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up next on a recent trip to georgetown university here in washington, d.c., booktv talked to chandra manning about her book, "what this cruel war war over." as part of the booktv call which series and was recorded at the riggs library on campus. >> and now on your screen as professor chandra manning, who is the author of this book, "what this cruel war was over" soldiers, slavery and the civil war. professor manning, what was your approach to this book? >> the first thing about approach is it gave me to much credit when you say approach. the book is not at all the book

i thought i was going to write when i started. i started with an interest in civil war soldiers and the desire to read their mail. but absolutely no intention at all of writing about soldiers and slavery. none because i didn't think i would talk about it. i was interested in enlisting the soldiers and the farmers and shopkeepers and the bus leaves holders and then the number grain growers, so i didn't think we were going to care about slavery very much and i was interested in their war and especially interested in how they differ from each other, not just north and south of how somebody from boston deferred different from somebody in ohio or somebody from the chesapeake is different was similar to someone and appalachian. so i was really interested in what people who lived in the 19th century fought about where they live connected to this thing called the nation. what did mean to be an american if you were from different parts of the nation.

so my plan was to do that, to look at how these guys talk about america, how do they talk about the united states and the union, how do they talk about the confederacy, how do they talk about the south, hoping that they would do it substantially different from each other and i would have something to say. so i headed off into the archives, 45 of them. ischemic first of all, what archives? >> i was in the archives from every seat that fought in the civil war so there are 45 archives to read some of them are the huge ones that immediately come to mind, the library of congress or carlisle in pennsylvania which had an enormous army history collection. but also small libraries, state historical associations, but it would of the archives and history, the vermont historical society, jackson county historical society and in independent misery. again the point was i really didn't want to read more about u.s. grant, i wanted to read

about the back of the line so that's where i looked for him and what i really wanted was for the soldiers to say i look at the flag and i think of my wife or my mother and they just wouldn't cooperate and to put wanted them to do and i was first treated with them. >> were you finding a similar theme among the union and confederate soldiers? >> i knew the union and confederate because i was less interested in those although i was interested in those than in the regional differences east west and that sort of thing and i found very little of the east west difference that i was looking for. there were midwesterners the thought that they were proceed and had a bad manners but you could predict that if you had the matured today you could hear that kind of conversation that was not that surprising. so they were not talking about what i wanted them to but they wouldn't talk about what they were not supposed to and that

was sensory and that was the thing you're not supposed to care about and it wasn't supposed to enter the center of their world in the way that it seemed to read so i spent a good time and lead with them for not doing what i wanted them to do until finally i look up and realized there is a story i don't think they should be talking about slavery and the aarsele need to understand why. why did they care, what difference did it need for someone in arkansas or alabama but never owned a slave whether or not they were survived, what difference did it make to somebody that grew wheat in illinois or in massachusetts, why did he care whether something called the union survive or there was slavery or not and once i figured out that was my question, that became my approach again approach sounds like i knew what i was doing from the outset and i really didn't. it took me about two years of days in the archives to figure

that out. >> professor manning as you went through these what were you finding the northern soldiers saying about slavery? >> at the beginning i was struck by the wide range of opinions on slavery. at the beginning it is of the union for most northern soldiers come off all but most and what i mean by that is that most of them enter the war convinced that the united states has to survive. it has to survive to show the world that the government can work. and in 1848 and europe as they see if it failed to read it field of the democratic revolution and they see the united states this is it this is the last shot. so it works here or it will never be tried again. if these states think they can destroy the government which is how they see it because they

don't like how they are elective then we have to say this of government doesn't work so we have to prove that it can survive and that's how they start. but we don't have to be an assault very long before they will begin to think why did they get into this to begin with? they talked to the southerners and a sleeveless and they are really struck by how we got into this problem to begin with because of this institution of slavery. if you want to solve a problem the only way to do it is to rule out the cause. so the union soldiers made a shift much earlier than i had anticipated. it begins in the summer of 1861 where they are beginning to write home to their families but also their elective officials to say that if we want to win the war and we don't want to fight again in ten years we need to get rid of the problem and get rid of slavery or it's going to be back at square one. so to take a practical approach

