-- governor chris christie of the republicans' side which he so far at least has refused to do but there are women who might be recruited. there are some good female governor the republican side who might be recruited. at this point my argument is not the problem of women but parties and specifically i might add the republican party. women are represented within the democratic party by 2:1 to 3:1 margin everywhere over republicans. >> thank you. >> the c-span campaign 2012 bus visits communities across the country. to follow the bus's travel visit www.c-span.org/bus. >> now on booktv charles flood account the final year of ulysses s. grant. and former president had terminal mouth and throat cancer and was in great financial straits when he began writing

his memoirs in an attempt to store his family's wealth. the author examines his writing process and the success of his memoirs that were finished four days before his death and published posthumously by mark twain. this is just over an hour. >> good evening, everyone. in 1953 my very good friend charles bracelen flood made his debut with his best seller love is a bridge. and a law student at harvard having graduated in 1951 from harvard college he was mentored by archibald mcliege charlie left the la forever setting his sights on a more elusive for some of a full time of the. winner of literary fellowship award charlie's novel was described by one critic as a first novel of exceptional merit. another critic wrote it is considered that love is a bridge as a first novel by a writer in his 20 third year, it is the

performance that would pardon anyone who looks to the future of the novel of the united states. 50 years later charlie signed one of my copies urging me to keep the yellow reviews contained in the front flap as the reminder that the race is to the swift but also to the patient. it is nearly 60 years as an author of fiction history and biography, charlie followed his own true conscience. abandoning the novel when his views no longer spoke for fiction and breaking instead dissatisfaction found in historical research and embracing the world of nonfiction with the same compelling narrative skill and sharp eye for character and setting that made his novel's best sellers. charlie's autobiographical tales that he has yet to put to paper are as fascinating as the insight he has given to the lives of robert e. lee, adolf hitler, william tecumseh sherman and ulysses s. grant. how many living sold outside

leon's fictional protagonist played by ellen wilson in midnight paris can casually recount having shared a cocktail hour with ernest hemingway in the ritz bar in paris or a steam bath with arthur miller in new york? 33 great men in the mid 20th century captured his fancy and he set out to meet them. churchill, hemingway, and the pope. two for 3 somehow missing churchill to his unfortunate loss. charlie's past american center an organization founded in 1922 to read and literature, defend free expression and foster literary fellowship, whose membership is included, larry stars of the 20th century. the capital of beacon aboard, rome, tokyo and mexico city for the associated press. he was senior scholar in taiwan and his fascinating book on the disastrous loss of the american revolution of the lead to our

victory, rise and fight again the additional one an american roundtable work for the best work of its genre in the 1976 bicentennial. no faithful biographer would admit the bumps in the road that add to the drama. emotional roller-coaster of real life. the year 1970 thought the publication of the war of the innocent. charlie's personal account of his life and times as a member of an army company in the jungles of vietnam and cambodia. his narrative took no sides in the political controversy surrounding the vietnam war. though charlie's book remains one of the truest and honest account of that work his sales suffered for his lack of explicit anti-war sentiment. in the years between the publication of his biography of hitler at the early rise to power and deep and enduring friendship between grant and sherman that won the civil war charlie wrote one of the most compelling historical novel by ever read. the lead subject was matilda tuscan, and eleventh century justice whose life as a ruler

and warrior was as remarkable as any king or prints in a immortalized in print. unfortunately it was published in germany, not united states so you will have to take my word for it. in 2009 charlie "the social animal: the hidden sources of love, character and achievement" 64 gates of history and grave reviews including a glowing three quarter page review in the new york times. and under soviet publisher in the wake of the economic recession. for one of these many achievements and occasional setbacks charlie's most stunning success and greatest strength has been his wife kathy and history 3 children and recently grandchildren. when kathy transmitted charlie through new york city, he quickly adopted the state of kentucky with open arms. he has performed most of his research in eastern kentucky university and faithful to our love of thoroughbred racing each spring and fall can be found with mediocre success in the clubhouse. and fought the good fight to make central kentucky and

dumping ground for nuclear waste. to his friends in madison county you know him as braceland. he is the citizen patriot. shining a light and seeking out when necessary but never to hear himself pontificate. charlie has an endearing humanity and humility which stands tremendously through sector as a person that may have served less well in the literary world of an satiable egos. above all charlie has been his own man. a scholar, author progress of a husband, father and friend. true to himself and his ideals he has never been driven by a publisher's unreasonable demand for another's perception of what he should be writing or how he should we be writing at. in pursuing his own creative inspiration, charles bracelen flood is the accolade he received from critics, colleagues and adoring public. i proudly present to you my

friend, charles bracelen flood. [applause] >> give me a much better opinion of myself that i had months ago. i really wish this had been in reverse because i would like to introduce jerry kelly to you. i will, however, ask you just to go fast forward and reverse with me and tell you a little bit about jerry. when i was down here, i had one connection with kentucky before i met kathy and that was for seven years when i was this on fund to rebuild -- infant terrible in the 50s are something like the board of overseas committee in harvard. and the professors at harvard

were not very feast about this. it with the regular army -- who is this guy from the national guard coming in to tell us what we're doing? but one guy was very pleasant. whenever i meet somebody from kentucky around the united states and say it is unlikely that you would know who is this is leaders killed his name is barry bingham sr.. what do you know? they always knew who barry bingham sr. was. not until i got here did i understand why they knew him. at any event, after i had been here a short time, barry, who is very nice to kathy and me, that is his wife, mary, they asked me to come over here for two or three days and surf on what he was duplicating this committee we had both been on at harvard in the english department at the

