in the hospital and so the role of the medical corps, doctors and nurses was quite important. >> host: how much was reported in the united states about the labor unrest or death in the canal zone. did you find evidence that there was fair reporting? was it a pretty wild ride? .. >> early on there was an expose

of what was happening in the canal zone by a man named billelow -- bigelow who traveled through the canal zone. and he charged that there was a lot of graft and corruption, and he charged that the united states was importing prostitutes to service the skilled men in particular. and this was, this really raised alarms, um, partly because the french construction project had been infamous for scandal and corruption. so there was suddenly this sense that in the canal zone scandal and corruption was taking over. um, theodore roosevelt decided immediately that he needed to go to the canal zone to answer these charges. and so it was actually the first time in the united states

history that a sitting president had left the territory of the united states. he got on a ship with his wife, went to the canal zone to tour everything, sat in the steam shovel, the famous one, one of the most famous presidential photographs or taken. -- ever taken. he trooped all about the canal zone, marched through the mud and rain with an army of journalists following him. and that really was the beginning of the sort of triumphalist notion that we across the 20th century and still today associate with the can canal project. theodore roosevelt was a master, a brilliant master at creating favorable public opinion. >> what kind of role did congress have during the construction phase? were they overseeing it, were they putting -- watching it pretty carefully? >> yes, congress did play an important role. even though, as i said, the government in the canal zone was

quite autonomous and had a great deal of power, congress was watching it. there was a lot of money at stake, and congress would carry out regular investigations into conditions, had power to oversee and pass pay raises for the skilled workers, that sort of thing. >> how much did it cost in the end? >> gosh, you know, i'm not exactly sure of the figures. i'm thinking 100 million maybe? >> 100 million back in the day. and do you think -- do you know what that translates into today? >> no, huh-uh. >> and finally, what's the picture on the front of your book? >> the picture shows the spectacular lock gates during the construction period. i love the image because it evokes both the single man standing at the top, evokes the sort of triumphalist notion of

the canal, the idea that it's about the peerless individual struggles of a few men. but the fact you see a larger work force there at the bottom suggests the sort of, the vast number of men whose labor was really important to the project. >> and we've been talking with university of maryland professor julie greene about her book, "the can canal builders -- the canal builders," it's published by penguin, and professor greene is a professor of history here at the university of maryland. >> thanks very much. >> is there a nonfiction book or author you'd like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at c-span.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. up next, winston groom recounts general steven watts

kearney's command of soldiers who marched from fort leavenworth, county, to california in 1846. this is about an hour, ten minutes. [applause] >> well, i'm extremely flattered that you turned out on this dark and stormy night. dr. watson would say, holmes, it's a fine night for a murder. [laughter] and i'm glad to be here to talk about kearney's march or carney's march, i never can figure out how the man pronounced his name. i know the various possibilities, but i've often wonders, i think it may be kearney, and i'll tell you why. i'd like to be able to report that i came to this subject in a very academic way, that i'd been

pursuing this question of the conquest of the american west for 25 years and finally exploded onto the scene, but it was not so. the way i got into this book was i was looking up general phillip kearney or carney who was a civil war general for the union who was killed in the valley campaign early on in the civil war. and i stumbled across the wrong kearney. and it turned out that this kearney, stephen kearney, is the uncle or was the uncle of phillip, and i saw a little line, a tag line that was in boldface, um, looking at general stephen kearney that said kearney's march. and i thought, what a wonderful title for a book. it had a ring to it. so i arrived as my subject appositivety yore ri as they say

in college. but as i investigated this march, it astounded me what had gone on in 1846 and 1847 which was, essentially, the conquest or the theft depending on your point of view of the american west. it made us a nation from sea to shining sea where before not too far on the western side of the mississippi river, everybody felt there was simply a great desert, and they knew there was something out in california, but it was so far away that nobody paid much attention to it. until president polk came into office. and he came in with four objects that he said he was going to do. he told his secretary of the navy, john bancroft, he said i'm going to settle this question in the northwest with the british.

