wouldn't have gone over very well. it would have gone over adult. so i think the legislatures were constrained. >> one last question. >> well, thank you. [inaudible] >> thank you very much. it was wonderful, thank you. [applause] ..

marched through port level work kansas to california in 1846. this is about an hour. [applause] >> average wrigley flattered the turnout on this dark and stormy night to. dr. watson would say it is a fine night for america. i am glad to be here.

the march. and never can figured out how to pronounce his name. i've often wondered. i think it's maybe kearny, and i'll tell you why. i would like to be allowed to report that i came to this subject very academic way. i have been pursuing this question of conquest of the american west 45 years. not so. the wagon to this i was looking up general phillipe kearny. a general that was killed early on in the civil war. some will across the role won.

it turned out that this one, steven kearny was the uncle of philip kearny. i saw little line it said the march of kearny. i thought, what a wonderful title for a book. had a ring to it. as i investigated this part, it started me what had gone on in 1846 and 1847, which was essentially the conquest or the theft of the american west. it made as a nation from sea to shining sea, where before we were not too far of the western side of the mississippi river

everyone thought there was a great desert and they knew there was something in california, but it was so far away that no one paid much until president polk came into office. he came in with for objects that he said he was going to do. told his secretary of the navy, john bancroft, i am going to settle this question in the northwest with the british, the british and the americans own together something called the oregon territory, but it encompassed more than oregon. it was all part of the british columbia. it was a joint project to ship, or whenever the legal service. the british were making, as usual, bellicose gestures about wanting more. the americans wanted more.

they wanted to put call way up there close to alaska. people running around in the election of 1845, and no one paid much attention to them. polk won and he said he would settle that question. the second question he will settle is the question of this tariff which was causing all this grief in the south. a tariff put on foreign goods and causing some -- and sellers to threaten to succeed. then he said he would get rid of this national bank that andrew jackson did not like. the national bank up that point was a predecessor to the fed today. he said, and the fourth area what to do, is i want california he looked up the map at the

time, and he did now like what he saw. he saw america over here. he wanted coast-to-coast. he did not one of war, what he was ready to take it if he had to. and so he offered mexico a substantial some money in those days for california because they said no. the regime that the time that was even discussing it with him was overturned by an armed revolt simply for a dressing the question of whether or not we do want to sell california to the americans. at the same time there was another did question brewing in 1845 kuwaiti 46 over the republic of texas which had separated but ten years earlier

and wished to join the union the mix is said if the americans taken texas there will be war. again, he told sentiment emissary down to mexico city to try to smooth this over and see if they could avoid the war. that was unavoidable in this sense. the authority would nazi the american emissary. they withdrew their vassar for washington and put an army of the border. the war appeared to be inevitable. polk said, i'll take it if it comes. he was an aficionado of what was called manifest destiny, a term that was invented by a a

magazine journalist in the 1840's. basically it described a doctrine that the net assets of america was exceptional and it deserves to be able to expand as far as it needed to expand. of course true or had their eyes on the west is you could read these amendments to the south or north. and it caught on. polk did not admit manifest destiny. the eisenhower hello the president's son did a wonderful book. at the kid described it this way. , pau did not invest manifest destiny, but he was its ideal

agent. i believe that is quite so. so that sets the stage for what general kearny did. two things i think are significant about his march to allow it to that in a moment. and the first is that when general stephen watts kearny marched out of fort leavenworth, kan. on that june day in 1846 your every word to became the united states of america. that is quite a mouthful. he went down the santa fe trail with an army of 2,000 mounted troops end took santa fe from the mexicans. this was after the mexican war had broken out.

he then marxist another thousand miles incomplete and jars territory. the old maps. peel into their lives dragons. they knew there were while the indians out there, but most americans thought of the lands that were beyond the states of the western side of mississippi to with it but it was what they called the great desert because there had been some exploration and all they farm was desert. the second thing to take away is that there were unintended consequences, said mr. unintended consequences because i try to make this point

that general kearny marched out of fort leavenworth, kan. call with his army to the west, that was the beginning of the first phase, which was the political phase of the civil war. because even though when car race osama we voted for -- when congress overwhelmingly voted for the declaration of war they began to have -- the whig party mostly. they realize to the if we took these territories away from mexico, and it was a lot of territory. the santa fe to where you're not just talking about santa fe but arizona, western nevada,

colorado. of course, california territory consisted of parts of nevada, utah. it was big, huge stuff. wiser heads begin to insist that the south was going to want to insist these territories become a slave territories and labor slave states because the south had a great many troops fighting in the mexican war. this was the last thing that. expansion of slavery. they have been trying to contain it ever since the 18 twenties. the political problems were so immense. it was as much a political problem as it was a question of slavery.

