>> we can do it together. [inaudible conversations] .. .. >> to talk with its authors, visit unique collections and explore the city today. >> the red live campaign --

kiver campaign was the only campaign that the union lost. >> coming up, author gary joyner on one of the union's lowest points in the civil war. the red river campaign of 1864. and then about 45 minutes in we'll go to louisiana state university shreveport campus for a look inside their archives, james smith noel's collection of over 200,000 books housed there. >> agm in the collection, it is probably going to be this one, it's one of the books we're most proud of. >> and we travel around the city with neil johnson, author of shreveport and boaz your city which gives many of the different areas and landmarks of this city with a population of about 90,000.

>> all these stories this more as booktv travels to shreveport, louisiana. >> the red river campaign was the only campaign many that pivotal l year of 1864 that the union lost, and they didn't want to write about it. it was an embarrassment. and the south was in no position to brag on it because they were in the process of losing the war. so it sat for about a century. only the locals appreciated it. and then research really started picking up with the centennial of the war, and a few historians have touched it. i've spent a lot of time on it just trying to figure out the nuances of it.

and, um, it's a campaign that needs to be studied. i was writing this book on the red river campaign, and i kept on coming up with things that would work, but i wasn't really happy with it. and then i found this wonderful quote from general william tecumseh sherman who wanted to lead this campaign for the union, and he had another assignment that sent him toward atlanta. and a reporter -- and he didn't get along with reporters well, not at all -- but a reporter asked him, general, what do you think about that red river campaign when it had just completed, and he said one damn blunder from beginning to end. and i knew that that was it. the red river campaign of 1864 was one of the major union thrusts to try to end the war. and unlike all of the others which were heading from the core of the mississippi valley either

northeast or southeast, this one was going in the wrong direction. it was going in the northwest. and everything on paper shows that this campaign should not have occurred. there are some specific goals that they've tried to achieve, none of which they did. it was designed to take out an existing confederate army operating in northwest louisiana and this eastern texas -- in eastern texas, the army of western louisiana. it was designed to take the confederate capital of louisiana which was at shreveport. it had a naval base, it had the military headquarters, it had the legislature for louisiana. all good reasons to take this

place. but when the thrust of the war is moving across the heartland to the east and you've got an army to the northwest, it doesn't really make much sense. so why did they do it? political pressure. an absolute political need. economic pressure. and both of these trumped military imperative. the political need was because president lincoln wanted to and believed upon receiving a lot of intelligence information that he could repatriate to bring back into the union louisiana and maybe even texas without a lot of problems. they'd had great success at new orleans, they'd had great success at baton rouge, very minimal effort, loss of life was

very small. and they thought that perhaps shreveport would be the same way. didn't work out that way. members of president lincoln's cabinet were telling him that if they could just get an army into texas, that the german immigrants would then do a counterrevolution and take the state back into the union. president lincoln really wanted this. he's looking forward to the fall elections of 1864, he needed friendly faces in congress. he's got some problems with certain segments of the republican party, and so that's number one. has to be. the second thing is that in new england there are hundreds of thousands of spindles in the textile factories that are not working. the looms are not making cloth.

there are lots and lots of people particularly in massachusetts that are out of work because they cannot get the cotton fiber to make the cloth, and that's what they did. and so president lincoln is looking at a way to increase employment. again, anticipating the fall elections. the general that he has put as the head of the department of the gulf in new orleans is nathaniel prentice banks who is from wall that many, massachusetts -- waltham, massachusetts. long, long history of working in cotton mills, textile mills, working with bankers. he's very popular in the northeast, arguably in that segment more popular than president lincoln. and banks wants to run for the presidency for the, at least for the republican nomination.

for that fall election. for him it's do or die for a political career. and he has had a pretty good political career. he was a three-term governor of massachusetts, he was former speaker of the u.s. house of representatives. it makes sense for him to want to be president, and he certainly wants to. banks has had a problem securing a military victory. every time he tries something happens. he's a political general, he's not a good field commander. he has some good people under him, and on paper this whole campaign looks like it is guaranteed to win. if you don't understand the geography, if you don't understand what he's up against, if you simply look at his plan, the red river campaign should be, as he said, three bounds. one bound to the red river, the

second bound to alexandria in the middle of the state, and the third bound to shreveport with no opposition. didn't work. so how did it happen? beginning in late 863 -- 1863 banks has made several attempts to try to get into texas, and they have all had problems. banks is getting pressure from washington, from the chief of staff, major general henry howlick, to go up red river, do something. president wants it. and so he does. he's going to plan this wonderfully intricate thing. he doesn't have full command of all of his forces. washington does not allow him to have that. he is a department commander, but he's got to bring people from other places, other commands. he has an overall command, but

he doesn't have specific command. he cannot order certain segments of his force to go from point a to point b. there are going to be people coming down arkansas, there are going to be others coming down the river with the navy and then coming up, and then he has his own folks. he will have 42,500 men under his overall command. they are not all in the same place, they're going to be in three separate legs. second thing is, is that the navy, u.s. navy, is going to bring in the vast bull -- bulk of its brown water or inland navy which is the squadron under admiral david dixon porter. porter is a friend of general sherman's, and general sherman thought that he was going to lead this, so when the navy

