gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the civil war. the best estimate is that in three days of fighting, as many as 10,000 died on the battlefield. the climax came at cemetery ridge when general lee sent his infantry against union positions in what became known as pickets charge. >> set the stage for me this day. what is it like? what did it feel like. >> on july 3, 1853, it was 87 degrees. you've got all this intense heat, and all the dead plus in the fields were still wounded. some wounded will be there for weeks before they were found. >> kent brown was gripped by gettysburg from the age of 15 when he first saw the

battlefield and massive painting that tells its story. one image stuck with him, the young union officer struck down but valuantly fighting on. that was alonzo cushing. >> they face add deplorable situation. >> terrible, horrible. >> the odor, the stench. >> and just the fear. >> right, right, and they knew that something big would happen today. >> cushing, a 22-year-old west point grad was lard respected leader, but on this field of heroes, he he became legendary. >> cushing loses all his guns, in fact web loses everyone but one. some men began to run after their gun was hit. he took his pistol out. he was wounded now. he pointed it at the gunner, and

told him, he says you don't get back here, i'll blow your brains out. >> brown spent decades studying cushing. his research led to a book about the heroic young commander, who by all accounts, including one in the new york times is the guy who just wouldn't give up. >> the painting really depicts alonzo cushing's final moments. >> final seconds, yes. when the artist portrays him here, he's received two wounds, one in his right shoulder and one in his groin, which was possibly he a fatal wound. profusely. he was probably going into shock. >> but he tells his men we're going to keep going. >> his first sergeant comes up to him and says lt., leave, get out of here. he says no, i'll stay here and fight it out or die in the attempt.

>> unfortunately, that's what happened. others were warded the medal of honor for their hero. >> in that battle, even some in cushing's command, but cushing himself never was. he was remembered though, in his birth place, a town called de he llfield in wisconsin. >> he was known everywhere here. >> cushing park, cushing road, cushing memorial. >> alonzo and his brothers are the favorite sons. someone suggested naming the town cushing, but his mother thought it already had a good ring to it. still the cushing name and alonzo's bravery will never be forgotten here. >> he was pivotal in the most important battle in marriage history and he and his men saved the union.

>> and he's your guy. >> celebrated, but cushing never received that highest of all military recognitions, until one woman set out to change that. >> my name, margaret. >> 47 years ago, margaret and her husband moved into what has been mill on the old cushing property. now 94 years old, she began what she calls a project to get cushing his due. >> why were you so interested? >> because nobody else was, i think. >> you must really like history. >> oh, yeah. it's nice to know what happened anyplace where you live, you want to know what happened there and if there's gold hidden someplace, buried. you never know. >> alonzo cushing's story's like gold?

>> yes. >> she became a prospector for his story, combing through old documents and launching a four decade long campaign, hundreds of letters to senators, local leaders and presidents, determined to see him awarded a medal of honor. >> he needed that recognition, and people needed to know not only what he did, but what had to be done. people still just don't understand the civil war, what was that was about. they really don't know. isn't that amazing? >> the town joined in. the mayor even named dave krieger head of a one man committee to get cushing his medal. political wrangling held the nomination up, a senator wondered if anybody could prove

those deededs from so long ago. >> the battle records are accurate and very concise. we know exactly where he stood, where he fought, what kind of ammunition he was using at the end. the accounts are all perfectly accurate, alonzo was here. >> so all of this, none of this would have happened without one person. would he ever gotten this without margaret? >> i don't believe so. i think her ability as to keep the story in front of washington, d.c. >> for four decades. >> for four decades. it's nothing short of miraculous. >> the miracle finally happened a few weeks ago when 151 years after alonzo cushing's death, the white house named him as a recipient. >> he's finally going to get the medal of honor. what do you think about that? >> i think that's marvelous, but it's been so long that i've been

working on it that i can't get excited anymore about it. i want to go to washington, and because there's nobody left in the family anymore, except me, and i'm not even related. >> which brings us to the final irony of cushing's story. because he died young and unmarried, it's not clear who should receive his medal. traditionally, it's given to the honoree or direct descendent. a good option might be his resting place, his beloved west point. >> he loved the army so much, his letters show this. he loved the army. he loved the people he associated with in the army. that was his family as a young man. >> others suggest his boy hood home might be appropriate. as you can imagine, though, marg get has an opinion.

>> where do you think that medal should go? >> well, i think it should go to this town and all i can think of is to put it in the office building, the public library on the wall so that everybody can see, because where else could it go? where? >> so after 151 years, alonzo cushing and his hometown will have to wait a little longer, but after all this time, margaret isn't about to take no for an answer. >> i would not bet against margaret for anything. she tends to win. >> even if it takes 40 years. >> even if it takes 40 years. >> it's good margaret is patient. the white house has yet to say when the medal will be given or who will receive it. that's america tonight. join us this week as we look at

issues ahead of the mid term elections. if you'd like to comment on our stories, go to our website and join the conversation with us on twitter or at our facebook page with that we'll have more of america tonight tomorrow. >>a violent crime.... >> people were shocked >> the guilty locked up >> he belongs in jail >> but it was not case closed... >> it was a cult >> allegations of intimidation... >> amish people were frightened >>torture... >> were you put into an animal pen? >> yes >> and worse >> is sam mullet sexually abusing people? >> yes >> the shocking untold story revealed for the fist time. an america tonight exclusive

investigation rouge amish only on al jazeera america kurdish fighters stop a major overnight attack. while isil and kobane and some of the heaviest fighting yet. ♪ ♪ welcome to al jazerra live from our headquarters in doha. also ahead. shia houthi fighters make more gains in yemen and they are getting help from government air strikes. back in power, reelected as brazil's president. her biggest challenge now, how to unite a divided country. plus. >> reporter: i am rob mcbride in the west of china with