all along in the house of representatives being a far more popular region they could control the congress. in the senate it had been a gentlemen's agreement that orders to it would come in as a free state they would bring a slave state in the and vice versa. so when texas commission devoted that may come in as a free state . it maintain a 50-50 balance of the singer. so that set the stage for some very tricky politicking because, well, president polk began to realize that his time was running out in his war because he -- as the bill had pointed

out, americans don't -- democracies don't do very well and long wars. they have a limited attention as the infamous of speak. but i don't believe read things. what sullivan wrote, better writers in the. i love the notion of general kearny marching out on a gorgeous june morning in 1846 into the who the hell knows where, going down the santa fe trail which had been there, but to march and army down there was an enormous undertaking. there was a schoolteacher whose name was used. he was the -- kearny had two

elements, less than the 1,000 square regimen of regular army. then they had their regimen of missouri volunteers who were granted on missouri mules, the finest in the world. but anyway, let's listen -- let me get my place here. the march of the army of the west as it entered upon the great perris presented a scene of most intense and throwing interest for about those planes seemed to unite with the heavens and the distant horizons. as far as vision could penetrate the day fluttering of their

banners and the wagons of the version train glistens like banks of smell in the distance. they might be seen winding their torch's over the undulating surface of paris. that is a mouthful. i think if you can picture the scene no one had ever done this before. these people were going into almost beat and charge it unknown, and they became the first explorers and great heroes. one of these characters is a central figure in this book. a man who was a bastard from virginia whose mother was seduced by a french fencing instructor in dancing teacher in richmond. he snatched away, took her or

charleston rather where vermont was born. he was sort of half french because his father was a french. his father died early and left his family and better serve senses, but he was brilliant. he made a wonderful craze, except he was profited because he knew he could make good grades and normally that would be indifferent, but it wasn't. he is fairly one of the better topographical engineers of the in the air to states army. he learned the trade. i had a little fling with engineering in the army, not that i did it, but i dealt with engineers. they can do things we can normally do.

in a case, the west had been explored by a number of people. of course the indians, the old trappers and beaver hunters that had been out there for years. their charm was filling to an end because some bodies discovered that silk hats were cheaper and just as good as beaver hats. it was right about this time that vermont was given the chore of exploring west of the mississippi river. you know, while these trappers, they knew where they were, but they were the only ones. well, what from what could do, he had all sorts of astra local restaurants and various other tools to put this whole place on the map the major to where it was. there we go up the mountain and boil water to see what

temperature it would borrow at and they could tell how high they were. but they actually had more precise in restaurants. they had a lot of tools at their exposure. there were botanist's. a number of things. general scientists of all trades . there will talk about it. most of them were very good writers, they were extremely observant. and so fremont would appear in came back and wrote a report and made him the most famous mid-america. mainly because his wife, she had a wonderful flare for writing. she tweet up this report from. it did not hurt the she was the daughter of the most powerful men in the united states said that cover ended did not hurt

that he had a report capt fremont published in the government printing office. of course that made it public information in all the newspapers all over the country. and fremont became what we used to think, a hero like we used to treat the first astronauts. they were all of our heroes, and that is what fremont became. and just as kearny was making his march and all of the war was started and the west was falling, for a month launched another explanation -- exploration which he said he did on the secret orders of the president of the and it's it's itself to take this bear end of trappers.

he had 60 heavily armed members, almost army in those days, and go to california and if possible capture it. no, part of that was that the war had not started yet . people had gotten into trouble by starting wars, especially during captains. fremont's insisted this was his information. over and across the mountains he went. he became mixed up with something, in revolt in california that was torn on with the settlers out there. see, the california and new mexico, they were not states, there were territories. there were not -- mexico at that point was -- i would describe it as a state of eternal war. they had 36 governments in 27 years, just about all of them

resulted in armed revolts. they have run out of money want. they had allowed the while indians to deprecate of the ranches and farmers, and know what to do anything about it. the california people, they wanted to separate from mexico and become their own country. in the middle of that there was captain of vermont forming a rebellion. also, there were many people in motion. some people could pick up and go over the next hill. you had an migration. they had been chased out all the way from new york to missouri, and they were in the practice of polygamy which was repugnant to

many of these baptists and so forth. their leader, really, was actually wounded brigham young who took over said his people that we're going to move out of the united states , as far away from, what they called college gentiles. and they went to utah in founded salt lake and had a good operation. the mexican war came along, and sadly that became part of the united states as well. you had that migration. at the same time you had people that became has the donner party. eighty-one hear about that? for those of you not familiar, they became cannibals,

unfortunately. they were unusual amongst the migrants from going west because they were substantial people. most of the people went west were broke, looking for something new. no one really knew why they migrated, but they did. they were taken in as they got about halfway across the plains. i think across, almost across the rockies won by the writings of command called hastings. i'm trying to say flintridge hastings. whenever it was, he was one of these guys, he thought he was another sam houston. attract people to california where he would be the case nor the president.