commits it's going to be porter to sherman. then when sherman is forced to back out, porter's caught. he has to comment -- come. now, this river that shreveport is on, the red river, is long, thin, muddy, silty, and in 1864 it was relatively shallow. um, about 9 feet would be a good, constant idea of the depth. and so admiral porter is going to bring up vessels that have drafts from 5-9 feet. meaning that his heavy ironclads are going to scrape the bottom of the live as they come up. that is not a good way to operate a force. and he's going to bring 104 vessels up the red river. these 104 vessels are marvelous in their complexity, in their

ability to, um, project firepower. but it is very much a case of a river too shallow, too far and how do you get them out when they get into trouble, and they will get into trouble. so beginning march 10th of 864 with -- 1864 with plans written out thoroughly but 400 miles distant from the different points of the legs, the campaign begins. general sherman has loaned 10,000 men, veterans all, from the mississippi valley campaigns to really protect the navy there being abandoned. from being abandoned. and they leave vicksburg, come down to the mouth of the red river, have trouble coming into the red river.

once they cross the bar at the mouth, they then ascend rapidly. they come upon a fort that was built two years before by the confederates. it was designed to hold upwards of a division, maybe 5,000 men. there are only 200 men, between 200 and 30 men in it -- 300 men in it, and they're going to take this pretty easily. sherman's men are going to sneak in behind the fort while the navy's going to try it from the beginning, and although the papers in new york and washington and philadelphia really describe this as an armageddon-like battle, it's more of a skirmish. they then make a leap forward, and can they send one of their ironclad monitors, the osage right upriver to al alexandria,d

alexandria falls without a shot to this very formidable ironclad. the captain of it, lieutenant commander selfridge, sends a courier back to admiral porter saying, please, come up here. they don't know that they can take this vessel. as they get into alexandria, porter is waiting around for banks who's supposed to be there. banks is nowhere to be seen. there's no communication. there's no open telegraph lines, it's all by boat. and we start seeing the whole campaign begin to become threadbare at that point. also porter is rather amazed at the water in the river, it's falling, and he writes his friend sherman a 16-letter. i do not understand why when all the streams in this region are

booming, and he underlines it three times, the red is falling, sometimes an inch an hour, sometimes an inch a day, and he never will understand until the day he dies what the confederates are doing to him. still no spanks. where's banks? banks has decided not to come up with his men marching across south louisiana. he is theying as he inaugurates the new union governor, michael hahn, who had been a union senator from louisiana. and he's just fastidious with all of these wonderful goings-on, trying to show that louisiana is going to be a fine union state. at the same time, 20,000 of his men are slogging across south louisiana. they go by rail from algiers across from new orleans to what

is today morgan city, then brassier city by rail, and then they have to march through those south louisiana shots, buckshot black dirt gum bow. my grandmother used to call it grow taller mud because you walk through it, it sticks to your shoes, and you grow taller. they march all the way across to the little bit town of washington, today in st. landry parish. and then from there they head northeast to alexandria. and it takes them a week to do it. it's miserable. it's raining, the roads are bottomless, and the men get muddy. and banks has given them orders that they will not go into a city if they look bad, so they have to top and clean themselves up. banks is not a military man.

they march in in to alexandria seven days after admiral porter k can they look good. and sherman's men who are all westerners and look like they're westerners, and their uniforms are mended, and they just don't look good, but they are really prodigious fighters, they think these eastern guys have had an easy time of it. and there's a lot of animosity between the easterners and the westerners. banks floats in on a boat called the blackhawk, and that was not a good move because that was the name of add hill porter's flagship -- admiral porter's flagship, and admiral porter thinks he did it because it's an insult. banks had no clue. also waiting for banks is a letter from general grant now

taking over as the commander of union forces. and he says, banks, you will go to shreveport, or you will not go to shreveport. if you take it, fine. if not, you're going to stop, you're going to come back. you're going to leave just enough men to garrison what you have, and you and the bulk of your force will go east and take mobile because you have to protect general sherman on his way to atlanta. there's a confederate army operating around mobile, and the union does not want to have to deal with that coming in behind or on sherman's flank or his side. so it's an important mission. well, banks ignores it. he sends a letter to the president and to general grant separately saying things are going great, i'm going to take shreveport, then i'm going to be in texas. he had specifically been told not to go to texas, and grant is going to go ballistic.

and general howlick is going to go ballistic. and president lincoln has in his, in the notes of his secretaries, has the most interesting and telling comment perhaps. he says, every time i have had a general who has told me that things are going so well, there has been a disaster. and i fear that we will have one now. what are the confederates doing? we haven't talked about the confederates. you can't have a war unless there's at least two sides. the confederates are based out of shreveport, and west of the mississippi river and being run or operated out of shreveport is the army of western louisiana. and if you put every confederate under arms that would be available, you could have about 25,000 men. there will never be more than 12,000 on a field at one time.