university of louisville. so i did this and found it very interesting and as these couple days went by i became aware of this young man, a very young man who was sort of always around and going to the right class and asking the right questions and that turned out to be jerry:- e jerry:--gerry tolan. we became friends and when i say friends i mean that we have been very close over the years. he and his wife carol visited kathy and be in maine. we have had a lot of fun together although the many times we have been -- a very nice house and terrific meals. one evening stands out in my

mind. a few years ago, gerry tolen. to defend the this new yorker--one of the great bonuses i found unexpectedly, and we are well aware of the fact that every spring in louisville, you do come to an event called the kentucky derby. they burger they have to have us over. gerry scoped this out. he had terrific seats. 200 yards from the finish and perhaps up a few of these middle seats, a few rose. the problem was there was no over hang and it happened to be a day that would completely eclipse this rain here today. so gerry very wisely went to a hardware store and appeared at

the track with a huge tarpaulin. when i say it was a huge there were 12 of us huddled under this thing during the day. so came the derby itself and i am sitting under this thing and we are perfectly pleased to see the wind just keep wiping the rain out of your eyes and in comes this horse with a rather and glamorous name of marty jones and i was able to see smarty jones as close, in the perfect place. 200 yards from the finish he was looking behind him to wonder where the other horses were. a great race and then we all fell back, for 12 of us and some other people and of all the dinner parties i have ever been to, this was the evening with highest -- everybody came pouring in like a drowned rat and each person and each group had their little story about how

they survived this and where it all happened and it is symbolic to me of a great friendship that he had. so i do thank gerry very much not just for his kind words tonight but for many years of friendship. so now i will turn to what brings us all here. i very much appreciate the opportunity to be here and appreciate -- i will try to make it all worth your while. you are aware of this book i think. my book begins in may of 1884, 29 years after appomattox. kranick is 62 years old and the most famous man in america. he is on his way to being the most photographed man of the nineteenth century. in addition to his enormous contribution to winning the civil war he served two terms as president of the united states. grant was not in good health.

among other things he gained 42 pounds since his wartime wage of 146. he used crutches as a result of falling on an icy new york sidewalk. however, no one including grant had any idea he only had 14 months left to live. as we open on grant he and his wife are living comfortably in manhattan. they are able to afford this lifestyle because of the generosity of some rich new yorkers named j. p. morgan and these men got together quite a bit of money so that the grants could have the same kind of lifestyle that they had when they did this because they saw in ulysses s. grant the same kind of determination and the same kind of vision and concentration that brought them great success in different fields. a rich is men in the world, william vanderbilt said he is one of us. that is the way grant struck

these people. the plan is to kate -- taking to the beginning of grant's life and give you highlights of his way through 1884. i want to give you the man as he really was rather than the way he has been portrayed. grant has been described as humorless. wooley person who would never laugh at himself. he was tone deaf, i know two to and. what is yankee doodle and the other is -- grand was the son of an operator in ohio and graduated from west point. after serving with distinction in the mexican war, a highly intelligent, vivacious crossfire daughter of a prewar slave holding family in missouri. the civil war historian called their marriage one of the great romantic american love story. and so it was. separated while serving for mode army post on the west coast he

became desperately lonely and was drunk on duty during a day. his colonel gave him the option of facing court-martial or resigning from the army and grant said to some of his comrades i would rather resign from the army than ever have julia know that i was court-martialed for being drunk so he did indeed resign. seven years later when the civil war began in 1861 he returned to the army. he rose to become a gentleman in chief the entire union army, here is the point so many have missed he became a transitional figure in the history of warfare. at shiloh in 1862, he was writing back and forth behind the lines, firing at the nearby

confederate ranks. abraham lincoln rocco mediate in 64 to command the union army and opposed property in northern virginia. he was communicating with his core commanders by telegraph from his headquarters miles behind the front. contrary to the myth that he was often drunk at no time during the war was incapable of effective action. there was a handwritten note that said take a drink of water with you think you need it or not. [laughter] >> during his meteoric rise, developed enormous administrative skills but became a great strategist. more than any general on either side he understood that the

rivers of the south were an integral part of a fast battlefield area and could be used as avenues for penetrating cutting up the confederacy. lincoln described it this way:once grant get hold of a place he acts as if he had inherited it. among the great impressions of grand that is mistaken is that he wasn't very bright. during the last year of the war he created and incorporated into his headquarters that city point, virginia what he called the bureau of military information. this was a sophisticated and highly effective 64 man intelligence gathering unit that surpassed anything that the confederates organized. it is true that grant still the lot of blood in his front attacks on robert e. lee's forces it is also worth remembering what we thought about that. when we support the pri telling him about the way grant was

recklessly piling up casualties lee replied i think general grant is managing things very well. every american knows the story of the way in which ulysses s. grant set new standards of military honor by the kind and gracious way in which he accepted a 1/6's surrender at appomattox court house. many are unaware what they came next. andrew johnson intended to have lee tried for treason, a crime punishable by death. grant walked under the white house and told johnson that lee was protected that he had given his men at appomattox. grant added if lee were arrested he would immediately resign from the army in protest. johnson and his federal prosecutors had no intention of arguing with the immensely popular victorious commanding general of the united states army. they quietly halted trees and

proceedings. lee was never arrested. the remaining five years of robert e. lee's life in ever allow a word against grant to be spoken in his presence. in 1869, four years after the war ended a, grant was awarded as president of the i did state. a position he held two terms. the first term was a success and the second was not. in his second term his political opponents launched 37 separate investigations into corruption in his administration. despite their efforts they could not demonstrate that he was involved in any scandals, many of them resulting from politically naive grants, misplaced trust in those he believed to be honest men. taking an action unique in american presidential history, in grant's final message to congress, something later called the state of the union address, he apologize to the nation's