he wrote a pamphlet explaining that there was something called hastings cut off right before the great sierra mountains where these immigrants could save 500 miles. what was not said was that hastings had never taken this hastings cut off at that point. when people finally did discover you can do that if you're writing of a horse, but you cannot do it very well with huge wagons. end the donner against all good advice, brought 80 wagons and decided that they were going to try to cross through this hastings' cut off. oh, my goodness. they got stranded in the desert. then the indians began to pick off the cattle that they brought. and then they get mixed up in

canyons and so on. overall just of it is it got late, and later was something he did not do when you were trying to cross the sierra mountains. we got big mountains appear. these are about three times the size of the appellations. there was a pass at about 7,000 feet which is about as high as it gets. that was the past. they have to get their before the end of november, and they didn't make it. they got up there only to discover that the pass was completely blocked by about 10 feet of snow and they could not get back down because it kept on selling. they did the wrong thing. what they should have done, again, this is hindsight, they should have had a mountain man with them. he would not have let him go up there in the first place to all but at least when they got up there the new pretty early on

their record to have to stay aware unless there were somehow rescued. when it began to smell the took shelter under whenever they could find. but there were a number, 85 people but they turn all of their livestock loose. they lost most of their cattle. they had horses and mules. when the snow stopped they came out. all of the livestock or guard. they should have killed them. that is what the mountain men would have done -- done. you could have ten or 15-foot of snow up there a couple of days. they never did find any of that livestock. all of a sudden they began to realize that starvation was a real. and the ones that had money and began to realize that money was

not worth very much. it was the ones that had a horse or mule. there were a few of these things that were saved. they have some be put away. that was a real currency. it began to become inflated. into the donner began to squabble among its themselves. there was a party across the mountain, these people up there. they sent a relief party. two indians that brought four mules packed with you'd. the donner. the food. in the eight and mules, and then they ate the indians. so the situation was desperate. they have various people try to get back down the mountain.

there would go in groups and invariably they would be trapped by the snow and bearish. as the situation grew worse on the mountain, as people would die, well, they did what would be the normal fishing. they begin to eat their dead. some said they ate the living. i don't think that has ever been really proved in the reading i have done, but it was a scandalous event and horrible situation up there until the remainder, maybe half of the 80-something people were finally rescued. they were in very, very bad shape. but they were part of it. they were part of this great western movement. they were instructed what not to

do. this is not how to cross the mountains. you don't go that time of year. you know, there is one story that was so touching to me. along "kearny's march" in march from fort leavenworth 01,000 miles they had some traders . there were trying to get in this last traded. too late. anyway, they were protected by the u.s. army. there was a young 19 year-old bride. let me see if i can find this. forgive me for stumbling around here. without my glasses.

her name is susan mcguffey. she is from kentucky, and she married a trader who was, i think, almost 30 years her senior. they had governors in kentucky and so forth ledger and made quite a fortune down there. she kept a diary, and it was so striking that i ran her through the book of what it was like pro will be back in 1846 to be out. to her this was like a honeymoon , and american safari. she looked at it like that. she discovered that she was pregnant right before she left. it scared her. there she was. no mother. no sisters, no nothing. then the only place that was

civilized in between fort leavenworth was a place called ben's fourth. they -- a train stopped over there for a week or so so that they could take a bath and get rooms. they had -- i think they may have had women. they could put their cattle inside. ..