the british and the americans owned together something called the bonn territory. but it encompassed more than oregon. it was the state of oregon, washington, part of nevada, part of montana, and it was all part of british columbia. and it was a joint protectership, whatever the legal term is, and the british were making gestures about wanting this, and the americans wanted more. they wanted the 5440 latitude way up close to alaska. and there were other people running around in the election of 1845, and nobody paid much attention to them. but polk won, and he said he was going to settle that question, and he said the second question i'm going to settle is the question of this tariff which is causing all this grief down in the south. it was a big tariff put on foreign goods, and it was causing the southerners to threaten to secede. and then he said he was going to

get rid of this national bank that andrew jackson didn't like, and polk was a protege of andrew jackson, the man from tennessee. and jackson, this was -- the national bank at that point was sort of a predecessor to the fed today, but jackson didn't like it. he thought it could be corrupted. so folks, he said and the fourth thick i want -- thing i want to do is i want california. he looked at the map of the time, and he didn't like what he saw. he saw america over here, and there was a whole bunch of territory over there, and he wanted coast to coast. he wanted to buy it. he didn't want a war, that wasn't his style. but he was ready to take it if he had to. and so he offered mexico a substantial sum of money in those todays for california. of course, they said no. you don't go around buying territory. and, actually, the regime at the time that was even discussing it

with him was overturned by armed revolt simply for addressing the question of whether or not we do want to sell california to the americans. and at the same time, there was another teach question brewing in -- deep question brewing in 1845, 1846 over the republic of texas which had separated from mexico forcibly about ten years earlier. and wished to join the union. and the mexicans said if the americans, if congress takes in, accepts texas as a state, there will be war. and again polk sent an emissary down to mexico city to try to smooth this thing over, see if they can avoid a war. but that was unavoidable. in this sense, that the mexican authorities would not see the

american emissary, and they withdrew their ambassador from washington, and they put an army on the border. and so war appeared to be inevitable. and i guess i'll -- polk said i'll take it as it comes. he was an officionado of what was called manifest destiny, it was a term that was invented by a magazine journalist in the 1840s. it basically described a doctrine that the united states of america was exceptional, and it deserved to be able to expand as far as it needed to expand. and, of course, everybody had their eyes on the west because you couldn't expand much to the south or the north. and it caught on, um, somewhat.

polk didn't invent manifest delawareny. -- destiny. some people have suggested so. but he was, i think eisenhower, the president's son had a wonderful book called "so far from god," i think he described it this way. he said polk didn't invent manifest destiny, but he was its ideal agent, and i believe that is quite so. so that set the stage for what general kearney did. kearney's march. two things i think are significant about his march, and i'll get to that in a moment, and the first is that when general stephen watts kearney marched out of fort leavenworth,

kansas, on that june day in 1846, um, wherever he went became the united states of america. now, that's quite a mouthful. because he went all the way to california. he went down the santa fe trail with a whole army of 2,000 mounted troops and be took santa fe from the mexicans. this was after the mexican war had broken out. he then marched another thousand miles across completely unchartered territory where there weren't even maps. there was nothing out there. it was like the old mans that you used to see of the oceans that had these big winds blowing that said beyond here lies dragons. they knew there were wild indians out there, but most americans thought of the lands that were beyond the states on the western side of the mississippi, they thought it was what they called the great desert because there had been

some exploration out there, and people -- all they found was desert. they didn't realize there was something beyond that, and there was. but the second thing, i think, to take away from kearney's march is that there were unintended consequences, sinister unintended consequences because i try to make in the point from the moment that general kearney marched out of, um, fort leavenworth, kansas, with his army of the west, that was the beginning of the first phase which was the political phase of the civil war. in 1846. because even though when congress overwhelmingly voted for a deck declaration of war or

mexico after the mexican army attacked our army down there, they began to have buyer's remorse. i think the whig party mostly. because they realized if we took these territories away from mexico -- and it was a lot of territory when you talk about the santa fe territory, you not just talking about santa fe and new mexico, you're talking about arizona, parts of nevada, colorado, you know, the whole interior west and, of course, the california territory consisted of parts of nevada, again, utah. it was big, huge stuff. and they, the wiser heads began to realize that the south was going to want to insist that these territories were going to become slaver is stories and later slave -- save territories and later slave states because, of course, the south had a great many troops fighting in the

