a big shock to them. so i think it might come more as a shock to the general public that hasn't followed this issue and they would be surprised to hear some of it. >> let's give ellen a hand. mra[applause] >> we'd like to hear from you, twitter us your feed at twitter at booktv >> dr. leonard you've written several books on topics during the civil war, what interested you in this topic? >> well, my interest in the civil war is somewhat mysterious to me. if you had told me many years ago when i was a girl that this is what i was going to study, i would have -- i grew up in the vietnam war era. i hate war, i guns. you know, i don't like any of this -- i don't like this topic at all but when i was a graduate student in american history, i

happened to take a class on the civil war and something about it just clicked with me. in that class i particularly decided that the complete absence of women -- comments on women in the class -- women didn't seem to have anything to do with the civil war in that class, and i determined that would be my life's work. that i would write about women in the civil war and, of course, i've branched out since then. but that is where i started. >> who is joseph holt. >> joseph holt was lincoln's judge advocate general. and if people remember him today, they'd particularly remember him as the judge advocate general who was after lincoln's assassination was in charge of prosecuting the conspirators who had worked with john will can's booth. however,ees much larger figure than that. he was 50-some years old by the time he got to washington and by the time he became lincoln's judge advocate general and he had a very long life and he

lived on to 1894. so he's a much bigger figure than that. the way we know him for years as lincoln's judge advocate general. >> you've titled "lincoln's forgotten ally." why did you choose this as a title? >> because of his importance to lincoln. because of his deep devotion to lincoln and his policies and, therefore, he is lincoln's ally, but he is someone whom we simply don't remember in the historical record except in terms of a tiny slice of what role he played over the course of his life as a professional. so he was to me one of the most important members of lincoln's administration and yet he has dropped off the historical map except for certain tiny parts of his life and that's what i find among the most fascinating things about him. >> why do you have holt was so overlooked in history. >> one of the reasons i think he was overlooked is because we like our historical figures to

be very simple. and easy to understand. he is an immensely complicated person to understand. so he takes a lot of work to think about and i think that's one reason. he also was involved none of ways at the end of the civil war with complicated issues and took stances that a lot of people feel were vindictive and hateful to the south when really the nation would be peaceably reconciled. he was not forgotten but he was dismissed. another thing he was a kentuckian and a southern slave holder who spent the first half of his life in kentucky. and because kentucky remained a union state throughout the war but after the war, it was sort of a post-war confederate state. because of his strong union stance, kentucky itself had no reason to remember him. and one of the most fascinating experiences of doing research on

him was to go to kentucky a couple of years ago and ask people if they'd ever heard of him and the number who had heard of him could be counted on one hand, maybe two. so there are many reasons why he's been forgotten. >> you just touched on it briefly and you state in your book that the popular opinion of holt is misrepresented by americans collective historical memory. so explain what you mean by this. and how does the portrayal of him differ than that in the book? >> i think that he is -- the way he's remembered is misrepresented because when he is remembered at all -- first of all, he's mostly not remembered and he's a very important figure for, you know, through the civil war era right up to 1894. so he's forgotten. that's a misrepresentation. he's also -- when he is remembered, remembered as this purely vindictive figure who simply wanted to punish the south and in the recent film the conspirator suggests the holt character will is, obviously,

out to get mary serrat. he has no scruples and amoral so this image is also a misrepresentation. it treats him as if he was simply a corrupt judge and he wasn't. what i tried to do in this book is first of all bring him out of the darkness. so it's a different representation because it is a representation and it's a big representation. it's a very long, full biography of his entire life. it also tries to put the things that people do remember about him and the ways they see him in a larger context of the work that he did, what he believed, why he believed what he believed and why he made the choices he made as a professional and as lincoln's judge advocate general. >> what was holt's role in lincoln's administration? >> well, as judge advocate general he was basically the overseer of all military justice. so he had to supervise all the other judge advocates across the

field. he was in charge of, you know, overseeing capital cases. he had to make sure that the bureau of military justice was running properly. he was the head of a division of the war department and worked very close with lincoln's secretary of war edward stanton to whom he was a good friends. he dealt with thousands and thousands of court martials in other cases every single year. >> you write a lot about lincoln's thoughts on holt. and holt's actions. how did you go about doing your research on this? >> well, lincoln -- one of the things that's most fascinating about holt being forgotten is that he didn't have to be forgotten. there is a tremendous amount of archival material on joseph holt in the library of congress also at the huntington library in pasadena. and actually there are descendents of his siblings still alive who have many family records that they can offer. i think it's interesting that he has not been studied in this