commander of the department is three-star general lieutenant general edmund kirby smith. he's a native of florida. he had had a sort of a checkered career but well thought of. he operated with brachston grag grag -- bragg in kentucky. he had been sent down to louisiana to stabilize things and make sure that banks wasn't going to succeed. he arrives in march of 1863, and he has almost exactly one year to prepare. he builds follows. he's a mud -- he builds forts. he's a mud mover. he loves to build forts, and he builds some fine ones up and down the red river valley. under him the local commander in what is termed the district of

western louisiana, louisiana west of the mississippi river, is major general, two stars, richard taye hour, son of president zachary taylor. brother-in-law through his first marriage of president jefferson davis. graduate of yale, tremendously intelligent. one of the finest tactical commanders that the confederates have in the war. kirby smith and richard taylor do not get along. every time kirby smith does something that taylor believes is dumb, he tattles on him. taylor spent his time getting ready. he's built supply depots with the help of a creole black man named carol jones in western louisiana. and he can supply his forces if they can get to them. and as banks and porter come up the river, taylor has ordered

his far-flung forces -- and they are far-flung always way from the mississippi river across north louisiana and also in texas all the way from the texas line just west of shreveport down to the bay -- everybody gets together, come, it's a gathering. so it takes a while for these forces to come. they're resupplied. they're ready. nobody believed that the yankees could move that quickly, and they did. and so every time the texans try to come across at a predetermined point, the yankees are already ahead of them, so it's like a big race. one side coming up the red river, which is the union, the texans coming up what is today the equivalent of highway 59, u.s. 59 in texas. and they will cross over into louisiana at logan's port in desoto parish. louisiana troops have come from

central louisiana and northeast louisiana back to northwest, and the texas infantry under walker have been in the south part of the red river l valley, and they come up. they're -- although no one realizes it at the time, everybody's shadowing the union, and the union has no clue. and, in fact, the confederates really probably do not have a clue. taylor knows that if he can fight closest, as close as possible to shreveport and still protect it, he'll do his job. he can get people to come in, he doesn't have to worry about a long supply line, and so he picks the place. banks stupidly comes up one long road, and he's going to find that when he gets away from the river and the big guns of the navy -- which he will do -- that there's only one road that he

can use. and he will accordion this long column out to 30 miles. and that's not the way to run a military campaign. taylor know that is at the little town of mansfield about 40 miles south of shreveport that single road then breaks into three roads, and banks will have three avenues of approach. so he's going to stop it. an mansfield. it's going to be an armageddon-like, do-or-die battle for the confederate command, and although the union doesn't understand it, for them as well. so taylor martials his forces and begins to work on his plan. kim bin smith in shreveport didn't even come down to see what taylor is doing. banks finally decides to move forward out of his encampment

this alexandria, and he and porter move their forces together along the river and in the river, of course, for the navy up to knack derek, the port is a little place called grandty core, big bluffs. 120-foot-high, sheer cliffs, and that's where they decide they're going to do. porter is amazed that the river's falling, and he has to leave a lot of his heavy vessels in alexandria, and also he's going to have to leave a bunch of them at grandy core. what's happening is the confederates had built a dam this a side channel, in an ancient channel of the river called bayou pier, and the side channel is called tone's bayou so they had prepared a trap, a very elegant trap.

shreveport will have water once they blow this dam, the red river will be diverted into bayou pier, and the red river will fall. what porter's seen when he sends that letter to sherman is that the blown dam is working, and the water is pooling up to west. and his vessels are about to be high and dry if he's not careful. and he will not be able to ec tract them. porter will go as far north as the, just above the southern line of bossier parish due east of cato where we are. and he will come within about 2 miles, maybe, of tone's bayou. and the confederates have placed a large steam boat across the river, and it blocks it. that's the new falls city. and they left a plaque card in

the mud that says that admiral porter is now invited to a ball in his honor at shreveport. porter thinks it's hilarious. he didn't move this vessel, and there he sits for a little bit waiting to figure out what to do. back to banks. banks marchs inland away from this welcoming set of large naval guns. he moves due west on the old el camino rial, the spanish royal road, and then he cuts -- his maps showed that he could do this. his maps are somewhat wrong. and then he cuts to the northwest on what is today highway 120, and then he moves north on the shreveport stagecoach road which is

louisiana highway 75. and -- 175. and he starts seeing confederates. cavalry, texans under tom green who have arrived. and they just sort of slow 'em down. it's not a, they're not going to bring on a battle. but they do delay them. well, in the morning of april 8, 1864, the union column sets out again and moves the last miles until they come to another small stream called chap match's -- chapman's bayou, and this one's even smaller. they run through a set of woods, another set of woods, couple of open pastures, and then they're at the bottom of a toe-shaped ridge called honey cut hill. and there the confederate cavalry is prepared to fight them, they think. union cavalry up front of the

main column sets up line of battle, and then the confederates leave, and they ride over this hill. so the on-scene commander, brigadier general albert lindley lee, head of the cavalry commission his staff and some of the other staff of the infantry go up to the top of this, and lee reports i see before me every confederate seemingly west of the mississippi river. they bend to my left as far as i can see, they bend back from the road ahead of me to my right. from tip to tip it's 3 miles. indeed, there's probably 12,000 men there. the that the union can put on the field is 7200. because they can't get past the wagons that banks had put in front of his infantry. again, banks is not a military man. and the confederates under

taylor and the union under tactical commander ransom, brigadier general, and another brigadier general -- that's general lee, albert lindley lee -- face each other for four hours, and then at 4 p.m -- no daylight savings time -- the confederates know that the union will just bring up more men. they finally attack. the attack is designed to follow their initial placement which is an l. and the idea is to have of a -- to have a hinge, and the confederates will close the hinge, middle of it being the road and the yankees in the middle of it, union forces in the middle, and instead of doing this, they are going to do that. it's going to slow 'em down, and the union will be able to get out. it is a meat grinder. the battle of mansfield will

last about three hours. the confederates will lose about a thousand men. the union forces missing, killed, wounded, um, in excess of 2,000 men. the fighting ends with the confederates pushing the union forces back 3 miles. night ends it. the woods are on fire. nobody can see what's going on. taylor captures 262 of banks' wagons. banks withdraws 17 miles back to pleasant hill. taylor thinks that banks is right in front of him, he plans a battle for that geography, not 17 miles distant. but that's where it's going to be fought. the battle of pleasant hill will be fought the next day.

