people, my friend vincent cannato is called ellis island which i'm hoping to get to. there's -- one of my favorite books is an older history book. it's written by an lbj liberal named eric goldman and the book is called rendezvous with destiny and another book is arthur ekirch called the decline and fall of american liberalism. i hope i'm getting these titles right. i smoked a lot of pot before i came on here. what else? my own book, liberal fascism. beach reading, win friends, influence people. and the angel graphic novel series which takes place after the tv series ends is a pretty good read if you're a follower. i just re-read the watchmen pretty recently which was the famous graphic novel from the

1980s. i think it's a good comic book but it's more interesting -- and i guess that's about it right now. and i'm very much looking forward to chris caldwell's book about europe and immigration which people on the right and in particular and fans of chris caldwell have been waiting for a very, very long time. he's a fantastic writer. ..

we might think back to the time i wrote about in the battle of vicksburg, we thought we had a bad, look at the worst poor people they were eating rats and living in caves and these were americans. these are seriously americans. then it occurred to me this is tax day. [laughter] but they still had a worse than we do appear in but before i get into that and i have had a whole lot of time to rehearse and i thought i was going to have all day to not write a speech but make a speech and what i roundup doing because they told me i get to be on these tv shows today

and carryall over atlanta all i have an ally of a speech are these notes in a much salt out tried together. [laughter] atlanta when i came here for the first time i listen college in atlanta and was what new york city was to people in pittsburgh or something. it was the real deal. but i love today, my publisher has caris set up a place on peachtree street which is one of the most pretentious names i ever heard but it lives up to the resident -- reputation. let me tell you, i got woke up this morning it 8:00 o'clock or 730 by a knock on the door by a lady who spoke a foreign language want to clean my room and i said, i have been out of

this bonds restaurant, with my friends and here i am at 8:00 o'clock in the morning and she said, is on and apparently a punch a button and a big electric sign comes up and says clean up a run. [laughter] and then they have a tv set in their that is a painting, is on the wall where it is above the desk in is a modern painting. you have to punch a button and the painting goes up and the wall and punch another button and the tv set goes on, and, of course, i don't love us whether to call into years to come and tell me about that. [laughter] and then i discovered something truly remarkable. they've got tears in the bathroom to make you look 20 pounds lighter than you are. [laughter] i'm not kidding. what a cruel thing to do when you have to go back home and

discover the truth. [laughter] i'm saying that this place and i went in for there was a man that either is or looks exactly like mr. netanyahu from that country of israel sitting there by himself on the couch and i started to introduce myself and i said i can't do that, i don't know whether was or not but it sure looks like him. it's a fancy place in atlanta. the high house was a fence is bliss they had here when i used to come trooping to but i'm so glad to be back tonight to talk about the the battle of vicksburg which i'm sure all of you're last minute with a. if you want, you're fixing to start. [laughter] when i was in high school i had a history teacher and i'm sure everyone of you have the same history teacher. this guy one of being a football

coach which is already are to the university and he said and why was it, one was that and why was it important so we will try to answer that question vicksburg in the civil war was an enormous confederate fortress along the mississippi river about midway between memphis and new orleans and that was important because it reared up about 200 feet on big laughs at of the river merges the size of a 20 story building, fibre 6 miles bristling with confederate cannons and foreclosed the people in the middle west and iowa and chicago and all those places out in the

midwest, hogs and timber and all the products that they depended on for their economy down the river and out to the gulf of mexico and overseas. of that was one reason and the series and it was important was because the confederate army then controlled that stretch of river so that they could have what abraham lincoln called hog in harmony coming from texas and arkansas and those parts of louisiana and oklahoma and other confederate states over in the west to supply to their armies that were fighting in the east and it also the west. on so this was recognized at first by abraham lincoln rahm

who got a conference going, i guess it was called the conference but would never was a was switching his military people and some naval people who in several of his cabinet and he said that vicksburg is a key. if we can take vicksburg everything else will fall into place in the west and when he spent in the west he meant western theater of operations. and he was quite correct. vicksburg was holding everything them. there is no way to get a commercial boat passed their because the batteries that were berated into matchsticks pin another person to realize this just about the same time as abraham recommend this was in u.s. and not grant -- u.s. assess gramm to was a moderately

