will no life but to abscond with southerners. you have to think cecelia made a decision and knew where she was. it's a short ferry ride across the river, eight minutes by travel logs that we have at the time. eight minutes for a ferryman to get you across the river. we knew there was an active african-american community that took an interest when slaves came to visit that often helped them make their way to canada. :

>> they didn't want them to grab her, persuade her to come back. so she was immediately across the border then sometime in may probably. >> do we know what the reaction was to her leaving? >> rogers clark who is fanny's son wrote about years later and said she was upset. and that's about the extent of it. it seemed to me, probably her father was more upset than

cheney because, you know, and he is 20. they been companions. it's not like a real slaveowning relationship whereas we know her father, several slaves, several escapes, and did everything in his power to get those slaves back. so it probably bothered her father up by two more. i think most likely they didn't understand. they didn't understand why this girl that they're taken in, that they don't have been very humane towards them, had been part of the family would have left them. that's a very common sentiment among slaveholders when their slaves escaped. they don't get it. they don't understand why they would leave the slave situation, why they would leave the family. >> do we know when cecelia and fanny contacted against? >> we do. we don't know exactly.

the first letter that they have here in the archives is dated 1850 -- now not going to remember. 1855 i think. but it refers to several letters that had come before. the early 1850s fan he is writing -- or cecelia is writing from canada. she has settled in toronto after she went from niagara. she went almost to toronto directly, within the year. and so she's writing back to fanny from canada, from toronto sending those letters. so mid-1850s but it took a while, several years for her to feel secure enough that she could venture forth to write to fanny and maybe let her know where she was. it was a big risk. if you let them know where you are, they might send someone after you've. [inaudible]

>> she was writing about -- royko the subtext of all of these letters is my mother selling -- still in her household? how is she? she really wants to establish contact with her mother. and fanny is the vehicle through which she has to do that. it's interesting, because fanny is replied to cecelia's letters to you can get the gist of cecelia's letters from fanny. she goes, you ask about your mother, and she tells her, but then fanny's letter are very chatty, talk about the different people in her life and how they are doing and all this stuff. then she finally says you ask about your mother, she is still in her house, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. she longs to see you and all this stuff. so she gets the information. you get the gist but fanny treats it more like a regular correspondence where's there's a

sense of urgency or desperation from cecelia side. she wants to, when she escaped she had to leave her mother and her brother behind. so she loses that family connection. that tears after. so she is trying to use those letters, that corresponds with fanny, that friendship if you will, to move through her to get back to her family and to maintain that connection. >> what was her life like it seems to be pretty good. she moved pretty quickly to the kind of conventional milestone with slaves have gained their freedom. she adopts an impartial. she keeps the named cecelia budget tops a last name which she had not had before. she gets married, legally married to a man she meets in toronto. they buy property. she goes to work for herself, you know, earning her own money. she has a child in freedom who

will never know, never know the bonds of slavery. so in that way her life in canada is pretty good. in a kind of, you know, is she rich? no. she works hard. they never i think he'll and highly secure. we have some mortgage documents on the house so that you know their kind of borrowing money from various purposes. so by all normal measures she's better off, but they're still a hint of instability in their lives. and she seems, there's seems and i wouldn't push this too far, but there are can't she might've been active in kind of the anti-slavery calls are there some contact with some abolitionist people over border pictures living on center street in toronto which is kind of the heart of the african-american

community. so it would seem odd if they were not aware of the debates going on about slavery. >> what happened to fanny? >> fanny jaswant back over to back to louisville with her father. she married in 1848. really her life doesn't change much with the loss of cecelia. she does not, her dad doesn't give her another slave to replace her, but by that time her mother has died and she is the leading white imo in a household anyway. so she's already kind of managing the household. and in 1848 she married a man named andrew ballard who is a lawyer in louisville. and ballard has a few slaves. is kind of on the struggling lawyer and of the louisville bar. so he's ambitious. he owns a few properties but he's not anywhere near the social class of thruston. her family is largely opposed to the match.