twenty-four hours later beginning at 4 p.m., it will last for four hours. this will be a strategic tie. this is hard, hard, hard fighting. sherman's seasoned veterans, many of them write letters and they say they had never seen fighting like that. and, indeed, it was horrific. taylor has his much-cut-up louisiana troops, and he has his texas cavalry. and they will pursue banks. banks will retreat back to grandy core, and there he will fortify himself for a few days. admiral porter will suffer greatly from confederate artillery, and many of his vessels will be riddle led -- riddled. general tom green and his texans will try to catch the navy at a place called blair's landing, and they will fight perhaps the most unusual battle in the civil

war, 2500 mounted texas cavalry against an ironclad monitor, the osage, and some support vessels. very few casualties. this is april 12, 1864. first time the periscope was ever use inside battle, aboard the osage. it'd just been invented a couple days before. and one of the few casualties is general tom green. the osage fires a round from their 11-inch guns, huge naval guns, and they fire high, but one of the canister rounds takes off a part of his head, just the side of it, and he falls dead. his body's taken back to austin for a state funeral. it was a huge loss for the confederate cavalry and for taylor because, um, tom green was a very fierce fighter.

there's a lot of mourning on both sides due to the amount of death. taylor does not have enough men to capture banks' force. banks does not have the will to go forward. he goes back to alexandria, the navy limps back in after losing four vessels to the confederate around till l ri, and the water is so low that it's just barely puddles. porter reports that there's a tricep of water in front of him that's 20 feet wide and 1 foot deep. you can't get warships out. the navy will be saved by a wisconsin colonel, joseph bailey, who knows how to do logging. and he builds dams, raises the level of water, and the navy boats are going to shoot out through it. banks is despondent. he also finds in alexandria that

he's been fired, and he's going to be a pencil pusher for the rest of the war. as the navy is able to leave alexandria through this torrent of water from the pent-up dams, porter gets out and just will not, he's so happy to get out, he can't stand it. alexandria was burned to the ground ask and had to rebuild. -- and had to rebuild. as banks' men leave, they burn it to the ground, the only major city this louisiana that gets the same kind of destruction that georgia gets. sleeve port, second largest -- shreveport, second largest city in louisiana, will be a banking center, a trading center, an agricultural center. it will get that position and hold it until the 1970s. it will call itself the queen the city of is the southwest.

and it will, in effect, have that position simply because that army was able to save it. >> booktv is on twitter. follow us for regular updates on our programming and news on nonfiction books and authors. twitter.com/booktv. >> and now more from shreveport weekend here on booktv. >> i'm laura mclimore, i'm an archivist here at the library and the noel at lsu shreveport. we're specializing in the history of documenting the history of northwest louisiana and the red river region. we have here today some of the,

um, things that we consider the stars this our collection -- in our collection. one that we're proudest of that kind of the opening of what one can consider modern northwest louisiana, i think, is the clearing of the raft of the red river in 1873. this volume is a collection of 107 photographic plates that were taken by r.w. kalfort to document the progression of the clearing of the raft in the red river in 1873 between nagadesh and just above shreveport. it was particularly important, it was the last most successful clearing of the red river raft,

and it enabled shreveport to become a really important trading port for the rest of the 19th century. unfortunately for some of the crew of the aid with the army corps of engineers, their visit to shreveport coincided with the yellow fever epidemic of 1873 which just decimated the population. lieutenant eugene wood rough who was in charge of the raft-clearing project came into town to reprovision his boats and was caught up in the epidemic and decided to stay in and assist. as a result, he contracted yellow fever himself, and within two weeks died. and his brother george then took over the project and completed it. and we have the papers of eugene

and george woodruff here. they go with the album. this is one from george to his mother in march of 1873. um, he says: this week has not been very eventful. the raft of drift number seven at which we were working last week has been removed, and can after pulling some snags, we proceeded to number eight. this lies in this a place where the river is narrowed and divided by towhead eye hands and is shallow -- island and is shallow, in that part chosen for the channel. this makes it slower and more difficult to remove the raft which is much the longest we have had. though composed almost entirely of cut drift. these photographs have been used extensively for books on the red

river region and particularly for louisiana history textbooks for eighth grade students. so we're, we're very, very pleased to have it, and there were two, actually, produced. one that accompanied the army corps of engineers' report to congress which is now in the library of congress, and and this one which appropriately, i think, resides here in the northwest louisiana region where the raft existed. a couple of these other photographs, we have many, many photographs of steam boats since this was the outcome of the clearing of the raft meant commerce for shreveport. and this, this particular photograph is of a steamboat, the washita, which is pulled up

to commerce street which is the street bordering the river in shreveport. it looks quite a bit different than it does today. another area of our history that people are quite familiar with one way or other is the oil business. and we've gotten a lot of attention recently because of the haynesville shale. but oil in louisiana is really the story of the 20th as well as the 21st century. the first well was drilled in 1901 in desoto parish, and in 1904 in cato parish. finish so we have a very large collection of photographs documenting the history of all exploration ask and production in north louisiana.