to the problem it's the way to solve a problem. but this is their first reaction to what in the view as the cause of the war. then as they stay in the south more and more, they interact with the real-life slaves who run to the union army by the thousands and suddenly it is harder to dismiss them in an abstract or black people as an undefined category come something you've never heard of before. it's hard to think of them that way when you have individuals with names and stories in your camps and doing things like your laundry, and so the initial feelings about slavery or quite instrumental it's a problem, solve it but extended experience in this all we think really humanizes african-american people for soldiers and they begin to take a reflective look

at there's something wrong with this. it's not just inconvenient. there is something wrong and it's got to go because you only want a war when god is on your side and there is no way that he will let you and if you let something like slavery exist. so a sort of practical response in the early months is joined by a kind of moral and religious reckoning. this began your finding that across-the-board. >> i really am. there are differences of opinion about everything. the 2 million people come in the 2 million people are going to disagree about things with one exception is that they all agree about that. other than that it's the division of the opinion about everything but what is striking is how we did the opinion is. again, not at the outset. there is a range at the outset as the war proceeds there are a lot of guys that enter the war. i want nothing to do with

slavery and i can think of one in particular thing. i call him now -- mouthy. he's 18 or 19 from ohio and he and his father and his uncle are close and reactive or enthusiastic in the sort of far wing of the democratic party that is most opposed to the notion of emancipation. that is how he enters and he gets about midway through the war even as late as 63 with the emancipation proclamation he's still not sure if it is a good idea, and it's not what he signed up for. not going to leave, but he's not happy about it. but again, he stays in this house and ghost through experiences no one can imagine and i found in the early months by the end of the war he is writing home to his father and

his uncle to sort of reeducate them. at one point he writes to his father and he says you think i turned against my country i think that you have mistaken considerable which is the voice of i called it mouthy and he proceeds to explain why the war might have to take on slavery and then at the end of the war how he treats the ending is yes we are free. that is the 180-degree turnaround and so if you look at any moment in the union ranks of course you will find in range of opinions. by the end of the war that has considerably narrowed and that any time in the war there are a lot of people that are shifting. >> were the number a soldiers' letters censored at all? >> that's a good question and the answer is no, neither of the

confederate soldiers. that is one of the charms. here are 3 million men who fought in the civil war most of whom would never have left us with their personal thoughts were it not for the war because the people you love talked to as opposed to road to putative for four years they are away from home and so they have to use writing as a way to talk about what they care about and that is what drew me to the project in the first place it's hard to get at what lanier people care about and they don't leave papers in the way george washington was so that's how i was drawn to the civil war soldiers to begin with and these letters are completely uncensored and expected to be felt sensitive military information but they will tell you that's not hard. we don't know any. but there is no office, officers don't have enough to do. they don't look at the mail and they also don't look at an interesting publication in the soldiers newspapers. and these were really

interesting. so there is no office of morale, welfare and recreation in the civil war. so they've kind of amused themselves and one of the ways the deutsch as in many regions is a start newspapers and sometimes they did it with a piece of paper and pen and sometimes they do it by occupying the printing press of the local southern newspaper, the conservator in virginia for example. the barry velte editor was sending the tight to his newspaper one day and i think early 1862 in the first minnesota and they decided not to undo his work the would print the other three the success with one page of sort of local news and three pages of minnesota and other places they travel with portable printing presses and these newspapers are almost

exclusively enlisted ideas and wiltz and work the right for themselves, they circulated among themselves and those are not censored either and they are not censored officially. they are also not in the sense that if you are writing a letter to your mom you given little on some things. i wouldn't want to know my son had a decent meal in two weeks in his socks had holes. in your writing for other soldiers they know all that stuff so there is no need to soften the edges a little bit so those are especially on censored because of the intended audience so they are the almost sort of rall voice of the soldiers and it's hard to imagine anything like that today. it's not like the strikes in world war ii which goes through the censorship process. nothing like that. >> chandra manning, when did you get interested in the civil war and what you teach at georgetown? >> i can't remember not being interested. in the u.s. has to be in