legislators for his inadequacies as president. grant began with this. it was my fortune or misfortune to be called to the office of chief magistrate without any political training. it is reasonable to assume that errors in judgment must have occurred. he added that he claimed, quote, only that i acted in every instance from a desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law and in the best interests of the old people. as for ending slavery and the subject of civil rights, soon after grant was sworn in he announced the congress the ratification of the fifteenth to the amendment designed to protect the rights of blacks to vote. he said this. a measure which makes at once

four million voters declared by the highest tribunal in the land to be not in the interest of the united states nor eligible to become so is indeed a measure of grander importance than any other act from foundation of our free government to the present day. it is worth noting in the recent and long overdue movement among biographers and historians to restore grant to his rightful place in american history professor sean wallace of princeton takes the position that grant did more for civil-rights than any other american president between lincoln and lyndon b. johnson. once more, i wants to bring a lesser-known side of grant fuhr attention. after his white house days in 1879, ulysses s. grant and his wife julia embarked on a two -- two year trip around world combined as the private journey debt turned into an immense

international tribute to grant. he symbolized the burgeoning posts of war america, industrial and military power to be reckoned with. he enjoyed dining with queen victoria at windsor palace. in berlin he spent two hours with germany's iron chancellor who characterized as, quote, the greatest statesman of the present time. bismarck treated him with great respect as a military and national leader who possessed firsthand knowledge that he was eager to acquire. all this brought a friend and juliet to what neither of them thought would be the last chapter of his life. the rate in 84 foul living in manhattan in a handsome town house just east of the fabulous millionaires' mansions on fifth avenue. this was the era in our history known as the gilded age. grant and his son ulysses is

grant jr. were partners in an investment firm, the moving spirit of this enterprise was ferdinand ward known as the young napoleon of wall street. trusting lee grant put all his money under ward's management and encouraged his immediate family to follow his example and at that moment ward was showing prospective investors papers indicating that the firm at a capitalization of sixteen million. on that basis grant had reason to think he was personally worth, quote, $1 million. this one household servants were paid $5 a week. the financial catastrophe struck swiftly. overnight in may of 1884 ward's national house of cards collapsed. he had been running on a later generation would call upon the scheme. grant and his family lost all their money. a description of grand as he was at this juncture was left by

robert underwood johnson. brilliant young editor on the staff of century magazine. johnson met with grant at his and julius's summer cottage in new jersey to discuss the possibility of his writing articles about famous novels and campaigns. johnson found a man far different from the gruff warrior he expected to encounter. he wrote the man who we have been told was stalin and reserve showed himself to me as a person of the most sensitive nature and most human expression of feeling. grant, quote, gave me the impression of a wounded lion. a few with her to the quick and his proud name and daughter. he told me frankly and simply that he had arrived at long branch almost title list. julia who for eight years had the white house staff at her disposal did all the cooking for the family and guests. with johnson guiding him grant

began to write about shiloh. the first of four articles describing his victorious battles. he found he enjoyed it and johnson was the first to discover that the same man who could write the clearest, most direct military airports and after action report and military orders was capable of descriptive writing that transported the reader into the middle of gunfire and cavalry horses. as kranick focused his powers of concentration on four articles for the century he began to think of expanding his initial effort in what became his massive and powerful personal memoirs. it was now grant's friend mark twain who entered the picture. mark twain creeley famous for his adventures of tom sawyer and other works was about to publish huckleberry finn. he made an offer that was generous to grant and all the speculative potentially very

lucrative for himself. he would publish grant's memoirs to a small publishing firm run by his nephew charles webster and give grants $200,000 as an advance. mark twain, always a man for images describe the rage in this way. if these chickens should never hatch, general grant's royalties will amount to $424,000 and will make the largest single check ever paid to an author in the world's history. if i paid the general in silver coins at $12 per english pound it will weigh 17 tons. as grant continued writing in summer of 1884 he suffered increasing pain and discomfort in his mouth. by late october this had been diagnosed as cancer of the tongue. result of smoking thousands of cigar's. this was in fact a death sentence. the dramatic question now facing

grand and the american public when they later learned of it was could he completes his memoirs before he died? during the spring of 1885 as grant pushed himself ever harder as he wrote in his house in manhattan the people in the north and south while still divided concerning postwar political issues began to come together in an example of the american respect for courage as a native instinct to bull for the underdog. mark twain had been right in thinking grant could recount his civil war experiences effectively but he was bowled over by what he now saw in grant. averaging a production of 750 words a day in a condition he likened the drink of water to, quote, multi led grant was putting on paper a work of remarkable quality. mark twain compared these memoirs with julius caesar's commentaries savings the same

high merits distinguished both books. clarity of statement, directness, simplicity, manifest truthfulness, fairness and justice to friend and foe alike and avoidance of floury speech. general grant's book is a great people in unique and unapproachable literary masterpiece. there is no higher -- note land can improve upon it. during these months it became evident -- had come to have a special feeling for grand. other than his white house years, he was referred to as general grant, crowds often gathered outside his house on east 60 sixth street. he sometimes appeared to go for a carriage ride in central park. with men and the crowds taking