>> may have to hear that kit carson. she's talking about being in this war, and she has become, she's been on the trail now for some months. she's having trouble with her pregnancy, but she's in the ford. she says our room has a dirt floor which i keep sprinkling constantly water on it to keep the dust down. we have two windows looking over the point. wherever on furnishing. we are over and. it's keeping house regularly. and she goes on to write that thursday, july 30, well, this is

my 19th birthday, and what, i feel rather strange, not surprising, nor to think i'm growing rather older but this is it. i am sick. but she lay there day after day with strange sensations in my hips, my head, my back. unable to rise, she all the while took time to sit down in her diary noises that she heard through her window. issuing of horses, the mule, children fighting, grown servants are gambling off their own clothes until some of them are next to nudity. all of a sudden, after a solid week of his she recorded, she put down the date, on august 6, 1846, the mysteries of a new world have been shown to me since last thursday.

in a few short months i should have been a happy month or and made the heart of a father glad, but the ruling hand as opposed. susan's baby had to be aborted otherwise she would have died as well. she clung to her faith. to come under him, that's how she got through it. but it was a cruel experience for a girl who just turned 19 on the santa fe trail. there they were, out there, and she got through and got all the way down to mexico with a lot of adventures. and i guess you'll have to read the book to find out how she wound up. [laughter] but then, but fremont had an amazing cast of characters. these mountain men who became famous in these dime novels.

no more famous than a great scott kit carson who fremont had found on a riverboat. carson, his father was hit by a falling tree when kit carson was three, and killed. he was apprentice to another maker industry. he didn't like him so he ran away. to join the mountain people, mountain men. carson city became an old hand at mountain man in which is to say he did not hesitate to kill beavers, wolves, grizzly bears, indians or fellow mountain men if they gave him cause. one of these, obnoxious loudmouth french-canadian, he shot in a duel because he well was obnoxious. that's what the legend of kit carson was born.

kearny, after taking santa fe without firing a shot, was described by an anguished and has a mountain of fat, and had previously been a sheep thief, kearny took santa fe, grant of immigrants like and explain to everybody you are now american citizens. you behave like american citizens, we will treat you well. if you don't, we will string you up. he was stern but he was there. they created a code out there. he had some lawyers, the missouri part of that operation, that still stands in parts of new mexico and arizona called the kearny code. it's the basis of law for louisiana. then he marched across this completely uncharted territory,

got to california, the first thing you and he was enormous fight with mexicans and almost wiped him out. i think almost two-thirds of his men were casualties coming they were either killed or wounded, most wounded. but he was saved by the americans, fremont out there, and so when. and really have formed an amazing feat of getting these people across the territory, they did know whether there were rivers, they did know whether there were mountains. they did know what they would find out there. and in the end i think the way i try to sum it up was this. 1846, a remarkable year in united states history. it was a year when a great number of people set themselves and motioned. american suddenly became

agitated enough to all across the next ridge to the west and the next. it began to shift and shape the national equilibrium. with every step though, it echoed like the clang of a long exposed wedge. it's something that some people learn about school and some don't. named after obscure congressman from pennsylvania named wilmont who attached a rider on to the mexican war funding bill that forbade any of the territories from entertaining the notion of becoming slave territory. slave states, band. this is really the first big stone that was cast against slavery. in the congress.

it was defeated ultimately very narrowly, but it became common it got the topic out, let's see, i think i say it here. let's see. i can say it better how i wrote and how i remember. with every step, wilmont provides year ago like the clang of the wells -- creates newspapers, one thing but acts of congress were powerful. versions of the previous so we're readily a penny to any legislation regarding your territories in hopes one would stick. he compared to the biblical plague of frogs. could not look upon the table if they were front. you cannot sit down and the banquet that there were frogs. could not go to the bridal couch, they were filled with sheets of frogs. so it was the proviso.

at least got the question out of the drawing room. after that was only a matter of time. toward the end of the mexican-american war, ralph waldo emerson summed it up their keys at the united states will conquer mexico but it will be as the man swallows arsenic, which brings you down in turn. emerson said, very interesting thing, he said he was not alone saying this. many wise men of the day said the same thing that they were powerless to prevent it. that is the abbreviated version. a lot of things going on, and as i said i was so interested, i do different things in way approach history.

don't generally spend years and years looking at the topic. i go into a sort of fresh and think maybe doing that i have a different kind of respective on it, because i'm interested in learning something new, and i guess i am thinking of you think if it interests me it will interest you. and sometimes that works and it's been fun to write these books. you know, i wrote a book that allows me to write these kind of books. i've got a little niche. you know, at first everyone was horrified. i became one of the most hated men in publishing because what they want you to do in order of success is keep writing the same book over and over again. and i won't do that. the editors start to make me. the publishers started to hate