way. but if you begin to even dip into these materials you can see what his relationship to lincoln was. you can see how loyal he was. you can find the documents where lincoln is thanking him for giving him policy advice and so on. so all the evidence is right there. it's not that hard to find. it's all right in the library of congress available to any researcher. >> dr. leonard, thank you for your time today. >> up next, booktv sat down with george washington university professor marcy norton to discuss her book "sacred gifts, profane pleasures." this is about 20 minutes. >> george washington professor marcy norton, where did snickers bars and marlboros come from? >> well, we have to go way back in time. tobacco and chocolate are both native to the americas and were developed by indians.

tobacco in the distant past, several thousand years bce and cocoa which is the raw central ingredient to chocolate, likewise, maybe around 3,000 bce and so they were central to native americans. and when europeans -- europeans had no knowledge of them until they arrived starting with columbus in 1492. and went from there. >> how were they used in these ancient cultures here? >> so tobacco was used in a whole multitude of ways. it was smoked cigars, pipes, sort of like substances also used topically as medicines, snuff through the nose, enemas, a whole host of applications sort of varying depending on the region. chocolate had a more restricted

domain but what's really important is that it was a beverage, almost exclude not just in the americas but in until the americas. it was a stimulant beverage used in some ways that we think of coffee today. and i could go on about it. >> please do. >> so chocolate had a more restricted domain in the americas than tobacco. it was used by groups we know today as aztec and mayan and other groups in the broader region that we call meso-america. and it was -- many different concoctions but one of the favorite ones had cocoa, the central ingredient mixed with water and then a whole host of spices, chili peppers that gave it a kind of spicy bite. and another ingredient that made it red and it was actually very central to the experience 'cause it was -- reminded people of blood.

and then floral flavorings and another one that was to the central america which gave it a cinnamony and clovy flavor. in the chocolate experience it was a whole sensory experience. it wasn't about the taste but it was also about the texture. there was a foam on top that was really important to meso-americans as they consumed it. special drinking vessels made out of ceramics or gourds that were lacquered so important was these vessels were actually part of the tribute that the aztec ruler had from his subject peoples. so that was sort of the physical composition but it was also incredibly important culturally. so chocolate was seen as one of the perks of the elite. it was a kind of conspicuous status consumption to drink fine

chocolate. and it was really important in rights of socioibility. so you couldn't have meeting of diplomats or traitors without chocolate. and it was often used in a very ceremonial ritual before any kind of feasting would begin among aztec cultures there would be a ceremonial use of chocolate and tobacco together and bouquets of flowers you hear described. and served in this very choreographed manner. and one of the arguments of my book is that when the europeans arrived, they actually adopted the customs almost -- i mean, there's some differences but there's an essential continuity and europeans associated them as quintessential symbols of socialibility and also of status in the case of chocolate, tobacco had resolve more

different uses among different social levels. and even, for instance, the -- today we have valentine's day in association with chocolate as being kind of erotic and that too was something that europeans learned from meso-americans as well. >> so marcy norton, in 1492, columbus discovers the americas, does he bring back cocoa and tobacco on that first voyage? >> well, certainly not cocoa or chocolate because the area that he arrived in the caribbean -- chocolate wasn't used. so he actually did run across cocoa on his fourth voyage when he was off the coast of honduras. there's no evidence that he saw chocolate itself and he saw the cocoa beans and he noted how valued they were to the traders. it was described by his son as if they were like eyeballs when they fell down. but tobacco -- he came across it

seems almost immediately because it was so central in the caribbean and, in fact, was even offered tobacco leaves which was a gift which would have been a traditional diplomatic gesture among those groups. he sent out men to go investigate what's known as haiti and the dominican ray hubbard and they described people smoking it. there's no evidence that he himself tried tobacco. but pretty soon afterwards, if not -- and it's not unlikely that some of his men might have and the reason that it's not unlikely is because it was so central to socialibility that when the explorers were going out and -- you know, sometimes we have this image of europeans just coming and sort of invading which it's not totally untrue. but they were actually really dependent on native groups for