one of the interesting historical facts about drilling in this area is that the first oil wells were drilled over a body of water, through a body of water in as early as 1908 in cato lake here in cato parish. and we have pictures documenting the very primitive now steam engines that were used as piledrivers for these. ask one of the interesting things -- and one of the interesting things that we always note is that it's not just men at the, um, at the oil wells. oftentimes a after photograph oe crew will include women and even children. when the oil business began in north louisiana, equipment was taken to the oil field with mule

teams, and they were usually a large contingent of mules pulling wagons. often the wagon wheels were sunk in the mud up to their hubs, and the mules were sunk up to their knees. it was not uncommon. our photographs also document the dangerous nature of drilling for oil and wildcat wells. back in the day when there was no regulation of any kind. we have pictures as early as 1905 and 1907 of huge oil well fires. these two, i think, demonstrate just how regular an occurrence catastrophic fires were. this photograph here is from 191 11, and it says that it was

the largest oil well fire in the united states up this that time. i think represented a loss of a million dollars which was a lot in 1911. but two years laettner 1913 we have another picture, would almost be the same picture, so it was a regular occurrence. so regular that there's even a man posing here in front of the n front of the fire in a very casual stance with his arm propped against a fence post. here in our archives we've been here since 1974 and have done a great deal of work in documenting the history of our region. we are the only institution in this area that fulfills this

mission. >> it's shreveport weekend on booktv. next, in the battle of where is he now, louisiana state university shreveport professor alexander details napoleon escape from the russian army in november 1812. watch an interview with the author here on booktv. >> there is this, such a concept called napoleonic legend, and people who subscribe believe that napoleon was one of the greatest reformers who had in mind creating a unified europe based on liberal ideas, one currency, one state, something akin to european union that exists today in europe. but the story's certainly hutch more, much more complex in that

napoleon was, of course, the champion of dmawcial but on the other hand he was also in the many respects a traditional ruler who pursued power, who pursued conquests to achieve it. and so he is a very complex individual. there are many aspects to his career that are fascinating, but there are some aspects that are quite troubling. so his legacy's still being debated as it is often cited he's, after jesus christ, he's the only human that has been, that there are more books written about than anyone else. so the issue of who he was is still quite debated. napoleon is first and foremostt known for his military campaigns, but in all of these campaigns there was one that this part of his, of in this

legend or part of this mythology around his name. and the battle is called berezina. it took place in 1812 during napoleon's invasion of russia, and as most people know, that invasion went catastrophically bad for napoleon. he invades russia in june of 1812, and by november he's essentially forced to retreat. and as he's retreating from russia, three russian armies try to surround and corner him. and they choose the place on the river berezina which now is in bella russia where they want to corner that napoleon and destro. and so the book is the first full-scale account, full-length account in english of what happened on this, on the banks of the river back in november of 1812. if we look on the global scale, what we see is that the struggle

between britain and france enters its tenth year. the war broke -- they signed a peace treaty in 1802, and then the peace treaty essentially collapsed the following year. the war resumed in 1805, and you have the gradual intensification of this war. the 1812 is interesting because that year united states effectively entered the fray after its, after british impressment of american sailors, continued political tensions with united states lead to the rupture in the relationship. and so we have this dual conflict where on the one hand you have warfare in europe between france, britain, russia, but also you have a struggle between the americans and the british in north america which in many respects is tied to this global, global rivalry between france and britain.

one of the reasons i'm, i got interested in the battle is that if we look at the traditional accounts in general contained histories, napoleon is described as military genius and especially when it comes to his battle, he's portrayed as single-handedly outwitting russians, making a feint move to the right and then crossing the river to the left, so to speak. and so it i was always fascinatd by this idea, by how smart napoleon was at berezina. so i decided to look closer at the event on the river. and i looked at the russian archival documents, and what i realized is that the story's actually wrong. that the main reason why napoleon was safed was -- saved was, actually, russians mismanaging the whole operation. the rivalry between russian generals, the misinformation

that they in many respects fed each other plays a much greater role than napoleon's personal role. in fact, napoleon plays the least role in this campaign, in this battle, and it's his generals, his marshals like victor who distinguish themselves. but their stories are often sidetracked or not discussed. and the other thing that is appealing about this battle, it is a story of human tragedy. it's a tragedy on the large scale. just imagine probably the settings i'm standing with my back against the lake, but imagine now the french army cornered with the river on one hand, two russian armies attacking from one side and another russian army being across the river. so they have to escape. of it's winter time. and so one way they can escape is by crossing the river. but it's, it's cold. they have to build a bridge.

and so we have here several hundred engineers, many of them are french, but majority of them are dutch and polish. and so they decide to sacrifice their lives by entering the frigid waters of berezina and building the bridge, literally, on their shoulders. so they stand there building the bridge as they are dying. but they do, they build two bridges in day and a half and allow the army gradually move across. but the sense, the fact that the bridges are built also gives some sense of safety to thousands of people who follow the army. and remarkably, many of these people decide to postpone crossing the river and stay on the other side of the river saying that we can cross it tomorrow. the bridges are here. and what happens is that when the battle begins, the bridges start cracking down, cracking and collapsing. and so tens of thousands of people rush into the river trying to cross, and you can imagine this human tragedy on

this vast scale. and we have, when i was reading through memoirs, we have such poignant pictures of mothers dying and giving away their children to soldiers hoping that they will be able to save them. there is one, one scene particularly where a pregnant woman, she was, she was accompanying a regiment, and she was almost, i think, seven or eight months pregnant, and so right there on the banks of the river amidst this chaos and atrocity, she actually gives birth to a child, and she dies giving birth to this baby boy. but a soldier saves the boy and carries him through the winter, through this death and destruction and saves him, and then six years later he finds him in paris as a young boy, he's running around the orphanage. napoleon arrives to berezina on 26th of november, late on the