there's just great material in their a about their courtship and about the problem they have an andrew professing his undying love for her. issues questioning whether he might be after her money or after her family connection. no, no. a truly dramatic and romantic, and kind of cool how all this stuff was preserved. but she eventually married him, and he any kind of unusual move, he moves into their house, the thruston house. so it's fanny and andrea and charles william, her father all living in a big house on walnut street. which may have been a bone thrown to the old man to kind of, you know, he's not losing his daughter, he's gaining a son-in-law. and then she does like 19th century women do, she starts having kids. they have five kids, one died in infancy, so she has four sons

and a daughter. and between 1848-1858, so she's busy. she's busy. she just becomes a kind of established, stable member of kind of elite global society. >> how long did fanny and cecelia right to each other and? >> about five years. it was from the mid-1850s to about 1859. and through the course of that correspondence, fanny's dash and you can see fanny's ideas about slavery kind of change. in the first letter she said, she kind of says your mama still with us. she longs to see. if you never get to see her again, you know, maybe you'll see each other in heaven. but then towards the middle of the correspondents she starts to say, you don't have anything to

fear from if you want to come back and see her mom, i would never try to re- enslave you. i've always viewed slavery as kind of a diabolical institution. it's natural for slaves to be free. that doesn't mean we will for your mother, but i understand your situation. and then by the last few letters she has kind of worked a deal where she will free cecilia's mother if such he can raise the money to compensate them for the purchase. and they'll not 100 years offer each year of service. so it's $600 they would expire sometime after the civil war actually starts, 1862 i think. so 1856 is when that letter comes and it says it will cost you, you can raise $600, we will free your mom and will not $100 off each year until 1862 and then we will free her.

cecelia is never able to raise the money. one of the mortgages that are talked about is taken a turn that creates the one if they mortgage the house to raise a little bit of money. $600 when you are making a monthly salary of maybe 50 is a lot of money. and so they were never able to raise the money. and towards the end of cecelia's stay in canada, which she leads 1860. her husband has died. she's a widow. she loses that in can. she's much given up hope, and the last letter that we have is cecelia saying -- or fanny singh, you know, you speak of raising money to buy your mother's freedom. tell us how much you have and maybe we can advance it a few years. but it doesn't seem -- does the record. i kept wishing for some kind of happy ending where mary, her mother and cecelia was reunited

but there's just no record that shows ever emancipated. no record that she ever found cecelia again or than ever reigniting -- reuniting. so we don't know what happened to mary. >> you said that tone of her letters change. what you think major change of? >> you know, i don't know. could be several factors. one is you've got an increasing virulent debate in kentucky, in the nation about slavery. it's possible that she was just persuaded by that kind of, especially the religious arguments because her reservations about slavery seemed to be somewhat religious. so maybe she was touched by the kind of evangelical that the abolitionist appeal, that, you know, that is a violation of

god's law. certainly what she says from the pulpit where she were steps does not support that at all. the episcopal of the church is proslavery. and so he's not going to give her that religious message. the other thing is she suffered a lot. she suffered a lot of loss through her life, when she lost her law -- when she lost her mom, she lost her brothers and sisters but in 1850s her brother was struck by lightning and killed any kind of freakish accident. and so i think there might be, she may be sympathizing with cecelia. she is losing her family and cecelia is separate from hers. it may be kind of a personal connection may explain the change in tone. but in the end, i mean, i stake you on a few reasons but i don't really know. >> how did you come across the letters? >> lock. i was at a club in louisville

working on a different project. and i had asked an archivist to retrieve some of the materials totally unrelated. and while they were back in his back i was just browsing through a catalog and i happen to see that they had this collection of letters from fanny to escaped slaves living in canada. and from that moment i thought, well, when i finish this first project i'll come back and look at those lives. well, i never finished the first project but i want to come back and look at those letters. that set me off on kind of a chase to map out both of their lives. >> how long did it take you to put the book together and? >> way too long. i started when my son was in preschool, and he will be entering eighth grade. so probably eight or nine years. i wrote another book in between there. so i took a two year break. but it was eight or nine years

of plugging away at it. and the book is out now? >> it's not out yet. it comes out in october. but you can pre-order it now. it is inevitable for pre-order but it is not published yet. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. i enjoyed it. >> booktv was in frankfort, kentucky, as part of our cities to work when we visit several southeastern cities over the next few months to bring you a taste of the literary history and culture. our partner in frankfort conduct was local affiliate frankfort plant board. for more information on this and events in other cities, visit c-span.org/localcontent. >> i think that probably everybody in this room is wearing a uniform, and the people are not wearing a uniform are here because of the war -- the warrior ethos. when you join, he first made the decision come it probably had something to do with that.