off. excuse me while i take another sip. i certainly thank you. nobody knows when people look at their watch or move their feet, that has not happened once. at the time of grant's 60 third birthday on april 27, 1885, 20 years after the nation's great redemptive moments at appomattox court house it was clear a new generation, not born at the time of the surrender was growing up with in bill feeling for a man who, like lincoln, had preserved the union. typical of the letters he received from young people was this one from maggie irving of louisville, kentucky. she said in part i am all louisville girl who writes you so much. old general grant, please get well. i don't write you to get your autograph or anything. i only write to let you know how

we all love you. i hope you won't suffer a bit. general grant legal six of the best wishes and love of this little girl. he also received this birthday greeting from confederate survivors association meeting in augusta, georgia. remembering him now as generous victor, the memorable meeting at appomattox seated liberal terms of surrender. standing by the grave of our confederate dead respectfully tendered general grant assurances of our sincere and profound sympathy in this season of his directs remedy. because of the coming summer heat in manhattan arrangements were made to take grant to a cottage high in the hills of saratoga springs in upstate new york at what was known of mound mcgregor. a new resort hotel. this cottage was down the slope

some 200 yards from him. here grant dug in what was literally a do or die effort. finding that riding with a pen and ink exhausting in his weakened condition he resorted to dictating as he neared the end of his massive two of volume work. karen beckwith point he had a brief discussion with his older son frederick concerning how the dedication of the girl these volumes are dedicated to the american soldier and sailor. frederick suggested this should be changed to specify he meant the soldiers and sailors who had fought for the north. grant replied it is a great deal better than it should be dedicated as it is. the dedication is to those who fought against as well as those we fought with. it had a purpose in restoring harmony. grand had a passion for the nation he fought to preserve. in what proved to be the last weeks of his life is now off and

off-road joked with mucus and bleeding from cancer he sometimes dictated in a barely audible whisper, revised his manuscript with a pencil and resorted to writing his thoughts on pieces of paper. on one of these he wrote a summation of his feelings to former confederate generals simon oliver bucknell who came to see him at mount mcgregor. i witnessed since my sickness just what i wish to see since the war, harmony and good feeling between the sections. i believe myself that the war was worth all the costs, fearful as it was. since it was over i visited every single state in europe and a number in the far east. i know as i did not real -- no before the value of our inheritance. on july 20th, '85. will ulysses s. grant finished the last changes he wished to make in his manuscript. three mornings later with his family surrounding his bed his

last moments began. he died with julia holding his hand. temporary resting place for grant had been selected in riverside park in man hadn't, high above the hudson river and a circular brick mausoleum had been built there. on the day that grant's coffin now closed was brought up from where he had lain in state in that hat and, the largest crowd ever to assemble on the north american continent, estimates range from half a million to 1.5 million people. around the 5 mile loop of his funeral procession. what they witnessed was the united states showing the world how to honor a national hero. thousands of carriages followed the massive caterpillar on which grant's coffin rested. the crowd stopped president grover cleveland, past presidents rutherford b. hayes and chester arthur and the justices of the supreme court.

the governors of every state in the union went by in the order in which their state had come in to the union. on the military side there was a galaxy of generals. 40,000 troops passed including the west point corps of cadets wearing black armbands. music was provided by 250 bands and drum corpss. proof of how grant brought the nation together was the fact that confederate generals were among the honored participant. the last large segment of the enormous parade, democracy's tribute to the tattered son from ohio was a column of 8,000 elected and appointed officials from all over the united states. the parade combination of military strength and representatives of constitutional law would have pleased grant who believe so firmly in a prosperous future he saw for the country he served. in addition to the public

outpouring of affection, those who knew grant will have their more private reactions. on the day grant died mark twain wrote in his book it was a very great man and superlative league could. on their own, many citizens, north and south, realize they knew it was possible to be a sometimes ineffective president but a great man nonetheless. what is grant's legacy? despite the rise and fall of historical schools of thought fed obscured and diminished his role in our history he and lincoln remained free to men who did the most to ensure our country would remain one nation rather than become two nation's one of which was committed to maintaining slavery as a legal institution. his memoirs were published to great acclaim and the sales of mark twain guaranteed julie live

comfortably for the rest of her life. this is an educated audience in a bookstore so i will take a minute or two to explain this legacy. 126 years after grant finished, just this far in 2011, the personal memoirs of ulysses s. grant have sold 50,000 copies that is just this year in three hardback and two paperback editions. that figure is even more impressive when one figures the copyright have long since expired and unknown numbers of copies are down to order three from the internet. how do we some of this unique life? in a speech given 15 years after grant's death theodore roosevelt placed him in the very first link of americans. agreeing that men like benjamin franklin and thomas jefferson reserved to be regarded as enormously valuable citizens he saw grant something more than

that and spoke of him this way--as we look back with keener with intonation's past, mightiest among the mighty lemon the figures of washington, lincoln and grant. these three greatest men have taken their place among the great men of all nations, the great men of all time. they stood supreme in the two greatest crises of history on the tree to great occasions where we stood on the bane of humanity and struck two effective blows that have ever been struck for human freedom under the law. of all that was ever written about grand nothing would have pleased him more than julia's heartfelt memory of the man she called you less. i his wife rested in and was warned in the sunlight of his loyal love and great fame and now even though it is beautiful life has gone out it is as if when some far off planet

disappears from the heavens the light of his glorious bain still reaches out to me and pulls upon me and warms me. thank you. [applause] let me say again i very much appreciate the twitching. it is noticeable. i am ready to deal with your questions. i hope we have questions. i like a question and answer period. as far as i am concerned there are no dumb questions and if i don't know the answer i will tell you that. and a group like this, i am sure there is always somebody who knows something i don't know. that is the time for me to learn. in any case please, please come to me with your question.