26th of november. and by this time he already has, his troops already have began building the bridge. and so he stays throughout the three-day battle, he stays around the bridges, and he personally supervises. but the accounts that i have looked at through memoir withs and reports tell us that he was very detached in many respects from active participation in the battle, and he gave plenty of flexibility to his generals and to his marshals to direct the battle. so we have that napoleon more overseeing it, but not actively engaged in it. the three generals, russian generals, who are engaged in this battle, one of them will be blamed for it and rather unjustly. and so for the past 200 years, and this year we celebrate 200th anniversary of napoleon's invasion of russia, for the past 200 years this man has been

blamed for the bungling of this operation. he has been made a scapegoat. and when i looked at the story of what happened, the reality is that he was not responsible as much for the collapse of the russian operation, but he may, he was made a political scapegoat for it. and it is a rather poignant story since he will be driven out of his state. he will be forced to leave russia because of public indignation, because of public outcry, and he will be forced to live in france in poverty and exile where he will die a blind and rather bitter man with his reputation in tatters. the following spring the russian authorities collected over 35,000 bodies on the banks of the berezina. but many of the bodies were never found since the river carried them away. in fact, a few years after the battle when a european visitor came to berezina to see the site

of the battle, the locals told him that there were so many bodies inside the river that the river actually changed the course and was flowing slightly differently. and there was an island in the middle of the river that was created as a silt and dirt was carried over the bodies that perished. most of these dead were noncombatants. that is many of these were not soldiers. they were people of french and other who followed the army from moscow fearing for their safety from the russian troops. and they perished there in thousands. one of the reasons that the story has been looked for one side is the language barrier. not many napoleonic scholars speak russian or have the opportunity to go to russia to work in the archives. is and so what happened is that over the past two centuries much

of what has been written about napoleon was written from the french perspective since french material is much more available. and so we look at the french documents, we look at the french memoirs or napoleon's writings himself and and through the eyes of the french. but in the last few years, last two decades especially, more and more material is available from russian archive, from russian side, and that causes us to reevaluate napoleonic wars and events like berezina. so my role, my niche is bringing these material toss the wider world, to the western world. and so my publications is part of this ongoing series of reassessing napoleonic wars is actually based on bringing new material and looking at the war, looking at the battles from a new perspective. >> here's a look at some books that are being published this week. fox news contributor deneen

borelli argues president obama's policies are harming the country in "blacklash." in "turning's cathedral," george dyson examines the creation of the first computer and the future of the digital industry. amy reading recounts the story of a texas rancher who in 1919 lost his fortune in a stock market con and sought revenge on the men who cheated him in "the mark inside: a perfect swindle, a cunning revenge and a small history of the big con." in "freedom's cap: the united states capital and the coming of the civil war," guy gugliotta chronicles the construction of the u.s. capitol. david shipler argue that is the u.s. has sacrificed constitutional rights in the name of safety in "rights at risk: the limits of liberty in modern america." look for these titles in

bookstores this coming week, and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv. >> and now more from shreveport weekend here on booktv. >> hi, i'm martha lawler, i'm the cataloger for the jane smith know well collection in shreveport. mr. noel was a local man who with was born here and lived here most of his life, and he started accumulating books when he was a teenager and continued until he was in his 80s, so over his lifetime he accumulated over 200,000 volumes. if you come this way, we'll show you the collection. mr. though well passed away -- no well passed away in 1998, and his widow passed away a few years ago. they did not have any children, so this is his legacy. thisit is a working collection,t

is not meant to be a museum. it is meant to be used. so we are in the process of sorting through and making it a little more user-friendly. this room is the exhibit room. it is, actually, the smaller of two rooms, so we call it the little room. eventually, the books that are older and the ones with nice bindings, the pretty books, they will be in this room. there will be a lot of empty space, you'll see as we go down through the collection there's a lot of empty space in this room, and that is because we are in the process of shifting everything around. eventually, everything that we've moved to the big room will be moved back here as we catalog it. so as you come down this way, you can see that it's pretty much in order. through here. most of the collection was printed before the middle of the 1900s, so host of it is

creeping up to 100 years and older. we have two books that go back to the 1400s. so far we've found maybe a couple dozen from the 1500s, couple hundred from the 1600s and close to 2,000 from the 1700s. and we are still finding more. >> where did mr. noel keep this collection? >> before it came here, it was in an abandoned train station in downtown louisiana, downtown shreveport. and that building has since been torn down. it was sold to the city of shreveport for a railroad museum and was considered it would be too costly to refurbish it, so they tore it down. it's now, or it used to be on the side of the hilton o hotel where the little café is on the corner, and at one time somebody told me there was an oil well near those tracks. ..

we don't know for sure if he uses to decide his costumes but you will probably recognize his pictures in here. these are hand colored plates and when rudolph valentino of this book it was at that time 100 years old so he is trying to find the source.