mexican war. and this was the last thing anybody wanted with brain was expansion of slavery. they were trying to contain it, had been trying to contain it ever since the 1820s and the missouri compromise. um, but, i mean, the political problems were so immense. the south, it was as much a political problem as it was a question of slavery. because all along, well, in the house of representatives the north being a far more populace region, they could control the congress. but in the senate there'd been sort of a gentlemen's agreement that whenever a state would come in as a free state, they'd let a slave state in and vice versa. so when texas came in as a slave state, they voted to let maine come in as a free state to maintain a 50/50 balance in the

senate because the south was sort of saying, well, we're going to secede if we don't get that. so, um, that set the stage for some very tricky politicking back in 1846 because, well, president polk began to realize his time was running out on him in his war because the americans as de tocqueville had pointed out don't do very well, or democracies don't do very well in long wars. they have a limited attention span, so to speak. but i don't normally read things, but i thought y'all might appreciate some of it. some of it is what other people wrote, better writers than me. but i love the notion of general kearney marching out on a

gorgeous june morning in 1846 into the who the hell knew where. going down the santa fe trail which had been there, but it was -- to march an army down there was an enormous undertaking. and there was a schoolteacher whose name was hughes, and he was among -- kearney had two elements to his force. he had a thousand or less than a thousand regiment of regular army cavalry, and then they had a regiment of missouri volunteers, about half of whom were mounted on missouri mules. which is the finest mule in the world. but anyway, let's listen to, um, give me -- let me get my place here. the march of the army of the

west as it entered upon the great prairies presented a scene of most intense and thrilling interest, wrote private john w. hughes of the missouri volunteers, a schoolteacher. the boundless plains lie in ridges of wavy green not unlike the ocean, seem to unite with the heavens in the distant horizons as far as vision could penetrate. the long files of cavalry, the gay fluttering of their banners and the canvas-covered wagons of the merchant train glistened like banks of show in the distance. might be seen winding their torturous way over the undulating surface of the prairies. that was a mouthful there. but i think if you can, if you can picture this scene, nobody had ever done this before. these people were going into almost the unknown, the

chartered unknown, and they became -- the first became great heros, and one of those is a central focus of john c. vermont who was a bastard from virginia whose mother was seduced by a french fencing instructor and dancing teacher in richmond, and they -- he snatched away, it wasn't eloping, didn't ever marry her. took her down to savannah -- or charleston, rather, where vermont was born. and he was sort of half french because his father was french, but his father died early and left the family in reduced circumstances. but vermont grew up, he was brilliant. he grew up and went to the university -- the college of -- [inaudible] i think they call it. made wonderful grades except he was profligate, and he flunked out because after he figured, he

knew he could make good grades and carry more. normally, that would be the end of him, but it wasn't because he fell in with one of the better topographical engineers of the united states army and learned the trade of topographical engineering which is very difficult. i had a little fling with engineering in the army, not that i did it, but i knew -- i had to deal with engineers, and they can do things we can't normally do. they used to do it with slide rules, but in any case, you know, the west had been explored by a number of people. the old trappers, beaver hunters had been out there for years, and their time was coming to an end because somebody discovered silk cat were cheaper and just as good as weave hats. and it was right about this time that vermont was given the chore

of exploring west of the mississippi river. and, you know, while these trappers they followed -- they knew where they were, but they were the only ones that knew where they were. and what fremont could do is he had all sorts of astronomical instruments and various other tools to put this whole place on a map, exactly where he was and what the altitude -- they knew the altitude of mountains because they'd go up the mountain and boil water and see what temperature the water boiled at, and they could tell how high they were. but they actually had more precise stunts than that, but they had a lot of tools at their exposure, and be they were botanists, they were any number of things. a general scientist of all trades is what engineers were, and most of them were very good writers. they were extremely observant. so fremont went out and came

back, wrote a report that made him the most famous man in america. mainly because his wife was -- she had a wonderful flair for writing, and she tweaked up this report for him. and be it didn't hurt that she was -- and it didn't hurt that she was the daughter of the most powerful man in the united states senate, thomas hart benton from missouri. and it didn't hurt that thomas hart benton from missouri didn't have this report captain fremont published in the government printing office. of course, that made it public information in all the newspapers all over the country. they reprinted this, and fremont became what we used to think -- a hero like we used to treat the first astronauts. they were all of our heros, and