particular i loved little house on the prairie believe it or not when i was a kid and that germany to the 19th century. i was close to my grandmother the woman had to be a saint because she taught me to read when i was two and she was fascinated by the civil war and i can't explain why our family wasn't in the united states. it was a man and a logical kind of connection mix ackley but she was. and anything about her, i was going to be just like her so i became interested in the civil war pretty young and probably was eight or nine when i read the life of johnny and billy, and one was written in 1943 and the of 31952 and they are very descriptive books about the civil war soldiers. if you want to know what a soldier were or what the buttons on his uniform look like or what practical jokes he played on his friends, if you want to know anything about his daily life, they will never be surpassed and

i read those quite young so i've been interested for a long time. here at georgetown i teach a class on civil war and reconstruction and i call it the total immersion experience because we pay civil war music every class. i have them eat a hard pack all the mice player went out of business. i also teach classes on the history of baseball and other 19th century topics. >> chandra manning, what did you find in the southern soldiers' letters? >> they surprised me even more walk into this process they were not going to talk about slavery. why would they? i couldn't see to out of three white families in the confederacy didn't own slaves. they were non-slaveholders.

i thought there would be the what's in it for me attitude and so the war for them would have been for different reasons and i kind of went into the projects i've read the ordinances on the professions and those sort of things and makes it clear that the secession happened to safeguard the institution of slavery. i knew that, but i didn't think that the regular guy sold war in those terms so that must process disillusionment almost. so i entered for one reason and i find it's about something else and this isn't my war after all. and i -- that's what i thought i was going to find and i didn't. what i found were men who did care. their families, their homes, but what i was not prepared for is exactly how closely they were laid to the institution of slavery. you live in north carolina or arkansas or virginia but you're

connected to the institution and you know it in a number of ways. so our structural ways can shift. the widespread process of the slave hiring or renting you can't own a sleeve but you need help this year you can rent one from your sleep holding neighbor for for less than you could hire any other kind of labor and that will help you in the crunch time so you also are no fool. you know that your region is highly dependent on this enormously valuable source of property. so there are structural ways in which the of interconnected and they are not dumb. they know it. but i think the connections are even deeper. they go almost down to the gut level. if you are a white southern man and you don't own slaves coming you still enjoy a certain position in society and live in

a society that really done uzi quality and the idea that you and i are just as good as one another we also grew up of an age of growing inequality and a very high mobility, people are on the move all the time we grew up in a very insecure world, so what if i live in a shack and you are in a plantation what makes us equal? neither of us can be slaves and that is important. multiple story but that is important to whom they think they are. they also think of themselves as husbands and fathers and brothers and protectors. what do they see as their greatest danger, the greatest threat to the people they love? emancipation is a terrible threat. they live in a society that is 40% black. what happens when 40% of the population who you knew as pretty good reason to be a little upset with the other 60% is freed? they believe their loved ones are in danger if it goes away so

there is a genuine safety issue as they see it and then the final when i talk about the final reason i think it matters to these guys is religious and that sounds funny, but slavery is in the bible. not even in the new testament was christ come out directly against the institution of slavery. who are these northerners who think they know better than got how to order society? that's dangerous. and so if everything that you know and love in the world seems to rest on the foundation of slavery and someone is talking about messing with that foundation your whole world got rattled and so in a sense i found from the outset what

southerners who really don't see themselves having a direct economic interest but see them as independent of slavery and that kept them in the field. >> how easy was it to find the letters and all of these archives? >> knees eager than i thought it would be actually coming and i think again because it tended to go towards the smaller ones, so the letters tended to be somebody's attic got cleaned out and they went to the state or the county so there are hundreds of thousands of on countable amounts of letters out there and that actually turned out i didn't have the problem i couldn't find enough sources. i had to have a strategy there are so many sources here than i can never look at how deutsch use and so the way that i did it was i stuck with enlisted and occasionally some of them would be promoted as their career went

on and they would become junior officers but i looked at the men who enlisted and i wanted just ordinary people that we've never heard of before, and i wanted my army to look close to how the real army had looked. so i tried to keep how many easterners and westerners and how many farmers and teachers how to keep the ratio so i chose i sort of demographics i guess as much as anything, and i tried really hard not to over represent any particular group in what looked at. in one way though there is one or two not quite right representations'. one is a letter of soldiers so there are few of those they we think because they were 90% of the union army and over 80% of the confederate army can read or write and so literacy is not such a small thing as we might