if you come this way, this is the little room both rooms were selected by one person. there were 200,000 volumes and we take up two third of this floor. it is arranged in basic categories and have our catalog them they are pretty much staying together but things are getting a little more workable. >> if you see anything in particular or just a big fan of book? >> basically just a big fan of books but if he had a particular focus it would be the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth and before the eighteenth, is focus was the eighteenth

century. he has a lot of books on history and literature and mostly focuses on that area and a lot of our patrons in that time period, if we had a focus that would be it. he is all over the place with his interests. he is a man who loved to learn. to promote the joy of learning and other people. that is something we stressed our students when we bring them into our stores. >> what is the reaction when they see it? >> they love it. we call that on the side the surprise for because it is almost at the floor when they come through. the idea that somebody stimulated this many books and we point out to them that a lot

of these books, you can get them in any other form. any other version. this is a format that managed survive, everything has to go electronic, electronic formats get updated. there is a place for old books and printed material. sometimes they will come through on floors and they are afraid to touch. they want to pick them up and look at them. they get so fascinated with them. this is our fault. we have not things that are unique and rare but also things that have something unusual about them. most of what has been here has been catalogued and we will be able to find them on libraries

on the internet. we have been here for several years. -- the binding is not that special. he tried --. when i opened it these are issues -- 1783 to 1786. with there's only one issue of this newspaper at yale. we have almost five years worth. a complete five years where the.

they have been fairly well preserved. this is interesting because america declared independence in 1776. in the 1780s we were still fighting them. there were reports of troop movement over here and reports of enemy troops and the enemy is us. there are details of bankruptcy, ships that have failed. stock prices and all kinds of daily information. each issue is about -- was a weekly. one of the special things we have is this copy printed in paris in 1549. each one had their name removed probably by this -- the only two

are at yale. you can see the text is parallel in greek and latin. it is a nice little book. a book of ownership. this one, we stopped pulling this out too often. if we have a gym in the collection it is probably going to be this one. one of the books we are most proud of. it is in the original binding from 1699 and it was once owned by a very famous scientist. you can see has written his name

i newton. there is a note on this side that says a bookseller's shop near the house. they are trying to verify this. >> what is it about? >> it is about converting the views of christianity. a lot of people know that newton had an interest in religion and part of the reason he got into it and trying to explain the world around it. a book that was by someone famous, in this we found this on a shelf in a small room here that has done it on its own by a former president. we did photocopies this bookplate and send it to the curator of the collection at

harvard and to verify it, since the book was printed several years before roosevelt was born. his father was also named theodore roosevelt and this one indicates it might have belonged to his son who was also named theodore roosevelt. this sounds like a book that roosevelt would own and it is a book about hunting and fishing. and country characters. they did and own it at one time. one of the things i find most interesting is when people who used to own the material left their names and notes, and gets

fascinating stories of the people. we have one book, life after death is the topic and with don't buy a woman who was here in town who had written frantic notes through the book, desperately hoping. apparently from her notes she lost a child. her child was somewhere. it was heartbreaking. they're looking at the city directories and archives, she was a widow so apparently this is all she had of her family and she had lost it. another kind of amusing saying that i found in some of the books from the 1800s there was a child's drawing of a beautiful lady who had a sweet face and the style of the dress from the

1830s and when you flip to the back of the book there was a mean looking lady with an ugly face and dark clothes and you get the idea who was the child's favorite and who wasn't and you wonder what the story was behind that. to me that is the most fascinating thing about working with older materials. where have they been and what they have done. >> lc d stands for local content vehicle. we have three of them. the purpose of these vehicles is to collect programming outside washington d.c.. how do we do it? we staff each one of these with one person, with a small video camera and laptop editor to roll and record and produce and added things from the road. that is what we're doing. this is to get outside washington d.c. and collect

programming for all of our net works. we will be sent on each city with these vehicles. one will do history programming and historic sites. the other will do booktv programming at bookstores. the third one does community relations. community relations are important to us because they work with our cable partners in each of these cities. the last thing it is important to know is this not only goes on the air begets archive data website and what we are also doing is extensive social media. you will see us on facebook and you will see foursquare which is an -- location based and tell people where you are going. it is on twitter as well. not only on air but also on line and for social me as well. it is important to get out to washington d.c. and get in places where we don't normally do programming and make a commitment outside the beltway to produce programming for all

the c-span network. >> i am one of the assistant archivists at the library archiving special collections. i have been intimately involved with the coroner's office records for the last two years. recently we have finished processing a portion of the records. researchers from all over northwest louisiana. in particular i would like to highlight one of our more unique cases. it is the death of the 16-year-old girl in 1934, megan at the hand of the so-called butterfly man. otherwise known as frank lockhart, brutally murdered and raped her in 1934 in shreveport. we will look at one of the

records and here we go. this is a copy of the actual corner's file on the death of megan -- may given. this was prepared by dr. willis butler at cat or purge corner. caddo parish. daniel napier was his actual name. was found dead in 1934 to the right of hr avenue in shreveport. the time of her death was fixed thursday afternoon april 12th, 1934. this is fairly typical of a coroner's report you will find in our files from this time period. after the cover sheet you will find dr. butler's statement as

he describes the scene where her body was found as well as evidence that was scattered around the area. he also describes the physical appearance of fred lockhart, the suspect in cattle -- caddo parish jail. there is reports of the deputy sheriff involved in the case, we have statements of other witnesses that were present at the scene. in this case will marion said i have been fishing on lake two or three years off and on. we went fishing yesterday. i saw something piled up in a cluster of brush and told albert. and albert said looks like something did.