that's what fremont became. just as kearney was making his march and just as all of the war was started and the west was frothing up, fremont launched another exploration which he said he did under secret orders from the president of the united states himself to take this band of trappers, he had 60 heavily-armed men which was almost an army in those days, and go to california. and if possible, capture it. now, the interesting part of that was that the war hadn't started yet, and people have gotten into trouble by starting war, especially young captains. but fremont insisted that this was his information. and over and across the mountains he went and became mixed up with something called the pair flag revolt -- bare

flag revolt in california which was going on with the settlers out there, the mexican government. see, california and new mexico were not part -- they weren't states of mexico, they were territories. and the mexicans weren't with really taken care of them because they were out of money. mexico at that point was, i would describe it as it was in a state of eternal war. they had had 36 governments in 20-something years, all of them or just about all of them the result of an armed revolt. and they'd run out of money, and they had allowed the wild indians to depp rah sate -- depp ri sate on the ranchers and farmers and so on, and nobody could do anything about it. the california people, actually, california, they called themselves california, they wanted to separate from mexico as well and become their own country. but in the middle of all that there was captain fremont

fomenting a rebellion in favor of the united states. and also about this time because this was really people in motion in 1846. something propelled them to get up and go over the next hill. you had the mormon migration. and the mormons had been chased out of about everywhere all the way from new york to missouri, and they practiced polygamy, was repugnant to many of these baptists and so forth. so they, their leader, reid, was actually murdered by missourians and brigham young who's the most famous of the mormons took over at that point and said to his people that we're going to move out of the united states as far away from these what they called gentiles as they possibly could. and they went to utah and

founded salt lake and had a good operation going there until the mexican war came along. and suddenly that became part of the united states as well. so you had, you had that migration. and at the same time you had a group of people that became known as the donner party. anybody hear about the donner party? okay. well, i'll -- for those of you not familiar with them, they became cannibals, unfortunately. the donners were unusual amongst the migrants from, you know, going west because they were substantial people. most of the people went west because they were broke. they were looking for something new, and nobody really knows what the donners themselves or the reids who were part of the donner party, why they migrated, but they did, and they were taken in. they got about halfway across

the plains, and i think across, almost across the rockies by the writings of a man called hastings. i'm trying to say leonard hastings. forgive me for forgetting that name. but whatever it was, he was one of these guys -- he thought he was another sam houston. he was going to attract all these people out to california where he would be either the king or the president or whatever. and he wrote a pamphlet and in a book form explaining that there was something called a hastings cutoff right before the great sierra mountains, and they could save, these immigrants could save 500 miles with their wagon trains. what was not said was that hastings had never taken this hastings cutoff at that point. and when people finally did, they discovered, yeah, you can do that if you're riding on a horse, but you can't do it very

well when, with these huge wagons. and the donners against all good advice had about 80 wagons, they decided they were going to try to cross through this hastings cutoff. and they, oh, my goodness, they got stranded in the desert, and they had to throw away all their fine grandma's furniture everywhere. and then the indians began to pick off all the cattle they brought. and then they got mixed up in the wasatch range, you know, box canyons and so on, and the overall gist of it is they got late. and late was something you did not do when you were trying to cross the sierra mown mountains because when it snows out there -- i mean, we've got big mountains up here. these are about three times the size of the appalachians, and there was a pass at about 7,000 feet, that was the pass that hayed that to finish they had to get to before the end of

november, and they didn't make it. and they got up there only to discover that the pass was completely blocked with about ten feet of snow. and they couldn't get back down. because it kept on snowing. and they did the wrong things. they didn't -- what they should have done, again, this is hindsight, but you read about it, they should have had a mountain man with 'em. he won't have let them go up there in the first place, but at least when they got up there, they knew pretty early on they was going to have to stay the winter. i mean, unless they somehow, there was somebody rescue them. and when it began to snow, they sort of took shelter under whatever they could find, lean-toes, there were a couple of old trappers' cabins, but i think there were 85 people. but they turned all their livestock loose. they lost most of their cattle. they had horses, they hood mules pull wag -- they had mules pull wagons. but when the stopped, they came