disgrace union officer who had been so they say and i have no proof of this but is probably a good yes, forced to resign from the era for drunkenness. he had gone to west point where his scholarship was questionable, he did graduate and the lower part of this class but his a question ship was superb. the best a question at that point. but he found himself in a lonely miserable afford to out in northern california of iran and the oregon border and commenced to drinking and the result was that one day his commanding officer said -- let's just say he said this -- capt. branch your either going to have to resign or i will court-martial you so the resigned and he failed at everything he did. he felt at being a farmer, he

was married to -- a married into a wealthy family in the give him land and farm but he couldn't get that going and he roundup putting forward for a living and he became a real-estate agent for a while and couldn't do that every well inventor of working at his death a store, his dad was a tanner of the slaughtered animals and they scanned the with shearson other things and he couldn't even do that. then the work along any key join at the union army again and was turned down presently because of his reputation as being a drunkard. and finally the governor of illinois either took pity or in desperation hired grant, made him a kernel of and just in the

illinois militia which have nothing to do with the u.s. army but hired him to put together some semblance of a cut in military units have a bunch of chicken davis into regiments that they have their volunteers were causing a lot of trouble just biding their. and grant to what these guys together and you found himself with two regiments. all of a sudden they gave another regiment because he had done well so he just about got himself a division, a brigade in were you get to be a bridge general. so sooner or later here comes this brigadier-general and he

took his men down in a couple of fights, he lost those of them there in the nature of raids and verne to pick fights. down on the mississippi river. because his job was two somehow as lincoln has said to get down the river. to vicksburg and kill it and we will have entire mississippi river valley. we will have split the confederacy into and that will go along way to win the war appear go well, grant took a look of his maps and it got there is no way i am going to get down the river on the river because of the confederates had these little ford's that were burned with artillery so he said i will go around them and he.com he flags amount by going to fort

henry and forge dodging tennessee and had it small almost and remembered who fled battles. and granted a blood and which is ironic. i think it probably was growing up as a boy his daddy owned in this tannery, slaughterhouse and he has seen all of this blood and gore and so he could not stand the blood and gore of the battlefield and even go on the battlefield if he could to see the dead man there. nevertheless he didn't have any compunction whatsoever about committing his troops and he took fort henry, for donaldson and that left mass will completely uncovered and took -- real and then continued down to on steamboats and at this point u.s. on the tennessee river.

to a place called shiloh. at that point in the war nobody has seen anything like this slaughter that went on at shiloh. i think the bull run, the first big battle, there were 1700 men killed and maybe wounded, shiloh eight or 9,000 killed in crippled and everybody who was horrified when they got out in the press that of this war was really about was not some kind of a lark than they thought when they went out there to bull run and people came in their carriages to washington and other pigment lunches to washington, the thank you rep to the rebels and then wound up with a bunch of people and then it.

this was dead serious big time. grants, of course, of the blame for this because he had gone surprised there at shiloh period it was his fault probably appears to to not it expect the confederacy, but at this point there are big armies, 50,000 man armies, 6,000 men, that's a lot of people. and when they see these guns taken in reload these muscats two or three times a minute that is a lot of lead that was into the air. well, it settled down pretty much at shiloh and not going to get into the details of politics, but grant basically got fired and then rehired. he perceived it as his mission to take vicksburg.

well, how is he going to do it? he decided he was going to go right down through the center of it mississippi following that the railroad track which happens to it and in my oklahoma town, mobile, alabama. they ran breath to the center of the state. he could supply his army behind him, a railroad trains with food and clothing and whenever they needed to and ammunition. but he was foiled in this really by a 7 tons of a rash of political general who was appointed by abraham lincoln from illinois whose name in my first alzheimer's that of the night to forget the. of [laughter] i will remember in a minute antalya.