information, for food. for diplomatic and military alliances. and so as with any arriving person -- or envoy who wants to get something from another group, you kind of have to make yourself conform to what their customs are when they're in a vulnerable position as they were. when in rome do as romans do. when in the caribbean do as the caribbeans do. and when they arrived in what we call mexico or new spain, the same thing with chocolate since chocolate was part of the socialibility rituals of those groups. but there's kind of a split reaction. i'm making it sound like they were very welcoming to that and that wasn't the case. on the other hand, they sort of were exposed to it and began to consume in it in those situations but they also were very suspicious of it as well. tobacco for -- the smoking of

something for them was sort of reminiscent of things they thought about as witchcraft and the early -- and they also clued on pretty soon that it was not important rituals of socialibility and was also part of native religion. and right pa of the mission of these europeans was to bring their religion to it and so it was very disconcerting to lock at these substances -- they described it as kind of idol try. on the one hand on the frontier they're using it. on the other hand the earlier chronicles are describing tobacco of emblematic of the europeans. and it's several years down the line or more century down the line when tobacco is starting to be used in europe.

when they are curious about the until as they have this print record of describing tobacco as the ultimate idoll try or barbarian behavior and they are reconciling their new habits in the way they described it earlier on. >> well, when did tobacco catch on in europe and elsewhere? >> there's actually a significant time lag. part of the research that i did done for this project which hadn't been done before was look in trade records and see when you start seeing them in a systemic way. so we have evidence that there's kind of erratic and idiosyncratic imports of both of the goods throughout the sixteenth century, throughout the 15th 00s and the europeans d their stash when they go back. sailors were associated with tobacco early on and a few

returning conquistadors but you don't see them at all in the trade records until the 1590s. and that's when you have a sort of critical mass of consumers, kind of we'd say in contemporary language, maybe the first adopters and i identified sort of three vanguard groups as these kind of early users. you wouldn't be surprised that colonial sort of officials, elite aristocrats were turning and merchants were involved. a third group may be surprising for our contemporary sensibilities were clergy, who were a significant group who would kind of go back and forth. so clergy in particular early i found trade records a jesuit saying from his jesuit brother in varra crews saying, okay, we have chocolate coming in we have to go a house to seville and to our comrades in rome as well.

those are kind of the three vanguard groups. >> using tobacco. >> and chocolate. and chocolate. yeah, sort of together. and once they had a foothold in places like the seville which is for all the new world not just goods but for a population that was comfortable on both sides of the atlantic, from there it spreads out into the court centers, going to madrid and to other elite cosmopolitan centers in the case of chocolate and one of the differences between chocolate and tobacco is chocolate starts sort of as a very much of an elite phenomenon and then trickles down to other groups. tobacco kind of enters both on the elite level and also on a more popular level because of its use among sailors who were integrated in these more sort of popular milieus as well. >> marcy norton, why did you write about chocolate and tobacco? >> for a number of reasons. one is that it's just on the

face of it, to me to dui our kind of conventional image of the consequences of 1492. we have the germs, guns and steel image which is not incorrect of this meeting two hemispheres and it being almost a sort of unilateral set of consequences for the americas. and yet here are these two goods that were going in the other direction. and so i was interested in sort of exploring this other -- this sort of -- the eastward story as well as the westward story. another reason is i'm really interested in the meeting intersection between culture and nature. and here are two goods that, you know, are from nature, that have strong effects on the nervous system and on the body and yet they're mediated through culture. and so i was interested in the

interplay of that as well in the way that, you know, you have cultural rituals but they're also kind of then become this biological experience as well. and when i started research way back in the '90s on this project, people were talking -- it was right when antidepressants were coming out in a whole new way. it was a psychotropic revolution. and i thought wouldn't it be interested in another psychotropic revolution, europe that had no experience of stimulant beverages or tobacco and then happened once it got there? i want to tell people that chocolate was the first stimulant beverage. it actually preceded coffee or tea in europe and i found that really interesting to think about. >> were they ever used as political tools or was there such a demand for these two products at some point in europe that there were political consequences? >> absolutely. chocolate among european elite