yes? this lady over here. go ahead. >> as a member of dollars of the american revolution, our first state president was the governor's wife, simon oliver but there delia clayborn and researching and finding pictures of those three previous statements understood that she was from virginia and yet you say she was from richmond. >> i made a mistake. i went to a source book which should have -- they were wrong. i am from richmond and she is from richmond and put it in the book. i was wrong. >> as a graduate of a bachelor of masters i was thrilled. i was thrilled to think she was from richmond. >> i was too briefly. but good catch. good catch. very good.

please. somebody else. yes, behind you, gerry. >> i got to ask my question over dinner. >> i have always found the civil war so fascinating and grant and lincoln. can you speak a little bit about what you know about their relationship, especially maybe during the war years. how often did they meet? >> excellent question. the answer is a little bit disappointing but knowing both men and their responsibilities they did not meet often. however, grant -- he caught lincoln's attention at vicksburg and after vicksburg and lincoln said at the time, doing a little bit of transposing of the words but in effect he said if grant

pools this off grant is my man and i am his for the rest of the war. that indeed is what happened. he brought grant east and said grant had the advantages but the fact is his predecessors as commander of the army of potomac also had the advantages and did very little with them so i say i would rather go with lee's estimate of grand than anybody else's. let me digress a moment. i think this touches on the question about the relationship but anyway, very much appreciated grant and grant appreciated the opportunity. he was a career soldier. he told lincoln when he came to washington, in effect i will do the best i can and ask you for what i need and not ask for anything more and let's see how it doesn't lincoln said that is

just great with me. is said, the story was around during a war that delegation went to lincoln early in the war and said this man is a drunk and lincoln replied if you can get me the kind of liquor that he drinks i will serve a barrel to all my generals lose somebody else went to lincoln during the war and told him the story and said mr. president, it is true and lincoln loved a good story. he said i wish it were but it is not. you have that one. excellent question. gave me a chance to digress. back there? the white-haired gentleman. >> i remember as a young boy hearing about grant as a butcher and a drunk and throughout elementary school and high school he was just not portrayed as a very significant president so you certainly elevated him here to more successful human. why was he so --

>> really good question. there has been a lot more recently about this. until 1900 -- that was a perception. a valid perception. and send this reconstruction era, really after the reconstruction era but all the historians decided to become revisionists and their idea was -- i think it translates into this, going to really, really elevate robert e. lee, deserved it. he was a great man and a great general and the noble figure but they fought in order to get lee up they had to push grant down and as late as 1992 you had a respected northern historian saying i don't see how ulysses s. grant could ever look himself in the mirror. he was a pathological murder.

okay? as i suggested earlier in my talk this address is long overdue. this is what you have here. very good question. and very -- on what is going on and what historians and biographers think. i hope anybody else back there before i come up -- please. >> become the president of college and was there for -- was there any contact between grant and lincoln? >> another very good question. i didn't plant it but if i had that is what would have enjoy answering. a few weeks after grant was sworn in and was inaugurated as a first term he invited who had been for five years the president of washington college, and his death -- lee's death was going to be in a few months. he invited lee to call on him at the white house and this was the last thing that we want to do

because if you stand in the back of the capital and look across the river view see arlington house, his wife's family mainly dwelling, which became the core of arlington cemetery. that is not what we wanted to do. washington held no pleasure for him and he had written shortly before the war trying to explain his reasons for staying. i could take no part in an invasion of the south. the fact is the very first thing that was taken of the south and an invasion of the south was the moon clad union armies crossing the river and taking arlington. ..

>> in a constructive way, and grant did the same thing. it's a very good question, it hits right on the meaning of the lives of these two men. so thank you for asking it. sir, way back there. yes, sir. >> mr. flood, i have enjoyed reading anything i can find

about grant for a long time. >> can you speak up just a little bit? >> yes. >> the last thing i heard was -- >> i've enjoyed reading as many books as i can find, i'm sure there's a lot i haven't, but several i have read, including yours -- >> thank you. >> it was terrific. i enjoyed it. >> thank you. >> i thought this crowd might be interested. one night eight or ten years ago i was watching "book notes" on sunday night, and the british historian, john key began -- >> terrific military historian. >> he was being interviewed by brian lamb. >> uh-huh. >> and lamb asked him, who would you say was the greatest general in the history of the united states? he thought would it be general eisenhower? >> he said, no, it wouldn't. without question the greatest general ever in the united states was general grant. because if there wasn't a u.s.

grant, there wouldn't have been a united states. >> i concur completely. >> i thought that was the ultimate compliment. >> i do, too, and coming from a very gifted historian, i didn't happen to know about that exchange, but i certainly buy right into it. i know jerry has something to ask me. anybody else? yes, sir, please. >> do i understand that general lee made application for restoration of his citizenship and that grant never acted on that? >> what happened with that, extremely interested, i wrote a book a long time ago. what happened was he didn't to that. he got in a pigeon hole, literally, in an office in washington and was not discovered for more than a hundred years, and the man who restored him to citizenship, interestingly enough, happened to be gerald ford. so he did do that, but i don't know how much difference it made since he had grant protecting

him every inch of the way. and in a sense, almost protecting his reputation after his death which that's another very good question and shows quite a lot of knowledge on this subject. thank you for that question. i think it's time for my good friend, jerry. >> taking us back to the year lincoln's final full year, 1864, could you tell the folks here a little bit about, um, the attempts to tempt grant to follow the pattern of mcclelland and other generals who kind of turned on their commander in chief and what that did or didn't say about grant's sense of loyalty of purpose and kind of to his pledge, so to speak? >> uh-huh. well, he certainly, i think he didn't necessarily say, well,