me. the critics begin hating me. my agent, my own agent hated me. [laughter] they wanted me to keep doing it. and i said i don't want to do that. and i look at it, maybe i'm wrong, maybe i'm right. but i look back at guys like hemingway and fitzgerald and all that, thomas wolfe, they had a few good books, and then you all have a few good books in your comment i think dickens puts the lie to that. but most people don't, but they keep on writing because they don't know what else to do and end up writing themselves. i don't want to do that. so i started writing these history books. and be damned if they weren't a lot of fun to write. they really, really work. and on that encouraging note, why don't we take some questions? now, let me give you some ground rules. because the man with the boom, you don't want them walking or hitting people in the head, we will start taking questions here

and move to the center and move over here to this section. we have a question, man with the boom, you're in the wrong place. >> modular researching this book, what story or character speedy for him army? >> i guess for him. what character or story delighted or surprised you the most? >> i don't hear with who. someone repeat that question for me. no, care and tell me. -- come up here and tell me. [inaudible] >> there's so many. fremont is a very powerful guy. among other things he got himself court-martialed and almost wound up at the wrong end of a rope because he defied the general kearny who is in control of california, and you don't

define -- he's like a federal judge. tourney martian back all the way across the country almost in chains and court-martialed him. it was the court-martial of the century. it was the trial of the century. it took headlines in mexico. he was a fascinating guy. there was another guy who was the head, a lawyer from missouri, and he was the colonel in charge of the missouri element. and went general kearny went west, he went south into chihuahua with his misery regiment of 900 guys. chihuahua was the biggest day in mexico. he was supposed to meet another american journal. he didn't appear, didn't show up. and so here was the colonel with his missouri volunteers, not

trained soldiers. they had an artillery element that was run by one of the clark offspring, lewis and clark thing. and down they went and started fighting mexican army and started beating him. they took over the entire state of chihuahua with 900 guys. chihuahua city. he is a fascinating guy. and i don't know. there are a lot of others. this susan, i just found her charming, charming lady. you know, it was sad because when she got to santa fe, sort of relaxed a little bit, and then they were there for a couple of months before kearny took off. so she got to meet some of these young officers. the regular army officers. they knew she was married, but she was the only one, the only

woman, married women. so they can collect on her, know what it was out of for anything. but she took a long time but she much later found out mostly these fellows were killed in the battle in california. and gosh, who else? that guys are fascinating in a grisly sort of way. i think i'm it's so almost unbelievable what they endured up there. so that, there were a lot of people i found very interesting in this book. >> there are historians who have leaked -- linked fremont with cannibalism. is your research also uncovered that linkage? there are historians have linked john c. fremont with human cannibalism to make fremont,

yes. what happened to fremont, he had three expeditions under the nsa's army making maps and explorations in the west. they were extreme successful. these are the ones i told you about, people waited with bated breath to get the newspapers to find that we found next. after this court-martial, i probably shouldn't say this, but he was convicted, they're not going to shoot him or hate him, but he was dismissed from the service. president polk decided we can't do this. this man is too famous. it's crazy. so he essentially gives him a pardon, and he says your dismissal is reversed, take up your sword. fremont was too proud to do it, and he said no, you're thrown out of the army, i'm out of the

army. most famous explore in america, but he's got to explore. he wants to do that. but he can't get with the army anymore they got together together with a bunch of railroad men who wanted to build the first transcode the river, and they financed and exploration ostensibly to find the best route for this railroad. unfortunately, fremont did not take kit carson this time. going time he hadn't taken him. and they get stuck up in some mountains down in arizona and nearly froze to death. and they did. they had to eat some of their own. and they were very lucky. i think they lost either half dozen or a dozen men, but they jumped the wrong way. you don't jump the wrong way when winter comes. i lived in bail for your. i was never so glad to get out

of any place in my life. cold up there. let's have a center question. >> how long did it take you to do research? and after the research how long did it take you to write your book? and what's your best advice a writer to writer from that experience? >> did everybody get the question? okay. the question was how long did it take me to research, write it, with my vice to young people, whoever does who wants to write a book. i'll give you that advice first. put in chair, fingers on keys, and which are talking about. the only way to do it that i know of. but the research probably i think the research took a couple years. one of the most amazing things in my lifetime, i have this bearish the internet up and down for many years. i hate to say it because you use

it sometimes but i could look around and see what they say about me, and it's all wrong. you can't get rid of it. but there are some academic organizations, of course google, which are, i don't know what the word is, photostat in all of these remarkable documents so that they produce facsimiles so i just finished a book on the battle of shiloh, the civil war. and there were 160 regiments fighting, regiments, close to 900 people, less than that, but many of them has a regimental history, it was two or 300 pages. that's where you get your primary information. i can sit there at my desk and punch buttons and i get the regimental history of the 11th illinois volunteer infantry, which is exact, it's the real deal.