out, all the livestock was gone. it was under the snow. it was dead. they should have killed them. i mean, that's what a mountain man would have done because he knew how much -- you could have 10, 15 foot of snow up there in a couple of days. and they never did find any of that livestock. and all of a sudden they began to realize that starvation was a real thing they were going to have to face. and the ones that had money began to realize that that money wasn't worth very much because the ones that had a horse or a mule, you know, there were a few of these things that were saved or they had some meat put away. that was the real currency, and it began to become ip facilitated. and the donners began to squabble amongst themselves. and there was a relief party -- they knew it had crossed the mountain at fort sutter which was a big settlement that these

people were up there. and they sent a relief party that was composed of two indians, um, who brought two mule -- four mules packed with food, and they thought that would help. the donners, they ate the food, and then they ate the mules, and then they ate the indians. so the situation was desperate. they had various people try to get back down the mountain. they would go in groups, and invariably they would be trapped by the snow and perish. and as the situation grew worse on the mountain, as people would die, well, you don't have any food, they did probably the normal thing. it was repugnant to them, but they taliban to eat their dead. they began to eat their dead. and some say they ate their living. i don't think that was ever really proved. the reading i've done on it.

but it was a scandalous and a horrible, sordid situation up there until the remainder, about maybe half of the 80 something people were finally rest -- rescued, and they in very bad shape. but they were part of it, they were part of this great westward movie. they were an instructive story about what not to do. this is not how to cross the mountains. you don't go that time of year. you know, there's one story that was so touching to me. along kearney's march from fort leavenworth down a thousand miles on the santa fe trail, um, they had some traders' wagons that were trying to get in this last trade with the people in santa fe before the war with

mexico broke out. they were too late for that but went anyway. they were protected by the u.s. army, but there was a young, 19-year-old bride -- let me see if i can find this. i think i can. forgive me stumbling around here when i -- without any glasses. ah, there she is. and her name was susan, and she was from kentucky, and she'd married a trader who was, i think, almost 30 years her senior. and that was the family, they had governors of kentucky and so forth, later they made quite a fortune down there. but she had, she kept a diary, and it was so striking that i sort of ran her through the book as a thread of what fs it was like for a woman back in 1846 to

be out on this -- to her, this was like a honeymoon. it was an american safari, and she looked at it like that. she loved it. but she discovered that she was pregnant right before she left. it scared her because there she was, you know, no mama, no sisters, no aunt, no nothing. just mostly the guys. the prairie. and the only place it was civilized in between fort leavenworth and santa fe was a place called bent's fort that was put up by a big fortress out in the middle to defend against indian attacks by the bent brothers. and they, the train stopped over there for a week or so so they could, well, take baths. they had some rooms for them.

they had gambling, i think they may have had women, i don't know. but they could put their cattle inside so that the indians wouldn't get them. oh, excuse me, i just dropped my glasses. i'm not going down -- [inaudible] here. [laughter] do y'all know what the iewbly yet is? it was old french kings when they sat on the throne, and the guy would come up and always somebody wanted something. if they didn't like what he wanted, they'd pull a trap door, and he'd be gone. that's called an uke ri yet. [laughter] anyway, susan. may have to hear about kit carson. she's talking about being in this immense fort, and she has become ill. she's been on the trail now for some months, and she's having trouble with the pregnancy.

but she's in the fort, she says our room was on a dirt floor which i keep sprenging constantly to keep the dust down. we have two windows looking out on the plain, we have our own furniture, we eat in our own room. it's like 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 surprised at its coming nor to think that i am growing rather older, but this is it. i am sick. 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 set down in her chiropractor ri the noise -- in her diary the noises she

heard, the shooing of horses, the scolding and fighting of men, their own servants gambling off their own clothes until some of them are next to nudity, the arrival of a warrior band of arab hoe indians and all of a sudden after a solid week of this, she put down the date. on august the 6th, 1846, the mysteries of a new world have been shown me since last thursday. in a few short months, i should have been a happy mother and made the heart of a father glad, but the ruling hand of a mighty providence has opposed. susan's baby had had to be aborted or she would have died as well. throughout the ordeal, she clung to her faith like a bat to a cliff. to come unto him when our burden is grievous and heavy to be born, that's how she got through it, but it was a cruel experience for a girl who just

turned 9 on the santa -- 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 there was -- what fremont had was an amazing cast of characters. these mountain men who became famous in these dime novels, and one no more famous than the great scout kit carson who fremont had found on a river boat. and carson, his father was hit by a falling tree when kit was 12 and killed, and he was apprenticed off to a leather maker in missouri and didn't like it. so he ran away to join the mountain, the mountain people, the mountain men.