lincoln's asking me too, therefore, that's it. but i think he felt very strongly that by a process of elimination i don't think grant was not an arrogant man at all, he was rather a humble man, but i think he felt he'd seen others fail, and it was his turn, and he was going to come east, and he was going to do the very best he could. now, that a little bit dodges your question, but he certainly never in any way criticized lincoln. his idea was that lincoln had his job to do, he, grant, had his job to do and, god willing, that between them they'd get it done and that, of course, is just exactly what happened. i hope that answers the question. >> there's a follow-up question. >> sure. >> going back to, um, grant and sherman, did he retain his friendship with sherman after they -- >> that was very tricky, very tricky. there was some back and forth after the war about sherman

wanted his position as commander of the army and other positions that he, to which he acceded, and grant was not prepared to do that at the time. one of his appointees was going to die within a few months, and so this was a falling out for a time. but when the chips were down and grant was mortally ill, guess who came to new york from st. louis to see him, bushehrman. and -- bushehrman. and they met a number of times. and sherman wrote one of his daughters, grant says my visit's doing more good than all of the doctors combined, and when we had the final moment which was at this temporary tomb but not that far from where the great marble thing was later erected, sherman had been the marshal of

this parade, okay? and the last moments before grant's -- sorry, before his coffin was put behind this metal gate of this brick mausoleum, a bugler was playing taps looking straight at sherman, and sherman was looking desperate at the bugler. and sherman who was always a good figure of a soldier and had that west point carriage and so forth, he was standing at salute, and his whole body was convulsively shaking from sobbing, so that's how that ended. and without -- yes, sir. back there, mike. >> how much of the amicable nature of the surrender came from grant and how much came from lincoln or somebody higher up in terms of the decisions of that? >> entirely, entirely i grant's show. i mean, lincoln had -- there's no evidence that lincoln, other than this, lincoln may have been

thinking parallel when he went into richmond very shortly before he was killed, and he said to the american, i'm sorry, the union general then in richmond, he said let 'em up easy, let 'em up easy. and grant may have been thinking in parallel terms. but also what grant understood was if he didn't let them all go there, if he decided to make them prisoners or this or that, it could still be going on today. i mean, you know, they were ready -- a lot of lee's soldiers, although they were starving, but they were brave to the very end, and they were saying let us at 'em again, general, we'll go back in the hills, and we'll snipe, there'll be snipers. and lee even said that to some of the men who were his officers who were urging him to fight on. he said, no, this is over. we're finished nowment and -- now. and i would like to add one more thing on that. that when occasionally after the war somebody brought up to lee the whole subject of how

constitutional was secession and so forth because there were still a lot of diehards, there are some to this day, and lee said in a wonderful understatement, you can imagine the noble, eloquent, graceful lee, that issue has been decided by force of arms, and that was the most wonderful way of closing an argument forever, and it was accepted that way at the time. but thank you again for that. anyone last -- yes, sir, please. again there. i'm with you as long as you want to be with me. anybody else that needs to walk around or anything, please, do so. yes, sir, again. >> where did sheridan figure in this -- >> sheridan's very important. very important. i myself think that the problem with, it's sort of a booster club for thomas, but i think, unfortunately, they overplay their hand. i think the great, great union generals were grant, number one, sherman number two, mead number

three and sheridan, the great cavalry leader, number four, and thomas can be in there somewhere else, but there's always going to be a diehard saying, no, no, thomas has been neglected, and he should be up a little higher. that's my belief. and also i would be apropos about eisenhower or anybody else, i think winston churchill's one of my great heros, and he was asked after the war what he thought about alexander in italy or montgomery all over the place and so forth and how did he rate them, and he said in his accent, it depends on the task. if you transpose that to us in world war ii, what george marshall had to do with entirely -- is entirely different from what mcarthur had to do, entirely different from what patton had to do and yet again entirely different from what eisenhower had to do. who knows? each man i think really came to just where he ought to be doing just what he ought to be doing.

anybody else? yes, ma'am. >> anything you can speak to about where was grant or his reaction to the assassination of president -- >> that's a very interesting question. [laughter] and i'm sorry, i said i'd be here as long as you wanted me to be. there's an extremely interesting thing which i go into detail in my grant-herman book, as it happens. he was taking his wife julia to a house they'd rented in new jersey on a train, okay? and stopping at a station where they were going to switch training, this courier came up to him. he looked at this telegram, and he just turned white. julia, always intuitive, he said, well, the president's been shot. don't act as if anything's happened. nobody knows this yet. i'm going to get you up to your house in new jersey tonight and

i'm going to go back. but had he not been doing that with julia, he was supposed to be in that box with lincoln. now, what grant later said, and he was a modest man, but he said -- because grant was, in his way, a very muscular guy. and he said i wonder if i could have, you know, stopped the man from doing it or, you know, at least captured, wrestle led him tohe ground. there are other things about that day, too, that are almost uncanny, but i think that gives you the reaction. and i think he was certainly truly, truly grieved. there's no question about that. sir, way back -- yes, sir. >> joshua lawrence chamberlain? >> what would you like me to say? >> i was just curious what your thoughts are. >> i'm sorry, say it one more time. >> he was quite a diversified individual, i'm just curious what your thoughts are. >> oh, this is a wonderful story. the problem is -- maybe they serve breakfast here.