>> [inaudible] >> ron. something that starts with an m. barrett in. >> it doesn't matter, whoever he was in the skies goes to lincoln and says mr. president i want your job next election and i am going to raise an army for the midwest merit. smart man, reading my book. general mcclernand. they had a lot of these political generals, bank south, as senators, most of them general butler, the got themselves appointed to the, they weren't trained military people just like i see a man i think no is a trained engineer. the man is not engineer. lincoln did because he thought that it would help the war

effort if we get some of these local generals behind him so mcclernand went to raise this army with a specific purpose of getting 60,000 men from the midwest. bringing down to mississippi and then beating grant to vicksburg. while, branch knows nothing of this because he is reasonably nice person although he is a good general, but he got the word of it when he was about halfway down the city mississippi that this was going on and so did he also being name politics general from whenever he learned that was present this is going to happen, william tecumseh sherman with his brigade back to memphis, he said going back there all those people that general mcclernand is sending down here to be in your army, you rank them. you take them and take vicksburg

down the river in the meantime i am going to continue down the center of the state. so this sounds like a good idea except for one thing, the confederates are sitting there like cardboard dummies. they have plans of their own. and one of them was concocted with the assistance of earl van dorn who was a mississippians in the west point graduate, excellent calvary men and he said the i think what we should do is two go and snake up on general grant in his rear meaning his posterior. [laughter] and we're going to send him back to memphis where he came from and that is what general van doren.com he took 2,000 cavalrymen on a wide sweep around there and grant was well below the town, alice springs,

mississippi. but grant had a railroad car after railroad car and warehouse after warehouse of all of this paraphernalia that is needed to give an army of 50,000 men going such as food and clothing and shoes and the ammunition and all of that and general van dorn stock up on those people and he called the commander of the union garrison with at alice springs in his underpants and you have him arrested to. and put him in jail. and he took all of these things that general grant needed to pursue his trip down the mississippi and either sold them or burn them and then left and that put off general grant at a

business. em the problem was because on the way back up at a fair to meet up with force, van dorn couldn't telegraph and there's no way that general grant's could inform general sherman of this crisis. and so general sherman proceeded down the river thinking that general grant was going to meet up with them when, in fact, what general sherman met up with when he got to vicksburg to the north end of it where he intended to sneak into the back door was all the confederates who have been released by general grant's departure. and general sherman's people got slaughtered in it was unfortunate for general sherman, but he was a man about it and sent and said it was his fault,

what he wrote in his report, i have seen its. well, the grants have then had a problem. not the least of which general mcclernand who at this point it arrived in memphis looking for his army and had the same reaction as a private lesson the altar on her wedding day. meaning he had gotten beat. so general mcclernand decided to be in trouble maker and he was then until the grand had to find him. brands problem was he found himself at this point with an army on the wrong side of the river pardo so he is on the louisianans side of the river and vicksburg is on the mississippi side.

he had to do this but couldn't on account there were endless swaps north of it in south of it there for these huge him rhetoric for the applications with artillery and so forth and the course vicksburg and self which is a big fortress. what to do? well, grant tinker to and he came up with some reasonably innovative plans. the first thing he did, he organized a canal to gain enterprise which. vicksburg is located on a hairpin turn in the river so you've got a big thing out there that plans like an accusing finger in louisiana and he is going to cut vicksburg of of the

river into a canal across this big old point and make the mississippi diverge so a vicksburg becomes irrelevant. that was a big project. [laughter] he said all these union soldiers will have nothing else to do except steel and so forth. and now as of the confiscated the slaves of the plantations in louisiana and send them to working and the problem was that when the then call the yellow fever began killing people as such a way that was worse than because of 24 hour battle. so this was ultimately did not or cows so anyway he then came up with another notion with a romantic name the lake expedition, in late call the moon lake and he figured if you