and, let's see, we're going to -- ah. carson soon became an old hand at mountain manning which is to say he did not hesitate to kill beavers, wolves, grizzly bears or fellow mountain men if they gave him cause. one of these, an obnoxious, loudmouth french canadian he shot in a duel because he was, well, obnoxious, which passed for cause in those times and which was where the legend of kit carson was born. um, kearney after taking santa fe without firing a shot from a corrupt governor called general armajeo who was described by an englishman as a mountain of fat, and he had previously been a sheep thief, kearney took santa fe, ran up the american flag, explained to everybody you're now american citizens, you behave like american citizens,

we treat you well. if you don't, we string you up. , and that's -- he was stern, but he was fair. they created a code out there, he had some lawyers with the missouri part of that operation that still stands in parts of new mexico and arizona called the kearney code. just like the no poll ontic code is the basis for law in louisiana. then kearney marched, got to california, and the fist thing he got into was this enormous fight with the mexicans, and it almost wiped him out. i think almost two-thirds of his men were casualty, meaning killed or wounded, most wounded. but he was saved by the american fremont's battalion out there and so on. and really had performed an amazing feat of getting these people across territory where

they didn't know the rivers, they didn't know what they were going to find out there. and in the end i think the way i tried to sum it up, um, was this: 1846 was a remarkable year in the united states' history. it was a year when a great number of people set themselves in motion. americans en masse suddenly became agitated enough to haul across the next ridge west and the next in such numbers that it began to shift and shake the national equilibrium. with every step, though, the proviso echoed like the clang of a long splitter's wedge. and the the willmont proviso is something that some people learn about in school and some don't. named after an obscure

congressman from pennsylvania named wilmont o who attacked a rider on the mexican war funding bill that forbade any of the territories from entertaining the notion of becoming slave territory or slave states, banned it. this was really the first big stone that was cast against slavery in the congress. it was defeated, ultimately, very narrowly. but it became, it got the topic out of, well, let's say, i think i say it here, let's see. if i can say it better what i wrote than what i remember. with every step wilmont proviso echoed like the clang of the splitter's wedge. acts of congress were a powerful gauntlet.

versions of the proviso were regularly appended to any legislation regarding new territories in hopes that one would stick. an outraged thomas hart benton compared it to the biblical plague of frogs, you could not look upon the table but there were frogs, you could not go to the bridal couch, they were filled with sheets of frogs. so it was with wilmont's proviso. and the southern slavers sat and thumbed their noses, but at least it got the question of slavery out of the drawing rooms and into the political arena for good. after that it was only a matter of time. toward the end of the mexican-american war ralph waldo emerson sized it up. he said the united states will conquer mexico, but it will be as the man swallows arsenic which brings him down in turn. emerson said, very interesting,

he said he was not alone in saying this. many wise men of the day said the same thing, but they were powerless to prevent it. and that is the abbreviated version of kearney's march. there was a lot of things going on, and i was so interested, i do different -- in the way i approach history. i don't generally spend years and years looking at a topic. i go into it sort of fresh and think maybe doing that i have a little, a different kind of perspective on it because i'm interested in learning something new, and i guess i'm vain enough to think if it interests me, it will interest you. and sometimes that worked, and can it's been fun to write these books. as you know, i wrote a book,

forest gump, which allows me to write these kind of works. [laughter] but i've got a little niche. i mean, at first everybody was horrified. i became one of the most hated men in publishing because what they want you to do in publishing if you have a success is keep writing the same book over and over again. and i didn't want to do that. l and so, i mean, my editor started to hate me, and the publisher started to hate me, and the critics began hating me, my agent, my own literary agent hated me. [laughter] they wanted me to keep doing, and i said, you know, i don't want to do that. look at it, and maybe i'm wrong, maybe right. i look back at guys like hemingway and fitzgerald, thomas wolfe, they had a few good books. and then, you know, you only have a few good books in you, i think. dickens puts a lie to that, but most people don't -- but they keep on writing because they don't know what else to do, and