we will go over and see. i thought there was a girl that was murdered and she had a cluster of leaves piled on top of her and she was lying on her side with her legs spread open. albert said don't come any closer. then he goes on to describe how they contacted the sheriff at the murder scene. report goes on to include with a hand drawn sketch of the crime scene. fairly unique in that you have another sketch from well-known murder accompanying the law while. is nicknamed the butterfly man came from the fact that although he was not from here he appeared to have no fixed income or employment. he would make small paper

butterflies. here they representation of one of them and sell them on street corners for small fees and appears that is how he match may given after her death. the coroner noted there was multiple paper butterflies pinned to the wall in her bed room. probably ran into him once or twice before on various street corners. and the nickname the butterfly man. was incarcerated in the courthouse and when word got out that he was there essentially a lynch mob got so severe they called out the local army national guard who fired tear gas into the crowd to disperse but they managed to bring him to the court house and storm the first two flores but fred lockhart escaped from the lynch

mob. he didn't escape from justice. on may 18th, 1934, he was hanged in cattle parish and is buried in greenwood cemetery. >> from shreveport, louisiana learn about shreveport's history as we visit different neighborhoods and business district with neil johnson, the author of shreveport and boater city, with the help of our local cable partner comcast cable, we take a tour of the historic strand theater, behind neighborhood and ledbetter heights. >> i love this place because it is a bright spot in our economy.

it is huge successful porche that is growing great guns. they are moving stuff in and out by train, highway and water. here we are from the red river and shreveport was founded because of the red river and had riverboats coming up and down filled to the brim with cotton, people and lumber and after the train came in the personal the river boats went away and the river sort of got unnavigable. the government helped fund -- turn this river navigable. and traffic taking coiled fields and jet fuel from the refinery and taking this to the gasoline coming in and out of this port and it is exciting to be here

with the power of the river. it used to be a lot shower -- malware. the sand bars and all, getting rid of all of that. a pretty steady level of the river without dangerous sand bars so these guys could go up and down with their margins, helping build shreveport as they did in the old days. we are in ledbetter heights which is behind downtown shreveport in the lower part of the land. a lot lowered down and used to be called -- we are looking at a shotgun house, 100-year-old shotgun house. and you can see almost cleared out of everything.

the neighborhood is cleared out. it is a very poverty -- very poor neighborhood but where a lot of people live and serve the downtown area. huge history here. ledbetter worked and played his music down here a lot. this was good for years. playing in what was then the largest legal red light district in america which is another story. you can look it up. it is very famous. a lot of people equated this with poverty and said they are horrible but they are very historic and gave people individual homes to live in. nobody fixed them up. they were torn down so we have a

neighborhood that is almost empty. what we have coming on our left is millennium studios for the movie industry that has come to louisiana. the sound stages and offices from millennium studios and getting ready to build a back lot where they might offer decent movies but this is millennium studios. this is a highlands neighborhood. i love this neighborhood. spent my whole adult life and it. i love it because it is the most divers and most creative and historic and i always say it is the most interesting neighborhood of shreveport. the closest we have to the feeling of what new orleans -- because of the variety of things, full of fascinating architecture. this happens to be the widest

street in the neighborhood for some reason. i don't know why. this house is like a church. sort of a homemade church. over here we have the director of our arts council and an architect that live the couple doors down from her. you have your white picket fences and bright colors. it is a little bit of americana and yet it is extremely shreveport. so many interesting people live in this neighborhood. it makes me feel good. i love walking around this neighborhood. that is the best way to see a neighborhood. the architectural details. >> taken economic demographic. >> it is all over the place. you might have a famous musician

living here and you might have a casino car dealer living next door. it is mostly middle-class but it is all over the place. i don't think it is a wealthy neighborhood for shore but it is a wonderful -- this is a wonderful example of homes that you can't tell, doctors and lawyers. you just don't know. it is all over the place. that is what makes it interesting. you are in the strand theater. a movie palace, and broad ville ending its run than coming in. ..

horn aha and hit hard and >> i don't get this answer and that everyone is afraid. people are excited and. all the candidates have done a good job. whig was terrific.

we will hear a lot more in coming case. >> how do you assess the first day in town. >> a lot of the other candidates have experienced the question. mitt romney will turn it up and he has the organization to it. he can fly by the seat of his pants for a while but can't fly by the seat of your pants -- has to step up. >> we love that. how are you? thank you. take care of yourself. how are you? my head is down. how are you doing? having fun? good to see you.

[inaudible conversations] >> thank you so much. >> hi, how are you? thank you. take care. thank you. have a good one. how are you? how it going? enjoy it. you will laugh. i promise. how are you? great. enjoy. laugh. how are you doing? sorry. great to see you. how are you? glad you made it. i am hosting o'reilly tonight. the worst timing. thank you. great to see you. thank you. however you? thank you for being here. take care. how is it going? here it goes. there we go.

nice to see you. >> i want to say thank you for your radio show. >> fantastic. come over -- e-mail our [talking over each other] >> thank you. i am posting a 0 riley. >> glad you got in. >> thank you. how are you doing? nice to see you. i will do it. how are you? >> i listen to you all the time. >> to our make you laugh? [talking over each other] >> hell are you? thank you very much. are you having fun