could blow up the levee. i don't know if you have been to mississippi but the levees, mostly for the small ones are about some of the size of where i am standing right here to weigh down there. they are big and the river goes up when it gets high it goes up on a love is like this still be driving a awhile and looked up and there is a great big steamship going by. because they've got to control this river. sometimes it falls and you don't see the steamship and use the big pile of dirt. but if you blow the living and let all the water in which water will go somewhere in grant figured it will go into the moonlight. then about a five-year 600 miles is going to go through this river and wind up filing down

the river which is way down by baton rouge bull vicksburg and then,. they blew that levy and the result was the seventh rising it failed. the results of that was that they have all the cyprus and abraham send lincoln and the use steam under water saws and they tried all that to make it work but it didn't. about all you really had a who was general macpherson who is in charge goods and his day of tool in the round of a malay, on a whole steamboat with the regimental band every night enjoy themselves with wine and a confederate centers has that been charged back. plan number two for melroy going to do?

again, 300 miles north of vicksburg is the house to pass. the yazoo river goes north of the mississippi. the committee below that level so they do that, they blow the levy with about 50 tons of dynamite and said it looked like niagara falls. all of a sudden has all these years it steamships containing a regiment of 600 men and about 50 of the steamships sorrell a round down this cortex of somebody's river there, but the main result was in floods in

about 800 square miles of the mississippi river tells of. there were cows and everything swept away and chickens on the roofs of houses completely flooded everything. and so they continued on this route which was about 300 miles from vicksburg. somehow thinking that they could get a whole army of tens of thousands of men down the river and the confederates would find out about its. they did and they wound up. unsettling chopping sounds behind them. as though people were feeling trees across their escape route, they continued on down until they ran into a for vacation

called for pendleton which was named for the confederate commander of the vicksburg army of 40,000 men, john templeton who happen to be a philadelphia yankee, who also happens to be the confederate lieutenant-general who had gone to west point but fallen in love with a lady from a virginia. she somehow persuaded him for u.s. otherwise persuaded to go south. unfortunately he did not have combat experience but a u.s. a pretty smart guy with the problem was in decision. i am getting out my point. there they are at four pendleton with his bigamous yankee gunboats that were 160 feet long, armor and with great big

guns and the fort was a little but as it san with some condos around it with a had a couple of these rifles which britain has sold them. in the rifle is a cannon, it was a big gun, but the thing was as opposed to the smooth things we can't quite tell it is going to go. and these federal army's command navy's proceeding army ran into a buzz saw because they were at the wrong and of the artillery. the guys at fort pendleton was up to your atwater, the guys working in the guns. but is free to have it on these i am clients that the union had. every time one of these things

would hits it was loose and the bowls of and senate this debris flying, splinters, but it was sent to find and one would kill man so it was really harsh business and the navy commander want to get out there and ultimately he did. but not before another confederate army man set word that another one of these deltas was flooded to flood of the confederate fort. but there were two and they withdrew in the meantime grant does not know what is going on because there's no way to have telegraph. all he knows is he has a lot of people up the creek without a paddle. [laughter] can i say that on tv? [laughter] but grant decided they have any

plan called steel by do which is rented by vicksburg's. they can get around deer creek in this creek and that creek and seven other army in under sherman of their. is smaller army of 15 or 20,000. well, it has to be one of this changes they will expeditions' ever because the flooding that had been unleashed by the blowing of the levy has left a whole forests under water per go if you have these huge gunboats the size of this rumor floating over roads and houses and the trees that are taken up and so on, steaming are these things and going of these breaks with then and when he went up the creeks he would have overhanging branches and the smokestacks on these things would hit one of

these and that which our the decks with all the creatures trying to escape from the flood, wild cats and rabbits and garrison. [laughter] every imaginable kind of snake going up there and the sailors went out with brooms to sweep is over. but some refuse to leave them made for interesting trip because they had these things on there. [laughter] final de when they got through all of this 150 miles and there in the course of the confederates knew there were coming they said here again the sound of taxes and admiral porter who was a naval commander, and i have these enormous ironclads up there and said the confederates captured as an is one to change the