they wind up writing themselves out. and i didn't want to do that. and so i started writing these histories. and be damned if they weren't a lot of fun to write. they really, really were. and so on that encouraging note, why don't we take some questions. now, let me give you some ground -- not ground rules, but there's a chart here. because the man with the boom, you don't want him walking around hitting people in the head, we're going to start taking questions here and then move to the center and move over here to this section. we have a question. all the way -- man with the boom, you're in the wrong place. yes, sir. >> while you were researching this book, what story or character -- >> is that boom for him or me, because -- [laughter] >> be i guess for him. what character or story delighted or surprised you the most? >> you know, i don't hear worth a hoot. somebody repeat that question for me.

somebody up close. well, come up here and tell me. >> what character in your story -- [inaudible] >> oh, what characters interested me in kearney's march? gee, there's so many. fremont is a very powerful guy. um, among other things, he got himself court-martialed and also wound up on the wrong end of a rope because he defied general kearney as he controlled california, and you don't have captains or colonels in defiance of a full general. a general's a very powerful guy. he's like a federal judge. and kearney marched him back all the way across the country almost in chains and court-martialed him. it was the court-martial of the century, the trial of the century. it took headlines where battles in mexico were second place. so he was a fascinating guy. there was another guy who was the head of -- a lawyer from

missouri, and he was the colonel in charge of the missouri element. and when general kearney went west, he went south into chihuahua with his hour regiment of 900 guys, and chihuahua's the biggest state in mexico. he was supposed to meet another american general, but the general didn't appear, didn't show up. and so there was colonel -- [inaudible] with his missouri volunteers who were not trained soldiers. they had an artillery element that was run by one of the clark offspring of lewis and clark fame, and down they went and started fighting the mexican armies and started beating them. and they took over the entire state of chihuahua with 900 guys, chihuahua city. now, he's a fascinating guy. and i don't know, there are a lot of 'em.

there's susan, i just found her a charming, charming lady. and, you know, it was sad because when she got to santa fe and they could sort of relax a little bit and they were there for a couple of months before kearney took off, and so she got to meet only of these young officers -- some of these young officers, the regular army officers. and they knew she was married, but she was the only one -- she was the only woman, american woman. and so they came calling on her for tea. nobody was out of line or anything, but she took a long time, but she much later found out that most of these fellas were killed in the battle in california. and, gosh, who else? the donners were fascinate anything a grisly sort of way. i mean, that just, it's so almost unbelievable what they endured up there.

um, so that, there were a lot of people that i found very interesting in this story. yes, sir. >> there are historians who have linked fremont with cannibalism. does your research also uncover that linkage? >> one more time. >> there are historians who have linked john c. fremont with human cannibalism -- >> ah, fremont the cannibal, yes, indeed. well, what happened with fremont, he had three expeditions under the aegis of the united states army corpses of topographical engineers making maps in explorations in the west. and they were extremely successful, and these are the ones i today you about there was a report published and people waited with baited breath to get the newspapers to see what he'd found next. well, then after this court-martial -- i probably ought not to tell you this, but

i will -- he was convicted of bad things. but they're not going to shoot him or hang him, but he was dismissed from the service. president polk, of course, 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. free month -- fremont was too proud to do it, and he said, no, you've thrown me out of the army, i'm out of the army. the most famous explorer in america. but he still, he's got to explore. he wallets to do that. but he can't do it with the army anymore. so he got together with a bunch of railroad men who wanted to build the first transcontinental railroad, and they financed an exploration, os especially the my, to find -- ostensibly, to find the best route for this railroad. unfortunately, fremont did not take kit carson this time. the only time he hadn't taken