[laughter] joshua chamberlain i feel very strongly because part of my background involves maine. joshua chamberlain was a professor of classics in maine before the war, and he had a choice. he was due for a sabbatical which a classics professor would have gone there or join the united states army. and he was a terrific example of a complete amateur who just had a tremendous military gift. his great moment, there were several great moments, but there are two i just want to isolate for you. at his 20th maine was the outfit that was at little round top at getty berg. and they -- getties berg. and they stood just absolutely firm. and that's something else that i have mixed feelings. i had a great -- myself, i had a great grandfather who's in second kansas cavalry, had three horses shot out from under him, was in the trans-mississippi war as it was called, spent the last year of his life in a prison

camp in tyler, texas, okay? so, you know, and i wrote a warm, sympathetic study of robert e. lee. on the other hand, i want to tell you that up in maine you go into these little historical societies, and you see these men from the 20th main, the 10th main, the 14th main at their reunions, and this is a very serious group of men who, you know, you can see they're 20 years past their musket-bearing incarnation, but they, you know, we think -- the confederacy naturally, you know, wanted to have their reunions and everything, but those reunions were going on amidst the gar, the grand army of the republic, and they look about as serious as any group you could ever see. now, i forget just where -- chamberlain, oh, the other part of chamberlain. when lee and grant were finished with what they had to do with each other, both rode off; lee

to go back to richmond and pick up the pieces of his life and so forth, and grant to go back to washington and sort of begin a tremendous demobilization. the man left to accept the confederate surrender was joshua chamberlain. and he wrote wonderfully about what happened, but he a little bit sort of downplayed his own part because his men were lined up to receive his surrender. and across this stream came the remnants of the army of northern virginia. and this is chamberlain's detail. some of their regiments were so decimated that their flags were sewn together, it looked like a column of flags coming toward them. anyway, so here comes, and a man named john b. gordon who was a

confederate example and another man who'd been a mining engineer. so he was leading up the remnants of the army of northern virginia, and chamberlain on his horse was waiting up on his horse comes john w. gordon. and gordon's head is sort of hanging down, and all his troops -- they know they're going to have to come up, they're going to have to turn, face these men who they've been fighting and lay down their arms, step forward, lay down their arms and march off. that was what was scheduled to happen. and apparently chamberlain turns and says to his buglers, you know, just start this salute. everybody of the thousands of union troops are going to put up their arms in, sorry, and present arms. and once gordon down there got it and his men got it, they all

straightened up, they marched up very, very smartly, and they had a thing called the marching salute. they were all their form of walking present arms, and they turned, and it's wonderful stuff that chamberlain wrote. he was a terrific writer. and he said, you know, gazing into each other's eyes from 12 feet away, 24 feet away, whatever, you know, and just, and he said there was a bond between them like no other bond, you know? between the men. they understood what they'd both been through. and he said there were guys crying on both sides. it was just a remarkable thing. and it's been said since and grant said it, if only we could have kept that spirit instead of turning it back over to politicians, we could have all been healed within a year or so. so it's a great question, and he's a great figure, and i'm very, very glad you mentioned him. he went on to be governor of maine and a very important figure. i guess we ought to make one of

these the last. who -- what have you -- you back there? that that's okay. go ahead. >> did grant have any relationship with jefferson davis at all? >> none. >> not at all? >> none. to the best of my knowledge, they never saw each other. sorry to end on that note. [laughter] and maybe it's just as well that they didn't. they didn't. and, in fact, i think just to -- you mentioned jefferson davis, it may be a great, i mean, if you want to do the what ifs of history, and i'm not much of a what if man, but i think had jefferson davis not gone to west point, you know, he thought he knew more about military matters than he really did, and had he maybe pulled lee in there at the beginning and said you're the, you know, you're the commander of the whole confederate army, i don't know what might have come. but he kept fooling around with assigning and reassigning generals and this and that, and it probably was quite to the

north's advantage that they had a man who really was not very competent. also a man who long after people in the south were ready to sign some kind of surrender just went on blindly to the end about it all. so i think that should be it. thank you very, very much, all of you. thank you. [applause] >> this event was hosted by carmichael's bookstore in louisville, kentucky. visit carmichaelsbookstore.com. >> we went to war after 9/11 on a credit card and didn't ask -- >> on a --? >> on a credit card. we didn't ask anything of the rest of us, no sacrifices whatsoever. we were kind of encouraged to go back and go shopping again. we had this enormous boom in housing which was irrational, so much of it from the beginning. i remember our daughter calling me from san francisco when they were buying their first home,

and she said, my god, dad, she said they're offering these 20-year deals with interest only for the first 15 years, but, you know, you could see what was going to come at the end of the first 15 years, and she said, you know, we're going to be more cautious about it, but i worry about my friends. i went to a couple of major construction people at the time, and i said what in the world is going on? they said there's so much instrumentation out there, people will loan anything. and fannie mae and freddie mac were driving a lot of that, those were two political institutions that got very clever, jim johnson and others, about getting the idea of home ownership for everyone when, plainly, not everyone was qualified and was going to be equipped. we're paying a big price for that now. we've got 20 million homes in this country at the moment that are either in foreclosure or stressed or in danger of going into foreclosure. that means you've got 20 million homes that are not buying new appliances, not buying new

carpeting, they can't move to a new job, they're stuck. and they're stuck with the biggest investment they're going to make in their life for many of them. this is, represents a lot of their net worth. and until we get the housing thing figureed out, it's going to be a harder job to get the economy really rolling back on track in a way that we need to. and neither party is talking about that which is kind of striking to me. >> you, your book is made of some very poignant questions, and one of them is a question that john f. kennedy asked many years ago. if you, if john f. kennedy were around today and asked you what would be done, what you could do to your country, what you have done for your country recently, how would you answer? how would you answer? >> i would say i'm here at the new york public library and brought all the people. [laughter] [applause] >> that's one of the things. >> well, i honestly think that i'm at a stage in my life this, if there's an oxymoron in