entire course of the war on the mississippi river pardo it wound up and in some area where is like some strange class was: and admiral porter flat asked one of the slaves what is that and he said that is willows. we will make baskets at of them when the water dries out. he said you can go through that like an eel. and before he pursues to go through a gets stuck so tight he can go out and out of it because of those things, those will branches get in the propellers and everything and about that same time the confederates opened up rifles from there so they can't try to free themselves and it is a serious deal out. well, sherman is way back there with his people and the gunboats

leading the way supporter since backed to sherman to come home quick and sherman perceives in a strange march across the swamps can deliver even at the german bourse had to hold their jobs over their head because there were up to. water. they marched 20 miles and one day and got their and fended off in the confederate attack. all the seven -- all of a sudden the water started to receive and then there was a huge rush of water were logs came in and all the boats were lifted above all of this. it turned out that was the second levee they had finally blown some days before that left about another eight or 10 feet of water down through this and left at the union back out of

the thing it was a very strange thing. [laughter] breeding about it from the official records and all the participants, it is almost indescribable. [laughter] but that is what happened. welcome a grant at this point he is mad. we have tried all this stuff and and we are laughing stock. he told the admiral porter the navy man, event to get this out of this place where we can land and the troops and of my troops down the river south away from vicksburg. porter agreed and they did and they ran the batteries which was not considered a smart thing to do because they're the big guns up there. they didn't at night and they even got some transport ships through by putting them on the sides of the and clients police

away from the guns. it enough to transport troops. so they went to a place called hard times. they want to share as part of their but it was under water from all the flubbing because it went south a little bit and for some strange reason grant picked general mcclernand. the political general, his enemy, to leave it this expedition across the river. mainly because mcclernand was the only one of graham's major generals who actually agreed with it. sherman was aghast, he said we will be killed, this is crazy, we can't do this. you have nothing to eat on the other side of the river. and various things like that. and it rick pearson didn't like it either, but anyway, mcclernand agreed to.

mcclernand, his problem was he had just gotten remarried and had this young wife and decided to bring her along on this expedition. with all of her baggage and servants and slaves, they were from missouri, and so this delayed the landing for a dear two, but they finally made the landing in had a fight at a place called for tipson. a good a confederate general was killed there. mcclernand, his people prevailed and got them all across and finally sherman and the mcclernand and, of course, pendleton, the confederate commander and vicksburg was expecting grant to attack him there at vicksburg. and grant surprised him, he didn't attack him, he sent his army to jackson mississippi which is the capital led by general william tecumseh sherman which is apparently the first of

his purges, he burned the city down. not only that he went back and burned again. ultimately the general public and was forced out of his sanctuary there, his fortifications in vicksburg to go fight a battle in the meantime, this fight is complicated. gettysburg is so simple. [laughter] but jefferson davis recognizing now have a problem. when pendleton kept climbing back his fine. now he is in serious trouble and jefferson davis, this was his hometown, he knew what was going on so he finally started sending troops and is sending them under general johnson who's wobbly one of the most overrated generals

of the confederacy. johnson's problem was a it was a great tactician but would not fight. one of the interesting things i found when i was researching this i found a little vignette about johnson back when he was way out of west point and it was noted to be a great bird shot coming shad's and one of his buddies took him on a quail hunt in virginia and the noticed that every time the dogs would go out and johnson would not shoot and you'd say the sun was in my eyes, rambles around it. he would only take a perfect shot. which is an interesting character trait because that is the way he believed in battle

when the entire civil war. right on defense and offense he would wait and wait and in atlanta that and retreated and retreated until they had inspired him he would have treated all the way to key west and then cuba. [laughter] they selected general mingei e. johnson to have an army of a relief and this sends him 30,000 people and johnson sent them away. they were scared of sherman and the ideal thing was to get pendleton and johnson took up. they're outnumbered grant. they would have done a good deal with it did not happen and the result was the competitors and the union fought a battle very vicious battle at shipping hill not very well-known, and if the participants said it was one of the hardest battles and worst slaughter.