just as it had been among native meso-american elite becomes a diplomatic tool. it becomes very similar -- if you were meeting someone -- actually, a good way to bribe an official as well. so, you know, among kind of foreign dignitaries if you would come, you would give them chocolate and so forth. another way in which they were politically important was that they'd become very important sources of state revenue. by the late 17th century, tobacco -- the taxes on tobacco become the single greatest source of revenue for the spanish state. more important at that point than returns from gold and silver. so the tradition of taxing tobacco to bring in state revenue has a very ancient history. in fact, tobacco and chocolate in theory but not in practice becomes state monopolies in spain in the 1630s. and chocolate -- it doesn't go

really anywhere but with tobacco, the state becomes the exclusive purveyor of tobacco starting in 1632. the state officials themselves don't handle it. in modern language they outsource it. they basically have contracts for the tobacco moloply that gets leased out and, in fact, the people who have this tobacco monopoly have run-ins with the inquisition the whole time. most of them end up being incarcerated because they're seen as secret jews which becomes a sort of subplot in this story so inquisition stories was a rich pictures when inquisitors start asking them about the tobacco trade. >> what was the cost of both tobacco and chocolate as the decades went on? >> so one of the things that happens with tobacco is that it becomes a segmented market so

you can buy really expensive tobacco. by the mid late 17th century, the most desirable way for elites to consume tobacco was as snuff. because it's a monopoly, as you might predict, it's quite above the market rate. it also creates a situation for contraband and so there's a lot of black market tobacco as well so you could buy really inexpensive tobacco and for that reason -- one of the things that commentators would say about tobacco is how egalitarian it was. it's used by rich, by poor, by urban, by rural, by men, by women, it's actually gender neutral. in the case of chocolate it's much more expensive and most of the 17th century it's restricted

to those who were nobility, rich traders, professionals and so forth. but by the early seventeenth century what i -- by the early 18th century, actually by the end of the seventeenth century you see evidence that it's -- it's something that's accessible for other elements of the population because it's being sold actually on street corners and what seems like sort of like kiosks and so people who couldn't afford the cost of a whole pound of chocolate which would be out of reach for most, they could drink a cup of chocolate and by the 18th century the per capita consumption of chocolate in spain is really quite expensive and so there's also evidence that maybe not, you know -- certainly not the poorest of the poor but artisan classes might have access to some chocolate.

>> was there any health warnings that you saw with tobacco? >> absolutely. so once it really has a presence in spain, in, you know -- i see the takeoff period between 1590 and 1620, starting in the 1610s, there's a proliferation of publications on both goods. and what you see people just sort of scratching their heads and trying to make sense of what it means that that were consuming from them. ..

>> every day there are new health reports about the beneficial and aspects, particularly of drinking, today it's eating dark chocolate. they are very aware of it having, adding good effects as well, helping blood circulation. something i didn't do as much as i would have liked to follow up on is tracking how many of the things people are finding out today were already perceived by commentators back then. but there's also an awareness

that too much chocolate isn't a good thing, but that in moderation its beneficial. >> marcy norton, the modern tobacco plant, as it? al -- that's the name of the tree that produces it. >> how some of our today's contemporary plans to the ones that you were studying with? >> so, there is a lot of interest actually in the kind of congress were world of chocolate today. you might be unaware of the sort, if you buy really fine chocolate, the providence is given, kind of awareness about cacao the waiter is with wine. and so what you see is, the short answer is actually quite similar. at least for some of the varieties. the most desired cacao among the europeans was this variety known

as three oh yo which are still being consumed today. then they start, making it more robust and disease resistance, can grow in poor areas. once europeans importing cacao in significant quantities to extend the cultivation from traditional regions that led to america, south america, venezuela becomes really important area. and in some of those varieties are the ones, and then the much later. they get spread to africa where most of our cacao today is produced. and so the more robust, the less fine variety is what in most prevalently produced today. that most of us have some relationship to the varieties that were being consumed by in the moment of encounter with the native americans. the case of tobacco is quite interesting. europeans first encounter it in

the caribbean. and the variety that they encounter there is -- when they get to north america, there's about seven different varieties being used, or species of tobacco that are being used among native americans at the time of the europeans are rival in the americas. but the most preferred one is mcatee on a tobacco. they in fact bring that to north america and, in fact, the native americans their growing preference for that as well. so the plant for the most part, they have different varieties which is more prevalent with today the eastern seaboard, and so that's what is going mostly today. baguette spread from the caribbean out beyond. >> and we have been talking with marcy norton is a history professor here at george washington university, and the author of this book, "sacred gifts, profane