american life, it is a humble anchormen, we don't exist. so this is immodest of me. [laughter] but i seem to have earned a certain place where people will listen to me, and i've always cared about the country. and the greatest generation, writing that book, gave me a kind of a platform that was completely unanticipated. so i thought i ought not to squander that. so i ought to step up as a, not just as a citizen and as a journalist, but as a father and a husband and a grandfather, and if i see these things, i ought to write about them and try to start this dialogue which is what i'm trying to do about this book about where we need to get to next. now, in our family we all do a lot of different things. meredith is here tonight, she's got a microfinance project in malawi, i've got a daughter who's on the board of habitat here, another daughter who spent

a lot of time in haiti this year live anything a tent with rodents crawling all over, another daughter who worked for the national rescue committee, an er physician in san francisco, because we were raised by parents and grandparents who just saw that as a part of the natural calling of life that you gave back in some fashion. so i've done that, but i think my -- i like to think that my larger contribution is to try to engage people in the events that define their time. >> and you, you have passages in the book precisely about the legacy your parents left to you and how careful and cautious they were and thrifty and never spent more than they had. >> right. >> you say like almost everyone else of their age, they were thrifty by nature and necessity. they didn't spend what they didn't have, and they saved

something every week. >> sometimes to a fault. i mean, i concern. -- >> to a fault, meaning -- >> they were too thrifty. i would say lighten up a little bit, you can afford this. but it was hard for them to do it. and it was hard for them to spend the extra buck sometime. now, didn't mean they didn't have a great life, they did. and i had the good fortune of having real resources, and so i could help them in ways that, you know, on trips or helping them buy a retirement place. but we, it never defined our relationship. my dad died, unfortunately, the week before i began nightly news of a massive coronary, but about three weeks before i began nightly news and it had been announced and this was, you know, a great thing for our family, for me to suddenly have this wonderful job and all this responsibility, and it came with it a very substantial salary. and i caught the wave of people

getting paid a lot of money for doing this kind of work. and it got a lot of publicity. and my father who never earned, i think, cash income more than $9,000 a year in his life, maybe at the end he did better than that, he worked for the corps of engineers as a construction foreman. anyhow, he called me, he had a wonderful sense of humor, and he said, so i'm reading these reports about your salary, is that true? i said, you know, dad, we've never talked about my salary before, and i'd made good money before that, but this had taken me to a different level. i said, why do you want to know? i don't know, just reading about it. about a week later time magazine did a very detailed reports of how much dan was making, peter was making, barbara walters was making. my father called me, i called him red, and red called me back, and he said, i'm reading time magazine. [laughter] i said, come on, dad, why are we talking about this?

i'll tell you why, you've always run a little short at the end of the year, we need to know how much to set aside this year. [laughter] it was a perfect, perfect way of dealing with it. i also tell the story in the book, i took him shopping in california one time, he came out to visit us at a very high-end place called gellson's, the supermarket? and i had the cart driving, and i thought i would show off my thrifty gene. so they had fresh-squeezed orange juice, and i said to dad, that stuff is really expensive, let's get the boxed stuff, and he reached could be and picked up three very expensive bottles of california wine, and he said i guess the money that you saved on orange juice will help pay for these? [laughter] kind of put it in perspective for me. >> but he must have been very proud. >> he was proud, but, you know, he was not immodest about it, and you cannot ask my mother about me without saying, and my

son bill is running a restaurant, my son mike went into the marines, he lives around the corner. they just didn't play favorites. and my father when i first got to have some kind of public celebrity somebody once asked him, he was at a gathering at the elks club. he went to the cellings club in our hometown, and somebody said are you related to tom brokaw, and my dad said, i think he's a cousin. i'm not sure. [laughter] >> another aspect of your book that i'd like us to talk about is -- which i didn't really know, is the incredible importance you attach to what one might call an enlightened form of philanthropy. philanthropy plays an important role, and by that i mean foundations such as one of the ones that i'm particularly

attached to in this city is the robin hood foundation. >> right. >> and you, you talk about it as, in a way, a model, the robin hood foundation would do well to expand in many different cities. >> yeah. we're very fortunate to have the robin hood foundation. i was a big skeptic when it first started. >> you were? >> these are a bunch of rich guys trying to buy some reputation here, and i had a lot of friends involved. they invited me to their breakfast which they have every year, they've got another one coming up before too long. and john kennedy jr. was there at the the time, and he introduced two men that he'd gone to prep school, and it was very moving about what they were doing and how john was attached to them. so when john was lost, i thought, you know, what can i do? i went up to that school and said i'd like to help out for a while here, and i did. and then the robin hood people came to me and said we could really use you on the board

because, you know, we're all hedge fund guys, and we make a lot of money, but we don't have much of a political ear. we don't understand how the rest of the world works as much as we're used to having our way, we need somebody to give us a reality check. so i went on the board, and i must tell you, i was astonished at, a, the commitment of these very busy people and, b, the discipline that they brought to how they gave away their money. they pay all the overhead for robin hood. they have metrics in which they go out to agencies with very professional staff, take the measure of an agency for, say, unwed mothers or for abused family members, and they'll save, come back and say, you know, that one's not going to work, it's not very well -- or it's doing something really important, but we need to go in and help the staff, and they pay for everything. all that is done. now, this is the most generous country in the world. there's no other country in the world that gives money as