either you were, you felt like you really had to come you're a high school after our competitors or something like that and you're looking for a venue where you could use a. he said i want to join the most elite unit i can join. or i think that's one. or maybe you felt that there was the absence of that in your life. you might have been addressed or wondering am i going the right way, am i heading for jail or am i heading for some kind of a life that is not going to really bring out all that is in me. so you said yourself, i want to go somewhere with this kind of code of honor exists, and what it can be taught to me. so i think, i think, i'm putting myself in your mind, i think that's the reason. certainly why i joined, and i think that's what, i hope that's what you guys are. and the other thing i think is really audible about making that choice is in america today, it really is a choice. if we were born in ancient

sparta or ancient macedonia there would be no choice. the warrior ethos would be the only thing that was. a few years, general mueller, talking yesterday. you got one of% of the armed forces these feces coming out of 1% of the population. and so that's a real choice that everybody major, particularly if you think about it, the values of the civilian society, and i'm not knocking anything here. but are quite opposite to the warrior ethos values. so this conscious choice to choose the warrior ethos for yourself is pretty amazing thing. and let me just talk about the fight is just for one second. if you think about it in civilian life, probably the paramount value is freedom. individual autonomy, a person can be whatever they want to be. they could be a rockstar. they can be donald trump. they can be president of the united states, whatever they want to be. that is kind of life, liberty,

the pursuit of happiness. that's held out as, and try to sell. that's kind of what makes america great. but when you choose the warrior ethos, duty becomes the value. and service. so if you can't wait home -- here in a ponytail and if you can decide i don't feel like a play for another couple of months and i don't feel like deploying at all. that's one value. a second value that the critical to at large holds up really high is money commonwealth. the pursuit of affluence and celebrity. so somebody like a donald trump or something like that is lionized throughout the culture. whereas nobody will get rich in this room from which you are doing, instead of money, what the warrior culture offer is on a. and, in fact, there's a great story about when an agent -- i will take a few ancient stories today. i hope i will put you to sleep.

when this year q. since in sicily were under siege i the opinion. i know general mahone is up on this, the spartans came to their aid. and the way the spartans win of the help another country, they never sent money and they never sent an army. they just one more -- one man, the general. so when he came to syracuse, seared use was a very wealthy city in sicily. they had really virtually no army. so he had to somehow form an army out of these kind of crazy civilians. and so when he went to pick his officer corps, he gave these instructions. he said search for men who care not about wealth or power, but who crave honor. and i would guess that's pretty much what is feeling this room here. another difference between the civilian dies and warrior ethos

guys come in civilian life people want the creature comforts. they want air conditioning, they want an easy life. if you can take a pill and lose 20 pounds, you will do that. where as in the warrior culture, adversity, a huge part of it. the rougher the better. and people, when people tell stories in a warrior culture, it's always the most hellish stories possible, right? and i know, i'm a marine, and when marines talk about their history, they don't really talk about the great victories but they talk about the worst casualty scenarios, like the which he and the, that kind of thing. so adversity. one of the great warrior virtues. i'm trying to think of one other.

slipped my mind. i want to say one other thing about special forces troopers, in particular. in my opinion i think that you guys are the pinnacle of the warrior ethos. because not only our special forces soldiers, have possess the military skills, which we all are difficult that is, and possess the character skills, but particularly working with indigenous forces indigenous insurgencies is something like that, that is really to me the highest level because a small group of men have to go in to completely foreign culture and exercise influence without authority, not able to make people do what you want to do by money or power or anything. but only really but personal magnetism and personal honor and personal integrity and personal warrior. so that is about as hot as it gets. isolate everybody for that.