notñ problem with civil war -- the more dead the six year the battle. in but pendleton was forced to retreat within the defense's of expert on the backside which were just as formidable as the riverside because the terrain is so cut up. it is like bamboo and swamp. is furbearers live. as a matter of fact, a little story allied to tell, teddy roosevelt when he was president went down there on a bear hunt to the land around vicksburg because of their summit bears and then went and chased the bear all day to the woods and they finally found the bear and it was so tired he could not even climate you because they chase them with dogs and

horseback. and one of the handler said the there is a bear, kill him, and he said on not going to kill him, that there give us a fair chase, leave him go. well, the prescott word of this and it became known that the president teddy roosevelt and same to the bear. the end as command called more smidgen who lives in brooklyn and he thought so much of this he devised at of the cloth and cotton a brown bear and a patented it and called it a teddy bear. and you send it to the president of the united states and believe mcmorris they never worked a day in their lives again ever. [laughter] they still patented a teddy

bear. believe it to say that that to me bring to getting up there to vicksburg was a tough deal, but the taste panels and back into his for vacation and then decided we have a beaten army here and we will take the confederates. he attacked them with his poor army and were terribly ripples because confederates have gone a second wind and said we're not done yet. a few days later grant attacked him again and he wasn't satisfied the first time in had to go twice with the same results. then he settled down to a scene. hcg is like what they used to do the catapults end of that has been going iran since. biblical times and. you basically stars of people out it is and there are so rare stores about sieges.

sometimes a child and would take one of these big catapults and throw dead bodies with people with a plank inside the place. the people in england, there is a device called a try clich which is a version of the catapult in the people in london redid goods for the heck of it of years ago and they were able to fly a grand piano through the goalposts of a soccer field. [laughter] 100 yards away so this was big business and now it is replaced by artillery when the other thing was tunneling and so they would tunnel in the old times the whole thing would collapse but now i have explosives. grants people started to tunnel and they got to tunneling and

the confederates could hear them. they had a water and they could listen to them banging down there so they started countermining and it it is essentially the same thing at this point vicksburg is like a precursor to gold or one. to armies and it still means doing everything they can against the other one. and finally in this set off this line the union of so many barrels and tons of dynamite and they blew up all sorts of terrible things in tour of the union lines, but also blew across the union lines of all these things who had been working as a counter minor and was a slave who have been down there in the pits and he was

alive and and he landed in the union lines. and they asked the man have five you thank you have to go because everything is blown up. they change the topography of vicksburg. these are about 5 miles which is probably not so [laughter] but there was an iowa regimens or maybe wisconsin and they put the men and in a tent in charge of $0.2 for people to look at him. [laughter] so general mcclernand saved him from this and made him his ballet or something until the end of the war but this went on really bad stuff going on because it was constant artillery. in the union had the river filled with the watersheds and somebody said in the show was the side of a full grown haugen.

day and night to their shooting these things into vicksburg and the citizens rich and poor took to living in caves because it is so hilly there they can dig caves, but at the same time at that would protect them from the mortar in normal going zaun ready until the union every hour was shooting hundreds of these cannonballs from their positions and they were trying to hit the tops of the confederate fortifications which normally did and landed in town. and they lived for a while on dead cows and things that are killed by these and what ever approve the content then after awhile they would say i'm at a food and some of the troops discovered that there was a lot of bamboo thickets. they discovered with the china and have finally discovered that bamboo is delicious.

i don't know what they call the number of us some kind of a blossoms. but they began to run at a food and ultimately the dogs and cats began to disappear and then when the army had bills ended their tune but they fell again to where and the artillery was fixed so they commence to lead the mules. one and one lady in road in her journal am, she said that martha says that they have brats' hanging in the market so the rats. and you have a whole population that is starving and there's nothing you can do, you can't the state because of the union is out there. and countersign there was nothing to do but to surrender and that is what general powell and did the valley on the fourth

of july of 18631 out to meet grant ion and grant gave him a reasonable deal they marched down off the parapets and marched down their flag which was important to them and put them in a stack and marched back and get what you call a parole which is is they weren't going to fight against the union in a more until you exchanged what ever they did. and that was the same day i got incidently, that robert e. lee began leaving gettysburg. with for the july 1963. there had been an excellent time to stop that war. because it was no way that militarily the south was going to minutes of.