him. and they got stuck up in some mountains down in arizona and like to starve and 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 a dozen or a dozen men. but they jumped the wrong way. you don't jump the wrong way when winter comes in the mountains. it's very dangerous. i lived in vail for a year, i've never been so glad to get out of any place in my life. cold up there. let's have a center question. yes, ma'am. >> hi. how long did it take you to do this research? and after the research how long did it take you to write your book? and what's your best advice from writer to writer from that experience? >> did everybody get the question? okay. question was how long did it take me to research this book, how long did it take me to write it, and what's my advice to young people, old people, whoever it is who wants to write

a book. i'll give you that advice first. put ass in chair, put fingers on keys. know what you're talking about. [laughter] it's the only way to do it that i know of. [laughter] but the research probably, i think the research on this took a couple of years. and one of the most amazing things in my lifetime, i had disparaged the internet up and down for many be years and wikipedia, and i hate to say it because you use it sometimes, but i could look on there and see what they say about me, and it's all wrong, and there's nothing you can say about it. you can't get rid of it. [laughter] but there are some academic organizations plus google which are, i don't know what the word is, photostatting all of these remarkable documents so that they produce facsimiles so that i just finished a book on the battle of shiloh in the civil

war. and, you know, there were 160 regiments fighting -- a regiment's supposed to be 900 people, less than that. but each one of them, many of them had a regimental history that was 200 pages, and that's where you get your primary information. i could sit there at my desk and punch buttons, and i get the regimental history of the 11th illinois volunteer infantry which is the real deal. it's not somebody copied or made it up. and i get everything, and i punch another button, and i down download it, and i punch another button, and i print it, and it's sitting there for my assistant to put into a file to go on my shelves. and i can do that just sitting there. ordinarily, i would have to visit wherever they would keep those things in the indiana, presume by in the capitol. go and look all that up, and it'd be time consuming and expensive.

and i'd have to do that for every state that had soldiers fighting at shiloh which was most to have east except, well, most of the southeast. and so these are new tools that really are going to save your younger historians a lot of trouble. because you're getting the same material, you just don't have to work so hard for it. i don't know if that's good or bad, but it sure feels good to me. just because there's so much you do have to work for. and i, i'd do it, i buy the books. i don't use libraries much, i just -- you can get 'em. some of these things, one time i paid $700 for a book. wife gave me a fit. but i needed it. it was an old book if the 1830s, and it came from south africa, and i ordered it. but you can resell 'em. but anyway, i keep libraries of all these things because i'm kind of hard on research materials. i dog ear it and underline it. it's just, that's the way -- that's my method. but the writing probably took a

year, i'm saying. but there's a point in the, between the research and the writing where you actually, you're doing both. but there's a point at least it is with me when i say, okay, now today i'm going to start writing this book. because otherwise you can research it to death, you spend ten years researching it. and you probably forget what you're supposed to be writing about. you get sidetracked. i don't keep outlines. i've got an outline in my head. i do it all wrong from what, i guess, you're taught to do, but it works for me. i kind of say, well, here, i want to go from there to there, and in the day-to-day stuff i think i want to go from there, i want to get them this far down the trail, and let's see which, you know, events or incidents are the most interesting. and i try to get in there, and i look at it after i'm through and say you're going too far, you cut stuff out, play with it,

fiddle with it, edit it, reedit it, and sooner orater you've got a book before you know it. [laughter] yes, sir. get over -- we've got -- we're still in the middle here. >> two in the middle. >> did, when the general kearney decided to make this expedition, did he consult the records of lewis and clark expedition, and did that influence him in how he organized his and who he took with him besides his soldiers? >> that's a very good question. did kearney consult the records of lewis and clark expedition, and did that help him? i'm sure he did, but i haven't -- you know, they -- he left very little personally in the way of information about himself, and he passed away after the california episode and the court-martial.

polk made him the military commandant of mexico city. and he picked up the wrong mosquito, and he came back to st. louis where he's from, and he died. so he left no, you know, you'd love to have a diary or memoir, but we didn't get that. and these guys, they basically left their report, and their report was short. they didn't have a lot of people writing the reports for these life-long things. and kearney made his report. so he didn't tell us a lot of these things. but, of course, he was well acquainted with periweather clark, i mean, meriwether lewis with who was the son of these guys, and clark lived there in st. louis. so he would have been familiar with all of that. if he was, actually, before his court-martial, he was great friends with senator benton because they were all -- st. louis was a kind of the kicking-off point for the west.