it's not something somebody copied and made it a. i get everything an and a bunchf another button, i download and punch another button and i print it. it sitting there for my assistant to put in the file and go over it. and i can do that. it's sitting there. now ordinarily i would have to visit where ever they would keep those things in indiana, presume in the capital, go and look at the. it would be time-consuming and expensive. i have to do that for every state that had soldiers that were there fighting, which is most of the east. most of the southeast. and so, these are new tools that really are going to save the younger historians of lot of trouble because you're getting the same material, you just don't have to work so hard for. i don't know if that's good or bad. just because there's so much you do have to look for.

i buy the book. i don't use libraries much. i just get in, some of these things, some folks are paid $70 for a book. but i needed it. it was an old book from the 1830s and it was in south africa, and i ordered it. you could resell it, but anyway i keep libraries of all these things because i'm kind of hard on research mitchell. i dogeared and underline, just that's my method. but the writing probably took a year i'm saying, but there's a point in, between the research and writing were you actually do, you do it, but there's a point, when i say okay, today i'm going to start writing this book. because otherwise you can research it to death. spent 10 years researching. probably forgot which are supposed to be writing about, you get sidetracked. i don't keep outlines. i have an outline in my head.

i do it all wrong of what, you know, i guess what you're taught. but it works for me. i kind of say here, i want to go from there to there. and in the day-to-day stuff, i want to go there, want to get this far down the trail, and let's see which events or incidents are most interesting, and i try to get in there and look at it and say, you're going to foreign, you're cutting stuff off and you play with it, go with it, edit it, we edited. and suddenly of a book before you know it. who else? [inaudible] >> still in the middle. two in the middle. >> when general kearny decide to make this expedition, did he

consult the records of lewis and clark expedition? and did that influence him and how he organized his and who he took with him besides his soldier? >> that's a very good question. did and to consult the records of the lewis and clark expedition ended up helping. i'm sure he did. you know, he did very little pursley and the way of information about himself, but he passed away after the california episode, the court-martial. ..

>> lewis who was the son of these guys and lived there in st. louis. so he would have been familiar with all of that a. he was, actually, before the court-martial he was great friends with senator benton. st. louis was kind of the kicking-off point for the west. questions over here. yes, sir. >> this is, this is a hypothetical question. do you think if gold were discovered at sutter's mill five years earlier, it would have been impossible to wrest california away from mexico? >> you must have been at that, where was that last -- same question. it's a good question. well, if they discovered gold at

sutter's mill five weeks earlier, then to settle the war the mexicans would have turned california loose knowing there was that much gold there. my answer, again, it's a hypothetical question, hypothetical answer. my answer is, no, because the americans, the whole american army was sitting in the middle of mexico city. i mean, they were finished. santa ana's army had disbanded, they didn't have anything left to fight with. and the same was true with the californians of mexican descent in california, they had been subdued by the u.s. navy and and fremont and the california battalion. they wouldn't have wanted to, but they didn't have much choice at that point, i don't think.

anybody else over here? yes, ma'am. >> your next door neighbor in fairhope, alabama, is a good friend, and when i visited her before, we walked around your house, but you were never around. all we saw was a typewriter. i want to know how many books you've written on a typewriter? >> when did i start writing on a computer? i think the first book i wrote on a computer, i think, was forest gump, and it was weird because i spent ten years in -- first typewriter, my father gave it to me. he was a hour in mobile, and he was going to electric, so he gave me an un-electric one. and i used that to write better times than these, which was my first book, and then i got a little electric because it was easier on your fingers. i had started coming down to

mobile in the winter because it was cold in new york, and i was trying to see my father before he passed away. and everybody was talking about these computers. and i knew i a guy, he said, well, taperow is a good computer. so i ordered this thing, and it came from 42nd street, big ad in "the new york times," it came with a bunch of instructions. they were written by the japanese. [laughter] and the english was not, i mean, they didn't have anybody vetted. there i was, i was trying to fool with it, and i had done some computer work. i worked in washington for ten years at a big newspaper. this is different when you do it yourself. and i didn't know what to do. and so finally i said, all right, i'm going to have to start from the beginning, and here's an instruction book. i'm just going to start writing on it. it said take a letter, call your secretary. so i started taking a letter. and you do that, and you do

that, and then you take another letter. and i did that day in and day out until i was about to throw it off the pier in the mobile bay. but i didn't, and i learned to do it but, oh, god, did it cause grief. i had it for about three or four years, and subsequently i got married. and i'd sit in there with it, and all of a sudden it had a bad habit of freezing up. so i'd sit there, and all of a sudden everything freezes up. and if you do anything, if you try to get it off the screen, it's gone forever. i mean, you lose it. and so i get my poor, sweet wife in there with a legal pad. say, honey, and she'd come in and copy it all down because i knew i was going to lose it, then i'd have to reput it in the machine. [laughter] now, of course, they're fantastic, and you can't even find a secretary that knows how to put together a manuscript because that's a lost art. and i just do it sort of automatically. i never thought i would.