think that there are aliterate soldiers in both, so they are harder to get at. there are people in the regiments that right for a literate soldiers and i did read those kind of letters. the group who is most were least likely to be with it are the black soldiers and those are the voices that are the hardest to get at. those are the ones that needed the most digging and there's a couple of ways to get at those. one is the same way there's somebody in the regimen could broke for others. the other is soldiers that could write often wrote into the northern and so there are columns of black soldiers letters in the newspapers i got them in that way. sometimes black soldiers will hold public meetings and together they will or all soldiers come up a series of revolutions, things we believe together and we agree on and everybody will write the astana had record a vote for a reaction.

so it got the same as writing to your sister, but it's their voice on how so those are the soldiers that are there because they are part of the army but i have to admit that he escaped slave who never learned to read or write his voice is the least likely to be captured. the other misrepresentations probably not meaningful. but i would get to an archive and i would look for all the soldiers that they had and i would make a list of everybody i wanted to look at and i would go through and write about thursday if i was there for a week i would realize i'm only at them. so the beginning of the alphabet. so they are early as opposed to say s and t. other than that i did try pretty hard to not overly wheat anybody. >> what about women's voices, did you look at the returned letters? >> i did some when i sort of wanted to know what they were

responding to. they did exist for fewer of them voted in the soldiers' letters and i think some of that has to do with the practicality. if you were a soldier and right on to your family, they can put your letter in a drawer and they are afraid something might happen to use of the heavy cream incentive to put it in the door and keep it so the letters were more likely to survive than the loved ones letters to the front. and you've got a soldier you have a knapsack and a juror to put things in and it gets left and the survival makes letters from the women harder to get but the do survive. sometimes they send back the waters specifically so they get saved. i didn't make a systematic and. to those on this particular project but there is one to be had. there are a few people beginning to do that work and will be interesting. >> we have been talking with chandra manning, professor here georgetown university and also the co-director of the

georgetown workshop in 19th century u.s. history. this is her book, but this "what this cruel war was over" professor manning, think you for your time. >> my pleasure. thank you very much. it was nice to talk to you. here at the political conservative faction conference is author joseph with his most recent book, the tea party manifesto a vision for an american rebirth. mr. farah, i want to ask about the size of the book. islamic it's a compact little book and the shortest i've ever rode under 30,000 words coming and i think as long as it needs to be on a very specific message for the tea party movement when i wrote it and i didn't think i needed to labor over any more

words. >> what was that message? >> i know it is a trend with the tea party movement where some people were starting to give the tea party movement advice about limiting their scope of interests and the one was the tea party movement would only be about economics, shouldn't venture into any of the subject matter whatsoever, so mainly what i explored in the tea party manifesto is the idea that there is no distinction between economics and other issues. people like this false paradigm if we have the moral issues and economic issues and my contention in this book is that economics is a moral issue. everything that the government deals with is a moral issue whether it is the speed limit or whether it is a tax hike were dealing with something like abortion. everything is a moral issue and what the government is about is

trying to find that moral consensus that they can work with and i just wanted the important key party movement that's been so spectacularly successful in some ways changing the direction of the country to hear the different point of view. >> how would you judge the health of the tea party today? >> sometimes i wonder. 2010 was a spectacular showing and i don't think anyone would dispute the tea party movement made its presence felt at that election and my gut tells me that for a lot of the tea party activists maybe they thought their job was finished after the election and they went home and figured we've taken care of business because we have elected to the right people. i think there is a little bit of a temptation along the the new activists to think it's all about elections but that's where the work begins because then you

have the issue of holding your e with the officials accountable will figure in office that is a much bigger job and it never ends. >> how many books have you written and what is your next one about? >> i've written a total of 13 and that includes collaborations', a little bit of ghost writing, most famous book was with rush limbaugh and his second one, ci told you so which sold about 8 million copies, but my next book i haven't -- i'm not looking at that. usually what happens with me as an author as i will get an inspiration one day and within six months i finish the book. so why haven't had that moment of inspiration yet curious connective people are interested in dillinger and that he party manifesto and other books to do have a web site they can go to? >> we are also in addition to being an author i'm also a