who jefferson davis was a trained secretary of war for the united states government want and you may have believed there was a political way to win which would have been the lincoln had not been reelected to the fall and may be in mcclernand, but we don't know what is the they're fun. one but if davis and that bunch had just said in an we gave it a doggone good shot we have killed in the to quit here, he did not do it a we had two more years until 1865 and all the destruction. atlanta every where in the march to the sea.

this somehow were equating new arrogance with pride in and they seemed respectable and if you heat you're not thinking straight. or not thinking right. let's speculates. but the battle of vicksburg taken with the battle of gettysburg and gettysburg was basically, lee would up north where the 60 or 70,000 guys and. >> with 15,000 less still a viable army in vicksburg, his

whole army was gone. the mississippi valley was gone forever and all the western states were caught off. if they had gone to lincoln lincoln would have cut them a deal. he was ready to get the war over with. a helluva lot better deal than what we've got which was 100 years of economic poverty and i am just about -- when does a little kid you can see the party in the south was impoverished because of this. so that is the war, but it was a fun thing to make the book because it is a good story and that there are a lot of stores within the story. grand drinking -- if i tried to explain all this udall go off

and i wouldn't get to sign any books. [laughter] so while we do that, larry to say thank you. you have been a good attentive audience. if you've got any questions i think we still have a human is where we can do that. how many minutes? [applause] thank you. two what is ask questions myself? [laughter] >> was a hard to transition from history or friction to nonfiction? >> that? was it is a hard to transition from novels? no, you are a writer and. it is different in so many ways.

that you start out, i'll always start out with a sign. i know is going to be a while, you don't just do this like that, is going to be a couple of years longer. and people ask me, what is your favorite book that you wrote. i say if you have 15 children which would be your favorite child? do love them all? you love them for different things and some of them don't love as much as some of them love more, but those questions are hard questions to answer. i am going to give you my answer. >> i am just curious and out like to say you are a great

writer. >> you'll be paid later. [laughter] >> obviously you think vicksburg is much more important battle and much more crucial to the outcome of the civil war, but why do think it is per got all the press because most people think of gettysburg? >> let me ask, can everybody hear the questions being asked in the back? i think it is because death of cells. i mean, gettysburg was a story of such immediate and heroism and horrible slaughter and it makes you wonder what on earth, when i was in the army i know what it is like to have to order a man to do things like that, but when you are ordering hundreds of thousands -- tens of thousands of men coming year note there is a good chance that probably a third of them or 25%,

and not going to come back alive. had you get those people to do that and how do you do it? and i think gettysburg is one of those cataclysmic encounters. more than the napoleonic wars, more than world war ii. did was right there naked and out into the open and those people went and they were going to die. so there is a great tragedy to be told there were as vicksburg was lower. just as many people were probably killed in the battle of vicksburg as gettysburg, it just took them six or seven months longer. yes, sir. >> i have read accounts were grant had the benefit of one or two confederate careers in.

>> i am having trouble hearing you. >> you alluded to the battle of champions till, i read accounts where grant had the benefit of it one or three confederate courier stopping by and giving him the opportunity to read marching orders that relate to pendleton. i wonder if you might to speak about the way as in -- my have affected this encounter and other encounters and that civil war? >> i have read the stuff that had a fact and i don't know that i could give it to the prince of its is questionable. it is not in the official records of the i confined and that is what i can appraise myself on is what the official records which is 128 doorstops size and what they collected as a labor of love from all the army's command every scrap of paper that was still left after

that war and the federal government collected and printed in at the general printing office. you hear a lot of things. that may be true. i don't know so i just kind of figure if i don't know is, if i don't feel comfortable with that, there are many big stories out there. >> thank you to ted turner you are in my bedroom every other night. [laughter] it's true. it out like to know if you consider yourself more as lt. dan or force, and you really think life is so arbitrary because your last comments about 1863 could have ended the war? [laughter] ..