but it's so much easier. i can produce the whole book, i mean, not the design and everything, but i can do things i never could. the corrections are so much easier. before you'd have to go and give it to a secretary, two weeks later the whole thing would come in, you made more corrections and back and forth. and these computers, all this is just -- has just made communication is really the story of my lifetime, i think. it's bigger than world war ii. where i grew up, i would go to my grandmother's house, you know, old midtown mobile, and they had one telephone. it was one of those things that stood up like that, and they had a nice table, a telephone table. a beautiful rosewood table, five girls in the family, one boy, and that's what everybody would talk on. and that's what i remember when

i was about 10 until now, we can all see where we are. communications just simply is extraordinary story about times. >> we've got time for one last question, please. >> yes, sir. i'm sorry, man standing back there. we've got to get somebody over here. fast man would have had that. >> i was wondering if your own personal military experience motivated you in any way to pursue so many military topics in your history writing. >> that's a good question. did my perm military experience -- personal military experience influence me? yeah. you know, i was unfortunate or fortunate, i don't know how you say, to have been in a war in vietnam. i'd gone into the rotc, the university of alabama in 961. there wasn't any war, there was a draft. by the time i got out in 1965,

there was a war. and over we went. and i spent the majority of my time with the fourth infantry division. and it's a seminal moment in your life. there's a lot of responsibility, a lot of pressure, a lot of emotion, a lot of fear, and you'll never get to do it again you hope. but my first novel that i wrote, a central part of it, was about the war. it's called "better times than these," and it's been a theme. my history's been military histories. you know, you get a niche. i'm pretty good at it. i know the terms. if i wrote sailing histories, i'd have to know the names of the sails, and i do that too, as a matter of fact. but, you know, i'm comfortable with it. so, yeah, sure, that influenced me. and that, ladies and gentlemen,

i think, concludes this program. [applause] you've been great audience. thank you very so much. >> for more information visit the author's web site, winstongroom.com. it's easy to follow the presidential candidates through social media. go to c-span's campaign 2012 web site and follow what the candidates are post anything realtime. read the latest from political reporters, and what viewers like you are saying on facebook, twitter and more. plus, access the most recent video at c-span.org/campaign 2012. when the president and the congress were debating after the 2010 elections whether the bush tax cuts would be extended because of the recession and whether it'd be a bad idea to

raise anybody's taxes in this down economy, one of the things the republicans said is tax cuts are always wonderful in a down economy, but spending cuts don't hurt at all which is self-evidently crazy. i mean, there's really no difference from a macroeconomic point of view as our friends in the u.k. are finding now when they went for an austerity response for the current circumstance. one of the things they wanted to get rid of was the 1603 tax credit, and they said it was a spending program. this is the kind of argument that ought to be held in a seminary over some obscure provision of scripture. [laughter] in my opinion. but you be, you be the judge. the republicans say we ought to get rid of 1603, it's a spending program, it's not a tax cut. and it is, buts it isn't.

when the congress did things like loan guarantees for new energy companies like the infamous solyndra loan guarantee was actually adopted during the bush administration, signed by president bush and supported at the time by almost all the republicans on the energy committee. and it's hard sometimes to pick winners and losers. that's not what 1603 does. 1603 recognizes that a lot of people building solar and wind installations are start-up companies. so if you give them a 30% tax credit that you would ordinarily give someone for building this new factory, it'll be worthless to them because they have no income to claim the credit against. so what 1603 does is, basically, give them the cash equivalent of the tax credit if they're start-ups. now, if you just don't like solar and wind energy and you

want to keep all the police in allowance or any of the traditional tax cuts for energy and make that argument, but a very significant number of the new solar and wind projects have used 1603. so my argument is it ought to be extended because we've got thousands of more facilities in solar and wind power which are becoming more economical every time the price drops about 30% for solar and wind every time you double capacity, and solar in particular has advances in the last three years, eye onically, one of the reasons solyndra went down, because the other technologies got cheaper faster than anybody figured. and took them out of the competitive mix. so i like this 1603, and i think it should be continued because i