so let me get into -- so i salute everybody for that. let me get into what i think warrior ethos is. i'm going to start with some stories from this book. for quick little one minute stories about ancient sparta. what i'm talk about, i talk about the warrior ethos today, i'm talk about the classical time ancient warrior ethos, which one of the things i hope we'll get into some questions, i read would love to hear what you guys say about the modern world, rules of engagement and some of the really dubious gray areas where people have. this is old school we're talking about now. these are for quick stories about the spartan women, ancient spartan win. some out always starts with women. these stories come from plutarch a book called already a and part of part of that called sayings of the spartan women. and if you have not ever read this or sayings of the spartans, i highly recommend it. there are all these little

nuggets. here are four stories. a messenger returned to sparta from the battle. and the women all gather around him to find out what happens. what has happened to their men. into one mother, the messenger says mother, your oldest son i'm sure to tell you your oldest son was killed facing the enemy. and the mother says, he is my son. and he says to her, your younger son is alive and unhurt. he ran away from the enemy. she says he is not my son. one story. second story, another messenger returned from another battle, and a mother approaches him and says how fair is our country? and he burst into tears as his mother, i'm so sorry to tell you, all five of your sons were killed facing the enemy. and she says, you fool, i did not ask you about my sons. i asked about our country. and he says mother, we were victorious. and she says then i am happy, and turns around and goes home.

then the third story, somehow, i don't how this happened but to spartan brothers were fleeing from the enemy back towards the city. and their mother happened to be coming down the road. this may be slightly apocryphal, but in any event she sees him coming, lifts her skirt over her head and says where do you to think you're going to come back here from whence you came? [laughter] we don't know the end of the story but hopefully the two brothers turned around and went back the other way. then the final spartan mother story is the shortest one of all, one of the spartan mother who hands are sent to shield. as she sang of sending them off to battle and says, come back with this or on it. that can is a hard-core culture but, you know, when your own mother is kicking you in the, there's something to that.

so i'm going to refer back to the stories. there's rewatch i told not to because i love those stories. "the warrior ethos" evolved out of the primitive hunting and and the virtues that were for us little homage, a littles spirited take on macedon and stuff like that. it was really designed originally, i think, to accomplish two things. one, to overcome fear, the god of the battlefield, and to make people work together. and so since fear is probably the most primal emotion, self-preservation, other emotions and other things had to be brought in to counter that in a cultural way. and i think that's why my think of what the warrior ethos comes from. so there were at least three things that were recruited to counter fear and to make people

work together. and that was on her, shame, and love. let's start with changes for a second that i think a lot of people don't think of shame as a positive. but certainly almost every great warrior culture is a shame-based culture, whether it's the samurai culture where if someone suffers dishonor, they have to, you know, kill themselves. and certainly pashtun wally is a shame-based code of honor. i would surely say the marine corps is a shame-based culture. and certainly sparta was a shame-based culture. going back to those stories when you think about the mother whose son was alive but had run away from him and she said he is not my son. that's the kind of, the application of shane to make people go for in the face of

fear. is a great story about alexander the great, excuse me, when his army, he and his army were in india and had been on, fighting for 10 years almost. the army was ready to revolt. they were tired. they wanted to go home. they had enough of this stuff. so alexander was a serious moment. out et cetera called the whole army together. i don't know if you've heard this story. and he stripped naked in of them. and you could see across his whole body one wound after another. he had been wounded with arrows, javelins, rocks, big boulders that crashed into. byrd come everything possible. so he said guzman, he said look at these ones on my body. all for you. and in your service. you will notice that they're all in the front. there's nothing in the back. he said i will make you a deal. if anyone of you and stand forth from the army, peering strip naked beside me.

and if your wounds are greater than mine, i will turn the army around right now and we will walk home. and not a man came forward. instead, the whole army burst into a cheer. they beg his forgiveness for their want of spirit. and they can only to lead them farther forward. so that is kind of, of course is great leadership. but what they really is is the application of shane to make the men, to make them then go for it and some and their spirit. in sparta they used to have a pretty young girls had these little instance of shame that they use, if someone failed in action and came back to the city, there were a number things that happened to them, but the pretty young gals used to gather around them and seeing these kind of songs of ridicule. the next time the guy went out, you could be sure he didn't -- in other words, chain is a

technique, the application of shame is worse than fear of the enemy. let's talk about honor for second which is the flipside. honor is, as we know from tribal cultures, i'm sure you guys know this a lot better than i do, and a pashtun culture, let's say, honor is the most prized possession of a name. much more important than money, land, women, anything but as long as a man has honor, he's okay. but if he doesn't have honor life is not worth living. so honor is that high level which a person internally will not let himself fall from. there's a famous gunnery sergeant in the marine corps and featherstone. and he does these young marines when they complain about this house by jesus and the wrinkle you get to salaries. u.k. financials out and you get a psychological seller. he