think we should be supporting start-ups as well as existing companies. and a very significant percentage of america's new jobs over the last 20 years have come not just from small businesses, but from small businesses that were five years old or younger. so this is the kind of thing that i think, you know, my argument is we should say where to we want to go with this country? we want to build shared prosperity and modern jobs and be competitive, and back up from there and say how do we get there, what's the government supposed to do, what's the private sector supposed to do. i think if you do that instead of government/no government, you come out and say this 1603 is a heck of a good deal, and we ought to keep doing it. >> since you mentioned the end of 2010, i wanted to give you an opportunity to sort of repeat something you said to me earlier, which is the one part of your book where you felt like you gave the president a bum rap. >> yeah. >> that's been in the coverage a

lot. >> i was really upset. i didn't know whether it was the white house or the congress that -- [inaudible] raise the debt ceiling in 2010 after the election. >> when we still had the majority. >> when we still had the majority. i knew if we waited until january, the republicans would drive a very hard bargain. and so i said in a very kind of muted way that for reasons that were still unclear to me, this didn't happen. and gene sperling actually sent me an e-mail, who worked for me and is a scrupulously honest person, said, oh, we tried. you know, we didn't make a big deal out of it because the main subject was with were the bush era tax cuts going to be extended, but this shows you -- i'm trying to force myself to say once a day either i don't

know or i was wrong. [laughter] because i think it would be therapeutic if everybody in washington did that. [laughter] and so i want to be as good as them. so here's something i was wrong about. since raising the debt ceiling simply ratified the decision congress has already made to spend money and since the budget is the only thing that the senate votes on that is not subject to a filibuster, i thought that raise the tet -- debt ceiling vote was not subject to a filibuster, and i was wrong. gene sperling sent me a message and said senator mcconnell said he was going to filibuster unless we agreed right then to all their budgets they'd run on. so turns out he couldn't raise the debt ceiling, and i was wrong. see, it didn't hurt too bad. [laughter]

and that's one way we get less ideological politics if people find errors they make and fess up. >> moving a bit out of washington, one of the things that you do frequently in the book is to cite examples of kind of where you think this srt of appropriate partnership and shared responsibility between government and the private sector is working at the state level. maybe you could talk a bit about your theory of that and also share some of the examples particularly from your time as governor of arkansas, sort of what worked then and also what has continued to work and not worked subsequently in arkansas. >> well, first, i think, we americans are used to people at the state and local level hustling business, trying to save businesses, trying to expand businesses, trying to locate businesses there. and it is largely a bipartisan activity undertaken perhaps with varying levels of exuberance by

elected officials. but one reason i was able to stay governor for a dozen years and never got bore with the the job and loved it is the whole economic development aspect of it. and the interesting thing is that in most every state in the country although it's gotten more partisan now since 2010, but i think that'll settle down, it's largely a bipartisan activity. and so i tried to cite some areas in the book, for example, to give you just one practical example, there's a long section in the book about what i would like to see done to clear the mortgage debt more quickly. and i guess i should back up and say these kinds of financial crashes take historically 5-10 years to get over. and if you have a mortgage component to it, it tends to

push it out to ten years. we should be trying to beat that clock. we can't do it, in my opinion, even if we adopt -- i'm for the president's jobs plan. i think there's a lot of good ideas in there. but, and it'll give us one and a half, two million jobs according to the economic an cease. but if you want to return to a full employment economy, i think we these to flush this debt and get bank lending going again. and so kenneth rogoff at harvard recommends that since some people say, well, but if we lower the mortgage rates, if be we bring the mortgage down to the value of the house, then the people who hold the mortgages will lose money. who's going to compensate 'em? and what's it going to be? rogoff has suggested that the

banks are the people who ultimately hold the mortgages instead of writing them down, just cut them in half by taking an ownership position in the house so that when the house is, ultimately, sold, the people who issued the mortgage or own the mortgage will share in the profit, and you get the same practical result. you no longer have a bad debt on the books, and the homeowner's got a mortgage that he or she can pay. and i said in the book i know this'll work because in, when i was governor in the late '70s and early '80s and our farmers got in trouble, we had then hundreds of small charter banks who did not want to foreclose on the farmers. they knew they were just having a couple of bad years, and they can't pay their farm loans off, and they didn't want to take possession of these farms, so we allowed the banks -- we changed the law, allowed the banks to take an